[Emily Hedeman]: All right, good evening and welcome to tonight's meeting of the Medford Community Development Board. My name is Emily Hedeman. I'm the chair of the board and I'm going to call the meeting to order. Let's begin with some obligatory procedural matters. This hearing of the Medford Community Development Board is being conducted via remote means. No in-person attendance of members of the public will be permitted, but every effort will be made to ensure that the public can adequately access the proceedings provided for in Chapter 2 of the Acts of 2023. A reminder that anyone who would like to listen or view this meeting while in progress may do so by accessing the link that was included on the meeting agenda posted on the City of Medford website. If, despite our best efforts, we are not able to provide real-time access, we will post a recording of this meeting on the City's website as soon as possible. A reminder that given the remote nature of this meeting, tonight all votes from the Board will be made by roll call. Please know that project materials for all projects before the Board can be viewed on the City's website, medfordma.org. And then by clicking on current CD board filings, you can also find the link in the chat. I believe Daniela or Alicia have just dropped that link in the chat. We're going to start with roll call attendance for the board. Vice chair, Peter Calves.
[Peter Calves]: Present.
[Emily Hedeman]: Hi, Peter. Ari Goffman-Fishman. Present. Hey, Ari. Sabrina Alpino. Present. Hi, Sabrina. Adam Barons. Annie Strang. Present. Hi, Annie. Hi. Ben LaValle.
[Ben Lavallee]: Present.
[Emily Hedeman]: Hey, Ben. And myself, Emily Hedeman, is present. Danielle, can you please introduce any city staff on the call?
[Danielle Evans]: Yes, myself, Danielle Evans, senior planner, and we have Alicia Hunt, the Director of Planning, Development, and Sustainability. And we also have Amanda Cinchella, who is one of our planners in TDS, who will be helping out with the breakout room for the main meeting when we go into executive session.
[Emily Hedeman]: Great. Glad to have you all here. So as Danielle just alluded to, the first item on the amended agenda is an executive session. pursuant to general law, C-30A, Section 21A-3, to discuss strategy relating to pending litigation known as New York Capital Investment Group, LLC, via the City of Medford Community Development Board et al., Massachusetts Land Court Case No. 24, MISC 000683, and If the chair declares that discussing the matter in an open meeting may have a detrimental effect on the litigating position of the board, we may enter into executive session. So what I'm looking for is a motion to enter executive session. And Emily, just to confirm, that is your declaration, right?
[Valerie Moore]: Yes. Do I not need a motion then? You do. No, you just said if the chair declares. I wanted to make sure you were declaring.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yes, I am declaring it. Thank you for confirming that. I appreciate that. Thank you. Yes, you know, you still need a motion. Okay. Looking for a motion.
[Peter Calves]: So moved.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you, Peter. Can we have a second?
[Ben Lavallee]: I'll second.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thanks, Ben. We're going to do a roll call vote. Peter Calves? Aye. Ari Goffman-Fishman? Aye. Sabrina Alpino? Annie Strang. Aye. Ben Lavallee.
[Ben Lavallee]: Aye.
[Emily Hedeman]: Myself, Emily Hedeman is an aye. We're going to be moving into executive session. We will adjourn or we will reconvene once that executive session is closed and get into the rest of the meeting matters. Our executive session discussion is complete. And I'd like to welcome participants back to the meeting. Our next agenda item is remaining officer election for the role of clerk. Does anybody have any questions about what the clerk does? Any responsibilities there? Or Danielle, I saw you come off mute if you have insight.
[Danielle Evans]: Yeah. If you look at the rules and regulations of the board, it goes through the, and I put a link to that in the meeting document. So it's, let me find that now. I have three screens and somehow I never have what I need. One of those is certifying the minutes. So sort of like the person who is in charge of reading those, in more detail in advance. And also third in line, so the clerk chairs when the vice chair isn't there, or the chair, if the vice chair and chair aren't there, the clerk chairs. I think those were the main ones. Some informal ones.
[Peter Calves]: Pardon me? I said at least the main formal ones. I mean, I know when I was clerk, I would most, I was kind of put myself in charge of writing notes on the conditions of whatever we were doing to make sure that we had everything straight, but that's not technically a duty per se. That was just something I was doing.
