AI-generated transcript of Community Development Board 08-20-20

[Andre Leroux]: Okay, good evening, everyone. My name's Andre LaRue. I'm the chair of the Medford Community Development Board. I'm opening our meeting for August 20th, 2020. The Medford Community Development Board will conduct a meeting via Zoom remote video conferencing on Thursday, August 20th, 2020 at 6 p.m. Pursuant to Governor Baker's March 12th, 2020 order suspending certain provisions of the open meeting law, general law chapter 30 A 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. Welcome everyone. Just a reminder that we are streaming on the government channel and online at the Medford Community Media website. Also, to participate during the meeting for members of the public, questions and comments may be emailed to OCD at Medford-MA.gov or submitted via phone to 781-393-2480. 781-393-2480. All votes will be roll call votes. And please introduce yourself each time you speak. And if you are not a board member, please state your name and address for the record.

[Unidentified]: One moment.

[Andre Leroux]: Okay, first item on the agenda is, I will also say that our last two meetings, if anyone has participated in those, were a very long meeting, so I'm going to try to do my best to move things along more expeditiously, and I would ask for everyone's help in doing so. Keep your comments as concise as possible. First, we move to approve the minutes of the meetings for both June 18th, 2020, as well as July 16th, 2020. For June 18th, 2020, do board members have any questions, comments, or edits?

[David Blumberg]: Andre, this is Dave. I don't have any comments. I've read them, and I wanted to make a motion to approve the minutes. If I can for both meetings in one motion, that's fine. If not, we can do it separately.

[Andre Leroux]: Let's do one at a time in case there are comments on the July minutes. There's a motion on the floor to approve the minutes for June. Is there a second?

[Deanna Peabody]: I'll second. This is Deanna.

[Andre Leroux]: Thanks, Deanna. With virtual meeting, we will do a... Just mute if you're not speaking. Thank you. There's some feedback there. So the roll call vote. Deanna Peabody?

[Jenny Graham]: Aye.

[Andre Leroux]: Christy Dowd?

[Jenny Graham]: Aye.

[Andre Leroux]: Cless Andresen?

[Jenny Graham]: Aye.

[Andre Leroux]: Jackie Furtado?

[Jacqueline McPherson]: Aye.

[Andre Leroux]: And David Blumberg? Aye. All right, thank you. And I'm an aye as well. 6-0, motion passes. Any questions, comments, or edits for the July minutes? Seeing none, is there a motion on the floor?

[David Blumberg]: Andre, this is Dave again. I'll take that as well, a motion to approve the minutes from our July meeting.

[Andre Leroux]: Great. Thank you, David. Is there a second?

[Jacqueline McPherson]: Second. This is Jackie Furtado. I second that motion.

[Andre Leroux]: Thank you, Jackie. Roll call vote. Deanna Peabody?

[Jenny Graham]: Aye.

[Andre Leroux]: Christy Dowd?

[Jenny Graham]: Aye.

[Andre Leroux]: Klaas Andreassen? Jackie Furtado.

[Jenny Graham]: Aye.

[Andre Leroux]: David Blumberg. Aye. And I'm an aye as well. 6-0, the motion passes. Thank you. Next item on the agenda, we have an A in our plan. It's also, for the members of the public, an approval not required plan for review at 73 to 79 George Street. So the applicant here owns two adjacent lots along George Street and is proposing to create three lots, each one 5,000 square feet in size, with 50 feet of frontage along George Street. With A&Rs, board members know, members of the public may not know, A&R stands for approval not required, and that's exactly what this is, and the board must approve as long as it meets the minimum zoning requirements. The lots appear to do so, they've been reviewed by the city engineer, and building commissioner and that they're satisfied with the requirements. Board members, you have the chance to take a look at the materials. Any questions that you might have? Seeing none, is there a motion to approve the A&R plan?

[Jenny Graham]: Hi, this is Christy Dowd. I'll make a motion to approve the A&R plan.

[Andre Leroux]: All right, thank you. There's a motion to approve the A&R plan for 73 to 79 George Street.

[Nicole Morell]: And Andre, I just want to correct the record there that the building commissioner reviewed this, not the city engineer.

[Andre Leroux]: Yes, I misspoke at first. Thank you. Is there a second to the motion?

[David Blumberg]: Andre, this is Dave. I'll second the motion.

[Andre Leroux]: All right, thank you, David. Roll call vote. Deanna Peabody. Christy Dowd.

[Jacqueline McPherson]: Aye.

[Andre Leroux]: Les Andresen. Jackie Furtado.

[Jacqueline McPherson]: Aye.

[Andre Leroux]: David Blumberg. Aye. And I'm an aye as well. 6-0, the ANR plan is approved for endorsement. And board members, now that City Hall is open, We will make arrangements so that you can come by to sign the plan. We'll have it in the Office of Community Development. Thank you, everybody. And thank you to the proponents.

[Doug Carr]: Thank you.

[Andre Leroux]: Next item on the agenda is a continued public hearing for 278 Middlesex Ave. This is the proposed gas station at the BJ's lot. continued from June 18th, 2020, as well as July 16th, 2020. The Community Development Board is the special permit granting authority for this project. So let me reread the public hearing notice.

[Unidentified]: One moment.

[Jenny Graham]: Andre, this is Christy Dowd. I'm not sure if I should do this before you read the notice, but I did want to disclose that I work for Stantec. And I just learned since the last board meeting that Stantec has been hired by BJ's to provide environmental consulting. So with that new information, I am going to abstain from reviewing this project. and participating any further in this review. So I am going to mute and stop my video for this portion of the agenda.

[Andre Leroux]: Okay, thank you, Christy, appreciate that. Public hearing notice that was first opened on June 18th, 2020 of the Community Development Board. The Medford Community Development Board shall conduct a public hearing on Thursday, June 18, 2020. That was continued into July and to today at 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 278 and 0 Middlesex Avenue and allowed 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 more or less square foot kiosk gasoline attendant facility with canopy of 4,525 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 backslash departments backslash community hyphen development by clicking on current CD board filings. This time I reopen the public hearing and I would like to invite the proponents to present their revised materials and speak to their progress since our last meeting.

[afyYb4sUUnA_SPEAKER_13]: Uh, yes. Good evening, Mr. Chairman and members of the board for the record. Attorney Mark Vaughn with the law firm of Riemer Bronstein, representing the applicant BJ's. a few folks with us tonight. Could I just, before making any presentation, could I just ask a procedural question? I know you have a seven-member board, and I understand a board member is elected to recuse herself. Are the remaining six members present? I didn't know if you were... How many board members you have? The reason I ask is I know there's a special permit. So therefore, I believe we would need the quantum of vote would be five out of the remaining six. Is that correct? So I just wanted to just understand if you only had five that would be present or?

[Andre Leroux]: Yes, there'd be five voting board members at this time.

[afyYb4sUUnA_SPEAKER_13]: Okay, so one member is absent this evening? Yes. So, I guess I'm just wondering whether it would behoove us to continue the hearing if the board were willing just, I know this is all happening in real time right now, but since we wouldn't have a full board and already lost one board member. Just thinking that that might be appropriate in this instance. Otherwise, we would likely need to have a unanimous vote of all five. Yeah.

[Andre Leroux]: Right. Understood. And that is, we're happy to do so. If you'd like to request that at the If you would also like to take the advantage of the time that we're all here to present your revisions and progress, we could also do that before continuing. Might be helpful to see if we've gotten the issues that were raised addressed.

[afyYb4sUUnA_SPEAKER_13]: Okay. With the understanding that the board member not participating tonight would be able to watch a tape of the hearing to be able to participate at the next meeting? Yes. OK. Because I think everyone's been at each of the prior two meetings, correct? Yes. Yeah. OK. So I guess I would, I know we have my client. If we were there in real person, I would look over at my client and just confirm that that's acceptable. But I think that's appropriate to go forward, but I don't know, Patrick, do you, or Austin, just would like to get their input.

[Andre Leroux]: Annie, can you unmute Patrick? I think you're unmuted now, Patrick.

[Alicia Hunt]: Somehow you're still muted on your end. We can't hear you talking.

[Adam Hurtubise]: Thank you very much. There's too many mute buttons in the Zoom life that we all live. That is fine, Mr. Chairman, with the understanding that Mark outlined in terms of the individual who is absent being able to participate in the next hearing. We're happy to go through what we've put together for you tonight, and we can take it from there. So yes, sir. Thank you. Thank you.

[Alicia Hunt]: I just want to sort of comment procedurally that Annie and I just discussed that we actually haven't had it happen in her memory for a Community Development Board, but I will state that our Conservation Commission and Zoning Board have both felt that somebody could read up on the minutes and come up to speed on a meeting. And now that these are being recorded, it seems obvious that they could watch the recording and actually fully come up to speed on everything that transpired at the meeting.

[Andre Leroux]: Yes, and I think that's what Attorney Vaughn would like the board member to do, and we'll make sure that happens.

[afyYb4sUUnA_SPEAKER_13]: Okay, is there any question that that can't happen with the Community Development Board? No. Okay, so sorry for all the procedural questions here, but so now I guess to the substance. So I don't have much to say, Mr. Chairman, you'd probably be pleased to hear that. I think that we did submit some revised materials a couple of weeks ago to the board. Again, I think everyone here is familiar with the project. It's a retail gasoline station that BJ's is looking to provide within its parking lot. We have shown that, you know, the parking supply would be more than adequately met from a zoning in a practical perspective even with this utilization of a portion of that parking lot for this use. There were some questions that had come up at the prior meeting or meetings that we had that we have tried to incorporate all of that feedback and and put it into the revised plan. I think what I was going to do was ask Austin Turner, who is with Bowler Engineering, to present to the board what changes we have made. And I guess the only thing I would mention is, so again, to remind the board, the project is under zoning. It's allowed by right. So the use itself is a by right use. But as a major project, quote unquote, it does require a special permit with site plan approval by the Community Development Board, which is why we're here. But I think the use is very much consistent with the surroundings in terms of what's in and around that area. I hope the one thing that does come across is that we have tried to be very attentive and responsive to the feedback that we've received. And I think it's made for a better plan. as opposed to being repetitive here, I will turn it over to Austin and he can walk you through that if that's okay. Thanks.

[Andre Leroux]: Hold on a moment while we get you unmuted. There you go.

[Austin Turner]: Good evening. Annie, thank you for allowing me the pleasure of my voice in the virtual world. So as Mr. Vaughn mentioned, we've made a number of updates based on all the feedback that we've received from these hearings. And frankly, they've been very productive. And I think you'll see that the site plan has been improved as a result. So I'm gonna share my screen if that's possible. And I will show you what we're doing here. Can everybody see that okay?

[Andre Leroux]: It says you've started screen sharing. Oh, there it is. Yep. Come up now.

[Austin Turner]: So I've got what you're looking at here is an overview of the property. I'll give you kind of a big picture, and then I'll dial into some of the specifics. But we've made a number of different site plan updates and improvements resulting from these conversations, as I had mentioned. As you can see, we're introducing some changes and some improvements to other portions of the site which aren't directly related to this specific set of improvements associated with the fueling station. One of the most significant, and I believe, I'm just gonna zoom in here. So I believe it was member Blumberg who mentioned the queuing and there were some questions about how that functioned and specifically, asked some questions about how we had it, if you recall, an intersection, if you can see my cursor circling, we'd had an intersection there, which was going to be a two-way traffic intersection. And he had expressed some feedback, some candidly very, very good feedback that we've incorporated in response to that, we've made an improvement to the site plan. So what we've done is this driveway here that I'm pointing to was originally a two-way access drive. It could accommodate inbound and outbound vehicles. We've eliminated the outbound movement from this driveway. It is an in only now. And really what that does is it further exaggerates the queuing and the vehicle flow through the fueling station that was already as part of the plan, but it reinforces the one-way circulation pattern. And you can see here as the fueling station is arranged, vehicles come in, move to the right, and then can filter into any number, any one of the fueling positions of which there are 12. There are six pumps and 12 fueling positions, which really is intended to benefit the customer, provide for an efficient fueling operation where you don't get queuing or stacking at pumps. Now that proceeds in a counterclockwise fashion. So as you come through, you take a left, again, in a one-way driveway. In the previous version, you would be able to come out, take that immediate left again, come out, and then exit. Now, as was expressed, there was some concern about this intersection becoming a little bit cumbersome or perhaps having conflicting movements. In response to that, we've closed it off. And really, we put in a very, very large landscaping island. So that has the benefit also of further defining and reinforcing the intended queuing and vehicular travel movements, but also provides a fairly substantial additional landscape on where we've all seen and we were talking about earlier, did not exist in this parking lot before. So there's an added benefit beyond just simply the vehicle flow movement. So that was a substantial upgrade that was made. You can see we've added and continued to maintain the sidewalk. So we are maintaining and incorporating the pedestrian connectivity from Middlesex Avenue. We heard some feedback about that not being as pedestrian friendly necessarily. So what we've done is we've introduced a landscaping strip in front of that sidewalk to provide some additional buffering from the parking in the drive aisles to that sidewalk, and that will be planted as well. So you get some buffer both from a landscaping perspective, it also puts the sidewalk a bit further separated from vehicular traffic movements. As has been previously discussed, our limit of work for this project remains entirely within the paved surface that exists today. So that sidewalk would not extend beyond the curbing that is out there today. With respect to the front door here at the entrance, as you recall, there was a significant amount of discussion related to the driveway, trying to improve the geometry. So we're reconstructing the sidewalk along the project frontage. We're improving the accessibility features there and bringing that in conformance with current standards. And then internal to the parking lot and on the perimeter of the parking lot, what we're doing here is adding a number of different landscaping features. I think the most substantial and beneficial of which is going to be some significant improvements to the boundary of the property between Woodruff Avenue. Everybody I'm sure is familiar with this. Vegetation that's out there doesn't appear to be thriving. In fact, some of it appears to be dead, frankly. And where a buffer may have existed once upon a time ago, we're going to reestablish that. So we're putting a number of different plantings in here to create a dense vegetated screen on the outside of the fence, which is still on the property that is retained and is part of the beach haze program. But not only will it screen the fence, it's going to create a nice vegetative buffer between Woodruff Avenue and the property. What's also shown on here, and I'm going to turn this over to Sean Kelly from Vanoss in a few minutes. The applicant is committing to the inclusion of approximately 1,300 feet of improvements to Middlesex Avenue related to the inclusion of bike lanes. We had heard a lot of discussion about this. And I think one of the words that we heard at our last discussion was holistic. And we had taken that to heart. not only are we making some substantial improvements here on the property, which are going to have a benefit to the community, including the enhanced pedestrian connectivity, the screening improvements, but something that has resonated with us and has been discussed at length, both with the board and the technical professionals who are involved in this project were improvements to Middlesex Avenue and the you know, community's desire to try and improve this corridor. So Sean's going to speak to you in a second, and I'll keep my screen up when he does. I have an exhibit on my screen, which is going to show the extent of those improvements. But this is approximately 1,300 feet of offsite improvements that the applicant is agreeing to implement, provided DOT, of course, is comfortable with those improvements. And it's really providing a substantial link in the proverbial chain, if you will, of the corridor improvements that we know the city has been working on for a long time. So we think that's a pretty significant benefit and something that we're excited about. I know Mr. Netriba has also been working very, very closely with the owner of the property, with his counterparts at BJ's with respect to some potential other improvements related to electrical vehicle parking. I think he's come to an agreement there and I'd love for him to have an opportunity to talk about some of the things that he's been able to accomplish there. And if you could unmute Patrick for a moment, please.

[Adam Hurtubise]: There we go. I think I'm back on there. Thank you, Austin. I appreciate that. Yes, in consideration of the things that we heard from various members of the board at our last hearing, we've made an arrangement with a charging company to offer EV charging at this site, whereby we will have several stalls for folks to come and charge their cars. We're working out the details with that entity right now, but we would like to add that here. And we think that will be a real good a good benefit to the community and something that'll really make Club No. 1 here for BJ's in Medford shine. And like we said at the beginning, that's something that we take a lot of pride in and we want to make sure that this is as close to a flagship store as we could make it, given the fact that it's 30-something years old. But with that being said, Austin, I'll turn it back over to you for the rest of the details.

[Austin Turner]: Thanks, Patrick. So before I flip it over to Sean Kelly to talk about some of the specifics relative to the bike lane improvements and some of the additional analysis that he's done in response to some of the feedback that we received at the last hearing, I'd like to ask the board if there's any specific questions or thoughts you'd like me to address immediately with respect to some of the things I just talked about. Hearing none, should we flip it over to Mr. Kelly to talk about some of the traffic items?

[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: I don't know, Andre, if it makes sense to talk now or to wait till the end for overall comments.

[Andre Leroux]: Yeah, why don't we wait till the end of the presentation, and then we'll take some board member questions and comments. We're going to have a curtailed process tonight anyways.

[Austin Turner]: OK. So I don't know if you already have, but Sean Kelly is probably eagerly awaiting the power of the unmute button.

[Kelly]: I think I'm muted, if you guys can hear me. Good evening, Mr. Chairman, members of the board. Again, Sean Kelley with Van Assen Associates. So I think the first thing I'd like to speak to tonight is a plan that we put together in response to comments we received from the city's Traffic Engineering Department. It's a plan to provide bicycle lanes or shared bicycle vehicular accommodations along Middlesex Avenue. If you can see the plan here, is my cursor active, Austin?

[Austin Turner]: I have control over the screen, but if you want to share the screen, you can, John.

[Kelly]: No problem. So basically the plan, and we worked with Todd Blake from your engineering department to get some feedback as to what he was looking for. And the plan essentially, as you can see, is from the city line to the north to have a buffered bicycle lane. exclusive lanes with the painted, you know, buffered area that would extend to 1st Street and then from 1st Street down to 5th Street, do a share road accommodation. And, you know, we've agreed that as long as DOT is on board with these, you know, these provisions, we're more than happy to provide them. So I think, you know, we'll advance the design as part of our highway access permit application. And if they're on board, we'll, you know, we'll certainly look to implement this measure and, you know, fund it. The other, I guess there was also some discussion, you know, at the last meeting, there were some concerns that were raised by the opponents of the project relative to the traffic engineering and how we came up with our projections for traffic flows and what have you. We have since then gone out and done some counts. Went out to an existing facility in Stoneman, Massachusetts and did some counts during the morning peak. during the evening peak, during the Saturday midday peak, because ultimately we wanted to get a handle as to what the actual traffic at these BJ's facilities, you know, ultimately perform. What we found was that the morning traffic was actually lower than what we projected. It was quite a bit lower. It was about 30 customers an hour. The evening projections were almost dead on within three to five cars, customer trips. And then Saturday was a little higher. It was in the order of about 50 cars, 50 customers per hour higher. We've gone through and redone the analysis, calibrated all. works with the higher customer traffic and ultimately didn't change the findings of the study. But ultimately, I think that the important thing is that the data we collected in Stoneham showed that the traffic generation rejections were accurate, that the internal capture particularly in terms of how much was coming from customers that were already at BJ's was accurate. It was in the 45 to 55% range. And ultimately, even though Saturday was a bit higher, we rerun those analyses and it shows that the final analysis is still valid, the impacts are minimal. So in terms of traffic, I think that's really the thrust of it tonight is that we've responded to the city's comments relative to the improvements on Middlesex Avenue. And then we've looked at the traffic generation at similar sites and it's confirmed the findings of the initial study. I'm happy to answer any questions anyone has. Thank you.

[Andre Leroux]: Thank you, Mr. Kelly. Is there anybody else on the project team that is going to be speaking?

[afyYb4sUUnA_SPEAKER_13]: No, I think that's it for now, Mr. Chairman. Certainly, we're here to answer any questions or comments you may have. But again, just to conclude, this is Mark Vaughn for the record. I hope that you can hopefully see from the totality of what we're talking about, we did listen intently to what we think the board's desires were to see what we could do to provide some more global improvements to the area, recognizing that we You know, we can't, you know, fix everything that's out there in terms of, you know, traffic or whatever it might be on Middle Six Avenue. But I think that was acknowledged early on that, you know, that wasn't something that we were going to be in a position to have to address. But I think certainly there's a significant improvement overall that we're providing here to the total site and the project in general. So thank you.

[Andre Leroux]: Certainly appreciate your efforts. Is there anything in the letters by city department heads that you believe you're not going to be able to comply with?

[Austin Turner]: Mr. Chair, this is Austin Turner from Bowler. With respect, I know we received the engineering letter. I didn't see anything in there that we haven't already discussed with Ms. McGivern already. And many of those things are seeming like suggested conditions rather than they are anything that we can't commit to or aren't willing to do already. So with respect to that, no, sir. OK.

[Andre Leroux]: Thank you. And I do know that city engineer Tim McIvern is here. So I'm wondering if he could just take a moment to provide us with his opinion about these revisions.

[Tim McGivern]: Sure. Yeah, basically. From the initial review letter, everything's been satisfactorily addressed when it comes to the site utilities and requests that I made for some design changes. So I converted all of the remaining open items into conditions. And they're just reasonable conditions that are based off of conversations that we've had with the project via the letters. The only thing that we're waiting on now is just resolution on the traffic related items. And just to, Todd Blake is here, you could talk to them, but I believe we just want a little bit more time. And the fact that they're requesting the continuation is definitely acceptable to us too, so we can make sure that we have a full understanding of the proposal.

[Andre Leroux]: Okay, would Mr. Blake like to say anything at this time or will he hold the next month?

[Tim McGivern]: I don't know. Sure. Oh, there he is, there he is.

[Todd Blake]: Yeah, I'll hold for official, but it does seem like a vast improvement to the before, and it does seem like they tried to address a lot of the concerns we had and a lot of suggestions. Thank you. Looks pretty good.

[Andre Leroux]: Let me open up to questions and comments from board members. And just as a heads up, I think after the board members give their questions and comments, we'll close the the hearing at that time, since we're going to be continuing it to � I won't close it, but we'll continue it to September. Klaus, I know that you wanted to speak. Why don't you go first?

