total time: 12.76 minutes
total words: 1093
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Good evening and welcome to tonight's meeting of the Medford Community Development Board. I'll call the meeting to order. Let's begin with some obligatory procedural matters. This hearing of the Medford Community Development Board is being conducted via remote means. No in-person attendance of members of the public will be permitted, but every effort will be made to ensure that the public can adequately access the proceedings as provided for in Chapter 2 of the Acts of 2023. A reminder that anyone who would like to listen to or view this meeting while in progress may do so by accessing the link that was included on the meeting agenda posted on the CF Medford's website. If despite best efforts, we are not able to provide real-time access, we will post a recording of this meeting on the city's website as soon as possible. A reminder that given the remote nature of this meeting tonight, all votes from the board will be made by roll call. Please note that the project materials for all projects before the board can be viewed on the city's website as well, and that's medfordma.org. And you can click on current city board filings, and Danielle will provide a link in the chat I'm going to do a roll call attendance. Vice-chair Emily Hedlund. Present. Peter Kautz.
[Peter Calves]: Present.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Ari Fishman. Present. Pam Marianski. Present. Sally Akiki. Present. Do we have Shirai Barachara? No, not Shirai. And myself, Jackie McPherson. Danielle, can you introduce any staff on the call?
[Danielle Evans]: myself um danielle evans senior planner in the office of planning development sustainability and we also have alicia hunt who is the director of planning development sustainability i believe that is everyone from our office tonight thank you so the first item on our agenda this evening is 290 salem street which i will need a roll call vote um it was being continued from four
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: actually from 3-13-24. And now it needs to be continued to 4-17-24. The proponent is asking for continuance. Can I have a motion to continue to 90 Salem Street to April 17th, which is a date certain?
[Emily Hedeman]: Motion to continue without prejudice to April 17th.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: And a second?
[Emily Hedeman]: Seconded.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Okay. roll call vice chair Emily Hedman. Aye. Peter Kautz.
[Peter Calves]: Aye.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Ari Fishman. Aye. Pam Raviansky.
[Evangelista]: Aye. Sally Akiki. Am I allowed to vote if I did not watch the full meeting of last two weeks ago?
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: I believe you can vote to continue. You just can't vote on material as of right now, but you can vote to continue, I believe. And myself, Jackie McPherson. So the next item, we're going to go to 294 Harvard Street. This is a special permit to establish a motor vehicle repair establishment, which is auto glass within an existing building. This was continued from 313.4 as well, I believe. Is that the date? I don't have to continue this date. And if I can have the Method staff introduce the proponent again.
[Danielle Evans]: I believe the property owner, Darren Danucci, is present on the call. And I'll unmute. Darren, I'm not sure if anyone from... Hi, can you hear me now? Yes.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, thanks.
[Danielle Evans]: Through the chair, Darren, do you have anybody joining you tonight on this matter? Just me. Thank you. Yes, so through the chair, just a reminder, the last meeting, there was a typo on the agenda. So out of abundance of caution, we continued this in order to make sure that it was properly noticed on the agenda to ensure that anyone from the public that was looking to speak on this would be able to speak tonight. So I would recommend that you open up for public comment and then deliberation.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: So with that said, I will open the public comment period. Those who wish to provide comments can use the raise hand feature or message Danielle in the comments. You can also send an email to OCD at method-ma.gov. Before providing your comments, please state your name and address for the record. A reminder to all meeting participants to please refrain from using the chat function to provide comments as it is not part of the public record. However, if a participant is having audio or other technical difficulties, this may be entered into the chat to let myself and staff Danielle, can you please manage the public comment queue and read any previously sent emails or letters?
