AI-generated transcript of Community Development Board 03-20-24

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Good evening and welcome to tonight's meeting of the Medford Community Development Board. I'll call the meeting to order. Let's begin with some obligatory procedural matters. This hearing of the Medford Community Development Board is being conducted via remote means. No in-person attendance of members of the public will be permitted, but every effort will be made to ensure that the public can adequately access the proceedings as provided for in Chapter 2 of the Acts of 2023. The reminder that anyone who would like to listen to or view this meeting while in progress may do so by accessing the link that was included on the meeting agenda posted on the city of Medford's website. If despite our best efforts, we are unable to provide real-time access, we will post a recording of this meeting on the city's website as soon as possible. A reminder that given the remote nature of this meeting, tonight all votes from the board will be made by roll call. Please also know that the project materials for all projects before the board can be viewed on the city's website as well. The city's website is MedfordMA.org, and you can go under current seating board filings, and Danielle will provide that link in the chat. I'm going to do a roll call attendance for the board. Vice chair, Emily Hederman? Present. Peter Kautz?

[Peter Calves]: Present.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Ari Fishman? Present. Pam Arianski?

[Unidentified]: present.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Is Sally Kiki? Is she here? No. And myself, Jackie McPherson. Danielle, can you introduce any staff on the call?

[Danielle Evans]: Yes, there's myself, Danielle Evans, senior planner with the Office of Planning, Development, and Sustainability. We have Alicia Hunt, who is the director of our department, and we have Clem Doucette, who is our graduate student intern. I believe that is everyone from our staff.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Thank you very much. We're going to go right into the first item on our agenda, which is 290 Salem Street, which is continued from 4 Uh, I believe this was continued from two 1324. Is that correct? Daniel to 13? Yes. It's a site plan review plus special permit to allow the construction of a three-story mixed use building to, to contain seven residential units above ground for commercial space. If I can please have the city staff make any introductory comments.

[Danielle Evans]: Yeah, so we received some revised plans from the applicant in response to concerns when they were last before you. So I would recommend that the applicant present those for your consideration at this time.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: And if I can please have the applicant introduce yourselves and Danielle, if you can please provide them sharing abilities, whoever is speaking.

[2H_zQ7mI46g_SPEAKER_07]: Thank you, Madam Chair, members of the board, Adam Barnosky, 255 State Street on behalf of the applicant. So I'll pass it over to Jacob Levine in a moment to walk through the plans. Just as a quick update, we did appear before the Zoning Board of Appeals about a week and a half ago. The ZBA was supportive of the application. And we're, I would say, on the brink of approving it, but then they thought that it would be better to make sure that the members of this board were okay with any changes and just to ensure that any changes that were made wouldn't somehow impact the zoning relief. And we did reiterate that we weren't looking to make dimensional changes. we're fine with continuing that matter. So we'll be back before the ZBA next Thursday on the 28th. And with that, I'll pass it over to Jacob to discuss the requests and changes that were made to the plans.

[O1CMBj7JDes_SPEAKER_04]: Good afternoon, board. I just need access just to share my screen. I'm Jacob from S.L. Hoss Group. Thank you. All righty. The last time we spoke, we were kind of all looking at the massing and the design of this building more. More importantly, this corner that is on Park Street and Salem Street. and just the overall massing appeal of the building. So we went back and did a little bit of homework on that and tried to listen to some of your comments. We also included a few more renderings, a few more drawings, a shadow study, a solar update, and a little bit more information on the dumpster. So I am going to flip through these drawings and then we will answer any questions that come about. I just wanna be clear, the floor plans have not changed except for some balconies on now the Park Street side, but in terms of square footage and how it sits on the ground floor, that has not changed. We also went ahead and updated with our new landscape plan into the architectural drawing as well, so you can get a little bit more of an understanding of how lush and green it would be. So with that, I'm gonna start moving through this small presentation of drawings. So one change that we made was on Park Street, we went with balconies, and alleviated before we had a balcony on the corner. We discussed with you last time the idea of having transparency on this corner versus massing. And we felt that we wanted to hold the corner but still have it transparent. And you guys recommended that we do a little bit more study into that corner itself, which we did. I do have a follow-up presentation if necessary to show you some of the studies we went through on that corner itself. So before we had the bowed rounded kind of facade that matches what's across the street over on this side. And now we gave the units a little bit of outdoor space with the balconies on Park Street. We thought Park Street is a better street to have a balcony on than the busy Salem Street as it's a little bit quieter and a little bit less trafficked. This is just still the roof terrace. None of that has changed. These are solar panels in the corner. We also went ahead and tried to clarify our materials a little bit. I actually went down to the site. I guess that was a week or two ago to look at that brick that's across the way at the old historical building and right across the street. And they're kind of using more of a yellowed brick, which I really like. So what we wanted to kind of do is do a textured color brick on that first floor and then kind of more before we were showing some blues and colors to play off the green that's across the way. And we felt that maybe the building wants to be a little bit more muted, with a cleaner more mature facade with composite gray siding some glass curtain wall on the corner, and then just that gray stone like really try to keep it simple and have the architecture of the building, do the, you know, voice, instead of just having pop of color. We still want to have this bowed out look to kind of emulate what's across the street. We just think it's such a beautiful detail to have some ornament to the building instead of just flat facades. We also want to bring that ornamentation up above where we would have the covered deck. So essentially these would be somewhat covered. It's only a two foot projection, so it's not huge. It's the same dimension that we have on this facade. And then we went through and started updating our renderings. So you could see we kind of got our landscape in there, which I will show the landscape plan again to refresh you guys how lush and green this is. So before I had a red, we had a red brick down on this main part, and we went more with this, you know, yellow, yellow, like brown brick, which I just think really ties the two streets together. And we are kind of keeping with this band that they have as well, which I really like. And we're starting to look at the idea of this kind of curtain walls. glass storefront corner to bring a little bit of modernity into the street. On Salem Street itself, if you continue up, there's a couple of modern new buildings that were built. So having a little bit of that language on this corner, we felt is a nice embrace of what's coming down Salem Street and into the future in Medford. We thought this did a better job kind of holding the corner while giving this space actually back to the tenants. And then they still get some outdoor space with their balconies on Park Street. We went ahead and we masked out all the surrounding buildings to kind of show the scale and size of some of these neighborhood buildings, along with our shadow studies. I took my shadow studies on the equinoxes is spring and fall are obviously on the same, which is March. And really the only time I felt like there is heavy shadows was on the December one, kind of in the morning when the sun is really low. But our building, again, is only three stories. So it fits pretty well with the neighborhood context. We have this really large school and a couple of large buildings right around it. So massing wise, we felt it fit well. It didn't overstand compared to anything else. And especially with the shadows, even the buildings directly next door in summer, And March, just the way the sun angle happens, you know, essentially the south side is down here. So the sun angle doesn't really bring our neighbors into shadow that heavily except, you know, around the lower end of the equinoxes. So the shadow study was a very useful tool. I really appreciate that as a help that you guys recommended and even just looking at that.

[Unidentified]: Bye bye.

[O1CMBj7JDes_SPEAKER_04]: it's actually on Pilote back there. So the only part of the building that touches the street is this 2,340 square foot blue corner here. I'll go back to the landscape plan so you can kind of see how well this is a little lawn that we designed and then it's filled with vegetation throughout the site. It does a really nice job kind of hiding the infrastructure of the parking and whatnot from Park Street and Salem Street. Then we have up here the solar side of about 1000 square feet of solar panels as possible. And we did this kind of fun study through some of our programs to kind of show the benefit of $22,000 of savings and how many trees we can plant and how 1000 square feet of solar panels on that flat area at the right angle would be super beneficial. The building can actually power the what will be an all electric HVAC system. I actually just want to highlight as well there, we talked about the dumpster location, and we wanted to show you know what we were planning of these rollout dumpsters, there would be two if you look at the civil plan which I can pull up after this, and the idea is they would roll out and be picked up and delivered and cleaned out from Park Street side. So essentially that would be the flow out. We also went ahead and updated our renderings. So this was a very helpful tool that that helped us explore that facade a little bit greater and even see this the massing in context with especially what's right next door. These are the large buildings right around the corner. uh, this, you know, really, really strong roof right next door. And then you could see what we started putting the vegetation in and it really does a nice job kind of hiding that ground floor. Um, obviously this, these trees would be in bloom in these renderings. Um, this is the new curtain wall study, trying to keep this ribbon that we have in play as the neighboring building has as well. We felt like there's a really nice tie in and that glass curtain wall really is a prominent focal point on Salem street now. I'm just going to leave this up for a second and we can revisit this as well. The roof, the proposed roof deck is quite small. It's about 500 square feet and you can't see it. We tucked it back away from the side. So no one's overhanging, no one's shouting. It won't be obtrusive to the neighbors. You might see the penthouse a little bit on the Park Street side, but when you're up close on the sidewalk, you certainly won't see anything. And then I just wanted to share just a kind of reminder to everybody, our beautiful site plan and what we really want to do to give back to this lot, which, as you guys know, sits right now. And what was there before with the oil building and how lush and green we want to kind of design this garden, we've been calling it, over on the side. And then bring these, you can see right here, I have four, they have four really large trees to kind of focal point the corners of the building. Just to reiterate everyone again, we want commercial space in the first floor. So off Salem Street, we'll have commercial A and commercial B with your entrances right here. And then to get into the tenant use building, you would come through Park Street right here. So you're kind of always wrapping where there isn't any sort of entryway with green space in and out on Park Street here with our parking as well. And then, um, the last thing I have, um, is our, is our kind of landscape, excuse me, our civil plan, which I don't, I'm not sure if someone wants to take this over from me and just speak on this a little bit more, if there's something here that's been updated.

[SPEAKER_20]: Hi, Jacob. Thank you for that. So I'm Pat Bauer. I did the civil work on this. Nothing new since the last appearance here with the board. We did look at the dumpster as Jake spoke about, and we are working on addressing some of the engineering comments. They did say they wanted to look at that when we get further along into the process here. So nothing new really to speak of on the civil plans right now, but we would have some revised plans later on in the process, I think.

[O1CMBj7JDes_SPEAKER_04]: Thank you very much. And then the last thing I just want to show you guys that we really did our homework on this corner. And we're taking this that opportunity pretty seriously in terms of what it can be kind of coming up with a few different options, really thinking about what the best use of that space would be from a tenant perspective in a city perspective. And we really landed on something with the curtain wall versus like a punch window system looked at a round balcony system trying to match the corner And then this is where we kind of started from with just two open balconies there And then we changed up the park street facade as well We kind of looked at doing a combination and we landed on the the x which we felt like is a really elegant solution so after that i'm going to hand it back to Adam and answer any questions you guys might have and open back up our presentation And thank you very much for all your feedback. It was extremely helpful.

[2H_zQ7mI46g_SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, from our end, thank you, Jacob. That's essentially it. I mean, those are the changes that we've made to the project. And yeah, I think that that's the majority of the presentation tonight. So happy to answer any questions the board has.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Well, for one, I want to thank you for seriously taking into consideration the board's comments previously, because I know that you needed to get to a certain plan design before going to the ZBA, but this has been hugely significant, especially explaining how the context of the lot and how it plays into the buildings across from it. I really appreciate that. The one thing I want to clarify is the dumpster. I was a little confused on the dumpster last time, and I'm still trying to figure out Um understanding the the dumpster so if you can go back to that and then i'll i'll pass it off to the rest of the board Just how that dumpster will um So I I get I I can answer this.

[SPEAKER_20]: So basically we were looking at having these rollout These rollout dumpsters. So what they'll they'll sit where you see it located here. Um on the right side of the parking area. So that's where the residents will bring their trash and place it in the dumpster. Then when they, on trash day or whenever they have that scheduled, the truck, whoever's in the truck, one person will get out, roll the dumpster out to the street. It'll be dumped by the truck and then rolled back into place to be available for the residents. So that's something that whoever's on the trash truck would do it wouldn't be something necessarily that the people managing the building would do. So the trash company would be in charge of the flow of that through the parking area. If the management company or the owner chose to do it that way.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Thank you. The only other two comments I would have is just to make sure at this point to adhere to the department has comments going forward. There's not much more I can speak on outside of final plans. And then if the city had any questions on the architectural design of the balconies, I'm a little curious as to what the city would say before sending this to the ZBA, because as we know, if this is the chance to actually pretty much weigh in on those balconies. I don't see an issue with them at this point, but I'm not sure what the city thinks. And then I'll open it up to the board. specifically the architectural features of the balconies. How does that play into the city's plans?

[Alicia Hunt]: You mean the balconies and not the corner?

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: The corner, I am a little concerned about too, but it's a lot better than what we've seen previously.

