AI-generated transcript of Community Development Board 07-16-20

[Andre Leroux]: All right, it's six o'clock, and my name's Andre LaRue. I'm the chair of the Medford Community Development Board, and I call to order our July 16th, 2020 meeting. Pursuant to Governor Baker's March 12th, 2020 order suspending certain provisions of the Open Meeting Law, General Law Chapter 30A, section 18 and the governor's March 15th, 2020 order imposing strict limitation on the number of people that may gather in one place. This hearing of the Medford Community Development Board will be conducted via remote participation to the greatest extent possible. Specific information and the general guidelines for remote participation by members of the public and or parties with a right and or requirement to attend this meeting can be found on the city of Medford website at www.medfordma.org. For this meeting, members of the public who wish to listen or watch the meeting may do so by accessing the meeting link contained herein. 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 in real time via technological means. In the event that we are unable to do so, despite best efforts, we will post on the City of Medford or Medford Community Media website an audio or video recording, transcript, or other comprehensive record of proceedings as soon as possible after the meeting. I want to remind the members of the public who are watching via Zoom or at home on TV to participate remotely outside of the virtual platform. Questions and comments may be submitted via email to OCD at Medford-MA.gov or via phone to 781 781-393-2480. 781-393-2480. For accommodations, please call 781-393-2480. And we will have some folks help you out. City staff will be monitoring Thank you. Our first item on the agenda are the approval of minutes for the last meeting. Any comments or questions by the board or corrections?

[David Blumberg]: Andre, I haven't had a chance to read those. It looks like they're long and detailed, which is great, but my motion would be to I will wait and vote on accepting them at the next meeting so we have a chance to review them.

[Unidentified]: Is there a second to that? Great, thanks Deanna.

[Andre Leroux]: All right, a motion to continue approval of the minutes to our August meeting. I will call, remember all votes are roll call votes, so I will have to call one by one, everybody.

[SPEAKER_29]: Aye.

[Andre Leroux]: Katie McHugh?

[Jenny Graham]: Aye.

[Andre Leroux]: David Blumberg? Aye. Christy Dowd?

[Jenny Graham]: Aye.

[Andre Leroux]: Klaus Andreasen? Sorry, Klaus, we couldn't hear you. Aye. Thanks. And Jackie Furtado?

[Jacqueline McPherson]: Aye.

[Andre Leroux]: Thank you. Minutes will be for approval at our August meeting. Thank you, David. Next item on the agenda is a public hearing on the proposed marijuana ordinance. Hold on a moment. So public hearing on the proposed amendment to chapter 94, zoning to allow for and regulate adult use marijuana establishments. I'm going to read the public hearing notice now. The Medford Community Development Board shall conduct a public hearing on Thursday, July 16, 2020 at 6 p.m. via Zoom remote video conferencing relative to a petition by the Medford City Council to amend chapter 94 zoning revised ordinance of the city of Medford to allow for and regulate adult use marijuana establishments in the city of Medford with an aim to minimize any adverse impacts that marijuana establishments may have on adjacent or nearby properties and to provide standards for the placement, design, siting, safety, security, modification, and discontinuance of such establishments subject to reasonable conditions that protect public health, safety, and welfare. The full text of the amendment may be viewed in the office of the city clerk, room 103, or on the city's website at http://www.medfordma.org by clicking on current CD board filings. And again, the governor's order suspending certain provisions of the open meeting law are in effect for this public hearing. So I'd like to call the public hearing to order and ask acting community development or community development office director, Alicia Hunt to present the ordinance proposal.

[Alicia Hunt]: So good evening. Thank you. Welcome, everybody. I'm not sure how much background this needs based on how much advertising this has had over the last many years. But I have a couple of slides that were actually put together for a department head meeting that just touches on the background of where this came from. And if you'll just indulge me for like three minutes to like just make sure that everybody understands why we are councilmembers. Why are we talking about this at all? So, first of all, just to be clear, anything that is a zoning ordinance must go to the community development board for comment before the city And all right. If somebody, I'm going to just do that again, just because I don't want to accidentally show the wrong thing. So you should be seeing the, yes, now it's got the right thing highlighted in green. So as you know, I did not prepare this and this is, I'm not going to go through the whole thing. I just wanted to give you a few little background pieces. In 2008, marijuana was decriminalized in Massachusetts. 2012, medical marijuana was legalized. And in 2016, there was a vote to legalize, regulate, and tax marijuana for this is the recreational marijuana. So the voters in Massachusetts approved it. And the voters in Medford approved it. So this is actually key that the voters in Medford voted for it. The vote was 38,528. Basically, if your community voted for it in 2016, then your community must pass an ordinance as to how it will be allowed in your community. If you then wanted to not allow it, you would have to have another referendum in your community to not allow it. Um, so this ordinance that is before you tonight has been touched by many departments in Medford, including our prevention and outreach, our director of diversity inclusion to the Board of Health, the police so many people have been involved in this, including the zoning Board of Appeals liaison. But I do just want, for all clarity, when this says that the director of community and development was involved, that was not actually me personally. So I was not involved in the development. So there's just so much that I can actually speak to in the big picture here. And I just wanted to be clear about that. In my other role of energy and environment, I was not involved in the development of this. And so there's a general flow. The plan that is being put forward is to have, this is the plan that the city council has put together, and they have decided that the Zoning Board of Appeals would issue provisional special permits. Um, And then there's also a place where the host community agreement has to be negotiated with the city. I understand they've put together a representative board that would be the negotiators for the city, it is not the mayor by herself it is three representatives of the city. And I think those are the pieces. Some of these things here have also been changed since this presentation was put together, but those were the kind of the key facts that I just wanted to make sure everybody understood. It wasn't the whim of somebody to do this. So before you tonight is the marijuana ordinance as the Medford City Council has drafted it. Um, some of you, hopefully most, all of you have read this and I think some of you are actually more familiar with marijuana ordinances than I am. Um, so I do not feel that it's a great idea of our time for me to walk you through this entire document. Um, let me know if you would like me to do that or if you would like to take this forward and have your discussion.

[Unidentified]: Let me open the floor up to comments and questions from the board members. Cless.

[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: Alicia, can you say a little bit about what specifically we are being asked to comment on today?

[Alicia Hunt]: So anything that is zoning related goes to the community development board for comment. So, this is a zoning amendment in, in and of itself. It's in. ordinance and it's an amendment to the medford zoning and so the community development board is Asked to comment on all of this any and all of this By by statute like that's actually the law That it's transferred to you it is not coming to you because it can because the city council has said we want the community development board to weigh in on x and it is coming to you because they legally must refer it to you. So they have not actually stated if there's any portions or parts that they would like this board to weigh in on.

[Andre Leroux]: There has been a lot of conversation at the City Council level on this, and this is really coming to us for any additional recommendations or comments that we might want to make to them. The City Council is under no requirement to listen to anything we say, and they can take action, but generally they do, you know, take the community development board's comments very seriously into account. It's also an opportunity, obviously, for another opportunity for the public to weigh in if they so choose.

[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: Well, I'll just say then that I didn't have any comments on what I read that was provided.

[Jacqueline McPherson]: I second that I have no comments based on what I've read as is. I don't know of any issues I don't see any issues, and not that I would need someone to point them out for me but without having heard from the public or any kind of opposition elsewhere, I have nothing to add.

[Andre Leroux]: David, would you like to speak?

[Alicia Hunt]: Before David speaks, I will just say that technically this is also a public hearing. So it is appropriate to open it up to public comment and then have additional discussion. But David, I believe you may have actually knowledge of this more than I do.

[David Blumberg]: Well, I really, I'm not a pro in this area. I really didn't know anything about it going into it anymore, at least than what the general public knows about the issue in the Commonwealth. I did read Uh, the proposed ordinance pretty closely and try to understand it. And I realized my brain probably works a little differently on these kinds of things, because it's kind of what I do all day. And I had a lot of sort of things that I couldn't really reconcile in the drafting of it. I don't think that that's really the right thing to talk about at our meeting and public meeting. It's like not a good use of everyone's time. But I do feel like the city needs to be very careful about what it's doing and can't just put a rubber stamp on this but really needs to think through how this thing is drafted what the pieces are how it works the regulations just little things like define terms not being consistent through it. And I'm, I'm happy to offer, you know, help on the side if that's something that somebody wants. I thought most relevant to our board is I found curious, I didn't see at least in the draft. sort of the idea of where, where would these different marijuana establishments land in our zoning, so you know what districts, would you allow these things to operate, what are the hours they would be allowed to operate that sort of detail. I thought would be most relevant to to us and the sorts of things that we talked about. I didn't see that in here. So I mean I have a whole bunch of very specific questions but I don't, I just don't feel like this is even ready for that discussion I feel like these are questions that are best posed to whoever is actually drafting this I guess the city, the city council which would be voting on ultimately.

[Unidentified]: Are you able to speak to that Alicia.

[Alicia Hunt]: I'm actually going to ask our city solicitor some questions and she also was not the lawyer that drafted this it was drafted by our former city solicitor.

[Unidentified]: Um, but I'm just gonna ask her.

[David Blumberg]: Andre I did, I did have a communication with KP law in the between meetings here and I, I don't know how much I want, I should be sharing about that but just I was told that, you know, their involvement was focused, you know they have a client, I guess the city. And so it seems like there would be some more drafting work that would need to be done on this thing before it's all squared away and ready to go.

[Andre Leroux]: I don't want to wait for the city solicitor to respond to Alicia. Are there any other comments or questions from other board members? And if not, I can open up the hearing to public comment.

[Unidentified]: Okay, seeing none, let me open up the public hearing component. Yes, Alicia.

[Alicia Hunt]: I was just gonna say that I had been told that they had separated out from the zoning, some other regulations and all, but I actually haven't been privy to that at all.

[Unidentified]: Could you say that one more time, just so I?

[Alicia Hunt]: I had been told that they had separated out a zoning piece and then more of rules and regulations. I have not seen the other document that talks about rules and regulations. They were working on passing the zoning piece first.

[Andre Leroux]: Let me see if there's, are there any members of the public who wish to speak on this matter?

[Unidentified]: Annie, are you going to handle that?

[Alicia Hunt]: So if members of the public want to speak, they should. go to the participants button and click the raise hand function, and then we can call on you. If you raise your hand to your camera, it might be hard for us to see you. And actually, most people have their cameras off.

[Unidentified]: I have a feeling most people are here maybe for other issues.

[Andre Leroux]: So, Annie, we have one person at least wants to raise their hand.

[Unidentified]: Cyan.

[SPEAKER_30]: Hi, sorry, I was getting unmuted. So this is public comments for the marijuana change, right, to allow recreational? Yes. OK. I just want to say, first of all, I support this initiative. I think that Medford needs the tax revenue, and this is a good thing to do. I also want to point out that the original Massachusetts ballot initiative was to tax and regulate marijuana alcohol. So I hope that Medford will keep that in mind. Also, my third comment was, I heard, I don't know the nature of the ordinance, but I heard something about adverse impacts, and I assume that relates to traffic and stuff, but I hope it doesn't relate to undesirable persons, because I feel that that's a racialized kind of term, because as you may know, marijuana prohibition has been racialized throughout history, and when it first started, it was a way to keep black people down and put them in prison, so. I just hope that Medford City Council is keeping that in mind when they discuss adverse impacts, that it's not going to be having people hanging around or something like that. So that's it.

[Andre Leroux]: Thank you, Cyan.

[Unidentified]: I see Jason Zub. You're unmuted, Jason. Hello? Go ahead, Jason.

[Andre Leroux]: Yep, we can hear you.

[SPEAKER_27]: Thank you.

[Adam Knight]: I was just wondering who would be deciding the zoning, if it's separated between what the rules are and what the zoning is, who decides where it goes?

[Andre Leroux]: That's a good question, and I think that's what we're looking for some guidance from the city on the administration. That was my only question. Thank you, Jason. So while we work on getting the answer to that question, which was also what David had raised, Lumberg, any other comments? Raise your hand in the chat box or send an email.

[Nicole Morell]: Andre, I've unmuted John Witten from KP Law at his request.

[Unidentified]: Great, thank you. Yes, John?

[SPEAKER_22]: Mr. Chairman, can you hear me? Yes, I can. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and good evening, members of the board. Just a response to a couple comments so far. The way the draft appears to be written is there are no district divisions. I think member Bloomberg had mentioned where these proposed facilities could occur and take place. So the current draft of the ordinance does not provide that kind of of segregation in terms of districts. And certainly the CD board could recommend that to the city Council. And the city Council could revise the draft to include that. In terms of the approval of new adult use marijuana facilities, they would all be by special permit. And they would all be governed by what's called a community host agreement, sometimes called a host community agreement, which would be a contract entered into between the applicant and the city Council. and that becomes a governing document that really overarches what the special permit could allow. The special permit can include conditions on time of use, operation, parking, and so on, security, and related matters. But the host agreement is more of a macro document. It includes payments of fees. It includes requirements that the city council wants to impose. So it's really a belt-and-suspender approach. The zoning ordinance itself controls many things, but the host community agreement controls even more. So the two really are looked at together, and they're very fact-specific and very location-specific. So in one instance, the council might want to impose conditions of hours of operation that are more restrictive if it's closer to a residential neighborhood. and or less restrictive if it's, for example, predominantly commercial in use. So the ordinance sets out one track, and then the host community agreement sets out another track, and they're designed to work in tandem. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[Andre Leroux]: All right, thank you, John. That helps clarify things. So David, your question, getting back to it, though, are you would you like to make a recommendation that the Council designate certain zones in the city for this? And I guess, John, maybe before you get muted, I'm wondering whether, you know, this use needs to be incorporated into the zoning use table of the city. It seems like it would be, so. I'm not clear about why that wouldn't be. I don't know. Is this a special permits allowed essentially anywhere?

[SPEAKER_22]: Yeah, it's a great question, Mr. Chairman. Again, you know, we are all kind of coming to this fairly new because this was drafted by others. Generally speaking, especially with adult use marijuana, there are districts where it is not allowed at all. And then there are those districts where the city wants to encourage the use or at least suggest an encouragement. So yeah, that would be done through the table of dimensional use provisions, as well as in the text itself. And that could be a recommendation from the CD board to kind of elaborate on those missing elements.

[Andre Leroux]: Seems like something we would want to recommend. David, did you want to jump in on that further?

[David Blumberg]: I don't want to say too much because I feel like I won't be able to stop myself, but there are, I think, seven different categories of marijuana establishments, and each one could call for some different considerations in your zoning. So you have the retailers, well, are retailers going to be, will they fit within the category of retail citywide without any sort of special notation and just a regular retailer? What's a cultivator what's a, I mean, if there's a fair amount of work, I guess I feel like if, if this visit to our board is really just perfunctory it's something that has to happen along the way and the real work is going to happen later. I don't know if anyone would say that, but that's one thing. If it's something that they really want us to vote on and we can feel comfortable that in endorsing something we've thought through it and we feel like it is something that can be implemented citywide. Then I think we need to see something else. We need to see a revised updated draft to do that.

[SPEAKER_22]: I would like to make a comment. I totally agree. I have worked with a lot of communities on marijuana bylaws. And they almost always have the support and or the endorsement of the planning board. And in your case the community development board. you know, I'm speaking as an outsider here, of course, but I think I would recommend to the city council and certainly to the mayor that the CD boards approval and support is important here. You're the planning board and this is a planning function. So with respect to the multitude of uses that are allowed, kind of whether it's cultivation or retail sales, for example, different communities have dealt with that differently. In some communities, only retail is allowed. In some communities, everything is allowed. So you do, under the statutory scheme, you do get to pick and choose what the city of Medford believes is most appropriate for Medford. And it may be just retail, it may be cultivation and retail, it may be whatever you and the city council feel is appropriate, but you do have quite a bit of flexibility there. You're not stuck with, you have to accept all or nothing. That's not the case.

[Jenny Graham]: I did want to point out that I was just reading the specific requirements for marijuana retailers. And it does say marijuana retailers shall only be permitted in the C2 and industrial zoning district as specified in the table of uses. Marijuana retailers shall not exceed 10,000 square feet in retail floor space That's as specific as it gets for the marijuana retailers, but it doesn't get any more specific on the other Types facilities.

[SPEAKER_22]: Yeah, and and you could mr. Chairman fight if I could yes, please. I that. And the board, I think both board members have commented on that. You could have higher standards for some things and lower standards for others. It is a menu of options and it gets complex. But it is a good opportunity to plan for adult use

[Alicia Hunt]: So as I look through the document, sort of again, it's very 17 pages, it's very dense to get through. On page nine, it mentions that there's a setback that it shunned. Providing education in kindergarten or any grade

[Andre Leroux]: Alicia, you're coming in and out. Can you repeat that please? You're coming in and out on your sound a little bit.

[Alicia Hunt]: apologize, the earbuds I had tested died. So on page nine of the document, it says number four, sorry, I can't tell if it's a subsection, that a marijuana establishment shall not be located within 500 feet of a pre-existing public or private school providing education in kindergarten or It talks about how the chamber, and then just number five is that marijuana establishments shall be conducted at a fixed location. Overall, my impression is that this gives a huge amount of power to the host community agreement to establish almost everything about what would be allowed and not allowed. that I had expected earlier drafts of this included specific zoning locations like things in our table of zoning, but those seem to no longer be part of this draft.

[Andre Leroux]: All right, well, we don't necessarily know why that's been taken out, but again, since our role is as an advisory role, I think we can decide as a board what recommendations we might want to make and then move this along. So far, I think I've heard a desire to see specifically which marijuana establishments can be allowed in which uses and how it will be incorporated into the zoning use table of the city. And also David had some, I think, comments about some drafting suggestions. And I would say that those suggestions could be sent along under separate cover to the city council. Are there other things we might want to incorporate as a recommendation?

[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: Andre, the only other thing that I might add is I always like to see what some of our neighboring communities are doing on this and how we're either differing following course.

[Andre Leroux]: I can't speak to that issue. I don't know if anybody from the city can, or if John, you have any familiarity with that, John Witten.

[SPEAKER_22]: I do, Mr. Chairman, and I'd be happy to provide Alicia some examples of nearby cities. Somerville is a good example. Some other smaller cities as well on the South Coast. And even some, you know, apples and oranges, smaller towns have some really good bylaws out there. Of course, you know, it's apples and oranges. I would be happy to provide the board with some examples. There is no fixed model. You really want to kind of tailor it to what Medford wants. And I think Alicia, what Alicia was saying earlier, I very much agree with, which is the host community agreement is very important. But if I could, Mr. Chairman, just add, that's a political contract. You know, it's a contract entered into with the city council. So it's not necessarily a land use protective device. And that's why I use the phrase belt and suspenders. You really want both. You want the city council to do their thing, and then you want the regulatory boards to do their thing. So the two go hand in hand, but one does not replace the other. And one can be more protective than the other, for example.

[Alicia Hunt]: So John, can you answer one question for me? Because I've seen several versions of this, and I've sat in on a few of the more recent discussions, and I thought that the- Alicia, you froze. Who were the people who, what, sorry, I thought this ordinance laid out who the committee was that was gonna negotiate that host community agreement, because that was being debated at one of the, committee of the whole meetings, but I no longer see that section in here. I don't know if anybody, because it was several department heads who were going to be the body that negotiates that.

[SPEAKER_22]: Yeah, Alicia, that I don't know. I wouldn't have that information. I can certainly try to find out if anybody in-house knows, but I think that preceded us. the mayor and or the council. By statute, it has to be the chief elected officials. They can delegate it to a committee. Alicia, that might be what you are recalling. That is perfectly fine. But it has to be executed by the mayor and or the council at the end of the day.

[Andre Leroux]: The board members be comfortable making a recommendation to the city council to include information about where the different uses are going to go in the Medford zoning land use table and also under separate cover to receive some drafting suggestions from David Blumberg.

[David Blumberg]: Is there Andre is that maybe this is unprecedented in the way municipalities operate but the zoning board of appeals of course is set up here as the special permit granting authority is, is it appropriate for us to collaborate with the ZBA in some way and providing comments.

[SPEAKER_22]: question. Mr. Chairman, another excellent question. The statute allows three special permit granting authorities, the city Council, the planning board, community development board or the ZBA. It is not a preordained decision to be the ZBA. That becomes a political decision as to who is going to be issuing special which might work in Medford, the ZBA could be the special permit granting authority for some things, let's say cultivation for argument's sake, and the CD board could be the special permit granting authority for retail, just for argument's sake. There could be a mix and match. and so there is no definitive right answer. It really depends. Workload, planning issues, whatever you believe and the city council believes is appropriate.

[Andre Leroux]: And John, I think what David might have been suggesting is, is there a precedent for a collaborative process with the ZBA and the planning board? To draft the ordinance?

[David Blumberg]: to share comments on it, was what I had in mind.

[SPEAKER_22]: Sure, absolutely. And David, if you were referring to once the special permit has been applied for, 48 section nine, which is the special permit provision, does require referral to all relevant city boards and commissions. So that's already included in the statute. So if the ZBA is the special permit granting authority, they are supposed to send to you, the CD board, the application for your comments and for every other special permit, and vice versa. If you're issuing a special permit, you're required under 48 section 9 to send that application to other relevant city boards for their comments.

[Andre Leroux]: I'm not sure that's current practice. So I think we may want to make a specific recommendation to that effect if we want to make sure the ZBA public comment on this item. I would like to ask the city clerk to send a special permit application to us for comments. Can we turn this into a motion?

[SPEAKER_29]: That's all.

[Andre Leroux]: Thank you.

[Alicia Hunt]: I'll just give you one additional piece of information. I apologize that some things are trickling into me. So the City Council is planning to do a separate ordinance regarding a Cannabis Advisory Commission, and that that is going to be done separately from this ordinance.

[Unidentified]: I believe that that is who is going to negotiate the HCA that I heard. HCA's host community agreement.

[Andre Leroux]: So just to respond to the gentleman's comment that was read by the city staff, as Alicia Hunt mentioned at the beginning, we do not have the authority to not create one. First of all, the community development board only has an advisory role to send recommendations to the city council. And even the city council itself cannot prohibit marijuana establishments in the city because of the public vote that was held. I just want to be clear on that for everyone. I would entertain a motion now from the board on the items that we have discussed. And maybe, David, can I ask you to take a stab at it?

[David Blumberg]: I can try, sure. I think our motion is to recommend to the city council that more specificity is added in this ordinance as to locations table of use zoning details into the ordinance itself. And that this board would separately provide. comments for the city council's consideration in connection with the draft ordinance presented to us today.

[Alicia Hunt]: For those of us who are not lawyers, could you just clarify that by drafting, you're talking about copy editing? I mean, anything that's substantive changes ought to be heard by the board, considered by the board. But I think from an email exchange, I saw earlier that what you're thinking of is sort of more in line with details, lining up the language, making sure that there's no conflicting language in the document.

[David Blumberg]: That's, that's, that's my intent is not to change the substance that really should be for the city council. Maybe the separate comments should be shared among the board and it's something that we should consider next month or something so that people can see what we're talking about.

[Andre Leroux]: I do know that the city council is meeting on July 28th, and they are hoping to take this matter up. So I'd like to at least give them some, give them our recommendations now, and maybe within the next week, David, provide them with any kind of cleanup suggestions about the drafting that you might have. Is that possible?

[David Blumberg]: I can do that, sure.

[Andre Leroux]: We have a motion on the table from David. to the city council to incorporate more details about where the different marijuana establishments would go in terms of the land use table and the zones of the city. And there was also, and David, I don't want to put words in your mouth. I don't think you actually said this part of it, but we had talked about the, I'm sorry. Are you asking the ZBA to send its special permit applications to the community development board? Is that something you wanted to include?

[David Blumberg]: I'm okay with or without that. Correct, or to, I don't know who the addressee should be on that, but yes, I'll put something together.

[Andre Leroux]: Okay, thank you. Is there a second to that motion?

[Jacqueline McPherson]: I second the motion, Andre. This is Jackie Furtado.

[Andre Leroux]: Thank you, Jackie. All right, we'll have a roll call vote now. Deanna Peabody?

[SPEAKER_29]: Aye.

[Andre Leroux]: Katie McHugh?

[SPEAKER_29]: Aye.

[Andre Leroux]: David Blumberg? Aye. Christy Dowd? I'm sorry, we could not hear you. Jackie Furtado. Did I miss any board members? All right, the next part of the agenda is a public hearing on a definitive subdivision plan and special permit for site plan review from Winthrop Estates, 541 and 551 Winthrop Street. I will now read the public hearing notice. The Medford Community Development Board shall conduct a combined public hearing on Thursday, July 16, 2020 at 6.30 p.m. via Zoom remote video conferencing relative to a revised definitive subdivision plan and special permit for site plan review application submitted by Waypoint Development. The project includes the creation of a roadway and 10 lot subdivision, as shown on plans entitled Winthrop Estate Subdivision, 541 and 551 Winthrop Street, Medford, Massachusetts, prepared by Design Consultants, Inc., dated February 8, 2019, and revised June 24, 2019. September 5th, 2019 and March 20th, 2020. An earlier version of this application was denied by the Medford Community Development Board at a hearing on September 11th, 2019, but upon appeal has been remanded to the Community Development Board in light of additional information submitted by the applicant. plans may be viewed in the office of the city clerk, room 103, the office of community development, room 308, or on the city's website at www.medfordma.org slash departments slash community hyphen development by clicking on current CD board filings. As mentioned earlier, Governor Baker's order spending certain provisions of the open meeting law is in effect for this public hearing. So I open the public hearing now and the order that we'll do this is that I'll invite Annie Streetman, our planner, to bring us all up to speed on what's happened because we have some new members of the board and also for the public. And then I will invite the applicant to present their proposal. Again, since we have new board members, it will be helpful for them to explain what the project is. Then there'll be some discussion by the board, questions by the board, and we'll open it up to members of the public. So Annie, could I ask you to bring us up to speed?

[Nicole Morell]: Sounds good. Thank you, Andre. I just wanted to reiterate because, again, we do have three new board members, so I think it will be helpful for the applicant to present and sort of give a summary of this as well. But I just wanted to give the high-level overview. A lot of it Andre just mentioned, but I'll highlight that the petitioner is seeking both an approval of a definitive subdivision plan and a special permit for site plan review. And both of those are for the 10-lot subdivision at 541 and 551 Winthrop Street. The original hearing was opened on May 15th, 2019 and was continued to September 11th, 2019 at the request of the applicant so that he could respond to questions by several department heads in their review of the project. At the September hearing, the board found that information necessary to ensure the access for public safety vehicles and the provision of proper utilities to ensure adequate water for domestic and firefighting purposes, sewage and storm drainage was deficient and thus the definitive subdivision plan was denied. The board also found that the site plan review application did not meet site plan review standards relative to imposing undue burden on sewers, sanitary, storm drains, water distribution systems, or similar public facilities that could have been avoided by modification to the plans and the special permit for site plan review was denied. This decision was appealed by the applicant and the project was remanded back to the community development board to hold a new public hearing in light of additional information submitted for consideration by the board. And so revised materials were submitted to the board in June. City departments reviewed and made some comments on that. And as a few materials were submitted today as well, given that many of you may not have had a chance to review that, and same with the city staff as well, I think I would ask that the to go over those items, what has been done since the September hearing, what was submitted as additional information today, and kind of discuss where that stands in that regard.

