[Roberta Cameron]: 8.25, 6.30 p.m. to 8.00 p.m. We are in room 201, Brick City Hall, and meeting hybridly with many of our members on Zoom.
[Theresa Dupont]: So let's take the roll. Oh, sure. Do we always do that? We're supposed to. So I have a couple members of the public in here. Okay.
[Roberta Cameron]: So, um, I have a reg. Adam Doug.
[Jeremy Martin]: Yeah.
[Roberta Cameron]: Jeremy here.
[Ari Fishman]: Joe here. All right. Here, just moving to the room with air conditioning.
[Theresa Dupont]: All right. And did I get everyone? And myself. Okay.
[Roberta Cameron]: All right. So got that out of the way. We will first item on the agenda is to revisit the off-cycle application from the Medford Armory emergency building restoration. So thank you for coming back again for a second time. with more clarification on your application. So I would invite you to share with us what you have filled in since the last time you were here.
[SPEAKER_08]: Okay, sure. First of all, I did contact the unit owner that has the water seepage coming in. He did apply to his insurance company, because I remember you asked that question. They denied him. And then we went to our master policy And we were also denied because they said the word seepage is a no-no. And unless it's within 14 days of the original water coming in, that it would not be covered. So we did go back to JMS. We kind of fine-tuned their contract. We got information regarding their scope of work and also They did give us the pictures and the information regarding historic buildings that they have done. We've also had several good discussions about bringing in some type of community opportunity to the building. We discussed possibly doing a veterans, at least twice a year, bringing in veterans and doing a meeting and coffee and everything, because it was originally, you know, an army facility. We thought that that would be a really good thing. And also, too, we looked into possibly like a Christmas jingle bells theme lighting up the outside front of the building. So that's where we are now.
[SPEAKER_11]: So we have that space, that lobby space, which is very nice, which could accommodate meetings and things like that. So we thought that was a good idea, especially geared toward the veterans, because we are an armory. It seemed like it made for a nice fit.
[Theresa Dupont]: And just to add on top of that, just the veterans piece, speaking as city staff, the veterans office has been engaging in monthly coffee and cookies with veterans at various spots around the city. They want to be going to different places so that they can reach everybody. I just wanted to add that color to the comments. Yeah, so we looked into that too.
[Roberta Cameron]: I appreciate that. So one of the things that had been outstanding previously was to have a better understanding of the budget, of exactly what was the short-term emergency ask, and the bigger picture of how much work you're doing and what the what the Condo Association is putting toward the total package of work that needs to be done.
[SPEAKER_08]: Correct. So as the emergency, we did start out with a much lower bid, but it was only to do an area of, say, 14 feet of the building. When we went back to the other contractors, everybody seemed to be in agreement that you can't just do, like, from this window to this window. because water up above could move. So then it was thought that the best way to handle this and make sure the issue was alleviated was to do one third of the building. And that was considered the emergency, which was their quote for the 616. Out of that, we have already determined that the other 50% would come from the unit owners and the specialists. and give them three months to pay that, because I don't believe any work would be starting until September. I mean, we're going to be into August before we know it. So based on that and that amount of money, and there's 32 units, people do own more than one unit. So I would say I'll estimate 30 units altogether. And based on their square footage, they will be assessed for that portion. If we have an issue with somebody paying a special assessment, because some unit owners have very small units, maybe 600, 700 square feet. And if it was an issue, then we also have a reserve and an equity line that we could dip into for what they can't pay. But we definitely want to move forward right away.
[Roberta Cameron]: I appreciate that. So if I read the budget correctly, the ask of the CPA today is $37,280? Correct. All right. Thank you. Are there questions from committee members?
[Doug Carr]: Just one question. We were talking before the meeting started about the the repointing of the brick and granite. I just paged through the documents that describe the detail of what's going to be done, but I didn't see any reference. They mentioned what type of mortar, how they're going to cut it, et cetera. But they don't mention anything about the historic color or shape of that joint. Some joints are like convex, some are angles. There's something that Soca Tech as a historic architect should know what that original joint would have been for a building of this more than 120 years old. It's a small detail, but before you do it, I think it just began to be consistent with the standards that we need to follow, the federal standards. We just make sure that detail needs to be there for, knowing what the correct color and the right mixes and the right shape of that, whatever that joint is. And maybe historic photos will tell them, but usually it's a database. They should know that as historical architects.
[SPEAKER_08]: Okay. And I know he did mention that any bricks that needed to be replaced are going to be matched as close as possible. But you're right, he did not mention, you know, the water, the mix. He did mention the type they were going to use and everything, but. Yeah.
[Doug Carr]: It's listed in the color and the mix, but I just can't tell if it's a historic one or not because it's not the history. The historic nature is not listed there in the details.
[SPEAKER_08]: Okay. Oh, I got that. Good point. Okay. Thank you.
[Roberta Cameron]: I really appreciate, Doug, you providing that input. That's why we have a member of the Historical Commission serving on the CPC. In the community where I work, in Somerville, they actually require all historic projects to go to the Historical Commission as a whole board before they can receive CPA funding. so that they can get that kind of input, that kind of direction to make sure that they're following the guidelines for historic preservation. So that's really, I think, really important information to make sure that you, and perhaps if there's any question, you might be able to ask members of the Historical Commission for further guidance as um yeah as needed as um uh just to for um advisory comments no it's a great point something i'm happy to facilitate too so i talk with his i talk with ryan hayward at the commission every day okay good have a meeting scheduled with the contract the next
[SPEAKER_11]: Tuesday, Wednesday? Wednesday, the 17th. To kind of go over the final details and kind of lock things into place, contracts, things like that. So if we have questions, we'll reach out.
[Roberta Cameron]: That's good. Something that I wish that I had the forethought to bring in hand to the meeting would be a suggestion. So I really appreciate the ideas that you brought up for community, like allowing for community access. And I would love to be able to suggest that if the CPC recommends funding, we could attach a condition. And now I need to, did we? Absolutely.
[Theresa Dupont]: Yeah. Set up on the screen right now, would you like me to share it with everybody? Sure, that would be helpful because then we could wordsmith it together. Oh, that's, yeah. Thank you so much for that. I try to be. I'm working without a mouse right now, so please forgive me if I'm a little clunky on that computer today.
[SPEAKER_11]: I'd like to see more of what that little thing has.
[Theresa Dupont]: Oh, I don't know what to say. I hope it was okay. So this was the condition, right?
[Roberta Cameron]: The applicant will work with the Community Preservation Act manager to coordinate up to two public events, which the project building at 925th Street will be open to the public, these events. Up to two public events ever or annually? What do you think? I would like to see annually. In perpetuity or?
[Theresa Dupont]: So I, it's like perpetuity is very strong language. Yes. So. And Joan has her hand raised. Joan, while we think about that.
[Joan Cyr]: I'm sure that if Doug wanted to add a condition related to his comment, it can be general, not specific.
[Theresa Dupont]: Is that maybe perhaps encompassed in his first condition here? It does have sections speaking to masonry joinery or something.
[Roberta Cameron]: It is, but also it might like a little bit more specificity might help to ensure that it's like technically understood.
[Theresa Dupont]: Very good. Thank you. I'm going to finish my thought on the rest of that. Restored into historically accurate. That's not a word. It's always really fun when you're typing on the fly and everybody's watching and it's being recorded. Great job.
[Roberta Cameron]: I'm happy to amend that. I got the word proper and then I think it isn't redundant.
[Doug Carr]: We were largely talking about the mortar. Was there anything else besides the mortar we're talking about?
[Theresa Dupont]: Oh, sorry. In my head, I was thinking mortar. make that an extra service profile of the worker and the workers. How do you feel about that, Doug?
[Doug Carr]: I would just add in color as well, materials, profile, and color.
[Theresa Dupont]: I can do that.
[Doug Carr]: That's good.
[Theresa Dupont]: Okay. Let's back to this one.
[Ada Gunning]: Annually. When we say up to two, do we mean at least one? To put an upper limit on. Thank you. We could say one to two.
[Theresa Dupont]: One, two. Public events annually.
[Doug Carr]: Live ears or what are you putting as the limit on this?
