[Paul Morgan]: The following meeting contains brief moments of strong language. Viewer discretion is advised.
[Emily Hedeman]: Good evening. And sorry for those who heard this the first time. I have to read the whole thing again. So here we go. 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 in a hybrid format, both in the Medford City Council Chambers on the second floor of Medford City Hall, 85 George P. Hassett Drive, Medford, Massachusetts, and via Zoom remote video conferencing. Anyone who would like to listen to or view this meeting while in progress may do so by attending in person Thank you all. We're accessing the link that was included on the meeting agenda posted on the City of Medford website. A recording of this meeting will be posted on Medford Community Media website as soon as possible. A reminder that given the hybrid nature of this meeting, tonight all votes from the board will be made by roll call. Please know that all project materials for all projects before the board can be viewed on the city's website, medfordma.org. We're gonna drop a link in the Zoom chat. If you click that link, click current CD board filings, you will be able to access those aforementioned project materials. Okay, that link will be coming shortly. We're gonna start with roll call attendance. Vice Chair, Peter Kalbs. Here. Great, good to have you here, Peter. Ari Goffman-Fishman. Present. Hi, Ari. Sabrina Alpino? Present. Hey, Sabrina. John Anderson? Present. Hey, John. Adam Behrens?
[Ben Lavallee]: Hi, here.
[Emily Hedeman]: Hi, Adam. Ben Lavallee?
[Ben Lavallee]: Present.
[Emily Hedeman]: Hey, Ben. And myself, Chair Emily Hedeman, is also present. Alicia, can you please introduce any staff at the meeting or on the call?
[Alicia Hunt]: Good evening. I am Alicia hunt the director of planning development and sustainability. We have with us here in the room our graduate intern Christian who is helping us with a lot of the notes and speaking queue and online, we have Juliette Garrity, you'll notice that after her name, it says technical questions here. If anybody online has difficulty. with unmuting or raising your hand and you just want to chat somebody and ask them for help, you can direct your questions to Juliet and she is there to provide technical assistance online. We don't expect our senior planner this evening. Okay, so also with us this evening is Tim McGivern, our DPW Commissioner.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thanks, Alicia. We do have a slight adjustment to the agenda. Given the technical difficulties that we had setting up for the Zoom meeting, we are going to be postponing the executive session. We'll be working with our legal counsel to file an extension there. As we've said in previous meetings, July 9th is, you know, meant for public comment. So we want to prioritize public comment, the people that are here tonight and on Zoom. So we're going to postpone or reschedule the executive session. specifically because of the technical difficulties. Executive session, well, we were supposed to open the meeting at six. I don't know how long I've been talking, but maybe we opened at 6.50. So we're just being cognizant and considerate of the rest of our agenda. So thank you to everybody for your understanding there. So in light of that, our next agenda item is going to be continuing our public hearings on the neighborhood and urban residential zoning districts, ADUs, and Medford and West Medford squares. So we're opening all three of these hearings at once, and there's no presentation of new information from Innes Associates, as has been said before. Before moving into public comment, the Department of Public Works Commissioner, Tim McGivern, is going to be answering board questions regarding how the zoning might affect essential services like water, sewer, and so on. I just want to recognize that we're doing this based on public feedback. We're doing this based on board input. We're trying to be as responsive as possible. So that's why we have somebody from city staff coming and speaking with us tonight and asking, answering board questions. After that, we're going to move into public comment period. We may take a short recess, but we are definitely gonna reassess kind of the current status in terms of in-person comments, virtual comments around 10 p.m. Um. If we still have a lot of public comments if we still have a lot of online comments, we may continue to a date certain our goal is to gather as much information as possible so that we can produce a new iteration of the zoning update that news. That new inner iteration will be subject to more public comment. We want to give you guys something to react to something new that incorporates all the feedback, very thoughtful and consistent feedback that you've been giving us. So I want to put that out there for everybody. If you are attending in person, we do have a physical sign-in sheet. You're welcome to sign that if you want to kind of reserve your spot. If you're not comfortable doing that, you will still be able to speak. We're just going to be prioritizing people from the June 18th meeting who were not able to speak then, then people who have signed up who have not spoken in previous meetings, and then people who have not signed up are here in person and have not spoke, and then we'll kind of keep circling around. We wanna hear from as many new people as possible. And we hope that you can understand why we're doing that and also respect your fellow citizens in their time to give new and thoughtful comment. So thank you in advance for that. As usual with Zoom, we're gonna use the raise hand function. I see a couple of hands are already popping up. You're welcome to start raising your hands. We'll keep track of those. with our mighty planning interns. So as a reminder, this is the fifth meeting for the continued public hearing that was open on April 2nd regarding the proposed zoning amendment for the creation of neighborhood and urban residential districts. This is our second meeting for the continued public hearing that was open on June 18th regarding the accessory dwelling unit. And this is the third meeting for the continued public hearing that was opened on June 4th regarding the proposed zoning amendment for the creation of West Medford Square districts. Do we have anyone, any board members that needed to watch recordings of missed meetings and sign Mullen affidavits? I don't believe so. Okay, I don't believe so, but let's just confirm that before we wrap. So I'm gonna pass it over to staff to see if they have any introductory comments before passing it off to the DPW commissioner, Tim McGibbon, Felicia.
[Unidentified]: Thank you.
[Alicia Hunt]: So just so that everybody is aware, the city had some email issues over the past 24 hours. Most messages were just delayed if anybody received a bounce back that said your email was undeliverable. please resend it to the same address, the OCD at Medford. It was happening for a couple short windows of time while they were doing some troubleshooting of the email. Almost everything has now come through and been delivered. As a reminder, the board will still be receiving written comments before deliberating on August 6, and they'll be reviewing the written comment before that date. But if you received an email that it was undeliverable, please resend your message to OCD. Thank you. And then I believe Commissioner McIverton is ready.
[Emily Hedeman]: Do you know if your mic works? Testing.
[SPEAKER_77]: Testing. Does it work? Yeah.
[Emily Hedeman]: All right. Thank you so much for being here tonight, Commissioner.
[Unidentified]: That's not me.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you for being here tonight, Commissioner McIvern. So I'm gonna open it up to members of the board for questions. Oh, sorry.
[Tim McGivern]: Yeah, I can just introduce myself real quick. I'll just take a couple, not too much time, maybe a minute or so. I've been in front of this board as a body multiple times, but I think a lot of you probably are new faces for me and I'm probably a new face for you. Yeah. How's that? Does that work? Can you guys better? Okay. Sorry about that. I'll try to speak slowly too. I know a lot of people are trying to hear me. So anyway, my name is Tim McGivern. Thank you very much for inviting me. I appreciate that. I'm Tim McGivern. I'm the commissioner of public works here in the city of Medford. The public works, just so you understand what I do here in the city, is made up of seven divisions. The water and sewer division, the highway division, the cemetery division, the parks division, forestry, the fleet, including police and the fire. and the engineering division which handles our infrastructure, assets and management. We also, you know, as part of that we do O&M and capital improvements for everything but the parks really, and engineering usually leads that effort, water, highway, sewer, drainage improvements. Just a little bit of my background so you guys understand my background. I came from the engineering side of things. I've been a licensed engineer since 2008. I believe that's the correct date, and I've been practicing engineering since 2004 civil engineering in both land development construction site design as well as utilities. And I was a city engineer before being the Commissioner of Public Works. So, you know, Many of the DPW jurisdictions, authorities, obligations, et cetera, you know, can be impacted by zoning. And, you know, I'm sure you have questions for me. I'm here to do my best to answer those questions based off of, you know, what I know today. I can look into things if you want as well. And most importantly, I'm here to help the board by by answering questions related to your gargantuan task of recommending zoning to our city council. So best of luck in the entire project. So with that said, I'm here for you. So thank you.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you. Members of the board, do we have any questions for Commissioner McGovern? John?
[John Anderson]: Commissioner, can everybody hear me? Is that okay? I assume you've had an opportunity to look over the proposed zoning changes in Medford?
[Tim McGivern]: Some of it, yeah. I've been following along, so to speak, and kind of watching when I can and paying attention when I can.
[John Anderson]: Do you foresee problems in any of the divisions you're handling if there is a major increase in density in the city?
[Tim McGivern]: That's a really big question. I don't think I've studied it to know comprehensively the answer to your question. But I can answer in general, in a general sense. If you think about the infrastructure that supports a city, there's a couple of big ones that DPW operates, water, sewer, and the highway, the roadways. So anytime you change zoning, and even backing up one step, in civil engineering in general, you use zoning as a very valuable tool. to base your design off of things. So basically if you think about our city now it was designed based off of whatever zoning they were using at that time to design things like the water distribution system, the sewer system the roadway system. I'm familiar enough with this particular zoning. to know that there aren't any major changes of uses or new zones that have, you know, buildings above 300 or 400 feet, which those types of things significantly impact a city's infrastructure. 300 or 400 feet in height.
[Emily Hedeman]: Say again?
[Tim McGivern]: What's the what's the dimension like a change of use of a significant change of use, for example, if you're zoning an area for industrial and you're targeting food processing. Well, it's a very high water use industry. For example, things that going from residential zoning to residential zoning, which I know there's a lot of you know, a lot of conversation having to do with that piece of this. We don't necessarily design for capacity in those systems. In other words, there's other elements that drive the design, like fitting cameras in pipes, maintaining hydraulic grade lines, things like that. So, you know, most of our streets have eight inch sewer pipes. Most of our roads have six inch or eight inch water pipes. You know, just to give you an example, an eight inch sewer pipe can drain thousands of households, if not tens of thousands, depending on the whole system. So, you know, there are, and the other important thing to remember is that we already have a capital plan. So most of our six inch unlined water pipes, we're already planning to upgrade to eight inch water pipes. And that is driven really by fire code, changes in fire codes and how hydrants are done. So because of that, you end up with increased capacity in both of those systems. We don't own a treatment plant. We don't own a wastewater treatment plant or a water distribution treatment plant, so we don't have those capacity issues to worry about. That's provided by the MWRA, and I believe there's no issues with capacity at the MWRA for those systems. What else? Highway, roadway, when you're thinking about zoning, you're thinking about what your obligation is to people who are then developing those parcels. So, you know, the city may want to look at making betterments to roadways and then figuring out how to pay for those. So wearing my DPW commissioner hat, very, you know, very much about money and the steward of the public dollar, what I want to see really, so I can help plan the city, is what I need to change my capital plan and revise my capital plan, what those costs look like. From an engineering standpoint and from, well, how are we gonna plan our infrastructure moving forward when these zoning changes take place, what I wanna know is how my capital plan is gonna change, really. And it's really up to you folks in regards to how much information you want. to make the recommendation to the city council on those systems to for you to feel comfortable to be at a point where obviously you can make the recommendation to City Council. But what I can't say is I have not looked at the zoning in extreme detail as if I was like a consulting engineer or something like that. I haven't done that. Um so but at some point it will need to get done. You got to look at full build out for approved zoning proposed zoning and what the in some decades. I don't know the exact number of people that we have shrank by, but we've shrank and then we've grown and we've shrunk and we've grown. So looking at what the full build out is at the end of this and what changes need to happen in our capital planning is really the crux of the matter for me in planning and knowing what to engineer, so to speak.
[John Anderson]: Thank you. May I follow up with a question? Are there any identified sort of choke points in the infrastructure that are of concern to you?
[Tim McGivern]: Yes, I would say kind of in old cities like this, there are choke points we have two pressure zones for our water system. I don't know if you want to call it a choke point but you know we had low pressure in an area of the city now we have better pressure. We maintain a hydraulic model of our, of our city's water system. We know where the low pressure points are we know where the flow problems are the water quality problems are. So we might do additional flushing in those areas. We may queue them up for improvements or replacements sooner rather than later. And then another kind of characteristic of old systems like this are sags and sewer lines that already exist. Problems that we know about confluence points that maybe are underdesigned or designed wrong. So we know about a lot of these things and any information that we can have knowing what increases we can expect in a certain district or whatever would help us understand those problems better.
[John Anderson]: So what you're saying is you'd look forward to hearing more information
[Tim McGivern]: About what sort of extra load might be put on systems in the future particularly the near future Yes, yeah, I mean, I think like I said before from a civil engineering standpoint zoning is uh It comes first a lot of the times you look at what's approved zoning and you look at what your goals are Um, and it usually comes down to how much money you're going to spend in a municipal setting Um, and you know, so like I was saying before we already have our six inch online pipes out there in queue for replacement We want eight inch water lines in our roads. We all, you know, should want that better flow, you know, unless there are exceptions. So don't, don't hang me out to dry for that one. But for the most part, that's the new standard. So we're doing that anyway. And then as far as roads go, we already have capital improvement plans for roads. We're already doing those things. But what I would want to know from this effort is do we need to target a certain area for roadway betterments? Is that going to be paid for by a general fund? Is that going to be paid by a betterment levy? How are those improvements going to be made and how does the city want to target development in those areas, for example?
[John Anderson]: One last question. What is your responsibility in regard to private ways?
[Tim McGivern]: So the city's responsibility on private ways is a big topic. There's a lot of legal gray area, but my understanding If you could, if we're talking about zoning here, I'll just talk about sort of legal, what I believe is legal jurisdiction and what we are, can and can't do. So the jurisdiction is, we don't really have any, but we do have an obligation to things like public safety. So the general public, it is my belief that an understanding interpretation that the public has a right to pass through private ways. So, The public has rights in public ways. That's what that means. So we would protect those rights. So that may mean we chop down a tree because it's imminently gonna fall and we don't know who owns the tree because it's on a private way or they're not taking ownership of it and we need action. That could be an example of us taking action on a private way. Filling potholes is another thing we do on private ways, repairing plow damage, things like that. The land is not under the care and control of the city and we're not allowed to spend public tax dollars on it. the city. Um but under an effort like this, if the city is targeting private ways for betterments and public acceptance, then the DPW role changes in the engineering department. The engineering division would through the city engineer would handle the taking the betterments creating those estimates and going through that process to make a private way a public way.
[John Anderson]: In terms of sewer and water, you're familiar with whatever amenities have been provided in the private ways? Say again? You I'm sure you have detailed knowledge of all the sewer lines and water lines throughout the city. I'm just asking, does that include the private ways?
[Tim McGivern]: Yes, it does. So we have utility easements in most of the private ways. If we don't, we should. I mean, people usually want us to service the sewer and the water systems as well. So you're welcome.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you for those questions, John. I do have a follow up question based on what you said to John. So you mentioned that, you know, you wouldn't do like the detailed review. And that leads to another question of like, you know, what level of involvement or review feedback, whatever you want to call it, would be typical or appropriate for the public works to have at this point?
[Tim McGivern]: It's a good question. I don't necessarily have an answer for you. I don't think there's any necessarily rulebook. I'm not a planner. I don't know the ins and outs of this process to make new zoning, but I am very familiar with how to engineer things based off of new zoning. And my statement before about this board, what information does this board need to feel comfortable to make a recommendation? That's really up to you guys. From what I understand, there's no really rule book on this. You could spend millions and millions of dollars studying things to the end of time. And that's really up to you guys and your comfort level on passing a recommendation. I'll tell you right now, if the board asks me and the DPW, probably through engineering, to do those types of cost estimates, we'd have to schedule it, we'd have to make time. It's an effort for sure, but I want to kind of go back to the idea that we're already doing a lot of improvements. I've reviewed the zoning, the biggest change, and again, I didn't go through everything in detail, I did not. you're if you were to say pay a civil engineer to analyze this zoning and this change, they're going to be looking for things like change in use, change in types of flow, any flow intensities that they need to be aware about. And then, you know, if we're taking areas of the city and we're saying, okay, we're gonna double the flow on a residential area, well, then you also have to take into consideration the reduction in flow that we're taking in because of that development. We remove four times as much and infiltration from our sewer on large development projects to make room for more water, if that makes sense. So it's not just increasing the population isn't something that would necessarily set us on a path of updating the water system and the sewer system in that road, unless you're doing things like high rises where you need a second water source and maybe we don't have it. So something like that. Hopefully that answers the question. So really professionally, if I put on my just civil engineering consultant hat on and went back in time for 10 years, I would probably say, depending on what you wanna know about what system, because there's so many, not just what DPW is doing, but whatever impacts there are to the city. But just civil engineering, just our systems, then I would say the same thing that I said to you before. We'd want to look at the max build-out condition. We'd want to look at any changes of uses, changes of flows, types of flows, any significant increases in demands on the system, and then assign cost estimates for those. So then they can be incorporated into the CIP that the DPW does every year. And that's really what it comes down to. Zoning executes itself over decades, just like our capital planning. So it's kind of like looking into the future and projecting what the needs of the infrastructure will be, and then reacting to that. It may cost the city more money in capital planning for some of these zoning changes. And like I said, I would want to know at some point in this process, what City Council has approved, what you guys have recommended. So depending on what you guys do and have for information, regardless, we in my offices would take the final zoning and begin our capital planning process regardless.
[Emily Hedeman]: That's very helpful. And yeah, it's very clear. There are no rules.
