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[Emily Hedeman]: So good evening everyone. My name is Emily Henneman. I am chair of the Medford Community Development Board, and I'm calling 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 on progress may do so by accessing the link that was included on the meeting agenda posted on the city of Medford website. If despite our best efforts, we are not able to provide real time access, we will post a recording of this meeting on the city's website as soon as possible. And a reminder that given the remote nature of this meeting tonight, all votes from the board will be made by roll call. I would also like everyone to know that project materials for all projects before the board can be viewed on the city's website, medfordma.org. Clicking on current CD board filings and Danielle or a member of the staff will drop that link in the chat. We are going to start with roll call attendance. Ari Fishman. Present. Hey, Ari. Sabrina Alpino. Present. Hey, Sabrina. Adam Behrens.
[Adam Behrens]: Present.
[Emily Hedeman]: Good to have you here. Annie Strang. Here. Hi, Annie. Ben Lavallee.
[Ben Lavallee]: Present.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thanks, Ben. Vice Chair, Peter Kalbs.
[Peter Calves]: Present.
[Emily Hedeman]: Good to have you as vice. And myself, Chair Emily Hedeman. Danielle, can you please introduce any staff from the call?
[Danielle Evans]: Yes, myself, Danielle Evans, Senior Planner in the Office of Planning, Development, and Sustainability. We also have Alicia Hunt, who is the Director of PDS. I think we had Sal DiStefano, the Director of Economic Development, if he's still here. Yeah, I see Sal. We have Brenda Pike, who is the Climate Planner in our office. Welcome, Brenda. one of our student interns, Josh Needleman, who will be taking minutes tonight.
[Emily Hedeman]: Awesome. Important job, Josh. Thumbs up for minutes. I used to do that when I staffed a board. So it's an important job. So our first item on the agenda tonight is a new public hearing. We've had continuances for previous public hearings, but this is a new one, so I'm going to read the public hearing notice for the record. This is a rather long one, so I just wanted to give people a preview that you're going to hear my voice for a couple minutes. So the public hearing notice for the record is that the Medford Community Development Board shall conduct a public hearing on January 22nd, 2025 after 6.30 p.m. via Zoom remote video conferencing relative to the following proposed amendments to the City of Medford Zoning Ordinance and Zoning Map. Amend section 94-2.1, which is division into districts, to add the Salem Street Quarter District. Amend section 94-6.0, which refers to general regulations, to insert a new subsection to create the new green score zoning regulation and to state the applicability, standards, and calculation methodology therein. Amend Section 94-3.2, Table of Use Regulations, specifically Table A, by incorporating the Salem Street Corridor District into the existing table and to designated the uses permitted therein. Amend Section 94-4.1, Table of Dimensional Requirements, specifically Table B, by incorporating the Salem Street Corridor District and to state the dimensional requirements therein. Amend section 94-12, which is definitions, to amend and add various definitions. Amend section 94-9.0 to insert a new subsection to create the Salem Street Corridor District. Amending the zoning map to create a new Salem Street Corridor District and to change the zoning district designation of various properties to place them within said district, as shown on a map entitled Salem Street Corridor Zoning, dated December 8th, 2024. Amend section 94-11.7, which is site plan review, to incorporate the green score regulation by adding submission requirements for the site plan review and modifications and establish a waiver process. We also include Zoom link meeting details in this notice. This is the Zoom meeting that you are all in presently and also posted this on the city website calendar. I would also like to let everyone know that a subsequent public hearing on this same matter will be held by the Medford City Council on February 11th, 2025 at 7 p.m., excuse me, in the Medford City Council Chamber on the second floor of Medford City Hall, which is 85 George P. Hassett Drive, Medford Mass, and via Zoom. So two different ways to be involved with that hearing. A link to the public hearing will be posted no later than November 29th, 2024. I'd like to start this off by asking staff if they have any introductory comments, and then we will be viewing a presentation from Emily Innes of Innes & Associates. There's going to be two aspects to it. So for people that were very patient with the list of different changes that we're reviewing and providing recommendations on tonight, there's kind of two different topics. There's the green score zoning, and then there's zoning itself. So we're going to hear first about zoning, and then we're going to hear about green score zoning regulation, just to kind of set the stage for everyone and manage expectations. So Danielle or Alicia, do you have any introductory comments before we pass it off to Emily and her team?
[Alicia Hunt]: Madam Chair, I do believe that NS Associates has a pretty solid introduction explaining a lot of the background, the timing, etc. But I did want to share for the public, this is not one of our normally scheduled weeks for the Community Development Board meetings. However, we were aware that we had a number, a large number of public hearings that we needed to here, and we wanted to give the zoning its due time. Last time we took up zoning after several public hearings, it was much too late and too difficult to process all that information late at night. So we thought this deserved its own separate hearing. For those who are not aware, the city board meeting actually went until midnight last week, and we could never have taken this up after that. which is why we're hearing this on a separate week. And we continue to have a pretty heavy caseload, even though we're meeting twice a month. So with that, I'm actually going to pass this off to Emily Innis and Paula Ramos-Martinez, too, because they will put this into the context of the comprehensive plan, which is something that Emily actually worked on with us for several years, as the board is aware. I think that's sufficient.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you, Alicia.
[Emily Innes]: With your permission, Madam Chair, for the record, my name is Emily Ennis from Innes Associates. I'm joined by my colleague Paula Ramos Martinez. We are together going to give you a presentation starting with Paula first to go over the background to the zoning change for the Salem Street corridor, what we're doing, why we're doing it, information about that. I will then join you for the details of the zoning, so I can show you from the summary information where to find that within the language of the zoning itself, particularly important for many people on this call who may not deal with zoning on a regular basis, who just want to give them a guide to where to find it. Then at the appropriate moment, Hala will be back to you to explain the green score, again, what it is, why it is, and what the implications are. So that is our plan for tonight. I will just reiterate with what Alicia said I know Paola will talk to it as well but just said the this zoning process or rezoning process that we're in now was a recommendation of the comprehensive plan so we are essentially in the implementation stage of that recommendation by bringing forward the details that were envisioned in the plan. With that, and with your permission, I'm going to turn this over to Paola, who will share her screen and take us through the first part of the presentation.
[Paula Ramos Martinez]: Great. Thank you, Emily. Hello, everyone. This is Paola. Madam, if I may, I'm going to share my screen and start with the presentation.
[Emily Hedeman]: We can see your screen. We're looking at a meeting reminder, which no matter how many times you dismiss, they always pop back up. All right, now we got a presentation.
[Paula Ramos Martinez]: OK, it's going a bit slow then.
[Emily Hedeman]: And we are looking at your presenter view. Now it's just the presentation.
[Paula Ramos Martinez]: Great. So I wanted to say, it was already said before, but we have two main things that we want to present today. One is going to be about Salem Street Corridor District and that is going to take the first part of this presentation. We will take questions and later on we will come back with the presentation and do the second part which is the green square. So in the agenda for Salem Street what I have is we're going to talk about the timeline. So what has what we did before and that made us come here at this meeting today. So what was the process before that? What are the opportunities for public comments? Not for this one alone, but because we're going to come back We are reviewing zoning, so we are going to do a lot of topics, very different topics. I want to give to everyone what is the process when we take a new draft, what are the different phases that has to go through and when in those phases you could give comments. Then I'm going to do introduction of why this, why Salem, where does that come from. We're going to go into your current zoning, what is there now, and then we're going to show the proposed zoning map. The last two topics I'm going to give to Emily, and she's going to go through the draft, so the language, and she's going to talk first about the general changes that are being done to the Medford zoning ordinance, and then the new district that we are adding. And after that, we will do the Q&A. I must say that I'm very happy that there is so many people here today. So what was the timeline? When did this started? And what were the meetings that we had until today? So we did a workshop in July 24th, where we showed a lot of analysis that were done at a citywide level, and also for Mystic Avenue and Salem Street. And this analysis were very varied, but were showing us dimensions, of the lots, the existing zoning, non-conformities, transit, a lot of different topics. And all those topics were citywide, but also Mystic and Salem. So this helped us to get started with the analysis. And then in the August 14th, we brought the first proposal. We started with Mystic Avenue and Salem Street. In December 3rd, we did Mystic Avenue first. That's why you see a big gap between August and December. And then when we finished Mystic, we started with Salem Street. We presented the draft. And then in December 11, we presented the final with the comments and different little tweaks that we did to the first draft. In December 11th, the Planning, Permitting and Committee meeting, I referred and approved to refer this draft to the CDB and this is why we're here today. So what is the process? So what we're going to do, and this is going to be with every topic that we are going to bring forward for the rezoning, we're going to first in city council, and this is in the planning committee meetings, we're going to bring a new topic, we're going to present it. And here we're going to listen from the councillors, from the city staff, and from the public, any comment that they may have. So we will come back another time to a planning committee meeting, and we will present the draft with the alterations that were needed. If everything goes well, then the city council can refer to the city board. Here again, we will hear from the public, from the board, and the board will vote. the topic and it can be referred again to the City Council and the City Council can give the final approval. So this is a process and in every of these phases and stages the public has an opportunity to comment on it. We are telling you this because we are going to continue looking at different topics and this list is going to be updated every time that we present it. So in gray, you're going to see different dates and topics. The gray says represented meetings that were already done. The red are the meetings that we're doing today, and that's Salem Street and Green Score topics. And the blue are the ones that will come in the future. So this is going to be updated. So we have the final dates. And every time that we present, we're going to let you know which are the new topics that we are working on and at what stage they are so that you can write it down and join any meeting that you would like. So where does it come from? Why we're doing this or why we're doing Salem Street? Where does it come from? So in 2023, January, it was published the Medfair Comprehensive Plan. In here, it was the work that was done by the city consultants, and there was a lot of public engagement. It was a two-year plan. In here, you can see and that are identified all the problems, opportunities that Medford has. So for example, we see here, so at the end of this book, and I recommend anyone that is interested in, we are basing a rezoning on this. So all the principles values are taken from this comprehensive plan. And at the end, it has a very long list of strategies that are organized by topics and one for example the VP which is vibrant places 1.1.2 refers to rezone to allow mixed use in village centers as a right in smaller nodes outside traditional commercial squares such as Salem Street. So what you can see on the right is the vision map that comes out of this comprehensive plan. In this vision map you can see the corridors, so in here they were identified the corridors, squares and centres, transformational focus areas, green corridors, institutional anchors and different densities in the residential area. So what we are looking now is first we started with corridors, we started with Mystic Avenue, we're working now with Salem, later on we will look into the squares, we are looking now into neighborhood residential, so the low scale of the residential, and we will continue to look into every topic that was identified in this comprehensive plan. So we are going to look now at Salem Street, what is your current zoning and what does your current zoning allows. So in zoning, whenever we're going to rezone or rewrite a part, a district, what we have to do is to look what is existing, what is your current zoning, what are the future trends, If there is a comprehensive plan, for example, like we do have in Medford, what are those values and goals that the city has? And implement that in our proposal. So what do you have in your current zoning? It's not exactly, especially in Salem Street, it's not exactly what you do have right now. So what we're going to look into is Salem Street, you have three different districts. You have apartment one district, and that is the majority of Salem Street is in that district. Then you have commercial one at the end in the corner with Salem Street and Felsway. And then in the other side of Felsway, you have apartment two. So what does it mean? So we have here the dimension standards. We have it in a different way than your table because the table is a bit of difficult to read. So we have it by district. And so your dimension standards in apartment one your maximum height is three stories. Then it can be four if it's assisted living. But let's say that your multi-dwelling is up to three stories. Your C1 is up to six stories. These are all heights by right. In the case that in C1, somebody wants to do a hotel, by right, you can do 15, 1.5 stories high. In apartment 2, we have something similar. We have 6 by right and 15 for any other permissible permitted structure. So, this is what you have now in your current zoning. So if we see it a bit more like in a diagram illustration, what does it mean? Apartment one, that is this salmon pink that you have in Salem Street, in the majority of the Salem Street, you have, for example, single family maximum is 2.5. If you have, oh, sorry, there is a typo here. If you have multiple dwelling, it's three stories high. Oh, sorry, yeah, I know what it is, sorry. you have single family detached, that's 2.5, single family attached, that is your typical house, sorry, and that is three stories high, and then you have multiple dwelling that is three stories high. What happens in apartment one is that commercial use is not allowed. So you have all the commercial buildings that are from 93 until commercial one are uses that are not allowed in your current zoning. Now, if we go to commercial one, commercial use, yes, it is allowed. You can have multiple dwelling up to six stories. This is what is allowed right now. And you can have a hotel that is 15 stories high. With apartment is very similar, but instead of a hotel, what you have is any other principle structure that is allowed in apartment too. And the dwelling, multiple dwelling, it's also six stories high. So in our proposal, we don't think that those highs And those uses really reflect what you do have right now. Because you do have a lot of commercial that we do think it's important to keep and to make it conforming. You do have, sorry, you don't have the area to really let 15 stories high, not a hotel or any other. So we made a different proposal. We want also to have mixed use. So what we did is to create different sub-districts. We wanted to create a lot of diversity as it is already now. We wanted to look really into what you have and what really works. And the proposal comes from there. So we have two mixed uses. Mixed use one, that's the blue. Mixed use two, that is the reddish. Then we have commercial. Commercial is just one little parcel in here and I will explain why. This is the dark red. And then the rest is the yellow multi-unit residential. So I'm going to start for the residential. Whenever we saw that the lot was entire, the whole block was entire, already existing, all residential, we kept it. We think it's very important. This corridor, it has commercial, but it also has residential and this is not a citywide corridor, this is not Mystic Avenue, this is a corridor that should serve the neighborhoods that are around it. So we do like the idea of the neighborhood coming in this corridor, so to have a mix of only residential, of mixed use, and a little bit of higher density mixed use. So mixed use one, it's whenever we have that mix of You have residential, but you also have commercial. So we kept it as a mixed use. Why the difference between- Paula, one quick note.
[Emily Hedeman]: Your audio is going in and out a little bit. I'm wondering if it's a bandwidth issue, which can sometimes be solved by turning off your own video. Maybe just double check that any programs that are competing for bandwidth have been closed out as appropriate.
[Paula Ramos Martinez]: Okay, I closed the video, so I hope that it's going better. Yes, I think it's a little bit better.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah, I would encourage members of the community to message Alicia or Danielle if you... Sorry. No, no apology needed. You know, we're all doing our best in this virtual world. So we'll try this. If we need to revisit, we'll go from there. Okay, perfect.
[Paula Ramos Martinez]: So what is the difference between MixUse 1 and MixUse 2? So MixUse 2 was... It's those areas that are connecting to a major service or to, like, for example, we have parks, we have other main streets like Washington streets. Streets that are connecting with these bigger activators, as for example, Park Street, where we have a school and we have the Hickey Park, or for example, on the really east that we have the Morrison Park, we have Spring Street that is also has some commercial areas and commercial nodes in there that has a higher, let's say, pedestrian, fluent pedestrian movement. We wanted to give it a different, let's say, a different density towards these areas so that we could have more commercial ground floor and make it more pedestrian and that, let's say, that these are like activity stepping stones along these streets. So, if I go... continue. Yes, so what are these districts and what are the dimensions standards that we are applying? So, for example, the multi-unit residential, the minimum lot area is 3000. We took this number because of what is existing there. We have a lot of non-conforming because the minimum lot area is from 5000 and 6000. So there are a lot of non-conforming lots and we wanted to reduce those non-conforming lots. And so the minimum lot area gets to be reduced to 3,000 square feet. The maximum height is three stories. mix use one, minimum lot area is also 3000. And I'm going to explain what is this difference between base height and maximum height. So the base height, it's the height that you have by right. And in this case, for the mix use one is three stories. So by right three stories. Now, if And here comes the incentive zoning that we will explain, and Emily will go through more in detail. Incentive zoning is when we let a developer increase their density if the developer gives something back to the community. And this giving something back to the community is something that is established. So it has to go through a menu of options and with standards and so if they think that is reasonable like for example increasing affordability or creating a pocket park for the neighborhood then we let them increase in mixed-use one a maximum of plus one story. So with incentive zoning mixed-use one could go to four stories high. Now in mixed-use two The minimum lot area is 3,000. Maximum height, and this is by right, is four stories. Four. Now, with incentive zoning, so if the developer gives something back to the community, they can increase by two stories. So maximum height with incentive zoning is six. And then the commercial, which in this case we have a very small a very small lot there, is minimum lot area 10,000 square feet, maximum height three stories, plus three of incentive zoning. So it will be the same as Mixis 2 at the end, but it has three of incentive zoning. So by right is three. We will talk more and Emily will go more through these dimensionless standards. We are going to go through the map and in this map, we're going to see what is there right now and what is not permitted by your current zoning. So, any kind of commercial area that we have from the 93 towards Felsway, in this area, for example, this is not permitted. As well, the one that we see on the lower part, it's not permitted at the moment.