[Roberta Cameron]: So actually, I'm so I'm thinking, I don't know if this goes in the conditions of approval, but I would like to amend or create general conditions for all of our grants that require that. there not be changes to the work that's done for a period of years that is commensurate with the object that's being, the asset that's being approved. In this case, say 30 years is a reasonable amount of time to require that the asset not be changed. Or, and then perhaps to have a step down of If it's changed within 10 years, some percent has to be paid back. 15 or 20 years, some percent has to be paid back. Up to after 30 years, it doesn't have to be repaid. So if we were to envision a timeline on this that is pegged to the timeframe in which we are asking for the asset to be preserved. Do committee members have a feeling about what a timeline would be reasonable to ask for one or two annual events?
[Jeremy Martin]: I'd like to go back to the conversation about in perpetuity. I wonder if that can be caveated with reconsideration at a certain time frame, rather than limiting the requirement to only a set number of years. You know, in my experience, when you're trying to I appreciate what the applicant is doing to offer these public engagement opportunities, but I feel like we're stretching to make it work. And those are the hardest ones to sustain. So I think putting some emphasis on sustaining that public engagement has value. So I'd ask that we consider a condition that requires this annually, but that it could be, that could be revisited in 10 years or something like that, or five years, whatever the group. I thought was reasonable.
[Ada Gunning]: Well, I'm also just thinking about the fact that it's like a bunch of condo owners that might be different. Yes. Like 10 years from now that might have, I mean, the building is going to be the same, but like they might not agree to that.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[Ada Gunning]: So yeah.
[Roberta Cameron]: Although they, um, you know, like this is actually, Because I had a project like this in Somerville that really became extremely difficult when we got down to this level of detail. And so, yeah, this is really where the meat of it is. So for one thing, I think 30 years is the longest that you can have a stipulation in a contract that doesn't require state approval to override. Like, for example, if you want to have a preservation restriction, after 30 years or in perpetuity, you have to have the state as a partner to that, but up to 30 years. It could just be the city of preservation restriction could be something that we ask for here, but. And I, that is something that I suggested asking for, and some of our previous projects, and we have asked for that and I'm starting to, like, based on my experience with a lot of projects that I've been involved with. starting to think that something smaller scale and more fine-tuned is a better ask than a permanent preservation restriction in every case. So that's why I was suggesting earlier that we might incorporate a requirement for like a clawback up to 30 years if something is changed, and that could be applicable to any kind of project, not just a historic preservation project. Did you have something you wanted to say, Reg?
[Reggie Graham]: With all due respect, we're only asking for $37,000 to repair. So I'm thinking a 30-year commitment from the applicant is a little bit on the steep side, in my estimation. I'm thinking maybe a 10-year. Um, commitment might be a little bit more applicable in this case, since they're only asking for repairs. That's just my thoughts on the matter.
[Roberta Cameron]: Thank you. Jerry.
[Jeremy Martin]: On that point, and I'm sorry, this was mentioned earlier, but the project's planned in 3 phases. Does the applicant intend to anticipate that they'll come back to the CPC for more funding for those future phases?
[SPEAKER_08]: We may, we may, depending, you know, basically on how this goes and how the repair goes moving forward. We had discussed it with Teresa from the beginning for, you know, a larger scale for the full project, but then decided we would be better served to scale it down and go with what is definitely an emergency At this point, that needs to be done. Future funding, we were looking at a four to five year project to get the entire building done. And I know you were talking about, you know, the length of time, and a lot, I was in the mortgage industry for many years. Anybody that got any type of funding from city, town, whatever, they would put a 10 year moratorium to say, okay, you know, we're going to give you this money. And then, you know, if things change, and you don't go by our contract, then you have to pay back.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_08]: Otherwise, you know, moving forward after 10 years, it goes away.
[SPEAKER_11]: Yeah. So that's consistent. It might be something we could do like, I mean, I think we're amenable to a 10 year period. But it'd be something that we could revisit if we do come back.
[Roberta Cameron]: Yeah. And I appreciate also to Reg's point that for this amount of money, we asked for 10 years. And if you come back next year or two years, then an additional amount of money might come with an additional block of time that we're committing to public. So that gives some room for growth on both sides. And to your question about what to do about the condo owners who are, you know, our future condo owners have the opportunity to agree to the terms that we're agreeing to right now. And, you know, if we were to put a restriction in place, we would be filing an instrument at the Registry of Deeds, and that would be attached to the deed. This is not a document that's going to be filed at the registry, but if it were helpful to create a lien or something that can be reported so that future condo buyers see that this requirement is attached to the deed, I don't, I don't know. You can tell me if you think that that would be helpful.
[SPEAKER_08]: So we've gone back and forth and I have got counsel with regards to the bylaws of the association. Okay. And as trustees, the trustees make all the decisions and the unit owners have to abide by it. The trustees can say, We want a million dollars. Yeah, they have to come up, you know, so it kind of it gives us as trustees a little more ability to do something like this. Okay.
[SPEAKER_11]: So this I think this, I mean, this would be binding. on us as the board of trustees, which will then make it binding on our unit owners. So if we get voted out, this new board of trustees is still bound by the same condition.
[Roberta Cameron]: It would be recorded somewhere in your guidelines, your judgment. Okay, that makes sense. Joan?
[Joan Cyr]: Through the chair, I have a question for Doug. I mean, if this building is already on, like, a historic register, whether it's Medford's or the state's, there are some conditions or requirements around changing this building anyway, right? So they would have to get permission from some other entity if they were trying to make a change that would affect this restoration. Is that true? Right, so basically either commission or the state must have some say in any changes to a building that's deemed historically significant or preferably preserved, right? So it's not just this condition. It would be a higher thing to get over in order to make changes to this building that would affect the restoration that's being contemplated here. Is that right?
[Doug Carr]: I think it is. I'll give you an example. If the windows were all replaced, we did this with Chevalier. Chevalier had to deal with their historic windows. It's a newer building than this is, but only by about a couple of decades, I think. Yes, there are definitely other entities, but everything that we're seeing here, it's restoration. of what's there. We're not changing any fabric. We're not really doing anything. It's more than maintenance. It's restoration. That's why the mortar is what it is, not what's off the shelf right now that you would buy in any mason. You've got a mason that has an architect who has historic qualifications, which is important. and a requirement. But I kind of agree with what Roberta said earlier. It wouldn't be a bad idea to get Ryan Hayward involved, who actually designs a lot of historic buildings and renovates a lot of historic buildings. He's the co-chair of the commission. He works a lot with Teresa and the city. And he's definitely one of the most knowledgeable people in the city of Medford for historic resources. So I think we have a meeting. And next week, you know, we could easily, I think, probably shoehorn you in if I can get, if I can talk to them on the agenda, if we wanted to, you know, keep this process moving as quickly as possible, which I know is important. And we can get some answers by then from Soca Tech and a few details on the mortar. I think, you know, a 15-minute conversation with the commission would go a long way, I think.
[Roberta Cameron]: So I wanted to also respond to Joan's question. I don't know if Doug heard the entire question, but you asked if being on the historic register offers a level of protection and review from some other historic preservation entity. And being listed on the register does not offer any such protection. If the building were in a local historic district, or if it had a preservation restriction, then some other entity, our local historic district commission would have say over, like, would have to review the project and say, you know, whether they approved of the of the changes to the building. But in this case, that isn't cast in stone, but as Doug offered, they could do it as an advisory review, not a required review.
[Doug Carr]: Yeah, I agree with that. You're right, Roberta. When I found out that there's 31 buildings in Medford, I think, that are on the National Register, but the protection is not as robust as I thought it was. when you get down to brass tacks. I mean, the historic commission, if somebody tried to make a change to the face of one of those buildings, we would have control of that. But it's remarkably little protection, given you think that a state and national register declaration would mean something more. But in the real world, it doesn't.
[Roberta Cameron]: Any further questions or discussion about this request? Would anyone from the committee like to move to recommend funding for this project, applying the conditions of approval as presented on the screen? And the amount of funding would be $37,280. There's $38,000 listed on here. So it looks like Teresa might have rounded up. I did.