[Danielle Evans]: Right. Yeah. So if in the situation where I, like I, haven't provided the draft conditions or you want to change them or add them, then yeah, the clerk is kind of like tracking those things. Yeah, hopefully it's not too heavy a lift. Staff tries to take more of that on.
[Emily Hedeman]: And we've kind of floated around that responsibility. Like I know I did some of the draft, some of the conditions updates around Tufts.
[Peter Calves]: And yeah, that's because I couldn't be on that one.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah, yeah. So I mean, I feel like the officer positions are very collaborative. And I'm not sure if Ben, as an associate member, is he eligible to, not that I'm calling you out, Ben.
[Ben Lavallee]: No, I gotta be honest. I don't think I can take it on.
[Emily Hedeman]: OK. I appreciate that. Um, are there any nominations, either self nominations or peer nominations for clerk? We can come back to it. Maybe next meeting people think about it.
[Peter Calves]: I think we're good for now.
[Emily Hedeman]: Okay, cool. Talk to you guys next time about it. So moving on to the next agenda item, we have a public hearing related to the Wellington Station Multifamily Overlay District Amendment. This is a new public hearing, so we're going to read the public hearing notice into the record. Oh, and actually, before we do that, I would like to put it on the record that Ben Levallee is going to be participating as a full member in the place of the empty seat that we have on the board. Yes, okay, great. So going into the public hearing, I'm going to read the public hearing notice into the record. The Medford Community Development Board shall conduct a public hearing on Wednesday, March 19, 2025, after 6.30 p.m. via Zoom remote video conferencing relative to a petition by Nutter, McClellan & Fish, LLP, representing Transom Real Estate, LLC, to amend the text of the Wellington Station Multifamily Overlay District, known as WSMOD, of the City of Medford Zoning Ordinance as follows. 1. Amend the Table of Dimensional Standards in Section E to add a footnote to the dimensional table regarding maximum front yard setbacks that would provide for any property subject to a public agency held building restriction that the maximum setbacks shall coincide with that restriction. Amend the Table of Development Incentive Bonuses to change Certified to Certifiable Three, amend the definition section to add clarifying text to the definition of building coverage to make it clear that it does not include building overhangs. Danielle or Alicia, do you have any introductory comments?
[Danielle Evans]: I can say a few things. Basically, this is our multifamily our MBTA zoning required district that was passed back in December 2023, I think. Yeah, did it on time. We're the first batch of municipalities that had to pass this. And so it was a very tight timeframe that we had to do this, because they kept changing it. And so there were a few things that you know, got missed that were discovered by Attorney Moore and the development team for the site that they're looking at. So this was like a test fit case where like, oh, did you know that there are these massive easements along these state controlled roads that will make it impossible for us to have these maximum setbacks? Like, oh, no, we didn't know that. Because when you're writing zoning under a time crunch, you don't do this full deed title search kind of thing. So that was something that we appreciated that they found. And then some little technicalities when they were testing their proposed dimensions against the ordinance, and will this comply? And one of those was overhangs, is that part of building coverage? And then the third is something that we already changed. It was brought up the certified versus certifiable. So you all understand why it needs to be certifiable, because the whole timing with LEAD, you can't have something certified in advance. And also there's other organizations that do similar certifications for lack of better word, meeting those kind of green standards. They, because we're very stretched thin with all of our zoning amendments that we're doing, they went ahead and proposed this amendment, you know, with our support and, you know, it was submitted and it went to the city council who are now, you know, instantly referred it to you. Also, this is the first public hearing and you're making a recommendation with city council and, as soon as next week it could go to them. Great. Do you have anything else, Alicia?
[Alicia Hunt]: I wasn't sure if you were planning to mention it now or later, that we did ask Emily Innes, our zoning consultant, to review this. And we discussed a small modification to the part about overhangs to limit it. And I think Danielle has the exact language we were looking at. I don't know if that was shared to the board yet. Just that but otherwise, these changes make complete sense to us and the the certifiable one would have come to you anyhow, eventually.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah, kind of reading it before the meeting. Everything makes sense. But I would like to hear from Attorney Valerie Moore, who's representing the proponent, Valerie. Alicia or Danielle are we making attorney more co-host?
