AI-generated transcript of Community Development Board 12-18-24

[SPEAKER_43]: Welcome to tonight's meeting of the Medford Community Development Board. I'll call the meeting to order. Let's begin with some obligatory procedural matters. This hearing of the Medford Community Development Board is being conducted via remote means. No in-person attendance of members of the public will be permitted, but every effort will be made to ensure that the public can adequately access the proceedings as provided for in Chapter 2 of the Acts of 2023. A reminder that anyone who would like to listen to or view this meeting while in progress may do so by accessing the link that was included on the meeting agenda posted on the City of Medford's website. If despite our best efforts, we are not able to provide real-time access, we will post a recording of this meeting on the City's website as soon as possible. A reminder that given the remote nature of this meeting, tonight all votes from the Board will be made by roll call. Please know that the project materials for all projects before the Board can be viewed on the City's website at medfordma.org. And you can click on City Board filings. You can also find a link in the chat. I'm going to do a roll call vote for the board. Vice Chair Emily Hedeman. Present. Peter Kautz.

[Peter Calves]: Present.

[SPEAKER_43]: Ari Fishman. Present. Anne Strang. Present. Adam Behrens.

[Adam Behrens]: Present.

[SPEAKER_43]: Sabrina Alpino. Present. Ben Lavallee. and myself, Jackie McPherson. Danielle, can you please introduce any city staff on the call?

[Danielle Evans]: Yes, thank you, Madam Chair. Myself, Danielle Evans, senior planner in the Office of Planning, Development, Sustainability. We also have Alicia Hunt, who's the director of our department. And also we have Jackie Forcina, who is our head clerk. I think that's all we have tonight from our office, Tony.

[SPEAKER_43]: Thank you very much. Let's see. So the first item tonight, we will be reviewing 401 Boston Ave site plan review for Dover amendment use. This is a continued public hearing where the applicant will present any new information. The public will have an opportunity to provide comments on the new information later in the public hearing. The applicant is Tufts, the trustees of Tufts College. Rocco, are you here? There you are, Mr. DeRico. Mr. DeRico, would you please present any new information? Oh, can someone please unmute?

[Rocco DiRico]: Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair Rocco DiRico, 14 Capen Street. Good evening, Madam Chairwoman and members of the board. My name is Rocco DiRico and I'm the Executive Director of Government and Community Relations. I'm going to ask Ross to share our PowerPoint presentation. Let me see if I can.

[Alicia Hunt]: Sorry, is that Michael Ross or Ross Cameron?

[Rocco DiRico]: Sorry, Ross Cameron, if you can raise your hand and I can unmute you. Okay, thank you, Alicia. Sorry. And Ross, in the interest of time and wanting to share new information, if you can go to slide three. Um, so I just wanted to present this, because this does have. New information about the additional meetings that we have done, but I do want to point out that this has been a robust site plan review. Process and we have met with many people and submitted every report to the city that has been requested. There is broad consensus among Tufts and city officials and neighbors that it's critically important to house a greater percentage of Tufts undergraduates on campus and to get those undergraduates out of the neighborhood. In fact, when Tufts was contemplating a 400-bed project on the same site two years ago, the feedback from several officials, including some members of the city council, were to add more beds to the project. With that guiding principle, Tufts and Capstone, our development partners, have put forth this project before the Community Development Board, and we view this as the best opportunity to increase the percentage of students who are housed on campus, and in doing so, enrich their educational experience, which is directly tied to our mission. To accomplish these goals, we've brought on Capstone, which is a best-in-class developer of student housing nationwide, and a dream team of consultants to design a thoughtful and sustainable project that will help to link significantly underutilized stretch of Boston Avenue between the Tufts Green Line stop Medford Tufts Greenline stop and all the businesses located further down the road. It's also a passive house designed project and the project will be fossil fuel free and utilize cutting edge building materials to minimize energy consumption. Again, the shared goal of Medford and Tufts University. Ross, if you can skip ahead to slide five. Next slide Ross, thank you. And we acknowledge that there is a trade off of maximizing the number of beds in the project and that there are impacts to residents in the area immediately surrounding the neighborhoods. In particular, from the shadows resulted from this project. However, we're going to continue to work with the neighbors to address their concerns during construction and after the project is done and when it's occupied. And to specifically address these concerns, Tufts has put together a $500,000 neighborhood improvement fund. As I said, we've collected a lot of input from our neighbors and city officials and elected officials and will continue to receive that input from our neighborhoods and find out how to best allocate these funds. I also want to acknowledge that there have been limited changes to the proposal since it was originally filed with the Community Development Board, and that's a reflection of the building being designed below what's allowable height limits in this area of Boston Ave. And after having put in a great deal of consideration and thought into the project prior to filing our approval, filing for site plan approval. We met extensively with city staff before and after our filing, and this has been a very thorough site plan review process. This is the best way we feel we can work towards our goal, which is housing 75% of undergraduates on campus. In addition to the $500,000 community fund that we'll be creating, And based on our conversations with the mayor and the city, we have also agreed to a one-time payment of $500,000 towards the city's affordable housing trust fund and to establish shuttle service between the Medford campus and Medford Square. Furthermore, this project is expected to bring in about $2 million in permitting fees and also money for infrastructure projects as part of the I&I required work. The project's retail space on Boston Avenue will also bring in additional tax revenue for the city every year. Taken together, we are trying to make the maximum financial commitment to the city that we can while still being able to proceed with the project. I'd now like to pass it over to David Manfredi, who is our architect on the project and will present the information that this board has requested.

[SPEAKER_52]: Good evening, everyone. I needed to be officially unmuted. I will be very brief and take you through several items that I know are of particular interest. I think you all know the site, you all know the configuration of the site, and you all know the current condition of the site. Surface parking lots, on along Boston Avenue, the opportunity to build student housing here in a significant way that will reduce the impact of students living in the neighborhood. It's connected to vehicular pathways, pedestrian pathways, and sits at the bottom at the elevation of Boston Avenue. But as someone pointed out the last time I was with you is the Boston Avenue elevation is, in fact, not the bottom of the hill. It is simply the bottom of the hill of the Tufts campus. If you go to the next. We wanted to again show you the view from Brookings. The trees at the end you're looking at the upper left is the existing condition, the proposed condition, and then below the September 2014 condition. And really the point I want to make tonight is simply that The university's interests and the neighborhood's interests, in fact, are quite similar here in that the trees that were lost to the Green Line were a really significant loss to both parties, to the university as well as to the neighborhood. And there is the opportunity here with the cooperation of the utility as well as the MBTA to return to a significant amount of street trees to better that condition and create the kind of visual buffer that is a benefit both to the neighborhood as well as to the city and to the university. If you go to the next, so you can see, you know, the proposal. Well, you know, the configuration of the buildings, the improvements to streetscape, the addition of dedicated short term parking spaces for the Uber and Lyft. automobiles, but the most important part here is the opportunity to create new street trees on the south side of Boston Avenue with the relocation of the utility poles and the opportunity on the north side at a different scale and beneath the utility poles on that side as well. And to create this kind of double layer of street trees, that's a benefit to the neighborhood, but also a great improvement to the public realm and an improvement for the university. We're making a better place by adding trees and benefits everybody who's part of this neighborhood. Let's go to the next. We've showed you this section before. You can see the existing section. You see at the very top is the plan. And then just below the plan is a section. You see the AA designation. That's a section through Boston Ave at the location of the East building as it exists today with the parking elevated above the street. And below that is a section with the proposed buildings in place with the parking gone the building basically at grade and this double layer of trees, taller street trees on the. on the south side, lower street trees on the north side, creating a double layer, not just to provide buffer, but also to make a better street, to make better public realm for everybody. Go to the next. And so you've seen this section several times, and you can see the relationship to the proposed building relative to the South and the University and the hill that leads up to Bendison Hall at elevation 140, the height of this building at 107 feet and 10 stories below the 125 foot maximum allowable. You see in a relationship to the Green Line, to Cummings Center, and then to the neighborhood beyond. And we've tried to draw those several houses as carefully as we could. If you go to the next. And what that condition would look like on the new resident side, that would be what we call complete streets, meaning there's a landscape zone that is wide enough that would allow those streets to grow to their full height, also allowing a walking zone as well as a zone up against the building that if there is restaurants, there is retail, I can spill out and activate that edge. But again, the point is, the benefit is to beautify the streetscape and the additional benefits of screening the neighborhood from the university housing. We'll go to the next. So we've talked a lot about shadow studies. The shadows don't change, but we wanted to demonstrate the delta. And what I mean by that is, as you're looking in, I'll go, you know the existing condition in the upper left, and we're looking at March 21st. And in the upper left, we're looking at 9 AM. daylight savings time. And to the right is the proposed. And let me explain the colors. The buildings, the two buildings proposed are in yellow. An eight-story scenario would have a net new shadow that you see in the kind of salmon color. And a 10-story building as proposed would be the additional net new shadow. So at 9 a.m., What's the sun in the east? You can see those three little dots of blue. That is the difference. That's the delta between 10 stories and 8 stories. If I go down and look at 12 o'clock, tiny, tiny little sliver of blue on the sidewalk that you see just on the edge of the salmon color. Again, that's the delta between eight stories and ten stories. If you go to the next I'm still on March 21st. I'm looking on the right-hand side, and I'm looking at 3 p.m. The blue represents the Delta. The Delta is in Boston Avenue. And then at 4, the Delta is the blue. The Delta is in the street. approaching the other side of the north curb of the street. Go to the next. And so now, again, we're on March 21. We're looking at 5 o'clock in the afternoon. And you can see the blue in the neighborhood. I'll also point out the shadows created by existing buildings on the south side of the street and the shadows created by the homes on the north side of the street. And you can see that by 6 PM, basically, There's some net new shadow that between eight stories and 10 stories that is approaching the real estate over at, there's a couple of houses affected and the Delta approaches, covers some of the Tufts real estate at the athletic fields. Next. So now we're on June 21st and of course June 21st is the longest day of the year and it is the highest sun angle from sunrise to sunset. By the way in the upper left you'll see for each day when the sun rises and when the sun sets on June 21st and so you can see we have we are the beneficiaries of very long days. Again, the existing condition is always on the left, the proposed condition is on the right, the building is yellow, the eight-story shadow is the salmon color, and you can see there is at 9 a.m. and at 12 p.m. at noon, There is no difference between eight stories and ten stories. The Shadowcats, I take it back. At 9 a.m. I see a tiny little sliver of blue, but it's negligible. Go to the next and you'll see that now I'm at 3 p.m. in the afternoon in the upper right. and I'm at 6 p.m. in the afternoon. Remember, sun doesn't set till 825, and there's a little sliver of blue that has now crossed Boston Avenue, but it hasn't affected anybody, anybody's yards, in terms of the Delta between 8 and 10, or in fact, any shadow off these proposed buildings. Go to the next. I'm still on June 21st, and now upper right, I am at 7 p.m., and then lower right, I'm at 8 p.m. You can see there is new blue that appears. You can also see the existing houses casting shadows in their yards and in neighbors' yards. Buildings cast shadows. If you look at it at 8 p.m., the lower right, see that's actually a shadow that's all the way out onto the rail. Go to the next. So I'll go to September 21st. We can do this one relatively quickly. It's not exactly the same as March 21st, but it's very, very close. Sun rises at 6.30, sun sets at 6.40. We got about 12 hours of sunlight. And you can see upper right, 9 a.m., tiny little dots of blue, or maybe one tiny little dot of blue. Again, that's the delta between eight stories and 10 stories. That's the additional net new shadow of a 10-story building as opposed to an eight-story building. And at noontime, there's a tiny little sliver of blue on the street side. Go to the next, and we're at 3 p.m. upper right, and we're at 4 p.m. lower right, and again, you can see there's at three, new shadow, additional shadow in the street, and just crossing the street at four in the afternoon. and one more, and now we're basically at sunset at five, and then at six, upper right and lower right. And again, you can see how much shadow is being cast by existing conditions. And the net new shadow of a 10-story building at 6 p.m. is basically on the fields and on the roofs of the Tufts Athletic Buildings. Let's go to the next. So December 21st, of course, the shortest day of the year. Sunrise is at 710. This will be Friday, by the way. Friday? Yes. Or Saturday. Sunset is at 415. Upper right, 9 a.m., basically the 8-story and 10-story is the same. At 12 noon, there's a little sliver again on the public way, not on any private property of Delta in shadow. And the next, now at 1 in the afternoon and then at 2 in the afternoon, you can see net new shadows 2 in the afternoon on September 21st. And if you go to the next, sun sets at 4.15, so our last chance to look is at 3 o'clock in the afternoon, you can see the net new shadows in blue. And then by four o'clock, the entire neighborhood, basically everything but the very top of the hill is covered in shadow. Next. You've seen this many times, I will just and you've, we've talked about all of these public realm improvements. And I'll simply again point out the number 1, which I know you've heard just the moment ago, but the opportunity to provide on campus housing. for approximately 677 juniors and seniors who would otherwise be living off campus in apartments in the surrounding neighborhood. With that, Rocco, I'll return to you.

[Rocco DiRico]: Thank you, David. And, you know, in closing, I just want to take a moment to thank the board. I know that we've had a lot of conversations about this project. I also want to thank Alicia Hunt and Danielle Evans and Sal DiStefano and all the other city officials that we've worked on in this project. And I certainly want to thank our neighbors who have given us a lot of feedback on this project, and we have tried to incorporate as much of that feedback into this project as we as we possibly can. And, you know, I started at Tufts University about eight years ago. And my first meeting was at the Danish pastry house with the city Councilor who didn't agree with Tufts on every issue. But he had a lot of suggestions as to what Tufts could do to improve the neighborhood. And those things included adding more housing on campus, making the campus more sustainable, and revitalizing Boston Avenue. And we keep a database in our office. And over the years, we've met with over 1,000 neighbors and government officials and elected officials. And they've all told me the same thing. And I think this project is a generational opportunity. for the city and for Tufts University to accomplish those goals. It adds more housing, it improves accessibility and sustainability, and it revitalizes Boston Avenue. And we hope that you'll vote to approve this project. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.

[SPEAKER_43]: Thank you, Mr. DeRico. Before I open it up to the public for public questions or comments, I'm going to open it up to the board. Peter Cowles.

[Peter Calves]: Thank you, Madam Chair. As I have previously for this project, I will be refusing myself from debate and voting on this project as I work for Niche Engineering, who did the traffic and civil engineering for this project. I'd like to thank you all for your efforts, and I will be back for the next agenda items.

[SPEAKER_43]: Thank you, Peter. Any questions or comments from the board before opening up to public comment?

[Emily Hedeman]: I have my hand raised. I don't know if you can see it. Oh, hi, Vice Chair. Hi. Thank you, Chair McPherson. I wanted to thank the applicant for their detailed shadow analysis, also differentiating the colors on those diagrams, I think was very helpful to show the existing conditions and then the two a 10 story condition. So I'm very curious to hear new feedback that the public has about that information. Thank you.

[SPEAKER_43]: Thank you. Any other board comments or?

[Ari Fishman]: Yes, I just put my hand up. Thank you, Madam Chair and to the applicant. I have a question about the community or neighborhood support fund. I know that we heard about it for the first time in the last meeting and there were some questions about how it would be implemented. Obviously, we don't know 100% of the details right now, but one of the concerns raised by Director Hunt was that if it goes to the city, that it can not go to any individual households, and that one of the things we were discussing is that one of the uses could be direct compensation or support to households who were facing increased costs or lack of solar. Has there been any additional detail on how that sort of fund would work in very broad strokes? Thank you.

[Rocco DiRico]: Ari thank you for that question and yeah we actually had our last community meeting we put it out to the to the public, and we asked our neighbors how you would like to see that money spent. So, it, we, and we leave it to the neighbors and to the city to decide. to your specific question, Ari, if that's what the neighbors in the city decide is the best way to do the money or to utilize that money. While the city can't distribute it in direct payments, the university can. And we would be happy to if that's what the city and the neighbors decide to do with the money.

[Ari Fishman]: Thank you.

[SPEAKER_43]: Any other board questions? Sorry, I am trying to fit through over a hundred little Zoom squares, so please let me know if there's any other board questions. Seeing or hearing none, I'm going to open it up for public comment. Those who wish to provide comments can use the raise hand feature or message Danielle in the chat if you're having technical difficulties. You can also send an email to OCD at MedRateMA. method-ma.gov. Before providing your comments, please state your name and address for the record. A reminder that to all meeting participants to please refrain from using the chat function to message any comments to city staff or board members as it is not part of the legal record. the legal public record. However, if a participant is having audio or other technical difficulties, you may message staff for assistance, or you can message myself. Each participant will have two minutes to speak, no more than two minutes. Also, comments should definitely be about new information provided, and only regarding the issues that the City Board can take into consideration as part of the site plan review, and that's relative to height, bulk, parking, setbacks, and design. Alicia or Danielle, if you can please manage the public comment queue. And I do know that starting number one was El Rocco, and then the second was Harley Racer as a public comment. And then if you can take it from there.

[Alicia Hunt]: Great, thank you, Madam Chair. El Rocco, I'll ask you to unmute. Hi, can you hear me?

[Rocco]: Yes, we can. Hi, Linda Rocco, 15-17 University Ave. Today, I took a little ride on my way home. I drove down Winthrop Street, and when you cross Winthrop Street and Boston Ave, you go up a hill and down a hill. On the left-hand side of that hill is a massive parking lot and a big plot of land. It looks like some type of a baseball field. That area is literally seven times the size of that little land in Boston at. So my question is, to the Board of Tufts, why isn't that building being built on the Tufts campus? Now, no one's given us any answers. I want an answer. And if the board of Tufts who's handling this project can't help me, I will contact the president of Tufts myself and ask him that question, because I think it's time he gets involved in the project. Thank you very much.

[SPEAKER_43]: Thank you so much, Ms. Frankel.

[Alicia Hunt]: The next hand raised is Harley Racer.

[Harley Racer]: Thank you, Ms. Hunt, and thank you, Madam Chair. My name is Harley Racer. I'm an attorney at Richmay PC Law Firm in Boston at 176 Federal Street. I represent some residents of Medford, including abutters to this project and this property. And I submitted a letter today. I've come onto this recently, so I sent a letter today, and I don't presume that the members of the board have read it all or digested it, but I'll quickly summarize. I know time is short. We ask for the board to continue this hearing for 3 reasons. 1st of all, the mayor has written a letter. The city council has passed a unanimous resolution and yesterday state representatives submitted a letter to the board requesting that this process. Slow down a little so that we can take a look at the specifically the height. There's been a lot of issues and a lot of concerns, but they spoke with the unified unified voice that this board should consider the reasonable regulations concerning height, bulk and setback. Amplifying the, the voices of the neighborhood. Secondly, I laid this out in my letter. There are some issues that I've identified in the submission that the board should take a look at 1st of all. The Tufts does not have as a right to build 10 stories or more than 10 stories as they claim. This building is not a dormitory. Under the zoning ordinances, a dormitory cannot include business uses, and this includes one and a half floors of business uses. This falls under the definition of a multi-unit dwelling, which does allow for non-resident uses, which is what we have in these buildings. So these are not dormitories. As a multi-unit dwelling, under the table of dimensional regulations, the maximum height for the first two is three floors, and the maximum height for subsequent buildings is six floors. And I would ask the board to request us to provide more information concerning the multi unit dwelling dimensions and what relief they would need under that, because that is where it falls. Thirdly, they treat the the property as a single lot. and they refer to the case that went up to the appeals court in 1993, Trustees of Tufts versus Medford. And in that case, the appeals court said it was okay in that instance for the city to do what it did, which was concede that it would be treated as a single lot for the parking purposes. But that's not required now. And this is actually three lots, and Tufts says in their application that by utilizing the single, single zoning lot that they do not have to seek other relief from this board. The board should request Tufts to go back and submit a site plan using the three lots that are actually in existence and identify what relief they would need under that. These issues that I'm raising are necessary for the board to make an informed decision and understand your authority that you have. Notwithstanding the Dover Amendment, you can still enact and subject this property to reasonable regulations, including meeting those concerns of the neighborhood that have been identified by the mayor, the city council, and the state representatives and have a reduced height. And if the board's not prepared, to request that information, the board should deny the application for failure to provide that information. I'm happy to answer any questions, but I know a lot of people are in line and want to talk. Thank you for your time.

[SPEAKER_43]: Thank you.

[Alicia Hunt]: The next speaker is Jacob Fridman.

[SPEAKER_11]: Good evening. My name is Jacob Friedman. I'm a senior at Tufts living at 119 Burgett Avenue. My fellow Jumbos and I have routinely struggled to find affordable off-campus housing, and this project will be a major help. The university has clearly taken great steps to incorporate the feedback and guidance from the city and my fellow residents, and thus I urge the board to move this project forward. Thank you.