[Alicia Hunt]: Right, and I would actually, I really appreciated seeing that those studies, because when I saw the options really drawn out like that, I went, oh, oh, maybe this is the best of choice. Because it really helped seeing the different, like, what it would look like if it was solid, what it would look like if it was just an open balcony. And you're right, like, when I look at these, I will say you're going to want to check with whoever your energy consultant is about curtain walls and the energy code and making sure that that's going to be okay, that they're going to be able to design to it. But they look beautiful, I think people will love it. Then the balconies, the only question I have in our building commissioners not on is just checking zoning. I don't think I think that because they're up above the first floor, they don't impact zoning in any way. I wouldn't want you to introduce any new. I'm zoning variants is that you're going to need to ask for. And Jackie I'll just say for you because I noticed this. We, there will be there, the board will open for public comments. And at that time, people can raise their hands and provide comments. We cannot take public comments in the chat. If for some reason you will be unable to mute yourself, you can always say that in the chat and we can read a comment out for you because of that. But I just don't want people to start putting additional comments in the chat. Danielle, did you have anything you wanted to add about the balconies since Jackie asked?

[Danielle Evans]: The balconies on the Park Street side? Yes. Because I wasn't at the last meeting, so I wasn't able to listen to or watch the recording. I mean, I always think that having some The fresh air and availability of kind of like an open space in an apartment building is good. I do still think it's a little top heavy in the back. I don't know if the, can the architect explain the structural support in the back? Is there a reason it can't be kind of like bolstered a little bit?

[O1CMBj7JDes_SPEAKER_04]: I'm not, I'm not really following. This is a good time. I'm not really following that question. Are you talking kind of like back here where it's sitting on pillow today?

[Danielle Evans]: Yeah. So the larger or a little bit more substantial, sturdier looking so that doesn't.

[O1CMBj7JDes_SPEAKER_04]: For sure, and I think the, I'm just trying to get to my ground floor plan. I think the idea would be like, maybe they could be found in decorative, but, you know, we're kind of park under them. There is another building. I think it's also on Salem street, right off the street. that did something similar. There's also one in Somerville on Highland Ave that did something similar as well. The idea is just it gives you, you're using the massing and you're using the building as protective covering, right? So when you come and park and you're not walking in the rain, so we kind of wanted to have as little columns as possible without them becoming a nuisance for the parking scheme. So at least that was what the general idea was behind why it's raised up like that back there. Having heard your thought on the massiveness of it, you know, I think that's where that landscape plan really comes into play. Really does a good job trying to kind of hide some of that building infrastructure again. It kind of makes the whole thing almost look like it's floating on green space. But that's the idea at least is where you're using that structure to get the building up and then park under it safely and give someone, everyone, including bike storage, a clean place to park their bikes and get into the building protected from the elements.

[Danielle Evans]: Yeah, through the chair, certainly in favor of podium parking, parking the building. I just didn't know if there was a way to kind of just make it feel more anchored, but sure, you know, it's a design preference. I'm just one person. So I defer to the board.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Thank you. Okay, I'm going to go to the board and I see Emily and then Pam after.

[Emily Hedeman]: Awesome. Thank you. Oh, no, you're good. You're good. Take the chair. I'm super impressed. I really like the modifications that this applicant has made, whether it's switching the blue stripe to a gray stripe, really occupying the corner. I think that these are some really, really smart moves and always appreciate a reference to Corbusier's five points of architecture. So well done there. Um, I, I hear what, uh, Danielle Evans is saying in terms of the back of the building feeling kind of unanchored. And I wonder, um, if, if there was a way to almost put like, like in facade only like brick in that back corner, um, to, you know, enclose the cars that are back there. So potentially adding a little bit of privacy, which the residents might prefer their cars to be a little bit covered rather than open. It wouldn't be structural. It would simply just be aesthetic. Or even like a screen in front of that, just to add a little bit more mental support, I guess, to the building. But I understand that structurally it's not necessary and you want to have as much open space down there as possible. So, yeah, I mean, I really appreciate it. I love the balconies, love the corner. Yeah, really well done.

[O1CMBj7JDes_SPEAKER_04]: Just want to comment on that. I think that's a fantastic idea. Even if it was, it would be great to have that as a green wall on the back. You know, I think where you're kind of referencing is where my head goes is, you know, this back wall back here, which. You know, we are showing like a fence on the plan. So there's a fence there, but you know, if you actually had this as like a living wall or, or maybe it is like a masonry tiered wall that has, you know, planters in it, it would be a really cool feature. Um, we just want to be careful with how dark and dungy and creepy that space underneath gets, you know, Totally, totally.

[Emily Hedeman]: And I'd say, you know, let your budget influence that for sure. But I think you guys can, use some creative solutions to kind of anchor that, the Northwest corner of the building, where the yellow Volkswagen Beetle is.

[O1CMBj7JDes_SPEAKER_04]: Yep. Thank you very much. That's great feedback.

[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah. Thank you, Jackie.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Thank you. And next is Pam Marianski.

[5GOoqKbpo08_SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I just want to echo and appreciation for response to comments. Yeah, I think my concern is that the glass curtain wall. And, you know, just again, this is my aesthetic, my concern that it, you know, looks a little more commercial than residential to me, just especially in the context of, you know, just the, the, of the feeling of the building across the street. And just for a practical sense, it looks like that's the main living area for those units. And I just wonder if they'll feel very exposed. And yeah, I wonder what tenants might do with window treatments there. Are you going to be looking in at what are you going to see from the street behind there? Are you going to see some funky curtains? Are you going to see televisions? So I mean, again, it's a personal aesthetic preference. And I understand this need to sort of hold the corner. But yeah, I just have concerns about how that looks and feels in the context of the other buildings.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Thank you, Pam. This is information to take in. It's given the applicant a little bit of idea of how the board will move to vote in a future meeting, because we know that you still need variances. So if you're not prepared to answer board member Marianski's question now, just keep it in the back of your head that that is a concern that one of the board members has. And then, okay, so we'll go to board member Ari Fishman. Thank you, Chair.

[Ari Fishman]: I also want to echo appreciation and that I'm impressed at the amount of work that's gone into this in response to our feedback with great appreciation. My question is also about the curtain wall. And I'm thinking specifically about the impact of having these large reflective surfaces right at the corner. And I'm curious if you've done modeling about the effect of both sun and car light beams and how they might affect visibility, especially of cars, but also of potentially into other units.

[O1CMBj7JDes_SPEAKER_04]: For sure. I'm going to touch on that curtain wall because I knew it was going to be kind of a hot topic. And truthfully, if. this idea gets kind of passed by you guys, just this idea that we want to do something special with glass in this corner. We would bring in a company like Conair or, or, or a shoot go, or even, even, you know, a curtain wall company that would kind of help mediate some of those challenges, right? Rather it be like a fritted bottom, or maybe it's two feet of solid where the band is. right and it's only like four feet of actually glass and then your window treatment comes down you know I think the idea I personally am not very um attracted by like what they're building a seaport with all just the glass glass glass and then you see it at night and it's just a complete you know everyone has their curtains down right and then during the day you get too much sun and everyone has their curtains down So I think that's the same solution here, but we wanted to at least show the idea that this would be a reflective corner that would still show massing, but has the transparency and the illusion of something that's soft and elegant. So that's kind of the design of this curtain wall. But without my curtain wall consultant kind of stepping up at this point, you know, I can't give you those exact details on if it's going to be six feet true glass, with spandrel at the top and bottom. Because in reality, you know, you're gonna have a spandrel panel down here and you're gonna have a spandrel panel down here at the slab edge. So that might come down a little bit and you would have the spandrel panel try to match the reflectance of the glass. We wouldn't want something that's super reflective to echo what you just said and it's just gonna, you know, Headlights and everything just jumping right off it at the same token. You don't want something that's super transparent where you can just see through into everybody's living space, but at the same token, you know, it's really if I was a tenant there and having a glass wall and seeing the city and allowing the city to come in, it would be a very attractive thing to have in a very unique situation. And again, if you kind of look at the plants, it's only 2 units. at the end of the day that really get them and it's these really nice units and you know we're trying to we're going to build the kitchen kind of on the other side and have the dining over there and the living room comes off you still get that little terrace so it'd be a really unique kind of area unit living space itself so certainly thought has been taken into that curtain wall um but the um construction documents on that have not taken place yet but i hear you guys thank you

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: And we have Vice Chair Hedeman. You can go right ahead.

[Emily Hedeman]: Just a quick recommendation for a local precedent. I know you mentioned that the Seaport and their all glass towers, 5 Cabot Road, Medford Mass, 02155, Modera Medford. It's a department building built in 2014. It kind of mixes like a townhouse and modern aesthetic. They have an all glass corner on their third and fourth floor units. um so that could be a good local precedent for this five cabinet road c-a-b-o-t like the cheese thank you yep i don't see any you can't see peter um i'm here i had no further comment

[Peter Calves]: updates.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Okay, thank you. So I am going to open up the public comment period. So those who wish to provide comments can use the raise hand feature or message Danielle in the comments. You can also send an email to OCD at medford-ma.gov. Before providing your comments, please state your name and address for the record. A reminder to all meeting participants to please refrain from using the chat function to provide comments as it is not part of the public record. However, if a participant is having audio or other technical difficulties, this may be entered into the chat to alert myself and staff. Depending on the number of comments, we'll go two to three minutes. And Danielle, can you please manage the public comment queue and read any previously sent emails or letters? There was a comment in the chat that I'm not sure if that participant is still here. I think we can stop that person. Cheryl R., did you want to read out your question before we begin? Okay, Danielle, I can't see anything else.

[Danielle Evans]: Thing that she can't raise your hand. Um, I will unmute. Cheryl asked to unmute. There we go.

[Cheryl Rodriguez]: Hello. Can you hear me? Yes, we can hear you. I'm Cheryl Rodriguez. I live at 281 Park Street. So I'm very close to this project. I was on the community meeting that they had and every neighbor that was on that meeting said that this was not enough parking for this area. This is a highly restricted area. Park Street has restrictions in parking. Parris Street has restrictions on parking. Tainter Street is permit parking, and one spot per unit is unprecedented. We just lowered our parking minimums to one and a half per unit, and this is one. They should take the top off of it. And we lived with the temporary fence for about two years now, and we were very grateful when they took down the, The tarps that they had covering it because the corner was very dangerous. You couldn't see coming around the corner. So I'm concerned that this building is going to replace those tarps and we're not going to be able to see or that jungle that they were showing in their pictures on the corner. is going to replace and make this a very blind corner coming down from Salem Street turning to park. There's no parking at that corner at all so I'm also concerned about coming around that corner and there being a trash truck just in the middle of the street with a dumpster being pulled out to the curb and traffic's not going to be able to flow. Barely two cars can fit around that corner so if someone stopped at the light sometimes you can't make that corner because there's no double yellow there as they had in their paperwork. There's not a yellow line there. Also, it's not a social good to add a convenience store there. There's another convenience store about 50 feet from there. After the house, the next building is a convenience store. There's also a convenience store at the corner of Salem and Fulton. There's also a convenience store at the corner of Salem and Cherry. There's also three convenience stores in Haynes Square. So we really, really don't need another highly expensive food option that's not a social good for us. This project should be, if they can't add parking, they should reduce units. This is a very dense area. We have a lot of students in this area that have a lot of cars. It's a lot of two family homes that have many, many cars and we can't absorb their cars. Are they willing to be deed restricted that if we have to go permit parking so we can park on our own street? that they won't get any permits because they're saying that they're not gonna need cars, even though this is a very low T accessible area. That's my comment. Thank you.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Thank you.

[Danielle Evans]: Madam chair, I don't see any other members of the public with a raised hand. I also have not received any written comments. I do want to respond to Ms. Rodriguez's comments. We can add a condition that would prohibit residents of this building from being able to attain city parking permits. So if there was on-street permit parking, they would not be eligible to receive one if they came into the parking department their address would be on a list saying that they're not eligible for that. And that would ensure that folks who are moving into this, indeed, don't have multiple cars that if there's only one spot per unit that If someone has more than one car, they would have to figure out an option of renting an off street spot somewhere else because on street wouldn't be an option. And this was a condition that was added by city council for 100 Winchester. So, and this is something that is regularly added as a condition in Somerville that seems to work well when the property owner makes it clear before selling or signing leases with residents that they will not have the ability to park on street. So that could be something to consider.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Thank you, Danielle. And you don't have any other comments to read, to share, and there was no hands. Okay, so I'm going to close the public comment period for this meeting. And to bring it back to the board, and so we're not voting on 290 Salem Street this evening, because as I mentioned earlier, they still need variances, but we want to give them an idea of what's acceptable. and to give them some feedback if there's gonna be additional changes before they go off to the ZBA for me and before they wind up coming back before us if those variances are approved. I have no further comments other than just making sure that you're being in tune with the department head comments. And I have no comments until that's handled. I don't know if the board has any other comments that they wanna share. for this evening for 290 Salem. Hearing none, I am going to ask for a motion. Chair, sorry. Yes, sorry.

