[Emily Hedeman]: Good evening, everyone. And welcome to tonight's meeting of the Medford Community Development Board. We're going to get started. Thank you. My name is Emily Hedeman. I'm the chair of the Community Development Board. This is the first time I'm seeing a lot of you in person, but there's some familiar faces and some familiar voices, and I just want to thank all of you for coming this evening. We've had incredible turnout, and I think that shows how passionate and dedicated the community is to making the next best choice for Medford. So thank you in advance for that. I'm gonna call the meeting to order. We're gonna begin with some obligatory procedural matters. This hearing of the Medford Community Development Board is being conducted in a hybrid format, both in the Medford City Hall Council Chambers on the second floor of Medford City Hall, 85 George P. Hassett Drive, Medford, Massachusetts, and via Zoom remote video conferencing. this meeting. Anyone who would like to listen to you or view this meeting while in progress may do so by attending in person or accessing the link that was included on the meeting agenda posted on the city of Medford website. A recording of this meeting will be posted on Medford community media website as soon as possible. A reminder that given the hybrid nature of this meeting tonight, all votes from the board will be made by roll call. Before I get too
[Ari Fishman]: We can hear you.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thanks, Ari. We have over 215 people joining via Zoom, so very, very proud of our city today. Please know that project materials for all projects before the board can be viewed on the city's website, MedfordMA, by clicking the link that is being shared in the chat shortly. After you click on the link, you click on current CD board filings, and for those on Zoom, you can also find the link in the chat.
[SPEAKER_41]: and you can read out the URL and they keep.
[Emily Hedeman]: Okay. Okay. We're going to start with roll call attendance. Vice chair, Peter Calves. Present. Great. Good to have you here, Peter. Ari Goffman-Fishman.
[Ari Fishman]: Present.
[Emily Hedeman]: Okay, Ari. Sabrina Alpino. John Anderson.
[John Anderson]: present.
[Emily Hedeman]: Hey, John. Adam Barons. Ben Le Valley present. Hey, Ben. And myself. Chair Emily had a man is also present. Alicia, can you introduce any staff in the meeting or on the call?
[Alicia Hunt]: Good evening. I am Director Alicia Hunt, the Director of Planning, Development and Sustainability. With me here in the chambers is our graduate student, Christian, I don't want to butcher your last name in the moment. If anybody in the room actually ends up needing help for anything or having a question, you can approach Christian and speak to him. He's up here, so he can help with room logistics. And on the Zoom, we have Jack Padal, I should have practiced, sorry, Podolski. And for those who are on Zoom, you can only message hosts and co-hosts. If you have trouble on the Zoom, I invite you particularly to message Jack. Jack, why don't you raise your hand on the Zoom for a minute, just so people can see you. He'll be in the top line. And he can help with any troubleshooting online. You can chat directly to Jack. Um, and we will have senior planner danielle evans, uh joining us shortly, um for on zoom Great thanks, alicia
[Emily Hedeman]: So before we begin, I just want to run down the agenda for tonight's meeting. We're going to be continuing our public hearing on neighborhood and urban residential zoning districts. I know that's why a lot of you are here and have joined virtually, so thank you for that, as well as opening a new hearing on accessory dwelling units or ADUs. We're going to open these public hearings together. We're going to hear a presentation from Emily and Paula of Innocent Associates. We're going to take board and public comments on both topics at once. We do have sign up sheets in the back where you can indicate what topic, it could be both, you want to comment on. And we're just going to do this to help manage public comment and make sure that we're providing enough space for all of us to provide comment this evening. As you can see, we anticipate a lot of public participation, which is good. We want to emphasize this is good for Medford. I do plan to take a short recess around 8.15, 8.30, depending on how the evening goes. That'll be about 10, 15 minutes. If you need to leave for any point, we're all adults. Please take care of yourselves. But then right around 10 o'clock, we're going to take a step back and reassess, do we have enough time and mental capacity as a group to continue to hear public comment or do we need to continue this to another date? I know that's not ideal, but we have so much feedback to hear. We don't want anyone to be shortchanged or anybody to not have their voice heard. So just giving everybody a heads up, around 10 o'clock, we're gonna take a beat and kind of reassess what our plan should be moving forward. So the two options there could be to vote these topics out of the Community Development Board, or continue to a date certain. So those are kind of the two options. And again, we wanna make sure we're able to listen and digest and respect your feedback, everybody's feedback. So what I'm gonna do first is read the public notice for the ADU agenda item into the record. Let's see. This is the part that you guys probably usually take a water bathroom break during, but thank you for being here in person. So the next item we're gonna hear first is a combination of the accessory dwelling units presentation, as well as a continuation of public hearing for neighborhood residential, urban residential zoning amendment. The ADU is a new public hearing, so I'm gonna read the public hearing notice into the record. The Medford Community Development Board shall conduct a public hearing on June 18th, 2025, after 6.30 p.m. in the Medford City Council Chambers on the second floor of Medford City Hall, 85 George P. Hassett Drive, Medford Mass, and via Zoom remote video conferencing relative to the following proposed amendments to the City of Medford Zoning Ordinance and Zoning Map. Amend section 94-8.2, Accessory Dwelling Units, to comply with MGL to amend and add various definitions. The link to the zoom community A subsequent public hearing on the same matter will be opened and held pending receipt of the Community Development Board recommendation by the Medford City Council on June 24th, 2025 at 7 p.m. in the Medford City Council Chamber on the second floor of Medford City Hall, 85 George P. Hazlett Drive, Medford Mass, and via Zoom. A link to the public hearing will be posted no later than Friday, June 20th, 2025. So I would like to ask staff if they have any introductory comments before I hand it off to Innocent Associates. No. Okay, great. Emily and Paola, would you be able to do the presentation on accessory dwelling units? Thank you.
[Emily Innes]: So with your permission, Madam Chair, we would like to have the accessory dwelling units first, and then take you through the rest of the information. While palace sharing her screen. For the record, my name is Emily Ennis of Innes Associates and I'm here with my colleague Palo Ramos Martinez, who is our chief resilience officer. You want to go to the next slide please. It takes a second or two to for the for the internet elves to run up and back. So we're going to go very quickly through the first part the process timelines public comments I think everybody's seen that before. I will then turn it over to Paula for the accessory dwelling units and the residential districts. The timeline since March we've been working on this for a little bit over a year now for all of the city zoning updates. The timeline since March has been as you see here, the blue are the meetings with the planning and permitting committee. The black are the Community Development Board meetings and the green meetings are those special meetings that we've had as public listening sessions on the different topics. While we will have many more meetings, I am sure over the next few months, the current one that is scheduled is with yourselves next week. The current anticipated topic is the squares. All of this comes out of two main documents, the Medford Massachusetts Comprehensive Plan, which was approved in January 2023, and the Climate Action and Adaptation Plan. Both of those had recommendations for zoning changes in them. The city has actually been working on the zoning ordinance since the recodification process began back in to 2020. And you can recording in progress map some of the things that we have discussed in the past, this idea of these quarters, squares, neighborhoods, as we're talking about today, and other areas. I do want to point people to an interactive map that we have created online. All of the maps that you see today can be created by going online. There is at the site that was mentioned earlier the city's own zoning site. There is a tutorial that has been shown on there, and you can go to the interactive map by clicking either on this link, and this will also be up on the website, probably on Friday or by clicking or by taking a picture of the QR code. Before we get started, I just want to say, or before I turn it over to Paula, I just want to say that actually a lot of the information in this presentation has been presented to the board before. We will go fairly quickly over that. We have a lot of slides. We have a lot of people, and congratulations to the city for having so many people come to this. We are thrilled to see this many people both in person and online. So we'll go quickly through the pieces that you've seen before. We would, of course, at the board's direction or the chair's direction, be happy to return to any of that. We will slow down a little bit on those things that you have not seen before. And again, this will be available for people to see at a later date, but much of this is already online. With that, I'm going to turn it over to Bella.
[Paula Ramos Martinez]: Hello, everyone. I hope you hear me well. I can get more close to the mic. There we go. So what we're going to show first, and just let me say first that I'm also very glad that we have so many people joining. This is really what we wanted from the very beginning. So if it's the first time, welcome. enjoy. Um, and so what we're going to start presenting is those maps that we have seen. First we want to look into. We're going to see two maps. The first one is the map that has been recommended the city council to the city board. Is the one you see here, and we have five different residential districts that we propose in the in Medford. We have neighborhood residential one neighborhood residential to neighborhood residential three urban residential one and urban residential to Um, so we will talk about what does that mean in the later, um, slides. But just so we know this is the first map. This is the map that was referred from the city council. And after I think this is the fifth time we're looking into this topic at the city community develop at the community development board. we have been working in a different map with the Community Development Board input, sorry, and also the public and public feedback. Um so the first topic that we're going to talk is the accessory dwelling units. This is a topic that we've already as Emily mentioned, we've already, um, shown, um, to the community mentioned that there is an accessory dwelling unit guidebook that is done by the city of Boston. It is very complete and has many different examples. It has the definition, what it has to accomplish, what typologies there could be for small lots, medium lots, and bigger lots. And so if anyone is interested in this topic, they have many, many examples. Um so we are talking about accessory dwelling unit because on February, the state passed a law about a protected use accessory dwelling unit. So, um. METFOR already had an ordinance about ADUs, but now it needs to be aligned with that new regulation that the state has published. And so there are some prohibited regulations that the municipality cannot really regulate, that comes from the state law. And those are owner occupancy requirement, and occupancy restriction, minimum parking requirement, minimum parking requirement, use and occupancy restriction, unique caps and density and then the relationship to principal dwelling. Um so all these regulations that you had some in your current regulation needs to, um, not be there. So what we're doing is looking into that. Um and proposing a new Um, what are the municipality decisions that are there is allowing accessory dwelling units in any residential districts right now is for single residential. Um, what they call single residential districts. But we're also could be allowed that local 80 you not the protected use. allow bigger ideas. I'm sorry, allow additional ideas more than one by a special permit and also restrictions or prohibitions on short term rental. So those are mainly the things that local municipality can decide. So for the protected ADUs, we have dimensional standards. Those are not to be larger than 900 square foot or half of the gross floor area of the principal dwelling, whichever is smaller. Um, the dimensionally standards, um, cannot be more restrictive than those that are required for principal dwelling, single family residential or accessory structure. And that is the section where you have all those mentioned requirements for accessory structures in your current zoning section 94 dash 4.3. and then for off street parking, there shall be one additional for ADUs located outside half mile radius of any transit station, and no additional parking for ADUs located within half a mile radius of any transit station. These two can be more permissive, but we cannot require more than what they are having here. Um, so these are the, um, the requirements for protected uses. Um, locally to use. We have the same requirements. The local ladies, um, as we have discussed before, are those 80 years that can be allowed in presidential districts that do not have that we are talking about is a single family, um, unit. So, for example, in the districts that we are talking and we will talk about would be, um you are one and you are two. And so for those any single So the requirements are the same as the protected use. And then there is also a special permit, local ADU. So if anyone wants to add a second ADU, that has to be a special permit. So it has to go through the city board and the requirements are the same as the protected ADU and the local by right ADU. So what does it mean for all of the, um. All of the desk districts. We have enter one. The permitted building types in enter one is single unit dwelling and then the historic conversion. We can. We will also talk about that. What that is later, but mainly is those big historic houses that can be converted into multi unit. or more than at least one. We will see more of these specifics later on. So in the NR1, we have single unit dwelling, historic conversion. Because we have a single unit dwelling, then we do have a protected use ADU. So we have that. That is allowed. And then we could have another one by special permit. In NR2, we have single unit, two unit, and then historic conversion. Here as well, because we do have the single unit, we can allow a protected ADU, and then a second by a special permit. and our three we have single two unit three unit and historic conversion again because we have that single unit. We have protected 80 you and then another one only by a special permit. And then you are one. We have two unit three unit multiplex. This is from 4 to 6 units, townhouse and historic conversion, and we would allow local 80 you only for one, two, and three units. So in this district, if there is any single existing, if there is any two or three units, then you could have another unit as ADU, and that is your local ADU, and a second by special permit only. And in UR1, the the principal buildings that are allowed is three unit multiplex townhouse and historic conversion. And then so any one, two and three, so one that is already existing, two unit that is already existing, and then any existing or new three unit will be allowed a local ADU and the other will be by special permit. I know it's a little bit confusing, but we have the table so you can look at it with a little bit more attention. So this is for the ADUs. I know that if it's the first time that you're hearing about this, you might have many questions. So you can always ask. whatever you need to know, we are here to answer that. So lot requirements, this is a new information. We haven't shown this information before. We have talked about the content, but because we've seen that it's a little bit difficult to understand in a more text way, we have created a lot of visuals. So to see if it's, a little bit easier to understand. Um, so what we want to, um, to show is what requirements are there that we need to apply to every lot, and it help us shape, um, the end result. And so First of all, we have your normal lot facing the main street. And so the first thing that we will look into it is what are the conditions of that lot? So what is the minute the lot area? So, for example, this lot area is 4000 square foot. our requirement for many of this residential district is a minimum lot area of 4,000 square foot. So that requirement we can take because it's 4,000. The next one will be the frontage that is the line between our front, the front of our lot and the street, the main street. So that line is called the frontage and the requirement is that it needs to be bigger than 35. This lot is 40, so then we can take that. Yes, check. We do have this requirement. The next one will be the setbacks. So this is not really what is there, something that you cannot change as your lot, but something that you can introduce unless it's existing. But if it's a new building, then you would have to follow the setback requirements. You have a front yard of 10 side yards of five and rear yard of 10, for example. If you have that, then we can check as well that requirement. And that means that within that area is where you can place your principal building. Then we also have a building coverage. The requirement will be 40%, so we cannot go over that requirement of that 40%. And then we also have, we introduced the permeable surface. We have a minimum permeable surface of 30%. And then we have the requirement of open landscape. And so the 20% of the land has to be green, has to be vegetation only. And finally, the last requirement would be the off-street parking. So there are minimum off-street parking requirements. We would need to adhere to those. There are many different requirements, but let's say single families, too. it's allowed. The residential typologies are 1.5. Let's stay with that. This has to so it checks as well this requirement. So when we look into number of units and the lot size, and this is usually the question that we get is in a 4000. It's allowed six units. How that can be possible. requirements. And then when you follow all the requirements you can have just as a certain number of units. So that's something that we wanted to show. We also want to show the current zoning. Um and what are the lot requirements in your current zoning? You do have these three single family duplex and the next one is multi family and Um, so for single family, you have 7,005,000 duplex. We have minimum of 6,000 square foot large and multifamily. Your minimum is 10,000 square foot. So if we go to one unit dwelling, this is how it would look like. Your lot area is 5,000, frontage 35. You have a lot width. That's something that in the new requirements that is taken out. Your lot width is 50. Setbacks are 15, side 7 1⁄2, rear 15. Building coverage is the same. We are not changing that. It's 40. You do not have permeable surface, and you do not have an open landscape. It's not applicable. for the one unit dwelling. Now also, the definition in your open landscape accepts all the things that it's not vegetation, it accepts sidewalks or terraces. So you do not have any impervious surface limit or pervious surface requirement, and you do not have also green requirement. for the duplex is very similar to the other one. It's just the lot areas are a little bit bigger. 6,000 frontage, 35 lot with 60. The setbacks are the same. Building coverage is a little bit less, 35. Open landscape, again, does not apply. You can have all this as impervious surface. That is okay. Office street parking is 1.5. Um and then for the multifamily lot area is passed from 6,000 to 10,000 frontage 50 lot with 100 and setbacks are 15. All of them building coverage 35 and the open landscape requirement again doesn't So this is your existing requirements in your current zoning. So just putting one next to the other, on the left you see the current ones, and on the right the new requirements for each of them. So the requirements for lot area for NR1, 2, 3, and 4 and you are to are all 4,000. Again, this is for making sure that we add flexibility, making sure that all your non-conforming enter in this are now conforming, and that we have so many other requirements that will tell us how many units can be in 4,000. frontage, 35 and 35 for NR1 and 2. And for NR3, UR1 and UR2 is 40. We do not have the lot width. We have facade build out only for NR3, UR1 and UR2. And this is to make sure that the facade, there is some width. Um. So the front the main facade that is, uh, abutting the front street, um, that has a minimum of. The heights are similar to what it was before, 2.5 for NR1 and 2. And for NR3, your 1 and your 2 is 3. We will have some suggestions and recommendations for your 2. setbacks, and our 1, 2, and 3, and your 1 are front setback 10, side setback 5, rear setback 10. And then for your 2, the front setback is 5, side 5, and rear 10. Building coverage is all of them, except for your 2, all of them are 40. Your 2 is 50%. Purview surface, so this is something we add. Um all of them are 30% except for your two is 25 landscape. Um so only and we, um, adapt new definition so that open scape landscape is only vegetation. And so it's. 20% for all of them, except for your one that is
[Emily Innes]: I just like to add very quickly because I think we get a lot of questions as to where the numbers came from so last year about this time we had a meeting with the planning and permitting committee, obviously open as all of those were to the public, and we showed breakdowns of non conforming parcels throughout the city. And so a lot of the recommendations come from those studies of non conformities. All of those maps are static maps and they are on the town zoning website could have probably buried back in the history but they are all available for people to review and that analysis is what led to those recommendations.
[Emily Hedeman]: And just to confirm, when you did that analysis, it was to align or to remove the nonconformities. So to align what we're proposing and zoning with our current conditions?
[Emily Innes]: As much as possible. So the actual 4,000 square foot lot size, you actually have quite a few lots that are still in the 3,500 up range. So we couldn't address all of the nonconformities, but we did try to reduce as many as possible.
[Emily Hedeman]: you. Great Thank you for that.