[Unidentified]: Thank you, Annie.

[Andre Leroux]: Could I ask the applicant now to present the proposal? And Annie, who do we have here?

[Nicole Morell]: Yeah, I'll find you. So Ed Champey and JJ Richa. Here we go. Unmute. Ed, you are unmuted.

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: Great. Thank you.

[Andre Leroux]: So Ed, if you could also just present your team. If there's anybody else who's going to speak, that would be great.

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: OK, terrific. So my name is Ed Champey. I'm with Waypoint Development. We're the owners of the project at 541 550 5 Winthrop Street. actually runs from 541 to 551 in Winthrop Street. Also along the call with me is JJ Lariccia. He's a project engineer with Waypoint. Wayne of DCI is on the line. Frank Leathers from GEI should be on the call as well, along with Michael Radner. Michael Radner being the landscape architect. Frank Leathers, GEI, being the geotech engineer. civil engineering is Wayne at DCI, and again, myself, Ed Champy, one of the principals at White Point Development, and JJ Leriche, one of our project engineers. So I'd like to start by saying thank you for having us tonight, Mr. Chairman, members of the board. On our last hearing on September 11th, as Annie just mentioned, the project was denied, and it was based on a couple of items. Um, and I'll say my comments will be including but not limited to the items, and I think it will be appropriate for, um. Mr. Tim McGivern from the engineering department. to go into more detail. So I'll focus on the things that rather than go through the entire list, knowing that he'll probably go through his comments, I'll focus on the items that we believed, and that after going to the land court, that was stated as being the most pertinent, and we're open to discussion on other items as well. First and foremost was the drainage testing. And what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna explain what I think the biggest concerns were, and then we'll talk about what the project is. And my gut would be that everybody has an inkling of what the project is, and we can describe it in further detail. And maybe perhaps we can ask that the plans be put up on the screen, Annie, if you have that accessible. We don't need to write this down, but I just think it'll be beneficial when we're trying to describe what the project actually is.

[Nicole Morell]: Yeah, I can share permission for that with a member of your team if they would like to do that.

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: Terrific, terrific, thank you. So for now, one of the major issues was the drainage. I mean, the site is heavily concentrated with ledge. And the concern was that our original testing was 125 feet away from where the stormwater infiltration system will be going. Um, so with multiple iterations, we came up with a testing plan that was, that was, um, that was not only Our team, as well as Mr. McGibbon at the City of Method Engineering, agreed that it would be appropriate and it would be a proper way to test the site. So through multiple, we had mentioned and we had sent out multiple times to the neighbors and the abutters because this required drilling and blasting. We did drill and blast the area, prepped the area, and we completed the test on April 17th of 2020. Mr. Gibbon was on site that day and witnessed the tests, and the supporting data was sent to him after that. So that was our primary goal on the definitive subdivision plan was testing that, also getting the high water table, and then coming up with a plan and a design that used all that data and came up with a reasonable solution for the project, and we've done that. In addition to that, which is part of the site plan review, or the denial for the site plan review, would be that the project you know, it was it was proposed that it that it was determined to create an undue burden and the special permit for the site plan review was denied. So through the process, we had tested the water flow from the hydrants, and the water flow was sufficient. At that point, we were requested by the city of Medford Water Department to actually calibrate the gauges, which was UTS, Underground Testing Services, perform the testing, calibrate the gauges, and then test again. On the second test, David Proctor from the Water Department was on site. He witnessed the test. And again, we found the flow rate to be appropriate. And I think Tim will talk to that a bit as well. So we believe that that solved the concern with regard to the flow rate. There will likely be a test which will involve the hydrant, which we are going to install, should we get approved, at the top of Winthrop Street Estates, which will be likely named other than Winthrop Street Estates, but for today's discussion, that's what it is. And again, proving that the, showing that there's sufficient water pressure to, pretty much for the fire prevention. The flow rate is is primarily governed by the requirements for fire prevention. It is not governed by domestic water use. There's a significant difference between the two. An example, and again, Tim can comment on these facts or opinions as you'd like. At a 500 gallon per minute flow rate, The stats say that you can fight two host fires at the same time. Our testing shows that we're going to have 1,000 gallons a minute. And so think of 1,000 gallons a minute out of a fire main or water main, rather. And the general water requirement per person in a house is about 94 gallons a day. So clearly, the domestic water use is not governing the requirement for the water main. It's governed by the fire prevention. So, J.J., do you have the site plan itself, the plan view that you can put on the screen, or that you can ask Annie to let you share the screen?

[Unidentified]: Annie, can you see J.J. on? I see.

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: I'm here.

[Nicole Morell]: J.J., you are now a co-host.

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: I'm here.

[Nicole Morell]: JJ, can you... And you should be able to share now, JJ.

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: What we're gonna show is the site itself. The site is 350 feet wide and another... It's not a rectangle, but give or take it's 300 feet deep, 100 and some odd thousand square feet of land. And this process this process has been going on for quite some time I'm not sure how many of the board members know, I think we bought this land in 2014. We had an original plan, which was 11 house lots. And we had three additional houses on winter street under agreement and we were going to the road was going to was going to enter down by where the fells way. was going to enter the end was going to run up around the backside. We spent about a year and a half planning it. The road grade was at 8% the requirement in methods at seven. And we were denied. At that time, we the next we thought we'd try and just go for seven house lots facing the front of Winthrop Street. With the right of way that's running across the site. That was that was going to be a to start working, and we met with the planning director at the time, and we were told that we weren't going to get the additional three, and we stopped work and started replanning again. And that's what brings us to the plan that we have now, which is 10 house laws coming straight in off Winthrop Street. There are a couple of things that the project's doing while we're waiting for the screen to come up. We've added a few items that we think are beneficial to the neighbors and the community. One of which is, there was a water line for 555 Winthrop Street, which was running across the property. We actually recently, connected a new waterline for them and ran it up the right away so that it would no longer be an encroachment, which essentially gave them a new waterline. We're also, for 553 and 555 Winthrop Street, we are extending the right of way. We still need to do the paperwork on that, but we've offered to extend the right of way so that the right of way would no longer enter off of an incredibly steep slope off of Winthrop Street, and it'll actually run into our new road you know, adjacent to lot one. In doing that, we're also planning on paving that road so that there'll be a new surface on it. It probably hasn't been paved since it was originally built. Additionally, and we did this a couple of years ago, and we're gonna do it again, assuming that things are moving forward, which is we installed barriers on the opposite side of the street so that Lorraine Road would have a soft shoulder to walk on that was protected from traffic. Um, we did that with the expectation, or at least we were told that the DPW was going to pave that area. So, but it didn't get paved and it ended up. Most of the people walking around the barrier on Winthrop Street instead of walking on the soft shoulder. So our goal now is to put up the barriers again, and only this time either add crushed stone on the far side so that the walking traffic would be dry and out of the soft shoulder, or if it would be allowed by the city, we're amicable to putting a temporary asphalt sidewalk walkway in there. On the other side of Lorain Road, which is we are planning with over towards where the bus stop is. We're planning on putting a cement sidewalk around the corner with a handicap ramp and a crosswalk which leads across Winthrop Street and on to across from Lorain Road to Winthrop Street. You can see it in the bottom left hand section of the plan. If you go down to the bottom, you can see where the crossroads comes across. So, JJ, could you please roll your cursor across where the right-of-way is now gonna, is dead-ending into Winthrop Street? Okay, so you can see where the cursor is right now. That's where the traffic, or there's two houses, going to 553 and 555 Winthrop Street will enter there, and it will run up that right-of-way, which goes up across the backside of the property. If we zoom out a little, JJ, The project itself right now has a significant elevation, so other than the area that's already been drilled and blasted, we will be blasting the site, getting the elevation down. The main reason for it is to reach the 7% grade that Medford has for a standard in its rules and regulations for subdivision. Um, so with that, that's that's a large reason for the cut. Um, and that's why the road is where it is and design the way it is. Um, there's. Within that there's a substantial, um. area which which is which we are stabilizing the Blasted ledge afterwards with a with a dowel system and it'll be essentially faced with with shot Creek and along with some one-to-one graded areas for for For plantings and whatnot. So if you can JJ, could you please roll the cursor from the left side of the site? Yeah from the from the edge a lot three That's where the wall starts and then JJ run it around the site and show and I'll and stop it. I'll stop you when it stops. And the wall runs around and it stops on the far side. That has been engineered carefully. It's gone through the process, both with. Mr. McGivern, as well as Frank Leathers from GEI, with the wall itself, how it strains, there's a maintenance plan for it. The requirement for the maintenance on that wall is the Homeowners Association. And there's also a plateau at the top where it flattens off or has a slight incline before it reaches a fence. And that fence, the fenced area is also maintained by the HOA. When you get past that wall is where you get to on the far right, if you move down a bit. That's a one-to-one slope where it's a vegetated area. And when you go further down towards Winthrop Street, it becomes more of a two-to-one slope. When you get down towards Winthrop Street, you'll notice that rectangle that's there with multiple chambers in it. That is the stormwater infiltration system. So as it sits now, it's designed for the capacity of the road as well, and I think it's for 100-year storm plus. And it also is set up in the HOA for the maintenance. Mr. McGiven and I have discussed this at length, and the goal being that the maintenance of the walls and the fencing and the stormwater infiltration system does not reside within the requirements for Medford, but the city of Medford, it requires for the Homeowners Association. The Homeowners Association is set up, we have a draft of it, and all the operational maintenance that goes along with these items that I'm discussing are in there. If you go to the far left-hand side, JJ, and if we start walking up the right-of-way a little bit, so there's not only a fence, but there's a guardrail, and that is to make sure that that right-of-way is protected and traffic is protected that's running up there. So that is also part of the HOA association as far as the maintenance on the guardrail and the fence. The smallest lot is around 7,500 square feet. And the largest lot is just over 10,000 square feet. The city of Medford requirement is, I believe it's 7,000 or 7,500 square feet. So none of the lots are requesting any relief. The road is not requesting any relief. And from what we gathered over the past six years, the project itself is not requiring zoning relief. With that said, I'll leave it to questions, and Mr. McGiven's comments were lengthy, but we did discuss them. and Mr. McGiven, and we've sent him back today the discussion that we had in writing. And with it, we submitted documents and concerns that would help just paper some of the discussions. So it was a discussion that we had a couple of days ago, and then the information was sent today. We've sent information on the right of way and the easements. It's a fairly complicated right of way. where 553 and 555 Winthrop Street have a right of way to get in and a right of way to get out. Essentially, the two housing lots are landlocked. So again, with that, I'm open to answering questions or open discussion. We also have some renderings if you're not used to reading plans, and it might make more sense to see that.

[Andre Leroux]: Yeah, I think if you could throw the renderings up, that would be great. These are not new renderings, though, are they? Are these the ones from like 18 months ago?

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: Correct.

[Andre Leroux]: OK, but it would be good to see them.

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: Sure, yeah, the project hasn't changed.

[Unidentified]: Underground testing has changed for the project.

[Andre Leroux]: Well, that's happening. I just want to remind everybody that members of the public can submit comments via email to OCD at Medford-MA.gov. That's OCD, the Office of Community Development, OCD at Medford-MA.gov. Or you can also weigh in via phone, just 781-393. 24807813932480 Thank you city staff is monitoring both of those methods of weighing in. Mr. Chairman, may I. Yes. Okay.

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: Um, what we're looking at now is a is a is a mark of you. It is drawn to scale. Um, and it's showing what the view will look like. Um, this is between the gas station and Lorraine Road. If you were looking across the street, JJ, can you go to the ghost view next, please? So what we did here was we had, we had a mock up done where you can see where the, where the, the wall surfaces are going to be that are behind the houses, so you can see in some cases there's green scape, and there's a one to one or two to one slope. And then as you go further up into the cul-de-sac, you can see that it starts becoming the Jip Crete, or in this case, it's gonna be Shaw Crete, will be, again, it's behind the houses, but it does exist. And there are some plans with, and Mr. Radner's on the call here, if we wanna discuss landscaping and how this is all gonna play out. JJ, could you go to, Just any any of the views and I'll discuss them as we go through. Okay, this is this this view is is heading west. Um, so it's probably more from from where the from where the gas station is and you can see the um, the the right away Which is ramp which is extended which then becomes part of the entrance to Winthrop street estates.

[Unidentified]: Um JJ next slide, please And one more we already discussed this one

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: Okay. The crosswalk is shown here, which runs from the corner of Lorain Road over to the corner of Winthrop Street Estates where the ADA compliant ramps will be installed. That's something I discussed earlier. So this is the idea behind the project is that the houses will, you know, front door garage facing the street, you know, two, you know, three story, three and a half story. I think the zoning requirements are within 35 feet of the meaning of the roof. Of course, we plan on adhering to all those requirements. I'm open for questions.

[Andre Leroux]: Could you just go back to the mock up that's the straight on into the subdivision? Yeah, that one. Thank you. And can you, given the fact that there's this, the wall, uh, behind a number of the homes, can you just go over what you're doing in terms of safety of fencing behind area.

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: Yes, so at the top of the wall around the perimeter of the site. There is a six foot fence that's running around the entire perimeter of the site. And once you on on both sides of the set of the fence. There's a, there's a slightly sloped area. So two things are happening there one is none of the water from our property is. is, is flowing to the adjacent properties. And at the same time, once you're, you know, if you were to be on either side of the fence, you wouldn't be at risk of falling down the embankment.

[Andre Leroux]: What kind of fences are you planning there?

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: My expectation would be especially around the backside of the property that would be a black chain link.

[Andre Leroux]: Okay, let me open up for comments and questions by board members before we get to members of the public. Any board members want to speak up or should we go to the public?

[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: This is Klaus.

[Andre Leroux]: Okay, thanks Klaus.

[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: Or is Tim McGibbon gonna speak tonight?

[Andre Leroux]: Yeah, thank you actually for reminding me. Let's throw it to Tim before we do that. Tim, so I know the big issues that were in front of the court were the drainage issues. We had asked them for some more information and to address concerns that we had. You've gotten some additional information, had some more conversations with the developer. What's your take on things right now?

[Tim McGivern]: They've actually, since the remand, they've come quite far. even since the review letter from July 9th. They've come quite far, submitted quite an amount of additional information. Right before this meeting, I actually finished going through it all. So they've addressed many of the concerns. I think I'm at the point where just sorting through what conditions come out of my comments for an approval. The big issue, just to give my summary, was the definitive plan was submitted without empirical data to demonstrate that the stormwater could be infiltrated into the ledge beneath the project. And not only that, but their drainage design hinges on that. It's a critical piece of their design. So I recommended denial based off of the lack of that information as well as the completion of the rest of the information as well. The testing was done to appropriate standards, ASTM methods. From what I could tell, everything was done properly, and the capacity of that ledge is very, very high as far as stormwater goes and infiltrated stormwater. So they satisfied that concern that I had. than as far, most of the other things were information that needed to come in. The other sort of utility issue that still needs a little bit of work, but I think we're close, is the fire flows. And it's just, the subdivision control law basically says that the project needs to create a way that has proper infrastructure in it to service the, whatever, the homes and the buildings in the development. So they have an eight-inch cement line duct line pipe that will provide water to the development, the water supply. The proposal is the line in Winthrop Street. That line in Winthrop Street is old. It does have issues with capacity and water quality. So, you know, we did talk about that quite at length. as far as what is the project responsibility, what is the city responsibility there. And, you know, one of the project responsibilities is obviously the meeting fire code. So as Mr. Champion described, the, the, the, the, model that they provided for the flow shows, you know, somewhere in between 980 to 1020 gallons per minute at 20 psi, which is the standard. So, you know, in the last just 48 hours, one of the things that just remains a concern for me is making sure that the code requirement for a building up on this development meets the actual flow rate coming out of the pipe. And that's something you can't really demonstrate until the pipe is actually in the ground and the hydrant is installed. The model shows that it will meet that 1,000 gallons per minute benchmark. And then it becomes a question for the fire prevention team here in Medford as to what code number they're using. I know that there was discussion about having the building sprinkled. That reduces that fire flow code requirement. So, you know that that's still out there but as far as the capacity of the system that they're that they're proposing that is sufficient eight inch line for the way is is sufficient and what they're using materials is sufficient. You know, there has to be some sort of discussion about what's the condition if, you know, if they don't meet code, for whatever reason, if the fire prevention officer wants to see a higher number or whatever, it is their purview. There are things that can be done for the project to sort of remedy that. Like I said, you know, 1,000 gallons per minute is one benchmark that folks talk about. 500 is another. Calculating fire flow and requirements is its own science. The NFPA publishes a book on it and how to do it. So there's dozens of ways to calculate required fire flow. It's what does the fire prevention officer want to see, and then can the project meet that. So it's a concern on the table, but I don't think it's definitely not a showstopper what the project is providing. you know, is appropriate for the size of the development, basically, an eight-inch ductile iron pipe bringing water to the site. So there's that. And then, you know, there's a couple of things that are conditions. I counted about 13 conditions that I would recommend. for this project to the board. And then there was a couple of board opinions that I'm looking to have discussed by the board, three of those. And then there's, I was aware of one waiver, but it looks like there might be a couple of more waivers. And then I'm also requiring plan revisions. So there's about 10 or 11 plan revisions that need to be on a new set of plans. And then there's a provision, and this is the subdivision regs, and it's a process protocol issue as far as the Board of Water and Sewer Commission would need to vote an approval on this project as well. And my understanding of that, reading the regs, would be once I approve the plan, or recommend approval with conditions in this case, then it would go to Board of Water and Sewer Commissions. They would need to vote on it. And my understanding of the regs, I think that has to happen actually before the planning board can vote on approval or approve the documents. So, but I am, you know, I feel much better about this project than I did on September 11, 2019. I think that they've come a long way. And at this point, I'm headed towards the direction of recommending approval with conditions. And I'm in that process now with all this new information compiling those conditions. So I've gone through everything they submitted today. It addresses the vast majority of things. I probably have some clarifying questions here and there. They've come quite a long way in the last few days for sure.

[Andre Leroux]: Okay. And Tim, you said that there were a few things that you wanted board input on in particular. You want to mention those right now?

[Tim McGivern]: Yes, I will. Yep. Let me just give me one second. Board opinion on the right-of-way layout adjacent to lot one. It is my belief that is an improvement over the current conditions. However, as Mr. Champy mentioned, there are two grantees associated with that easement, and so they have to sort of be involved in that conversation. So, also there was talk about improvements to that right-of-way. I know in various letters, Mr. Champey mentioned, you know, paving it. That'd probably be a good discussion point, probably for a condition. You know, there was talk about widening it too, but again, that goes back to the grantees and the fact that it's a 12-foot granted easement. To widen that would have to be some sort of discussion with the grantees. I'm not even sure if they would want that. And I think that comment may have come from the fire department. And that's access to those buildings behind. So, you know, that's fire access to those buildings. So that might need to be fleshed out a little bit. But again, not a showstopper. It's something that could be conditioned if that's pushed. The next one would be comment 5B, board opinion on walking path connection to the high school. I didn't have a strong opinion on this. I know that Walk Medford did. I think it's a good idea. And the gist of it is that if a family moves in here and a child is going to the high school, they have to walk all the way around. and then up the high school hill, whereas this project abuts the high school site. So chances are kids are gonna be walking up the hill and through the woods anyway to get to school. So is there an opportunity to sort of flesh out a path of some sort up to the high school? So that was a board opinion that should be discussed. Again, it's not an engineering thing. That's something that the board should discuss. The next one, one second here. There's a small retaining wall, and this is probably more of a site plan type issue. There's a small retaining wall along Winthrop Street. And Ed can correct me, I think it's probably about four or five feet. It's not huge. And that wall, and they did submit a rendering. That wall has a face that is right up against Winthrop Street right-of-way. So it's something that if you're walking by, driving by, it's something that you see and it's going to be in the public view. My concern and the reason I brought it up is because the board probably doesn't want that to be some sort of a large, heavy block wall that looks ugly. Probably wants to be something that looks pretty nice. It's got a nice facade on it that the community will enjoy. And I believe that was it, those were the opinions that could be discussed by your body.

[Andre Leroux]: Okay, thank you, Tim. You're welcome. Klaus, did you wanna jump in, having heard all that?

[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: I think it's good to hear from Tim and good to hear that they've come a long way on this. I guess I'm just sort of wondering, sounds like Tim, you're in the process of putting together a recommendation with some conditions. I don't know exactly what we're being asked to contemplate today, but I think generally, It sounds like this project's on the right path, finally. But generally, I think I would want to wait to make any kind of decision until Tim is satisfied.

[Andre Leroux]: Right. I think that given the fact that there was a lot of information that arrived just this afternoon, updating and providing data that Tim had been looking for, I don't think there's going to be the opportunity for us to make a definitive decision I think this is a public hearing. and also hear from members of the public about what they're thinking about the project. Two things that I would add to what Tim has talked about is I'd like to hear more about the landscaping plan, and I'd like to also hear more about the blasting plan and mitigation of that.

[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: I did see a comment somewhere in the submission about, and I know there's some work going on with them, right now that potentially the plans that we were seeing weren't necessarily in line with what was being built right now. I don't know exactly how different that may or may not be. And there was, and Tim mentioned this, there was a comment by the fire chief that he liked the right of way to be a little bit wider. I guess I would be interested in understanding maybe from him directly whether, based on the fact that the right of way is legally 12 feet, whether he can live with that dimension.

[Jacqueline McPherson]: And in addition to that, I would definitely want to hear from the grantees themselves that are behind that, that actually have rights to that. The property behind the project, have they put something in writing? How would we know that they're okay with the way the right-of-way is designed?

[Andre Leroux]: Right, Mr. Champion, I think you've indicated at one point that you've had conversations with the grantees and that they see this as an improvement. Is there anything in writing you have to that effect? You're muted right now. Sorry, Ed, you're muted.

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: There we go. Is that better? Yes. Okay, terrific. Shreya is on the call, and I apologize Shreya I can't pronounce your last name. And she's at 553 Winthrop Street, and we've had discussions and I allow her to speak for herself. I'm not sure if the models are on the call which is 555 Winthrop Street. But we, with 555 Winthrop Street, the agreement that we had, and it was, it actually started off in court, and where the waterline for 555 Winthrop Street was traversing across the property. This land was registered land, so there's no adverse possession. We wanted Mr. Amato to move the waterline, and he didn't want to. With that, after going to court and prior to getting to any decisions, but there was some documentation when the information was added to the docket. We sat with the prior solicitor and Mr. Amato and his attorney, and we openly discussed that if our project was approved and Mr. Amato supported it, we would replace his waterline for him. We completed that May 29th of this year. So the waterline, the new waterline was run up the right away from Mr. Amato at no cost to him. So although I haven't got it in writing from his attorney yet, it would be shocking if that did not come to fruition. And I'll let, I don't know if you can see Shreya on the call, but I saw her earlier. I can't see her.

[Jacqueline McPherson]: She's still a participant.

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: Perhaps we can, I don't want to speak for her. I'd prefer that she spoke for herself.

[Andre Leroux]: If you unmute her, could you let us know?

[Nicole Morell]: Yes. Could you repeat her name again?

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: Shreya, S-H-R-E-Y-A, and her last name is spelled B-H-A-T. Don't worry about it.

[Shreya Bhattacharyya]: I unmuted there.

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: Thank you.

[Shreya Bhattacharyya]: Um, yeah, we we did speak, um, Ed and I we spoke once today and once like I think maybe like six months ago when we just moved in. Um, and um, Ed did mention that, you know, the paving of the road and putting the guardrail and the guardrail is going to be maintained by the HOA. But as far as maintenance of the road goes, the right of way, that would be the responsibility of us and 553, right? So we are actually 555 and the motto is 553. It's just the opposite. But yeah, we've had that conversation over the phone, but not so much in writing. And I don't know where 553 stands on this. And then there is another piece of road that goes, like, kind of wraps around our property, so it goes behind. And I think, Ed, you said that you were going to give up right away for that, because that belongs to Mr. Connor, and he does not want that paved at all. But if Mr. Connor agrees to it, then you can put in some gravel and stuff to kind of even it out. So that's the extent of the conversation we've had.

[Andre Leroux]: Thank you, that's very helpful, Tria. Ed, I mean, I think it would be great for us just to be able to, just to make sure all the I's are dotted, T's are crossed, to kind of see all this in writing, make sure that there is a solid agreement there with everybody. That'd be helpful. It looks like you're well on your way.

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: Yes, I believe we're there. I should say well on our way. Yes, I agree.

[Andre Leroux]: Before I open it up to the other members of the public. Are there any major issues that board members want to want to highlight that they'd like to hear more about.

[Jacqueline McPherson]: Not so much to hear more Andre my biggest concern that Tim has already brought up is we need new renderings and I believe places already said that this is a whole new project it sounds like and it seems like sounds like there was plan revisions. So before we can even get to the next step, if we can at least see new renderings.

[Andre Leroux]: of what- Yeah, Mr. Champy.

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: So the only changes to the project have been subterranean.

[Alicia Hunt]: I think perhaps the board would like to see, and perhaps has always wanted to see, what does it actually look like with this 30 or 40 foot wall behind these houses. What does it look like where the property meets another property? We can look at the plans, but to visualize what these very steep grades look like in real life is very difficult. And members of the board, please correct me if I'm misspeaking for you.

[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: I don't intend to. No, Alicia, I think, you know, And Jackie, thank you, and Alicia, thank you, because I'm just remembering now that I had asked for something very much like this the last time we spoke, or the last time we met on this subject. But to me, I think these renderings are nice, but they're artist interpretations. I think what maybe we're more interested in is some sort of graphic that illustrates the impact that this is going to have on not only this little piece of land, but the area around it. And to me, it seems like an aerial view that shows how everything is laid out, where the neighbors are, how the hill works, that kind of thing. And I mean, to me, that's the interesting information that we're, I don't think anybody here can visualize and will only really understand when everything is in place.

[Andre Leroux]: But you're suggesting class something along the lines of a 20 foot above the street view looking at the entire subdivision with butters around it.

[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I mean, I think it would be, I'll leave that up to Mr. Champy, but I don't think anybody here truly understands the impact of what is gonna happen here. Cuz we drive by that road, that hole every day now. And I think if we took a careful look at the drawings, we'd find that the hole is gonna be two to three times bigger than it already is. And I don't think anybody's really getting that. getting how this is going to impact the way that area is going to look. And honestly, you know, and I'm a building professional, so maybe I have a little more ability to see this. I think it's going to look nice, but I think you have to show us.

[Jenny Graham]: I mean, would it make sense if there's like a you know, a floor plan that extends out to, you know, right and left where the other areas may be impacted and you just pick points of perspective views. So you can see like what the abutting house sees and then, you know, where on the right side, I'm sorry, I'm looking at the mock-up view trying to imagine what's on right and left.

[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: I think Christy, the reason that I said, I think, honestly, I think this is on Mr. Champy and the proponent to find a way to illustrate. It's not our job to show him how to show us what he's doing.

[Jenny Graham]: Yeah. No, I'm just saying.

[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: Is it a plan or is it a diagram? Is it a section? All these kinds of drawings would help us understand and get a better feeling for what is being proposed here.