[Ari Fishman]: No worries. Thank you, Chair. I wanted to say that I did very much like Danielle's idea about the deed restriction on parking. I think that could work well in this situation.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: And that would be, do we know that should the applicant come back before us for once we can vote, actually. But because we're not voting this evening, I didn't reiterate. So with that, we will vote to continue the meeting to a date certain after their ZBA meeting.

[Danielle Evans]: Madam Chair, I see that the applicant's attorney, Adam Barnowski, has his hand raised. Oh, okay.

[2H_zQ7mI46g_SPEAKER_07]: And thank you, I appreciate it. So the one thing I do want to just before you close the meeting or vote on this, I know that the procedures here is relatively new where we're going before this board and then the ZBA and then we come back before this board because this board can't vote on the site plan until the variances are granted. But I do want to make sure there's not, I guess it's I want to make sure that we are addressing all of the board's concerns and that just respectfully that there's not too much of a ping-ponging between this board and the ZBA. If the ZBA wants to make sure your concerns are met before they vote on it, and you can't make the votes until the ZBA votes on it, that just due to the time and expense of all of these hearings on the applicant to have there, you know, various professionals come and attend and we want to make sure that whatever we're doing is going to be acceptable to you as a board. So, I have heard a lot of comments, we've written down, you know, all of the comments, same as last time, but there do seem to be some differing opinions that seem to be more aesthetic based and If we could get any more direction to ensure that whatever we're bringing before you is going to be acceptable, I think that would be really helpful because I know that there's several members of the board and each person has maybe a different opinion on the same thing. I don't know if you want to have any clear-cut instructions that we can go back to so that we can tell the CBA, this is exactly what we're looking for. They're only aesthetic changes, therefore, there is no possible change to the zoning relief that we're seeking. Does that make sense?

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: It makes a lot of sense and I appreciate you asking for clarification on that. So basically where I was going with it is based on the comments that the board has made tonight, I would have the applicant make definitely make sure that they're keeping the design wall in mind and then knowing that there's going to be a condition for parking coming down. if this board was to move. But other than outside of that, I think the actual stance right now is that this is an acceptable plan going forward. I mean, I can't vote by myself and I can't vote without ZBA's approval. However, I think we pretty much gave you the idea of how we would vote going forward, just with the feedback that we gave tonight.

[2H_zQ7mI46g_SPEAKER_07]: Okay. Well, thank you. I appreciate it.

[Alicia Hunt]: And that's and I don't know if another board member want to add anything if I'm if I'm speaking out of turn Madam chair maintain on the fly since the do you think that the um some because of this ping ponging um and sorry i'm spring kind of springing this on you the idea of would the board vote to send a letter to the zba saying you know these are the conditions we're going to be looking for or um you know we're we're not requesting any more structural changes to the bill i'm not sure what that would be but um or we don't we're not requesting any changes that would impact the zoning variances, because that is literally what the ZBA, I was at the ZBA meeting, and they basically were saying, what if the planning board asks for a change that makes them move a wall, right, or makes them change the amount of parking they have or something that impacts the actual zoning of it. So like an advisory letter, we recommend that you, I don't even know if you would, if you were approving site plan, you would approve a site plan and recommend approval to that board. And that's what they're kind of like going, oh, but we're not going to have a recommendation from the CD board. I don't know if other members would have a thought on that.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: What I can tell you, and I'm not sure if this is even legal or permissible, but at this time, I would ask for a motion of approval with a couple of conditions that doesn't necessarily significantly change the architectural structure at all, and definitely not the parking. And I'm trying to give as much headway as possible without voting and without speaking for the entire board. So if we're allowed to, yes.

[Danielle Evans]: Perhaps, I don't know if this was brought up at the previous hearing, but maybe if Attorney Bernaske could outline what are the variances that are specifically being requested. I believe it's setbacks and some other technical stuff that we have certain things in our ordinance that are basically impossible to meet, like usable open space, which I'm assuming this is probably one of the variances. But since this goes to a different board and handled by a different staffer, I'm not 100% up to speed on which variances are being requested to be able to rattle them off.

[2H_zQ7mI46g_SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, I mean, I'm just gonna pull up those, those variances, but one other thought is instead of taking a vote, I mean, I think that if there was maybe some court, I mean, again, I defer to whatever your process and procedures are, but I do recognize that this is a new one for the city, but I'm not sure if there would be any sort of correspondence between the two departments to the, from the community development board to the zoning board, kind of giving any sort of a, just like a quick summary as to what the comments were of this board so that the zoning board has an idea as to what's going on here tonight. Because I do think that trying to split the votes, I think that yeah, we probably be getting into a murky legal territory if you're trying to figure out what you're voting on tonight versus what you're voting on once the variances are approved. But I would think that having some sort of core, I think that the chair seemed very eager to vote on it, but then he he was just concerned that we'd be creating more process if this board, this community development board made a change that would then require us as the applicant to go back before them on a modification. So he was really trying to do the applicant a service in requesting it like that. But again, I'm just trying to make sure that we avoid a situation where we can't really get anywhere until one department shows their hand or whatever you want to call it.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: And I definitely understand because they're not able to grant a variance that would be detrimental to anything that we've actually changed. And I get that. I just, at this point, Director Hunt, my hands are tied as far as how we can help the client going forward. Legally, I don't know what can be done.

[Alicia Hunt]: So we could, from our office, write a staff memo. I would say with the, you know, approval of the board, sort of advising them on what are the, and I actually, I think it would be helpful to read out what are the conditions that we have so far, and you could provide, this is a, you know, these are the things that we saw, this is what we heard, this was what the board was thinking, these are the, conditions that they expect to be that they expect to be including and pending your approval of their variances. And while it feels like double work, I think that that would actually be like 80% of the decision anyhow. So that staff memo could then be repurposed into the decision after it was voted on. we would just be doing it before the meeting, which I believe is next Thursday, the 28th. Sorry, Danielle.

[Danielle Evans]: Yeah, so Madam Chair, through the chair, I need to, we had basically the zoning board should have all of the department head comments, I don't know if they got the compiled list. Basically, I take from those and I put it into a list of conditions. Some of these might be addressed, so I don't want to read out all of the engineering division comments, which are below the ground and not something that would affect the site plan. But there were some things like, Um. Making some changes with the traffic signal. Um. When the city engineer had some comments about revising the plan, so some of these might already been been taken care of. So I need to, um, make sure I have the. Updated latest plans for everything. And, um, these came in too late. I When we send a memo to the zoning board, I wanna make sure that it has the most updated relevant conditions. And some of that would be like replacing the sidewalk along the entire lane. And one issue with Park Street is a really bad problem with people parking on the sidewalks when they pick up and drop off um, kids at the school. I know this because I'm a parent of a child at that school, and I see it all the time, so I don't know if there's some kind of treatment that could be, you know, put on the sidewalk to prevent folks from jumping the curb, because I guarantee people will be parking on the sidewalk in front of your building. I don't know how to get this enforced. I see Peter has raised his hand, Madam Chair.

[Peter Calves]: Uh, yes, I was just trying to kind of move things along cause we seem to have gotten as far as we're going to get and just trying to figure out what other, I mean, in addition to the department had comments, would we send in this kind of advisory memo to the ZBA? Would it just be the further study of the curtain wall of the glass curtain wall and the, uh, the deed restriction on the parking? Is that what we had agreed on? Just doing my job and trying to figure out what we need.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Yes, those are the only two conditions that I have from the board. And then anything that needs to be addressed from the department heads, which at this point, I'm not able to decipher myself.

[Danielle Evans]: through the chair, I think if there's any conditions that you would want to impose that would change the setbacks that are being presented, that those are the kind of substantive things that they would need to know because they're going to be granting variances that would vary the dimensional requirements for this property. And once those dimensional requirements are varied, then you can approve the site plan. So if they're granting variances that don't align with a site plan that you want to approve, then that's the kind of big things. I don't think a glass curtain wall issue isn't going to change the setback. If you wanted them to move the corner in that changes setback requirements or the ask. So I think those are the big things. The footprint, anything that would change the footprint would start to create issues with what you can approve.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Oh yeah, and I was very much aware of that, but I'm not sure that we're asking to change setbacks on that corner. I don't think any board member had an issue with that. At this at this point, especially with their being limited open space, and then there's retail on. I don't think any board member had an issue with that.

[Danielle Evans]: I'm sure I see Emily has raised her hand.

[Emily Hedeman]: or to the parking. The only thing that we could potentially change is that Northwest corner, but it seems like that's more aesthetic and decorative rather than related to the massing of the building. Even if it's like a half height wall, like I think that works and I don't think that would qualify as a substantial change. And I see Peter has his hand raised.

[Peter Calves]: Yeah, just trying to echo that as well. I don't think, based on everything I've heard so far, that we are proposing anything that will impact the dimensional variances. So as far as I can tell as a member of this board, we're not going to have anything that impacts the ability to get the variances from CBA.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Yeah, and again, just to echo that and to re-clarify again that if another board was to grant the variances with the architectural features that we've seen before us, we understand that it would be detrimental if we change anything later. I don't see this board changing anything that would be detrimental to those variances.

[Ari Fishman]: Through the chair, do we need a motion to vote on sending that memo? I think that we have arrived at a consensus on the content and the mechanism. So if there is a need for a motion, I'm happy to move to do so.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Yeah, just to be safe, I'm going to ask for a motion to send a memo to the ZBA through the PDF staff. on behalf of 290 Salem Street, letting them know what conditions we would approve the site plan and special permit with? I so move. And a second?

[Emily Hedeman]: Second.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Vice Chair Emily Hederman?

[Emily Hedeman]: Aye.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Peter Cowles?

[Emily Hedeman]: Aye.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Ari Fishman? Aye. Pam Mariansky? Aye. and myself, Jackie McPherson, I'm an I. And now I believe we need a motion to continue 290 Salem Street. Does it have to be a date certain, Danielle, or just to the next meeting?

[Danielle Evans]: Date certain, which would be, when is the next, April 3rd? Yes, April 3rd.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Okay, a motion to move 290 Salem Street to the next meeting on April 3rd, 2024. So moved. Second. Vice Chair Emily Hederman?

[Peter Calves]: Aye.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Peter Cowles?

[Peter Calves]: Aye.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Ari Fishman? Aye. Pam Arianski. Aye. And myself, Jackie McPherson, I'm an aye. And I'm not sure if I said the language properly, it's to continue, not move, but it's the same, I hope. Thank you, everyone. Thank you, attorney.

[2H_zQ7mI46g_SPEAKER_07]: Thank you all, I appreciate it.

[Unidentified]: Thank you.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Have a great night. The next item, I believe, let's see. The next item is 4864 Commercial Street, which is a site plan review to construct a two-story, 97,857 square foot research and testing laboratory. I'm going to read the public hearing notice. The Metro Community Development Board shall conduct a meeting on March 20, 2024, after 6.30 p.m., via Zoom, remote video conferencing relative to an application for site plan review for a new non-residential structure of more than 10,000 square feet, which is a major project. It was submitted by Empire Management Corporation of 171 Great Road, Akinas. The applicant is seeking to demolish the existing structures, a construction staging yard, 48 Commercial Street, and a vacant industrial building, 64 Commercial Street, and construct a two-story, 97,857-square-foot research and testing laboratory, which is in allowed use in an industrial zoning district at 48 to 64 Commercial Street, Medford Mass 02155. Our board is the site plan review authority per section 11-7. PDS staff, can you make any introductory comments, please?

[Danielle Evans]: Yes. This is a, the use is by right. However, it's subject to site plan review and your board is the site plan review authority. They have been to the zoning board and received variances for height. Cause we have a provision in the ordinance that has a maximum height and maximum stories of two. So while it is two stories, the requirements for this use require taller floor to ceiling plates. So they got the variance for that. So now it is, can now go before this board for site plan review. There were some comments from the city engineer in traffic and parking, our transportation traffic and transportation director. and I believe there were some requested revisions. I've seen responses to those comments, but I have not seen revised plans, but we can turn it over to the applicant team to update us on that.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: So to make sure here, the board would definitely need to see final plans to vote going forward. We can open up the public hearing this evening to hear the applicant, but we would be voting on final plans since there's some back and forth with the city, correct?

[Danielle Evans]: Ideally, there's a revised set of plans that can be voted on as the control set. I'm not sure what exactly has changed the response to the engineering comments on our traffic comes came in today, I believe, and been flat out in meetings all day that I haven't been able to cross reference them.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: And I think that's what we need to be clear of, because when it's conditioned to the point of change, then that means we should have a final set that we're voting on. OK, we'll hear it going forward. I believe the tiny dash, you could go ahead.