[Joan Cyr]: Oh, thank you. That looks better. And I'll second Reg's move.
[Roberta Cameron]: All right. And I will call the roll. Maisha?
[Theresa Dupont]: I didn't hear what you said. Oh, yeah, I can't hear you. I'll come back to you. You can. Reg?
[Reggie Graham]: Yes.
[Roberta Cameron]: Ada? Yes. Doug?
[Jeremy Martin]: Yes.
[Roberta Cameron]: Jeremy?
[Jeremy Martin]: Yes.
[Roberta Cameron]: Joan? Yes. Ari? Yes. Aisha?
[Theresa Dupont]: Yes. Yeah, me too. And myself, yes.
[SPEAKER_08]: Thank you. Excellent. Thank you. Thank you very much. A little stressful for me, because it first time and not knowing what to do or expect, but thank you very much.
[Roberta Cameron]: It's a new one for us, too. So, yeah, thank you for being with us while we work out how it works.
[SPEAKER_11]: It's a good learning process for everyone. Good. Especially for us. OK. Thank you.
[SPEAKER_00]: We just also want to lend our thanks. This is Sasha and Marnie, trustee and co-owner here, too. Thank you, everybody.
[Theresa Dupont]: Thank you, Sasha. Thank you, Marnie. I'll reach out to you tomorrow.
[SPEAKER_08]: Thank you very much. We switched over a couple of years ago. We deal with a local agent, Bates Insurance in Medford. They've been here forever. Arcadia, I believe, is the insurance company that insures us. And we did actually, do you do insurance? Not anymore.
[Reggie Graham]: Not anymore.
[SPEAKER_08]: Okay. Thank you again very much and we will leave you to carry on. Thank you very much. Good luck with your project.
[SPEAKER_11]: Thank you. Thanks. Thanks for supporting me.
[Theresa Dupont]: Of course. The lights will come on, I promise.
[Ada Gunning]: I have a thought about just this process. It seems like part of the hangup is that they are a historical building, however, they are not a public building. And I wonder if coming out of this, we might just have a set of things we tell someone who's applying in that situation. I would love that. It's obviously different if it's a public building. But in this, like if we are just going to be funding projects in private buildings like this, then like maybe we should have like specific criteria. And it's like, are you willing to do these things as almost like a point of entry to even come here in the first place? You know what I mean? I totally agree.
[Roberta Cameron]: I'm actually, I just put out an RFP in Somerville to hire a consultant to help us draft those guidelines because it is like every project becomes so complicated. Yeah. And I think because we've already done it this way for so long, it's hard to change to something else without really documenting how you got there and why you're making that change.
[Reggie Graham]: This one was difficult. This one was difficult because it became not only a public building, but a historical building, which has its own set of rules and guidelines and processes and so on and so forth. I mean, Doug probably can speak to that, obviously, better than any of us are on the meeting. But that makes it very, very unique.
[Unidentified]: Yeah.
[Reggie Graham]: OK. And once you have something unique, and quite frankly, to me, it's new. I don't know if you've ever done anything like this before.
[Roberta Cameron]: We had an application very similar to this in Somerville last year that was for residential condos for a building that was originally built by the city and converted to condos. And honestly, the application fell apart in the end. The committee spent several meetings trying to put together a set of conditions, and ultimately the condo association said, no, we can't abide by those conditions. And that's why I'm hiring a consultant to help us figure out how to do it. Because the conditions that we were putting on in Somerville were more stringent than what we talked about this evening. And if we had talked about those same conditions this evening, they probably would have said, no, we can't do it and walked out. So yeah, agreed. You know, your point about making an ask that's commensurate with what we're giving them is a good point, too. Yeah. Go ahead.
[Doug Carr]: Yeah, I just want to just chime in a couple things. I think this is somewhat of a unique situation, because if this building wasn't an International Writers' General Report building for Medford, it probably wouldn't have gotten over the finish line. And I don't want to set a precedent, as I mentioned in our last meeting of being the, you know. for the private sector being the big brain maker for their renovation restoration projects. This was to me the kickstarter to get things going, but I don't think they should be coming back for any more money or not a lot of it. Because we have so many big needs of the parks and other things in the city, publicly owned and otherwise, that I feel like it's not a good optical look to be spending money on a building that I still think it's worth tens of millions of dollars overall with 31 condo owners, private businesses in that building.
[Joan Cyr]: And off-cycle.
[Roberta Cameron]: Yeah. So actually, this all leads me to A question, so I think that this is a really important topic for us to discuss. Is this too far off the reservation for us to go more deeply into this subject today? So we should put this on the agenda for a future meeting to talk about historic preservation guidelines. for privately owned properties. And it could be guidelines for all properties. I mean, really, guidelines for all of our work should really be on the table.
[Ada Gunning]: Could we legally, as a CPC, just say we are not going to fund historical work in private buildings? We could. So we could potentially make that declaration.
[Roberta Cameron]: As long as we spend 10% of our funds on historic preservation, then we're meeting our obligation.
[Reggie Graham]: That would be a really clear guideline.
[Ada Gunning]: Yeah.
[Reggie Graham]: We're eliminating all the sessions that we might have to have.
[Theresa Dupont]: Yeah.
[Reggie Graham]: You know, just say, no, we're not doing it. Stop.
[Theresa Dupont]: Stop. No. It's the headphones.
[Ada Gunning]: Oh, there you are.
[Myisha Majumder]: OK, can you hear me? Yes. OK, awesome. Now I don't even remember what my question was. That was not what I was testing with my hand, I promise. Yeah, is there a way to understand how other towns have kind of dealt with a similar, or cities have dealt with similar issues? I know you've drawn a little bit on your experience in Somerville, but I'm curious if you can draw on experiences from other cities as well.
[Theresa Dupont]: I'll take that one. So Roberta, in all of her amazing glory, she actually manages a once a month peer network call where it's, is it about, is it every four weeks or six weeks? It's once a month. Once a month. Where all the other CPA managers and all, it's open to everybody in Massachusetts, cities, towns as well, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: No, no. Okay, I got it.
[Theresa Dupont]: My bad. So we often come to those meetings with, hey, I have this niche weird application. Who else has dealt with something like this? So we have a really good rapport in being able to talk amongst many different types of municipalities. Greenfield is always on there, so I get to hear about how it goes out in Western Mass versus here. We also do have a coalition. It's the Community Preservation Coalition, Amongst other things, it does provide us with some technical assistance. I wouldn't say it's legal advice, but some counsel that we can take back to applicants as well. So we do have some resources out there to bounce these niche type of applications off of. And I certainly will bring this one to our next meeting to talk about, just for future applications of funding privately on buildings like this. Because we had to discuss on one of those calls about 80 years recently.
[Roberta Cameron]: Yeah. And I mean, one of the, regarding privately owned buildings, one of the things that won this project over for me was the fact that they were so amenable to opening their space for public events, even once a year, that's valuable.
[Ada Gunning]: I mean, they've got to do something related to Veterans Day, like with the city. They should work with City Hall to do something in their venue. Yeah, exactly.
[Roberta Cameron]: And their willingness to talk about doing that enables us to turn a private space into a space that serves the public. Um, you know, here I am grabbing the last word and saying, let's move on. Um, I feel like, um, I, I, this is a conversation that we should put on an agenda for a future meeting, but if anyone has any thoughts about like topic bubbles that we should cover in that future discussion. Um, you can mention them now, or maybe send them by email to Teresa so that we can maybe do a little bit of research and, um, bring some. Yeah, yeah, sure.
[Joan Cyr]: I'm recalling the guy who came to us with his 2 chimneys. Do you remember that? That was yes. Yeah. I think we did not fund him because we didn't have any public use, except he kept saying, oh, they look good from the street. Well, that wasn't enough, right? So I think there's definitely some lines to draw around this. And clearly, we've funded private before, but they're usually nonprofits, like churches and things like that. So we'll bring in that as a sort of point to put into the plan or process. Yeah, and that's- Stop, Jeremy, I'm sorry.