[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: Thank you. I think my biggest suggestion, concern, Is the location of the dumpster. I think it could probably be in a better location instead of their front of the project. I mean if you're trying to Portray a good entry and Standing in Medford having the first thing you see when you come to the site being there and I know it's I know it's landscaped around it, but that never quite does the trick and I think now that you have that traffic island on the left side of the post, you could probably put the dumpster there. It might be a bit of a challenge with how the truck will maneuver, but I think it's a much better location.

[Austin Turner]: We'd be happy to take a look at that as part of a forthcoming update. That seems like a more than reasonable request.

[Andre Leroux]: Thank you, Klaas. Are there other board members that would like to comment?

[Jacqueline McPherson]: Yes, Andre. This is Jackie Patato. I just wanted to just reiterate what has already been mentioned by other board members as well as the city engineer, Tim McGiven. I just want to thank the proponent for one, for even considering trying to rectify the nuisance conditions and provide additional benefits to the community in that area. While we recognize that not everything could be done, not every proponent would have taken it that seriously. So at this point, I'm sort of, I'm also very thrilled that this has been, is going to be continued so that we can look at the resolution on the traffic. That's where my main concern has been, but just with everything else, again, I just wanted to just thank the proponent for all of these efforts.

[Andre Leroux]: Thank you, Jackie. Other board members have comments? Okay, hearing none, we need to continue to a date certain. So let's figure out what that will be. I believe we have, so we have September 10th, 16th, 17th, are all possibilities. Is there a preference among board members or are you inclined to do September 10th? Alicia and Annie, any thoughts?

[Alicia Hunt]: Annie, do you wanna talk about scheduling and other agenda items. So basically, if the board would prefer to start breaking things up and having two meetings in a month so that things aren't all the same night and quite so long, then the 10th would be great. Um, the board is likely, well, I think actually we now know is going to be required to have a meeting later in the month because there's another item coming from the city council with one of those required must be advertised. We can't get it advertised for the 10th, um, must be heard before a certain date. Um, so it's going to need to be heard during the later weeks of September. Um, would uh so i'm just putting it out there the 16th would be fine as long as we get the advertisement in tomorrow is that correct annie i know any was having trouble the 10th would also be okay with the ad in tomorrow the 10th and the 16th are the same advertising dates so okay and if we were to do the 16th would we be able to catch the other item that you were referring to Actually, it sounds like you could do it the 10th. I misunderstood Annie earlier when she was giving me the dates for the newspaper. It just means that she has to put the ad in the newspaper for the other item tomorrow.

[Andre Leroux]: Okay. Of the board members, are you able to attend on the September 10th, the Thursday?

[Alicia Hunt]: Do we know anything about the scheduling for the board member who's not present?

[Unidentified]: Do not.

[Alicia Hunt]: I do not.

[Jacqueline McPherson]: Andre, if it has to be a date, sir, and I'm not available on the 10th, but I can become available. It's just, it's sensitive for me right now.

[Andre Leroux]: Would the 16th be better for you?

[Jacqueline McPherson]: Definitely.

[Andre Leroux]: Okay. How does the 16th sound then for everyone?

[Deanna Peabody]: Sounds good to me.

[Andre Leroux]: Okay, let's go with September 16th then. So is there a motion on the floor to continue the public hearing on the BJ's project to Wednesday, September 16th?

[Jacqueline McPherson]: This is Jackie Patato. I propose a motion to continue the Middlesex Ave BJ's gas station proposal project, proposed project to hearing to Wednesday, September 16th, 2020. All right, thank you.

[Andre Leroux]: Is there a second to the motion?

[Deanna Peabody]: This is Deanna, I'll second.

[Andre Leroux]: Thank you, Deanna. Roll call. Cles Andreson.

[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: You went out of order, you tricked me.

[Andre Leroux]: I know, well, Christy is recused, so. Was that a yes?

[Unidentified]: Yes.

[Andre Leroux]: Okay. Jackie Purtado.

[Unidentified]: Yes.

[Andre Leroux]: David Blumberg. Yes. And myself. Is that everybody?

[SPEAKER_10]: Deanna, yes.

[Andre Leroux]: Oh, Deanna, there you go, up front. And myself. So that's 5-0, the motion. The hearing is continued to September 16. Thank you very much for coming to present tonight, and appreciate your efforts to improve the project.

[Austin Turner]: Thank you, everybody. Thank you.

[afyYb4sUUnA_SPEAKER_13]: Thanks for your time.

[Andre Leroux]: Thank you. Good night. You too. Next item on the agenda is another continued public hearing for the Winthrop Estates Definitive Subdivision. And it is a combined public hearing for the definitive subdivision approval and special permit for site plan review. Let me read the public hearing notice. Okay, 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 8th, 2019, and revised June 24th, 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 department slash community hyphen development by clicking on current CD board filings. Thank you again, if anybody would like to Members of the public wish to weigh in remotely, they can email questions and comments to OCD at Medford-MA.gov or via phone to 781-393-2480. That's 781-393-2480. Thank you. now reopen the public hearing and would like to ask the applicant to present the additional information that's been submitted since the last meeting.

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: Thank you. Mr. Chairman, members of the board, my name is Ed Champion with Waypoint Development. We're the owner of the site, Winthrop Street Estates. One item to address is that we did submit to the board care of the acting director, Ms. Hunt, for a name that we thought was appropriate, and it particularly came up during a neighborhood meeting. So we've requested, excuse the background noise, so we've requested a change of name, and that's been formally submitted. Mary Kenny O'Sullivan was an activist in the labor movement back in the early 1900s. We had originally thought Mary Kenny O'Sullivan, when you look at the apostrophe and all the letters, the final submission was requested at Mary Kenny Way. Kind of, you know, play on words with the way, so to speak, because I think she lived the right way. So anyways, that was one of the things that we submitted. For tonight, there are a couple of things that we left our last meeting with that I thought we would address. And one of which, which I think is the I don't know if it was the largest item on the list, but after leaving the meeting, it probably stuck with me the most, which was when board member Kloss had mentioned that it's up to us to show what the vision of the property and not people to read a plan in plan view and understand what it is. So we'll share those drawings and and renderings. We've done them to scale so that there's no interpretation, and I think that they give an accurate depiction of what we're trying to accomplish, and hopefully they'll calm some of the concerns in that area. So there were six different areas in total, and in trying to be brief, one was the pedestrian issues, and that comes with walking traffic and whatnot and concerns with the neighbourhood. that we've been working with. Both Tim given entire were on a neighborhood call yesterday with Mrs. Mayor and that was discussed, and we've agreed to not only do the sidewalk on the crosswalk to connect the corner of Lorraine Road over to, um, the Western Street side. We've also agreed to work with the neighborhood to try and make a safer pedestrian way. Temporarily while ever sources doing their work so years ago, we I think it didn't help the problem, but I think we learned from it. So I think we can do a better job this time. So with that, that's the pedestrian issues. And I think Todd and Tim are much more equipped to talk about it than I am. But we're happy to help and work with the team, coordinate any way we can. Next would be the renderings. And I think the best way to do is to show them. So if I could share a screen, I can put them up. I think I'm almost host disabled. I can work on some other things in the meantime. You should be able to share now. Yes, perfect. Thank you. Can everyone see the rendering?

[Andre Leroux]: Yes, thank you.

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: OK. So this is a cover slide, and it'll back off a little from more. If this is considered 1,000 feet, let's say the next one's going to be at 6,000 feet or so. I'm using numbers just as a guide, not necessarily as specifics. So this is the site itself, where the right-of-way easement extension would be right in here, wraps along the site, and services both 553 and 555 Winthrop Street. The cut in the site runs around the perimeter and there's a vegetated slope as well as a and there's vegetative slope in the bottom and vines growing over. I'm gonna move to the slides, because they'll show it better than my explanation.

[Andre Leroux]: Mr. Champion, could you just, well, since you had mentioned the pedestrian improvements, could you just point them out with your cursor on this?

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: Sure, so they're not drawn in here, but there'll be a handicap ramp and a sidewalk right in here, and it will connect right across the street, and it connects into the sidewalk on the other side of Winthrop Street, and that's part of our plan and the definitive subdivision plan. As part of the other neighborhood concerns, it was running, it was walking down this section here towards the gas station, where it's a little bit depressed. as far as, you know, it's concave from the edge of the road and it stores water after rain to a certain extent. So the idea was that although Eversource is gonna repave and there's a bigger plan for sidewalks in here, it was gonna be that we're willing to, and of course it would require the approval of DPW and the engineering department to either put some temporary walkway in here of some sort, whether it's a asphalt binder or something that would just allow to give a dry or a space that's outside of the watershed. Again, it's something that we've agreed to do with the neighbors if it's something that can be done, but we're not making the engineering decision on our own. We're just offering to work with them. This past couple of weeks, we actually put some screen up on the fencing as a request to the neighbors. We engaged some younger local workers to actually start cleaning and weeding the sidewalk, and we had them go all the way from the high school, all the way up past our site, and they'll continue through this section on towards Smith Lane. I think it's Smith Lane or Smith Road. It's up on the other side. We also talked about you know, again, our willingness to do it, and it's a coordination of engineering and DPW, is if some temporary asphalt, if it's helpful to lay some sort of extension here so that there's a walkway towards, apparently from Smith Lane to Lorain, there's some concerns that, you know, when people are walking with strollers or walking on the street, that they end up getting derailed into traffic a bit during, if there's a rain day. I mean, of course, this summer there hasn't been too many rain days, but I think that with the fall coming, we'll probably see more of it. Is that sufficient? Yes, thank you. This is a, we expanded the view just to give some vision of where it is, where the site is, the soccer field that's behind it and the high school itself. And this is the area where the sidewalk, where we're starting here at the entrance to the high school and running down, and this is the Smith Lane. So we're gonna, we've committed to the neighborhood that we will take care of that section of sidewalk from now until we're completed with construction totality. The replacement of the sidewalk will be from the lot limits in front of the site. Of course, if we damage anything, we would replace it beyond that, but we don't anticipate being anywhere beyond that. Thank you. Okay, so again, we're getting into the renderings now. It's a 10 lot subdivision, and I'm going to pass this slide because I don't think it adds to the process. So this is the general site. We did actually draw the houses and after working with the architect and they took a shot at the modern farmhouse design, we started thinking that it was, it started exciting us a little bit, to be honest with you, about what the site could be. There is a slide in here that has no homes on it, so that the perspective that Woodward McLeod asked for will show up here. This is the view from Lorain Road. On the left-hand side, running up this is where the extension of the right-of-way is. The street trees and whatnot block quite a bit, but they're a requirement and they are as proposed on the plan. And you can see the view from the Lorain Road side. This is the view from Lorain Road if there are no houses and no street trees. I refrained from putting the street trees on, even though they're part of the road design, because I didn't want to cover it. And so it shows a change in elevation with the stone wall, which we talked about. And I have some more detail to add on that. The change in elevations that would be yards or grass or plantings or whatever people choose to have. The vegetated slope, which is a one to one or one to two, depending on the area that you're looking at. And then from at the top of the vegetated slope, there's the Shark Creek wall. And growing down from the Shark Creek wall is some sort of vegetation. And it's the expectation here is that we're showing like a three to five year growth. We think that we won't, you know, the houses will be sold and done in the three year time period. And we think it'll be grown in fully at that point. If you work your way around, this section of ledge, and I'll show it later with the houses, we zoomed in on it and we gave a height, it's approximately 40 feet tall from the very bottom, and that's including the vegetative slope. And then you work your way around and you can see where the right-of-way extension comes in and drops into what we'll call Mary Kenny Way for the time being, and then allows that traffic to come in and out. I think it's gonna be a benefit when we've talked to one of the neighbors and I'll call her Ms. Shreya, because I can't, her last name is extensive. And, you know, she had mentioned that driving on and off Winthrop Street from their current right of way, that getting out onto that road is tricky. So we think this will be a big benefit for that. And we've supplied the documentation to the neighbors for the easement, allowing their council and whatnot to review it. But they have everything they need for the right of way itself. This is if you're traveling east, which is a similar direction that we showed in the sketches. However, we think this is a better way to depict it as far as showing what's going on. This section of vegetation in here is something that we are gonna make part of the HOA, which is adjacent to the sidewalk, so it'll be maintained. This is the view facing west. This stone wall has been a discussion. I've got some landscape plans that add to it. And what we did on the landscape plan is we called out two things. One is what we kind of want it to be, which is a medium-sized stacked wall of some sort. We've also wanted to reserve the right to make a natural stone, depending on how much flat quality stone comes out of the blasting. But what we also did was we denoted what it could not be or what it would not be. And without using a brand name, right, it's a big block wall. Like, you know, the big commercial style, even though they have a rock face to them, they look very industrial. So we qualified that it's got to be below like an 18 by 36 size. So you could get two foot by one foot blocks or whatnot. So that it would fit within the scale of a residential environment, especially we're so close to the sidewalk, we think the size matters. And that is on a plan that was submitted. And the notes that I'm describing are on the plan as well. I believe they were clouded and called out so that it would be clear. This is driving into the cul-de-sac itself. There's the island and the houses surrounding it. The house straight on is the one that's adjacent to the ledge that we talked about. So this, and I'll show that slide in a second. This slide shows a couple of cross sections that we're showing. And these cross sections were primarily done to show what the wall would look like if you were perpendicular to it and if you were in a cross section. Although it's a bit of a view that you would normally take if you were a professional. I think it was based on the conversation with the board last meeting. I think that this makes, This answers a few questions. So when we go to page 10, we're gonna see this cross section. And we go to page 11, we're gonna see this cross section. And this is Ms. Shria's house right here, 555 Winthrop. And this is 553 Winthrop. So this is the cross section in the backyard of lot five. The expectation is a patio, small grass area. low retaining wall under four feet, vegetated slope, the wall itself, and the hanging lines. And this is the cross section of where it ends up going. This is the cross section, which is 90 degrees from there, where 553 Winthrop and 555 Winthrop are directly to the left. Actually, 553 Winthrop is right where my carousel is up here. The expectation is that there'll be, at this point, is that you're looking, you're seeing some rooftops, but you're actually not looking into the buildings themselves. And there's a little bit of distance between this fence, and then there's a right of way, and then there's the front yards. What I did here was Medford, based on the zoning, has allowed the height of the building, and the building commissioner, of course, would have to approve the plans and whatnot, but it's a 35 foot mean height of the roof. I believe, and so that roof probably stands, the peak of the roof probably is at 38, 39, or 40 feet. And if you go from that same top of retaining wall up to the top of the ledge wall of Shaw Creek, it's 40 feet. So scale-wise, again, the building is gonna be equal to that height. Of course, you'd be 250 feet away from it when you're looking at it, unless you actually lived in the house, then you'd be much closer.

[Andre Leroux]: Just a question, Mr. Champy. I don't see in this, and this just could be because it's not there, is the fencing at the top of that ledge?

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: It is up there. You can see it in here.

[Unidentified]: Yep. So it could just be at the angle we're at.

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: We're looking right over it.

[Unidentified]: Yep.

[Andre Leroux]: But it will be at, it'll be close to the edge, I'm assuming, of the ledge?

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: Can you see the site plan here?

[Andre Leroux]: Yeah.

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: Okay. So the, the, the fencing itself is set back from the, from the very top because there's like a, there's a small slope prior to getting in. So you, there's a small slope they were here prior to.

[Unidentified]: Okay.

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: And there's also a guide rail that's coming down around the, on the right away itself. And then this is a close-up of behind lot five of what the wall will look like when you're sitting in the back patio. The vegetative slope, the wall, I mean, we've been clear in the HOA documents as well as the discussions with Mr. McGibbon on what the requirements are for what's being maintained by the HOA versus the homeowners, and this vegetative slope is within the HOA responsibility and is enforceable. So that's the renderings themselves. The wall itself and the landscape plan, and because I think this is, that we're going to show you. It's not going to be. Duplicate and but at the same time, I want to show it just to make sure that we're understood. So there's this fence that's on the top here. We anticipate that being by owner. It'll be part of the package that we're selling, especially if we're building the house. This segmented wall. This is where it talks about limitate limiting this the size of the stone so they don't end up being too large. Um. This This is part of landscape than it is appearance. And this was one of the segmented wall, typical installation of what we see as far as the size of the stones being, you know, these in this case are probably six or 12 inches high and maybe 30 inches long. So we want to make sure that it's adequate and reflecting that it's a residential subdivision.

[Andre Leroux]: Thank you.

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: Okay, I think that covers the, we did submit our blasting plan, and I think during the neighborhood meetings and even in my private conversations with neighbors, blasting has been a, is a big topic. So we've talked about expanding the pre-blast survey. We've got numerous extra names on the list, and we're gonna adhere to that. There's a few other things relative to the blasting, which is, you know, seismic meters and whatnot. So they are already placed around the site when you're doing the blasting, but we've agreed in a couple of cases to actually put some extra meters out there. Last, we're planning to be at half the legal limit, which allows to make sure that we never approach the legal limit. And that's what we've done prior to, so I'm not suggesting it's gonna be any less, it's just we are explaining that it is a controlled environment and we have a fair amount of control over it. neighbors that are immediate 525 went through approaches just to the right was the closest probably to any of the blasting and we haven't we haven't heard from that neighbor but we've done mailings and whatnot but I think it's a rental so it's not the same amount of participation that we'd expect from homeowners and We had a neighbors meeting last night where a group of neighbors came on, as I mentioned earlier. And then lastly is the right of way, which we've submitted to the neighbors for 553 and 555. There's been interaction between attorneys on 553 Winthrop. And Shreya and I have talked many times and we talked again today. So we believe we're in good shape.

[Andre Leroux]: Okay. Thank you. Well, these visuals, I think, are very helpful, and I appreciate your efforts in getting those done. So we have a few things to cover. I'd like to open it up first to the city engineer, Tim McGivern, to provide his overall opinion and comments on on the project and what's been presented? So at this point, after... And touch on any outstanding issues that you think are maybe there? Sure. Yep.

[Tim McGivern]: So basically, after three rounds of going back and forth with information and discussion, the most recent memorandum that I put together for the board, boils everything down to a set of conditions, basically. The items that the board may wish to discuss further that were on here, but weren't necessarily discussed to a close-out level, I didn't feel, were any additional pedestrian accommodations up to the high school. It was discussed, but there was really no conclusion on it, so I just left it in here. Then I put a recommended condition in here regarding what the homeowners association is going to have control over. And I just would like to note that I believe one was just brought up that I did not have on my list and that was the vegetated area between the driveway, the private driveway going through the site and with the tree itself. So that should be added. A lot of conditions regarding construction and inspections. So just so everybody knows, one of the things I'm requiring of the project through condition is a detailed inspection schedule based off of this board's regulations for subdivisions. So the city needs to provide a reasonable level of inspection for the utility installations and the roadway installations. So that's something that will have, all that will happen through this board as well. Anything else outstanding? Let's see. There was one, every single plan revision except for one was made, and it may have just been an oversight, but the sewer services for 553 and 555 Winthrop Street, I requested that they be placed on the plan. They were not placed in the plan. The final set of plans should have those services on there. I don't think that they need to be relocated or removed, they just need to be protected during construction, unless they're in a spot that isn't shown on the record plans. So just that, they need to be protected, so we need to know where they are, so they should be on the plans that everybody looks at. One second here. That's about it regarding conditions. And you know, a lot of it is just basic stuff like they need the contractor installing the utilities needs to be a licensed drain layer in the city. They should submit a road control plan to the Board of Health. And The only other thing I think is worth saying is that the set of plans that I reviewed this final round only included revised sheets. And I believe they're also working on the landscaping sheets. The final set of plans should be all of the sheets. And then also another thing that's worth noting, I think too, is the cut and fill analysis is gonna be a large part of probably the cost. So anytime there's a request for a bond reduction, they should do a refresh of the cut and fill analysis. So basically, so I don't have to do it. And we're using the same numbers. And I can just double check the numbers, sort of a quality control type check. Besides that, like I said, everything else was turned into a condition. I think I got 22 conditions in total. So, and I know there was some communication received today about one of those conditions regarding the right of way. And I do also understand that there's a couple of questions on the table for me regarding things like building permits and timing of those. I'm more than happy to talk about those now or later, doesn't matter. But probably the condition having to do with the easement and the private driveway is worth a discussion.

[Andre Leroux]: So on, and Mr. Champy, do you anticipate any issues with compliance with any of the matters that Mr. McGiven has raised in his letter?

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: I don't, I don't. And I appreciate the list. A lot of it, to be honest, we would expect. So I think it's normal course of business. The pedestrian route to the high school, which Mr. McGiven had mentioned, wasn't quite closed out. You know, we did look at it, and if you'd like, you know, essentially that would put a path either between 525 Winthrop and us. And if you'd like, I can share a screen showing where that would be. Or it would give the right-of-way access on the other side. And I'll show you. So we're concerned. We've been doing development for some time. We're putting a path in an area like that. It would be putting a path running up this side of the property. Let me see if I can zoom in one more. In order to get to the high school, you would be traversing across the path. You get into areas where they're not well lit. There's only so much space. We would be literally probably trying to get a neighbor to coordinate with us to create an easement in their property. So we just think it's difficult to execute, and normally we're asked not to create five foot long, nowhere to go paths and walkways. And I think running it up the right of way to actually, this is private property in here, And there's just, when we looked at it, there were a couple issues. I think if it was a 25-yard path that cut off a quarter mile, the kids would find it anyway. But my point is, I think this is a fairly lengthy, aggressive path to put in, and it would probably end up having to traverse through the fells in order to be useful. So we're open to discussion on it, but at the same time, we think it's kind of a cool idea, but executing-wise, I think it's super tricky.

[Andre Leroux]: Yeah, personally, my preference is not to do that. But I don't know, do any of the other board members have an opinion about that?

[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: Are there any other paths that cut through from the high school into basically not down the driveway?

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: There's a fence that's through here. There's a fence that we don't own that's already up in this area. So we didn't notice any cut-throughs. There's a small house up in the back here, and the road to get to it runs right next, is kind of where the gate to the Fellsway, so to speak, is, and it wraps up around here and tucks in, and then there are a couple of homes fronting Winthrop Street. At one time, we had all this land under agreement, so we have title searches on all of it. When we were up there watching the sites and whatnot, we didn't see it.

