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[Paula Ramos Martinez]: So for those that are joining regularly, I'm so sorry, I'm going to repeat myself for the first five minutes. But this is also for the people that doesn't know what we are doing and also the meetings that we are going to be having in the next weeks. So I'm going to go through the process timeline. What are we doing in this third stage of 2025? of this project when you have the opportunities to come and do the public comments and join in our meetings. And then we will be talking about Tufts University, that special district that we are talking about. So we have this process we are following in the planning and permitting committee meetings. These are, let's say, the base where we start presenting The projects we are doing right now, we did residential frameworks, we are doing commercial framework right now. So really rezoning, going through all the zoning, the current zoning in Medford. So if you're interested, it is very important. So if you're new to this and you want to know and you're curious, please join. So the next planning and permitting committee meeting, it will be in May 14. And we will be talking about other corridors that I can explain a little bit. Then we have the, so here are basically when you have the opportunity to have public comments. So in these planning and permitting committee meetings, there are always the space to listen from the public. Then we also have once the planning and committee committee meeting, they refer and they agree to what we have presented. Then they refer that proposal to the city board. And so here we have the few of the latest meetings that we have had, and then we will have the next one on May 7th about the residential districts. So we are reviewing all the residential districts. So if you're interested in that, The City Board is also a place to give your public comment. And then we are doing public meetings, Q&A sessions, as the one we have today. The special district from Redford Tufts, but then we will have also next week about squares and the ADUs. These are in the zoning website, so if you're interested in any topic specific, you can look at it and join us. So, what we are doing is we have been looking at the comprehensive plan that was released in January 2023 also the climate action and adaptation plan that was released in April 2022nd and all the things that are related to zoning. We are bringing those principles that were identified during this plans and we are applying into the zoning. So we are. looking through the whole current zoning that Medford has and going through it little by little, area by area. In the comprehensive plan, we have this map, this vision map. They divided the city in all these different areas, so corridors, squares, the residential with different densities. special areas and then the civic and institution anchors we are looking today at Medford Tufts. And so what we did is following the same system and looking at the city through all these different layers. So just to give a heads up, this is the residential district that was referred from the city council to city board. This is the one that we will be discussing. We are updating because we had the public meeting. We had some comments. We are re-updating this map and we will give a proposal next week. And here are all the quarters and different districts that are non-residential. And we are looking today at this institutional Medford Tufts. So going already now, yes, into new content. So here is a Google image of your campus, the Tufts campus. I'm not saying nothing new. It is divided between Medford and Somerville. I just wanted to make clear where that line goes through. And what you've seen is a proposed district boundary. And we are here today to look at this boundary. So this is nothing that is set as definitive. This is something that we are looking into. And that we want today your comments on what you think these boundaries should be. So what we want is to keep the feeling of the campus as together as possible. What I can tell you is already that there are areas that we want, some areas are very clear that they need to be together, that they are part of the campus. But some areas start to, like for example, this corner in the northern area, We want to also ask and question if you think that this should be included, if you think that it shouldn't be included. We also have the part of what is the quarter of Boston Avenue north of Boston Avenue on the other side. And right now we have the boundary up to the trail tracks. So do we want this to be part of the campus or should be part of the corridor that we are also looking into? And then we have the fields. We do think that they should go with the campus, but just there are some edges that we need to be very careful and look at that. Also, the other area that we would like to continue looking into is, or more specifically that we have that question, is this industrial area. I think it's almost all of that. This is owned by Medford Hubs, but if you think that it should be extended or not, we would love to hear from you. So again, this is nothing that is definitive. We are still looking at it, and we want your input. So I just want to talk a little bit about the current zoning that you have. So we are looking at this area. I have it then zoomed in. So this is part, there is no, as Alicia said, Director Hunt said, there is no campus district in Medford. There is in Somerville, but not in Medford. And so they are using the existing districts that are in the whole city distributed along Medford. So we have in the same district supply to a campus, which is not the best solution. And which ones are those? We have apartment two, that's the big area, the dark orange. Then we have this light orange, this is general residential. Then we have a little bit of that industrial, this is the grey area. And then this pink triangle is the commercial one. So these areas. Now I'm going to explain what is important to know about each of this. So if I start in commercial one, what I'm interested is to tell you what are the heights mainly and these are all the dimension standards that these districts have. How Medford is done, usually you have a district and then the dimension standards apply to that district. In Medford, we have it by use. So a multiple dwelling is going to have a set of dimensionless standards and it's going to be in the different districts. So it's by district and by use. It's a little bit different than in other communities. So in commercial one, we will have six stories maximum, for multiple dwelling and we have hotel 15 stories high. So in this area is permitted and hotel 15 stories high and a multiple dwelling six stories high and that's in this commercial one triangle. For apartment 2, and this is the dark orange that is in all campus, what we have is multiple dwelling is also six stories highest maximum. Then they have also other permitted principal structures, and that is anything that is not detached, single-family, two-family, multiple dwelling, or assisted living. That other permitted principal structures in apartment 2 that are not those that I mentioned, it can go up to 15 stories high and that will be applied to all these areas. You could have those other permitted structures of 15 or the six-story multifamily. Then we have general residential and these are lower general residential and industrial. They go up to three for general residential as maximum and industrial two stories high. This is the context that we have. Now, I'm going to stop sharing. If you want me to share again the map or the boundary, I can do that with your questions. I'm going to stop and would love to hear from all of you. Thank you.
[Kit Collins]: Thank you, Paula. All right, so this is going to be our first opportunity for hearing from you this evening. So you can raise your hand using the raise hand function on Zoom. If you can't find it, you can wave your hand at me. And you can also type your comments or questions into the Q&A function. I see some folks are using that already. Thank you. And if you open the Q&A function at the bottom of the screen, you'll be able to view all the other questions and comments that other people have had. You can feel free to hit the thumbs up button to quote unquote upvote those. And that gives us good data on what are opinions or questions that are shared amongst the group. All right, great. So we are going to set a timer for all participants tonight for five minutes. That's more than we usually do. We don't want to cut you off. We really want to hear everything from everybody. This is just to make sure that we keep things moving and that everybody does get a chance to speak. So if you don't get all to all of your comments the first time around, you're welcome to just put your hand right back up. All right, great. I will go first to John. I'm going to click the unmute button for you. Go ahead.
[SPEAKER_12]: So I'm unmuted now. OK, thank you. Thank you. That was a great presentation. Although I don't understand all of it, more or less in simple terms is better for me. But can you put the map up? I think that's helpful. I live at 94 College Ave, which I think is in that, excuse me, in that residential section. OK. So the other map is better with the colors. Sorry to use my time, but I'll be brief anyway. I'm the one with the map. Yeah. OK. So I'm in sort of like that. I know the parks where the dotted lines are. So I'm sort of like where the LA Pearson school is. So that's over there where it looks like the number one, it actually looks like the number one, and it's sort of in a tan shade. So based on what you're saying, is anything in that area, where you mentioned residential, commercial, three stories high, is that the current zoning or proposed zoning? That's the current zoning. Okay. Um, I'm very familiar with that because I've lived at that area for about 60 years. And I remember before all those buildings were built, except the original gym. Um, so, um, how did that, I remember one time that there was something that the main street for that particular location was called a jab and, uh, buildings could only be built a certain height. And I forget what that was. Is that all the way now and really anything in that number one could go three stories high? Is that how it works right now? Yeah, let's see the number one college, which says Frederick Gav.
[Alicia Hunt]: I don't know how to for me to point and show you where he's talking about. It's the light orange. It's the area that is general residential now. There you go. And so this is actually the, I do actually want to raise that I'm less concerned about what it is now because we can make it whatever we want. So what would you like, talk to us about what you would like to see them be able and not able to do.
[SPEAKER_12]: Well, I'll tell you from history, at one time before that nice new building was built, there was supposed to be some dormitories built there, which now ended up on Boston Ave. I definitely think if anything goes in there, You can see the density all around there of all the residential, and that's why that's like that. So I definitely think that nothing should go in there that would be sort of like housing, sort of like dormitories. That would be a disaster. I don't think that would float. I don't think the residents would be very happy with that, me included. As for right now, I'm in the most perfect spot. I'm at the very point. And whether Yelley Pearson school is, which is at the top of the number one, it looks like a number one or number seven on the right point. Um, I just want to be careful three stories high. I would not want to see anything more than that. And I want it would be more academic as opposed to, um, dormitory type facilities. I mean, I could see right now if there was someone actually mentioned, I think the school is actually thinking of putting a skating rink in there in the back. I mean, you know, things like that I think would be more acceptable than where there would be a lot of kids running around. Am I clear? Am I making any sense to anybody out there?