[Jeremy Martin]: I was gonna go off topic, so here. And I was just gonna mention, and I'm sorry if it was discussed at a meeting I missed, but a few meetings ago, we talked about talking more about our sort of relationship, working relationship with the Affordable Housing Trust. I don't know if we came back around to that in more detail. I'd throw that out there as another topic to get into more discussion about that.
[Theresa Dupont]: Thank you for bringing that back up again. That has been something that I've been discussing with Roberta as well as the chairperson for the trust and my city colleagues who support the trust. They will actually, I'll pause for a moment and plug that there is, is it a hearing or is it just a big meeting on July 30th for the trust? Is that technically a hearing?
[Roberta Cameron]: A community meeting to present the Affordable Housing Trust action plan. Right, okay. Yeah, I don't think we're advertising it with legal ads.
[Theresa Dupont]: Okay. So the idea is the action plan is coming out from the trust. They're going to talk about it at the July 30th meeting. And then we're really hoping that some public comment that might come from there, as well as some just good dialogue, might help us inform how we move forward as a CPA granting authority with the trust as we look at housing applications. So thank you for remembering that. And don't be a squeegee wheel about it, Jeremy. Keep going. But that is something that we're going to probably bring up, hopefully, at either a September, potentially September
[Reggie Graham]: It just so happens that on the past commission, we have a low in winter. Okay. And we designate January as the meeting date when we are going to discuss all off topic, um, issues. Um, so we set off these guidelines, et cetera, et cetera. And I know that by that time, we will have given the City Council our recommendations, and they will be voting on it. I would think that we could probably use our January meeting as a springboard, depending on what we get for applications this year, because there might be something that's untoward in one of those. We might run into a similar situation right off the bat, and then we have to move it up. Collectively, if we grab all of these topics and have a specific meeting, whereas we don't discuss anything else except off topic.
[Theresa Dupont]: I feel like that could end up being a six hour meeting, but it's a great idea. I'm not breaking discouraging it, but we're fixing Medford in this committee so that those conversations can be. We really like thorough discussions.
[Roberta Cameron]: I mean, this is all theoretically a part of our annual review process, like us reflecting on our program and thinking about how do we make program improvements to do it better. So that's a great segue to the annual plan that we've worked on. I don't know if everyone did their homework and read the plan in advance, but Teresa and I were doing some heavy editing today. during the day, so the plan that you look at this evening might be different than the one that you saw yesterday. I think that's the application.
[Theresa Dupont]: I'm just realizing our applicants took my copies of the plan that I had printed up. I'm very sorry. I will screen share. They're getting an education.
[Roberta Cameron]: Um, so I want to put a pin in that. I just want to make a note that yes, we should schedule the conversations and maybe it would be helpful before we leave this evening to pencil in the dates that we think that we could cover each of these topics. And given the. I think some of these things are sensitive to the decisions that we want to make about this funding cycle. So I don't know if we want to wait until after the funding cycle is over before we figure out how it's going to work. So it would be really great if we're able to integrate over the next few months, like say, we cover one topic each month over the next few months, iron out some rather than lumping it all in one page. And it'd be helpful to also have the conditions, like the general conditions for all the committee members to see so that we know that our concerns are covered in the contracts, the grant agreements that the applicants end up signing.
[Theresa Dupont]: That sounds like a plan.
[Roberta Cameron]: Yeah. So we'll flip through the annual The purpose of this plan update is to provide information about the CPA program and the amount of funding that's available and how we plan to disperse it over the next year. So the first section covers all of that financial information. and describes the projects that we funded in the last year. This is a lot of information that was presented over the last couple of months when we had our annual public hearing.
[Theresa Dupont]: This is essentially a summary of the various talking points that we've been reviewing the past few months. But we share this with the public so that they're informed about what it is we're all doing here. We're obviously in it and doing it, but this is a public-facing plan. It also is like 30 pages. 30 pages, but it's very dense with information, including several pages of
[Roberta Cameron]: progress reports for all of the projects that we've ever funded.
[Theresa Dupont]: Did you want to look at anything specific or down? I can keep scrolling. Yeah, I can keep scrolling through this section.
[Joan Cyr]: Can I ask a question? Yeah. Because this is so dense as a reader, I wonder if it makes sense to where you've got the FY25 activity summary, which is kind of like an executive summary. That should be right after the acknowledgements. So that's the first thing people read, and then go into the detail, rather than having to search for it.
[Theresa Dupont]: You're saying the fiscal 25 activity summary?
[Joan Cyr]: You put that in- That's somewhat of an executive summary, if you will. You know, it should be written in the, form of an executive summary, or maybe we need an executive summary.
[Roberta Cameron]: You know, what could be missing, what could be added to the very first page is, oh wait, back up to the top. So we have this table of contents, which is, I wonder if it could be possible to Simplify the table of contents. Crunch it down into just a little tiny box that could be on the same page as the introduction, and maybe the introduction could be shortened. Because the FY25 activities summary is on page two after the introduction, but we've already How many pages in are we? We're on page three before we get to the table of contents.
[Joan Cyr]: And five before we get to the activity summary, right?
[Roberta Cameron]: Yeah. So maybe we can dispense. Yeah, maybe there's too much in the beginning acknowledgments and everything.
[Theresa Dupont]: So I'm hearing to shorten the introduction, create, and then move up an executive summary but reformat the fiscal 25 activity summary into being more of an executive summary, so it's less, maybe less narrative, and then put that at the tippity top. I can do that, yeah.
[Joan Cyr]: The tippity top, exactly.
[Theresa Dupont]: Do we want to review the legal contents more? I mean, I could see a tinker with where we can condense. Like, I think procedures can probably go on, you know, in the due process. Procedures could even go into the appendix.
[Roberta Cameron]: Yeah. I mean, all of that, basically under goals and priorities, everything after that is appendix.
[Unidentified]: Reversible.
[Reggie Graham]: So we write the book.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[Reggie Graham]: And the editors didn't do their job.
[SPEAKER_02]: So that... All right, we can... Theresa and I can look at that later. They look beautiful. Thank you.
[Jeremy Martin]: Yeah, so as I looked through it earlier, a comment about lining or making the colors consistent throughout. And I really appreciated that. And it looks like you picked that up, Teresa. It helps a lot. The one place where it might be worth also editing that would be on the map, if that's possible, to make some of the pins match. But I agree. It looks like a great report. I have not had an opportunity to read it in detail yet.
[Theresa Dupont]: Thank you for that feedback, Chairman. It's a fair point.
[Roberta Cameron]: So then each of these sections might be exactly what the person is looking for who comes to this report. So what is the funding availability for this year? It's the next most relevant thing that they may be looking for.
[Theresa Dupont]: Maybe like this block of text. While I was writing it, I'm like, people are looking for numbers, they don't want to read a whole paragraph. So maybe this is something where it can be bulletized and called out. So it's, yeah. Yeah.
[Jeremy Martin]: I also wonder, um, in the, in the vein of what people are looking for more immediately, um, if the goals and priorities section would move up above the, um, Priorities by program area. It's like, you give the highlights overview. Of the goals and priorities, and then you break each of those down in more detail. In the following section, sort of the reverse of what you have now.
[Theresa Dupont]: Fair, I like that brought it down.
[Roberta Cameron]: Thank you. So, like, maybe we can just go go a little more slowly through this section that so that what's. described for each of the three program areas is what we've learned over the last year through what's happened in the community, kind of providing the context to help us understand what the community needs are as we make decisions. And some of this we've learned through the community engagement that Teresa has been wonderful at facilitating over the last year. Some of it has been learned through other planning processes that are going on at the same time. So we're trying to pull out what is relevant that's going on in Medford that would help us understand our decision making process better. So under the open space and recreation, we've last had an open space and recreation plan in 2019. So we're still working from the goals that were identified in that open space and recreation plan. But since we've already done a lot of the work that was envisioned in that plan, and we have been collecting a lot of community input and feedback over the past seven, five years, six, how many years that was. If we even scroll to the next page, we're taking the goals that were identified and then kind of adding in our understanding of what the community needs are today before the city goes back and does the next open space and recreation plan. And this is a really interesting table. Figure seven shows how much work has actually been done since the last open space and recreation plan. and how much of that has come from CPA funding versus other sources.