[Paula Ramos Martinez]: Um so in this map, what we wanted to show and we are going to show this in the in in in other in the following slides as well with different lot areas, and I'm sorry that in the table because of the subtitles, it's covering half of the map. So I'm sorry, but you will have Um so we wanted to, uh, address what are the sizes the real sizes of your lots in Medford? And so we start with this size between Lot area size between 3500 and 5000. And so what do you get? What we can see is that a lot of the Medford met for South Medford area. Um, I would say 80% 70% of the When we go to the Lawrence State, for example, the big majority are bigger than this 5,000. Usually it's because of the time, what is more historic, what has been densified during the historic times, et cetera. So usually newer neighborhoods have bigger lot sizes. Um so in the proposed zoning because we heard a lot of what can you fit in the 4000 square foot lots? We wanted to make some tests and try with that 40 by 100. Um what can actually fit in there, taking into account all the record all the requirements that we just mentioned. And so what we have done here is mentioning the requirements that are there. And then what building types can be done. So here, for example, we have the first is a single family, a single family in a 4,000 lot with two parking. And we go to the surface. We see that in the round, in the circle that is in the corner, we have the pie chart. 21% of building covered, so we are way below that 40% requirement, so we are good. Permable is 44%, so it's below more than that 30% minimum requirement, so we are good. And then the rest is driveway and parking. What districts allow this typology is NR1, NR2, and NR3? And then we also have the square footage per unit. In this case, the house, the single family house would be 2,550 square foot. So if we continue, what happened? We have a two unit. Does it fit? And so what are the requirements? Again, we have that pie chart again. So we have building coverage. 21 is the same as the other one. we're still good with the permability requirement. Um and then the units we would have won the ground floor. That is 85 850 and then the upper two floors or that one and a half would be 1700. What districts would allow this What happened if we add another unit? So now we have a three units and every of this units is 80 150 square foot. Well, when we add all the parking requirement that we have, and this is the 1.5 off street parking, then we see that the permeable is 29%. So we are below that requirement of 30%. and so in that case, this wouldn't be possible unless we do something. And so if we change that parking using permeable paving, then we would be in 49% of permeable and open landscape 29. So we are also above that requirement of green being 20%. And so in that case, we could have a three unit in a 4,000 square foot lot. that we are within that half a mile of a transit high frequency transit, and so that we only need 0.8 off street different ways that this would work. Four units, it's not possible. So this would be that maximum, unless there are other things, unless, again, the requirements of parking is because of high transit or the units are smaller. Otherwise, it is to start to get very difficult to fit more than three units. examples that you have in Medford of single family buildings in lots that are 4000 square foot or less. These are three of them. You have quite a lot. Medford has the lots in Medford, as we as we saw before, are quite small. So within that 4000 5000, we have quite a lot duplex lots that are in 4000 or less, and then three units that are in 4000 square foot or less. These are Medford areas. So we wanted to show, and this map has been using the filter function that we have on the interactive map, where you can also set the range for the lot sizes of the area. So you can also filter and see it by yourself. If anyone wants to know how we do that, we are here. We can show it. the meeting. Um so this will be 5,006,007,006,007,007,008,000 Um. We also got the question about what happened with the division when we get into 8000. That means two times 4000 so you could subdivide a lot of these lots for 8000 are very difficult shapes or very, very narrow. And so when we also we have another requirement, the frontage And also I want to point that these subdivisions are mainly possible in certain areas, like you can see South Medford. These are very, very few lots that you could do this. building type. So first we saw what do we what can we fit in a 4000? Now we say what type of lot sizes we need. What lot sizes we need to fit other typologies. And so what do we need for two dwelling? But that is side by side for three townhouse, for example, and for a multiplex of four units. What are the sizes that we need with the requirements that we have? And so you're going to see them in here. The lot size that we have for this example would be 4,800. And the two units, each of these units are at 1,200 square foot. The next one for the townhouse would be for three townhouses is 8800. Each of this building, each of these units are 1600 square foot. and then if we go to a four unit, we would have 6600 square foot lots, and these are 920 square foot per unit. Just this can change depending on the parking requirement. Again, if you're in a high transit, that will reduce, and so you could have it less. The building type, so if it's a smaller unit, that would also decrease the square footage. So there are things to still keep in mind. But it was just to have a better idea. These are duplex, for example, in 5,000 square foot in Medford. Some townhouses, you do not have a lot. So there are just a few examples. And they're multiplex. You have a four, these are two four units. The one on the left were somewhere around 7,000, I think, not even. Very good example, by the way. And then this is a six unit multiplex. And this was also around 7,000. Yes.
[Emily Innes]: And I do just want to reiterate for the board that these aren't saying that these houses would absolutely happen this way, but the idea what we heard where people were wanting to understand kind of what was the maximum build on the minimum lot size. So these are just examples of where the dimensional restrictions start to restrict what you can actually put on the lot so that you can only get up to three units on a 4,000 square foot lot. If you actually do the permeable surfaces. If you want to do some of those other building types the side by side rather than the stacked, you actually need larger lots just to be able to do those so that was the information we wanted to make sure that we conveyed.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah, thank you for that. And I do recall the request to have pictures of actual properties in Medford that fit some of these descriptions. I think this is very helpful for me and hopefully for everybody else to contextualize some of the information that you're sharing. So thank you for that.
[Paula Ramos Martinez]: And then we have the part of private ways that we wanted to explain sometimes with the visuals. It's easier to understand. So we have said that for the distribution of the new boundaries for the districts, we wanted to have in mind several criteria, one of them being, for example, near high transit, near service, Um, jobs, uh, production, um. Lot sizes, topography. One of them was private ways versus public ways. So this information we already, um, we didn't presented it, but we delivered this. So I'm going to go also a little bit fast because we want to hear from all of you. Um. So there are certain requirements for streets in order to be, in these cases, in your rules and regulations of the Medford Planning Board governing the subdivision of land. And so you have these two types of class A and class B. Mainly what I want to say here is that at least you need for class A, it has to be a 60-foot right of way, and a class B is 50 right of way. If we look at Medford, you almost don't have any of those roads. And these are the ones that you see in this map are main roads, right? Like you have Mystic, Main. So you have a lot of the corridors and so the connectors, right, from place A to B. These are usually those wider than 15. And so some of that, sorry, I'm going to go back. Some of this we have, the public roads are in blue in this map, and then the orange roads are the private ways. And so you do have some of the private ways.
[Emily Hedeman]: So real quick, just to clarify, the legend on this is incorrect?
[Paula Ramos Martinez]: Yes.
[Emily Hedeman]: Okay, what does the gray mean? Like state roads?
[Paula Ramos Martinez]: Yes.
[Emily Hedeman]: Okay, great.
[Paula Ramos Martinez]: That is correct. I just saw that. So thank you for that. So the public roads are the blue ones. The private roads are the orange. This is wrong. And then we have these estate mass DOT ownership roads. that are the gray ones. So these are the ones that are in that wider than 50. And so we do have some private roads in here, as you can see. And then we have those examples with some pictures. For example, this is Essex Street. We have a lot of information, but I'm just going to go to the images so that we see what are the conditions of these streets. There's another private road, Whitney, with those 50. And then we go into the big majority of the Medford roads, public and private, that are between that 40 and 50, equal 40 and less than 40. And so within the National Association of City Transportation Officials, this is the NACTO, they have certain recommendations, and we have used those to also bring into what should have a public road. What are those neighborhood streets? Um, obviously a lot of this is outside of zoning. We only attend, um, the private property. So this is a lot of this is public, so we don't want to go there a lot, but just want to show, um, what are the conditions of certain of this private roads? So then when we go to the 40 more than 40 less than 50 with that we have an example of what it should be like or what it should look like. What should be the sizes. And then we have the map showing what are those streets that are within 40 and 50. And as we can see here, a lot of the public roads are also 40 and 50, are not in those standards or 50 and 60 are actually here. Again, public roads, sorry, the orange. And so what are those examples between a 40 and a 50? We will see here in Blakely Road, Exeter Street, And then for equal to 40, again, we see a little bit that smaller scale. And we go to Badger Road, Wheeler Road. These are all private. The ones that we show on images are all private roads, private ways. Hickory Avenue, and then one is less than 40. We see already now that a lot of those are private and a lot less are public. And so we have Whitman Road, Dover Street, Chandler Road, Rural Avenue. The bigger majority are in this one. Winthrop, sorry, Winthrop Place, Winthrop, Sorry, court court. Then we have another like usually North Medford because of topography has really. The situation is not the best, let's say, like that. So Landry Road, Bailey Street, Taft Street, the topography is also very amazing. Raymond Street, Granite Road, Hillsborough Road, yeah.
[Emily Innes]: And I'll just jump in to say that the reason for showing this, Paula spoke to it earlier, but just to confirm, we heard a lot of questions about why we were recommending certain districts for some areas and not for others, question from people of why there was density higher in one place and not others. This idea of topography and public versus private was something that we'd talked about in the past, but hadn't shown people. So with that, I think we're onto our last section.
[Alicia Hunt]: Can I interrupt for one thing? Could you send me the slides so I can share them through the Google Drive for people on their own computers to see a little more easily? And I just want to share that member Adam Behrens has joined. He apologizes for being late, but he's now on Zoom for the record.
[Emily Innes]: And thank you, Director Hunt. Actually, this is one of the largest slide decks we've ever done. So we need to split it into three sets so that people will be able to download it on slower internet speeds. We will do that, and we will get it to you as soon as possible.
[SPEAKER_43]: Thank you.
[Richard Orlando]: A lot of what you're talking about These people have heard about a lot of could you could you could you switch it on? I would like to make a point that we. I would like to make a point.
[SPEAKER_55]: We've got 60 or 70 people here and 250 people online. And I don't think we want to go through the thousand combinations on the zoning code that we already read and get some people up here to speak.
[Emily Hedeman]: I appreciate that feedback. And it sounds like you're not alone. But just to clarify, we're not planning to go any further into the zoning than what we've done now. So if you could just please take your seat, we're going to be moving into board discussion, which may be brief, and then we're going to move into public comment. Thank you, sir. Please take your seat. Please take your seat. Thank you.
[Emily Innes]: Madam Chair, to that point, these recommendations are ones that you've seen before so we can end our presentation now. And when the board is ready to come back to, to this point then we can bring them up again but that's the end of the information that has not been either haven't been presented, or had not been presented had not been presented but had been given to you. So, you've seen this one before.
[Emily Hedeman]: How long do you think this will take?
[Emily Innes]: Another 10 minutes. We are also eager to hear what people have to say.
[Emily Hedeman]: All right, we're gonna keep going with that. Yeah. Okay, yeah, we're going to keep going with this. I think this will help offer some clarity to the board as well as the public in terms of changes that we're talking about. If your comments want to address specific changes, this is a really good time to listen or read what's on screen.
[Paula Ramos Martinez]: So the proposed changes from what was presented to the city council, what was referred from the city council, we have some updates in the table of use regulations. We have updates to the table of dimensional requirements. We are going to go to the, these were already proposed changes from previous community development boards that you've already seen. So I'm also going to go faster Some another for the table dimensional requirements, adding the green score section. We have some definitions to be defined or adjust about the defining historic conversion. And so in this case, we just added the amount of time. And then we have some historic conversion user standards. And these are the new proposed changes. So what we've seen in the previous community development board, we have come to other changes, and these are the ones that you see in blue. We have in the table of dimensional requirements, some more for the building coverage, and then previous surface and open landscape, adding some small extra definition in the historic conversion. and changing some of the use of standards for the historic conversion. And then the urban residential, too, to have the incentive zoning from three to as incentive zoning one more story.
[Emily Innes]: And again, these were in the slide deck for May 21. So we assume that people have been able to see them. I thank everybody for their patience, we know that whenever we do these meetings, there are some people who are joining for the first time, we wanted to make sure that everybody had the same set of information, but thank you all to your patience. We are delighted to listen to comments from the board and to the from the community.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah, so now I'm going to open it up to the board. This is questions from the board. We're not going to really be deliberating because I think we should deliberate after hearing public comments. So John, yeah, if you have any questions. Yes.
[John Anderson]: The term transit station is a bus stop, a transit station.
[Emily Innes]: can you confirm? It is our understanding that a bus stop is not a transit station. It is the point at which the bus embarks from a fixed point and its destination, but it is not the stops in between. That is our current understanding.
[John Anderson]: Thank you. What is meant by facade build out?
[Paula Ramos Martinez]: Um, yeah, so the facade build out is the When you see the frontage line, the frontage is the line that connects the lot with the main street, that intersection, that is the frontage line. And so the build-out facade is the main facade of your building that is looking towards the street. There is at least 60% of that frontage to have that building, that build-up. Is that a little clear? I can also take a diagram that we have that I can look for you and put it up, if that helps.
[John Anderson]: So you're saying it's a percentage of the frontage? Yeah. Okay, thank you. And I'm sure this is kind of complicated, but very briefly, could you say what's involved in the green requirements?
[Paula Ramos Martinez]: The green score, yeah, so we have a menu that they can choose from. It's only the green requirements for the green score. It's only for the UR2 and our only projects that are going through the site plan review, so bigger impact projects. And so you have a menu of choices that you can get from green roofs, green facades, rain gardens that will give you having trees, maintaining existing trees, and gives you some points towards the minimum of those 25 that you need to get.
[Emily Innes]: I'm sorry, the city has already passed the green score. It came to the Community Development Board late last year, early this year, and the City Council has passed that one already.
[John Anderson]: Last question, I noticed on a number of the zones there, you talked about going from two and a half to three stories. Excuse me, you talked about the number of stories and they were still at two and a half. Are there zones that still have changed from two and a half to three stories height? I'm sorry, maybe I wasn't clear there.
[Paula Ramos Martinez]: So in your current zoning, your single family is 2 1⁄2 maximum, and your duplex is 2 1⁄2. And then multifamily, depending on the intensity that is A or B category, you have three or six. So what we are proposing now, also because Medford zoning is the dimensional requirements are by use and not by district, so that is a little bit different. And so right now we are proposing by district. So your inner one and or two that goes 2.5. So you're a single family duplex. And then when we go to enter three, you are one. It's three. And also you are two is three. We're just in one of the recommendations is that you are to it has also the incentive zoning. So if they go through incentive zoning and give something back to the community from that many of choices, they could increase from three to four. So those are the changes that we've made.
[John Anderson]: Thank you.
[Emily Hedeman]: questions. Ben. Do you have any questions?
[Ben Lavallee]: Yeah I don't want to jump in front of people that might be on the zoom. I have one question. Um and the motivation for the question is that the majority of the proposed and our one zoning seems to be where there's a lot of private ways. And so my question is, has any public input been A lot of the private ways in the city are not in great shape. I actually, I don't know, I don't live on one, but I would imagine that some residents would welcome the city's participation. Some may not, but I'm wondering if that, if we're going to consider such broad zoning changes, whether that has been part of the calculus or not.
[Alicia Hunt]: So converting private ways to public ways is a complicated process. And so there has been conversations among people who live on them when issues have come up. But each road that wants to go from being a private way to a public way has to have a deed search to understand what the ownership of the actual road parcels are. and then there has to be an understanding and delineation of where the public versus private would be, which involves surveys. And then the roads need to be brought up to city standards or they need to have a funding source designated a way, a plan for bringing them up to public standards. We have a lot of information actually on the city's website about this. This has come up in areas in particular where there's already permit parking. Um and people on private ways cannot have city permit parking because we can't enforce that But they do have they can sign them themselves and they can actually have vehicles towed themselves off of private ways And so that information and the details the legal requirements there are on the city's website on the parking page Which I can share to the people on zoom for people in the room. It's a little bit harder for me to provide that link Um, but that's sort of the process. I will tell you that as new roads are being built, um, this board actually is the one who approved subdivisions. And we require that they get built to public way standards, whether or not they're going to be turned over as a public way. Um, and there are two examples of that recently. Um, Mary Kenny way by the high school, sometimes fondly known as the gravel pit that was designed to public way standards and will become a public way. The newer one that was approved can't become a public way because it only connects to a private way and public ways have to connect to public ways. And so since it only goes to a private way, that new cul-de-sac will be a private way, but will be built to city standards because this board would not approve a new road that was not built to city standards. I don't know if that fully answers your question. It's a lot of information.
[Ben Lavallee]: It does. I just would put out there that if we're looking at such comprehensive changes to our city, it might be a public dialogue that's worth having.
[Alicia Hunt]: And if I'll add, that's one of the reasons why there are a number of neighborhoods that are very heavy private ways. And those neighborhoods are being recommended to stay NR1 so that their only increased density would be an ADU. And the only optional one would be a special permit ADU, which would be worthy of thinking about. So there are some neighborhoods where people have questioned why are they recommended to stay NR1 or only single family. And it's because they're predominantly private way neighborhoods.
[Emily Hedeman]: John or Ben, any additional thoughts? I do see that Vice Chair Peter Calves has his hand raised. Peter?
[Peter Calves]: Yes, thank you. The question, and I know some people know that we've spent a lot of time on the lot build outs, but it was very prominent in the city's advertising for this meeting, so I just wanted to get it down pretty pretty clearly immediately. Looking at your list of the potential number of units, say, I believe this was for NR3, it looks like the units were three units plus one ADU plus a special permit ADU. implies to me that a building could only build up to four units before it would come before this board and need approval that would require a butter notification and public input and stuff like that, whereas I feel like I was seeing information before this meeting that you could get up to six units in that kind of building. And I just want to make sure before we move forward where Dissonance comes from if I just read something wrong.
[Emily Hedeman]: And please feel free to bring up the tables, the visuals from before.
[Emily Innes]: Do you want to bring it up? It may have been a misunderstanding. We've heard a couple of other public comments to the process of a misunderstanding of what can go on which lot, which is one of the reasons we've done the table this way. So you are correct in reading it now. So in the NR3, you can have a table the single unit, the two unit, the three unit, or the historic conversion, you are allowed a protected ADU because there is a single unit, and that would be an as of right ADU per state law. So say you had a three unit dwelling, as was just brought up now, you could add a protected ADU, which is the one under the state law as of right. So now that gives you the three unit, plus the ADU which is size restricted so it doesn't become a four unit under zoning it's a three you plus the ADU. And then if you wanted to add one more, it would be a special permit, so that brings it that would with, and that would bring it before the board, as was correctly said so three three unit dwelling, plus an ADU, a second ADU brings it to a special permit which brings it to the community development board. And so you can see on here the protected at us in our one, two and three are all as of right those are the state required at us. You are one and you are to do not allow single family as a right or by special permit. So that means they're not considered single family districts under the law so to keep the single unit to unit and three units consistent with the neighborhood residential There is a local at you as a right for those that means that the multiplex the town and the townhouse building types are not allowed to have a local at you they are also not allowed to have a special permit at you. So in all of these districts, you can have up to two units as one unit as a right one unit by one at you as a right one at you by special permit. but only if you are a one, two, or three unit dwelling.
[Peter Calves]: Thank you for that clarification, because like I said, as you said previously, this has been a long process. There's a lot of numbers flying around, and some of them have actually changed. So I just wanted to get that clarification, because I know for a lot of the public discourse around this has been about how how many things can spring up by right without public input. And I wanted to make sure that we have that number set. So thank you very much. You're welcome.
[Emily Hedeman]: Adam or Ari, do you have any questions before we move into the public comment? Oh, I see your hand raised.