[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I mean, I think it'd be a nice to have, but I don't think it's completely necessary.

[Unidentified]: Any other board member have an opinion?

[Jenny Graham]: This is Christy that I just I agree with place I it would be nice to have but I don't think it's necessary. I think it does appear from what Mr. Champy explained that it would be pretty challenging and probably impact abutters maybe more significantly than intended to get that done.

[Andre Leroux]: Thank you. Let's try to move through some of these other items that we need to address. Maybe one we can dispense with up front is the suggestion around the name of the street, which we have to approve. That's a discretion of the Community Development Board. So we have a recommendation that the street be named Mary Kenny Way instead of Winthrop Estates. And part of the issue was to not have a street name that sounded like other street names already existing in the city. And this Mary Kenny Way does not. And it also gives some recognition to a local resident who has had an interesting history. And I don't know if anybody who knows more about that history wants to say anything about Mary Kenny.

[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: see if I can just stop there you go so I can see everybody great I guess the only thing I would say about that is I think it's I'm pleased that the name came about from a dialogue with the neighbors so I think I think you know In my mind, that's the right way to do this. So thank you. Great.

[Alicia Hunt]: We're going to unmute Chris Donovan, whose name is listed as user, to speak on this. It was actually his recommendation.

[Unidentified]: Wonderful. Thank you.

[Jacqueline McPherson]: He's talking, but he's on mute.

[Andre Leroux]: Yeah, now you're unmuted. Go ahead, Mr. Dunneman.

[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_22]: Thank you. I think we have Doug Carr on the line. I think they did a little bit of sort of history deep dive on that, which I don't know if now's the time necessarily for that, but we're really kind of excited to maybe tie in a little of that history, gives it some personality. I was listening to a little bit earlier and I thank Ed for kind of championing some of the things that are gonna be happening in that neighborhood, even as far as that road that you were talking about as a cut through. I think if we did something really beautiful on Winthrop Street, that whole walkway up to Medford High would be more grand and more fun to walk up right now. It's really kind of a tough walk in that whole neighborhood, including the sidewalks that were mentioned. So I think that road, that sort of cut through road sounds nice, even as a local to cut through the high school, none of the main doors for the high school are on that side. So unless the visioning committee for the high school kind of saw some value in that, I'm not sure if that little side road. So these are the things that come out of sort of a neighborhood understanding of that, say example path, not that kids wouldn't use it and it wouldn't be fun, it may not be good, but the high school would have to sign on for that as an example. But I think through some of the initiatives that Ed was, promoting that we can kind of do through these beautification project is to get the winter street beautiful and get that that that that that's frontage to be something where the kids are proud to walk up that thing. It's see and be seen kind of thing. So there's a lot of talk that we had last night. I won't bring it into this discussion because it doesn't necessarily have to do with 551, but I think there's really good things going on between Eversource, the city, DPW, and we made a lot of forward strides. So that's why I'm championing a little bit of what Ed and Waypoint are doing. I'm glad you're holding them to feet to the fire for safety and uh blasting and zoning etc but as far as the neighborhood i've seen we've seen some changes and we're really you know happy to to um at least me and some of the people that were uh in some of these meetings to thank ed and the mayor and and tim and todd for meeting with us last night to moving some of this forward so the ultimate goal is when this is finished have a beautiful neighborhood um you'll be dealing with the parameters and the sizes and the shapes and the zoning that's what this is about tonight but As far as the neighborhood, I think we're pretty happy that we want to get this thing cleaned up and all these advances are happening soon. So thank you.

[Andre Leroux]: Thank you, Mr. Donovan. Doug Cards, do you want to say anything about Mary Kenny?

[Alicia Hunt]: Could we also get Chris's name and address for the record?

[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_22]: It's Chris Donovan for Lorain Road. Thank you.

[Andre Leroux]: All right, Doug, you're unmuted, so name and address for the record.

[Doug Carr]: I'm Doug Carr, 124 Boston Avenue, Westminster. I don't have anything to add about the historical figure you're talking about. OK. I'm afraid that's something I don't know much about. I'm eager to learn more.

[Andre Leroux]: Sorry to put you on the spot. I figured you might have something to say about it.

[Doug Carr]: I wish Ryan Hayward was here from the commission, because I'm sure I could tell her her entire life story.

[Andre Leroux]: OK. Well, thank you.

[Alicia Hunt]: I'll just add Alicia Hunt, the acting director of community development. Administratively, I did check sort of name lists of names. We have official lists of all the names of roads in the city. There's nothing else that starts with Mary. I had the opportunity to run it by our fire chief who has been with the city for an extremely long time, just asking if operationally he would like could foresee any confusion. around such a name and he thought it was perfectly fine. Just that we kind of checked those boxes for the board.

[Andre Leroux]: Great, thank you. So it seems like a, I think a great suggestion. Do any board members have any concerns or questions about it? Okay, seeing none, let's move on to the next item. Let's talk about the blasting plan for a moment. So we did see your blasting plan, Mr. Champion. I'm wondering whether you would be able to either provide the city with a schedule of dates on which the blasting would or could occur, or alternatively provide a three day notice to the city when they're going to occur, just so that if any, anybody, residents in the city or neighbors, you know, call that the city's aware that this is going on?

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: Yes, of course, and we'll email and flyer, and we'll be working very closely with Shria, who's adjacent to the property.

[Andre Leroux]: Okay, so do you prefer, which of those two approaches do you prefer, just giving a three-day notice before it's going to happen, or do you think there'll be a calendar, an overall calendar you'll be able to provide?

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: I'm thinking, just thinking through that. I think that we can, I think we'll provide both. So I think what we'll do is we're gonna provide a blasting schedule, and then weather's gonna augment that on us, and we'll update the schedule. So we will, you'll always have at least three days notice, but the schedule will be moving. Right, okay.

[Alicia Hunt]: I just wanna be clear that that would notice would be provided to the city, such that if the city wanted to use the reverse 911, system, they could do so. If the school was in session, we would want to be able to notify the school. And frankly, people are working up there even if you know school is remote. That's our administrative headquarters for the school system. So that we should arrange that there's somebody official at the city that is notified with the intention of that notifying the school and doing a robocall to the broader area.

[Andre Leroux]: And Alicia, would that be coordinated through your office or do you recommend somebody else?

[Alicia Hunt]: Instinctively, I think that we can, that we could perhaps have Annie be the point person. We'll just want to make internal arrangements for how that would work. But

[Andre Leroux]: So let's say notice to the director of community development.

[Alicia Hunt]: Or her designee.

[Andre Leroux]: Of course.

[Alicia Hunt]: And just to be clear, that's not necessarily coordination. I understand you're coordinating that with Shreya and with others in the fire department. It's just notice so that everybody, we can ensure that people are properly noticed.

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: Fair enough.

[Andre Leroux]: Any board members want to weigh in on the blasting plan or does that sound like a plan?

[Alicia Hunt]: The next item- With the blasting, there was, sorry, I always like to let the board members ask or speak first. The plan was a very extraordinarily detailed or long, but not detailed in terms of when it would happen like it talks about between certain hours on weekdays but not how many times a week minimum or maximum not times of year anything like that do we have that information yet so so yeah there's the

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: There's two scenarios, right? There's one is what's the blasting plan for main drilling and blasting. And then, yes, we do have more detail on the blasting. So when I send you the schedule for the dates for blasting, it'll have that we have and I believe we have, let's see, the 25% of the days, there'll be two blasts, and 75% of the days, there's gonna be one blast. So when I send you the schedule, it'll depict that. The blasting plan that you sent is more of a regulatory-type document, which is probably why it's so long and says so little. But we can get more finite with the information we provide, with the dates of blasting, and then the notice on a three-day window.

[Alicia Hunt]: And was there ever a request from the city that the high school be on the pre-survey list? I note that it is extraordinarily close, but outside the 300-foot radius.

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: We didn't know. We did not have a request.

[Alicia Hunt]: I apologize, that was sort of something that I realized yesterday when I was reviewing the blasting plan, just how close this actually is to our high school. Would you object to adding the high school to the preschool?

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: No, I don't object. When I see the aerial of the size of the building, my heart skips a beat a little bit, but I don't object.

[SPEAKER_18]: Okay.

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: Because I don't know what the exact, what they'll do to survey a building like that. But I don't have any objections, we don't want to cause any damage to the building. So I'll talk to Main Drilling and Blasting and find out what that inspection entails and then work with someone on getting in and through the building because I have a feeling, my gut would be that the survey of that building alone will take more than, will take a couple of days I would imagine.

[Alicia Hunt]: If it's any help, we do not have any current plans to put students in that building at least the end of September, I believe the end of October at this point.

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: Okay, I'll put it on the list, thank you.

[Andre Leroux]: Great, thank you, both of you. Moving on to the next item that we should discuss. So the city engineer, Tim McGivern mentioned that the right of way issue is still outstanding in terms of, you know, sign off from those, the grantees of those easements. And so I'd like to, Mr. Champion, you mentioned that you've been meeting with the abutters and can you just tell us a detail where that stands?

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: So with 555 Winthrop, which is the easier of the two discussions, Shreya had mentioned, she sent me an email back saying, we'll review it. And I think it actually said, we'll review it and sign it. But if she has questions, we'd answer them, of course, and make sure. But she's comfortable with the project. I talked to her earlier today. And so I don't anticipate any challenges whatsoever. So that's the easier of the two. 553 Winthrop has a little bit of history with the site because the gas line feeding that house and the water line was traversing the property. And it's registered land, so there's no adverse possession. So when we requested that they move the water line, we ended up in Superior Court. The prior city solicitor was also brought into the legal dispute, and we ended up in Land Court. Land Court wrote a It wasn't an order. I submitted it to the city. The land court had written back pretty much from what we viewed in it, that it was supporting the effort that you can't have adverse possession in registered land. So we sat with the prior city solicitor in his office with three lawyers, a developer, and a neighbor. And we agreed to relocate the waterline for the homeowner with the expectation that they would support the project. And then it was discussed that it wasn't anything that was in writing and whatnot. So about two months ago, we ran a new waterline for them and we connected their house with anticipation of these meetings. And then when we went to ask them to review the easement and the right-of-way extension, their response was slow. And then at the end of it, what they suggested was, well, get it approved. And I'm paraphrasing, but I believe these words are specific. Approved by the planning boards, and then they didn't want to sign the right-of-way prior to the planning board approving the plan. So we tried to encourage that it could be subject to the planning board approval. And they thought that it was just as easy to make the planning board approval subject to their approval. So we ended up on a dance.

[Andre Leroux]: Okay. And I think we have the email that came in today. Lorena, would you be able to read that? Do you have that?

[SPEAKER_13]: from Maria C. Mangini and Stephan F. Amato. Is that the one that you're referring to?

[Unidentified]: Yes.

[SPEAKER_13]: We live in 553 Winthrop Street. We kindly request that as abutters and part owner to the right of way in the proposed plan, our statement regarding the proposed Winthrop Estates be recorded. Recently, we were approached by Waypoint Inc. along with their attorneys and asked to sign an agreement that enables modifications to the right of way. While these proposed modifications appear to provide a positive safety-based benefit to us, we are not comfortable agreeing to any changes in writing at this time. We are also optimistic the state of the undeveloped land will change soon, as it has been an eyesore to the local community for well over a year. However, we remain concerned and are frustrated with the communication from Waypoint. Our consternation having originated in 2016 when their work team inadvertently cut our water lines and subsequently declared that they would not repair the damage. This left our family of five with the youngest, one years old at the time, without either drinking or cleaning water. The Massachusetts Department of Public Works stepped in to restore our water supply, and we remain entirely grateful for that. But there is still concern four years later, simply because we do not trust the Waypoint organization, nor do we trust their attorneys. During the last discussion in mid-2019, Waypoint stated that they would move the water pipes at no cost to us as long as the development got the green light to move forward. That was the last communication on the topic. Toward the end of May 2020, in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, Tufts Construction showed up at our home with the same person from DPW who had assisted us in 2016. The project lead at Tufts asked if we were aware of the proposed work starting that day. There was no notice from anyone. Over the course of two weeks, from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m., we had Tufts construction on our front lawn. They were entirely respectful, but blasting through Granite and Boulder to cause a noise to the level that both my partner and I could not meaningly participate in any work meetings for two weeks again. During the pandemic, where we were working from home, it's not nice to have I'm sorry. During the pandemic, where working from home is not a nice to have, but a requirement, we are relieved that the waterline is no longer the issue at hand. However, after the work was done, we were left with a front lawn that is unleveled to a point of representing a safety concern. We had our landscape company provide an assessment and share that the front yard will require significant leveling since tufts simply tossed their back on top and it has settled rather unevenly over time. We didn't hear from Waypoint throughout the entire process. Again, we look forward to seeing the development move forward. However, in terms of coming to any agreement to modify the right of way, we will need Waypoint to propose a solution that includes compensatory damages for our front yard and beyond that, a solution to properly shield our property from the housing development work to come.

[Andre Leroux]: Thank you, Lorena, for reading that.

[Nicole Morell]: And I believe we've also received comments from the other grantee along the right-of-way at 555 Winthrop Street, so Lorena can read that as well.

[SPEAKER_13]: So it's from Shreya Bhattacharya. I am a resident of 555 Winthrop Street and have been in dialogue with Mr. Ed Champey, the developer. I wanted to list some of the items that need to be done in this area before, during, and after the construction process. Install temporary sidewalks from Smith Lane to Lorain Road. Chris Donovan can elaborate. Install Jersey barriers from the gas station to Lorain Road prior to and during the blasting process. A smooth sidewalk beyond the Jersey barrier would be helpful to pedestrians. Street sweeping and sidewalk cleaning has already begun in front of the construction site, thanks to the collaborative efforts of Mr. Champy, the Medford Vocational Technical High School, and Chris Donovan. It would be great if this were to extend all the way to the front of the high school for the sake of neighborhood sidewalk beautification. Blasting of the site Some neighbors, including myself, were concerned about the blasting of the site. Mr. Champy has offered to put in additional seismic monitors on adjacent properties like mine. He also has agreed to share the safety plan approved by the company's geotech engineers and the Medford Fire Department. Pre-blasting survey, the developers will work with individuals who want to get their houses surveyed prior to blasting, as well as families who were not happy with the nature of the survey conducted. And post-construction, Mr. Champy has agreed to pave the private way that extends from 553 to Winthrop Street. There is a dirt road that extends beyond this road and connects to Franklin Road. Mr. Champy has offered to fill in this road with gravel as long as the property owners agree to it. Thank you for your time and the opportunity to voice our concerns and requests. And then I have one last comment from Rob Casano and family. They didn't see that, I think. They didn't include the address. I would like to weigh in with my thoughts and feedback since I did not attend this meeting. Just as a friendly reminder, many of us signed a petition back in 2019 regarding the 541 to 551 Winthrop Street development project. It clearly shows we all oppose the construction of the site and blasting. We also did not appreciate the lack of transparency from the developers and ever getting a straight answer from the city or the developer on what the actual development plans were. Unfortunately, the city engineering department approved the blasting, and now Tim has approved the new road. The developer believes that because the road is approved and that they have gone with the first phase of the blasting, that the neighborhood has no choice but to approve this development. My suggestion is the developer should be able to build a maximum of four homes and donate the rest to the city as a park or some type of community slash open space. How about the fact that with all the blasting and trees that need to come down to make this happen, how much the local wildlife, hawks, deers, bunnies, woodchucks, et cetera, is going to be displaced? One of the nice things of living in this part of Medford is the animal population. The city already has a major rat problem going on due to all the construction. This project will most likely add to that problem that is ongoing. Additional issues are parking, traffic, blasting, snow removal, amount of cars to get up the road and pest control. With the morning traffic caused by the high school, open parentheses. I know we are in different times right now with COVID, but eventually let's hope things will be back to normal with students attending school, close parentheses. It is already a daunting task to get out of our driveways and drive on Winthrop Street safely. What will happen when this development adds more than 20 cars up that hill and they need to get out of their development complex every day? It will back up traffic and create even more congestion. We have enough from those commuters avoiding Route 93 and cutting through Winthrop from the surrounding towns and cities. Additionally, I would hope we do not want another traffic light on Winthrop Street. When all is said and done, this development will tax our infrastructure that is already depleting. The developer will be far gone with money in their pocket, while the residents will be left without with the fallout of more traffic, trash, noise, pollution, and flooding. If every developer is going to come to Medford and continue to deforest the area and overbuild, we will lose the character of the city and change the entire landscape. We must be patient and stick together and not approve this project as it will stand out like a sore thumb. The last time the blasting occurred, I lost my entire heating system and the developer was nowhere to to be found or assist with my inconvenience. I had to call National Grid multiple times to help me, but everyone pointed the finger. With the size of a project, we should demand accountability and make the developer pay an amount that can be held in escrow for future issues. I had asked multiple questions during the meeting last month, and they never were addressed. How are me and my family supposed to be on board with this when valid questions are not being addressed? The fact that this entire project from the get-go has left us out of the conversation and is still not addressing many outstanding questions or concerns for me. I would appreciate a reply on my many concerns. I know Chris has been working to bring us all together on this, but I also don't support things proceeding until all voices are truly heard and addressed.

[Andre Leroux]: Thank you, Lorena. Mr. Champy, do you want to respond to any of those comments?

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: So I do recall the gentleman, I think it was at the neighborhood meeting or was at the last hearing, talking about the system repair and I had given my phone number and email for them to reach out to me. And to be honest, we've got enough flyers that have gone out to the neighborhood that I'm surprised they couldn't reach us. But I don't think he didn't get a return call. I don't think he called us. So with respect to some of his questions, I mean, I think some of them, I understand the sentiment and the history of the site. And it's unfortunate how it transpired without reliving it. I wish it didn't take place as well. With regard to Shreya, I think that her comments speak for themselves. So we're a regular dialogue. And every time she's called us or we've called her or emailed or whatnot, it's worked out really well. So what we're seeing is some neighbors that when, I don't think this is a difficult conversation. I just think someone has to call us for us to know to call them. With regard to the Amato's, I think it's just going to be a matter of, you know, their attorney was active in the conversations in City Hall that took place with the solicitor. So he had suggested that we get approved and it's pending as a condition to get them to sign the easement. And I think that that's the process we're going to have to take.

[Andre Leroux]: Thank you. And I'll just make a couple of comments. based on the comments that we heard from residents that were read. One is that there are certain parameters that the Community Development Board needs to act within legal parameters. So we cannot be responsible necessarily for whether development happens on a private parcel or not. We are just tasked with making sure that all procedures are followed and that the design is as strong as it can be, you know, protecting the safety of the community and trying to get as good a quality product as we can. And then the second thing I would say is that we, neither can the board get in the middle of a private issue between a property owner and the developer. So just to be clear, what the that the public understands what the scope of what we can do and what our role and responsibility is in this whole process.

[Nicole Morell]: I also wanted to correct the record that that comment mentioned that Tim McGibbon had approved the road. And I just wanted to correct the record that that is not something that has taken place. And maybe if you would like to speak to that.

[Andre Leroux]: I think we have a member of the public who's been unmuted, Robin.

[Robin Stein]: Good evening, actually. My name is Robin Stein and I'm with KP Law. We're special counsel to the board, so it's good to meet everyone this evening.

[Unidentified]: Thank you, Robin.

[Robin Stein]: I had one question on, if it's okay, maybe you can just clarify for me, on this access easement issue. Is the relocation integral to this approval or is it just something that the applicant and other folks would like to see happen for safety reasons?

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: I'm gonna, so I think too, for one fold, it's an extension of the right of way. And we think it's a benefit safety wise. And I'll let Tim speak to your other question too.

[Andre Leroux]: Yeah, and I will say just Robin, just so you know, the board has asked, you know, did ask for some modifications to that right of way. So to increase safety so that it wouldn't be coming out into the main road, but rather into the subdivision road. and to grade it and improve the surfacing.

[Robin Stein]: So I guess the question I have, is it going to be a, does it need to be, or is it will be a condition of the subdivision approval that it get relocated?

[Andre Leroux]: I believe it has to be so that, I mean, I don't think the project can move forward without it. Someone, Tim.

[Tim McGivern]: If this board approved the subdivision, which is the creation of those lots, and the board would condition that approval on that agreement, then, you know, I understand we want it to get done, but if they don't get the agreement, then, right, you've conditioned the approval on the agreement. So while, and my condition is sort of written that way too, and I admit that, but, If nothing were done and the right-of-way wasn't moved, you basically are going to have a situation where you have an existing right-of-way that doesn't get relocated and it remains in the unsafe condition that it is today. that's what would happen. The idea is that while we're building this road and we can fix this problem, let's fix it and make that recommendation. But we can't force two private parties to make an agreement with each other. So I think, you know, after sort of having that discussion today, realizing that if you put that on a condition, then then you're kind of getting put in the car before the horse a little bit because right they're saying that that we're okay with the development. And we want to see it happen. But we want all these things that are the but then if we condition it or if the board conditions it, then it's forcing that private party to then make that agreement prior to your approval. So I think, you know, the do nothing approach seems to work here on this particular matter with the understanding that the preference is to have that right of way fixed. And I think both homeowners that use that driveway would agree that the way it is now is not good, and the way that it's shown on the plans is good. So I think they seem to understand that. It's just a matter of tying this board up with something that it doesn't want to be tied up in.

[Robin Stein]: So that's helpful. I just wanted to clarify, because as you said, it's possible that it could not happen and that this project would go forward without it. And so I just wanted to clarify my understanding of the condition. So that's helpful. Thank you.

[Andre Leroux]: So do you have a recommendation, Robin, on how to word that? I mean, my preference is just that we're preserving through the plan the access of those abutters to the roadway with improvements.

[Robin Stein]: So as I understand it, though, it's not going to be a condition of this approval that it get relocated. Everyone would prefer that it get relocated, but this approval is not going to require that. It's not integral to the approval, correct?

[Andre Leroux]: That may be. I'm not sure.

[Robin Stein]: I think that's what Tim was saying. Tim, is that?

[Tim McGivern]: What I'm doing is I'm acknowledging the issue that was brought up today, that the board may not want to get involved in a private issue, which if you condition this development on that, then that's exactly what you're doing.