[Theresa Dupont]: Yeah, you'll see that if you were looking at last year's update to this, actually, let me describe what the alphabet soup here in the middle is, CPAs. CDBG is Community Development Block Grant. That is federal funding that comes into certain communities. Medford qualifies that federal funding. as it's looking forward, they're budgeting very conservatively because federal funding, as we all know, is a little bit tumultuous at this moment in time. So CDBG, you'll start seeing them probably shift their focus, not totally away from park projects, but more on the infrastructure in the city. CDBG money can be used for, they have less restrictions as we did with CPA. So just to explain seeing some of the numbers drop, in CDBG as well as ARPA. ARPA is gone at this point, so there's a couple of projects that are wrapping up. So just to explain what the alphabet soup and why you're seeing a little bit of a drop and an increase on CPA side. We're probably going to be seeing more applications this funding round than we have in the past. We anticipate yet another competitive round, but we have been doing an excellent job this past couple of years with securing other grants for the city. So a lot of our projects are seeing funding coming from state as well as federal programs. So that's that's all Amanda Centrella right there. That 43% doing a great job. Thank you, Amanda. Yes. So I just want to kind of explain what the purpose of this is to see the cost sharing of all the various funding agencies that are out there. Any questions on that?
[Jeremy Martin]: It has a lot of numbers. How do we get that 8% higher?
[Theresa Dupont]: Yeah. That's a great question.
[Jeremy Martin]: I'm half kidding, but.
[Theresa Dupont]: Very nice. Yes.
[Jeremy Martin]: I'm kidding in that I'm not expecting you to answer it. I mean what I say, though. Yes.
[Roberta Cameron]: So we'll scroll on. The next page has examples of things that we've heard from the public input. People often, when we go out collecting public input, have the most to say about open space and recreation. It's probably the area that they interact with the most intimately, whatever their ages and interests are.
[Theresa Dupont]: Everybody cares about housing, certainly, but we get a little bit more of the specific examples of what you'd like to see from our open space.
[Ada Gunning]: I was surprised when we were tabling how many people wanted to talk about affordable housing. There were just a lot of people in Medford that really care about affordable housing. Yeah.
[Jeremy Martin]: It's a hot topic right now.
[Theresa Dupont]: Yeah. It is. It is, especially as we're revisiting our zoning. What? We are?
[Unidentified]: What?
[Theresa Dupont]: What do I mean? Yes. So it doesn't really change too much year over year as we're looking at open space comments. A lot of folks just want to see improvements for bike and pedestrian. Yes, Reg.
[Reggie Graham]: What constitutes the east side environmental justice areas?
[Theresa Dupont]: Yeah, most of Medford lands, except for I believe North Medford, in some capacity Lawrence Estates, the rest of East and Southern Medford does land in environmental justice areas.
[Roberta Cameron]: So, I don't know if it would be helpful to provide context. Environmental justice areas have a very specific definition that's based on a census data on household incomes, minority populations and people who, like, language isolation. So they look at the number of people in each neighborhood who fits into, like, vulnerable populations based on those criteria, and you can get a map. Maybe it would be helpful for us, especially if somebody mentions that, to include a map of environmental justice neighborhoods in Medford would be really great, helpful context for us. Um, yeah, I can share that with you. I got a map. You know what I did in, um, in Somerville with the help of having a GIS person who could have, um, I could just say, can you give me this? And they give it to me is a map of all of our project sites against environmental justice neighborhoods.
[Theresa Dupont]: So I started manually making one of those would make sense. So, um, yeah.
[Ari Fishman]: Enter it in the IEIS.
[Theresa Dupont]: I love that. That would be great.
[Ari Fishman]: The UEP in turn should be able to do that.
[Theresa Dupont]: Yes, we have quite a few in our office. Thank you, Aria. I'll tap one of them to help you. Thank you for the question, Raj.
[Roberta Cameron]: That would be a great add to our plan.
[Theresa Dupont]: So if you're in an environmental justice area for various different reasons, qualifies that specific area for additional funding. Like, for instance, I was working on a tree planting grant that will be targeting South Medford because it's an environmental justice area.
[Roberta Cameron]: In that alphabet soup that we saw in the previous page, the CDBG can only fund projects that are either in the environmental justice area or targeted toward a specific vulnerable population, like the senior center, they can do because that is a target population, but a park has to be in a neighborhood that's been identified as environmental justice.
[Theresa Dupont]: I'll share that map with everybody, because I think it would be helpful for all of us.
[Roberta Cameron]: Any other questions, comments about the open space and recreation context? Historic preservation. I just, actually, I wanted to comment on the first paragraph there. So unlike the other two program areas, Medford does not have an overall historic preservation plan. So we're at figuring out what the priorities are. There has been an effort by the Historical Commission, which is described in the next couple of paragraphs, to identify historic assets around the city and to protect some of our historic assets with local historic districts. We've also created some preservation restrictions that protect some of our assets. By the way, I love that photo of them assing the window out the window.
[Theresa Dupont]: As I was walking into the building, I looked up and I saw them like, I have to run in there and take a picture.
[Ada Gunning]: There's some sort of like metaphor in there.
[Theresa Dupont]: I didn't really realize how large those windows were until they removed them. The 8-foot windows are huge.
[Roberta Cameron]: So that's the context that we have to work with for historic preservation. You can scroll a little bit further. So it describes some of the efforts that have been undertaken to expand our historic protections in the city.
[Joan Cyr]: Are these surveys in the office or are they going around neighborhoods?
[Theresa Dupont]: They're going around neighborhoods. Essentially, they identify a neighborhood and they take an inventory of that entire swath of neighborhood boundaries and identify properties that are historic in there. Some of it does end up creating Form Bs, which are the summary of a historic narrative for a property. So as we're working through these neighborhoods during the survey, some Form Bs are just naturally being created because they found, oh, we inventoried a very interesting specific house.
[Joan Cyr]: How would one know if they were part of this inventory and have a Form B all of a sudden?
[Theresa Dupont]: I don't think there's any sort of public notification process right now, but that's a good point for us. I'm not exactly sure what the awareness or outreach might be to just like share that with the neighborhood, but that's not currently being done actively.
[Roberta Cameron]: I mean, it's really just making a snapshot description of what the neighborhood looks like today. And it doesn't have any further consequences besides like identifying what there is. So, I mean, maybe there's a good point that if your house is going to be listed in a, I think the form B's is a separate.
[Reggie Graham]: project is the inventory doesn't involve actually right now but it is like flagging certain properties that they are then in the future they want to yeah yeah so um so years ago um i used to work for an insurance company and the insurance company covered um personal lines and commercial lines etc etc and they would identify historical buildings as ones that had a plaque that was attached to them. I don't know that Redford actually has plaques that are, I mean, I know they have like the one on Woburn Street, that's a historical section, if you will. I don't know that they actually have a plaque that says this is a historic house that Paul Revere rode by back in 1775. on his way to conquer New England. Where's the guy? You know and uh so I mean well well Gaffney's for example I call it Gaffney's it's not Gaffney's anymore but Gaffney's used to have a sign on it that said that or maybe it was a plaque or a rock or something that said it was a historical site based on... Do we have that?
[Theresa Dupont]: I mean, is it prevalent or is it just, you know... You've probably seen mostly the big plaques at our houses that say 1772 or whatever. That is a voluntary program that the Medford Historical Society runs. You have to purchase the plaque. I'm not sure how much it is, but it is a voluntary and you have to buy it. commemorative monuments, you know, but... So you buy the house... They do the history regs.
[Joan Cyr]: They give you the history of your house. So you're paying for that service, essentially. Right.
[Theresa Dupont]: Thank you. Yeah. But in terms of once upon a time, there was a famous battle here. Those type of things, we don't have a standard program for that budget.
[Reggie Graham]: So I realized that, you know, part of our mission is to make sure that we maintain historical preservation. And we've actually designated a little bit more than a third or a little bit less than a third of our budget towards that. Signage is a tricky thing. I'm trying to wrap my head around it, if you know what I mean. It just seems so
[Roberta Cameron]: I want to come back to that, Doug.