[Tim McGivern]: And I- Well, you guys kind of get to make them a little bit, so.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah, we're making it right for Medford, which has been a very collaborative process. So that's been nice. I see that we have the mayor on Zoom. So I did want to go over to Brianna. Alicia, are you able to unmute her? I think I'm on.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Can you hear me? Yes. Thank you, chair and board. I appreciate you allowing me to speak. I like so many others are away this week. Just like I said, I really was hoping that you all and the city didn't have to go through this type of meeting during the 4th of July week. I don't go away much, but I am away with my family. And I appreciate Commissioner McGiven being there. And he is explaining, I think all the needs of the city. So just on the DPW realm. So we have over 50 million worth of lead lines to fix. We have 200 million more just to do streets and sidewalks on public ways. Then we have our water and sewer infrastructure to work, which is a couple of hundred million dollars we need to do. So that is just DPW on a higher level, never mind the CIP list of vehicles that we need.
[Emily Hedeman]: I'd request that people who have phones or anything that's producing audio in the chambers, please silence those or step out until you're able to silence. Thank you.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: So when you talk about our schools, we just commissioned a study to try to find more capacity because our elementary schools are, except the Mississippi, are busting at the seams. There is no room, absolutely no room. And I'm not sure if the superintendent will comment, but we finally did send an email today thanks to my request to ask department heads for a comment and I know there's a couple other people including candidates running for office that are asking for these things too but our schools especially our elementary schools are busting at the seams. We Lease and fire, we're trying to hire, we are working through it, but budgets are tight. We are not Somerville. We have about $120 million less to spend per year than Somerville. difference grows each year. So believe me, I want to rezone the city. I want to create more affordable housing, but the rate that we are doing it with multiple amendments at the same time Where we have when I respond to residents on email I have to refer to a color-coded map on When public comments do when the CD boards meeting when the City Council's meeting which amendment I am so confused My comms team is so confused We cannot keep up. I cannot keep up this pace. Believe me, and I'm really focused on zoning as the majority of my job right now, but we're doing our residents a disservice to continue at this pace. We're doing your board a disservice. We're doing my staff a disservice. continue like this so I am like up the letter I sent last week I'm begging you please slow this down we just alone we have created Mr. Gav 14 stories we are in Salem Street and I did ask that the CD boards recommend recommendations be included in the council's vote and I know most were maybe one wasn't But that is, that is rezoned. Medford Square, West Medford Square, you have all the squares, all the corridors. Can we please do that first? The division that the, and I'm going to be honest, and I'll take part of the blame, the ultimate failure of city departments working together including PDS and communications in my office on trying to communicate this out to residents, I'll take the blame. It's an ultimate failure. And I am every day getting five to 10 emails of people that are either for and now mostly against because people are realizing, wait a second, you are zoning my neighborhood as 10 units per lot. That is not gonna create affordable housing. What, let's take our time. Let's do this right. We can do this. We are a strong city. We have a strong council. They're hard workers. We have a PDS department that knows their stuff, but for the rapid speed this is going at is not right. It's just not right. It's not fair. The division, I just really feel bad for our community right now. And I feel bad for this board that has to deal with it. You all seem, Like, it's just too much. So why don't we take the quarters? Let's take the squares. Let's do those first. And let's be honest with the people. What? I don't have control of how this is going to play out, how this is going to be rezoned, how the parking changes are going to happen, nor does my PDS staff. take the quarters, the squares first, and then let's figure out the residential neighborhoods. Let's figure out what parking minimums will be, and let's, we can do this. If Somerville took seven years, why are we trying to do it in a year? And I understand master plan, housing production plan, we have it all, but that's not included in just this rapid speed. So I just, I beg of you, like, please slow this down.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you so much, Mayor, for coming and speaking before our board this evening. It means a lot that you're spending your free time to provide your insight and influence to the board. You. and recognizing that we have Commissioner McGibbon in front of us. I did want to give Tim a chance to respond to anything that the mayor said. I didn't hear any specific questions. I know she did echo kind of your sentiment on the capital planning, but was there anything you wanted to add?
[Tim McGivern]: She went over some numbers and those numbers are real. You know, we do have a lot of work on the water side. You know, we're doing that work for sure. We, I think as she mentioned lead, I might as well just pick up on that a little bit, because I know that that's worrisome to folks. There's no immediate danger to folks, but we are planning on a significantly large project to remove the lead lines in the city. So anyway, people will learn more of that as we go along. So that was that reference. But in general, no, we do have a lot of work to do in this city. The capital needs are large and some of the largest ones, if not the largest ones, have to do with our water system because of its age and the road system, again, because of its age and a lot of deferred maintenance. So we have big bills to pay over the coming decades for those systems.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you for that insight. I see board member Peter Calves has his hand raised. Peter?
[Peter Calves]: Thank you, Madam Chair. First, before I get to my question for Commissioner McGivern, I would like to... This may be a more general question. It's a process question. I recognize that. Based on some of the comments from the mayor. I would like to ask at what point was this kind of process speed decided? Because I mean, as much as the mayor is asking us to, us as a board to slow this process down, we kind of initially at least did not decide on this pace. We picked up these articles as they're handed to us from city council. So that might be a more general question. And I don't know if anyone has an answer to it offhand. But my question is, who, because she references trying to do the whole thing in a year. And I'm like, I don't remember deciding that. We just picked up the amendments as they were handed to us from city council.
[Emily Hedeman]: Alicia, do you have any insight on that? Kind of like, what drove the initial timeline?
[Alicia Hunt]: It's a city council initiative. The city council has been meeting. They worked with the city to hire a consultant 18 months ago who's been working on this project, and they've been meeting regularly for over a year now on this. Um, so that's that's the driver behind the project. I do just want to acknowledge that Commissioner McGivern is only available until a few minutes before eight. So I think we really need to focus on questions the board has for him. And then after we don't have him anymore, if you wanted to talk on other topics that would make more sense.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah, that was the intent, because we're gonna ask Commissioner McIvern questions, and we're gonna go into public comment. And then, as time allows, we may have board conversation, but looking at the number of people here in public, in person, as well as on Zoom, I think our focus this evening is gonna be public comment.
[Peter Calves]: Okay, no problem. And then, in that case, my question for Commissioner McIvern would be, is there a, to your knowledge, kind of scaling factor for, just to use an example, water system capacity. When a street goes from, say, 100 households to 150 households to 200 households or something like that, is there a factor for that or a process of analysis for that that is something that's
[Tim McGivern]: OK. Yeah, there is. There is. So as I mentioned before, we have a hydraulic model for our water system. So you plug in those capacities to see how the system reacts. And then that helps us identify places in the system that we need to spend money, really. Upgrades, improvements.
[Peter Calves]: Great. Thank you. That was my question. Just wanted to find out if there is a process for that, considering all the concern we've heard around that. Yep.
[Tim McGivern]: That's what the civil engineers out there do. That's one of their tasks. I'm aware as a practicing civil engineer. Oh, all right. Okay. So, you know, okay. So a lot of the stuff I'm saying, you know, okay, good. Yeah, no, just to confirm. Thank you. You're welcome.
[Emily Hedeman]: Expert to expert conversation right there. The next hand I see is Ari Goffman-Fishman.
[Ari Fishman]: Thank you madam chair and thank you for joining the board and answering questions for us in the public. We really appreciate your time and all the hard work you've been doing for the city. My question is about kind of the conversations you've had so far. Would it be possible to summarize with the acknowledgement that this isn't like a forensic audit or anything, just kind of broad thematic summaries of conversations you've had with OPD staff, city council members, and or the mayor's office about public works concerns related to zoning and any possible solutions that have come out of it? Is there anything that you've identified as either insurmountable, Or as likely to cause problems of a significantly larger magnitude than the standard challenges we face every year of an old density.
[Tim McGivern]: questions. Sure Um, I've had some discussions with those people that you have mentioned over over time, just by nature of my job, whether it's a city council member, you know, asking me something. I'm Alicia Hunt asking me something. Um. The mayor asking me something. Chief of staff asking me something. It hasn't been substantial. And could it be And then as far as, are you asking like what my take on it, if I see any red flags, so to speak, is that what you're asking?
[Ari Fishman]: I would love to hear those. I think the question was more of any conversations you've had about red flags, green flags. But if there are any red flags that you have that you haven't discussed with them, I would very much also love to know that. Thank you.
[Tim McGivern]: Well, I can tell you where the concerns lie. But as I stated before, I haven't done any sort of deep analysis on this. So ultimately, the answer is I don't know until I do know. But the conversations kind of, I would say, more wrap around process, expectations, obligations, authorities, jurisdictions, if that's helpful. I know that's very high level, but that's the truth of it. So hopefully that answers your question. Not about the specifics of is this gonna impact. Sometimes I've personally thought about without talking to anybody what some of the impacts might be and how they might impact our capital plan and kind of looking at where there's any changes of use. As I stated before, changes of use is usually a pretty big deal when it comes to civil infrastructure engineering. So we're looking at that. Well, I'm looking at that just for my own curiosities to know how this is gonna end up
[Ari Fishman]: Thank you. I appreciate your insight.
[Tim McGivern]: You're welcome.
[Emily Hedeman]: Ben.
[Ben Lavallee]: Thank you, Emily. Thanks for being here. Sure. I just want to echo Peter's point that you know, the sort of timelines. This board kind of inherits a docket of things to review, and we do the best that we can. It's not that there's any timeline that the board has or desires. It's that we sort of get what's handed to us, right? So I just wanted to emphasize that. One of the things that, um, has concerned me about this process is that the city does have significant budget considerations in the coming. I mean, right now, right, particularly with school systems and other parts of the city budget. And I would think that a comprehensive zoning overhaul for a department like yours would have significant budget implications over time. You've sort of validated that hunch that I had, and I'm curious, you know, short of like sticking to the comprehensive plan and improving, you know, increasing density and improving affordability, all of which are noble causes, right? I don't know that anybody would disagree with that strongly. One of the things that has concerned me is the lack of sort of what are the benefits short of the density and potentially affordability? Though I question how much affordability would really be added or how much it would be improved through these zoning changes. And I'm of the opinion that we would benefit as a city from understanding sort of what do the residents get from a zoning overhaul like this. And really that comes down to dollars, right? And so I'm curious if you've received, and if you haven't, I think the answer is that you haven't, but I want you to validate that. Have you received any, here's what this means over time for the budget of the DPW sort of information? Like if we increase density and we're collecting more tax revenue, We expect that this is actually going to solve some of your budget challenges in the coming years. Have you received any sort of analysis on that? And if the answer is no, would you benefit from that, right? Like if these zoning changes are gonna increase the number of residential units by however many thousand over the next 10 years, that translates to a certain amount of tax revenue, which translates to a certain increase in your budget over time. Have you received any forecasting on that? And if not, would you benefit from that type of forecast?
[Emily Hedeman]: And also what would be involved in generating a forecast like that, if you know?
[Tim McGivern]: The revenue piece of it and the finance piece of it is outside of my purview, so I won't be commenting on that. However, I will say my professional understanding of public administration is that revenue growth is pretty limited for a municipality in Massachusetts, for various reasons, the number one being proposition two and a half. So there's not a lot of options to increase revenue, but I do know that one of them is increasing density, for example. You know, I'm constantly, and another thing I can kind of talk about a little bit about this is having to do with budget, kind of at a high level is, you know, one of the things this city is struggling with, as the mayor talked about, is this idea of a backlog. and how much work we do have coming. We know that it's coming because of the age of everything. So that's kind of an important piece of it. As far as what the process would be and what I would appreciate knowing, it's similar to what I said before. So I'm going to want to know, regardless at some point, whether it was six months ago or six months from now or some other time, I'm going to definitely need to know what the final zoning is, what the final changes are, so I can adjust what my proposed capital planning will be for any it could be roads, it could be canopy management, it could be water pipes, it could be anything.
[Ben Lavallee]: And just to follow up, just to make sure that I understand it and that it's clear for the public. your plan would basically be like, here's the number of dollars we think that we need. And then whether you get that or how you get that is managed through a different process.
[Tim McGivern]: Yeah, that's not up to me. But it is up to me to tell the mayor, and city council, through the mayor, what those needs are. And I think I've done a pretty good job of that. I'll just list a couple of things because I can't answer the planning piece of this and what the process may, you know, should look like. I don't know what the answer to that question is. But I can tell you some of the things that we have done and that would build upon this and what we have used to build out the current capital plan and why we're doing it. For example, we did a few years back, we did the city's first pavement condition index evaluation to get a snapshot of what our pavement condition is out there, both asphalt and concrete. So we've done that. So that gives us that helps us understand how much impact we or how much improvements we need to make over many years. So that's where like, you know, these large hundreds of millions of dollars backlog come into play that the mayor was talking about. We've also done a utility asset management evaluation. And that's just a fancy way of saying we've looked at our water, sewer, and drainage utilities. We've quantified them. We have gathered a whole bunch of information about them, including the criticality and the probability of failures and what that means. That drives our plan. We did a water and sewer rate study to attach a rate to our water and sewer improvements over time. So we have that. And then most recently, it's not quite published yet or done, but it's almost there, the urban forestry master plan. And I will tell you, I've got an early look at these numbers, and we're going to have to invest more in canopy over time if we're going to be serious about things like heat island effect. And it all ties into zoning, too, because if you look at areas like South Medford that's very dense and there's already stormwater and flooding issues, You know, things like increasing density, something like that doesn't necessarily impact that, but what it does do is it helps you target areas where you might say, we're going to take a street, and we're going to greenify it we're going to change the curb line to make it safer. that may turn into a project for some street based off of what this board recommends for zoning and what City Council passes for zoning. If you have created a zone where you're trying to drive business, the city may want to provide betterments or improvements to that corridor ahead of time and plan for it, as opposed to doing it after the fact or trying to meet our obligations at the moment of a development. Hopefully that answers your question.
[Ben Lavallee]: It does. Can I just, and I'll be done after this, but I think what I'm hearing is that more information is useful to your planning and ultimately to putting together the budget that you think you'll need to deliver on all the public services that you're responsible for, which is great. I'm of the opinion that it would be prudent for us in this process, even if it takes more time, to be able to go to the commissioner and to other stakeholders and give an indication, do these zoning changes improve the outlook? Is it going to solve some of these backlog issues? Because there's going to be incremental revenue in the pot, and you can ask for some of that, and that goes through whatever process it needs to go through. Or is it actually going to make it worse? And right now, it sounds like we don't know one way or another. Is it going to add to the backlog? Is it going to improve the backlog and make more money available? And I just think that it would be prudent for us to be able to give you some kind of a signal one way or another.
[Tim McGivern]: sure that would be helpful like if i have more information obviously i'm going to be able to plan better it's going to it's going to come out better it's going to give you know that always that always is is great but you know like i said before kind of a point you can study something as much as you want um things the things that that are the big things that we're talking about, water, sewer, roadway improvements. I guess the point I was trying to make, a lot of those, when I look at what we're changing for zoning, a lot of those improvements and upgrades are already in process happening. Like the water line, I was like, we're already replacing our six inches with eight inches all over the city. So if a residential area goes up by a few units per parcel, that's not gonna make a difference in the water capacity of the water main. What will make a difference is if you build high rises in that zone, and you got a bunch of high rises that all need a second water supply that we don't have. And then we may need to build another water main and another street somewhere to provide that. So that's the type of thing that I'm looking for. And like I was saying before, when I look at what we're doing with zoning, I see a lot of upzoning in residential areas. I don't see a lot of change of use per se, but again, I haven't looked at it in detail. But those are two big things that I'd want to know, really. And those are examples too, because as I mentioned, there's also things like Canopy that we could talk about as well, that have an impact on Canopy. We're already doing a lot of the work to build our canopy, and zoning is actually a tool that could be used to help build out the canopy, and I think some of that's happening. Also, zoning can be used as a tool to reduce the stormwater impacts. So that works in the opposite direction, right? So now we're using zoning to help improve those infrastructure aspects. Another example of that is II, infiltration and inflow. Whenever there's a development, we get a couple going on right now, like Tufts, for example, That's all residential space. So that is providing a certain increase of water that's going to get drained away by our sewer. So the purpose isn't to make room in the pipes. The purpose is to reduce II. But that project has to remove, and it's just an example, four times the amount of inflow than they're providing for service flow. So the more big projects you have, the more II you reduce, the more capacity you open up in the sewer. And to tell you the truth, a six-inch, sorry, an eight-inch sewer, which is most of our sewers, can handle flows much higher than just a residential neighborhood. That's not why they're eight-inch pipes. They're eight-inch pipes for a variety of other reasons. So hopefully that answers your question. Thank you.
[Emily Hedeman]: So what I'm hearing is more information sooner rather than later. Just high-level summary.
[Tim McGivern]: Well, again, I don't want to put pressure. It's up to you guys, really. If you guys feel comfortable passing your recommendation the way it is, I'm going to, no matter what, like I said, react the best I can.
[Emily Hedeman]: Just to be clear, I don't.
[Tim McGivern]: Sorry.
[Emily Hedeman]: I don't feel comfortable passing a recommendation, so.
[Tim McGivern]: Like I said, that's you guys' decision, so. OK.