[Dash]: Thank you, Chair. Nice to see you all again. Attorney Adam Dash, 48 Grove Street in Somerville, and I'm here representing the applicant and owner, Empire Management Corporation. With us is Bernard Gibbons of ABG Realty as the broker and representative for Empire Management, Edwin Hargrave of Tria Design, the project architect, James Almonte and Michael Scott from Land Design Collaborative. They're the civil engineers and landscape architects, and I believe James Almonte will be driving the slides if someone could give him the co-hosting ability to do so. And we have with us as well, Mary Lou Armstrong from Beta Group, who's our LSP on the environmental side, and Patrick Bradley of Chapel Engineering Associates, who's the traffic engineer on the project. So just so you know, 48 and 64 Commercial Street, if you could, James, bring up the slides.

[hUaFTg-SXts_SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I just need permission.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: And before you continue, Attorney Dash, I'm not sure about everyone else, but I'm having a hard time hearing you. And I thought it was my audio, but then someone else just spoke.

[Dash]: All right. Well, I'll speak louder than I suppose. It's not usually a complaint that I hear. All right. So the Felsway Innovation Center is what we're calling this project here. And we'll go into some detail so you can see it. If we get the next slide, please. That's the team that I was just describing to you. We have everybody here tonight to answer questions. The site location, you can see on there, it's currently two adjoining properties which total about 193,437 square feet. The most recent use of the properties have been as a construction staging yard at 48, and a vacant industrial building at number 64. The property is surrounded by other commercial uses. Can we go to the next slide? There's a photo set here. So you can see the sort of sideways commercial street goes vertically sort of towards the left there. Yep. And the BLC 6048 is the vacant industrial staging yard there. Sorry, the industrial staging yard, not so vacant. And then below that is the other part, which is 64, where there's a building that is vacant. You'll also see that there are some wetlands on the bottom of the screen and up that sort of swing around a bit to the left. To the right behind the property is the shopping center, which has the stop and shop right there. You can see that on the right, the big building. So the applicant is seeking to repurpose this underutilized lot by demolishing the existing building and erecting a new two-story building with parking and other associated improvements uses a 97,857 approximate square foot research and testing laboratory building for tough tech. with a 50,716 square foot footprint. As Danielle said, this matter went before the Zoning Board of Appeals on February 29th, which approved the variance for building height of 16 1⁄2 feet, because in the industrial district, only 30 foot in height is allowed, but that does not allow the floor-to-ceiling heights that are required for this use, which is allowed by right in the zone, so there was a bit of an inconsistency. So we go to the next photos, please. There, so you can see the lovely lot that's there. It is not the world's nicest place. And you can see the red arrow is showing you what you're looking at. So this is all 48. That's the construction staging yard. And you can see, looking all around it, not the cleanest of uses. You can keep just going through. There are a lot of pictures, just to give you the gist of it, because it's a little hard. If you were driving around, you can't really get in to see all these sides. There's the building that's coming down, not a particularly attractive one. Right, so we're here before you tonight for site plan review to construct a new building that's non-residential of more than 10,000 square feet in the industrial zone. As you can see, the lot is oddly shaped. It has that big dent in the top, and then sort of a slant to the right, and the wetlands over to the right as well. It has also got contamination. There is an activity and use limitation over on the 48 side, which is shown on the plan, which will involve soil management. And Mary Lou Armstrong can talk about that later. So this is another reason why we're doing the building as we're doing it and trying not to impact the soil too much. So Mary Lou, I think this is a good point probably for Mary Lou Armstrong and Beta Group to discuss the AUL and the situation on the lot. Mary Lou?

[SPEAKER_16]: Okay, hi, everyone. Yes, I know that town engineer had had the city engineer had had a question about this as well. So, an activity and use limitation has been implemented on the 48 commercial street portion of the site as Adam said, and that's due to some residual contaminants that are in the urban soil materials. There's some petroleum and some lead based contamination. And the AUL requires that the subsurface soils are capped with the existing pavement or building footprint to maintain a condition of no significant risk. So prior to any future construction or redevelopment activities, we'll be preparing multiple documents. One is a soil management plan, which will discuss how the soils are going to be managed on site during construction. Also a health and safety plan, which will describe protocols to ensure safe working conditions during construction for all the workers at the site. And we'll also prepare a release abatement measure plan that would actually be submitted to MassDEP. And that would describe how the soils are going to be managed during construction, whether they'll be reused on site or if there's excess soils that can't be reused on site, they'd be transported off site to a licensed disposal facility. And the RAM plan that would be submitted to DEP would incorporate the soil management plan and the health and safety plan. And then during construction, we would have LSP oversight during any disturbance of the subsurface soils. And again, the soils would be either reused on site under the capping system or they'd be disposed of off site. And when it's all done, we would submit what's called a release abatement measure completion report to DEP documenting that and that the site had been restored to the AUL conditions at the property.

[Dash]: Thank you, Mary Lou. And this sort of dictates, as you'll see, the location of the building on the site and why we have surface parking on the site as opposed to parking underground, because we do not want to disturb the soil excessively. We do want to cap where we can. James Almonte from Land Design Collaborative, the Project Civil Engineers Landscape Architects, will discuss the site landscape plans. James?

[hUaFTg-SXts_SPEAKER_00]: Thanks, Adam. So this is the proposal for the site. Just for orientation, Commercial Street is running along the bottom of the screen. So North is facing left here. So the site has been designed, site and building have been designed to respond to the existing conditions of the site. The building shown here, these basically two overlapping squares that can be fit out for either one tenant or two. Access to the site is located in two locations, one centrally located here, more for vehicular traffic, and then to the north we have separate access for truck traffic. Right now, if you're familiar with commercial street in this site, it's basically just a wide open curb cut. The pavement from commercial street just extends into the site. So this allows us to close off that curb cut, provide a nice tree lined, curved sidewalk streetscape along commercial street, which will have a pedestrian connection along the north property line to the shopping center. to the north and to the east. We'll also have a pedestrian connection with a crosswalk to tie into the existing sidewalk on the west side of Commercial Street. We can't continue it along the east side of Commercial Street due to the wetland that pretty much runs right up to the limit of pavement on Commercial Street. But the wetland does provide a nice natural screening to the parking lot. So, you won't be able to really see that as you're traveling down commercial street. And then another amenity to the site that we're adding is this outdoor gathering area, which will be landscaped and provide seating for people to enjoy their lunch or coffee on a nice day. So that's that's the proposed site plan Lisa rendering of it. And then I'll get into a little bit more of the technical plans that were submitted as part of this application. So, this 1st plan is the layout materials plan chose the parking for about 214 spaces. which includes 8 electric vehicle charging stations. We have handicap accessible parking located adjacent to the building. And we have about 53 compact spaces, which is about 25% of the total. Under the zoning ordinance, we're allowed up to 30%, so we're under that. And we also have spaces for about 22 or so bicycles located adjacent to the building. The loading and trash removal will be located behind the building and will be screened by the building from commercial streets. It really won't see that. And then along the northern property line and the easterly property line will be screened by some vegetation proposed landscaping. We're showing snow storage within some of the landscape islands, just trying to keep that in mind. We have provisions taking care of that. No, that's located within the 100-foot buffer zone of the wetland. So, currently, under existing conditions, about 100% of the site is impervious surface, either covered by the building or pavement. And under proposed conditions, we'll have about 18% of the site will be either landscaped, vegetated, or naturally vegetated open space. So the next plan is the grading plan. I won't get into too much detail here. But basically what we had to do is we're sloping up into the site and we had to do that basically to meet the groundwater offsets for the stormwater design. So we'll be sloping up into the site and then we'll have a series of low points to capture the stormwater throughout the parking lot. And we can get into more detail on stormwater design as necessary. It's a grading plan, and then this is the drainage and utility plan. And stormwater has been designed to meet the state and local standards. These large rectangles you see here are basically the underground storage chambers that will handle the stormwater runoff. And then we have two discharge points to the east here that will discharge eventually into the existing wetland. Uh, drainage, so this is the, the landscape plan. Um, so basically the landscaping will consist of parking lot shade trees, which will be, um, uh, maples, Linden and sweet gum. The tree-lined streetscape will consist of Princeton Century Ginkgo, and then we have some evergreen buffer plantings along the easterly property line that'll consist of Fraser Fir, Eastern Red Cedar, Spruce, and Apervitae. And then we also have some ornamental plantings up against the building and within the outdoor gathering area. And the photometrics plan was also submitted as part of the filing, just shows the foot candle distribution throughout the site. Light fixtures will be full dark sky compliant, full cutoff fixtures with a mounting height of 20 feet. And then these next couple of slides to show the vehicular circulation through the site. So this first one is for the fire apparatus. This would be the most restrictive movement through the site, approaching the site from Commercial Street from the south, entering the central driveway, and then maneuvering around the entire building, and then exiting out to the north. So no restrictions with that movement. And then the second movement here is showing the truck traffic into the site. This is a WB67 tractor trailer maneuvering to the site and then backing into the loading docks located here and then maneuver out the site through the central driveway. And with that, I will turn it over to Edwin Artray from TRIA to discuss the architectural plans.

[SPEAKER_12]: Thanks, James. So now that we understand the siting, we'll take a look at the building plans and elevations. So James mentioned two overlapping rectangles. We really felt strongly that the building should not be a very simple cost effective box, that this is a more ambitious project and the city deserves that. But at the same time, not an awkward shape that introduces inefficiencies in the floor plans and makes it difficult to lay out efficient laboratory spaces. We've worked for many life sciences tenants and put them into many of those glass towers in the seaport. And we have a pretty good sense of what features make a building attractive on the sidewalk and which ones make it useful as a life sciences home. And we're focusing on the efficient life sciences home characteristics. So what we have are two overlapping rectangles, essentially. This plan is oriented just like the site plan with Commercial Street at the bottom of the page and the parking lot to the right. This is the first floor plan. And in the lower right-hand corner, we have a built-in entrance lobby. And we're thinking of the lobby not like a monumental entrance, but more of a collaboration and interaction space for the tenants of the building. Could be for informal interaction, could be for symposium. but essentially indicative and thematic of a home for research. The tenant spaces then would be flanking on the lower left and the upper right. And we've got large contiguous floor plates. It would work for one tenant who needs a big footprint, or it could work for smaller tenants. And they would all have ample perimeter for daylight, as well as access to the lobby. The shared building functions are on the back side of the building, The other front of the building, as we sometimes say, the loading dock, I think, which James walked us through the truck access, is in the upper left, right, upper left, and the shared mechanical spaces are on that side of the building as well. There's a central toilet core, of course, for the building and exit stairs for the two floors of this building. On the second floor, which is the next slide, the footprint is essentially identical to the first floor, with the exception of the cutout for the two-story lobby and the shared building infrastructure spaces, which essentially are all located on the first floor. Moving on to the elevations, We believe that this building should be modern in its expression and reflect the technology-driven uses inside the building. And to that end, we're thinking the building should be metal and glass. The elevations we're looking at here, the top elevation is the commercial street elevation, and the elevation beneath it is the elevation that faces the parking lot. two-story building with a mechanical roof, not a mechanical penthouse, but there is a mechanical screen, a roof screen along the roof to shield the view of the mechanical equipment. The materials for the building we're thinking should be metal panel and glass, again, modern, and its expression being vertical rather than horizontal, like many buildings you've seen along the highway. with the horizontal ribbon windows. The glass is shown in the light blue, and they're the taller vertical openings. For the glass, we're certainly thinking the glass should be clear and not bronze or mirrored like, again, many of the buildings you've seen that have that sort of use. And as far as the metal goes, we're thinking that the metal panels are flat. And when we say flat, we mean smooth as opposed to corrugated or textured like an industrial metal panel. So this would be a finished metal panel, not an industrial panel. And that the interest in the facade would come from subtle variations in the color of the metal panels, and in some cases, a very slight difference in the texture. One color, so as to not be garish, but subtle texture across the metal panels themselves. If we go to the next two elevations, which are the other fronts of the building, if you will, the expression would be the same, and the materials would be the same. because we want the building to have a sense of integrity about it. There are folks walking around the building to get to the shopping center, and we don't want the building to fall apart from a visual and qualitative standpoint as you get around the corner. The subtle difference would be that because those shared mechanical spaces and sometimes the loading areas are going to be on that side of the building, there would probably be a little bit less glass because it doesn't make sense to introduce glass into a mechanical an electrical room, for example, or a fire pump room, for example. We have some three-dimensional views coming up that will give you a better sense of what the physical, the formal characteristics of the building are, as well as the landscaping. To talk a little bit further about the metal panel expression and to maybe reinforce what we think is a modern expression These are examples of buildings that employ the materials in the way that we're describing them. On the upper left, a metal and glass building, obviously, and the glass is used around the primary entrance to the building and the public spaces, the lobby. Going to go back to calling it an interaction area in a second. But we think that that's the appropriate way to enter the building with a lot of glass and very welcoming. If you look at the upper portion of that building, you'll see that there is a very subtle variation in the texture of the metal panels. And we're thinking that that's the effect that we're looking at. On the far right is another building with metal panel, but there is a grill of metal fins in front of the building. We have a canopy on the commercial street side of the building that's really a sunscreen. to help shield the sun from the glass at the lobby, the interaction area. And so we're thinking that that sort of play between solid metal elements floating in front of glass is a nice feature. On the lower left elevation, this is pretty, in some ways, from a proportional standpoint, very similar to the Innovation Center. There are large expanses of glass. The windows are large. These are horizontal windows. But the virtue of the large windows is that you get a lot of daylight into that deep floor plate, which is great. It will help reduce the actual lighting cost. But more importantly, as importantly, people are working in this building for many, many hours. And their ability to have views out to the city, to the landscape court, in some cases, maybe into the lobby, is incredibly important to reduce eye strain and also to make the space livable. You're probably hearing that machines are taking over research, but that is happening, but there are still people working in research buildings for a very long time, and it's very important to have daylight and views out. The image on the right We're thinking that this is helpful to see because of the plaza adjacent to the building and the idea that that plaza is a visual amenity to the city, of course, for folks walking and traveling down Commercial Street, but also as an amenity to the building, and done so in a way that the occupants on a daily basis feel free to walk out, have lunch, have an informal chat, a collaboration session, and that it's much more than just eye candy, so to speak. It's really a usable space. And can we go to the next slide? So this is it. You've heard the term Tuftec. We've mentioned that a couple of times. Boston has a tremendous amount of wet laboratory space available. And an underserved community on the research side at the moment is what's often known as tough tech. And tough tech can be companies that are maybe doing battery research. It can be companies who are doing medical device research and manufacturing. And the key differences between those manufacturing and research activities and the wet laboratory environment are the robustness of the laboratory spaces themselves and the volume required for those activities to occur. On the robustness side, this image essentially is one of a battery manufacturing facility. And so the laboratory benches, for example, need to be much more robust and heavy duty than the typical laboratory benches you would see in a wet laboratory environment. The benchtop equipment is heavier. The work that they're doing is heavier. And as a result, that's a very different kind of environment. It's not an environment where you have a low ceiling of nine feet and a distribution system of overhead service panels with wires and hoses coming down to distribute lab gases. It's very different. There's a lot of power requirements. There's a lot of data requirements. There are often materials handling requirements, overhead crane rails, overhead ventilation devices. All of those features require more clearance in order to install and in order to use effectively. And that is what drives the additional floor to ceiling height, which we were allowed the variance for. And so this image sort of captures all those things. The floor to floor height, or rather the clear height to building structure in this image in this building is 17 feet, 20 to the underside or to the roof deck. And every bit of it would be absolutely necessary. In this image, we're also showing a view potentially through the lobby, into the lobby, and then beyond down to the outdoor gathering space. And that's in part for quality of life. There's certainly confidentiality issues and not every tenant would want to take advantage of that. There are films that can be applied to the window to decrease the and legibility of the view. But in general, this kind of views between spaces and the sense of openness and the sense that it's a building about collaboration and research and innovation and people being together and working together is really sort of a philosophical theme that is driving the project from our standpoint. Jim?