[Robin Stein]: So I think if the applicant, I mean, I think you could simply say something along the lines that there'll be no interference. Understanding that the board's not requiring the relocation, you just want to make sure that folks' interests are protected as they are. I mean, you could say nothing. If the board was inclined to, it could say something along the lines that, you know, there'll be no interference with any existing private rights in the property. But I wanted to clarify what the board's goal was with the condition itself, which I think Tim has done.

[Jenny Graham]: Hi, this is Christy Dowd. I just want to repeat back what I'm hearing as a board member. I'm hearing that the present condition of that access is not in an ideal safe state. And it's not the development that's creating that condition. But by way of the development, it would improve that condition and maintain access to those houses. So is that accurate?

[Andre Leroux]: I think that is accurate. I think the question is how to word it, whether we should be silent on the issue or to include language that was mentioned about not interfering with existing rights.

[Jenny Graham]: Well, is it enough to say that the development, the only condition is that it maintains access to the

[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: The thing I would want to add is that it, yes, it maintains access, but the big thing about the right-of-way to me was that it was emptying onto Winthrop Street, and now it's emptying onto the new road. And I think that's, to me, that's the most important component of this, and that's the language I'd like to see. Like, do whatever you want, but this right-of-way can't continue to but I don't know how we would do that.

[Tim McGivern]: Well, that goes to my point, sorry for just jumping in, Andre.

[Andre Leroux]: No, go ahead.

[Tim McGivern]: You know, the board didn't put the driveway there, the driveway is there, it's an easement that was granted at some point in the past, I believe it was a very long time ago, in order to provide access to those houses up there. So there becomes a question of what the board can and can't do in this situation. I mean, that becomes relevant, right? So while we all want that to be relocated and put on our new road, can we somehow stress that that's what the desire is, but without tying the project up? with that private to private agreement? Because that's what's going to happen if you put that as a condition of the project. And does the board even have a right to do that, right? I mean, that's also a fair question. So right now it's a driveway. It's not a, people use the word right of way. It's a shared driveway. It's not a, what do you call it? A paper street. There's no way parcel associated with it. So it's traversing over private land for a private driveway. That's what it is. So right now that's on Winthrop Street and it's not ideal. But the subdivision framework is basically allowing the creation of a brand new public way with the 10 lot building parcels, right? And we wanna bring that driveway in on that to make it as safe as possible. but it becomes down to one private company and one private landowner abutting each other. And the city has a stance of, yes, please do that, that is safer, but even can the city do that? So I think I've talked enough. There's probably a way to frame this and make it work.

[Todd Blake]: Excuse me, if I may.

[Robin Stein]: So through the, oh, go ahead.

[Todd Blake]: I think there's an important point that it has a domino effect because If you look at sheet C1.0, the existing driveway interferes with the proposed wheelchair ramps at the corner. So the two wheelchair ramps, one crossing the new road and one crossing Winthrop, may not be able to be designed appropriately if the driveway remains where it is today.

[Robin Stein]: So through the chair, can I ask a question of the applicant?

[Andre Leroux]: Yes, please. If the applicant Robin, actually, could you just could you just state again your full name and affiliation so that the public sure.

[Robin Stein]: Sure. My name is Robin Stein. And I work at the law firm KP law and we are special counsel to the board in this matter. So we're a lawyer for the board. I guess my question before making this too complicated, because I was just trying to understand the board's goal with the condition, is whether the applicant's willing to have the condition say that the applicant needs to arrange for relocation as shown on the plan.

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: a little bit prior to answering that. So we regrets putting a $40,000 waterline in without getting this in writing. And now when I took notes, we're hearing this compensatory damages and we have to shield their property from the future development. So I would have no problem with the requirement for that with our neighbor at 555 Winthrop, which is Shreya. But I think that if I, what we're agreeing to now is incredible amount of leverage against our company. And that's a concern. I mean, the letter itself pretty much states that they want it, but they think that there's more for them to get. And we are open to doing it. We've been on the plans for, I think, three years. And our neighbor has been at the meetings for those three years. This is not new, Robin, just to, give an explanation of time. We're willing to, I think that, you know, if we wanna say that the developer is willing to put this in as long as it's agreed to within a certain period of time, I think that the neighbors would gladly sign it knowing that it's got an expiration date. And I would do that rather than being at a negotiating table with someone who's just written a letter, which I wouldn't put that in writing personally. that pretty much says they're gonna hold out to get a little more.

[Andre Leroux]: So Attorney Stein, do you have any recommendation for how to proceed in this matter?

[Robin Stein]: Well, you know, I think that those are fair comments. And that certainly, you know, so long as the board understands that ultimately, if they can't accomplish the private agreement, it's not going to get moved. And that they may have to come back for modifications if there's something that implicates that, you certainly could put a condition in it just says that the developer shall relocate the easement. I'm just looking at I want to get the terms right that the developer shall as part of the project accomplish the proposed relocation of the access easement shown on, and I think it's sheet S2, subject to agreement of the easement holders, but that there should be no interference with the existing private easement rights, if that's something that everyone thinks is a fair condition.

[Andre Leroux]: That seems reasonable. What do you think, Mr. Champy?

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: So what happens in the event that 553 just decides that they're going to hold up?

[Andre Leroux]: Attorney Stein, I'm going to throw that to you. It's a legal question.

[Robin Stein]: If it's not a requirement of the approval that it get moved, then it doesn't move. And that's why I asked, and I think Tim already addressed this question, is this an integral part or is it something that's preferred? And I understand from Tim that it's something that's preferred. So if it's not a condition of the approval, everyone just understands that it may not happen. And if there are parts of this design that are dependent on that happening, they might have to modify. But I can't really guess at that right now.

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: We would agree to that.

[Robin Stein]: Did you say you would yes, I'm sorry that the zoom just got okay, so Something along the lines that the developer shall relocate the easement Shown as I'm just going to write this up proposed relocated access easement a1 And then we can always proofread it later on Plan sheet s2 and we'll say subject to agreement of the easement holders yes oh i lost my page i'm sorry subject to the agreement of the easement holders and shall and shall not interfere with existing easement rights?

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: Yes.

[Robin Stein]: Okay. So something along those lines, something to that effect. Right. If that works for folks 10, if that works for you.

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: In the event that it's a stalemate, we replant a crosswalk.

[Tim McGivern]: That all makes sense and that's where my mind was headed to, that we're working. And just to be clear, if for some reason agreement falls through and we all don't get what we want in the situation, then it would have to be approved through a field change, through the board, a redesign, how we make that crossing work from Lorraine and all that. So, definitely people.

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: Sorry, Tim, could you explain that process again if we're moving the crosswalk?

[Tim McGivern]: I would say that if a plan set gets approved tonight, and that agreement doesn't go through with the private-to-private agreement there with the grantee, then you would have to submit for a field change for a redesign, leaving the driveway where it is, and then seeing what we can do about that, carossing over to Lorraine. Does that make sense?

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: Okay, yeah, that makes sense. So it would be a field change. And just to be clear, we think it's a better project with the extension on the right-of-way.

[Tim McGivern]: Yeah, I think we all kind of agree that. I think the grantees also know that too. It's just a matter of the business of doing business per se in this world.

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: We appreciate that.

[Robin Stein]: No, no, I was just recognizing you. Go ahead. Sorry, I apologize. It's so hard on Zoom to get attentions. I just want to make sure that I'm being accurate in what I said. It's just the area identified as proposed relocated access to A1, where it says extension of right of way. Is that already there?

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: It's not already there.

[Robin Stein]: So I just want to make sure that the condition is clear as to what the developer has to do. Maybe you can help on the engineering side of that.

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: Sir, it's the extension of the right-of-way is the new area.

[Robin Stein]: Oh, OK. So you're getting rid of the 955-foot proposed relocated access easement and creating the extension of the right-of-way.

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: I don't follow you. Can you share your screen, please?

[Robin Stein]: I can't because I'm on, I can tell you it's, I can't because I have it on a different system than the Zoom, but it's sheet S2.0. I, let's see. Maybe you can share it. I apologize.

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: You know what, I don't have, I have the sheets that I was supposed to pull because it was a Dropbox link.

[Andre Leroux]: Do you think we could, I think we all agree on what we're trying to accomplish. Do you think we could wordsmith the final language? Sure.

[Robin Stein]: Yeah, we can make the final decision just subject to the chair's final review and approval. I think we're all on the same page about what's going to happen. And we can clarify it later. That's fine.

[Andre Leroux]: That's great. Thank you. I appreciate your counsel, Attorney Stein.

[Robin Stein]: Happy to help. OK.

[Andre Leroux]: All right, thank you, everybody. So a couple of other issues to cover. The fire chief had a conversation with community development staff and myself about a couple of concerns and recommendations that he was making. So I want to just acknowledge those and try to address them here. One was he, reiterated that he'd like that right-of-way to be as wide as possible and paved. I think you mentioned that you were intending to pave it now, is that correct? Yes.

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: Assuming we get the extension, we're paving it.

[Andre Leroux]: Okay, great. And then, obviously, he had recommended sprinklering each of the houses. Now, you are not required to do that, so that's just his preference that he wanted to weigh in on. And then the final thing, which is probably his strongest recommendation, was to get rid of the island that's there. He has concerns about the turning radius and being able to maneuver fire trucks in there, especially if people are parked in front of their homes. So could you address that issue?

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: Sure. On the island, my From my understanding, the subdivision rules and regs require it for the road for the cul-de-sac, so I think it would require relief. So what I would suggest in that case would be that if we can approve the plan in its current state, I'll reappear for the relief to remove the island. Therefore, that way if someone appeals it, I'm not stuck in appeals court because of an island.

[Andre Leroux]: We don't believe that that is a requirement to have the island.

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: Well, then that would be easy. I'll take it right off. I'm almost, I'm, Wayne Kiefner is on the call and he's muted. He may know it's been on there so long. I, to be honest, I, I forget, but so I guess we can make the, if it doesn't require relief, I'll remove the island.

[Todd Blake]: Okay. There may be some middle ground with that.

[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: Sorry. Go ahead. I was about to say the same thing. I'm wondering if there's a design for an island that would satisfy both the fire chief and the fact that I think it looks a lot nicer with the island.

[Todd Blake]: Yeah, it looks like the overall diameter is 80 feet of the largest circle. So it's similar to roundabouts that are on the street. And in those cases, the median could be, the center island could be reduced with a multiple piece to it. So it's kind of a hybrid.

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: Yeah, so we could do like a paver that ramps up in a three foot section around it with a planting in the middle. To be honest, I don't have a, I think that that would be kind of cool, but I don't have a position on it.

[Andre Leroux]: You know we drew the road so they would adhere to the specs, but I really when it comes down to it I'm open to anything So and obviously I I communicated to the chief to that I thought aesthetically the island looked better, but he did feel that That he'd have some some issues with this with his trucks, so I want to take that as of that seriously.

[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: What kind of issues were they, Andre? Because, you know, there are like programs you can use to, you know, like it's called auto turn and you can just show the chief that.

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: His largest ladder truck is huge.

[Andre Leroux]: Right. This is something that might require a separate sit down conversation with the chief at some point to go over these kinds of design issues. which I would be interested in doing. But I think for tonight, it would be hard to get to that point. So I guess, you know, if there is, I like the idea of having some kind of, you know, treatment where you can see, you know, would not just be 80 feet of or so of asphalt, but it would have some treatment in the middle that would make it more aesthetically pleasing, but would not interfere if necessary with a truck that would have to make, you know, that might have to drive over it.

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: So I'm open to whatever the, wherever that discussion lands, I'm fine with it.

[Andre Leroux]: Okay. So is there agreement, though, that, you know, Tim, I think you, there's no requirement, as far as you know, to have that island there. Is that correct? Yeah, I looked into it.

[Tim McGivern]: It's on a graphic. And it talks about widths with an island. So I'm pretty sure they're minimum. So it could be interpreted that the regs don't require it, like you were saying. I didn't see it explicitly in black and white that said an island is required.

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: But it's in the diagrams, right?

[Tim McGivern]: And in the diagrams, I mean, that's a valid point. So someone could interpret it as it's shown in the diagrams, therefore it's required. So, you know, point taken.

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: But we're flexible on that.

[Andre Leroux]: Okay. Yeah, we have not required islands, particularly because of the, you know, the fire chief has often weighs in in this way on such projects. So we don't anticipate a problem, but I I think if we could word it in such a way that we could say there could be some kind of treatment in the middle that would not obstruct emergency vehicles, that would be. And then we can kind of leave that for the design afterwards for you guys to work out.

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: So if we could word it so that it's stated that the island can be reduced in size, almost down to, can essentially go to zero, but at that point, if there's still a concern, it's not our concern. Right.

[Andre Leroux]: Yeah, I think that's right. There could be, maybe we should word it that there could be no island, but that there will be, you know, further discussion with the fire chief and the city engineer about a mutually acceptable, you know, treatment for the cul-de-sac. But not requiring anything to be there. So, you know, worst case, there's no island.

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: And is that a discussion between the fire chief and Tim McGibbon?

[Andre Leroux]: Yeah, I mean, the fire chief's position, I believe, is no island. That's his preference. So, you know, I think the question is whether there could be a little bit more of, you know, something more aesthetically pleasing, worked out with you and Tim and the fire chief, that fire chief would find acceptable.

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: My experience with the fire chief has always been cordial and professional, but he's unwavering.

[Unidentified]: Yeah.

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: I'm up for following anybody that wants to go into his office with me and talk about it. But I anticipate we're going to have pavement. Yeah. OK.

[Todd Blake]: Mr. Chair, if I may? Yeah, Mr. Blake. I defer to the chief on all safety matters, but I thought it might be useful to the board and the residents in attendance, just a point of information. There's a roundabout in Melrose at Green and Howard with a 16-foot traveling lane around. And then it has a rumble strip. outside the center island, which makes it a total of 25 feet from the center island to the outer edge. So it's on the intersection of two major streets. So I think there's definitely some wiggle room here.

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: I'm happy to participate. Okay, thank you.

[Robin Stein]: And I suggest just if it's helpful, and again, subject to final approval, a condition that the applicant shall remove the proposed cul-de-sac island and we'll work with the fire chief and director of engineering to identify if possible an alternative treatment for the cul-de-sac.

[Andre Leroux]: That sounds great.

[Robin Stein]: Is that acceptable to everyone?

[Andre Leroux]: Board members, is that acceptable to all of you?

[David Blumberg]: Yes. Andre, it's Dave. I just want to make sure that we're conveying to the chief that if this is true, that it's the board's strong recommendation that there is some treatment. I just want to make sure we're really on board with this thing. And he understands that. I don't want to just fall by the wayside.

[Andre Leroux]: I think that's a good point. And again, when I met with him, I communicated that. But I think it might be helpful for other board members to communicate that as well. And perhaps it may require a dialogue separate from any particular project. Thank you. I do see Doug Carr with his hand raised. Could he be unmuted?

[Doug Carr]: I could just say a few words about that island issue. As somebody who has seen them successfully designed all over the place, from assembly row and a lot of places around Medford, it's not a safety issue. The standard civil engineering diagrams and turning radiuses that will handle any fire truck and to have 100 feet of pavement in the middle of that development would look terrible. I think you've got to fight hard for the aesthetics here. It's not a safety issue. This is a desire. There's no safety issue that I can see, because I've seen that design a dozen times in a dozen different cities over the last 10 years. And I just think it would be unwise for the neighborhood, the small cluster, whole cycle created to have this landing strip like the Logan Airport in the middle of it, where it really needs to be softened. This is a quality of the development issue. These are well-designed buildings. It's got a lot of great landscaping to have. This crater in the middle of it, I think, is a big mistake.

[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: Thank you, Mr. Carr. I would also add that, to me, it's a bit of a sustainability issue, too. that much more black asphalt just heating up that area, not contributing to infiltration and creating more rainwater down the slope and all that. I tend to agree that this is something this project should have. I'm not sure I'm on, yeah.

[Andre Leroux]: Yeah, I did express that sentiment as well for the chief.

[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: I'm just sort of maybe feeling that there needs to be language just a little stronger in support of it or, you know. The removal of it is, there's a condition or another review, I don't know. I feel like if we get rid of it tonight and then we say maybe we'll put it back, it could be lost for good.

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: Well, maybe we could. Between the rules and regulations, you're welcome to keep it in.

[Andre Leroux]: Do other board members have a strong opinion? I think for the purpose of moving this forward, I think we should stick to Attorney Stein's recommendation, but add I'm happy to try to wordsmith it a little bit more and maybe add some language about permeability and sustainability, because I think that we could, you know, at worst have a surface level solution that is aesthetically sets the pavement apart and is permeable. So I think we could at least do that. Yeah.

[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: I suppose it could also not be a tree. It could be just like plantings that in worst case scenario, they could just be run over.

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: Right. Yes. So we would agreeing with that. Excuse me, Mr. Chair.

[Andre Leroux]: Yes.

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: Green. Agreeing with that. Um, we'll, we'll, we will agree in the decision that in the island, there'll be no transformers, no electrical. Um, so if we keep all that out of there, low growth would be fine. And if you drove over it, you wouldn't do any damage other than to the plants.

[Andre Leroux]: Um,

[Robin Stein]: Okay, well, I think I... Can I just confirm then, just so folks are on the same page, that the condition will read along the lines that the applicant shall remove the proposed cul-de-sac island and work with the fire chief and engineering director to identify an alternative treatment for the cul-de-sac to be installed by the applicant?

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: I would say that we're gonna augment the island and not remove it.

[Robin Stein]: Okay, so the applicant shall augment the proposed cul-de-sac island and work with the fire chief and engineering director to identify an alternative treatment for the cul-de-sac to be installed by the applicant.

[Andre Leroux]: And I would say, could you insert language in there that would say permeable and also that would not obstruct emergency vehicles?

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: Yeah, no infrastructure, no exposed infrastructure.

[Robin Stein]: Okay, so we'll say, give me one second here. Identify a permeable alternative treatment for the cul-de-sac to be installed by the applicant. There shall be no infrastructure installed.

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: No exposed infrastructure.

[Robin Stein]: Is that satisfactory? There should be no exposed infrastructure installed in the area of the cul-de-sac?

[Todd Blake]: To account for the trees, you could say no vertical elements over a certain height.

[Andre Leroux]: I think we should keep this as simple as possible and maybe not talk about the infrastructure. His concern is about obstructing emergency vehicles, and we should just say a permeable cul-de-sac island. I like what you said, Attorney Stein, so stick with your words. That shall not obstruct emergency vehicles.

[Robin Stein]: Okay, so it'll say the applicant shall augment their proposed cul-de-sac island and work with the fire chief and engineering director to identify a permeable alternative treatment for the cul-de-sac that shall not obstruct emergency vehicles and will be installed by the applicant.

[Andre Leroux]: Yes, that sounds perfect. Thank you.

[Robin Stein]: Thank you.

[Andre Leroux]: Great. All right. Making progress. Let me just see if there's any other issues we needed to cover here. So. All right, just to also be clear that this project is subject to linkage fees per the city of Medford zoning ordinance chapter 94, section 94-382 per building commissioner Paul Mochi's letter to the board dated May 14th, 2019.

[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: Andre, is there going to be a moment for us to give comments based on Ed's presentation?

[Andre Leroux]: Yeah, let's do that now. I think I just wanted to make sure we attacked the big things that we're going to have a lot of discussion so that the meeting wouldn't go on too long. Would you like to speak now, Klaus?

[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: Sure, and I'll be brief. Ed, are all the proposed sidewalks in the project concrete?

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: Yes. OK.

[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: Are there sidewalks up around the cul-de-sac?

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: Yes.

[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: On the entirety of the cul-de-sac, on both sides?

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: Let me double check.

[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: Yes, there are. OK. There are street trees that were left out of the renderings. you know approximately how many?

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: So there was only one, on the one view where you and I had discussed not having the houses and seeing the wall, that's the only rendering I took them out of. Okay. So that it wouldn't, because it hid the wall when they were in it, so I edited it.

[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: Okay. So there's one street tree then?

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: No, there's multiple, but it's as per the code. I'm looking at the plan now. Hold on one second. I think there's 10.

[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: Great. And my final comment is the streetlights. Is that a city standard?

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: It is.

[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: Okay. Are we seeing that in other residential areas of the city? They look like the streetlights we have in Medford Square.

[Alicia Hunt]: The streetlights on the plan were not standard. Are they intended to be maintained by the city or is the Uh, so we, who's taking care of those? Cause they were not city, Medford city standard street lights.

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: Oh, then there's, there's a, then there's an error in one of the pages then, because we had gotten, is it the wiring commissioner or wires inspector of wires? We got, we got a spec from the inspector of wires.

[Alicia Hunt]: So we'll include that with the plan, but could you tell me what year you got that spec from him?

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: I'll find out. It was at least a year ago.

[Alicia Hunt]: We replaced all Cobra heads, and we updated all the streetlights in Medford Square 18 months ago.

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: Well, I'm happy. So the point that I make is we didn't love the spec that we got, so we'd be happy to look at the new one.

[Andre Leroux]: We'll make sure that the lighting will be standard with current city lighting standards. Yes.

[Alicia Hunt]: Is that and include the city's controls?

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: Yes.

[Alicia Hunt]: And I can verify those if you need to be, I actually put those in.

[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: Great. And I'm all set, Andre. Thank you.

[Andre Leroux]: All right. Thank you, class. Appreciate it. Any other board members have questions or comments on the discussion so far? Okay, seeing none among the board members, Chris Donovan has his hand raised. Annie, could you unmute him?

[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_22]: Hi, just a new comment, I guess, about the lighting and not to open up a new Pandora's box, and Ed is talking about working with us, but making sure that lighting is the right, not only spec for the city, but wattage or something. I don't even know what that light would look like coming from up on a hill, but as long as we could work together on that, we'd love to make sure it works for the community up on the hill and down on the rain as well.