[Danielle Evans]: I don't see any hands raised. I haven't received any comments on this one.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Okay, so in that case, I will close the public comment period for this meeting. And to remind the board, I remember we were mostly in agreement, but due to the technical error, we were not able to vote at the last meeting, but we said that if the proponent came back, we would be willing to approve with a couple of conditions. Condition one being to remove the barbed wire on the fence. maintain screening on the fence to ensure parking is not visible from the public way. The proponent was actually amenable to that condition. Condition two, prior to applying for a sign permit, the applicant must submit plans to planning staff for review approval. Preferred signage type would be downcast lighting, such as gooseneck, or halo-lit channel letters. I believe the proponent was amenable to that as well. Condition number three, strike parking, the same. And I believe, I'm not sure that we have to go over the benefits of this, making sure that the benefits outweigh any adverse effects as we've done that. So at this point, I'm not sure if the board has any further questions. If you want to move forward with, if I can have an actual motion to approve the site plan for 94 Harvard Street, if there are no other questions.
[Peter Calves]: I think that's everything I had in town. So yeah, we were ready to approve with condition or to grant with conditions that we Couldn't vote because of the technical thing. In that case, I'll motion to grant the special permit with conditions as noted.
[Emily Hedeman]: Seconded.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Vice Chair Emily Hedeman? Aye. Peter Cowles?
[Peter Calves]: Aye.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Ari Fishman? Aye. Pam Ariansky? Aye. Sally Kiki?
[Evangelista]: or I can't vote?
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Oh, yes, that's right. Abstention and myself, Jackie McPherson, I'm an aye. Thank you, Mr. Tanuchi. I believe your special permit has been granted.
[Peter Calves]: Okay, thank everybody very much.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Thank you, Mr. Tanuchi.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for your patience. We'll see you around town. Thanks.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Next up on our agenda is 48 to 64 Commercial Street. This is site plan review to construct a two-story 97,857 square foot research and testing lab. Danielle, can you please introduce, oh, can you actually give any introductory comments to remind us of this item?
[Danielle Evans]: Yes, so at the last meeting, we opened the public hearing and heard the presentation from the applicant. I believe everyone was largely in favor of it. There were just some technical things that needed to be updated on the plans so that it was a nice, clean approval without too many conditions. In the interim, I did receive the updated plans and transmitted those to you all. I ran it by the city engineer and the director of traffic and parking. were some revisions that still need to be made. But I think that they are straightforward enough that we could add those as conditions rather than continue the hearing. And one of those was from the city engineer. He had requested that both entrances have concrete drive aprons so that it reads as a driveway, not as a road. So a continuous sidewalk. And then director of traffic and transportation comments or surrounding some of the off-property traffic. Mitigation with sidewalks. I can call up the email. I got it this afternoon. But I will turn it over to attorney dash.
[Dash]: Thank you, Danielle. Adam Dash, 48 Grove Street in Somerville, representing Empire Management Corporation. With me are Bernard Gibbons from Empire, James Almonte from the Civil Engineers and Landscape Architects, Patrick Bradley, our Traffic Engineer, Mary Lou Armstrong from Theta Group, who's our Licensed Site Professional for Environmental Matters. When we were before you on the 19th of March regarding the project that requires site plan review for a non residential structure of over 10,000 square feet, which will be this tough tech lab building. We already have our ZBA height variants. If you recall, we can James, you want to pull up the. slides. James is going to drive our slides tonight. I can real quickly recap what we went through just so it's fresh in your mind, and then show you what we've changed. We did get some comments, as Danielle said, today from traffic and from engineering. None of them are major or earth-shattering. We obviously, getting them today, we were not able to incorporate them in the plans that you've seen. However, We would appreciate a vote and can have those as conditions, as Danielle suggested, I think makes eminent sense. But we can certainly discuss what's going to happen here.
[SPEAKER_00]: James, if somebody can just allow me to share the screen.
[Dash]: I think you have to make him a co-host.
[Danielle Evans]: There we go.
[Dash]: I'm just going to zip through some slides so you remember what you have. And I don't know if everybody was here last time anyway. That's the slide that's going to set the list. Do you want to, James, go through what we've changed since the last time we saw everybody here?