[hUaFTg-SXts_SPEAKER_00]: Thanks Ed. So we'll just run through a couple of slides for some of the site precedent images and then we have some views looking through traveling through the site. So these are some of the trees and landscape material that I was mentioning earlier. Within the parking lot, the October Glory Red Maple, the Linden, and the Sweetgum, both showing the summer condition and the fall color. The Princeton Century Ginkgo would be along the streetscape, along Commercial Street, and then along the connection to the shopping plaza. And then the paperbark maple and heritage river birch would be closer to the building. We have the heritage river birch within the courtyard and our outdoor gathering area. And then just some of the evergreen trees that we're proposing for the perimeter buffer mentioned before, Fraser fir, Eastern red cedar, spruce, everbody, and then some understory gray owl juniper. And then these are more of the plantings along the facade of the building and within the outdoor gathering area. Try to select plant material with a mixture of color and texture just to kind of keep things interesting. And then these are some proposed views that kind of give you a better feel of what the site would look like. So this is an existing area of view looking up commercial street, which is located here. If you're familiar with the area, this is the CubeSmart building, Arcadia Foods here. This is the building on our site, Harbor Freights here, and Stop and Shop is located off to the right here. So this is a view under existing conditions, and then this is what we're proposing the site to look like. So parking, as I mentioned before, to the to the south, which would be screened by the natural wetland. And then I'll just run through a series of views here. So this is more of a bird's eye view from commercial street looking back into the site. I can see the. the indoor lobby area or communal space, and then the outdoor gathering area located here. So the function between the indoor space and the outdoor space was thought out. And then this is more of a vehicular approach to the site. The view that you would get as you enter the site in a vehicle. And then this would be more of a pedestrian approach to the site from the commercial street sidewalk along walking towards the front of the building. And then this would be walking towards the outdoor gathering area. You can kind of see the connection between the indoor space and the outdoor space and some areas for seating and gathering, as I mentioned earlier. just a different view from inside that space, looking back towards the front of the building. And this is more towards the rear of the site, looking towards Commercial Street, the CubeSmart off in the distance here. And just a view of the loading dock in the back, you see a screen from the adjacent property. And more of another bird's eye view from Commercial Street, looking back into the site and kind of see some of the, Boston Skyline in the background, Encore Casino located here. And then we have a kind of a fly-through video of the site. And then just gives you an idea of some adjacent landmarks in the area, proximity to where we are.

[Dash]: Thank you, James. So Adam Dash again. So let me sum up here. As you can see, the project will greatly enhance an underutilized industrial property by creating a magnet for good tech jobs in Medford, which has a history of making cutting edge things, going back to the Clippership days. providing stormwater control, decreasing the impervious area, providing a walkway to the amenities to the north by the stop and shop, creating a more attractive streetscape, replacing the old industrial use with the cleaner use, and adding a stylish new building to the city. As Evan said, we did respond to the comments which came in late from the city engineering and traffic departments. I know that the traffic department basically said they were fine with it because we were doing everything they asked us to do. which had to do with crosswalks and such, not so much the building and the project as much as it had to do with crosswalks and ramps, which we're happy to do. But to do all of this, the applicant requires site plan review from this board. The project, after all this, is therefore not substantially more detrimental to the property or to the neighborhood than the current poor state of the property with its dirty uses. I would note that the mayor issued a letter of support in February 27th to the Zoning Board of Appeals. I don't know if you've seen it, but it's certainly relevant here. It's fairly short. It says, I'm writing in favor of the Felsway Innovation Center located at 48 and 64 Commercial Street and the site plan they are proposing. The project has been reviewed by our economic development team and the Office of Planning, Development, and Sustainability. I'm sorry, there goes a fire truck. Office of Planning, Development and Sustainability, this is a 100,000 square foot technology and life science building that will help transform that area of our industrial corridor and in turn will help grow our commercial tax base. As I've done in the past, I will continue to lend my support to projects such as this one that will provide significant benefits to our community, including numerous job opportunities for our talent pool. Um, so therefore the applicant respect the request that the board approve the site plan review for the new building of greater than 10 000 square feet Thank you Thank you attorney dash, thank you everyone Um

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: I do have some clarifying questions, but I'm just not sure where the conditions lie at right now. Danielle, do you want to give, I know that you haven't had a chance, but is there anything that's specific that's standing out from the city right now? Because I just want to make sure we get that clear.

[Danielle Evans]: Basically, I need to determine what, so, essentially any conditions that were required by the department heads that create changes on the plans. Ideally we have the changes are made on the plans and then we don't have to have the condition in the decision is it makes when it comes down to the building permit and the CO becomes kind of cumbersome when they get very long. I do wanna know one thing that, was not caught earlier. So there's the provision 94-6.3.5 for large parking areas. And it looks like we might need to add a few more landscaped islands. One of the rules is that you can't have more than 20 spaces uninterrupted by a landscaped island. And It looks like there's a few places that have just 25 spaces in the front. And then it's just really, really small. I can't see 28. So are you able to accommodate that and rejigger the parking a little bit? I noticed that the parking requirements are one space for every two employees, and that 200 and how many employees?

[Dash]: Well, Adam Dasch again, we don't have a tenant. This is a spec building, so we're sort of approximating how many employees this type of use would employ. Obviously, different tenants will have different numbers of employees, so it's a little hard to say, but that's sort of what we're going off of what we believe. That's why we have Patrick Bradleys here, our traffic engineer, and they've helped come up with using the UT, you know, the books, I forget. I'm probably saying the acronym incorrectly, Patrick, but if you want to tackle that, I don't know about the traffic island question, though that was not raised earlier. Go ahead.

[SPEAKER_15]: Yeah, Patrick Bradley, I was also not aware of the Jeff Allen question. I know there were a couple comments from the city in that letter we received last week about parking. So I know we have to make some changes there. So I believe we're looking to seeing how we can reconfigure the parking there.

[Dash]: And you came up with the number of the proposed employees from the manuals in your field, I would assume.

[hUaFTg-SXts_SPEAKER_00]: I'm sorry, I'm just saying we're having a hard time hearing you, Adam. I didn't hear what that question was.

[Dash]: Either you, James, or Patrick, I mean that the number of parking spaces, the question that was raised, the number of parking spaces based on the number of employees had to be estimated based on, you know, standards in the field that are used to determine such things because we don't have an actual tenant with a headcount right now.

[hUaFTg-SXts_SPEAKER_00]: Right. Yeah, the site plans right now are we're showing about 214 parking spaces. So that would be 428 employees for this type of facility. Um, so, you know, these are these are, you know, welcome comments that, um, you know, we were hoping for and. We anticipate that we're going to have to change the site plans for certain things to address some of the comments that we received to date. Obviously, parking is one of them. Some of the comments for stormwater really won't affect the site plan all that much, but we kind of wanted to get all the comments first before we revise the plans.

[Dash]: and then we certainly understand that the board's not comfortable voting tonight with conditions that that's that's fine we can certainly make changes and come back that's we're not trying to shove this down anybody's throats but yeah i mean you could one could do it either way as danielle said one could either approve what we submitted with the condition that we if that we change the plans to accommodate the comments that have been received by the departments or we could come back with plans that have the changes already made on them either way it's the same thing to us but however you'd like to proceed is fine and then the traffic island issue we'll certainly look into that.

[Danielle Evans]: And Madam Chair I'm happy to talk offline to just do a check before you submit it just to make sure that everything's in there. Our ordinance things are some of these provisions are buried so if you didn't if you missed it I don't blame you you missed it.

[Dash]: Yeah well we rely on those refusal letters you know so yeah.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: That's all I have, Madam Chair. Does any member of the board have questions at this time? Vice Chair Emily Edelman?

[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you, Chair McPherson. I had a little trouble answering this question on my own based on the drawings in the presentation, so I just figured I'd raise it. Is there any sort of pedestrian access between this building and the stop and shop, you know, Harbor Freight, Ocean State Job Lots, plazas?

[Dash]: there is a uh... there is a uh... i guess jim if you want to pull up the plan we can show there is a pedestrian access to the stop-and-shop site which is obviously stop-and-shop would probably love to have these customers of all these employees who may want to go over there for lunch or go to panera over there uh... i'm sure it's an amenity for us it's an amenity for them so everybody wins if we create that connection uh... it is on the site plan of james will pull it up we can show you where it is there

[Emily Hedeman]: that sidewalk in the back.

[Dash]: Yeah, that tree line.

[hUaFTg-SXts_SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, this would be the connection we're proposing.

[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah, that's great. I love it. I think this brings, you know, dynamic activity to an otherwise unused site, you know, increases Medford's tax income. So I'm excited to see this here. And I understand that there are limitations, you know, based on the site's environmental conditions today in terms of the parking. So while I would have loved to see permeable pavers and maybe some other creative approaches, I understand that there's some limitations to make sure that the site remains safe for the city and for the occupants. Thank you.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Thank you. Ari Fishman?

[Ari Fishman]: Thank you, Madam Chair. echo Vice Chair Hedeman's excitement about this project. I think it's a great use of a very neglected space. I do want to flag about the landscaping. I appreciate that the maples aren't Norway maples, but I think many of the others were not native varietals. And given how close this is to the wetlands and the Mystic River and its lands are right across the highway, I would really love to see this be pretty much all native plants. There's going to be a lot of cross-pollination, and hopefully it'll make the space stronger, too. I don't know that we have the legal standing to require it, but I think it would be a great decision.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Thank you. And Peter Kals? You're on mute.