[Emily Hedeman]: um and then the three stories high multi-family this would be this it is permitted so when you say not permitted it doesn't mean that if this if these amendments were to pass like we would we would evict these businesses it means they're they're welcome and encouraged to continue to operate um as they see fit just to know
[Paula Ramos Martinez]: Sorry, because maybe it's a bit confusing. What we're doing is that they will be permitted with our zoning. So with our proposal, they are permitted. And this is that right now, they are non-conforming by use.
[Emily Hedeman]: But they can still continue to operate regardless.
[Paula Ramos Martinez]: Yes, yes. It's just that if they want to increase their height by the current zoning, They have to go through a lot of bureaucracy by to they're not required.
[Emily Hedeman]: Great.
[Paula Ramos Martinez]: So, because the commercial use is not permitted in apartment. These are not these are non conforming that will change with our new proposal because they would be in the mixed district and commercial. It is permitted. Thank you. Sure. So the same would happen here. Every time that we see a commercial in your current zoning is not permitted, that would change in the new zoning. Gas station, for example, you do have some along Salem Street. These won't be permitted in the new zoning as well. So they continue to be non-conforming. As well, when we go, we continue another gas station and another gas station. They are very close, three of them. So these are non-permitted, non-conforming, and they will continue to be non-conforming. Then this commercial is non-conforming now, but it will be conforming with the new proposal. These are the residential lots. They are permitted now, and they continue to be conforming in the new proposal. We continue here, more residential, these are permitted now and they will continue to be permitted in the new proposal. And these are commercial that right now in your current zoning is not permitted, it will be permitted and conforming in the new proposal. This is the commercial one area. So all of them are permitted now and they continue to be permitted in the new zoning and this as well. So now I will explain this really red area that we have a lot that we have as commercial is mainly so that we think this gas station makes sense to be here. It's near Felsway. It's out of traffic from Salem Street. So we prefer that that we can keep and that we would like to continue, so this is conforming in the new proposal. So we also wanted to add this definition. This is a business incubator because we think that this is a new definition that would attract certain types of business into this area. They can be very small, so not big scale. So I'm just going to read the definition. Business incubator is an organization that assists early innovators achieve a minimum viable product or service and create an achievable plan to make that product or service to market. In addition to mentorship and investment opportunities, a business incubator gives access to logistical and technical resources, as well as the shared office space. An incubator program can last for several months to a few years. We think also that this can create a lot of activation and a lot of community in this area. And because we understand that people might be worried about having these mixed-use 1 and 2 next to their residential or single-family house, what we have come with is a neighborhood compatibility, and this is that when MX1 or 2 on commercial lot abuts a residential parcel, it shall be subjected to this context standards. And that means that their side and rear setbacks are going to be from zero to 10 so they have to allow that setback so we have a little bit more of a space between the two buildings and then the height it's going to be increasing and following a 45 degree angle from the three stories minimum up to the six in case they go for the incentive zoning. So we want to really have this transition between mixed use one, two and commercial towards the residential. So that's why we implement this as a development standard. What we also want to let very clear is that as we see this area is a pedestrian oriented area. We want this to be as active and for people in the center of this plan. So, we also have in these standards, like, for example, that the parking has to be on the rear side of the lot. So, what we have facing the street is the building. We have an active ground floor so that a lot of eyes are on the street. It feels safe. It feels active. We also, any new development has to provide 12 feet fit for the sidewalk. So the sidewalks right now are very small. We had this analysis in the very beginning. We don't think that is enough for new buildings to come here and to have this active and pedestrian activity. So to make it more safe we ask that any new building has to give that minimum space for the sidewalk of at least 12 feet, and then it has to have a minimum setback of three, if I'm not mistaken, so that we wanted really to make it as pedestrian as possible. So I'm going to give now the... I'm going to stop now the presentation. I'm going to pass it to Emily, and she will guide us through the ordinance.
[Emily Innes]: Thank you, Paola. I will just share my screen. Just one moment. Now, Paola has shown you the colorful images designed to explain the more technical aspects of what you're unfortunately about to see. Zoning can be kind of dry when you're not familiar with it. But I do want to show you where in the zoning ordinance to look for the things that Paola just mentioned. Also, I believe the city board members received a staff memo on proposed changes that came out of the city council meeting and a couple of other implications from those conversations. I've already put them in here, I've highlighted them, so I'm going to show them to you as we go along and then Paola will show them to you again later when we go back to the presentation. So, the first thing is the division into districts, which we talked about already. When you establish a new zoning district, you have to put that into a certain part of the zoning ordinance. I should say, I think most of the people on the call are probably familiar with this, but just for those who have not looked at zoning changes before. Zoning changes are not development projects, they set the stage, they give permission for things to happen, they give options for things to happen, but they don't require that things happen. And I think that goes to what we were talking about earlier with the uses that are non-conforming under the current zoning. We had a couple of different goals as we approached this process. One, obviously, was, as Paola said, to make sure that we were following the recommendations of the comprehensive plan, implementing that after that long public process. But the other thing was, as we were looking at what was on the ground now, hearing maybe what people valued about their neighborhoods and understanding that many things, and this is true of almost every community in Massachusetts, many things that are physically present now are actually not allowed in the current zoning. And that's because many of our communities developed before zoning came into play. Some communities didn't start putting zoning in place until the 60s, some were a little bit earlier, but most of our New England cities and towns are actually older than zoning. So, as we looked at this, just to clarify that we're also looking at giving permissions for things that were already there, making it easier for people to invest in their properties. because we were reducing the requirement for them to go and get a variance because their properties were non-conforming. So part of this is what we call right-sizing the zoning to what's already there, and I'll call out some of that. So unfortunately I'm going to scroll through and make you a little bit dizzy as we look at this, but the next key thing to note is the table of uses. Now for those of you who may have been Watching the changes when we did the Mystic Avenue corridor, you're going to recognize some of the terminology, the MX1, the MX2, and the commercial districts. Those district types are also present in Mystic Avenue, but we are tailoring them to be appropriate for Salem Street, right? Because Mystic Avenue is a very different entity, a very different feel. a very different purpose than Salem Street. So the first thing we did was to add this MR, this multi-family residential district, which Paola explained. So that's new, that is not found in Salem Street. And that was to allow for housing that was variations or varieties of housing types that was more suited to a neighborhood corridor, a neighborhood area. And then the second thing, so you'll see that, you'll see the yellows, that's the MR coming in. It allows and disallows or allows by special permit, depending on the use. The other thing you'll see is from time to time, you'll see a blue coming in under MX1, MX2, or commercial. You can see it here, for example, for co-living. That's when we're making a change from what's in Mystic Avenue, where we're specifically tailoring those district types to be appropriate for the Salem Street corridor, and I'm going to call out a couple of them as we scroll through. So, if you are interested, Paula gave an overview of what is and is not allowed in the different districts, but if you're interested in the specifics of what is and is not allowed, then you should go to this proposed table of uses. And I believe that all of these are online now. We will update it again, as we do after every meeting with the city board, we'll provide the new version. So you can see here, for example, adult use, there's a no in the commercial, you see that blue, that's because adult use is allowed in Mystic Avenue in the commercial sub-district, it's the only place in the city that it's allowed, so it is not allowed here. You will see also that we are proposing changes and Paula will go over this. We're proposing changes to some of the medical office definitions we introduced this past spring. Earlier in the process, we are refining them to be more specific with both and consistent with both state and federal law and also with the needs of the overall city. And then the permissions, and I'll show you the definitions in a minute, are very much tailored to Salem Street and neighborhood needs here. So I'll show you the definitions that go along with these, but just note that that's also a difference with the corridor. The other big one is that and where there's a major change is that in the Mystic Avenue District, the adult use marijuana uses are allowed, the various options that are not allowed in Salem Street. So you can see those called out here. And then motor vehicle related uses, as Paola mentioned, were not there. They're allowed in the commercial. The light service station is allowed by special permit by the CD board. The other ones are not allowed. And then certain industrial uses, manufacturing, research and testing, things that are appropriate for Mystic Avenue are not appropriate for Salem Street. So we have removed those. And there's a couple of tweaks in the parking that you see that are not major. Here's some other of those light industrial uses that are not allowed in Salem Street. And that is a change. And then we are done with the table of uses. So our next step is the table of dimensional requirements. And so these are the changes that we've made to these. So again, multifamily MR district is new. You see the yellow coming in indicating that's a new district in this area, so all of these are very different from Mystic Avenue. And then the blue, again, tailoring these district types, the mixed-use 1, the mixed-use 2, and the commercial for Salem Street. So, Paola went over the lot area. This was based on our evaluation, our analysis of the lot area in this neighborhood, the heights have been reduced. Anybody who saw the Mix 1, Mix 2 on Mystic Avenue, that's not applying here. We have reduced the heights as Paola suggested or described. We have a base height that's allowed as a right. that may have a maximum height, and these are for buildings up front on Salem Street, and they require that incentive zoning, which I'm going to show you. We have the step back in here that protects Salem Street from having the buildings sort of go straight up. There's a little bit of a setback there to make them more human scaled. Here's the business incubator coming in. Here are the new definitions for clinic, hospital, neighborhood medical office, and medical office. You'll note the difference between neighborhood medical office and medical office is that a neighborhood medical office is limited by size. So it shall not exceed 1,500 square feet of gross floor area and is limited by the number of employees. It cannot have more than five employees.
[Emily Hedeman]: It's also where the adjacency, the commercial next to residential uses is, this table up here.
[Emily Innes]: Oh, it's further down, the adjacencies in the standards actually. Okay, great. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you for calling that out. I'm going to actually swing down that. It's coming up in about three sections, but thank you for asking that question. So we have, this is the Salem Street now. So all of those sections that I just mentioned actually modified other parts of the zoning ordinance. Now we're getting into part of the zoning ordinance that establishes the Salem Street Corridor District. It has a purpose to it, which is the wider variety of uses and building types to support jobs, economic development near established residential neighborhoods. Paola mentioned that we were looking for neighborhood goods and services, neighborhood economic activity. So the idea is this provides options for living within walking distance of jobs, goods and services. We want mixed use, multifamily and commercial uses as a density appropriate to the walkable urban corridor, that's Salem Street itself, understanding that that's serving that wider neighborhood. And that we're establishing design standards to buffer the neighborhoods from a higher intensity of uses and we want this nice identity that's appropriate for Salem Street that reinforces what's there now. The applicability creates the sub-districts that we just described. And then this is that question that you asked Madam Chair, dimensional requirements and waivers. That's where we start to refine the dimensional requirements to allow for the setbacks. the step-downs, so we have to, this is this first one, the front setback is the one that Pella mentioned where the facade has to be set back to create those wider sidewalks to make it more walkable. The side and rear setbacks are required next to an existing lot with a residential use of fewer than 5 units. We have to have a landscape buffer or a fence with a landscape buffer on the other side. Here are the height step back requirements, which is that neighborhood context and requires the massing of the building to be reduced closer to a building in any of the residential only districts and that's to allow for light, air, it keeps the existing residential buildings from being dwarfed by new buildings because they have to reduce that massing, reduce that height. We require the ground floor active frontage. We require some additional transitions to residential districts. We have setbacks for infill lots. So again, these are allows the infill building. An infill building is a new building on a vacant lot, for example. And it allows the infill building to match what's on the other side of it. So we keep the consistency with the neighborhood. We have height waivers. These are consistent. This is the step back waiver. So given that diagram, you can see that if you have a step back from Salem Street, and you have a step back from the residential neighborhood, and you might have a step back from another residential, at some point, you can't build a building. And so the waiver allows the Community Development Board to reduce the dimensional requirements of any of the step backs but it requires that priority is given to keeping the step backs that reduce the massing next to residential buildings. So in other words, you could reduce maybe the step back on Salem Street, but not the step back next to one of those three-story existing residential. We want to put criteria around that. Interested in hearing people's opinions. The next piece is the development incentives. Paola mentioned this, and I want to stress that this is a menu. I think we heard some questions that people thought that maybe they were all stacked on top of each other, so somebody could do them all and get additional height. We added language that's in the pink here that says it only goes up to the maximum height that's in that table of dimensional requirements. There are a lot of options for achieving that community benefit, but if you're only allowed to have one extra story, you only get to choose one of those options. You can't say, I'm giving you two options, I should get two stories. You are limited to that one extra story. Obviously, the maximum that we have is three incentive floors on top of a three-story building to get to six stories. So that is your limitation in this area. It's a six-story building, so it's either four and two or three and two. But none of these have changed except for the public parking. We had heard comments throughout the process that Salem Street, that area could use some additional parking. And so we've added public parking as a benefit. However, you'll see for the shared community, solar and public parking, these are topics we're still working on. So we have not set the requirement for the benefit yet. We're putting these in here to let people know that these are potential options. And we're going to confirm what the requirement would be for the benefit at a later date in the process. And then the design guidelines and applicability of the development standards. I do not, the sidewalk width is the only thing that changed from the other ones that we had developed. I'm just skimming down to see. Yes, that was the only change. Development standards and design guidelines are used in the site plan approval and the special permit process. They are criteria to measure the developer's proposal and require that they meet certain standards or address certain guidelines. For anybody who had seen the earlier process, except for that sidewalk width, they should be familiar. And with that, I'm going to stop sharing my screen and turn it back to Paola just so she can give us a summary of the changes from the original document that we sent you. And then we're happy to answer any questions from the board and from the public as appropriate. Paola?
[Paula Ramos Martinez]: Madam Chair, if I may, I'm going to share again the presentation. You see my screen now?
[Emily Hedeman]: Yep, we're viewing the slide with city recommendations.