[Alicia Hunt]: So that's very helpful. Thank you. We appreciate that, and that's useful to understand. You're suggesting that on the, what I would call the residential Medford side of Boston Ave, you don't think they should be allowed to put dorms in that area?
[SPEAKER_12]: Exactly. They tried that once unsuccessfully many years ago. I was here. I think all those people, you can just see all those houses if you look at that. I mean, it's all little houses around there. I think we're in a good part of the campus. We have the fields. I used to play ball in those fields when I was little. So it's sort of nice the way it is. I think we'd be open for something, but I think it would have to be definitely academic or maybe athletic related. There's probably other people that live in that area that can also comment on that.
[Alicia Hunt]: Thank you. We appreciate that. That's helpful. Is there anything you'd like to add about the main campus?
[SPEAKER_12]: It's beautiful. I mean, the main campus is beautiful. I know there's other people that are closer to that, to Boston Ave on that side, that I think probably have a lot more reservation. Probably have more meaningful comment than me, so I leave my time for them on the main campus.
[Alicia Hunt]: Great. Thank you. I thank you very much. I appreciate that. And he would actually be helpful to just quickly hit a couple of the questions that have popped up in the Q and a, because I think that they help with contact setting for everybody else. Um, so one was, um, is this for a current proposed project or just general discussion of future possibilities? And I want to be clear that this is about there's no current proposed project. Um, this is for the future. Um, one of the things that that came out with the zoning, uh, with the the dorm proposal was that, um, there And I think actually I'm going to combine this with the answer to somebody else also asked if we could talk about what the city can do with the limitations of Dover, let me put those two together. So, when we got the dorm proposal. we had no say on anything that was within our current zoning. So if Tufts said, you know, we want to do X and X is within your zoning. And this, in that case, it was, we want to build a 10 story building. And that was within our zoning. Then we couldn't say no, and we couldn't even make them justify why they needed that big of a building. If for example, the zoning had been five stories in that area, then we would not have been able to say no to anything up to five stories. And anything over five stories, they would have had to justify why they need it. It probably would have been hard pressed for us to say no to it, but they would have had to make an argument and show us the need to be more than five stories, for example. And so that's part of where we want to talk about the zoning is a box of anything they do within the zoning within the box. They can do by right. And then there's the stuff that they have to do. They have to come and argue and present and give rationale for. But to be clear, things over a certain size, they'll also have to do site plan review, even if it was allowed by right. And so that's some of what we just wanted to get into. I'm not sure if that's clear enough about, I mean, maybe Kit, let me ask you, did I make it clear that you understand it and that would help with other people?
[Kit Collins]: You're asking if the answer around even in the event of new Tufts institutional zoning, is it clear when those safeguards and extra layers of review process still kick in for Tufts-owned properties?
[Alicia Hunt]: Right. There's some general belief that Tufts can do whatever they want because of Dover. And the answer is they can't do anything. It's that when it's outside of our zoning, they have to uh, justify it basically. They have to bring forward reasons for it and why they need to do it. If it's out, if it's inside of our zoning, like if it's part of what's allowed by zoning, then they can just do it. And so that's part of why we want to put zoning in place. It doesn't mean, so for example, if we said that they couldn't build dorms on that stretch of College Ave where the the gyms are, They couldn't then do it by right, but they may come back and say, we want to do it. And then they'd have to make some argument as to why they could go should go there and not somewhere else. Right. They'd have to put forward. It would be a harder bar to meet. Daniel, do you think I've captured that accurately?
[Danielle Evans]: I don't think that's completely accurate about they wouldn't be able to do dorms because I think that they're classified as a Dover use, which is allowed everywhere. So, it would be the dimensional controls, whether the height or the setbacks, things like that. So, I don't think we can prevent a. But heights is different. So, in our zoning ordinance, we allowed the other permanent structures up to 15 stories and that left the door open for these Dover use uses. As there's nowhere else in the zoning ordinance that would cap that. So that's how we. Got into that situation and we want to kind of close that loophole where we don't think that 15 stories is appropriate there, but. Yeah, it's just the work in our ordinance.
[Alicia Hunt]: And just to be clear, there is this is not about a specific project. This is actually what do we want to allow over the next 10 to 50 years or 1 to 50 years? It can always be changed, but. All right, do you want to go to the rest of the questions? I'm going to mark those is.
[Kit Collins]: Yes, I do. Thank you. And just to cap off that point, I'm glad you flagged that Alicia because I think that is 1 of the concerns that kind of undergirds this whole process as we know that. Zoning is the box within development can occur, but especially with a Dover eligible institution like Tufts, it is inherently complicated. There's nothing that the city can do about that. And just to put it one more way, because I know that this is a complicated concept, by way of analogy, one way that this comes up before the city council in a non zoning case is when we have an application for a special permit. If something is technically allowed and it goes through the special permit process, the city cannot be arbitrary. And when it says, okay, yes, we want, for example, this gas station, but not that gas station, because I don't like how it looks over there, but I do like how it looks over there. We're illegally bound. to interpret and enforce what's permitted in a consistent manner. And I think that's part of what we're talking about with Dover uses as well, is we're setting the bounds of the container. And then within that container, we do have to interpret and enforce what's allowed to be developed equally. We can't just be picking and choosing because that opens the city up to liability. Um, so just to try to put that a third way, because it's a really important concept, and I think it's, like, really central to this conversation. Um, all right. Let's go back to the hands raised. And another thing I just wanted to flag super quickly, um, I apologize. I will get us back to the hands raised in just a second. But just because this is a, um, a really common question that's come up, there are other zoning proposals as well. Just to make it crystal clear, the maps that, um, Paolo was showing before that say current zoning, That's the zoning that is currently on the books that will be changed in one way or another, shaped by this community feedback. It's not a current proposal. It's what's on the books and has been on the books for a long time. So that's what we're talking about changing. And I just want to make that clear because I saw a question submitted under the Q&A about it. And I know sometimes that trips folks up. All right. We'll go back to the hands raised on Zoom. We'll go to A. Bernie. I'm going to click the unmute button.
[SPEAKER_05]: Go ahead. Oh, hi. I would turn. Can you see me? Yeah. We can't see you, but we can hear you.
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, OK, great. It's Amy Burness. I live on Burgett Avenue on the Dead End side. I'm calling in from my phone, so I looked at the maps. I think the feedback I would like to give is just for our particular area around the university to Definitely lower the building structure. I think we all learned a lesson. I've moved here 10 years ago, and it's just been one large building from Tufts after another. So I think if it was lowered significantly, since it is very residential where we are, I don't know what the height should be. I mean, I don't, like less than five stories, probably. I don't think we need anything significantly tall. So I think ratchet it down in size to keep it with the scope of the types of homes that we all have, which I'm in a single level home, small, it's a really small footprint. So I think lower the better. Does parking fit into this question, like the ratio of parking to homes? I know that came up in some other meetings, or is that out of scope for zoning?
[Kit Collins]: It's not out of scope. It's not precisely what we're talking about at this stage of the process. We will do a comprehensive re-evaluation of what parking ratios make sense for which zoning districts will be something that we touch on later in the year-long comprehensive zoning process. If you have thoughts at this stage, please feel free to voice them, but that's not what we're going to be delving deeply into right now.
[SPEAKER_03]: Okay, no, not a big thing. I just think, you know, keep the ratios in a way that would not also make it very reasonable to have a 15-story structure of any kind because we need places to park. So I'd say size, just really, really lowering the level of size, of height. I guess the other comment was around Boston Ave, I guess that whole way up. So it's my understanding that Tufts currently owns a lot of that property, so I think wherever the boundaries are for the zone should make it equal. So for that whole strip, there are obviously a lot of apartments that are there now, but I guess the point would be not to turn it into something that's very, I don't know, leaning towards more urban than residential. I don't have an exact definition of that, but it's kind of nice that it's mom and pop shops now and walking to things rather than overdeveloping it. And then it's the type of development, like building requirements, design, is that part of this conversation or not? I guess I'll give you an example. I've lived in apartments, and so I feel like a lot of cheap buildings are going up. If we really want people to move in the area and live a long time, there should be some requirements for like, Soundproofing floors, because people will eventually move out when kids move above them and it's noisy floor. So if we want to build community, I just think better. Better materials and soundproofing to keep people in any. Apartments that are built, but if that's out of scope, keep going. That's just my.