[SPEAKER_00]: Sure. So one of the comments was the addition of an erosion and sediment control plan, which we did add to the revised plan set, which is shown here. So this is a new plan that was added to the set. And then this is the layout materials plan. Most of the changes are shown on this plan. So one of the big changes was the addition of the landscape islands within the parking lot. So we didn't have more than 25 spaces in a row. So we added islands here, here. This one wasn't needed from a parking lot standpoint, but we needed it from a drainage standpoint. And then we added another one here. So that resulted in the net loss of three spaces. We did add a couple spaces in the back to try to make up for a few that we lost. So now we're at 211 spaces down from 214. So a few less employees allowed for this type of use. We also added one accessible EV space, which I believe was a comment from the traffic department. We eliminated the retaining wall for a couple of reasons along the South property line. That was a comment from the abutter and also from conservation. So we were able to pull the parking away from the wetland line and able to off grade that. So that moved a little bit further away from the wetland. Some of the comments that I think are still outstanding that Danielle mentioned was the curb cut along commercial street. I know there was talk about having this bump out here and then transitioning back to the wider width within commercial street. What we ended up doing is we did the bump out, but we did transition back, but we allow for some potential on-street parking. So one of the changes if that's not something that the city wants to see then we'll just transition this curving back to match the, the wider width of commercial street and will eliminate those nine parallel spaces that we have within the right of way so that's, that's a relatively easy fix. Um, so we moved if you recall, we had the sidewalk going across our driveway and this also relates to 1 of the comments that the city engineer made. So we did have a sidewalk that ran across this driveway, which makes sense when you, when you have that apron, and then it crossed over a commercial street on the South side of that driveway. Uh, we eliminated that crossing across our driveway. That's why we eliminated the apron and we move the crosswalk to the North side of that intersection. So now you're crossing here. Um, and then 1 of the other comments was to add another crossing here, which, which we can do as well, or have it conditioned as part of the approval. Um, we also added an accessible ramp on the South side of commercial street there. There was some comments on native plantings, just the drainage plan. There were some comments from the engineer from stormwater that you really don't see on this plan, but we did submit revised stormwater accounts to that department as well. And then we did change some of the tree species to native species, which was another comment that we received from, I believe, from conservation and from this board. So we did swap out a couple of those trees to being native species. A lot of the other ones were already native, so we only had to change out a few of those. think I think that was the pedestrian walkway I'm sorry what was that pedestrian walkway James oh yeah the so we did meet with the butter one last time and we did we did angle this connection this pedestrian connection back from the to the shopping center we had a tying in going straight up the page they just wanted that angled to the left there's actually we actually have an access easement on their property they just wanted us to tie that into our access easement. So it was just simply angling it from going straight up the page to turning it to the left. So not a major change there, but it's something that they wanted to see.
[Dash]: The shopping center very much wanted the pedestrian connection, as you can imagine. So it's just a matter of finessing it, how it connects to their property, which is not a big deal.
[SPEAKER_00]: Unless I think there was a couple other minor comments that we got in some of the, some of the comments that we received from the city. Like I said, the stormwater, nothing that you really see on the plan. It was just how we did some calculations that we, that we addressed their comments on. And some utility connections as well. We added a hydrant at the back of the site and within the parking lot. That was another comment that we received.
[Dash]: I think we've pretty much met everything and then the comments that came in today, James just described how we could address those via condition and we're happy to address them. None of them are substantive to the project as far as we're concerned and happy to oblige.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Thank you, Mr. Monti and Attorney Dash. Daniel, can you remind the board of, so I don't see updated comments from the department head, so can you lay those conditions out again? Because it's clear that the plans have been updated, and I feel a lot more comfortable, because as I said previously, when you condition something to the point of change, we should definitely see more of a final. And this definitely looks a lot more final, so I want to be clear on what the, Updated comments are what has not been addressed If you can spell it out for the board Yeah, so, um We'll need a condition.