[Alicia Hunt]: You're now a co-host. You can unmute yourself. Sorry about that.
[Valerie Moore]: OK, great. No worries. Thank you all. I am Valerie Moore from Nutter, McLennan, and Fish, 155 Seaport Boulevard in Boston, for the record. And I'm here on behalf of Transom Real Estate, LLC, and the underlying property owners, Houlihan Properties, LLC, and Towne Revere Beach Parkway, LLC. Transom Real Estate is considering the purchase of 10 and 20 Revere Beach Parkway and as part of deciding whether to move forward with that transaction, they started looking deeply at the zoning and figuring out how to make it work on the site and a couple of issues came to their attention right away. So resolving this zoning amendment is a threshold question for their ability to move forward with designing a building that they would later propose on the site. So just to provide the context for the board, no project is before you and if we do move forward then we would be back in front of you for site plan review for full input on a project and the full opportunity for the board and the public to review it at that time. So the sole issue in front of the board tonight is a couple of proposed zoning text changes. If I can, if it's all right with you, I'll share my screen and I can put them up on the PowerPoint to walk through them quickly.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yes, please do Attorney Moore.
[Valerie Moore]: So the first one is with respect to building coverage. We felt that the text wasn't entirely clear as to how a building overhang would be treated when calculating building coverage on the lot. And so we proposed initially this text in red that excludes building overhangs from this calculation with respect to the footprint of the building. We are suggesting the additional language that's shown in green here as a limitation on that, as we understand that some questions were raised as to how far somebody could take that. Would everyone be in front of you with what's effectively a giant mushroom-shaped building? So to make it clear that that's not but we think this language would allow, we're suggesting that the board recommend to the city council that they adopt it with this additional limiting language. that the footprint of the building overhang itself should not exceed 10% of the footprint of the building. So that would effectively impose a square footage cap on how big an overhang could be. And this was really important to our client as they consider how to design a building because it allows for more interesting articulation of the facade of the building. Design is something that's really important to them, so they've paid a lot of attention to this early on. So that's the first area in which we've sought clarification. The second is, as you can see from your dimensional table, unlike many zoning districts where you only have a minimum setback, in the Wellington Station Multifamily District, there's also a maximum setback, saying a building can't be further back than 15 feet. In our case, however, the property is on Revere Beach Parkway, which is owned and under the control of the Department of Conservation and Recreation. DCR holds a restriction on all properties that are along the parkways that are throughout the surrounding area, under which they impose a 20-foot building setback restriction. And so we've suggested an additional footnote to the dimensional table that you can see here that would effectively say the maximum setback gets adjusted if you have a state agency held building restriction to coincide with whatever the minimum setback required by the state agency is. And that's really important because We wouldn't be able to address this through either a variance or a waiver. The waiver provisions that are in your bylaw wouldn't allow the board to waive this particular requirement. And one of the criteria for a variance is that the condition giving rise to the need for the variance can't be found commonly throughout the zoning district. And in this case, of course. this restriction is found commonly throughout the zoning district that because it's a state held roadway that largely runs through the middle of it. So we wouldn't be able to meet that criteria to seek a variance from this requirement. And finally, we suggest changing certified to certifiable because LEAD is a private agency or private entity. We don't control when or how they may change their criteria for what qualifies for LEED Gold or LEED Platinum certification. So if the building is designed to LEED Gold or LEED Platinum and then construction starts and they change their criteria and we're no longer able to adapt the building to meet whatever the new requirements might be, we wouldn't then be able to have it certified and we may not. then we'd be in violation of zoning. So to avoid that, our recommendation is that the language be changed to certifiable as you're already doing with other zoning districts throughout the city. So those are the three changes. I'm happy to answer any questions that you might have about them. So that's it for me.
[Ari Fishman]: Great.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you for that overview attorney more. I really appreciate it. I think everything makes sense to me and I think that it aligns with kind of the overall spirit of the. The district, the overlay district amendment to begin with. I think it makes it a little bit more understandable, user friendly. I don't feel like any of these modifications are specifically in in favor of your your client. I think they're just kind of changes that make sense to everybody. Thinking about the certifiable, certified thing, you made a comment that, you know, if If it's certifiable at a certain point in time and they change their restrictions, it may not be certifiable anymore. Is there a time element that we need to embed there to say at the point of x, or is that implied?