[Kit Collins]: No, that's great. Feel free to put comments like that on the record at this time.
[Alicia Hunt]: That's helpful to hear. I can let you know that we can talk about the exterior of buildings, but we don't have a lot of control or say over the interior, like the floor layouts and things like that, like the soundproofing. However, it is helpful for us to hear that because Danielle and I meet with developers frequently and we can tell them when we're hearing that from residents that that's the kind of thing they need to be looking at.
[SPEAKER_03]: I know a lot of people who ultimately end up moving or selling their condos or apartments because they can't take the noise anymore. So I just feel like if we're building things for long term, just build it better and know that you want to try to keep people there for long so they're part of the community and not transient. That's it. Those are my comments. Great.
[Kit Collins]: Thank you so much for your comments. We really appreciate it.
[SPEAKER_03]: Thank you.
[Kit Collins]: All right, great. I will go to the next person on my screen, which is Judith.
[Judith Weinstock]: Hi there. Thank you so much for doing this. I think that this is really important. I'm going to go under an assumption that this is just the first and certainly not the last. And before we wrap up tonight, I'd like to know how best people can email either Innis or Ms. Hunt or whoever, as they percolate through, thinking more about it and seeing the maps. So that's just sort of something for the sidebar. How do we continue to follow up with you all about continuing thoughts? So I'm going to keep going. So that's one question. It was really interesting to see the maps because, understandably, I have been, because I live out in Burgett, next to Amy actually, right next door, we've been really, really focused on the dormitory for Boston Avenue. And those of us at the end of Burgett also have the Cummins building, which was thought and is out of scale for everything else that Tufts has on that side of Boston Avenue. So when the gentleman who lives over on Frederick or something brought it up, it will be interesting to see if you can adopt different standards, dimensional standards, for the different areas of the campus where it's relevant. And I would say that on the north side of Boston Avenue, I think I'm on the north side, and where the Cummins Building is, and where the gym is, and where the Gantra Center is, and where the Pierce and Stearns Field, you know, those dimensional standards probably ought to be different than they might be on Boston Ave. They don't have to be, but they might be, since they really do a butt right against a residential community that I'm not sure, I'm not sure what's happening over there with respect to the zoning, the residential rezoning.
[Alicia Hunt]: I really don't care. Sorry? Somebody unmuted themselves by accident. We actually should have this set so that people can't unmute themselves until I think we have a zoom bomber.
[Unidentified]: Oh, my.
[Judith Weinstock]: Okay. That's weird. Um. So I think it is really interesting. The other thing that I'll say is there are some other Tufts buildings that are isolated. So there's a Tufts building, they redid the school on George Street, sort of almost at the crossroad of Hume and George. And I would say that you ought to be thinking about including all of the buildings associated with Tufts, even if they're not contiguous with the current maps that you have. And I'm sure that this happens over in Somerville as well, because Tufts has purchased properties that look more like single or multifamily homes, and they abut residential homes. So I just want to bring that up. I think that there are some buildings missing from the maps that probably need to be brought into this planning process in the future. And the one on George Street is one of them. I do have, I feel like for those of us who have participated in with the university, its recent buildings in the last 10 years, I think dimensional standards for me are the major focus. You know, I understand that the city has a vested interest in density and building density and additional housing, but also there are these really strong residential communities that also have to coexist under that plan. So I'm hoping that there will be additional opportunities and that we, if somebody can provide for us where we might send additional comments after this meeting, as people percolate the ideas being presented, I think that that would be great. And I would be interested in doing that. I don't think so well on my feet.
[Alicia Hunt]: Great, so thank you. I did just throw it in the chat. The office email addresses the letters OCD, Office of Community Development, OCD, at medford-ma.gov. And we take comments on all the zoning and things there. Thank you.
[Kit Collins]: Thank you so much for your comments, Judith. Really appreciate it. And I would also add you can the city council is involved in this process as well, very intimately, along with the zoning consultant and the. and the Office of Planning, Development and Sustainability. You're also always welcome to email members of the Planning and Permitting Committee, which I chair. And you're also always welcome to email all members of the City Council because all of us will eventually see all of the zoning proposals that go through this process.
[Judith Weinstock]: The only other comment that I have is about the Somerville plan, which is really very Googleable. It is not a long document. I'm really glad you're going to be meeting with Somerville. But the idea of stepping down height requirements or limitations as you approach a residential area, which is exactly what Somerville has done. It's really quite limited for Tufts. Tufts can't build an eight-story building on Powder House Boulevard, I don't believe, because I think it abuts as long as it meets dimensional requirements for the number of feet that you would be from wherever that map is, the perimeter line is. And I do think for Boston Avenue, that's particularly important to make sure that those dimensions include Boston Avenue and the hill that comes down to the hillside community. So I just think the Somerville plan is a great jumping off place in a lot of ways. It's already on paper. That's it. Thank you.
[Kit Collins]: Great. Thank you so much, Judith. And one more thing before we get to the next speaker in terms of other ways to stay engaged with the process and to keep learning about the upcoming meetings. Judith is exactly right. This is only the very, very first meeting that we will have on this specific topic of zoning. We will have others in the City Council Planning and Permitting Committee. I'm sure we'll have many opportunities for public comment there, and then it will go to the Community Development Board public hearing where there's always an opportunity for public comment as well. That's a lot of opportunities that I just threw at you and you can learn about those opportunities at medfordma.org slash zoning. I'll put that in the chat. And that has information about all upcoming public zoning meetings and links for more information. So we hope that everybody will stay as engaged as they wish on this. All right, we will go next to Laurel. Please go ahead.
[Laurel Ruma]: Thank you. Thanks, Kit. So, as you can see behind me, I have my background on, never mind, I'm outside in the yard. So, I think a number of us actually are direct abutters here to Tufts and are very sensitive to this issue. So, the number of points I would like to make, one is, We do need a map of the rest of the properties that Tufts and Walnut Hill Properties owns up and down Boston Avenue, as Elizabeth said, all the way to 200 Boston Avenue to all the way down the opposite end to Ball Square, just to give an understanding of how much property it actually is, which is well beyond these borders that are here. Sure, we can define a campus map however we want, and this is a good start because it looks like obvious boundaries. But then the reality is that there are so many pieces of property that the university actually owns anyway. For example, hillside hardware. That building itself could easily be a 10-story dorm apartment building in the future with retail on the bottom. I think, you know, that's not beyond the reason of expectation as you kind of build the area here up and down Boston Avenue. So, really the emphasis here is that residents are very. concerns about additional high-rises going in. We have the Cummings building with the two dorms going in now. Surrounding this entire neighborhood with high-rises is just so detrimental, mostly because everything is on that hill and everything, as you know, rolls downhill and the neighborhood is downhill. We don't That's the area that's just very, very sensitive to all of us. We understand Tufts is going to grow. We understand they need to make money. And this retail slash commercial opportunity that they have is one of those ways. So just to remind folks, those two 10-story dorm buildings or year-round apartment buildings that are going in on Boston Avenue, that's just the start, right? Because once you have one of those commercial developers that you work with, you kind of Every nail, everything looks like a nail, right? And you have a hammer at your use. So you can imagine a lot of Boston Avenue being redeveloped with that kind of eye. And so our point is, if that's going to happen, the neighborhood is restricted to three stories. So how are we stepping down 10 stories to three? That's completely unfair. So there has to be some kind of gradation, especially at the edges. It's gross and then this is the reason why so many of us were so upset and offended by this 10-story apartment building. It's just like you're going to 10 to 2 stories, like completely unfair. But I understand the city has so little power to do anything with this because of the state provision known as Dover. Anyway, you can get into that and go research it yourself, but it is a real handicap. So what I want is to see how much the city can actually do to enforce, as Judy said, the dimensional enforcement of these buildings, just so we can have reasonable development. We know development's coming, we just want it to be reasonable around the campus. My other issue is the actual drawing of the campus currently as it is now. you know, I would really want to see carve-outs of public space like the T Station. So when you see a contiguous map of what Tufts Foundries are and the T Station is included in it, that grates on me, right? Because that's public space. So let's think about very clearly how we define these boundaries, especially when so many of us actually do directly abut tufts, whether you're on the ball field side, or the back of Stern's field, which also frankly have a dotted line, or, you know, down at the other end, it's, it's like, we're all very sensitive to where those borderlines are. Second, thirdly, the hill should be considered, right? So the geographic constraints and conditions of the area, putting the 10-story dorms up on a hill is just difficult for most of us because it's more than 10 stories when you live down below the hill. And then I think that's pretty much my main points here. I appreciate that the city is doing this and that the neighbors have come out to this meeting. I know it's just the start of this conversation. I think most of us enjoy most of the time living next to Tufts and having a university in our city. We just want it to be a reasonable development and development that enhances our neighborhood and doesn't take away from it. Thank you.