[Peter Calves]: I just wanted to echo my fellow board members and the excitement for this project. As a resident of this neighborhood, it's always nice to see something going into one of these underused industrial sites. And I did go through Director Blake's comments, and I appreciate Chapel Engineering on the traffic side of everything they're doing to make that kind of neglected stretch of commercial street adjacent to the site better. So thank you for that.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: And I just wanted to echo Vice Chair Hederman's questioning on the pedestrian. I did see the link with the trees there. That was one of the questions that I actually So to my delight, that has been addressed. So that would have been my only other thing. Seeing no more questions from the board, I am going to open it up for public comment at this time, since it is a public hearing, and I'll read the public notice. The Medford Community Development Board shall conduct a meeting on March 20th, 2024 after 6.30 p.m. via Zoom remote video conferencing relative to an application for site plan review for a new non-residential structure of more than 10,000 square feet, making it a major project and submitted by Empire Management Corporation of 171 Great Road, active mass. I don't believe we need to read the second part of the notice. since we've already read it. So now I will open it up. My apologies to Those who wish to provide comments can use the raise hand feature or message Danielle in the comments. You can also send an email to OCD at medford-ma.gov. Before providing your comments, please state your name and address for the record. A reminder to all meeting participants to please refrain from using the chat function to provide comments as it is not part of the public record. However, if a participant is having audio or other technical difficulties, this may be entered into the chat to alert myself and staff. questions. Daniel. Can you please manage the public comment queue and read any comments that have come in prior to. But the letters or emails.

[Danielle Evans]: Madam chair. I do not see any members of the public with their hands raised. Um. I don't believe I received any public I can check our general mailbox to see if anything has come in. I may have missed. I don't see anything that has come in tonight. So that's all we have. Oh, never mind. That's Emily with her hand raised.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Okay, I'm going to close the public comment period for this meeting, and I will open it back up for board deliberation, starting with Vice Chair Hedeman.

[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you, Chair McPherson. I know that Peter is our go-to traffic expert, but as somebody who frequently takes that left turn onto Commercial Street to sneak into stop and shop that way and avoid, you know, the insane intersection of Felsway and Route 16. I was a little curious about the traffic implications on Commercial Street as well as coming out onto Mystic Valley Parkway. I'm sure that they're summarized in the applicant's materials, but I was wondering if there could be a quick narrative in terms of mitigating efforts. And for additional context, I believe we did have a courtesy review of a multi-family residential property at the intersection of Commercial and Mystic Valley Parkway. So there could be a lot of traffic activity in this area. And the last thing I'll add is curious if the applicant is pursuing the use of a shuttle service to go back and forth to Wellington to, you know, further support use of public transit.

[Dash]: Maybe the time, Jim, to have Patrick go through some things that might make things a little clearer. You want to call those slides up?

[SPEAKER_15]: So, in regards to the question about the traffic impacts, specifically, and Mississippi Parkway and Riverside Avenue. We had found through our traffic study that. The impacts from traffic during both peak AM and PM hours would be pretty minimal for all intersections included in this, which you can see the six called out here. We saw that there would be increases in delay of less than two seconds at all intersections, even less than one second. So in regards to the impact of traffic on these areas, it seemed pretty minimal with the increase in this development.

[Dash]: member had raised, uh, Patrick, that you could answer.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Peter Kautz.

[Emily Hedeman]: Just real quick before Peter goes, um, is there any response to the suggestion of using, um, like a shuttle service or enacting some sort of like transportation management plan for this, this, um, facility?

[SPEAKER_15]: I would say I'm not aware of any shuttle services that are currently going to be offered. I know there's several public use bus stops within the area, which I think would be used by some employees. As for shuttle service, I think that's something that could definitely be looked into if it's a service that would be utilized by the employees on site.

[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah, I presume there's some additional detail on that for the next iteration. Thank you.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Peter Cowes?

[Peter Calves]: Yes. My apologies, this is a little in the weeds question, but I'm curious as to the land use that you spec'd us at, it being a spec site and not having a specific a specific tenant in mind. Just for clarification, as a fellow traffic engineer, if you were using the IT land uses, what were you looking at this as?

[SPEAKER_15]: So we looked into two different land uses. One was land use code 140, which is for a manufacturing facility, and the other was for land use code 760, which is for research and development. We looked into both of those and determined that research and development 760 produced more traffic. So we decided to be conservative in terms of the traffic generation use that for the facility.

[Peter Calves]: Okay, thank you for the clarification.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Director Hunt?

[Alicia Hunt]: Thank you, Madam Chair. I just wanted to sort of provide, sorry, it's getting a little late, follow up on Emily's comments about mitigating the traffic and options around vanpooling and such. Our office has just started to talk to the Lower Mystic TMA, which is a organization that provides carpooling, van share, bike share for companies. And they are centered around Everett, but they do serve Medford and particularly the Wellington area of Medford, which this is very close to. And so there may, it seems to me if this was a company that we knew was moving in, I would say we should make it a requirement that they have to join this. But at this point, it might be that I'm just offering it as a suggestion. They have a level of membership called associate membership, which literally says associate membership refers to developments that are required or choose to join the TMA during the initial phases of their projects. This level of membership allows the TMA to work with project managers to prepare for tenant move-in and create plans for mitigating the transportation impacts of the site. This level of membership is short term between project approval and building occupancy. And then they have different levels of like, do your members all do your employees all get free bus passes and blue bike passes? Or do you run a do they run a shuttle that connects your building to the T? I'm very interested in seeing several of the the larger and new developments in this area along Mystic Valley Parkway work together on a shuttle to the Wellington Tee and this lower Mystic TMA may be the answer to facilitate that. I am not versed enough on this organization yet to say, I think you should require it tonight, but I wanted to offer it that it might be a solution.

[SPEAKER_15]: I think that sounds like a wonderful program actually within the city and I think that's something we could definitely look into for the tenant use to apply for and try to use to mitigate kind of the amount of traffic going to and from the site.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Thank you all. So to get some clarification from how the board is feeling, are you comfortable with, I have not been able to wrap my head around all of the conditions and I'm not sure that they are at this point more administrative things that the PDS office can handle with the applicant as long as they're accommodated for going forward, we can do a, actually a condition based on that, or did you want to have the applicant come back before us with a new set of plans? I'm just trying to get more of a feel.

[Danielle Evans]: Madam chair, if I may, I prefer revised plans. You guys can vote on it at the next meeting. everything is in and it's ready to go.

[Emily Hedeman]: Madam Chair, I was going to say the same.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Yeah, and just thank you. And Peter Cowles?

[Peter Calves]: I was going to say similarly, given that it seems the project team is not, it doesn't seem that it'd be great and convenient to them to come back with revised plans if they're fine with that and that's what we'd prefer, then that seems like the best path forward.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Okay, so I am going to, is there any other comments? Okay, I'm going to look for a motion to continue. 4864 Commercial Street till the date certain, which is April 3rd. I'll make a motion. And a second.

[Peter Calves]: Second.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: I second. Okay. Attorney Dash, we will see you on April 3rd. If you can please come back. Vice chair, Emily Headman. Aye. Peter Kowals. Aye. Ari Fishman. Aye. Pam Ariansky? Aye. And myself, Jackie McPherson, I'm an aye. Attorney Dash?

[Dash]: Yes, we'll see you.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Okay, thank you. Have a great evening.

[Dash]: You too. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you.

[Unidentified]: Thank you.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: The next item on our list for tonight is 294 Harvard Street, which is a special permit to establish a motor vehicle repair establishment within an existing building. The Medford Community Development Board shall conduct a public hearing on March 20th, 2024, after 6.30 p.m. via Zoom relative to an application by Damian DiNucci on behalf of Auto Glass now for a special permit for a motor vehicle establishment located in the industrial zone at 294 Harvard Street, Medford Mounds, 02155. Danielle, Medford staff, can you please make any introductory comments?

[Danielle Evans]: Yes, thank you. So as you may recall, back in September, there was some zoning changes that originated at the city council to change auto repair uses to require special permits within the city rather than by rights. So this affects this property. It's a auto glass repair, which, is the building commissioner, you know, determined that it's under that category and therefore requires a special permit. I do want to note that there was an error on the agenda. And the first one that came out that had the wrong address, it said 294 Maine, but the abutters notices were correct. Public hearing notice was correct. The legal ads were correct, but I think that abundance of caution, it would make sense to open this, hear it, and then probably delay till the third to take a vote so that there's not procedural error, which would open up the applicant to an appeal. I think that would be in their best interest, but I think it is also their risk tolerance. That's all that I have at this time.

[SPEAKER_04]: Can I speak? Sorry.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: I'm going to ask the applicant to introduce themselves.

[SPEAKER_04]: Darren, go ahead. My apologies.

[SPEAKER_03]: Mute. OK. Can you hear me now? Yes. OK. Hi, everybody. My name is Darren DiNucci. I am the owner operator. I have my business at 294 Harvard Street, and I've been solely occupying that property for a while, running my construction electrical business. And I decided to take a tenant on due to some changes. And we recently had a couple of tenants in there and they were okay and they had moved on. And we engaged with Auto Glass now in about, oh, June or July, somewhere in that area. So when we engaged, we were by right. I had gone down to the commissioner's office and talked to the commissioner and the building inspectors. And we were by right, as I always do when I get a tenant, I check because I am familiar with the special permit and have had to deal with that from time to time. So unfortunately, Autoglass now and I engaged and they started investing in the project in terms of due diligence and checking into like, you know, hazardous waste and surveys and the things that the companies do before they engage in a lease. At that point in time, we had, you know, it had been after September and we had come back in, you know, as we were doing due diligence thinking that, We were going to put something together and get them in there. In and around October 15th was our commencement date planned. So at that point in time is when this news was brought to me, we stumbled upon it through the planning department and here we are in April. The, you know, it's a little disappointing to me. The building was built in 2012 and I purchased it in 15, 16, renovated it. It was built as an industrial building with 19 foot base, which are very specific for, you know, for trucks to be brought in their cars and trucks. And it was built with an oil water separator, which is something that is required for any building to work on vehicles. So this building was very specifically built to be able to do these types of things. That being said, I understand the, you know, the thought process of the old auto shop, if you will, with broken down cars and hoods up and then I get that part. But if everybody had a chance to see the pictures, if not, we can certainly bring them up. This is a very well maintained new building. And, you know, it's state of the art solar panels on the roof. card access, cameras, security. We have the fencing, you know, all blocked out just, you know, for the good of our own use, you know, it wasn't done, you know, for any other reason, we take really good care of our stuff. So I did, I have been vacant for almost a year now, because I passed on some tenants. I am very particular about my building and I am a tenant as well. I have had oil companies that wanted to come because they don't have any way to park their trucks and they're just delivery trucks. I think by right I could do that, but I didn't have any interest in that. I just don't want to smell oil. I don't want to have trucks firing up big diesels at six in the morning and causing any harm for the neighborhood because I'm there too and I'm pretty good with all the neighbors. I've had a doggy daycare. that I thought was a pretty good idea, but they engaged, and they asked some questions to some planning board members, and they kind of did a little bit of due diligence, and then they kind of got a little bit of a negative feedback, and they didn't want to run through the special permit process, so we lost them. I thought they would have been nice, but I do get it, the dog's barking, so they didn't want to take the chance. I had a rental car place come over. I didn't want them, and again, I then met with the auto glass people and I thought it was a great fit. Um, you know, it's, it's glass, it's clean. Their hours are good. They're like eight to five. There's going to be like four or five employees. They're going to basically, you know, it's like a safety or a safe light glass, same type of a place where they do a lot of their stuff mobile. But there are people that still want to go to a shop and we have a shop and you know, unlike probably 99% of your auto shops in Medford, they probably do not have oil water separators, which essentially, if you don't know what that is, if the car goes inside and it leaks, it's environmentally safe, it separates the oil from the water. And we have to have the MWRA come in annually to clean that and you know, keep the place safe. So I was excited about them for tenant, I think they're going to be a great fit. I think they're going to be low impact to the neighborhood. And I think that's all I have. And I'd like to introduce Timmy. I'm sorry, Tim's on here. And I don't know if Dan's on here. They are the Autoglass representatives. And we can certainly answer any questions.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Thank you, Mr. President. Do you have a presentation for us this evening?

[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, we did send in all the pictures. Would anybody like to see the facility while we're talking together? Tim, you can bring those up. I know we presented them with the package. Not sure if you had a chance to review them.

[SPEAKER_04]: I'm Tim Hainer. I'm one of the new unit growth managers for Autoglass now, and I handle some of the the branding elements for our company. Let me see if I can, how do I share the screen here?