[Paula Ramos Martinez]: So we have five recommendations from the draft, the latest version. And so the first one is, as Emily explained, is to clarify that intent in the introduction of the development incentive bonus. So in the section of the development incentives, we want to add so that it's clear that it's up to the maximum height under the section. of the table of the mentioned requirements. So the total paragraph will read in as follow. In exchange for incorporating certain provisions that further the city's goal for affordability, economic development, environmental sustainability, climate and climate resiliency, applicants may receive development incentive bonuses that allow for certain development permissions beyond what is allowed as of right. up to the maximum height under section 94-4.1 table of dimension requirements. These permissions include one or more additional stories up to the maximum numbers of stories allowed in each sub-district. Additional stories must comply with any setback, stepback, sorry, there is a repetition, or other dimensional requirements and the development and design standards in 94-9.x.6 development standards. So, this is the first one, just to clarify, that is up to the maximum height under the section 94-4.1 that is in the table of dimensional requirements. The second is about some definitions that we wanted to modify. So we want to delete the definitions for clinic, hospital, and medical office that we had in the previous with Mystic Avenue district and replacing them with the following definitions. So clinic is a clinic as defined in general law point C.111. section 52 hospital a hospital as defined in general law c.111 section 52 neighborhood medical office office of a physician dentist or other medical practitioner not located in a clinic or hospital as defined in section 94.12.0 definitions the office area shall not exceed 1500 square feet of gross floor area and shall have no more than five employees Medical office, office of a physician, dentist or other medical practitioner not located in a clinic or hospital is defined in section 94.12.0 definitions. The office area is greater than 1500 square feet and has more than 5 employees. So with that, the third is update the section 94-3.2, Table of Use Regulations, Table A, to reflect the proposed definitions. So we have text to be removed, is crossed out, and the text to be added is in bold. So we have them at the end of the table, we include that neighborhood medical office, which is not allowed in multifamily district, but it is allowed in mixed use 1, 2, and commercial. And then the medical office is not allowed in multifamily. And then we have mixed use 1, 2, and commercial as a special permit. And then the clinic is not allowed in any of the districts. The fourth is to add to the section 94-9.x.3 dimensional requirements and waivers the following. So, we add two of those requirements, one requirement, one waiver, which is the height step back requirement. And this is the text for the diagram that you saw. of the context. So for any lot within the MX1, MX2 or commercial district that abuts MRGR or apartment 1 district, a height setback is required along the lot line abutting the residential district. The height setback is calculated by a 45 degree angle beginning at the third floor and extending to the highest floor of the building in the MX1, MX2 or commercial district. The fourth, fifth and sixth floor shall not break the plane of that 45 degree angle. And then we have that a step waiver. If a building is subject to a front step back and rear or side step back, the community development board may waive the strict dimensional requirement of any of the step backs provided that priority is given to retaining the step back, step backs that reduce the massing next to the residential buildings of five or fewer units. And last is the update to section 94-3.2, table of use regulations, table A, to remove marijuana as an allowed use. Text to be removed is crossed out, text to be added is in bold. So what we do is just changing for the MX1 and MX2, the adult marijuana establishment, the cultivation, manufacturing, processing, retail, and independent laboratory, instead of CDB, so a special permit, we change them to no. not permitted. And those are the changes that we propose and the city recommends. So now we will give the Q&A. We finished our presentation and we hope for any comments we will be answering them Emily, myself or city staff.
[Emily Hedeman]: Great. Thank you, Paula. Thank you, Emily. I really appreciate the thorough presentation. I'm going to open it up to the Community Development Board for comments or questions from our group. Following that, we will open the public comment period, just to give a preview of what's next. We have Annie, Peter, Sabrina, Ari, Adam, Ben, myself online from the board. I'll just start with my first takeaway, which is really the alignment with the existing setup of Salem Street. I think that that presents a lot of opportunity. As I asked Paola, these non-conforming uses, do they, does that mean that they get kicked out or something bad happens to them? It almost means that they have more opportunity. So if they wanted to do something with their site or do something different commercially, they are now allowed by right. So I really like that. I think it's very considerate of the connections between commercial and residential. I'd like your thoughts around step back, especially the connection between higher density the housing, and it has some strangely specific questions about this neighborhood medical use. But I can save that. It was really just why five employees? I mean, that feels almost like an arbitrary number, and it feels weird to be regulating the count of employees, as well as questions around I think there was a comment that we don't allow neighborhood medical office and multifamily. And my first thought was there's people that operate their medical practice out of the first floor of their home. I don't think that that's common enough to make a big issue of it, but I did just want to recognize that just in case that's a scenario that you all evaluated. So yeah, those are some of my initial thoughts. But maybe we can do like a round with the board, and then Paula and Emily, if you want to respond, because we might have some of the same concerns. I see Ari, they have their hand up.
[Ari Fishman]: Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you, Innes Associates for the very detailed presentation and proposal. Um, I live just on the other side of the rotary towards Medford square, so I'm very familiar with this corridor. And 1 of the things that I appreciate about it as a resident is that mixture of residential commercial businesses. I can walk down the street and get a sandwich during my lunch break. And I think that one of the great ironies of the greater Boston area is that many of the structures that we most value and people most like, the townhouses, the triple deckers, are disallowed by our zoning, and we can't build more of them. So I think it's very smart that we're aligning it to accurately describe what we have and allow for more development like what we already have. evidence through living that this is what is working for our community. I don't have any particularly detailed questions. I'm looking forward to hearing community feedback, but I think in general the approach here of allowing commercial and mixed zoning makes a lot of sense for this area.
[Emily Hedeman]: Adam, I see a hand.
[Adam Behrens]: Yeah, I just wanted to chime in as well. It was super helpful, especially in context with the Mystic Avenue zoning. I think when I first saw the proposals, my immediate reaction was like, oh Jesus, are we creating Mystic Avenue here? It was really helpful to see the consideration specific for this corridor that even though it might be called the same abbreviation, it's actually not permitting the exact same thing for Mystic Avenue. I just wanted to voice that where coming in, I was like, We're really trying to up zone this and so it was helpful to get the context of kind of a primary consideration of like, okay, let's, let's match to as much as we can to what's there. And then, um, um, you know, try to like ease ease into a little bit more density, but not do it in such a jarring way. So.
[Emily Hedeman]: Then Sabrina, Peter, any thoughts? Or Ari, any response to Adam's comment? I think you hit the nail on the head. We can use the same letters in the table, but we're clarifying that this is specifically for Salem Street. And I think that's some nuance that DePaula and Emily, your slides did a good job at differentiating.
[Peter Calves]: I'm just going to say that I do appreciate the clarification on the height, because I know that's something that was confusing to people. And to understand that it is a hard maximum of six stories anywhere on the corridor, because I think that is something that I had heard concerns about. And I'm glad to see that that is the case. Agreed.
[Emily Hedeman]: So I'm going to do a quick break because we're humans. Give Emily and Paula a little bit of time just to pull together some thoughts and responses. But let's all meet back here in, let's say, five minutes. grab a water, bio break. And I do see a hand. We will be moving into the public comment period after we hear back from Emily and Paola. Feel free to raise your hand and we will get to you once we enter that portion of the meeting. Really excited to hear from the public. We've got a great crowd, so should be good. But yep, we will be back in about five minutes.
[Alicia Hunt]: Normally, I actually had a comment before, like from the staff before you go to public.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah, so I gave Emily a heads up. She's going to defer to you and then we're going to hand it back to Emily and Paola for any responses to the board comments and then go into public comment. So, Alicia, if you would like to provide some of that insight.
[Alicia Hunt]: Great, thank you. So I did just want to reiterate that we had reviewed and met with the consultants since what originally was went to the CD board in your packet is exactly what went to the city council. And so that is what the city council has to vote on, but they can be voting with amendments and they would vote on amendments that you recommend. And so what is this recommendations from the staff are amendments that have come up since it went to city council. But there was one that we had discussed and I think maybe there was a little miscommunication. And so I just wanted to mention it, not in that. So with the small medical office, the neighborhood medical, one of our thoughts was that we should be looking at limiting the hours from 8 a.m to 7 p.m because we don't want off medical offices and stuff we don't want people in people's neighborhoods next to people's homes coming and going at very early hours or very late hours so like you wouldn't want an urgent care open till midnight next to somebody's house or you wouldn't want them that kind of stuff going on and so that was one of the recommendations was to have and hours of operations. And that's also something in a big picture way that we want to be looking at in our zoning across the board is what are the hours of operations and how are they allowed in zoning? There is a paragraph in zoning that currently limits hours of operations, but it doesn't apply to medical offices. And it might be different if it was in a strip mall than it is if it was next to someone's home. Sure.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah, thinking about the implementation, the actual use, and the day-to-day clientele. That's a good lens to apply to this. Thank you, Alicia. Emily and Paula?
[Emily Innes]: I'm happy to respond 1st to that and then to the comments from the board. We agree on hours of operation. It was, as I said, as Alicia said, it was a miscommunication that was left off our text. So we're just pulling the correct sentence and we'll have it for you by the end of the meeting. or at the appropriate point to discuss it, but we agree that that's an important piece. I think you had asked why the difference and again, it goes back to tailoring uses for the neighborhood. It is quite common to think about the impact of different uses on a neighborhood in terms of the scale of a business or use. And one of the issues we had heard coming from the community was something like this, like a business that had clients coming to it, the impact of traffic on it, given that Salem Street is not only a corridor in the sense that it leads from one place to another, right? That's how the comprehensive plan was defining corridors, is that they were important streets. that took people from one part of Medford to another part of Medford, but it's also a neighborhood. And so we wanted to think about the scale of certain businesses. This is one that came up. The size, the number of employees, the hours of operations are all methods of limiting that scale. So we've got a smaller scale, which could be as a right with special site plan review rather, we have a larger scale that could be a special permit and let's just have a higher higher level of review before it comes into an area. And I do want to stress, I was delighted to hear the city board members picking up on this idea of tailoring Salem Street to match what's there now. I do want to reinforce that zoning presents options. It doesn't require somebody to change their property. So, a business that's non-conforming now that would have to go through a variance process to invest in it. A homeowner maybe whose current house is on a lot that doesn't meet the minimum lot requirements would also be non-conforming for certain things, might have to go for a variance. Part of our goal was to reduce that. It doesn't mean the business has to change. doesn't mean the homeowner has to do anything, but if they choose to, the pathway is a little bit more clear for them now if the zoning is passed than it would have been otherwise. Zoning changes are about creating those opportunities, and in this case, with the addition of development standards, the ability to do design guidelines, it is also about putting appropriate community controls on some of those uses, some of those potential buildings that could come in if people make certain decisions with their property. But I just wanted to reinforce that we were trying very hard to respect what Salem Street was while giving the people who live, work, own businesses there now opportunities for the future.
[Paula Ramos Martinez]: Also, one thing as well, we do allow home occupation in multi-residential. So if they have a small business and they want one doctor or something practicing from their home, that is possible in the residential because home occupation in the table of uses, is permitted. I just wanted to flag that.
[Emily Innes]: And with that, we're happy to listen to comments from the public as well.
[Emily Hedeman]: Great. OK, so I see some hands raised. Let me pull my notes back. So I will now open, or just real quick, do any other board members have any follow-up questions to what Emily or Paolo said? No, okay, and feel free to just throw your hands up or unmute yourself. Strong no from Annie, thank you. So I will now open the public comment period. Those who wish to provide comments can use the raise hand function or message Danielle in the chat if you're having technical difficulties. You can also send an email to OCD at medford-ma.gov. Before providing your comments, please state your name and address for the record. Reminder to all meeting participants, please refrain from using the chat function to message any comments to city staff or board members outside of technical difficulties to city staff, as it's not part of public record. However, if a participant is having audio or other technical issues, message Danielle, message Alicia, and they'll make sure You enter the queue. We are limiting speaking to two minutes per person. Part of the reason we do this is, you know, especially for topics like this, we have a lot of people that we want to hear from. We want to make sure everybody is heard in an equitable manner. The two-minute limit has worked previously for meetings, so we're going to be using that for this meeting. If you have more to add, or you want to respond to others' comments, I encourage you to email OCD at medford-ma.gov. All of those comments get shared with the board. We review them before every meeting. So, you know, those, they don't just go into a black hole. So I want to encourage people to also use that email address as well as, you know, speaking up this evening. And this is such a great opportunity to hear directly from the public, because what we at the community development board are tasked with is making recommendations to the city council. So, you know, we can. you know, be a little creative and, you know, pass this back to the city council based on the amendments that we propose. So excited to hear what everybody has to say. Alicia is going to help me manage the public comment queue. I think I can manage it okay. But Alicia, do you have any overview for the written comments that have been received? Or Danielle?
[Alicia Hunt]: I didn't prepare a summary today to share that out.
[Emily Hedeman]: That's OK. We've been reading them as they've been coming in.
[Alicia Hunt]: Actually, I might share that there are ones that were sent directly to me. I found that there was a lot of misunderstanding about what was in the zoning. So I have been trying on a case-by-case basis to reply to residents with sort of more information about what was in them. partially because a lot of the concerns were around things that were either not correct or were being changed. I don't want to reiterate a lot of that.
[Emily Hedeman]: Sure, sure. But yeah, the public comment period is a time to provide your feedback, but also ask clarifying questions if there's something that doesn't really click or doesn't make sense. So encourage everybody to ask questions as well. And thank you, Alisa, for providing more updated feedback to the public that sent in questions. So I just want to make sure I'm keeping track of everyone. So the first public commenter that I see is Carlos Cabreras. You're going to get a request to unmute. Please state your name and address. Alicia will start a timer.
[SPEAKER_40]: Hi, how are you? Yeah, my name is Carlos Cabrejas. I live at 224 Salem Street. So thank you for taking the time for this presentation, especially Paul, that was very thorough. So my question is, what is the plan to alleviate the already busy corridor that Salem Street is, you know, bringing all of these you know, development, houses, businesses, traffic is only going to get worse. What is the plan to make these, to mitigate the, yeah, what I said already, bad traffic that we have? Thank you.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you, Carlos. Appreciate the question. And for anybody that hasn't done these before, we typically hear all of the public comment, and then we'll pass it back to Emily and Paola to provide a little bit more insight. And then we as a board will deliberate and go from there. The next public commenter that I see is Dave McKenna. Dave, you're going to get a request to unmute. Sorry, Marielena, I might've accidentally clicked your name, but we're gonna start with Dave. Where did Dave go? We might've lost Dave. Let me look at the attendee list.
[Alicia Hunt]: I just sent him an unmute. Um, there we go.
[David McKenna]: Okay. Thank you for the presentation. I am generally supportive. Oh, David McKenna to vine street, just a half a block from Salem. Generally supportive of the new development because it will increase our tax base, which I think is really important. So we can improve city services for all residents. Um, and also, uh, really supportive because this will provide just more housing and we are in a housing crisis. Um, multifamily housing, condos and apartments are more affordable than single family. So, um, for people looking to downsize or for, um, we'll just have more housing options and I'm excited about that. Um, on the incentives, uh, I think it's great that by right, it's just three to four stories, which is what's currently existing. And then if there's an extra community benefit, then the developer could go beyond the three to four stories. The affordable housing community benefit seems really important. But my favorite one is the pocket parks. And I had a question about this because we could really use more green space along Salem, and developers are incentivized to provide a public pocket park. If they were to provide maybe the equivalent of two pocket parks or just more larger green space, would they get an additional incentive for that? Can they use that incentive maybe twice? And the seating, the extra bonus for seating in the park or the fountain, to me, does not really, it's not that valuable. It's the green space. A park should have seating in it. So I think that should just be a requirement of the incentive for the pocket park. I don't really care about the fountain. So any way to increase the amount of green space would be really beneficial. Thank you.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you, Dave. And as we hear questions, we got a really solid recommendation from city staff. As we hear questions that come up again and again, we may pause to address those throughout this public comment period just to make sure that, you know, we're all kind of working on this together. or to offer clarifications. Marie-Elena, you're going to get a request to unmute. Please state your name and address for the record.
[SPEAKER_32]: Hi, Marie-Elena Tetchi Bariola, 62 Sheridan Ave. I will try to keep it brief because I feel like I have a lot of questions, but I'll keep it to two. One, thank you for the presentation. It's very detailed, but my brain also doesn't work this way. So like, it's a lot to process. And I think that's probably true for a lot of people, you know, mix one, mix two, I get really kind of becoming that zoning stuff kind of just like jumbles in my mind. So some additional visuals might be helpful. Some of the slides were helpful, but it would have been really helpful to say, this is what's here now, and this is what we're proposing. Because I think she mentioned it, but I was having a hard time keeping track of it. So that would be helpful. But question wise, I think maybe what a lot of people, or at least myself anyway, is concerned about is, Is the definition of the differentiation between medical offices, clinic, medical facility, like on the heels of a methadone clinic being proposed in the area, it seems like, OK, so now they're changing the definitions. So I've been trying to figure out where are the original definitions to compare it to what the new amended ones are. So that would be helpful. But also, I think it might have been you, actually, that said, You you're not you don't think that like like why should we limit the number of employees in a medical office? I actually totally disagree with that I think that we should like I think because then what we're coming up against is Maybe an urgent care or something and you know We just came out of we're in a post-covid world where there were lines in urgent cares like outside And I don't want that in my neighborhood. I don't want you know, whether this happens again or not like that's you know, you have people like lining the street to get a COVID test, right? Or, you know, anything like that. And even if they open at eight o'clock, people line up at seven, 730. So I think that that is a concern, because when you don't limit the number of medical employees, you end up with offices like that. And, you know, where it says just a physician, well, what does that mean? Could they actually put them at the clinic if they filed it under something different. I think that's a major concern and there's my two seconds left. The other concern is like for all these increased housing, what do we do with these students? These schools are so overcrowded right now. Like if there are all these kids, what do we do with that?