[Doug Carr]: Picking up on an earlier points, you know, this, the commission has been surveying neighborhoods around Medford for more than a dozen years now, I think. And that information really should be more accessible. I mean, it's on the MACRS website, the state, but it's, that's not an easy site for your average person to navigate. I feel like, there is an opportunity to take all that information and let people, it probably could sit on the Medford Historic Commission's website, you know, just look at a neighborhood and find out what buildings in your neighborhoods, in your neighborhood that you care about, even if you don't live there, might be interesting or have been, you know, looked at closely by an architectural historian, which is what this survey is all about. And it's a great resource for the city. It might give people pause if their own house is on that list to think about maybe looking into coming before the commission and talking to us before they start having these grand plans to knock it down or to build an addition that may or may not be appropriate to that 1820 house. I think more information is always better, more transparency is always better for that kind of recognition.
[Roberta Cameron]: So do I understand correctly that that is one of the purposes of the historic preservation commission to, um, do oversee some of that public education about their historic, um, resources?
[Doug Carr]: I, you know, I, I've actually never seen that written down. I think it's implicit Roberta. I think it's, but I don't actually know if that's a piece of our, you know, actual mission beyond the general education. It's not like that. That would be definitely a kind of step forward, which I think is a good one.
[Roberta Cameron]: Yeah, I agree.
[Doug Carr]: Talk to them about it.
[Roberta Cameron]: I just wanted to come back to your point, Reg, about signage, you know, awareness of Medford's history. CPA, a project that is just a sign is not eligible for CPA by itself because we're here to protect the assets, not the information. So a sign that describes what happened here like used to be at Gaffey's, is information that we want to share with the public. And creating a sign is just too many steps removed from protecting a historic asset, because that's what we're trying to do. But we do. One of the things that I'd like to see us do even more than we have is, we kind of addressed this with this project this evening, to make sure that we leverage CPA funding to tap on a little bit of money to add signs every time so that we can actually share that information, but not as a standalone project. So we didn't think of that, of making that ask of these guys and maybe tacking on a little bit of money, but there might already be. There's one outside as well as several inside. And there's several inside where it's requiring them to let people in to enjoy looking at them. So we've addressed that, I think, in this case. So now it's a fair point to remember for subsequent. So we talk a little bit. maybe not as succinctly as we could about city-owned assets, that we could be, that we're in discussion with the city about making improvements or protecting, preserving some of our city-owned assets, in particular the Curtis Tufts School fire stations, You know, it occurs to me, it says restoration efforts at Oak Grove Cemetery. Maybe we want to add, call out the superintendent's house and garage, since that's where a lot of our... That's where the money's going. That's where the money's going. Okay. So... Wait, what about the superintendent's house? The caretaker's house. The caretaker's house. We've been putting CPA money into preserving that building. And there's been discussion about developing an archive for Medford historic records, which we don't, that hasn't really gone anywhere in the last year.
[Theresa Dupont]: We didn't receive the technical assistance grants twice. So that's frustrating. I think they're only providing two grants per period.
[Roberta Cameron]: So yeah, I'll keep trying. Yeah, appreciate that. And then we mentioned that The project is breaking ground at Shiloh Baptist Church, and Shiloh, like many religious organizations, is struggling to keep up its historic building. Investing CPA money has enabled the church to break the space into ADA compliance and make it available for a child care provider to occupy the building. So leveraging CPA has the opportunity to fund investment in historic community spaces to make the assets safe, accessible, and functional. So any other questions, comments about historic preservation? We'll move on to affordable housing. So context for affordable housing. move on to the next. I think the first is just introductory. So to... is this? That's walking forward, right? That is walking forward. Hopefully it will actually look like that in the not too distant future.
[Ada Gunning]: Where is that?
[Roberta Cameron]: Right behind Whole Foods.
[Theresa Dupont]: That's Whole Foods right here.
[Ada Gunning]: Oh, that's where my new office is. Yeah. I keep falling asleep.
[Roberta Cameron]: So over the past five years, Medford has made advancements in planning and policy implementation to address the city's affordable housing needs. First, the housing production plan, adopted in 2021, then the comprehensive plan adopted in 2023. I didn't get into detail about what the goals and strategies were for those documents. The housing production plan envisions specifically addressing affordability. The comprehensive plan is more about land use citywide. And then we've undertaken actions to align with the objectives outlined in these plans, including citywide rezoning effort, the approval of 40B developments and developments that comply with inclusionary zoning, RFPs for the disposition of major city-owned lots. Ooh, we don't have to capitalize owned. In Medford Square in Wellington, the expansion of city resources and programs supporting affordable housing. With completion of all the development projects that are in the pipeline that would create affordable units, Medford will be keeping pace with the housing production goals outlined in its housing production plan. We actually haven't completed any of those units yet, but the three units at Beltsway West that the CPA funded, will be completed this summer.
[Theresa Dupont]: Yes. Yes, they will. They're anticipating construction will be complete in about two weeks or so, mid to late July. And I don't have a date yet, but we are planning for a ribbon cutting sometime in probably mid to late August. So before the school year starts.
[Joan Cyr]: Woo-hoo. It's a long time coming. Yeah. Like first year, second year? Yeah. Yes.
[Roberta Cameron]: First year, tiny project, but it's the CPA program's first affordable housing units created, opened to be occupied. So that's a big thing to celebrate, I think. Yeah. So another significant initiative is obviously the establishment of the Affordable Housing Trust. The next steps, as Jeremy reminded us earlier, is that we need to have a discussion about how is this going to work now. So after we talk about this plan, we'll try to pencil in a date for that discussion. And then thanks to these efforts, Medford has been able to secure designation under the Massachusetts Housing Choice Initiative. And in order to maintain our designation, the CBC opted to increase the budgeted share of funds for affordable housing to 25%. So we talk about how much we funded for the Affordable Housing Trust and what are some options for increasing funding for affordable housing. Any questions, discussions about affordable housing?
[Reggie Graham]: Is this our proposal to go from 1.5% to 3% or is that the city's?
[Roberta Cameron]: This is just saying that it could happen.
[Reggie Graham]: So soon after I pay my taxes.
[Theresa Dupont]: Nobody is considering pushing this forward at all in the next few years. But it is something. It's another town. Yeah. And honestly, the initiative doesn't need to come from this committee. If there was somebody out there who just felt really passionate about it and they want to collect signatures and put it on the ballot, It doesn't have to come from the committee was yeah it as I added today.
[Roberta Cameron]: Since Medford initially adopted CPA through a signature campaign, the route to putting a surcharge increase on the ballot would have to be done again by a sick by a petition signature campaign so. If anybody wants to go out and collect 3,000 signatures to put it on the ballot, however, the Affordable Housing Trust has some other ideas about how to increase funding for affordable housing. So we don't have to put all of our eggs in that basket. But I thought it was worth stating in the plan because people will raise that as a possibility. And I feel like we should acknowledge it first before everybody else does and say, Like, yes, this could happen. This is what it would take to do it. And leave it at that.
[Jeremy Martin]: Roberta, out of curiosity, what is the surcharge in Somerville?
[Roberta Cameron]: Somerville, just last year, raised their surcharge from 1.5% to 3%. Was it contentious? Not particularly. It passed by, I think, something like 70 percent. But I think Medford will be a different, a different rate. We're not in the same place. Did you have something to add, Brett?
[Theresa Dupont]: No.
[Roberta Cameron]: And Somerville also, because they had originally put it on the ballot through a council order it went through the council to get on the ballot again. So that was a different process as well.
[Theresa Dupont]: I would just also point out too, we will, and it was reflected on our budget, we will see a little bit of a lift to our revenue because of the overrides. Our revenue is derived as a surcharge on top of property taxes. So the fact that, you know, with the overrides, everybody did see an increase in their taxes while that surcharge, proportionally also increased. So I think we'll see an additional $85,000 this year. So it's not much, but that's a project.
[Reggie Graham]: I'm just happy I get to spend it.