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Danielle, can you please give myself access?

[Danielle Evans]: Yes, I already did. You just hit share screen on the bottom and then just select the window that you would like to share.

[SPEAKER_04]: Just give me one. I'm sorry about that. All right, can you see my screen now? Yes. So we only have a couple of things that we want to do to the building. Basically, just make it recognizable as a Auto Glass Now Center. Nothing that we do is anything more than repairing windshields. Cars are not stacked in the parking lot. We don't have cars there overnight. Our area manager's on the call too, and he can clarify anything that I'm not saying correctly. I don't deal with the operation side. I just deal with the branding side. So this is, aesthetically, all we would be doing to the building would just be an auto glass now sign. We didn't want to paint anything. We didn't want to change the look of the building. We didn't want to change any aesthetics. Keep everything as consistent as it can possibly be is sort of our goal here. pull up some pictures of the location. That's the facade of the building. That's the street view. We've got blinders on the fence there. That's where the parking lot is. All the parking would be restricted to that area. two bay doors overnight if we do have customers in the area. It's rare, but we would be parking those cars inside, so nothing would be stacked. That's the inside of the building. The goal here is just to put one divider wall right here, lower the sprinklers so we're up to code. And this is just to have a safe place for customers to come into the entrance and do their thing while while their cars are being serviced. And that's it. That's, that's all we plan on doing. Just move into an existing building, have a clean shop, and keep it as consistent as possible. There's no major plans here. We, you know, we run a clean facility, a quiet facility, the only tool that we have is a single air compressor that that we run inside the shop. So as far as presentations, that's all I got.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: No, I appreciate it. I do have a follow-up question though. Can you go back to the actual fence? You said that there's no cars left overnight. Sorry. But how is the work shielded from the right? I know it's an industrial area, but to kind of clean up the property, how to keep it neat in that area, how are the cars shielded from outside view?

[SPEAKER_04]: So the cars will not be worked on unless they're inside of that garage. So a customer will pull in here, right? They'll walk into the front of the building. They'll talk to the customer service person at that counter. They may have an appointment. They may not. Whatever, that person will instruct them what to do. And then when their car is ready, they'll pull it into the garage. The bay will go down. They'll replace the windshield. And that person will leave. Do you have anything kind of more specific to share on that? Yeah, I don't deal with the operation.

[SPEAKER_02]: My name is Daniel Bean. I'm the regional director of operations for the Northeast, been in the industry my entire life. We are, as far as auto repair, we are extremely low impact. There's very limited chemical use. There's no, there's nothing other than replacement of glass. This facility for us will initially start out with a manager, a CSR, and one technician. That's how we start all our locations. I don't see this location growing past three or four technicians. We are about 80% mobile. So the impact is early in the day, technicians come in, load up, and usually go out on the road. We typically do not have cars, to Tim's point, left overnight. And if they are, they're left inside the building. Most installations take about an hour. So it's kind of an in and out. Like I said, there's not a lot of, I don't see it much negative impact. to the neighborhood, there's not vehicles left disassembled or out in the parking lot. Like Tim said, the customers come, they're typically out of there an hour or two.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Thank you. My biggest concern was that it was a surface parking lot, but I didn't hear what you said. The surface parking lot was just overhead and I wasn't sure how the cars were going to be kept. And you've already clarified that they were not kept overnight and that they would be inside of the building. So I was just trying to figure out exactly what that looked like. that I appreciate the follow up. I'm going to actually open it up to the board for further questions. Vice Chair Hedeman.

[Emily Hedeman]: Thanks Chair McPherson. Thank you so much for your presentation. My heart goes out to you with, you know, the red tape that you had to deal with. I really appreciate your patience and your positive attitude on this call. I have a few questions. First one is, how many surface parking spots are you planning for this site?

[SPEAKER_04]: We really have no minimum or maximum. It's based on whatever property that we can work with.

[Emily Hedeman]: How many cars can fit on this site?

[SPEAKER_03]: When I was in there with my trucks, I had 12. Okay. Yeah.

[Emily Hedeman]: That's like tandem, I'm assuming.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, exactly.

[Emily Hedeman]: Okay. The only reason I ask is because your wall fan site has seven parking spots plus one accessible spot. I'm assuming if you're going to do similar business on this site, just make sure that you guys have those seven or however many spots clearly marked And then the other question I had was for Mr. Genucci, what's the lease term?

[SPEAKER_03]: The lease term is five years.

[Emily Hedeman]: Okay. So it's really good to know. The reason I ask is because this site is so close to two MBTA stops. I ran a quick Google Maps search and it's an eight minute walk. 0.3 miles to one of the green line stops, easily in back bay in 35 minutes. So, you know, from one perspective, this is great for autogloss now because somebody could theoretically drop off their car, hop on the T, go to work, come back, pick up their car. But I'd I encourage Mr. Tanushi to also think of, you know, maybe some creative uses in the future for this site, you know, going beyond, you know, industrial. You know, this could be a really cool site, a really cool location.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, we do have a long-term larger plan i have a couple of i have a couple of good plans to present separately at a different time of a couple of small pieces of property in that zone that could probably you know be limited parking three families probably two coming up but we can you know i'll bring that to the board separately as well yeah that's exciting to hear um but you know in the meantime i think this is a a

[Emily Hedeman]: a smart use of an existing space with a limited impact that I support it. And I would actually tear this question in terms of how much risk the applicant is willing to assume, because we can talk about this, we could put it to a motion, but if the applicant does not want to open themselves up to an appeal, then we should know that as a board. or if you're comfortable with that, let us know.

[SPEAKER_03]: I'm sorry, I didn't understand. Was this to do with the fact that we didn't have the right address listed tonight? Is that what that was? I'm just trying to remember. Correct. So how does that change things for this?

[Emily Hedeman]: I'll defer that to Danielle, because it sounds like she had a more succinct summary than I did.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, she let me know via email, but I'll take the rest, please. Yes.

[Danielle Evans]: So as I mentioned, All of the public hearing notice was accurate except for the agenda, which had a typo on it with the incorrect address. So if somebody decided there was, I don't even know if just having standing or not, if they would need to have standing or not, but if someone appealed the decision and they, it likely would get overturned for a procedural defect.

[Alicia Hunt]: So can I put it into simple English? The risk is, if somebody decides they didn't like what you're doing and they wanted to fight against it, they could tie you up in court for months. Possibly like, we saw an appeal of the zoning board took easily six or nine months in court. for them to appeal it. And it would come back to this board eventually, and then this board would approve it again, but it could delay it for months, months, maybe a year. The alternative is if you brought it back, there's another meeting in two weeks, it would go properly on the agenda and the board votes in two weeks. There is practically like they couldn't appeal it on those grounds. And they win their case that we did it wrong, because the agenda was messed up.

[SPEAKER_04]: Right. Right. Yeah, our hope would be that most of the most of the logistics would be covered on this call. And then during the next call, we could just, you know, make it official, basically, you know, with with the proper address and all those things. At that point, if that makes sense.

[Danielle Evans]: And as I had mentioned, in my email that um, we can make sure to turn around and file the decision. Like the next day, like I can commit to that. We generally have your 14 days. So you won't lose any time.

[Unidentified]: Okay.

[Danielle Evans]: Is this, this was not, and I kind of piled on some of the other kind of bad luck that you've had.

[SPEAKER_04]: That's okay. I wouldn't want to tell you all about all of the mistakes that I've made this week. So, um, as long as I can, you know, if, if, if we can sort of set a tentative date for, you know, the, the week following the next meeting to, to, to plan for, um, you know, painting the building and putting the signage up pending that, um, you know, getting through the proper inspections, that would be extremely helpful.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, no, I think we have to, we have to take the two weeks and, and yeah, so when we get back here, do we

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: have another meeting or is this kind of do we get all our questions out tonight other than obviously public comment if we have to open it up again to public comment we're going to do public comment this evening and if there's any public comment that comes in it would be susceptible to open it up again um based on that technicality so we're literally just getting everything out tonight including um the fact that we open up the public hearing we'll give you conditions um if and see how the board wants to vote and Again, you're just showing up at the next meeting. Okay, great.

[SPEAKER_04]: Can we go first to the next meeting? Thank you.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Vice chair.

[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you. The only thing I would like to say, um, you know, for the next meeting is those, uh, parking spaces, at least kind of striped, at least on a conceptual basis in that back lot, just to confirm that there is enough space you know, for the work that Autoglass now wants to do. But that's really all I would want to see.

[Unidentified]: That's easy.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: There was some feedback on, I know you were amenable to putting up some signs. You spoke about signs and then the condition of the barbed wire that the city did not particularly care for. Are you amenable to that, Mrs. Nucci?

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, that's very fair. We can lose that very quickly.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: And then when, of course the city has, if you, when you apply for the sign permit, you have to submit the plans to the planning staff for that going forward, but we'll spell that condition out. We'll have the city spell that condition out before the board makes a decision.

[SPEAKER_04]: Right. And I think our, our, our sign vendors are already in the works for that and make sure that they've got all their, you know, T's crossed and I started.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: I would like to skip steps. And I, we appreciate that. And again, that's why we're even, um, making sure that we're dotting our I's and crossing our T's for tonight's technicality. Um, tiny little inconvenience, but, um, it'll be sealed for later. I'm going to open up the public comment now, uh, period, just in case there's anyone that wants to speak. Those who wish to provide comments can use the raise hand feature or message Danielle in the comments. You can also send an email to OCD at medford-ma.gov. Before providing your comments, please state your name and address for the record. A reminder to all meeting participants to please refrain from using the chat function to provide comments as it is not part of the public record. However, if a participant is having audio or other technical difficulties, this may be entered into the chat to alert myself and staff. Daniel, can you please check the public comment queue and read any previously sent emails or letters regarding this item?

[DXZ3Y2L8Tik_SPEAKER_03]: Hello?

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Hi.

[DXZ3Y2L8Tik_SPEAKER_03]: Yes, I'm just chiming in. This is Joseph Anoletto. I'm the owner of Titan Gas and Cowash on the other side of the tracks. I'm Darren's butter, and I have no objections to the proposed business going into his garage. Darren has been an upstanding business owner and a great asset to the community. I've known him for quite a while and I think he has nothing but good intentions for the area going forward. So I'd just like to leave it at that and just give some words of support to Darren and I wish them all the best of luck over there.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: We appreciate it. Can you just, can you say your name again and give us the address of Titan?

[DXZ3Y2L8Tik_SPEAKER_03]: Oh, uh, this is Joseph Aniletto and I'm calling from a five 90 Boston Avenue.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Thank you. We appreciate it.

[DXZ3Y2L8Tik_SPEAKER_03]: Thank you.

[SPEAKER_03]: Good luck. Thanks man. Yeah. Thank you.

[Danielle Evans]: Madam chair. I don't see any other, um, folks who are on this call that raised hand. I didn't receive any written comments regarding this matter.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Okay, so I'm gonna close the public comment period for the meeting for this item and go back to the board for deliberation and discuss the approval for a special permit and if there's any potential conditions for approval. And we can have Danielle spell those conditions out, if any. Just to give you an idea of where I sit myself, and then the board can actually all speak, is I actually wanted to make sure that there were no adverse effects, there was no benefits as opposed to adverse effects. I will be absolutely transparent with you and let you know that I'm not entirely sure that it's the highest and best use, but there are definitely benefits to the use at this point, especially with your property being vacant for over a year. So I think that there's no negative benefits. If anything, it'll be all positive. And saying that, I will actually be more in favor of this project going forward at this point. So I will turn it over to see if the board has anything else to add. Vice Chair Hederman.

[Emily Hedeman]: I echo your sentiments. I would be in support of this project at this time. We're putting together conditions and then continuing to date certain Jen, that's what we're doing, right?

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Yes. Okay. Which is based on a technicality, so pretty much we'll get our tentative approval this evening with conditions, and they will come back to have us vote officially on a date certain. Are we got that, Average Fishman?

[Ari Fishman]: Thank you. I similarly kind of came in knowing that city council is hoping to, that this area will transition its use, but I think that seems like there's going to be very few negative effects of this. It's, uh, and, uh, you guys got caught in a bad situation with the timing. I, I feel okay moving forward with this.

[SPEAKER_04]: Thanks.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: So we do have a couple of conditions. Danielle, do you want to summarize those for us?

[Danielle Evans]: Yes. So my recommended conditions, and I spoke to Mr. DiNucci about these, was... The condition one would be to remove the barbed wire on the fence and maintain screening on the fence to ensure parking is not visible from the public way. Right now there are those final kind of like strips that are woven in. I just want to make sure that that's maintained, or replace the fence down the road that it's a solid fence that screens the parking. And then condition two would be prior to applying for a sign permit, the applicant must submit plans, planning staff review approval. Preferred sign types would be like downcast lighting, such as gooseneck or halo lit channel letters. No internally lit box signs. We just want to kind of elevate the facade a little bit.