[Emily Hedeman]: Those are all really great questions and really great points. I appreciate your insight around the neighborhood medical office. The next public commenter that I see is Zachary Chertok. You should be getting a request to unmute. Please state your name and address for the record.
[Zachary Chertok]: Zachary Chertok at 5 Allmont, right at the corner of Allmont and Salem. I have a list of questions, but the technical ones I'll email. I'm not going to worry about that now. I also apologize that my lighting makes me look like I'm going to say a soliloquy here. And Danielle, I also apologize for speaking through the chat. I forgot about the discernment in public records. So thank you for pointing that out. The two questions that I think could be generally answered here, one is, and this might have been stated, so it's more a point of clarification, is When buildings that are nonconforming seek to change the exterior of their building, when I've consulted and are advised on projects in other cities around this, including Boston and Providence around economic development, those buildings would require to go through a variance for continued approval and expansion of the building and its current use. Will that be part of the variance process, or in terms of your efforts to streamline the language and verbiage around your variance requirements, is that expected to be relaxed? The second one is for the IZ extensions to scale. Can the menu of options that are going to be provided for those IZs be published a little bit more clear and front and center? And can we be given notification around when it's solidified and what those are, as well as what the proximity to any proposed construction would be, what the requirements in terms of distance from them are? I've worked in places where you can offer a park to the city in exchange for an exemption versus it having to be feet from the building. So distance designations would be preferred. And then I'll echo the transportation concerns, especially since three boundary points around the zone are controlled by state agencies with land owned not by the city, including the I-93 Rotary, the Fellsway West, and the intersection at the Fellsway West and Salem Street, with a traffic signal that has been horribly unmistimed with the Fellsway East signal for some time, been trying to reach DCR for years. um and um and you know it just needs there needs to be a stronger partnership for that and it's sorry i know i'm over but that's not just a quarter it's a designated trucking route a state route overlay for route 60 as well okay this is all really helpful insight and it sounds like you have some really solid experience so thank you for sharing that with with us this evening
[Emily Hedeman]: I see Patricia as the next public commenter. You're going to get a request to unmute. And please state your name and address for the record, please.
[Trish Schiapelli]: Patricia Ciappelli. 53 Garfield Avenue. I just wanted to make sure that the Community Development Board got our legal letter from a group of neighbors this evening. We have 837 people that have voted no for this corridor expansion. No one has been included in any community involvement questions. All we hear is, we think you need, we've decided. What about the voters and the taxpayers? I feel confident in the next week, we will have over a thousand people in this neighborhood that do not want this corridor. This is a social justice neighborhood, as our legal letter imply, who have done nothing to offer any kind of, there's language barriers, nothing has been done in another language, nothing has been done regarding a reverse 911 call. And I think it's despicable the way this has been hidden from the neighbors and the constituents in this neighborhood. Salem Street, if you would even bother to come over here at six o'clock in the morning and six o'clock at night, you would see bumper to bumper traffic. And I think this is all of this rezoning. It is just too much, too fast, too big, too dense. It is not what this neighborhood needs and nothing that the voters, the homeowners and the taxpayers want. And we all know that, you know, you have to do something to expand some of the living. But this is ridiculous. It's not taking into concern the neighborhood at all. And we are prepared to take legal action.
[Emily Hedeman]: I appreciate that. And I hear your concerns about the notice and the way it's been communicated. So maybe that's something we can dig into a little bit just to find out more. But thank you so much, Patricia. I really appreciate you commenting. Our next public commenter is Jane. You're going to get a request to unmute, Jane Marcus. Please state your name and address for the record.
[SPEAKER_04]: Hi, my name is Jane Marcus. I'm 65 Tainter Street. I live around the corner from the Roberts Elementary School. And from my perspective, this plan is about a corridor, but it really should be about the Roberts Elementary School neighborhood. We have the epicenter of the proposed density directly abutting the Roberts Elementary School. And there are so many of these businesses that I find inappropriate to put next to an elementary school with first graders and second graders walking to school. We don't want them walking by methadone clinics where there are addicts. We don't want them walking past a brewery. We don't want them walking past a winery. I'm super glad to see all the marijuana businesses have been removed from the plan. Thank you very much for that. I was worried about that as well. I also feel that there's an opportunity here with some of these zoning decisions to have mental health, rehab, halfway houses, homeless shelters and churches, other things that are wonderful for the community, but not next to a school. I don't want school children to be worried on their way to school about an addict or a drunk that they're going to encounter on the way to school. I want the kids to walk to school with joy and with the promise of learning something. And I feel if we have educational facilities that are likely to be halfway houses or something else, those are not appropriate. Private clubs that serve alcohol, not appropriate. Any kind of facility which is going to have temporary visitors, such as a hotel, may have sex offenders who are in the hotel for weeks or months under the radar. And we won't even know that there are sex offenders watching our children to see who the lonely and the vulnerable ones on the playground might be. So I ask the board, please consider this from the viewpoint that this is next to an elementary school. And I will really thank you for that.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah, I hear your concerns about the uses that are proximate to the elementary school. So maybe that's something we can dig a little bit deeper and share more information. Thank you, Jane. I appreciate your questions and your comments. The next public commenter that I see is Cheryl R. You're going to get a request to unmute. And please state your name and address for the record, please.
[Cheryl Rodriguez]: Hi, I'm Cheryl Rodriguez. I live at 281 Park Street, which is the epicenter of the neighborhood node. Park Street currently gets about 2,000 cars per day, and Salem Street, according to the 2022 study, was at 18,000 a day. It's important to note that this presentation doesn't match the zoning that is uploaded, so you are voting on whether or not you are recommending the pot. That's not gone. It's gone through three versions and was not removed. The zoning is not informed by any studies. How we came to the point that we're reducing lot size by 70% to 3,000 square feet for a six-story building is extreme. The incentives are so easy to max out height. A bench, a fountain will get you to six feet and a heartbeat. And why is the narrowest, busiest section, Park and Salem, a node for intense zoning, which is their words. How are the desirable uses chosen? Dorms, which Rocco DiRico at Tufts says he doesn't want, and informed the city that he didn't want them, and just wants to build on his own land, but they're still offering dorms, or offering shelters, or offering hotels. I don't think you're getting away from the methadone dispensary with the way that we're wording things. The research and testing labs, the dog daycare has no ordinance written yet. And we don't want a poorly staffed methadone clinic opening because they're trying to squeeze in to some niche employee count. Why are the special permits for pot growing, processing, retails, and labs, whoever thought that was appropriate? And why are we allowing a five-foot buffer with an eight-foot fence to shield a single-family home from a six-story building plus mechanicals, which according to state law can go up to 150% of the original height? The comprehensive plan called for studies. It called for strategies to avoid displacement of the environmental justice neighborhoods. And that's all we're seeing here. The zoning should be informed by facts. The community should have been involved. And Alicia said the zoning was based on developers wants to build. There's at least one demo permit already on the table in the red zone and the hole in the ground will be back for his six stories. And he told your board before that the city said he could build more. Profits should not be more important than the people that live here. Thank you.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you, Cheryl. I really appreciate your comments. There's a lot there between the traffic, you have some feedback, like, you know, are the many options really commensurate with what's being delivered? Some questions about the uses, and then I'm curious about this mechanical percentage, so maybe we can address that at some point. But thank you so much, Cheryl. I really appreciate your comments. The next public commenter I see is Klein170172. You're going to get a request to unmute shortly, and please state your name and address for the record. And if there's two people with you and you would both like a two-minute comment period, we can do that. But if you just want to be combined, that's also acceptable.
[Ralph Klein]: That's fine, I'll just be myself. My name is Ralph Klein. I own and reside at 172 Park Street. My family also resides at 170, my sister Ruth. Now, we're on the fifth house down, fifth property down on Park Street, on the opposite side of the Roberts from Salem. Their proposal has three of the four properties barely conform. Let me look at this. 184 has 2,065. 182 has 2,265 feet. The next property has 3,000. And the next piece of property has 3,500. The combined frontage of this is 165 feet. And from Salem Street to my property line is approximately 130 to 140 feet. I could have a six-story building running the length of my property with these non-conforming properties that don't even make the limit, but they're in the red zone. Also, the parking. Since they put the condominiums on Salem Street, on Court Street, across from JRA Cycles, Park Street has become the dumping ground for all the vehicles that can't park there. for the part of building on the opposite side, JRA Cycles, there's five cars that come down here every day, park their vehicle, take their bicycle off, and ride it to JRA Cycles around the corner. If you think I'm kidding, come down Park Street and look at it. I cross Salem Street every day at least twice. My grandkids go to the Roberts Junior High School. Traffic is horrible. They do not listen to the crossing guards. I've almost gotten hit twice with a crossing guard there. I mean, to propose more buildings there? This is ridiculous. Thank you.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you, Raul. I hear your concerns about the parking and the traffic and also kind of the lot areas and frontages for some specific properties. So those will be important things for us to address. The next commenter that I see is Julissa. You're going to get a request to unmute. Please state your name and address for the record. Hi. Jalissa, if you're speaking, we can't hear you, unfortunately. I'm going to send them a quick message. Actually, Alicia or Danielle, can you send a message to them? We may have to come back to them. All right, Julissa, we're gonna come back to you. We have your name written down. We'll come back to you right after our next public commenter and see if we can resolve our technical issues. If not, we'll share the Medford Community Development Board email address with you and make sure that we get your insight. So the next public commenter that I see is Doreen. Doreen, you're gonna get a request to unmute. Please state your name and address for the record.
[SPEAKER_34]: It's Doreen O'Hare, Malden Street. I want you to know I'm opposed to this. The traffic on Salem Street is insane right now. Just trying to get down that street will take you 25 minutes to a half an hour. Um, so it's already, I don't know what kind of study was done to see the traffic repercussions if this were to be implemented. Um, I'm also concerned about the first responders. If everyone decides to follow this new zoning and we have both sides of Salem Street with six stories or whatever is allowed, how is that going to impact not only our schools, but the first responders that have to get to those schools? That's all.
[Emily Hedeman]: I'm hearing traffic first responders impact schools. Yeah.
[SPEAKER_34]: I mean, it takes so long to get down that road. And honestly, if think about the DPW to if both sides of the street are six feet high, it's going to impact how the snow melts. you know, everything. So definitely it needs to be more thoughtful in the process. I think there's way too many factors. And you were talking about the hours of different, you know, in the mixed use zones, um, or commercial zones for that matter. You know, you talk about, you don't want a medical office to say past seven, but what if you have a regular commercial business open till nine, 10 o'clock at night, um, those people are parking somewhere. And we have, you know, residents that's trying to park their cars. That's all I have. Thank you.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you, Doreen. Yeah, I think, you know, hours for other uses may be something that we can provide some recommendations around. All right, Julissa, I am going to send you another request to unmute.
[SPEAKER_20]: Hello. Hi. Can you hear me? Okay.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_20]: Thank you so much for your patience. There was a little troubleshooting there.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you for your patience. I appreciate it. No problem. For the record.
[SPEAKER_20]: No problem. My name is Julissa Almendarez. I live with my mother, Maria Rodriguez, at 174 Park Street. My friend Jeff is also here, who's been overhearing, you know, the whole presentation. So thank you for that. I guess the question we have, and I'll have my friend Jeff speak, you can explain a little bit better, is this.
[SPEAKER_01]: Hi folks, just a quick question. We're at 174 Park Street, we're currently zoned apartment one, and it's changing to mixed two, commercial mixed two. We're a house behind a house, so we're kind of the second tier behind the frontage. And my question is, for the homeowners here, will they now become nonconforming? Right now it's a single family detached home. And so if it changes to mix two, commercial mix two, are they limited in their ability to sell to another residential use down the road?
[Emily Hedeman]: We can answer that question later, but you have about a minute left if you have any other comments, feedback. I think that's a great question. I used to live in our unit, so.
[SPEAKER_20]: As far as, I feel like the other, you know, the other public members have pretty much addressed kind of like similar concerns like traffic, you know, what kind of businesses, you know, are being allowed if they're like appropriate, because we do live next to the school. And then yeah, as far as like, you know, what the building heights are, you know, considering you know, what we have around here with these homes, if we have like a, you know, a big eyesore. But I think everybody else has pretty much explained it a little bit better than, you know, than that. So it's pretty much in the same plane as everybody else.
[Emily Hedeman]: Well, I think you did a great job. And thank you so much, Julissa and Jeff, for your comments. I really appreciate it.
[SPEAKER_20]: Thank you.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you. Our next public commenter is Melanie. You're going to get a request to unmute and please state your name and address for the record.
[Melanie Tringali]: Hi, this is Melanie Tringali calling from 116 Forest Street, but I do own a property at 178 Park Street as well. Just a couple of things that I'm concerned about specifically is traffic. I don't think there was a traffic study done at all. Um, I don't think there was any study done with our public safety departments at all as to how this these new. Properties apartments or commercial building would have an impact on them. Um, I don't think there was any infrastructure studies done as well. How does this impact our water our sewer? And our electrical, I think that area is pretty prone to black, pretty frequent blackouts. I know in the past couple of months, they've people have lost electricity and heating. I'm very concerned about the intense zoning around the public school. I don't understand why that was even considered to have. commercial zoning at up to six stories next to a public school. If you go down those streets, those streets are so crowded, there's parking on both sides, it's just dangerous. And if you have commercial buildings, they are businesses, it's a huge safety issue for the school. I'm trying to, if I had anything else, I think those are my biggest concerns. The only other thing I did want to comment on is earlier in the presentation, I think you had actually asked a specific question about, you know, businesses and if they would have to go out of business. But I think what we have to consider here is that if these new zoning things go into reality, there is a possibility that some of those businesses may lose their business, right? If they don't own those buildings and there's owners that are open to more cash or other types of Availability to make more money. A lot of those people and all those businesses could be displaced. So that's all I have.
[Emily Hedeman]: That's a great point. Yeah, I mean, not not every business owns their space.
[Melanie Tringali]: I don't think a lot of them do.
[Emily Hedeman]: I think how can we, you know, support those businesses.
[Melanie Tringali]: Matter of fact, I know that, and I don't know if it's a result of the potential zoning coming up, but Citizens Bank, which is a huge bank for that community, I know I visited frequently, even though I live on Forest Street, is being closed or has already been closed because they did not renew their lease.
[Emily Hedeman]: That's helpful to know. Thank you, Melanie. I really appreciate it.
[Melanie Tringali]: Yep. Thank you.
[Emily Hedeman]: All right, the next public commenter that we have is Navare. You're going to get a request to unmute. Please state your name and address for the record.
[William Navarre]: Hello, William Navare, 108 Bedford Street, apartment 1B. Uh, I basically support the zoning because Medford isn't full. We have room for more people. Um, I wanted to ask one specific question and basically that is have the, uh, consultants, you know, carefully, uh, studied and analyzed the, uh, cost in terms of construction of the set step backs. I know that they had that in Somerville step backs. I don't know if I misspoke and said setbacks, but step backs is what I'm referring to. And, um. And, and, you know, carefully considering the cost of those I know Somerville had those at one point they might have had to modify that I didn't get a chance to look into all the details, but you know just in terms of if somebody knows about the development cost of that. And if, if that's going to render a lot of development, unfeasible I would suggest that the board consider suggesting that the. you know, that it'd be made optional and that instead you could provide a bigger conventional setback, move the building further from the street and then it can just go straight up because it's already further from the street, maybe that's where the pocket park goes. Just an example based on what you folks find when you look at whether or not this is gonna be financially feasible to build the set, sorry, step backs. You can do the step back, that's expensive, is my understanding. But I'm interested to know what everybody's figured out when they've looked into that. Thanks.