[Danielle Evans]: I mean it is the applicant is amenable to this i'm assuming um the let's see what we find the Exact language from city engineers about the concrete apron or I'll make sure I'm using the right language.
[Dash]: James might be able to go straight to it. I think I can.
[Danielle Evans]: Yeah the engineering division recommends that both entrances to the site be concrete driveway apron in accordance with city standards. So that is the only remaining condition that we would need for engineering. And then I believe Todd's comments were the same. I'll address it with the exception that was just detailed. So I would recommend that a condition be that that the applicant admit a revised plan, I guess it would be, would it be C-101, would it be this, would this be the only plan affected? I guess this is a question for the engineering.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, yeah, I think that this plan should cover everything. Yeah, so it was just basically making this driveway mimic this one. So having that concrete apron go across this driveway here. And then the change to the curbing along Commercial Street. So I think we can cover everything on this plan.
[Dash]: So that's the second condition would be the curbing on Commercial Street, the bump out
[Danielle Evans]: And then it looks like all the buyer comments were incorporated with the additional hydrants. Those are the only conditions that I think are necessary from my end to satisfy traffic and engineering. I don't know if there are any others.
[Dash]: James, I think those are the only two that we weren't that came in today that we weren't able to incorporate on the plan. Right? Yeah, that's all I had.
[Danielle Evans]: And I just have one question about through the chair about the pedestrian connection. So is there a gate? It will always be open. It will be obvious that you can get through there.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it won't be gated. It'll be open. And the only change that we made here was the sidewalk continues straight through. And it was basically right in front of their gas pump. So they just wanted that angle to the left. And it doesn't show on this plan, it's off the survey, but it actually ties into one of their islands in their parking lot. So it actually makes sense to do that. But it won't be gated, it'll be open at all times.
[Danielle Evans]: Great. And Madam Chair, I see that Vice Chair Emily Hedeman has her hand raised.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yes, Vice Chair Hedeman. Thanks, Chair McPherson. Focusing on that northwest corner again, what's the elevation of that? I couldn't really read the writing there, the concrete utility thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. Um, so let's go to the dreams. So it's at elevation 12 ish. There's a 12 contour going right through the middle of it.
[Emily Hedeman]: Okay. Is it like, um, is there like a structure? No, no. Okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just a retaining wall. Yeah. There'll be a concrete pad retaining wall and then a privacy fence around it to screen it.
[Emily Hedeman]: Okay. So if someone was to go to the other site, they'd, they'd have to squeeze kind of through, that little area next to it?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[Emily Hedeman]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: The sidewalk would run right adjacent to it.
[Emily Hedeman]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we use, but yeah, there's a sidewalk.
[Emily Hedeman]: Sure. Um, I wonder if we could, um, add a condition to add signage there, uh, just to like better indicate that that is a pass through. Because I'm just thinking about myself as a user of buildings. You really have to know that that's there to go there. I think a sign would be helpful just to say, shopping this way or whatever. Is that something that we could condition?
[Danielle Evans]: through the chair, yes, I believe so. So you could, yeah, no, it makes sense to do that now to condition that there be some directional signage there. So there's no question when they apply for a sign permit that it wasn't already blessed.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah, nothing too crazy. Just, you know, part of your standard, you know, exterior sign package. Yeah, like whatever the name of that shopping center is like.
[Peter Calves]: Yeah, there's like two hills by Plaza or something. Yeah.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah. And it wouldn't have to be in the other direction because I, I don't know how big the draw would be, um, from the shopping Plaza to the, to this, um, commercial building. Right.
[SPEAKER_00]: It'd be a huge draw.
[Emily Hedeman]: I mean, maybe like, you know, you know, depending on people's route, but I think, you know, providing a little bit of signage would be nice.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that makes sense.