[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, classy look. Okay. That's helpful. Thank you.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: And just Vice Chair Hedeman had mentioned striped parking for the commission. Vice Chair Hedeman, do you want to speak or?

[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah, just some idea of where the cars are going to go in the back. And I did have a suggestion for an additional potential condition. I'm not sure if it's within our scope. I'm curious to see what the city would say. Um, but the potential condition that I would propose is that, um, uh, the applicant needs to come back before this board, um, prior to lease renewal. So in five years, I don't even know if we can condition that. We can. Okay. I would propose that. And we, that's the way, you know, we can give a lot of us now some, you know, security in their lease term. but also potentially revisit the use of this site in the long term, but not impact Mr. DiNucci's tenancy or business as a landlord. I don't know if anybody else on the board has thoughts about that.

[Ari Fishman]: I like it.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Yeah, I would that would be very helpful, especially with the direction of the city's comprehensive plan for the use of the South that South method area. It would it would give us a little more idea of what better fits there if. That use is not compatible. Mr

[SPEAKER_02]: put in there. So if we want to renew, we have to get permission from the city to renew in case they want to move in a different direction. Is that the clarification?

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Because it's still a special permit, you're being, you're a least Your use is considered a leased use. So before that lease can be renewed, you would have to come back before our board for another special permit before the landlord can actually just allow you another lease just to make sure that it's complying again with the city's use for that area. We have a comprehensive plan, a vision for that area and As of right now, although it's industrial, it's not by right. So we're giving you a special permit because it goes against the uses that the city has moved forward with. So in order to continuously allow a use that's not compatible with the area, we need to make sure that there is more benefits than adverse effects, if that makes sense.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, it does, thank you.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Alicia, did you want to add to that?

[Alicia Hunt]: I was honest. I was messaging Daniel in the background because I'm not sure. We might want to check with legal. I'm not sure that we can condition his lease renewal on another approval through us. We could, however, check that the conditions were met. Normally, when this board issues conditions, it's about construction, and then there's an occupancy permit and before the occupancy permit is issued. Danielle or I make sure that the conditions have been met, right, that we told them to do this, we make sure they do it. And that holding the occupancy permit is the what kind of is our power to make sure that they do it. Right. So we could check with legal if we can condition a lease renewal on it. But we could like say I think the example would be we say take down the barbed wire. I know you've agreed that you're going to do that. You're not arguing it. But say you didn't do it. then we could actually say we're going to revoke the special permit. That's what I think we were thinking, right? Like that they didn't do it. But we might check with our legal about what we're allowed to do around lease renewals, because that's something we've never dealt with in Medford.

[Danielle Evans]: Because we could definitely revisit it and see if the screening of the parking is sufficient or if it's causing problems. If work is spilling into the lot, if there's certain things that we could revisit. But yeah, I do want to check with legal.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Yeah, just we're trying to provide the city with some safeguards on how, like if there were adverse effects that outweigh the benefits going forward, how do we revisit that? And I'm not, again, in lieu of having a city solicitor here, I'm not sure how to move forward with that condition either. So I'm not, I guess we wouldn't condition it this evening if the city's not comfortable with it. We can have these answers in two weeks. Okay, yeah, so we'll take we'll table that for now, but keep it in if the city can actually report back on that that would be helpful. Vice chair Edelman?

[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah, I just want to clarify I'm not really worried at all about the applicant or the tenant, you know, not following their conditions. It's really just, you know, to give an opportunity to like revisit, you know, is this the highest and best use, you know, does it help with neighborhood character, you know, for the specific site. So I'm fine dropping it because I don't want to do anything that's not within our scope. But yeah, I would definitely be interested in the-

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: absolutely clear that it was given the city a safeguard, but at the same time, I'm more invested in the comprehensive plan for the use of that area, especially having been on the comprehensive board steering committee. Peter Cowles?

[Peter Calves]: I was just going to kind of echo the beginning of what Emily said and some of what Danielle said, that we have to bring this back in two weeks. Anyway, because of the technicality, we can have that figured out for the next meeting.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Yeah, no, definitely. We definitely will. I wanted to just make sure that I got everyone. And then I have Mr. Bean, you have something to add?

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, just a concern. So I understand the condition for release. if it concerns whether we've upheld our end of, let's say just for lack of a better term, the deal in method conditions. My concern is that it's been stated that it was a condition to see if that was still the vision for that neighborhood.

[Danielle Evans]: I mean, we're not- We can tell you it's not. It's not the vision of the neighborhood.

[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, so my concern is we're, I mean, we're not looking to open up a facility for five years and then leave. I mean, we open facilities to keep them open as long as the company's around. Does that make sense? So is the condition to look at it and go, okay, the city wants to move in a completely different direction in five years. And that condition would mean that they wouldn't want to renew the lease just on the fact that they don't want an auto glass shop in that neighborhood at that point. Or am I not understanding what you're saying?

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: So to reiterate what Daniel has already said, as of right now, the reason why you need a special permit is an auto glass shop is not the highest and best use for that area as per our comprehensive plan. However, because we found that there's more benefits than adverse effects as of today's date, the board has decided to allow it to go forward. But we are trying to figure out in five years, will that continue to be the case? So the best way to explain this is it's not the city's vision for that area. And I'm not sure that they would want to continuously allow that use in that area, especially after putting so much time and energy into zoning recodification and zoning amendments.

[Alicia Hunt]: I'm pretty sure that we don't have the authority, though, to say to somebody, you have to stop an existing use. Once they have a special permit, they probably couldn't sell to a different auto glass shop. But I don't think that we have the authority to, once they're there and established, to tell them they have to stop.

[Danielle Evans]: We need to check with legal. I've heard of like sunset provisions for things and we just need to, I don't think we're going to get this question answered tonight.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: No, and so just to, I want to make sure because now you have the tenant that's, and I understand, I would be the same way that you would continue to go forward. And so if this is something that does not need to be on the table, we can take it off. if it's not even something within our purview.

[SPEAKER_03]: I would appreciate that because it's very tough to hear this, you know, to buy a building and to, you know, to do the right things and be a good community tenant and to have someone kind of, you know, make your financial future decisions on your property. It almost leans towards like eminent domain. It feels, it almost feels really bad. So I would, I would appreciate it if you took it off the table and you know, I like what Alicia said. I kind of feel the same. I feel like, you know, I understand the conditions. Absolutely. Um, we need them just like we need, uh, tenant condition statements. And if they start to not do their part, we ask them to leave. If we don't take the ball buyer and stripe and become a good neighbor, right. You ask us to leave. I understand the conditions. That makes perfect sense. But, um, I would like to keep it at the conditions if we could.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Vice Chair Hetherman?

[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah, I'm kind of taking this off the table. I'm curious to see if other board members are. The classic thing, bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. You have a great tenant in front of you that's willing to occupy the site. It's going to add jobs, it's going to add you know, doing time activity. You know, I checked out their Wealthium location just on Google Maps. It looks clean. It looks professional. So I'm fine taking that off the table.

[SPEAKER_03]: Thank you.

[Emily Hedeman]: Peter Cowles?

[Peter Calves]: I just want to echo Emily's. I'm also at this time kind of taking it off the table. I don't, I kind of don't see a way in which that, fits within our purview at this time. And I also don't think that belaboring the point for five years from now when there may be a totally different need in the neighborhood, especially given the push of the comprehensive plan. But to make the decision now for five years down the road isn't something that we necessarily need to do.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: And I'm willing to take it, definitely, as we've already said, we've already talked about what the conditions were and how we felt. And so we'll just leave it at a provisional approval pending the applicant coming back before us at 8th of April 3rd. And we'll, with those, the three conditions that we will maintain is to remove the barbed wire on the fence, prior to applying for a sign permit, the applicant must submit plans to the planning staff, and then the strike parking. We'll leave it at those three conditions and not entertain anything else as far as changes of police use, that would be up to the landlord. I will look for, in leaving it there, I will look for a motion to continue this to April 3rd, 2024.

[Unidentified]: Uh, so much.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Sounds like you had a second.

[Emily Hedeman]: I will motion for second.

[Peter Calves]: Okay, yeah, you can.

[Emily Hedeman]: I'll motion to continue to a date certain April 3rd.

[Peter Calves]: April 3rd. And I'll second.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Vice Chair Emily Hederman.

[Peter Calves]: Aye.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Peter Cowles.

[Peter Calves]: Aye.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Ari Fischman. Aye. Pam Mariansky. Aye. And myself, Jackie McPherson, I'm an aye. Thank you, Mr. DiNucci. Thank you, Mr. Bain. Thank you, Mr. Hohner. I'm sorry if I'm saying your name incorrectly.

[SPEAKER_04]: That's okay. No, it's fine. It's not very straightforward, but I appreciate it. I just wanted to say thank you to all of you, especially Alicia and Danielle. Y'all have been very patient with us and I appreciate all of your help. It's much appreciated.

[SPEAKER_03]: Thank you, everybody. Thank you, everyone.

[Danielle Evans]: We'll see you in two weeks.

[SPEAKER_03]: See you in April. Thank you.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Good night. Thanks. And so the next item is approval of minutes. And Alicia, I'm going to ask for a motion to move the zoning overhaul updates until our next meeting. but we'll do the approval of minutes.

[Peter Calves]: Maybe I'll turn to the next one. We've got a lot going on at that one too.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Yeah, or an ongoing conversation so that we can definitely, because what the city is doing is actually providing us an opportunity to have these conversations with them before they just come with us and say, Hey, this is what we're doing. What do you feel about it? So they're bringing us in. So I truly appreciate it. But in saying that, I want to make sure that I have the time that permits to give quality feedback and not just, you know, just get it like a checkbox and get it off. So.

[Alicia Hunt]: Madam Chair, if I might, I'll just remind. So some of the every other week opposite these meetings at seven o'clock is the City Council Committee on Planning and Zoning. And several of those meetings are going to be about the zoning overhaul. If people want to watch them or participate in them, You may do that. And we will do our best to try and make sure you're aware of when they're happening and if there are specific topics at them. So that you're aware as well. If you want to discuss them as a board, you need to have it on your agenda. But if you want to just provide input to the city council's meeting, you should be able to do that.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: So we can provide counsel and that's not like violate any kind of

[Danielle Evans]: Well, I think we need to check and make sure there's not a quorum.

[Alicia Hunt]: Um, well, if it's a public, if it's a publicly posted meeting of a public body, well, we'd have to, let me check with their, their, they'd have to be like a joint.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Yeah. Cause if we, if we all, if it's not a joint meet and then we all signed in and have comments, that's, that's definitely a quorum, but you are not the decision-making body at that point.

[Danielle Evans]: They can't get together and talk about anything together.

[Alicia Hunt]: At a publicly posted meeting.

[Danielle Evans]: Of their meeting.

[Alicia Hunt]: All right, let me check with legal.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Yeah. And when are the meetings if the committee on zoning and planning windows usually held?

[Alicia Hunt]: The second and fourth Wednesdays at seven o'clock.

[Danielle Evans]: Did you want to dispose of the minutes?

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Yes. So a motion to approve the minutes from February 21st, 2024. Seconded. Vice Chair Emily Hederman? Aye. Peter Cowles?

[Peter Calves]: Aye.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Ari Fishman? Aye. Pam Mariansky? Aye. And myself, Jackie McPherson, I'm an aye. Pam, did I call your name on the last thing that we voted on? Okay, I just wanted to, okay. I just wanted to make sure. I'm inserting names here because you guys keep switching on my screen. So it's like I wanted to make sure that I got you. Okay, so motion to adjourn. Unless, oh, before we adjourn, are there any other updates that the city may have or that the board may have? I will say that, and we'll discuss this more, but I've been thinking about revisiting rules and regulations, especially for administrative procedures on site plan review. And I know that site plan review is part of zoning, so I want to make sure that I have substantial comments for the board to review as well as the PDS staff. That's the only thing I've been thinking about. And I don't know if any of you have been thinking about any of the rules and regulations going forward, but that's something to probably provide to the PS staff as soon as possible, especially if it includes anything that's part of zone. So, but the administrative procedures, um, for site plan is what's been on my mind. So a motion to adjourn? I so move. Second. Vice Chair Emily Herrmann?

[Emily Hedeman]: Aye.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Peter Cowles?

[Peter Calves]: Aye.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Ari Fishman? Aye. Pam Mariansky? Aye. And myself, Jackie McPherson, I'm an aye. Thank you all so much. Have a good evening.

[Emily Hedeman]: Bye everyone, good night.

Paulette Van der Kloot total time: 32.85 minutes total words: 2716