[Emily Hedeman]: Hey, William, I like your focus on the real implementation of this. We can definitely get some more insight on that. Thank you. The next public commenter that we have is Claudia F. Claudia, you're going to get a request to unmute and please state your name and address for the record, please.
[Claudia Fennelly]: Good evening, Claudia Fennelly, 36 Farrigan Ave. I've listened tonight to the proposal and there's no way in my mind that you can possibly do any of this without widening Salem Street or taking away all street parking. You have a, now you're going to expand the sidewalks to 12 feet wide on both sides. You're going to have a talk of a possible designated single bus lane. Then you have bicycle lane. Then you have two-lane traffic. And if you do widen the street, how much are you going into the neighborhoods? And how will this exist? How will this impact the existing non-compliant businesses that have no place to go back to? For example, the historical building on Park and Salem Street is a perfect example or even the fire station that just the city's invested all that money and re renovating so I just can't get there from here given your proposal the Comprehensiveness which brings me to the next point We're not London So I, and I stress that only because I did look up the firm that did this, and I don't know if they're affiliated with it, but we're not London. We're, you know, City of Medford, a small city relatively, and it's a very, very ambitious, designated, busy, very condensed area based on their proposal. And I don't know how these, Salem Street versus other areas in Medford were selected to be just built up with 10-story high hotels, but it seems a bit unfair to the people of Salem Street in the neighborhood comparatively to other neighborhoods which don't have aggressive planning. That's it. Thank you.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah, thank you, Claudia. I appreciate your thoughts on the street section, like how everything kind of goes together, as well as making sure that the work that's being proposed is contextual and appropriate. We're not London. There's a reason we live in Medford. We love Medford. If we left London, we'd be there. And yeah, I appreciate your question in terms of the selection process. So maybe we can provide some more insight into that process.
[Claudia Fennelly]: Well, maybe you could readjust things so it'd be more appropriately distributed across the city. If you are required by any state obligation to meet housing needs, appropriately distribute it so that you don't really make it impossible and a safety hazard to the people that live in this area.
[Emily Hedeman]: And then just a quick point of clarification on the type of land that zoning applies to. Zoning only regulates the private land, so it wouldn't regulate the streets themselves. But we can dig more into some of those nuances, but just want to kind of put that out there.
[Claudia Fennelly]: Because it looked like on one of the design proposals that you extended back into the streets, the houses.
[Emily Hedeman]: So we'll clarify. At this time, we do need to move on to a different public commenter. We'll do our best to address that. And then if not, let's continue the dialogue via email or potential future public comment periods. But thank you so much, Claudia. Really appreciate your thoughts. The next commenter we have is Lori. You're going to get a request to unmute. And please state your name and address for the record, please.
[Lori Spinney-Flagg]: Laurie Spinney Flagg, 55 Garfield Avenue. I am opposed to this proposal. Obviously, if you look at your maps, I am the second house in from Garfield, which means, and the house directly beside me has been abandoned for the past five years after being built. Nobody's in that house. So I don't know if they're hanging on for these Maybe they have some insider knowledge that you are planning to do this, but that leaves my home subject to two pieces in which I will have no, I don't care if you put a little diagonal on it or not, it is going to tower over my home. I was extremely happy when the house next door to me went up a floor because it made it more consistent with the neighborhood. And I have to tell you, I bought this house 27 years ago and the traffic on Salem Street has only increased year after year after year. I used to take public transportation. The express bus used to be across the street that has been discontinued. I have not seen buses going to Malden Station, but very rarely. So I don't know how much you are really digging into what's going on on Salem Street, but as others have mentioned, there's a huge parking issue. What about water, trash pickup? What about the historical integrity of this area? I mean, you have homes that, my house was built in the 1890s. So, I mean, and we've been trying to rebuild over the course of the years that we've been here, what's going to happen to our property values when you bring all these new people into this section of the city?
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah, I appreciate those concerns, Lori. Sounds like you're, I think we're like 10th thing at this point, concerns about traffic. Maybe you have a specific parcel that you're concerned about. So I really appreciate your insight. Thank you so much for joining the public comment and sharing your thoughts. The next public commenter that we have is Sharon. Sharon, you're going to get a request to unmute. Please state your name and address for the record, please. Sharon, I'm going to send that request through again. Bless you, Alicia. Why don't we come back to Sharon? We'll go to the next speaker, and then we'll circle right back, see if we can grab her. So the next public speaker that I see is labeled iPad KR. Please say your name and address for the record.
[SPEAKER_03]: Hi, this is Kelly Brasso, 35 St. Francis Street.
[Danielle Evans]: Hi, Kelly.
[SPEAKER_03]: I would like to know what is the incentive to the city to agree to all this zoning changes? What is the advantage to the city itself? People are so concerned about their property values, the increase in traffic, the sudden and extreme changes. The Community Development Board progressing so quickly with things that are going to have long lasting effects to our city and without slowing careful consideration for what the ramifications will be, how will we unring this bell if things go sideways? This is the first property that's come up, you know, this is the first proposal in this seems somewhat small scale, but there's no telling the the magnitude of, once the zoning is permitted, what will stop everything from turning into six-story buildings, one after the other, after the other, after the other? I just, I'm very concerned about how quickly things are moving. Mr. Gabb was just approved. Why not take a minute and let Mr. Gabb develop, you know, if you, already approved it and you've decided that it's going to work, why do Salem Street simultaneously? The advantages to the developers, I still don't understand why the city has a stake in this and what you would ever entertain so many changes at the same time for. I feel like it's so rushed, it's so eminent, and it's not a well-thought plan. without a lot of potential problems. And it's very, very concerning. I don't understand it.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah, I appreciate that feedback, Kelly. making sure that we're doing this kind of intentionally, bringing everybody along with the process, and thinking about your six-story building comment, it may make sense for us to revisit some of those details just to clarify.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's not even the height of the building, it's just once the floodgates are opened, how are we going to slow the roll in once you, you know, I feel like the developers are sort of pushing in that everything is being expedited because the developers have submitted plans. Well, you know, and to that end, I would also like to say that in notifying the public, I think that it should be on the developer to send the notifications through the post office with the return receipt requested so that we can be sure that people are actually being notified and that the, you know, the actual perimeters of the 300 or 400 feet is being met.
[Emily Hedeman]: Allie, I'm so sorry, but we're going to have to move on to another public commenter. I hear what you're saying about notification and have written that down as something to take away from your- Two minutes isn't a conversation either. I appreciate that. We are enforcing the two minute limit. We're already a minute and a half over. If you have more comments, I'd encourage you to email the Medford Community Development Board. But thank you so much for commenting. I really appreciate your thoughts and insight. And I'm taking notes for how we can address it. I'm going to try to go back to Sharon, see if we are able to unmute. Sharon, you're going to get a request to unmute. Thank you for putting that email in the chat, Alicia, for people to provide continued comments. Looks like I'm still not having luck with share and unmuting, so I'm going to move on. Our next public commenter is identified as JMN. You're going to get a request to unmute. Please state your name and address for the record.
[Jean Nuzzo]: Hi, can you hear me? Yes. Great, thank you. I appreciate the time to speak. My name is Jean Nuzzo. I live at 35 Parish Street. I often speak on these matters and the impacts to our resident, and I'll send my comments along, my technical comments along for the record, but tonight I'm going to do something unusual, and I'm going to speak for myself, because you've made me a direct abutter in this. We've lived at our home for decades here on Parris Street. It's a full south-facing home with sustainability built that way before it was a trendy thing. Recently, we lost all the nearby 400-year-old silver maples and our summer shade to development. We've also lost a good portion of our sun path across all seasons to a new structure. The impacts of development on us have already been significant. Our costs to run our home have increased deeply already with heating and cooling and ice removal we never needed before. In your plan, you are now zoning that same parcel next door, similar in topography and size to mine, actually my lot is larger, to an MZ1IZ zone. With mechanical, ornamental, and not exercising the loopholes in your plan changes, I have a building potentially plus or minus 70 feet tall next to me. Three and a half stories alone, never mind six, would completely blot out my sun path entirely. My home will go dark. I will lose the balance of what remains of my trees, bushes, gardens. The nearby wildlife that we harbor will be obliterated. No solar and other green options for us. So I would like to know, why does 31 Paris Street get an MZ1 with IZ status and I do not? You've come down the street farther than anywhere else to get to that lot, so I'd like to understand why he gets it and I don't. And lastly, I'd like to thank the City for their religious reminders of what developers want at every meeting, for regularly stressing the needs of the developer profits over our environmental justice neighborhood and our neighbors, Thank you, Alicia. I'm sure the moneymakers appreciate your advocacy. Maybe look up what a betterment is and how cities leverage them to offset the cost to the residents. Maybe advocate for us. I'm so sorry.
[Emily Hedeman]: I'm going to have to cut you off.
[Jean Nuzzo]: I'm done. Thank you.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you so much for your comments. I just want to remind people that we're trying to comment on the zoning. We're not commenting on individuals. So let's try to maintain that decorum. But I did hear your concerns, Jean, around the impacts on your specific property and your passion about living kind of a sustainable and low impact lifestyle. That's something that I also try to do. So I'm hearing those concerns. Thank you for sharing. The next public commenter we have is Moe Wing. You're going to get a request to unmute. Please state your name and address for the record.
[SPEAKER_26]: Good evening. My name is Maureen Wing. I live at 36 Dudley Street, and I'm not next to Salem Street, but I'm nonetheless concerned. I want to thank you for the opportunity to speak. I am very concerned about a six-story building being built on Salem Street. In terms of the butters of the people that are in the neighborhoods, I'm very, very concerned. We have a certain, I would say, view of our street, view of our neighborhoods, and I think six stories is ridiculous. The second thing is I am also echoing what other people think about the traffic concerns. It doesn't seem to me that anybody's been talking about if we've done a current traffic study, Salem Street is a parking lot many times of the day. That does impact public safety response as Melanie has outlined. I'm also concerned that the fire trucks come down from the fire right down Park Street when they're going to other areas in Medford, and there's parking on both sides of the street. The parking on side streets is both sides anyway, on many areas coming off Salem. And I'm very concerned that what are we doing about that? And what are we looking at in terms of the traffic on the street? And the other thing is, again, the impact on the schools in terms of the school population. I do oppose any methadone or CBD clinic on the Salem Street corridor. And the other thing I would like to say is that If we're going to have three to four story buildings, I would prefer that you're going to have parking off street underneath those building and have those things planned for that and not say it's a 1.5 space. That makes no sense to me. And could someone just please answer from before when this was going through everything, the three gas stations that are quite near each other. I had the sense that we left that open. I wasn't sure. Is that are they being removed? Are they being asked to move? It was just unclear to me what was going on with the three gas stations that are sort of diagonally near each other on Salem. Thank you. Sorry for all the bullet points.
[Emily Hedeman]: No, it's really great. It gives us a lot to work with, so I appreciate the insight, Maureen. I'm hearing, you know, echoed concerns about traffic and parking, public safety. Maybe we can dig in a little bit more to your Um, kind of, uh, the underground not underground, but, um, like, self contained parking for 3 to 4 stories. And then maybe we can get a quick answer on the gas stations. It was my understanding that they are not being asked to move. They're allowed to operate, you know. You know, keeping in mind. Earlier commenters, was that Patricia?
[Alicia Hunt]: Madam Chair, if I might. Nobody is asked to move or change anything. Exactly. Period ever. It's what allowed if they wanted to redevelop or dramatically change, redo their property.
[Emily Hedeman]: And that's applicable to the property owner. But if somebody has a lease, which is atypical with a gas station, they might have a long-term land lease, given the amount of capital improvements that are required for a gas station. But if a business did have a lease and the property owner decided to move in a different direction, that's the property owner's decision. And if the business owns the land that it's on, then that's the business's decision because the property owner and the business are one and the same.
[Alicia Hunt]: Correct. But nobody would be asked to move ever under a zoning change.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yes, correct. Yeah, I think that's really helpful clarification. And thank you so much for asking the question again, Maureen.
[SPEAKER_33]: Thank you.
[Emily Hedeman]: And thank you for the confirmation, Alicia. The next public commenter that I see is Apple's iPhone. You're going to get a request to unmute. Please state your name and address for the record.
[Souza]: This is John Souza, 359 Winsor Street. I'm going to echo off of one of the former commenters specifically in regards to the step back. These are an architectural usage in specific climate areas that don't experience the same amount of freeze thaw that this neighborhood would. be under, you're going to have significant water issues in every one of these buildings. No one on this board is going to care about that. The problem is, I don't believe there's a single licensed architect involved in any of these decisions. I'm not one of them. However, I do consult with them on a regular basis and I see these issues often. This is something you should drastically consider removing from the from the the amendments it's it's just a nightmare you're you're not gonna get you're you're trying to make compliances for the residents when in actuality you're just going to design really poor buildings um and further to that i wonder if there will be any sort of aesthetic reviews on any of these buildings such as products allowed to clad them with or what will be the longevity of each of these buildings? Has there been any sort of thought put into that end of the equation? So I have.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you, John, I appreciate your concern towards like the materiality and the aesthetics of these issues. I think that's a little outside the scope of zoning, but would want to get some confirmation from city staff.
[Souza]: If it's outside the scope of zoning, why would it go into the planning end of it?
[Emily Hedeman]: We'll get back to you on that.
[Souza]: Okay.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah, good questions. Thank you, John. So the next public commenter that I'm seeing is Anne. You're going to get a request to unmute. Please state your name and address for the record.
[SPEAKER_22]: Anne Sullivan, Central Ave. I just want to thank Paula and Emily for their presentation. I found it very helpful to understand the maps a little bit more and all of the codes and all of that. But one thing that it brought up, because again, I'm concerned with the same things that other people are, which is traffic, public safety and parking. But have either of you or even the community or the development board walked down Salem Street from the Rotary to Felsway. Have either of you, that's just, it's a, you don't have to answer it, but have you ever done a tour of Salem Street, have you ever gone into Haines Square and spoken with any of the entrepreneurs who have some of them have been there for years and they have opinions about traffic and they have opinions about no bike racks and they have opinions about loitering and they have an opinion about trash. Have you personally spoken to anyone in Haines Square which would be Totally affected. And have you spoken to any residents? Have you observed trash on the street? Have you observed where people tend to park? I just, I just think that your maps are wonderful. Your information is wonderful, but there's nothing like boots on the ground. I do a lot of walking, so I walk around the area a lot, and I see a lot of things that could be improved. And I know that this is just zoning. It doesn't mean that a six-story building is going to go next to every spot that's labeled purple or whatever. I understand that. So my other question is, who is going to be encouraging this development? Is there a department in Medford that seeks to get the right kind of businesses here? Because what if it's all check cashing stores? And that type of business opportunity, who is going to be really monitoring that we're bringing in what the residents want? And has anyone talked to them? So thank you very much for my time and good luck.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you, Anne. We've really thoughtful comments like this. I don't think we need luck. We need really passionate public members like you. So yeah, I hear the more concerns about traffic, public safety, parking, your comments about the entrepreneurs in Haines Square, and then your concern for maintaining diversity of businesses so that it continues to serve the neighborhood. So thank you so much for those comments. Our next public commenter is Ren Bean. You're going to get a request to unmute. And then I'm just going to do a quick check in with the board, see if we need a break or if we want to keep going, just to give everybody a preview. But Ren Bean, you're going to get a request to unmute. Please state your name and address for the record.