[Emily Hedeman]: trying to get to public comment as soon as possible. Appreciate the applause, but let's hold it, especially for me. I don't need it. I know we're coming up to your time, so I just want to see if... I don't see other board members with their hands raised. Final call for John, Ben. Are there any kind of closing remarks or anything you want to leave us with?
[Tim McGivern]: Just a thank you. I think this is a very large task for a city. I think that You know, there's only there's only so many ways to increase the revenue of the municipality. And this is one of them. So good luck. And if you have any further questions, you can always invite me back. You know, I can't necessarily commit to to doing a lot of these analysis that you guys that we're talking about today or cost estimates and things like that, but we can talk about how you get those things done and how you might get information that you guys want to see to get you to the point you need to be.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you so much for coming here tonight. Thank you for your service to the city as well. We really appreciate it.
[SPEAKER_77]: Doing the best I can.
[Emily Hedeman]: All right, so the next thing we're gonna be doing is opening the public comment period. We did open the public hearings for the neighborhood and urban residential, the ADUs and the squares, but I'm gonna ask that commenters try to prioritize the residential, the neighborhood and urban residential zoning comments. That's what we're trying to get as much as possible of tonight. So those who wish to provide comments that are on Zoom, please raise your hand. I see we already have some people with their hands raised. we will be prioritizing. Um those who are here in person. You're welcome to sign up. We will also have a period where you know people can just come to the mic. We're just trying to kind of keep things flowing as smoothly and as, um, thoughtfully as possible. As mentioned earlier, we will be prioritizing those that signed up during the June 18th meeting that did not have a chance to So, and also based on some thoughtful feedback from a fellow board member, we are going to be doing, how many people do we have on our commenting list?
[Unidentified]: Christian, does the list include people that have just signed up tonight as well?
[Emily Hedeman]: I'm gonna switch it to numbers. Okay, that's 40. So we're going to be keeping comments to two minutes per person. We have almost 40 people in person, not to mention online. If you're not able to get your comment through in two minutes, I'm going to ask that you follow up via email. And then depending on the outcome of tonight, we may also continue this public hearing to seek additional public comment. And just some some additional guidance. Like I said, please focus your comments on 80 years and residential zoning. Um and then I also just want to say you guys don't need to thank the board. and also please be respectful of the board as well. I would really appreciate that, but don't thank us, don't waste your time on that. If your comment is solely to slow down, we're doing our best and please try to provide feedback that is constructive and specific this evening. We're trying to produce another iteration of this zoning that will have a chance for more public comment. So as rich and specific as you can get it, That will help us improve the next iteration, which you will also be able to comment on. So if slowdown is your comment, we're doing our best. Thank you for coming here tonight. Before providing your comments, please state your name and address. If you're on Zoom, don't use the chat. It's not part of public record. If you're having audio or technical difficulties, you can message staff in the chat. Two minutes to speak. And we will be starting with those in person.
[Unidentified]: I think we're gonna do... This list is the list of people who have raised their hand but didn't get called last.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah, I know. So some of the people that are on my list may not be here, but they had put their names down last meeting. So I'm gonna do like five in person, and we'll switch over to Zoom. We have the sign up sheets here from last meeting. But we're gonna start with Mary Louise O'Brien, Elise Jennings, and Jennifer Lavoie. Are any of those people here tonight? Hi. Thank you so much for coming back. I really appreciate it.
[SPEAKER_36]: Hi. Hi. Jennifer Lavoie, Century Street Extension. I was going to thank the ward. for the opportunity to speak and especially the board members from the last meeting that spoke up for the residents who haven't heard or have just recently heard of these proposals and you sort of stuck up for us and said, let's slow this down. We're hearing that people are just learning of these proposals and we really appreciate that you are letting us speak, digest all of these new ideas and speak. I myself have only learned of these proposals just a few short weeks ago. I'm still trying to wrap my head around it and understand these proposals. They're very confusing. I find the maps very confusing to read. There's a couple different versions of maps. that's what I'm looking at. The streets when we're looking at the streets, some of them are split right down the middle, one side being zoned one way, another side being zoned another way that doesn't make any sense to me. Some of the single family lots I'm looking at going from single families to multi purpose, which could allow up to a 5 to
[Emily Hedeman]: Do you have any specific addresses or lots that you're referring to?
[SPEAKER_36]: It's okay if you don't, but I'd love it if you could follow up. I can tell you the street is Cottage Street. I don't want to mention any particular in case the person's here. I do know people on that street are getting harassed already by developers. It's a big lot. It's a very small house on the lot. And if somebody can build a five to seven story building, they're going to do it. And honestly, I don't think any of the developers are looking to build affordable units. That's really not what they're all about. I tried to read the comprehensive plan. It's quite long, but they did call for some studies and assessments in that comprehensive plan. And I'm wondering if those assessments and studies have been done, and if so, where are they? Is the public able to read them or see them? That's it. I just really, you know, slow this down. Like the mayor said, slow it down. start with the ADUs and the squares, get that right, you know, see how that goes and go from there.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you, Jennifer. We have Ann MacDonald, Anita Goldberg, Parkman Lovering. Are any of them here tonight? Ann MacDonald, Anita Goldberg, Parkman Lovering.
[SPEAKER_73]: apartment lovering. I live in Warren Street in West Medford. And by looking at your chart here, it's going to affect my piece of property considerably. I'm going to look out if a developer takes a good chunk of the square from Warren Street to Placeton Road, and he decides to build a seven to eight story building, I'm going to be looking out at it, especially the way you have it here. I live between High Street and Irving Street. There are four homes on my side of the street. I'm the only owner-occupied home. We presently have parking issues on Warren Street. And if building another big building with apartments or condos, we're going to have issues again. So I'm concerned about water, fire, and an increase in our police department if you continue to push high-rises or units in our neighborhoods that are traditionally single-family homes. And it will just ruin the characteristic- 30 seconds.
[Emily Hedeman]: Huh? 30 seconds. Okay.
[SPEAKER_73]: It's just gonna ruin the characteristic of our communities, our neighborhoods. The reason people came to Medfair drive through Somerville and other cities, and it's just so congested. I feel sorry for the old timers that are there that have to put up with it. I really hope the city council does not support this, which I know they do. Okay, I'll go.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you, Parkland. I appreciate your comment. The next commenters that we have are Diane Hatch, Peter Sigourney, Ellen Epstein,
[SPEAKER_18]: Hi, my name's Peter Sigurdi. I live at 21 Jackson Road. My wife and I moved to Medford seven years ago. I've lived this firsthand. We moved from West Cambridge. And about 10 years ago, the planning board in Cambridge was proposing roughly 5 million square feet of residential in the roughly alewife, Fresh pond area. Not sure what the final number was, but they've built out a lot of real estate there. And the traffic became unbearable. Part of why we bought on Jack's Road was because it was a wonderful, quiet neighborhood, kids riding bikes on the street, listening to songbirds, without a lot of traffic. And so, as I said, I've seen this firsthand. These sorts of changes will forever destroy the character of some of these neighborhoods in Medford. As I said, we live in the Huron Village area in Cambridge. If you want to see what this looks like, go over there. I mean, it's a 10-minute drive, well, possibly a 25- or 30-minute drive, but going through Alewife and all that is an absolute nightmare. you know, the voices of, you know, slow down makes sense to me, you know, hearing that the DPW is not in sync on this, and it's no fault of the commissioner, but it seems as if, you know, at present, we're looking to pass this sort of rezoning and then figure out how much it's going to cost the residents of the city. 30 seconds. And I'll leave it at that. Thanks.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you, Peter. Um, Ellen Epstein, Nick Guerrero, Michael Dewberry. Hi.
[Nick Giurleo]: Good evening, Nick Giurleo, 40 Robinson Road. So obviously very happy that we're revisiting, you know, changing our zoning comprehensively, but I do have to count myself among those who think this process is moving too fast. And it's not because we're, you know, not spending a lot of time. you know, with various meetings, but this is just monumental changes, you know, inherently, they should be a slow process, it should be a slow process. I know you didn't want to hear general comments about speed. So I'll just discuss one thing in my short period of time here. I think my biggest concern, and it's been expressed by so many others, and it was expressed in part, I think, by the DPW, Commissioner Tite, is just the impact on services, right? Schools, DPW, fire, EMS, police. And as we heard from the DPW commissioner, you know, he can only really speak generally on the impact. He doesn't have any information. So that's why I think there'd really be benefit in getting studies done here that really give specifics on if population increases, you know, forecasting what that would have in terms of strain on our essential city services. So really, That, I think, is the most compelling argument for slowing things down. So I strongly support that. And I would just urge, I guess, finally here, all of you to really take your time with this and try to avoid political pressure from the council to rush forward recommendations. Because of just the drastic impact of these changes, it's super important that you take your time and try to do this in as scientific a way as possible. Thank you.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you, Nick. Gaston Fiore? David McKenna. We're switching over to Zoom.
[Alicia Hunt]: I'm gonna give a 30 second beep. So after a minute and 30 seconds, it'll beep and then there'll be a second beep at 30 seconds. So people get a warning.
[Emily Hedeman]: And we just ask that you like wrap up your thought, you know, when that two minutes hit.
[Gaston Fiore]: Gaston Fiore 61, Stigny Road. Research shows that adding homes can temper prices, but higher density can also cut privacy, raise noise, squeeze parking, and strain streets. These burdens fall on current residents. Our task is to capture the benefits while fully accounting for the costs. First, acknowledge these externalities. higher density cuts privacy and raises noise. Many of us left condos to escape sleepless nights. It also brings more cars. Without off-street parking, those vehicles will crowd public streets and erase the curbside access we rely on. Please settle parking and transit strategies before voting on any zoning overhaul. Second, shrink regulatory costs. Government rules make up about 40%, that's four zero percent, of multifamily development costs. Permit delays and layered fees inflate prices. Streamlined approvals and consolidated inspections cut costs before construction begins. Third, let growth pay its own way. Projects that exceed current zoning or any future buy-write limits should fund the added load on roads, water, sewers, and schools. Homeowners should see no new taxes. If impacts are measured, offer property tax credits. housing affordability and neighborhood livability can coexist, but only if we confront these costs. By pruning red tape, assigning infrastructure costs to growth, and safeguarding privacy and parking, Medford can welcome new neighbors while honoring those already here. As Thomas Sowell reminds us, there are no solutions, only trade-offs. Let us choose the trade-off that adds homes without sacrificing the quiet nights and curb spaces residents have earned. Thank you.
[Emily Hedeman]: We're gonna move over to Stephen Pompeo.
[Unidentified]: Is Stephen on Zoom? Okay.
[Emily Hedeman]: Stephen, are you on Zoom? Can you raise your hand if you are? All right, we're gonna go back to in-person, but we will come back to Stephen if he's ready. uh jean nuzzo heather champagny chris lavoie i picked i picked it up most people don't get that okay
[Heather]: Hi, my name is Heather Champney. I'm from 102 Brook Street. First, I support affordable housing. I'm familiar with the Klein-Thompson book, Abundance, and I'm fully aware of how we liberals in our attempts to do right have increased regulation and expense for among other things, the cost of housing. I just do not support this plan for the following reasons. Transparency, not every resident has been informed of what it means for them. No hard data, for example. How many affordable units have been built in the last 10 years? Price points of new housing. private developers role, infrastructure concerns, which we've already heard about tonight, more money, more money, more money, little recognition of what will be lost and no indication of any plans to protect. There is no revenue plan provided, which assures that the extensive infrastructure needs, including school overcrowding and new high school will be corrected. The trickle down approach of building more expensive housing, which then reduces prices for the most financially able and then trickles down to those with slimmer purses has not been proven as effective. I have lived through the Reagan failed trickle down approach and I'm seeing the mess we are all in now. I am reluctant in the recent words of one city Councilor to a resident concerned about current, let alone future infrastructure stressors. We'll worry about that later. This sort of planning or lack of it, I fear, is what we see now coming at us from Washington. I like hard data, and what I have found in the research does not support this proposal. I plan to finish it, just to let you know, because I've already had to cut out half of it. My biggest concern is that until every resident is notified as to what the proposed zoning actually means for them, this is not a transparent exercise. I understand you're under pressure from the council, and I understand why. The current push to put this proposal before the council before the next election feels like bullying or at best represents the perspective of one well-organized group of citizens within the town. It has a my way or highway feel about it. This is not how my reading of abundance purports to proceed. It increases reactionary responses rather than brings together the best of all experts, technical engineering, government, and the neighbors from the start. This proposal is a boon to developers and large real estate brokers. It is not a guarantee of housing for those who most need it. It is at the expense of every neighborhood in the community, not just West Medford. I prefer to feel that this is unintentional, but this plan establishes divisive rather than cooperative solutions.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you, Heather. Chris?
[SPEAKER_04]: Good evening. Chris Lavoie, 101 Century Street Extension. Current zoning proposals are, at best, ill-conceived, if not outright reckless, and I strongly encourage the board and our elected officials to reject them in their entirety until a comprehensive study is completed, along with broader input from the citizen stakeholders of our community. At its foundation, the proposed zoning changes lack any concrete risk-benefit analysis for one to contemplate such an undertaking with such profound investment of community resources and impact to our quality of life. An off-sited goal of the residential proposal, and one which was publicly acknowledged by this Board, is the need to increase housing density in order to address a perceived housing crisis. To be clear, there is no housing crisis. The entirety of the Massachusetts population... has grown by 7.4 percent from 2010 to 2020. Housing unit growth during that same period grew by 7.9 percent. As responsible citizens, we have a duty to be immediately skeptical the moment an elected official attaches the word crisis to anything. What Medford has is the good fortune of a moment of desirability. Perhaps we have a desirability crisis. It compounded by a lack of turnover due entirely to macroeconomic influences, namely interest rates and inflation. Increasing residential density will not impact the affordability of housing if one can even define what that is. One need only look as far as Cambridge and Somerville to understand what I mean. While increased density may indeed increase our revenue base, the demand for resources and infrastructure, school capacity and municipal services will scale in unison. Residential zoning increases and density are a zero-sum game from a revenue perspective, as they should be. Lastly, as evidenced by the sudden outpouring of concern, it is clear that the citizens of Medford are largely uninformed. so much so that one has to wonder if it is not by design. After all, every system is designed to get the results that it achieves. And here we have an uninformed public, which is a failure of our elected officials. To move forward responsibly, I would ask again that the CDB and our elected body reject these proposed changes until a more comprehensive study can be done and we move forward in a more incremental and measured way.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you, Chris. We're going to go over to Steven Pompeo on Zoom. We're going to go over to Steven Pompeo on Zoom.
[Steven Pompeo]: Yeah, thank you very much. So to get right to the point, I'd like to encourage the board at this point to take the opportunity to adjourn at some point tonight, the public hearing on the neighborhood topic. and to make the recommendation to the city council that it adjourns it as well. And then take up discussion of some helpful density creating options like the ADUs and possibly special permit incentives for developing a smaller or split lots. But the idea of this taking a single family neighborhood and converting it into multi families, might help a few people who have lucky lots, might help some developers, and may not change the neighborhood immediately. But the first three, six-unit house building that goes next to somebody else's home is the day that their property plummets in value, all the abutters around one of those properties will plummet in value. And these are just regular people in the city of Medford. Their homes are everything they have. If the value of their home is dropped, then they are limited to what they can do in retirement. They may need their home's value for assisted living. They may need it to help children or grandchildren go to college. So on a micro level, the moment we start putting multi-units next to people's property is the moment that that poor individual's property starts to plummet in value. So again, I would just encourage the board to continue with the ADUs and maybe consider something about affordable housing on undeveloped lots, but otherwise to adjourn the public hearing once and for all. Thank you.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you, Steven. Our next two Zoom commenters are Roberta Cameron and Denise Martinez. Roberta and Denise, would you please raise your hands in Zoom so we can confirm? Okay, Roberta. Roberta, we're gonna go ahead and unmute you and start the timer.
[Roberta Cameron]: Roberta, are you there? Yes, I'm here. Can you hear me? Thank you. Thank you so much. I wasn't anticipating, actually, that you were going to call my name, but I am happy to just make a quick response to a previous comment in that when a homeowner's property is upzoned, meaning that they are allowed to build another amount of development above what they currently have, that increases their property value, that doesn't lower their property value. So upzoning is going to increase people's property value. And I also wanted to note what was said earlier this evening, that new growth is really going to help us to pay for the infrastructure improvements that we already need. And so it's really critical that we facilitate new growth by allowing more development than what our current zoning allows. Thank you. That's all that I'm going to say this evening.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you, Roberta. Our next Zoom commenter is Denise Martinez. And while I do appreciate the applause, let's try to keep our feedback positive. We're trying to show everybody the same respect that we would want to receive ourselves. Thank you. Denise Martinez. I see you, Denise. We're going to unmute you.