[Kit Collins]: Great. Thank you so much, Laurel, for the thoughtful input, as always. Really appreciate it. Going next to James, and I see people using the Q&A function. Thank you so much. Please feel free to continue. Go ahead, James.
[SPEAKER_01]: Good evening, everyone. My name is James. I live at 135 Burgett Ave. which is very close to the very dead end, almost right behind the Tufts Community Center. I wanna echo what some of my neighbors have already said, Amy and Judy and Laurel. I think the height restriction is probably one of the biggest things our neighborhood is really frustrated with. Something's gotta be done about it. We can't, in 10, 15, 20 years, like you said, We're going to be surrounded in these 10-story buildings. Already, so many of us have lost sunlight. For the new dorms that are coming in to Boston Ave, for me specifically, sunset's going to be coming to my house. three hours early every day for the rest of my life. And for a lot of us, that's a big deal, especially if they have solar and things like that. So I think the height restriction is probably one of the biggest things our neighborhood's concerned about. Another thing I'd like to bring up is, I don't know if it's possible or if it's even part of this, but I wish we could do something to protect Stearns Field. About 10 years ago, Tufts tried to kind of stage it, in conjunction with the Cummings Center and who knows if we didn't step in and try to stop that the dorm that's going into Boston Ave could be going in over there. So I hope maybe we can do something to protect Stearns Field to keep it from being developed but I don't know if that's a possibility. That's pretty much all I wanted to add to the meeting. I want to thank you for doing this. I want to thank the office for doing this. I think this is a great step for us in the neighborhood. And we finally feel like we're being heard. So thank you.
[Kit Collins]: Great. Thank you so much for being here, James. Thank you for your commentary and for putting that on the record. All right. Proceeding right along, we'll go to Erica. Go ahead, Erica.
[SPEAKER_04]: Thank you. My name is Erica. I also live on with many of the other folks on this call. And again, I echo what they say in that. We're very appreciative that you are holding this meeting because sometimes I feel like the tough zoom calls are just. You know, speaking into a vacuum. I do think height restriction is a major priority for all the reasons everyone else has said as well. And my question is more around, are there opportunities to incorporate some. Whether it's public space, green space, is that part of the zoning conversation? So that would be my question as well as lowering the height restrictions, like everyone else mentioned on this call, because I think 1 of the things that happened. Um, because of the green line, and because of the development, we used to have a little bit more of a buffer between the Tufts campus and with all those trees. So, if there's some way to not make us feel like the walls are closing in, um. That maybe would alleviate some of the stress on the neighborhood as well. So I'm not sure if that's possible. I know that other cities do that in their zoning as well, but this might be more complicated with it being a university. And then the last thing would be. um it would be helpful to hear what Somerville has done because I wonder if the reason that some of these larger things have moved over onto our side of the tracks if you will are because their laws are more um are stricter um so if we I kind of feel like Medford and Somerville should be on the same page um with zoning for Tufts University so that it doesn't feel like um you know, we're being taken advantage of because our zoning is less restrictive. Thank you.
[Kit Collins]: Great. I really appreciate your comments. Sorry, and if you see me looking around my screen in between commenters, it's just because I'm trying to toggle between the timer and the chat. So I apologize if I seem distracted. I'm locked in. We will go next to Jeremy Martin. Thanks for being here. Please go ahead.
[Jeremy Martin]: Hey everyone, thanks for hosting this evening. I do hope that there's an opportunity to hear some of the slides or the information that Paola has about Somerville's zoning and also what other cities are doing to work around or work with Dover because I know that Cambridge has gone a long way and does not allow Harvard's real estate arm to operate in the same way that the university does and other universities. I think that's really important context and precedent for what Medford could do and should be doing. I have a bunch of comments and recommendations. I've expressed that I was hopeful that there would be some recommendations or some initial proposals as a part of this discussion. But I echo Judy's comment that I hope that there are more meetings and more discussions with, you know, draft proposals and things like that. Recognize you're just at the beginning. You've heard a lot of these things that you're hearing already tonight from us. I think that, you know, it's already been touched on, but Dover is critical to understand here. It's incredibly complex. It's been brought up that Tufts owns multiple properties that are not technically a part of campus and not really that there were, either residential or commercial spaces. I think it's really important that we understand and that the zoning is specific to which parts of Tufts properties Dover applies to or not, um, so that that can be, um, you know, considered and, and that they don't have free for all on properties like, uh, hillside hardware for an, as an example where that shouldn't really be, um, allowed to to grow beyond dimensional standards or height limits or any of the other requirements just because tough says oh well this is what we need to do to break even or to to meet our bottom line on a project that really needs to be thoughtful. I also think related to that, I don't know if there are requirements for other types of developments or commercial uses or properties, but establishing a maximum vacancy timeline for university or university-affiliated properties. You know, Hillside Hardware has been sitting there for a long time. We hear a lot about how Tufts wants to activate Boston Avenue, and I think we all agree that that's fantastic. There's a property there that is just begging for something good in it. And so how do we put some pressure on Tufts to both share what they're planning to do there and to do something more expeditiously? We've also heard in our discussions with Tufts, I think they've acknowledged that the retail space in the new dorm building. is really meant to support the students who live in the dorm, ultimately. It's been presented and considered as a community benefit, and it may have some community benefit. But we need to separate these kind of retail things that are good for the community and meant for the community from the things that are just for the students and the campus community, if we want that to be a legitimate benefit to the community. I do hope that the city really takes a hard look at its ordinance language around site plan review for Dover and what is considered a reasonable regulation. I don't see how you can say that you can find that height. restrictions are a reasonable regulation, but setbacks are not. They're all the same dimensional standards and they should be followed. And if a project can't meet those setbacks or meet those height requirements, Tufts has to demonstrate the impact and the blow up, you know, how it would hurt or prevent a project from happening. And I don't think the current language in the cities ordinance or the way that that is applied through the CDB is actually has enough teeth or enough leverage to force Tufts to do that. So other cities have done this better. We need to look at what they're doing. I think also there's this idea that because it's a full campus or because it's a campus, open space calculations and other performance requirements should consider the full campus in all cases because it was done in one project 10 or 15 years ago. That doesn't reflect the actual impact or considerations for a project that touches a public way or a public space. And so when there are impacts on public spaces, those requirements should be applied to that project site, not to a full campus. And I think that would be a way of giving the city much more leverage in site plan review. We all would love to see Tufts being held to an institutional master plan. And I think the city needs to do more to encourage the legislature to take that up. I know I've heard city councilors talk about it and I've heard Danielle and others talk about it, but I think we need to put that front and center in setting some expectations and understanding where Tufts is headed. I'll stop there and then I'll raise my hand again because I've got more.
[Kit Collins]: Great, thank you so much. Jeremy really appreciate it. And yes, your point is well taken that really advocacy for the institutional master plan should continue until it's effective in case. It's not on anybody's radar. The mayor, the city council did approve a draft home rule petition for an institutional master plan. And just to make sure that I'm noting down your point correctly, Jeremy, about what you were saying there at the end, it sounds like. One of the points you were making was that mitigation for local impacts should be localized at the site where the impacts are happening, not an effect over here in mitigation at the other side of campus. Is that roughly what you were trying to say?
[Alicia Hunt]: He can't unmute unless we send him.
[Jeremy Martin]: I got it. Thank you. Not quite, Kit. I appreciate you following up on that. The way that Tufts calculates it, the way that it meets its open space requirements or its parking requirements or even setbacks, rear yard setbacks, take into account the entire campus and not the project site. And so that allows them to say, hey, we're going to put a massive building on a tiny site, but we don't need to meet open space requirements for that site because we have this great campus associated with it. Or we don't need to meet rear yard setbacks because our rear yard is our campus. And that may work inside the campus, but when you're on the edge of a campus, when you're interacting with a public space or a public way, it should really be about what happens on that site so we don't have massive buildings shoehorned into sites that are frankly just not big enough for them. And so that's, I think that it's less about mitigation. It's more about how the very few open space, setbacks, parking, you know, the very few things that Dover allows the city to control. Right now, Tufts can use the whole campus to calculate them, and it really should be about a specific project. Thanks for asking.