[Andre Leroux]: Thank you, Mr. Donovan. Already here. Annie, is there, I guess we could go over our conditions, just review what we have here. I have a note that we need to take a vote on a waiver for the curb line, which is less than, it's more narrow than than what is generally required. So we need to take a vote on the board finding that it is in the public interest and not inconsistent with the intent and purpose of the subdivision control law to waive strict compliance with section 7.31 of its rules and regulations to permit 20-foot radii curb lines at the intersection with Winthrop Street on the basis that the required 30-foot radii would negatively impact the safety of the intersection. So this is basically just taking a vote to waive the overly wide regulation and make it more pedestrian friendly. So does that need to be, Annie, does that need to be a separate vote or can that just be

[Nicole Morell]: I believe it should be a separate vote on the waiver.

[Andre Leroux]: Okay, so let's tackle that right now. Is there a motion to waive the 30-foot turning radii on Wincliffe Street?

[Robin Stein]: Can I just ask, because I'm not, I apologize, it's my first time at one of your meetings, so I'm not as familiar with how you normally do the process. Before you, do you normally do all your votes at the end when you've finished any issues with public comment or?

[Andre Leroux]: That's generally what we do, yes.

[Robin Stein]: Okay.

[Andre Leroux]: So should we put it at the end?

[Robin Stein]: Well, I mean, I think that if you probably wanted to vote everything at the end when you're sure everyone's had their chance to comment and ask their questions.

[Andre Leroux]: Okay, and is there an order in which those votes should be? No, I mean, in this case, I think you would have- Because we have the subdivision vote, we have the site plan review vote, and we have the waiver vote.

[Robin Stein]: So I think it would make sense, subject to however you want to do it, to do the waiver vote first, then the subdivision on the site plan. But I don't know that it really matters. But I would recommend waiting to vote until you've finished any public comment or discussion with the applicant on matters.

[Andre Leroux]: Yes. Thank you. Good suggestion.

[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: Robin, can I ask you a question? This issue seems like a particularly like an issue that has maybe more far-reaching legal implications. It seems like an odd thing for us to be deciding or sort of making a decision, if you will, deciding on.

[Robin Stein]: When you say this issue, do you mean the radii question?

[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[Robin Stein]: So the subdivision control law allows you to waive components of your subdivision regulation so long as you find that they're in the public interest and not inconsistent with the subdivision control law. And where it's an engineering question, I would defer to Tim's guidance on that. But you're certainly legally permitted to do that. It's not uncommon in subdivisions to see that.

[Andre Leroux]: Do you have a concern of some kind, Klaus? Because this is what we wanted the proponent to do.

[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: We're like, it seems like this is the kind of thing we should be making a recommendation on and not like deciding on because like, I mean, I'm just worst case scenario, what if someone gets in an accident because of this or that, or maybe not even because of that, but because, but uses that as a, as a, as a reason for some sort of recourse.

[Robin Stein]: So I can answer from a subdivision perspective, you know, you have to grant the waiver or they have to comply. So I mean, that is the subdivision process. So if the plan is going to deviate from the requirement in the regulation, you grant the waiver. I mean, that is how the process works. It's not something that you make a recommendation on. Right. It is the appropriate way to do it.

[Andre Leroux]: I see Alicia Hunt with her hand raised. Yeah, Annie, can you unmute her?

[Alicia Hunt]: Sorry, my Wi-Fi keeps bouncing out. And when I get fully disconnected, I lose my ability to unmute myself. I just wanted to clarify that we actually are the deciding agency in the city that would say they can or cannot make it that opening. more narrow the way we want to. We take the advice of the engineer and the traffic engineer, but this board, the planning board, is actually the board that would decide this for a subdivision. There is no other entity in the city to make that call.

[Andre Leroux]: And this is something that we've already talked about the design of the project, so I don't want to spend a lot of time on this right now, but appreciate the question. Other questions and concerns from board members before we try to review the list of conditions? OK, seeing none. Annie, have you been taking notes on the conditions? Would you be the person to run through that, or do you want me to try to do it?

[Nicole Morell]: Sure, I can do it. I don't have the exact language that Robin has drafted so eloquently. I may defer to her on those items.

[Andre Leroux]: Maybe just the right, the checklist of things.

[Robin Stein]: I can chime in if you need me to, and then I've taken some notes as well, so we can always double check.

[Nicole Morell]: I can go through a few items that are sort of more administrative. as conditions that I wanted to run by board members, if this is an appropriate time for that.

[Andre Leroux]: I think it is, yes.

[Nicole Morell]: So let's see. Prior to endorsement, any changes must be shown on a revised subdivision plan, including a summary of conditions. The subdivision shall comply with all applicable standards and regulations as set forth in the Community Development Board Rules and Regulations, except for those for which a waiver has been approved. Consistent with Mass General Law, Chapter 41, Section 81U, after the expiration of 20 days without notice of appeal to Superior Court or Land Court, The board shall endorse the plan. This endorsement shall occur following the provision of a performance guarantee in accordance with Mass General Law, Chapter 41, Section 81U, in an amount determined by the city engineer and approved by the board. Said amount shall bear a direct reasonable relationship to the expected cost of the work, including inflation necessary to complete the work. The amount shall be revised from time to time on recommendation of the city engineer to reflect the remaining cost of the work. construction of the subdivision improvements shall be completed within two years of the date of endorsement of the plans by the board. And this project is subject to linkage fees, city of Medford zoning ordinance chapter 94 sections 94382. And in terms of conditions recommended by City staff compliance with conditions recommended by Timothy McGivern, city engineer, in a letter to the board dated August 18th, 2020. And we've discussed the fire chief's comments. So I think adding the the condition, the reworded condition about the The island in the middle, I need to look back at his comments specifically to see if, let me look at them now, if there are any others to include. His, Other one was about the 12 foot right of way for access to 553, 555 Winthrop Street shall be repaved all weather roadway and shall be as wide as boundaries allow. So if that is a condition that the board would like to attach. And then the recommendation about sprinklers is this other one.

[Andre Leroux]: But I don't think we can, Attorney Stein, I don't think we can include that language on the right of way, right? Because of the outstanding issue. that we discussed, is that correct?

[Robin Stein]: Well, it's one of the notes that I had. Is it contemplated, and this has to do with paving the right-of-way, correct? So is it contemplated that if the right-of-way is relocated, it will be paved?

[Andre Leroux]: Yes.

[Robin Stein]: And is the applicant in agreement to that? So why don't we work with that condition just to add in that they're going to accomplish the relocation if they can, and that will include paving.

[Unidentified]: Great.

[Robin Stein]: So I'll work on that. And again, I know I've said this, but obviously the final vote tonight for the written decision will be subject to final approval by the chair. And so there may be some tweaking of the exact wording of things before it's filed, just to be clear. Yeah.

[Nicole Morell]: OK. There was a comment letter, a few of them, but the most recent one we have from Marianne O'Connor, the director of public health. She did not submit a new one, but she has expressed that her conditions still apply. One of them is to submit a written plan for proper dust remediation. One of them is a detailed solid waste plan must be submitted to the board of health and that dumpster permits must be obtained for any dumpsters prior to construction beginning. and another that integrated pest management is required. And she goes into more detail on each of those in her letter. And then the other city comment letter that was not updated with the remand, but contains items that the author stated still apply is from Brian Cairns, Commissioner of Public Works. And the first two are, My understanding and Tim's comment number 47 on this is that the proponent will be working with the engineering department and the DPW to address concerns about the water main. So that takes care of his first two comments that were about his uncertainty about the water main. Hydrant locations will be determined by the fire department, noting that one hydrant must be on Winthrop Street. The minimum water main size is eight inch ductile piping and one inch copper services into the 10 residential lots. We'll also maintain a loop system around the property adhering to the 10 foot water and sewer separation. All standard testing for pressure and bacteria shall be in accordance with the DEP and AWWA standard. Water mains that intersect with other water main piping to the triple gated and open to the right All water services will be placed in the sidewalk with shutoffs off the property line. All service connection on the old six inch water main will be replaced with one inch copper to the property line with new shutoffs. All as built will be reviewed by water and sewer and the engineering divisions. Any work performed on water and sewer must be inspected before backfilling. Emergency phone numbers must be provided prior to any work being done on roads in Medford. Drawings and pre-construction meetings are advised. Any contractor working on water services must be a certified drain layer licensed with the city of Medford. and these are all items that were responded to by Mr. Champion, I believe had all been resolved, correct? Except for the water main that you were working with the city to accommodate.

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: We actually did the inspection on the water main. We cut a section out and they have it. So I believe and That's an extensive list and just from hearing the things, but I believe that the current plans adhere to the rules and rights. So if something he's suggesting is different from the plan, I'd like to focus on the plans. I don't know. There was something in there in the midst of that conversation about a water loop. which I think the plans are correct.

[Nicole Morell]: Address to the satisfaction of the commissioner of public works, his comments.

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: One more time, I'm sorry.

[Nicole Morell]: Would it be appropriate to address to the satisfaction of the commissioner of public works to work with him?

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: So I think it's to the satisfaction of the rules and regulations.

[Nicole Morell]: So I believe a lot of these were addressed. It says triple gates are shown in the plan in your response. You commit to the utility contractor being on the city's approved list.

[8Sqy8gyjolU_SPEAKER_09]: Of course, yeah.

[Nicole Morell]: Pressure and bacteria tests will be in accordance with the EPA and AWWA standards. You say the hydrants have been coordinated with the fire department. and that the plans have been modified to have 10 feet of separation, except at the crossings. So it appears that all of these were addressed.

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: So I agree, I just, the concern from our side is that when we add on the language that states that it'll be to a certain individuals, you know, there's rules and regulations and we'd follow those. So I forgot the exact way the comment was, with regard to the satisfaction of, I think it's the satisfaction of the rules and regulations. So adhering to the rules and regulations and adhering to this, the rule, the guides.

[Andre Leroux]: Yeah, I think what Annie had said was the subdivision shall comply with all applicable standards and regulations as set forth in the, well, that's the community development board rules and regulations. Sorry, I don't know if that was, I think the other section was- I believe we've added that whole list. Yeah.

[Nicole Morell]: So you've reviewed and responded to each item in here. I just wanted to kind of have it on record in case some of these might still be outstanding. So it appears that you have addressed all of them from your responses too, but we don't have an updated letter from the commissioner.

[Andre Leroux]: Right. So the condition, uh, and we'll have basically compliance to the satisfaction of each department head, um, with any unrecommendations made in letters to the board and then citing the specific letters. So it's not going to be add ons at all. It was going to be referencing the specific letters and the items that you've already seen. And we'll take out the fire chiefs, I think, and dealing with that separately because, um, we've, we've adjusted that.

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: Fair enough.

[Nicole Morell]: And I think lighting as well, you've addressed separately. I think another condition that was discussed was about notification to the- The blast plan? Yeah, a blasting to the director of community development or her designee. And Tim, did you want us to add the vegetated area to the homeowners association for your comment?

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: Yes. It's adjacent to the extension of the right of way as an explanation of where it is.

[Tim McGivern]: And the only other thing is the housekeeping item, Annie, is my recommended condition number two, associated with the grantees. I think that can just be fully rescinded and replaced with the language that we've discussed.

[Nicole Morell]: And Robin has that language.

[Tim McGivern]: Yeah. I do. Rescind number two out of my letter.

[Andre Leroux]: And then, Tim, I guess the final thing we didn't cover that we had brought up in prior meetings was just around the pedestrian safety for the crossing. I think we discussed you were going to look into the feasibility of doing like a blinking light or some signage. I don't know if you had a recommendation on that.

[Tim McGivern]: We did look into it. Something like that could go there. It's hard for me to commit to something because so much is going on in that whole corridor. But I mean, this project does have linkage fees. I mean, we could think about doing something with those if the board wanted to condition some sort of actuated signal light. Todd, are you still on the call or no?

[Unidentified]: No.

[Tim McGivern]: I don't know if that location is entirely appropriate for some sort of actuated blinking light for the pedestrian crossing or not? The question was brought up last time.

[Todd Blake]: Yeah, looking at that quarter from the high school, the place that road, it's about an 18 foot 100 stretch without the crosswalk. So this one's going to be placed roughly halfway about 900 feet. So that's a good thing. In terms of enhancements, I was actually thinking of that. You could go to the flasher that's just constantly flashing. Those are just order of magnitude costs for people, informational purposes only. A set of those would be in the $3,500 range on U-channels, solar powered. And then something like a RFB on more substantial pole, like folks know at Governor's Avenue and High Street, that's more about $20,000 per setup. And there's kind of a hybrid of between where it's an RFB on a U-channel style that DCR uses a lot. like 13 grand is set up. So in terms of if it would be helpful, I think the enhancements are always helpful, especially coming southbound, you know, there's a little bit of a curve before you reach this area. So any enhancement to visibility is always a good thing. So, you know, those are good suggestions. Going back to Tim's point about not knowing what's happening with the whole corridor, The curb that's listed as radius 20 on Lorain Road side, with that being the parking shoulder side, you could even potentially bump that out even more into Winthrop Street to add visibility and sight lines for the pedestrians. But without doing any physical things like that, enhanced signs wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing.

[Andre Leroux]: And what, well, an enhanced signage, what would that look like when sort of a pedestrian right of way in the middle of the roadway or what?

[Todd Blake]: So, yeah, beyond what's shown on the plan, you could add, instead of the static fluorescent yellow green diamond sign, you could have one of those with LED border that flashes all the time throughout City Metro, we have about 20 of them or so in the solar powered. So that's no actuation, no ped button, But then the next level up is something that you see on DCI roadways where it's a ped button actuated flashing light, but it's RFB. Those got the white rectangular flashing lights. And then there's a more sturdy permanent style like the ones we have on Salem and River and Governors Hub and High. Those are push button activated as well. It wouldn't involve any median in the middle, Chairman, because the cross section of this area is out there today, and it's likely to remain in the future, just to be refined a bit so it's more definitive, is a bike lane on the development side, a traveling, traveling bike lane, and a parking shoulder on the Lorain Road side that would match up with west or north of the project. So that's likely the cross section here. So there's not much room to add anything like that. It would potentially could add a bump out shielding the parking shoulder on the Lorain Road side that would shorten the crossing distance?

[Andre Leroux]: All right, I see one of the neighbors, Chris Donovan, would like to speak. Could he be unmuted?

[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_22]: I think that crosswalk, that bump, all the things that Todd's talking about right now is really one of the game changers in this development. And I think Todd's, we talked about some of them last night's on for some of these changes that may not be in Ed's purview, but they are tied in with this crosswalk. So we're excited for that crosswalk. We may not want it overdeveloped and too lit up. It's a pretty quiet area, but that crosswalk and a light or something, they have to slow down people coming around that curve. is really a game changer in this neighborhood. So some of the traffic calming that Todd is talking about, we're really excited for that. And it really changes the dynamic of this neighborhood, which includes sliding over the center line, bike lanes, and a parking lane, and hopefully some sidewalks coming up. So this is really, the crosswalk is really the crux of how this connection started with Ed. And so we'd really love to see a good, nice crosswalk, well lit, I have a little there's a telephone pole that's going up to Lorraine if we just twisted it the other way 90 degrees would be right about the crosswalk. Put some lighting on it in that very dark corner. I think it's a win-win without really overthinking it and putting in too much flashing light, because we would love to sort of have a nice quiet community at nighttime as well versus the flashing. So thank you. And the crosswalk is really important. We just don't want to overthink it. But a bump out or a raise, people come pretty quickly around that corner. And that's definitely a game changer. So thank you for including this as part of this development project.

[Andre Leroux]: I think the question is, I don't think a bump out is part of it right now, is that correct?

[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_22]: It's not, but some of those changes are in the way via Todd, and Todd has a plan for that. And we're excited here in the neighborhood that the crosswalk that's coming from 551, that's, I guess, part of the plan, is what started this fire of getting the sidewalks and some traffic safety in the area. So that's where I thought the direction was going, and Todd's got a pretty good handle on it. We're pretty excited for what's coming.

[Todd Blake]: Yeah, just to clarify, I know we talked about a vision and plan. Mr. Donovan, but yeah, there wasn't necessarily a plan for the city to do a bump on at this particular crosswalk. Yeah, but it could be an opportunity here.

[Andre Leroux]: Well, is there is the city's engineering department making a recommendation.

[Tim McGivern]: Well, I don't think we're making a recommendation. I think that there are some reasonable signage improvements that could be made over what the plan is. The recommendations from the engineering division came through the form of comments and where we've been up to at this point. I think what we're saying is if the board wanted to explore discussing with the proponent, some additional measures like signage, things like that, then, you know, we were saying that there would be nothing to preclude that. So neighbors saying that a flashing light might be too much or an actuator beacon might be too much, but then we're saying that nothing would preclude signage or something else to draw attention to the crosswalk. And it's within the board's purview to have that discussion with the proponent, so it's for a condition, so.

[Todd Blake]: Yeah, so we're supportive and listening to the neighborhood that adds a lot of value knowing that they may prefer a curb extension bump out versus flashing lights. That seems like a suitable and reasonable thing to do. The proponent would have to look at the drainage if it required an extra catch patient or moving a catch patient if the curve extension was added. But we're supportive of that idea.

[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_22]: We're happy for any incremental changes. So thank you. It's nothing but a win-win. So thank you for keeping the crosswalk in your sights.

[Andre Leroux]: Mr. Champy, based on what you heard, is there anything that you think you can, you'd be able to accomplish here?

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: Well, I mean, yeah, we're happy to, I mean, we've, so, so all of the changes, I mean, I, I just think, you know, we crossed that street too, cause we've been there for probably longer than some of the residents, you know? So, you know, we'll work with the neighborhoods and engineering. And I think I even wrote in one of my emails, you know, we're, we're happy to participate as long as someone takes the lead. So we'll coordinate, we'll participate. If it's bumping off the curb instead of putting the curb in, we don't have a problem with doing what's best. The crosswalk and the sidewalk is all done for the betterment of the community. So if it needs to be tweaked, I'm open to it. So we're very willing. We don't, it doesn't need to go in as drawn. We just drew what we thought was appropriate at the time. So I think that there's been more involvement over the past year. So if we approve it as is and someone wants to bump it or move it or adjust it, we'd be happy to, until it's built, once it's built, then we'd like it to leave it as it is. So I guess the verbiage I would use would be that we'll cooperate with the changes that are required. I mean, within reason, right? They can't, you know, we don't want to put a pedestrian crosswalk that's overhead or something like that, but we're happy to participate.

[Andre Leroux]: Attorney Stein, do you have a recommendation on how to word something like this?

[Robin Stein]: Just so that I'm clear, what is currently shown on the plans on this issue? Is there a, there's a crosswalk shown on the plan?

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: Yeah, there is. Yes. And that's a sidewalk.

[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_22]: In my comments, we're happy that there is a crosswalk, not necessarily anything additional. What's already been planned is fine, and it's an incremental change that we appreciate. Okay, great.

[Robin Stein]: So do you want to leave it as is, or do you want something additional?

[Andre Leroux]: Well, so I guess my... Go ahead, Deanna.

[Deanna Peabody]: Is there any signs related to the crosswalk currently on the plans? I can't remember.

[Todd Blake]: I believe the standard static W11-2

[Deanna Peabody]: Yeah, I was going to say that at the very least, that those signs that come basically at most crosswalks, which is the warning signs, should be on both directions.

[Todd Blake]: To answer the attorney's question, the crosswalk is proposed, which includes a ramp on either side. It does include tightening the radius on the Lorain Road side, but that does not include a curb extension out into Winter Street. So that's the, it would be a modification to the, to the curb that's shown on the plan.

[Robin Stein]: If you change the sidewalk?

[Todd Blake]: If you add a curb extension, it would make it a shorter crossing and it would adjust that radius that's called out as 20 on the northwest corner. Okay.

[Robin Stein]: So I guess, oh, go ahead, no.

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: I'm sorry, Mr. Chair and Ms. Stein. How about we, if we approve as is or with the curb extension, you know, based on whatever engineering decides they, the engineering or the neighborhood decides they want, we'll do either or. As it is or we'll extend the curb and we'll do either or.

[Andre Leroux]: The curb extension would be on which side? both sides, one side?

[Todd Blake]: I was imagining the Winthrop Street side, you know, Lorraine would be nice too, but it is a tight angle for turning vehicles. Basically, the curb extension would be on Winthrop, shielding the parking shoulder, so it would be in line with the parking shoulder on that side of the street. You could say, add a condition to modify the curb radii that's shown on the Lorraine Road corner, the northwest corner, to include or a curb extension into Winter Street, and DCI will, you know, modify design and would review it, you know.

[Robin Stein]: So how about if we say something along the lines of at the request of the city's, and you can correct me if I have the wrong departments here, at the request of the city's Inspectional Services Department, the applicant shall install a curb extension on the Winthrop Street side? Is that correct?

[Todd Blake]: Yeah, I say west side, but some people are saying south side, so it's kind of like the southwest. To me, it's the northwest corner of Winthrop Street and Lorain Road.

[Andre Leroux]: Right, we're talking about the side adjacent to Mary Kenny Way, the new Mary Kenny Way, right? No. No, the other side?

[Alicia Hunt]: On the same street, not the Lorain Road side.

[Andre Leroux]: All right. Sorry.

[Alicia Hunt]: The plans have a proposed signage and striping plan. It's sheet 6.3 that shows on Lorraine street side, the corner of Lorraine and Winthrop. The way I read that is a curb bump out, but not on the side of the street with Mary Kenny way.

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: Can we treat it as a field change and we'll leave it as is and we'll propose on the Tim and

[Robin Stein]: Well, that's why I think, how about if we just say at the request of the city's engineering department, the applicant shall revise the proposed crosswalk?

[Tim McGivern]: Hold on.

[Robin Stein]: There's only one, right?

[Tim McGivern]: if we just pause for a second here. So yeah, so I think nothing's gonna happen if it's just coordinate with engineering department, because we made recommendations about pedestrian safety and plans were made or changes, revisions were made to the plan. So if the board itself would like to condition bump outs there, then what we're saying is that nothing would preclude that. and also if the board would like to condition additional signage or lighting or something along those lines, there's nothing that would preclude that. However, the coordination piece with the engineering department would happen on our sidewalk project when we're abutting up against their project and we'll coordinate with them. and how that, but if the board would like to have bump-outs, extensions here for pedestrian safety, and the proponent is willing to do that, then the board has the power to make that happen. That's what we're saying from an engineering standpoint. So I wouldn't think that some sort of condition that requires coordination with us is going to be productive.