[SPEAKER_16]: Hi, good evening. Thank you for allowing me to present tonight to actually speak. I am a new homeowner in Medford, and I purchased my home a couple of years ago. I lived in the Tufts area for many years. I am opposed to the rush that you are doing Over in the Tufts area, there is a density of parking. There is almost no parking. When the plows come down in the middle of the snowstorms, they can barely make it down the street. And people argue over their parking spots. It's not South Boston that we should be living in. We're not living in the city of Boston. It's Medford. And I understand that affordable housing is a crisis. I don't think the rush to do the zoning is going to create affordable housing. It's actually going to hurt because people are going to sell their homes because they're going to cash out. And then it's just going to leave us, the people who are living here, to deal with the parking, to deal... We don't know how the sewer's going to... React we don't know how if the city can fix all of the potholes that it currently has I just learned tonight that the city is responsible for potholes McCall Street has a ton of potholes They've been the city has been saying that they're not responsible for that So there's kind of mixed messages from the city and I think we all need to come together and slow down I agree with the mayor 100% and and the other council members that I am uncomfortable with this. I support affordable housing. I support new people coming into the city. I support the schools. I just don't support the rush. And I think, yes, thank you. And I think we just need to slow down and be more intentional and look at the costs for everyone.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you. Thank you, Denise. We're going back to in-person comment. We have Nate Merritt, Olga Okedi, Uh, Micah Kesselman. Uh, sure.
[Alicia Hunt]: Just remember that the board members on Zoom may not be able to see you. I'm not sure if they can zoom in on you for the cameras.
[Nate Merritt]: There we go. All right. Nate Merritt, 373 Riverside Ave. I'm down to two minutes instead of three from last time. Um, So I moved to Medford for single family house with my family. I have little kids. I know plenty of parents who want to do the same thing. So when I hear city council members and other people saying that the days of single family housing is over, that's a travesty. The city of Lowell has single family housing. It's the third biggest city in the state. So why is Medford so special? That said, it's also a travesty that in the last meeting, Director Hunt actually tried to suppress public comments here so you people couldn't be heard. Instead, the idea was floated or just send it an email. There's a lot of questions that haven't been communicated back, so I'm really glad that you all decided to have in-person comments. The maps here are confusing. This map shows not what is today, but I think people think this might be today's zoning and that's not. That's the plan that the City Council wants versus what the CDB wants. You're missing the one that is today so people can actually compare and contrast what is existing today before any plan. So some clarity could help. I don't see Lumiere Apartments. I don't see Station Landing. I don't see any color coding where we know there are already big complexes. I don't see anything on this map that says where there's a high rise that Director McGivern was talking about where it might be a concern. I look on this table here, same thing. The max is only three stories. There's nothing here that says anything above three stories. So what color is it on the maps? This needs to be communicated better to the people. Um, commercial mixed use, right? That's the promise. And maybe that's what's missing from there. I don't know. You have a large building on Middlesex where H Mart was supposed to go. Maybe there's some other problems in this city where businesses can't get it. You're going to have brand new buildings. What company is going to go in there if they can't get in for two years? H Mart pulled out and instead they got in and out of Davis sooner than they could in Medford. So that's all I got. Thank you.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you, Nate. We're Olga and Micah here. Okay. Carolyn Frey, Meryl Perlson. And then we're moving into people that have signed up fresh for today. Ralph Klein, I'm going to call three at a time, just so people kind of like get in their minds that they're coming up. And then we're going to go back to zoom for a couple and kind of keep going back and forth. But I am trying to prioritize the people in person recognizing that your body and mind is here. So we have Ralph Klein, Mary Pierre Adzigian, and Dina Colegio. Hi.
[Ralph Klein]: Hi. Ralph Klein, 172 Park Street, Medford. I also have interest in property in West Medford on High Street. I'm against these proposals. They lack planning. Salem Street hasn't been surveyed in 30 years. They put that 30 or 60 years, since the 1930s. Also, The Sink Building, they put it on Salem Street. The zoning was horrible. They took away parking. Now everybody says, oh, it doesn't affect you, the parking at Salem Street. I live on Park Street, a block away from the building. All the businesses from the Potter Building, JRA Cycles, and the overflow from their building park on Park Street. All the employees park down there. Drive down Park Street, you see every bicycle rack on every single car. I'm going to make a proposal to the city for resident parking only on Park Street. This is one single building that caused this problem a block away and even closer. Also, I always got the message from Sergeant Barry Clemente when they have these meetings, the informational meetings. I got the first one yesterday. I haven't gotten one. The proposal for the bike lane going down Park Street, never heard about it. The only reason why I knew about it is because I saw Todd Blake walking down the street putting measurements out. Park Street should not be a bike lane. You voted it in. Not one resident of Park Street between Park and Central It was voted on.
[Emily Hedeman]: 30 seconds.
[Ralph Klein]: Also, there was water issues where they put the condo in on Park Street at 169. There were water pressure issues, too much pressure. Also, the solar system, solar, you want it green? You put up a building. Salem Street, Route 60 is an east-west route. You put up a building on the right side that's six stories tall and a three-story building. He loses his ability to put solar on his home, lowering his value. Also, the person who stated that if you put a building next door, it lowers your property value. She said, oh, well, you can sell your unit. Why are you gonna sell your house? It raises your value. She's talking about two different things. She's comparing apples to oranges, and this council has to stop this crap that you're trying to run down our throats in one year. How many years has it been?
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you, Ralph. And just to clarify, this is the Community Development Board, not the City Council. So some of those comments you may want to reiterate to the Council as well, but they are noted here in our public comments. So thank you for that. Hi. Hi.
[SPEAKER_55]: I am Mary Pierced-Zigian. I live at 74 Sturgis Street in Fulton Heights. I am concerned with the changes to the residential zoning. I don't understand why the changes are being made. My husband and I moved to Medford to live in a quiet, peaceful neighborhood with a lot of green space. The changes will that are proposed, I believe, will directly affect us because my neighbor has a very large lot and a very small house. I believe that the setback changes are not good for residential neighborhoods. Five foot setbacks are too small.
[Emily Hedeman]: do you have a suggestion for what they should be? The other, excuse me? Do you have a suggestion for what they should be?
[SPEAKER_55]: Well, I was one of the gentlemen who said, what are they now? It would be helpful for the public to actually see what are they. And the other thing is, yeah, just.
[Paul Morgan]: Seven and a half side, but it's a two and a half story house.
[SPEAKER_55]: right? I think that I think it would be really helpful for the public to actually compare what we have to what's proposed. Um, because I read through the comprehensive zoning, and I only got 30 seconds last month, and a lot of my neighbors who I've talked to in my neighborhood are older. They don't get texts from the city. They have no idea this is going on. So it would be really helpful to have more information so that we can actually see what's going to happen. And finally, the last thing I would say, a purchase of a house is one of the most major life decisions that we can make. People save for many years to buy their house, and people have a right to rely on the zoning changes not changing drastically. the zoning regulations not changing drastically. Thank you.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you, Mary. We have Dina Calegero.
[SPEAKER_52]: Hi, Dina. Sure. Last name is Calegero. Calegero is close enough. I live in Stanley Avenue. I've lived on the street for over 60 years. And I'm the butter to Tufts University. And I bring really deeply rooted perspective on the unique challenges we have. as an abutter of the university. As a South Method resident, I've witnessed firsthand the impact of inadequate housing that Tufts has. Currently, they only house guaranteed housing for freshmen and sophomores. And what happens is that the developers come in, they take the houses, they flip them, and they rent them to Tufts University students. Nearly all the multifamily homes in my street were redeveloped. and are now converted for tough students, not affordable housing. They're very expensive. The newly developed apartments and housing is initially maintained very well, but then the properties decline. The students are transient. They're not part of a fabric of our neighborhood. The dynamic has led to several persistent problems in the area, parking, overflowing trash, noise, and rodent activities. And these conditions have really eroded the neighborhood in which I've lived in. This looks a lot like what the residential zoning will do in our neighborhood, which on my street is residential one, which is scary. You know, I really commend Nedford for the forward thinking of changing zoning, it's needed. But I only support those efforts if they are implemented slowly and carefully. I agree with the mayor and I agree with the residents of Medford that we are moving much, much too slow. And I think it's important that we really protect and cherish the character and the design of the places we live. They're our homes. They have so much value to us and what we need and what we want. And moving in this way is far too quick. Slow down. Let's start with ADUs. Let's consider the infrastructure changes and move slowly. I will see more of the same type of development that has occurred in my area with Tufts University. Thank you, Dina.
[SPEAKER_44]: We're going to go back to our Zoom commenter. We have Meryl Pearlson.
[Meryl Perlson]: Hi, thank you. Hi. So I just want to say a few things. I'm a resident of 97B Boston Avenue. I've lived in Medford for about 25 years, which I know still makes me a newbie. I own a condo there and I chose to live in Medford for many of the reasons people have said. to have that sort of access to the outdoors and trees while still having some proximity to urban areas. I chose to live on a busy street because that was what I could afford and that's what I can continue to afford. I really want to support these zoning changes. I agree we need more housing, more affordable housing, but I just can't based on what lack of information we have about some of the implications. I see this being driven more by philosophies about policies that help growth as opposed to the specifics of our particular community. The public notification was completely insufficient. Another change that's going on in my neighborhood currently is development and improvements to the Mystic River area. There were signs all over the neighborhood for six months with scan codes. You could not miss that that was happening. I have not seen one notice in the neighborhood. I also don't see why there can't be people coming into the neighborhoods that are affected to meet with people and physically notify folks. Not everybody is online. Secondly, I want to say that there's not enough walkability, all the things that are supposed to be making this possible, good public transit walkability. Try walking in my neighborhood or taking a wheelchair in my neighborhood to public transit or over to the river. You have to be in the middle of the street to navigate sidewalks. I live next door to unregulated renters who are crammed into a house illegally. They park on the street. They don't observe just common sense. And I just wish and support the slowing down and the careful study of these changes because it's too important to just rush through. So thank you very much.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you, Meryl. Thank you. The next figure we have is Mike Master Boney. Um other upcoming speakers. Nancy Hogan. That might not be the last name. Okay, because you've got it. Thank
[Mike Mastrobuoni]: Good evening, good evening, Madam Chair, members of the board, Mike Mastrobone, 73 Fulton Spring Road. I'm a parent, I'm also a municipal finance professional, and I strongly support the proposed zoning updates, primarily because they align with previously stated goals of our community. First, increasing density and mixed use projects near transit and squares means young families, downsizing seniors, and first-time homeowners, as examples, can have access to opportunities to live here in Medford. Right now in our schools, we have 62 McKinney-Vento students. These are neighbors that couldn't continue living here, and we pay to transport them back to Medford from where they're living now after becoming homeless. This is a symptom of housing affordability, in my opinion. Full stop. Second, like it or not, Proposition 2.5 in Massachusetts is a restrictive limit that we need to take very seriously. If Medford is not saying yes to investment, we are falling behind. We're falling behind in revenue to fund our basic city services. We're falling behind in revenue to fund investments in infrastructure. And we're also falling behind in our ability to fully fund our schools. These are non-negotiables as far as I'm concerned. Third, the amendments to zoning before you are essential to translate our comprehensive plan that already exists into reality. The action items from that plan are littered with recommendations made in the updated zoning that's before this board. To name a few, creating accessible 12 and 18 hour communities, ensuring affordable housing for all, and achieving our sustainability goals, as well as encouraging balanced growth. So tonight I want to make it clear I support the recommendations made in the zoning reform package. I urge you to move forward at the time that you see fit. I appreciate it. Thank you.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you, Mike. Nancy Hogan. Hi, Nancy.
[SPEAKER_56]: Thank you. My name is Nancy Hogan, and I reside at 42 Tyler Ave. I've resided there for 28 years. I've invested in this property and in the community in my neighborhood. I love the street that I live on. Our houses are already placed very close together, so there's a density within our neighborhood that exists. There also are several two-family houses, although our street is zoned for single-family homes. I did contact the city the development department and I was able to download from the map the setbacks and all the other requirements for my particular property which was built in 1925 and I'd like to say that our neighborhood was never considered to be built in a way that would change the character or the nature of this neighborhood. I've spent my entire career in affordable housing As a professional, I feel very strongly about affordable housing. But I also believe that our current neighborhoods in West Medford were not built for multifamily use. And I think it would significantly change the character of our neighborhoods. I think there are other ways to help solve the problems that we are challenged by with affordable housing. We have other areas that are zoned for multifamily use and commercial use and can create a great tax basis for the city. So I would like to say that I strongly oppose this proposal. And the other thing that I'm also confused about is we are Medford Square adjacent on Tyler Avenue. people many people cut through our street to get to the commuter rail parking and also to drop off kids to St. Ray's which is fine but creating a further density to this the street in particular I'm also going to obviously want to defend our street but I do want to say that our area right around that neighborhood would be very highly impacted by increasing the density. Thank you very much.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you Nancy. you're ready.
[John Elliott]: John Elliott, 34 Emery Street.
[Emily Hedeman]: Hi, John.
[John Elliott]: Hi. I've lost faith and trust in the rezoning effort. Rezoning is on a course that will render the city less attractive, less desirable and harder to afford. I came to this conclusion after six months of witnessing the procedures and methods being practiced by PDS Management, the CDB and the City Council's Planning and Permitting Committee. blowing off three paragraph hole here. Density is needed in Medford in order to receive, relieve a critical housing shortage. Medford had a net population decline over the last four years of 2.11% since the 2020 census and a forecast of continued decline over the next four years from world population review. Are they taking their houses with them when they go to the grave? Are they taking their houses with them when they move to New Hampshire because they can't afford it? That's the only way I can figure that we're losing housing. Another hole. Which brings us to proximity to frequently running transit. Baker's MassDOT located the Greenline extension so that it serves Tufts well, but the surrounding areas, the College Avenue station is largely occupied by, among other things, the Tufts campus, 20 acres of athletic fields, without any residential buildings and maybe in use 2% of the time, and a 6.5-acre tract with 36 lots and 36 dwellings that zoning effort is expected to reclassify as Tufts Institutional with dimensional limits so far unpublished. It seems unlikely to me that any of these will become dwellings that ease any housing shortage and preferably contribute to the tax rolls. And that leads us to tax implications. In a refreshing bit of honesty. 30 seconds. Yeah. Last week, the city councilor identified a city councilor identified that the real motive for the overall zoning overall was to, uh, address a historic budget issue. It's possible that rezoning is in order, but just implementing the state's ADU mandate could very well meet the need for housing. If turning attractive neighborhoods into cheek-by-jowl rabbit warrens solves housing shortages, it does so by making them less desirable, which reduces demand. Ditch all this, involve the citizenry, and come back with a sensible plan.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you, John. I'm going to go back to Zoom commenters. We have Alexander Jenko. Alexander, I'm going to go ahead and unmute you.
[SPEAKER_42]: Hi there. Can you hear me?
[Emily Hedeman]: Yes, thank you.
[SPEAKER_42]: Great. So I'll skip a lot of the stuff that other people have said, but I noticed a couple of things that caused problems, I think, with zoning. I'm on Shapely Avenue right now, which is in South Medford. And it does seem like, as is the case in other parts of the city, that the different sides of the street are zoned differently, which I don't think really makes sense. I think we should continue to go street by street instead of block by block. I also think, yes, we are going a little bit too fast here. But one thing that I think would help with that is, We are, as we stated in earlier meetings, zoning the squares, zoning the corridors first to establish demand and develop demand for development there makes sense. Why don't we, but I think one thing that's become apparent, especially in this meeting is that Medford has a big transition from like South Medford and Medford Square to the northern part of the city. Uh, why, why do we, why do we, why do we have to increase density all the way across to like the Winchester border? I mean, why, why, why can we not, uh, increase density in places that make more sense where it's more walkable, like in South Medford, where I live and still maintain some of the open space and the neighborhood character that exists on the, uh, in, in the other areas. I mean, I enjoy living on my street. There are a lot of, there are a lot of children on the street, mine included. There's like seven kids on the block that are under the age of five. And I liked that part of the density and it, and it creates. and it's affordable for us, but it's obviously a much different part of the city than the northern part of the city. So I think it would be helpful if the city council and the CDB could take a more nuanced approach to zoning across the city. Thanks.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you, Alexander. We're gonna go back to in-person. We have Lori Flagg, Janice Blatt, Anita Nagin,
[Lori Spinney-Flagg]: My name is Laurie Flagg. I'm on Godfield Avenue in Manford. First, I'd like to tell you guys with all this zoning and the dispensary thing that we went through last summer on Salem Street, you've brought our community closer together and more in tune with one another. I'm not going to go along and go over all the other things like everybody's already said, but one big thing in addition to water and sewer is fire. Look at the fires that have just happened in the last few months. California is devastated. The fire in Winthrop. I mean, density is just going to take out full neighborhoods if a fire takes place. But I'd like to share something with the public, since you already have this, that they're probably unaware of. This is from Councilor Lazzaro. to the Community Development Board. I am writing to register my support to the proposal before you for neighborhood residential zoning. This proposal makes it possible for Medford to begin to meet the housing needs of the region in an organic manner as residents decide to move on and sell their their properties to interested buyers? Well, most of your homeowners are over the age of 50 and above. So I don't know that any of us are looking to go up stories on our single family homes. But I caution the Community Development Board to not be swayed by folks who have been recently frightened into thinking that the proposal will quickly, dramatically change their neighborhoods. As the board knows, zoning does not work that way. Zoning is a slow and intentional process with which we have been engaged for years. We have been thoughtful and studied about how we have gone through these matters. And we are carefully thinking about how best to address methods, high cost of housing. Updating our zoning ordinance is one tool in our toolbox. I also would like to mention that single family zoning is also known as exclusionary zoning, which, to quote the Boston Globe, rose to prominence in the early 20th century as a policy tool for keeping some neighborhoods exclusive along racial boundaries, by preventing the construction of apartments. Maintaining single-family zoning in the richest, whitest part of Medford, which also happens to be very close to the only commuter rail station 11 minutes from North Station in Boston, will be segregationalist and unacceptable.