[Ren Bean]: Hi there, Ren being from 37 Woodrow Avenue just on the other side of the rotary there from Salem Street, and I'm generally supportive of the zoning effort here. I think there are a lot of details to wade through to get it right. I think there certainly is the danger that the city with good intentions sort of charges in and gives permission for development. And then it's outsized for what the infrastructure can handle. I think there are some questions about electric and sewer, and of course, the traffic and parking, which all have merit. But my comments are specifically about the incentives. I wonder if there was financial equivalency considered in how folks can get the additional half and full stories, because if I were a developer just quickly looking at this, I'd say, Yeah, I'm going to do a fountain and a pocket park because there's no square footage on there, or I'm going to do three years at 15% below market rate for my commercial because that doesn't really cost me that much and I'm still making a profit. I'll take that rent and flip the building. Major profit. you know, and you, I think there's the risk here that people will take the path of least resistance and you'll end up with a street of fountains every other block or something like that. And you won't get some of the other incentives unless they're, you know, equivalent to each other and cost for the, to develop. So I, I mean, maybe, maybe that is there, but it just looks like there, there could be the opportunity to take advantage of some of these that aren't defined as granularly as the others. The other thing that I wanted to just... touch on is the 0.8 parking spaces for anything within half a mile of high-frequency transit, which, according to zoning law, is any mass transit, including a bus that runs three times an hour. I think the whole of the zone would be in that, based on the Better Bus Project. I would be a little bit concerned about all the street parking that would result from all the carve-outs for less than one parking spot per unit. You know, I think most of those folks almost it would be great if everyone took the bus. But the reality is most of the people that could afford to buy would be parking a car. They'd probably be eligible for resident permits. And, you know, I think we need to move away from driving cars and taking mass transit. But the reality is the bus three times an hour isn't going to take those cars off the road. And I, I hate to say traffic study because I don't tend to agree with some of the things that motivate a lot of those sentiments. But I think it would be wise. So thank you very much.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you, Ren. I hear your insight in terms of the proportionality of some of these incentives, as well as maybe some concerns about the parking minimums. So thank you for sharing those. Real quick check in with the board. Are we doing OK? Do we need a break? Want to make sure that we're all present. OK, thumbs up. OK. All right, seeing none, no objections. Thumbs up from Ari. Thank you. Thank you, Peter. All right. If there's no objections, we're going to keep going and continue with public comment. The next public commenter that we have is Bilbo. You're going to get a request to unmute. Please state your name and address for the record.
[SPEAKER_36]: Hello. My name is John Flagg. I live at 55 Garfield Ave. I don't have a lot of specifics. We really just started getting this information, kind of had to go through it all where everybody has regular jobs. But one thing I wanted to just bring up, and I'm sure it was just type of verbiage you guys wanted to use, but Selma Street's not a corridor. Selma Street is a collection of name arts. And it would be appreciated if it was looked at that way. I'll echo all the same things about traffic. Parking my street takes the brunt of parking for Salem Street. So if you're going to add more density on Salem Street without more parking, I guess they'll just, what they do now is park in front of my driveway. I guess that will just be every day. I saw historical character in some of the documents, and nobody seems to be addressing that. I just want to point out that the Sink 240 building has no relationship to any kind of historical character or myth. So I don't know how that building got in. My opinion, it's ugly, but nobody cares about that. But what I did want to ask is, what's the hurry here? You know, the communications, I know you guys started back in July, but nobody started even hearing about this until November. I'm trying to understand why we have to have this voted on in February. You need to have neighborhood input here. I'm right at the, I abut these changes. It just seems like we're rushing through to create more density without any kind of acknowledgement about what that density increase is going to do to the fabric of our neighborhood. I know you gave an email, and I will send an email with more specifics, but I just wanted to add my two cents in there. I do not support this proposal as it is right now. Thank you.
[Emily Hedeman]: Well, John, your input's worth a lot more than two cents. And I'm hearing the question like, why now? So I think it'll be helpful for us to provide some more insight to help answer that question. Our next public commenter is Alyssa Nugent. You're going to get a request to unmute. Please state your name and address for the record.
[Alyssa Nugent]: Hi, Alyssa Nugent, 98 Sheridan Avenue. I am generally supportive of these changes. I appreciate that you took time to go back and look at the marijuana use and the zoning for that. I don't think that should be zoned in this area. I have some concerns about traffic and all that. But specifically, I have some concerns about the incentives to be able to build higher. It just seems like some of the options are very easy. A bench, the fountain, these are things that the developers would jump on to be able to have the extra the extra stories. And maybe considering all of the concern with parking, maybe something like below ground parking should be more than a half story. Maybe that should be a full story to incentivize that. And I think that in terms of creating more green spaces and making sure that we are making this a corridor that is pedestrian-minded and friendly to the neighborhood, that we really do focus on the incentives for putting in green space and making it a livable, walkable corridor, because that is where we want to move to, even if we do have major traffic issues related to the fact that the roads on both sides of the area are controlled by somebody besides Medford. So I would certainly ask that that the board think about that a little bit more. I love this neighborhood. I love walking this neighborhood with my kids. I can't wait to walk to the Roberts with them when they enroll there in a few years and it would be wonderful. We didn't have so many gas stations along the route and it was a little bit more beautified. We don't want to just push for fast development. We want very thoughtful development and that's what I'd like to see in the zoning plan.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you. Thank you, Alyssa. And I'm hearing comments that echo earlier commenters, you know, kind of concerned about this incentives menu. And I think, you know, we can do some work digging into that and kind of, you know, embed that with best practices, but combine it with what makes it really right for Medford. So thank you so much. Our next public commenter is Paulette Vardemedian. Paulette, you're gonna get a request to unmute. Please state your name and address for the record. I'm going to send that request to unmute through again. All right, we're going to come back to you after our next public commenter, and we'll try again. If you're having technical difficulties, please message Danielle or Alicia, and they can help you out. I thought we had another public commenter, but maybe they just jumped. The next public commenter that we're going to go to is Donna Messina. Donna, you're going to get a request to unmute. Please state your name and address for the record.
[Donna Messina]: Hi, my name is Donna Messina. I live at 302 Salem Street, which is right next to the pit on the corner of Salem and Park. And I just want to say how opposed we are to this zoning change. We were never notified. As abutters, you would think we would have been told that it could build six stories. We were never notified of this. The traffic, every day we go out. We have to go knocking on the neighbors' doors all around the businesses to get out of our driveway because there's no parking, and people are parking in front of our driveway. I can't imagine putting a six-story building next door with not enough parking. Where are these people going to park? And the traffic, I can't get out of my driveway. It takes like 10 to 15 minutes now. And the only chance I have of getting out is when the light changes and somebody stops to let me out. And I mean, I just can't imagine why we were never told of this. This has been a family home for over 60 years. And what about our quality of life? I mean, it's great for all these builders and stuff, but what about the people that have been in Medford and made Medford and lived here? Why don't we count? I just don't understand why. I mean, and rush, rush, rush, it's crazy. And what is our quality of life gonna be when a six-story building goes up next to a five feet from my property? I just don't understand. I'm so frustrated. I don't know. I don't know. Medford is supposed to be so great, but I guess if you've lived here for years, you don't count anymore. So that's all I have to say, just how opposed we are to this zoning change. Thank you.
[Emily Hedeman]: I hear your opposition loud and clear, and I'm so sorry that you feel this way. Maybe we can learn more about the notification process. And I'm hearing a lot of your fellow public echo concerns about traffic, but your frustration is heard and noted. And thank you so much for commenting. It really means a lot to have you here and having you share your perspective. Thank you. Thank you. So we're going to try to go back to Paulette. Paulette Vartabedian, you're going to get a request to unmute. And please state your name and address for the record. Oh, I think I saw unmute. Well, it seems like we might be having trouble with the unmute function on your end. I'd encourage you to message Alicia or Danielle if you're having any technical difficulties. We really want to hear your public comment. So if hearing it tonight at the hearing is not possible, then I would encourage you to email the The email address that's been dropped in the chat. Just quick note in the chat, just please don't message the city board with any comments related to this matter. We wanna make sure that we're respecting the process here, abiding by open meeting laws. The next public commenter that I see is Andrew McRobert. You're going to get a request to unmute. Please state your name and address for the record.
[Andrew MacRobert]: Hi there, I'm Andrew McRobert from 63 Road. I just wanted to voice my support generally for the direction of the zoning. I know that there are a lot of concerns here, but my wife and I, we had our daughter in December, and the zoning proposals and changes that we see in the docket are really giving us hope that Medford is developing in the direction that we would be happy to see where businesses and resources are close and will continue to be close and welcoming. Yeah, Medford will become more welcoming to more businesses in our area, in our neighborhood. Yeah, I understand there's a lot of concerns, but Quality of life I find is best when the resources you need are as close to where you live and you have what you need close by and you don't necessarily need to get in your car and leave Medford or drive through traffic to go get to them. No specific details that I wanted to mention, but just general support for the direction of this overall. Thank you.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you, Andrew. I appreciate the support. I think support combined with the really thoughtful, direct feedback we've received from the public will move this in the right direction. The next participant that I have, it says owner's iPhone, but I do see the name Marion. You're going to get a request to unmute. Please state your name and address for the record. Marion. Maryanne Thomas check Okay Hello, hi we can hear you.
[Marian Tomaszczuk]: Okay. Yes, Marianne Marianne Thomas look and I live at 29 Garfield Avenue. Mm-hmm. And that's right in Salem Street near nappies and I am extremely opposed to this and I feel that there's totally impossible to implement this. If you try to do all this building and have all this density, we will find ourselves like Chelsea and having whole blocks go up in flames and the firefighters will not be able to fight it because we will not be able to have the water power to fight the fires. We will possibly lose firefighters' lives in the process and I feel this is dangerous situation. We did absolutely no studies, no traffic studies, nothing with the fire safety, no types of any kind of studies at all. Talking about these green spaces is a farce because you're talking about 3,000 square foot lots. You're talking about a very narrow street and yet you want a 12-foot sidewalk 80% of the lot's going to be covered. And yet, and then you're going to have a green space, mini park, I forgot what you called it. And there's no way that that can possibly happen on a 3000 square foot lot with, you know, six, six floors, or even three floors. It's just Impossible. You're not requiring them to have parking. There's not enough parking here now. I live halfway down Garfield Avenue and people from Salem Street park in front of my house all the time. This is an issue. In the morning, I volunteer at the senior center and I can't even get out. I don't drive, but the person that drives me, we can't go down Salem Street in the morning or the evening. And I also want to know if you are considering the letter you got from the mayor asking you to reconsider and not vote on this tonight. And I also don't understand if it's legal for you to vote on this when The changes you're talking about, they're not uploaded on the site. I looked, and how can you vote on something when you're talking to us about the changes, and yet there's nothing written that we can see? So if you vote on what you're talking about, and yet there's nothing written about that, so there's two different things. One thing that you're talking to us about, and one thing that's written. So that doesn't seem right to me. It doesn't seem legal. Thank you.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah, I hear that concern, and I hear the echoing of concerns about public safety, the actual implementation of this. And regarding the letter, there is an option for us to continue. That would be up for the entire board to discuss. So I'll leave that to our discussion. But that is one of our options that we do have available this evening. And that may give us more time to kind of process and address the board's concerns and comments as well as the public concerns and comments as well. So thank you so much for your insight. The next public commenter that I see, it's an email address, pbdoherty01 at comcast.net. You're going to get a request on mute. Please state your name and address for the record.
[Cs57SkaizpQ_SPEAKER_07]: Hi, Patricia Brady Doherty, 190 West Street. I'm a former Medford City Councilor. I spent eight years on the council, and a majority of that was working on zoning. Even though I'm an attorney, it's such a nuanced field. I hired a Boston zoning attorney to walk me through it. So, I think a lot of these people feel like they need to do that, and some of them, as you may have heard earlier, have done just that, and they should not have to be put through that expense. But what I'm hearing tonight is that no one's protecting the neighborhoods, and the overwhelming majority of these people have come forward to say they are scared, they're nervous, and they don't like what they see. It used to be that the city council had one motto and that was protect the neighborhoods. What I hear from this city council is, and maybe from the mayor and hopefully not, let's protect the developers. The only thing I think that you people can do tonight is take this off the table. It's impossible to fix. It is so overwhelming. It is so high. It is so dense. You are going to ruin the neighborhoods and that should not happen. So I ask you to think very, very carefully about what you're doing and to consider who you're representing. You're representing the residents of the neighborhood, nobody else. You're not representing the OCD board or the mayor or the city councilors. Thank you.
[Emily Hedeman]: Well, first of all, thank you so much for your service as a city councilor. I really appreciate you joining and providing comment tonight. And I think this echoes other comments in terms of like, you know, why now? Let's, you know, be really thoughtful and intentional with this process. So thank you so much for providing those comments and that insight. You're welcome. The next public commenter we have is Lisa Korber. Lisa, you're going to get a request to unmute. Please state your name and address for the record.
[SPEAKER_33]: Hi there. My name is Lisa Korber, 47A Chardon Ave. I want to express my tremendous opposition to this plan. I feel The integrity of this area of the city will be destroyed. No one is thinking about the traffic, the parking, all things that have already been echoed. I've been here my entire life. I am now a third generation in this city. Nobody's thinking about the children. Nobody's thinking about where the children are going to go to school. We have over 150 vacancies, apartment-wise, in this city to date. Why we need to put more housing, especially this area, and this area has a lot of empty apartments right now, is beyond me. There are things that have been done in my neck of the woods, friend's neck of the woods, that nobody's ever been, it's never been brought forth, and that's problematic. So I'm respectfully asking this committee to please table this, put it aside, get the neighbors involved, and let's have a discussion of realistic expectations. Protect the people that live here. Thank you.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you, Lisa. I appreciate the insight, the passion, the perspective. It's really helpful for us to hear this. So thank you so much for joining the public hearing. The next public commenter that we have is Sharon Dieso. You're going to get a request to unmute and please state your name and address for the record. I'm going to send that request through again. Sharon, if you're able to unmute, please do so. Sharon, we're going to move forward with the next public commenter, but we'll come right back to you. If you're having any technical difficulties, please message Alicia or Danielle, and I just got a note that Paulette has figured out her technical difficulties. So Paulette, we're going to come back to you. Paulette Varnabedian, you're going to get a request to unmute. Please state your name and address for the record. I saw the unmute flash quickly, so I know we're We're heading in the right direction. We really want to hear from you. Well, it seems like we still may be having challenges, so we're going to move on to the next commenter. Sharon, it looks like you're online. You're going to get a request to unmute. Please state your name and address for the record. I'm going to send through that unmute request again. This is Sharon D'Ieso, or Sharon D'Ieso. Sharon, you're still muted. All right, Sharon, I saw that you lowered your hand. If you do want to provide comment, you know, send a note to Danielle or Alicia, and we'll make sure that you've got the tech support you need or the email address to provide comment. The next comment that we have, the name is Fire East Ford Tau. You're going to get a request to unmute. Please state your name and address for the record.
[Andrew Castagnetti]: Hello, are we going?
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah, we can hear you.
[Andrew Castagnetti]: Thank you, miss. My name is Andrew Castagnetti of Cushing Street. Thank you. In East Medford, Massachusetts. I get it. You want more development. I've always said Medford is the best location in New England next to Boston, proximity wise. However, Sill Street is already a busy street. So it seems to me your new rezoning will add a lot of new additional real estate tax to the city, to the city's coffers. But will this new money lower our real estate tax bill at all? Will it lower our real estate tax bill even one dollar or less? Okay, I guess I'll wait for an answer tomorrow. I said this before and I'll say it again. Maybe it's time East Medford to secede from the city and form our own city because we have the most valuable land, period. P.S. Miss Sikav is our best bet. Thanks if you're listening and good night.
[Emily Hedeman]: Andrew, I am listening and I appreciate your question around, you know, the why of this. this work?