[Alicia Hunt]: Thank you. The next speaker is Laura Jasinski.

[SPEAKER_26]: Good evening. My name is Laura Jasinski. I live at 65 Burgett Ave. This is Remy. She also lives here. I am also a Tufts alum, twice bachelor's in 07 and master's of urban planning and policy in 14. And we'll keep my comments really simple. I think you heard tonight that Tufts has claimed to do a lot of public outreach, and yet they actually claim themselves that they haven't changed the building or made any changes. Those to me are directly in contradiction. And what we want is a better project. And this board has an opportunity to help us do that. We've provided. both the advocacy, community engagement ourselves as a neighborhood, as well as the legal path and political backing to allow this board to make the decision that they should make tonight, which is ask for a continuance or deny based on insufficient information. I also just wanted to end by thanking the board. I know this is a lot. There's a lot of late meetings as well as the staff at Medford and appreciate the attention that you've given to this project and this really important matter which will impact lots of us and multiple generations for the life of this project and for the rest of our lives. Thank you.

[Alicia Hunt]: Thank you. The next speaker is Alex and Carrie Nicole.

[SPEAKER_07]: Thank you for the opportunity to comment this evening. Thank you board for your thoughtful consideration of this critical issue. Alex Hackman, Carrie Nicole Dillman, We're at 71 Hume Avenue. We're also both class 94. Shout out to Tufts. We love living nearby Tufts. We totally support higher density housing. And we will see this huge building as a wall outside of our multiple windows in our house. It'll block our solar. But that's nothing like it's going to do to our neighbors. So what I would say, we want to say a couple of things here. First of all, the focus on trees is not an issue. It's irrelevant. We shouldn't talk about that. The issue is the height and mass. The shading is being downplayed by Mr. Manfredi. He showed September and spring. Those are both extremely bright. Winter time is dark. We have about four and a half months of full shadows on my roof. And those are end of day key solar generation times. We just spent a lot of money on solar. I think it's deceptive and I don't appreciate that. Like there's a lot of darkness being cast in the neighborhood. The way you're depicting those dates you chose are not exactly helpful. The answer here is make the building smaller. I just want to invite people to think creatively about where do you see the next 10-story building? Take in your mind the green line or the red line downtown. Where do you see the next 10-story building? It doesn't exist until you get to Lechmere or maybe Kendall or Park Street. Those are downtown cities, not a vibrant residential a commercial corridor that we're trying to create on Boston Avenue. City board members, we're imploring you, think about how embarrassing this building is going to be as this gigantic thing in the midst of a corridor you're trying to create that's inviting a centerpiece of Medford. So make it five to seven stories plus mitigation. And realistic mitigation here is going to be loss of property value, Loss of solar power, which means pay for batteries, offset solar installation costs, install level 2 chargers, and then offset the aesthetics and the light impacts, which is give me a private fund so my neighbors can plant trees in their backyard. This is not complicated to come up with how to use that money. We can come up with that. We're really smart in this neighborhood. For all these reasons, board, We implore you to continue this meeting for more meaningful discussion. As Rocco said, this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to potentially ruin our neighborhood and also the potential future redevelopment of Boston Avenue. Thank you.

[Alicia Hunt]: Thank you. The next speaker is Lori Krieger.

[Laurie Krieger]: Hi, everyone. Nice to see you again. We've had a nice month or two together. I want to say please pay a lot of attention to what Mr. Racer has shared with you and look at it very deeply. And what Carrie and Alex just said is super important. It's also about our loss of sanity in terms of the shadows, right? With seasonal affective disorder, with disruption to sleep, with our circadian rhythms, with the lights on at night. But what I'm really concerned about, and I sent a letter earlier today and I'd like you to please read my letter. It has a photograph in it again showing how much lower the end of Brookings is to Boston Ave. It has a bus going across so you can see the height differential. And this is relating to canyoning and that whole concept that this is going to appear bigger than it might look on their drawings and renderings. But also in what they presented, they presented the same thing each time. They have not changed anything. This time, because the board made the request, we got to see the shadows in the peach color and the blue color. But even just now, Mr. Manfredi said, was calling the blue color the net new color versus the peach color. No, it would all be new, peach and blue. And they're not showing us any options that show no shadowing, right? They're not showing us what seven stories look like. They're not showing us what six stories look like. So they need to be a little bit more even-handed or more helpful. If they're not, then we need to find another source for information so we can see what the comparison is, right? It seems like we should have that information presented to us. The other thing was that in their earlier slide, the existing condition that they said with the tree there, that's not the existing condition. That tree went down a year and a half ago or something like that. So again, I'm asking you to please verify what they're sending to you and look at it closely because it's not current, it's not realistic, and it's not helpful. Thank you.

[Alicia Hunt]: Thank you. The next speaker is James Ancalada. Sorry, I'm sure I pronounced that wrong.

[jJ8nibzobNI_SPEAKER_01]: Oh, that's okay. Can you hear me okay?

[Alicia Hunt]: Yes.

[jJ8nibzobNI_SPEAKER_01]: Okay, great. Thank you. I want to echo what Alex and Carrie and Lori said. This building is not gonna be a benefit to the neighborhood. It's gonna take from the neighborhood. For the rest of my life, I'm going to have sunset arrive at my home an hour to three hours early every day for the rest of my life if this building is built to the height that it's being proposed at right now. Also, I feel like all of us who live on Charnwood. the end of Brookings and Burgett Ave, we're going to have our privacy invaded upon. Every day we go into our backyards, we'll be able to look up and have 600 students staring down into our property every day for the rest of our lives. Like we said before, this is a once in a lifetime thing and it's gonna have a lifetime effect on the neighborhood. I think this project needs more planning. I think it needs more discussion. I think the height of the building definitely needs to be reduced and we need to see what other options are available so that Tufts can meet its goals and the neighborhood can be satisfied with what Tufts is doing. This building, is ugly. It doesn't fit the neighborhood. This building belongs in Kendall Square in Cambridge or Assembly Road, not in the hillside. It doesn't fit any buildings on Tufts or in the neighborhood. It's ugly and we don't want to have to literally live in the shadow of it for the rest of our lives. Thank you.

[Alicia Hunt]: Thank you. And my apologies, I just realized that I had been forgetting to use the timer. That's no offense to anybody. I've just remembered it. Our next speaker is user JMN. Is user JMN there? We are not hearing you. But you're unmuted. Let me unmute you again. If we're not hearing you, you may chat me directly and I'll read that out or I'll come back to you. Send me a direct chat and we'll figure it out. The next speaker is Ren.

[Ren Bean]: Hello, thank you. I live at 37 Woodrow Avenue, not exactly near the site, so I'll keep my comments limited to the things that I think would affect all the residents of Medford, which would be traffic on Boston Avenue, which would be affecting anyone that commutes near that area. The thing that I don't think I've seen touched on in the comment letters or the public hearing comments was their trash plan for the east building is curbside and in the in the materials it looked like they were also planning on putting up a like metal bollard type barriers all along that sidewalk so i'm having trouble envisioning how they would do curbside pickup also for the number of residents in that building that would be a lot trashed So I'm just thinking on Thursdays, which is the day that street is scheduled for pickup, you'd have a trash truck sitting there picking up I don't know how many receptacles. It would be quite a lot. I would strongly suggest a different trash plan than curbside for that number of residents. I mean, whether it ends up being six, eight, or 10 stories, even at the smallest, that's a lot of occupants to do curbside trash on a busy road with one lane. I think that would create a lot of congestion on a weekday commute time. And I think the site plan also carved out two spots for, you know, PNC, like Lyft, Uber, and, you know, Uber Eats food drop-off. That does not seem sufficient. I think you're going to end up with a lot of vehicles, you know, parking in the bike lane or just parking in the middle of the road to do quick drop-offs and pickups, but as we all know, what the driver thinks is going to be quick is going to hold up traffic and just sort of be a nightmare unless they do that a little more thoughtfully and maybe direct pickups to an alternate space than those just two spots right along Boston Ave. All right, thank you very much.

[Alicia Hunt]: Thank you. We're going to go to user JMN again. We're just going to try again. I can see that you're unmuted, but we're not hearing you. We're still not hearing you. I did see another person had put their hand down. So the next speaker is JFD8.

[ZQDZZh_VfdI_SPEAKER_23]: Hello, my name is John Dillon. I live at 11 Nolwood Road. And I would like to maybe thank Tufts for letting me know with this new shadow study that the springtime sunset is going to affect my house. But I am not certain as to how accurate that is because I can, it looks as if Whoever developed the study has not visited Stearns Field. It is much shadier at 3 PM, even before December 21, than it is depicted. Also, I would like to chime in on the woman from University App, because she was asking, do you have anything planned for Why can't you build on the other side in those fields? I was speaking to some electricians who were doing a lot of work on Boston Ave over the summer and asked, why are you here so long? What's taking? And they were saying that Tufts has some plans to build over there and that the plans include a dorm. I understand they are not official sources, but I would like to ask Tufts, Do you have any plans over in that corner behind the fields, behind say, you know, Ongian field? I'm mispronouncing that. I'm butchering it. What if any plans are in the process and have been perhaps prepared for according to electricians? And if so, is this a twice in a lifetime opportunity, not a once in a lifetime opportunity? Thank you.

[Alicia Hunt]: Thank you. The next speaker is Adrienne Landau.

[SPEAKER_43]: Yes, Director Hunt, we have Adrienne Landau. I just want to say, I cannot see what your sign says, but I want to make sure that to keep the quorum, you have the freedom of speech. However, I want to make sure that we're not disrupting the meeting if it is offensive, because I cannot, from here, make out what your sign says.

[SPEAKER_31]: My sign says we are the hillside.

[SPEAKER_43]: Okay, I just wanted to make sure that I cannot read it. And again, you you are, you definitely have freedom of speech. I just wanted to make sure that it wasn't offensive or foul language or anything like that.

[SPEAKER_31]: I'm a visual learner. And I think a lot of people are too. And and recognize that the people that are here, not have all these concerns, especially about nothing has really changed except a couple of more bucks being thrown towards the city and or the community in the hillside, mostly the hillside on both sides of the rail line. But I wanted to add, again, when you're standing in our neighborhood, which is Brookings towards our end, which we're very close to the end of Brookings, when you're standing on most parts of Burgett, especially on the down low part, probably on Hume as well, even Sunset. It's not straight across. I think Laurie sent a picture today to some of you that shows the difference between standing on the street and what the height is up to the sidewalk that is where this building would go. And it's quite a distance. It is much, much greater than what is pictured on the extended rendering that finally includes all the way across to the neighborhood. It's a much more dramatic look up above 10 stories. So again, we've said it many times now. It looks like a giant hotel. It looks like a giant monolith. Today, I decided it's the White Cliffs of Dover. It was so many things that I want to call it, other than a great new opportunity to have many more students on campus. I agree with that young man who spoke, the student, yes, it would be great for them to be together in the campus. Sorry, I did not know that.

[Alicia Hunt]: Okay, I'm done. I'm sorry about that. I'm gonna change that setting. I did not mean to be so rude. I apologize. It's OK. I'm good. The next speaker is Jeremy Martin.

[Jeremy Martin]: Good evening, everyone. Jeremy Martin, 65, Burgadave. I'll start tonight by just asking you again, you've heard a lot from our neighbors and abutters about the impacts of this project, the real tangible impacts and frustration with the process about how we've gotten to this point. And so to just ask again, please don't buy the narrative that this has been an engaging process. We were presented a building plan that has been fully baked. It hasn't changed. We were presented a site plan that was incomplete. And all that's really happened is that now the work has been done to build or design an appropriate streetscape for a project like this. So, there hasn't really been any movement in anything related to what the community just talked about. So, please keep that in mind. You heard tonight some really important questions about the zoning and about Tufts proposal and how it's being presented to you. I think you should take a really hard look at those. Dover amendment does not give Institutions free reign as, as you might be led to believe it actually gives you the tools along with the city ordinances to reasonably regulate projects like this. And it's reasonable. In exchange for all of the other relief. that the Tufts is asking for, setbacks, lots, all of those things, to enforce the height requirements associated with a building like this, a multiple use dwelling. It's reasonable for you to really question the amount of information that has been provided, how it's been provided. Do you have complete site plans? Do they represent what's being sold to you in these meetings? Let's make sure that what we're being pitched is actually what's going to be built if we're at that point. It's unreasonable to be asked to push this project through so quickly on such a short timeline. It's unreasonable for the way that this has been presented to you from a standpoint of community engagement. Again, please consider those questions carefully. not just this evening, but going forward, help this community. That's the goal of the Community Development Board is to really protect the community. We need your help to make sure that this is a fair process and an equitable outcome for both Tufts and the community. Right now, it's entirely one-sided, and that's your opportunity to make that right. Thank you.

[Alicia Hunt]: Thank you. The next speaker is Christopher Nielsen.

[SPEAKER_34]: Thank you. My name is Christopher Nielsen. I live at 39 Charter Road. I hope the CDB has heard the unanimous feedback that the citizens of Medford have shared both in these meetings and in the very recent public meetings. I think there's actually little disagreement that this site is wildly appropriate for development. I very much want for a better urban design for Boston Ave. And we very much support the housing of all Tufts undergraduates. But this project is a fairly straightforward oversimplification of just that last item. It certainly houses hundreds of students, but it does so creating a wall to the campus. This design doesn't really support a thriving Boston Ave. We should consider what that streetscape is. It starts with a power plant, no public realm, moves on to a parking garage, And then it proposes a 530 foot wall. There's about 100 feet of retail space, followed by 400 ish feet of blank wall that dies into amount. Tufts has made the case that this is the only opportunity for development, and I think we all know that that's not true. There's a hillside hardware site that remains vacant. They've built almost a small town on the Curtis Street parking lot that's come up a number of times. Frankly, the proposal is kind of strange. It does not seem to support the city's recently published vision. And as admitted by Tufts just right now, it doesn't seem to incorporate any of the feedback that they've heard at any of these public meetings. I think the neighborhood has made it clear that they would be super disappointed in the current proposal. And I think we all kind of have a sense that Tufts might also feel disappointed if this were to move forward. I thank you for your comments. I hope they have an impact. I think it's important for this public forum to take place. And I hope that we can continue to work together. Thank you.

[Alicia Hunt]: Thank you. The next, we're going to go to user JMN.

[Jean Nuzzo]: Can you hear me now? You can. Oh, beautiful. Thank you. I apologize. I'm going to keep my camera off just because I have bandwidth issues. My name is Jean Nuzzo. I'm a Medford resident on Parris Street. I just want to point out that between 2019 and 2024, Tufts Center graduate enrollment rose by 25% or 1,300 students. Over the next few years and into 2026, Tufts anticipates an additional 600 students per year, which would bring them to 6,600 or more, depending upon their enrollment trajectory. So to say that this will offset housing by 660 units is inexact and disingenuous. I'd also further like to point out that we're in the middle of a once-in-a-lifetime rezoning effort, and many areas within our city, specifically Mystic Ave and Salem Street, are being rezoned specifically for dorms, frats, and sororities by right. And so Tufts University has a choice here to be a good neighbor throughout its city or to encroach upon the quiet enjoyment of its residents. The last points I'd like to make is that In Cambridge, Councilor Sullivan drafted a bill for the state legislator repealing Harvard's exemption from Dover. And the bill was passed in 1981 and signed into law on July 5th by Governor Edward J. King. And it essentially says that when a university is one of the largest landowners and is behaving like a developer, Dover does not protect, but they need to be treated like a landowner. And I would urge Tufts, as it has these opportunities that will come forward, to be a good neighbor to the people who reside here well beyond four years. I thank you for the time.

[Alicia Hunt]: Thank you. The next speaker is user EB. Elizabeth Bale? Sorry, did user EB disappear or rename? It updated to Elizabeth Bale. Did it? OK. Click the unmute again.

[Elizabeth Bayle]: Can you hear me now? Sorry, I couldn't get it to unmute. Sorry about that. My name is Elizabeth Bale. I'm at 34 Emory Street. I just want to read the section of a regulation that I've read about Dover that allows regulations such land or structures may be subject to reasonable regulations concerning the bulk and height of structures and determining yard sizes, lot area, setbacks, open space, parking and building coverage requirements. And I've just been incredibly puzzled all along at why this board doesn't seem to want to use its power to regulate those things. This is unacceptable. It's huge. It's so out of scale. If you go down Boston Ave and look at the sphere towards Ball Square, it's five stories, and it's already very large. If you just try to visualize twice that height, and it's probably twice that width at least, it's just so out of scale for the area and it's going to permanently damage the fabric of our neighborhood, the use of our neighborhood, our quality of life here. I just really ask you to use your power to regulate those things that are explicitly granted to you to regulate. I just also want to point out that the rendering stuff has shown about what this will look like. are really misleading. As Lori Krieger has pointed out and shown in photographs, they're using a wide angle that flattens everything, so it makes the building look a lot smaller. And John Elliott made specific renderings that are more accurate to what it will actually look like. And I would urge you to pay attention to those. so that you can have a better idea of what this will really do to the neighborhood and also to examine where else is there a building like this in Medford. It doesn't fit. It's wrong. Thank you.

[SPEAKER_43]: Thank you very much, Ms. Bale. One of the things that I want to make clear to the public as well as the board, while I have this chance, before we go to the next, I do hear that, you know, the public is saying that the board has powers to use for the regulation of height, right? 10 stories is well within height requirements of this proposed site, well within. Therefore, we have been advised by legal that if any regulations are imposed to deal with shade and creative development, specifically the loss of light, that could be deemed unreasonable. So that's what we're dealing with here. It's a very complex situation in which we're trying to get through. But I need, I would like for the public to actually have that information that was shared with us from legal itself. So the next speaker, please.

[Alicia Hunt]: Sorry, the next speaker is about to call on and her hand went down. There we go. The next speaker is Janie Tallarita.

[Janie Tallarita]: Hi there. So I've thought, I've thought quite a bit about what I wanted to say. I do want to first thank you, the board for listening to us yet again. And also want to express that I, you know, so very much appreciate the mayor and the city council and representatives Jalen and Barbara for their careful review of this and their support of our concerns. And You know, I know we just heard from Chair McPherson your concerns about your power, the limits of that power in Dover, but I really, this building does not fit the character of our neighborhood, the height, the bulk. whether or not it's legitimately within the zoning and that's questionable and several people have raised that already. It just doesn't fit. The original intent of Dover was to prevent discrimination of educational and religious institutions by zoning laws while balancing legitimate zoning concerns. And you do have the power to impose reasonable regulations on height and bulk. I don't feel that two 10-story buildings that take up an entire block is reasonable. Not for us, not for our neighborhood. I think Jim said that it belongs in Kendall Square. Architecturally, it's an ugly wall, and we're stuck with it forever. And it just doesn't fit, and it just doesn't work. So I'm hoping that you will consider all of our concerns and do the right thing. Thanks.

[Alicia Hunt]: Thank you. There is one more hand. The next hand is Lisa D.

[SPEAKER_25]: Good evening, my name is Lisa DiMatteo and I reside at 138 Brookings Street. I am probably one of the most impacted households on this call in that I live at the very end of the dead end that faces the proposed site. I just wanna say I agree with everything that my neighbors have said. This is the third night in a row that we've spent together trying to fight for our neighborhood. There's people that I've never met that I feel like I know. I don't know the fine line that you all have to walk as a board. But along with the rest of everybody who spoke tonight, who have written letters, along with our senators who have also written a letter, which has also suggested a condition in which Tufts share their master plan, along with the city council who voted unanimously last night to continue this. And I'm sure there are others that I'm leaving out. There's just a lot of people who are who are concerned about this. And each time we end up in one of these calls. I know it's tiring for everybody. I'm seeing new people. Which means that there are a lot of people who are just finding out about it. This is too fast. And I guess the ask is simply that however you interpret your powers here, that you travel to the outer edge of them for the city and for this neighborhood. Thank you.

[SPEAKER_43]: And before we get to the next Director Hunt, I do have a question that came into the chat, just to repeat, because it's a public, we need a public record. I have, unless it wants to be anonymous, I'll backtrack, but we have members that are on now, and one of the questions was asked, is the application of a zone and height standard on the edge of a zone the same as in the center? We think the proposed building is on the edge of a zone. That question is for the city, and I will leave it up to the person that sent the question to state name and address. Looks like they're trying to speak, so I will identify them as Alex and Carrie Nicole.

[Unidentified]: Okay.

[Cheryl Rodriguez]: Do you speak, we're not hearing you.

[SPEAKER_43]: Oh, there.

[Emily Hedeman]: They need to be. I think Danielle's raising her hand to respond to the question.