[Emily Hedeman]: I'm so sorry, Laurie. I'm going to go have to go ahead and make you out of respect.
[Lori Spinney-Flagg]: You should be ashamed that one of our Councilors wrote.
[SPEAKER_60]: Hi, thank you. Hi, everybody. My name is Janice Blatt. I live on Placestead Road. I've been there for 24 years. I'm a single woman homeowner. I saved, worked really hard, got my 20%, put it down 24 years ago, and have been maintaining my home. And I just want to say Placestead Road is one of the prettiest roads in the city, although now it has a bunch of plastic barriers at the end of it, but we'll deal with that later. My comment, a lot has been said on the residential development I want to talk about how I feel for a minute, and having come from corporate America for several years, a fairly high ranking position, the way I feel when the meeting like this starts with the mayor, the highest ranking person in our city, who is on vacation, who feels compelled, as we all did, no matter how we feel, to be here tonight, starts the meeting by saying, stop, none of my people know what's going on, We have no financials. We don't have the money for it. And then the commissioner, who's nice enough to be here of public works, says, I haven't seen any financials. It sounds like this is some philosophical presentation to change over Medford. I didn't move to Somerville. I don't want to be Somerville. If I did, I would have bought there. I would have bought in Cambridge. This is Medford. And the word density is, to me, is poison. I'm sorry. It sounds like a political and philosophical consulting buzzword. 30 seconds. That's fine. I want to comment on West Medford, too. If you want to make that a walking city, do you see the oil tankers, the kids crossing the street, the church getting out? It's the only commercial pass-through road. Medford is a pass-through town, whether we like it or not. You see the circle on High Street and Winthrop, and you're going to add more people living there to come down that and go to the other traffic circle. I don't want to be Somerville, and I don't want to be dense.
[SPEAKER_44]: Thank you, Janice.
[Anita Nagem]: My name is Anita Nagum. I live at 9 Norton Avenue. First, I agree with everyone, almost everyone who has commented saying that this plan is being rushed and that public notification has been miserable. I have two specific comments. First, any new rezoning plan must codify a homeowner's right to have solar panels and not have those panels blocked by any new construction, even if they have not yet installed them. Solar panels are even now, an environmental necessity and in the short-term future will be an absolute necessity. It will also be an economic necessity for many because the price of electricity is beginning to skyrocket. With new AI data centers, they are going to be required by many. Rezoning must consider the future consequences and rushing to solve one problem can create others. Second, at one of the previous meetings, Innes Associates stated that when parking concerns were raised that, oh, the MBTA usually increases bus service if housing density increases. They seem to be totally unaware that the MBTA is redesigning the entire bus network. This plan was revised three years ago, finalized in December of 2022. West Medford in particular is going to have a significant reduction in bus service. I have been fighting this plan for three years. created several community petitions with almost 2,000 signatures. I've been working with elected representatives to fight this. We have had limited success. Other communities in the MBTA system have also been fighting and trying to get remediation on some of these issues. It is going to be a long shot to get this done. And the third thing is, please do not try and use the MBTA Communities Act as an excuse to increase density around West Medford. The Communities Act requires any community with MBTA service to have one zone where multi-family housing is allowed by right. It is not required at every station in any community. Medford is already in compliance with the Wellington zone. Thank you.
[Emily Hedeman]: I'm going to go back to our Zoom queue. Andy Beck. Andy, I'm going to go ahead and unmute you.
[SPEAKER_71]: Hello? Can you hear me?
[Emily Hedeman]: We can, but it's very, very light.
[SPEAKER_71]: Let me turn up my volume. Let's see. OK. Here we go. Uh, I hope you can hear me. Well, I have lived in. Yeah, I've lived in Medford for 45 years. My 1st house costs 42,000 dollars. I am not selling my house. I'm not a developer. I'm not interested in a big score. What I am interested in is quality of life. And while I support the notion of affordable housing, I will give this board solid examples. I live on Arlington Street in West Medford. And in Arlington Street, We've had six houses come up for sale, well, I should say be redeveloped by developers. Each of them have sold for over a million dollars. This is on Arlington Street. Again, the developers bought, knocked down the property, put up two condos. Another developer bought a lot that was large enough. to fit two houses with no backyard for either house, each sold for $1.1 million. So this is what really happens when these kinds of situations present themselves. Affordable housing is necessary, but if we have no reign over developers by legislation, then what we have are people buying up properties and making a buck on them. And so for me, the important thing is the quality of life in my neighborhood, with my neighbors, with my community. And my concern about this for the board, yeah, my concern to share with you for somebody who's lived in this city for 45 years and raised a son here who couldn't afford to live here and had to move to Peabody is that, change in manageable bites. In my work life, I had the experience of working with the president of Charles Schwab. He said when I tried whole scale organizational change, it failed because I was the only one who owned that change. No one else owned that who worked here. And that's what the city council I see is trying to do here. The residents do not own this change. or the City Council does. And if we want to have a community that owns change, it has to be in manageable bites. Thank you.
[SPEAKER_44]: Thank you, Andy.
[Emily Hedeman]: We're going to go back to our in-person commenters. Kelly Catalo, Elizabeth Bale, Elise Copley.
[Kelly Catalo]: Hi. Hi, Kelly Catalo, 23 Salem Street, Medford, and a 33-year realtor of the city of Medford, which makes me an expert on the valuation of property. That zoning proposal to tear this city apart, to put a six-unit building in the middle of West Medford, what happened on Salem Street, what they want to do on Garfield Street, is going to negatively affect the value of all of those properties. Those six units will go up. The developers are calling everybody in this city. You guys all own homes. You're getting phone calls. They want to know if you want to sell your property, because they want to buy it today, because the minute that that passes, They're going to go put up three to six units. Then they're going to convert them to condos. Then they're going to go sell them for over a million dollars. That's not going to help the values of the city of Medford. It is not going to bring, density is not going to bring affordable housing to Medford. Look at Stations Landing as your example. When Stations Landing was built, the people of Medford could not afford $3,000 for a two-bedroom apartment. People from other communities that could afford it moved into Stations Landing. At that time, across the street, those condos on 9th Street, the ones that were rented, were renting for $1,400 to $1,500. Well, pretty soon, the people that were paying $3,000 went across the street and said, well, I'll pay you $2,500. All's the density did was drive up the cost of housing. You do have some tools that could really bring affordable housing to Medford. If we look at the GIS maps and we look at North Medford, the majority of the lots are 4,000 square feet, yet your zoning says that you need 5,000 square feet for a single family. On Wilson Street, there was a piece of property recently sold. There are two McMansions that are now built on a piece of land that is just shy of 12,000 square feet. However, If you brought down the zoning on that to be 4,000 in North Medford, you could have had three single family homes that meet the neighborhood, that fit into the neighborhood. If we look at a four... The ADU units, I know I'm running short, I'm gonna ask you for another minute, because I'm trying to give you something that you can use. I can give you about 30 seconds. Thank you. The ADU units, we have 7,800 single family homes in the city of Medford. A one bedroom apartment right now, the low end is $2,100. An ADU in Medford is going to rent at about $1,600. How many of your kids could stay in Medford at that? They could stay here. How many of our elderly people, they can't afford these bigger places. They could stay in Medford at that price. So creating the ADUs is creating housing that is affordable naturally to the people of Medford. However, if you take that same single family and you now make it a two-family house, I guarantee you, now we're at 1.5 million for the two family, or maybe we'll split it in half, go sell it to two condos, and a million one or a million two apiece. None of that is gonna create affordable housing. Thank you.
[SPEAKER_44]: Thank you.
[Emily Hedeman]: Elizabeth Bale.
[Elizabeth Bayle]: Elizabeth Bale, 34 Emory Street. There's so little time and so much to say. I just want to say that we bought our house in 1987. Our house was built in 1895. Medford was incorporated as a city in 1892. Our house was probably a farmhouse. I don't think it was exclusionary. Um, we took a broken down house that was in miserable condition with a lot that had a broken down truck and a bunch of gravel in it and made a really nice house with a beautiful garden. And we have trees around our property that are probably 50 years old. And we live on a one-way street. It's a short street. It's got about 20 houses, about half single-family, about half two-family. And with the changes, it was supposed to be NR3. And I was not going to object to that. But bumping it up to UR1 and saying that single-family homes can no longer be built by right is too extreme. And if you stayed with NR3, you could double or triple or possibly even quadruple the number of housing units just by adding the ADUs, the townhouses, the three families. We have only one three-family at the moment. 30 seconds. You asked about setbacks. Five feet for a setback doesn't even let you put up a ladder to paint your house or change a window or even move an air conditioner. How are people supposed to deal with this? We really have a neighborhood and people help each other and it feels safe, but there's not room for more houses and cars. We have small lots. It's a one-way street. and density is just not appropriate everywhere, at least more than NR3 level. Thank you.
[SPEAKER_44]: Thank you, Elizabeth.
[Ben Lavallee]: Emily, I'm sorry, could you just, which street were you referring to? I missed it.
[Emily Hedeman]: We have an address. I'm not gonna like stalk you, but just to like kind of cross check and kind of contextualize what you're saying. But that sort of feedback is super helpful because of how specific it is. So thank you for coming and commenting this evening. Elise, okay. Elise, I believe you are now joining us through Zoom. I'm gonna go ahead and unmute you. Thank you for your flexibility this evening. Elyse, Elyse Copley, right? Yeah.
[SPEAKER_44]: Hi, Elyse. Hello. Hi. Can you hear me? Yes. Thank you. Elyse Copley.
[SPEAKER_46]: I live on Sagamore Avenue and I'm here to voice my strong opposition to the zoning proposals. We've heard people say, slow down. I'm not gonna ask to slow down. I'm gonna ask that it just be rejected. I'd like to start by saying Medford doesn't have a housing crisis. I'm gonna say it again. Medford doesn't have a housing crisis. So to be clear, these proposals are not in response to a problem that the city of Medford faces, rather it's a philosophy that not all of the residents sign on to. First, people have said that this proposal is in line with the comprehensive plan. That's just not true. If you read the comprehensive plan, there's nowhere in the comprehensive plan where it advocates for these sweeping zoning changes. The other thing about the comprehensive plan is if you look at how that was put together, there was not overwhelming feedback and collaboration and input from the residents of Medford. Also the comprehensive plan states that by 2030, we expect maybe a 6% increase in the residents of Medford. That's a guesstimate. I have no idea how much housing the proposal will add in my own lot that I have. I'm gonna go from a single family house to upwards of six units on my lot. or potentially eight if you count the ADUs. Second, the effect of the ADUs has not been considered in the comprehensive plan and it should be. The preservation of the neighborhoods in Medford is something that really should be done on a neighborhood by neighborhood basis. We should get the input of the neighborhood to decide how that neighborhood would like to move forward rather than these sweeping changes citywide. Density, I just want to say, I can already see into my neighbor's kitchen. They can see into my windows. I don't want more density. And I think the vast majority of my neighbors do not want more density. We are already more dense than Arlington, Stoneham, Melrose, Winchester, all of our neighbors, with the exception for Cambridge and Somerville, who happen to rank first and second among the most dense cities in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. And as people have said, we don't want to be the third most densely populated city in the state. Okay, finally, this infrastructure, at a minimum, what we're hearing from our leaders is that we haven't studied it. We don't know, we're not ready. We don't know how much it's gonna cost, but we can't handle the schools, the roads, all of our utilities. We have a lot of work to do on them already. We should be focusing on that. And the residents of Medford should know exactly how these proposed changes are gonna impact our city. And our leaders should be prepared to answer questions on that. and handle whatever changes are there. Finally, I just want to say that these zoning changes have a real threat to our historical identity. There's massive environmental consequences.
[Emily Hedeman]: And as other people have said- I'm going to have to go ahead and mute you. You're about a minute and 20 seconds over. But if you have additional comments, please share them via email. Thank you. The next commenter that we're going to have is Zoom. We're going to do Avery Mangum. Hi, Avery. I'm going to go ahead and send you a request to unmute.
[SPEAKER_34]: Hi. My name is Avery, 14 Fairfield Street. I'm 21 years old. I've lived in Medford for eight years, and I currently live in a single-family home in land that is marked to be rezoned as urban residential one. on one side of a split street, actually. This means that homes like the one I live in will not be able to be built where I live in the future. And if I knock down my current house, a two-family unit at the minimum would need to replace it. Now, I think it would be very easy for someone in my position to become defensive about this rezoning proposal. It guarantees that the land that I live on will not be used the same way in the future, and that's scary. But instead of becoming defensive and trying to put a stop to this change, I want to make a point to do the opposite. I am here tonight to give my full-throated endorsement of this rezoning proposal as a resident, taxpayer, young person, and single-family occupant in Medford. I am here to do this not because I seek to preserve my current lifestyle for generations to come, but because I want to do better than we are now, for my own descendants, and for the city that I live in and that I love. All across the United States, the story is the same. Higher density housing is a tremendous benefit to the city that builds it. It lowers housing costs, makes the city more attractive to move to for old and young alike, makes for stronger and more personable neighborhoods, and brings business to the city. Yet all across these United States, proposals like this one face opposition. Opposition out of what I think is a genuine, but ultimately misguided fear of changing the standards that we've become accustomed to. Precedent tells us that those cities that succeed over this fear and commit higher density zoning to law rise above the rest, and the dividends are paid to every resident and visitor to the city for decades to come. I want this for MedFood, the city that I love. MedFood was incorporated a city in 1892, and I say it's time we start building like one. Thank you.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you, Avery. We're going to go back to in-person commenters. We have Danielle Marcellino, Patrick Clerkin, Heidi Sutherland,
[Danielle Marcellino]: Danielle Marcellino, 11 Spencer Road. I'm also the union president for the Metro Fire Department. I would assume that no matter what stance you take on this issue, your personal safety will always be a top priority. I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that the police officers and firefighters are probably the only ones in the city who go to work every day with a regard for their own safety for the sake of our citizens. So to be this far into the zoning conversation, but are only just beginning to reach out to public safety department heads for the discussion, makes it seem like safety is an afterthought. The fire chief and the department have serious concerns. A couple of key points to keep in mind are that the fire department does not have enough personnel working every day, sorry, working on shift every day to safely respond to what we would consider a medium hazard and a high hazard according to the fire safety standards. That would mean three-story multi-unit buildings and four-story or above as a high rise. We also do not have a fire engine in surface on Salem Street. That means that if your house is on if your house is on Salem Street and on fire, that area's first crew of firefighters that show up do not have water or hoses to put the fire out. You unfortunately have to wait for crews from another area to Sorry, I can't read this small. You unfortunately have to wait for crews from another area. And if you have ever seen a house fire, it grows exponentially every second. Increasing the population and density of the neighborhoods will impact our response to emergencies. Basically, this plan will spread fire department resources too thin. If you have any interest in what's good for the community, you will slow the freight train down and allow the safety professionals time to properly evaluate the impacts of this plan and fortify our resources before it actually comes to fruition. Thank you.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you, Danielle.
[Patrick Clerkin]: Patrick Clerkin, 50 Princeton Street. And I wanted to focus on some actionable proposals for how this process might be smooth for the board, the council, the public, pretty much all the stakeholders. So we've already heard about the pace of the process. Another piece is the presentation of information. One of the things that comes to mind is anytime there are maps like that, really calling out in red line form the differences between the two versions of the maps will really help because it's very difficult to look at two maps where a lot of things have changed and wrap your head around what exactly is going on and what's different between the two images. The second thing is the different zoning codes. There's the old code, the new code. I think it would help to have a diagram that really visually conveys the transition from one taxonomy to another taxonomy, like what merged, what split, what was added, what's the same. It's difficult when you have two different vocabularies, basically, and you're trying to compare the two. The third is the website is generally pretty good. I was actually scrolling through it, but I would say that really reassessing, having someone look at it and just de-jargoning anything, particularly headlines. I think that for the most part, it's good, but there's still some things out there that someone might look through it and say, what is this? And plus some of the things within the tabs are kind of text walls. People don't really like to delve into those often. it's a lot easier to do that. So visuals certainly help. And then the third category of item is just aligning incentives. So I would say that anyone who has possibly anyone who has a property along the edge of a thoroughfare where we would be building taller buildings naturally, that's where you would put more would have their property taxes decreased. Um anyone who was right next to the tall buildings would have their property taxes decreased because they're losing the value of their of their homes and basically phasing out towards pretty much the edge of the shadow of the building. The properties in the immediate area would have their property taxes decreased as well. So that would align the city's incentives with the residents incentives, so they would basically think twice about having really tall buildings. They gain
[SPEAKER_44]: Thank you, Patrick.