[Andre Leroux]: All right, well, let me open up the public portion of this hearing so that we can hear from some of the neighbors that might be interested in speaking. Annie, can you help me figure out? So if you, again, if you are on the Zoom meeting, you can raise your hand in the participant section. There should be a button, and then there's a little hand button. Again, there's also the email and the phone number that was read a couple of times earlier in the meeting.

[Nicole Morell]: Andre, we have Renata Doros who would like to speak.

[Andre Leroux]: Thank you.

[SPEAKER_10]: Hey, Renata. So it's actually Anthony Duros, Renata's husband, and the resident and owner of 568 Winthrop Street, a bit down the road. Thank you for acknowledging, Mr. Chairman, members of the board, Tim for your review. I'm pleased to see graphics. This is my first time looking at the graphics that have been presented. I've come late to an understanding of this project. I've lived down the street for more than a decade, and what we've seen has been a terraforming, if you will, of what I would call a beautiful landscape prior, reduced to what looks like kind of an abandoned quarry at this stage. So I'm pleased to see that something ultimately in terms of betterment will happen to the property, but we do have concerns. As one of the neighboring properties, one of the concerns has to do with stormwater management and the drainage from, as was stated, basically a 10,000 square foot area across the road. So one question, and I'm pleased to see that there's a stormwater infiltration system that is proposed. The first question is whether that system will be connected to the public drainage system, sewer or sanitary for the area, or is it entirely meant to hold its own runoff?

[Andre Leroux]: Mr. Doros, do you want to go through all of your questions and points and then maybe they can respond all at once?

[SPEAKER_10]: So the questions will proceed based basically on what the answers are, because if they are to be connected to the public system, then I would want to see the detail for how they're to be connected, an understanding as to whether our existing public infrastructure is gravity-fed versus mechanically driven. The main concern being that should there be substantial runoff during a rainwater event, we don't want to see a surge to the adjacent properties because of the distribution system. We don't want flooding in our basements. We don't want to see water coming up through the toilets due to a surge. This is a major change to the area. I'm uncertain as to what the capacity is for the stormwater infiltration system that's proposed, even if it is to be divorced from the public infrastructure. The expectation would be that given the grade, you're gonna see stormwater runoff down that main street there, the 12 foot wide roadway at, I believe what was stated as a 7% grade. So that's the first concern.

[Andre Leroux]: Okay, Mr. Champion, do you wanna respond to that or have one of your team members do that? And then maybe Tim McGivern, if you wanna comment, please feel free.

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: Yes, thank you, Mr. Chair. Wayne Kiefner, who's on the call from DCI, designed the stormwater system. So I'll ask Wayne to come.

[SPEAKER_05]: Can you hear me?

[Andre Leroux]: And he will unmute him. Just let us know. You should be unmuted now.

[SPEAKER_05]: Yep. Can you hear me OK?

[Andre Leroux]: Yes.

[SPEAKER_05]: OK, perfect. So the system is not connected to the municipal system. It is sized, I believe, to hold the entirety of a 100-year storm.

[SPEAKER_10]: Do you know that capacity?

[SPEAKER_05]: Not off the top of my head, I do not. There are two catch basins right at the property line of where the new road connects with Winthrop Street. So there'll be no runoff from the new road that goes into Winthrop Street because it's intercepted by those catch basins, which then go to a particle separator for treatment and then into the subsurface system.

[SPEAKER_10]: Quick question about the subsurface system, if you're ready.

[SPEAKER_05]: Sure.

[SPEAKER_10]: So I heard that it was stated that the ledge or the rock formation does have capacity. What does that mean? So the thought being, we know that there is a groundwater table. There may or may not be fissures within the rock. And is that what you're going to use for some capacity? I don't understand.

[SPEAKER_05]: I think what was meant by that, and Frank, the geotech, can certainly explain this better than I can. But normally, when we design systems, there's an infiltration rate that is associated with certain soil types. That could range from 1 to, just to use numbers, 1 to 10. I want to say that out here, that number is probably closer to 50, just to give you a sense of scale. in my understanding is there's a large amount of fissures in the ledge that allow that really high infiltration rate. But Frank is better to answer than I can.

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: Mr. Chair, and I'm not sure, Annie, if you can see Frank Leathers, is he on the call?

[Andre Leroux]: Yes, I can see him. Annie, do you see him? F. Leathers is the name.

[SPEAKER_27]: Yes, this is Frank. The basic design of the system is to provide capacity to temporarily hold and then infiltrate into the ground, in this case into the ledge, the runoff from the street. The testing we did out there, demonstrated that the rock is moderately fractured and has capacity to infiltrate substantial quantities of water. When we did the test, we were basically able, the rock was able to take water as fast as we could put it in. So we are based on the criteria in the Massachusetts stormwater manual. We exceed the minimum requirements substantially and are not expecting there to be any up to the design storm, any overflow, if you will, from the system, that the ground is able to take the flow in accordance with the mass stormwater regulations.

[SPEAKER_10]: The two catch basins that are mentioned at the base of the road, the side street where it meets Winthrop Street, are those to be connected to the stormwater drainage system, which is public?

[SPEAKER_27]: I believe they're connected to this on-site stormwater.

[SPEAKER_10]: Okay, so they connect back to behind the house on lot 10?

[SPEAKER_27]: I believe so.

[Andre Leroux]: Mr. Wayne Keefer is nodding his head yes.

[SPEAKER_10]: Okay. elevation of the stormwater infiltration, I'll call it storage, behind the house on lot 10. If that's a high elevation, how is that going to be expected to retain any or capture any water that's introduced at those catch basins? I'm wondering, is it buried awful deep?

[SPEAKER_27]: Well, This is Frank Leathers again. Yes, the bottom of the stormwater infiltration system is above the groundwater level by the minimum amount required by the Massachusetts regulations. And far enough below the level of Winthrop Street and the sidewalk, so that when the water comes down the new road gets to those catch basins, drops into the catch basins, and then flows through an appropriately pitched pipe to the stormwater infiltration system. In other words, the levels all work together. That's been part of the design of the system.

[SPEAKER_10]: I see, thank you. The first fellow couldn't answer as to the capacity of that system. Do you know that number?

[SPEAKER_27]: I don't know it as I sit here today. I do know that the quantity and the capacity of the system has been designed to meet the Massachusetts stormwater requirements. I don't know that number.

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: Excuse me, Mr. Chair.

[SPEAKER_27]: Yes, Mr. Chairman.

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: I believe Tim McGivern is looking it up right now.

[Unidentified]: Ed, you're good. I am.

[SPEAKER_10]: Thanks, guys.

[Tim McGivern]: We've got 400. Let's see. No, no, no, no. You guys keep talking.

[SPEAKER_10]: It'll take me a second. And I guess the follow-up question would be, are any modifications proposed to the existing area public sanitary or stormwater infrastructure, backflow devices, backflow preventer devices, check valves, other kinds of mechanical protection for the neighbors?

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: Well, so there are none planned because normally if you were going to put a backflow in, from my experience, you would put it at the entrance to a house. So if the sewerage is flowing downhill in the street and we put a backflow preventer in, it would prevent the backflow up the subdivision, but it wouldn't prevent the flow anywhere else. So if a neighbor was concerned about flow coming back up into their house, the backflow preventer would go, usually on a house, it would go internally at the house.

[SPEAKER_10]: Right, true. But I don't know if other devices exist to prevent flow, like a check valve, counter what's intended, counter flow to what's intended.

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: I know this is a gravity system and a pressurized system, there would be check valves all over the place, but this is gravity, sir, I don't know. I think Tim is raising his hand.

[Tim McGivern]: Yeah, I get an answer. Tim, over to you. It's approximately 4,800 cubic feet. So 40 cubic feet. And then I, and, and some I should mention too is so because this particular system, Tony, uh, is able to take on so much water. And I witnessed the test, uh, the groundwater level stayed level. Um, the, the ground, the ledge just took, took on water. Uh, the first test that they did, that was about 125 feet away, demonstrated the same thing. That was a little bit more rough around the edges. The, the, it wasn't an ASTM test or anything. the second round of testing was. So very high infiltration rates. So that 4,800 cubic feet is probably going to remain empty most of the time. And just to mention, so like for example, there's a huge reduction of the volume of water entering the public system. I'm just going to pick one storm, the 25-year storm. At the precondition levels, the site before development, 4,988 cubic feet of water entering the system. The proposed development with the systems that they have in place, 2,368 cubic feet. So they're actually reducing the amount of volume of water and amount of water entering the public system than the site today. So that's something that we look for. If it's increased, then that's a problem. If it's the same, sometimes that can be seen as a problem, too, especially if there's issues with the public system. So this is seen as a significant improvement. to the existing conditions in regards to stormwater rate and stormwater volume.

[SPEAKER_10]: Thank you, Tim. I appreciate that. And if you're comfortable with it, then I'm comfortable as well. I have only two things that I'll offer as potential things to look at. Number one, the size of the catch basins and the size of the lines feeding back into that stormwater infiltration unit, and perhaps upgrading those. Secondly, If the stormwater infiltration unit does at some point fully charge and it's monitored, so it should be monitored, if it fully charges and then doesn't dissipate as intended into the rock formation, then accommodation should be made for it to be pumped out in future. So the thought being that should be part of the original design and it probably already is, but I figured I'd, I'd raise it as something to think about. Yep.

[Tim McGivern]: I come back quickly. That was a concern I had as well, Tony, early on. with accessing the system because of the depth. So I was very concerned about the city taking this on from a maintenance standpoint and doing things like that, like if it gets clogged, pumping it out and providing that maintenance. So that was a concern. And since then, it's going to be on a, and I have the document here, a regular maintenance schedule with the HOA. So, in the conditions, I'm probably going to recommend some sort of annual submission of maintenance logs to the city, something like that, so a record can be kept because it is significant and it is, Just so you know, too, there is an overflow connected to the city system. So one of the stormwater standards that has to be met is what happens to water in a catastrophic event, and where does that water go? So you look at huge amounts of rainfall, and where does that water go? And to a reasonable extent, if this system were to fill up, it would go into the city system. Catastrophic event, the city system is probably full already. and then it starts running down the street. But we're in a lot of trouble if something like that happens.

[Andre Leroux]: Thank you, Mr. Duros, for your comments and questions. Are there other comments, Annie, that we have? People have raised their hands.

[Nicole Morell]: Yes, I'm going to unmute Peter now.

[SPEAKER_09]: Just a quick question. I live on Lorain. And over the years, I've heard something about an underground water travel way or something that goes between Smith Lane and parts of Lorain. Is that still in effect still there? And how will that be affected if that's still running underneath all these houses? Will all that stormwater get caught up with that, I guess is my question.

[Nicole Morell]: Peter, can I ask you to state your name and address for the record as well?

[SPEAKER_09]: Sure, my name is Peter, my last name is Moisan, and it's 7 Lorraine Road. And like I said, I've been hearing about underwater, like underwater travel way in our area. And I'm just wondering if that stormwater, if that ever gets into that, well, that starts seeping into my basement or my neighbor's basements or down the line.

[Andre Leroux]: Mr. Champy, you or your team know anything about that?

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: Um, so so I I have heard that there's there's that there's been some undermining of foundations on Lorraine Road due to due to water. Um, that's that's. You know, without being overly critical, it's got more to do with who built the houses than it than it and the water table may have been rising over time, you know, so it could be no one's fault if the water table wasn't there and it's and it's gone up six inches since. However, um, I don't have the I don't know. Frank Leathers. Frank, can you. You know, I don't think we're not, the water is not flowing across the street from our site. It's, it's, it's flowing back into the water table and I would, but I really don't know how to answer the question unless Frank or someone has more to add.

[SPEAKER_27]: Well, this, this is Frank. Yes. Um, I'm, I have not heard before of, of so-called, um, underground groundwater flow paths or channels, uh, in that area, but I think the more important piece of information is that the stormwater infiltration system is intended and designed to intercept the increase in rate of flow coming from the site and to put that into a detention underground buried detention vault, maybe you would call it, and then infiltrate that into the ground, into the groundwater at a rate that is controlled. And so I'm not expecting that over time, this development to have any impact on the groundwater level in the area.

[Andre Leroux]: Tim, I don't know if you heard Peter's question or want to comment on it.

[Tim McGivern]: I did. I'm familiar. I've heard things. I know that there are some records. The groundwater level at this site is probably about, I don't know the exact, maybe, I don't know if you guys know, 10, 12 feet below about the road elevation, something like that. Not exactly.

[SPEAKER_27]: No, Tim, I think it's a little less than that. I think it's about seven or eight feet below the road surface.

[Tim McGivern]: Right. Yeah. So we're talking about putting water, there probably will be some sort of groundwater mound after a storm with the system. That mound is going to dissipate incredibly quickly because of the permeability of the underlying ledge. So imagine a rainstorm, it rains, it goes into the system. It is going to create a groundwater mound. In other words, locally raise the level of the groundwater for a few minutes. I don't know exactly what time it would be, but then that would eventually dissipate and the groundwater level would be back. Across the street, the groundwater level is going to stay the same. So it's sort of like adding a glass of water to the ocean. So the groundwater level is not really going to change across the street based off of my understanding of the system and just general knowledge about the hydrology of this sort of thing. So I mean, I understand the concerns. I've heard about them before. I also believe that this project wouldn't exacerbate those. Again, for the real reason that they've demonstrated that there's a very high permeability rate of that ledge underneath. So groundwater is moving pretty quickly through there. And usually, groundwater flows involve a whole study of their own. to try to determine what that problem is. So there wouldn't be any way for anybody at this meeting to know really why that's happening, what the cause of it is, if it's groundwater, without doing a full groundwater study. And that wouldn't be under the purview of this project or this board. Thanks, Tim.

[Andre Leroux]: Yeah. Other questions, Annie? People who have their hand raised?

[Nicole Morell]: Len?

[Andre Leroux]: Again, Len, state your name and address, please, for the record. Can you hear me? Yes, we can. Thank you.

[SPEAKER_06]: My name is Len Levin. I don't live anywhere near this development, but I have recently been involved in a development close to where I live, over on Clark Street, dealing with the same kind of issue, which is a water retention system. And so my question is, in general, to provide my experience and ask is, So who's responsible for this in the case that it fails? Is these 10 homeowners gonna eventually be responsible if this thing fails? It can be designed, I'm an engineer, it can be designed the best it can. But we know, we know. So who's responsible for this if it fails?

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: Mr. Chair, in the event that the system fails, it is the homeowners association responsibility to repair it or replace it. Mr. Levine, being an electrical engineer by trade, and I left that career 25 years ago, The tolerances for the stormwater system and its capacity is substantially larger than the expectation of water flowing through it. It's not an engineering problem where you have an extra 10% capacity. The flow rate and the infiltration rates that we witnessed during the tests, they were so fast it was hard to measure. and using standards that didn't even reach the capacity that we're reaching to do the calculations was the way we came up with it. So we couldn't even find it. We were infiltrating faster than any standard that we could use in the calculations. So you're looking at a system that's got substantially more capacity. We don't know the limits of it, but we know it far exceeds what we need.

[Andre Leroux]: Thank you. Annie, do we need the street address, Mr. Levine? Or did you get that?

[Nicole Morell]: That would be great. Let me unmute you again, Mr. Libby. Your street address, please.

[SPEAKER_06]: I live on Clark Street, which is nowhere near this. But again, Annie may know who I am. We dealt with these same kind of issues on a subdivision behind our property, and the same kind of issues. And so I don't disagree that you can design something as best you can. All I was asking is that You have to, as the old saying, you prepare for the worst and hope for the best. And you can design until the cows come home. But that doesn't help you when it fails. And as we know in life, everything has the possibility to fail. So that's all. Thanks a lot. Thank you.

[Andre Leroux]: I think Shreya raised her hand. Andre, we have a few.

[Nicole Morell]: Yeah. OK. No, go ahead.

[Andre Leroux]: No, why don't you call on them? That's easier.

[Shreya Bhattacharyya]: Yeah, that works. That's perfect. Thank you. I had one last question, and this was regarding the pyrotechnics. And I believe, Mr. Leathers, you mentioned how there are fissures in the bedrock. So has there been any calculations done to show the rate of propagation of the fissures if you're blasting? Because, Ed, you talked about 60 days of blasting. So how will it accelerate these fissures, and will it propagate to, for example, our bedrock, the ones that were on the hill? And forgive me, my background is not in construction. So I might not be using the right terms, but the house is settling from cracks and fissures in the bedrock. Would that be a possibility? So that's, I think, one of our concerns.

[SPEAKER_27]: Well, first off, Yes, that's a very important and appropriate concern. I don't think it's based on both experience and engineering design that the effect of the blasting would propagate as far as your house or your property. Basically what we are planning to do is do what we call line drilling, very closely spaced holes along the perimeter of the excavation that was shown in an earlier discussion where that rock wall, rock face excavation is going to be made. And those closely spaced holes do two things. They create a more, a smoother, uh, rock face in the excavation. Uh, but they also tend to, um, intercept the energy from the blasting on the site and, and keep it from propagating, um, outside the site. Uh, typically we space drill holes on the order of, of, uh, five to eight feet. on center because that's about as far as the blasting is able to impact the rock and break it up. So I think the distance you are away, there won't be impact on the fracturing in the rock and therefore the potential for settlement or any other deformation of the rock. We will be having strict requirements about vibrations. That's usually the impact on adjacent properties that's of concern. And there'll be very strict requirements for both controlling the size of the blast and the vibrations that are caused by the blast and requirements for monitoring at adjacent properties. during the blasting.

[Unidentified]: Thank you.

[Andre Leroux]: Thank you.

[Nicole Morell]: Annie, do we have others? We have some comments that have come in via email and phone, so I'm going to turn it over to Ali to read those into the record. great.

[SPEAKER_29]: Yes. Thank you, Annie. I'll start with a comment received by phone from Claudia Rocco Budo at two Lorraine Road. She asked about what traffic calming measures would be initiated for the crosswalk area near this project. She suggested lights like on high street near the school and her concern being that living on Lorraine Road, she walks a lot and sees that traffic is still very fast, is very fast in this area and so has safety concerns.

[Andre Leroux]: Mr. Champy, do you want to address that issue at all? You're muted.

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: My bad, thank you. Currently, the plan is, you know, the crosswalk. And there's also, I think there's a bus station right near that. So, you know, the expectation is that the crosswalk, while waiting at the crosswalk, will give the pedestrian a chance to have traffic see them and stop.

[Andre Leroux]: Tim, does the city have any plans in that area?

[Unidentified]: You're muted. Tim, you're muted, sorry.

[Tim McGivern]: Yeah, we do. We're re-striping the whole corridor. We requested that the project improve the geometry of this spot, which there are multiple intersections, so Lorraine Road being one of them, obviously, Winthrop Estates, whatever the road ends up being named, then the existing right-of-way. So, you know, we recommended some changes in geometry. One was to get that right-of-way off of Winthrop Street. bring it to the smaller road, the new road, tighten up the radius on Lorain Road, put a stop sign on Lorain Road, and then have a pedestrian crossing from the Lorain Road to the, you know, as you can see on the plan, close to the other side of the road, basically, one of the ones from the states is. So, but there are other improvements that the city's working on, some sidewalk improvements in this vicinity, and then, like I said, the re-striping, of the whole Winthrop Street corridor. So these 10 units didn't warrant further mitigation. It was really the geometry and the movements of vehicles that we saw as needed some improvements, which is why we asked for those ones. Thank you, Tim.

[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: Tim, can I just follow up on that, Andrew?

[Tim McGivern]: Yes, please.

[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: I made a comment before about there was I think I saw something in the report about your report about the new alignment of the road and is that what you just talked about or is it something else?

[Tim McGivern]: Yeah, that's one of them. So the original plan had the road a little bit more askew to Lorraine. Ideally, you want roads to line up as best you can. So I figure what the original number was is probably 20 feet, but now it's down to 10 feet, which is acceptable. So the two center lines lining up, that's within regulation and appropriate. But the existing condition, With that right-of-way, which is a terrible turning angle, and then Lorraine, and then if you were to add a new street right there, you're creating a whole host of conflicts just based off of the geometry of the curbing and how vehicles move. So with the proposal now, it's significantly improved. So could something be added traffic calming wise? You know, certainly so the city's always we're always looking at what intersections and what crosswalks warrant some sort of light or some sort of actuator or Right now we're trying to identify crosswalks for Pedestrian warning bollards things like that. So those aren't in this particular proposal

[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: And can I ask one follow-up on that? Is there parking along this stretch? And we may have talked about this previously, but I forgot. On Winthrop.

[Tim McGivern]: Yeah, there is. Yeah. So there is. Along this stretch of Winthrop, yeah. The answer is yes.

[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: I think it would be incredibly helpful to understand Especially with like these cars coming off of this new road like pulling out potentially a Left turn across you know across a lane of traffic on Winthrop understanding like where You know like what the sight lines are for cars, I mean typically this is done by traffic engineers Yeah, there was um

[Tim McGivern]: And Ed, you remind me, it's been a while. The original traffic study did discuss this and we did review it, sight lines and how it was gonna work. So that was reviewed and we did discuss it and that was- And the traffic study is updated to the latest geometry? No, because the traffic study is not necessarily concerned with the safety of the movements themselves. It's more the numbers and the impacts with the numbers.

[SPEAKER_27]: This is this is Frank and I am not a traffic engineer, but I recall that that side of Winthrop street is posted for no parking. Because whenever we're out there at the site. We park on the other side of the street on the gas station side of the street.

[Tim McGivern]: Yeah, I'm trying to confirm that Frank you are right in general parking there it's limited in some spots. Right. I'm trying to figure out exactly where it is limited.

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: Right. Even if it was allowed you'd have a lot of guts to park on that street and get out of your car on that side.

[Andre Leroux]: Annie or Allie, are there other comments that you would like to read from the public?

[SPEAKER_29]: Yes, I have a couple. I have another phone comment from Joe Bruno at 11 Franklin Ave. And he wanted to know if there was a plan potentially for an exterminator because blasting and digging activity can disturb and stir up rodents. And so he wanted to know if there was a plan to address that.

[Andre Leroux]: Yes, Mr. Champy.

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: Mr. Chair, members of the board, yes, we have a rodent control plan. Actually, it's in place now and the traps abated regularly.

[Andre Leroux]: Thank you.

[SPEAKER_29]: Okay, I have a couple more that came in from email. One comment from Jeff Oppenheimer, who is at 29 Wildwood Road, and he wanted to, he said, from what I understand, Waypoint will build a few models, and then it will be up to other individuals to design and build the homes. Where does the responsibility lie regarding the design of the other homes? the renderings are just a possibility and not actually how the houses will look.

[Andre Leroux]: Okay, Mr. Champy.

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: He is correct. The zoning will be the zoning itself is what's going to demand. Now we have, and we've done it in the past, we have some oversight as developers. But as long as it's architecturally within something that we don't think will hurt the value of the project, we would let a homeowner design their own structure.

[Andre Leroux]: Are you going to be designing and building any of them?

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: Yes, we believe we're gonna, you know, I think if we don't build, our expectation is we are at least two, maybe four. We could build all 10 in one year if the demand is there. So selling lots is the, we recapture less expenses selling lots. So we're motivated to actually build the houses and sell them as a complete structure. it's better for us if we build the houses. We have some we've had. We've been asked this. I think there's like three particular, uh, neighbors who are already asking about which last they can try and buy. So not not director butters. Not anybody that's talked today, but it's come up a couple of times.

[Tim McGivern]: Yeah, Tim. Just to correct the record, so Frank is right, Ms. Leathers is right, there's no parking along the stretch that the development is on. The other side is a little bit unclear. I think some people probably parked there, but it is not necessarily, there's probably some posted signage up and down the street. And I know that we wanted to restripe the bike lane on the north side of Winthrop Street at some point too, which means no parking there too. So just to clear the record, go on, thanks.

[Andre Leroux]: Allie, is there other comments?

[SPEAKER_29]: Yep. I've got a comment from Heather Davidson at 29 Wildwood Road, and she actually has a couple questions. I guess I can read them all and then let me know if you need me to read others out again. Her email says, I'm not sure if these are appropriate for this group, but these are the questions we currently have as residents who live very near this development. One pedestrian safety is already a major concern in this area. Without the extra traffic from 10 new homes and a new roadway. Sidewalks with a curb are desperately needed here, and the proposed crosswalk location is in an area where drivers coming from the playstate end are coming out of a curb. How is the crosswalk location determined? What else can be done to keep pedestrians safe on both sides of Winthrop Street? Two, what is the proposed blasting plan? Three, there are many houses just outside of the 300 foot abutter line. What can be done to survey and ensure that blasting will not damage those homes? Can smaller blasts be mandated even if it makes them a bit more frequent? Four, what does the developer propose for the street facing wall? What is the landscaping approach? Five, how do the grantees indicate they are okay with this plan? And six, how will the developer support the care and preservation of the fells in an ongoing way?

[Andre Leroux]: Champy, did you get all that?

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: I did, I did. Thank you. I think I did. So I have to be honest, I don't recall how, why the crosswalk, it wasn't me who picked where the crosswalk was. I think it was near the bus stop. Tim's raising his hand. He may know better on that.

[Andre Leroux]: Yeah, no, I know that in the previous board discussions on this project, we, you know, discussed the alignment and wanted to make sure that Lorain Road was that, you know, the exit to Winthrop Estates was aligned with Lorain Road as much as possible. So you didn't have multiple intersections.

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: Okay, um And what we've done on our what we what we'd like to do is and it was we did it via the guidance of the dpw the last time When we were we're preparing some work was to set up barriers on the far side of the street with an extra additional pedestrian walkway, which is between lorraine road and um and the gas station and um At that time there was no gravel or asphalt put down for a temporary walking space So our intent would be to create additional walking space on that side, which I think it'll certainly help in the short term. And what happens in the long term, I'd have to look at what the plan is when not only do they restripe Winthrop Street, but I'm assuming after the trenching that went on that someone's going to pave it as well. And I'll leave that to Tim. Um the the blast and survey what we've been telling neighbors and and um is to we've been putting neighbors on a list Um the last time we did blasting we had a couple of neighbors ask us and we had additional surveys done So if people are concerned we'd ask that they get on the list and we'll survey the additional houses We haven't had anybody ask us to survey a house. That's a quarter mile away But everything's been reasonable thus far and any reasonable request will certainly take care of um Smaller blasting. We've talked to the blasting company. It's main drilling and blasting, you know, 400 rigs. I don't know how many employees, you know, five, 600 employees. And we talked about doing a tighter pattern or a smaller blasting. Instead of doing one a day, the original plan was 75% of the time we'd have one blast per day. And that after that, and the other 25% would be two blasts per day. So we're comfortable with having more blasts and having them be smaller. And with that, we've also talked to neighbors about trying to pick particular times to do the blasting. Knowing that, for instance, like we're doing a Zoom call right now and I had to beg my kids to be quiet. Um, I'd imagine the neighbors are going to want us to be blasting a specific time so that You know, um, for instance with with with sharia, you know, she's she's lecturing online and our goal isn't to be blasting while she's in the middle of a lecture uh, so, uh, we'd ask that that um, Whether it's us giving out our information or or or the planning department giving out our information JJ Lericia, the project architect, excuse me, project engineer in our office will update and send people out. What we've been doing lately is when we're having, we've been taking out our butters list and sending out flyers through the mail every time we're going to be on site, knowing that everybody's wondering what's going on. So I'd say the past four or five or six, maybe five or six times that we've been out there, we've given notice and we've offered our email address and phone number. We've only gotten two people that have gone on the email list Um, so that's why we continue to do their flyers because we don't have that many email addresses as of now We probably have 10 because we had a neighborhood meeting, uh two nights ago And we gathered six or seven more email addresses from that meeting So that's the smaller blast regarding the walls. Um Yeah, we're on the the wall that tim talked about which is the runs parallel to Winthrop street you know, our intent is that we want the wall to look good too. So it's four or five feet high. And I think using a smaller block makes a lot of sense. We've used ready rock larger concrete wall block in the past, but we don't think it's appropriate either. So Michael Radner has a whole list of things from tonight. So I'm not gonna torture him to, I think he's gonna submit some drawings that will show a lot more architecture. on the landscaping, and I think that that can be part of it. With regard to the grantees, we totally agree, as we discussed earlier. The preservation of the fells. The land to the right of us is 525 Winthrop Street, and our land reaches back up to the fence for the high school fields. So I don't believe the fells doesn't reach behind us from what I understand.