[Adam Behrens]: I did, yes. Great. I read through the public comments. I think one of the things that's a little bit hard with zoning in particular is to just understand the timescale at which a lot of these changes will happen, in which a community then evolves from where it is today into the future state that's envisioned by zoning. And so I was just curious from Innis and Associates, it sounds like you guys have done a lot of this work for other communities. Just whether there was information or a case study on cities that might be similar to Medford, and what kind of timeline and scale in terms of build out. And so in a neighborhood, You know, with a lot of concerns, I think, from the West Medford neighborhood about going from single family to urban residential, just like helping better understand how fast does that usually happen? How, you know, what percentage of the lots tend to fill out to the maximum capacity that's allowed? So is this like a five-year time frame? Is this a 10-year time frame? Is this a 20-year time frame? Would just be helpful, I think, for me and maybe some people in the community to just intuitively understand this process.
[Emily Innes]: Madam Chair? Yes, please. Thank you for that question. I can understand how my being able to give you a very specific answer would be helpful to a lot of people. Unfortunately, development is There's a lot of factors that go into development beyond the zoning. So the neighborhood within a city, the city itself, the economic climate that the development is happening in, so in a high interest rate environment, in an environment where There are fewer subsidies for fewer people wanting to invest, makes it more difficult. So I don't know that there is a comparable study that says this exact type of neighborhood would fill out. It also very much depends on whether or not a neighborhood already has a lot of buildings in it. And it's also dependent on who owns that property, right? Zoning offers a choice. It doesn't say you property owner own this it's it's it's single family now you can now go up to three units you must go up to three units. It is always an option for the property owner and I realized that in some neighborhoods, people know their neighbors well and they know that there hasn't been a lot of change and others are have been changes. both in the city and others. I was talking with the community this morning that we have another another city in Massachusetts that we helped with some zoning that would have allowed multifamily. They received absolutely no applications. Other communities have allowed made zoning changes and they get something a little bit more immediate. But there's also the issue of how much housing can be absorbed in one area over a period of years. So I would love to say that there's an easy answer. I hope just by giving you kind of a picture into the different things that people understand that's not an easy answer. When we think of zoning, we think of it as something that will happen over 10, 20, 30 years. But some of that could happen immediately, and some of it could happen fairly down the line. So it is not an easy answer to give, and I do understand how frustrating that is.
[Adam Behrens]: Thank you.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thanks, Adam. Mari, did you have any questions?
[Ari Fishman]: No, thank you, though. Great.
[Emily Hedeman]: So the next item on our agenda, which I understand everybody is eagerly anticipating, as am I, is the public comment. We do have a sign-up sheet at the back of the room. If you know you want to comment, we already have two pages up here. But, you know, please add your name to the back or to the sheet in the back. If you have joined us via Zoom, please feel free to raise your hand. I think we're going to kind of like alternate, maybe do like a couple in person. one or two on Zoom, depending on how many people we have. Looks like we have, I don't have the latest sign-up sheet, but we have 30 up here. We have a dozen hands. So let me see. I'm just going to do some quick math.
[SPEAKER_41]: Everybody should see it almost.
[Emily Hedeman]: Okay. So I'm gonna say we're gonna give each person two minutes, and that's kind of like a plus or minus. If you've joined our Zoom meetings before, we want you to finish your thought, finish your question, but please be considerate. We do have a lot of people here tonight, and our goal is to try to get as much public comment as possible. Again, if we can't get through all the public comment tonight, we do have an option to continue to a date certain. So just wanna prepare everyone that that is a potential outcome. And as a reminder, this is the fourth meeting for the continued public hearing that was opened on April 2nd regarding the proposed zoning amendment for the creation of neighborhood and urban residential zoning districts. So we've heard a lot, but we want to keep hearing from you. I do need to state for the record that Adam Behrens has watched recordings of missed meetings and he has signed the Mullen Affidavit. So he is now eligible to vote if we do move this forward. So I'm now going to open the public comment period. This is a combination for the accessory dwelling units, as well as the neighborhood and urban residential zoning districts. Those who wish to provide comments can either sign up on the form in the back. We'll also have a period where you can just walk up to the front, but we're going to try to honor the people that have signed up first, as well as through Zoom. If you're on Zoom, use the raise hand feature. You can also send an email to OCD at MedfordMA.gov. Before providing your comments, please state your name and if you're comfortable, your address for the record. A reminder to all meeting participants on Zoom to please refrain from using the chat function. as it's not part of the public record. If you do have audio or technical difficulties on Zoom, please message Jack Podolsky, one of our fearless interns, who will do their best to support you in that. And a quick note because I feel like a couple of past meetings. We've had a pretty solid back and forth during the public comments, which I truly enjoy, but we want to try to get through as many people as possible. The consultants in the city staff might not be responding to every question that is asked. I may highlight some questions that I'd like them to ask board members present. in the chambers as well as on zoom may highlight a question. I know I have to say all this. I appreciate everyone's patience. But if one of your questions is not answered, you will be able to check in with city staff and we'll get to it.
[Unidentified]: Let's see.
[Emily Hedeman]: I know we said a break around 8 15. Um, it doesn't feel like the right time. Yeah, let's just get into it, right? Okay, so, uh, the first three public commenters that I have in person, please feel free to line up are Nick Oleg. Mike Corbett and Laura Sela Marriott. And I apologize for any mispronunciation. I was going to do like a group because we have more. Hi, Nick.
[SPEAKER_07]: Hi, checking the mic.
[Emily Hedeman]: Alicia is going to manage the timer and she'll raise hands. I'll have her raise her hand when it's about like 30 seconds. Again, you'll be able to finish your thought, but please respect the time.
[SPEAKER_07]: Okay, thanks. I live at 62 Tainer Street. I just want to state that I'm very strongly in favor of the proposed rezoning. I believe that the huge amount of work that the CDB, the zoning consultants and city council have done has resulted in a plan that largely gets it right. It sets Medford up well for future growth while ensuring that the newly allowed densification is spread out across the city and not simply concentrated in a few areas. Change can be difficult, but resistance to change has its own costs. Metro Boston and Massachusetts are currently in the midst of a housing crisis. Exclusionary zoning has played a major part in this, and we must move beyond this outdated and ineffective practice if we are truly to meet the moment and address this crisis. We don't just have this power, we have this responsibility. change also comes with positives. More allowable density and more mixed use zoning mean more local businesses, more walkability, a broader tax base, more children in neighborhood schools, more friends and neighbors at block parties. I live in an area that would be up zoned to NR3 under the current plan, and which is immediately next to the Salem Street Corridor. And I'm excited to see what the future holds for my neighborhood as it welcomes new owners, new renters, new businesses over the next few years and the coming decades. These plans have been developed with great care and a considerable amount of public consultation. It may not be perfect, no plan is, but it is a good one. And this is not the time to slow down or stop such an important and carefully considered policy measure. After years of zoning recodifications, comprehensive climate, housing and production, housing and, excuse me, comprehensive planning, climate plan and housing plan development, consultations and discussions. We are ready as a city to take this step forward and we must not falter. Thank you very much.
[SPEAKER_43]: Hi, Mike.
[SPEAKER_04]: Hi. Hi, everybody. I'm Mike Corbett. I live at 26 Jackson Road. So first of all, I just want to issue a state of gratefulness and thank you to the Community Development Board. I know this is hard work. I know it requires connecting with a lot of people in the city, and I just want to appreciate also the great work that NS has done. There's a lot of information and a lot of slide decks. I unfortunately only started digging into this less than a week ago. So I wanted to start just introduce myself real quickly because I think it's two relevant things. Number one, I'm an engineer, I've been working in engineering and construction for over 20 years. And number two, I've been working in sustainable technologies for the last 15 years. And I bring this up, number one, because I have a relevant background to this. I think, for example, the graphics that Ennis showed today on the frontage and the lot sizes, that is now in a form that a lot of the public can understand, whereas somebody like myself can read through it and kind of get that. And so I think we need more of that for the community to understand what these things mean. The second point is, I've issued some notes to the City Council and the Community Development Board on the record that I think were received as if I'm a not-in-my-backyard conservative person. I'm actually quite progressive. I believe in an increase in housing. I believe we need this, but I believe we need to do this thoughtfully and connecting with the community to make sure that people understand what they're signing up for. So I just found out about this a week ago, as I said, I was lucky enough to have given myself a Father's Day present of taking Friday and Monday off, which I spent as well as Saturday and Sunday digging into every piece of information on the website, asking for more additional information that I could not find on the website. And even with my relative background, and two days to dig through this, I still need more time. And I think the rest of the community feels this way as well. The last thing that I'm going to add, the reason why I'm worried is developers coming in and taking advantage of the city. I've been on the other side of this. It's a three-step process. Step one is finding out, okay, what's the zoning? What can I do? Step two is looking at the history of the Zoning Board of Appeals and how quickly do they give out appeals. City of Medford's Zoning Board of Appeals has approved 24 of the last 24 variance requirements. And step three... is then looking at how lenient the building department is. And so unless Medford is looking at this holistically, determining how to staff the Zoning Board of Appeals, how to staff the building department to deal with the influx of most likely variance requests and building approvals, we're not going to be ready for this. Thank you.
[SPEAKER_43]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_44]: Hi, Laura. Hi. Good evening, Madam Chair and members of the Medford Community Development Board. My name is Laura Chalamet and I live at 1 Arden Road in Medford. I'm here to speak in favor of the proposed neighborhood and urban residential zoning changes before the board. The proposed changes ensure that Medford is a welcoming and vibrant city with improved access for all. It puts the right kind of density in the right locations, those being main streets, transit hubs, and city squares. The mixed-use provisions will allow Medford to support local businesses and provide much-needed housing, which together create vibrant neighborhoods. These changes will better position Medford to meet goals set forth in the housing production plan by reducing barriers to multifamily and mixed use housing development. It will also allow for a diversity of housing types, including the missing middle and affordable rental and affordable homeownership options. Above all, the proposed zoning change will allow us to maintain the safety and the character of Medford while providing for economic and population growth. Medford will continue to grow. This plan ensures it will continue to thrive. Thank you.
[Emily Hedeman]: We're now going to take three users from Zoom, but for in-person, the next three that we have are Laura Punnett, Trish Schiapelli, and Peter MacDonald. You can stay in your seats or you can line up. It's up to you. You're going to have at least six minutes before you have to speak. Just try to keep things moving. And request for the Zoom participants, if you are able to update your name to a name rather than iPhone or a number or something else, that just helps us kind of keep track of who's spoken and make sure that you know you're being called on.
[SPEAKER_30]: you. Um Alicia, would you mind? I'm meeting people.
[Emily Hedeman]: I was just gonna do it right in order. So the first zoom commenter that we have is, uh, 17816. Please state your name and address if you're comfortable for the record.
[Jim Doherty]: Can you hear me?
[Emily Hedeman]: All right, we're unable to hear 17816. We're going to mute them and we'll come back. The next zoom commenter we have is Alyssa Dedick.
[Christopher Dedic]: Yeah, this is Chris and Alyssa Dedick from 131 Yale Street. Can you guys hear me?
[Emily Hedeman]: Yes, thank you.
[Christopher Dedic]: Okay, thank you. I'm here with my wife as well. We're both in, I just wanna say thank you for all your work and we're both in strong support of all of the proposed plans. And we just had a quick question about the building allotment and the building coverage that you guys talked about with the new images earlier. I guess just for reference, the 60% is, is basically like FAR and not like ground level coverage, I guess is the question. So an example would be if you had like a 10,000 square foot lot with the 60% coverage, would that be like 6,000 square foot on the lot? Or like if it's a three stories, it would be 2,000, 2,000, 2,000. Thank you.
[Emily Hedeman]: Chris, do you have any additional questions or comments? Was that a yes?
[Christopher Dedic]: No, no, that no.
[Emily Hedeman]: Okay, okay, great. I do think that's a good question. Just for clarification.
[Emily Innes]: Through you, Madam Chair, it is not FAR. So FAR is floor area ratio, and it refers to the ratio between the lot area and the square footage, the gross square footage of the building. This is just referring to the lot area. So the coverage is 60% of the ground plane or the lot area.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you. The next zoom commenter we have Claire Mcgorian. Hello. Can you hear me? Yes, we can. Thank you, Claire.
[SPEAKER_18]: Oh, terrific. Um, hi. Um, I live at, uh, 82 and 84 Stanley Avenue with my partner, Donna McCormick. We have lived here for 25 years. It's our first and only home that we've lived in. It's a two family and until just a few years ago when COVID hit, we did have tenants, all of whom are great, I have to say. So that's good news. It's an amazing neighborhood, the whole neighborhood, but Stanley Ave in particular and our end of it, which is close to College Ave, we have had the same neighbors, at least the immediate ones, and even other ones that we know down the street for almost that entire time. It's zoned, as far as I know, for single family and two family only. I think the lots are, you know, they're all on the small side. I think ours is under 4,000. I suspect the other ones are too, but I didn't look at my deed. And so I'm a little confused about the proposal. I have to say, I don't think the notification around this was very good because I get every call from the mayor's office and from all the stuff in Medford, and I just heard about this a few days ago, but I'm glad to have the opportunity to speak. But I do fear, you know, what this means. So I guess I would one likes, you know, the fear about quality of life, which we have really enjoyed and possibly safety. I don't say that it automatically means anything bad, but this has been such a safe neighborhood for us. I hate to say we've left our keys in the door for longer than I should tell you and never had a problem. So, and the other fear is about the value of our home. I just don't know how these kinds of changes could affect it possibly adversely. So what I want to know on a street like ours is, what is the greatest, I'm sorry, yeah. So if someone can answer this question for me, what is the greatest change that could happen on this street where it's single family, public street, single family and two family, small lots, again, I think they're under 4,000. Am I understanding correctly that this street, they could convert those to three story buildings or is that incorrect?
[Emily Hedeman]: Paola and Emily, did you get the street name that Claire mentioned? Okay. Are you able to answer what the updated zoning would be?
[Emily Innes]: I turned the mic on, yes. So she is in the UR1 district. Or in the proposed UR1 district, I should say. So that'd be a pretty big change. It is. It is bigger from she's general residential at the moment. That's correct. We're just confirming what she has at the moment. Okay. For anybody who wants to follow along, we are using the interactive map. She's general residential at the moment. And if you click on her, did we get her property number? Okay. We can't give you the exact.
[SPEAKER_18]: It's 82 to 84 Stanley Ave. You need that.
[Emily Innes]: Thank you, Claire.
[SPEAKER_43]: Yeah. All right.
[Unidentified]: So the current record actually need to turn it so I can see it.
[Emily Innes]: The current so her current lot size is 3250. The minimum, the new minimum lot size would be 4000 so she would actually still be non conforming, because her lot size is smaller. Building height is currently to the allowable zoning so her, her current. current zoning is 6000 square foot lot size, it would be under the new one 4000 so she's currently non conforming for both building height is currently to existing her zoning is 2.5, it would be allowed as a three. There's changes to building coverage between what she has and what would be allowed but essentially she's not conforming now.
[SPEAKER_18]: So I don't want to interrupt and take time, but I'm so sorry, Claire.
[Emily Hedeman]: We have a two minute limit. But I did want to mention to anybody that has specific questions about their own property, Alicia, Danielle, Emily from Innes Associates, as well as Christian will be at Circle the Square this Saturday. So that might be a good time to kind of dig into individual kind of property questions. and maybe drive through the interactive zoning map as well.
[Emily Innes]: Yes, we will have that with us, just to answer that. So anybody with individual questions, we'd be happy to go through that with them on Saturday.
[Emily Hedeman]: OK, and we're going to go back to Jim, our first Zoom commenter. Jim, are you able to chat with us?
[Jim Doherty]: OK, can you hear me this time?
[Emily Hedeman]: Yes, we can hear you.
[Jim Doherty]: Great. Thank you. I appreciate it.
[Emily Hedeman]: I'm just a little confused on a name and name and address for the record if you don't mind.
[Jim Doherty]: Jim Doherty, Arlington Street. I'm a little confused. So we've had two meetings regarding the West Medford zoning. They were both postponed because there wasn't a quorum. And the last meeting on the 4th, we were going to discuss it tonight, but it seems like that's kind of fallen by the wayside and we're now having a more globalistic conversation of everything. I like one of the previous speakers who took a lot of time to do the research. I raised a concern because to the contrary, I agree with a lot of the previous speakers. We do need density and we need to do updates. But the reasoning behind the area between Boston Ave and Mystic River Road First, we were told it wasn't in the quarter mile. There wasn't enough transportation. The train only came twice on Saturday. I provided a great deal of information about we have probably more than many parts of Medford, more transportation there. I then, at the next meeting, was advised that the staff elected not to make any changes on it. And the decision was based because it's historically quote unquote, a black neighborhood. I raised a major objection with that the Supreme I've done research on that as well as Supreme Court has ruled against that kind of zoning criteria going back to the early 1900s. I then I then followed up with another email explaining the difference in the housing stock in the neighborhood. And so I've spent a lot of time on this as well, but it seems we get no feedback and I'm at a loss. Why, where is the information going? And why are we not getting any feedback? I've never had the courtesy of response to either one of those emails. And now I feel like we're being thrown in there. And Wes Medford is not getting a due conversation, whether many parts of it and I agree with some of the speakers, you're making a huge jump from Jim, I'm going to ask you to wrap up your comment, if you don't mind. No problem, I will in one second, within 10 seconds, is you're doing a lot of single-family homes going all the way to UR1. We were always a GR district, which allowed for a three-family, and we're basically stagnant, and we're being disproportionately affected in comparison to other areas of the city, and I've pointed that out in my email. Thank you for your time, but I think we need to get a little attention, both pro and con of what's taking place over in that area.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you, Jim. I appreciate your comments. We're now going to move to the in-person commenters. So that was Laura Punnett, Trish Ciapelli, and Peter MacDonald. Hi, Trish. It's nice to see you in person. I'm Laura. Oh, then Laura Panet. I'm sorry, Laura. It's nice to see you in person. Sorry, it's been a long day. As I can imagine, it has been for a lot of you.