[Diane Sullivan]: Good evening. I'm Heidi Sutherland. I'm at 66 St. James Road, which is on the Budweiser side of the Fellsway. I came here specifically just to listen and see what was going on. Trying to see these maps on Facebook. They don't blow up enough. You can't really see anything. It's useless. But listening to a lot of my neighbors and concerns that they're having, I was a housing advocate for six years in Boston. I worked with homeless, low-income people affordable housing is an oxymoron. There's no two ways about it. If you look at the HUD website right now, the area median income for MedFed is $118,000, which under normal circumstances would be a two person income. My daughter and her fiance can't afford to live in Medford. They are above this area median income combined. They had to buy a house out in Tewksbury at 600 square feet. They can't afford this. They looked everywhere. She would rather be down here with her family. I live in the house that my grandfather built that my mother grew up in on St. James Road. To my neighbor over on Park Street, resident parking only, make sure it's 24 hours. And even then, if the police can't get down there to police it, it's not gonna help. To my neighbor who was the realtor, great, I applaud her tremendously. There's a lot of problems with the proposal in general. I wish I had answers, but it's just, there's too many things wrong with it, that it really needs to, that we're going to be able to. Put more focus in individually, break them out into separate pieces. Don't lump the residential zoning in with the E. D. U. Zoning to rush it through. Take it piece by piece. It's the only way that things are going to work. Well some of my neighbors like what has been is impossible. I'm right by the gas station. People just rush by on the Fells Way. They don't want to let you out. As far as my street, we've got a nice little bend on it. The fire truck has a hard time getting down there if everybody's parked. We're one-sided parking. We're a two-way street. I can't park facing the wrong way on my street because it's not deemed on the other side that it's one-way parking. there's a park in front of my house, my neighbors, and I just found out tonight that my mother received a phone call from a realtor looking to buy the house. Heidi, I'm going to ask you to wrap up your comment. Not a problem at all. Thank you. I just wanted to say I really have concerns as one of the young people, younger people in the city that you're driving, you're going to wind up driving people out. It's not going to be a good thing, contrary to what the young folk on the Zoom had to say.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you, Heidi. We're going to go back to Zoom commenters. We have Daniel Nezo Mueller. Daniel, I'm going to go ahead and unmute you.
[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Hi. Thank you very much for taking my comment. I would just like to propose that possibly we could look into limiting the number of properties that can be up-zoned in a given year, just throwing out a number, possibly 5% of the total stock that has a change of zoning, just to help offer a solution that meets the needs of both parties, both people who want to change the zoning and people who would like to stay.
[Emily Hedeman]: I'd ask that people who are having separate conversations, please move them to outside the chambers. Thank you. Sorry, Daniel, please continue.
[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: No worries. So, I mean, I would like to echo Patrick's suggestions that we find a good compromise between both sides, both being able to slow down the pace, but also allow us to advance as a city and move forward with, you know, new opportunities. Thank you very much.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you, Daniel. Appreciate the comment. We have in-person commenters, Tom Knackle and Harrison Green.
[SPEAKER_08]: Hi, good evening, Tom Nackel. Hi, Tom. Homeowner for 14 years at 1 Vernon Street and lifelong resident of West Medford. I have several suggestions. One is, this is quite a proposal, and I believe that it should not go through seven members of the community, but through all the members in the vote on the ballot, not just the council members. And if it does pass, there should be some compensation to the single family homeowners because it's a quality of life issue and a monetary issue. The loss of quality of life and as someone else said earlier, if you build a multifamily building across from a single family house, there is a loss in the value of your home. So that should be considered. And is the developer or the city going to compensate you for that loss? Thank you.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you, Tom.
[Harrison Green]: Hello, Harrison Green. Hi Harrison. To Ronaleigh Road in West Medford. I'm lucky enough to own roughly 30% of a single family home in West Medford. If my neighborhood allowed for multi-unit developments, it's possible I would have been able to be a part of this community earlier. Medford is now a majority renter city. If this board is concerned about getting public comment from all residents, I suggest it makes an effort to consider the needs beyond the majority homeowners like myself, who can attend multiple Wednesday night meetings in the middle of an affordability crisis. I'd also like to acknowledge how unusual it is for our mayor to drum up division on the basis of not understanding the map and because of five to 10 emails a day. We deserve better support from our chief executive. Lastly, there have been many comments tonight about redevelopers flipping houses for over a million dollars. This could begin to be addressed by the proposed real estate transfer fee to fund an affordable housing trust. I'd love to see the community pursue solutions rather than slowdowns with no solutions to the issues our neighbors are facing. I urge the board to adopt the proposal.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you, Harrison. We're going to go back to Zoom commenters. We have T.M. Hanley. I'm going to go ahead and unmute you.
[SPEAKER_61]: Hi, good evening. Thank you so much. And I want to thank everybody else who spoke before me. I'm a lifelong resident of Playstead Road. I was thinking my next move would only be across the street to the cemetery, but I feel I'm being pushed out now sooner than I wanted. I do agree. I was here to say slow down. However, now listening, my thoughts are reject. Please, I'm rejecting this. The infrastructure is in dire need of an assessment. And if we do not have that prior to this, everything will be broken. We'll be back to like, I don't know where we'll be at. And it shouldn't be on the homeowners to support everything. So please, I'm rejecting. I do want to say that Chris Lavoie, you have the best saying of the night. We're not in a housing crisis. We're in a desirability crisis. That's where we find ourselves. So I'm thinking permit incentives, ADU, and no more banks. Thank you. Thank you.
[Emily Hedeman]: We're going to go to our next commenter, Eric Bastien. Eric, I'm going to go ahead and unmute you. If you're talking, I can't hear you. I'm going to go ahead and request an unmute again.
[SPEAKER_66]: Sorry, can you hear me now?
[Emily Hedeman]: I can hear you now, yes. Okay, thank you.
[SPEAKER_66]: Hi, my name is Eric, and I currently live on Morton Ave in South Medford, and I'm here to strongly support this rezoning proposal. I think we've heard just about every classic NIMBY argument tonight, but at the end of the day, they all amount to denying basic economics, that increasing supply in the face of increased demand, lowers the market clearing rate. Therefore, housing becomes more affordable for everyone if you build more of it and allow more types of it to be built. Medford isn't actually in a vacuum. We are in an affordability crisis. However, it is not just Medford. It is a regional affordability crisis. You cannot treat homes both as investment vehicles and as essential shelter. You must pick one. And right now, all the voices I'm hearing are choosing investment vehicles. Some argue we should slow down, but I believe that's the same line to use to avoid action on everything from climate to gun legislation. Delay is a form of denial. And let's be honest about the parking complaints. Parking is artificially cheap. If it's scarce, price it accordingly. Do not use public funds to subsidize private car storage while people can't afford to live here. I first moved to Medford because it was affordable. About 13 years ago, I was a renter. I left because I found more exciting places to live. I moved back because new development and more density made it affordable as well as desirable to live again. And it's now my favorite place I've ever lived. Rezoning is a long game, and zoning changes take decades to meaningfully shift to on-the-ground changes in housing and infrastructure. Construction is slow and expensive, and if we do not act now, we are locking in failure for an entire generation. Lastly, the loudest voices at meetings like this often represent current landowners, not renters, new residents, or future families. I urge the Community Development Board to resist making nostalgia or property values for, mistaking nostalgia or property values for moral arguments. Please pass this rezoning. Medford's future depends on it. Thank you.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you, Eric. Our next commenter is Cynthia Kuhn. Cynthia, I'm going to go ahead and unmute you. Cynthia, are you there?
[Cindy Kuhn]: Yes, can you hear me?
[Emily Hedeman]: Yes, thank you.
[Cindy Kuhn]: I live at 602 High Street. I'm in a single family house that is on this plan is scheduled to be an urban residential one. I'm concerned about traffic because there already is quite a bit of traffic during rush hour down along High Street. I'm concerned about climate change because the effect of increased density will also increase more urban heat islands and I I'm very concerned about that. And I'm also concerned about the mayor's statement about the fact that our schools are filling up. And until we have a plan for um, having more schools that will accommodate more people. I think it would be very, very unwise to go ahead with this plan. Thank you.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you, Cynthia. Our next zoom commenter is iPhone with two eyes. Just a reminder to state your name and address before you go into your public comment. I have sent iPhone with two eyes a request to unmute. All right, I'm gonna keep moving on to Zoom commenters. We have Ellen Lavecchia. Ellen, I'm gonna send you an unmute. Okay.
[SPEAKER_53]: Hi, can you hear me? Yes. Thank you. Hi. Yeah, so I want to make sort of a different point that I haven't heard yet. And that is just with the kind of need for variation across the city. I lived in a two-family home in a zone for two-family and three-family homes. My family grew, my needs changed. I was able to stay in Medford and move into a single-family home. I hope someday I will move back when my kids are grown into an apartment style living. I can do all of that in Medford today, when that time comes 20 years from now. My neighbors will have all for the most part have turned over 20 to 30 over the course of 20 to 30 years and they will have sold to a developer because that will be the highest bidder. So my current single family neighborhood will have turned into a multifamily neighborhood. There will be no variation across the city for different needs of different families. all of the neighborhoods will look and feel the same. It will be one size fits all. If there is only one type of family or one set of needs that can be accommodated in Medford instead of various sets of needs, which is what we can do today for different sizes of families and different needs of families. When I do move and my entire neighborhood, single family neighborhood is no longer a single family neighborhood. And none of the single family neighborhoods are single family neighborhoods. My question for you today is, at what point are you issuing, at what point are you issuing the residents our uniforms? Are you gonna send us out uniforms? do we all have to be the same? We all have to be the same. We all have to have the same needs. That's your question.
[Emily Hedeman]: At what point are we issuing the residents uniforms? Yes. Okay. I'm just clarifying with the commenter. I'm not asking for comment from the chairs. Thank you. Great.
[SPEAKER_53]: Yeah, you can if you can let us all know that that would be great.
[Emily Hedeman]: Great. Thank you. I appreciate your comment. Our next commenter is Christian Petrillo.
[SPEAKER_30]: Hey, thank you. This is Christian Petrillo, 19 Wellgate Road in Medford. Grew up in the city, born and raised, have also contributed to some developments in the city. Medford, as it's currently served, has not had their zoning changed in a number of years. squares are dying, if not for cell phone stores and, you know, convenience stores and nail salons. What we need is kind of an upwardly mobile future look towards the city of, you know, invigorating our squares, activating the streetscapes, allowing for density to incorporate affordable housing so it is affordable for all. you know, the spectrum of residents of the city. The city is growing. When I hear of concerns of people of parking and services, obviously some of those are not in line with development. They're budgetary shortfalls or whatever they may be, but they should grow with development. Development spurs a tax base that also contributes to the budgets. And, you know, what I hear a lot is from people who've owned for a long time. All those initial concerns are really unvoiced concerns of just adversity to change, adversity to not think forward for a time when they will not be here. Hello.
[Emily Hedeman]: Sorry about that. I forgot to mute a previous commenter.
[SPEAKER_30]: So, you know, this is, you know, we can't be afraid of change. We have to not just think about our own needs, but the needs of an ever evolving city and tax base. And there is a housing crisis. People can be in denial about it is a supply and demand. The more you supply. hopefully you know it lessens the demand therefore you know helping the prices and affordability it's not people are going to come in and just create affordable housing inclusionary housing quotas uh you know help add to that as well as you know adding to an affordable housing trust stock and contributions so with that you know this is i think a plan that should be carefully looked at for density along the main thoroughfares to activate streetscapes, retail, to make it invigorating, great community, also while respecting the single family owners and the fabric of that neighborhood as any smart community growth and development should be. But we do need to look towards the future and we cannot be NIMBYs and only think of our own needs while we own housing and not for the people who are seeking housing. Thank you.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you, Christian. We're going to go back to iPhone with two eyes. You're going to get a request to unmute. I'm sending a request to unmute, but it doesn't seem to be going through. There might be a phone number that they can dial into if that's a tech workaround. We're going to go to the next Zoom commenter, which is Michael Dewberry. Michael, I'm going to go ahead and send a request to unmute.
[Michael Dewberry]: Hello, Michael Dewberry, Park Street. Thank you for taking my comment.
[Emily Hedeman]: It's very low. Can you speak louder or closer to your machine?
[Michael Dewberry]: Is that better?
[Emily Hedeman]: It's a little bit better, but just yell and pray for forgiveness from your housemates or neighbors.
[Michael Dewberry]: Um, yeah, so, um, Michael, do you bury 50 park street? Um, thank you for taking my comment. Um, sorry, I wasn't here earlier. My name is called for, uh, uh, I did wait until the end of the last meeting. Um, actually, I think it's probably multiple meetings I've been at where I, uh, fell off the list because the meeting had to be adjourned. Uh, so, yeah, I'm happy to have a chance to speak briefly now. Um, I just want to say that, um, And I'm also glad to see that there are more people here. I have been late to things in the past. I've been to a bunch of these meetings, but I totally understand. I think you're coming into this late and trying to catch up. I empathize that position. I think if we want to do things to improve the communication, figure out how do we explain what the purpose of this is to more people. That's great. I strongly support the current amended plan, and I'd like to see it moved forward. But if we have to do more communication around it, if there are targeted improvements that people have to suggest, I think that is also excellent. But I would urge the committee to stick to the you know, originally a democratically determined plan for, you know, we've been in this multi-year process with the comprehensive vision and the timelines you set out. I think extending it a little bit, you know, has already been agreed to makes total sense. But let's not, you know, weigh this down by, you know, procedural shenanigans when, you know, we kind of knew, you know, the last election, this is something we wanted to set out to do as a city. My wife and I are lucky enough to own our home, a single-family home. We feel very lucky to be able to do that. We are adjacent to a multifamily house. We are two doors down from a 10-unit building. I do not feel like my experience or the value of my home is at all impaired by proximity to multifamily. If the density around us suddenly increases, I don't think my life will be affected at all in any negative ways. I think it will be affected in positive ways because where I live in Glenwood, I haven't only been here about 10 years, but my understanding is that 30, 40 years ago, this was actually a much denser neighborhood with retail and restaurants threaded through the residential district. And the housing stock has not changed that much, but the mix, we've gone from multi-generational families to couples. The density has actually gone down, and that kind of retail doesn't exist anymore. So I would like to see us coming back to that golden age. I don't feel like we are throwing away a golden age. I feel like we are, on the cusp of being able to reclaim one. Yeah, I want to see more density in the squares. I want to see more density in the neighborhoods.
[Emily Hedeman]: Michael, I'm going to ask you to add your comment, please.
[Michael Dewberry]: Yeah, absolutely. Because I want my next job. I don't want to commute to Waltham or downtown anymore. I want my next job to be in Medford. I want to have co-workers who live in Medford, who patronize Medford restaurants for lunch. And I think that that is only going to be possible if we have increased business density in the squares and increased residential density in the neighborhoods. Thank you.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you, Michael. Our next commenter is through Zoom, and they are Ren Bean. Ren, I'm going to go ahead and unmute you.
[Ren Bean]: Yes, hello, thank you. I want to express support for the residential zoning proposal in its current form. I see it as the result of a year plus, multi-years if you would include the comprehensive plan. A few people have scoffed at that, but there was a lot of public input to that and it's a pretty thoughtful document. and the housing production plan. I think this proposal, you know, brings to life in detail a lot of the goals in those plans. You know, people can sort of have disagreements about the best way to accomplish some of the goals, but I think the proposal is quite good. I do agree with an earlier commenter that we're, you know, we're faced with some trade-offs, right? I just think it's worth noting and recognizing that inaction also poses trade-offs. You know, we recently faced the question of whether or not we needed an override. We needed to decide if we were going to lay off, you know, 40 plus educators. We didn't, the community didn't agree to invest in a new, you know, fire facility. You know, we hired three people to fix roads, but we still face a multi-million dollar, multi-year backlog of road repairs. And I think it's important to recognize that adding residential and commercial space in the city will increase our tax base and allow us to do a lot of the things the city needs to do, fund the services the city needs to have. And I think we need to grapple with the reality that if we don't increase our revenues, the limitations of Prop 2.5 mean that we can only increase our levy by 2.5% every year, which does not even cover the cost of inflation. Our city budget is going to continue to shrink year after year, and in terms of Medford becoming a desirable place to live, we will slowly become a less desirable place to live. I count myself lucky to be a homeowner here, single-family home. I don't share the view of a lot of single-family homeowners who have spoken saying that they feel like the presence of multi-family units impact negatively their ability to enjoy their single-family home. I live in an area that's being upzoned in this proposal to neighborhood residential 3, which could be 2 to 4 units of historical conversion, triple deckers. I live near triple deckers and double deckers. Some good friends and neighbors live in multi-unit buildings, and they're great people. Having another one or two of them on my street wouldn't be such a bad thing. I get there's never a change. People like their neighborhood. They like their neighbors. But I think it's also important to acknowledge that when people sell, they downsize, they move. The people that move into those buildings are going to be facing very high costs. And the fabric of this community will just simply not be composed of what it was 30, 40 years ago when housing cost $40,000, which inflation adjusted money is like, You know, housing costs have just gone way high, and this is a regional problem. We know that, but it's impacting our city. The world is changing. The region is changing. The question is, how is our city going to change with it? I think we should, you know, invite more neighbors to fund the city the way it deserves to be funded. Thank you very much.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you, Ren. I see we have an in-person commenter. Have you spoken on neighborhood and residential before? Awesome, come on up. Please say your name and address for the record. Oh, I'm sorry. Now you're good. Thank you so much.