[SPEAKER_07]: Oh, sorry. It is Alex and Kerry, 71 Humana Avenue. I put that question in the chat. Thank you, Chair.

[Emily Hedeman]: We just didn't want to interrupt.

[SPEAKER_07]: First, I didn't want to interrupt you. Thank you so much.

[Danielle Evans]: I just want to say, please, please, please do not message board members. That's ex parte communication. It could be an open meeting law violation. Please don't. We don't want any procedural defects.

[Unidentified]: OK, sorry.

[Danielle Evans]: Thank you.

[Alicia Hunt]: So this is a question that Danielle, unless you wanted to add on to that question. Sorry, the space where your mute button would be is blocked on my screen unfortunately so I can't tell if you are muted. Danielle and I looked at this and one of the things is that it is from the border of, from the building to the border of the zone. and we asked our lawyer how you would consider the border of the zone, then the adopted map that we are using, we adopted last spring, does not include the road and the railroad tracks as part of the zone. So the edge of the building to the start of the single-family zone is more than 100 feet per the measurements when the start of the zone is the border of the parcel with the single-family houses. So that was something that we had looked at several weeks ago and asked our lawyer how we would measure what the edge of the single family zone would be. So it was a question that came up and we did consult our legal about it. And I just, Chair McPherson answered this, but I did just wanna, it's the fact that the other permitted principal structures in this area, the maximum height allowed is 15 stories. And so a reasonable massing, even though people may not agree that that is reasonable, it is what's in zoning. And so if you were to say in any situation that reasonable is less than what is allowed by right. Any judge would not agree with that because that is another thing that we asked about was sort of the massing of that. The Medford versus Tufts case that is cited frequently from 1993 is actually about the garage next door. And Medford attempted to impose it setback rules, zoning on that garage, which would have made it impossible to build the garage. And the judge found that that was illegal. And that was actually specifically that case was about the garage next door. So I just wanted to share that these are things that we have Danielle and I have discussed many of these items with our legal counsel to make sure that we're very clear on them. The other is the question as to whether this is a dormitory versus an apartment building. It is extremely common these days that dormitories have actual like what looks like apartments with kitchens and private bathrooms in them. My son lives in one in Worcester, it's all over the place. The fact that it is on Tufts property, And the building will be owned by Tufts when the project is done. And it will house Tufts students is what makes it definitively covered by Dover per our legal team. And that it is a dormitory because it will be housing students owned by a university, which is why it is not an apartment building. So these were all questions that we've explored with legal. And I just wanted to share that in bulk with the public. Chair McPherson, the hands that are raised now are repeats and they're not a lot, but I did want to know if you wanted to entertain them throughout. We've had many people speak, but only ever had two or three hands raised at one time.

[SPEAKER_43]: I think because due to the nature of tonight's meeting, I think we're going to, did you have anything that came in, any new comments to summarize for us, Director Hunt?

[Alicia Hunt]: Madam Chair, there were a large, large volume of comments that came in over the past week. We can check our email just in case there was anybody who was unable to raise their hand this evening. There are no new comments since this meeting has started this evening. A lot of people have sent letters. I do not believe other than that there are visuals in the letters, they're all available in your packets or on the website because they weren't ready for your Friday packets, that none of the points were significantly different from the points that have been raised this evening. There was one quick question that maybe Tufts would be able to answer, but I just felt was a clarity was about garbage pickup. Just at any time that a building of this scale would exist, we would never have toters on the streets, that kind of curbside. They've already talked about that they would have an interior room. They would have a private pickup service. It would not be the curbside that all of our houses have. I just felt that was a new question that I had not heard previously.

[SPEAKER_43]: Mr. Racer, do you have a new question? Anything from new material that you've heard? Or is it going back to something that we've already covered? Please, at this point, it's okay. It's only one or two. You can unmute, Mr. Racer.

[Harley Racer]: Thank you, madam chair. I just wanted to respond very briefly to 1 point about the definition of a dormitory. The point I made in my letter, which I'm not sure has been fully understood is that the reason it's not a dormitory is not because there's kitchens in it. The reason it's not a dormitory is because it has a retail component on the 1st, floor and a half. and that moves it out of the definition of dormitory and into a multi-unit dwelling, which has a different height limit than the principal use catch-all. That's my point. I don't know if legal counsel has been asked that question or is aware of that issue that I've raised. I would like to hear their response to that. But that's just one point of clarification I wanted to make about the building height and it not being a dormitory.

[SPEAKER_43]: Thank you so much. Yes. I was just about to say that senior planner Daniel Evans has some information for you in regards to that question.

[Danielle Evans]: So, when I was reviewing this, I actually had. pretty long back and forth with their attorney about what this use qualified as and ultimately landed on that. It's actually the Dover use, the use of land or structures for educational purposes on land owned or leased by the Commonwealth or any of its agencies, subdivisions, or bodies, politic or by a religious sector. or denomination or by a nonprofit educational corporation. So it falls under that educational use. So it doesn't have to meet the strict definition of a dorm. And then that is what falls under other permanent structures, which are allowed up to 15 feet. To be frank, I don't think it was ever contemplated that any by right or just subject to site plan review would ever be Subject to the 15 stories, it's never come up. The fact that when we saw it, we're like, huh? Is that typo? How is that in there? Most of the other uses are special permit that would fall under there. And with special permits, we usually have some discretion. There's a max height, but you don't always get it if there's impacts. But again, if it's appealed, it's up for the judge who is a person and what they determine. But generally, in my several decade career as planner, the maxes for projects that are not by right don't get the max height. It's more subjective, but I feel like with this Dover use, We're pinned in a bit more, but as how we're getting advised by legal counsel, they've said that we can't require them to go under what they're allowed. That's what we've been advised.

[Harley Racer]: I appreciate that, but I just, I want to say one more thing. I'm not saying it's not a Dover amendment use. I agree that it is, but they're still saying it's a dormitory, but it's not a dormitory. It's a Dover use as a multi-unit dwelling because it has the business and non-residential component, which moves it to a different part of the dimensional table. If it were a dormitory from a private party, if it weren't a Dover use, if it was a dormitory by a purely private entity, it would require a special permit from the city council. The city council could then regulate the height, but I think that you have the authority to do it now because of the definition of multi-use dwelling and it fits there, and even as a Dover use, you can still regulate the height. Thank you.

[SPEAKER_43]: Thank you, Mr. Racer. I'm actually, I don't see any other comments, so I am going to close the public comment period. for this meeting, and I'm going to open it up to the board for additional questions or to provide any kind of request from the proponent. One of the things to keep in mind is the reminder of the two questions before the board, which is, does this qualify as a protected educational use under the Dover Amendment? We've been legally advised that, yes, it does. Two, what are reasonable regulations that should apply to this project? Should the requested relief from park requirements and commission of standards such as setbacks be granted? What conditions of approval are needed to mitigate any adverse effects? That is what is before the board today. And I will tell you before opening up to the board for your comments, I have. a few of my own, and then we can go from there. For one, legal counsel has confirmed that reasonable means we can't require less than what zoning allows, and that this is definitely covered by Dover because it's to house tough students on tough land. I want to be clear in my overall support for the concerns raised by the abutment residents. I want to also emphasize the need for more on-campus housing for tough students. My hope is that there will be a reasonable balance as we deliberate. It is my opinion that due to the complexities of the law, the board should be legally advised as we sift through mitigation that addresses any adverse effects of this development. And my concern is not so much just the possibility of litigation with missteps, although that is a very real possibility, but expert advice, legal advice, is necessary to navigate this case that deals with contentious community issues. To further complicate matters, there has been conflicting information on what constitutes a reasonable regulation to mitigate concerns raised by our butters. In addition, the applicant sent in information well after the deadline, and which much of the board has not had a chance to digest. Therefore, I am asking for a motion to one, continue to meet until a date certain, and two, another motion from the board to request legal guidance from any decisions on 401 Boston Avenue case before us. That is my stance on this, and if the board has any other questions or suggestions, please state them now. Vice Chair Emily Hedeman.

[Emily Hedeman]: I could not be more enthusiastic in my support of both of those suggestions to both continue to a date certain, and then also to have more robust kind of legal counsel ideally present on these calls so that we can make a decision that is right for the applicant, is right for Medford, and is within the powers of this board. So I completely support that, Chair McPherson, and thank you for your leadership.

[SPEAKER_43]: Thank you so much, Chair McPherson. And I do want Tufts to also know that I am also in support of the on-campus housing for its students. And I'm hoping for a compromise where you, as the proponent, are amenable to making the approvals to the project and in which the public is acquiescent without feeling duly aggrieved by the project. But we're just not going to get there tonight. And that's something that is a well-known fact. So that motion for the first item, but there is no other, um, board comments. I had a comment chair McPherson. Yes. Ari Fishman.

[Ari Fishman]: Thank you. Um, I do agree with, um, both chair McPherson and vice chair Hedeman, um, that we should certainly are not ready to vote today and we certainly need much more thorough legal advice. Um, I, Wanted to also take the opportunity as a member of the board to thank all the community members for speaking up and to ask Tufts. I am also a proponent of high density housing. I think that students should live on campus. I want to see more dorms and I even want to see a dorm built in this location, I think it has the potential to be a wonderful benefit. But what we're seeing through this process is, as you told us, you haven't changed the design much or at all in response to community feedback. And I want us to be able to have a community process, which means that things have to change. And it might not be your ideal version, but it will, I think we can get somewhere that will benefit Tufts and its students and benefit the community or at the very least not make people even more seasonally depressed. I kind of can't imagine losing that much sunlight as an individual. And so I really urge Tufts to enter this negotiation in good faith and negotiate and be open. I think that Mr. DeRocco in his presentation often talked about this being a thorough site review process. But what we're being told is that as a board, we don't have the power to do a site review. That's something that we do for private projects all the time where we have a lot of authority to say, no, this negatively impacts the community, go back. What Dover Amendment is telling us and the way it's being interpreted is that we can only determine the two questions that the chair just described, and I both want to have more power in that situation and would love for Tufts not to be more flexible, even if that is true. And I'm not fully convinced that it is true that we have no power. And to conclude, yes, I think those two motions are a very reasonable place to move at the end of this meeting.

[SPEAKER_43]: Thank you so much, Ari Fisher. Any other board? So the motion.

[Adam Behrens]: Hi Jackie.

[SPEAKER_43]: Hi Adam. Go ahead.

[Adam Behrens]: Yeah, I'm supportive of the two motions. There was one other matter that we didn't really get to talk about today, which I would like to see addressed in the next meeting, which was just the nature of a 600-person building and Lyfts and Ubers into and out of the area, especially for food delivery. I think one of the neighbors had talked about that. I'm not super concerned around the parking issues, but I do want to be forward thinking about just the nature of activity in and out. I'd like to see thought put into exactly what that's going to look like so that we don't approve something and then on the back end, end up with a bunch of issues on that corridor. And then the second thing that would be helpful, in addition to what I think the other members of the board have said, I struggle a little bit with this particular corner with the new Greenland extension. And so where I would like to see a higher density, especially around these transit stations. And so I do like that aspect of the dorm. And I don't know if it's from the board's perspective or from the city's perspective, but just a little bit, maybe we could just include that in some of these conversations for context of what exactly is the plan for this corridor and this corner. And so where I, as kind of a board member, struggle is I definitely hear a lot of the concerns from the existing neighborhood. But the broader plan is that this single family zoning area is really going to be developed, or we're going to try to get higher density. I could see a little bit more balance with maybe how we think about it as a board. But on the surface of it right now, yes, it does seem quite out of place with the character today, but I have a hard time envisioning sort of, is that really gonna be true over the next 10 years? So those are my comments.

[Ari Fishman]: If I may add one more thing, Adam reminded me, I don't know if we have any authority, but I would love to co-sign our state senators request for a Tufts master plan. I don't know if we can enforce that, but I would love to see it. And so I'm saying that that is a thing I would love to see.

[Emily Hedeman]: Not a motion, I'll second it.

[SPEAKER_43]: And that's part of the motion to actually be guided with legal counsel because that will help us to sift through some of the real things that even our state legislative leaders as well as municipal leaders have been advocating for the communities for. It's just so complex that we don't know what that what mitigation we're allowed to do. The first motion, again, is a motion to continue 401 Boston Ave site plan review for Dover amendment to February 5th at 6.30 PM. I'll make the motion. Second motion.

[Ari Fishman]: I do just want to flag that there is a Pat Gallagher, um, whose profile sounds like he might be from a law office with his hand raised. I don't know if it's appropriate to call on him, but want to make sure.

[SPEAKER_43]: Second motion.

[Adam Behrens]: I'll second that Jackie.

[SPEAKER_43]: Vice chair. And we had him in Peter cows. Oh, Ari Fishman. Yes. Andy string. Hi. Adam Behrens.

[Adam Behrens]: Aye.

[SPEAKER_43]: Bill O'Connell. Aye. Bill O'Reilly.

[SPEAKER_37]: Aye.

[SPEAKER_43]: And myself, Jackie McPherson. Aye. Thank you so much, Mr. DeRico. And to all for your time tonight, we will see you on February 5th. And although we did continue, we can hear Mr. Gallagher's question now.

[Emily Hedeman]: Did you have a second motion, Jackie, that we wanted to do? Or does that come up?

[Alicia Hunt]: Sorry, I didn't catch when you continued it to Pat Gallagher is the applicant's attorney.

[Rocco DiRico]: Yeah, I think that our question is to the to the date, I believe. So if Pat Gallagher could be allowed to ask that question.

[SPEAKER_43]: Yes.

[ZQDZZh_VfdI_SPEAKER_08]: Thank you, Madam Chair. I was hoping to, I guess, have a moment to respond to some of the comments and questions. that were raised by the board, I understand that you have now voted on the motion. We'll defer to you on if you believe that's appropriate, but I think it would be helpful for the applicant if I could ask a couple of questions and just respond at a high level, and also to address Rocco's question of getting clarity on when the continuance has been voted for.

[SPEAKER_43]: I think because we still have a public, we still have a quorum of the board and the public is still here and they're very aware of you being on the agenda this evening. Director Hunt, correct me if I'm wrong, Attorney Gallant can still address those questions and we'll just do the motion to continue again. Absolutely, I think that he can address the questions.

[ZQDZZh_VfdI_SPEAKER_08]: Okay, thank you, Madam Chair and thank you, Director Hunt. I want to first say we appreciate the board's time and the questions that have come up at tonight's meeting and are fully supportive of a continuance, although we would request a continuance to the next possible hearing date because we are eager to resolve and to move to a final vote on this application. It's important to the project team and to this project to reach finality on that point. My question for you, Madam Chair, and for the board is if there, and I know that Member Barron's raised a question, Around wanting to see lifts and and things of that nature. Addressed and we can certainly do so in between now and the next hearing. Wanted to see if there are any other particular questions that the board would like us to address. The reason I ask is because from what I've heard this evening and I think over the past several hearings, the concern and the predominant issue that we have talked a lot about is the height of the building. I understand the concerns, I really do. But I do want to make sure that we are proceeding in a way that respects what the zoning ordinance tells us and what the Dover Amendment tells us. That this is unquestionably a dormitory, that this is below the maximum height that is allowed. Not even talking about a Dover use, that we are below the maximum height limit and that I think this has been an extremely thorough site plan process where we've engaged and tried to work in good faith with the board and with the city in vetting the project and providing supplemental information and clarifications where those have been requested. I just do want to emphasize that To the extent that the only outstanding issue is height, and it appears that the board has obtained legal counsel on that question, I want to emphasize that while we are more than happy to answer any questions that come up, and we'll continue to work with city staff on addressing any questions that they may have, we are eager to move this to a point where the board can vote on this project. Thank you, Madam Chair.

[SPEAKER_43]: Thank you, Attorney Gallagher. I think one of, for myself anyways, there's also the question of relief from, and what is a reasonable front setback? What can we not allow in this case? So there's a lot of things that are, you know, how do we analyze the reasonableness of your application as far as the minimum requirement for a setback in this particular case? That's one of the looming questions for us. We just, I don't have that information and the city was not able to hone in on that information without a direct response from legal. So, I just, I don't know how to move the board forward on making a decision as a result as it involves. what mitigation we can actually impose on this project. There's just so much conflicting information that I think we just need to legally make sure that we're in a better standing with that. And to your question about the next date, I think I skipped a date and I apologize because of the holidays. I'm already in February. It's January 15th, is the next date certain? And I think I would need to do another vote And I'll wait to see if there's any other questions or anything that you wanna add.

[ZQDZZh_VfdI_SPEAKER_08]: If I may just make one more note, Madam Chair. One of the items that we had provided just this morning and fully agree that that is outside of the time during which the board would be expected to review is a memorandum summarizing specific commitments that Tufts University and Capstone are willing to make in connection with this project. So I would put that forward as the applicants suggested mitigation that we would agree to implement in connection with this project. So as you're reviewing, would ask if you could review it in that light. Thank you, Madam Chair.

[SPEAKER_43]: Thank you so much attorney Gallagher. And I, and I do, we'll take note of that. And again, myself included, I don't believe that most of the board had time to digest that. I've been on the road for most of the day, so I have not had a chance to read any additional materials. Um, so again, that's one of the reasons why I was asking for the motion. Thank you. And in saying that, the date would be January 15th at 6.30. A motion to continue 401-Blasting Out for site plan review, Dover amendment? I'll make the motion. And a second? I'll second. Thank you, Vice Chair. Emily Hederman?

[SPEAKER_37]: Aye.

[SPEAKER_43]: Ari Fishman? Aye. Annie String? Aye. Adam Behrens?

[Adam Behrens]: Aye.

[SPEAKER_43]: Sabrina Alpino? Aye. Ben Levalli? And myself, Jackie McPherson, I'm an I. And then we would need a motion to request legal counsel for guidance on mitigation for 401 Boston Avenue.

[Adam Behrens]: I'll make the motion.

[SPEAKER_43]: And a second. I'll second the motion.

[Ari Fishman]: Amy can have it.

[SPEAKER_43]: Vice Chair Emily Hederman. Aye. Ari Fishman. Aye. Annie String. Aye. Adam Behrens.

[Adam Behrens]: Aye.

[SPEAKER_43]: Sabrina Alpino. Aye. Ben Lavallee.

[SPEAKER_37]: Aye.

[SPEAKER_43]: And myself, Jackie McPherson. I've been aye. Again, thank you so much, Mrs. Arrico, Mr. Gallagher. We will see you on January 15th.

[ZQDZZh_VfdI_SPEAKER_08]: the board will see more of you. Thank you very much. Happy holidays.

[SPEAKER_43]: Happy holidays and thank you to all the residents and public and everyone else that has joined the meeting this evening.

[Alicia Hunt]: Madam Chair, while people are logging out, may I respectfully suggest a five minute break between the cases since we've been here almost two hours?

[SPEAKER_43]: Yes, please, if we could take a five-minute break. It is now 8.19. We will re-adjourn at 8.25. Just to round it out. Thank you, Chair. We are back. I apologize. I was here and didn't turn on my video. Okay, so the second item on our agenda this evening is 21 St. Clair Road site plan review for Dover amendment. I want to say that I was not able our Vice Chair, Hederman has led this case previously in my absence and I have since watched the video. So I wanted to make sure that you all knew that I'm totally caught up on the issue. Thank you to Vice Chair Emily Hederman. And with that, I will let you know that this is a continued public hearing. To cure any potential public notice defect, the public hearing was re-advertised in the paper and a body of mail was re-sent. I'm going to read the new notice. The Medford Community Development Board shall conduct a public hearing Yes, December 18th, 2024 after 6.30 p.m. via Zoom, remote video conferencing relative to an application for site plan review for Dover Amendment uses City of Medford zoning ordinance section 94-11.8 submitted by a C.C. Holden's LLC to renovate an existing four-story, 12,930 square foot building at 21 St. Clair Road, Medford Mass 02155. This is listed in the docket as parcel 1-11-21, associated with proposed 40-room domestic violence housing for women and children. I am going to ask the applicant or a representative of the applicant to please present any new information on this. And that is Mr. Michael Ross. If someone can please give Mr. Ross... Oh, there you go.

[ZQDZZh_VfdI_SPEAKER_40]: I'm here, Madam Chair, thank you. Members of the board, my name is Mike Ross. I'm an attorney at the law firm of Prince Lobel. I'm here with my client, Andrew Litchfield, who's there, I see him, and Taisha Gashard, and then my colleague, Maggie Roberts, who works with me at Prince Lobel.

[SPEAKER_14]: Would it be all right if I shared a presentation, Madam Chair?

[SPEAKER_43]: Yes, please. If you could please give Mr. Ross sharing screen abilities.

[SPEAKER_14]: I got it. I think you see that.