[8D6g1gdpE1E_SPEAKER_12]: And it's going to be longer before you're getting to go home. We're here for it. My name is Laura Panet. I live at 40 Tesla Avenue, and I've been a homeowner in Medford Hillside since 1987. I'm here speaking also on behalf of my husband, Rafael Moreirazo. and I'm just speaking about the district, the zoning. I'm here to express our strong support for the proposal for residential rezoning. I'm in favor of increasing housing potential in my own neighborhood as well as throughout the city. I and other Medford residents who I know want a more walkable city, more diversity, and more neighbors. It's been my privilege to be a longtime homeowner, and I've really appreciated watching the city evolve over the years, but I can see that this opportunity is being closed to a whole generation of people, because we aren't building enough housing. This shortage, and other speakers have mentioned it, the housing shortage has real impact on people's lives. Not only that it drives up the cost of housing, but also it means that people's quality of life is affected. People have to live farther and farther outside of Boston in order to find something affordable. And so people have to commute long distances, which affects their time for families and hobbies and home maintenance and getting enough sleep. This is actually my professional expertise. And I could go on on this topic for quite a while. But the point is we have room for more people right here in Medford, which could reduce some of that stress. 30 seconds. I really believe that giving property owners the option to redevelop their property to add more housing is a win-win-win. It increases the supply of homes, it gives the property owner more flexibility, and it grows the tax base with new growth so that we don't have to do another override in the future. I call on the board to recommend a pro-housing vision for Medford by reducing single family or NR1As, especially in northwest Medford to spread the density around. And I also would really appreciate it, I know that you are trying to get input from as many people as possible, but it, really feels to me like it's time for the board to move forward and allow the city council to do their jobs rather than demanding that people show up over and over again to discuss this topic. Thank you so much for your time.
[SPEAKER_43]: Thank you, Laura.
[Trish Schiapelli]: Good evening, Trisha Kelly, 53 Garfield Avenue. So in my opinion, I agree that we do need more housing and we need a facelift in Medford and we do need to get up to date. I do not think, however, that we have done enough thought process and strategic thinking on this. My concern is that there's never been any conversation around what the infrastructure can handle with regard to electric. sewer, water, all the lead pipes that we have. So I feel to add more density without really fixing some of the things that we have first is going to cause brownouts. sewage backups during horrible, horrible storms and other issues. So I think that we need to fix what we have and then be thoughtful and in a process and then bring people in. What can the police handle? We've never had a conversation around that. What can fire handle? And why would you ever say that Medford, the gone are the days of the single family house, like some of the people on city council. That is what Medford was built on. And I feel like if the state can push back on the federal government for things they don't want to do, I believe that our city should be able to push back on the state with what the majority of homeowners, property owners, taxpayers and voters would like in the environment that they want to live. Thank you.
[SPEAKER_43]: Thank you, Chris. Hi, Peter.
[SPEAKER_10]: Hi, my name is Peter McDowell. I live at 56 Otter Street, and I was blessed to work for the Medford Fire Department for 29 years.
[Kaitlin Robinson]: Thank you for your service.
[SPEAKER_10]: I believe that I've been on every street in the city doing duties between emergency calls and routine check and hydrants and whatnot. My family's been in Medford for over 150 years, living in single family houses. Luckily, we were blessed to have them. One of my great-great-grandparents, George Davenport, who the Davenport School was named after, was involved with George Wright and Middlesex Fells, preserving three square miles of Method out of eight square miles. We're never gonna get more room. If people wanna tear down all the woods, we can have another 30,000 people in the Middlesex Fells, but we decided a long time ago we needed some green space in the 1890s and the 1880s. According to some of these, the state has passed the ADU. So because of that, thousands of single family houses in Method are allowed to build an extra unit, which is increasing housing. But on the call from City Hall that I got on my landline saying that 4,000 square foot lot could end up having three plus one units, or a family's lot is over 8,000 feet, that if it met all the requirements that there could be split and have three and three and another unit, that you're potentially putting eight units where there was a single family, and how is that fair to the other neighbors with single families that We can convert all these single families that are over 8,000 to eight units, but where's the fairness to the people who were here before? We're gonna have the state mandate increasing thousands of units. We have certain options that we've had thousands of units added in the past 20 years between River's Edge, Locust Street, and we have room for a lot more between Mystic Ave, the Parkway, this space where 15-story buildings are not imposed upon three-story neighborhoods. Thank you.
[Emily Hedeman]: So we're gonna move back to three Zoom commenters, and then three in-person. The three in-person people that are on deck or in the hole, not really a sports person, are Alexander Pancic, Mary Louise O'Brien, and Paige Baldini. Feel free to stay in your seats, but just heads up that it's coming your way. The next commenter we have on Zoom is Jeremy Martin. Please state your name and address for the record.
[Jeremy Martin]: Good evening, everyone. Jeremy Martin. I live on Burgett Avenue in the Hillside neighborhood, probably one of the neighborhoods that will see some of the most drastic change from a predominant single family neighborhood to the potential of four and six units. I'm very much in favor of this proposal, and I want to commend the city, the staff, the consultants for our process. I disagree with some of the notions that this process hasn't been thoughtful, that people haven't been heard. I've personally been to six meetings between the city council and the CDB, and I've both seen comments made and seen changes come out of them, and I appreciate that very much. It's not a perfect process, and I've had my own frustrations, but I think that any sort of planning process of this ambition and this scale is not going to be perfect. We should not let that's really good. Frankly, the change that people are concerned about too much Many of those things are already here. The development is here. The change is coming. We need to take the opportunity to take control of that, to put some boundaries around it. And this is the opportunity to do that. The status quo is not working for our community. Just a couple of specific comments on the proposal, which I think is really good. I would encourage, again, the potential for more development and more density to be located near primary open spaces of the Mystic River and the fells. 30 seconds. That's going to give people the opportunity to live closer to those places. I don't buy the argument about topography or dead ends or private ways. that we're going to be able to do that. We're going to be able to do that. Precluding that right across the street from my house is a nearly 300 unit building going up on a very steep site. The primary access to that And I hope we will eliminate the small pockets of urban residential 3 that are within NR1 areas. Excuse me, I have it backwards. Urban residential NR3 within UR1 areas. And I hope that the staff find a way to apply more of the green score principles to residential development. We need to find ways to stop developers from coming in, cutting down trees, and building big houses. We don't have that in this proposal yet, and it's incredibly important.
[Emily Hedeman]: comment, Jeremy. That's it.
[Jeremy Martin]: Thank you.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you so much.
[Cheryl Rodriguez]: Hi, I'm Cheryl Rodriguez, 281 Park Street, my neighborhood we zoned as NR3. The zoning that is in the current filings folder didn't match the dimensional standards that were presented tonight. The building coverage among other things has changed. It's hard for the public to consistently know what is actually on the table. The map from the city council is what was presented tonight. Is that the map that is now being considered? Is all the density near the commuter rail and green line gone and reverted back? to less than the density at Glenwood with no rapid transit and only one bus? All the discussion of the negatives about density are centered on the least densely zoned areas and none about the more dense areas that already have some of the negatives, the less dense don't want, but we are being pushed further. Why are only private roads in NR1 being kept less dense? There are around 14 private streets in Glenwood and they all find themselves zoned at NR3 with no special attention paid to the fact they are also private ways. If we are rolling back the areas with transit access, then Glenwood should not remain at or above their level of density. We are already dense. We already have flippers knocking on our doors to buy our lots that sell for lower prices because we are an EJ neighborhood and are being zoned to turn into a luxury urban neighborhood. The City has already said Glenwood is facing development pressure and that is why Salem Street Corridor was zoned first. It will happen more quickly for us. There were no studies on infrastructure. Going from one to two units in my neighborhood to three to five per lot will cause issues that we are not prepared for. Parking minimum changes are already being discussed. So it is disingenuous for the consultants to suggest that parking is what will keep this zoning from actually happening. This zoning will happen to us. People will own cars, but they won't have parking for them. Please do something about this. Please send some time on Glenwood and not only talk about the NR1 and the NR2 areas, which will be markedly less dense than we will be. Thank you.
[Unidentified]: Thank you, Cheryl.
[Emily Hedeman]: And just to disambiguate, I think I heard a question over there. EJ is environmental justice. So she had used that acronym. The next Zoom commenter that we have is Zoe.
[Zoe Moutsos]: Hi, this is Zoe Moutzas from 33 Johnson Ave in West Medford. This is my fourth meeting in this process, and I just want to say that the presentations get better every time, so thank you to Innes. for continuing to give, give pictures where charts are getting very confusing for those of us who don't have a background in that. So I really appreciate that and also really starting to put together the pieces of how the mixed use commercial zoning is fed by the neighborhood and residential zoning and I'm excited for what can happen in West Medford. changes really hard, and I'm a little nervous about what might happen. I'm in a zone that the City Council recommended as NR3, but the board has us tagged as UR1. And today you shared a chart that really kind of highlighted the differences between that. And I did have a question, and it came up when Paola was talking about parking and how if you used a permeable surface for parking, you actually could fit a larger number of people or units into a space. I had a question about what is permeable parking because is that dirt, pebbles? What are we talking about? Because I really feel like NR3 is appropriate for the Johnson Tyler Ave area. We already have Some some 2 family homes here single family and it's a mix i think you are 1. It to me feels a little bit over what i would feel comfortable with and that permeable parking made my ears perk up because i don't understand what that is but it kind of feels like it could. maybe cheat at providing green space, which is actually what I'm very concerned about in our little, we live in an urban heat island, and I'm worried about that. Overall, I think that this zoning, I'm excited for it to happen for all the reasons that people have said. And I'm excited to get a more walkable, a little bit more dense Medford and to help alleviate some of the housing challenges that folks, you know, up and down the spectrum are having. So thanks so much.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you. Thanks, Zoe. Um, can we clarify what permeable papers are? Do we have a visual for it or just talk about it?
[Emily Innes]: Yes. So we are happy through the chair to define permeable surfaces. It is not dirt. Um, just to make that clear to everybody, it would have to be a structured parking lot. And so surfaces that would be permeable permeable means that water can infiltrate through the surface. So surface that would be permeable and acceptable for parking are defined in the green score but just a couple of them, gravel would be allowed. There are pavers that allow for permeability through that. So, those sorts of pavers, that would be acceptable.
[Paula Ramos Martinez]: Yeah, you also have like the type of prefab tiles that go over grass. Those, for example, provide enough structure for a car to go over and be permeable enough.
[Emily Innes]: So those are what would be required for a permeable parking space for the question that we received. Thank you.
[Emily Hedeman]: All right, we're back to our in-person commenters. We have Alexander, Mary Louise, and Paige.
[SPEAKER_57]: Hi, my name is Alexander Panchage. I live at 12 Cushing Street, and that's also in the Glenwood area. And I'm coming a little late to this, and I don't have prepared comments like so many other people have. So I'll try to do my best here. I'm concerned about a few things, especially in my area. From what I understand, our area is right now basically two family houses. and making it R3 allows someone to come into an existing structure, turn into four units, plus an ADU, plus another ADU, basically six units, without having any change to the parking, because it's already an existing structure. I don't think that this is actually going to do what a lot of people think it's going to do. I don't think that it's going to give more housing. I think what's going to happen is a developer will come in, outbid anyone else who can buy the house because they will convert it into four units, plus one or plus two. Then they will turn the ADU, into a B&B so they can rent that out. And you'll basically have just a smaller unit that everyone's going to be paying the same amount of rent for. So everyone will wind up just spending more money for less space and be more crowded. 30 seconds. I think a lot of people are working from home now, and that does mean that they want a bigger space inside. And I also agree that we've put in a thousand or more units already in Medford, and I don't think we should just ignore the fact that we have done that. Thank you.
[SPEAKER_43]: Thank you, Alexander.
[Emily Innes]: Madam Chair? Madam Chair? Yes. We just want to correct a couple of numbers just so everybody understands that an NR3 is limited to, ignoring historic conversion for a moment, is limited to a three-unit dwelling, plus a by-right ADU, plus a special permit ADU. Short-term rental of ADUs is prohibited in the proposed language, just so everyone knows.
[Emily Hedeman]: Okay, thank you for that clarification. Hi, Mary Louise? No? Is Mary Louise O'Brien here? We'll come back to them.
[SPEAKER_28]: So you must be Paige. Hi there. I'm Paige Valdini, 37 Winter Street, and I own a business at 319 Boston Ave. Thank you so much to the board, staff, and everyone who's worked so hard on the zoning reform process. Medford has been praised for its work over the last few months, many months, and that effort deserves credit. I want to be clear. I support more housing, especially affordable housing. And I understand that this intention is not for all of this development to happen right away. but that doesn't mean we shouldn't be prepared. I own a small business at 319 Boston Ave in a block that's 100% non-conforming. This quarter, like Mystic Ave and Medford Square, are exactly where we should be looking to build mixed-use space that blends housing with business. But without clear support from existing businesses, we risk losing the local services and economic activity that are already working in these areas. I've submitted questions to this board The City Council, the Office of Planning and Development, and the Mayor's Office. They are thoughtful, practical questions about timelines, infrastructures, and support, and they remained unanswered. Not likely because people don't care, but likely because this process is moving too fast. We have been told about city developments that have been consulted, but those conversations and findings have not been made public. The community deserves to see the infrastructure studies, service impact projections, and research that's guiding these decisions to speak to the board's member question earlier, if possible. Let's also hear directly from departments like fire, police, traffic enforcement, public works, permitting, and building. How are they preparing for what this means to day-to-day operations? 30 seconds. Let's make information public clearly in plain language so we can all understand what's being planned. This is a long-term investment in Medford's future. Let's be thoughtful. Let's be transparent. Let's do it together with everyone informed and ready. Please don't rush this vote. Let's take the time to make the best that we can. Thank you. Thank you, Paige.
[Emily Hedeman]: Hi, sir, in the green. We did have a sign up, but since we only did two commenters, the last one, the list, did you call it?
[Andrew Castagnetti]: The name is Andrew number 18.
[Emily Hedeman]: We have not called you yet, Andrew. But thank you for checking.
[Andrew Castagnetti]: Do you see it?
[Emily Hedeman]: I do. Andrew of East Medford.
[Andrew Castagnetti]: Should I wait? I'll come back tomorrow.
[Emily Hedeman]: I appreciate your glib question, but I will answer it seriously. We're giving each commenter two minutes to speak. We have gotten through seven in person. We have gotten through, I think, six online. We have 23 more to go in person. And we have 20 more to go. So if you can calculate that times 20, then you can make your decision, but I'm not able to make that decision for you tonight.
[Andrew Castagnetti]: So you have no guarantees. Thank you for your time.
[Emily Hedeman]: Of course. And again, we're going to evaluate around 9.45. You know, we're all doing our best and I appreciate everyone's patience as well as being here. Okay, well before we switch, any update on Mary Louise O'Brien? No, okay, we'll continue to come back to them. Oh yes, so the next three after we take the Zoom commenters are Elise Jennings, Anne Haggerty, and Tom Lincoln. Feel free to stay in your seats, but you are on deck. Our Zoom commenters, Paul Geraghty,
[Paul Garrity]: Good evening. My name is Paul Garrity. I live at 40 Cedar Road in Medford. My question has to do with the historical conversion. When reviewing the write-up, it said that the historical confusion could not change the look of the building. I also saw there was a slide tonight that added to the 75-year requirement and some other verbiage. I would hope that we can be relatively clear and detailed on what it means by change the look of the building. The reason why I say that is that in the neighborhood, not too many years past, there was a terrific amount of tension between the neighbors and the builders because there wasn't clarity as to what a historical conversion covered and allowed the builder to do. It further was acerbated by the fact that I'm now saying we now have the new zoning regulations coming in and I'm wondering who will be the final arbiter. Will it be the zoning board? Will it be the historical commission? Will it be the historical district commission? So I would hope that a little bit of detail is time is spent to spell out in quite a bit of detail what is going to be the parameters for not change the look of the primary property And if an ADU is added, what specifications does that have to look like to not change the look of the property? Thank you.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you for your question. I'm going to pass it over to Alicia for a response to that.
[Alicia Hunt]: If I understand that correctly, the question was who would be the final arbiter for a building that was in the historic district? And actually, I also got that separately via email today. So historic districts are overseen by our historic district commission. And you cannot do an external change to those buildings without approval by the Historic District Commission. And this zoning would not change that regardless of what the zoning would be at that location. So the Historic District Commission still has the authority in the historic districts, of which we currently have three.
[Ben Lavallee]: I think there's a broader question about historic conversions that I think maybe I misunderstood. But in the documentation, a historic conversion, the only criteria is a building older than 70 years old. Is that right? Can we just confirm that? Because I think that that's what was actually being asked is who determines whether a building is eligible for historic conversion.
[Alicia Hunt]: In that case, the answer is that the building commissioner and our records of the property would state whether or not the building was of the right age. And we will clarify whether it's 70 or 75 years. And honestly, this board can make a recommendation to the city council we're going to look at. How many how old you feel it should be. We'll look at what our historic commission regulations say. Those have also changed in the last few years because I think it should be in line with them. And then it would be the building commissioner and some of what we're sorry. There's a little weird maybe not. So we'll have to look at what the exterior of the recommended language right now is that you could only make changes to the exterior such that you could comply with building code. So because units have to have a separate exit and entrance, but we may need to have some conversation about exactly what we want the zoning to say along those lines.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you, Alicia. The next zoom commenter that we have is John Pritchett.
[SPEAKER_54]: Hi, John Prusch, 9 Lambert Street. I just wanted to comment that I'm glad our city is finally doing this. I'm really happy to see tonight also that you've added the four-story incentive to the UR zoning. I know a lot of people were asking for that. I think this zoning reform is long overdue. I support the new changes, and I'm very hopeful that it will be going before the City Council for a vote soon without too much further delay. I understand that there are certain streets that need to be zoned for NR1 just because of the topography, but I would encourage us to limit NR1 to the streets where it's absolutely necessary. We do have an extreme housing crisis in our city and the region, and I really want this zoning to reflect a serious attempt to move forward as a city where, you know, people who are growing up here and our municipal workforce have options to stay and raise their families. Thank you.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you, John. The next Zoom commenter that we have is Libby Brown.
[Libby Brown]: Hi, my name is Libby Brown, I live at 1 Usher Road, a couple blocks from West Medford Square. So I'm in an area proposed for increased density, I think it's urban residential 2. I'm in full support of these proposed changes, and one of the main reasons is because I hear a lot of complaints from friends and neighbors about empty storefronts in West Medford along High Street, and I share that complaint. It's frustrating when a lot of the spaces, some have been vacant for more than five years. But I know that one of the most important things we need for a thriving square full of successful businesses is a critical mass. of people who live nearby within a couple blocks, who run their errands on foot, walking down High Street patronizing shops and restaurants. So with more people living in close proximity, we know there will be more people to support locally owned businesses and hopefully encourage landlords to invest in their properties to make them more leaseable, so they'll actually make more money with tenants than with crumbling vacant space that they use as a they're not going to be able to do that. They're not going to be able to do that. They're not going to be able to do that. They're not going to be able to do that. They're not going to be able to do that. They're not going to be able to do that. They're not going to be able to do that. They're not going to be able to do that. They're not going to be able to do that. They're not going to be able to do that. They're not going to be able to do that. They're not going to be able to do that. They're not going to be able to do that. They're not going to be able to do that. They're not going to be able to do that.