[Emily Hedeman]: Cool.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Thank you. Since it is part of a hearing, we'll need a public comment. Is that correct, Daniel, for this one?
[Danielle Evans]: Yeah, you didn't close the public hearing, so you can ask if there's anybody tonight who wants to speak on this.
[Alicia Hunt]: All right, so I'll open up. Madam Chair, one of the members has their hand raised. Peter Cowles. Peter Cowles.
[Peter Calves]: Yeah, I mean, just to the question on one of the potential conditions, the curb on Commercial Street, what is that condition specifically referring to? I've heard it referred to both by city staff and by the engineer, and I'm just not sure what it's referring to.
[Danielle Evans]: Do you have access to your email right now, Peter? I just forwarded you the entire board, the email that I received from Todd today. I can also read it if that's easier. My comments generally are as follows. The project responded to the suggestion to bump out the north side of their south driveway. However, they also bumped out their entire frontage. The intent of my comment was to extend the narrow portion of the road only one driveway further north to accommodate better pedestrian exiting sight lines. The road north of this driveway crosswalk should remain wider to transition to the cross section that exists to the north of the south driveway. Also, if proceeding with the bump out for the crosswalk to cross on the north side of the Commercial slash Blake intersection, then the project should also construct new ramps crossing Blake, which are not shown, indicated. If not, the pedestrian path from their frontage to continue south on Commercial will not be fully accessible to all users. So, We could condition an updated plan that incorporates all of Director Blake's comments and then for review and approval. Okay. It's like the language that he had maybe was misinterpreted or not fully.
[Peter Calves]: Okay. That's fine. I just was looking at the meeting materials and the last comments from Director Blake were from the middle of March, so I was confused.
[Danielle Evans]: Yeah, they just came in today. OK, gotcha. I wanted them to see the revised plans and see if it captured everything.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Are there any other comments from the board? All right, since we haven't closed the public hearing, I will open it up for public comment. Those who wish to provide comments can use the raise hand feature or message Daniel in the comments. You can also send an email to OCD at Medford-MA.gov. Before providing your comments, please state your name and address for the record. A reminder to all meeting participants to please refrain from using the chat function. to provide comments as it's not part of the public record. However, if a participant is having audio or other technical difficulties, this may be entered into the chat to alert myself and staff. Danielle, have you received any emails or previously sent letters or emails on this? No, I have not. Since the last meeting? And seeing no hands raised now, I think it's safe to close the public comment period for this meeting and for this item. And I'll ask if the board has any other questions regarding the criteria for approval or any of the conditions.
[Peter Calves]: seeing none so i'm not sure i peter have you captured all the conditions or is it more appropriate to have the city list the conditions with approval i have captured assuming we have the three conditions condition one being to revise the plans to incorporate concrete driveway aprons and continuous sidewalks at both driveways Condition two is the one I'm a little fuzzy on that's based on Director Blake's comments about the curb bump outs. And I'm just not really sure what that's looking for. So that would be one more where I'd say revise the plans in accordance with Director Blake's comments of four, three, and five. In regards to the curb on curbing on commercial street, just because I'm not really sure and looking through that exactly what the condition is for the actual curb itself. And then condition three is the applicant shall install wayfinding signage at the pedestrian connection from the property to Felsway Plaza.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: And you did mention the concrete apron on the driveway. Was that the first one you mentioned? Yes, that was the first one, yeah. Awesome. And the city is, you're looking for a revised plan. Do the department has want a revised plan? That's not a condition, but that's something that will need to happen.
[Danielle Evans]: Yeah, so the condition will read that the applicant shall submit a revised plan at least sheet C101, I believe it was, and any other affected plans incorporating Director Blake's comments. And then we could even cite in the email dated April 3rd, 2024. And that way, when it comes down to reviewing the building application, building permit application or CO, that would point you to knowing that there was an updated plan to refer to.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Right, so I can ask for a motion on that, but I want to be absolutely clear on what we're asking for. So we're asking the proponent to prepare a revised plan with the conditions showing, indicating the conditions as per Director Blake's email of which date? April 3rd, 2024, today. April 3rd, 2024, as well as the other two conditions that Peter has read out, which is the concrete apron on driveway, And then the directional signage from the plaza, but.