[SPEAKER_43]: Yes, and we will make you a co host so that you can pass it on to your colleagues as necessary.

[ZQDZZh_VfdI_SPEAKER_40]: Okay, appreciate that. Thank you. So, as you mentioned, matches a continuation. We were here before the board on November 6. And what we have here, what I'm going to just kind of high level walk you through, even though I'm glad that you saw the video. So even though you weren't here, you saw the video. So it's terrific. I'm going to hit on the really the changes, the key changes from the last time we were here. You know, there was a letter from the abutters, attorney for the abutters, almost criticizing that this plan has evolved or changed throughout the process. But, you know, my understanding of the community process and this process before the Community Development Board, is that the plan should change and that it should reflect the comments that are being made in these forums. And the comments are being made with yourself and elected officials and others who we've been meeting with throughout this process. It's in that spirit that these changes have evolved since our last meeting, November 6th. So I'll walk you through what those changes are. Our project team is the same and the people are the same, but we did change the name of the entity that will be leasing this facility, Halo House. Hale House was formerly, was the former tenant who was to be using this facility, represented by Taisha Gishard. And Taisha also has a team that she works with and partners with, and I believe both Leslie and Ruth were at that last meeting in November. But Taisha is sort of our quarterback and is is the head of the Halo House Inc., which is a nonprofit that's being established for this very purpose. And yes, this Halo House Inc. is being created in anticipation of the property here at 21 St. Clair Road. which will be owned by Andrew Litchfield and his partner, Steven Swedum. Andrew Litchfield is manager of Assisi Holdings LLC, and he'll be the landlord of this facility. And at some point, I'd love to have Andrew talk a little bit about why he decided to get into domestic violent housing. And given that he is someone who owns real estate holdings, but has a couple of properties now, in this space or proximate to this space. I think it would be very helpful to just hear a little bit from Andrew too, why he's in there. And I think it would be helpful to hear from Taisha as well, because after all, Taisha will be running the programming that takes place in this facility. Uh, so this proposed, uh, our project proposal is, um, is similar, uh, but we wanted to sharpen our language and we wanted to include that this is a domestic violent shelter. And previously we used language, um, that was a homeless shelter for women and children. And while that's technically true, we didn't explicitly say that this was a domestic shelter, domestic violence shelter for women and children. And that is what this is. And what's interesting is that many of the clients who will be in this home actually have a home. It's not that they're under house necessarily, it's that they can't be at their home, be for fear of violence within their home. And the whole point of this program is to educate these women to break that cycle of violence. And that's done through, yes, routine curriculum that we've provided, and I'll walk you through in a second, but it's also done through something which goes to the heart of what is trying to be done here. And that is to break the cycle of violence through the intervention of the Halo House team as led by Taisha. The site is at 21 St Clair Road. It's a site that's been in the same configuration for almost 100 years. But we're not adding one square inch to the envelope of this building, unlike the previous proposal that was before you, we're taking the building that's existing and we're using within the confines of this existing building. Like the people who've used this building previously, we are taking the building as it is. And so we've inherited this building with all the great things about it, but also all the challenges with that building, like the fact that there is no parking associated with this building. There never has been. And now we're taking over in this facility, just like our predecessors did. Just pointing out here, the same configuration of this lot from 1924. I previously walked you through the existing conditions. We are keeping those existing conditions. We'll remove some of the religious artifacts that are on the side of the building, but other than that, uh yeah we updated this site plan for you uh this site plan now shows the ramp along the side entrance of the building that provides access a second means of access to the building accessible access not just a second means of access but a second means of accessible access to the building will be that ramp along the side of the building and also um it shows the lift at the front of the building those are the only changes to the The only key changes to the exterior, we're doing some landscaping and some other things that I'll walk you through in a moment. We updated our plans and our plans have bubbles where the updates are. And I think the most key and important thing here is that we're reducing from 37 rooms and just for your recollection, we had 40 rooms as the chair mentioned. Three of those rooms were flex rooms. So I'll show you on the plans. Three of those rooms were rooms that could be used in a pinch if necessary for housing, but are on each of the floors that are meant to be used for additional administrative space. So for that reason, we have 37 rooms plus these three additional flex rooms. What we are now proposing is reducing the room count further from some of the feedback we received. but also to make sure that we have ample space for non-living programming, for educational programming, and for space for children. Those, we're now at 34 rooms. And the way that changed, I'm gonna show you a before and after. So this is what we previously proposed. Floor is one through three, one, two, three. One is on the right, two is in the middle, three is on the left. What we did there, so on the first floor, stay on the right there. On the first floor, we moved rooms one and two to the middle of the first floor. And we did that because we want to keep accessible rooms on the first floor, rooms one and two that are accessible for handicap access. But we wanted to also increase the playroom. So that was no net increase or decrease. That's just what we did. And then in the middle, the second floor, we did reduce the rooms from 12 to 1. And what we did there, 12 to 11. And what we did there is, if you look at the top portion of the second floor, the middle floor plan, you'll see that we took one of the rooms, room 8, and made it into a bath area instead. And then if you look at the 3rd floor on the left, again, the before shows a room where roommate 9 are. And now you have roommate being replaced with additional facilities. And if we looked at the 4th floor, which is the last floor on this in this building. This is the before, and then there's the after. What we did again is we took room 33 and increased that bathroom facility size there. So there's more room there. And then those flex rooms I mentioned, they're on the corner, on the lower right corner of floors 4, 3, 2. So if I went back to Floors 3, 2, not 1, but 2, 3, and 4. They're all in the same location, room 13, room 25, and room 37. Same elevations. We were moving a door on the first floor where there's now no need for that door to be. I think there was a kitchen there and I think now it's living space. Andrew can confirm some of these things if he needs to. And those are the plans. The landscape area, again, we heard and listened to some of the comments. And before that was just a general kind of seating area for residents, for clients, for guests in the rear of the building. And what we did here instead is we turned it into a play area. It's just a small play area. It's not intended to be you know, the consummate playground or anything like that. But it is intended to be a place where one could gather with their kids if they needed to and just have some real passive kind of play area, sandbox, a little rocker and that kind of thing. And then throughout that landscape plan, as we showed you before, there's all sorts of landscaping along the front of the building, which none exists today. A tree, some more mature type of bushes and landscaping, and then some smaller bushes that hug the facility. We also I think made a small edit on the landscape area where there was a comment where I think the swing of a fence might have gone into the neighbor's property and we removed that issue that should never have been there in the first place so that we could fix that as well. So getting into really the Dover piece here, pointing out those two-point tests that you referenced earlier, Madam Chair, I updated my letter, I updated my narrative substantially to include all the things I just mentioned to you, but also to talk a little bit more about The Dover amendment and, you know, what I would point out to you here, and even my brother who wrote a letter to your board. Acknowledge the same that the Dover amendment allows a building on our landlord, like Andrew and Stephen to lease a Dover compliant. Facility to a Dover qualified, a nonprofit entity that sold to its purposes education. And that is exactly what we're doing here. You know, the fact that we're probably 6 months to a year from opening our facility that we are very much in the preliminary stages. Of such a facility might be exactly why certain things like articles of incorporation and the lease itself and other. other business documents of that type are still in the nascent stages. We are building something here that involves, you know, we haven't hired employees. There's a lot of things. We haven't selected the general contractor. All those things that one does typically starts once you've been approved by the local community in which we are seeking the approval in front of your board. Getting our building permit, making sure we've worked through the entire sets of questions from the building department, the fire department, the water department, et cetera, et cetera. Those are all the things that happen and occur when any project is front. And so, as a result, we're still building some of the key building blocks of this project. We updated the Hale House's articles and corporations to be very specific to talk about the domestic violence. So we did that, I think, for a couple reasons. One, we heard from the public and from the board and from elected officials that the use of domestic violence to be specific It needs to be there or should be there, and we agree, but it also protects this very use. I think a more specific use is better than a broad use. A broad use can mean a lot of different things. People might not know exactly what's happening in the facility here. Here, this use is domestic violence use. We wanted to find another use, we would have to come back to this board to seek that use. In being specific, I think that's being reflective of some of the comments that we heard. Being general, I think it's what maybe earned a couple of the comments that we heard in the previous meetings. I don't need to go too into case law, but I mean, I think I just pulled a couple of quotes. I think are very important. I said earlier that what you should her team are trying to do is they're trying to break the very cycle of domestic violence for this woman and. Generations after this woman, and what she's essentially trying to do is to help someone function in society. And the case law for the Dover Amendment says that right here, Reason that in inculcating a basic understanding of how to cope with everyday problems, everyday problems, and to maintain oneself in society is incontestably an educational process. Doberman is very robust with case law of saying that the typical education setting is not what Doberman is limited to. It allows for that broader interpretation, even the broadness of this definition right here, using the Fitchburg housing case. I like Fitchburg housing because I think it's relevant here. There's another quote in Fitchburg that says, What they were doing at this Fishburg Housing Authority was training and skills for independent living, self-care, cooking, job-seeking, budgeting, making use of community resources. That is education, as according to our Supreme Court, as according to the Dover Amendment. That is Dover compliant. That is education. Earlier I said, just a couple slides ago, I said, we're still working this all out. Well, it's interesting. Regis College v. Town of Weston, a case that was quoted by the attorney who represents these abutters a couple of times in his brief, has a great quote in it. It says, the novelty of the Regis East project, that was the project that they were seeking for elderly living, requires that many of its details will necessarily be worked out by experienced educators through day-to-day operation, will necessarily be worked out, meaning that some of this still is a work in progress. And I think that's relevant to what we're doing here. The Halo House provided an updated curriculum, and I'm not going to go through all this, but I want to fast forward to their curriculum. I also want to point out that it is a requirement for residents to attend and complete mandatory educational course programs and educational workshop. It is a requirement. Everyone in the program must go through the curriculum, must go through some of the workshops. I'm going to show you in a 2nd here. These are some of the other partners that her team have worked with and have partnered with. Talked about 24-hour security. Here's the curriculum. So we broke it into these tracks, 15 tracks, and broke it into hours. you wound up having 120 hours of these basic kind of, look at these courses, Introduction to Computers, Operating System Basics, File Management, Troubleshooting, Review and Practice, Internet Basics, Using Web Browsers. These are the types of courses that everyone's going to have to go through, writing a cover letter, mock interviews, all those things. But I think here it gets into what's really the phase two, but I would argue maybe is the real core and the real reason why Women are going to thrive at halo house and that's these workshops and these workshops are getting into the really the guts of. how domestic violence can repeat itself, how behavior can continue to repeat itself, how there are these red flags to avoid abusive behavior, getting into therapy, getting into group settings, getting into really the meat of it. That's separate from those 15 other cohorts that I just showed you. This is after there's kind of a base established for the women around some of these more, I guess, educationally type services and job training. And this then gets into really the meat of it. I think some hard conversations, and those are also required and mandatory. I think that's really where the Halo House is going to prepare women to reenter society, like that Fitchburg case referenced. Um, we've talked about upstream parking. We talked about that. There will be a shuttle with making 3 trips. A day for staff and guests to go back and forth from. The, but also other locations, supermarkets, that's that type of thing. That is going to be a part of the. The program, but we also have identified 2 parking spaces, extremely close to this building that we believe we will be able to lease, which we're very happy about just having a couple extra parking spaces could make all the difference for. You know, just convenience, and it's something that we've been asked to do. I would have loved to appear here and showing you that lease in hand. We're still, we're still working out the fine details. And I did, but I did were close enough that I did want to mention it to the board. In any case, this is an accessible location, very accessible through Route 100 bus. We did a traffic study by the engineering firm Fuss & O'Neill. I already shared this with the board. The Fuss & O'Neill engineers concluded that based on the foregoing assessment, it's the professional opinion of Fuss & O'Neill that the proposed development at 21 St. Clair Road will have negligible impacts on traffic operations within the study area. Excuse me. Why? Because, first of all, the people who live, who will be living there temporarily at the facility will not have a car. And that the previous use was also filled with people who mostly didn't have cars. And while the staff may have cars, the staff are not allowed to bring their cars because they have nowhere to put their car. They would have to put it at the MBTA location and they would have to take a shuttle using that. Bus O'Neill concluded that this use, however, will not impact the number of car trips than what was previously there. And then finally, we had a number of comments directly from staff. We sat and met with the mayor of Medford. We've been working through Danielle and Alicia and appreciate their time and assistance. And since our last meeting, we sat down or there was a conversation or sit down with Andrew and building commissioner. At some point there was a comment wondering why there's not an elevator in this building. I just inserted the MAS code 8.5.2 that explains why this building does not require to have an elevator because we fall just below the requirement there. And then we also provided to the board the letter of intent that is between the tenant, the proposed tenant, and the landlord. um, which will ultimately turn into a lease and we're prepared to provide that lease to the board. And, um, you know, if the board, you know, there was a comment, really spent a lot of time in my brother's letter that talked about how it's not a lease. We're very happy to have you condition this approval based on having a lease in hand because there has to be a lease because we will have a lease. And finally, I will say that it's outside staff comments, but it is officials of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts that you should have been contacted by the Attorney General's office, who leaned into this on their own. And like they did in a case in Dennis, Massachusetts where there was a homeless shelter, not even a specific use such as domestic violence, but just a general homeless shelter where they weighed in for a very contentious process that occurred. They weighed in here too and they asked you to look at the Dennis case and they asked you to to reach out to them with any questions. We were very happy to have the Attorney General reach out on this particular use, and we agree that this particular use, like the Dennis case, and like all the cases I just quoted to you, fits very comfortably within the Dover Amendment. And we look forward to having a real positive impact to the community. If it's all right, Madam Chair, I mean, or if I could do it later, I could pause here, but I think maybe it would be nice just to have a quick comment from Andrew and Taisha, if they have anything to add. Otherwise, we can go straight to comments from the board.

[SPEAKER_43]: No, please allow your team to continue.

[ZQDZZh_VfdI_SPEAKER_40]: Okay, great. They have nothing formal. I think they just a quick hello would be great. And I think they're prepared to answer. Question, so I don't know if Andrew if you could just even just introduce yourself. You have any comments, please. Yes, go ahead.

[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you, Michael. Thank you. Madam chair members of the board. Really appreciate the opportunity to. stand before you again tonight. My name is Andrew Litchfield. I am the owner of the building. I am a real estate developer. I know that was brought up in the previous meeting. A for-profit developer, why would he buy this building? In addition to working with Taisha over many years and owning multiple buildings where we have nonprofits occupy our space, it's something near and dear to my heart. Not only personally, but I am a huge proponent on giving back. I'm a part of multiple nonprofit organizations, Silverlining Mentoring, a youth foster care nonprofit in Boston. as well as Roka, which is in Chelsea. So I just wanted to share that with you, that in addition to owning the real estate that I do, I do also own multiple buildings with nonprofits that are occupying them. And this is something that I couldn't be more excited about providing for the residents and to be working with Taisha. Thank you.

[ZQDZZh_VfdI_SPEAKER_40]: Thank you, Andrew. Taisha, did you have anything you wanted to add at this point?

[SPEAKER_15]: She's on YouTube. But I think you were saying you're just going to answer any questions. All right.

[SPEAKER_30]: OK, can you hear me? Yes, I can. Hi, my name is Taisha. I am the founder of the Halo House. And just briefly, this is a labor of love. I was brought up in a home of domestic violence. I have friends that came out of domestic violence. I know that we spoke a lot about the educational components. I can truly speak how the curriculum works, how it is very important to address the educational, the mandatory domestic violence prevention and workshops. If not, it is truly a cycle that will be repeated. for generations. And the things that you witness as a child, even as a victim of domestic violence, will stay with you forever. So the residents by this time, when they get to us, they are survivors. So I am there to support and guide and give them a second chance by holding their hand, being their friend, sharing my experiences and reintroducing them to a life that is free, of looking over your shoulder, having no control over your finances, walking on eggshells, kids hiding. This is why I believe in the halo house. I'm getting a little emotional because it really is. It's going to be a safe place. And I ask you to approve it. This truly is a labor of love. I will be there daily for hours. You will see me. You're welcome to come in and meet me, talk to me. I want to partner with you guys. And I believe this will be an asset. So I thank you for your time.

[ZQDZZh_VfdI_SPEAKER_40]: Thank you, Taisha. Chair, it's hard to follow that. And I think it's also hard not to hear that, and at the same time, being accused that what we're trying to do here is not what we're saying. This is a great effort that we're all proud of, and we hope that the board will support this effort tonight. Thank you. I'll pause there.

[SPEAKER_43]: Thank you so much. make sure that the screen sharing is down. Okay. Thank you all for your presentation and for your updated information. Before I open it up to the public, I just wanted to make sure that I, we understand before the public starts to ask the question. So the Hale House will be joining in the application of this, correct? You will be a joint applicant?

[SPEAKER_22]: Correct.

[SPEAKER_43]: Okay, I just wanted to make sure we cleared that. Does the board have any questions or concerns before opening up to the public? Vice Chair Emily Hedeman?

[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you, Chair McPherson. I want to thank the applicant for their vulnerability and sharing their story with us today. It takes a lot to do that in front of a group of strangers. I really appreciate that. But then on to the practical matters of, you know, what we can actually decide on as a board. I feel like this this this fix this works, and I also want to come in the applicant for their detailed response to to community concerns beyond what this board has has control over. I mean, thinking specifically about, you know, the gate that swung in the wrong direction. I think that that starts to show the detail and care that the applicant has taken to respond to community comments. Interested in hearing new community comments tonight about new information that's been presented. But overall, I thank the applicant for their work thus far. Thank you.

[SPEAKER_43]: Thank you, Vice Chair. I just, again, Ms. Couchat, I was going to say it later, but the fact that you gave a very real scene and that your support in helping this initiative move forward, to me, that's big, right? And again, we have to be practical about what we can do and not just based on stories, but your story is really useful here because it actually shows what an end result can come about. So in saying that, I want to open it up to the public so that we can see if there's any other questions that the public has at this point, any new questions at this point. And then we'll bring it back for board deliberation. I will now open up the public comment period. Those who wish to provide comments can use the raise hand feature or message Danielle in the chat if you are having technical difficulties. You can also send an email to OCD at medford-ma.gov. Before providing your comments, please state your name and address for the record. A reminder to all meeting participants to please refrain from using the chat function to message any comments to city staff. board members, or myself, as it is not part of the public record. However, if a participant is having audio or other technical difficulties, you may message staff for assistance. Each participant will have two minutes to speak. And Alicia or Danielle, can you please?

[Alicia Hunt]: Madam Chair, I'll manage the public comment queue.

[SPEAKER_43]: I know that there was many comments that came in, so I know that you're probably not able to read them all out, but if you wanted to just give a high level of issues and themes that you've read also.

[Alicia Hunt]: Can we take the, do you mind if we take the verbal comments? Sure, no. That's fine. Great, thank you. So the first speaker is Harley Racer.

[Harley Racer]: Thank you, Miss Hunt. Thank you, Madam Chair. I appreciate the time. My name is Harley Racer, attorney at Richmay, the downtown Boston law firm. I represent some residents, a different group of residents than when I was here a moment ago, including a Butters. And, you know, we we do not denigrate this the effort here or or deny that there is a need for it. But the question before this board is very narrow, and it is whether this is a qualifying Dover Amendment applicant and a qualifying Dover Amendment use. If the board were to allow this as a Dover Amendment use, it would be an unprecedented expansion of the Dover Amendment, both as to the entity and to the use. The entity here is a for-profit developer. And this is I've seen no case law and I haven't seen the applicant site anywhere a for profit corporation can apply for and obtain the benefits of the Dover Amendment protections as a business venture. And they're here asking the board to join them in this effort of. helping them facilitate their business effort through the Dover Amendment. And that's just not what the intent of the Dover Amendment is, and that's not the purpose of the Dover Amendment. And it does not cure it to say that one day maybe they'll have a lease or that they have a letter of intent. And I think this is a real flaw here that would be susceptible to reversal on appeal. Now, even if the Halo House were the applicant, which they're not, and I'm not sure that they could be a joint applicant, they haven't entered a lease. But even if they were, what we've seen is that the educational uses here are really window dressing, and it's what the SJC has cautioned against, allowing the tail wag the dog, essentially. This is the primary use is to provide the emergency shelter, and they've added some discussion of educational uses. They've added a curriculum, but if you look at it, the curriculum amounts to, you know, two to four hours a week over the course of a six month to one year stay. This really falls short of what other cases of what has been found to be an actual, a significant educational goal, and it's certainly not a primary or dominant use that is being proposed here. I would like to see a lot more on the curriculum, a lot more detail, the types of detail that are in the case law that finds that, you know, not traditional educational uses still qualify for Dover. We just don't see that here. We don't know what the hours of the classes are. We don't know what the classes are. We don't know whether they say it's mandatory, but we don't know what is mandatory. We don't know whether the participants would be required to do each of the 12 tracks. There's just a real lack of detail here. So I would urge the board to deny the Dover Amendment application because this is brought by a for-profit entity for a business development purpose and because the educational use is not significant and it's not primary or dominant. Thank you.