[Kit Collins]: Great. Thank you so much for clarifying. That's very helpful. All right, going next to Daniel. Go ahead, Daniel.
[Daniel Murdock]: Thanks, Councilor Collins. So I'm up on Dearborn. I'm a couple blocks away from Tufts campus, not like a lot of people here, but I take the T a lot. So I walk down Boston Ave and over Winthrop right there a lot. I support the idea of activation along Boston Ave, which I know Tufts has sort of put forward. And I guess one of my concerns with Dover is based on my understanding that A lot of our hands are tied in a way that even if we, for example, reduce zoning height in some areas, I believe Ms. Hunt said that Tufts can come back and say, oh, we have a reason to build here. We have justifications and can sort of get around even that lowered zoning. But that does give us leeway to sort of provide, in my mind, sort of a carrot and a stick. maybe we can focus increased density in some areas that are maybe surrounded by commercial and have lower density elsewhere. So it naturally incentivizes Tufts to put maybe, for example, on Bellevue Street, which is on the southwest side of Boston Ave, but it's across from commercial. You have maybe just a little bit increased density there and height there so that they build there and cascade down the hill and then step it down the hill. So it's not super high along Baston Ave. And then on the other side of the train tracks, along College Ave, we put a really low sort of height and zoning. That way incentivizes or pushes Tufts to put it in places where it's close to the campus, has maybe shadows are on businesses rather than homes. and still allows potentially for some increased activation in the space. I just think maybe that sort of care and stick approach might actually get us more results with Tufts rather than them just running over a lot of the neighborhood. That's it, thank you so much.
[Kit Collins]: Great, thank you so much for your comments, Daniel. All right, before we go back to you, Jeremy, I'm just going to go and I just want to read aloud some of the open questions on the Q&A. I hope that people have been reading these and uploading them as they see fit, but I just want to read some of them aloud to get them onto the record and to make sure that people know about them if they haven't been checking this function. So just to read some of these contained concepts that we've touched on before. One says, I definitely would like to know what Somerville has come up with to deal with the many issues associated with Tufts. Great. As we know, we'll be looking into that. Another comment about wanting to hear what Somerville and other cities are doing. One resident says, setbacks only matter if the city enforces them.
[Alicia Hunt]: One of the things that one of the comments in there that I think that I just want to make clear because some of some of our, the people here tonight are really aware of tossing their rules and some are newer to the topic. So. has a real estate arm called Walnut Hill properties. This is the same thing that MIT does and Harvard does. They each have, I can't off the top of my head name their real estate arms, but they each have one. The real estate arm is a for-profit entity and anything owned by that pays regular property taxes to the city of Medford. And those properties do not fall under the Dover use. They would need to transfer it to the nonprofit arm of, which, and the thing is they could, in theory, transfer something to their, but they have to transfer it to their nonprofit portion of their organization, Tufts University, and they have to use it for a educational use. And dormitories are considered educational, but like an educational building or lab. If they had a building, for example, and they put ground floor bar and pub and coffee shop on the first floor, and they rented out apartments above it to the general public, they would have to pay taxes on it that would not fall under the Dover rule. If they said that those apartments up top were going to be used purely for housing members of the Tufts community, then I think we would start to question that. But they would, again, it would have to be owned by the nonprofit. So that's sort of the gray area. And part of the conversation that I think is a useful one to have is these portions of Boston Ave. It's been my expectation that the portion of Boston Ave where Hillside Hardware from there down is, would not be part of their institutional zone and would end up with some version of one of our mixed use zones requiring some level of ground floor commercial. and then allowing residential above it would be in fact subject to parking, et cetera. That particular, people have asked about this a lot. I've talked to Tufts about that property and they've said that their problem is there's no parking associated with that parcel. So one of the conversations that I'm interested in floating with them is if they were to include in those leases for those apartments, that you would have the right to park on the Tufts campus, would we then consider that to be parking? What if they said that that was going to be, you know, affiliate staff and student apartments with those people being allowed to park their vehicles on campus 24 by 7? Would that be sufficient to allow them to then put apartments there? because it has been apartments, and the reason they're not being rented now is because Tufts said it's in such a bad shape that they couldn't possibly put people in those apartments before doing a major renovation. So this is sort of to give you the context. One person asked about to better explain Dover for people who are new to this. Danielle, do you think you could do that? I just have to admit, I have COVID, and so I'm not thinking on my feet as quickly as I would usually like to this evening.
[Danielle Evans]: We're all glad that we're on zoom tonight. I don't have the. The, the Dover amendment is that's kind of like the, the nickname, because it stems from a case with the town of Dover. Off the top of my head, I don't know what section of Mass General Law it is, but basically it exempts certain uses, religious and educational, institutional uses. There's a narrow definition of what qualifies and they're allowed to pretty much go anywhere and they can ask for relief if the zoning that applies to them is not considered reasonable. There's various tests for it. So in the case for Boston Ave, is our zoning allowed? A height greater than what they were asking for, so there was no, the reasonable regulation isn't our existing regulations reasonable. It's if they want to depart from them. So, if they wanted to go higher, then that would have been, they would have been asking. to go higher if they thought that the 15 wasn't reasonable. And I noticed a question or a comment in the chat about whether we knew about this loophole. That predates my time, so I don't know. But the recodification actually made it more Parent looking at it after the fact, but I can't I don't know why it's even in the ordinance. It predates all of us. We found it. It's unfortunate, but it was not identified.
[Alicia Hunt]: Thank you, and Emily did drop into the chat for us that the Dover Amendment is part of MGL Chapter 48, Section 3. And Chapter 48 is the state law that controls zoning in Massachusetts.
[Kit Collins]: Great. Thank you, Alicia, Danielle, and Emily in the chat. All right, I think I'm going to go back to our additional hands on Zoom. And then at the end, I will just speak aloud any questions in the chat that haven't been already spoken to out loud. So I will go to Jeremy first, then we'll get to Judith. Go ahead, Jeremy.
[Jeremy Martin]: Thanks again. Just a last note on the Dover discussion or the process and review discussion. In addition to the institutional master plan, I think that there's an opportunity to establish a requirement for a community working group related to projects that are associated with the neighborhood. We don't think that that would necessarily become a special permit or anything like that, but it's an opportunity before projects get to the point where they are ready to go in the ground. The community has an opportunity to weigh in. The city has an opportunity to weigh in. We've gotten to that with Tufts on the dorm and on Boston Ave, which is appreciated, but it took a lot of leverage to do that and the burden shouldn't be on the community to make that happen. Let's see if we can get it to be a part of the ordinance and a baseline requirement. Other cities have affordable housing minimums and different requirements. I understand that that's really difficult with Dover because it starts to act as a special requirement. But if it's a universal requirement for commercial development or residential development, Is there a way to apply something like that to Tufts, whether it's as a part of their project, which is also complicated, or a minimum contribution to the new affordable housing trust, which they have done, again, on their own, but it took pressure. And why not start with that as a baseline from the ordinance? You've heard a lot about setbacks, step downs, all of that is really important. It's, I think that they should not be informed by necessarily what each individual thinks is appropriate, but there's an easy way to do it scientifically to study what height would impact adjacent communities, what height of a building would cast shadows on neighbors. And to use that as a way to inform the dimensional or the height standards. I think someone suggested, you know, maybe further into campus buildings could be taller. I think because of the hillside nature of the campus, a taller building on the top of the hill would actually be really detrimental to a much larger swath of the community. So it's not hard to do the shadow study and to determine what's going to have minimal or no impact on the community. And that should be the starting point for setting those height limits. Last few here, I promise. As far as performance requirements go, there are some really great performance requirements in our zoning now for non-Dover projects. And then when a project becomes Dover, they seem to get all thrown out the window because we're so limited in what we can what we can request, but I still think it's worth considering ground floor use requirements and minimum publicly beneficial amenity requirements for projects that interact with the public way. If they don't want to do that in the middle of their campus, that's great, but if it's on a public street, that should be included as a requirement. Similarly, if we're on a public street like Boston Avenue, as a starting point, there should be requirements for public realm improvements for sidewalks and bike lanes and traffic, and not counting on Tufts to do that out of the goodness of their heart, but because it is a requirement that comes along with the scale of development or the type of development that they're proposing in the neighborhood. And then similarly, there should be some standards for light and sound and other environmental impacts that can be applied in there. And again, I know that gets tricky with Dover, but I think we should try. I think that's all I got. Thank you for the time. Look forward to further conversations.