[Roberta Cameron]: Feels cathartic. So the next section is really important for the committee members, especially to weigh in on the goals and priorities because Theoretically, we're using these goals and priorities to evaluate projects when they come in. So, like, how well did these goals and priorities align with what we want to fund, having seen the types of projects that we receive. So, some overall goals. Projects should be highly visible and accessible, generating broad benefits to the community. As appropriate, the application should demonstrate public input or gathering of support. Projects must not replace funding from others from the city budget or other funding sources. So planting. So planting. Priority is given to projects that leverage funding from other sources and or fill a gap where other sources are not available. Projects should demonstrate cost sensitivity, both in the short term use of CPA funds and the long term maintenance or lifespan of the resource for which the funds are used. Priority is given to projects with a public sector or non-profit applicant or co-applicant above private individuals or for-profit applicants. So that addresses what we consider this evening. Then there are specific goals and priorities stated for each of the program areas. for open space and recreation, expand and enhance open space as distinguishing features of Medford's landscape, especially along the Mystic River and other bodies of water, make Medford Square and neighborhoods greener and more attractive, protect neighborhoods and natural resources from the impacts of flooding and climate change, improve access to open space and recreation resources for all Medford residents, expand bicycle and pedestrian paths, connecting neighborhoods and recreational community resources, and provide diverse recreation opportunities serving residents of all ages. These, by the way, were created through a big public process that we had the very first year of CPA back in 2017. We had public meetings that were well attended, and we gathered a lot of input from people, and that's how we developed these goals and priorities. And then for open space and recreation, the priorities are first, and this is kind of hard to explain, but I've never been able to come up with a better wording. So tell me if you can think of something better. Enhance open space as a land use asset while improving connectivity, access, safety, and function. So thinking about recreation opportunities or having open space parcels that serve a function. Second, support resiliency through open space. So generally, what is the quality of the open space, and how is it providing for more community or environmental resiliency?
[Jeremy Martin]: Would you call that a communal asset? A shared asset? Maybe that's not what you're after there.
[Theresa Dupont]: I don't think communal asset. A public asset. As a land use asset. Land use is such an awkward word. Yeah. So I think Jeremy's suggestion has enhanced open space as a communal asset.
[Jeremy Martin]: Sorry, I thought you were asking for input on those lines.
[Roberta Cameron]: Yeah, no, that's helpful. If we have a hard time with it, our applicants who look at this and ask themselves whether they meet these criteria are also going to have a hard time with it. So I like that as a community asset. All right, affordable housing, preserve Medford's income and demographic diversity through sustaining and increasing the supply of affordable housing for families, seniors, individuals, and people with disabilities. Facilitate investments in affordable housing that preserve and complement the character of Medford's neighborhoods. Support low and moderate income households in accessing housing that they can afford. With the priorities being first to increase the supply of affordable housing, Second, to provide support services for households to access affordable housing.
[Theresa Dupont]: And that comes in the form of our rental arrears program, our move-in assistance programs.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[Roberta Cameron]: And then for historic preservation, I'm proposing to change the priorities from what we originally came up with based on what we've seen in the last couple of years. So the goals are to preserve historic buildings and sites, protect, restore, and enhance public access to historical records and artifacts, and to increase public awareness about local history and historical sites. And I'm proposing to add a goal to make historic community buildings safe, accessible, and functional. And then the priorities, originally the priorities were to preserve city-owned historic resources as first priority, and second priority is to preserve non-city-owned historic resources. So the first and second priorities mean like who we give the highest ranking to in our criteria versus lower ranking. And so I'm suggesting a change. Tell me if you like this change or agree with it. The first priority be to preserve resources that provide functional community use. And the second one to be preserve historic assets that contribute to community awareness and character.
[Joan Cyr]: I like them.
[Theresa Dupont]: I think that I'll chime in that I think that that would help provide some clarity for, again, we looked at our applicant earlier this evening, having it called out that we want to support projects that provide a functional community use that could have raised a little bit of a flag for them. So I like it. It expands upon the intention there, clarifies it a bit.
[Unidentified]: Sure.
[Roberta Cameron]: Another thought that occurs to me is that I don't know if I were the grantee reading this. I don't know if this is how all of you interpret the way that this chart reads, first priority, second priority. If it's clear to you that this is a ranking of what's more important or less important, maybe the names first and second priority should be higher priority, lower priority. Yeah.
[Ari Fishman]: That would work. I do worry that saying lower priority implies that it's not something we care about, whereas we're saying that's in fact the thing we care about second most. It's above everything else except for the thing that's up top. I think first and second is clear enough, but totally open to disagreement. Or something like that.
[Theresa Dupont]: What if we were to go higher and then secondary?
[Joan Cyr]: Yeah.
[Theresa Dupont]: Kind of Frankenstein-y. Was there a question about this ranking, Teresa? Primary, secondary. Not really. In my time, I think I've only encountered nine historical preservation projects.
[Ada Gunning]: I feel like it's good to be scrutiny-proof as we head into more competitive cycles.
[Roberta Cameron]: Yeah, let me say applicants like we had this evening, if we're in a competitive application cycle, would they understand that they're coming in at a lower priority? And by adding the community use of their building once or twice a year, that's helping to nudge their priority ranking a little bit higher.
[Ada Gunning]: up as something that I've been wanting to bring up not related to this, but could we shift the process to vote after, like, could we basically have applicants not here while we vote?
[Joan Cyr]: No.
[Ada Gunning]: We could.
[Roberta Cameron]: Really? What?
[Reggie Graham]: Not with an open meeting, right?
[Roberta Cameron]: It's an open meeting. An open meeting.
[Reggie Graham]: And they should probably be present.
[Ada Gunning]: I mean, just because I feel like it adds, like, it doesn't give us an opportunity to, like, privately discuss our concerns with each other. Not that we wouldn't, like, then bring them back in and be like, here's what we came to, but we go straight from, like, discussing it with them here to voting in their presence, you know what I mean?
[Roberta Cameron]: Yeah, I was trying not to make any eye contact with them while we were trying to have a discussion.
[Ada Gunning]: It's a little awkward.
[Jeremy Martin]: Are we allowed to deliberate outside of an open meeting?
[Ada Gunning]: No. we can go on to the executive session. But we could still be an open, I don't know if this is the case, but I wonder if we could still be considered an open meeting and just like politely ask them to give us, like we'd still literally be open to the public, but asking them to sort of like give us a moment to deliberate.
[Theresa Dupont]: I'm curious, because other committees such as perhaps the Zoning Board of Appeals and Conservation Commission, we are joined by Janice McDougall in the room here. They don't privately deliberate. Not allowed to. Applications, yeah, exactly.
[Reggie Graham]: I don't think, I don't think if you're having a meeting while it's open, that's the definition of, I just don't think that, and I understand the awkwardness of talking about somebody when they're sitting next to you. Yeah. But at the same time, you know, we don't have the you really need to say, well, go to the other room over there.
[Roberta Cameron]: Well, we could ask them to just sit in the back of the room so that they're not at the table with us. That would help us to feel like it's our space. During our regular funding round, the applicants present one night and then we deliberate on a different night. And they're welcome to observe that, but they're not part of the conversation. But whenever it's an off-cycle application, they're typically applying and getting a decision the same night that they apply. So that's a good point. We might be able to comply with open meeting law, but make it more like have them not be in the middle of our conversation. Doug?
[Doug Carr]: Under the history, sorry, I'm switching topics. a little bit going back to the change in verbiage here about preserving city-owned historic prop resources versus preserve resources that provide functional community use. I feel that's actually a pretty significant shift than what we had, than what we started with, you know, seven, eight years ago. You know, like, because, I mean, you can read functional community use a lot of different ways, but that's actually quite far from city homes like Oak Grove or other things, the library, Brooks Estate. There's a lot of things here that have been on the top of the list because of that verbiage and what we started out with that I think are being a little diluted here, but I'm just not sure if that's just the way I'm reading it.
[Roberta Cameron]: For example, this using the new version, Shiloh would be a high priority because it's a functional community use. City-owned buildings are functional community buildings. I think that all city buildings by definition would be, and institutional buildings that provide like public use could also be a high priority.
[Joan Cyr]: So what if we combine it? What if we say preserve city-owned historic resources and resources that provide functional community use or non-city resources that provide functional community use as a first or top priority?
[Roberta Cameron]: Yeah.