[Alicia Hunt]: Thank you. The next speaker is Cheryl R.

[Cheryl Rodriguez]: Hi, I'm Cheryl Rodriguez, 281 Park Street, so I'm pretty close to this location. I was on the last meeting and this plan is the same. This is still a shelter. It's not an educational institute. They were supposed to come back with a proposal that right sizes this project and does not attempt to exploit the area by trying to squeeze a square peg into a round hole. This project does not qualify for the Dover Amendment. This building formerly housed less than 10 nuns. It is not large enough to house 34 or 37 families. It is also insulting that you're assuming that grown women need quote classes on how to use the internet. This is very insulting to victims of domestic violence to speak of them in such an infantized way. In one case, you say they aren't homeless and they have housing, but your quote, educational track teaches them how to get housing and how to run a household. These are things they would already know. Your quote, education component is just an attempt to circumvent zoning. Nothing more. You do not qualify. Do not take advantage of us. This sounds like since you have spoken to the state attorney general, that you are working with the governor and her desire to remove homeless people from costly motels and hotels. But we ask you not to take advantage of us and overfill this very small area. Thank you.

[SPEAKER_43]: One of the things I want to make sure that we're clear with this controversial, untrue statements going forward. And so the letter from the AG is quoted by a case law from the SJC. And I want to make sure that, and I'm going to quote, a Dover determination cannot be based on the population that may be served by a non-traditional education program. And that's from the Supreme Judicial Court, which has warned explicitly that the type of student who is participating in the program And then you can continue to read it based on the law, McLean Hospital Corporation versus Town of Lincoln. So I wanted to make sure that we're clear on what we're putting before the public here, as far as knowledge. Next comment, please.

[Alicia Hunt]: The next speaker is Mike O'Brien.

[SPEAKER_22]: Yes, hello. Three, I guess, two quick questions. One, is it possible to, I guess, public record or what direction might you point in for the other developments or buildings or, I guess, efforts prior to this for Andrew Litchfield and his holding companies? And then lastly, I guess, second question is, the updated PowerPoint presentation, I know I was uploaded to this, I guess, Medford Google Drive earlier this month, but I know many members of the public probably seeing it for the first time tonight. Will we have the opportunity to kind of go through it and raise objections before a vote here at the end of this meeting? Thank you.

[SPEAKER_43]: I'm sorry, what is it that you wanted to go through?

[SPEAKER_22]: The updated PowerPoint presentation and materials presented by the applicant.

[SPEAKER_43]: Has the city provided updated information to the public? I believe so.

[SPEAKER_22]: The updated PowerPoint, I know many of us are seeing it for the first time this evening.

[Alicia Hunt]: The material sent to the board on Friday, those materials don't usually include the PowerPoint that they share tonight. We usually request that during the meeting so that we can add that to the files.

[SPEAKER_22]: Gotcha. So will we as the public have an opportunity to consider these materials before a vote at the end of this meeting or no?

[Alicia Hunt]: I'll just, we usually don't answer the questions as a back and forth. I'll let you know that whether or not the board votes tonight is a decision that will be up to the board this evening.

[SPEAKER_22]: Okay, understood. Thank you.

[Alicia Hunt]: The next speaker is Will Navare.

[William Navarre]: Uh, hi there. Uh, thank you for recognizing me. I support this project. If anybody thinks it's a loophole when it comes to applying Dover to a homeless shelter, albeit with an educational component, I guess that's fair enough. Maybe it's a loophole. But the abutters and their attorney are trying to use the law to deny what they refer to as an emergency shelter. That's disgusting and not consistent with Medford's values. The abutters and their attorney have a right to cause problems and hurt people by trying to slow this worthy project down. It sounds like our Attorney General, whom I deeply respect, has weighed in on behalf of the shelter from a legal perspective, and the abutters' intervention will ultimately be unsuccessful, except as a tactic to delay. They have every right to try to put a wrench in the works and slow this project down as much as they want, but this board does not have any obligation to play along and assist them in that endeavor. So I hope that the board approves this, uh, you know, relatively quickly. Thanks.

[Alicia Hunt]: The next speaker this evening is Abida Banu.

[ZQDZZh_VfdI_SPEAKER_01]: My name is Abida Banu. I feel like this whole thing, I feel like it's a discrimination against me. And as you know, by the name and my background, English is my second language. And I also, I'm a widow, and been a resident since 2006. I never ever anybody talk about this project. I was shocked. And I'm direct butter, you know, and my privacy will invade. If you look at the visual, if you put the picture of the 21 St. Clair, there's the three houses, you know, next to each other. So I think that it will invade my privacy and the parking will be big, big, big, big issue. And there's no parking. And if you can look at the fire lane and there's a fire lane and no sidewalk, you know, please have this meeting in person so you can come and see it. other people. And then you decide that what you're going to say, I think I'm against this. Because there's 37 people who look over my house is like my privacy issue. So thank you for listening. Thank you.

[Alicia Hunt]: Please your name, your address for the record. And I think we have an 11 St. Clair Road. Thank you. I think we forgot to get that from some of the previous speakers. If you want to just message them to me directly, they're for the record. All speakers are requested to provide name and address for the record. If at any point you don't want to provide that publicly, you can provide it to us for the record. The next speaker is Leo Lafarge.

[ZQDZZh_VfdI_SPEAKER_26]: Hi, everyone. I am Anna Butter as well. And I have a couple of questions about the project. I, again, also saw the new amendments or whatever, the updates on the site tonight. We had no idea that things had gone out again. But I did have a couple of questions about what Abida said. You know, her property is directly next to St. Clair, and they have talked about, and I'm sure you have hopefully fixed it by now, about how when people have to exit during emergencies, they had it said that it was going to go out on her property. And you said that you have fixed that allegedly. Is it all right to ask questions about this?

[SPEAKER_43]: You can continue. We're going to collectively answer them at the end of the public comment, but you can definitely get your questions out now. Okay, great.

[ZQDZZh_VfdI_SPEAKER_26]: I also had a couple of questions about the programming itself. So it had gone from before you were going to do CDL licenses and solar panels, and then it looks like you've tried to update those to more educational programs. Again, like it is a little bit offensive, I think, to say that they are teaching women how to use the Internet as well. And if this facility is supposed to be used for six to 12 months, it doesn't really seem that it's going to be an educational because it looks like it's only about, I don't know how many hours, but it can't be that many hours to be educational throughout the whole six to 12 months. It's basically looks like it's going to be at just a shelter. And also, I had another thing. There is something in Boston called ABCD Boston, which I know is really the only thing that I have been able to find online that looks like it's trying to be similar to what's being offered. And I was wondering if they're going to offer the same things like they talked about, you know, elder care or, you know, kindness to the elders or financial stability is one and also health equity for women, if these are also going to be programs that are going to be talked about.

[Alicia Hunt]: Thank you. The next speaker is Ren.

[Ren Bean]: Hello, hi. I just wanted to speak in support of this. I hope the board approves it. I live at 37 Woodrow Avenue, about half a mile from the location. I think this would be an excellent use for the building. I noted in their application materials that they intend to give preference to Medford residents. I think for a city of 60,000 people to not have a domestic violence shelter, to my knowledge, within city limits, is really a tragedy. And, you know, the Medford PD has a link to the portal for hope, which offers one to three days of emergency shelter for survivors of domestic violence. And Medford is just really not meeting a very dire need here. And this project seems like it would really provide an essential service to the city of Medford. And I agree with the applicant that based on my experience, you know, working with this population in past roles that I would not expect there to be a significant traffic impact. and their intention to provide shuttle transportation for groceries and MBTA and even for their staff to park off site seems like, you know, thoughtful. And I just don't think this population is going to be troublesome to the neighborhood. In the previous hearing, I heard some what I consider bad faith arguments about you know, adding children to the schools. I think I just like to rebut that by saying they're giving preference to Medford residents. These children are already in the schools. And I would welcome these folks into my neighborhood. And I think this this project should be approved. You know, the technicalities of the Dover amendment aside, I don't think they should need that to have this project approved. I think it's a great use for the building. I'd be happy to have it on my streets. Yeah, and that's for this project. Thank you very much.

[Alicia Hunt]: Thank you. The next speaker is labeled as WE. Please give your name and address for the record.

[ZQDZZh_VfdI_SPEAKER_39]: Hey there. Can you hear me OK?

[Alicia Hunt]: Yes, we can.

[ZQDZZh_VfdI_SPEAKER_39]: All right, well, you know, rush on one Sinclair. So, believe in sharing members of the board, thanks for the opportunity. So, I do think I just want to echo some of the previous sentiments. I think a continuance is needed for a variety of reasons. 1, the originally that was shown by attorney Ross on screen. I don't think has been provided to. anyone in advance of the meeting. Secondly, I know there's been a quote-unquote updated plan that's been uploaded, but upon pretty thorough review as far as the education piece is concerned, there's barely been any traction or really updates on that PPT as far as what's being provided from an education perspective. There's nothing there that says clear commitment of required hours, structured schedules, measurable outcomes. et cetera, not even a concrete timeline. Just pretty much it says that those in the halo house can provide and participate in those classes. Another one I just want to make sure is just this facility's primary and dominant mission is to provide residential housing first and foremost. And I think Mr. or Attorney Racer said earlier, just it's unseen that There's a for profit entity, attempting to profit off of a domestic violence shelter while simultaneously trying to use a loophole of a Dover amendment. At the same time, so I do, I do urge the board to listen to its residents and see through this. pretty clear attempt to circumvent the city's zoning laws via the Dover Amendment. I think even with the additional information provided here there's still a lot more questions and answers and Attorney Ross said himself there's still a lot of building blocks and things to figure out with the plan and hearing the the Tufts proposal earlier that got a continuance there's about I think 100 miles between how far along that plan is and this one is this one still feels like it's barely been thought through so I can't help but to see this is pretty obvious effort by private real estate and owner for 21 St. Clair to recoup on investment after the last owner who coincidentally was also represented by attorney Ross trying to stand up luxury condos and failed at doing that because he could not get private parking spaces which I know is a obviously sore subject as well for this particular project. So I just would suggest a continuance to allow us to digest some more information and get more info about the plan. Thank you.

[Alicia Hunt]: The next speaker is Barry Ingber.

[Barry Ingber]: Thank you. Barry Ingbern, 9 Draper Street in North Medford. I'm not a direct abutter, but I am very certainly in the neighborhood. And I want to echo what Wren and William said and express my complete support for this project. And I also want to say, listening to the neighbors means not just listening to the neighbors who are opposed, that we clearly are mixed on this. This type of shelter, this type of situation is sorely needed. And I can't even imagine a better kind of building for it than this one. And it's a perfectly fine neighborhood for it. For those who are opposed to this project, I want you to look inside and ask, since the project is not going to itself change the neighborhood, Are you opposed to the building? Or are you opposed to the people? Because if you are opposed to the people, you have some soul searching to do. These are victims of domestic violence. These are not perpetrators of violence. These are victims. These are our neighbors. These are our community. And they need a place to be safe. That should be in our neighborhood. Thank you.

[Alicia Hunt]: Thank you. The next speaker is JR.

[SPEAKER_20]: Hi, my name is Kathleen. I live on Fulton Street, probably close to being a direct abutter. Just want to echo a few things that were said. I think first and foremost, obviously, there are concerns about the applicant being in commercial real estate. I think that Having Halo House join as a co-applicant is interesting, but I think residents, myself included, would feel more comfortable if they were the sole applicant. Additionally, just to Few follow-up questions. You know, I appreciate that the applicant has provided updated information, seemingly in good faith, but regarding the parking, I know a lot of people bring it up. It's definitely contentious around here because there is none. I think that folks said that employees would not be able to bring their own vehicles. It's not clear to me how that would be enforced. It also looks like the traffic survey that was completed is assuming that the residents would not have their own vehicles, but I'm not sure what underpins that assumption since we're clearly saying that these folks are not unhoused. They just unfortunately do not have a safe place to live. So I'm not sure how that means that they would not have a vehicle. And then finally just echoing again some of the concerns about the for-profit entity and we're being asked to change the zoning with pretty limited information. I think the applicant has admitted that they're in the early stages of this project. I don't think that residents should be forced to make a decision without all of the t's crossed and i's dotted. Thank you.

[Alicia Hunt]: The next speaker is Marge. Oops, sorry, I'm having trouble clicking. There we go. Oh, My apologies if I got the speakers out of order.

[SPEAKER_27]: Can you hear me? Yes, we can. OK, thank you. My name is Marge Kirchmeier. I live here at 25 St. Francis Street. I'm a direct abutter. And I have to say, I kind of resent people trying to shame the neighborhood into accepting that the shelter, that's just not fair. You know, because a project of this kind is going to affect the whole neighborhood. And I think we all deserve, you know, you know, to know what's going on. The first thing, the first time I heard about the project was about a week or so before the election. But apparently, the building was sold in March. So the whole process has been going on since March. So my question is, why hasn't the neighborhood been invited in because this is a very, I can't think of the right word to describe it, but nobody has anything against any person who is in a terrible situation, as some of these people are. you know, but we deserve the benefit of the doubt, we deserve to be invited in, in the process. And I really think that a continuance would be the best thing at this point to further go over, you know, what the ideas are, and so forth. So that is my comment. Thank you.

[Alicia Hunt]: Thank you. The next speaker is JMN.

[Jean Nuzzo]: How are we doing this time?

[Lisa Simonetti]: We can hear you.

[Jean Nuzzo]: Okay, great. I'll be quick. Thank you. Jean Izzo, Parris Street, Medford. This is in my neighborhood. I'll be quick. A thoughtful approach to this application review is not stalling. It assures that we are acting purposefully and we are acting thoughtfully. and it avoids repentance at leisure. Historically in Medford, when we take things at face value swiftly, we are left in a position often where we are then having our enforcement team who are understaffed trying to go out and deal with issues. So please let us not mistake a thorough review of the applicant and its business proposition for putting individuals under a microscope. That is not what is happening here. Thank you very much.

[Alicia Hunt]: Thank you. The next speaker is Jen Proctor.

[SPEAKER_21]: Hi, I'm Jen Proctor. I live at 36 St. Francis Street. I would just like to echo some things that some of my neighbors have already said and mentioned and Um, it was great to see the traffic report this time. Um, one thing that it doesn't take into consideration is that, uh, people may be ordering things, guests, visitors, um, and things like that, like Uber Eats, Ubers, um, where would that would increase traffic in the area as well? Um, that would be considerable with a 34 to 37, uh, family unit as well. Um, so that's one thing to, to just take into consideration around the traffic. And while there's some additional information this time regarding the education, there still isn't, um, like a definitive number of hours that set for what is mandatory, um, that I'd just like to see more detail on that.

[Alicia Hunt]: Thank you. The next speaker is Lisa Simonetti.

[Lisa Simonetti]: Hi, good evening, everybody. Thank you very much for recognizing me. In full disclosure, I will say that after the last meeting, I did send a letter and I received some responses from Ms. Roberts, which I appreciate. Thank you very much. I still have a lot of questions about the funding of this domestic violence shelter. This is not, to my understanding, based on Ms. Roberts' letter, this is not a state contract. This is something that is going to be a process of securing both public and private funding, including state and federal grants, individual donations, sponsorships, fundraising, and cooperative agreements. That seems very unstable funding for 36, 35 to 37 people. So I'd like to know if there's any update to that. And I just wanna make a comment to the people who have really been a little bullying tonight about how we in the Fulton Heights area, or by the way, I'm at 85 Fulton Spring Road. We need to accept this. Yes, we do. Yes, we do. A domestic violence shelter is incredibly important. But unfortunately, the city of Medford has turned Fulton Heights into a rooming house and boarding house facility in the middle of residential neighborhoods. And for those of you who don't live right here, parking and traffic is horrific, and there is no way, and everybody on this call knows this, there is no way you're gonna stop employees from driving to work, like on an, tonight, for instance, when it's pouring rain. So please don't sell people's intelligence. And more importantly, please do not bully people by saying we have to look inward. I will challenge you and what I do and looking inward any day of the week. So good evening, and I wish everybody a very happy holiday season.

[Alicia Hunt]: The next speaker is Patricia Schiappelli.

[Trish Schiapelli]: Hi, I'm at 53 Garfield Avenue in Medford. And I just want to say that, you know, if you do your research on the owners of the building, and some of the president of the yellow house, you will find some questionable dealings listed. And I think that as the Community Development Board and the city, you owe it to us residents to do your due diligence. I think we're tired of being told what we're going to live with when we're the taxpayers and homeowners in this area. We have voting rights. We have the ability to live in an environment that we wish. And as someone that grew up in a home with domestic violence, to say that you're gonna take someone that is a domestic violent person and leave them in the same city where their abuser is, is absolutely crazy. That means you know nothing about the industry at all. And if that is the case, then they will be sought after because the abusers do not walk away without coming after what they want. So I suggest you rethink and you reconsider before you approve this, because this is not the place to have the violence in this neighborhood with the taxpayers and the homeowners trying to raise their own children. Thank you so much.

[Alicia Hunt]: Madam Chair, I don't see anybody else with their hand raised. I'm double checking. I believe that everybody who sent a letter has also spoken. I did note that there were a couple of very specific questions around what would be the maximum capacity of the shelter, not the number of beds, but the capacity. There were some concerns about the trash and deliveries and the volume and how that would be handled and whether the traffic assessment included buses for students. And then in general, the comments were like what you have already heard this evening about traffic and parking and Dover amendment uses. There's one more hand that just raised their hand. You don't mind, I'll go to the iPad KR.

[kOuBy-MtMpc_SPEAKER_03]: Hi, this is Kelly Rasso, 35 St. Francis Street. I am a director, but I would like the record to note that I was still not notified of the meeting tonight. I've been to City Hall several times to inquire about the abutters list, et cetera. It's really become an issue. But I wanted to address, and I wanted to make sure I properly identified the residents of this building. Can the applicant clarify what is the proper nomenclature for the people staying at the facility? Where does the funding come from from each guest, as said by the attorney? The applicant states the facility is specifically geared towards women and children. What is the capacity the building was the maximum capacity? What is the age limit for children at the facility? Specifically male children. How will the facility define women? Will transgender and biological men and who identify as women be welcome into this facility? As the facility is specifically geared towards biological women, will the facility have any educational or women's health services available through service providers like Planned Parenthood? Will the facility allow for sex offenders to reside at the facility? How will the facility notify the neighbors and the community if a sex offender obtains residence in the building? Has anyone looked into the sex offender registry and how close there are registered sex offenders to this building currently? Are there children required to attend any educational programs specifically provided by the Halo House? Speaking of the ramp that is going to be added, it's four feet, six inches where they propose to put the ramp. What's the width and the slope of the ramp to the side of the building? Does this facility have any intention of meeting 521 CMR 5.00 standards, specifically those necessary for public use? This facility meets the Commonwealth's definitions of transient lodging. At a minimum, it should be designed to meet those building standards. This application is an abuse of the Dover Amendment. This board should have the courage to oust this charlatan or the city of Medford will become a target for more of these types of developments by profiteers abusing laws to protect society's most vulnerable.

[SPEAKER_43]: I urge you to deny this application if the applicant... This is a ridiculous process. Is there any other commenters? And just for the public to know, we allowed the last speaker to go 30 seconds over time.

[Alicia Hunt]: Madam Chair, there's one more hand up, Linda McKay, Mackie.

[ZQDZZh_VfdI_SPEAKER_26]: Yes. Hi, I was hoping that I could yield my time back to Kelly, the person that was speaking before, if that's possible.

[SPEAKER_43]: If it's a new comment, a new comment, yes.

[ZQDZZh_VfdI_SPEAKER_26]: Well, she wasn't done. So if that's possible, I would love for her to be able to speak.

[SPEAKER_43]: Two minutes per person. If you want to speak for her, yes.

[ZQDZZh_VfdI_SPEAKER_26]: Well, I wasn't sure what she was going to finish saying, but you may you may continue her comment if you like, but to be fair, I don't know what she was going to say. But she is a director butter and I feel that she would should be able to speak as long as she wants.

[SPEAKER_43]: And that's not the rules of the board tonight. So I apologize if you're not able to follow that because we would have to allow everyone else that same accommodation.

[ZQDZZh_VfdI_SPEAKER_26]: Okay, thank you. And I do have one thing. I'm hoping that the board treats the residents surrounding 21 St. Clair the same as they're treating the residents around the Tufts proposal. I have totally felt a difference in the way that you all are speaking to us, as opposed to the people that live in the Tufts area. And I think it's because this isn't surrounding the idea of a domestic violence shelter and that we should all be gung ho about this in our neighborhood. Thank you. Thank you.