[Kit Collins]: Great. Thank you so much, Jeremy. All right, going back to Judith. Go ahead, please.
[Judith Weinstock]: Just a couple of unrelated thoughts. So I know that, I guess, is Boston Avenue is going to come up as one of the corridor discussions, correct? And so does that mean that the properties that Tufts currently has that are outside of, I'll say outside of Dover, but a really walnut Walnut Hill, is that the name of it? Does that mean that they would then become part of what happens on Boston Ave as part of that corridor conversation? So, for example, you know, I've been, you know, I've been tuning into all of the other communities in terms of their mixed use, your mixed use definitions. I'm assuming that If it is true that the properties owned by Walnut Hill are going to be under some other zoning like mixed use zoning rules, that you have some latitude also there as you do in the other communities with establishing what those dimensional requirements would be. right because that work hasn't been done yet and so it's important for i think for everybody to understand since all of this work is more or less being done simultaneously and i know it's not really i know it's sequential but the residential stuff is going to impact what then the mixed use might look like which then might impact what the tufts institutional plan should look like um so it in they're all connected, right? Because they all make up the fabric of what a community looks like, literally, physically, from the sky, from the ground. So I guess I just would like to be sure that, to Laurel's point, I think she brought it up, to really understand what are the Walnut Hill properties that would then fall under mixed use for the corridor, potentially, versus what are the institutional properties. that they own. And again, to include all of them, not just the contiguous ones that were on the existing map. The other thing, well, you know what, I can't remember what the other thing was. So I might have to stop there. My brain is as addled as the rest of some of you. So yeah, and I know we'll have other chances to talk about it all. But I do think I think wherever the, I understand Dover is really complicated, it is a sleeper to read about, but it is an interesting thing to read about. Some, an awful lot of decisions go the way of the institutions that are having Dover protections, but not all of them do. And so I think the question of the day is, you know, how does one shore up zoning in a way that protects both universities' right to develop, but also protects the other uses in the abutting communities, like residential neighborhoods? So I would leave it there and look forward to the next one of these.
[Kit Collins]: Great. Thank you so much, Judith. And yes, I think you have been a stalwart participant in a lot of our zoning conversations so far. And I think I think you're right to say that these proposals, I think it's a good point that you bring up about these proposals being, I would say, sequential, but overlapping. And it's true that the you know, the conversation about some of our mixed use districts impacts the neighborhood and urban residential impacts the other corridors. And we'll absolutely be bringing, considering how those contexts from the different districts impact the many pieces that we are considering at various different stages at the same time. And thank you for speaking to that. I was just going to review and see if there's anything else pressing in the Q&A. Do you want to go ahead first or are you going to shift us to the next part of our presentation?
[Paula Ramos Martinez]: No, I just wanted to say that one thing about the Dover, it is very complex. And we understand that it's very difficult. It's even difficult for people that have been working with that for many, many years. So we do have legal counsel in our team. So I think that it would be great for the next meeting that we have that he would also join. And so any questions that people might have, he would be a lot more he will be a lot better to answer the more legal terms. And so, yeah, we will invite him for the next meeting to help answer all of the questions.
[Kit Collins]: Great. Thank you, Paola. All right, I will go to Marcela. Go ahead.
[Marcela Rodriguez]: Hey, um, I, I apologize. I missed the first part of the presentation, but I wanted to quickly ask about, um, further down in Boston Avenue. There is a building, um, least engineering building that's close to the U hall and whole foods. And, um, I'm just remembering back when I came in 2020 and like, saw this, um, kind of proposal for having, um, I believe the. Station built around or maybe replacing you. I forget the exact details of affordable housing, like building or kind of replacing the whole foods with whole foods on the bottom and just maybe some more development in there. Like, I was really excited by all those ideas. And at this point, it kind of feels like when I go down Boston, there's like nothing until I get up to Hillside. But for Weiland, I do wonder if there is any interest in, I don't know if we'd need to wait for a potential of revisiting that station or whether there might be some way to work with Tufts to kind of add more stores there. There's so much parking that they have right in front. It just feels like there's so much that can be done with the spaces. They hosted the library temporarily there too. So, um, I'm, I'm just feel like that. And it's not, I guess this isn't technically Tufts probably, but the spot across the river where there's a ramen place, there's like, it feels like the other stores are kind of vacant and just feels to me like such a missed opportunity for more development and I'm just curious in addition to all the zoning I'm not sure if the answer is building up and zoning necessarily maybe it's more of like handling vacancies and stuff but how to you know encourage development in those areas and hopefully encouraging like across the whole way like will help lift up the neighborhood overall. Thank you.
[Alicia Hunt]: Thank you. So to be clear, that's not a Tufts building. Tufts has some offices in that building, but that is owned by Cummings Properties. They've actually come in front of the city. So Cummings, by the way, is a fun nonprofit. All of their profits from their real estate holdings go to charity that they give away in grants. And they do rent to Tufts, and they did rent to the city at a very, very low rate for our library. Um, they have come in front of the city to read about to add additional to that location and they were going to during sort of the height of the pandemic when biotech was really hot. That proposal has still it's still in an approved state, but it's on their back burner right now because of the cost of construction, et cetera. I will say that we pushed them pretty hard to put ground floor businesses there, and they reluctantly had put in, designed that they would put a cafe on the first floor of that facing Boston Ave, and that was the best we could get out of them, because their intention is to keep that parking structure and build on top of it. But this whole area is part of the corridor zoning that we are looking at. So we're looking at Boston Ave and Main Street and the corridors as a separate, not tonight, but we are looking at those, including the area that you're talking about. And that would be the meeting that we're planning. The public Q&A is the one that's going to be in late May of the ones that we've talked about. And it'll it's starting to be in front of the city council. I think next the planning and permitting committee at the next meeting, May 13th, 14th, whatever the Wednesday is. So we are looking at those and that those dilapidated buildings on the corner of Boston Ave and North street. That property owner, we've been working with him very hard for several years to get that property sold and redeveloped. And every single developer we've talked to has agreed that ground floor commercial would make sense there. But he has not accepted any of the offers that he has been made on that property. Sorry, this is my frustrated face.
[Kit Collins]: This this this question comes up a lot it came up last night as well when we were talking about Medford square and West Medford square in the planning and permitting committee this interplay between. mechanisms, regulations, and soft power that the city has around persistently vacant buildings and what we can do about that. It is often outside of the purview of zoning specifically. But obviously, when we're talking about development, it comes up. I thank you for raising that. And I think that is, of course, when Alicia, I see you gesturing.
[Alicia Hunt]: I just want to and I realized that I missed sort of the part of the key of that was around the T station in the hall. Fun fact that you hall is in Somerville. When you look at Medford maps, there's a weird cut out in that area. But the T station question is a state level 1. At this time, there are some people have concerns about the impact on traffic of a stop at that location. So what the city is pushing for at this time is what would literally be the next steps in development, which would be an environmental study. But before anything would move forward, there's a required environmental study, which would look at, among other things, the traffic at that location. So that is what the city is pushing for at this time. uh, write to your legislators, email the governor. We've tried. That's if you wanted to stop there. But, but if you don't want it, the environmental studies also the thing that would tell us whether or not the traffic should be a concern.