[SPEAKER_43]: They're not going to be able to do that.
[Emily Hedeman]: They're not going to be able to do that. They're not going to be able to do that. They're not going to be able to do that. They're not going
[SPEAKER_43]: Hello, can you hear me? Yes, thanks, Courtney.
[Courtney Botelho]: Hi. My name is Courtney Botello. I live at 49 Edward Street. I would say that the proposed zoning in my area is a little bit too conservative, especially with regards to lot size. I currently live in a non-conforming building, and everything from Layden Street to Sanger Street is currently non-conforming. I really like my neighborhood and would like more density. The two and three-story nonconforming buildings are the character of my neighborhood, and I think that new three-unit buildings should be able to be built at the minimum. It feels kind of silly that my building couldn't be torn down and rebuilt as is or as is with less parking and or low-impact development modifications. through the revised zoning code, especially when we don't have enough housing in the area. Personally, I chose to move here three years ago because I want to live in the city and live close to transit, which I do. I won't speak for all my neighbors, but I know my roommate and my good friend who live nearby both moved here for the same reasons. At other meetings, I've heard that we should add density in places that are already dense, which I personally feel has been directed at neighborhoods like my own, and I'm down for that, and encourage people in other neighborhoods to, you know, encourage density in that same way. So, thank you. And thank you for all your efforts. I know this has been a long process, and I really appreciate it.
[Emily Hedeman]: The gratitude is mutual to you and to everybody that is here virtually or in person. We're gonna go back to our in-person commenters. So we have Elise Jennings, Anne Haggerty and Tom Lincoln. Hi.
[SPEAKER_41]: Okay.
[Haggerty]: I'm Anne Haggerty. I live at 11 Sagamore Park in West Medford. Hard to believe I've owned the house for 29 years. I want to thank the board and everybody who's been involved in evaluating things. I know it's been a lot of work. I do think there's been a little... Do you mind standing a little bit closer to the mic? Sure. Thank you so much. I would ask that you consider extending the residential portion, the decisions on it, for a bit. Because I don't think a lot of people in the West Medford area were made aware of it until a week ago or two weeks ago. And it takes a lot of time to absorb what's being proposed and how it's going to impact I've spent a lot of time, I know you guys have seen me at several of the meetings, and I still don't completely understand all of the potential changes. For example, there's a block that's kind of divided by High Street, Grove Street, Sagamore Park, and Sagamore Ave. And I took a look at that great interactive map that you guys have, and there's 21 single-family houses and one multi-larger building. So checking out the frontage and all of the dynamics that would allow or build out, it could grow to 63, and that's not including ADUs. That's if we're talking about reducing parking minimums, there's no parking on Grove Street. It's a big impact on the community, and I'd love to understand how that would affect the rest of the neighborhood. The commuter rail doesn't qualify as a high frequency. rail, because as my understanding, the definition of that is three stops per hour during the rush hour periods, and it's only two per hour. So that commuter rail is great for the folks who can take advantage of it, but I work in Framingham, so it would probably take me three hours if I went that way. And lastly, my own. I probably won't have time to say that's okay I didn't give you a warning so just 20 more seconds. My last thing is my house is on an 8400 square foot lot with only 67 feet of foot frontage so it couldn't be divided. by the frontage requirements. It's 1,688 square feet of livable space, so it could only be one unit by the definition of the historic conversion. So a developer is going to go in and buy it. They'll overbid. They'll buy it. They'll tear it down. They'll put 60% of the lot could be 5,040 square feet of house, three levels, maybe four, each 1,680 square feet for each unit. That's like three of my current homes on that one lot.
[Emily Hedeman]: Would you mind wrapping up your comment? Yep.
[Haggerty]: Thank you so much. So I just wanted to make that point, because the dynamics are potentially huge. Thank you.
[Tom Lincoln]: My name is Tom Lincoln. I live at 27 Gleason Street, and I qualify as an historic object here in Medford for conversion to something, maybe dinner. Okay. I'm generally in favor, as I've said before, of this proposal. I think the devil is in the details. In thinking about it some more, I've become very concerned about trees. Medford has How shall we say, charitably a spotty record on preservation of the tree canopy. And in my neighborhood on Gleason Street, there are lots of large trees in people's backyards. And I worry about that, even though I probably won't be here. The other thing I think people might want to think about a little bit is that in West Medford, the commercial area is definitely underdeveloped. There are vacant storefronts, there are one-story, strips of one-story stores on High Street. There may not be a high-speed rail, et cetera, or high frequency, but there's certainly room for a lot more density there, and I think it would help all around. And the other thing that comes to mind is that we just, I think, barely passed an override last November. It's clear to me that our tax base is maxed out, and there's a social good there also. But I think, frankly, this comes down to some of a social equity question. The housing shortage not only affects people trying to move here, but affects the children of people who have lived here. I'm not a Medford native, all their lives. And I think that with some judicious tweaking and careful monitoring, which is a concern, I think this could work for the benefit of the community.
[SPEAKER_43]: Thank you, Tom.
[Emily Hedeman]: So before we switch back to Zoom, I just wanna make a call again for Mary Louise O'Brien or Elise Jennings. All right, we're gonna go back to Zoom. Our next in-person commenters that are on deck are Josh Eckert-Lee, Nola Sundquist, and Erika DeRoche. You don't have to stand up now, but just, you're on deck. Our first Zoom commenter is Michael von Korf.
[Michael Von Korff]: Hi, I'm Michael von Korp for Pitcher Ave, West Medford. I strongly support the new zoning plan for all the reasons others have mentioned, really, especially because it sets Medford up for the future. I want my kids to be able to afford to live here. I appreciate the incredible thoroughness of the process. And at the same time, I hope it speeds up a little. This process has been in motion for years. goes through. It may take decades to come into full effect. Meanwhile, we have a massive housing shortage that's only growing over time. So in the spirit of that request for thoughtful speed, I'll stop there. Thank you.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you, Michael. I appreciate your brevity as well as your direct messages. Our next Zoom commenter is Jennifer Guerin. Hi, folks. Can you hear me okay? Yes. Thank you, Jennifer.
[SPEAKER_29]: Excellent. Okay. So hi, my name is Jennifer Guerin and I own a two family home on Cooley Road in West Medford. And I want to start by saying that I fully support the revitalization efforts of West Medford Square. And I appreciate that we need more housing in the city, but I strongly oppose the densification that's being proposed under this plan. Rezoning neighborhoods that consist of single family and two family homes to urban residential one is just too much too fast. And it would be more appropriate to consider, you know, the R excuse me, the NR3 zoning at this time, but not you are one. I think we really need to consider the impacts to our infrastructure, like our roads, utilities, mirror. We also need to consider the extra burden to our fire and police departments. And of course the impact to our schools, which are already crowded. In addition, I think everybody who lives in the neighborhood knows that traffic is already terrible. During the morning rush hour can take 20 minutes to get past the rotary on High Street and 38. And for the folks who take the commuter rail, we know that the commuter rail is frequently delayed and that when trains finally do arrive, especially during the morning commute, they're already packed and it's standing room only to North Station. So we really should look into fixing the MBTA before we consider adding more residents to the neighborhood. And importantly, this proposal does nothing to address affordability, but it does ensure that developers and real estate agents will profit from the sale of more million dollar plus condos in our neighborhoods. Thank you for your consideration.
[SPEAKER_43]: Thank you, Jennifer.
[Emily Hedeman]: Our next Zoom commenter is Irene Rose. Hi, can you hear me?
[SPEAKER_21]: Yes, we can. Thank you, Irene. Thank you so much. First, I just want to say how grateful I am for this process. I live at 76 Sharon Street in West Medford. I just really want to say I really appreciate the amount of communications you all have done. I've been following this process and I see so much about it on Facebook and on Reddit and on Nextdoor. I think there's just a lot of information you all put out and I really appreciate that. I just want to share my huge support for this proposal. I own a single family home and I'm really truly excited about providing opportunities to other people to move to this area, especially other young people like myself. I just want to see a vibrant and alive city, and I'm really excited about her getting higher tax revenue. When we talk about all the services that currently are perhaps understaffed and not functioning well it's truly because we do not have enough tax revenue. And to have higher density will allow us to have more businesses, which will allow us to collect more taxes and thus improve on those services. So I truly just don't see a way for us to actually address some of these other concerns, which I definitely agree with. I would love to have, you know, roads that are in better shape and so on, but I just understand that the city really needs more revenue. So I'm really excited about the opportunity to add more folks to this amazing city. And, you know, I just want to point to all of our neighbors a little south of us who have higher density and have really vibrant communities and thriving businesses. And I think that it's really just going to really set up Medford to be successful in the future. So just thank you so much to the consultants and the council and everyone else involved in the process. I really appreciate it.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you, Irene. The gratitude is mutual. We're going to move back to our in-person commenters. So that's Josh. Sorry. I'm sorry for anyone that triggered if that's your wake-up alarm. Thank you. Josh and I was it. You know, less sound quest. Awesome. Thank you. Um and Erica De Roche. Hi.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_32]: Hi. Thanks. I'm Josh Eckert. Lee. I live at 3 47 Main Street firmly in favor of this rezoning effort. Really grateful for your work, Alicia and her team's work. Obviously, Emily and us and Paula, you guys really excellent and I've explained this really well. I think you've come to a lot of compromises to deal with the obviously diverging opinions here. I work professionally as a municipal planner, so I really empathize with the work you're doing and the fact that I can leave after I make this comment and you'll have to stick around for a long while. I really encourage you to move forward on this quickly. The fact that there are 250 people have been on the Zoom at some points this evening really is a testimony to how much outreach you've done in addition to the various previous meetings and our ability as residents to talk to our neighbors and talk to folks in our neighborhood to encourage them to speak out and be. at least for my benefit, as a renter, as a young person, be in favor of increasing the density so that I can stay here. I had to move. Every year I've lived in the Boston area because rents are too expensive. And I live with my wife, with two other residents. It's expensive. There's nine secondary degrees between the four of us. And we still will be lucky to be able to continue to rent here. So this lays gentle and conservative groundwork so that the actual work of dealing with this housing crisis and creating new housing can begin. So this is minimal, this is easy, this is necessary and morally imperative. So thank you and good night.
[SPEAKER_43]: Thank you, Josh.
[Emily Hedeman]: And as someone whose rent is going up almost $400 this year, I definitely empathize with that. And yes, I am a renter.
[SPEAKER_13]: Our next speaker, hi. Hi, my name is Nola Sundquist and I live on Main Street in Medford. I'm strongly in favor of the proposed zoning changes. I'm both a resident of Medford and I'm also a resident physician. And so I speak not only for myself, but also for the communities that I've served. throughout medical school, and when I say that the housing crisis is not only a home crisis, but also a public health crisis. I speak for the mom who had to sleep in her car in a parking lot before work to beat the traffic coming into Boston. I speak for my pregnant patient who didn't know where she could live with her baby. But I also speak for the woman who was able to keep her mom in her housing, or keep her mom out of the hospital because she was able to stay in her house in a multi-generational, multifamily home. I speak for the woman who brings her elderly neighbor to the hospital. I speak for many people who also who I haven't met because they've not been able to be part of our community because there is not enough housing here. We need housing and we need neighbors. The change would not take away from the property values of the properties we already own and live in, but rather it would allow more people to experience this vibrant city. Thank you.
[Erika DeRoche]: Thank you. Hi. Hi. Good evening. Thank you, Madam Chair and rest of the board. My name is Erica Deroche. I live at 260 Willis Ave. I thank you for taking and reading my comments previous to this evening as well. And so I'm just going to dive into some My position here is that I am strongly in favor of the new proposed residential districts presented on May 21st and I would urge the board to recommend approval with some changes to use in dimensional tables. I'm very lucky that my neighborhood South Medford is already a walkable transit connected neighborhood. However, in the rest of the city. It's important to zone with the certainty that improved transit will be coming to all areas of the city in the future. We know it can and it will take a long time. As someone who has been waiting for 18 years, I know that, personally. But it's incumbent upon us to advocate for and demand the transportation that serves us as a community, and what is lacking in the city now should not limit the development that we know is needed to address the housing crisis. I'm in favor of the NR1 and NR2 districts to be up to three units in addition to ADUs, and not just for historic conversion, but also for new construction. I take a special interest in my neighborhood, South Medford, and I take exception to some of the limitations in the use of dimensional tables. They need to be more permissive relative to the lot coverage, height, and density overall. Obviously, parking minimums also play a part in increasing density. And please correct me if I've misunderstood the new proposal. I'm sorry, 30 seconds. the as of right height should be increased in your one and you are to to at least four stories with high increases for inclusionary development, allowing denser development and smaller lots allows smaller developers and owner occupied homes to be redeveloped, spurring local investment. Um, so just to wrap up, I did hear the buzzer. Um, in terms of use, please also consider adding safe uses at the ground floor and integrating those into the neighborhood districts. But overall, thank you very much for the process and for hearing us over and over again. Have a good evening. Thank you, Erica. Okay.
[Emily Hedeman]: So we're going to move that next one. Okay, so we're going to move back to zoom, but our next three in person commenters are Jennifer Lavoie and McDonald and Andrew of East Medford. Thank you for your patience. So our next zoom commenter is Tara.
[Jennifer Kerwood]: Hello. Hi. Can everybody hear me okay, hopefully? Yes, thank you. Great. Tara Gearhart. We live in Fulton Heights area, Andrew Street. And as of last year, we also bought a single family home across the street that we are, it was a gut renovation. My husband and I both own our own businesses. We have been Bedford residents since 2008. We plan to be here for a long while. We have three children in the Robert school system. I also hold a real estate license and my husband is a general contactor. So we understand a lot of the information that has been proposed. What I am trying to reiterate is that while Medford does need density increased, a blanket zoning proposal that is being proposed has a lot of things that I don't think are being thought out despite the amount of research and time that a project like this takes. I know the hard work that has gone into it. I have witnessed in our school system lack of resources, overcrowded classrooms, inability to find subs to which the janitor is being used as a substitute teacher. And I think there's a lot of other issues that we need to fix that are not being in consideration. Traffic, infrastructure, the lead pipe issue, our house on the Andrew Street is fine. the other house is not. So there's just, I think, a lot of things that need to be considered that I'm not sure people have been thinking about. So that's my only comment. I appreciate the opportunity to speak and thank you for doing additional due diligence and not rushing this process in a blanket zoning update.
[SPEAKER_43]: Thank you, Tara.
[Emily Hedeman]: Our next commenter is Stephanie Guerns-Meyer.
[Stephanie Geuns-Meyer]: Hi, I'm Stephanie Guerns-Meyer, 54 Whitney Road in the Lawrence Estate. I'm very glad to live in this this neighborhood where my husband and I can live without a car and we can walk 15 minutes to get to West Medford, 15 minutes to Medford Square, 15 minutes to Whole Foods. And I applaud you all for your efforts. I'm a strong supporter of increasing the housing supply in Medford. We don't have children, but we want our neighbors' children to be able to live here. We want people who work in Medford to be able to live in Medford, even if they don't earn that much money. And actually my one bone to pick is, you know, we live in an NR1 neighborhood and I think the entire city should be duplex by right. It's a private way and I guess I just totally don't get why we can't have duplexes in our neighborhood too. I don't really see parking as an issue. If anything, cars parked in our neighborhood are a feature rather than a bug. They are welcome traffic calming devices. And in fact, since we have no cars of ours, I'm always glad when we have people parked in front of our house because that makes the traffic go a little bit slower when people are cutting through and avoiding stoplights. And so I guess I'll leave it at that. So thank you very much for all of your efforts.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you, Stephanie. Our next Zoom commenter is Ken Garrow.
[Ken Gareau]: Hi, can you hear me?
[Emily Hedeman]: Yes, thank you, Ken.
[Ken Gareau]: Thank you. Ken Garrow, 52 Lambert Street. First of all, thank you all. I know this has been, like you said, the fifth meeting. You've heard from me several times over this point. I am broadly supportive of this entire endeavor. I think it moves Medford into the right direction. I have my small quibbles. I have previously said, similar to the previous commenter, I don't think NR1 should exist. I think zoning something single family usage is not where we need with the housing crisis. I do agree that I think everything should be NR2 by right. We should have duplexes in the city. I think Fulton Heights, Lawrence Estates, those areas that are NR1. Because they already have the historical conversion of allowing two units, obviously it's okay having those two units. I appreciate Emily and Paola repeatedly talking about the private ways. I totally understand and appreciate them bringing that context, but I really think we can expand out what we have. And in general, again, I really do appreciate this. I really think this is the right step in the direction. Personally, I live in a triple-decker that was outdated by the 1980s rezoning. It is going to become mostly conforming by the NR3 designation. My lot's a little bit on the small side. And I love it. I love living over here in just along Salem Street. I love being in Medford. I have been here for 15 years. I don't plan on leaving anytime soon, despite I'm sure some people who I know would prefer that to be the case. I want us to keep growing. I want us to keep moving. I would also talk to people who might be concerned about this density as a problem to think of the fact that, you know, personally, I would rather have more density and lower taxes. And thank you for your time. You're doing great. And I hope this goes through.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you, Ken. And I'm glad you're still here. Our next, so that was three zoom comments, wasn't it? Yeah. Okay. So we're going to go back to our in-person commenters. We have Jennifer, Anne, and Andrew. Okay, we're going to just move past Jennifer just out of kind of respect for the rest of the people on the list. But I do appreciate the question. Our next commenter is Anne McDonald. Okay, and then we have Andrew of East Medford. And then since we have kind of two vacancies, the next two we're going to have as part of this same session are William Navar and Anita Goldberg. So William and Anita,
[Unidentified]: Okay.
[Emily Hedeman]: Okay, I appreciate that. Caitlin Robinson. Okay, great. Are you ready to chat this time around? Great. So Andrew of East Medford, please. Thank you.
[Andrew Castagnetti]: Who are you? Hi, thank you for your remembrance. I have returned.
[SPEAKER_43]: Glad to see you.
[Andrew Castagnetti]: I'm Andrew Castagnetti, and I am in East Medford, two blocks to your right. I'm usually for more real estate development. However, it must be smart development. At Mystic Ave is our best place for mass mixed use buildings. But not Salem Street. It already is congested and will become like Somerville with Somerville hassles. If you live there, it would be worse. I get it. The city wants more and more real estate tax money. But what fries my ass is our real estate tax bill will not come down at all. Will it? It's a question. Will the real estate tax bills come down at all or the opposite? They're gonna add two and a half percent onto a larger number every year for eternity. I'm waiting for an answer.
[SPEAKER_43]: I unfortunately don't have that answer.
[Andrew Castagnetti]: Thank you very much.
[SPEAKER_43]: Thank you, Andrew. William, nice to see you in person.