[Alicia Hunt]: The next hand is Ella Razo.

[SPEAKER_53]: Hello, Rosso, 35 St. Francis Street. I'm going based off of what Kelly said. I'd like to finish kind of what she was trying to get at. I have no doubt the court will review this record and come to the same conclusions the residents of this neighborhood have, which is fraud. I wish the applicant well. I hope they are successful in future ventures, but I suggest they are more thoughtful with their approach and develop facilities within their own neighborhoods. The size of the facilities to protect the occupants and emergency personnel, staff and neighbors safely should be the goal.

[Alicia Hunt]: Madam Chair, there's one person who messaged me that they were having trouble raising their hand. If you don't mind, I'm gonna call on. Sure.

[ZQDZZh_VfdI_SPEAKER_03]: Your A. Yes, hello, thank you. Arthur Martin, Fulton Street. I heard Attorney Ross mention, you can hear me okay?

[Unidentified]: Yes.

[ZQDZZh_VfdI_SPEAKER_03]: All right. I heard Attorney Ross mentioned earlier they were named guests when he gave his presentation. We've heard them called residents. We've heard them called guests. And I appreciate that he's being open and honest that they are guests. They are residents. They've never once been called students. And that's the major difference here. They have never been called students. There's a reason, because they're residents. This is transient lodging. Thank you very much. I appreciate everybody's volunteer time on this, but this is not the ownership that should be representing this facility. As we point to Ms. Guichard, she has some history that's found in the court system. As in 2022, fraud.

[Alicia Hunt]: This is inappropriate.

[SPEAKER_43]: It's not inappropriate. No unfounded accusations. The public does not have access. The board does not have access to the same information that you had. We will not be hearing anything that has been brought in outside of the proponent other than your personal experience with the project. Your personal experience with the project and not the project proponents. Would you like to continue with your personal experience with the project?

[Alicia Hunt]: I'll have to ask him to unmute so he can respond.

[ZQDZZh_VfdI_SPEAKER_03]: Yes. Can you hear me?

[SPEAKER_43]: Yes.

[ZQDZZh_VfdI_SPEAKER_03]: All right, I don't want to step out of the bounds. It was my understanding that we heard from her story and we're supposed to rely on the applicant for their personal know-how to run the facility and operate it correctly, and we're supposed to trust them with it. I assumed that their personal history is up for grabs for discussion at that point. I apologize if I stepped out of line with it. Is that acceptable? But should we not be reviewing stuff of this nature as we present?

[SPEAKER_43]: It's out of the board's purview.

[ZQDZZh_VfdI_SPEAKER_03]: Okay, but we assume certain things about people who are operating certain facilities.

[SPEAKER_43]: No, sir. And that would be discriminatory.

[ZQDZZh_VfdI_SPEAKER_03]: Anything that you're bringing that's not part of the project is not discriminatory would be if I if I worried about ethnicities, colors, ages, things of that nature. If we're talking about somebody's personal record with a criminal history of fraud, I think that's a different thing. That's important.

[SPEAKER_43]: It may be important before another board, but not this board. It's out of our purview.

[ZQDZZh_VfdI_SPEAKER_03]: Your so, but your purview is to worry about who's operating these facilities, correct?

[SPEAKER_43]: We're relying on our, our, our, our purview is to follow the lay of the law, the ordinance for the city. I just wanted to make sure that that's clear. And before the board this evening is to vote according to how we were counseled with legal. Is this a Dover amendment and what we can do within that confinement?

[Alicia Hunt]: Madam Chair, Vice Chair Hedeman has raised her hand and there's one resident or one member of the public who has not spoken, who's raised their hand.

[SPEAKER_43]: At this time, I want to make sure we continue with public comments going forward and then we'll circle back to the board.

[Alicia Hunt]: Okay. Maria Palmarino.

[SPEAKER_24]: Okay.

[Alicia Hunt]: Go ahead.

[SPEAKER_24]: My name is Matilde Sesta. I live directly behind the convent and I'm with my friend here because I don't do computers. But I have to say this, talking is easy. Everybody says their own version. I second my next, my neighbor, Kelly Razo, because we go through a terrible time for the parking, for the traffic, and everything else. And the city should know that because I've been there complaining most, a lot of times. I can't even get out of my driveway. So we're gonna, you're gonna make sure that we won't be worse off because that's the only thing I want. And keep the property clean because when there was the charter school, I always pick up rubbish in my yard. Okay? Now, I spoke plain English. I don't discriminate anybody. But please, leave me be on my comfort zone. Okay? That's all. I'll be knocking on the door of everybody of you. Rich or not rich. I'm rich on myself. And that's all I want to keep until I die. Because I pay for my comfort zone. That's all. Thank you. Have a good night.

[Alicia Hunt]: Sorry, could I just ask you to state your name and address slowly? We don't quite understand.

[SPEAKER_24]: Mathilde Sesta. I live on 39 St. Francis Street, right behind the convent. My fence is behind the convent fence. Okay. Great. Thank you. Thank you.

[SPEAKER_43]: I'm going to close the public comment period, and I am going to circle back to Vice Chair Emily Hedeman to start us off with board comments.

[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah, thank you so much, Chair McPherson, and I really appreciate your leadership, you know, throughout this public hearing. I think, you know, the overall intent of public hearings is to hear from the public, and then, you know, I think another kind of maybe unsaid part of it is to, you know, kind of build trust and respect between the board, the applicant and the neighborhood. I'm starting to feel that erode a little bit in multiple directions. It sounds like we have a lot of, a lot of people that are potentially presenting themselves as authorities on all sides. And I'm wondering if, you know, the the board had a little bit more Authority is not the right word. But if the board, because we've referenced our legal counsel's decision. And I hope that the public would trust that that decision is valid. But I'm wondering if having them, legal counsel, just like for Tufts, if having them present for this discussion, because it is so contested, would help with the trust between the public, the neighbors, the board, the applicant, and so on. Because I said this at the last hearing, I think the applicant could be a good neighbor. I know everybody who's speaking in the public hearing is a good neighbor in their own way. But I want to make sure that we don't erode this relationship so negatively that whatever we decide it's, you know, it's bad for everybody. I don't know if other board members have any thoughts on that.

[SPEAKER_43]: I appreciate that, Vice Chair Herrmann, especially where it can go either way. For one, I believe that the proponent has enough information that's sufficient enough for the educational use to qualify for the bill of amendment. However, I also believe that it is true that the abutters have enough information to sue that. And in this point, I don't know how to move forward from there. The information from the Attorney General's just put us back in circles and spin it on case law, which I totally understand, but it was a little bit more clear-cut for that case law. It's not clear-cut for the situation. So I want to be very transparent ahead of time for the proponent. I am not prepared to vote on this going forward this evening, but in saying that, I am very for this project. I just want to make sure that this project is airtight. I want it to be airtight. So that there's not future information where it can be litigated or so that, you know, we just want to I just want to make sure that whatever we decide on tonight and whatever conditions that we put on to you this evening is airtight from the abutters and that. It actually, we're able to move forward just like we were able to move forward previously with maybe some other improvements. There's things that just we're not going to land on for the abutters, unfortunately. But at least one of the things that we can give the community is sound reasoning, making sure that you do qualify under the Dover Amendment. And I think having legal advise us on that going forward in the community hearing that would put many people at ease. Ari Fishman.

[Ari Fishman]: Thank you, Madam Chair. I agree that I don't feel confident to vote on this today. I would like to continue it to a date certain and request that city legal counsel be present in a synchronous way and be able to advise on the Dover Amendment use specifically in this case, which from the reading and what they sent us earlier, And the AG, I think I was persuaded on, but I think it would be good to discuss. And I would also be interested in hearing from the city legal team specifically about this private developer issue. And if there are any concerns on the legal side about kind of how it's presented. I do hear the concerns about parking and in this, And also, Dover is clear that we can't discriminate on the purpose and occupants of it. And I do agree with the applicant that this is a much needed service for our own community.

[SPEAKER_43]: Without having a legal background, I'm almost willing to bet that this is definitely an educational use under Dover. I just want to make sure that any information that we use going forward, again, I do know that the abutters have a strong case against. And the Attorney General's information is just not enough for me to be OK with making a decision this evening. Peter Cowles?

[Peter Calves]: I'd like to kind of echo what other members of the board have said and just bring up something that was mentioned last time. And I don't know if it was a small technical thing that I think should be resolved by now. I also am in favor of having further legal counsel. I think while I think this project likely does apply under Dover, and is a much needed use for the community. I don't want to set anything up for this project team. I don't want to set them up for uncertainty down the line. I want to give them as straight a runway as possible to get this done and get this done right. So I don't feel comfortable approving them now only to have them tied up legally after the fact. I'd much prefer get the legal counsel involved, get everything airtight immediately so that once this is approved, we don't have to, nobody has to worry about it and we can all move along with getting this project together. Although there is one thing that I noted from the city's proposed draft conditions that is something that came up during the last hearing, and that is the status of St. Clair Road. It was noted that the plan provided by the applicant called that a public way, and the city does not have any record of public acceptance of St. Clair Road. That's from a purely technical perspective. My question is if that has been resolved.

[Danielle Evans]: Madam chair. Yes, we. So, I believe that the applicant had. Provided a deed or something that said that it was a public road, but I. I don't think that that's sufficient evidence to. Demonstrate that that was ever accepted. The working theory was that this was a long time ago and. You know, it was just like a favorite of the church, well-maintained road kind of thing. I don't think it was, there's no record that it was ever accepted and it doesn't meet city standards. So it's unfathomable that it would have been accepted. So I think it's a private way.

[Peter Calves]: So, Danielle, just to clarify that there was an intent for it to become public, but it never got all the way there.

[Danielle Evans]: Because they never brought it up to the standards for it to be accepted.

[Peter Calves]: OK. No problem. I know that was one of our big sticking points last time, was trying to figure that out just for frontage purposes. And I just wanted to see if that was something that could have been resolved.

[Danielle Evans]: Unless the applicant has additional information. Because I also would like to know what's the status of The improvements to the, to the pedestrian experience in the front and because we have a condition. Um, that's why I dropped it, um, draft conditions for the first time. This was before you. And one of them was, um, that they provide some kind of, um, safe pedestrian walkway, knowing that, um, residents are coming from the bus stop that they need to be coming from the bus stop.

[Peter Calves]: I have the document is, was that, was that what it was? I didn't remember last time there was something that we had drafted that was. We can condition this if it's a public way, but not if it's a private way or the other way around. I remember last time there was some condition, I believe, relating to pedestrian access that was, we can include this as a condition if St. Clair Road is either public or private.

[Alicia Hunt]: If it's a public way, the city has control over the street, and if it's a private way, they only own in front of their homes. We could request it on their property in front of their building, but we couldn't require them to take it all the way to the corner because that would be in front of someone else's property.

[Peter Calves]: Okay. Got you.

[Alicia Hunt]: But I would like to respectfully remind the board that there were a number of questions asked and the applicant could- I do.

[SPEAKER_43]: I'm there. I have that. Director Hunt, thank you. I just wanted to get the temperature of the board a little bit, but I do want to go back to the proponent, the applicant, and provide you a chance to respond to the questions that you have heard this evening. You are not required to answer all of them. Please answer the ones that you feel are necessary for this hearing this evening.

[ZQDZZh_VfdI_SPEAKER_40]: Okay, thank you. I mean, there was a lot covered. I mean, just quickly on that public-private road piece. So, you know, there was a complaint by some of the abutters about a fire lane. We essentially removed, and if it's a condition, we're happy to put it back, but we essentially removed anything in the front of the building. It became a source of contention when we proposed to put a sidewalk there. It created more acrimony than than happiness. And so on this set of plans, on the site plan, there is no site, there is no sidewalk shown on the front. If it became a conditional license, of course, we would do it. And I think conditions are a good place to start here. A lot of the comments, look, there were many comments tonight. Some were comments opposed, some were comments in favor. Some were just out and out, inappropriate comments. And I would just urge the board to recognize that the further this goes, it may not necessarily get better and it may not necessarily get easier. We've been working with the staff and staff has been consulting your attorney on this matter. And we have been in regular communication through staff about comments from the attorney. And those comments have flowed in two directions. And when there was a comment relating to something, we provided the information that was requested by staff. And so, you know, to physically place the attorney in this hearing is, of course, your choice as a board. um and and and and you know that's what you're going to do that's what you're going to do but um you know we would we have now this is our second time in front of the board we've re-noticed this community twice including miss raso's residence and um we um uh you know respectfully request that we would we would like a decision to be made tonight the um the care of trying to prevent us from being sued down the line is just outside and exceeds the scope of this board. If we get sued down the road, then so be it. Those are the risks. We'll deal with it as any property owner would. There's nothing that you can do in this room that's going to prevent us from getting sued or not sued from the other side. There's a lot of animosity towards this particular proposal. Some of it, there's some great comments I want to hit really quickly. But there's a tone, which I think has been used that was not appreciated. And I think to give into that tone tonight, because there's pressure, is going to punish the applicant. It's going to cost the applicant more money and more time as they carry this parcel, as they carry this the cost of keeping this parcel alive, this property alive, while they wait another month, pay me, pay their mortgage payment, pay their staff, their team. It's extremely expensive. For what? To get you out of an uncomfortable position that is only going to get more uncomfortable at the next meeting. What's at odds here isn't some magic words that I can provide you or any kind of information that's going to somehow cure the concerns, but there's a fundamental animosity for this proposal from certain members of this community and it's unfortunate. And I have sat in your shoes before a long time ago in another body and it's just, you know, sometimes you have to make the call. but it's not my decision to do so, that's your decision. I guess I gave you my opinion there. I do believe you can condition this license with certain requirements that will protect those concerns. I think the number one concern I heard from people, legitimate concern, was the question about the lease. you can absolutely condition that before a certificate of occupancy is rendered by the City of Medford, that a lease is presented to the City of Medford. That's a very simple and easy thing for you to do. Otherwise, no CFO. There was a comment made that I represented the previous applicant before Medford. I did not. That was a misstatement to this board. With regard to the PowerPoint, the PowerPoint is my It's like my pad of paper here. I could send in the pad of paper that I'm reading from right now. It's the equivalent of that. It's a tool. It's a tool that I can use to communicate with. No board requires that that has to be put in as a part of the record. I, in any case, have sent it to Alicia and Daniel. They now have it in their inbox. They can upload it. They have my PowerPoint, but the PowerPoint is pulled from the materials I've already submitted, and it's just blown up in size so that I can talk about some key points so that we don't have to sit there for hours. It's just an opportunity for me to convey a message to you. You know, about the educational use, there was a lot of comments made about the educational use, that this is a homeless shelter, and therefore this is not. and educational use. First of all, the case that was sent to us by the Attorney General came from Dennis, which was a homeless shelter. That's it. It was a homeless shelter of 79 beds. And the case in Dennis said that that homeless shelter is teaching people to live in society and to be housed and to mean what it means, learn what it means to be housed again. That would have been enough. We're not even proposing a housing. We're taking it a step further, something that's more educational. We're targeting the domestic violence piece that I think Taisha very eloquently described. was all the more educational. But even if it was guests in a homeless shelter, which it's not, it's guests in a domestic violence facility. But even if it was, that has long tread, that's long asked and answered, done. Every case we provided you has said that that would be allowed. The other developments, I'd love to have Andrew talk about it. One of the things we talked about at the last meeting that you weren't at, but you saw, Madam Chair, is 99% success rate, almost zero recidivism at the Dorchester properties. Dorchester properties are affiliated with Taisha's work that she's doing. They can talk about the properties that they work on collectively. I think there are two in Dorchester. They have no complaints. We had skeptical. People when we first started now, we have amazing relationships. We wanted to actually video some of the neighbors talking about that very phenomenon that when they 1st, we 1st arrived, they were a little bit concerned like people like. Mrs. Matilda Sesta, who I thought, you know, made a great comment. She lives behind us. She just wants us to keep a nice, clean yard. You know, people like that were living next to us. They didn't know what it was. And then a year, two, three, four years later, they like us. They like having us as a neighbor. You know, we're proud of that. I mean, there is a good news story out there, but we're not going to get that here until we're up and running. We're not going to get any further down the road here until we actually are allowed to put construction level drawings. One of the questions was about capacity. We're not going to have a capacity number for you until the building department signs off on our final sets of plans. And it's an iterative process that our architect goes with when they submit their construction level drawings to your building department. And then we're given some number at the end that the fire department stamps, building department stamps, and it's the total number allowed in the facility. And we're not going to get to that point until we actually create construction level drawings. We're not going to get to that point until we're approved by this board, because until we are approved by this board, we won't get the funding that we need from the bank to do what we need to do. This is just a fundamental. symptom of development everywhere, really, in the world. I mean, we need to be approved in order to proceed. It's kind of a catch-22. So I don't know how baked the cake needs to be before we can get to a place where, I mean, it would be one thing if we showed up here without a cogent proposal, without information. Some of the information we provide is over and beyond of what we're even asked to provide. We provided, for example, a traffic study. That traffic study did not contemplate that people didn't have cars available to them. That traffic study contemplated that people do use cars and even still didn't see an increase in the activity of the automobile. Job training, job readiness. Yeah, we're not going to be doing solar and commercial driver's license at this facility. But we have a facility in Dorchester where they are doing that and they are sending people and we have relationships. If we had a resident that wanted to learn about solar and commercial driving licenses, we would have a place to send them because there's a network. There's a system of people who we work with and have relationships with. Trash will be handled and will be managed professionally on site. Andrew could talk more about that. I'll stop there. I'm sorry if you got a little bit more than you asked for here, but it's frustrating to watch some of those comments be made, and then the conclusion of those comments be that there's ambiguity and we need to wait another month. It's going to be extremely expensive, and I can tell you right now, this project cannot do this forever. It will run out of money, it will be in peril, and it will not open if we continue to limp along at this pace. We are not Tufts University. We do not have the same resources. We have a different set of circumstances in place here.

[SPEAKER_43]: Thank you, Mr. Ross. With all due respect, you've never sat in my body. I just wanted to let you, I just wanted to respond to that, nor in my shoes. And while I'm neither continuing due to public pressure, nor will I urge the board to vote for pressure from you or your partners. We have bravely sat in the same seat, in the same spot with this stance in other instances, and we'll do so this evening. If the Hale House was the owner of the property or had the lease, or was doing a renovation, there would be no question. There's a true weakness here, and given it the Dover Amendment, and we have not, the board, spoken directly to legal counsel, and that is my concern, my only concern, because there's two things before the board tonight. Does this qualify as a protected educational use under the Dover Amendment? I can't say yes or no. The city has said yes or no. No one else has said yes or no or has advised the board legally on yes or no. And then what conditions of approval are needed to mitigate any adverse impacts? We wouldn't know because until we're sure that you qualify under the Dover Amendment, we can't move forward. And in that saying, I would like a motion from the board to continue 21 Claire Road site plan review for Dover amendment to a date certain which would be January 15th and also a motion to make sure that we have legal counsel to make to advise us on whether or not this is a Dover amendment.

[Emily Hedeman]: I'll make the motion to continue to a date certain which is January 15th. I second.

[SPEAKER_43]: I can second that. Roll call. Vice Chair Emily Hedeman? Aye. Peter Cowes?

[SPEAKER_37]: Aye.

[SPEAKER_43]: Ari Fishman? Aye. Annie String? Aye. Adam Behrens?

[Adam Behrens]: Nay.

[SPEAKER_43]: Sabrina Alpino? Aye. Ben Lovalli?

[SPEAKER_37]: Aye.

[SPEAKER_43]: And myself, Jackie McPherson. I'm an I. Of eight board members, there's one dissension, four yeses, four yeses, I'm sorry, seven yeses, one no. So the vote carries. And that was for date starting. The second motion I'm looking for is to have legal advise us on whether or not this is a covered, this project is covered under the Dover amendment.

[Emily Hedeman]: I'd like to make a motion to have legal advise us and be present at the next hearing, January 15th, to provide advisement to the board.

[SPEAKER_43]: A second. I second that motion. Roll call. Vice Chair Emily Hederman.

[Emily Hedeman]: Aye.

[SPEAKER_43]: Peter Cowles.

[Emily Hedeman]: Aye.

[SPEAKER_43]: Ari Fishman. Aye. Andy String. Aye. Adam Behrens.

[SPEAKER_37]: Aye.

[SPEAKER_43]: Sabrina Alpino. Aye. Ben Lavalle.

[SPEAKER_37]: Aye.