[Peter Calves]: From the property to the plaza, not the other.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Do I have a motion to approve the site plan to 48 to 64 commercial street based on those conditions?
[Emily Hedeman]: I'll make a motion to approve.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Second. Vice Chair Emily Hederman. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. Thank you, Attorney Dash and Rosamonte, Mr. Bradley, Mr. Gibbons. Have a great evening. And Ms. Armstrong.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you, members of the board. It's gonna be great. Thank you very much. Thank you.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Have a nice evening.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you.
[Unidentified]: Bye.
[SPEAKER_00]: Bye.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: The next item is approval of minutes. I believe they were from 3-13-24. Do I have a motion to approve the meetings from 3-13-24? I second the motion.
[Evangelista]: I'll second.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: I'm sorry, before we do, my paper says 3-6-24, but I thought I read it for 3-13. Do I have the wrong date? Sorry, my dates are off and this I'm trying to find them again 3 13 is what it is in the uh in sharepoint Yeah, it says 3 6 on it, but when I went in draft meetings was something totally different and then When I went I think originally it was 3 6 the meeting but then it got moved to 3 13 Yes
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah, open meeting law. That's right.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Okay. So it's three 13. Okay. All right. So I read it. Right. Awesome. I'm sorry. Uh, who made the first motion? I did Sally. And second, seconded by Emily. Thank you. So vice chair, Emily Hederman. Hi. Peter cows.
[Peter Calves]: Hi.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Ari Fishman. Hi. Pam Marianski. Hi. Sally Akiki. Hi. And myself, Jackie McPherson. I'm an eye. And so the next item is for the city zoning overhaul updates. Is that something to be discussed this evening?
[Danielle Evans]: Madam chair, I think at the last meeting or the meeting before we decided that we would keep this as a standing agenda item. And if time permits, it'll be an opportunity for myself to give an update on where we are at. I will turn this over to director hunt, see if she has if there's any new information to share to just timeline or.
[Alicia Hunt]: All right, let me, I'm just gonna grab my notes. So we are meeting with the zoning consultant, Emily Ennis-Wheatley. And we are meeting, she is working on both short-term changes and longer, more in-depth changes. I was hoping to have the draft memo from her today to review the one that we looked at with her on Monday. Um, but I don't I just checked my email as you were calling this item and it's still not in there. Um, so hold on 1 second. I'm going to have to get back to you after I finish this. Sorry. I'm sorry. Um, so. It is my hope to have free so it is our goal and then to have for you all that we're going to be sharing. When we send this to the city council for public I can send it to you guys as well. With what are the short term things that we're working on, like quick changes. My favorite example right now is that the parking loading code is a separate table from the use table right and It's just a code. Why isn't the number just in the use table? So like that's like let's merge those two together into one table without actually changing any of the parking. So then when we go to change the parking, it'll be really clear. It'll all be there together so that we can separate the aesthetic changes from the meaningful changes. There are some definitions that we don't have in our zoning that we should have. And so she's giving us some recommended definitions. There are some, some of them are a few, we have a few use types where the language of the name of the use is archaic. And so we actually want to replace that with a more common use, like just language. And we have a few that are badly missing. For example, coffee shops, it has come up recently that we really kind of wanted to approve the use of a coffee shop as a use in a building that came in front of the board. And honestly, I think it was in front of y'all and CBA. But that wasn't a use. It's either eat-in facility, like a dine-in facility, or nothing. So adding a use to the use table like coffee shops, so that it exists so that we can then start to add it into zones. Those are the kinds of things that we're looking at in this first round. The goal is actually to have that memo together and available to the public next week to have a city council subcommittee meeting on it to look at that stuff, and then refer it to the city council and to you all over the next several weeks to months. And I mean, our goal