[Melanie Tringali]: Hi, I'm Melanie Tringali. I live at 1164 Street, and I just wanted to thank the mayor for calling in today and requesting to slow down and stop the residential zoning. Many people have already spoken, so I'm not going to repeat everything they said, because I've agreed with a lot of them. Increased density does not necessarily mean that we're going to bring down our housing cost. that we need to slow down. Um increase in traffic. Uh our infrastructure. Our schools are safety. All that I think will be extremely impacted. And I know that you wanted to focus on. Residential zoning, but I also think that we need to slow down on the square zoning. Um we need to get it right. The We need to increase our commercial base. We're not going to increase our revenue by increasing density in residence. We need to increase our commercial base. We need to have vibrant squares, and you need to have a plan for that. Just rezoning and saying, come to us is not going to work. There needs to be a plan. In addition to stopping and opposing the residential, I strongly recommend that we slow down on our squares and get it right so that we have the commercial base that we need to have vibrant squares and the tax revenue that we need. Thank you.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you, Melanie. And before I go back to Zoom, are there any other in-person commenters that have not signed up, that have not spoken before? Yeah, come on up, sir. Thank you so much.
[Paul Morgan]: William Snyder at 87 Ward Street. Hi, William. I won't take too much of your time, but I just wanted to suggest that one place to look here is what happened in Cambridge. Cambridge, after Peter Sigourney left 10 years ago, Cambridge flipped from maybe a balance of owner-occupied properties to a two-to-one ratio now, where it's really a land, it's a developer, landlord, renter community, and that that constituency led the Cambridge City Council to pass one of the most radical rezoning plans in the country, where they're allowing four to six story buildings five feet from the property line on any residential zone. And one of the things, one of the consequences is that even before that passed, developers snapped up 250 properties to build and There's an example of a cape that was raised to put up a $2.5 million glass modern house. I don't think that's the goal here. And so I think one possible way forward is to Um, uh, take a pause and see what see how Cambridge turns out. I don't think we want to be the People's Republic of Cambridge. Um, and right now, Medford has, I think it was stated. I think Medford has a slight majority of owner occupied properties. Um, uh, and just another number is that, um, You know, we're basically experimenting with about $8,000 million worth of owner-occupied properties in Medford. And so I think we should be very careful about how we move forward. Thank you.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you, William. Have you spoken about the neighborhood urban residential zoning before?
[Andrew Castagnetti]: Yes, thank you very much. What is your name, miss?
[Emily Hedeman]: Have you spoken about the neighborhood and urban residential zoning before?
[Andrew Castagnetti]: No, I'm just, I'm on the list right there. What's your name?
[Emily Hedeman]: My name is Emily.
[Andrew Castagnetti]: Emily, you're doing a fine job as MC for months.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you. It means a lot to have you guys here. It means a lot to have you all here. So thank you for showing up.
[Andrew Castagnetti]: And I like the way you control the mic. So anyways, B, I'm glad Mayor Breonna- I'm sorry, can you state your name and address for the record? Sure, Andrew Castagnetti, East Medford, Massachusetts.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you, Andrew.
[Andrew Castagnetti]: I'm glad the Mayor Breonna came to her senses before the election. I get it, the city wants maximum monies. I don't mind development if it's smart development. The best and only place for development in my opinion, is Mystic Avenue. Since 1960 when they built Route 93, because that was the old highway to Boston, Route 38. And the city has the power, don't forget, of eminent domain, mind you. Versus developing Salem Street, which is already congested, it will become like Somerville with big time Somerville hassles. By the way, the prop two and a half override cost me $1,000 per year forever and ever and ever. Will this new zoning idea lower our present real estate tax at all? I don't think so. Unless you tax all new housing, from this point on at a third tax rate of, let's say, in the middle, $15 per thousand. You got a shot that way. Five.
[Emily Hedeman]: 30 seconds.
[Andrew Castagnetti]: 30 seconds is plenty. Thank you, dear. What the heck happened to those three Chapter 40B real estate projects from three years ago, four years ago? Do you know anything about that at all?
[Alicia Hunt]: I'll talk about it later.
[Andrew Castagnetti]: Sorry? Yeah, it seems like all three were sued by the city and they can't do it because it's not cost effective. They're bankrupt. We lost out on hundreds of apartments, millions of dollars. Lastly, thank you. If you are still listening, I'm just trying to make some sense to save our Republic of the USA. America. Thank you for listening.
[SPEAKER_44]: Thank you, Andrew.
[Emily Hedeman]: We're going to go back to a zoom commenter who has not commented to date on neighborhood residential, urban residential, uh, Paulette Barbadian.
[Unidentified]: Are you unmuting? I was, but it keeps clicking on and off. I don't know. This is the same problem that I was having with iPhone too.
[Emily Hedeman]: Collette, I'm having technical difficulties unmuting you. I'm gonna try again. It just mutes right away. That's really weird. I'm going to go back to in-person. Yeah. Okay. So now we're going to go to, um, are there any in-person, in-person people that have not talked before? He is. Okay. Okay. So we're going to go in order of sign up and I'm just going to read through all the names just to give people a little better understanding of where they are when they are. So we have Page Buldini, Nick Oleg, William Navarre, Paul Garrity, Chris Dedeck, Erika DeRoche, Zachary Shertock, Shannon DeYesso, Kaitlyn Robsion, Alexander Panchik, Andrew Castagnetti, Michael Corbett, and Cheryl Rodriguez. That includes in-person and Zoom people. So that's the people that we have on the list right now that have signed up. So Paige. You're our next in-person speaker.
[Page Buldini]: Page Buldini, 37 Winter Street, and I own a skincare salon at 319 Boston Ave. Sorry about my back to everybody. I want to start by thanking you guys. I know that we don't have to do that, but thank you so much. I know how many messages I've sent personally, so I can only imagine what you've been receiving overall. I appreciate the time and effort you're putting into reading, considering it all. This is a big opportunity for Medford. In conversations with housing experts, I've learned that this level of public engagement is rare, which is exactly why it matters. We have a chance to set the tone for how cities move forward with transparency, collaboration, and all departments at the table from the start. I also want to ask about the comprehensive plan. It's been referenced as a basis for this proposal, but were the departments like Medford Public Schools, police, fire, and their unions formally consulted when it was created? and what steps have been taken during this process to gather their input. That feedback, excuse me, that feedback matters, and the public deserves to hear it. I respectfully ask the board to pause. Let's be sure that the input from Everett Public Schools, police, and fire have been actively gathered and shared before any decisions are made. Thank you.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you, Paige. We have Nick Uleg. Hi, Nick.
[hLm7uOhMYTQ_SPEAKER_07]: Hi, everybody. Thanks. I'll keep it brief. I had two things to talk about, but it's getting late. I just want to talk about the issue of schools that's come up a few times tonight. So some have claimed that the schools cannot handle more students and the zoning will exacerbate overcrowding that's experienced at them. I have two kids in Medford Public Schools, so this concerns me as well. The current situation in Medford schools was not caused by zoning. It was caused by keeping our taxes artificially low, selling off city-owned property in no small part by the actions of councils decades ago. I want to push back strongly on the idea that we need now to make a new mistake in order to atone for those old mistakes. Data shows that other municipalities in the area, 12 municipalities over the period from 2010 to 2020 showed no statistically significant difference in their increase in school enrollment despite wide variations in the amount of housing that they added over that period. Anywhere from zero to 15% increases in housing stock had no appreciable difference in the change in enrollment for those school boards. Um, do we need to deal with the future growth of Medford student enrollment? Absolutely. There are already problems as people have highlighted, and I have a vested interest in this. But as the saying goes, we are able to walk and chew gum at the same time. Delaying this already delayed zoning effort will not help the situation of the schools, and it will hurt the rest of the city in other ways. I'll end my comment there. Thank you very much for your time.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you, Nick. We're gonna pop back to a couple of our speakers that may have figured out the technical side of things. So iPhone, I'm going to go ahead and unmute you. Looks like it worked.
[SPEAKER_54]: Are you there? Hello? Yes. Thank you so much. I'm sorry about that. Can you hear me? Okay.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yep. Please state your name and address for the record.
[SPEAKER_54]: Yes. I'm Amanda O'Leary and I live on Cumming Street, but I have lived in Medford for 32 years. Um, I am a third generation. My son's actually fourth generation. Um, what the government would consider a higher income millennial, something that I think Medford is trying to attract given these changes, but I'm completely opposed to the zoning change. I did a right to the city council, the mayor, also the planning director. Um, I did hear from the planning director mayor, but understand that this is really the, uh, community board. Also city council approved it. I'm a little upset that from the city council perspective, I only heard from two people, neither of which were the president or vice president. I think if they can't respond easily, and this was a few months ago. So if they can't easily. respond even an acknowledgement to the current population, how are they going to increase responses from increasing density? But, you know, Medford growing up was a beautiful city. It's disgusting now. Just walk the streets. Medford is completely disgusting. Again, I'm a millennial. I'm not. I'm not somebody who has some agenda or whatever. I just want to bring my son up to somewhere that he can grow. And thank you. You can enjoy living and I can't wait to move out of Medford. It's this Medford, the density, look on Airbnb, look at the rental units. They say that parking will be addressed by the units. But when you have a three bedroom and it's three bedrooms rented out by tough students or Airbnb and six cars per unit, that's not gonna fix the rental units. It's just sad. Medford is becoming sad, and I'm sad for it. Again, 32 years. Again, residents shouldn't be sad to move out of Medford. Thank you.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you for your comment. I appreciate it.
[Alicia Hunt]: We didn't get your name. Could you message it to me?
[SPEAKER_54]: Yep. Amanda O'Leary. Thank you. Thanks, Amanda.
[Emily Hedeman]: I'm gonna try with Paulette again. Paulette, I'm gonna go ahead and try to unmute you as well. All right, he's doing the same thing. I'm gonna keep going with the next people. I see William Navar has switched to Zoom. William, I'm gonna go ahead and unmute you. Hello, can you hear me? Yes, thank you, William. Thank you, William.
[William Navarre]: All right. I just want to say, and I'll keep it brief because I've spoken before, 108 Medford Street, adding more people in an urban neighborhood like mine tends to make it better, I think. You know, my neighborhood deserves a grocery store. I've been saying that since we come here. And I think that having more neighbors is the way to make that happen. I think when we have more neighbors in an urban neighborhood, that's what makes the transit possible to make better. You can't make it better more frequent if there's not enough people to ride it. More people in an urban neighborhood can make it better. And I think that we need to be ready for, to unapologetically and enthusiastically embrace that miracle that is cities. Thanks, bye-bye.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you, William. The next speaker we have is Paul Garrity. I don't see them. Okay. We are highlighting people that are not able to speak just so we have it for record as well. Um, Chris.
[Christopher Dedic]: Hi, how's it going? Hey, Chris, thanks. Um, yeah, so I wanted to actually talk about the actual proposal, um, for mostly for and R3 and you are 1, um. From the February pull up until the May 25th or May 27th, whatever that meeting was, um, the. Building coverage was set for like 50 and 60% and then at the June 18th meeting, it was kind of just snuck in there down to 40%. And if you look at the map for the 3500 square foot to 5000 square foot lots. That accumulates for most of the lots of the NR3 and UR1s and they're all currently in the 30 to 40% building coverage range. So that'd be virtually no change at all, which if we're rezoning, no change doesn't really make sense. And then another thing I wanted to talk about was, I don't think a lot of people here, they're kind of just like scared of every developer is gonna buy whatever. But I don't think a lot of people understand the lot dimensions and setbacks. On a 3,500 to 5,000 square foot lot, there's a pretty slim chance that you're going to be able to meet every requirement to put six units. So you're most likely not going to see a three-story, six-unit building next door to you, unless the unique situation of a double lot or an extremely large lot, which, again, they're rare in Medford. And then going back to that for the city fire department, all these buildings are going to have sprinkler systems. So that would put an ease on the fire department. Of course, not the police department. And then I just want to go back to what the mayor was mentioning. If you just quick Google search, it shows the state averages 13 to one in Medford is a 10 to one student to teacher ratio. So busting at the seams doesn't seem like a correct term for Medford, which is 30% lower than the state in general. And yeah, thank you. And I'm in support of this. So thank you for your time.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you, Christopher. I'm gonna go back to in person. We have Sharon de Yeso. Hey, Sharon, good to see you again. How's your hip doing?
[Sharon Deyeso]: Thank you. Looks good. I thought about today, too. Can you hear me now? Gee, this would be a great Verizon remake commercial, right? Can you hear me now? I live at Circuit Road, Mass Ave, the corner. I questioned some of the movements about private ways during the last few years and would I actually be able to take half a shower because half my property is on a private way and the other half is on an actual street. Anyway, I do have a few points to make. I know that some of this would be repetitive so I'll just take some keywords out like I do when I become a boring lecturer at college. So this is my syllabus for the evening. I know that everybody in the city has a different vision of our future of what they would like to see happen. It's like going grocery shopping. Believe it or not, I know some people who don't even like Italian food or pizza. Is it possible? Yes, it is. So you're never gonna get a whole consensus that would be agreeable. One thing I did notice this evening, and you probably notably did too, and thank you for your time extended, Alicia and Emily and board members, the tone is a little different tonight. It seems that maybe, could I use the phrase, the word's getting around, that some of these changes may actually take effect, and they were very concerned when they knew that the big slam dunk had happened on Salem Street. So some of us do not kind of quote buy into 30 seconds. that this could be a slow process, okay? I like, this is important, so I think I need a minute. Some of us wanna be educated. What's like the merry-go-round? How did this start in the beginning? And actually, if it does have to proceed, if something were recanted, can Salem Street then be retracted? They would be in glee, okay? And also, Anything that needs to proceed, we know change can happen or else we wouldn't even have an Eiffel Tower or an Empire State Building. The square footage minimums need to be increased if that had to be deemed that some of this would move forward. You need to go back to the beginning. The fire chief should be here, the police chief, everything. But we do appreciate your time. How did you gyrate? Who was involved? We thought it was, in other words, how did this board get created? What was the initial suggestion? Who created it? And doesn't it also have to go through the mayor's office too, and then back to council? We'd like to be educated. Thank you. And have a cooler week. Have a cooler week.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you, Sharon. We're going to go back to our Zoom commenters. We have Erika DeRoche. Erika, I'm going to go ahead and unmute you. All right.
[Erika DeRoche]: I think you're unmuted. Oh, now I am. Can you hear me? There you go. Thank you. OK. Thank you very much. Erika DeRoche, 260 Willis Ave. Community opposition I've heard to the neighborhood residential and urban residential zoning proposals centers on some concerns about transportation, green space, tree removal, lack of open space. I want to respond to those concerns by making an environmental argument in favor of the proposed zoning. Um, if Medford zoning wants to reflect the stated city goals of sustainability and resilience, um, the possibility of increasing density. Um, and you know, it's not a dirty word to me. It's actually a positive, um, that permits increased investment in the local economy, local environment and community cohesion. This is known as the triple bottom line approach because it has a three tiered foundation focusing on people, planet and profit. The proposed zoning provides the potential for increased density, allowing people trying to live in Medford the option to reduce their footprint by choosing smaller homes. The first step in any sustainability action plan or environmental approach is to reduce or right-size the solution to meet the needs being addressed. So give people the opportunity to literally reduce their home and lifestyle footprint, and they will make it. And that's what I had to say in a nutshell. Thank you very much.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you, Erica. Our next speaker is Zachary Chertok. Zachary, I'm going to go ahead and unmute you. All right, you can hear me now. Yes, thank you.
[Zachary Chertok]: Zachary chart talk 5 on my street. So, the neighborhood residential zoning is the largest and most cumulative proposal within this process with that in mind accounting for the testimonial from the head of the D. P. W. Tonight interview of memorandums that I filed with this board, the city council on the mayor and in view of the test, the mayor's testimony tonight. I think it's fairly obvious that the sectional master planning that's necessary to take a measured approach to implementing the aspirations of the comprehensive plan, including for such things and zoning have really not adequately been done. It's vitally important for a city whose budget is thin and whose marginal capacity for financial improvement is limited to take a measured approach to zoning based on a measured and sectional master plan that reflects, but is not supplemented by aspirations on the comprehensive plan. The head of DPW is admitted to having the tools to model many of the infrastructure requirements relative to current capital outlays, making it possible to bring the measures to bear to determine the feasibility for some of these proposed zoning maximums. With all that noted, it continues to challenge density flow trajectories and common practice for managing those, that the highest density additions in the residential zones continue to be pulled furthest from multimodal transit access points, where section demand increases first, hence the motivation for 3A. When any of us mentioned Glenwood, it may seem repetitive, but it's because this issue continues to go unanswered either in practice from the consultants or from engineering around the capacity for this or why outside of land cost bases this is being done this way. With Salem Street already done, my building is already rezoned despite similar consideration pushed back in March as many of the people here that got overlooked and disregarded by Matt Leming once it was sent back to council. Neighbors are now nervous and getting solicited from developers. There's already a demolition petition for an 1800s home on the opposite opposite side of the river from Medford square at 16 Manning street. I want to reinforce the mayor's comments as a trained civil engineer with training in planning that the city is not prepared to move forward as is and for reference, a new memo has gone to the city board tonight to shed some light on whose responsibility it is. to manage the inventories of measures and commission the necessary city agencies to carry them out and return those measures. And based on common practice, she happens to be sitting in the room tonight at the dais. Thank you.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you, Zachary. Our next commenter is in person, Andrew Pancic. Is Andrew here? All right, we'll come back. What? Sorry. We're going to... What? I just told her to sign up. She won't. Oh. I mean, she can comment now. I mean, that's great. Because I don't remember her. Oh my God, thank you so much for coming. This is amazing. Paulette, come on up.