[William Navarre]: Hi there. Excuse me, William Navarre, 108 Medford Street, apartment 1B. I'm ready for you to incorporate public feedback into your recommendations to City Council and pass them back to the City Council to approve them. There are a few improvements I would make. The minimum lot sizes are still relatively large in many cases, reducing that wouldn't make our lot smaller, I stress, it would just make more of them buildable. My building is four units 2300 square feet. potential for adding height is very limited in South Bedford, where many buildings are already three stories, we should be going to four and you are two by right. And the wide gentle slope streets of northwestern Bedford can accommodate duplexes and they should be allowed. If you sort that out, you should pass it be on your way. The idea at this point that there hasn't been enough process is ridiculous. I feel I've been spending the better part of the year chasing the zoning consultants all over town, public forums, Q&As, planning and permitting committee meetings, city council meetings, and the process has been exhausting, and it's been going on since January. I get that everybody wants the end of the process to last forever, because it's so much fun. But because the beginning is so boring. But if we start over, we're gonna be back at the boring beginning. And we saw how that worked out at the beginning of this meeting. How many more Wednesdays do we have to keep showing up just on NRUR zoning? This is getting out of control. And let's remember why we're here. We're trying to fix the broken status quo. We say we care about climate change, but pushing people further out into the sticks is not good for the climate. We say we care about housing affordability, but mandating that market rate housing take up more space, that's what density regulations do. It says if it's market rate housing, gotta do more space. That isn't doing anyone any favors for affordability. We say we care about walkability and local businesses, but preventing people living near our local businesses isn't helping. People talk about traffic, but if we force people further out into the suburbs and exurbs, they'll only be driving even more, and their lives will be driving through Medford anyways. That's what we are talking about when we say we are a cut-through town. Americans today are moving away from opportunity in search of cheap housing instead of towards it in search of high wages. We can help by building the housing here and we can because Medford isn't full. Thank you.
[SPEAKER_43]: Thank you, William. Hi, Anita. I'm Caitlin.
[Emily Hedeman]: Oh, Caitlin Robinson. Oh, yes. And you guys not here. I'm sorry. Apologies for that.
[Kaitlin Robinson]: No problem. Caitlin Robinson, 31 Everett Street. I am in support of this zoning proposal. Like previous speakers, though, I do think that we should not have an R1. I would rather that we're not zoning for single families. A couple things like it's graduation season. And as a parent and a teacher, I'm just always wondering like what, where are all these kids going to go that, you know, are graduating from Medford High and what housing is going to be available for them in the future. I'm fortunate enough to live in a neighborhood that was built before the current zoning regulations. I think that most of my neighborhood would no longer be allowed to exist under the current proposals. And so I really think that we need to move toward more density and less restrictive zoning. Thank you. Thank you, Caitlin.
[Emily Hedeman]: We're going to do a five. Five minute break, um, for human needs. And then we're going to go into the zoom comment. We're going to go back to the public comment. The next three public commenters and if you're here, just raise your hand so I can kind of like keep keep going. If we don't have people is, um, Parkman lovering. Okay, thank you. Um, D hatch. Not here, okay. William Snyder. Hi, William. Okay. Susan DeArcy Fuller.
[SPEAKER_41]: Hi, Susan.
[Emily Hedeman]: Okay. Donna Modica. Hi, Donna. Okay, you three are gonna be next in person after the break. When we come back, we'll be doing Zoom. Sorry if that's confusing, but thank you to everybody. So five minute break, we're gonna resume at 9.30. Thank you. I'm going to call the board members back to their seats. And we're going to get started with additional Zoom commenters. I really don't want to use it.
[Ben Lavallee]: All right, we're going to get started. There we go.
[Emily Hedeman]: I don't think I do it well. Good gavel. All right, we're gonna move on to our next Zoom commenter, Zachary Shertock. I can unmute.
[SPEAKER_43]: Hey, Zachary.
[Zachary Chertok]: Hi, can you hear me?
[SPEAKER_43]: Yes, thank you.
[Zachary Chertok]: Excellent sector talk 5 on 1 street. So, I want to start off by reaffirming that yes, density is coming here and we need to plan for it, but the nature of how this process is going still has inadequacies and is rushed, especially compared to other efforts. I've been a part of. To that end, the notion that pushback or criticism is geared towards advocating for the status quo is not true and really spinning it that way is doing a lot of damage toward disenfranchising some people in our city who are raising good questions and concerns here tonight, especially for things like public safety and infrastructure inventories. To that end, there are underpinnings in the housing market that aren't really being factored into the equation as we seek to do our part in the process of a severely lacking regional master planning and policy effort. As someone with 16 years of policy advisory in this arena alongside my day job, along with formal training in planning and civil engineering, and experience in transportation planning and economic development, including in Massachusetts, there are some real red flags in how this is being done, many of which I've raised already to the board. Past that comment, this part is directed. to the inquiry from board member Adam Behrens. Google Scholar will return several studies done on the impact of upzoning, downzoning, and code adjustments and permitting to a variety of different urban, suburban, and rural transitional environments, including their subsegmentation where applicable. The subject has actually been studied quite extensively, and when I went through my own training during my civil engineering degree for the urban planning component, we had mandatory case review on the subject, and it was standard for entry into the OIQ. Examples include studies and publications by Pugachinsky and T.R. Sass, as well as Freemark, Serkin, and Lai, and they range from the 90s to today with historical comparative evolutionary and conditional mapping. The notion that it can't be studied is not true by practicum and academic standards, and Had we gotten the proper data been sourced up front for planning prior to zoning, we actually could have done financial and planning projections. But since it wasn't done, something that I've raised more than once to this board, we have a current speculative basis for the current plans and changes that haven't continued to be made. My comment here is not a matter of no or against, but a matter of do it right the first time. Thank you.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you, Zachary. Our next commenter is John Koiner.
[SPEAKER_23]: Hello, can you hear me?
[Emily Hedeman]: Yes, thank you, John.
[SPEAKER_23]: Great. I'd like to thank the board and his associates for this excellent proposal. It's very exciting. I'm John Koiner, 800 Highland Avenue, where in this house, we believe there's a severe housing shortage and to address it, Medford should remove barriers to home construction as much as possible, wherever possible, with urgency appropriate to the scale and severity of this crisis. I'm going to echo what others have said that it would be great if we could allow two family homes by right in most or all of the city. It would be great if we could allow three family homes along major corridors. I'll give an example of what I'm talking about. So on Highland Ave, where I live, it's a huge wide road with bus service. It's accessible to Malden Center by foot, very convenient by bike. Highland is the northern extension of a densely developed mixed-use corridor through Malden that happens to extend into Bedford. This neighborhood could support triple-deckers and some mixed-use development. The infrastructure is there. That's just one example. I gave some other examples in an email to the CDB, CBD, anyway. One final thought. I don't believe that private ownership of a road or street precludes development there. That doesn't make sense. With that, I'll sign off. Thank you, everyone. Have a good evening.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you, John. Our next Zoom commenter is Matthew Reich.
[SPEAKER_34]: Hello, my name is Matthew Reich. I live at 29 Adams Street with my spouse, Penny Shorts. We've lived here for 42 years. While I appreciate the effort of this committee and approve of the changes required to commercial districts and adjoining residential districts. I'd like to express my adamant opposition to the conversion of the hillside residential area to neighborhood residential three. I think that that change will amount to, in effect, a taking for current residents and a benefit for developers. As was mentioned in an earlier comment, there is no mechanism to assure that any additional housing will be affordable or even less expensively priced. And the physical character of the nomenclature will greatly change. For an example of what this will look like, one has to look no further than the corner of Corinthian Road and Broadway, the east corner of that intersection at Somerville, where a recent teardown has been replaced by two large four-story buildings. I think it's six units. It might be eight. The sign board out says prices of them at $860,000 a piece. 30 seconds. I think I would suggest that the impact on current residents should be very carefully considered. Thank you.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you, Matthew. Moving into our in-person commenters, we have William Snyder, Susan DeArce Fuller, and Donna Morica.
[SPEAKER_55]: Bye. Hello. Hi. Thank you very much. And thank you for having me here in the consultants. I'm William Snyder. I live on Warren Street. We purchased our first and only house on Warren Street 25 years ago, a single family house in a single family zone. We love the house. It's built in 1894, and we've been investing in it. Stonework in the back, new flooring, new roof, solar system. So I oppose the rush to permit development of wall to wall triplexes in my neighborhood in West Medford. I know that many people around me only now are kind of realizing the consequences of this change. You know, just yesterday and the day before, we're starting to find people that didn't know about this and are starting to learn about what's gonna happen. I also believe our building department and zoning code, even though it has been revised, isn't really ready for the onslaught of developers and their attorneys maximizing profit to build luxury units. For us, and maybe for a couple of other near retired people on the street I've spoken with, our choice is to stay and watch construction noise and dust happen, or to sell out to developers and move to Concord, right? So to compete with families, developers are going to need to pay about a million dollars for one of these buildable lots. They're going to pay a million dollars to build the triplex, and they're going to want good money for those three units and the ADU. So this isn't really going to bring down housing costs. One question I did have is, what is a half a parking space?
[Emily Hedeman]: We round up.
[SPEAKER_55]: Pardon?
[Emily Hedeman]: We would round up round up or down up. Okay, thank you. Good question, though. Thank you, William. Susan. Hi.
[SPEAKER_27]: Good evening. My name is Susan Darcy, and I'm the homeowner of 20 Jackson Road in West Medford. I want to thank you for the opportunity to allow me to speak tonight. I am requesting a pause on the rezoning decision for West Medford until adequate community feedback can be considered. I'm in favor of addressing the housing shortage as well as reinvigorating West Medford Square, but not at the expense of decimating the neighborhood we currently love. I want to express my strong concern regarding the proposed rezoning. This process has had insufficient time for public review and feedback. We've received a robo call about the meeting only recently, and it's clear that no effective communication methods were utilized to reach out to neighbors. Such a significant change demands proper notification either posted in our neighborhoods or mailed directly to residents to give everyone adequate time to voice their opinions. I also would like to have clear guidance on how to submit comments. The proposed rezoning will drastically alter our community and threaten its character, which is deeply valued by its residents. While I support the need for increased housing, this can be achieved without compromising the unique essence of our neighborhood. specifically, I strongly oppose the conversion of areas currently designed for single family homes to resident neighborhood residential three. This shift is excessive and I firmly believe that instead we could make all single family homes neighborhood residential to not just those in areas that are closer to transportation. This feels like a far more sensible approach to me. neighborhood residential three. Furthermore I feel changing neighborhood zone that are to family into urban residential. One is also excessive, particularly in the West Medford area. But I feel that the conversion of those neighborhoods to neighborhood residential three is the limit of what we should be considered. Um these adjustments alone would allow our neighborhood to accommodate at least twice as many families without I urge you to reassess the proposed setbacks. A 10 ft setback will create a stark and urban environment with minimal greenery and visual appeal. It's essential to maintain the current setbacks. The zoning should also be the same on both sides of the street. The way the maps look now, it looks like it's largely block by block versus by street, which creates a situation where two sides of the street have different zoning, and this is an issue with unfair difference in housing values. We have a lot of historic houses in the area. I also would like to know, will they be allowed to be torn down by a developer or will the historic commission still be evaluating what homes are valuable to the character of the neighborhood? Thank you.
[Emily Hedeman]: Is Donna here?
[SPEAKER_19]: Hi. Hi, Donna. Hi, I'm Donna Monica. I live at 36 Woodland Road, and I want to say thank you to the Community Development Board members, to the city staff, and to the representatives of INDA's associates for inviting all of us to come in person and to commit your time to meeting and hearing from residents in person. Thank you. I am a lifelong resident of Medford. The city is my home. My husband and I met at Medford High School. We raised our children here, and we've cared for our aging parents in this community. Medford has given us so much, and I care very deeply about its future. Since learning about the proposed zoning changes in late May, I've been doing my best to get informed, attending meetings when I can, listening to the Zoom recordings during my commute, talking to neighbors, and reviewing updates posted to the city website. I appreciate that information. There's a lot to process. Changes to the residential neighborhoods, understanding the technical terminology, the alphabet of acronyms, the corridors, the squares, the proposed parking adjustments. For residents, balancing one job, two jobs, the caregiving of children and elderly parents. It's a lot. And I think people need, residents need more time to be able to understand the significant changes that could happen and impact our city for decades. a second point I'd like to make is that a topic that has not received any attention, I feel, is the impact of the changes on Medford's essential services and emergency response systems. With increased housing density, our streets, sidewalks, water and sewer, fire and police departments, our schools will need to serve a larger population. public safety must be a priority. Fire response times, police coverage, traffic and parking congestion.
[Emily Hedeman]: I'm sorry, I didn't give you the 30 second warning. I'm giving you that now.
[SPEAKER_19]: Thank you. Affecting emergency routes and neighborhood streets. All of these factors directly impact the well being of every resident. I think it's imperative for the Community Development Board to provide clear projections and analysis for how emergency services, infrastructure and personnel may be affected. under various levels of development. The zoning changes will have lasting consequences and we cannot afford to underestimate the strain on essential services. I strongly urge the board to thoroughly research and present a plan that can help ensure Medford's safety before a vote is taken. city leaders are responsible and they can they must consider and they're dedicated. That was 30 seconds. Do you mind? Thank you. Yep. My point is that city leaders need to keep residents safe. And I think we as a community need to support them in doing that. Thank you.
[SPEAKER_43]: Thank you, Donna.
[Emily Hedeman]: So we're going to go back to the Zoom commenters. The next three in-person commenters, just raise your hand if you're still here, and thank you so much to everybody that is still here. Tom Modica? Okay. Peter Sigourney? Okay, thank you. Ellen Epstein? Sharon? Great. Um, Alexander loosen hop loosen cop. Great. Thank you, Alexander. Okay, so you three will be next when we come back from zoom. And then I think after those next three in person commenters as a board, we should kind of take a step back and think about how we want to proceed with this. We do still have additional commenters, but I think it'll benefit us to just start thinking about what's next. Okay. So our next zoom commenter is Catherine Thorne. Hi, can you hear me? Yes. Thank you, Catherine.
[SPEAKER_39]: All right. I'm Catherine Thorne. I live at 47 Circuit Street in West Medford. And I'm speaking on behalf of myself and my husband, Jim Kang. Our home is in one of the areas that would be upzoned to urban residential two. My husband and I both strongly support the proposed rezoning. We, I don't have a prepared statement. I just, I like where I live. I like how walkable it is. We can walk to school. We can walk to parks. And I want more families to be able to experience that. And I want West Bedford especially and all of Medford to thrive for both residents and local small businesses. And thank you for all the work you've done.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you, Catherine. Our next commenter is Yulia. again.
[SPEAKER_30]: Can you hear me?
[Emily Hedeman]: Yes, we can hear you now. Thank you.
[SPEAKER_30]: Hi there. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak and I'm going to echo a lot of what some other folks have said who are in opposition to the proposed changes. I live on Sagamore Ave in West Medford. I'm a homeowner. I'm a parent. Um, and I do have some concerns. I think these things have been touched upon, but not actually addressed specifically how to address already existing staffing shortages in our public schools, which would be further strained by an increase in population resulting from proposed zoning and development changes. Our schools are currently struggling to retain teachers due to budget cuts. They have trouble retaining paraprofessionals and support staff. Increasing enrollment without a clear, actionable plan to expand staffing resources risks degrading the quality of education for both current and future students. In addition, and specifically, I know this for West Medford, there is an ongoing and critical lack of accessible, affordable afterschool care. For many working families such as ourselves, afterschool programs are essential. Without a comprehensive strategy to expand capacity staffing and funding for these services, the city will continue to fail families who rely on these programs for safety and stability. Beyond the school systems, I also urge the council to recognize the broader strain on public infrastructure and services that increased density will cause from emergency services to sanitation to public transportation and recreational facilities. Our community resources are not currently scaled to meet significant population growth. Approving developments without first addressing these capacity issues risk compounding the challenges our city already faces. Thank you. Before moving forward with any zoning changes, I respectfully request that the city provide a detailed transparent plan that outlines how school staffing shortages will be resolved through mitigated what investments will be made to expand and fund afterschool care, how public services and infrastructure will be scaled and sustained to meet increased demand, and how these initiatives will be financed responsibly. Without these assurances, it would be irresponsible and inadequate to approve plans that further strain our already overburdened system. Thank you for your attention to these critical issues.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you, Yulia. Our next commenter is Kate M. Kate, are you there? All right, we're gonna move back to in-person comment. Where are we? So we have Tom, Sharon, and Alexander. Thank you so much for your patience this evening.
[SPEAKER_53]: Thank you, Tom Modica, lifetime Medford resident. I obviously grew up here, rented for eight years, homeowner for 30. I live at 36 Woodland Road in Medford. A lot of the points that came up tonight I wanted to speak to, and I'll reiterate. One of the things was the public services, whether it's water, sewer. We're not ready for that with this big change. And first of all, I should have prefaced with, I applaud the work you're all doing. We do need change. We do need progression in the city, but I think we're going a little too fast. One of the things that I would say specifically is we're blanketing big changes in certain neighborhoods that will change the complexion. I'm going to change gears a little bit here. Earlier, somebody asked about different studies in different cities. We didn't really come up with an example. But I think if we look right next door, we see a very vibrant city and a city that's changed a lot over the years in Somerville. I think you see a lot of people over the past 20 years move to Somerville. One of the reasons I bring that up, again, it's very visible, but I know it well. I worked there for many years. the board on the Chamber of Commerce. And what they did first to bring in the vibrancy was to look at the corridors first. The corridors were most important. They brought vibrant business into the corridors. That invited people. That invited younger people into the city. And again, not to disparage us older people, but we want younger people in the city. We want vibrancy. But Medford isn't some of them. We have a much more diverse neighborhood system here. My wife and I brought our children up in the house we live in now. They moved on. And then all of a sudden, we saw a change in the neighborhood, but it wasn't changing. Thank you. More young families moved in. Why? Because that's what they wanted. They wanted to be in a neighborhood where their kids could ride their bikes around. They wanted that feel. They wanted gardens. So I would respectfully ask that we take a pause on this vote. We consider I think that would make a difference. We are much more diverse than one blanket change, and I request a pause on
[Sharon Deyeso]: I keep praying for the growth gene, but I got a new hip instead. Well, I will say we don't have to thank everyone because it is our right to be here. But I do appreciate anyone who does do work for a city or a charity or et cetera with good intent in their communities. I have a couple of questions and I'd like to make a couple of general comments because I've heard a lot of discussion this evening and also in the past. I do believe that change is always inevitable. that even people can change a little bit. They can notice and self-reflect and change behavior, not drastically, but it can be usually for the better. We all want a little bit of progress. We like a little bit more productivity in Medford. We like a little bit more commercialism in Medford. But people along the line tonight, and I'm not saying this as a criticism, I would think that most of the people who do want super development fast are probably renting. A lot of people who have vested values in this city go lots and lots of years back. In fact, Councilman Michael Marks even dedicated an island, which I pay for and maintain now, florally, for my family, because my dad stayed so long in the Lawrence Estates. People are saying that they want their kids to grow up here. Where are they going to play? If you're going to do something on a 3,000 square foot lot, and everyone has a dog, your kids are going to be playing in a doggy park, because they're probably going to have to repossess the parks. But I will say that we know progress is coming. I really do think that the effects that happen will far outweigh any progress that you'd like to make. And I honestly want to give this question out to everyone who is strongly into this change. Do you really think affordable housing is going to come with this permit zoning change? Absolutely not. If a developer bought half a block out, just say, because maybe there were already two family homes in the square footage fit, do you really think they're going to apply to the state and the feds to put affordable housing there? Instead of the young people who do want to afford to stay here, like some of those graduate students who spoke before and degree earners, it's not going to happen. They're going to have to go out of the city. Much is going to come to this, and your air quality is going to be worsened for those who are environmentally involved. I thank you for your time. I think my time is up, and I hope that you take your time in this process and postpone it. And do not forget, your mayor can stop this. Thank you very much.