is to actually have it adopted before the end of June, these sort of shorter term changes. In the meantime, so you're aware her staff is doing analysis, they are doing some stakeholder interviews, And one of the things that Emily has said she would really like to do is to talk with the planning board, with you all, about things that you would like to see different in the zoning. Rather than like, here are the changes, comment on them, like have an actual conversation about what you'd like to see as she's moving things forward. So we would like to get that on your radar and schedule that. I'm also offering to your board and the zoning board, if there's anybody who would like to individually sit down with one of her staff and just sort of talk some things through, you're welcome to do that as well. Just let Danielle or I know and we can arrange for that. And I think I think those are all the short term things. And just I think I should be explicit about this is that we do have a lawyer that is hired as part of her team, Jonathan Silverstein, who has done work in front of this board before for the city. And if as we go through recommending these changes, we're going to have him review all the changes for the legal side of everything, make sure we're not doing anything illegal or in conflict with anything. So that is something that we will be reviewing. And you can just be confident that we've that's a piece of Emily's team that we're working on. Danielle, without my notes in front of me, did I hit all the high points, I think?
[Danielle Evans]: Yeah, I think so. There might be some use table tweaking. I think you already touched on that with the coffee shop adding some additional uses and eliminating some weird dimensional stuff, I think, like the usable open space. Did you mention that?
[Alicia Hunt]: I have not, and I'm not sure 100% where we settled on that. Medford's definition of usable open space is bizarre and very hard to apply to a building. I have actually sat with developers and the building commissioner and tried to figure out how you would actually determine the usable open space per our definition. So one of the things that we have bandied about is just changing that definition so that the definition of usable open space is kind of more like what is the open space on the property that is usable, right? That sounds obvious. It's not. It's things like it has to be at least 10 feet from any residential units. It has to be 10 feet from the property line. Like there are all things that like so that it's not the open space. It's weird. We're not even sure what the background in history is, but it feels very old because there was some reference in there to the ability to set up a clothesline. Um, so that made us feel that it was really old. Um, so we'll, we'll definitely, we, so what I basically say is that we're very interested in there being some informal conversations either with the board as a whole or individually, in addition to having the zoning changes come in front of you for formal comments to send to the city council.
[Danielle Evans]: Yeah, so through this year, basically, if there are certain members who are very interested in this and want to be more active in this process, you're more than welcome. We don't want to just be dropping things in front of you on an agenda item, like a rubber stamp or something. We value the input of our planning board.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: I can definitely appreciate that. I have extreme interest, but I'm just trying to figure out. I got to throw a dot at my calendar to see exactly how I can make that happen. It's definitely the ability. Similarly, I'd love to.
[Peter Calves]: have that conversation, but I need to figure out when to do that.
[Alicia Hunt]: And I think that's part of why I'm saying like, if people want to have a one off conversation, then we can be very accommodating to your schedules. As opposed to, you know, we'll have to make a longer CD board meeting or a special one to meet with her. So And it's hard to predict. Tonight was quick, which I feel that I can say now that all the cases have been heard this evening. But it can be hard to predict. We've had short meetings run crazy long and vice versa.
[Peter Calves]: As soon as 290 Salem wanted to continue, and so I was like, oh, this is going to be short, because the other two were already mostly approved.
[Alicia Hunt]: Right. And I mean, if anybody has a feeling that they don't want to use one of the board meetings, that that's not a good place to have a comment, just could tell us that too. Like, we can figure this out. We are making up the, other than the legally required elements, we are making up this process as we go along, and we are open to suggestion.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Yeah, and I'm excited that you have Emily Enns and her team on it.