[Valerie Moore]: I think it's implied because in general with zoning, you're looking at compliance at the time that you're applying for your permit. Okay, great. In this case where it's a special permit site plan review standard.
[Emily Hedeman]: Okay, so it'd be at the time of special permit application and granting.
[Valerie Moore]: Okay. And then the building permit.
[Emily Hedeman]: Great, that's helpful. Okay. So I'd like to open it up to the board for any other questions or comments. Ben, I see your hand.
[Ben Lavallee]: Thank you, Emily. I don't have a strong opinion on this, but I'm just curious where the 10% came from on the overhang. It's just a quick search. That seems like a pretty large amount. If there's a large building, 10% could actually be a pretty significant size. Just wanted to throw that question out there if that was deliberately chosen based on some industry standard or see if anybody else on the board has any feelings one way or another.
[Emily Hedeman]: Are you able to offer any insight there?
[Valerie Moore]: So it's not based on a particular industry standard. Most of the time where we've seen it excluded, there isn't a limitation on it. Instead, you know, we worked with our architects and started looking at sort of their test cases for what different overhangs for the facade articulation might look like and how those corresponded with the footprint of the building itself. Um, and so we thought 10% was a reasonable limit on it that would give enough flexibility to have. In our case, one of the overhangs that they're looking at would cover the, um, sort of pick up drop off area, for example. So we wanted to allow enough depth for that. So people can get out of their Ubers, not in the rain, um, while also allowing some flexibility for, um, adding some visual interest to the facade over time.
[Ben Lavallee]: Thank you.
[Danielle Evans]: Danielle. Thank you. Through the chair, I did submit this language to Emily Ennis, our zoning consultant. Just like, what do you think of this language? Does this make sense? Do you have any suggestions? And she didn't flag the 10% as being off, because that was one of the things I was kind of like, you know, picturing it. So basically like the border of the building, I guess it's 10% feel right, or that'd be typical. And she didn't flag it as an issue, so. I don't necessarily have an issue with it. She did add some additional language, and I put it in the chat, and I can just read it for the record. Let's see, so in addition, so building coverage, the maximum area of the lot that can be attributed to the footprint of the building's principal and accessory on that lot. Building coverage does not include surface parking, is what it says now, correct? And then to elaborate, building coverage also does not include any portion of the building above the ground floor that overhangs, in parentheses, is cantilevered over such ground floor.
[Emily Hedeman]: And then what was the 10% language? Because I don't see that in the, in our documents for this meeting.
[Danielle Evans]: This was just something that came in later. It says, if the overhang cantilever does not exceed 10% of the footprint of the ground floor of the building, then the overhang is not part of the calculation of building coverage. Overhangs greater than 10% are counted as part of the building coverage. So Emily Innes had just expanded on that language.
[Emily Hedeman]: As like a stepped calculations, like anything under 10% is not counted, but if it was, you know, 15%, 5% of it would be counted. How much we're going to really get into this in real life, but I do want to make sure board member is comfortable and satisfied and the rest of the board is.
[Ben Lavallee]: I'm good for what it's worth. Yeah, I was just, it was more curiosity and whether that was based on some standard.
[Emily Hedeman]: Attorney Moore, I see your hand.
[Valerie Moore]: I just want to raise a concern with the cantilever language. Cantilevering refers to a specific way that you would attach it to the building and I don't know that that's how we would propose it. So I would suggest if you choose to use Ms. Ennis's recommended language modifying that to remove the reference to cantilevering because there are other ways you might engineer it. Um, it seems to be to me to be slightly beyond the scope of zoning to regulate that within this amendment.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah, that's a good point. I would agree with that.
[Danielle Evans]: Through the chair, I think it would make maybe. Is overhangs or is cantilever because the same. Issue would come up, right?
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah, but you don't, you don't necessarily support every overhang via cantilevered structure. Cantilever implies that like you're connecting it at one point and you're kind of counterbalancing. An overhang could have like supports on the side and not be cantilevered at all.