[Robin Stein]: Okay. I mean, you can make that decision right now.

[Andre Leroux]: Yeah, I mean, I would be in favor of just including the bump-out Um, okay. I guess my question is, though, are we talking about bump outs on both sides of Winthrop Street next to Lorraine and on the other side or just the Lorraine side?

[Todd Blake]: I could clarify because, um, the Winthrop State Development or the Mary Kinney side, it's not that side because that side's a bike lane, doesn't have a parking shortage. Got it. Okay. So I just wanted to be clear about that.

[Robin Stein]: Okay. How about you tell me if this works? Um, the applicant shall revise the proposed crosswalk And there's only one, correct, shown on the plan to add a curb extension on the Lorain Road side of the crosswalk?

[Todd Blake]: I guess to clarify, there are two crosswalks, but there's one crossing Winthrop Street.

[Robin Stein]: Okay, so we'll say the applicant shall revise the proposed crosswalk crossing Winthrop Street. And shown on the plan, is it a curb extension?

[Todd Blake]: Yeah, there's two names, curb extension or bump out, either or.

[Robin Stein]: I would say to add a curb extension on the Lorain Road side of the street.

[Todd Blake]: Is there anything about- Well, Tim, I think she's right. Lorain Road side of the street versus Mary Kenny side of the street.

[Andre Leroux]: Yeah, she already said the crossing Winthrop Street. That's what the- Yeah.

[Robin Stein]: The crosswalk, okay.

[Tim McGivern]: Well, I thought I'm sorry, I thought we were talking about a bump out on the Mary Kenny drive side because we have a bike lane that is going in.

[Todd Blake]: Todd, sorry. Yeah, so I could start over. So on the Mary Kenny side, there's a bike lane that should be adjacent to the curb that's out there now on the proposed curb, then there'll be two 11 foot travel lanes, bike lane, the parking shoulder, which is where the bump out and curb extensions go is on the side opposite the development on the Lorain Road side. Okay, you're right.

[Robin Stein]: So is it sufficient if we just say the applicant shall revise the proposed crosswalk crossing Winthrop Street and show on the plan to add a curb extension on the Lorain Road side of the street, and then to the extent the board wants different signage, we can add a condition for that as well?

[Andre Leroux]: Well, I think the signage that's already in there seems to be the standard, so I think we're good with that. Mr. Champy? Excellent.

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: All right, Mr. Chair, one last point, Robin, if I may. In the event that the, this is all in the event that the right-of-way extension takes place, otherwise this sidewalk, this crosswalk's gonna move across. It's gonna move down the road.

[Todd Blake]: Yeah, to be determined, that's why I was pointing that out earlier, that if that driveway exists, this crosswalk, yeah, may become a mid-block somewhere else or at Smith or something like that.

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: So this is pending the right-of-way extension being agreed upon? Otherwise, we won't be doing the bump up.

[Robin Stein]: So I'm actually just going to, like, obviously, we have to write up the whole decision and put it together. I'll add those at the same part that the applicant shall accomplish the relocation if possible. And then if the relocation is accomplished, you'll do this. Correct. OK.

[Todd Blake]: Yeah, if I follow that correctly, just like Tim said before, if the driver wasn't accomplished, there'd be a revision anyways. And at that time, we could address them. Okay.

[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_22]: And if I could sort of close out, this could be one of the most transformative changes in the area. So what the board is doing tonight, even though this is kind of in the weeds, it could be one of the most transformative changes on Winthrop street in a long time. So thank you for dealing with that. And I know Ed understands a little bit of the complexity of finishing that up, but Todd laid out a pretty good safety plan last night and sort of follow that plan, which we were just kind of talking about as a win, win, win. So we thank you. And it's very important for that crosswalk. and whatever comes for the safety features of all it. So thank you all.

[Andre Leroux]: Yeah, thank you, Mr. Donovan. I thought it was worth the time. All right, so we have a set of conditions I think that we agree on. Do the board members have, was there anything that was missing or that they were concerned about? Seeing none, Attorney Stein, I see your hand.

[Robin Stein]: I just, I had a couple notes that I just wanted to make sure had been covered in what we've already discussed. So one is just adding the condition of the naming of Mary Cannyway. Yes. I'm assuming that's going to be an actual condition to the project.

[Andre Leroux]: Yes.

[Robin Stein]: Um, I think a general condition that the project and site improvement shall be in conformance with the plan submitted and approved by the board. And we'll put in the name of the subdivision plan and the final revision date. The plan I have is a final revision date of 8-4-20. Um, but I would confirm with you all that that's correct. And this is for the, um, the Winthrop Estates Definitive Subdivision of Land. I take it that is the plan that this is going to be bound to.

[Andre Leroux]: Is that correct, Tim? That the plan is the one dated 8-4-20? Let me double check.

[Robin Stein]: And we can always verify, but just that the final submitted version of the plan is what they're going to build consistent with. Are there any other documents that the board is expecting the project will be built consistent with other than the definitive subdivision plan that they I know there's been renderings, but they're not, I'm assuming you're not holding them to the. No pictures. Okay. So just the plan, just confirming that, um, there was a note earlier from Tim and I just want to make sure this gets in it, that there needs to be a plan revision regarding the sewer services for five 35 and five 55 that they'd be shown on the plan. Yep. Okay. Um, I may, in the final revising of this, just tweak the language a little bit about the surety that's necessary to construct the ways just so that it follows the statute and the subdivision regulations. The applicant does have a right to choose what combination of surety they want to provide. So I just wanted to comment on that. We talked about the blasting schedule. You're going to add the high school to the pre-certification list for blasting. um that there needs to be a reference to the board's decision as conditioned on the plan and the decision itself will need to be recorded at the registry of deeds to bind the project so that can go in as a condition um let me just look at my notes real quick i think we covered everything else The only other things I had, if you don't mind, if the board wants to, is I had flagged a couple of the conditions in Tim's suggested conditions that aren't tied to specific performance dates, and I didn't know if the board wanted to take a quick look and just confirm by when some of those things need to happen. So if you'll bear with me, I can tell you them pretty quickly. Okay. But I would hate to have confusion later because there's a condition and we don't know what the deadline is to do it. So if you guys have Tim's letter, I have his recommended conditions. Two's coming out. Number three talks about the blast control plan. When does that need to happen by? Just prior to any blasting.

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: It was submitted.

[Robin Stein]: Oh, it's already done. OK, never mind.

[Andre Leroux]: I think what we were asking for was advance notice. And Mr. Chaffee said that he'd submit the calendar.

[Robin Stein]: Number four, is that prior to building permit, prior to the final built conditions of the roadway lighting equipment inspected and approved? When does that happen by?

[Tim McGivern]: That would be the something at the very end. So just to point out that there's an entity that would approve that work that isn't engineering.

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: Okay, within two years as is, it would be within there's a two year time period unless we get an extension. So it will be within those two years.

[Robin Stein]: Okay, I thank you. I just have a couple more and forgive me, I'm somewhat new to the to your particular regulation. So I'm just being careful. Number seven, when does the HOA need to be created by? Is that prior to first sale?

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: Yes.

[Robin Stein]: Okay. Let's see, number eight. Has this already been done or is the SWIFT going to be reviewed at some point?

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: It will be reviewed.

[Robin Stein]: I don't know, Tim, do you have?

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: That would be prior to even starting anything. That's correct.

[Robin Stein]: Prior to road?

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: Yeah.

[Robin Stein]: So prior to even... So it was prior to beginning any construction?

[Tim McGivern]: That's correct, yep.

[Robin Stein]: Okay. All right. Just making a note of that. I just have a couple more. Number 11. Is this what you said was already done or is this something that still needs to be done? the inspection of the main?

[Tim McGivern]: We did the water one, this would be an inspection of the time point of the sewer main.

[Robin Stein]: When is this need to be done by?

[Tim McGivern]: When they're ready to install the sewer connection. It would have to happen prior to the connection.

[Robin Stein]: Okay, so we'll just put prior to installation of sewer connection?

[Tim McGivern]: Yep.

[Robin Stein]: All right, I just have three more. Number 16,

[Tim McGivern]: That's gonna be something we have to provide them, so.

[Robin Stein]: Okay, so just leave it as is? Yep. All right, 17, by when do you need, oh, it says prior to construction, I'm sorry, I missed that. And then number 21, the rodent plan, what's the timing on that?

[Tim McGivern]: Sorry, that's prior to construction. Yeah, that's another prior to construction one, yep.

[Robin Stein]: Those are the only ones I had on that. I think we've covered all my other notes. I just wanted to make sure. So, you know, when the motion on this will be to incorporate all of the conditions that have been discussed with the board tonight, including those administrative conditions that Annie read and that cover the department comments. So just make sure, is everyone clear on that? All of those things will ultimately become the conditions in the decision that the chair will finalize. Yes, I think there's been so much that I'm just trying to keep it clear.

[Jacqueline McPherson]: I have a question for clarity.

[Andre Leroux]: Go ahead, Jackie.

[Jacqueline McPherson]: And that's going back to the blasting plan. I know that's going to be submitted to Alicia Hunt, who's the Acting Community Development Department's Director. But how is that actually shared with the community? Is there a schedule in place as of right now? Like for instance, are they blasting right now? Is this something that the waypoint is communicating with the community before they blast? I'm just trying to get a little, because from what my understanding, blasting is happening. So what is this blasting plan? Is it being upgraded? Are we telling them that they can't blast prior to? So I'm just, I just need clarity around that.

[Andre Leroux]: Do you want to explain Mr. Champy?

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: So yeah, we are not blasting now. In our past, what we did was when we were preparing to blast for the drainage testing, we sent out mailings. We mailed the complete abutters list and flyered the houses. I think it was, it might've been three or four days prior to the blasting taking place. That's just a procedural thing that we do. So in going forward, we would schedule the work pending approval, of course, and any waiting periods related to it. And so we've been corresponding with the entire abutters list. Every time we go back on the site, we've been corresponding with the abutters list just to keep people from being overly concerned that they might have think work started and work stopped. So we've explained what we're doing when we're going on and off the site. So we'll continue that.

[Andre Leroux]: So maybe we should just say, be clear and say.

[Alicia Hunt]: I actually want to just clarify that because the abutters list is an official list. It's a radius. And that's what he has been legally obligated to. What we're asking is that he notify our office and we will arrange for a broader communication through the city's reverse 911 emergency alert system so that, and we'll try to determine that in-house whether that's. She froze, she doesn't look- He says he's notified that there's a significantly larger radius than is getting the mailings about the blasting. Right, but I think- Right, he's committed to giving us a schedule, a generalized schedule, and then making sure that he notifies us about each blast, and we'll do a call to a larger area.

[Andre Leroux]: Right. So we should just be clear in the condition that at least three days before any blasting occurs, we will have an updated blasting calendar or schedule.

[Jacqueline McPherson]: Thank you for clarifying. I was trying to get more of a feel of the public input and seeing if that had been a problem. And it seems like Mr. Donovan, which I know has been a huge champion, or well, has been a huge opposer prior to, seems to be pleased going forward now. So I'm going to take that as Waypoint has been doing what it's supposed to for the community, but I just wanted to know how we were going to move forward with it.

[Andre Leroux]: Thank you. All right. Do we have a, so I think the motion on the floor will be to.

[Robin Stein]: You just want to, did you just want to confirm there was no additional final public comment?

[Andre Leroux]: Uh, any additional public comments we've been taking public. Thank you. Um, let me close the public portion of the, of the hearing and move to the motions on the floor. There will be three. One will be the waiver for the turning radii. Second will be to approve the subdivision. And the third will be to approve a site plan. So is there a motion on the waiver? Again, this is the waiver to waive the 30 foot turning radii. for a 20 foot turning radii at Mary Kelly Way.

[Robin Stein]: And is it my understanding that's based on the board's finding that this is safer at 20 feet?

[Andre Leroux]: Yes.

[Robin Stein]: Okay, thank you. Do you want me to suggest a motion?

[Andre Leroux]: That would be great. Thank you.

[Robin Stein]: Okay, and feel free, Tim, to jump in if there's anything technical you want to add, but the motion would be to approve the requested waiver relating to reducing the required radii from 30 feet to 20 feet, where that will result in a safer design and thus is in the public interest and not inconsistent with the intent and purpose of the subdivision control law.

[Andre Leroux]: Thank you, Robin. Do we have a member willing to make the motion? And you can keep it simple. You can say so moved. Yes.

[Jacqueline McPherson]: So moved. You can say so moved if you'd like. So moved by what Attorney Robin. I apologize, Robin. I don't have your last name. Stein.

[Robin Stein]: Stein. That's OK. You can just say so moved.

[Jacqueline McPherson]: So moved.

[Andre Leroux]: Is there a second?

[Deanna Peabody]: I'll second. This is Deanna.

[Andre Leroux]: Thank you, Deanna. Roll call vote. Deanna Peabody.

[Deanna Peabody]: Aye.

[Andre Leroux]: Christy Dowd.

[Jacqueline McPherson]: Aye.

[Andre Leroux]: Les Andresen. Jackie Furtado.

[Jacqueline McPherson]: Aye.

[Andre Leroux]: David Blumberg. Aye. And I'm an aye as well. Thank you. Vote six, zero. The waiver unanimously passes. The next motion would be to approve the subdivision with the conditions discussed by the board this evening. Is there a motion on the floor?

[Robin Stein]: Would you like me to suggest it? I'll make a motion. Okay, go ahead.

[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: You can certainly suggest it.

[Robin Stein]: Oh, no, no, go ahead, go ahead. Sorry, there was a pause, so I thought I'd offer. Go ahead, I don't need.

[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: I make a motion to approve the subdivision with the conditions outlined tonight.

[Robin Stein]: And can I do that in subject to final approval of the written decision by the chair?

[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: Final to written final decision by the chair?

[Andre Leroux]: Yeah, subject to final written approval by the chair. I think that was the language. Subject to final written approval by the chair. Thank you.

[Robin Stein]: The chair is going to review the final decision before it's filed.

[Andre Leroux]: Is there a second? Andrea, I'll second that. Thank you, David. Roll call vote. Go ahead.

[Robin Stein]: Can I just clarify that's subject to all of the conditions identified, discussed, and referenced by the board during the remand public hearing.

[Andre Leroux]: Thank you. It's helpful to have a counsel with us during these meetings.

[Robin Stein]: I feel bad to keep interrupting. It's very awkward over Zoom, but.

[Andre Leroux]: Well, I'm a new chair, and many of the members are new members. So we're all kind of been learning as we go. So it's helpful to have a counsel with us. Deanna Peabody.

[Jenny Graham]: Aye.

[Andre Leroux]: Christy Dowd.

[Jenny Graham]: Aye.

[Andre Leroux]: Klaas Andreasen. Aye. Jackie Purtado.

[Jacqueline McPherson]: Aye.

[Andre Leroux]: David Bloomberg. Aye. And I vote aye as well. The motion unanimously passes six to zero. Thank you. And the final motion is to approve the site plan for the project. Why don't I just go ahead and ask you, Attorney Stein, to suggest the motion.

[Robin Stein]: I would actually just use the same motion. I would say a motion to approve the application for a site plan special permit subject to all of the conditions identified, discussed, and referenced by the board during the remaining public hearing, and subject to final approval of the written decision by the chair. So the same motion as the previous.

[Andre Leroux]: Those words don't want to roll off your tongue. It's wonderful.

[Robin Stein]: I wrote it out in advance.

[Andre Leroux]: Who said so moved? My secret. Okay, Kless, thank you. Is there a second?

[Jacqueline McPherson]: Second.

[Andre Leroux]: Jackie, thank you. A roll call vote. Deanna Peabody?

[Jacqueline McPherson]: Aye.

[Andre Leroux]: Christy Dowd?

[Jacqueline McPherson]: Aye.

[Andre Leroux]: Kless Andresen? Aye. Jackie Purtado?

[Jacqueline McPherson]: Aye.

[Andre Leroux]: David Blumberg? Aye. And I vote aye as well. So the motion unanimously passes six to zero. Thank you, everyone.

[Robin Stein]: And I'll just remind the board that under the remand order, the decision needs to be followed with the city clerk in 30 days.

[Andre Leroux]: Thank you. And Mr. Champey and your team, I know it's been a long process. Thank you for working with us through it and best of luck.

[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: Can I just make a last comment too? Absolutely, Chris, go ahead. Mr. Champey, I want to thank you for the work you put in and especially the end there, I think, the inclusion of the renderings and your ability to translate what I was suggesting into what we saw tonight, I thought was a really helpful addition to get to where we are now. So thank you and good luck.

[TdrPH5HfJeg_SPEAKER_31]: Thank you very much, everybody. I appreciate it. Thank you.

[SPEAKER_18]: Good luck.

[Andre Leroux]: All right. Next item on our agenda.

[Robin Stein]: And if you don't need me to stay on, then I'm going to jump off as well, unless you'd like me to. I'm not familiar with what else is on your agenda.

[Andre Leroux]: I did a site plan review. I think we're fine. OK, excellent.

[Robin Stein]: It was great to meet all of you. Thank you. Thanks so much for your help. I'll follow up. Thank you.

[Alicia Hunt]: Thank you for your help.

[Robin Stein]: Thank you all.

[Andre Leroux]: All right, so we have the next item on our agenda. The final one is our site plan review recommendation to the Board of Appeals for 30 to 36 Salem Street. Thank you again, everybody for your patience and hanging in there while we have a long evening. Could I ask the proponent of of the Salem Street project to present their proposal.

[Kathleen Desmond]: Good evening, Chairman LaRue and board members. My name is Kathleen Desmond of Conway Law. I am here tonight on the site plan review and special permit recommendations. The petitioner, Paul Connolly, the manager of 34th Salem Street LLC, is here with me along with the design team. project manager Anthony Esposito of Carver Masks, Richard Mead of Medford Engineering and Survey, architect Eric Zachrisson of Context in Boston, and the traffic engineer Jeffrey Dirk of Van Essen Associates out of Andover. I'll provide a brief background to the board members, and then turn the presentation over to the design team. I believe that you are all likely familiar with the project site, 3036 Salem Street, located within Medford Square. and the C1 zoning district. The existing structure that will be the subject of renovation sits on a 13,910 square foot parcel of land. The building itself was built in approximately 1915 and originally housed a theater as well as meeting and commercial space. Originally, the building extended well into the rear of the property where the parking area is now situated. When Mr. Connelly's family bought the property in the mid-1980s, they intended to revive the theater and also have live performances, such as what goes on with the Chevalier Theatre at this point. Following the Connelly's family acquisition of the property, it was discovered that the rear portion of the structure was in greater disrepair than they had originally believed. Ultimately, portions of the rear property were in a state of collapse, and the rear portion of the property was demolished. For most of their ownership, the building has been underutilized. The first and second floor is being occupied by commercial and retail uses. Longstanding tenants, Elizabeth Grady and H&R Block, occupy the first floor. And most recently, Yoga Studio has occupied the second floor. The third floor has not been utilized over the years due to a combination of demand for commercial space and the cost of necessary improvements. as to access. A little over a year ago, some of you may recall that this property was under agreement and that a development came before you for approval of a much larger building. It was six stories in height and contained 20 residential units. The board did act favorably on that petition, but the purchaser, without much explanation, did not go through the final process to the Zoning Board of Appeals. After that point, my clients considered renovating the building themselves, and here we are at this point. The project is much less imposing than the building that was originally suggested for this. It's four stories, three stories of residential use with one floor of commercial use. The footprint of the building will marginally be extended to include a trash room, bicycle area, and also a residential lobby. The structure as proposed preserves many of the historical features of the building and will recreate the marquee signage which the historical commission has noted. As to the zoning requirements, and I can address this after the design team moves forward, essentially the use of a residential and a commercial use is permitted in the C1 district. There are dimensional variances which will be required as to set back with and also lot coverage. The parking situation, there's an existing lot which is not conforming to the requirements of Medford zoning. We would also need a finding to keep that parking space as is, it's a net loss of one space because this actually uses less than the commercial use for an entire building. So with that, I'll turn it over to the design team, Tony Esposito. He's still muted, I believe.

[Andre Leroux]: I think Annie's looking for him.

[Kathleen Desmond]: He's, I can't point to where you are.

[Andre Leroux]: Okay.

[Kathleen Desmond]: He's four down on Hollywood Squares.

[SPEAKER_26]: Can anybody hear me?

[Andre Leroux]: Now we can, yes.

[SPEAKER_26]: Good evening, everybody. My name is Anthony Esposito. I'm a registered professional engineer in the state of Massachusetts. It is an honor and a privilege to be in front of the Community Development Board of the great city of Bedford. To move it along here, as Kathleen told you, this was a project for 30 to 36 Salem Street on the north side of Salem Street. The proposal is to maintain 18 parking spaces in the rear with an ADA accessible, van accessible space as required by the AAB regulations. in the rear.

[Kathleen Desmond]: If I could interrupt for just one moment, we can put the site plan up. Would that be easier for you, Tony?

[SPEAKER_26]: Yeah, that would be helpful. Joe, I'm not as good of a tool that I can be.

[Kathleen Desmond]: I believe Eric has the site plan, I believe. Eric? He needs to be unmuted. He's our architect.

[Andre Leroux]: Yeah, I think you're unmuted now.

[8Sqy8gyjolU_SPEAKER_09]: Yeah, if you could make me a co-host, I can share my screen.

[SPEAKER_26]: Okay, so if we were to move over towards the proposed section, in the existing section, regarding the existing parking lot, right now there's a sea of pavement back there. And when we design the new parking lot, we're looking to add a little landscape islands. both as you, if you can move the arrow towards the left of the property there or where the hilly section is. Right in there, yes. That area right now is all roughly fallow soil. We're planning on landscaping and seeding that area to green it up a bit. And then if you move over to the rear left corner of the property up against the wall, that area right there we're planning to put some seating there as well, and we'll be adding some Cape Cod burn around that square, if you will, to protect it from tires just running it over.