[Alicia Hunt]: Yes, so there are some interesting analysis that's going to be that we can look at and stuff as well. There's a resident, I don't know if any of you have seen this, but there's a resident who had done some analysis of our existing parcels in terms of what were the size of the parcels. And if you looked at them and you colored them to which were the ones that are currently conforming with the with regards to lot size, how many is that? And then as you decrease the lot size, what percentage of our parcels are now, would it be legally conforming? And he presented that, but he's also done other analyses of different dimensional things. And I thought that was really interesting because it actually shows that Very few Medford residential parcels actually conform with lot size to our zoning. And so we've asked him to meet with Emily's data analysis team to kind of talk through some of these ideas and different visualizations and ways of looking at the data to help people understand it. And I will say on the list is absolutely climate resiliency items so that we actually have a climate planner who part of her role, part of the grant that hired her is to help adopt more climate resiliency policies into our ordinances and regulations. So she's produced a list already for the city to consider.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: I'm still on a 10-feet setbacks, which usually you find in a park. I don't know. So weird. All right.
[Alicia Hunt]: I certainly, if there are things in our zoning that any of you just straight up think this is weird, Don't assume that we already know and it's already on our list, unless it's like my favorite example that I keep using in front of you. I would rather just have you... I would rather have each of you individually send it to me than later somebody go, why did you include this one? It's so obvious. And I'm like, oh, I missed that one. It's not obvious since we have to use it.
[Danielle Evans]: Sometimes we'll stare at something for so long that we don't even... Like we'll miss things because we assume it's there. It's sometimes just like a fresh set of eyes really helps.
[Peter Calves]: Yeah, definitely. I've had that happen.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Okay. If there are no other items, I do have one. So our next meeting is April 17th and I will be away that week. So I wanted to put that on the table right now. It's the week that follows my first marriage anniversary. And so I will not be here. Hi, Emily.
[Emily Hedeman]: I'll be here.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: You'll be here, awesome. And so Emily said she'll be here. And so hopefully she will graciously step into that role to run the meeting.
[Danielle Evans]: And so I was just going to make sure that Pam has listened to the 290 Salem Street case. Yes. Because she's the one who's eligible to vote on that, because you can only miss one meeting and then listen to it. And Sally and Sherrod had missed two, so they're not eligible. So as long as we have Emily, Peter, Ari, and Pam caught up, then we'll be ready to vote on. Peter and Ari, do you have any conflicts on the 17th?
[Peter Calves]: Or do you think that you- I should be there. Checking my calendar now, but I don't believe so.
[Emily Hedeman]: No, we're good to go. School vacation week, but I don't know if that impacts us.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Is it school vacation? I know it always starts with Patriot's Day and I thought Patriot's Day was the following week. Okay, then now it's very early this year.
[Danielle Evans]: Yeah, it's school vacation week, but I will be back. So I'll be at this meeting. Probably third exhausted from Disney World.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: It's the 15th this week, this year, huh?
[Danielle Evans]: So I think it might just be 290 Salem that'll be on this. I think that's the only item. So as soon as I get those revisions, I will send them off to you so you can digest them, have any feedback.
[Emily Hedeman]: Confirm file access.
[Danielle Evans]: Yes. Yeah. Really, really appreciate the patience of you guys with our file issues. We're all human, I think. So hopefully they won't come back with something, because they had revised plans. And I'll send those to you, but it didn't address many. And I saw it, and I was like, this is not good.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Well, thank you for actually. I was like, don't waste your time. Thank you. So, and I was actually going to dial in and my husband was like, you begged me to take you away. You're absolutely not dialing in. I'm like, okay. And he's right. All right. So a motion to adjourn.
[Emily Hedeman]: I'll make a motion to adjourn. Second.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Second. Vice Chair Emily Hederman. Aye. Peter Cowles.
[Peter Calves]: Aye.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Ari Fishman. Aye. Pam Marioski. Aye. Sally Akiki. Aye. And myself, Jackie McPherson. Aye. Thank you. Thank you. Have a great day.
[Peter Calves]: Have a good evening, everyone.
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