[Danielle Evans]: But whether it should count as part of the ground building coverage, because I think
[Emily Hedeman]: Can we put this on the screen? I think that might be helpful if we're able to do it live, so we stay aligned. And I'm happy to describe. If we had a clerk. Anybody tempted to try out the rule tonight? All right, I see your hand. Oh, you're on. OK, I'll request to unmute. Yeah.
[Ari Fishman]: Thank you. I couldn't unmute for some reason. It seems like there's 2 discussions happening. 1 is about kind of saying 10% is fine, but we want it defined as an overhang without limiting to cantilever. And then there was a discussion of like, do we mess with that 10% and. I wanted to kind of note that it that's how it seemed to me that there were 2 separate discussions and a question I had is does the attorney for the applicant have any other concerns with. In a suggested language, other than the word cantilever.
[Valerie Moore]: No, I mean, I think what's proposed is effectively the same as the language that I proposed. It's a little bit lengthier, but it's the same point that they've reached. So you zoom in, I think. If you were to remove the parenthetical that says is cantilevered over and just two parentheticals, that would solve that concern about how specifically we engineer the overhang. But other than that, I didn't have any concerns with that particular language.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah, those modifications make sense to me.
[Peter Calves]: Yeah. I mean, I wasn't quite following the thread of what Danielle was talking about, but I think what Attorney Moore was talking about was just the use of the word cantilever. Yes. Because it refers to a specific engineering thing.
[Ari Fishman]: Yeah.
[Danielle Evans]: And through the chair, Attorney Moore, if something in here you know, after tonight, since they're advisory making a recommendation, there's another bite at the apple to tweak the words here, wordsmith more. Once you're at city council, because I know you didn't have a lot of time to look at this. So let me know if you'd like me to stop the share.
[Emily Hedeman]: It is does do any members of the board have any other comments on this, realizing that we are still going to open it up to to public comment? And then we'll we'll kind of come back around and be able to make any recommendations based on that. Alright, seeing none, Danielle, if you can stop screen sharing, thank you for that. So I am now going to open up public comment period. Those who wish to provide comments can use the raise hand feature. A little hint on that one, because I know it's sometimes hard to find. If you're using Zoom on your laptop, React is a heart. Just click right on the heart, and you'll be able to raise your hand. You don't need to click the little arrow next to it. Just click on the heart. You can also send an email to OCD at medford-ma.gov. Before providing your comments, please state your name and address for the record. A reminder to all meeting participants to please refrain from using the chat function to message any comments to the city staff or board members, as it is not part of the public record. However, if a participant is having audio or other technical difficulties, you may message Alicia or Danielle in the chat for assistance. Each participant will have two minutes to speak, and you will have one opportunity to speak. If you have comments beyond that, I'm happy to, or you're encouraged to email ocdedmedford-ma.gov. Alicia or Danielle, did we receive any emails? Before we jump into public comment, did we receive any emails about this agenda item? in advance. I did not see any in our pocket. Okay, great.
[Alicia Hunt]: I'm just double checking right now, but I don't see any. Thank you.
[Emily Hedeman]: And if any members of the public would like to start raising their hand, feel free. We'll be opening up the queue shortly. Alicia, any emails? No, OK, thank you for checking. I appreciate that. So if any members of the public have any comments. Related to. The Wellington station multifamily overlay district amendment, please raise your hand. If you're having any technical difficulties, please message Danielle or Alicia. We'll give it a minute. Alright, seeing no takers for the public comment, I'm going to go ahead and close the public comment period for this meeting. I'm going to reopen it to the board to discuss any further revisions to the draft version that was referred out of City Council. I know we looked at the overhang adjustment. Do we want to make any other recommendations to the others? And if not, I'm curious if we're ready to vote or if we'd like to continue the public hearing to a date certain.
[Peter Calves]: I think I see no reason why I can't vote on this with the changes as recommended. OK. So in that case, I'll make a motion to recommend the proposed zoning amendment to City Council with the changes as noted. Um.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thanks, Peter. We're looking for a second.
[Ben Lavallee]: I'll second that motion.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thanks, Annie. We're gonna do a roll call vote. Peter Kovs.