[Unidentified]: So... Let me do it again.

[Andre Leroux]: Yeah, hold on, Mr. Esposito, you've been muted.

[Alicia Hunt]: Sorry, I meant to mute Eric, because there was sound coming. The whining was from one of them, and I hit the wrong one. I apologize.

[Andre Leroux]: Yeah, so Mr. Esposito, you've got a lot of background high-pitched sound coming through your side.

[SPEAKER_26]: The computer's fan is running. Can't do anything about it. Anyway, moving along. We talked about the landscaping. These are a couple of things I check for in every site plan I do. We're not in a flood plain. We obviously don't have any endangered species areas. There's no wetlands within 100 feet of the area. We're not in a groundwater protection district. So those issues have gone haywire. I believe it's the intent of the applicant to reutilize some of the existing utilities that service the building right now. However, there is a note on the plan that the city of Medford can, upon review of the existing utilities they plan to use, that they can ask the applicant to change the utilities and make them brand new. And that would be the domestic water and the sanitary sewer. We are going to be providing sprinkler protection for the building. And for that, we need to tap in a four-inch ductile ion pipe in the existing main on Salem Street. We've gotten some feedback from the town engineer, and he's probably out there in the crowd, I'm sure, that he would like to see valves put on each side of the connection. I just want to, for the record, ask him to reconsider to allow us to do a live tap because to add in the two cross valves would require that we turn down turn off the water main in order to do that. With a live tap, we may not be able to do that. However, one of the reasons that Tim may be hesitant to do that is maybe he feels the age of the existing water main on Salem Street could be an issue with a live tap. That's also a concern. So for the record, I'd like to ask Tim if he wants to reconsider just for the applicant's benefit. And we can certainly understand if he doesn't want to reconsider. We have on some of the later sheets, a construction management plan. We plan on utilizing the existing drainage system on the site. We believe we can do that because under stormwater management, if we're taking a site that has lots of impervious cover, rooftop, pavement, what have you, and you decrease it by adding some green space, then under stormwater management, you're considered a redevelopment and you're allowed to meet the standards to the extent practical So we'd like to utilize the existing drainage system. And to do that, we'd like to reduce the amount of impervious on the site. But there will be some erosion control measures. They're spelled out in the construction management plan on the plans. The key thing is the drywalls on the site during construction will be fitted with silt sacks to collect any sediment during construction to protect them and allow them to do the infiltration ability. We will have some site lighting. It is over the trash receptacles. I'm requesting that the architect provide a wall pack light over where the trash receptacles are. If you look at that, that's over on the rear left corner of the building. You'll see the little squares there. The request was we do roll out barrels. put a bunch of them back there. And we're also asking for a light pole in the middle of the parking area on the right side. These will be kind of like a shoebox type. So we're directing the light down towards the parking lot and not towards the neighbors. That's the intent. The most important thing we have to deal with on the site is the access onto Salem Street. We've been recommended by our traffic engineer to put multiple signage and I have detailed those on the sheet that's shown on the plan, on the sheet that's on the plan at this time. The intent is to make them to MUTCD standards, i.e. the state standards for highway signage with the wording recommended by the traffic engineer. And we have four locations of signage. Two of them are right on the corner of the building, on the right front corner. The other one is on the rear left corner, which is sign number three, watch for pedestrians. And we also have a sign for the van accessible sign as well. There is also a proposed sign number four for the loading zone, which we are showing at the, that's the parking space off the right left corner. So I'm just going to bump through my detail sheet to see if there's anything else I'd like to talk about, because I'm nearing pretty much the end. And that's basically it. We've got signage, we've got lighting, we've got some landscaping to add. And also we have a sidewalk detail because any anticipated excavation into Salem Street, there's going to need to be some sidewalk repair of what's there now. And when we do that, we're looking if there's what they call flags, the squares on concrete sidewalks, we have to repair the whole flag right to the expansion joint. Okay. And with that, I'm up for questions.

[Andre Leroux]: Well, is there more to the presentation? Will we?

[Kathleen Desmond]: Yeah, the architect will take us through his.

[Andre Leroux]: Yeah, why don't we do that? I'm going to mute you in the meantime, Mr. Esposito. I'm sorry. The winding sound is very difficult to deal with.

[8Sqy8gyjolU_SPEAKER_09]: Thank you. My name is Eric Zacherson. I'm an architect, the architect for the project. Our firm, Context, is located in Charlestown. The project here, just for orientation, I like to always start at the big picture. We've got the existing building. You're probably all quite familiar with it on Salem Street. An overview showing some of the quick, the information that Tony was talking about and its relationship to the rest of the city. The building, as you see here, Looking along Salem Street and looking the other direction, you can see the historic building as well as the small enclosure on the third floor that we'd be removing as part of the project. Again, stepping back a little bit, looking towards Oakland and City Hall Mall. and then zoomed in just a little bit. For those of you who haven't been inside of it in a little while, there formerly was a toy shop in the middle. There currently still is the H&R block on one side. There used to be a yoga studio up here, a lovely space on the second floor, quite high ceilings. Third floor has been in this condition for quite some time. just never made sense to be used. This is actually within that black box I was just showing you on the exterior. As Kathleen noted, the building has been, at least the third floor has been underutilized since the Connellys took over. This is a quick shot of the rear yard or the rear parking as it exists today and was formerly part of the building. The current owners who are redeveloping it have always been in love with this building and its history, and it's part of this stretch of Medford. And so we always kind of want to flip back to some of these images and think about them as we think about what we're going to do with the project. Currently, as you see, the building The extent of the existing building is up to this line here at the back of the site. H&R block occupies this space, which is, as you're facing the building, the right side of the building, and Elizabeth Grady faces the left side of the building. As part of the work here, we would renovate these two storefronts to be something that's a little more energy efficient and create a central entrance with which you would access, then you would have access to each retail space and you would also rejuvenate the retail space that was formerly the toy store and was also the access to the yoga studio. We would create, by adding on to the back of the building here, we would create a residential lobby, allow us to add an elevator for the units and add just a little bit of storage space, which would probably be part of the H&R block, become part of the H&R block space. This is the existing, generally speaking, location of the existing fire stair, and this would be the second entrance stair leading up. And then this is a stair that leads down to the basement, which would be continued to be used as storage for, likely for these two spaces with some mechanical equipment down below. The units of above would be three good-sized, fairly luxurious units by a lot of Boston standards. We would have, when you come out of the elevator, you would have a three-bedroom unit on one side, and then a two-bedroom unit in this corner. And those two units would have the primary exposure on Salem Street, and there would be a one-bedroom tucked in the rear in the addition zone. And this addition is very similar to what was on the proposal that was reviewed a year and change ago. This particular floor, the second floor, we're gonna take advantage of the high ceilings and try and create small mezzanine spaces above the kitchens so that this zone here feels very much like a double height space. And over this, we create a little, little bit of an office nook up above the kitchens. The third floor would, again, we would still be adding a portion at the rear here, but we'd be removing the black enclosure that you see and kind of giving back the significance of this parapet wall. This currently is built up quite a bit. We believe we can bring it down nearly to the level of the inside unit once we clean out the structure in there. So from this unit, which is a two-bedroom, and this unit, which is a three-bedroom, you would have a short staircase up to a little bit of a deck space that would exist right behind the parapet. And the parapet's rather tall, so it would create its own guardrail. should serve as its own guardrail without anything kind of adorning the historical parapet wall. And then again, one bedroom tucked in the back. And the top floor, this floor would be entirely new, the one story that we would be adding to the project. Again, a two bedroom on the left, a three bedroom on the right, these two with no outdoor space, and then the one bedroom tucked in the rear. Each of these three units would have a small staircase leading up to a roof deck that would be a good distance back. I believe this is just over 20 feet back from the facade. We're gonna create something that's a little bit taller, but we don't want these to kind of detract from the new elevation. This is the building roughly as it stands today, originally known as the Dyer Building. and its relationship to its neighbors. This is the piece that we would be kind of reopening up to the facade behind. And then these are the two storefronts and the area where we would be adding the marquee. And you can see kind of what the addition would probably be like. We're currently leaning towards something that is not as detailed and trying not to be part of the original building and set it back in such a way that it becomes something that is special and thoughtful in its own way, but is not part of the facade that has been part of the street for so very long. And then That's basically where we are at this point. We wanted to kind of open it up for questions and thoughts and see what kind of comments you would have.

[Kathleen Desmond]: Jeffrey, do you want to deal with the building at this point?

[Andre Leroux]: Yeah, I'm sorry. Could you repeat what you just said?

[Kathleen Desmond]: Sure. Jeffrey Dirk, our traffic engineer, is here as well. If you want to go through that first and then take questions, it's up to you. We can deal with any questions.

[Andre Leroux]: Yeah, let's do that. Let's take all the presentations.

[Jeffrey Dirk]: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. For the record, my name is Jeffrey Dirk. I'm a partner with Van Essen Associates. And it was mentioned, we're the traffic engineers on the project. So we did prepare a transportation impact assessment for the development. And I think kind of what you've heard is, from the standpoint of the building itself, it's mixed-use commercial space on the first floor. It's really, from the standpoint of the amount of commercial space, it's not changing a lot in terms of the square footage. So there's really not a large increase in traffic associated with that. And then we're adding nine residential units to the building. So the net increase in traffic that we're talking about during the highest traffic volume hour is about 20 peak hour trips. So it's one additional vehicle every three minutes during the peak hour. And in the context of the volume of traffic on Salem Street, it's not going to be substantially not result in a substantial increase in traffic. I do want to mention that the site itself, given its location, I mean, it's ideally situated for public transportation access. There's a bus stop just within a minute walking distance of the project site at Ashland Street that has nine bus, or sorry, eight buses that stop at that location. So it's a great location from the standpoint of not being an auto-centric So it fits in very well with the square, especially with the residential units that are there itself. So not a large volume of traffic that's expected to be generated. We think it'll fit in well with the multimodal context of the square itself. There are a series of recommendations that we had in the traffic study and the city engineer has gone through each of those and has included those in his comment letter, which is helpful to us, helpful to you as well as you look at it. So at the back end of his comment letter, he's reiterated and expanded upon some of our recommendations. And Tony has gone through probably those primary ones related to safety. So the idea of having these dynamic signs so that as you're entering from Salem Street, you'll know if a vehicle is exiting. So that sign is going to tell you that. And then the same thing if you're in the parking lot looking to exit, there's going to be a sign in the sensor on either end that's going to tell you what's going on, whether a vehicle is approaching or exiting the site. So that'll be helpful given the fact that we have a narrow drive aisle there as well. The other important thing is, of course, if you're a pedestrian walking across the sidewalk, because these buildings are all fronting along Salem Street itself, you want to make sure that pedestrians know when a vehicle is exiting. So the signs provide for that as well. Again, a dynamic sign that will allow pedestrians to know that. Tony had mentioned as well about we had a recommendation along the front of the site itself. Given the fact that the drive aisle is somewhere between 10 or 12 feet going into the back parking lot, Any loading and delivery activities really needed to take place curbside. So that's where you see we have a recommendation. And the city engineer has said, of course, we need to get approval from the city. But we had recommended a short-term loading zone along the front of the site with specific hours, 6 to 10 in the morning, let's say, so that would accommodate loading and deliveries. for the commercial space, but also for the nine residential units. We need to have accommodations so that a moving van can get to the front of the building and then allow for people to load or unload their furniture and such from the building itself. Other specific recommendations that you'll note that the city engineer had mentioned is, there is one parking space that is to, if you're looking at the site itself, it's just to the right of the driveway. There's one space along that north side of Salem Street, between the site and Ashland Street. That one space, if you're trying to come out of the site, it does, if a vehicle is parked there, it does inhibit your sight lines looking to the left, Salem Street being one way. So you do need to look to the left to see if a vehicle is approaching you. That vehicle does in fact block your sight line. So what you would need to do if a vehicle is there, you would need to pull out first, make sure there's not a pedestrian in the sidewalk, and then proceed out into a portion of Salem Street to be able to look to your left. We had suggested possibly removing that parking space. and the city engineer had also suggested that that would be a good idea. But in the context of looking at the improvements the city has already done at that intersection, which is providing curb line bump outs to shorten the pedestrian crossing distances, what you'll notice if you look at the intersection is because that parking space is there, the bump out is not actually provided for crossing Salem Street. It is provided on either side to cross Ashland but not for crossing Salem Street. So what he suggested is that to remove that parking space is to put a curb line bump out there to shorten that crossing distance along Salem Street. And that's consistent with what the city's envisioned for the pedestrian safety improvements in the square itself. So we'll be advancing that. So he suggested that that be done as a part of this project. And along with those improvements, it creates some opportunity for some street furniture enhancements, which he suggested. And specifically, a part of our recommendations is to provide a bicycle rack in that area there. And so he suggested how that might also function itself. So that's kind of a high-level overview of the traffic city. Again, from this project's perspective, it's not a large traffic generator. So our focus is really on safety of vehicles entering and exiting the site, pedestrian safety, sight lines. And then we also have a transportation demand management program to encourage the residents to be able to use the public transportation. I don't think it's going to require a lot of encouragement, because you live here, you walk out your front door, and the bus stops right there. That in and of itself, it's going to sell itself. But we have recommended some things that the property manager can undertake to let people know that the bus stop is there and encourage them to use these public transportation options. So that concludes my presentation. And I'll be here and happy to answer any questions you might have.

[Unidentified]: Great.

[Andre Leroux]: Thank you. So at this time, let me open it up to the board members for questions and comments.

[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: Someone want to kick us off? Or I can try. I guess my first question is, Andre, where are we in the process here? What is the expectation of tonight?

[Andre Leroux]: So my understanding is that the Zoning Board of Appeals needs to grant some variances, and they are planning on opening, I think, their hearing September 3rd. Is that right, Annie?

[SPEAKER_18]: That's correct. That's correct.

[Andre Leroux]: And so basically they look to us for site plan recommendations in terms of design, siting, layout, things like that. And so if we do not give them recommendations tonight, they may have to continue their hearing until they get them. Annie, do you want to add anything there?

[Nicole Morell]: Sure. So the Board of Appeals will be granting the special permit for site plan review as well as variances. So they could open the hearing and continue both items if they have not received comments from the CD board.

[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: So I guess my sort of main overarching comment is that I found, especially the engineer in the beginning, I found his presentation very hard to follow for lack of exhibits or small and not easy to read exhibits that were shown. The whole thing kind of just, it was just very hard to follow and I really don't even understand what is being proposed. I think, excuse me, but when we reviewed this project last time, there were a series of exhibits that illustrated exactly what was being proposed in a pretty concise way. And the contrast with the presentation tonight is pretty striking. So I'm almost at a loss at how to comment. I will add that I read through the historic commission's comments and I felt a lot of those were spot on and then I would definitely ask the proponent to take a good hard look at those and consider them, especially as it relates to massing and building design and fenestration of the proposed additions to the building. But yeah, again, overall, I found the whole thing very hard to comment on because it was just overall pretty hard to understand.

[Kathleen Desmond]: If I may, with regard to the site plan itself and the structure, we're not demolishing the project at all. So the outlay of the site itself is very similar to what exists now, which is what the site plan shows. The difference is the additional story to the building itself, and that is depicted in the architect's plans as they exist. And with regard to the Historical Commission's comments, we received those yesterday. I have gone through them. I do believe that they were complementary as to what is remaining on the property, and we had actually taken the comments from the previous iteration of this and incorporated much of what the Historical Commission had requested. In fact, I think the original Historical Commission comments were five or six pages long, if I'm not mistaken. In terms of the comments made by Historical, they're not requesting at this point, if I read them correctly, that we maintain or we do anything further in terms of maintaining the historical nature of the building, what they are saying is that these are design changes that they think might be fitting, which would make it more modern. The question arises in that regard is that we are keeping the second floor height to the property. So in terms of what we can do in terms of lighting and whatnot on those third floor, I think that when the architect looked at this, and Eric can speak for himself in this regard, is that he was looking at the windows and providing more interior light to the property. With regard to the shadow study, if you've been out to the site, the rear of the property essentially is much lower in elevation. than the surrounding Forest Street properties and the Ashland Street properties. And the height of this building, as opposed to what was originally proposed, again, a year ago, was six stories. The height of this building is 52 feet and four stories, well within the zoning requirements. I'm not sure the shadow study and the historical committee can speak to this, but I'm not sure really what it's going to show unless they're looking for shadows to the front of the building because the height is going to be commensurate with the remaining buildings and the buildings to the rear on Forest Street and Ashland are at a higher elevation than the existing property.

[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: So, thank you. I sort of agree with all the things you've said, but I think my main comment sort of went over your head, and that is that I still have no idea really what you're proposing. I don't really know what the building looks like. I don't really know what the back of the building looks like. I don't know how you're addressing the sidewalk issues. It was all talked about, but without graphics for us to really understand what we're going to get here, It's hard to make any kind of an assessment of what you're proposing.

[Kathleen Desmond]: Well, then again, in fairness, in terms of the sidewalks again.

[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: I don't want to talk about specifics. I'm sorry, ma'am. The problem I'm having is that I don't understand the project. Plain and simple. You have not shown us anything today which gives us a holistic vision of what you're proposing. whether things that are in our purview or not. We need to have a holistic look at what this project is going to do. This is a super important building in the heart of Medford Square. And I'm an architect. I do this for a living. I have no idea what you're even trying to propose. So I know the rest of the people that are not in the building profession are having an even harder time dealing with this issue. We just went through this on the project we just finished. And they finally, after a year and a half, showed us something that really illustrated to us what they were doing. And the project got approved the day they did that. So I just, I mean, the site plan that was reviewed at the start was a hand-drawn sketch, as far as I'm concerned. And it was this big on my screen. I have no idea what you're, Well, you're kind of the difficulty with that is the zoom as opposed to we've been, we've used site plans all the time and people have succeeded at this.

[Jenny Graham]: Can I just add, hi, this is Christy Dowd. So, um, I am in the building profession, but I do agree that the presentation was a little confusing. And I don't feel like I could make any recommendations to the zoning board at this time, because I don't quite feel like I have a good understanding of the project. And it would be helpful if the proponent could take a step back. maybe consider the comments from Clace and whatever may come forward tonight and maybe do a repackage of the presentation and walk us through very comprehensively and in a very better way and sequential order of how the development works and more renderings and a better explanation of the variances that are being requested.

[Kathleen Desmond]: Well, I can go through that. I just gave a brief presentation as to the variances, so.

[Jenny Graham]: I think the request is to see all of the information more visually than verbally.

[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: And holistically.

[Jenny Graham]: And I would really like to see a response to the Historical Commission's comments, because I believe they are very significant.

[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: And I can just say this right now, there's no way I'm making a recommendation based on what I saw tonight.

[Jacqueline McPherson]: And I back that up. Ms. Desmond, in all due respect, I want just to give you to highlight and give a visual to yourself for what is being said by my fellow board members is I sat here just as you were going along and I made my own sketch and it's not working for me. I'm no architect at all. And my planning skills were enough that I was hearing certain things. And I realized the only reason why I was able to come into this because urban planning is my background, but I can't even imagine that anyone else. And I was following the engineering specs as well for the same thing, but then I realized I'm doing a little bit too much here. I prefer this to come from the proponent, especially, and, you know, again, I started to, I started to visualize certain things. Like I got excited about the traffic, the backing out of the equipment, because we see that on the Beacon Hill, right across from state, the state house, it works. However, again, as Clayce and Christie has said, it's on the proponent to show us this visual. And we've seen, as Clayce has also said, this can be done even for the repurposing or the redevelopment of an existing building. I would think that would be a little bit more simpler for you to take on. And to say, and I want to reiterate, I am not in a position to vote on this or to provide any recommendation to the ZBA. based on tonight's presentation. Thank you.

[Unidentified]: Other board members want to jump in?

[Andre Leroux]: David?

[David Blumberg]: Sure. I will try not to repeat what others have said, though. The Historical Commission comments, I think, are super important. I wasn't around here for round one. I guess you're mentioning that there was another development for this parcel proposed in the past. Are you suggesting that the Historical Commission has somehow changed its tune? are asking for different things? I mean.

[Kathleen Desmond]: Yeah, I would suggest that that's the case. When we had originally reviewed the comments that were provided with the first project, it was six stories. So there were things that we kept, such as the interior hallway area and the upper floors, the extended height of those floors, keeping the marquee in. comments and and again, you know if if there's something that that that I'm misreading the comments with regard to the historical commission this go-around related to The third story and and and what that should look like and in in quite a bit of it Was was window placement and what types of windows they wanted to have you know, I We're preserving the facade and they wanted some changes to the facade that would, I guess, mimics the wrong word, but would kind of preserve what was the original storefront area. So there were some comments as to that, but he's taking great pains, my client, to maintain the existing building in its existing condition and try to leave much of the interior as it was originally designed. And he hasn't touched much of that area. Most of the renovations from the exterior will occur on that addition. That's my understanding of what was provided.

[Andre Leroux]: So Ms. Desmond, I would say the last time First of all, the original project was significantly larger. It was 20 units. There were a couple of affordable units there. They came back a couple of times. We had extensive discussions about the design and the architecture. We really got into the details. We talked about the landscaping. We talked about the widths of the parking spaces in the back, how they were laid out, the signage and the you know, for the entrance and exiting and how to mediate the conflict between pedestrians and cars. You know, we talked about the facade, we talked about materials, we talked about bike parking, we talked about a lot of things. And none of that is really covered here. I think that's what you're hearing from the board members. So I think they would like to see more of that. There's no like materials with color. There's nothing that shows people like sight lines and visuals. I think they want to see a little bit more of that so we can have a robust conversation about it. Certainly, it's not about the value of the project itself. I think everybody cares a lot about this. We all want to see residential development in Medford Square. We want to see a good project. But we can't just take it on faith.