[Kit Collins]: Great. Thank you, Alicia. And thank you again for the questions, Marcella. All right. I'm going to, um, Keeping an eye on the time, it is 830. I did say I would read more of the Q&A questions that hadn't yet been spoken about, so I'll do that quickly, and then I will hand it back to Paola. All right, in the chat, Daniel shared three-year resident and owner here, and I can't wait to spend many more years here at Medford. I'd love to see Tufts expand, create way more dormitory and lab spaces, spaces so students can start companies and get off their feet, and way more restaurants, small businesses, and such to not only serve the community, but all people who are now commuting daily into the city via the Green Line. If they own the property, they should be able to use it how they want and the surrounding community will thrive as a result. Somerville was the new Cambridge. Medford is the new Somerville. And then a clarification. Get on. Oh, yes. Get on their feet, not get off their feet. That was a comment from Daniel. Thank you, Daniel. Another commenter for Ray Doon, I apologize if I'm not pronouncing that correctly, shares We don't want the stretch of College Ave close to the gym anymore building. It is already a traffic jam and saturated. The density is high. At what point is it too congested to stop? Elizabeth shared to Judith's point about including all of Tufts buildings. Yes, 200 Boston Ave is another example. It should be talked about in the Tufts district and also in the Boston Ave corridor. Let's see, going back to Daniel, height is not the only factor. Plenty of the buildings on Powder House Boulevard are tall but are beautiful and are surrounded by well-kept spaces that are a joy to look at and walk past. I totally agree a huge imposing building next to a two-story would be silly, so being able to quantify very specifically how far from the property line roofs can be and having green space requirements can make this a win-win. I also forgot to mention earlier, to the point of another commenter, I think we can expect to see context standards, including looking at how abutting buildings of different height, how the shade interplays there. We've been looking at those in our conversations about the zoning proposals for the squares. And I think we can expect to see those as we move forward and get more into the weeds on the Tufts Institutional Zone and Boston Ave corridor zoning as well. All right, just a couple more of these here. Jason shares, I know pre-pandemic Tufts offered various usage of facilities to abutters. I think most of those have come back, such as use of the gym, but is there a way to protect that going forward, possibly included in the zoning somehow, so that the abutters who end up with any added traffic slash hassles can take advantage of the university facilities? And Daniel posed the question, what difference would there be by including the businesses on the east side of Boston Ave versus not including these businesses in the Tufts Institutional Zone? It's a good thing for us to consider as we go forward. Great. And I encourage everybody, please continue to review these. And if you see something that you agree with, use the upvote function. Obviously, this is not a scientific study, but this data on the opinions that are out in the community is useful for us as we go forward. All right, back to you, Paola.
[Paula Ramos Martinez]: Thank you very much. So I'm going to share The presentation, we can continue. So we did look into Somerville Special District, the Tufts University. And I'm going to go, so we did a summary. It is true that it's easy to find. They have PDF, but also a website. And it's quite clear, but easy to read. They are just a couple of pages, but we did a little summary. And so they have an intent and a purpose of why they decided to do a special district for the Tufts University, mainly is to maintain an area of the city for campus of an educational institution, to preserve land areas primarily dedicated to the education services, to reduce the impact of higher intensity educational uses on the surrounding residential properties, And then, and we will see how they did that, and then distribute the coverage and floor area of buildings across the quadrants of this district. And I think this touches a little bit what Jeremy was talking about. It's not exactly on the lot of the development, but what they did is to collect some of those properties and so that you need to take that property into account, not the whole campus. I will explain that a little bit more. Then they have some building standards. They allow multiple principal buildings on each lot. They have some front setbacks and it's 20 feet for certain streets, so College Avenue, Powder House Boulevard and Buckhart Avenue, and 15 feet for Dearborn Road and Curtis Street. So this is interesting for any of those streets that We also have in Medford that we have that continuous front setback. So that will be things that we need to consider. Then for a specific street, they have different setbacks for rear setback and front setback. And then the building height. And so the building heights, what they did is something very interesting that is being used. Haven't seen many here in this region, Massachusetts. But it's definitely something that a lot of time It's been used in Europe, for example, where you don't have the heights based on district or based on their use. or in the form-based code by the typology of the building. But you set the height on a map according to the location and how it affects the surrounding areas, right? So what they did is basically to have different color bands. So all along the residential areas, they designated this blue band. This is 100 feet offset or width of this band. and they allow two and a half stories. Then in the next red band, they allow four stories. In the yellow band, and it's only the western corner, they allowed, this is 150 width band, and they allow eight, sorry, six. And then on the green, they allow this eight. I think that is very important. I think that it was Jeremy as well, and that he's talked about that. Also, other people mentioned this, but how we deal with the hill, we have some topography in Medford. So towards Boston Avenue, whatever we do at the very end of the, at the very top of the hill will really affect. So maybe these bends needs, if we want to use this strategy, the bends will need to be adjusted in the Medford area, taking into account with some sections that how that hill will affect, especially for daylight. And then they have this building massing and this is what I was talking about this, what they call measuring parcel. And so what they do is that they combine different. parcels, different lots, and what they say is like, for example, this one and these are MP3, and so the impacts of the maximum lot coverage, maximum floor area ratio, what they have to in that, within that development site. You cannot take into account something that you're doing in an MP3 area, you cannot take MP1 into account for your 65% or ratio, right? So you, and they do this to have a balance and to have a density that is more equal and around the whole campus and not only being too intense in one area. So yeah, the maximum lead coverage is 65%, maximum floor area ratio. We do not have floor area ratio in Medford, so we work, this is about the density, how much density you allow. And so they give you the height, and so you need to balance that maximum square footage with those ratios and that height. And then they ask for a maximum floor plate. So the maximum area in the ground floor per building is 15,000. So this would be a way to address those issues. then what are the permitted uses is basically educational service as a principal use and then all the accessory services that are directly needed and that the Tufts University consider that it's important for their faculty, staff, students and visitors needs. Parking is as well established and administered the permit program by Tufts and they do have some requirements. So they have here the requirements, it depends on how many faculty they have with the students and then some non-campus students and then others like visitors. They would have to, with those numbers, have some multipliers and then would have those numbers. They also have the space location, so they need to have at least a minimum of those parkings for certain areas in those designated locations. These can be reviewed, so if some of these parking regulations, those numbers change, they can review it and they can have some reduction of up to 25%, but then they need to review these numbers. And I think it's every three years they could review it. So that is about Somerville. What we just did is, and it's not a draft, this is not a proposal, but we were just taking that idea of making it that height map and continue what they have at this moment. So this is not a proposal. We do need to study this. This is not something that we are proposing, especially because, as everyone has mentioned about the hill and the areas that some areas might have, they are able to have more height because there is enough space. and others are really looking into the residential neighborhoods. So we will need to continue to work on a proposal. But let's say that it could be based on this idea of the height map. And so we will have these bands and place them accordingly to where we think these heights should work. So it's not by a district, but it works more as a height map. So we define better where we want those higher density and lower density. And then as well with the front setbacks, we could, at this point, what we have is those 20 feet for the College Avenue, so that we could also extend that. Also Park Avenue and then 15 for Curtis. So this would be a way to connect the Somerville campus, some of those regulations into our area and then modified it where we think it's needed. So yeah, I'm going to stop now sharing. Now the boundaries, we will look into it. I've heard somebody said that the TE stations shouldn't be involved in this. So we could have these two islands, the north part and the south part. That's a possibility. Even though it's not owned by Medford, by the university, so they wouldn't be able to do anything that's public property. But in any case, we could separate them and work a little bit better on that proposal for the boundary.
[Kit Collins]: And you just said it a minute ago, but I'll just emphasize, because I know that we're looking at a lot on the screen, the maps that you show that you just showed at the end of the Medford side of campus. Again, that is not a proposal that we're putting forward at this time. That's just a kind of a kind of a thought experiment of if. um that strategy that Somerville employs was continued on our side of the campus what that might look like um what we are interested in hearing from folks tonight and also after tonight as people continue to process and digest is um your responses to this kind of first look at Somerville's strategy in their institutional zone, what you like, what you don't like, your concerns, your questions, what you'd like the planning and permitting committee and zoning consultant to be thinking about as we go forward. I think that there's a I think that we're advantaged by having a strategy on the other side of the city line to look at, and we're curious to hear from you your reactions to that. So please, again, as always, feel free to raise your hand or keep using the Q&A. We will go first to Judith. Go ahead.
[Judith Weinstock]: Yeah, I mean, I have looked at that proposal the only and the only comments that I can make about it is number one. What happens in Somerville with properties that are not included in that zone? How have they managed those? Because obviously. Medford has properties of Tufts that are living currently in a residential area that would currently not be zoned as a peak maybe as a pt2 So I guess the question is for Somerville when you meet with them is how they handled this sort of more off-site? um buildings that Tufts has? And is there like a footnote that says, Oh, and by the way, this also applies to these properties, you know, in different areas that Tufts owns. I think it would be interesting when you do meet with the city and Tufts could tell you this, but I don't know if they would do that. It would be interesting to find out from the city how much pushback they've ever gotten from Tufts on this proposed on what currently exists on paper. In other words, people were saying that, okay, we can set the standard, the dimensional standard, but that Tufts can still request, you know, an addition. So by special permitting, you know, an addition to that dimensional standard. And it would be interesting to know how many times not not necessarily for me, but I mean, for you guys, how many times the Tufts has pushed back and succeeded. with Somerville on some of those dimensional standards. One of the people in the chat, the comments, sort of said something about, you know, they have plenty of really tall buildings on Powder House. They actually don't. And because they can't, right? I mean, that's what we just saw. The only other thing I'll say is I do think that the distance markers is specifically for the Boston Avenue properties for like the hillside need to be looked at really carefully in the proposal, whatever it ultimately ends up to be so that we don't max out on distance from whatever the perimeter line for the campuses and thereby. don't get to have that standard applied, say, in this case, to Brookings or to Sunset or to Burgett. So that's all.