[SPEAKER_43]: Thank you, Sharon. Hi Alexander.
[Alex Lussenhop]: Hi, Alex lesson hop 30 right F. As a resident of South Medford one of Medford's denser neighborhoods, I support the proposal for updating the zoning and adding more housing to my neighborhood and throughout the city. In fact, I would support this proposal going even further by allowing additional height and housing units by right, especially in urban residential to districts around T stops and along all major corridors and squares. I also strongly support the expanded proposal for at us which are a fantastic way to add housing stock, without much visible change to the fabric of neighborhood Medford's existing at law is too restrictive and needs to be fixed. I support these proposals because we have a severe housing shortage in Medford and across the state. This shortage has contributed to the sharp increase in housing prices in our region, forcing out so many of our low and middle income neighbors and making it so kids growing up in Medford have less opportunity to stay here if they so choose. This problem did not start yesterday, it is a result of years and years of stunted growth caused by things like restrictive zoning laws excessive parking requirements, and objections from existing residents. These proposals are not a silver bullet and there is so much more we need to do to address the housing crisis. However, if we don't update our zoning to allow even incremental growth like this, we have no hope of solving this problem. As the saying goes, maybe the best time to update our zoning was 30 or 40 years ago, but the second best time is now. Let's start planting the seeds that will allow Medford to grow into an even more vibrant and welcoming city than it is today. So I strongly urge the board to refer these proposals to City Council as is or in a more expansive form. Thank you.
[SPEAKER_43]: Thank you, Alexander.
[Emily Hedeman]: OK, so this was the point where. we're gonna kind of discuss what's next. Just quick tally. We have nine plus eight, so 17. We have 17 people remaining to comment. That includes people who are signed up or people who have left because of the length of the evening. We have nine commenters remaining on Zoom. So that's what, 26? I counted 11 that were here. Okay, I only got eight, but I'll go with 11 err on the side of caution. So that ups us by another three. So that's 29. I mean, what I'm hearing, I'm not hearing a lot of I'm against this. Never do it. But I'm hearing a lot of is I'm in favor, or I'm in favor. That's slow. And I'm curious for any reactions from the rest of the board. Am I summarizing this well? Or am I only hearing what I want to hear? And I'm not going to recognize anybody. Just unmute yourselves or just talk.
[Ben Lavallee]: No, I think you're spot on.
[Emily Hedeman]: OK.
[Ben Lavallee]: I think there is a clear contingent of people who have been aware. have been participating and are eager to move forward. I admire the principles that they stand on, but I think there's also a non-trivial portion of participants, and those are the people who showed up today, right? So we're not accounting for the large numbers of people who are three weeks behind them, but there's a large number of people who spoke today who said that they only recently found out or live in neighborhoods where there's a serious lack of awareness. So I think you're spot on.
[John Anderson]: John? I agree with your assessment. I think also it's kind of a challenge to us to do some research to answer some of the points people made. For example, there was an assertion that the city just wants to do this to raise more tax revenue. You know, there's been no analysis of what effect it has on taxation or demands on services. I think people, you know, the whole argument that anything to promote more housing promotes affordable housing needs to be looked at. There's an assumption there that should be analyzed. There's a lot more work to do neighborhood by neighborhood. I heard people saying that they bought into a particular neighborhood and they have some expectation that of course things will change, but they're concerned that things will change overnight. So I think those people need, their concerns need to be thoughtfully considered.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah. And in some cases like changes, you know, we might have capital D developers who will jump the second these things change. Um, we might also have thoughtful friends and neighbors who will finally, you know, be able to, uh, have a non, uh, non, non conforming property and be able to make the changes they've always wanted to make. So we need to consider both sides of it. Um, Ari, I know you were about to say something, I want to pass it off to you before I keep yapping.
[Ari Fishman]: Thank you, Madam Chair. I came into this meeting excited to hear all the input. I think we have been working on this for a long time. And also I do take very genuinely and seriously the number of people who have not been involved and are joining now. I do want us to recognize that kind of the status quo is also a risk. And many aspects of the current zoning allow for developers who know that Medford is an appealing place to live and are making choices before we've been able to be more intentional. And even thinking about some recent cases that have been before this board. So I think we should delay the vote, um, at least to next time. But I also think that we should, um, kind of work on having a clear list of questions and a plan. Um, I don't think just slowing down or starting over will get us to a place that any of us want. Um, but I, but I do hear that it feels like the public has more to say than we are able to hear tonight.
[Emily Hedeman]: the public definitely has more to say. And, you know, if we do continue this to the next meeting, you know, that's a week out. Even if we continue it to July, that's, you know, a couple weeks out, and then we start to get into, you know, people not being around for vacations. And I know that's not a reason to not do something, but we want to be considerate of the public, the continued public involvement in the process.
[Ben Lavallee]: I think one of the challenges that I know that I have had and that I would imagine a lot of people, certainly people who are only recently becoming aware of these proposed changes are likely having is a little bit of panic about timelines, right? It's like, are we voting this week? We might be voting this week. Oh, wait a minute. Are we voting next time? I don't know. Right? Shoot, I had to miss a meeting, right? I had to travel, I had to do, you know, whatever. Today was the last day of school for Medford Public Schools. So I imagine there's a whole chunk of the population who, because it's the last day of school and they're living their lives, weren't able to participate. And that probably stresses some people. They had to make a call, right? Do I have my voice heard at City Hall or do I do what I gotta do with my family on the last day of school? And so where I'm going with this, sorry, it's kind of a long winded, Way to get to my point, but I think we would benefit from like. Putting some dates in the future, not like maybe it's next week or maybe it's the week after, but like. you know, a little bit better and the CDB board is probably, you know, needs to own this, right? But things came up today, for example, Alicia made a great point around historic conversions and what exactly does that mean? And then what recommendations do we have? I have a laundry list of these types of things. And maybe we need to start to like project manage this a little better as a board and say, we're gonna agree or agree to disagree on this piece of it on this date, aggressively and loudly and comprehensively communicate that to the public. And so you know, I don't have those dates right now. But I think maybe we can figure out how to do that offline and communicate something. But yeah, I mean, I'm definitely in favor of continuing the dialogue and not rushing to vote on something. That was my end of the evening rambling proposal.
[Unidentified]: I hope that was OK.
[SPEAKER_43]: Who? Peter. Our Peter. Peter.
[Peter Calves]: Yes. I do think that from a purely public communications standpoint, I don't think it makes sense to make a decision on this tonight. I mean, I'm on Zoom and I can see two, four, six, I can see 10 people with their hands up on Zoom still. So I don't think that it would be right to, uh, we, we want to have everyone have the chance to speak. And I do think the, the city kind of very aggressively promoted this meeting, but I, it is a balance to strike between the people who have been with us on this for the last few months and the people who just found out. And I do think I like Ben's idea of setting a date that is maybe not next week, maybe not three weeks from now, but a firm date that we will discuss it on this night. And I don't really know where I'm going with that, but I do like Ben's idea of we will discuss it on this date, because I do feel like public comment and public input is good, but we can't be chasing hours worth of public comment for the next six months and not really be sure of when this is going to move forward. I think that would do. We do have to balance getting public input with doing the work that we've been set, we've been appointed to do at some point. Sorry, that is also my end of the evening rambling. It's that didn't make sense. I apologize.
[Ari Fishman]: No, I'm not.
[Emily Hedeman]: I'm sure if I put them down. Yeah.
[Ari Fishman]: Ari, if I can. Yes. And that I think that the clear project management and a clear timeline, I think, hits both the needs of us to be able to deliberate, receive input. innocent associates, and most importantly, the public, to be able to contribute substantively and hear feedback and collaboratively participate. I don't think that the date we should set should be a single discussion in the future. I think we should set multiple dates, three or four of them, and have a clear deadline by which we will have hit all the major topics. And that way we can, you know, argue for two hours about West Medford Square or kind of be able to actually dive into the nuances. I think that will create a stronger proposal and in many ways will be more accessible as well.
[Emily Hedeman]: I think Ari, you bring up a good point because You bring up a good topic because right now we're talking about the ADUs as well as the neighborhood residential urban residential. The way the other squares were introduced, like those could be voted on separately. Correct? ADUs can be voted on separately. The squares can be voted on separately.
[SPEAKER_41]: So do you want me to share this board? If we did do the thing that Alicia asked about, which we will share with the public shortly, how much time would you need?
[Emily Hedeman]: Is it like a month delta good?
[Emily Innes]: I think a month delta would be fine. I think that would work for the public comment. Yeah.
[Emily Hedeman]: OK. So what we're thinking about is, because it's clear that people want to continue to comment, we want to continue to hear it, is we will continue to accept public comment to a specific date. And then we will continue the topics, the NRUR to a date certain. Um. I don't know that we want to continue all those topics because we may be able to make progress on, um, Medford Square West Medford. In the meantime, kind of do those is like. Going back to my commercial real estate experience, those are almost like our anchor tenants of Medford. And then everything else is kind of supporting and kind of flowing out from the decisions that we make in those areas.
[Unidentified]: Yeah, I'd agree.
[John Anderson]: You're sort of talking about a divide and conquer strategy, which I think might be really good to knock off some of the easier pieces. Easier, yeah, relatively easier. When you get into the residential, I think there's kind of two ways to look at it. One is specific problems, such as the historical conversions. What does that really mean? Another way to look at it is neighborhood by neighborhood, because it's clear that our neighborhoods are radically different. North Medford, West Medford, South Medford, the list goes on and on. They each have their own character. and concerns. That's another way to look at it.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah, thank you for that, John. Ari, I see your hand, but I also heard that Adam might have their hand. I don't know who wants to speak first. Ari, I think your hand was up first.
[Ari Fishman]: Oh, sure. It's a short one. I think we're approaching good plan and I just wanted to throw in before I suggest or before I forget, in the next round, I would love to see a concrete proposal for some sort of tree protection for mature trees in the development. I know that was brought up and that's something that I've also been interested in. So just flagging it.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah, we heard that from the public as well this evening. So thank you for calling that out, Adam.
[Adam Behrens]: Yeah, I just want to reiterate what folks have said. And then maybe the other piece that at least I have heard, and maybe I'm just hearing what I want to hear, is just that the complexity of this is very hard to really wrap your head around, especially if you haven't had the time to sit with it consistently. Like, we have and so when you're the public and you hear that, you know, uh, your neighborhoods getting rezoned, there's just a lot of information that you have to have to wrap your head around. And so I'm just wondering if there's something from the board's perspective that from, like, a. principle that we can kind of anchor to around trying to drive recommendations towards more simplicity that just help maybe streamline both like the decision making that we can do and then also the just the understanding of the changes that are happening. I feel like with each recommendation, it's adding an additional layer of complexity that then makes it harder to understand the full scope of what's being proposed. So I just wanted to add that particular angle.
[Emily Hedeman]: And I also think there's interim communication that we can have with the public. You know, I'm looking at the FAQs on the zoning website, and there's two of them. But I think we're hearing a lot of questions from the public that maybe we can, you know, post in that forum. Specifically, like, you know, some of the questions we heard again and again tonight. You know, I heard about public services. I heard about parking. I heard about... I need to read my own handwriting right now. But yeah, I think there's ways we can communicate in an interim. So what I'm going to do, because I think we're all kind of circling the same idea, is start throwing out some dates. So we have meetings over the summer, but I hesitate to I hesitate to schedule things over the summer because of unavailability of the public as well as the board. So gut reactions to September 3rd, September 17th, and maybe it's this kind of like stepped meeting that we think about.
[Ari Fishman]: I think that's waiting too long.
[Alicia Hunt]: can I just ask for some clarification? Are what we talking about is that you would, and I think what I'm recommending is something that we haven't really done much in Medford, but I have seen it in other communities where you say we're taking public comment in written comment until a certain date, like that could be July 20th or July 30th. And then the board meets again september 3rd and there will be no public comment that by that time the consultants have digested that the board will have read everything that has come in And that meeting is about deliberating and making recommendations Yeah, so my september dates, um are establishing the date which we'll discuss and then we would back out of that You know x number of weeks
[Emily Hedeman]: That you need to cover the comments. So if we and you know, I hear your feedback ari on, you know, that's way too far out So i'm i'm not ignoring that i'm just using the dates that I already threw out So if we did meet september 3rd, and that was kind of the next big discussion post public comment You know, maybe the public comment is due august 3rd or august 15th I would go earlier than that to give us time to really work out Okay, so more than a month
[Emily Innes]: Just note that you would have to continue this to a date certain.
[Emily Hedeman]: Right, yes.
[Emily Innes]: So yeah.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah, so if we continue it to September 3rd, we would say comments are due by August 3rd. Yeah. But I think as a board, we might not be aligned on that. So I don't want anyone to write those dates in their diary right now. So I hear from a board member, Ari, that September is too far out. Do we have any counter proposals? I'm sorry.
[Ari Fishman]: Um, I'm happy to kind of add some more detail to that. Sorry. I had a very gut reaction.
[Emily Hedeman]: Um, yeah, no, that's, that's valid. Yeah.
[Ari Fishman]: Um, I think another like 3 to 4 weeks for public comment from this point is reasonable. And I do want to make sure that we build in, in the backwards planning at least a month of, um, iteration. I don't think we're going to approve the 1st thing we discuss kind of, and nor do I think we'll be able to discuss the whole thing in 1. so I think if anything kind of. I think another 3 to 4 weeks for comment max and then planning on, like, at least 2 to 3 iterations or kind of sub segments feels more realistic. And I will also be realistic about the fact that I will not be able to join meetings in September. So feel free to schedule without me.
[Emily Hedeman]: miss you terribly. Um okay. So yeah, if we do the 3 to 4 weeks, that brings us to July 16th. If we have a month of iteration, that brings us to middle of August. Our meetings in August, I believe, are scheduled for the 6th and 20th. The 20th is the closest. Um So we're two weeks delta from the date that I suggested in September.
[John Anderson]: A quick question.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah.
[John Anderson]: Are you just talking about residential? Yes. Or are you talking about everything?
[Emily Hedeman]: I'm just talking about neighborhood residential, urban residential. I think the other topics we can continue to hear and discuss.
[Peter Calves]: Yeah. That's what I was going to bring up. I wanted to bring up that I do think There is complexity to the residential zoning, but I don't think that means that everything else should stand still. I think that there, particularly with the squares in the corridors, there are things that can be considered that may even contribute to clarity around the residential zoning as those get done. So I don't think we want this to hold up the whole thing. And I think if there's, if it is possible that if there's stuff prepared for the squares and corridors, which I believe is most of what's left, that we should continue hearing that, I think. That's my thought.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah, I agree.
[Ben Lavallee]: I'm not sure. I'm not sure I follow the distinction, frankly, but like, you know, we would we would potentially vote on squares and corridors sooner and then. Eight certain further than that for the overall zoning changes. I mean, that seems reasonable to me.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah, those topics were introduced as like separate.
[Ben Lavallee]: Yeah, yeah, that seems reasonable to me. I mean, I would propose, though, that. we're making a set of changes that are going to set the foundation for this city for the next 30 years, that an extra month to make sure we get it right, even if that means we push to October so that Ari can be there. Like, I just don't see the benefit of trying to squeeze this in while everybody's on their end of summer vacation before Labor Day, just because we want to save a month.
[SPEAKER_43]: Yeah, no, I agree with you.
[Ben Lavallee]: So if we can find discrete, sorry, just I'll wrap up. If we can find discrete things to make progress on that we feel the public comment has been fully digested and incorporated, and maybe that's Medford Square or something like that, sure, let's knock it out. But I would say, let's choose a date. Let's give ourselves more time rather than rush it on the big sweeping zoning changes for the city.
[Emily Hedeman]: I could not agree more. And yeah, I mean, what's the saying? The days are long, or was it the days are long? Short, but the years are long. No, I think it's the other way. The days are long, the years are short.
[Ben Lavallee]: 10 years from now, nobody will remember whether it was like the summer of 2025 or the fall of 2025. They'll remember if we get it right. Yeah. So let's talk.
[Emily Hedeman]: Do you have a point of information? Okay, would you mind feeding it to our? Yeah, that's a question.
[SPEAKER_41]: Thank you. I do want to make sure we don't lose sight of the fact that the Medford Square, that's Medford Square.
[Alicia Hunt]: What about me? Your hand is up.
[Ari Fishman]: It was not meant to be, apologies.
[Emily Hedeman]: No, you're good. The joys of hybrid meetings. Peter, your hand is up.
[Peter Calves]: Yes. Oh, that was intentional. I just wanted to just say if we're waiting If we're scheduling things out, I want to make sure it's around timelines that make sense for people. Give people time, but also not, I don't know, I don't want to wait for the, I don't want to give everybody time to contribute as they want to, but not wait for the sake of winning. I mean, I agree that we want to do it right, but if there's If we can act on things, I want to make sure we do.
[Ari Fishman]: Strongly agree.
[Emily Hedeman]: So where does that bring us in terms of dates? I know, Ari, you said you're not present in September. I won't be around on the 20th of August. Is September 17th a good date to work off of? I know it did get the gut reaction of too far out, but I think on further socialization, like September might be reasonable. I know you guys aren't commenting anymore, but I do appreciate the nods. Thank you. Okay, so if we have the 17th is when we are continuing this to a date certain. And this might be a two-part discussion to kind of reference what you said just to help manage expectations. And we do a month before for comments due. That would bring us to 8-17. So yeah, that's... That's a ton of time, hopefully, for all the comments to be incorporated. Thank you. I'm so sorry.