[Andre Leroux]: Thank you. Ali, do you have other comments or questions?

[SPEAKER_29]: from the public? I have a comment submitted by Jayaram Srivallasan, and they are at 1 Lorraine Road. The comment is, I bought this property about a month ago. My home was built in the 1930s, and I am concerned for the stability of my home and specifically the impact of blasting on the foundation of my home as well as others in the area. I'd like to know what plans are in place to mitigate these risks.

[Andre Leroux]: Oh, and Mr. Champy, one question based on the last comment that I wanted to mention. Do you want to give an email address right now, since we have over 60 people here, and maybe if they could email you directly, and then you could build your email list? Might be a good way of doing it.

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: That sounds great. And I'm going to include JJ's as well. So my email address is Echampy, that's E-C-H-A-M-P-Y at waypointcompanies.com. It's one word. It's W-A-Y-P-O-I-N-T-C-O-M-P-A-N-I-E-S.com. And JJ's email address is J-L-A-R-I-C-C-I-A at waypointcompanies.com. And people are welcome to call, too, if they want.

[Andre Leroux]: Great. And then, you know, if you want to respond to this recent question about from one Lorraine Road on about the foundation concern.

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: Yes, please. Um, so I guess you know the early on blasting, which, um. gave us the ability to do the infiltration testing is probably the closest blasting to their house. So the good news is that they've been as close as they're gonna get, and I'm assuming they had a home inspection and they bought the home. So I think that's the proof's in the pudding, so to speak. And then secondly is, there will be a pre blast survey. There's certainly going to be on it where they're located. And we won't be doing any blasting without the pre blast surveys done. We were asked by one person at one time, they said, Well, geez, you know, us having to sue you to, to have something fixed, because it gets damaged during the blasting the blasting survey doesn't, they didn't feel it helped that much. And what I explained was, is the blasting survey is insurance. It's not It's not me doing it, it's we're buying insurance and the insurance company is doing it. So it's third party and they're not gonna have to sue us if there's a damage. We've never had in the times I've been drilling and blasting, I've only done about seven sites, but we've never had a claim. And I think that if main drilling and blasting was damaging houses, they wouldn't be able to get the insurance.

[Andre Leroux]: I do think it would be great, given all the comments that we've heard, Ed, and I know our own concerns on the board would be to have a written lasting plan that we could review.

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: We do have one, yes.

[Andre Leroux]: Okay.

[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: Andre, can I say one more thing? Yes. Sorry to circle back on another comment. On our project over by Davis Square that we've been reviewing over the past couple of... think if I'm remembering correctly, we did add a flashing crossing signal to that project, which I'm sort of maybe would like to ask Tim his opinion on that because it feels like it might be a good solution here to do some traffic calming, but would certainly want his opinion.

[Tim McGivern]: I think that any crossing that If the board feels like that should be looked at, I think we can look at that. We have a traffic folks can take a look to see if it's warranted. That would be the only thing. If the board wanted to talk to the proponent about that, then I'd want to make sure that my office looked at it. It's probably OK, like some sort of like an actuator signal, something like that. Those don't usually hurt.

[Andre Leroux]: If your office could take a look, Tim, at that and see, you know, check out the feasibility and desirability of it and come back to us with a recommendation, that would be great.

[Tim McGivern]: Yeah. Yeah. I think we didn't originally have anything like that because we were primarily concerned with the geometry of that whole area. So, but again, I mean, if that's something that the board wants to pursue, I don't see any issues with it. We would just want to check the box to make sure that we sort of took a look at it and make sure it wasn't going to cause any impacts that we're not thinking about right now. That's all.

[Andre Leroux]: Thanks, Tim. Yep. Ali, over to you again.

[SPEAKER_29]: Yes, one more. This is the last comment that I have right now, but it's got a couple of questions involved as well. So this is from Robert at 572 Winthrop Street. And the questions are, one, this development will change the landscape on Winthrop Street and all the surrounding neighbors. Why should the neighborhood be changed so drastically? Two, the neighbors are concerned that this development will stick out. Three, blasting is unacceptable for the neighborhood, 30 to 90 days. Four, where is the open space in this project? Five, obviously if they are cramming 10 homes, that means more cars, more traffic, and more taxing on the infrastructure. Six, is there pest control for the area? Seven, what is the developer doing for the neighborhood? Eight, we would like to see a maximum of four homes. Nine, during the, and this is the final question, number nine, during the last blasting, it did affect my home heating system. What are they going to do to prevent damage?

[Andre Leroux]: Well, let me just say a couple questions before turning it over to Mr. Champy again. You know, we on the community development board in reviewing subdivision proposals, we are limited by the bounds of state law. And, you know, as long as a developer comes in with a proposal that meets the zoning requirements and, you know, all of the kind of safety and infrastructure requirements, supports for that project, then that's something that we must approve. So just to keep that in mind, we can't arbitrarily tell them to do four homes instead of 10 homes if the zoning allows 10. So Mr. Champion, I don't know, maybe that last question is one that is most.

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: Yes, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Um, again on the blasting, um, the pre blast survey and the post, um. I would say that, you know, Robert has to have gotten a flyer from us once over the past 6 years. Just call us our phone numbers on our emails on it. My number is 617. 2014780 text me. Call me trying to, you know, within reasonable hours and. We'll talk to him, we'll come by and we'll help if we can. We're not so hung up on rules that if he needed a boiler fixed and there was any chance at all that we had something to do with it, we would fix it. We've been to houses where they blamed us for cracks in foundations and we saw weeds growing out of them. So there are times when we're asked to look at things that are a little far-fetched, but In this case, my suggestion, Robert, will you just reach out to us? We're easily accessible. I don't think there's any neighbor that's ever tried to contact us that can say that we didn't return their call or email. So we ask that they just come on over, say hello.

[Andre Leroux]: All right, so I think that would be, for the person who submitted those questions, I think that would be the first step to go. If you're not kind of satisfied about the responsiveness, you can always contact the city's office of community development, and they can help liaise with the developer. Any other other members of the public with their hands raised?

[Nicole Morell]: Yes. Peter, I believe, already spoke, so I'm going to go to Lev now.

[Andre Leroux]: OK, Mr. Patel, you're unmuted right now.

[SPEAKER_04]: Good evening, everyone. My name is Love Patel. I live at 536 Winthrop Street. My main concern is again about the blasting. But I do want to say like, you know, this is this is a great project. And I, I would love to see the homes come in and you know, whatever you've done the planning, you've already done it. You've done your homework, you've made the plots and everything looks great. And I do want to see it done as soon as possible, just because every time you drive by, it just looks like a big ditch. And it's just, it doesn't look great in the community. So either way, if you're going to do it, let's get it done. If you're not, let's, you know, put a stop to it. My biggest concern is with the blasting. So when the pre blasting did happen, it did affect my house. It did cause water to come into my house ever since any sort of rain or any storm comes in. When I did have one of your fellow colleagues, I'm not really sure who it was because I was not home personally, but my parents were. We did invite them into our house and to have them evaluate it. Now, when they did come in, my parents, again, translated for me because I was not there personally. They came in and they started recording into the house and started saying, there's already a free crack here. There's a crack there when, you know, when we're looking at it or bear eyes and you can, you're more than welcome to come in. And I'm more than happy to show you where they were recording and saying that there's a crack there when there's no crack to be seen where the water is coming in from the complete opposite side. So again, I have no problem. Do your work, but just do it safely. So no one's affected by it.

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: Thank you.

[SPEAKER_04]: Thank you.

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: So you have my reach out to me. The surveys are done by a third party, so I don't know who the person was that did it, but we'd be happy to come over and take a look.

[SPEAKER_04]: Sure. I have your email as well as your phone number, so I'll reach out.

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: Yeah, feel free. As far as the build soon goes, and this is not touting who or what we are, but our ability to build the project is is, we absolutely have the ability to build this project. From a size perspective, it would probably be, it's one of the smallest projects we have on our, on our pipeline. So, generally buildings that we're building are between 75 and probably between 45 and 100 units. And I don't see this being a challenge at all. for getting through the approval process is one process, but the build process for us won't be overly difficult and it won't be a financial strain.

[Unidentified]: Thank you. Thank you, both of you. Christopher Donovan. Hi, can you hear me? Yes, we can, sir. Oh, no, you're just muted yourself, I think.

[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_22]: There you go. Hi, my name is Chris Donovan from 4 Lorraine Road. And just for the board members that are new to the Community Development Board, we were in front of this body last year, and it helped us to lead a charge to push back on this project. We thought it was too much. We thought it was a hostile developer. The plans were too big. We were concerned. We haven't seen really good effort from them in the past to do beautification and make our neighborhood look nice. waiting and waiting. And only recently with these new plans that come out and an opportunity to speak with Ed directly, we had a little neighborhood meeting and we're ready to push back. And there's a lot of people who are on cable TV and I've spoken to that want to push back and they want to minimize it, they want it stopped. But speaking with Ed, and we stopped it last year, but stopping it created what we have now, which is the hole in the ground. So we wanted to push back and and try and get some beautification and turn our neighborhood into what we, you know, we want we want it want to be beautiful and safe. And you've heard some of those comments and there's a lot of neighbors who asking the same questions because we're nervous, but the meeting that we had with Ed opened up a great communication for the neighborhood. and we feel like we have communication now and we're going to see new benefits from this. We didn't like where the original road was, the city pushed back, there's some very intelligent professionals involved now. looking at the neighborhood issues where we felt unrepresented before. And this meeting with Ed, it opened up a whole new door for us to have the mediation that we were looking for. So he was very open to some of the things that I wanted to describe and was told to maybe get it on. on paper, and Ed, as you can see, just keeps opening himself up for, what can I do? We haven't really seen that in the past. It seemed like, again, a hostile developer come in, and we didn't have the communication. It doesn't look good. There's no expectation of what's coming. So I was deterred in the punch bowl. I didn't want the project. Neighbors don't want the project. They're terrified of the of the blasting, which is still a major issue. So Frank, we'd love to speak with you more. But Ed has opened up a communication dialogue that we love, that we love. Again, people are still concerned. It's our biggest investment. It's our sanctuary. We're conflicted. Houses are fine now. What happens afterwards? City infrastructure. our own foundations, size and scale, but little by little Ed picked off the different problems that we were addressing. One of them keeping some of the trucks off Lorraine Road. maybe off Winthrop Street, because it just causes traffic jams. The gas station has really created a different environment in this neighborhood in the last year, and it impacts this new project, but they're separate issues, but we need the communication. And I spoke with Tim McGivern earlier, I spoke to Todd, and it sounds like they're in compliance. We wanna push back, we don't really want it this big, but it's zoning. Libertarian they can do what they want on their property, you know, the neighbors want to speak the neighbors want to talk about this. So we're given this communication with Ed right now sounds like the plans are a little bit more succinct or Tim, you know, looking over for us looking out for us. We're counting on him. We're counting on this board. It may be the last time you deal with it. Maybe not. It looks like it may continue. But I want to cut to the chase and say, support this project. I was the one that wanted to squash it. But I think at this point, the neighborhood, and I can only speak for some or speak for myself, that we want this moving forward. But we want it done safely. But we want a new neighborhood. And so some of the things that Ed and I mentioned, and Ed can talk about them but the crosswalk is a major major traffic calming a major benefit to this community and it's something that we hope to be on the early side of this project but to create that crosswalk creates a a point that people can focus in on as that's where you you cross there's even a bus stop there may have been moved to the to the Lorraine and gas station side but it was all unkempt I've moated a dozen times Ed said when he said the crosswalk we talked about extending the sidewalk from Lorraine to Smith Lane. Chris it's just crushed stone. We could do that, but does he have to dovetail with Tim and the city and DPW, but it's coming from Ed, it's coming from Ed so I'll continue but I want to cut a little to the chase where I think in a year from now we're going to have a beautiful neighborhood. I think we're going to have some beautiful streetscape that's going to come from this project and that's what turned the tide for me to see it completed and to get some benefits to this. So the sidewalk on Lorain to Smith Lane With the crosswalk on that side would create a new I see mothers today with it with the baby carriages, and they said that was this would be the one of the biggest changes we've seen in this area on the opposite side between Lorraine and the gas station same thing they mentioned dropping in Jersey barriers for the safety of the blasting on the opposite side so the Jersey barriers create a walking path on the inside, but no one used that on the inside because the city or someone didn't put crushed stone on the inside, so people walked on the outside, which is even more detrimental. So if he could clear up those kind of projects in the early stages of this, that is a major benefit to this neighborhood that we haven't seen and begged for for years. Later on, Eversource is supposed to come down and Tim And Todd have a larger plan that's all in the works, but it's a little down the line. But restriping the road, I think that may have said, I don't want to specifically quote, but pushing the line to the winter states side creates more space on this side for the parking that will go from Lorraine to Osborne. I think that's the legal parking from Lorraine to Osborne, and, and a couple of the people you spoke to live on that, and that's a messed up sidewalk you don't know where to sit. know in in that so um that's will be redefined with with this project as well some divinity on that corner so we thank you know ed for reaching out and saying that so we're also talking about some beautification things like maybe putting up on on the fencing some kind of wrap on there that they see i want to show you a picture just greenscape ed if you could do something like that for the neighborhood versus just a chain link fence and the jersey barrier It makes it look nice when the plans are settled. So when I first saw the plans of how these buildings would look, I was in love. I thought it looked like a beautiful thing. They solved the problem of that private right of way to come into this new roadway. That solved the problem because we have so many roads in that thing. So this project may clean up some of the issues that this neighborhood has been begging for for a long time. So I'm an advocate for moving forward on this and dovetailing the development with City for that. And in the short term, we may benefit from Ed's project and being able to use his resources to help the other side of the street in the short term and wait for Eversource to finish theirs and put some beautiful curbing in, bike lanes, striping, that kind of thing. Ed's project stuff could happen within the next couple of months. I hope we could do that in the front end. And then the final stuff, we could wait for a year or two for Eversource to finish. So I wanna be a proponent of this and thank Ed for reaching out. And I hope we can do more because as I talk to more people, because I put some things on Facebook and out into the social media world, there's a lot of people that aren't online and they may be listening on public access TV. But they want to say something and they still want it to have these conversations. So if Ed you're amenable to another, you know, city meeting because people just want to hear it from the horse's mouth and strangely want to bypass Ed and go to Frank, the geologist, and explain to us again how you have to do that now but Frank, we're putting our faith in you. You know, strange, but we're putting our faith in you. If you're the guy who's going to be blasting these rocks, because the rest of it's just construction and there's all details, but the blasting is what concerns everyone for a quarter mile around. And you don't have to answer now. You've done something in the past, but Ed, if you could set up a meeting, we'll do another sort of social gathering and try and create some, uh, good, um, uh, feeling good tidying from the neighborhood and push that in. We're also talking about some kind of beautification, you know, in the area that may extend. from high school to there and and get some kids involved but ed's open to these ideas including maybe renaming the street to uh identify one of our historic um uh people that lived in that area and we'll release that maybe another time but ed's whatever you want whatever you want it's the first time we hear that we haven't really seen it in action, but he's given the open door for it, and if we log that today and have that on the books, and Ed, you're amenable to that kind of stuff, I feel good about it. I just have two or three, you know, minor points, but that's what I want to get out. There's a lot of people still opposed to it, and they think it should be squashed down. I don't know if you could put that genie back in the bottle, but hearing someone say he's done the requirements, it's within zoning, he's followed all the rules, I don't know how much more we can push back with any positive moving forward. So I thank you for that. Let me see if I have a note. The yellow line on the other side, Todd is from, I forget Todd's last name, from the traffic study, it has a lot of this mapped out, but it just seems like it's coming down for a while. The meeting of school time, there may be blasting. I heard maybe the school only allows blasting within a certain time frame. That's something to be aware of 9 to 1, but I may be wrong. So just a couple of notes, but basically, I want to support the project that some people in the neighborhood want to see this move forward and get finished. So we're looking forward to that. So if you can sign on to some of those neighborhood beautification projects that we sort of talked about, I think we have a lot of people that are going to love what this looks like in a year from now.

[Andre Leroux]: So thank you. Thank you, Mr. Donovan. I appreciate that. It's good to hear that from your perspective, there's been progress made. And I do want to clarify for any members of the public who are wondering, our denial of the project in September was based on kind of inadequate data, and we couldn't determine whether there was proper water sewer drainage plans that could support the site. That has been It seems that Tim McGivern has reported that there's been a lot of progress on that. It seems like that has been addressed. The court has sent the project back to us. So that's really where things stand right now. At this point, it's trying to make sure that the project proponent addresses the neighborhood concerns as best that we can, and then that the design is really as good as we can possibly make it.

[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_22]: Mr. Chair, if I could add, Ed, is there a possible time that we can do another meeting, but really let it sort of out as, because there's a little history to it, I think if people understood a little of the history and what's coming down We would get good again, people are angry over it and we're still learning is just so many people that don't do the zoom I don't haven't really had this say, but it looks like we're moving forward with all the logistics but if there's a possibility edge, whether it be from the board here officially or unofficially directly if we could have another sort of neighborhood meeting that's a kind of a little flowchart of what happened to get people, you know, on board. Because I feel like the communication is still, you know, difficult in the city to get, you know, all this information out. And there's a little history that brings us where we are today. Yeah, Mr. Champion.

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: Yeah, Mr. Donovan, you have my I gave my cell number out earlier. So I mean, I'd be happy to do it. We did the last one at Victory Park. I'm happy to, you know, I'll go there with a couple of storyboards and I presented, we can go over the history of the project and where we are. Related to the other ideas. I mean, and we talked about it two nights ago. We do community benefits and communities that we don't even work. So why not do one? where our project is on the street. We've contributed to other things in Medford, but it wasn't, we weren't putting it on our website and we don't advertise it in the newspaper. When we rebuilt the St. Francis school, the parking lot was an absolute disaster. And one of the neighbors was at odds with the church because the trash was blowing all over his yard for I don't know how many years. When we rebuilt the walls around it, which in that case, it is ready walk, but it's a large wall. The neighbor next door, we finished the site and we finished his driveway because it was affected by the wall. And we put the wall in his proper spot when the prior wall was four feet on his property, so that he could drive in and out of his property. And at the end of the project, he had a cookout for all of our guys. So, this project started off intense. The negotiation with the planning department on St Francis was intense. And we own this before we knew that one was going to be intense. So I have to say that, you know, it's been a great experience over the past seven months. And I wish we didn't have the track record we had to get this where it is, but I know we can make it right.

[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_22]: But we're not going to put a crown on you until it's finished, but we're looking forward to these changes.

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: I don't need a crown. I'm just going to do a good job.

[Andre Leroux]: Annie, are there other members of the public who wish to speak?

[SPEAKER_29]: I have one more comment that just came in by email. This is from Dennis Carone at 578 Winthrop Street. He said, I'm writing in to express my deep concern for the negative impact this development will have on our neighborhood. This is an ongoing embarrassment to the city and should be shut down. No blasting, no blasting, no blasting, plant trees. Winthrop Street has suffered enough in recent years, just take a ride by.

[Andre Leroux]: Thank you. Annie, anybody else on the call, the meeting?

[Nicole Morell]: Looks like the last one is Peter, who would like to speak again.

[SPEAKER_09]: Just, I'm actually speaking for my wife who's not here. She had some questions. Again, I'm touching on what Chris said. It's a hole in the street. I'd rather see houses and people living in Medford than a hole. I mean, I don't think we're out there to shut you guys down and try to make it so things don't happen. But I think what we're just looking for is that, you know, we work hard too and we need to make a living. Just respect our area. You know, right now, we have a water project going on. It's a mass mayhem with trucks backing up. I mean, that's just a little taste of what could possibly happen. I guess what I'm just asking is if you guys could just, you know, keep the trucks off Lorraine Road, because we got little kids, we have newborns, we have elderly, we have a big mix. You know, having big trucks are gonna be a pain in the butt. But again, we're not out there to say, shut you down. We invite, you know, growth. I mean, all it's going to do is make our houses worth more money. It's going to make living in Medford a lot more desirable. We just want it, if it's going to be done, to be done with respect. And that's, that's all I guess we're asking for is to respect what we own and respect what we have. And just, you know, like I said, everyone's going to get something done. So thank you.

[Andre Leroux]: Thank you, Peter. All right, let's go back to the board members for some discussion. I think that we've seen that there's been a lot of progress made. I think that we still need to be able to digest the materials that we received today. And we've identified some areas that we might want a little bit more information on. So I would be inclined to continue this to our August 20th meeting, where hopefully we can make a final determination. Mr. Champey, does that sound, are you amenable to that?

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: So, thank you, Mr. Chair. Well, first off, the call is going great, and we appreciate all the contribution. Normally, when we would appeal a decision that has a specific group of concerns, we would limit the discussion to the concerns. In this case, we didn't, because we're eager to hear, and we wanna make changes that benefit us and the neighbors. So we're open in that respect. There are a lot of items discussed tonight, that we're not part of the denial. And I have a slight concern in that respect.

[Andre Leroux]: Understood. I think that some of these issues, sorry, Alicia.

[Alicia Hunt]: Andre, I might, cause it sounds like Mr. Champion has some concerns about, pardon me, I'm turning off my video because of my internet connection. So you can hear me better. Has some concerns about continuing, but we also have a few legal concerns about having the board vote tonight. One is that it hasn't gone to our water and sewer commission and that our, um, uh, ordinances, our subdivision rules and regulations say that it has to go to our water and sewer commission. Sorry, I believe that my internet may have pulled out on that.

[Andre Leroux]: No, we heard you, fine.

[Alicia Hunt]: Is my internet back? The other is that they've asked for a waiver. We got a number of things today from them, including the waiver that we just have to have our legal counsel weigh in on. in order to make sure that we're handling correctly as part of this. So I just wanted to sort of put that out there that there's both, the board wants to digest things, but we wanna be careful about the legal issues as well.

[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: And Lisa just to reiterate, I very much wanna see the final report from Tim as well.

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: So regarding the waiver, Mr. Chair, Alicia, there's a waiver for the radius of the curb, is that correct?

[Alicia Hunt]: Yes.

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: Yeah, and then additionally, and this is just for open conversation, the neighbors have expressed concerns of timing and normally when you build a subdivision, you can't put a foundation in the ground until the binder is in place. I'm not sure if that's something that's granted by the planning board, the building department, the DPW, or whoever. And if we can't get it, we're fine with it. But if we can get it, it speeds up. Because if you go to put a binder in in early December and it's a cold year, you can't put it in until probably April. So it creates a five-month lag in construction, which The only reason we requested the waiver for the foundations going in was to eliminate the five-month lag from the neighbor's perspective. For us personally, we're used to it. The other waiver was a waiver that was requested by Tim, and us being the proponent, we have to put it in writing and request it. So it was requested where there was a 30-foot radius for the curbing, cornering going into Winthrop Street Estates, or whatever it ends up being named. And the request was to reduce it to a 20-foot radius, and Tim can talk better to this than me, which allows handicap ramps to be better. I'm running out of batteries here, so I'm gonna have to, I'll stop the comment at that and try and move to an outlet that's working.

[Alicia Hunt]: And so I did actually speak to Tim about the waiver for the narrowed street But I do just want to make sure that we're getting these all of these issues procedurally Correct and because they have shown up some of them showed up as late as noon today that well, I guess some Some of the additional information was we asked for this afternoon. We received this afternoon. That was great. Um but I just am concerned about us not crossing all the T's and dotting all the I's on this one.

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: And we don't disagree. So what I'd like to do is dotting the I's and crossing the T's I'm comfortable with. Increasing the scope beyond the denial letter, I'd like to discuss further.

[Alicia Hunt]: So there are a number of things that the board didn't ever weigh in on such as the walls and stuff you presented stuff today verbally. I think that I might actually go back to the board that they want. It's nice to hear these things verbally, but the plans need to be correct. And one of the things that the board has to sign off on in a subdivision is they have to sign the plans and they have to vote on the plans they're going to sign. and the plans still need some amendment that you've agreed to, but the board can't vote on those plans until they've actually received them. And my impression, and perhaps we might poll the board and see how they feel, is whether we're asking for a continuance here because we think that this is going to get denied, but rather we think that this is gonna go forward smoothly but we just can't vote and sign off on these plans until we have the actual final plans in front of us.

[Andre Leroux]: I mean, I just think that there's been some, I think that the progress has been good. There have just been some loose ends that have been identified and I feel like we, uh, need to be, I mean, I think the board members, probably many of the board members haven't even had the chance to read the materials that were sent today. So I just think that in terms of doing our duty, we probably need to be able to finalize this at the August meeting.

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: So not, not Mr. Chair, not, not agreeing with that. It's, it's the, so the digesting of the information and the completeness of the plans, Alicia, I guess would, would, will be, it will be a further discussion. It's for us, we're somewhat sensitive to, to, you know, And we've worked with legal counsel extensively on this. So we'll seek the advice of legal counsel on making sure that I'm not doing something on this call that's going to be to the detriment of the company.

[Andre Leroux]: Are there particular issues that you heard tonight that you would be concerned about that go beyond the scope of what you feel you might be willing to do?

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: I have five pages of notes from the meeting. When we start discussing the cross sections and understanding the walls, the walls have been in place in this plan for two years now. So it raises some concern that we're vetting information that we've already vetted. When we talk about cross sections and, and, and how we discussed the fencing where it is the, the pitch of the soils, the runoff, the drainage, the maintenance. And I understand that there are new board members, but, you know, it's, it's a concern of ours when a denial letter is written, and then the scope of the denial letter changes.

[Andre Leroux]: So from my opinion, what I've heard, I think that we want to see a blasting plan in place. We want to see the written sign off from the grantees on the right of way. I would like more detail about the wall that's fronting the street. I think, you know, Again, I think there'd be, we wanna just get some advice from and review about the pedestrian issues to see if there's anything that could be done. And that would be, I agree that's a little, that's a bit of an add on. So that would have to be a discussion negotiation with you. We'd like the opportunity at least to think about that and have Tim's office think about it and maybe talk to you about that. There's the neighbors have asked for a meeting, which could be done in the next few weeks. Those are the things that really I'm focused on.

[Unidentified]: Do any of the board members think that there are other items that I didn't capture there?