[Kit Collins]: Great. Thank you so much, Judith, for your comments. All right, go next to John. Go ahead, John.
[SPEAKER_12]: Paula and Kit, this has been a great meeting. And all the meetings I've been to, I've never got a chance to talk, and now I'm talking twice. But one thing I would like to say, I'm going to take advantage of this. But I would say one thing, because I mentioned, I heard that mentioned about extending those requirements down College Ave, where I live at 94 College Ave. I would just be a little careful about that, because I don't think the density, when I think of Somerville, and by the way, I've lived in this area for over like 60 years, and I lived on Curtis Street at one time. I lived on Frederick Ave. I went to the Somerville schools. I went to the Lauren L. Dame School, which is now that George Street School. But the thing I just be careful of, I think the density in Somerville, I think at one time is they had the most people per square foot than anybody in the country. And I just be careful, because I think their density is a little bit more congested when it comes to residential areas than the Medford side. And just be aware of that. There's not very many single family homes in Somerville. But where I live in those areas of Pearl, Frederick, Stanley, there is a number of single family homes. So I think the density is a little bit different. And just be aware of that. That's all.
[Kit Collins]: Great. Thank you, John. We hope that everybody who's getting a taste of public participation at this meeting will join us at our many upcoming zoning meetings as well. They are frequently long, but there's always public comment. Great. I'm going to go back to the Q&A. I see a Jeremy making a similar point as Judith did. Height maps need to consider that Medford is on the north side of the campus and Somerville is on the south. These sun and shadow implications are inverted. crystal notes for anyone interested in the shadows throughout the year, which I don't think should dictate decisions, but it's informative. You can also take a look at www.suncalc.org. And then another comment about Somerville's density. Thank you for your comments, everybody. All right, is there anybody else who has a question?
[Alicia Hunt]: There were a few things that I sort of answered in the chat and then so that they're showing in the answer tab. But I did want to flag one is that some people are having, you know, would really like to see more of the maps and they're hard to see on the screens. And we understand that. So one of the things that the consultants are working on for us is a mapping tool. That we're hopeful in the next week or 2 to be able to release to the public. We need it to work correctly. And to be clear, that'll be like a tool where people can type in their address and click on it and see information. Some of the requests were about the specific maps. So we will have the presentation from tonight, and I think actually, Paola, that map where we kind of outlined the potential Tufts campus, if we could literally label it potential Tufts zone, and maybe with some of the edits that we talked about before the meeting started, so it might not come up beyond. I wouldn't expect it to be on our website until next Monday, because we have asked her to sort of change the line a little bit to follow Boston Ave. I think that the commercial buildings between Boston and the railroad track should not be in this zone, but should be in a mixed use zone. But that is 1 of the things that we're putting out there. So we will post it next week for people to then send us comments on and. While so the tool that the consultants are working on will not include ownership information for privacy reasons for the general public. We're also looking at just putting together a map of the property that Topps owns and that Walnut Hill owns and whether that's something that Paola's team can do for us or whether we should ask our GIS coordinator or who can get that out first. Um, we will also be putting something like that together as well. It's clearly something that they need to put together some draft zoning.
[Kit Collins]: Yes, thank you for that. Alicia. excited to have the new GIS tool roll out. I think a lot of people will find it really useful. Thank you to Ennis for putting that together for us. And while we're waiting on that, in the meantime, the presentation slides that we've looked at tonight, pending the capacity of the city's communications department, those should be up on the city's zoning site by tomorrow. So you can at least look at the maps and slides that were shared tonight, and you can download them and zoom in. So for folks who are looking for them on the zoning page this evening and couldn't find them, you're not missing anything. They're not there yet, but they probably will be tomorrow. All right, any additional burning questions or comments from folks at this time? And I'll reiterate, our inboxes are always open to more comments or questions that folks have after meetings, in between meetings, at any time. All right, seeing none, I'm just going to do a quick recap of upcoming zoning meeting dates. So all of these will be findable on the, all of these are findable on the city's zoning website. We have a couple meetings coming up on other topics in the comprehensive zoning review, so please do check out the web page and see if there's something that you want to be involved in. We mentioned the other corridors zoning topic this evening. that other parts of, um, further flung parts of Boston Ave might be incorporated in. That will be, um, that will be before the city's, the city council's planning and permitting committee for the first time on May 14th. That'll be our preliminary meeting on that topic. Um, please feel free to join. Um, and then we expect to have the public Q&A on that zoning topic on May 29th. So please feel free to save those dates and this information is available on the city's own web page so you can reference that and all Zoom links are always available on the city's online events calendar. Anything else? Go back to Jeremy and then I'll go back to Paola and city planning staff to close us out. Go ahead, Jeremy.
[Jeremy Martin]: Thanks, Kit. Just curious, do you or the city staff have a sense of when the next conversation about the Tufts institutional zone may be coming up, you know, ballpark? Are we a month out? Are we a couple weeks out? Just give us a sense of that, please.
[Alicia Hunt]: And I guess this is a great question just because we then want we want to give this information to power and her team to sort of draft some recommendation. And then when they are ready to float that they'll 1st, we do have working group meetings weekly during the week. And so the working group will take a look at it. And when we, we think it's kind of ready enough, then it goes to the planning and zoning committee. And so not May 14th, I think that's too soon, just because we've got other stuff that's going to be there. So it would be at least two weeks after that would be the next one. So I'm just giving you that as the earliest possible. We've got a lot on our plates right now, and we're trying to get it all done in the next two months.
[Paula Ramos Martinez]: Yeah, I think the earliest would be May 28th. So we will be having the other corridors on May 14th. So I can imagine that we could, with the second revision of the other corridors, bring also this one. In any case, we will be doing these updates. So it will be on May 28th or June 11th. That would be, I know it's a little bit too much, but we have so many other topics. But we will try May 28th. We will try to do it then. Otherwise, June 11th, and we will keep updating.
[Alicia Hunt]: It's my expectation that we wouldn't do a separate standalone Q&A like this. but rather it would be part of either the, so, and so, you know, those planning and permitting meetings are all hybrid. You can come in person or you can watch them on Zoom and the city council has been taking questions. They do tend to run about two, two and a half hours each. But I would recommend that people who are concerned about Boston Ave and this tucked area, honestly, you want to come to both of those planning and permitting meetings because of the, that we'll be addressing the Boston Ave on the May 11th meeting.
[Kit Collins]: Yep, I'll just second what Alicia said. I think for folks who are interested in the area overall, May 14th is a great one to attend. That'll be kind of like broader context we're going to be talking about. That's what you said. other corridors, Boston Ave, Main Street as well, potentially the West side of High Street. It'll also be for folks who haven't attended a lot of the committee meetings. It's a great way to kind of get familiar with the vocabulary that we use when we're talking about zoning. And then we will strive to bring a first draft of the Tufts institutional zoning for May 28. We will be posting updates about the cadence of the zoning topics and the schedule. We mentioned that at the beginning of every planning and permitting, Committee meeting and we'll update that on the website as well. We want to make sure that the next time we talk about this at a public meeting, we have something that is substantial for Councilors and members of the public to respond to. So this has been great source material as we go about this process. So we take next steps. Thank you all so much for being here. and for putting your concerns, your comments, your preferences, and your questions on the record at this point. This is really helpful for us. And because this is really a special case, this institutional zone, we wanted to do this before we had Emily and Paola start drafting anything too specific. So thank you all for being here and for helping this process. Anything else to add from Alicia, Danielle, Paola or Emily. Good.
[Alicia Hunt]: Can't stay awake another five minutes, so.
[Kit Collins]: Close it out then. All right. Thank you everybody for being with us. And like we've said before, any other comments or questions, you can always reach out via email. Thank you. Thank you all.
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