[Unidentified]: If you have a question.
[Emily Hedeman]: I appreciate your question. If you do have questions like that, just go to Christian and he'll clarify. But since you asked, I will answer. The comments can be in any form that you would like to share. We take all comments equally, whether they are... No, no, no.
[Alicia Hunt]: You have to take written comments. You cannot call the office and leave comments. So we're not talking about having a forum for people to make verbal comments. They're talking about having written comments that you would submit. And the other question that we've been getting is about questions. So we'll have staff at Circle the Square this Saturday from three to seven. and we can answer questions there. And we will have papers there for people to leave written comments that we can then submit to the board for you. And if people have specific questions and not the esoteric, like, why didn't you do a study? I'm not responding to that via email. That's not a useful, but if you say, what is the zoning on my street that we can answer, we can talk to you about, and the staff can field those via email over the next several weeks. and if we've not been able to keep up with the flood that comes in when we get 40 in like 48 hours, but over the next several weeks, we can answer questions as they come in. Just to be clear, the board would then take written comment during the summer.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yes, thank you for that clarification, Alicia. It's getting late in the hour, so I misspoke, but comments from the public would be written. So hopefully that eases childcare burdens, life burdens. If you do have questions, please refer to Christian. But I do appreciate people rearranging their lives and their times and making space for this. So to get back to those specific dates, we talked about September 17th. Yes. Yeah. Honestly, yeah, it could have been a Monday night, given my brain right now. Okay. Yeah, because that is the, we have our meetings on the first and third Wednesday of every month. So that's the third Wednesday. So we would have maybe the first of potentially two discussions. So it could be September 17th, if needed, continue to October 1st. Um. And then we would want written public comment just to be as clear as possible written public comment. Let's say by August 13th.
[Ari Fishman]: I think we can do initial public comment much sooner than that on what is existing. I think what we need to build in more time for is the iteration. I think it would be actually much more helpful to have initial public comment due at some point in July. And then commit to having a new proposal that incorporates that and have an additional 2 weeks for public comment. And edit and then another week or so for that last iteration, I think that. what I'm hearing is admittedly the very traditional way we have done this, which is we receive comment and then we incorporate it. But what I think I am hearing and what I think does strengthen the city as a whole is when we're able to do more rounds of that iteration. And we are allowing ourselves that time. So let's use it to its maximum potential.
[Emily Hedeman]: You took the words out of my brain that I couldn't find. Thank you so much for that, Ari. So if we have public comment, public written comment, let's say July 16th, that gives another, that gives two months for iterations. How does that sound to the board?
[Peter Calves]: I like that a lot. I think I tend to agree with Ari. We should allow time once we have received the public written comment for NS Associates to work on that and then for
[Emily Hedeman]: So Peter, just to be super direct, what date would you propose?
[Peter Calves]: Oh no, I like the July 16th, and then presumably the first meeting being, just based on what we were just talking about, the first meeting on this being September 3rd, or August 17th, and then with the potential to continuance to the 3rd if needed, is what I was hearing.
[Emily Hedeman]: So recognizing this late hour, if you support it, great. If you don't support it, say something. We're gonna continue. We eventually need a motion, but I think what we're discussing as a board is continue to September 17th. And we're going to accept written public comment until July 16th. Do any board members have any objections to those?
[Emily Innes]: Madam chair. Sorry. Yes, Emily. So you're going to continue the discussion of this topic to September 17th. I'm not sure that allows you to talk about it before September 17th. So I just wanted to clarify that because there was some talk of some iterations over the summer. I think from my perspective, it would be fabulous to have the comments early, but then my understanding is that we would be doing work responding to it, working with city staff to come back to September 17th. If you continue this topic to September 17th, you can't be discussing it in August.
[Jennifer Kerwood]: You're right, with open meeting law. Thank you for highlighting that. Can we continue to mid-August?
[Peter Calves]: Oh, sorry. Yeah, that already took the words out of my mouth. That was what I was about to say. I was under the impression based on the due date of the comments that we would be continuing to whatever that teens in August meeting is. And then with the ability to continue it into September after we see the updated proposal. That was my understanding of what we were discussing.
[Emily Hedeman]: Okay, so our August meetings are the 6th and the 20th. I will not be here on the 20th, but we have a second meeting I've missed this year. So apologies for the timing on that. Our September meetings are the 3rd and the 17th. We can of course call special meetings to meet outside of our 1st and 3rd schedule, which is to give an idea for the cadence that we could have.
[Peter Calves]: I would say based on the timeline we kind of want to set, to, unless there's a very strong objection, continue to August 20. I know, Emily, you can't be there, but I'm just kind of throwing that timeline out there.
[SPEAKER_43]: Yeah.
[Peter Calves]: With then the potential to continue to September 3, if needed.
[SPEAKER_41]: Long for the time. I know all about it. I'm just one member of the board. How many Mullins have I had? I think I, if you had one, it's too many. Yeah, I think I'd be, I think I'd be suited.
[Alicia Hunt]: And we have to make sure that the members of the board who are eligible to vote on this are available because anybody who's had, who's already missed one meeting and had to do a Mullin affidavit can't miss another meeting.
[Emily Hedeman]: Okay, gotcha. Yeah, so I'd be, I'd be scooted out.
[Peter Calves]: Yeah, that's the... I mean, the issue that presents, I think, is that then we'd... If we were to continue straight through to September 3rd, we'd then lose ARRI, if I'm understanding things correctly.
[Ari Fishman]: Due date is August 25th. I'm gonna need some time off. We're kind of talking about whether it makes sense to have an alternate step in for me, but I don't know what that does with Mullen Act and having been present. But I will be realistic that for at least a month after a new human leaves my body, I'm out. That's very fair. That's very fair.
[Emily Hedeman]: Okay. What if we move the public? Because we've already gotten a significant amount of comments. I just what I another point that I'm hearing is that there might be additional outreach that needs to be done. So yes, the public is going to share their comments with us. But I also think that the delta between now and public comment do there has to be some additional outreach for some some repetitive outreach. So that's that's what I'm floating around in terms of like our, um, like our initiation kind of for our our datum for picking the start date. Because I think the day that public comments are due starts the rest of this. And if we can't do the 20th, if we don't want to do September, then yeah, we're looking to October. Good things take time, Alicia. So how does the August 6th look for people? Sorry.
[Peter Calves]: No, I mean. I'll put a dollar in the swear jar. August 6th sounds fine in theory, as long as there's time for everything, at least to me. But I also don't want to shortchange any of if There's going to be work that needs to be done. I mean, I think, is there a world in which we could get the information we need by August 6? I think so. But that's just my opinion of the timeline. Sorry.
[SPEAKER_43]: Go on, Ari.
[Alicia Hunt]: I'd like to make the point that I think what could work is that if you had the public comment due by this date late in July, what the consultants, in order to give you an iteration, they actually need the members of the board to say, these are the things we'd like to see changed. because literally some of the public comments in direct conflict with each other. So you can't just take all the public comment and come out with a version because you literally can't. So the board needs to meet. And so my thought is that if the board could meet at some point in early-ish August and say, this is what we think we'd like to see change, and then expect that you'll come back and then we advertise that version to the public, but you're not taking public comments anymore. And then, which is a problem, but you're not, you've closed public comment. And then you're discussing it again in September and saying, this is what we have based on the version that the consultants have come back with. It's how do you give them direction? No, I know.
[Ari Fishman]: I like the idea of that August meeting. I think that seems like a very reasonable timeline. The only thing about that that gives me substantial pause is not receiving that additional round of public feedback. I actually do really want the round of feedback after the iteration, and I don't know what the legal mechanism is, but I feel like there has to be one. But August 6th sounds reasonable to me.
[Emily Innes]: I think what you would want to do is to, and this is the point in the process at which I say I am not a lawyer, but I was a planning board member for 10 years. So just speaking from that experience, but not being a lawyer, I think you want to keep the public comment period open this whole time, but state that you're going to have a working meeting in August where you go through all the public comment that's received. you then give us some direction where we can come back with the iterations. You probably have another working meeting to understand the iterations and confirm that's what you expected. Keep the public hearing open, and then once we're all solid that we've done the iterations that you wanted to have the public comment on, let the public know that we're now having public comment on that set of iterations. I think one of the confusing things has been, for yourselves, for the public, frankly for ourselves, is we've been trying to iterate in real time, and I think that's gotten a lot of people confused. So if we can let people know, this is the iteration period, this is your comment period, this is our iteration for all of us on your comments, this is your comment that would work out very well.
[Alicia Hunt]: did I understand you? What I think I heard you saying, but not in so many words, is that you would actually announce that you'll have some working meetings where the board will discuss, but we'll not open it up to public comment. So residents may watch, but you won't be taking input during those meetings. But you could come back later and take public comment again. And we present kind of that first iteration.
[Peter Calves]: Yeah, my understanding is that We'll accept public comment on the current iteration through whatever date. Then we'll have our working meetings where we hash through things and don't accept public comment. And then we'll have the iterated version on which we will accept public comment again.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah, I think I have the same understanding.
[Ben Lavallee]: Would it be helpful for me to give you dates? I've been looking at the calendar this whole time.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah, I have a couple dates, but I would love to hear from not my voice.
[Ben Lavallee]: We do have a meeting on the calendar next week, right? So that's a continued public discussion week, not this one, okay. So then the next public discussion would be July 9th.
[Emily Hedeman]: So you're talking about reopening the hearing for verbal public comment? Because I think what we're talking about is,
[Ben Lavallee]: Are we saying no more verbal public comment after today? We had like 30 people who didn't get to speak today and a whole bunch of people who didn't know about it.
[Unidentified]: Yeah. Respectfully, if you have comments, please email them. Thank you.
[SPEAKER_10]: I mean, we're making billions of dollars a decision. I'm so sorry.
[Emily Hedeman]: Public comment is closed for this meeting.
[Unidentified]: Yeah, I just wanted that in my stash.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you. you bring up a good point, Ben. We would be missing a lot of voices because there is this kind of like outreach question.
[Ben Lavallee]: Should we should we maybe just in the interest of I know not like not losing our minds, losing our minds right now. Maybe we use next week's meeting to just finalize the logistics. Yeah, I mean, I'm of the opinion that we should probably continue to have the board wants to see. We're not, you know, public comment period is technically still open, but we're not going to take it at these next two meetings because the board's going to deliberate. That's like roughly August. the sort of final proposal.
[SPEAKER_43]: Yeah.
[Ben Lavallee]: And then we vote late September or early October.
[Emily Hedeman]: Do you have specific dates in front of you?
[Ben Lavallee]: I mean, I can I can put them out there, but it involves us like reconsidering what we're doing next week. Right. So we have we do have the potential to repurpose next week. Maybe not.
[Emily Hedeman]: I don't think we can fully repurpose, but I think it could be like a that's fine.
[Ben Lavallee]: We could say we could say July 9th. We could say, you know, verbal verbal public dialogue, July 9th. Meaning we're going to continue to hear comment basically another version of what we did today Maybe a little more sort of pointed or or you know on specific topics. Okay We could do that again on July 23rd that could be the end of that We could accept written in parallel or we could just do just the ninth Um, just kind of throwing it out there Yeah, and I think um I'm going to pause on the dialogue at the end of July. Iterate in August. One more round of discussion and feedback with the public in early September.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah, I think we can also ask members of the public if they have already spoken. and they do not have new comments to share, to maybe consider another method, maybe sending an email, because we do want to provide opportunity for all voices to be heard.
[John Anderson]: I sort of lost track of when are we folding in these other
[Emily Hedeman]: to vote on, like, you know, the so if we so if we go with what board member La Valley is saying, then we have. Be like one or two more meetings. Let's say one meeting July 9th where we receive additional verbal comment. And if you've already shown up tonight. You didn't get heard. We have your name circled. You'll be a We'll have to figure that out at some point, but we'll do comments. The 9th, then what did we do? We close, or no, we.
[Ben Lavallee]: Except written until the 23rd.
[Emily Hedeman]: Except written until the 23rd.
[Ben Lavallee]: Then.
[Emily Hedeman]: Then we as a board need to deliberate.
[Ben Lavallee]: Deliberate in August.
[Emily Hedeman]: So that would be the 6th and prioritize. And then also, I think you've said this a couple of times, but make very concrete suggestions and recommendations. Okay. And then we would want to give Innocent Associates time to iterate.
[Ben Lavallee]: Give them the rest of August at least.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah. Yeah. So that brings us to, so 8-20 would be kind of a whatever meeting.
[Ben Lavallee]: And we evangelize the output of that.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yes.
[Ben Lavallee]: And potentially do one more round of dialogue with the public in early September.
[Emily Hedeman]: So 9-3 is our next meeting, and then 9-17. So maybe we present the first iteration on the 3rd.
[Ben Lavallee]: Deliberate on the 17th and vote on the 1st. I'm just throwing it out there. By all means, people can propose something different.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah, and then this all falls under the caveat of man plans, God laughs. So yeah. Peter, Ari, Adam. John, how do you feel? Should I put this, should I type this up and like share it? Let me see.
[SPEAKER_41]: Yes. Yes. And then I would add the first one there, 10-1. Yeah.
[Unidentified]: That's like potential. Yeah, that would work.
[SPEAKER_41]: She might want to have public disciplines, I noticed. They would hear something on the phone.
[Emily Hedeman]: Okay, so to get us literally all on the same page. And let me make this bigger, as big as I can make it.
[SPEAKER_41]: I got it, yeah. So board members.
[Ari Fishman]: I think this is a very sensible timeline and I think it might make sense for me to talk offline with Alicia about logistics of if you guys will be able to make forum without me for some of those, but I think it sounds very reasonable.
[Peter Calves]: Okay, I like it. Yeah, I think this makes the most sense given what we've discussed this evening.
[Emily Hedeman]: Might be the best decision that we can make given all the information we have today. Your screen has the dates off to the left.
[SPEAKER_41]: I don't see August 6th on your screen.
[Emily Hedeman]: Oh, yeah, okay. Sorry. No, you're good. The joys of formatting. Okay, so yeah, that includes... That's it, right?
[SPEAKER_41]: Yeah. How many bullets are there? June 25th, July 9th, July 23rd, closed written comment. Why don't I have that? Something happened with the format. Something funky. make your font go back to a regular size, and then just use your Zoom slider. Like, make the font small, and then use the Zoom slider. I think something happened there. That's weird. So it is 6 September 3, 2017. Yeah. OK.
[Emily Hedeman]: I'm not hearing any more feedback or objections from the board. I'm seeing some thumbs up. So what we'd be looking for at this point is, actually, I think, do we need to do the ADU separately to another different date certain?
[SPEAKER_41]: It could be the same date certain. Okay. I think you need to be clear that you're voting on both. Yeah. Or voting separately. I need a new contract. Yeah, you do. Yeah. It's okay. Um. You so good. Um.
[Emily Hedeman]: So I'm going to propose that the way we talk about what's next. Um we're talking about accessory They're so intertwined. I don't see a world in which we can decide ADU without deciding neighborhood residential, urban residential. So the dates that we would consider, that we would continue to, would also be applicable for the ADU topic.
[SPEAKER_43]: Yeah.
[Emily Hedeman]: Are there any, what'd you say? Yes, sir. Well, I'm sorry then. I'm so sorry. Okay. So what I'm looking for right now is a motion to continue to a date certain, and then which, God, what date would that be? Would that be the sixth? No, cause we're not, So, right.
[Peter Calves]: It would be the 9th.
[Alicia Hunt]: July 9th. Okay. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Publicize these dates and you should make clear that the September 3rd is verbal public comment. Okay. Because people are asking about that.
[SPEAKER_41]: Okay. Another line.
[Alicia Hunt]: So right now you would only actually continue to July 9th, but we could advertise this whole schedule to the public.
[Emily Hedeman]: So what we're looking for is a motion to continue to July 9th for both the accessory dwelling units as well as the neighborhood residential urban residential.
[John Anderson]: So moved.
[Emily Hedeman]: Do I have a second?
[John Anderson]: Second.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you. So I'm going to do a roll call vote. I'm going to do them as I see them. John Anderson.
[John Anderson]: Yes.
[Emily Hedeman]: Ben LaValle.
[John Anderson]: Aye.
[Emily Hedeman]: Ari Gochman-Fishman. Aye. Peter Kalbs. Aye. Adam Behrens.
[Adam Behrens]: Aye.
[Emily Hedeman]: And I myself, Emily Hedeman, am also an aye. So we're going to continue. neighborhood residential urban residential as well as 80 you to July 9th. Is there anything else I need to say to seal that in?
[Alicia Hunt]: I mean, I think you should say that the staff are directed to advertise this schedule.
[Emily Hedeman]: So we will we will advertise this full schedule. Um, And then I just, I just appreciate so deeply everyone being here and providing comment. We will share this, but feel free to like take a picture or, you know, write it down. These dates won't change, you know, unless, unless they do, unless they do. Yeah. Okay. So with that, we're going to move on to our next agenda item. Um, and then, um, zoning updates. What's going on zoning guys? I'm kidding. Um and then the next item we have is adjournment. But I did want to kind of make two little announcements about Um, one, a member of our board and then also somebody that helps us in the city that's been recognized for their work. Um, so Alicia has received the Mystic Leadership Award for her work on the Clippership Connector. Um, the Clippership Connector is a shared use path that's opening this July. This has been in the works for over 10 years. And we're so thankful to people like Alicia and her colleagues. I'm so happy that her work is being recognized. So I just wanted to kind of put that into our meeting. And then on the board, I saw this on LinkedIn, so sorry, Peter. Peter just obtained his professional engineer license in the state of Massachusetts, which as a daughter of an engineer is no small feat. So congratulations, Peter. And if any other members of the board have things they want called out that are not on LinkedIn, let me know and I'll do it. So the next item we have on our agenda is adjournment. Don't all jump.
[John Anderson]: I move we adjourn.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you, John. Can I have a second? Second. Thanks, Ari. I'm going to call him as I see him. John Anderson. Ben LaValle.
[Peter Calves]: Aye.
[Emily Hedeman]: Ari Goffman-Fishman. Aye. Peter Calves.
[Peter Calves]: Aye.
[Emily Hedeman]: Adam Behrens.
[Peter Calves]: Aye.
[Emily Hedeman]: And I, myself, Emily Hedeman, am also an aye. Thank you all so much. It's been a very, very strong evening for Medford.
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