[Kathleen Desmond]: Well, if I could address some of those issues. First, with respect to the parking, and I do know from the prior parking iteration that there was a request to have the adequate width and length of the parking spaces. And the project as proposed maintains the current spaces and width. And I believe we had a photograph that showed adequately that those vehicles could park within those spaces. The difficulty is that if you attempt to hold the width and the length of those spaces, you then create another zoning issue with regard to the aisle width. if you were to create those spaces, and part of the difficulty is that you've got that retaining wall to the left side of the property, and then you've got a retaining wall on the other side of the property, because this property essentially sits at a lower elevation than the surrounding properties behind. So if you were to take the spaces and make them uniform as to width and length, and currently the zoning ordinance requires it to be nine by 19, 19 feet in length and nine feet in width. You would not have sufficient space in the lane to have your aisle width. And so that would create another variance request. And in speaking with the building inspector when we went through this, the importance of having adequate lane width as opposed to parking space width, for safety purposes, it's more of a, a benefit. And in looking, and I did some research in terms of what the average car length is. So if you're looking at an average car length, if you have, for instance, an Escalade. An Escalade is 16.7 feet in length, and it is roughly 6.75 feet in width. And those spaces, as they are laid out at this point, would adequately accommodate them. It's also a preexisting condition. If you take commercial space, if this was three, four floors of commercial space, you would need 33 spaces. This reduces the overall requirement of spaces to 29 spaces. There's a net loss of one. The argument to the ZBA in that regard would be you've got a lot that is non-conforming as it exists now. It now has 23 spaces. It's going to be reduced by five, so you'll have 18. But at that point, you'll have spaces which adequately fit vehicles, and you'd maintain the aisle width. And I think Jeff could speak to the aisle width too, because we- Excuse me, Ms.

[Andre Leroux]: Desmond. I'm sorry, but are you suggesting that- you can't or don't want to provide more visual materials that we're requesting or that we shouldn't discuss some of the items that we've raised?

[Kathleen Desmond]: No, I'm not saying that at all. But in terms of you raised that issue, and our plan shows 18 spaces. So I mean, we have considered those issues. And with regard to that parking plan, to reduce it to make the spaces uniform, would create turn issues.

[Andre Leroux]: Well, I just think that the folks want to be able to have that conversation, but they want to know what they're talking about. I mean, they need to be able to see it.

[Jenny Graham]: I mean, where I'm struggling is I'd like to graphically understand what the problems are, and then take the board members through how you're responding to those challenges and presenting the best project possible, considering the conditions of the site and all the parameters that you need to work within.

[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: I think, Christy, you're absolutely right. Sorry, Dana.

[Deanna Peabody]: No, I'm just going to say that only a few of us were here last time, and these are all issues that we did discuss. But since this is a new project, I think that all of you.

[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: I was just going to say that the, we need to, you know, this board just to the point that we need to be able to see this visually, I think we have the ability to make a recommendation based on all those things that you're talking about. And I think you said them nicely, but without a graphic, and without the whole picture, it's very hard to understand really what you're talking about. I think people that are in the building industry might be able to do it. and I was sort of grabbing what you were saying, but without that visual, we can't do it. We have the ability to make a recommendation, say, yes, they've done a really good job, and yeah, the parking spots should be smaller, and the drive while should be bigger, and we got a recommendation from the fire chief, and all this stuff. But without those visuals to back them up, I mean, we're just, all we're doing right now is just hearing you.

[Kathleen Desmond]: We do have that visual here if you would like to look at it.

[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: The visual, you had a chance to show me the visual and it didn't work. I don't wanna look at the visual again.

[Andre Leroux]: Let's just be, so I think what you're hearing Ms. Desmond, this project is gonna be continued to next month. And I think what we should do now is board members should indicate to you and your team what would be helpful for them to see so that next time we can have a really productive conversation and hopefully move forward with a set of recommendations. So let me ask the board members, are there specific things that you'd like to see for next month?

[SPEAKER_10]: I think definitely the landscaped area in the back and the retaining walls.

[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: I mean, Andre, sorry, Deanne, I just finished, sorry. To Christy's earlier point, I don't think it's our responsibility to be fishing for the information we need to make these recommendations. The proponent needs to come to us with a comprehensive and holistic package that illustrates all the issues that we need to consider to make a recommendation for this project. We can make a whole list tonight. But if this package comes back and there's like one thing missing or if there's you know It's it to me It's on the proponent to put together materials that help us understand this project properly And that's what we did for um winter street, and and that's why it went well tonight and I mean this this It is not our job to beg for information so that we can understand their project.

[Jenny Graham]: The only thing that I would add, if for projects that the board easily understood, I don't know if there's some guidance that the Community Development Board could give and say, here's images that exist online for guidance.

[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: I do think it's on an individual basis, but the first thing I would say is that the proponent should have a look at some of the projects that have been successfully recommended by this board and by the ZBA, and look through them and see the exhibits that they used. We've seen plenty of projects where we looked at them, they gave a presentation, we looked at them, we said, yep, that looks good. Because everything we needed to know was right there. So there, you know, and that's all public record.

[Andre Leroux]: Well, and I think on this very project to you have an instance of, you know, a board discussion, what we were looking for the recommendations, the level of product that we we needed to make decisions. And I think even looking at that would be would be helpful. You know, and I know what you're saying that you're, I think you're saying that from your perspective, you're probably seeing this as a, a simpler project than the one that was already recommended. So why isn't it sailing through, but it is a different project. And I think that, you know, the design is very different and we, we just need to have that conversation again.

[Jacqueline McPherson]: Who is the design consultant? Can the proponent sort of refer back to the design engineer and consultant and have that conversation and have them holistically bring it to life for us?

[Andre Leroux]: Well, I mean, their design team is here. I think it's just a different team.

[Kathleen Desmond]: I mean, the site plan requirements and what, and I'm not saying this to be argumentative in any fashion, but what the site plan requirements are and what you're looking for in terms of 3D and shade studies, that's not, that isn't a requirement. And so if that's what the board is looking for from this point forward, then it's noted. But that is not something that has been required throughout in terms of site plan review. Because site plan review and design review, ultimately, I mean, this isn't approved at this point. So we're not even at that final stage. And in terms of when we receive comments, and again, I'm only saying this from, you know, from the perspective of in terms of time, I mean, you know, if we had a chance after seeing the comments to, to, to replan it, then, then at that point we would, but you're talking, you know, two to three days before you receive comments. So if that's, if that's something that's different than again, noted, you know, I'm not, I'm not seeking to argue with the board or to, you know, indicate that we won't do this because certainly we won't. But in terms of what we have done in the comments, and in particular historical, we took a hard look at what was required. And I think that much of what they had issues with originally in the first project that was provided, they tried to preserve. And I think if you compare the notes, that I think we have done that. I understand that they want some different lighting in the project. You know, the outside as opposed to what the inside is. You know, there's interior space versus exterior space, and in terms of what they want the windows to look like. You know, all of that, you know, we got those comments the other day, and we're not adverse to incorporating that into the discussion. But, you know, our plans are submitted at that point with a design. Now, if you don't like the design, then that's a whole different conversation. than the fact that there was a design where we tried to incorporate those items that were an issue on the original project and to preserve as much of the existing building.

[Jenny Graham]: Can I ask, I'm sorry, could I just interrupt for a second and ask? This is where I am getting a little more confused in terms of references to the prior project, because do we have to consider the prior project anymore? That's in the past, and what we're talking about is a project.

[Andre Leroux]: This is a totally new project, totally new submission.

[Jenny Graham]: So a historical commission's letter is Present letter is focused on the current project. So I think that's the subject of our discussion, which is not reference to anything that happened for the prior project. So I think what we're seeing are the comments that we feel are important based on the current project and would like to see a response to those visually.

[Kathleen Desmond]: And I guess what I'm saying, in fairness to that, is that the time frame from when you receive the comments to when the hearing is, it's a matter of days. So to give any kind of reflection or consideration and to change a plan within that period of time is difficult. So I don't have an issue necessarily with the fact that you want to continue the hearing on that. And if you want additional information as to each variance requested with the argument, although I do think that you received that information as part of your original package, because your original package included the zoning evaluation, my zoning worksheet, the zoning application. So I think all that information has been provided in addition to the written statement as to what the argument software experience requested. And with regard to the parking, I frankly jumped on that because I know what the situation was with the prior parking iteration. And I think that in terms of the parking plan, we're losing five spaces by virtue of the extension of the building, a small addition. But to try and reconfigure those spaces so that they're even and they meet the requirements of the zoning ordinance of nine feet and 19 feet, you're gonna reduce the outwith, which is a concern for the board. And also the number of spaces is a concern.

[Andre Leroux]: So Ms. Desmond, since we're gonna be continuing this, do you have questions for us that might be helpful for you in terms of

[Kathleen Desmond]: I would like to hear from historicalists to what else they're searching for on this in terms of what they're looking for and what they want in terms of a design so that it can be considered. Because I don't want to come back and then, you know, that isn't really what they're looking for. So I would certainly take some input from historicalists to what it is.

[Andre Leroux]: Right. Well, we're obviously not the historical commission, but we do have someone here who might be able to speak to that. So I will let them speak. And then I would like to wrap this up pretty quickly. So can someone, Annie, can you unmute Doug Carr?

[Jacqueline McPherson]: Peter.

[Andre Leroux]: Peter. OK. Thank you, Peter.

[8Sqy8gyjolU_SPEAKER_08]: Yeah, I was the one who, can you hear me? Yes, we can. OK. I was the one who actually wrote the letter with Doug's input. So just really quickly, I mean, I don't want to talk about the other project, but we were more, I left out some of the comments from the other project because I felt maybe this was a little bit closer to the mark. We really appreciated the fact that they want to rebuild the marquee. We appreciated the fact that, you know, they're going to kind of restore that, the historic building there. But I guess our, we have some issues with the way the addition is designed and we feel like the, What the third story that's there now is really ugly. And we feel like we're not actually doing that much better with this design. So we feel like there should be some more care with the design. For instance, there's a lack of specificity just as in the site plans. Like the materials aren't called out on the facade design of the new second or third and fourth floor. So we don't know what it's made out of. And we feel like the proportions of the windows are very strange. We have these huge windows on the fourth floor and these tiny mouse hole windows on the third floor, and they don't seem to relate to each other. So we're not asking that the building be more historical, the addition be more historical. We're not asking that the building be more modern, although we feel like it could be. We just feel like, The facade design needs a lot of work and it's very bland. It looks like, I don't know, anyway, I can't really comment on, I don't wanna say bad things, but I just feel like, you know, The facade design is really weak. We would like to see what the materials are. We'd like to see it more articulated. We would like the materials to be a quality material up there, because this is a really important building in Medford. And we'd like to see quality materials. We just don't want to see like, you know, stucco up there with control joints in it. We don't like, we don't wanna see this really cheap looking facade slapped down on top of one of our most historical important buildings in Medford. That's our main beef. I mean, the building is gonna be taller than the existing one. That's why we like to see a shadow study on basically any project, you know, just to see what impact will that shadow study have on the street. We'd like to see maybe the storefront windows have a little bit more detail to them. Again, we're not saying they have to be historical. We just feel like right now we have this mass expanse of these two storefronts of butt-glazed glass, which could be very elegant, but It also could be, I think if you look at the original facade, there's a lot of deep level of detail on the storefronts that have been eliminated. And it looks kind of, I don't know, out of place to me. It's like, a UFO landed down there on the first floor. So I guess those are some of our issues. We really do appreciate some of the moves though. We really appreciate putting the marquee back. We appreciate the fact that you're keeping that high base second floor space on the street facade. Those are great moves. And so I guess I could leave it at that. Those are really the heart of our, comments. I don't know, Doug, if you want to add anything to that. Unmute Doug.

[Doug Carr]: I'll be very brief. I think Peter hit on most of the comments. I think there's a great project. I'm in support of this development. I want to see this building restored but also added on to. I think it's a project that we can all get behind It's just going to take more than one meeting. I mean, it's not, I know the comments came up a little late. I wish that's our fault. We should have gotten to him earlier, but honestly, some ability of this, of this importance will never be just one meeting. That's just not realistic for the importance of this. And I just want to echo again, I think the facade, the front facade, there needs to be an idea there that's clear. and understandable. I just don't think it's there right now, but I think it won't be hard to get there. We just need to look at some colors and materials, some administration options, bring them back, you know, run them by the historic commission. We'll look at it, you know, as soon as it's available and give our comments to the development board, who I think have been greatly improved the last couple of years. They're some really thoughtful people and thoughtfully done. So I think, again, I'm I want this building and this project to succeed, and we're going to help you get there. It won't be long. We're not going to drag this out. Let's just come back and have a more interactive dialogue and a little better on the presentation, especially on the civil and the engineering side, and I think we'll be good to go. I think the architectural presentation with the color and the graphics was actually pretty good, although the new rendering, again, you couldn't tell the materials, the color. There was a few pieces missing there, but I think This is not going to be a difficult thing to get through. It's going to be a good project.

[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: Can I just make one last comment? Sure, go ahead, Klaus. So basically, you know, from Doug and Peter, we got the exact same comment that I made earlier, and that's that we're missing information. We're missing the whole story here. And I think that's what we're asking for, is we're asking for you to provide the whole story to us and to the point about you know that this is just site plan review this board is yes we are directed with site plan review and in this case recommendation to the ZBA but to properly understand a project you can't this isn't a parking lot this is a building in a historic and important building we need to understand the three-dimensional aspects of the building the design of the building and everything when considering the site plan implications of the whole project. That's why we're here. We're not just, you know, you can just get an engineer to click the boxes, but that's not why we're here. We're here to consider this project holistically, you know, specifically for site plan review, but also in this case for recommendation to the board. So, yeah, we need to see the design. We need to see the whole story, just like the historic commission does and just like the ZBA will.

[Andre Leroux]: Okay, it's getting late, so I want to just invite the city's engineer office if they want to make any points that they want to let the proponents know about so that they can address those as well when they come back.

[Tim McGivern]: Not specifically, so the review you may have noticed is very similar to the last one. A lot of the recommendations are the same, scaled down a little bit. And I'm willing to talk about Tony's point about the valving and a reasonable setup for that, because one of the things that he did not notice is it's a 14-inch water main out there. So we could talk about that, Tony, and maybe sit down with the water department. But besides that, I think And it looks like Todd's still here, so you can chime in too. But a lot of the recommendations were very reasonable when it comes to the operation of the traffic around the area. Also, the discussion of the parking spaces and the smaller spots, that would be the preference from our perspective to the smaller spots and more maneuverability. We noticed that too. The configuration is the same. So from a site perspective, it's pretty simple of a project. Of course, I think everybody touched upon the main point of this project is the building. And some of the modest requests that we're seeking only seek to improve sort of the direction that the city's already going in this corridor and helping out that effort. But generally, the recommendations made by Van Ness are appropriate.

[Kathleen Desmond]: And we reviewed those recommendations and the engineering recommendations as well, and there's nothing in there that is an issue. We've also reviewed the health department recommendations And I think that they requested that rather than public trash pickup, that we engage a private vendor, which is fine. We'll do that. We're going to try to, we're going to avoid an outside dumpster. I think we can have a private vendor take those trash cans materials and take them off site, storing them in the trash collection room that's in the building, along with the bike racks.

[Todd Blake]: Okay. I think I would just add briefly, if I may.

[Unidentified]: Oh, sorry.

[Todd Blake]: Go ahead, Todd. Yeah, I think Tim here on the head of the recommendations does outline that some of the things that are subject to traffic commission approval, I would just echo briefly that, yeah, there could be a little better detail graphically for the traffic pieces of it. And the traffic memo, it explains it very well in text, but then it the graphics of the signs almost look static, not LED flashing with audible tone, it's hard to tell. In terms of the parking layout, it would be helpful if dimensions were called out for individual spaces and widths, just because then it would help the board and us determine if 24 feet with a 17 foot space, that's one thing, but if it's 24 feet, adjacent to a 14 ft space. The 14 ft space is kind of unusable. It's going to stick into the aisle anyways. So it does. It does help to have a little more detail in the parking spaces.

[Andre Leroux]: Yeah, and landscaping, as has been mentioned, um, you know, just understanding the snow removal and all of the bike, you know, the bike situation wasn't fully explained. So just those kinds of things we wanna go into.

[Kathleen Desmond]: Well, in terms of the bike situation, I guess- No, I don't wanna go into it right now, it's very late, let's just- One question for the engineer though, in terms of where he wants those situated, because we have an indoor bike access area.

[Andre Leroux]: But then we're gonna discuss, the board will have an opinion about where that should be located. So I think I wanna have a full conversation about that.

[Kathleen Desmond]: Okay, because we didn't put it in because we don't know where the city wants them at this point.

[Andre Leroux]: Take a stab.

[Kathleen Desmond]: Take a stab, okay.

[Andre Leroux]: I mean, in projects that we've done recently, there's been, you know, we prefer sheltered, lockable, you know, bike.

[Alicia Hunt]: Interior, which we have.

[Andre Leroux]: Yeah. I thought you just said you didn't know where it was going to go.

[Kathleen Desmond]: But the city engineer also wanted exterior bike racks, which we didn't put in on the plan because we don't know where the city wants us to go. And I think typically, that's an after approval situation. We'll agree to the condition. But if you want them on the outside, then some direction as to where you want them, we can put them in on the plan in advance of the next meeting.

[Andre Leroux]: Yeah. I agree with Sim. Take a stab. There's guidance out there. There's guidance. All right, Lorena did receive a brief email comment from the member of the public. So I'd ask her to just read that right now.

[SPEAKER_13]: Yes, from Keith Barry of Forest Street. I am writing in support of the project at 30-36 Salem Street as it would provide more housing in Medford. I have been lucky enough to own a home in Medford Square for nearly a decade, and I am glad to see that new development opportunities are making it possible for more people to live in a vibrant community close to job opportunities and community resources. I had no prior knowledge of the project until receiving a meeting notice, and I have no special knowledge of the project aside from the documents posted on the Community Development Board website. However, I must voice my support of any project that will add more housing units to Medford, especially walkable and transit-rich areas such as Medford Square. I urge your approval of this project.

[Andre Leroux]: Great. Thank you, Lorena, for reading that. Is there a motion on the floor to continue

[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: I'll make a motion to continue.

[Andre Leroux]: Thank you, class. Is there a second?

[Alicia Hunt]: I'll second it.

[Andre Leroux]: Thanks, Christy. All right, roll call vote. Deanna Peabody?

[Alicia Hunt]: We need to continue to adjourn certain.

[Andre Leroux]: Yeah, but it's September 16th.

[Alicia Hunt]: Do you want to have this the same night as the BJ's, and there's probably going to be the discussion of the brewery ordinance from the city council? Or do you want to split it to another night so that the meetings are not quite so long.

[Andre Leroux]: Well, my feeling is that the BJ's discussion should not be very long since we've discussed it several times already. But what are the other board members, do you have an opinion?

[Nicole Morell]: We went 8-0.

[Jacqueline McPherson]: If we were to split it, that means it's two meetings. Is it just a matter of time or we still have to, it's going to be two meetings or a long meeting. So I have no preference either way.

[Andre Leroux]: Cles, it looked like you had a preference. Did you, were you saying two meetings, separate meeting?

[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: I mean, in a way I sort of feel like this merits a longer discussion, obviously not one for right now, but, um, I, I think there needs to be talk about how we, um, we schedule these meetings more, you know, um, my feeling is that, you know, after nine 30, we're not making good decisions any longer and it's affecting our work. So I, again, I think it merits a longer discussion, which we can pick up some other time.

[Andre Leroux]: Well, I think the problem is if we have a, I would say September 16th for continuing it for the moment because otherwise we're not going to host a meeting the following week, I don't think, and then that pushes it two weeks further out. So I would say let's do our best. I agree this is an issue we need to try to tackle and maybe just start scheduling twice monthly meetings.

[Deanna Peabody]: So we're still two hours less than the last one.

[Andre Leroux]: Yeah. No kidding. Well, let's, we're getting closer. So let's wrap it up. So, um, is everybody okay for at least for the time being for September 16th and then we'll take it from there. Okay. Yep. All right. So, uh, who was it that made the motion? Was that class? Did you make the motion?

[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: And can I just say something else, and I know I'm killing you guys. Is it brief? Yeah, it's really brief. I just wanted to tell Ms. Desmond that I absolutely am for this project, and I think it's a great project, and it's so important to the city. And thank you for doing this, and thank you to the architect and the engineers for being here. You heard the other things I had to say, but I just wanted to add that to my comments because it's important to say.

[Kathleen Desmond]: And I didn't mean to be argumentative, or I'm not against coming back with it. I just want some directions.

[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: Yep, that's good. So I make a motion to continue to September 16th.

[Andre Leroux]: Yes, thank you. And there was a second. Who was the second?

[Jenny Graham]: Christy Dowd, I second.

[Andre Leroux]: Christy, thank you, Christy. OK, roll call, Deanna Beabody. Class Andreessen? Aye. David Blumberg? Aye. Jackie Furtado?

[Jenny Graham]: Aye.

[Andre Leroux]: Christy Dowd?

[Jenny Graham]: Aye.

[Andre Leroux]: Carmen, aye as well. 6-0. Motion to continue passes unanimously. Thank you very much, and we look forward to seeing you next month. Is there, Annie, correct me if I'm wrong. I don't think there's anything else we need to do at this time, right?

[Nicole Morell]: Good.

[Andre Leroux]: OK. Is there a motion to adjourn?

[Jacqueline McPherson]: I'll do the motion. Motion to adjourn.

[Andre Leroux]: Thanks, Jackie. Second? Second. Cles. All right, roll call. Deanna Peabody. Aye. Cles Andresen. Aye. Jackie Portado.

[SPEAKER_18]: Aye.

[Andre Leroux]: Christy Dowd.

[Jenny Graham]: Aye.

[Andre Leroux]: David Bloomberg. Aye. Now, Tim, you were waving to me. Are you saying bye, or is there something you were going to say? OK, bye. Thank you. I was like, what do you want to say?

[Jenny Graham]: He'd say bye.

[Andre Leroux]: All right. Thank you, everybody. Thank you.

[Jenny Graham]: Have a good night.

[Andre Leroux]: Thank you. Take care.

Jenny Graham total time: 4.74 minutes total words: 360	Nicole Morell total time: 7.98 minutes total words: 487