[SPEAKER_43]: And myself, Jackie McPherson. The motion carries. Thank you, Mr. Ross. Thank you, Mr. Detroit. We will see you on, the board will see you on January 15th. The third item on our meeting this evening is new, thank you to everyone that has come to hear about 21 St. Clair Road. And the third item on our agenda this evening is new public hearing, which is a definitive subdivision plan for bridal path definitive subdivision. And this is a new public hearing. And I'm going to read the public hearing notice. Assessor's map, G-05, parcel three, Franklin Avenue, North Shore Residential Development Incorporated. The Macford Community Development Board shall conduct a public hearing on December 18th, 2024, after 6.30 p.m. via Zoom remote video conferencing relative to an application for approval of a definitive subdivision plan, bridal path definitive subdivision. filed by North Shore Residential Development Incorporated on October 7, 2024. This notice is published in accordance with the provisions of Subdivision Control Law, MGL Chapter 41, Section 81-T. The record owner of land is Conners Realty Trust, 41 Franklin Avenue, Medford, Mass. And we have The description of the property consists of two combined parcels of vacant land, consisting of approximately 85,407 square feet of land. The plan seeks to divide the parcels into eight single family house lots. If I could please have the city staff begin with opening remarks.

[Danielle Evans]: Good evening, Daniel Evans, senior planner. I believe tonight that the, There were some outstanding issues that we needed updated for the city engineer. I believe the applicant has gotten the information to the city engineer. However, I don't believe we've gotten his updated comments or. I don't believe there's been any written comments because he was waiting for the changes. So I would recommend that we have the applicant present the proposal and then ask any questions, any concerns, and then we have this ready for the next meeting. with buttoned up conditions and all the comments from the relevant departments.

[SPEAKER_43]: Thank you very much. And I'm going to have the applicant team present the application. I believe it's Attorney Kathy Desmond on for the applicant. If you can please give Attorney Desmond screen sharing abilities.

[Alicia Hunt]: She can. Madam Chair, I did, I made her a co-host so she can unmute herself and. Oh, there you are. Yeah. Okay, thank you.

[Kathleen Desmond]: Good evening chairperson McPherson and board members, by way of introduction, I'm Kathleen Desmond of Reading, attorney for the applicant, North Shore Residential Development, Inc. I'm joined this evening by its principal, Ronna Lopez, together with the project engineer, Jack Sullivan of Sullivan Engineering Group, LLC, and our project traffic engineer, Jeffrey Dirk of Van Ness & Associates, is on a separate Zoom call. Jack, I, and The principal Ron Lopez are in the same setting just so you're all aware. The application before you requests approval of a proposed residential definitive subdivision consisting of eight single-family lots. The subdivision is to be situated on an approximately 85,407 square foot parcel of land. on the southeasterly side of Franklin Avenue. The proposed lots conform to both use requirements and also dimensional requirements of the zoning ordinance. Currently, the property is owned by the Connors Realty Trust. and I do believe that they are on the call this evening. The Connors have resided in the neighborhood for over 60 years and the parcel itself was once operated as a writing stable, a Connors writing stable. The Connors have requested, just so the board knows where the name came from, they had specifically requested that the name of the subdivision be something that tied to the historical use of the property. And as such, we have named the subdivision Bridal Path. With that, in the interest of brevity, I will pass it off to Mr. Sullivan, our project civil engineer, and he can run through the plan for you.

[ZQDZZh_VfdI_SPEAKER_36]: Thank you, Kathleen. For the record, my name's Jack Sullivan. I'm the design engineer and professional engineer within the state of Massachusetts. In front of you, you see the cover sheet for this project bridal path. We're in the SF1 zoning district, and this is basically a by right subdivision accepting one design waiver that we'd be requesting from the board. That one waiver is on the easterly street corner of the proposed subdivision. We're unable to meet the minimum 25 foot radius requirement, but that is the only design waiver that would be requested as part of this project. Go to the next sheet. Okay, this is sheet number 2. This is our existing site conditions. It's an undeveloped piece of property. There's 2 sheds that sit on the property. As attorney Desmond stated, it's basically a 2 acre parcel of land. It's relatively flat in the main body of the site, and then as we move off towards the bottom of the screen, there's some sloping topography. As part of this project, we did 10 soil test holes randomly throughout the development. They were witnessed by the Medford Engineering Department. I did want to point out to the board that the majority of the holes we didn't encounter any ledge at all down to a depth of 10 to 12 feet on most of the test holes. There was one test hole we found refusal at 36 inches, but I did want to point that out because it is a development that's still under construction below us that did have extensive ledge. We didn't have any any real ledge. On this site, so I think that's a big difference between the 2 to developments. I should note that there is an existing gravel access roadway that services 2 of the homes. Abutting this property, and we're looking to maintain that access when I get into the development plans. We can go to the next page. This next sheet is sheet three. This is our lot layout plan. So we're showing a 50 foot wide proposed right away with a full cul-de-sac. We'll have eight conforming single family lots, no dimensional, they meet all the dimensional design requirements as far as lot frontage, lot width, lot area, conforming in all aspects. I'll go to the next slide. Okay, this is our proposed site plan. So what we tried to do is we tried to show the footprint of the eight single-family homes that would be constructed. Each of the homes will have a paved driveway with a two-car garage. The reason we wanted to show the board how these footprints would go was really also to help us with the drainage design. We wanted to show basically how the as-built condition would look with the building structures, decks, driveways. On the subdivision itself, we're going to have a 30-foot wide paved travelway. We'd have a 5-foot wide concrete sidewalk on both sides of the roadway. We have street trees planted within the tree lawn area and we're showing a landscaped island. in the center of the cul-de-sac. We have provided, and later I'll have the traffic engineer talk on this, but we did provide how your largest fire truck could move through this development. In saying that, the landscape island, we did receive a memo from the fire chief. We were showing a 25-foot paved travelway around the island. He would rather see it consistent with the main body of the subdivision being a 30-foot paved travelway. So we will be making a reduction in the landscaped island going from a 30-foot diameter landscaped island down to a 20-foot diameter island to accommodate that request. Also, between lots 5 and 6, I had talked about in my opening, Yeah, yeah, that we'd be maintaining the 12 foot right away that provides access to the 2 homes off of Winthrop Street. Presently, that right away is a gravel. Right away, the developers proposing to pave that and has been in discussions with those butters on that. Additionally, I'll talk more about it later, but. We have a construction plan that I'll be showing a little bit later, showing how we'll maintain access for those homeowners throughout construction of this development. Also, with this site plan, I should note there'd be vertical granite curbing throughout. And I can go to the next slide. And we can skip. Okay, I can talk about this. This is the street plan and profile. This plan in the upper section basically shows how I'm laying out some of the street drainage. And I tried to have a creative design with the drainage. Typically, we look to put everything at a low point on the property. In doing that on this site, it would put water towards some of the abutters. So what I try to do is basically locate all my site drainage within the landscaped island and also as you come in the subdivision on the right-hand side, basically these would be underground precast concrete drainage units with crushed stone surrounding. I'd have a series of catch basins to capture stormwater runoff within the roadway. They'd have deep sumps, catch basins, they'd go to a storm scepter for treatment, and then they'd go to these precast concrete Structures for storage and then ultimately infiltration back into the ground. I can go to the next slide. So, this is more of an overall view of the site with that's okay. So, with each of the single family homes, the roof areas of each home would have stormwater collected and put into an individual subsurface drywall system on the lot. By doing that, we're able to reduce the size of the drainage requirements within the roadway. Um, I did have a good conversation and meeting with the city engineer on this. I submitted a 200 plus page drainage report. Um, I basically looked, you're basically looking at, like, a 9 inch. rainfall event for a 100 year storm and I'm tasked with balancing the pre-development stormwater runoff versus the post development stormwater runoff. In that report, I won't get into it tonight, but I did a very detailed analysis. Owen did do a review of it, the city engineer, and he felt it was very thorough and he he basically supported it. I didn't, as the planner stated, we didn't receive Wren comments stating that, but I did receive that verbally from him upon the review. There were two things he wanted changed and we'll get into that more, but we had showed a crosswalk from our subdivision across Franklin Avenue in a location Westerly on the down gradient side of our subdivision, there was comments that that should be relocated further to the east and we'll be making that change. And the city engineer also wanted to make sure that the water circulation within our subdivision, that the water wouldn't go stagnant. that there'd be enough use of this 8-inch water main that water would remain fresh and recirculate. I did provide those calculations to Owen today. He wanted to make sure water would at least circulate every 72 hours. It's going to circulate every 3 to 4 hours on the site, so there's no issue of water becoming stagnant. In a case with a dead-end road, sometimes there's a question about looping a water main to maintain that water circulation pattern, but in this case, a dead-end water main will work since we're less than 72 hours circulation. I'll go to the next page. Okay. This is our erosion and sediment control plan. Basically, this shows what we're going to put a stone construction entrance so that when dump trucks and machinery comes in, there'll be a stone area so that when their tires come in, no mud would then move back out to Franklin Avenue. We also show a 12 foot temporary gravel and crushed stone driveway that I talked about in my opening statements so that we continuously provide access to those two homes to the rear. We'll put up, not only construct the gravel driveway, but we'll have fencing to protect that driveway in the event of winter conditions. Snow would be removed from that driveway. those residents would always maintain access to those homes. There'd be no interruption to service even during construction of the subdivision. I think at this time, I'll turn things over to our traffic engineer. I know he has a brief presentation to present and then we'll turn it back over to the board and I'll gladly take any additional questions you might have tonight. At this time, I'll turn it over to Jeff from our traffic consultant.

[Kathleen Desmond]: Is Jeff Dirk able to go back to the gallery?

[Alicia Hunt]: I've unmuted him. Okay, thank you, Alicia.

[SPEAKER_03]: Thank you, and good evening, Madam Chairman, members of the board. For the record, Jeffrey Dirk with Van Nessen Associates, we're the transportation consultants on the project. So I think as you heard our Attorney mentioned we did prepare a transportation impact assessment for the project, which I can run through very quickly a high level summary of the findings of the assessment. Kathleen, you can go to the next slide please. So, just by way of our Findings as it relates to the study itself, we did conduct the analysis and consultation with the city. So we worked closely with Todd Blake, the city traffic engineer, as well as with the city engineer in particular relating to some comments that you heard Jack mentioning as they relate to the site plan and I'll speak. I'll spend a minute talking about how we've addressed each of those comments. But as it relates to the impact of the project with the eight single family homes that are proposed for this site, the project is going to produce less than 10 vehicle trips during the peak hours. So it's fewer than one additional vehicle every six minutes. So as we looked at the impact of that additional traffic on Franklin Street, on Winthrop Avenue, what we found was that the project didn't result in changes and delays to the extent that it would be noticeable to a motorist. So, really what you'll see out there before and after the project, there will be additional traffic, but as you experience that traffic in terms of increased delays, you're not going to see a significant change. So, really, it's not impactful from the standpoint of additional traffic on the roadway network itself. We also did review motor vehicle crash history in the area in terms of looking at the number of crashes that are happening at any of the intersections in and around where the project site is located. And we did not find that there were any high crash locations, meaning that the number of crashes that were occurring was in relation to the volume of traffic going through the intersection. So it wasn't disproportionate or unexpected based on the volume of traffic that goes through the intersections. And then lastly, as it relates to the subdivision itself, we did look at lines of sight at the intersection of Bridle Path with Franklin and found that those sight lines are adequate. As you look at where the subdivision roadway comes out, you can see it's really right at kind of the apex of that curve. So you can clearly see in either direction as you're exiting the subdivision. We did make recommendations to Selectively trim and maintain vegetation in the site triangle areas just to make sure that I think as Jack is describing some plantings that will be associated with the project just to make sure that those plantings are appropriately located so that they don't inhibit site lines. Next slide Kathleen please. So this slide just shows the location of the project site in relation to the roadway network. You can obviously see Medford High School to the right of where the subdivision is located. As Jack was mentioning, some of the construction that's occurring to the south of the site that shows up here as well. And then you can see Winthrop Avenue basically traversing from northwest to southeast direction on the slide as well. Next slide, Kathleen. Thank you. This slide shows the existing roadway network and its context as it relates to the site. And what I really wanted to point out on this is the location of where sidewalks are. So those are where you see the orange dashed lines. And so what you can see as it relates to the subdivision is that the sidewalk is continuous along the north side of Franklin Avenue. And as Jack was mentioning, some of the comments that we received from the city and the city traffic engineers about how to effectively provide a sidewalk to get from the bridal path subdivision over to the sidewalk along Franklin Avenue. So that connectivity, and I have a slide in a minute that will show what the resolution of that is. What you'll also see on this slide is that along Winthrop Street, there are marked bomb bike lanes in both directions. There's also a bus route. The MBTA provides bus service along Winthrop Street. So those are really amenities as it relates to the residents of the project as we're looking at trying to encourage alternative modes of transportation. We have bus service within walking distance. We have sidewalks and we have bicycle lanes. So those are all good things in terms of looking at reducing traffic associated with the project. Next slide please. So this slide shows the amount of traffic that we expect the project is going to produce. The large number that you see at the top, that's the 24-hour number. So if you stood at the end of Bridal Path and counted every vehicle that goes in and out, the project would produce about 100 vehicle trips, half in, half out. That's everything. It's FedEx, UPS, Amazon delivery trucks, as well as the residents. So that's all built into that number. The next two numbers as you're looking at the total column, the seven and the nine, those are the peak hour numbers. So one hour in the morning when traffic levels are at their highest level, the project will produce about seven additional vehicles on the roadway network. And then the next number, the nine, is the amount of traffic that we produce during the evening peak hour. So that's nine. So that's where I was saying It's fewer than 10 added vehicle trips over the course of an hour, so that level of impact is not considered significant in terms of increasing delays at intersections. Next slide, please. This slide just shows the dispersal of that traffic. So, once it leaves the subdivision, how does it relate itself onto the roadway network? What you see here really is the bulk of the traffic is oriented to and from the South along Winthrop Avenue. That's 75%. The rest of the traffic is distributed between Osborne and Winthrop to and from the North. Next slide, Kathleen. So, we have a series of recommendations as they relate to the transportation assessment. Jack has incorporated these all into the site plans themselves. So, as it relates to access and circulation, what was mentioned is we have a 30 foot wide paved traveled way, which is more than sufficient for two way travel. We'll speak to a minute as to why that width is important as it relates to the subdivision layout and does have to do with the fire truck circulation itself. The rest of the recommendation deal with signs and markings within the development, which you would expect stop sign coming out of the development, making sure everything's compliant with both state and federal requirements. And then last 2 recommendations deal with just making sure that the site lines that are provided at the Braille path Franklin intersection are adequate for the safe operation of the intersection. Next slide Kathleen. So now we're looking at kind of the recommendations. This is something that we submitted today in response to comments from the city engineer and the city traffic engineer. So as Jack was talking about the crosswalk locations, if you look at this slide and then just kind of compare it to what you saw in the subdivision plans, what was requested is that the crosswalk to get across from Bridal Path to the sidewalk along Franklin Avenue, that that crossing occurred basically at the Franklin Bridal Path Headland way location so you can see the crossing there diagonally going across the intersection that's where the city traffic engineer would like it to be. 1 of the changes that he requested is that we do the ladder type or continental type of crosswalk marking. So, basically the lines. rather than two parallel lines, you have the longitudinal lines in the crosswalk. So, that will be a change that we'll be making as well. You also see a crossing across bridle path to get from one side of the sidewalk on one side to the sidewalk on the other side, which would then get you to that crossing over to Franklin Avenue. Next slide Kathleen. So, the next slides, we can go through them very quickly, but in working with the fire department, we have performed a turning analysis for the 2 largest fire trucks that are typically used in the city. So, this is the ladder truck, which is non-articulated, showing that it can circulate within the development itself. And that's why this 30 foot roadway width is important because given the short length of the cul-de-sac or the short length of bridle path, we need the full width of that dimension there for that truck to circulate. You can see that it also maneuvers within the cul-de-sac area and that it stays within the paved travel way. The fire department has reviewed this and confirmed that the fire truck or this truck can actually make all of the maneuvers within the site. We've also run the fire truck going down to those two abutting properties or the two properties that have access by way of bridle path. I think it's 55 and 53 Winthrop. We have also run the fire truck to make sure it can get from bridle path down that easement and over to those two homes as well. Next slide Kathleen, please. This slide shows that connection. So this is the ladder truck using that access easement to get to those two properties. Next slide, please. So the last two slides are the largest fire truck that the city has. And this is the articulated trucker, what's known as a hook and ladder. So this truck pivots and has a driver at the backside. So this would be the largest vehicle. Even though it's the largest vehicle, it's also generally more maneuverable because of the fact that the wheels on the rear turn independent of the wheels on the front. And that's why you have the driver in the back. So it can actually make a tighter turn than, in some instances, the ladder truck. So we've run that vehicle as well, and you can see the same situation. It can maneuver through the subdivision around the cul-de-sac without traversing or going over any of the curb lines. Next slide. This slide shows the same vehicle using the path to get to those other two properties off of Winthrop Avenue. And I think, Kathleen, that may be the last slide I have.

[Kathleen Desmond]: Yes, I think that's the revision that we made.

[SPEAKER_03]: Okay, I appreciate you doing that. And I thank you, Madam Chair, and certainly available to answer any questions the board may have.

[Kathleen Desmond]: So, in addition, oh, thank you. So, in addition to that, we also wanted to show the board so they could get a sense as to what the types of houses would be that would be located on the site. And essentially, we have 3 models here, the colonial style that would show what's anticipated to be placed on those lots. Well, all of the homes will have a two-car garage, which will meet the requirement of two parking spaces for each single-family dwelling. There won't be a need for exterior parking, so the parking will be tucked within the garages. And that concludes our presentation, and we're available to take questions from you on this.

[SPEAKER_43]: just going to, if you can actually stop sharing your screen. Thank you. I'm going to open it up to the board for questions, but a couple of questions that I have first and foremost is to the city and just where we're at with other department comments. I know we're opening up for public hearing to stop the public hearing process, but also just if we can circle back and get some more information from the city on where you stand with there's discussions of easement, there's discussion of the waivers, and just there's so much information here that we don't have. So that's just, I think that will cut down on some of the questions going forward.

[Danielle Evans]: Yeah, Madam Chair, basically the question about the stagnant water and whether they needed the, the water loop, the issues with the crosswalk location, the sidewalks. So those all need to be updated. And the plans, there was one lot that I had identified as potentially not meeting lot depth. Attorney Desmond, did you look into that to determine whether it met it or not? Because I was just kind of scaling it off.

[Kathleen Desmond]: Yes, we did. I don't know if you want me to share my screen again to show the plan, and then Jack Sullivan can speak to that issue. Let me just get here. If I can go back up to plans. So where's the best place, Jack? I think this is probably the best plan to look at.

[ZQDZZh_VfdI_SPEAKER_36]: I think the question was lot eight, which is when you come in the subdivision, it's the first lot on the right-hand side. The way we looked at the lot depth, we took the front setback requirement, which is 15 feet, and you need a depth of at least 55 feet, and we have well more than that along the bridal path. area. So we don't see that, we don't see an issue with the lot depth on that at all, if that's how it's calculated. And the building inspected in, bring it up in his review.

[Kathleen Desmond]: What's the measurement? So I think, Danielle, the ordinance reads that for the span of the width, which the requirement in this instance is 50 feet, that you need to have 55 need of depth and in that this portion of the lot clearly needs that. This is well over the 55 required for width on the lot. Correct. We can update on the plan for the next meeting so that we can show specifically what that is.

[Danielle Evans]: I would like to see the specific number because when I was scaling it off, I remember whatever I was calculating, it was close.

[Kathleen Desmond]: Okay. We can do that for the next meeting.

[Danielle Evans]: And Madam Chair, I'll bring up one other issue there. So there's the easement. So there's the adjacent subdivision, Winford, I actually don't know what it's called. Is it Winford Way or something? There's an easement that was relocated that also provides access to those two homes that are not on, existing, like right or any type of private way. And there was concern from the building commissioner that it hasn't been, you know, open and clear for these folks to always be able to access. So he was concerned that if during construction, if the easement that would be relocated within bridal path to make sure that was always unobstructed. No staging of materials, no mounds of gravel, or those kind of things that would obstruct access in light of the problems with the other easement.