[Andrew Castagnetti]: Well, the real estate tax lower by even $1. It's been going up since I've been born every year, more than two and a half percent. And with the overrides, it's more like 8%. It's tough for a lot of people that are on seniors, they're on fixed incomes. By the way, I appreciate your patience. You're doing a good job. Good night.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you, Andrew, and you're doing a great job of providing insight and comments. And, you know, perhaps, you know, there needs to be, you know, more clarity in terms of the why and the benefits.
[Andrew Castagnetti]: I'm personally. I lived on Mr. Gabb in 1955. That was the old highway to Boston, Route 38 for information's sake. When they built Route 93 in 1960, then we really didn't need Route 38, but we have it. It's a lousy place back then, street cars and trucks and mechanic places and things of that nature. And it has not been developed when it should have been 60 years ago. No, 64 years ago, 1960. It's a live industry. It's still the same street. And that's where you can go high on one side, on the 93 side, but you gotta lower our taxes. If you go up 10, 15, 20 stories, you put your own off rent on 93.
[Emily Hedeman]: I'm so sorry Andrew, we're going to have to move on to another public commenter. I do really appreciate the historical context. It's really helpful to hear that.
[Andrew Castagnetti]: Thank you so much for commenting.
[Emily Hedeman]: I'm so sorry Andrew, we're going to have to move on to a different commenter, but I encourage you to reach out to city staff via the provided email if you have any more I need more feedback to share, but thank you so much for your comments. We're going to try Paulette one last time. Paulette Vardibedian, you're going to get a request to unmute. It seems like unfortunately, technical difficulties may prevent us from hearing Paulette's comment this evening. But Paulette, I encourage you to reach out via the email address that has been provided. Danielle, I see your hand is raised. Have you heard from anybody that's had technical difficulties that we should go to or anything else?
[Danielle Evans]: I'm starting to lose track of who is who, but I think, Sharon, did she speak? Because she had trouble unmuting. I see it looks like she's unmuted. Unless she doesn't have a microphone, I'd have to check.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yes, that was. Yeah, she's unmuted. That may have been in response to my unmute request when she had her hand raised, but I don't see their hand raised anymore. Would you be able to send her a message?
[Alicia Hunt]: Yeah, Madam Chair, from the participants list, she doesn't have a microphone next to her. She doesn't have a microphone connected. Sharon, you'll have to message us.
[Danielle Evans]: OK, my apologies. I should have noticed that.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah, that's a good flag, Alicia. And sometimes these Zoom meetings are great. But there are still some technical nuances there. And we appreciate everyone's patience while we deal with those. Let's see. I don't see any more hands raised right now. have we received any comments while we've been hearing from the public, Alicia, Danielle, any emails that we should address?
[Alicia Hunt]: There are three new emails in there, but I haven't read them because I've been working the timer. Okay. And the first one is asking about particularly traffic studies, is it going to be done traffic studies? I think that we should just ask Sorry, Emily, to sort of just speak on the process, because from our development perspective, traffic studies are done on a case-by-case basis per project. But she could speak to it from a zoning perspective. And then please address the traffic flow problems. I haven't heard any answers yet. And then the third question, the third one was also from somebody who spoke. Sorry, I just don't want to read this entire thing out. It's a little bit more complicated about building ordinances and public safety corridor plans.
[Emily Hedeman]: And all of these comments will be shared with the board for us to review. just to kind of confirm with the public. I see another member of the public who's raised their hand. James Sampson, you're going to get a request to unmute. Please state your name and address for the record.
[Jim Sampson]: Yes, can you hear me?
[Emily Hedeman]: Yes, I can.
[Jim Sampson]: It's James Sampson. I'm 14 right here, placed in Medford. And I wanted to just tell people that I'm getting old now. I've lived in Medford all my life. I've worked in Medford all my life. And I definitely, think that Medved is losing some of the charm that I grew up with. It's becoming like Maldon. If you look at Maldon Center, Maldon Center is terrible compared to when I was a kid. And I just wanted people to know that I definitely am opposed to almost any change, but I definitely, living on this little dead-end street, it's tough to get off my street. Especially, the way it's timed, like the cars come from my left and then There's nothing on the right and then by the time of the one side clears up the other side goes up and the people are very very disrespectful people won't slow down let you get out and you know, I definitely worry about just the the electricity. I know in my house here we have had electric issues because of the way the route the electricity is run in my street and and just In general, I just want to say I love Medford, I've always been here, and I always will, and my grandchildren are now here, and hopefully they're going to stay in Medford. So please consider this very, very carefully. Thank you.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you, James. And I appreciate your affection for Medford. I share that affection. And I hope your grandchildren and their grandchildren can have a place in Medford, because it is such a great place to be.
[Jim Sampson]: It is.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you.
[Jim Sampson]: Thank you. And I did.
[Emily Hedeman]: Oh, I'm so sorry. We do have the two minute public comment limit, but I do encourage you to email if you have additional feedback. But I did really appreciate your comment. Thank you so much for sharing. I don't see any other hands. So let's see.
[Cs57SkaizpQ_SPEAKER_07]: Oh, I see a hand.
[Alicia Hunt]: Do you want the consultants to respond to any of this? Yes, I do. Also a presentation on the green score that we have this evening?
[Emily Hedeman]: Yes, I do. I do want. to hear some responses from the consultant. I did see another member of the public raise their hand. Sometimes I take a minute to think. It's this new thing I'm trying. OK. So we're going to go to the next member of the public, Lisa Serio. You're going to get a request to unmute. Please state your name and address for the record.
[Lisa Serio]: Can you hear me? Yes. Hi lisa. Oh, I did this because I wanted I I kind of like tried to help paulette through this to see if she could maybe get this but okay, I I'll do it with her when I see her phone because I I Couldn't even find how to raise my hand for a second and then I found it under reactions But anyway, um, I wanted to say thank um, my name is lisa and I live at 18 paul road in medford, which is not on the Salem street area, but nonetheless, um, it's in the saint francis area Um, I want to say thank you emily and thank you paula for your presentation um, but I just wanted to also say that um Yeah, we've i've lived in medford my whole life and um It is always been convenient. Salem Street has always been convenient for me. If I need a hardware store, if I need food, if I need a drugstore, everything's there. You had a citizen say that he wants it to continue to be that way. It's always been that way. When you go to Haynes Square, you always can find everything that you need. So I just want, you know, to assure him that this has always been the way it's been in Haynes Square. It's also even been a little bit more attractive because the square, Medford Square, Salem Street leads right into Medford Square, and Medford Square was always vital part of the city, which has now become like a dead zone, which I don't understand why nobody's really thinking about that area more than all the other areas, because Medford used to have a supermarket, and we just used to have so many great, you know, department stores, Woolworths, Grant's, Baker's, Shoes, everything. We had everything down the square, and now there's nothing down the square. So, I mean, it's great that you're thinking about Salem Street, and I agree it's not a corridor, it's a neighborhood, But the square to me is really where, you know, like where we have to kind of like be thinking and trying to figure out how to revitalize that. But anyway, that's all. I just wanted to make sure I could get through to you and, you know, just to see if I could get through. But I do want to thank you because I thought the graphics were great. I kind of understood what's happening. I don't know if I agree with it, but at least I understood it. So that's it. I just wanted to thank you. And that's my comment. OK. Thanks.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you, Lisa. I agree. I thought the graphics were great. And I appreciate your insight about specific points in the neighborhood that might need a little extra special attention. The feedback is hard. Thank you so much for speaking. And if you are able to help Paulette deliver her comment, we'd love to hear it, whether it's through email or some other means.
[Lisa Serio]: Hey, I just wanted to let you know, normally I do these things in Medford, but I'm in Arizona doing this. It's incredible. Thank you for joining us. I'm amazing that I'm in MedFed, but not in MedFed. Anyway, that's it. Thanks.
[Emily Hedeman]: That is one of the benefits of doing these virtually. It makes it a little bit more accessible for people who may not be able to join in person. But we do have to put up with a couple of challenges. OK. So. I would like to flip this back to Emily and Paola. The public has provided a lot of feedback, super rich, super valuable. But I want to open it up just to hear back any concerns. I have, I think about 10 pages of notes. So there's a lot of material to cover, and we'll at least use this as a starting point. So Emily and Paola, if you're able to address.
[Emily Innes]: Yes, thank you, Madam Chair. I also want to echo your comments about hearing from the public. This was extraordinarily helpful. Really appreciate everybody who took the time to be here today to provide, whether your feedback was a criticism or an affirmation or a request for information, all of it was very important. We really appreciate that opportunity to hear from you. So thank you all very much. I do want to address a couple of things. One of them is I was, I'm used to hear the person talk about the firm from London. There is a firm in London that has the same name that we do. A problem of using a last name, right, is that there are people all over the world who might have the same last name. We are not affiliated with that London firm. We are a Massachusetts-based firm. We have just one office. We're up in Newburyport, so we're relatively local, but I did want to just clarify that misunderstanding. Apologies to the London firm, but they're not us. More seriously, I do want to address a couple of things. First of all, on parking recommendations. There were a few, we understand the frustration around parking. We do hear that. I did want to clarify, I think one or two people said something about not requiring parking. We have not changed the parking requirements. They're actually in the table of uses next to the use. is how many parking spaces required for each use. That's actually in the city's zoning ordinance right now. We have made no changes to those parking requirements. Somebody mentioned a parking requirement of 0.8 spaces per unit. That is an existing affordable housing requirement to promote affordable housing. That is not a change that we're making. We just brought it through because it's existing in the parking requirements. So just to clarify that. We heard a lot of concern about height proximity to the existing residential concerns about cutting off solar I have heard from other communities, too, the idea of cutting off air, cutting off solar, cutting off, you know, creating shadow. We also heard that these step backs maybe don't work. It is a common thing to see in zoning, but, you know, that doesn't mean we shouldn't take another look at it. So I think rather than trying to answer those questions, we would like to go back, talk to the city planning staff, just have another look at some of those provisions and come back to you. That's why we are delighted to have public comment is to understand how best we can answer some of the concerns. Do we need to make some modifications? We can certainly look at that. The other thing that I heard that was kind of similar in that we should take another look at it is there were concerns about the incentive zoning. Maybe some of these things were too easy. For the record, a single bench does not get you a story or a half story, although I could see how without specific square footages, some people might think that. So we can certainly take a look at that. We did look, I know fountain was called out, we did look at the idea of the fountain because as being worthy of some of the space because it's not just about providing the fountain, it's also the ongoing water costs which would be paid by the developer or the property owner, the maintenance costs, Fountains do have to be drained in the winter and repaired and restored, so it's actually a more significant cost than it might look on the face of it, but all that to say that we're happy to relook at the incentive zoning and see if there are some adjustments that we should make in talking with hearing the feedback from the board today or from working with the city planning staff. I'm just checking my also 10 pages of notes to see if there's anything else specifically before I mentioned traffic. We did have one of the team members have been down Salem Street, so we've experienced some of the same issues. Let's see. There's a number of other things about quality of life. I do want to say we heard people concerned about uses around the school. We can certainly take another look at the table of uses and see if there's any others that should be modified based on what we've heard today. But one of the reasons for encouraging commercial around the school is so that if parents are walking their children to school, it being an elementary school, We're hoping to continue to promote the walkability of the neighborhood. The idea of having businesses there were that parents could run errands on their way home. So maybe the mix of businesses isn't the right business, but that was a reason for And there are already businesses in that area that was a reason for clustering them there. The sidewalk, I think I heard somebody concerned that by widening the sidewalk, we would be narrowing the road. Now, just to clarify that, and maybe we can do another another diagram to sort of bring that out. But the idea is that They would be, if the sidewalk is, say, 8 feet, they would have to add on another 4 feet on the private property as part of the development to make the sidewalk 12 feet wide. We were looking for a width that would be appropriate for all users, people talking and walking next to each other, somebody pushing a stroller. coming maybe towards somebody who is talking with a friend, somebody in a wheelchair, so that there's the ability to have a wide enough sidewalk to have all that activity and maybe for some of the businesses a little outdoor dining in the summer. But that's where the width came from. And then finally, I do want to address traffic, infrastructure, impact on public services. Hear you loud and clear. This is something that is always of concern in the communities that we're working with. I think Alicia spoke to a director who spoke to it earlier. You don't typically do traffic studies in zoning, where the traffic studies come in place is when a specific development proposal is, can they come to the city with a proposal and the traffic studies are required at that point. So, no, we are not traffic engineers. We are planners. We are urban designers. We have not done traffic studies as part of this, but we hear your concern. We will continue to talk with With our client, the city about those concerns and we appreciate that. I think that's hit. most of the sort of the high level questions. I noticed Paola was taking notes. I think members of the city staff are taking notes. So we will go back through and anything that we feel that we haven't addressed, we're happy to talk about the ways of getting that information out to people. Alicia, I don't know if there's anything on your side that you also want to address or Paola, if you have anything else you want to add.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah, Alicia, Paola, if you have anything to add.
[Paula Ramos Martinez]: Yeah, I would love to add, these are all very good questions. I have every one of you in here, Carlos, Dave, Maria Elena, Zachary, Cheryl, Klein, Julissa, Doreen, Melanie. I'm not going to read them all. I have all your comments. I do understand that you're worried, you own a house. and it seems that we are modifying a lot. I just wanted to clarify certain things. The heights that we have are exactly the same as you have, except for the incentive zoning. The incentive zoning are only for the lots facing Salem Street. So if you're not facing Salem Street, you're going to have a three maximum if you're in MX1 and four if you're in MX2. So those two things I wanted to be very clear. Things like brewery we do not allow in MX1 and MX2. Lab or research are not allowed. Marijuana of course are not allowed. Don't remember winery, but we can look into that. There are also other ordinances that are not in zoning that if it's next to a school, you cannot have a marijuana establishment next to certain distance to the school. So there are other things that protect, obviously, child and public safety. I just want to make sure that we understand that when we are talking about commercial one a lot of things can happen right now with your current zoning and that is the hotel 15 stories high so there are things that we do need to change or that I think I recommend that it should be changed because it does not It's not what you have now. It doesn't protect. It is a lot of traffic. That's definitely adding traffic. Apartment two in the other side of Felsway is 15 stories high and six stories all residential. So commercial one and apartment two are six stories by right, which we are not doing that. We're doing four plus the incentive zoning. So those things to make very sure. In the incentive zonings, I've heard great ideas. I think that we do need to do something about the distance or so that we don't have a fountain every 100 meters. I think that that's a good point and that we should address and we would love to study that. We want the developers have to give something back to the community if they gain some density. So of course, in our mind is always the community. I want to share one map where we are going to talk We are studying a lot of different neighborhoods. It's not only Salem Street. We did Mystic Avenue. We are now going to the residential neighborhood. We are doing other corridors like Boston Avenue. We will look into Wellington area as a transformation. So I want to give a plan that we have for 2025. until June 30th, all the different topics that we will look into. We will look into non-conformities as well, and how to address it, streamline certain processes. So I encourage all that are interested to connect to planning and committee meetings, because we're going to talk a lot about your zoning. And we love these comments. What else I have here? Sorry.
[Emily Innes]: If you don't mind me interrupting, we forgot to mention West Medford square and Medford square. We're also zoning for that. So it really is our remit is to look town wide to in response to the comments and the recommendations of the comprehensive plan.
[Paula Ramos Martinez]: Yes, thank you. That was another thing. Now, sometimes it seems that we are doing the opposite, what we're trying to do with these type of mixed neighborhoods, which are going to be not only in Salem Street and Mystic, are going to be also in the squares. We are going to have some nodes in the residential districts. So, we create this areas where you do need to do your basic needs, groceries, a cafe, a bakery, that needs to, so in order to make it more walkable. So we don't have one stone in the city and then the rest is residential. We try to do this mix so that it is more walkable and we need less car. So these type of developments, what it tried is to serve the neighborhood so that the people in the neighborhood would walk towards these stores and it's not really traffic So those are some of the answers that I wanted to give. We also talked to the Department of Public Works. We told about that they are designing new layout for the street. They do understand the problems that the street is facing, but it's not on zoning. That's on their side about their layout. But we did talk about this with them to see if there was any issues from their end. And I think that's it.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah, I also heard comments about the economic impacts. There was a question around taxes, impacts on businesses. I would love to have some more info on that.