[Peter Calves]: Aye.
[Emily Hedeman]: Ari Goffman-Fishman. I'll ask you to unmute.
[Ari Fishman]: There you go. Uh, yes, Alicia, if you can read me as host, but yes, I or just leave yourself unmuted, you know, okay, I can do that.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thanks. Sorry. Sabrina Alpino. All right. Ben LaVallee.
[Ben Lavallee]: Hi.
[Emily Hedeman]: Annie Strang.
[Ari Fishman]: Hi.
[Emily Hedeman]: And I am Leigh Henneman, I'm also an I. So the motion passes. Thank you to Attorney Moore for your time and best of luck with the city council.
[Valerie Moore]: Thank you all. I really appreciate all of your time tonight and I look forward to being back in front of you shortly with a site plan approval application.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you. Looking forward to it. Thank you. So the next agenda item we have is minutes. Unfortunately, it looks like staff didn't have a chance to edit those, so we're going to table those until the next meeting. Danielle or Alicia, do we need to motion to continue them or no? OK, never sure. Our next agenda item is zoning updates. Danielle, do you have any, or Alicia, do you have any updates there?
[Danielle Evans]: So I did advertise the public hearing for the neighborhood residential and urban residential zoning districts. So that will be the first public hearing will be scheduled for April 2nd. And we have it tentatively, well, it's in the public hearing notice, but it's pending your recommendation if it's ready in time for April 29th, it would go to city council.
[Emily Hedeman]: Very exciting. I know with the recent Salem Street corridor work we did, we have a lot of public involvement, so I'm hoping to have the same. So yeah, very much looking forward to those items.
[Alicia Hunt]: Yep, Alicia. In that vein, we've actually scheduled a Q&A for it, a public Q&A for next Thursday, the 27th, to have it be in advance of your first public hearing. That is wonderful. With the hopes that that would work better. I have to admit that as I was saying that, I realized that we scheduled it, we booked the room, and I was supposed to receive a flyer to circulate, and I'm gonna reach back out because I don't think that I have received that, but it is scheduled for Thursday the 27th here in City Hall.
[Emily Hedeman]: Great. I encourage members of the board to spread that throughout their networks as well. We wanna get as much comment as early as possible. Great. Any other zoning updates?
[Danielle Evans]: In the planning and permitting committee level, which is like the, you know, we're putting together the amendments, um, updating, uh, ADUs to take into account the protected use ADUs that are now, uh, state law and also, um, looking at the more of the commercial quarters and squares. So, I think that'll take another meeting or at least one more meeting for them to report something out. And then that will be coming to you all in May.
[Alicia Hunt]: I believe. I just wanted to make sure everybody was aware and has seen that the zoning webpage has been dramatically updated. So it's hopefully more useful this way with a lot of information for the public. It's medfordma.org slash zoning. Feel free to share that out to people. And if you see things that you find to be confusing, please, please tell us because if you're confused, oh my word, the public and we'll get changes made to it. So.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah, very well said. Great. I don't have any other items on the agenda.
[Peter Calves]: Just for clarification on that, when is the residential zoning coming before us? Is that the second?
[Danielle Evans]: April 2nd.
[Peter Calves]: Okay, great. Just wanted to confirm the date on that. Thanks.
[Emily Hedeman]: For our next meeting. Great. So with no other items on the agenda, I will be looking for a motion to adjourn. So moved. I was going to request you to unmute, Ari. I'm looking for a second, please.
[Ben Lavallee]: I'll second that motion.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you, Annie. We're going to do a roll call vote. Peter Calves?
[Peter Calves]: Aye.
[Emily Hedeman]: Ari Goffman-Fishman? Aye. Sabrina Alpino? Aye. Annie Strang.
[Ben Lavallee]: Aye.
[Emily Hedeman]: Ben LaValle.
[Ben Lavallee]: Aye.
[Emily Hedeman]: And I, Emily Hedeman, am also an aye. With that, our meeting is adjourned. As always, thank you to Danielle and Alicia for all of your hard work preparing for this meeting and supporting us throughout it. Could not do it without you. And hope everybody has a wonderful evening.
[Peter Calves]: You as well. Bye. Nice early night.