[Kathleen Desmond]: And Danielle, we did, when we went through the, the slides show. Am I too far? Yeah. So the current easement runs from here. This is the actual written easement. The actual path of the easement that's used is different than what is in the deed reference. But what's going to happen during construction is this portion will remain open. So there will be an easement out. And we understand and we recognize that there have been issues with the development down below and their access, but we do intend to, and we're willing to submit a construction plan to the board so that they are aware of it. But this will travel the length of the easement until Bridal Pathway is open. And then what we're seeking, and we had a preliminary discussion, we met with the abutters out at the site, we showed them the construction plan, and then we kind of showed them what the path would be. So once Bridal Path becomes a roadway, they then will share access along Bridal Path, which is certainly better for both emergency vehicles and also for them. So they'll have access to Bridal Path with the other homeowners. And then they will continue to have their easement, which starts here, the 12-foot right-of-way, which would sort of act as what a driveway would for the current owners. And we've agreed to pave that piece as well. So they would have a paved driveway, they would use Bridal Path Road to access their home, and then this would also be paved once the street is finished. In addition, just so that we're all on the same page, this home, which is 41 Franklin, will also have the ability to share in access to Bridal Path Road once it's constructed.

[Danielle Evans]: So that's how the mechanics of that easement will work. Okay, so they'll need to be like a construction sequencing plan that would be approved. And then the other remaining item was. Chief Evans' comments about whether he could get the truck around the landscaped island if there were parked cars. So it looks like you were reducing it, but I might've missed it, but were you gonna have like no parking in the section of the cul-de-sac or are you pretty confident that whatever treatment you have at that landscaped island that the fire truck could clear?

[Kathleen Desmond]: So I had an exchange of emails today with Chief Evans, and currently you'll see on the plan that the cul-de-sac is 25 feet around cul-de-sac diameter. In discussions, he would prefer that that remain at 30 feet. So we're going to reduce the island. So the island will be reduced to 20 feet in diameter, and that will give him 30 feet around the cul-de-sac. The parking issue, as you know, it's a private way, as is Franklin, as is Headway. So enforcement is difficult in terms of parking, to say the least, both for the city and also for homeowners. But he was comfortable with the 30-foot, and, you know, I don't want to put words in his mouth, but I did have that exchange with him today. He's comfortable if we reduce that island to 20 feet diameter. so it gives him 30 feet all the way around the cul-de-sac.

[SPEAKER_43]: Thank you Attorney Desmond. I'm going to actually open it up to board comments now before going to, actually this is, yeah, for board comments or questions. I don't have anything further because I'm not exactly sure what to ask at this point because there seems to be conversations between the city and the proponent that has not been shared with the board. So I'm not sure what's before us here. Does any of the board have any questions? Vice-chair Emily Henneman?

[Emily Hedeman]: Well, we've got a question. Two questions, kind of zooming out in a larger context. We're mentioning another development that is adjacent to this, which obviously is a different developer, different landowner. They have no control over what you do. You have no control over what they do. But I'd be really interested in, Kind of seeing how these two uh, these two subdivisions kind of, like, interlock, um, just to investigate if there's any connections that can be drawn between the two. And then, uh, outside of that neighborhood, um, the Medford High School is right around the corner, and, um, you know, these are wonderful single-family homes, um, which, you know, may not be the highest and best use of land in Medford, but this is what the zoning allows, and there is a demand for single-family housing. So, you know, maybe families will live there, maybe teachers will live there, who knows, but it would be really great if there was a way for the residents of Bridal Path to easily access the high school, whether it's, you know, kind of like a little nature trail or, or like a little path, just something that kind of connects the two the two things together, this wonderful neighborhood and, you know, the educational institution that is Medford High School. So, I guess those are more comments than questions at this point.

[Kathleen Desmond]: If you would like me to respond, um, with respect to- The chair is okay with that. Oh, okay. Yes, please. Yes, this is for the board. We have had some discussions with regard to the two developments. I don't believe at this point that that easement is a throughway. And at that point, I think you'd be overburdening the easement to have the traffic coming from Winthrop Street out into this particular subdivision. And I'm not sure that that could be integrated easily.

[Emily Hedeman]: Just to clarify, I don't mean like a road, just like any sort of connections, whether it's landscape or visual or because kids are kids, families are families, they're going to cut through people's yards no matter what. I don't think that there should be roads connecting these two, but maybe just some just to help the board visualize how these two connect together. But totally get it. You can't control what they do. They don't control what you do. And that's how land works in the country.

[Kathleen Desmond]: All right. And there's also the benefit that the two abutters, I don't know that they would want something like that that connectivity either. With respect to the the private way we have had with the path we have had discussions with city staff about that and there's quite honest well my client and I've conveyed this and also the owner of the property had submitted a letter to to staff about that particular situation. First, from my client's perspective, the rules and regulations don't provide anything that I can see that allows for that, and subdivisions are controlled by the rules and regulations. And also, if this were to be the case, it would be a public dedication and not a private dedication because any path that you created, you'd be putting the onus of it on one particular homeowner. And the statute's very clear. 81Q, that any public dedication of property requires just compensation to the owner for that dedication. The Conners have had some experience with that over the years and with first kids coming through to and from the high school, it devolved to motorcycles traveling the path. And there had been parties, because if you look at the back of that area, there's a large field area adjacent to this particular development. And it was, you know, a place where parties often occurred. There's also connections to the fells. And I questioned the city at the point as to whether that's something the school would even want to have, given the fact that, you know, trying to limit access to school property and hardening concerns. But I haven't had any conversations with anyone I haven't heard as to whether or not that's something that they would invite. But I think it would certainly be a concern. And then there's the liability issues in terms of because someone would have to maintain that pedestrian path. It would have to be insured. In theory, it sounds like a good idea, but when you kind of put together what can occur, who's going to be responsible for it, if it's a public dedication, Does the city take control of it? You also have two private ways. So there's a question as to whether the city could take that because it's off of Franklin, which is a private way and bridal path. So we have given it some thought. We have spoke with the current owners of the property who are against it. And that letter should be in the file based on their experience. I experienced and they have lived at the property for 60 years and operated the stable for a period of time.

[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you. I appreciate that.

[Kathleen Desmond]: Chair.

[Ari Fishman]: If I may say, I am not feeling well, and I'm having a hard time focusing. So I think at this point, I need to recuse myself and go to sleep. I don't feel that I can substantively vote on this. So I don't know if you want to do anything with that, or if I should just leave. Sorry, guys. I think there's still quorum without me.

[SPEAKER_43]: I think we do have quorum. Thank you. But I do have to open up to public comment. And we're not voting this evening. We will vote most likely to continue our, there's no vote being received tonight, but I hope you feel better. And we do have a we have a quorum to move it forward.

[Ari Fishman]: Thanks so much. And thank you, Madam Chair for your service on this committee. We'll miss you.

[SPEAKER_43]: Thank you so much. Have a great evening. Director Hunt?

[Alicia Hunt]: Madam Chair, as you're moving to public comment, I actually have something that I was asked to convey for public comment and maybe I can go between the board and the public, if that's appropriate.

[SPEAKER_43]: Is it conveying from the city or from on behalf of the city or?

[Alicia Hunt]: Actually from a member of the school committee. Because this is an adjacent to the schools. I, they wanted to convey that make sure that the property owner is aware that the city and the schools together are undertaking a redevelopment of Medford high school that they expect has the potential to be fairly disruptive. and that that field next to them might become a significant part of a construction project. It's too early to know what piece, whether that's a lay down area or a place where construction actually occurs. But they wanted the applicants to know this early, and I actually did give them is Desmond's direct email address in case they decided to reach out directly about that. But I thought that it was appropriate to actually also share that information with the board in case any members of the board were not aware. I'm actively working with that committee, so I do have as much information as the public does right now.

[SPEAKER_43]: Thank you, Director Holt. All right, I see some eager members of the public for it. Let me just read the notice, and then we will start calling on the public for public comments. I will now open a public comment period. Those who wish to provide comments can use the raise hand feature or message Danielle in the chat if you are having technical difficulties. You can also send an email to OCDEdMethod. Before providing your comments, please state your name and address for the record. A reminder to all meeting participants to please refrain from using the chat function to message any comments to city staff or board members, as it is not part of the public record. However, if a participant is having audio or other technical difficulties, you may message staff for assistance. Each participant will have two minutes to speak. Let's see. Alicia and Danielle, can you please manage? I can handle public comment for you. And I do know that Michael McCamey's hand was up first and then Maria Bruno-Ruiz.

[Alicia Hunt]: All right. Michael McCamey.

[SPEAKER_51]: Hello. Hi, I'm Shreya and Mike 555 Winthrop Street.

[ZQDZZh_VfdI_SPEAKER_23]: We're the ones on the easement.

[SPEAKER_51]: The Director Butters and we're speaking on behalf of both 555 and 553 Winthrop Street, both the Butters. basically accessing from either Winthrop Street or Franklin has been a huge problem for both our houses. I'm not talking Uber, DoorDash, FedEx. I'm talking emergency vehicles. I'm talking ambulance. Our neighbor was having a baby. She had a complication. Her husband was flagging down the ambulance on Winthrop Street. During this conversation, we've heard multiple times being mentioned the brittle path or bridal path is cul-de-sac, dead end, cul-de-sac. We are extremely concerned that emergency vehicles are not going to be able to find our house. We are extremely concerned that there are no signs that say this is connecting to Winthrop Street. We're repeatedly hearing dead end cul-de-sac. We've communicated this multiple times to the city, to Attorney Desmond. September 13th was when we sent an email. We haven't received any feedback or even an acknowledgement of this. And this has been very concerning for us. We're also concerned about the length of the access road being 12 feet does not seem like enough for an emergency vehicle. We were expecting 18 feet with a sidewalk because our children use that road. They'll be using it regularly. So for safety, we were expecting 18 feet with a sidewalk. And as far as access to the high school goes, Granted, people have lived here for 60 years, but our kids are the ones that are going to high school. They will be going to the high school. Kids need a place to go. They need a place to be. They need to be able to move around. And a lot of people feel that it may be somewhat of an access path between our neighborhood and the high school would be nice.

[SPEAKER_43]: Thank you.

[Alicia Hunt]: The next resident is Maria Bruno-Ruiz.

[SPEAKER_05]: Hello, Madam Chair and Board. Thank you for hearing me out. I am a homeowner on 11 Franklin Ave with my mother and my brother and I grew up on Franklin Ave. I want to speak about what will be, we believe, a damaging impact to an already worn out street. The construction vehicles, as Jeffrey Dirk had identified in his presentation, All access to Bridal Path is from Franklin Abb 100%, which was on his document. This is a privately owned street. There are seven abutters on that street. And when you add the construction trucks, the tonnage, the new residents, there'll be eight homes. So you are doubling. the amount of people coming in and out of that area, this will wear down Franklin Ave. We had brought this up with the developers at the first meeting they provided for us, and we asked if they would repave the street when all was said and done. Their answer to that was they would repave the top of the street only, and we don't actually agree with that. We think the entire street should be paved. We're also worried about sewage, I'm sorry, water running down the street from the construction. We know there'll be silt fences, but there will be a huge opening from Bridle Path to Franklin Ave and there will be debris and stuff will come down that street and that will also add to the wear and tear on the street. We are concerned about that. And we're also concerned about what it would look like just to pave the top of Franklin Ave and not the bottom. Now you're creating an interface between those two sections. The street had been paved once before by the residents. And so this would fall upon those eight homes to take care of this. And we think the developers should pave the entire Franklin Ave when they're finished with this project.

[SPEAKER_43]: Thank you so much, Ms. Mora-Lewis.

[Alicia Hunt]: I don't see any other hands raised. I may have accidentally clicked on the Ask to Unmute button. My apologies.

[SPEAKER_43]: I see no other comments. I'm going to close the public comment period for this meeting. Attorney Desmond, would you like to respond to any of the comments that we have heard from the public? You'll need to unmute.

[Kathleen Desmond]: So we did originally meet with the abutters and we did receive their comments. Um, you know, in terms of increasing the easement area, they have an easement from a separate development that is not a portion of this land and so to increase that. that easement is not something that my client wants to undertake or sidewalks because we're not, this is a private way with a private development. It's an existing easement that exists on the property. We're willing to work with them in terms of an easement agreement that gives them access to Bridal Path Road. Right now, they have a gravel road which travels from Franklin Street to their property. So what would be happening in this instance is they would be getting access to a paved road, which meets the city's requirements for streets in Medford. And in addition to that, they would get a paved area, which is essentially, and I know it's longer than the average driveway, but it would essentially be a driveway from their existing property to Bridal Pathway. If at some point the city were to come in and do a taking and make it public, then that maybe is a different conversation. you know, we're not asking them to contribute and the developers not going to ask them to contribute to any of the costs that would be associated with bridal pathway and the maintenance of that way. It would only be that portion, which is their driveway. And we are improving that by virtue of paving it in the first instance. and we're not taking anything away from them. We're making it a better situation for emergency vehicles because emergency vehicles can now access Bridal Path Road. In addition to that, the hydrants, currently the hydrant is approximately, I think, 400 feet at least. It's 125 feet. from Franklin to their property. We are installing a hydrant which is roughly going to be 70 feet from their property which will greatly help with emergency situations and emergency apparatus assisting in case of a fire or anything like that. So there's a lot of benefits To this project for them and and, you know, we, we do want to work with them because we would like to do an easement agreement. Rather than then relocate it by order, because it's pretty clear based on the case law that. The easement, as long as it doesn't frustrate the purpose, can be relocated. And once we had this public comment meeting and we knew what all the issues were and what the departments had said, I do have a draft easement that we'll be ready to share with them at some point and have conversations so that we can come to some agreement. But in terms of that upper portion of the easement, other than paving, it isn't something that the developer wants to take on. And signage, we've agreed in their signage on the plan, so there will be a sign on the cul-de-sac which will give direction to those two houses and that's located right on the plan. So we did hear what they had said and we did make some offers to them to the signage and the paving. to benefit them, in addition to the roadway, which is going to benefit them, that they're not going to have any related expenses. With regard to paving of Franklin, I think that the speaker indicated that the residents did have to undertake that. At some point, and certainly it is a private way, and all the residents, including including this development on to the midway point of that road and have that responsibility and and. You know, certainly if there's damage, it's something that we can discuss, but and I'd like to talk further with my client about that, because I don't recall there may have been a specific request for paving the entire street, but I, you know. plan point, we haven't really gotten to that. And I'd like to talk to my client about that. And we're not asking the board to make a decision tonight. And I understand that the board doesn't have sufficient information to do so. So, you know, just just to talk further about what paving and what extent and, and what what that would involve. I mean, typically, the engineering department has required that you you improve or restore your frontage, which is, I think, what we were looking at with from Franklin to the headland.

[SPEAKER_43]: Thank you so much, Attorney. I'm going to bring it back to the board. Any other questions before asking for a motion to continue? to January 15th. Vice Chair Emily Hedeman?

[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah, I would just want to have the city provide us clarity in terms of what we can condition. Like, can we condition that they, that the applicant, you know, repave Franklin? Can we condition, you know, additional signage? Can we condition, you know, X, Y, Z as discussed this evening? Because I just, you know, I want to make sure that we're within our our jurisdiction as a board, and then also, you know, being responsive to public comments and, you know, respecting the applicants' rights in front of this board as well.

[Danielle Evans]: Through the chair, we can have some draft conditions and we can run it by legal counsel. Okay. We don't do a lot of subdivisions, so. It's been a while. Yeah. And a lot of the subdivision control law are just not even applicable to the city. They really are a creature of the verbs. So they're not as common here. I'm sorry. I'm really tired.

[Emily Hedeman]: Very good. But yeah, let's make sure we get it right.

[SPEAKER_43]: Motion to continue the subdivision definitive subdivision plan for bridal path. Definitive subdivision to January 15th at 630.

[Peter Calves]: So moved.

[SPEAKER_43]: I'll second. Vice chair Emily Hedeman. Aye. Peter Kautz.

[Peter Calves]: Aye.

[SPEAKER_43]: Annie Strang. Aye. Adam Behrends.

[Adam Behrens]: Aye.

[SPEAKER_43]: Sabrina Alpino. Aye. Hi. And myself, Jackie McPherson. Thank you so much, Attorney Desmond and to your client and to the public for being with us this evening. We will see you, the board will see you on January 15.

[Kathleen Desmond]: Thank you. Thank you and happy holidays and it's been a pleasure working with you. I didn't realize that you were leaving at the next meeting, but it certainly has been a pleasure.

[SPEAKER_43]: And I really appreciate it. Thank you so much. My term ends and I will not be looking to do it. I just, it's conflicting times, conflicting things. And it's very bittersweet because I love doing the work, but it's just, it's hard.

[Kathleen Desmond]: You'll never look at a sidewalk the same way or a building.

[SPEAKER_43]: Thank you. I'm an actual planner at the state level. So yes, you have no idea. Thank you. Thank you.

[Kathleen Desmond]: Thank you very much. Bye bye.

[SPEAKER_43]: And our fourth item on the list this evening is their approval of acceptance and approval of the 11th 624 meeting minutes. I will need a roll call vote. I'll make a motion. Motion. Okay. Yeah. And so that's a motion and someone second? I'll second that motion. Vice Chair Emily Hederman? Aye. Peter Cowles?

[Peter Calves]: Aye.

[SPEAKER_43]: Annie Strang? Aye. Adam Behrens?

[Adam Behrens]: Aye.

[SPEAKER_43]: Sabrina Alpino? Aye. Ben LaValle? and myself, Jackie McPherson. I'm an I. Our final before adjournment, actually, is zoning updates. Just wanted to quickly say that the city council approved the MACD zoning at their meeting last night. Normally, I would have asked the planning staff to provide a status update on the next amendment coming, especially since this is my last meeting with you guys, but I'm not sure that you would take in the information at this point. So I'm going to ask to adjourn. I'm gonna ask for a motion to adjourn, unless the board wants to hear that update right now.

[Emily Hedeman]: If it means more time with you, yes, but I think we all have important horizontal business to get to.

[Peter Calves]: Yeah, I think so. Side note to recognize Jackie for her work as chair.

[SPEAKER_43]: Thank you. I appreciate you all. And I will I still will be watching. Because I still like, you know, I just like I watch all the other, not all of them, but many of the other commissions and boards. So I will be watching you guys. Continue.

[Adam Behrens]: proud. I don't know what we're gonna do without you. Seriously.

[SPEAKER_43]: Yeah. No, I really appreciate that. But I'm sure you'll do way better without me because... No such thing. Thank you all so much. Again, it really, really is bittersweet because I kept saying, no, no, no, no, maybe I can, maybe I can. I was like, no, stop fooling yourself. You can't. So I want to leave gracefully. And I won't be able to join you guys on January 15th. That technically would have been my last meeting, but I will be abroad. So I won't be with you on January 15th. And then I am not available for the February meeting. So I might as well just end it now. So that's where that came from. And my term ends the end of January, so. Well, thank you all. And I guess I still need a motion to adjourn.

[Alicia Hunt]: Thank you, Jackie. We appreciate your service and that we appreciate you stepping up. I feel like we had to twist your arm to be chair, and we really appreciate that you did.

[SPEAKER_43]: I think you're probably going to have to twist one other member now to be chair. January meeting, you need a new chair, start thinking.

[Danielle Evans]: A chair and a vice chair. Chair and a vice chair.

[SPEAKER_43]: And it's not that I didn't want to, I just knew what it took. And I was fine being a vice chair and just doing my work and supporting the board. Then when I had to leave the board, I was like, wait, that's going to take more hours. And again, I'm always willing to serve, but it's kind of hard to serve Now I see why there's such a conflict, because actually, Medford can use me in a better spot, because being at the state level with so many things, once my term is complete, I can come and talk to you guys about all the great things that the state's giving money for. But I can't do that right now. But anyway, serving two governments is really difficult. Not that I served your government in the full scope that you have, Alicia and Danielle, but it is difficult.

[Peter Calves]: I, yeah, can understand.

[SPEAKER_43]: Don't be a stranger. I definitely, well, I can't, you may just see me pop into a meeting one day as a, as the public with some questions, but I would only, only, only do that. Not to throw you guys off. Only if it was like near my house, I don't own in my fridge, so you don't have to worry about that.

[Emily Hedeman]: So renters have opinions too.

[SPEAKER_43]: Yeah.

[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah. Yeah.

[SPEAKER_43]: Um, okay. Well, Again, thank you. Thank you all. Happy holidays. Happy holidays.

[Peter Calves]: Thank you so much.

[SPEAKER_43]: Motion to adjourn because I don't think we actually did. Vice Chair Emily Hederman or Chair Emily Hederman? Peter Cowes? Aye. Any strength? Aye. Adam Behrens?

[SPEAKER_37]: Aye.

[SPEAKER_43]: Ben LaValle?

[SPEAKER_37]: Aye.

[SPEAKER_43]: And myself, Jackie McPherson, I'm an aye. Thank you, everyone. Have a good evening.

[Peter Calves]: Thank you. Happy holidays.

[SPEAKER_43]: Happy holidays. Happy holidays.

Trish Schiapelli total time: 1.28 minutes total words: 105