[Jacqueline McPherson]: I can definitely see the proponents apprehension. Andre on this one but one of the things Alicia asked earlier was pretty much pulling the board and see what we thought about this. I was part of the board previous to the denial, and the information that I've seen so far, and from what I'm hearing from the public. This project has turned around, I don't see. uh any reason for um it to be denied in the future, but I mean i'm just i'm We just have to literally follow procedure at this point as alicia has said we don't have the proper renderings We have to make sure that we're doing our due justice for uh due diligence for the for the community and making sure that we are cross dotting all i's and crossing all t's uh, we can pretty much jump the gun here and say that but And then what will we be at once we did that? So pretty much this is just all procedural for me. That's what I see. Even without having seen the new renderings, I'm guessing that Mr. Champy and the proponent pretty much will do a good job by the community and their neighbors going forward. But we just want to make sure that that's actually put into place now. Again, it's all procedural for me at this point.

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: Thank you.

[Andre Leroux]: So Mr. Champey, do you think given what I've laid out, does that seem reasonable, a reasonable scope?

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: It does, and I appreciate the discussion. The scope seems reasonable, and I think if I had to move because I was running out of batteries and I wasn't able to write, I understood the points you made, but it would be great if we could get a, if we could put, you know, somehow we could draft that as a scope.

[Andre Leroux]: Okay. I think we have a city staff probably have notes on that. We can, we can put that down.

[Alicia Hunt]: I was going to say just Ali or Annie, can you confirm these items that we've been listing? We have these together that we could send in an email to the proponent.

[Andre Leroux]: So, and on the, yeah. Okay. And so one thing, Ed, I just want to make sure we're clear on this. Cause I know this has come from the board and you express some concern about this. So the question of, you know, renderings or cross sections, do you think that you could produce the perspective view that the board was looking for? Some of the board members had asked about.

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: So I think I understand what they're asking for. There's this one is I will take a shot at it. The it's it's I just don't want it to you know, we did the renderings that we did for for the based on the request that we had over a year ago. So the renderings were done, they've been presented twice. And and now we're We're, you know, 18 months after at $30,000 a month of carry costs. And it's another month, and it's another rendering. So it was just, it was disheartening to hear it. It hasn't changed and in many cases when we do a subdivision, which one of the one of the neighbors stated the, the house designs are somewhat irrelevant. We're drawing the perspective based on what the zoning allows and what we believe. But if we were to sell the 10 lots, it would be the beauties in the eyes of the beholder and architects would be driving those 10 houses differently. So, you know, it was, you know, we're here to try and help and the spirit of the conversation today has been great. So I tend to bend in those situations. Um, so we'll, we'll, we'll do our best, but I don't, I don't want it to become a, a rendering exercise.

[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: Can I make a comment? Sure. Go ahead, Klaus. Ed, um, I think when I made my comments about, or at the time that you were showing the renderings, or we were talking about, um, updating the renderings, um, I think my comment was about, communicating the design that you are suggesting for this site, which I think a lot of people are not quite understanding. And to that point, if the design of a house is an irrelevant point to communicating what you are going to be doing, then don't include the renderings of the house. exhibits that are going to help us understand what you're doing. We don't need an artist to do a watercolor rendering. We need to, through graphics, understand the scope. All we have seen are colored pencil sketches over a 3D model and 2D line drawings. That both those things are on the opposite ends of trying to help us understand what's happening here. We talked about the scale of the project, the size of the walls, and all those things. So I think what I'm asking for, and I would guess that others would agree, is just a better understanding of what you're trying to put in place. If it has to be a dotted line around the square that is the building, but it's an aerial view that shows this is where we are and this is where we're putting walls and this is what it looks like three dimensionally. That's kind of what I'm looking for is a better understanding of how this is gonna make this part of Medford, which all these residents have lined up to talk about a better place. And I think that's the important thing that you need to illustrate to us. It doesn't have to be a pretty rendering. It could be a pretty diagram or it could be a very technical diagram, Give us that information so we know more. I heard Mr. Donovan, Christopher, talk about, I want our neighborhood back. I want it to be a nice place again. Well, I think that's what we're asking to see. Not just another colonial house on the street. Show us how this works.

[Andre Leroux]: And one thing we didn't talk about, but maybe would be helpful to include in something like what Klaas is asking, is just to understand the landscaping a little bit more, like how does that, you know, what is that gonna look like around the envelope, around the project, you know, vis-a-vis the adjacent areas?

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: I understand the question and, And it's not, we're not opposed to doing it, but it's the, we'll give it best effort. We'll draft some information, the cross section of the walls and whatnot. However, we don't believe that it's a, we don't believe it was part of the denial and we don't believe it's part of the scope. So we'll do it as a willingness to work together, but we don't believe it should be a hurdle in getting the project approved.

[Andre Leroux]: But we will do it. Understood, thank you. So is there a motion on the floor to continue? I should have said, I should have closed the public portion of the hearing earlier. So let me do that officially now. And is there a motion on the floor to continue the meeting to August 20th?

[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: Andre, I'll make a motion to continue the meeting to August 20th.

[Andre Leroux]: Thanks, Klaus.

[Unidentified]: I second that.

[Andre Leroux]: Katie. Thank you. All right, so I got to do a roll call. David Blumberg? Aye. Christy Dowd?

[Jenny Graham]: Aye.

[Andre Leroux]: Les Andresen? Jackie Furtado?

[Jenny Graham]: Aye.

[Andre Leroux]: Katie McHugh?

[Jenny Graham]: Aye.

[Andre Leroux]: meeting is continued and we will provide a list of the items that we discussed today. Oops, sorry, Deanna, you weren't on my screen. Thank you, Deanna. So Ed will provide the notes from the meeting about those items so that you can have some confidence in the scope that we're talking about.

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, members of the board.

[Andre Leroux]: All right, thank you. And thank you to the members of the public who participated too. Thank you for all your work. Thank you, everyone. Next item on the agenda is a continued public hearing on a proposed amendment to chapter 94, zoning section 94-148D, table of use regulations for use 18, multiple dwelling not over three stories in height and use 19, multiple dwelling not over 75 feet or six stories in height to require at least 25% non-residential uses. Let's see. So do I, Annie, remind me, do I need to reread the public hearing since this is a continuance, or can we just dive in?

[Unidentified]: You can reread it to be safe, I think. OK.

[Andre Leroux]: this is the old one, actually, but let's just continue. So I'm reading the original one. The Medford Community Development Board shall conduct a public hearing on Thursday, June 18, 2020 at 6 p.m. via Zoom remote video conferencing relative to a petition by Mayor Brianna Lungo-Keene to amend chapter 94 zoning section 94-148D table of use regulations for use 18 multiple dwelling not over three stories in height, and use 19, multiple dwelling not over 75 feet or six stories in height, where use 18 or use 19 is presently allowed by right, quote, yes, the proposed amendment would require a special permit from the city council, quote, SPC, requiring that at least 25% of the total gross floor area of the development contain non-residential uses permitted by right, or which are authorized pursuant to a special permit in the underlying zoning district, or where relevant, overlying zoning district. As drafted, this amendment would take effect in the apartment 1, apartment 2, apartment 3, C1, and MUZ zoning districts. Full text of the amendment may be viewed in the office of the city clerk or on the city's website at www.medfordma.org slash department slash community hyphen development by clicking on current CD board filings and Again, pursuant to Governor Baker's March 12, 2020 order suspending certain provisions of the open meeting law, we are conducting this virtually. Thank you. So let me invite Alicia Hunt to present, I think, an amended proposal from the administration and to explain it. And you're muted. There you go.

[Alicia Hunt]: Thank you. So actually, I'm going to share screen. And I think I can turn off my video and share screen, because I am trying to not overload the internet in my house.

[Unidentified]: OK.

[Alicia Hunt]: Can you see the Word document, even though I've turned off my video camera? So you see that?

[Unidentified]: Yep. Yes.

[Alicia Hunt]: Okay, good. So this is, I've actually used showing this here with track changes. We've had some discussions with our zoning consultant who is also a zoning planner. He's a professor at Tufts as well as a zoning lawyer and discuss some of these changes. One of the things that I heard from the community development board was the concern that 25% would be difficult for developers, because our goal here is not to stop the development of residential buildings, but rather to stop the drain on our commercial district, our commercial spaces. Some interesting things have arisen as well with various lots being proposed in apartment two locations and what would the mayor like to see? What would development like to see there? And we're like, well, wouldn't it be lovely if there were cafes on the ground floor or stores or dry cleaners and apartments up above? I did not intentionally stop sharing that. And then if we had that up above, had apartments and that's not allowed under our current zoning. So, That was very odd, but I no longer seem to have the ability. Let me try and share that again. I don't know why it just stopped sharing, but it's main. So we changed the 25% to be first floor. And the reality is in locations where the properties that are up to three stories, the first floor is going to be more than 25%. And in places where The height can be up to six stories. The first floor is gonna be a lot less than 25%. So it'll be a bit of a give and take, but the wording is at least the first floor contain non-residential uses permitted by right, which are authorized pursuant to a special permit in the underlying zoning district or where relevant overlying zoning district or business or professional office, retail sales, consumer service business or eating place as defined in section 94-2 definitions. And consumer service business, eating place are both defined in our definitions. And I believe retails is as well, but now I'm gonna have to double check. Consumer service business seems like a weird phrasing that was not chosen arbitrarily. That is in fact lifted directly from our definitions in our zoning section. So the intention here would be to be saying that these items are allowed. And one of the items that, one of the issues that was brought up at the prior hearing was that in apartment one and two districts, None of these uses are currently allowed. Therefore, if you are requiring non-residential use on the first floor, but you didn't allow any of these uses, you are essentially stopping residential development. And that is not what the intention was. The intention is to have these commercial, these cafes on the first floor. We did want it to be flexible enough I think there's a lot of feeling that there's business professional office, that there's too many dental offices and doctor's offices on the first floor and that's not the greatest. But we do realize that we need to be flexible about what would be allowed there because the bottom line is that we'd like to have commercial as part of these. So we have to have something that is gonna be developable. in this time. So this was our proposal. And the very first question that I had, that Annie had, that the mayor had is, is this a substantial change and would this require being re-advertised? And so we actually asked our lawyer to weigh in on that. And so I've also provided a memo to the board that is quite extensive, that it explains, no, this is not legally considered a substantial change, and no, this does not need to be re-advertised for the scope of these changes that we're putting forward here tonight. I can share that. I believe that that was all sent to the members. We could share that as well, but frankly, it's quite long to say that. It's not to say. I'll leave it there and see if there are any questions. Let me know at what point you want me to stop sharing this.

[Unidentified]: And thank you, Alicia. Yes, Klaus.

[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: So, Alicia, it seems to me in reading this that someone could build like a 10 foot by 10 foot box and say there's a forest in there and that's it. Is that right? There doesn't seem to be any sort of

[Alicia Hunt]: space as Pedestal ding So no and in fact it is something that would be special permit by City Council every one of these so that was something that we discussed with our legal counsel and The idea of it being special permit by through city council means that they couldn't do something like that unless the city council looked at it and said, Oh yeah, that's a good idea. And we want to permit that it would give them the ability to say, it has to be the full footprint of the building. Because the other thing that I asked is could this be interpreted to mean subgrade parking would be the first floor and non-residential or first floor parking. And what our legal counsel said was that that would be basically something that the city council could look at and say, we don't like it. So no, they can't do that, that they would have discretion.

[Unidentified]: Yeah.

[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: It seems tricky. I mean, you know, having developed these kinds of, a lot of these kinds of buildings, you know, there's all kinds of requirements on the ground floor beyond residential. You know, you need a lobby, you need ancillary uses, you need utilities, like all that stuff.

[Alicia Hunt]: I mean, it's... I mean, I get it that it's sort of at the discretion of the board, but... I understand that... So John Witten is our legal counsel on this, who helped with this, and I understand that he's available now on the call to speak to this as well. That's helpful, John.

[SPEAKER_22]: I'm happy to, Mr. Chairman. I think in response to the prior question, this would only apply to multiple dwellings, to a structure that would trigger use 18 or use 19. So a standalone florist or a standalone retail store would be governed under another set of principles in the ordinance. So this would only relate to multiple dwellings Whether it's over three stories or under three stories.

[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: That's not what I was, I wasn't really suggesting that. I was just suggesting that it seems like there's a strange line as to how it gets determined what percentage, be it 100 or less of that ground floor gets used. It's mandated to be used as retail by the board.

[SPEAKER_22]: Right. No, no. Thank you. I understand the question now, and I apologize. No, that's an excellent question. But I will go back to Alicia's response, which I think is the correct response. The city council does have discretion as a special permit. So I think your point, which I agree with, is, well, what if somebody has 50% of the first floor as a stock room? Does that comport with what's required here? The city council would have discretion to say no, that's not acceptable. It's too much non usable non residential space. I think, I think that there has to be a little bit of faith in the special permit process, because it does give flexibility to the city into the council. to deal with specific applications. Where it was before on the original draft from the mayor, 25% was a fixed number. That was an exact number. My opinion is the first floor language, which was the takeaway I think we all had from the last meeting with the board. The first floor language gives a lot more discretion to the applicant and to the city council. And I think would be a better outcome. So I think that was a kind of a productive improvement. And then Alicia also added, which I think is also a good idea, kind of the definitions of business and professional office, retail sales, and so on. So it does allow uses that were otherwise not going to be allowed. So it makes for the non-residential use a pretty broad range of options. The city council, as the special permit granting authority, can make sure it's not a scam. Your worst case scenario is 10% of the first floor is retail, and the rest is storage. That would not comport with the purpose and intent of the ordinance.

[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: Okay, I like that.

[Andre Leroux]: Other board members want to speak now? We can also, there may be members of the public who want to talk, so we could also allow them to do so.

[Unidentified]: David, are you raising your hand? No, okay, I wasn't sure. All right.

[Andre Leroux]: Are there members of the public who have, who are here would like to speak? Annie, has anybody raised their hand?

[SPEAKER_29]: I also have one comment by email to read.

[Andre Leroux]: Okay, great.

[SPEAKER_29]: So this is from, one moment. This is from Roberta Cameron at 12 North Street and her email says, hi, I have some concerns about the proposed zoning change to require either 25% or ground floor commercial square footage as a requirement for apartments. First, adding a special permit requirement is putting in place an additional barrier to creating housing that Medford needs. It will be very hard to eliminate or reduce this barrier once it is put in place. Second, I do not believe that all of the locations that would be subject to this requirement are appropriate for commercial use. A requirement like this should not be applied without considering a change to the zoning map to identify locations where mixed commercial slash residential use would be appropriate. Third, as the proposed zoning reads, the requirement would be for commercial uses that are currently allowed in those districts. Under our current zoning, there are very few commercial uses that are allowed within the apartment districts. It would not make sense to have zoning require space being dedicated for uses that are not allowed. I feel that it would be preferable to undertake further land use analysis and planning before enacting this type of zoning change. Thank you for your consideration.

[Andre Leroux]: Thank you.

[Alicia Hunt]: Annie? I can share. So actually I want to switch what I'm sharing. So Annie actually prepared this map for you. Let me share. So this is our zoning. and I'm gonna need to, I think, zoom in so you can see the relevant portions of it. Sorry, pardon me as I move this around a little. So what we have done here is we, Annie, grayed out the portions that are not impacted so that you can see the different locations that would be impacted by this zoning change. because we thought this would be helpful for people to have this illustrated view of these. We do have some odd zoning areas in Medford. And I know that this doesn't touch any of the I areas, which are zoned industrial, where housing is not actually allowed. I don't know if you,

[Andre Leroux]: Thank you. Yeah, it's helpful to have that as a background for people to refer to. Annie, I think there's a few people have raised their hands from the members of the public. Can you call on them?

[Nicole Morell]: First is Navar.

[Unidentified]: Hi there, can you hear me?

[Andre Leroux]: And just for the record, just state your name and address, please.

[William Navarre]: All right, thank you. William Navarre, 108 Medford Street, apartment 1B. I have concerns about this proposal because here in the city of Medford, we use a higher tax rate on commercial than on residential. So this policy that we have is an intervention that benefits housing owners by a lower tax rate. That's pretty obvious. They don't pay as much in tax. Presumably, it's also supposed to benefit housing seekers. You see, because they're going to build more housing because of the lower tax rate. They're not going to build commercial. They're going to build housing. It's cheaper taxes. So that's supposed to benefit people seeking housing because there's going to be more housing for us to seek for. But if you're planning to tie up, But if you're trying to up the commercial tax base by tying it in with housing creation, then the tax scheme is no longer to the mutual benefits of both housing seekers and housing owners, and that feels quite inequitable. The owners, that is apartment owners and homeowners, still get the tax break, but not as much housing gets built anymore, because they've tied it in with the expensive to build commercial. So even if the development goes forth, which I think is rather doubtful because we're in what's been unironically called a retail apocalypse. If this zoning has any effect at all, that is if they're building commercially otherwise wouldn't have, I'll reduce the housing, perhaps switch the first floor to something else. It'll increase the commercial space available to rent in the city of Medford. So it might seem like businesses are shouldering the burden of Medford's taxes. And that'd be good according to some people. But that's just not true. Because if anything, that's gonna put up the rents on homes that people are seeking. It could put down the rents on business. So it can't be said that the taxes are falling upon the businesses, because the businesses could rent space for a cheaper price than before. That means that it's falling upon renters, and future buyers are both going to have to contend with fewer options to buy or rent an apartment. All right. That's basically what I don't like. I remember hearing last time a major justification to this, that we wanna increase our commercial tax base. If you wanna increase commercial, you lower the commercial tax rate, I would think. We currently reward it with a lower tax rate. We're upset with too much commercial, let's undo that intervention and increase it on residential if we have to. The demand for housing is there. People need housing. I worry that this is basically going to interfere with people fulfilling their wants, their needs and reasonable wants to have a place to live here in the city of Bedford. And so I'm really nervous about this proposal for that reason.

[Andre Leroux]: Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Navarre.

[Nicole Morell]: Alex Lessenhop.

[Alex Lussenhop]: Hi, Alex Bluffenhop, 28 Wright Avenue. I agree with the commenters so far that I still have a lot of concerns about this. I'm with a group called Housing Medford, and our most recent meeting, a number of our members raised a lot of concerns about this proposal. We talked mostly about the version with the 25% requirement, although I think that there's still a lot of potential issues with the first floor requirement, some of which have been raised already. My personal greatest fear is that this could present even more barriers to creating housing, and any barriers to housing will be more greatly greater barriers for affordable housing, just in terms of financing and getting a project built. Affordable housing projects are much more sensitive to that kind of thing. Um, and so any requirements like this can functionally end up being barriers. I really worry it would be an effective moratorium on more housing and more developments. And in addition, there's already issues with, you know, retail spaces that maybe are less desirable. I'm not sure that a 25% requirement is going to encourage cafes. I think one thing that would encourage cafes and diverse kinds of businesses is more people around these neighborhoods to support them, more foot traffic once we're allowed to engage in that sort of thing again. There's just simply not enough people living in these areas to support these kinds of desirable businesses. So I just, it seems like a really still like kind of a blunt instrument to accomplish the stated goal. We have a lot of concerns about it. It doesn't really seem like the right way to go about it. Thanks.

[Andre Leroux]: Thank you, Mr. Lessenhaupt.

[Nicole Morell]: Dan Fairchild.

[SPEAKER_13]: Hi. B. Daniel Fairchild, 54 Dwyer Circle. Pretty much echoing the comments that have already been made, I think it's a mistake. In particular, eliminating by rights permitting is just going to prevent developers from even trying to do things because they won't know they'll be able to. It would be much better to design an ordinance that does all of the... does all the things that we want, instead of just lay it out, say what is permitted, what is not permitted, and in what areas. And yes, there's different areas in which different things are appropriate. So that might require some zoning changes to accommodate that. but then don't give city council the ability to halt all development effectively, because there are definitely people in this city who want to do that, and we need more housing, we need more affordable housing. So put those requirements in the ordinance, and then let developers be able to do it by right without having to worry that, oh, they're going to plan a project and spend years trying to get it going, and then city council will just reject it. Thank you.

[Andre Leroux]: You be, Dan.

[Nicole Morell]: Alexis Smith?

[81H3OXzw2Ec_SPEAKER_31]: Hi, I'm Alexis Smith at Four Bellevue Terrace in South Medford. I just am gonna echo what a few folks that have already said. Even before the pandemic, it was difficult to fill retail spaces and even in areas that are really vibrant and have more residents to support those businesses than many areas of Medford do, particularly some of the areas that are being shown on this map. I'm thinking of some of the commercial spaces on Winter Hill, on Broadway. And I don't want to see more empty commercial spaces in random areas of Medford where there's not already a commercial base. I think the blanket requirement means that it could make it really, really difficult to finance housing projects because it's, you know, if, again, with the banks recognizing that, you know, there's a lot of commercial vacancies, particularly with the uncertainty now, I think that that could put a real damper on all development. and effectively make it harder to build housing. And that is, you know, as others have expressed, that's my number one priority, more housing and particularly more affordable housing, which the city desperately needs. If we want to spur commercial development, I think that's a fantastic goal. And if we want to have, you know, vibrant districts, we should concentrate and focus it and be really intentional about where we're requiring that rather than just doing something, you know, kind of blanket and citywide. And as others have mentioned, I think the special permit use for housing is a mistake and that's going in the wrong direction. Again, love the idea, but if this is a commercial goal, then it should be a commercial incentive strategy rather than kind of dampening housing strategy. Thanks.

[Andre Leroux]: Thank you, Alexis.

[Unidentified]: Are there other members of the public, Annie? You're muted.

[Nicole Morell]: I received one comment via chat here from Mina Sharma, 6th Street. And they say, one, to clarify, does this zoning amendment override the zoning of apartment one, apartment two, et cetera, should be a holistic review as opposed to casual requirement in certain zones? Two, what kind of commercial slash mixed use parking requirements would be imposed on the new building and the neighborhood? And is that at the discretion of city council? Three, why aren't we encouraging mixed use versus forcing it? Four, in light of COVID and the impact of small businesses everywhere, does forcing, and that's where it ends. I'm not sure if we can ask questions, but looking for clarification.

[Andre Leroux]: Does anyone from the city want to try to tackle any of those questions or the comments that you've heard?

[Alicia Hunt]: I am sorry, I suppose that it is worth just in light of the comments, repeating stuff that I know the board has heard that, but that I do want to make sure everybody has heard that the intention here is a band-aid. It is a stopgap that the administration absolutely agrees that the right thing to do is to look at the city as a whole, look at how we can incentivize commercial, but actually what do we wanna be doing as a whole? How can we hear from the residents? So one of the other things that's on the agenda this evening is the board knows is the RFP to hire a consultant to do a comprehensive plan for the city. The concern is that a comprehensive plan will take a year for the planning piece of it And then we're looking at another six months to a year, at least of dealing with the zoning to get the zoning pieces of it done. And it would be unrealistic to think that we're gonna be seeing results, changes to our zoning in a few months out of that. The intention here is to do something. I mean, I have heard from people wanting to develop nine units, that size scale, 12 units, in along Salem Street, along other areas that are in these zones. And we've also been hearing, of course, from the very large developers. I honestly, I got a call from a developer who wanted to know if we wanted like another 400 unit luxury apartment building in Medford. And by the way, it was either an industrial or commercial zone. And if that was something the city was gonna support. So people really are looking to do that. And we feel like we need something now because we don't want to stop development from happening. We want to guide it in the interim while we do a community development plan. We also frankly need an expert economic development person. In the city's budget, one of the few positions overall, every vacant position for the city was cut except for a handful of them. And the city's commitment to economic development is that one of the positions that was not cut but is not yet filled was the economic development director. At this time, the mayor would like to have the state certify what the state funding to communities are to ensure that we're getting at least as much as we've been guessing at so that we don't have to do any further cuts before we hire that position. But it is one position that the mayor is very committed to hiring is somebody who could actually take a look at economic development. How do we spur it? How do we attract large businesses? What do we do to make sure that our small businesses don't go under? Right now through the community development office, we are working on that. We have a grant program out. We've awarded grants to 29 small and micro businesses in Medford. And we have another 30, actually we have 10 more that I'm going to award tomorrow. I literally couldn't get to it tonight, but I'm sending out 10 more award letters tomorrow. So we're trying to help these businesses to stay afloat and to keep going. This is just one more tool that we're trying to use right now. So, and I realize that that is repeat for all of the board, but in light of the questions that we were presented with, I thought I should share it.

[Andre Leroux]: Okay, Annie, if there's no further questions from the public, I'm gonna close the, oh, I think we just got one. I think Mina raised her hand. So if you could call on her and then maybe after that, we'll close the public portion.

[Nicole Morell]: Mina, you should be unmuted.

[SPEAKER_19]: Thank you. Sorry, my other question got cut off, but what I was trying to say was, is forcing commercial and mixed use actually still relevant, given that businesses are struggling and we cover that, but from someone who's trying to build in their perspective, a struggling business is not a strong business case to continue to build and develop. So I do think it's a hindrance. And the other question I had was just around what kind of parking regulations would be added into the development, given that there'll be in residential areas, because commercial has different rules, and how does all of that get tackled?

[Andre Leroux]: Thank you, Mina. And can you just say your address for the record?

[SPEAKER_19]: Yep, 6th Street, Medford.

[Andre Leroux]: Thank you. So I don't know, Alicia, or maybe John Witten, can you address that, the parking? I don't know the answer to that, how that would work.

[SPEAKER_22]: So, Mr. Mr. terminal I'll, I'll answer a part of that in defer to Alicia. So where there's a mixed use the zoning ordinance would the parking requirements for found in the zoning ordinance would apply to both. So if it's residential there will be the minimum requirements if it's commercial there'll be the minimum requirements, and those become the required numbers of parking spaces. because of the special permit provision, the city council will have a fair bit of built-in discretion, but in terms of how you would count the number of spaces required, it would be based on a per square footage as the table already requires, but now there'd be an amount for the retail, for example, and then there'd be the amount for the residential, and that would be the total amount required.

[SPEAKER_19]: I'll just add one last comment, as it feels a little arbitrary to leave the vision of what those businesses would look like to just city council. I think if it's meant to be open to actually encourage cafes and restaurants and whatever else is there, it shouldn't just be to a one body to decide whether they feel like it's a good fit. It should be, yes, in this zone, in this space, this is the type of business that's allowed. Either you build or you don't, but that's defining character of a neighborhood more than just and of hoping that someone sees this corner and sees opportunity. So I would say- And Mina- As opposed to just put this one requirement and then tackle the other pieces. I think these are very relevant things to someone who wants to develop and to look at it as a package change to the zoning, as opposed to just one at a time. Yeah, thank you.

[Andre Leroux]: And Mina, I'm sorry, did all your questions get answered? I know that was the parking one. And I think that there was another one that I, I can't remember if it was the.

[SPEAKER_19]: The other one was just why aren't we encouraging the development as opposed to forcing it? Because forcing it just feels like, oh, well, if I have to go through this and city council picks my business that goes on the first floor, I don't know if I want to do this as opposed to we encourage this. Here's what the city is doing to partner with you. This just feels like a negative thing going into it to begin with. And I'm sharing this perception based on the conversation I've had with numerous people who would like to do things and build But they had a feeling about just how it was stated again. This was on the 25% was definitely a no-go First floor is a little bit more welcoming, but I think it should be encouraged as opposed to forced Thank you

[Andre Leroux]: I'll close the public portion of the hearing now and turn it over to Jackie. Did you want to, I think you unmuted yourself. Did you want to say something?