[Theresa Dupont]: That would work.
[Reggie Graham]: That way we're not reinventing the wheel.
[Joan Cyr]: And then the second one can stay as you've changed it. Okay.
[Roberta Cameron]: All right. I think that's all that we really need to talk about the procedures and the rest of this document. Oh, maybe we could just flip to the very end where we have the, the procedures have been, we've updated the dates here. for the application process, but the procedures haven't changed. I invite everyone to review it so that you're familiar with what the procedures are. I'm looking further to the list of, yeah, the overtable list of projects. So the CPA funded projects, it's a pretty remarkable list. It covers every project that we've ever funded and what's been completed. You can see that there are still a couple of projects in progress that are old, but they're almost there. And then you can see the most recent projects where things are also very remarkable. when we get to the very bottom of the list. It just goes on and on. It's incredible. Last month, we had the Medford Square pop-up community garden come in, and it's already completed.
[Theresa Dupont]: The next day, they're like, okay, so when do we get the money? I was very excited, but they're sweet. Thank you for supporting that project. And so we have a lot to be proud of.
[Joan Cyr]: Do you have a timeline for a second? Yep.
[Theresa Dupont]: Look away, everybody. I'm sorry. I'm fast forwarding, and that makes me nauseous. I'm sorry. A couple more pages, Jo. I'm sorry.
[Joan Cyr]: There you go.
[Theresa Dupont]: One more.
[Joan Cyr]: One more. There we go. OK. I'm assuming we're still meeting on Tuesdays? Yes. October 13th is a Monday, that's Columbus Day or Indigenous Peoples Day. Are you looking at next year's calendar? This is the plan for... Oh, this is for next year. Oh, thank God. Not this year?
[Theresa Dupont]: No, this is for Fiscal 26. So this will be... That doesn't... Yeah.
[Roberta Cameron]: Do you want me to have it for this... past year? This fiscal year, is it? We're in fiscal 26. Yeah, we're in fiscal 26. So the full applications are due in 25.
[Theresa Dupont]: Yes. I will make those amendments. But yes, it is Tuesday. So give or take a day here or there. I apologize.
[Joan Cyr]: No worries. So if we are meeting in 2025, October 14, I will not be available. I'll be out of the country.
[Theresa Dupont]: Okay, I think we were going to split up, it was October 28th and November 19th, so we may not be meeting specifically because of a, nope, that was Veterans Day lands on a Tuesday this year, so that's why. Okay, I will revisit these dates and make sure everybody has them in their calendars.
[Roberta Cameron]: Yeah, and while we do this, while we have the dates up, maybe we want to review, so We want to talk with the Affordable Housing Trust, perhaps in September. I think that's when the Affordable Housing Trust will be ready. October is our applicant presentations. We really can't have a discussion then. And then we're deliberating. So the idea of actually having these conversations before, it's already too late to have them before we make the next funding round of decisions. So we're going to have to be doing it on the fly, just as we've done this evening.
[Theresa Dupont]: So at this point, I haven't heard to tell of any applications in the housing realm beyond the trust perhaps coming back for additional funding. Okay, so I don't have any housing projects on my radar currently. That doesn't mean they don't exist.
[Roberta Cameron]: Yeah. And it would be really nice to be able to transition the affordable housing trust to be making housing decisions, but they can't, like, that has to align with our funding cycle.
[Joan Cyr]: So when you redo this calendar, can you put it in order of fiscal year? So let's start at the top with July. I can do that.
[Theresa Dupont]: So OSR, thank you, John, I'll do that. So I would suggest- Are you in August?
[Joan Cyr]: Well, there's usually a special meeting in August, Reg. We don't technically meet, but we have a social outing.
[Theresa Dupont]: Okay. Speaking of which, we need to find a date for a social outing. I'm pretty sure. Yeah, I have the scheduling full ready, I just need it.
[Roberta Cameron]: So, the affordable housing trust discussion in September, and then we wait until January or February to do historic preservation or open space recreation and then do the other 1 of thinking about guidelines. And how do we. Um, the, the open space and recreation, we may not really need to make any big changes to what we do. Right. But. historic preservation, I think we do.
[Theresa Dupont]: Yeah. As you said earlier, we're the only ones in the city really responsible in looking at these type of projects. So yeah, we should have a better guideline plan. So you're thinking January for that meeting?
[Roberta Cameron]: Probably. Just as Fredge suggested.
[Theresa Dupont]: That is the next time we have. I'm going to go ahead and stop sharing. look at each other. All right. Did we get through the agenda? I have one more very, very quick thing. Oh, yeah. Thank you. And the meeting minutes, which were in the packet, but also in the packet. Let me screen share. I think it's time that we refresh our temporary signage that we use at CPA projects that just make the community aware of who they can follow up with. The signage currently is just says Community Preservation Act funds at work with our logo, and that's great, but that's pretty much it. So I can share it. I think I still have it up here. And then for the folks in the room, there are a few different options here. But I would love to get people's feedback just really quickly on their thoughts on the proposed design. I am sharing this one.
[Ada Gunning]: I like the fun.
[Theresa Dupont]: So we'll put it back. This is the line. I tend to be a little bit of an extra person. So that's why mostly I wanted to get your feedback on here to edit me. But it also represents you all as well. So any initial thoughts in the room right now? It sounds like folks like the very first one. where it's got the square logo on the top left and the QR code on the right.
[Myisha Majumder]: I agree. I like how big the QR code is in this one too.
[Joan Cyr]: Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. That's a bigger QR code. I agree. Excellent.
[Theresa Dupont]: That was it. All right, I will order those. And the idea is that this would turn around and point to that QR code would redirect folks to our website, which One of our lovely repeat interns is going to help me with updating that shortly. I know, John, you're very excited about that, aren't you?
[Joan Cyr]: I have notes here. I have notes on my desk to help you with that.
[Theresa Dupont]: Well, maybe we can find a date where all three of us are available. Yeah, of course you can keep it. Sure. Yeah. Just right now, that's going to get a bumper sticker. Yes. It'll take a couple weeks for the signs to come in. So hopefully, that kind of sets up a deadline of updating the website. But thank you very much for that feedback. I really appreciate it.
[Joan Cyr]: Can you tell us the pictures? Is it Wackling Court and then the McGlynn Playground? Keep going. You got it. And then obviously the condensation and I don't know, Brooks Estate maybe? Yeah, that's the Brooks Estate.
[Theresa Dupont]: Yeah, that's kind of been the branding I've been using and I think it's important to stay consistent with it so that people have recognition. So thank you for... It's a good thing that you double as a graphic designer. just this one thing i'm not good at anything else just just that one so thank you uh you should start seeing those shortly you know great the last thing i have were minutes which were in the folder happy to screen share them uh however we wanted to receive any comments acceptance of the minutes second six ten all right and i will uh call the roll maisha
[Ada Gunning]: Yes.
[Roberta Cameron]: Reg?
[Doug Carr]: Yes.
[Roberta Cameron]: Ada? Yes. Doug?
[Doug Carr]: Yes.
[Roberta Cameron]: Jeremy?
[Doug Carr]: Yes.
[Roberta Cameron]: Joan? Yes. Ari? Yes. And myself, yes. That's all I have, folks. All right, guys. Thank you. Motion to adjourn?
[Joan Cyr]: Second.
[Roberta Cameron]: All right. I will call the roll again. Myesha? Yes. Reg?
[Doug Carr]: Yes.
[Roberta Cameron]: Ada? Yes. Doug?
[Doug Carr]: Yes.
[Roberta Cameron]: Jeremy.
[Doug Carr]: Yes.
[Roberta Cameron]: Joan. Yes. Mari. Yes. And myself, yes.
[Doug Carr]: One last thing, Brooks Estate Pitnick is this Saturday, 12 to 3, if anyone wants to come for some free food and a free tour.
[Ari Fishman]: I'll be there. Bring an ice cream. Thank you. I also wanted to flag since we're not meeting in August, I will probably be out in September because I'm due with our 1st kid at the end of August. So see you guys in a while.
[Jeremy Martin]: And good luck tomorrow night too.
[Ari Fishman]: You are doing the Lord's work. Thank you.