[Emily Innes]: Yeah, sorry, Alicia, go ahead on that.
[Alicia Hunt]: I say, perhaps some of the things comments that I was going to offer sort of dovetail around that. So, in the picture way, we do have a Department of Economic Development that falls under our office. Our economic development director was on here earlier this evening, listening in. And so we do have people now since only since 2021, who go out and recruit and look for new businesses and encourage different kinds of businesses to come in. I don't think I'm speaking out of, well, let me just say that they have been working on that. And there are some things that are coming soon that are very exciting, particularly in Medford Square. And along those lines, we also work a lot with the Chamber of Commerce. And so the Chamber of Commerce held a coffee for businesses last week to talk about Salem Street zoning. And they mailed it out to chamber members, but the executive director of the chamber told me that she went door to door and flyer to every business in Haines Square and talked to business owners. and tried to get them to come to that meeting that we were going to be talking about zoning in Haines Square. And I do not believe that any of the people who were there for that Chamber of Commerce event were actually from Haines Square. and she was very frustrated by that because she went and spoke to business owners throughout Haynes Square. I do walk and bike up Salem Street myself and have, in doing that, talked to some owners, business owners, a lot in Haynes Square about this. In particular, one who owns a building that would love to have apartments on top of his business and he's previously been turned down by the Zoning Board of Appeals from doing that. and this would allow them to do that. We have a different building that had a small apartment above their business and that restaurant has in fact gotten permission, you may have seen Fiore Italy expanding the apartments above his property. So we know that there are interests from existing business owners There was some comment that we are getting like tons of developers and we're only answering to developers and that there's like a demo permit. I personally have to sign all demo permits in the city and I haven't seen one for Salem Street in the last six months. I've spoken to one developer who is interested in a property that has already come up in front of the city. There was some talking about it, but the property owner at 360 Salem Street still seems to be interested in change. And the latest developer who's interested in his property wants to do ground floor commercial with two floors of residential above, which is not currently allowed by zoning, which feels that it would fit here. And the Park Street, the corner of Park and Salem, The pit, I'm sorry. It is. They have all the permissions that they need to build that building and they've had them for more than seven months. And I've been told that it's back on the market being sold again. So there's just so much that we can do. We give somebody permission to build the building. If they don't build it, we really actually can't force them to. But I'm not aware of other development. And I will say that we strongly encourage developers to come talk to us about what's allowed, what might be allowed, how do you work with the city. So if other people on this call are saying, but I want to open a business, please reach out to our office. Our economic development staff want to help you. Or you know a developer and they're not talking, they should talk to us, please. So thank you.
[Emily Hedeman]: That's really, really helpful insight, Alicia. And it seems like a lot of people shared Like personal anecdotes or information that that they've, you know, heard, and I would say, you know, the best way to, you know, to process that information is, you know, share information with the city because they can they can confirm. And it's helpful for us on the board to know specifics, just so we can have more context. I mean, Medford's huge. We can't be everywhere at once. I patronize a couple of businesses on Salem Street. I get caught in the gridlock on Salem every once in a while. And Massachusetts drivers have no mercy. So I definitely feel that pain. But yeah, it's helpful for us to have as much information as possible. And you all are really doing yourselves and everybody else in Medford present and future a service by being involved with this process. I do see a hand that has been raised. We are still in the public comment period. And I just want to clarify that we might close public comment period tonight, but it doesn't mean we're closing it for the whole hearing. I'm curious to hear from my board, but I'm leaning towards continuing the discussion, continuing the hearing. There's a lot of big work that needs to be done, hearing that from the public, from the board members. For myself, from Emily and Paula, from Alicia and Danielle, there's still a lot of work to be done. So just to give people a preview, this is not the end of hearing from you and hearing from us and receiving information. With that, I want to go to the hand that I see raised, zoning for the people. Please state your name and address for the record. You're going to get a request to unmute, and Alicia will start the timer. I'm going to send that unmute request again. This is for zoning for people.
[Jean Nuzzo]: Can you hear me now?
[Emily Hedeman]: Yes, hi.
[Jean Nuzzo]: Hi, Madam Chairperson. I'm sorry to speak again. This is Jean Nuzzo at 35 Parrish Street. I'm so sorry, we've tried to- Just hold on, let me, I didn't hear a response to my question relevant to 31 and why they were zoned for multi-use with incentivized and my parcel was not. And I would like that answer. It's not a new statement. It's just pointing out the fact that this zoning consultant and this team did not answer my question. They came well beyond where they've gone everywhere else to that parcel that's smaller than mine and gave him inclusionary zoning and stopped there. And I'd like to understand from them what their criteria was for doing that, if you don't mind.
[Emily Hedeman]: I hear that. And I did take that note. And maybe to provide some more context, because I'm sure we didn't answer every question. There's no way we could. There's so much rich content here for us to process.
[Alicia Hunt]: Because people might have the similar question. When we were having our public meetings back with the city council, one of the things we've said to people, and I realize we didn't say this evening, is that we looked at what exists and what seemed to make sense for us. But if there is a property owner, whose parcel is adjacent to this and they feel that their parcel is not correctly zoned we are very open to that send us you know your address and we can look and see if it should or should not be included because the property owners desire to be is a really valid one. So I'm saying this not just to that speaker, but to anybody who wanted their particular parcel. That is very helpful for us.
[Emily Hedeman]: And I'm hearing the address. Jean, I'm going to unmute you really quickly just to confirm the address. So we make sure we have that crystal clear. I encourage anybody else who has a similar concern, reach out to the city. We'll go from there. Oh, shoot, I just accidentally muted you. So Jean, that address is 31 Parrish Street, is that correct?
[Jean Nuzzo]: Paris Lake, France, they're 31 and I'm 35.
[Emily Hedeman]: Okay, okay, that's why I couldn't find it. Okay. Awesome, thank you so much. I really appreciate your advocacy for yourself. And thank you so much for your patience this evening. Sounds like there could be a path forward here that works for you.
[Paula Ramos Martinez]: There are no incentive zonings when they are not facing Salem Street. So this is an MX because it's already a multi residential building. That's why it's an MX1. We can obviously study if we include other adjunct abutters to that one, as Alicia said. The only thing is that these do not have incentives. The incentives are only for Salem Street facing lots. Thank you.
[Emily Hedeman]: And then to specifically ask about that property, as it is now, is it currently non-conforming? I need to- Okay, let's get back to that. If it's not non-conforming, then maybe there is little to no case to change the zoning for that specific parcel.
[Emily Innes]: We did multiple tests of non-conformity. We can go back and check the maps and see what that looks like. So it's very helpful having the addresses. Thank you so much for providing them. I didn't quite hear it when you mentioned the address earlier. So thanks again to have this meeting.
[Emily Hedeman]: Not that it matters, but you'll see some notes come on your way. So Ari, I see your hand raised. I know you're feeling a little under the weather this evening. Is that what you're giving us a heads up on?
[Ari Fishman]: I was going to, before calling it an evening, I was going to make a motion for a vote to continue this to a date certain. I think we've gotten a lot of great feedback, and at least to me, the very obvious next step is to go and do a bunch of work. And I'd like to make that motion, barring anyone having other comment. I see Peter's hand.
[Emily Hedeman]: So why don't I, I think procedurally, I do need to close the public comment period for this evening, correct? No, Danielle's shaking her head.
[Danielle Evans]: Madam Chair, no, you don't have to do that. Okay. You can just close in the public comment tonight.
[Alicia Hunt]: I'm confused now. You just have the emotion, you can just say, we're not going to take any more public comment tonight. Okay, closing it here. It's not tonight.
[Danielle Evans]: And then you voted on it as a cherry of the discretion to just do that.
[Emily Hedeman]: I don't know what to do with my powers, I guess. But I appreciate everybody's patience. This is the second meeting where I'm chair. So we're all learning together, and I really appreciate everybody's patience. So at this time, oh, Adam. At this time, we are going to close the public comment for tonight. That brings it to board deliberations. Ari, I heard your motion. Would you like to just make it again just to make sure we're kind of doing the right order of operations?
[Ari Fishman]: Sure thing. I would like to move that we continue this. And is this a situation where we want to do it to date certain or just general?
[Alicia Hunt]: To do it to a date certain.
[Ari Fishman]: Okay, that's what I thought.
[Alicia Hunt]: Yeah, I quickly I think different from emotion to table, which is like undebatable and you wouldn't take any additional comment. So, I just want to recognize that you may want to hear from other members of the board before you actually vote to.
[Emily Hedeman]: I mean, I'm in support of continuing. I think we've got a lot of work to do. Annie, I see you're unmuted, shaking your head.
[Ayni Strang]: Yes, I totally support that. This is just the beginning of the conversation, so I definitely agree we need to move it to a specific date and continue the conversation.
[Emily Hedeman]: Peter, did you have any insight you wanted to offer, or were you looking to?
[Peter Calves]: No, I was going to say just based on what I've heard both from the public comment and both from Emily and Paola from Menace Associates, it seems like they have things they want to apply further before we make any definitive, before we make any decisions on this. But I would also just a point of, just an administrative point of clarification. When you opened the public hearing, it was for both Salem Street and the green score zoning, which we haven't yet heard about. Do we, for administrative reasons, need to hear the green score zoning because it's part of the same item? Or can we vote to continue just Salem Street and then hear the green score zoning? Or do we have to, are those two things linked?
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah, I hear what you're saying.
[Peter Calves]: It's really an administrative question, sorry.
[Emily Hedeman]: I mean, that's the really exciting part of this work, but very important. We have to do things the right way, consistently, so that people know what they're getting into. Danielle, I see your hand. Did you have an answer to that? Or do you want me to go through one?
[Danielle Evans]: Yeah, I can help you with the procedural question. So basically, it was two papers that were referred out of committee. But this is a phased zoning overhaul where we're breaking it up into bite-sized pieces. So you opened it. Yes. I mean, you could.
[Emily Hedeman]: And I included the green zone content as part of the open public hearing. So I guess we could technically close the for this evening. I just want to make sure that's super.
[Danielle Evans]: Yes, continuing the public hearing. We didn't get to it. Yeah, I don't think that is a problem. And for as far as the dates, so the next one is February 5th.
[Emily Hedeman]: So Danielle what you're saying is, maybe we hold on the green zone this evening, and then as part of the continuation because we are we are approaching 10 o'clock, you know, we participants at 108 we've lost 60. I want to make sure that this is something that you know we we have. um four and four yeah critical mass and and full support and full participation around so i i like that approach i'm curious to hear from the board if anybody has any uh objection i think that's no i mean i i i think that's fine i mean like i said i think i think from every everything i've heard from both the public and from ellie and paula there's work to be done on this so i'd prefer
[Peter Calves]: let that work be done. And when we deliberate, we deliberate on a finished product that people believe is a finished product.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah. Agreed. Ben, Adam, Sabrina, any thoughts?
[Ben Lavallee]: Yeah. I'll just, can you hear me okay, Emily? Yes.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah.
[Ben Lavallee]: Okay. Sorry. I'm still in transit. Um, very very compelling round of public commentary very thoughtful and thorough and i just want to convey appreciation i also live just outside the square and consider the salem street corridor to be my neighborhood in many ways um kids at the roberts the whole deal so i just really appreciate Everything that was said tonight, a couple highlights for me, I'll be brief. Honoring the residents and taxpayers as part of the process, addressing the why, and trying to really specifically outline the potential benefits. I think the consulting firm did that partially tonight, so I appreciate that and hopefully we'll hear more of that. Definitely heard the concerns about traffic, the commentary around the Roberts being a really central part of this entire rezoning considered plan, public safety and services, and importantly, I'm glad we addressed it. Emily, you addressed it, and I appreciate that. Understanding parcel-specific concerns, and I'll just put another plug in for if you have a parcel-specific concern, please, you know, make it known, reach out to the city, have the conversation. So definitely a lot more conversation needed. I'm supportive of revisiting the whole topic.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you, Ben. I have thumbs up from Adam. Thumbs up, Sabrina. Cool. So at this point, I'm going to close the public comment period for this evening. And we're going to be looking for a motion to continue both the zoning topic and the green zone topic to a date certain, which looks like it's February 5th. I know that we have a continuance from Tufts University that evening. do we have any other anticipated topics in front of the board that evening?
[Ayni Strang]: No, we have something up in that bridal path area.
[Danielle Evans]: There's Madam Chair, through the chair, yes, there's the subdivision that still needs to be voted on, but that should be rather quick. It was just basically the punch list from the city engineer. changes to the plans, and the Tufts one is a wild card. That is all that we, I believe it's the only items that are on the agenda. I should note that the 19th is the next, is the second, or no, the first and third, is the third, and that is February vacation week, and I would, probably advise not zoning on the vacation week. I'll be away, but I've called in on vacations. I'll be in Vermont. I think it would not be good for the residents. I agree. People are going to be out of town.
[Ayni Strang]: So I would not continue to that date.
[Emily Hedeman]: Well, what if we start with the fifth? Because we still have the green zone. Green score. Green score, excuse me. My brain stops working after 10, so it's good we're continuing. But we have the green score, and then we can see where we are in terms of responses to these public comments and kind of go from there. What I heard again and again, and I totally agree with, is like, you know, let's not rush this. I don't think we need to just stop, but I think we need to make sure that we're proceeding thoughtfully, intentionally. And I really appreciate the work Emily and Paola have done, as well as Danielle and Alicia. to put this in the right direction. So all our powers combined, we got this. So again, I'm looking for a motion to continue.
[Ayni Strang]: I'll make a motion to continue the discussion on the Salem Corridor and on Green on February 5th.
[Emily Hedeman]: Looking for a second.
[Peter Calves]: I second.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you, Peter. We're going to do a roll call vote. I'm just going to do them as I see them. Adam Behrens. OK, we'll come back to you. We might need. I'm sorry, I don't know what you're saying. You'll type yes. Is that acceptable for a roll call vote? Yeah. Okay. Okay. Thank you, Adam.
[Adam Behrens]: That was to me to me. Thank you. Yes.
[Emily Hedeman]: I, we need to get like, you know, like zoom signals for all of us to do, but thank you for the, I, um, uh, Sabrina Alpino, uh, Ben LaVallee, Annie string. Hi. Ari Fishman. Aye. And Peter Kalfs. Aye. And I, Emily Hedeman, am also an aye. So with that, we're going to continue to February 5th. I, my other board members have said this and you know I think Emily and policies but thank you so much to every member of the public that's joined. Yeah, so thankful for your for your insight for sharing your personal stories it really means a lot. You know, we're your neighbors too, and this helps us to kind of get a broader reach into, you know, what's going on beyond our circle. So thank you so much for joining us this evening. See you next month. And I believe we do, do we have other items on the agenda this evening? Adjournment. Okay. So I am looking for- I make a motion to adjourn. Everyone's favorite motion. I'm looking for a second.
[Ayni Strang]: I'll second that motion.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you for the second, Annie. And thank you for the clapping, Jean. I appreciate it. I don't need to go to bed tonight. So I'm going to do a roll call vote. I'll call them as I see them. Adam Behrens.
[Adam Behrens]: Aye. Aye. Aye.
[Emily Hedeman]: Aye.
[Adam Behrens]: Aye.
[Emily Hedeman]: Aye. Aye. Aye. And I, myself, Emily Hedeman, am also an aye for adjournment. Great work, board. Great work, city. Great work, Innes Associates. Thank you so much, public. We'll see you back here early Feb.
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