[Jacqueline McPherson]: I just, I just wanted to go back to what Alicia was saying about this being a stopgap, and I definitely understand the concerns of the community, going forward. But one of the things that we definitely have to get back to and I wanted to highlight from the last meeting. is that you have to have a balance between commercial and residential base, right? And it's very hard to do that. One of the things that I am very, as an economic development specialist myself, I'm very happy to see that we've removed the language for the 25% because that wasn't based on an economic measure and it didn't seem like a smart growth initiative overall. But I think this is, In my opinion, I think this is enough for us to move forward until we have a comprehensive plan, it's hard to see how this all formulates outside of an actual comprehensive plan so as far as what the mayor in the city is trying to achieve, I think this is pretty much. I think it's okay. My opinion is that I would allow for it as is to move forward until we can get to that comprehensive plan. That's my final, I mean, that's my overall opinion on it, especially now that we've moved that 25% requirement.

[Jenny Graham]: So I feel generally the same way that Jackie does. I think we're definitely in a better position by changing the language. There's something that still makes me feel a little funny about applying the same requirement to three stories and six stories, because the burden is quite different on a three-story housing development. That means they're only going to have two floors of housing. And so I don't know. It just seems like it may need a closer look. So I guess if there was some certainty that there is some flexibility in the review by city council of these future projects going forward to be able to make sure that it's actually feasible. whatever the commercial use of the ground floor is feasible with the housing. That's all I would just say. Because the first floor is not going to be 100% commercial use. You have to have an entrance and other supporting uses at the ground floor. So I just think that I should proceed with caution just to ensure that there's flexibility there.

[Unidentified]: Thank you, Christy.

[Alicia Hunt]: I do just want to put some things out there. I don't wanna make this more complicated, but the, I couldn't explain how city council was chosen as the special permit authority in this case. And the board, so anything the board puts forward at this time is gonna be a recommendation to the city council, not anything that they're bound by. And this board could put forward that it's the Community Development Board that is the permit granting authority. I know I was looking at our table and it varies a lot between SPA and SPC as who is the permit granting authority in a number of these cases. So I wanted to mention that. The other is that I would remind you that site plan review applies to all projects that are six units and up. So if it was more than six units or more, this body would have site plan review over it as well, and would not, so would have a say in it. That the, we didn't use the words mixed use in this, but we did have Allie go out and look at a number of other communities to see, and we will tell you that Nobody that we found had a percent of required commercial, but a lot of, a lot, a number, a number of communities, maybe she could, I don't have the number in front of me, that she looked at had first floor commercial somewhere along certain corridors, somewhere in certain zoning districts, but first floor commercial was not uncommon. More than first floor was not common, right? So we did sort of take a look at those items because we had been asked for a comparison of how other communities do it. I don't know if Annie or Ali have any details on that that I'm missing.

[Jenny Graham]: I agree with the first floor thing. I think it's, you know, it's just that the review process, you know, just to make sure that the whole project is feasible. And anyway, it's something, there was a comment earlier that just got me like, oh, well, we have to make sure that the entire floor is for commercial use, but there has to be some other space that's non-commercial to support the other use of the building.

[Alicia Hunt]: I'll put the language up because the language here as it reads is actually non-residential uses as opposed to commercial.

[Jacqueline McPherson]: That might be fine.

[Andre Leroux]: That's all right. I mean, I think we all have the language, Alicia. David, did you wanna say something? You are muted.

[Unidentified]: Yeah, non-residential.

[David Blumberg]: Sure, I mean, I was not in favor of our in our last language from last month. And I don't think this makes me that much more comfortable it's certainly better. The comment about first floor in certain quarters, Alicia that probably makes a lot of sense and maybe more of what we would expect to see. I mean, this is something that seems to apply in a broad footprint of the city, including a lot of neighborhoods and a lot of areas where I don't know that the non-residential makes a whole heck of a lot of sense because they're maybe not so well trafficked. And I do feel like we're sort of pushing demand that is probably not gonna be there for some time. You might not find a lot of push for commercial or retail until after you get your more comprehensive evaluation, which would probably allow us to do a better job a year or two from now under your current forecast.

[Deanna Peabody]: Yeah, that's what I was going to ask Jackie. Having more experience with this in the economic side, do you think now with what's going on with the pandemic that there could be a lot of empty retail as a result of this.

[Jacqueline McPherson]: So overall, I have not seen a huge increase in private investment or interest in any community. I'm guessing that this, I would assume that this is coming more from the staff, like the planning staff that pretty much, I thought maybe they had an inkling that this would be opening up for it. So I really can't speak on community without knowing what that looks like. It can definitely have an impact across communities. I don't know Medford as being one of those hot areas for economic development. However, we've started to turn around with the change of the medical mall and then with the community, with the apartments that's coming over there. So I mean, it's hard to forecast that pretty much. sorry, I was caught off guard on that one, but I had to really think about it. And I mean, anything is possible to tell you the truth, but I would have to know more, a little bit more about what has been, what has cropped up to the city staff or the, to the planning staff or the community development staff, pretty much.

[Deanna Peabody]: It just seems like now with COVID-19 that, you know, it'll be a slower for businesses to come back and then there'll be new, you know, for new businesses to come. and that by that time in a couple years we'll have the plan ready. Which I think is what David was talking about.

[Jacqueline McPherson]: I mean, I could definitely agree with that, but I mean, I can, when it comes to economic development, I can see it both ways. You can have a surge of private invest, you can have a surge of private interest, especially with housing. The housing market is, Alicia has already said that she's getting some responses from developers wanting to do that. So, I mean, I just don't, I don't know as far as Medford goes.

[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: So I mean, I think to me this was this was something and I in the thing I keep thinking about is the stopgap thing like This is this is not long term, you know, and it's hard to define that right like what is not long term and what's going on with our economy right now and all that but like It does seem like a little bit like we're sort of in a circle here like this is maybe a moot point to to Jackie's point or to Deanna's point, like maybe there won't be any development, but maybe it's a great time to do development and they're gonna continue to try to come in and create development where there should be a more appropriate mix of uses. Like if you're building 10 houses, you have to create amenities for them, which include commercial uses. So I do understand why, This is a proposal, and I think to me, I'm very near the center on everybody's comments, but to the point that it's a stopgap, it does seem to me like it is probably pretty well-suited to say yes right now, and sorry for my children.

[Andre Leroux]: You know, I've really thought about this zoning proposal a lot. I'm sympathetic to what the mayor is trying to accomplish. I'm very sympathetic to creating vibrant, walkable places, and you need to have strong first floor commercial to do that. But I have, you know, three, I think three issues that I just can't get around. And one of them is, I think what's already been talked about is that we're, We continue to have a strong housing development real estate market, but a very weak commercial real estate market. And that's really collapsed, particularly on the restaurant side. I mean, I've seen figures estimating that 25% or more of all restaurants are going to go out of business through this crisis. So it's, we're just at the beginning of it. I think a lot of businesses that are even come back online and reopen are going to find over the next few months that they're just not making enough money. You can't have the density of people to seat everybody, to actually stay afloat. You're seeing now like Uber Eats and those kinds of services are taking 25 to 30% of the revenues of these places. So that's one concern. The second issue is that You know, I haven't gone to all of these districts, but I've gone to some of them. I have one of them across the street from my house, an apartment one district, and it's hard for me to... imagine any kind of first floor commercial space being required, you know, in this area. And I'll just, I took some pictures because I think it's helpful to see, and I'd like to share my screen to just show some of those pictures if I can. Let's see. So I gotta get rid of this here.

[David Blumberg]: All right. Hold on a second. Let me do that again.

[Andre Leroux]: So I have so many things open on my screen at the moment. OK. Okay, so this is Riverside Ave. I live on Riverside Ave on the other side of the street. And this is one of the apartment one districts. It's just, you know, it's a completely residential neighborhood. There's no commercial, I think, prospects for this, nor would it be a really appropriate place to put it in. Now, given the proposal, what you're seeing here is maybe one or two family homes, so it wouldn't be required to have commercial, but a three family home would be required to have first floor commercial. I think that that would be, I think, inappropriate. Let me see if I can.

[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: Andre, are you looking for some commentary?

[Andre Leroux]: Well, let me just go through a few of these pictures.

[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: Because I was going to say, I live on Riverside, too.

[Andre Leroux]: Yeah.

[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: And there's nowhere for my kids to go and get a candy bar.

[Andre Leroux]: I mean, down the street, across from the apartments, there has been a turnover in a small retail space that just cannot keep a tenant in it. You know, there's the brown brick building. I don't know exactly what number it is, but it's across from the white homes, affordable homes that are there. So, I mean, and it's within walking distance of Medford Square. So, and walking distance of Wegmans and those places. And this is, you might be surprised, but this is Salem Street. And this is that you, we actually have homes right on Salem Street and the whole spine of Salem Street is an apartment one district.

[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: You know- Yeah, but for instance, that brand new building that's going up, the 13 units or whatever. Right, but- I go by that every day and I think, wow,

[Andre Leroux]: You know. But what I'm saying is that this is Salem Street too. I look at this and I wouldn't say we should require first floor commercial up and down Salem Street.

[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: I would say this is- I think if you're putting a three plus unit building in, I don't know that I agree.

[Andre Leroux]: Well, I mean, this is Salem Street and there are triple deckers right there. I mean, you would want to require somebody to put in a commercial space on the first floor? That seems, I mean, this is apartment one district right here.

[Jenny Graham]: Well, it seems like maybe one of the flaws, but it says like three stories and not any real square footage metrics. I believe in the spirit of the zoning amendment, I just think that there's so many more things that are going to come forward that are more complicated as a result of it. So, and I just, that's where my concern of flexibility in the review. I mean, usually you say, if we encourage mixed use and if you can get mixed use into your development that's, you know, meets a certain square footage threshold, great. And if you do a little more, your incentive is we might give you more density. So like where is incentive-based planning to?

[Alicia Hunt]: It seems to me- One thing to point out right now in the apartment one and two districts, all of those items, business or professional office, retail sales, consumer service business, or eating place are not actually allowed and they need a use variance. And there's a big debate within our zoning board of appeals, but some of the members do not believe they can legally give use variances. So the flip side is that those parts of Salem Street where you might wanna see commercial on the first floor, this would allow that to occur, whereas right now, it actually doesn't allow it to occur.

[Andre Leroux]: But I think that there's a, I agree with that. I just think that, and I was hoping that the proposal coming back would be a little bit more nuanced in this way, that it wouldn't require it, but allow it. And so I guess for me, my feeling is this proposal could work in the C1 district, but I don't really see how you can make it work in the apartment one and apartment two districts.

[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: Alicia, can I ask you a question? You had mentioned that this was basically, you know, in a way, you know, designating some part of the first floor as having to have this. Would you characterize it as a sort of a situation where the I guess city council and the proponent would work together on a solution. That would be like just say you need to do this.

[Alicia Hunt]: I have to tell you that I'm not clear that I can respond to that because There are a number of times where the city council is the permit granting authority in our table of uses, but I have never actually witnessed one of those things come about. I've watched where the zoning board of appeals is, and they work together, and the community development board is, and they work together, but I've never had the opportunity to one of those meetings.

[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: If you're not designating a percentage or a set amount, then what else could it be?

[Alicia Hunt]: Right, they have to negotiate.

[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: It has to be some sort of negotiation as to what they're gonna provide, right? And to that point, if appropriate, could the city council say, based on the proponent's request, say, you know, in this case, we don't think you need it. Is that a possibility? Is 0% a possibility?

[SPEAKER_22]: Mr. Chairman, no, that would not be, the way it's drafted now, the Special Permit Granting Authority shall require. So no, they wouldn't have that kind of discretion to ignore it. They certainly would have discretion to negotiate the actual footprint and the use, but no, they wouldn't be able to waive it.

[Alicia Hunt]: So they could allow the way this is written? They could say, well, you could have a little cafe in the corner and the rest be parking and apartments above it because we agree that you can't rent out commercial and we think you need lots of parking. That would be within the scope of this. It would be my preference that they not do that, right? We don't actually wanna see first floor parking as a particularly good use. It's not the intent, but it would be legal under this.

[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: Just one more thing, and this is sort of anecdotal, but I worked on a project in Cambridge where it's actually a project over in Fresh Pond. The city of Cambridge actually mandated that a certain amount of the square footage of the ground floor of the building was adaptable to retail. So, you know, as built the buildings there today, it's the one you look at when you see when you when you're at Somerset, the whole ground floor is basically amenity space for the building. But in the in the documents, it was a we had to submit a plan for retail space that could be or a part of the ground floor that could be changed into retail space at a later date, if appropriate. Because that whole district is sort of emerging, right? It was warehouses and labs, and now it's housing. So I don't know if that has any interest to anybody, but it's an interesting way of thinking about it.

[Andre Leroux]: Yes, Katie, please.

[8oEn2KkMIiU_SPEAKER_07]: Just seeing your photos and then, Klaus, you're discussing, I think you're talking about that unit on Salem Street that's right by the Roberts School, the new one that they're building, right, Klaus? It's interesting to have that visual of the different types of housing, right? So, Andre, your photographs of the homes I think that makes sense to me that those don't feel like the right place to have something commercial. But then when you think about like a 13 unit building, right? Like, I don't know, I think it's funny, my kids go to the Roberts, right? So I'm in that area all the time, or they did when schools were open. And I always think like that could be a perfect place right there on that corner for some kind of cafe, particularly if you're building all those places. So I think in addition to thinking about the impact on sort of housing in general, it's also like the kind of buildings, and that, I just thought those visuals were helpful.

[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I mean, I asked, I remember last time we had this discussion, I asked, I said, what is the threshold? Because I totally agree with you, and I agree with you, Andre, that, you know, in this, like, two-family district, I mean, it doesn't make much sense. But if you're gonna buy, like, four lots and tear four buildings down and build a, you know, a 20-unit building, well, that kind of makes sense to me, you know? Like, I could see that. I mean, there's 50 other, like, restrictions that are gonna be put on you by the town, you know, do this, this, this, this, and this, so.

[8oEn2KkMIiU_SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, I mean, I lived in Arlington, Virginia for a while, and in all of their, like, apartment buildings there, the first floor is dedicated, like, convenience stores, coffee shops, right? It's like, it's sort of the, the character of at least the neighborhood I lived in with the buildings. And it was nice, right? Because you just sort of knew that that was like accessible street level space.

[Andre Leroux]: Right, but there has to be a certain density allowed to be able to support that kind of retail and commercial. And so even if you look at Salem Street, it's only an apartment one district, which means it only allows three stories. So it's hard to, for me, it's hard to say to property owners along that corridor that you're responsible for, you can only have three stories, but you're responsible for a vibrant street environment.

[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: I mean, that's- So Andre, just as a counterpoint, say something about the stopgap thing. You're concerned about this even in the short term.

[Andre Leroux]: Well, yeah, because we're fundamentally changing these corridors, and I think that... Or not changing them. Well, class, I mean, look, one of the concerns I haven't mentioned, which is my third concern, is that, look, this mayor has made a priority of transparency and planning, which I am very happy about and I support. This is not that. This would be rezoning hundreds of people's homes without really a process around asking them. And so I don't necessarily think this is what she, an outcome that people would intend. I mean, I think that, I think this is really problematic if people realize that people get very upset about changing the zoning around their homes and they wanna be part of that. I think this would be, I mean, we're changing the zoning without really that kind of nuanced community engagement process around it. So I totally agree that we, first of all, the mayor has said that her first priority is to not lose more commercial areas. So I would be comfortable moving ahead with the C1 having a first floor commercial requirement. and that piece of it. I feel less comfortable about apartment one and apartment two, given what I've actually seen when I'm looking at what's there. And especially with not engaging people around what they think about. I know in my neighborhood, I don't think people would, if people realize that we, I don't want to be a board that does that. you know, incentives or more nuanced doing it district by district. But I really think like we should be in this time where we're having such a real problem with commercial space and filling it and having these, you know, the retail and the restaurant environment that we have right now, like we should be really focused on how can we support Medford square to make sure it stays vibrant and we don't lose businesses and vacant storefronts there, or, you know, and looking at the other commercial walkable hubs in our city and really strengthening them. So that's really what I'd like to focus on.

[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I appreciate that. I mean, there's really good points all around this issue. I mean, it's hard to, I don't know, I'm finding it hard to really pick a side. I mean,

[Jacqueline McPherson]: And that's what goes back to me. And I'm glad that Deanna brought up the question about what I thought about the forecast for Medford. I mean, you know, being transparent, obviously I work at the state level and that's what we do. And not only are we ensuring economic development and housing, but my secretary is also vice chair of the reopening plan. So I know, I see a little bit more and so, Yes, there has been some issues but also I know that Massachusetts is leading in the health of its, its, its residents as well as keeping with the economy and yes there's been a lot of hits and we may see a lot, we just don't know I mean there's not. You just hope for the best. I know, for instance, there's a neighborhood kitchen that's right on Spring Street. They thought they were going to go under in the pandemic, and they're just as vibrant. I don't know if it's because it's going along with the culture of the community right now where we're emphasizing a certain kind of trend with minority-owned and Black-owned businesses or anything like that, but it's thriving. So there's potential. I can see the arguments on both sides, but at the same time, I mean, I just don't know. It's really hard. I have to tell you, it's really hard seeing this absent of a comprehensive plan, but I can definitely see how this can be a short term, but I can also see how it can be an issue. So I'm with Claes, I'm a little conflicted.

[Andre Leroux]: Well, what we need to do is really just make a recommendation to the city council. The city council is gonna make a determination on it. We could, recommend the whole thing. We could not recommend the whole thing. We could recommend a portion of it. We could recommend that some tweaks be made to it.

[Deanna Peabody]: Andre, I like the idea that you brought up about recommending it for the, what is it, the C1 district?

[Andre Leroux]: Yeah, and the MUZ district is also a mixed use zone.

[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: I mean, honestly, Andre, the one thing that you said to me that actually really resonated, and I'm all for the idea of mixed use and diversifying the neighborhoods and all that, but the one thing that did really strike me when you were talking was that you said about Medford Square and really trying to preserve the businesses that we have there. And I thought that was a really sort of good point. I don't know if it was a year ago or whenever, we were at the height of development and things going well, and still there's stores being closed and banks being put in in Medford Square. And that's the kind of thing that really, I think, from a long-term vision, this city really needs. So I don't know, that comment resonated with me, and I think I could probably get behind suggesting not doing the apartment districts.

[Andre Leroux]: What does some of the other board members feel?

[8oEn2KkMIiU_SPEAKER_07]: I would support that narrow approach, for sure.

[Jenny Graham]: Yeah, it seems to make most sense now that we've talked through it all. I mean, if we can't make our commercial district successful now, it's a little concerning just blanketly throwing it across apartment one and apartment two. I don't think there's any question that it belongs in C1 and the mixed use district. But yeah, it seems to make most sense to me.

[Andre Leroux]: And Alicia or John Witten, is there any way you think that I don't know if that's the mayor's intent, but from a

[SPEAKER_22]: I think I, you know, Mr. john if I, if I could just add, and I know the board's been at this for a long time. I think one of the obvious takeaways that I know we're all probably in agreement, which is, if development is left to the private sector, without special permit requirements, then the city's going to get what the private sector wants to deliver. The special permit is a way of guiding growth in concert with your comprehensive plan and zoning. So it's a balance, but uses by right, structures by right are very laissez-faire. And I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that, but they don't often deliver what the municipality wants. The private sector gets what it wants and the city gets what the private sector gives them. The special permit approach is the way to control your future. I mean, again, I know everyone on this call knows this, but that I think is a big distinction between an ordinance that has a special permit requirements and requires that super majority vote versus structures and uses that are encouraged or cajole. In my experience, in my career, developers do what they want, and it's up to the municipality to guide the outcome. And the only way to do that in the Commonwealth is through a special permit.

[Andre Leroux]: What is the difference between the two districts? I would like to avoid that. Because the property is now nonconforming to have to go to a ZBA and if they do renovations or something, they have to get a permit from them that they might not have had to get before. That is the kind of thing I would like to avoid. I would be comfortable with moving it to special permit, but not requiring the commercial, and then maybe leaving apartment one out.

[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: I mean, I hear you, Andre. It seems... It seems too intricate for the spirit of what's trying to be done, but you know.

[Andre Leroux]: Well, let's take the temperature of all the board members here.

[Jenny Graham]: So I've got a question. Something that you said just triggered something. So, you know, if I own a two or three family and I decide I want to, you know, tear it down and build new, am I going to be subject to having to do commercial on the first floor?

[Andre Leroux]: John, do you want to address that?

[SPEAKER_22]: Sure. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And the chair and I were in touch today on kind of a similar question. So a pre-existing nonconforming use or a pre-existing nonconforming structure, can expand or alter or change, provided it gets a finding from the Board of Appeals, this is in the Medford Ordinance, that is consistent with General Laws Chapter 48, Section 6. That does not necessarily require the compliance with this new ordinance. The Special Permit Granting Authority, the Board of Appeals, is obligated to try to require more conformance with what is the pre-existing structure, but in some cases it would be impossible. So in your example, no, they would not require you to comply with this new ordinance because if it were a conforming parcel, then it would have to comply. If it were a reconfigured parcel, that would then be a conforming parcel, it would have to comply. But those structures are uses that are rendered non-conforming by this ordinance, which aren't likely to be many. would be safe, they'd be protected, provided that they don't seek to expand, alter, or change. If they do right now today, they would need a finding from the Board of Appeals pursuant to the ordinance. And, you know, I dare say in Medford and most municipalities in New England, 50%, 30% of the structures and uses are pre-existing non-conforming. It's just the nature of of the fact that zoning came into compliance in the 50s and everything was already pretty much built out. So Andrea and I did touch base on that a couple of times today. It is an issue, but it's an issue every time you change zoning. I don't see this zoning proposal from the mayor making it any substantially different than every other zoning change that the city faces. So if I have a preexisting nonconforming structure and I want to add a new wing to it, the residential component or the non-residential component, this ordinance is not going to apply to me because I am pre-existing non-conforming. I'm vested from new regulations.

[Alicia Hunt]: Along those lines, John, if they wanted to comply, though, they could. And what I'm thinking of, for example, is a commercial business, commercial building that exists in the apartment one district, which right now they could renovate as commercial, but if they wanted to tear down and rebuild as commercial, they couldn't. And if they wanted to put in a three-story building with a commercial on the first floor and the apartments above it, they actually are not allowed. That would be a use variant. And so they could choose to remain non-conforming, but if they wanted to comply and do apartments above, they would have to then be commercial. Correct. Or they could.

[SPEAKER_22]: Yeah. And you can always choose to comply with the current code and not take advantage of the vesting that you have. And so your example, Alicia, yes, absolutely correct.

[Unidentified]: So,

[Andre Leroux]: We've heard public comments today also expressing some concerns. I'm trying to organize this in a way that we can make a decision and move forward. Maybe the best way of doing it is to do separate resolutions about the different pieces of it. So if we feel that there's consensus, which I think I've heard around the C1 and MUZ district, perhaps we can entertain a motion to get that out of the way and then focus on what's left to narrow it down a bit. Does that make sense? Would there be a motion to do something like that to address the C1 and MUZ first before we move on to the other zones? Or no people are reticent, what's the reticence?

[Deanna Peabody]: I'll make the motion to move ahead with the apartment, the commercial one in mixed use zones.

[Andre Leroux]: Is there a second?

[8oEn2KkMIiU_SPEAKER_07]: Second.

[Andre Leroux]: So there's a motion on the floor to recommend to the city council adoption of the mayor's proposal for the C1 and MUZ district. We'll do a roll call vote. David Blumberg?

[Unidentified]: Aye.

[Andre Leroux]: Christy Dowd?

[Unidentified]: Aye.

[Andre Leroux]: Les Andresen?

[Unidentified]: Aye.

[Andre Leroux]: Jackie Furtado? You are muted, Jackie, could you just unmute?

[Jacqueline McPherson]: Sorry, aye.

[Andre Leroux]: Thank you. Katie McHugh?

[Jacqueline McPherson]: Aye.

[Andre Leroux]: Deanna Peabody?

[Jacqueline McPherson]: Aye.

[Andre Leroux]: Thank you. Unanimously approved that motion for the C1 and MUZ districts to adopt the proposal. All right, apartment two and apartment one, that leaves those for us to address. Does anyone want to make a motion for either one or both of those? districts? Maybe we should say let's let me before we do that, let's just take the temperature of the board members on this. So I just going to go one by one and give me your thoughts about where what you're thinking about those two districts. David? I would vote no in those two districts.

[Unidentified]: Christy? You're muted, Christy.

[Jenny Graham]: I agree with it in spirit, but I feel like there's still a lot of unknowns that could unintentionally burden those areas or not really result in what the mayor is trying to achieve there. So my inclination right now is to say no on those.

[SPEAKER_10]: Wes?

[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: My inclination is similar to what you had suggested, Andre, is to probably, and I can't remember exactly how you said this, but it was more of a recommendation rather than a requirement.

[Andre Leroux]: to allow those uses that may not currently be allowed by right in those areas? Yes. Would you tackle apartment two differently than apartment one, or would you include apartment one in that? I would, yeah, both of them. Jackie? Oh, and the other question, I'm sorry, Les, on those, I'm assuming that you would support the mayor's proposal to move both apartment two and apartment one from as of right permit for multifamily to special permit?

[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I think I would, yeah, I would leave everything the same in the wording except just change it from, a requirement to a recommendation and allowable use.

[Andre Leroux]: OK. Jackie?

[Jacqueline McPherson]: So I'm unsure of the first part of the question. The second part, I echo Clay's, but can you please restate the first part?

[Andre Leroux]: Yeah, so I guess the first part of the question was whether you would treat apartment two and apartment one differently, and whether you would require or allow first floor commercial, and either or both of them. And I guess, and then the third thing is the special permit piece, you know, do you support the special permit approval versus as a bright for the multifamily.

[Jacqueline McPherson]: Yes, I do support the special permit. I would not want to require, I would want to recommend, or because to me it discourages mixed use as opposed to encouraging it. And then I guess I'm not really wrapping my head around the changes to the two zoning changes that we're speaking on. I'm not wrapping my head around that.

[Alicia Hunt]: In the apartment one and two, these uses that are technically in blue, the added ones are not allowed. So a use variance would be needed in order to put in a first floor commercial in the apartment one and two districts. And our zoning board is giving those, wait, there's a word that means it's not quite arbitrarily, It depends who's hearing the case, because some members of the zoning board refuse to give use variances on principle. So right now, without having language like this that says a special permit shall recommend or shall allow the first floor development contain these non-residential things, they're actually prohibited.

[Deanna Peabody]: Okay. I think most of us are in agreement that it should be allowed.

[Jacqueline McPherson]: It's allowed. Yes, definitely.

[Andre Leroux]: So, okay, so there seems to be agreement that it should be allowed. At least I'm just trying to identify areas of consensus, David, would you agree with that as well. Oh, I think we're talking about. allowing first floor commercial uses in the apartment one and apartment two area, not requires by special permit. Well that I think that's a separate issue I think I mean there's really three things so I just want to I want to understand that all three pieces of it. So one is the first floor commercial and I think we have consensus that allowing it rather than requiring it. to be appropriate in those districts. The second piece that I want to now get a sense of is the proposal moves in two different directions. It makes it harder on the one hand for residential multifamily development because it requires, instead of as of right, multifamily, it would make it a special permit. the commercial uses. So the question is whether folks support the movement to the special permit. So in apartment one, right now, multifamily up to three stories is allowed. In apartment two, multifamily up to six stories is allowed. I got that right.

[Alicia Hunt]: So the way this is drafted now, it would not allow multiple dwelling over six stories in height in apartment one, because the way it's drafted is just changing the word yes to SPC. So where it says no for multiple dwelling not over 75 feet or six stories in height for apartment one, the way it's currently drafted, that wouldn't change.

[Andre Leroux]: I'm sorry, Alicia, you just confused me. So right now in apartment one, multiple dwelling units up to six stories in height is not allowed. And that doesn't change with the mayor's proposal. Correct, correct. So it's only apartment one is up to three stories, apartment two districts are up to six stories. But right now, those are as of right uses, and this proposal would change that to special permit.

[Alicia Hunt]: Correct. Correct.

[Jenny Graham]: So are you saying that If someone wants to come in and build a three-story apartment building, they have to go, without commercial uses on the ground floor, they have to go through special permit with this change. It's not a right.

[Andre Leroux]: Yes, which is why I was saying maybe leave out apartment one and only do it for apartment two, which allows more density.

[Jenny Graham]: Almost makes me think then to give people more density in apartment one if they put commercial use on the ground floor. Give them an extra floor.

[Alicia Hunt]: Right. Right now on Salem Street, the entire thing is apartment one. And actually, I think if I'm correct, that's Main Street. Most of the Main Street that's not general residential, almost all of it is apartment one, except for the tiniest, the one block radius around Harvard Street, the part that people think of as South Medford's business district. That part's commercial. God, we really need to do a comprehensive plan.

[Andre Leroux]: So let's try to land this. My thought is to move apartment two to go along with the special permit, but not require the first floor commercial. But in apartment one, only to It's hard. I mean, honestly, I think there are parts of apartment one that just they're not appropriate for first floor commercial. And I mean, the neighbors would just would go crazy about it. I don't really know how to thread the needle on that one. The fact is, we do need a comprehensive plan. We do need to look at these districts more carefully. And we need to figure out where commercial should go. But I don't want to do something where, you know, there's a three-story home, you know, three family home on Riverside Ave suddenly has like a retail store, you know, in the middle of a row of homes. So I'm not sure, you know, how to, how to deal with that situation.

[Alicia Hunt]: I guess I would say that that's because that it's why it's special permit. And frankly, I think that those same people would go nuts because somebody's brought building a three-story apartment building.

[Unidentified]: next to them.

[8oEn2KkMIiU_SPEAKER_07]: So Andre, why don't we just move forward then with recommending the districts that we feel comfortable with? The ones we're all in agreement on.

[Andre Leroux]: Well, I mean, I'd like to know what what you guys think about apartment one and apartment two. It seems like there's some some concern, but we didn't quite. There seems to be support for allowing it. And then the question is special permit or not. So if folks want to give that discretion to the city council, or at least recommend that they have that discretion to review those projects and safeguard the community, then How do you feel about it? Do you feel, do you want to move forward on those districts or not? And again, this is just a recommendation for the city council. They're going to do what they want to do with it, but maybe influenced by our recommendation.

[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: I mean, I think this is the thing that's like kind of bugging me is that I feel like this, you know, one of the first things that Alicia said, when we talked about this last time is it's a stopgap. And that's what I was sort of saying with like the, that this seems way too intricate. I mean, I think the spirit of this is that it's something that will halt the kind of development that's inappropriate in Medford for the short term. And it's not gonna be perfect. I mean, the perfect answer here is not gonna happen with the people sitting at this table figuring it out. Professionals are gonna figure this out. And we're being asked to comment on whether we think it's appropriate to put into place some zoning which will sort of force the issue, in my opinion. So I mean, I think we could talk about this district and that, but to me, this isn't really about that. It's more about just like, we need to start thinking about this city and its zoning a little more seriously. And I think that's probably why the mayor is putting this in place. That said, I think the last thing I'll say is that, I mean, is it possible for us to say, we think this is a great idea in all the districts except the apartment districts and we don't have an opinion on the other or something like that? I don't know. We are just leaving.

[Jenny Graham]: Yeah, we could just keep it simple because we don't even know if they're going to write. We don't have anything anyway, right?

[Andre Leroux]: We don't have to. We don't have to wordsmith it. We can basically just give up. Yeah, some principled recommendation.

[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: It's a recommendation. We like it for this district, this one and this one, and we don't have a comment about the others.

[8oEn2KkMIiU_SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, agreed.

[Andre Leroux]: Well, we already took care of C1 and MUZ. So I think the question now is whether we want to make some kind of recommendation or statement about apartment one and apartment two. I think it would probably make sense to say, we don't think the first floor commercial should be a requirement, but it should be allowed, but we'd like to see some more analysis of the districts, I think, or we'd like to see some.

[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: I think it's too complex an issue for us to make a recommendation.

[David Blumberg]: Without further study.

[Unidentified]: Yeah.

[Andre Leroux]: Okay. Is there a motion on the floor?

[Jenny Graham]: I'll try this one. I make a motion to recommend to the city council that they keep the language as proposed for the zoning amendment to include ground first floor commercial uses in the C1 and mixed use zoning district.

[Andre Leroux]: Although, Christy, we already did that motion, so you don't have to do that one. It's just apartment one and apartment two. She's saying it really nicely, though. She's doing such a wonderful job.

[Jenny Graham]: I was crying really hard.

[Andre Leroux]: I appreciate you stepping up.

[Jenny Graham]: I'll make a motion to recommend on the apartment one and apartment two proposed zoning amendment for our first floor commercial use that we We recommend that it be allowed versus required, but there's really not much more that we can offer without further analysis of the district. So, I mean, is that what we're saying? Are we just not gonna provide a recommendation on those?

[Andre Leroux]: Yeah, that's certainly a possibility.

[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: Yep, I like that.

[Andre Leroux]: Any disagreement or is there consensus around that?

[Unidentified]: Okay. So we don't need a motion unless there's a, do we need a motion to move on to the next agenda item? I don't think so.

[Andre Leroux]: Then let's move on to the next agenda item, which is a review for bond reduction and lot release requests from the Winthrop Place Definitive Subdivision at 25 Winthrop Place.

[Nicole Morell]: Andrew, I think you missed the BJ's one.

[Andre Leroux]: Oh, oh boy. Yes, sorry. Oh my goodness. It must have been wishful thinking that we were further along. All right, we have a continued public hearing for special permit site plan review application 278 Middlesex Avenue, BJ's Gas. And public hearing, this is a continuance of a public hearing from last time, from June 18th. The Medford Community Development Board shall conduct a public hearing on Thursday, June 18th, 2020, 6.45 p.m. via Zoom remote video conferencing relative to a special permit site plan review application submitted by BJ's Wholesale Club to construct a self-service fueling station within a portion of the existing parking area at 278 and Zero Middlesex Avenue and allow use in an industrial zoning district. The site is currently occupied by an existing BJ's Wholesale Club with associated surface parking and site improvements. The proposed facility will be comprised of a 200 plus or minus square foot kiosk gasoline attendant facility with canopy, 4,525 plus or minus square feet, and a six dispenser service pump island. A copy of the application may be viewed in the office of community development room 308 or on the city's website at www.medfordma.org slash department slash community hyphen development by clicking on current CD board filings. pursuant to Governor Baker's March 12, 2020 order suspending certain provisions of the Open Meeting Law, we are conducting this hearing digitally. Thank you. We have the applicant we'd like to invite to make a presentation and update us about where things stand.

[Adam Knight]: Yes, good evening, Mr. Chairman. For the record, Mark Vaughn with the law firm of Riemer and Braunstein representing the applicant. Can you hear me okay?

[Andre Leroux]: Yes, Mark, thank you.

[Adam Knight]: Pleasure to be before you this evening and really been watching the board the past several hours and I don't envy the job that you do. You do a wonderful job for this. So I wanted to just spare you a detailed presentation as you're approaching our, what looks like it's our number five, if you're hearing here. I know we had a pretty detailed summary presented at the last meeting. of what the project involves, but we're talking about the BJ's location at 278 Middlesex Avenue, where BJ's is looking to incorporate a gas facility within their existing parking field. There'd be no additional pavement proposed. Everything would be within the existing paved area. This is a surplus parking area that they feel would be ideally used for this use, which they've incorporated. many of their other BJ's locations. Just to remind the board, this would be limited to BJ's customers only. This is not open to the general public. It would be limited to BJ's customers only. And there would not be any service of vehicles or convenience store or anything like that. The kiosk that's there just simply as an attendant in it, and the only commercial activity, if you would, that could take place there would be someone that might be needing to renew a membership card or something like that. So in our first meeting, we obviously spent a lot of time focusing on the project. There was a lot of valuable feedback that we got in terms of things for us to look at as a team and get back to the board on with hopefully some answers and some further analysis. And we feel that we've been able to do that. We did submit a communication today, Mr. Chairman, with a couple of response letters to the city engineering staff responding to a number of comments that were raised previously. We also did submit a response letter to the law firm of Anderson and Krieger that represents the two commercial property owners across the street, the gas station across the street and the car wash and some other Medford residents. So we did respond to that as well and submitted that to the board. Over the past few weeks, we've spent a lot of time having further dialogue with city planning staff, both Alicia and Annie, appreciate the time that it took to meet with us to kind of drill down on a few of these items. and also city engineering staff to talk about some of the traffic and other enhancements that we might be able to do kind of outside of the property limits, if you would. And we did share a couple of concept plans with the board that shows, you know, some, I'm going to turn it over to our traffic engineer, Sean Kelly and Austin Turner, who's with Bowler. rather than my repeating what they're about to say. But I think the focus has been for us to look at some pedestrian enhancements, additional landscaping that we could provide, even though we're already providing a significant amount of new landscaping with their opportunities to provide even more. And then on the traffic front, how we might be able to address some additional pedestrian safety enhancements along Middlesex Ave and some ADA accessibility enhancements. any opportunities to modify that curb opening for the driveway, and further dialogue with MassDOT about the complete streets program and some things that we might be able to explore there. So if I could, I'd like to ask Sean Kelly with Van Assen Associates, our traffic engineer, to maybe speak to one of the exhibit plans. I don't know who might be able to pull that up, but he can speak a little bit more in depth on that. So, thank you.

[Kelly]: Thank you, Mark. Good evening, Mr. Chairman and members of the board. Again, for the record, Sean Kelly, we have an app, associates, half the team. Thank you again for having us before you tonight. If it pleases the board, I know it's, it'll take a few minutes to kind of give you an update on some of the meetings and discussions we've had both with the City Engineer, Tim McGivern in the city traffic engineer Todd Blake. Thanks for meeting with us and reviewing the project, then some additional course subsequent to that meeting. So we did meet with Tim and Todd, and we reviewed the project and some of the concerns, and I won't speak for the city staff, but certainly the focus at our meeting was, although this project was primarily vehicular in nature, was looking at the pedestrian and bicycle accommodations, both on the site that served the site, as well as the internal of the site itself, and ways to make the site more accommodating for other users, not just vehicular traffic. We looked at the rear access onto Fellsway. The Fellsway corridor has recently been upgraded by DCR. They've restriped it. They now have exclusive bicycle lanes that are buffered from the travel lane. We do have sidewalk along our frontage, but what they did point out is that the ramps and the crossing today for the Delta Island, they don't meet current ADA design guidelines with respect to the design of the wheelchair ramps, the lack of detectable panels. And there was a request to work with DCR to improve those, to meet the current standards. And we're committed to doing that. I don't see DCR having any issue with us bringing it up to standards. So it's something that we've made a commitment to, and we've addressed that in our response letter. We also looked at the access from Middlesex Avenue. Again, some of the same themes played through at that access point, the lack of a crosswalk at that location, the lack of wheelchair ramps. We had some discussions about the width of the driveway, where there is a pedestrian crossing there, and whether there was anything we could do to modify that. I'll let Austin Turner from Bowler speak more directly to the site plan modifications, but that was something we also took a look at as well. And I think probably the biggest question was, could we look at the Middlesex Avenue corridor itself? It's a fairly wide corridor. It's 38 to 40 feet wide for most of the stretch within the city of Medford. And in some areas, Todd was looking to have exclusive bicycle lanes put in both northbound and southbound. In some areas, have a shoulder mark with sheriffs. Subsequent to our meeting with the city staff, we did have a meeting with District 4 traffic and engineering to review these measures. And what they've asked us to do is essentially prepare a conceptual improvement plan that would show the limits of the striping, which essentially would be from the city line at the plaza. across from Wendy's, it would run down to First Street with striped exclusive bicycle lanes buffered from the travel lane with a painted gore. And then from First Street heading south, a shoulder with sharrows. We've reviewed it briefly with DOT. Again, they want to see a planning review in more detail, but we've made a commitment to put together that conceptual design and submit it to the state for review. If DOT who has jurisdictional along the corridor is in agreement, we've agreed that we'll either implement those measures ourselves and actually strike the lanes, or we will provide a financial monetary contribution to the city so that they could implement that measure as part of a larger planning effort. That's really where we are right now. We've met with the city staff, we understand their concerns, and really, again, even though this is primarily a vehicular project, I think in the context of the overall BJ site, the goal for the city is to improve the pedestrian realm and improve the bicyclist realm, and we're committed to implementing those measures as long as we can get the appropriate sign-offs from the relevant state agencies. At the meeting, at the last meeting, there was also some discussion about parking and the concern that the elimination of the parking spaces at the front end where we're proposing to have the gas station would ultimately potentially have some adverse impacts if we didn't have enough parking, essentially, for all of the customers and employees at the existing BJ's Wholesale Club. So, as part of our initial session we hadn't done a complete parking assessment you know we built the site number of times during peak hours and, and quite frankly, you really don't see any vehicles parked up in that section where we wanted to the gas station. Look at historical imagery from going back number of years you'll tell the same story the parking is really towards the front of the store the demand really doesn't filter into that front parking field but We felt it was important to do a full parking analysis to address this issue head on. So we went out, we typically would do a parking analysis for the evening and the Saturday. Those are the busiest times. We did do the evening and the Saturday, but I know that the opposition had also raised some concern about BJ's policy of allowing first responders and elderly, the most vulnerable members of the community to do their shopping in the morning hours. So we wanted to address that comment as well. We went out and did some parking demand and quite frankly the demand was fairly low relative to the parking that's available. In the morning we saw about 60 vehicles park there on the whole site, 61 in fact, in the evening it was about 120, and then on the Saturday midday was about 150. Putting that into context, even with the elimination of the parking that will be utilized by the fueling facility, we're still going to have 330 parking spaces. And the maximum demand that we observed again during that Saturday was 150, which still leaves us with, you know, 180 surplus spaces during that busy Saturday hour. In the morning, it's almost 270 spaces. So clearly, the parking demand study demonstrates that there's more than adequate supply, even with the elimination of the field that would be utilized for the fueling facility. That's really kind of a summary of where we are right now. We're gonna continue to work with MassDOT and advance the bicycle plan, look to get their support. And again, if they're in board with it and they think it's a good idea, we're certainly willing to work with the city to either implement that measure or provide the financial contribution that the city can do it themselves as part of a larger project. I think with that, I'll turn it over to Austin. I know there's some pedestrian accommodations within the site itself that we'd like to review. Thank you.

[Austin Turner]: Sure. Good evening, everybody, or good night, I guess, as the case may be at this point. Annie, I was wondering if you could allow me to share my screen. I had a couple of exhibits that might help facilitate the conversation.

[Nicole Morell]: Sure. Hold on one moment.

[Austin Turner]: Thank you.

[Nicole Morell]: Okay, you should be good.

[Unidentified]: All right, let's give it a go here.

[Austin Turner]: Let me know, I'm sharing, let me know when that pops up, please. Yep, we got it. So what I'm going to do is, you know, Sean did a good job of summarizing kind of some of the off-site stuff. And what I wanted to do is kind of show you what that looks like graphically and also talk about some of the things that we've incorporated subsequent to our initial discussion. First and foremost is if you're looking at the top of my page and kind of where my cursor is tracing, You'll see what we're doing here is we're incorporating a pedestrian connection from Middlesex Avenue and the existing sidewalk along Middlesex Avenue all the way to the front of the club. We had talked about that at length at the last discussion and we spent a lot of time figuring out what's gonna be the most efficient path and how that could in fact be accomplished here. So what we've done is shown that sidewalk connection and what it's doing essentially is running the existing curb edge, you can see that in fact we're going to be actually adding some additional landscaping that's identified by that green hatch there. But that sidewalk essentially runs up along that part of the property. It's not invasive operationally to the gas station, it keeps it out of the inbound queue and it keeps it on the perimeter. And it also provides a linear path to the front of the club. It's efficient. It accomplishes the goal of providing that pedestrian connection directly to the front where there is none today. And it also actually allows us to provide some additional green space. It does reduce the parking a little bit. I think it's approximately nine or 10 spaces. You can kind of see it, the remnants of it on the aerial there, which they're parallel spots. And frankly, they're not utilized spaces and really not valuable parking. will still be in exceedance of the minimum zoning requirement with the inclusion of this sidewalk. And we think that is a good add, frankly. And it addresses the comment of the pedestrian connectivity. Another thing, and kind of in the same vein, I have a graphic that I will show you in a second. We are committed, as Sean mentioned, to rebuilding the sidewalks along the properties frontage on Middlesex Avenue, incorporating a crosswalk, and creating some additional accessibility improvements to that stretch as well. With that, and I'll show you a graphic in a second, with that comes, we were able to reduce the width of the driveway too, and that's going to be part of this proposal. It's we're at its peak and you'll see the graphic in a second I think we can get about approximately six or seven feet of a reduced width Of that that tapers and it varies a little bit just based on the nature of of the curvature and the radius point But we did take a look at some of the turning movements in there and there wasn't a tremendous amount of room but there was a little bit of room and we heard that as being an important thing to the board and I the community and decided, you know, that was an easy one for us to accommodate after taking a closer look at it. Sean did mention as well that we are looking on the Middlesex Avenue corridor as incorporating some of the complete streets initiatives that had been discussed, and we spent a fair amount of time talking with the city engineer and your city traffic engineer about that. So the applicant is committed to either implementing those directly, provided MassDOT is amenable to that, or funding that in an appropriate contribution to a much larger initiative that the city has to that complete streets program. Either way, what the applicant is doing is going to be participating in that. We heard that as being important as well. What we also did, and not necessarily related to the fueling facility, but just in terms of enhancing the green space landscaping and screening for the property, you can see on this rendering that there are additional landscaping features which are being incorporated, particularly along the front of the club. We're gonna be putting additional shade trees in there and ground cover plantings in the islands that are proximate to Woodruff Avenue. And then I think, you know, equally or perhaps even most importantly, you can see this dense stretch of vegetation that we're incorporating. along these parking spaces. And really, as we were investigating this further and thought, okay, where can we get the most value in terms of landscaping? This area, it stood out quite significantly because there's either vegetation there that isn't thriving or there's large gaps in the vegetation there and the screening fence is what remains. So what we're proposing here and what's gonna be incorporated as part of the plan, provided the board thinks it's worthwhile, would be additional plantings that are either shade trees or evergreen plantings or a combination of, to really enhance that buffer and really screen that further and provide some additional visual attenuation for that parking area. I think that's a good add, frankly. And there is some vegetation in there that appears to have been It's not thriving. It looks like there have been some recent utility work in there that may have compromised the root systems or something to those trees, and they're not doing very well. And so the idea here would be to really enhance that buffer system and replenish it and make it much denser than it currently is. So I had teased a graphic for the driveway in Middlesex. And if you can see, this graphic here just kind of blows up the intersection a little bit. And what we're proposing, as I've mentioned, is the reconstruction of the sidewalk along the property frontage. A reduction in the width of the driveway, which you can kind of see by this green arc. So what was pavement there is being hatched as green because we would re-landscape that area. We would formally stripe the crosswalk along this driveway. And then again, reconstruct the accessible ramps and put in the current and modern pedestrian accommodations there, detectable warnings and things of that nature to bring it into current compliance. I went through a fair amount there fairly quickly in terms of some of the new things that we're committing to on the property. I'd be happy to answer any questions or explore these in some additional detail as the board would prefer.

[Andre Leroux]: Well, it's been a long evening for folks, and I appreciate both the responsiveness of the applicant on all of that in your presentation, as well as everybody else who's stuck around. So let's, before we get to board discussion, let's take a public comment. Annie, can you help me with that?

[Nicole Morell]: Jessica Wall, you should be unmuted.

[8Sqy8gyjolU_SPEAKER_24]: Great, thank you. Can everybody hear me okay?

[Unidentified]: Yes.

[8Sqy8gyjolU_SPEAKER_24]: Excellent, thank you. Good evening, Jessica Wall. I'm an attorney at Anderson and Krieger. For the record, that's 50 Milk Street in Boston. I want to thank the board for the opportunity to provide further comment tonight. I represent two of the property owners across the street on Middlesex Avenue at 273 and 277, and then also a group of Wellington residents to the south of the proposed development. So I'll keep it brief. I know it's been a long evening for a lot of folks. Just to provide a brief recap, in June, before the board's last hearing, we submitted a comment letter highlighting some of the concerns that we had about the project, including traffic. That had some analysis, or the traffic analysis there was supported by Green International Associates by Bill Scully. Since that meeting, we've provided a second comment letter from a second traffic engineer Stephen Ellman from Venetian Company. And Stephen's here tonight. I think he has a few brief words that he'd like to say to outline some of his thoughts on the project and what's outlined in that comment letter. Stephen has over 40 years of experience as a traffic engineer and also traffic engineering experience particular to gas station uses. So we thought that that additional specific insight would be useful for the board. So Steven is here tonight and can go through some of those notes. I just want to note also, we understand, and I think the applicant mentioned, that they had included or filed recently, either today or yesterday, new plans and a new set of documents. So we haven't had much time to sort of digest those and understand or raise potential concerns that those might flag for us for the board. So Steve and I think we'll touch upon some of those issues, but we reserve the right to provide further comments, if possible, to the board on those issues. So if the chair will allow, I'll turn it over to Stephen Ullman, who can explain some of his findings.

[Andre Leroux]: Yes.

[8Sqy8gyjolU_SPEAKER_24]: Thank you.

[Andre Leroux]: You're welcome.

[8Sqy8gyjolU_SPEAKER_00]: Mr. Ullman? Good evening. My name is Steve Ullman. I'm a professional engineer in Massachusetts. I work with Alfred Benition Company. I'm in the Glastonbury office at 120 Hebron Avenue in Glastonbury, Connecticut. We also have an office at 50 Redfield Street in Boston. I reviewed the study and the materials presented by the applicant, and let me read you, and I provided a letter dated Monday. for Tuesday on this. Let me read you my conclusion to summarize it. In my opinion, the BJ's traffic study in its present form does not accurately represent the potential traffic impacts from the proposed gas facility. With the traffic information currently provided and the site as currently designed, we do not believe that the board can find that the proposed development facility can operate safely or the proposed development will not negatively impact the traffic operations on the roadways surrounding the site. I have five or six major issues I take with their study. First, the trip generation for the site is not representative for wholesale clubs selling gasoline at below market rates. The use of a 50% capture rate is not justified, internal capture rate. The use of a 25% bypass seems high combined with the capture rate. There have been modified default values in the analysis that have been changed without real providing backup. They've stated that they've why they did it, but they don't have any backup. They have not shown the sight lines available on either roadway, no sight triangles on the plans, and the site layout cannot work safely. First on the trip generation, as you know, and they stated that they use the ITE trip generation for gasoline station. That is for a general generic gasoline station like the mobile station across the street. BJ's is a wholesale club. BJ's will sell gas at below market rates, 8 to 10 cents below market rates, and that will drive more traffic to the site. I was party to a review of a Costco up in Colchester, Vermont. That Costco study used trip generation rates for 12 position fueling stations that Costco operates, and they found that for the PM peak hour, their sites will generate 350 trips. That's more than double what the normal ITE trip generation rate would be for a 12 position fueling station. And what I find troublesome is that BJ's has several stations in New England and in the Boston area that provides gas to members only with 12 fueling positions that they could obtain data and generate their own custom trip generation to validate the ITE or what my findings have found that they're going to generate traffic at a much higher rate. The second part is the internal capture. Internal capture is those trips that are going to BJ's anyway, but we're going to buy gas too now. Uh, we're going shopping on a Saturday morning, miles to buy gas. So that's not a new trip to the gas station. Their studies and BJ's own numbers. So they have the numbers for the fueling stations state that 30% internal capture rate is seen at stations with. gas stations that sell gas to members and the general public. Why they didn't use data from fueling stations that sell only to members when they have that data available, I don't understand why they did it. And they can provide that data. I will note that the Costco stations that I studied, they found that internal capture rate was only 32%. Pass by. Pass by is the traffic that is on the roadway adjacent to the facility that is normally driving to and from home or work or wherever they're going and just on a spur of the moment or for whatever reason, decide to pull into the gas station. Now that is not a new trip to the roadway network, but it is a new trip to the driveway. That's important. because when they did their trip generation and their distribution of traffic, they reduced the volumes of the driveway by that pass-by reduction. Plus they've used a 25% pass-by reduction. Yes, gas stations selling to general public, like the gas station across the street or any other gas station in town, generate a large percentage of their trips by pass-by, people going to and from work, to the doctor, whatever. However, since this is for members only and they've already taken a credit for internal capture, we have a hard time accepting that 25% is a valid number for pass-by. Typically I use 10 to 20% for a generic station, not even for wholesale flow. And the other part is they modified the default values for acceptable gaps from an under-signalized driveway, their driveway to Millsex Avenue, and they reduced this significantly by two to three seconds. Now they stated verbally in their testimony in June And I read in the letter they submitted yesterday to the board that they based that on observations they made of videos of the intersection. However, they provided no hard data for that. They provided no data that I can review. They provided no data to you to review. I do know in my one study 25 years ago, I adjusted the saturation flow rate for a signalized intersection. I had 10 or 15 pages of calculations and data to support that in the appendix of my study for people to review. Van Ness provided nothing to justify their reduction of those values in their analysis. Now, one or more of those things may be acceptable, but everything that I've just noted, they've taken the path that shows operation of the roadway network and the intersections surrounding the site are better than they might be. Reducing the trip generation shows better operations. Increasing the internal capture rate, increasing the pass-by shows better operations. By reducing the gaps acceptable to un-signalized intersections, it looks better on paper. Is it correct? I don't have the data to really tell you if it's correct, but that's kind of the point. You don't have the data to decide whether or not what they're telling you is true. Next to the sight lines. They state in their report and in their letter yesterday that the sight lines available meet or exceed the distances needed for the speeds along Middlesex Avenue. I was out at the site last Saturday. I looked for the sidelines. By field observations, I really question that they have the necessary distance available due to obstructions in the sightline that are out there today. You have vegetation to the north, shrubbery, that can be clear. To the south, you have two utility poles that are side by side. You have two trees that are blocking the sightlines to the south. I did not go out with a wheel measurement. It's kind of busy out there. But they need to show on a plan to this board that they have the adequate sight lines coming out of the side drive for people to exit safely. One of the things I noted, and I don't know why it happens, and it may be sightline related, it may not, but people turning right out of the site, if there's no one at the stop bar, they tend to shy to the middle to the left of the lane to swing wide to go right. I don't know why that is. It may be the vegetation, the hedgerow that's along the right side there, or it may be an issue with the sightlines. They know that it's tough to see, so they sneak out so they can see better. Again, you don't have the data to really make an educated or a good decision. Could I have control of the screen? I want to share my sketch with you to go over the site layout.

[Andre Leroux]: Annie, will you share the screen? I'm sorry, Annie.

[8Sqy8gyjolU_SPEAKER_00]: There we go. Okay. Okay. Can you see my screen now? Yes, we can. It shows you the sketch with the red cars?

[Andre Leroux]: Yes.

[8Sqy8gyjolU_SPEAKER_00]: Okay. This is their site in the background, their layout. And what I've shown here is tanker truck, if you can see my cursor, where it's going to be fueling and a group of passenger vehicles. These are just generic 19 foot long passenger vehicles, not SUVs, not pickups, just passenger vehicles. Now, if you notice, they're going to put the fueling tanker here and fill the fueling tanks at the ports where these arrows are. As cars queue to buy gas, things are going to get blocked up and potentially will block up not only being able to gain access, but have to drive over the tanks and the fueling positions to get places on the site. I should let you know that I am a BJ's member, that may get me in trouble with them, but I buy gas at BJ's three, four times a week. And it is a routine occasion for me to buy gas and have at least one car queued behind vehicles a lot of times too. This is not a unique situation. I experienced and I visit four BJ's for gas at a regular basis. And I see this with one or two cars waiting to get to the pumps on a routine basis.

[Andre Leroux]: Excuse me, Mr. Ullman, just because of the lateness of the hour, would you be able to kind of wrap up because we may have a couple of other comments from members of the public and also there's not gonna be a vote tonight on this issue.

[8Sqy8gyjolU_SPEAKER_00]: As this here that I've shown here is not a unique situation in my experience. And I think if you go to BJ's, you'll see that. And I think my report, my letter states my concerns, and the conclusion of my report stands for itself.

[Andre Leroux]: All right, thank you very much. Any other other members of the public that wish to speak?

[Nicole Morell]: Yes, B. Dan Fairchild, you are unmuted.

[SPEAKER_13]: Hello, me Daniel Fairchild, 54 Dwyer Circle again. I appreciate the work that's been done with the pedestrian access there and the complete streets stuff on Millstack's Ave for bicycles. I think it would be great if all the plans for that were sent to the bicycle advisory commission, which I happen to be a member, for review, just so we can take a look at those and offer any commentary on the specific bicycle plans. That's it. Thank you.

[Andre Leroux]: Thank you, B. Dan. Any other public comments? Any, I'm sorry, were there any other public comments?

[Nicole Morell]: No, none have come in.

[Andre Leroux]: Thank you. So Mr. Vaughn, my understanding is that you're not looking for a decision tonight and that this will be requesting a continuance of this matter.

[Adam Knight]: Yeah, I think Mr. Chairman, we really wanted to gain some feedback from the board, whether we were, you know, we feel that we've, done a good job of addressing the comments that we have heard before about how we could make improvements out there that would benefit the public. I think you acknowledge that, look, Middlesex Ave does see a lot of traffic. We're not in a position to kind of fix Middlesex Ave and everything going on with it, but what can we do to provide some meaningful improvements out there, particularly from a pedestrian perspective, which we've really kind of focused in on. But before we finalize any plans with revised drainage or anything like that, we wanted to get your feedback. So that was it, yeah.

[Andre Leroux]: Great, thank you. Members of the board, let me let you open up to comments. Any feedback or thoughts about what you've seen tonight? You can provide some guidance to the applicant. Deanna, you're unmuted, are you?

[Deanna Peabody]: I think that what we've seen in terms of the things that are being proposed address a lot of the concerns that we have. Traffic engineers can go back and forth. forever on, you know, what trip generation to use and what internals capture and, you know, pass by and all of that. But I'm not sure that the results of the study would change what we're having them do based on what they're proposing. I'm not sure if more traffic in the traffic study would result in any changes on what we would like to see. I mean, they added the crosswalks, they got MassDOT involved. They're talking about adding bike lanes, and that's all the things that we had asked them to address.

[Unidentified]: That's my- Deanna. Would any other member like to make comments?

[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: I guess my only comment is, I think I do agree with Deanna that they have taken some steps to address some of the sort of specific issues, but it does, I don't know, at the last meeting, I talked a little bit about how BJs could, you know, take this opportunity to be, to liven up their presence and sort of make an investment in Medford. And I gotta be honest, I'm not, really feeling that in the revisions. They feel very sort of just checking boxes rather than thinking of the project holistically and how it fits into this neighborhood.

[Andre Leroux]: You have specific thoughts about what you mean by doing more?

[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: There was the talk about- I mean, there was definitely talk about could the entry drive be divided and create a better entry to the site. I appreciate that they added a sidewalk, but it looks like they added a four-foot piece of concrete to the edge of the pavement rather than thinking about a nicer path. between the street and the front of the building, which is set really far back. The landscaping looks more or less the same. Again, I appreciate that they've added some more landscaping around the site. But it all seems sort of like, I guess what I was sort of hoping for was a more holistic look at how this, But it's, you know, not in an industrial neighborhood, but, you know, how it fits here.

[Andre Leroux]: Well, any other members have comments? I'll just, David, are you unmuting or?

[David Blumberg]: I was trying to, sure. Okay. More granular than Clyce's, but I was concerned during the presentation the last time and continue to be concerned about that circulation in and out of the gas pump area. I just think you're bringing folks into that little T and there's a lot of traffic going in multiple different directions, trying to get in and queue into line and come out of the gas operation. That compounded with the fact that the gas tanker is very much nearby and you've got the travel lane right there that every those in, in and out of vehicles, in and out of the gas fueling station kind of have to fight their way in and out of the travel lane. across the site. I think it could be a source of a problem. I wish there was a different way to queue those vehicles that felt safer to me.

[Andre Leroux]: I will say I appreciate the effort to work with the city and the state on the striping and the making it more of a complete street than what it is today. Would you, I don't know if Mr. Kelly, you want to respond to anything you've heard so far or leave it there?

[Kelly]: Yeah, I think, well, we can respond. Again, we just got this letter. We can take a look and digest and respond for the next hearing.

[Adam Knight]: Mr. Chairman, if I could just say something. Yes. So we certainly appreciate the feedback. I, you know, we do feel that the circulation does work, works well. I think this is consistent with, you know, what a lot of BJ's operations have in terms of the width of the access. And I know that the gentleman from the national spoke, you know, pointed out what he thought was some liabilities, but, you know, didn't point out that they were, you know, three other fueling stations available that really would not necessitate people having to queue where, you know, he was showing those queues. But, you know, we can certainly drill down a little bit further to provide the board more comfort that, you know, we're not going to be creating any type of a traffic hazard or, you know, a bad situation within the site. As far as the other improvements, I mean, maybe taking a more holistic look. I mean, what we really tried to do was provide pedestrian enhancements along Middlesex Avenue to make that a much safer area off of our site for pedestrians, as well as providing a safe pedestrian access route for people to be able to walk to the main store itself. I know there was comment about people living nearby that might want to go to the store, buy a gallon of milk, I mean, you know, probably going to be walking out there with, you know, shopping carts full of things and walking back and forth. But still, there could be a fair number of people that might want to walk to the store. So we are really trying to make a, I would say, a holistic improvement to what's out there. BJ's takes a lot of pride in this location. It's their very first BJ's in their entire portfolio, the first one built. They really are desirous of improving the appearance of it, you know, providing this as an amenity of their customer base. But, you know, we can certainly, you know, look at some other opportunities to, you know, make some improvements, but, you know, we try to do a good job of, you know, with the feedback that we heard to address it, but we'll continue to have a dialogue, so.

[Andre Leroux]: Yeah, I do appreciate the extra landscaping that was put in there. and the path, the pedestrian path to the store. And it makes sense where you put it, I think, in my opinion. All right, well, let's take a motion to continue this till August 20th. Is there a motion on the floor?

[8oEn2KkMIiU_SPEAKER_07]: I'll make a motion to continue this till August 20th.

[Andre Leroux]: Katie, is there a second? Second. Thank you, David. All right, roll call. David Blumberg? Yes. Christy Dowd?

[Jenny Graham]: Aye.

[Andre Leroux]: Klaus Andresen? Klaus? Aye. OK, thank you. Jackie Furtado?

[Jacqueline McPherson]: Aye.

[Andre Leroux]: Katie McHugh?

[Jacqueline McPherson]: Aye.

[Andre Leroux]: Deanna Peabody?

[Jacqueline McPherson]: Aye.

[Andre Leroux]: All right, thank you very much. And I'm an aye as well. Thank you for staying up with us so late. Apologies.

[Nicole Morell]: And just to confirm, Mark, you'll work with me on an extension of the timeframe, correct?

[Adam Knight]: Yeah, that's not a problem. Whatever we need to do to meet statutory deadlines is fine, yeah.

[Nicole Morell]: Great, perfect, thank you.

[Andre Leroux]: All right, thank you everybody from the public who spoke as well. Appreciate it. Next item on the agenda, plowing ahead. It's a review of bond reduction and lot release requests for winter place definitive subdivision at 25 winter place. Annie, do we have?

[Nicole Morell]: Yes, I have unmuted Matt and Joe. And thank you guys for sticking around so late. If you want, I can just give sort of a brief overview of what you're asking for and the situation, and you can supplement it as you'd like, if that works.

[Unidentified]: Great. So the city currently holds a bond in the amount of $373,015 to ensure completion of public improvements at the site.

[Nicole Morell]: And the proponent is requesting that the board reduce that bond amount. They requested that it be reduced down to $27,774. And the city engineer performed a site visit and a review of their reduction request. And his estimate came back at $38,126. So he'd like the city to hold on to a little bit more funding or bond amount than what the proponent had requested. He said that this estimate includes a 20% contingency, but this amount could be adjusted at the discretion of the board if you would like. So the board is being asked to vote whether to approve or deny this bond reduction and sort of what the amount would be. But the city engineer's estimate is for 38,126. And the second part of this is that The proponent had asked for the board's opinion on whether they could pursue full building permits. And I did get the city engineer's take on that. And he said, I take no exception to releasing the lots for full building permits. In fact, I prefer it. It is nice to have the houses built prior to final paving. It also gives the binder a time to settle in reducing things like potholes and sub-base related cracking in the finish. So that's just sort of an update on that.

[Andre Leroux]: Great, well, Joe and Matt, are you willing to go along with the engineer's recommendation on the reduction of bond?

[SPEAKER_13]: Yes, yep, seems reasonable, yeah.

[Andre Leroux]: Great, thank you, it seems reasonable to me as well. Any board members wish to comment? Seeing none, let's... Also, the issue around releasing the lots for building permits, any comments about that? Or is there a consensus to recommend that that move forward as well?

[Jacqueline McPherson]: Yes.

[Andre Leroux]: Great, thank you. Is there a motion to reduce the bond to 38,000 and to recommend a release of the lots to the building commissioner?

[Jacqueline McPherson]: I'm just looking for the proper name. Let's see. What is the proper name of the proponent? This is the Winthrop Place. Yeah, Winthrop Place. I didn't want to mistake it for Winthrop Estates.

[Andre Leroux]: But they probably wouldn't want that.

[Jacqueline McPherson]: Yes, definitely not. I will. I would like to give a motion to release the bond for Winthrop place so that they can for them to move forward.

[Andre Leroux]: Yeah, well just to reduce it to 38,000 I think we'd have to put in there.

[Jacqueline McPherson]: Yes, so I actually give a motion to reduce the bond to 30,000 for Winthrop Place.

[Andre Leroux]: 38,000, okay.

[Jacqueline McPherson]: 38,000, sorry.

[Andre Leroux]: And I think we also have to say and to recommend release of the lots for building permits.

[Jacqueline McPherson]: And to recommend the release of the lots for building permits. I apologize. I originally just said for them to move forward, and I know that it's not that easy.

[Andre Leroux]: Just to be specific.

[Jacqueline McPherson]: Yes.

[Andre Leroux]: Is there a second? Second. Thank you, David. All right, roll call vote. David Blumberg? Aye. Klaas Andreassen? Okay, sorry. It's hard to hear you. Katie McHugh?

[8oEn2KkMIiU_SPEAKER_07]: Aye.

[Andre Leroux]: Deanna Peabody? I. Jackie Furtado. I. Christy Dowd. I. And I'm an I as well. Thank you guys. Appreciate your patience and for working with us during the course of the project. Glad to see it moving forward so much. Thank you, everyone.

[Unidentified]: Thank you all. Yep. Thanks, everybody. Have a good night. Good night. Thank you. You too. OK. Bye-bye. All right.

[Andre Leroux]: final item on the agenda is a discussion of the RP for the comprehensive plan. Alicia, do you want to introduce that?

[Alicia Hunt]: Sure, so I may actually just have Annie mostly speak to it. We've received a few comments from members of the board. Annie's incorporated them and can speak to that. A few people reached out and said they liked it. We would like to discuss with you all, I think there's just really one question, and that is, when you do a comprehensive plan, you say, what is the term that you're looking for? Is it five, 10, 15, 20, 30 years? And this is the planning board, so I would look to you all for opinion and guidance on that. This is not the mayor's area of expertise. I'm new to the comprehensive plan process myself, that's why we're hiring a consultant, but we really need to say in the RFP that portion of it. My hope would be that we could actually put this out to bid for requests for qualifications before the Community Development Board's next meeting. So the other sort of piece that I would like to get out of tonight is just sort of a final like, You guys are good with this. If you would like to put in any more comments, you will send them to me or Annie. Otherwise, we're sort of good to go to put this out on behalf of the city. If there are big issues, I would really like to hear that tonight, even though it's 1140.

[Andre Leroux]: Right, it's been the last item on the agenda the last couple nights for very long meeting. So what's gotten the short end of the stick on this Alicia, sorry about that. In terms of the term, I believe state law. says that communities should, as a parent, I mean, it's a requirement. It's just not enforced that communities update their comprehensive plans every 10 years. So I would suggest putting 10 years as the term in the RFP. And... Maybe we should just say if anybody has further comments or suggestions, they would send them to the community development office within a week from today. Does that make sense, Alicia?

[Alicia Hunt]: I'm good with that. Annie, were any of the comments substantial enough that they might be worthy of just making sure everybody else Part of why we had everybody send them directly to Annie is to avoid conflict of open meeting law. So were any of the comments changes that you received substantial enough that are worthy of mention as opposed to copy edit? I have to tell you that I have not actually seen the comments that went straight to Annie. Go ahead.

[Nicole Morell]: Sorry.

[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: Is there an updated version?

[Alicia Hunt]: So this is still the working version, right? We send you all a link to a Google doc. So that's a live version.

[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: All right. Yeah. You told me that.

[Nicole Morell]: So the main comments that I incorporated, um, were around sort of language tweaks. And one of the things was bringing in some language about, um, looking at the city's project review and the permitting processes and things like that. So I tried to expand some of the areas to include that so that when the consultants come back, they'll know that they're looking at that as well, rather than just making a plan and looking at the zoning. We also want to understand the city's processes and what is included in that. I added some language around strengthening that public outreach piece and the public participation and really marketing the plan and making that a focus of how do we get responses from the community and how do we make sure all different parts of the community know that this is happening and are able to participate. I added some language that Christy sent about broad goals. And maybe I can actually just read those two. There are a few different areas where the RFP talks about goals and things, but this was an interesting sort of overarching goals of both the comprehensive plan and the phase two that would look at kind of the zoning and the processes. And it's to document a clear vision, connect a public investment in that vision. connect regulation to that vision, create a roadmap for thinking and acting from a comprehensive perspective and providing an excellent system for project review. So kind of bringing that comprehensive plan from theoretical down to like, what does this mean systems wise in the city? So those were sort of, and then some changes to some wording around placemaking, walkability, things like that.

[Andre Leroux]: Does that include like shifting to an online permitting system? And should there be any mention of that? Or is that like a separate track?

[Nicole Morell]: We have an online permitting system. The city launched it right at the start of COVID. Right now, it's mainly just being used for building permits. it will be built out at some point to encompass the rest of it, but right, that's still sort of in flux, in process. So that's, I could mention that specifically if you want, but there is a software that the building department has committed to and is being trained on and the other department heads are being trained on. So I think that's sort of in progress.

[Andre Leroux]: And do we specifically ask for a, have a digital, digitized zoning map?

[Nicole Morell]: That is also in progress. The assessor's office is, there's a consulting firm making that for them.

[Unidentified]: Great.

[Jenny Graham]: Do we have anything online?

[Alicia Hunt]: It seems to me that... Oops, sorry. I was just gonna say that it seems to me that in this day and age, if one produced a new zoning map, it would, by default, be digital. Be like a GIS map? Yeah, I can't imagine that anybody would produce a map that was not.

[Andre Leroux]: Right, although I'm just thinking that first part of a comprehensive plan is not the actual zoning change, but I, you know, digitizing what we have now.

[Nicole Morell]: Yeah, so that's in progress. And then I would assume that part of since phase one is sort of the comprehensive plan and phase two is more looking at the the vision and goals from the comprehensive plan. What do we need to change in the zoning? What do we need to change in our processes to get there? And so that I would envision would include an update to that digital zoning map to reflect any zoning changes. But also the engineering department will sort of take ownership of that map once it exists. It'll be a GIS layer that can actually be edited and changed and exists already.

[Andre Leroux]: And having tonight's discussion very fresh in the mind, is there language around, because I haven't looked at this closely recently, is there language about identifying areas of the city that for walkability, commercial development, because I think I think really identifying really the key areas for development in the city is, you know, it's going to be a limited number of places like Medford Square, like a few other places. And I think that should really be part of what the consultant produces so that the city understands like, here's where we're growing.

[Unidentified]: Great. Any other comments? So is there a motion to approve the RFP?

[Jenny Graham]: Sorry, I have one question. My internet went out when you were talking about the term. Oh, okay, decided.

[Andre Leroux]: Oh, I was I was suggesting 10 years because state law does state that community should have every 10 years and updated master plan. So even though it's not enforced at all, but we should probably put have that be the term.

[Nicole Morell]: Yeah, I guess there's sort of two terms. In my mind, there's like the term of like when you do the plan, but if it should be looking farther than that, I guess. There was some language about 10 to 20 years. That's something that I think if you guys have any input on, but there might be some things that wouldn't necessarily happen in 10 years that you might wanna start initial steps for or be planning for in a comprehensive plan, maybe.

[Jenny Graham]: I mean, I've typically seen plans for 10 years, but you could mention like, you know, what would be short, mid long-term goals, but overall you do the plan for 10 years and then plan to revisit it every 10 similar to what Andre was saying.

[Andre Leroux]: Well, the only question that I have about that in terms of the long-term stuff is, uh, I mean, there's, you know, climate planning, like in 50 years, what are we thinking about what's going to happen in terms of flooding and, uh, you know, how does that affect where we grow now? So I don't know.

[Alicia Hunt]: And so you actually want to look at that. And so one of the things it does say is you must look at all the plans that we currently have and that exist, and we list them out. And one of them is that we have a climate vulnerability assessment that looks at 2030 and 2070, the present, which was like eight years ago, and 2030 and 2070. but that they need to take that in account, right? Because you don't want to designate a huge development district in the place that you think is going to be flooded in 20 years. So having that in your mind, my one thought on one of thinking about longer term is the fact that there is no existing long-term plan. Like this isn't like the 10 year update of our 50 year plan. There is no 50 year plan. There's no 30 year plan. Um, but we need action. We need short term stuff, but nobody's done that longterm visioning.

[Andre Leroux]: Well, what do you, and what's the term that you prefer Alicia? I mean, and how would that affect the scope and cost?

[Alicia Hunt]: I mean, there's a certain amount of that I think is embedded in it that they would take into account things that are longer term that we know about, like the climate things that you mentioned. That, I think, would just be a normal piece of a modern comprehensive plan. But whether we want to ask them to specifically do long-range visioning as well as immediate changes, it's harder to do long-range visioning with the community. And that's part of why I kind of wanted to raise it with this group is like, do we just say we want to look at the next 10 years and that's it? Or do we put in some language around long-term vision with actions for the next 10 years?

[Andre Leroux]: Any members have thoughts?

[8oEn2KkMIiU_SPEAKER_07]: I kind of like the latter, that there's a really long-term vision, but there's like a 10-year action plan. It kind of encompasses the best of both worlds.

[Jenny Graham]: And then with the 10-year action plan, is the consultant going to advise on how to measure, like, key performance indicators and like how the city is like actually achieving those 10 year objectives. You know, cause then how do you measure yourself? Cause you know, everybody says like, oh yeah, city always does plans, but then nothing ever happens. So.

[Alicia Hunt]: I think that's why you need like different range. actions, you need stuff that you can do in the short term, because the city does stuff. It just takes so blasted long sometimes that to the general public, it looks like we never do anything.

[Jenny Graham]: Yeah. So to that point, it's like maybe the consultant can advise on how the actions that the city is taking are being measured and reported out for progress.

[Deanna Peabody]: That would be good. Well, like performance measures and that are evaluated like every year, every two years.

[Alicia Hunt]: To track. One of the things that I've seen is that a community creates a comprehensive plan. And then the committee that works on that continues to meet once or twice a year after that as to make sure that actions are moving forward and things continue to happen. That it sort of evolves into, it doesn't just go away when the plan is written, but they come back every six months and review the actions and how it's going. That feels like something less that needs to be in the the plan in the RFP and more a decision by this group of people that, yes, we want to make sure that happens.

[Andre Leroux]: Well, since it seems like there is some interest from you, Alicia, and some members of the board about the long-term piece, I think 30 years, I think maybe a 30-year vision with goals and identifying the kind of the growth hubs and corridors in the city is important, but then really focusing on what we're going to do in the next 10 years.

[Unidentified]: I don't know, that seems to make sense to me.

[Alicia Hunt]: Yeah, it makes sense to me. It feels like a lot to do off, but. I'd rather think big and just try to do it right to begin with, than try to say, ooh, that's too much. I'm afraid it's too much work. We've identified funding from the Community Development Block Grant. And I think the worst thing that's gonna happen is it's gonna take a little longer and it's gonna cost a little bit more. And I'd rather, have it take a little longer in the end and cost a little more, then not be useful. And not be something that's gonna help.

[Andre Leroux]: I agree. I just also know that there's a lot of plans that sit on the shelf and it's hard for us to know. We couldn't have envisioned, I don't think we can envision what the world's going to be like in 20 or 30 years. So I feel like the scope around the long-term stuff should be really restricted. We shouldn't try to predict or control what's happening, we should really try to have sort of a vision that encapsulates some shared goals and principles, identify what some of those long-term goals are, like it could be, and then identify some of the areas where we think are the kind of transformative places where we might expect growth or development to happen. And I think we should specifically reference the climate vulnerability plan as part of that work. But again, like, you know, having that be bounded of the 30 year stuff be bounded and really focus on what we're doing now and in the next 10 years.

[Alicia Hunt]: Yeah, that makes sense. I just, I just had to laugh because as you are probably aware, I've been working on moving offices from downstairs to, to the community development office. And today my daughter was filling plans onto the bookcase in the office. There's just, she's like, wow, there are a lot of plans.

[Unidentified]: I'm like, yeah, there are a lot of plans. Yeah.

[Alicia Hunt]: But there are a lot of... So maybe if I can take... Go.

[Nicole Morell]: I can take a stab at adding some language about what I'm hearing is... It'd be kind of a 10-year plan, but with a piece that is looking long-term, a long-term visioning piece that really focuses on where do we want to be in 30 years or so, and takes into account climate and key development areas and all of that. But the plan itself and the action items would be focused on that 10-year timeframe. Other things to emphasize will be making sure the plan has key performance indicators or some way to measure the success of implementation over time.

[Unidentified]: And yes, that's what I have so far.

[Nicole Morell]: Am I missing anything?

[Unidentified]: Sounds good.

[Nicole Morell]: So I could try to add some of that language in, send out the link again when that's been done and maybe give you guys a week or so to review it and send me any final comments. And with the expectation that we would put this out prior to the next meeting, so we wouldn't have another group conversation about it.

[Andre Leroux]: Right, so should we aim for, just authorize you to incorporate any edits by a certain date so you can issue the RFP by the end of July, say?

[Alicia Hunt]: Right, and I would just ask that members of this board think about who from the board would like to be on the steering committee for it, and that at your next meeting, August 20th, we won't be, that would be, I have to do the math, but we won't be ready to, like, that would be the earliest possible that we could be reviewing responses to it. I think it needs to be out there for three or four weeks. So we'll be putting together a committee to review responses and then actually, to be the, like, I think we're thinking like a 20-person steering committee in the big picture, but we probably want a couple people from this board, along with myself and the chief of staff and Annie, to actually go through the consultant selection process. And we'll see about asking for a city councilor or two.

[Andre Leroux]: And Alicia, what's the role of this board you see through the process?

[Alicia Hunt]: In the end, this board should be endorsing the plan, should be the sort of committee behind it. It's the giving a final blessing, but there should be a steering committee that's the meeting regularly about it, right? Because people need to be reading with this consultant twice a month to keep things moving forward and on an email list. So you don't wanna take over community development boards, but we do want a few people to be part of a different group that's a diverse group that represents different angles and perspectives of the city to be the group that's managing it going forward. And then this board is gonna bless it in the end. So they should be getting a report back from the members who are on that committee. at every community development board meeting. How's it going? What's new? Where does this stand? Report back regularly.

[Andre Leroux]: Sounds good. All right. Well, we've now moved into this July 17th. Do we need a motion on this, Alicia, or is the feedback enough?

[Alicia Hunt]: As long as I'm not hearing any objections, Everybody's good with it. It's the will of the board, sort of their consensus to move it forward.

[Andre Leroux]: And before recruiting people for that steering committee group, you might want to, let's have, let them recover from the five and six hour meetings we've been having. Hopefully that's going to, we won't do this anymore in the near future. Yeah.

[Jenny Graham]: Nevermind, you know, starting work at, you know, 7am. We should try that. split up the agenda a little more.

[Andre Leroux]: Yes, yeah, it's been a lot these last couple of meetings. So thank you everybody for hanging in, I really appreciate it. And hopefully, again, I don't think the pipeline going forward will be quite as heavy as this. Wishful thinking, maybe?

[Nicole Morell]: All right, is there a motion on the... I'm jinxed, that's Andre.

[Andre Leroux]: Yeah. Is there a motion on the floor?

[8oEn2KkMIiU_SPEAKER_07]: motion to adjourn.

[Andre Leroux]: Second. Roll call, David Blumberg? Aye. Katie McHugh?

[Jenny Graham]: Aye. Deanna Peabody?

[Andre Leroux]: Aye. Have a good weekend. Thank you, everyone.

[Jenny Graham]: All right. Take care.

[Nicole Morell]: Bye.

[Jenny Graham]: Thank you.

Jenny Graham total time: 8.05 minutes total words: 635	Adam Knight total time: 7.8 minutes total words: 365	Nicole Morell total time: 10.44 minutes total words: 992