[Paulette Vartabedian]: Hi, I'm Paulette Vartabedian, Central Ave, Medford. I just want to make some comments about some of the earlier speakers. A young man, Eric, called the people that didn't want this proposal, or at least in its current form, NIMBYs. I think that's a really insulting thing to say because it's not only dividing the city, but they don't know why we don't want this plan. So to say that NIMBYs, like we were called that originally, the city of West Medford. We had a meeting last year for the methadone things. The people in West Medford were calling us NIMBYs. But now all of a sudden, when change is happening in their neighborhood, who's the NIMBY then? But that's... Please, people, don't use that word. It's dividing the city. Medford. The other thing someone mentioned Glenwood. My family has lived in Glenwood and owned homes for over 100 years. I've lived in my current home 71 years. I know what is and what was Glenwood before. There were no restaurants in Glenwood. basically it is now what it was then. There were maybe a barbershop or things like that. There were no major restaurants, so wherever he's getting that information is incorrect. Another thing that has been tossed around for the people in Glenwood is that we don't want change. That is incorrect. Everyone that I've spoken to, and there've been many, many, including me, is that we're not opposed to the change. We're opposed to the excessive change. We're okay with the three to four stories. It needs to happen. Salem Street needs to be redeveloped, but to go up to six, maybe 12 stories is just ridiculous. And also this needs to slow down. as I've mentioned before, the idea is like the hub of the wheel. And then you have all the spokes that goes out to the wheel. You have to know what the impact of each of those spokes are to really have a comprehensive plan that is successful. And the other thing, just real quick, is that I find it really appalling that six out of the seven Councilors feel that they can speak for the whole city of Medford because quote, quote, we voted for them. That is what we get and we've also heard. with our own ears, people saying that, well, if you don't like it, you can always sell your house and move. That's not why we live in Medford. We don't live in Medford to just have our home that we've made beautiful and lovely and say, oh, I don't like it. I'm just gonna sell it and move. That is so insulting coming from a city council person.
[Emily Hedeman]: Paulette, I'm gonna ask you to wrap up.
[Paulette Vartabedian]: Okay, but thank you very much. And I'm sorry that I couldn't get through. I'm gonna have to have a five-year-old show me how to do it.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you so much for coming down. We really appreciate it. Thank you for your effort there. Michael Corbett. Hi, Michael. Welcome back.
[Michael Corbett]: Hi again, good to see you all. I'm Michael Corbett, 26 Jackson Road. I will save my detailed comments through email because I'm sure that's easier to digest and give you lots of good stuff that's specific and measurable. But what I want to focus on is a simple question that I've spent the last three and a half weeks trying to figure out the answer to, and I want to see if I got it right. So my first thing that came to my mind when I learned about this zoning is I want to know what the process is, I want to know who has decision rights, and I want to know what the schedule is. I couldn't find that on the website. I reached out to the City Council, the Community Development Board, the Mayor, did not get those questions answered. through a series of conversations with neighbors, city councilors, residents of Salem Street, reading multiple websites, including Mass General Laws, have pieced together the following. So I want to know if I got it right. The city council subcommittee for planning and permitting worked with Innis to come up with a proposal that then went to the city council to be voted to the CDB. So I got that right. CDB then works with the community to solicit public comment, revise that proposal based on public comment, and then send it back to the city council. is that correct? With our recommendations. Recommendations, correct. And then the City Council has unilateral decision power to do whatever they want, whether that is the CBB proposal or the original City Council proposal, is that correct?
[Emily Hedeman]: 30 seconds, and yes, you're correct.
[Michael Corbett]: Okay, thank you. I don't think our constituents in this city realize that. that we could be doing multiple public hearings like this and the same exact, pardon my words, bullshit that happened to Salem Street could happen to other communities in this city. So I urge everyone listening on Zoom, reach out to the city council. This is unacceptable. They have unilateral power to do whatever they want on this issue. Thank you.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you, Michael, and I appreciate that. Do we have any other in-person commenters that did not sign up, have not already spoken? Welcome back. Hey, Anne, how's it going? Good. No dog this time.
[Haggerty]: I know, I'm sad. Okay, can you hear me? Yes, thank you. First, thank you guys. It's a lot of work that you're doing, and I feel, and I hope everybody else who's been here feels listened to on all sides, because it does seem like you guys care about what we feel. And it's an important thing for everybody to be involved with. I still think there's some people who don't know this is going on. So I was just wondering, I had a question. Is this something that we could have like a citizen group, kind of like what they did with the charter review, where some individuals on both sides, renters, homeowners, members of government, whatever, come together kind of do a little bit of a deep dive to help because I don't think we're opposed to zoning changes. It's like what I think Paulette said. It's to some level the degree of proposed changes. And just throwing that out there as a suggestion. Thank you.
[Emily Hedeman]: That's it. Thank you, Anne. I appreciate the very thoughtful and specific suggestion. We're going to go back to our Zoom commenters. We have Cheryl Rodriguez. Cheryl, I'm going to go ahead and unmute you. Hi, Cheryl.
[Cheryl Rodriguez]: Hi. I'm Cheryl Rodriguez, 281 Park Street. So I'm gonna try to be as quick as I can and specific. The zoning is unstudied and should not move forward without our requisite studies and analysis. Gathering public input is great and one part of the process, but not the entire process. I'm a resident of Glenwood and we are being inappropriately upzoned despite the lack of study. It is obvious that too much density is being focused here. I live next door to a mega townhouse that extends into my yard and overlooks my pool and shades part of my yard as well. Now with more lot coverage allowed and smaller setbacks, I can look forward to three units next door that can look into my yard and blot out more sun. That doesn't mean I dislike my neighbors, but that project decreased my privacy and quality of life. The majority of the area is being zoned NR3, despite the south side of Salem Street being an SF2 zone. It is the largest increase for an SF2 zone barring a section near the green line that is being zoned just one level higher. The north side is already very dense and parking can be difficult. There are many narrow streets. The majority of Glenwood is single and two family homes. Glenwood is facing, as Alicia Hunt, the director of planning and permitting calls it, quote, developer pressure. But it is actually rapid gentrification by flippers that will be worsened with an NR3 designation. Glenwood is also home to a large number of UR2 zones, which the board has suggested adding an additional floor to as they are close to rapid transit. But Glenwood is not on rapid transit. We have one bus line. and that is not rapid transit. Your two zones include one side of Riverside Ave, which allows no parking, one side of Fulton, which allows parking on one side, and both sides of Fulton Ave, which is a narrow dead end. The majority of these homes are single and two family homes. None are near rapid transit and do not contain any parking buildings, but are being zoned for them as the lots were too small and the area is already thickly settled. We urge you to study and consider the impacts in Glenwood. We will be harmed by the grossly dense Salem Street corridor and the future reduction of on-street parking on Salem Street currently planned by the city. Please do not allow us to be victimized again by this zoning. We are a neighborhood and we would like to retain some quality of life. So please help us as much as you can. Thank you.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you, Cheryl. Our next Zoom commenter is Sam Robinson. Hi, Sam. Oh, if you're talking, I can't hear you, unfortunately. Want to try again? OK. I sent through another unmute request, because I think when you change your audio, I have to unmute you again. I'm still not hearing anything. Sam, is it okay if we come back to you? Sam, Alicia's going to message you. We're going to go to the next Zoom speaker, and then we'll come back. But we'll make sure your comment gets incorporated. The next commenter that we have is Lisa Falanga. Lisa, I'm going to unmute you.
[SPEAKER_39]: Hi, guys. I am totally opposed to this. So I am in the South Street zoning. And I have been here for 30 some odd years. My husband grew up in Medford and has lived here his entire life. I disagree with that. I think that anybody who is in support of it should come and live in my neighborhood. and stand in my street and lose their property value. So I heard a couple of people, I can't remember their names. I think it was, well, it says Erika DeRoche now, but I think it did not say that at the time. I think that person should come and live in my neighborhood and lose his property value or their property value and have to deal with it. It is inappropriate. Medford is not zoned for this, support this, and it cannot handle this. I am all for whatever we want to do if it's done right and appropriately. The school districts can't handle it. My kids couldn't even go to Medford school system because they couldn't handle it back 30 years ago. And they expect to handle it now. We just can't, we don't have the infrastructure, the police and the fire. How can you expect them to handle, we can't even handle Salem Street. Have you walked down Salem Street? It looks like a third world country. Salem Street is the main thoroughway through our city, and it looks like a third world country. Shame on Medford. It is not the Medford that I moved into, and it's not the Medford that we should be supporting.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you for your comment, Lisa. Sam, we're going to try to come back to you. Sam Robinson. Sam, are you able to hear us and to speak? There may also be a phone number that you're able to dial into.
[SPEAKER_01]: Hello, can you hear me?
[Emily Hedeman]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: Hey Sam, thanks for your persistence. Yeah, so I'm Sam Robinson. I live on 31 Everett Street in Glenwood neighborhood. I do support the proposed rezoning and I am against parking minimums. Unfortunately, I don't have a lot of time to attend these meetings, but I just wanted my voice to be heard. Thank you.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you, Sam. And I encourage you to stay in the loop with Community Development Board meeting agendas. Because I believe that there is a I don't even know when City Council proposal about parking coming across our desks.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
[Emily Hedeman]: There's no short term plan. But just kind of stay in the loop on that. Okay, thank you tonight. Our next speaker through Zoom is Carrie Hewlett.
[SPEAKER_74]: Hi, thank you for taking my comment. I appreciate it. I generally am very much in favor of denser zoning. So I think in principle, I would be in favor of what is being proposed, but I haven't had the chance to look at it closely. So I'm sure there would be things that I would have to say about it. But as a person who's new to this process, and I've just been learning tonight on this call, and I was also in the chamber earlier, The thing that I'm missing is someone who would start off the meeting by saying why we are doing this in the first place. So someone who could actually lay out some of the details of the actual plan why we're doing it what some of the benefits would be or could be or should be that would be helpful for someone like me who's new to the process and is trying to catch up. And I understand I am confident you've done it before in other meetings but if we're having multiple hearings, I think even 10 minutes at the beginning of the process to explain the origin of the plan, of the planning process, that it came to the city council, what the reasoning was, and someone who could at least do the explanation of why it's being done at all would be super helpful in future meetings. So thank you everyone for your help and for all the work you're doing.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you, Carrie. Appreciate the comment. Yeah, they did. So the next Zoom commenter that we have is Ernie Munier. And quick note, Ken Garrow, I might have accidentally lowered your hand. So if that was me, I'm sorry, please raise your hand again. But Ernie, we're going to go ahead and unmute you.
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_24]: Good evening. Hi, Ernie. Yeah, I'm Newton Road in West Medford. I wasn't going to speak. I am in opposition to the plan zoning scheme going forward as presented. I think that the entire view and structure of the changes should be bifurcated into ADUs and squares, and then the neighborhood residential areas later. When I first looked at the maps, I couldn't understand the differences between NR3, 2, and 1, except that they were just ripples by density from transit stations. And I thought that is incredibly coarse. It's almost like using a Norden bomb site in World War II and hoping you hit the munitions plants when you take out the residential units and you scatter plot your bombs. I know that's a weird reference, but that's the way it is. At the last public meeting, the CDB invited comments that were more granular about specific properties. And so my recommendation in invitation, because I don't think it's been done, is to ask board members and those who will be involved in screening specific neighborhoods to discern three from two from one, is to, as an example, walk up Playstead, walk up Sagamore Ave, and walk up Grove Street, and see that the character of the single-family homes there, their values, their magnificence or not, is not determined by their distance from a train station or even a corridor, but by many other factors and that decisions as to which are best allowed to be flippable.
[Emily Hedeman]: And I'm gonna ask you to wrap up your comment, please.
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_24]: Yes, in an effort to increase density, be very carefully and granularly done. Um, because it just doesn't pass the smell test right now. So once again, I recommend that we stop this and stress, uh, focus on the ADUs and the two squares and tackle neighborhood residential.
[Emily Hedeman]: I'm so sorry. I'm going to have to mute you.
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_24]: That's fine.
[Emily Hedeman]: Sorry. The next speaker we have through Zoom is Ken Garrow. Ken, I'm going to go ahead and unmute you.
[Ken Gareau]: All right. Thank you so much, Ken Garrow, 52 Lambert Street. For the record, you didn't actually raise my hand down. I was debating if I was going to speak at all, since I want to let other people have chances. But it does seem like several other people tonight who have spoken previously have spoken. Once again, I mostly support all of these changes. I do want to make one behavioral comment in general. There was an earlier commenter who felt affronted by being called a NIMBY. Over the past week, as the mayor has submitted several of her comments, I've been accused of hating the city, that I want to destroy it, that I have been in the pockets of developers. I think obviously I'm not there tonight. You've done a great job monitoring everything. I understand change is hard. We are still all living in this city. I bought my house here, my condo here six years ago. I'm doing this because I believe this is the best course of action moving the city forward. If we don't wanna do as much density in certain areas that I believe in, I am all for dropping some of those densities. I am fine changing things. I am not fine with leaving things as they are. I view this as a residential tax problem. I view this as a way to help address revenue. I view this as a way to help us increase business propositions in the area. And so I would just like to keep that in mind, right? I also actually, for actual granular comment, apologies for pontificating, Um, I think an earlier commenter made the comment that if you made smaller single family zones, you would actually incentivize kind of these smaller houses. I think that's actually a great idea. I think as much as I'm not a fan of NR1 existing as a zone, I think if we shrink the lot size, allow for some infill of smaller single family houses, that might be a reasonable compromise for us to move forward into. So thank you so much. Have a great night.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you, Ken. Our final commenter on Zoom is Caitlin. Caitlin, I'm gonna go ahead and unmute you.
[Kaitlin Robinson]: Hi, thank you. I'm Caitlin Robinson, 31 Everett Street. I support this proposal. It moves us towards sustainability, walkability, and a housing supply that meets a growing community's changing needs. I'm concerned about further delay for studies. There are already lots of studies about how existing harmful zoning policies were shaped and whose voices they are shaped by. There are studies about the negative impacts of exclusionary single family zoning, about the negative impacts of minimum parking requirements, and about the negative impacts of minimum lot size requirements. The existing zoning, which largely wouldn't have allowed most of the housing that currently exists in Medford, and that was built prior to these restrictive zoning rules, that existing zoning should not be looked at as being harmless. Thank you.
[SPEAKER_44]: Thank you, Caitlin.
[Emily Hedeman]: We have one more Zoom commenter. We have Andrew McRobert. Andrew, I'm going to go ahead and unmute you.
[Andrew MacRobert]: Hi there, Director Robert, 63 Kenmere Road. I'll keep this brief. I just want to go on the record in support of the zoning as it's proposed. And should this board decide not to move forward with this zoning, I encourage it to find a meaningful compromise that does increase density, housing density, and in some form. I'll leave it at that. Thanks.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you, Andrew. We have another zoom commenter, Thomas Callahan. Thomas, I'm going to go ahead and unmute you.
[SPEAKER_24]: Okay. Can you hear me?
[Emily Hedeman]: Yes, we can. Thank you.
[SPEAKER_24]: Okay. Thank you. Um, I've been listening to this whole thing tonight. I didn't plan on saying anything, but I have to say, um, this process is totally rushed and there's so many people don't even know about this. So I don't know why we, why we would ever move forward to this. My neighborhood, if it is rezoned, to allow these changes is going to be ultimately changed completely. We don't have enough parking as it is. How is it that a house that is now a single family home is now going to be allowed to be three, four, five, six units? It's absolutely ridiculous. I don't see how we can change in this way, the housing crisis that we have. Nobody is against zoning changes, but this is a rush process, completely flawed, and you're gonna double, triple the number of cars, people and dogs in our neighborhoods. What about private ways? What about infrastructure? What about what happens when the light, as it is when the light backs up down the street from my house, it's like the Indianapolis 500 going down my street in the afternoons and in the mornings. I'm sorry, this doesn't work. It's ridiculous. This needs to start over. And people have to be informed about these changes and no one is against changing zoning. Thank you.
[Emily Hedeman]: 30 seconds.
[SPEAKER_24]: I'm all done.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you, Thomas. I appreciate your comment and thank you for sticking around and adding your insight. Are there any other commenters in person that would like to speak? I think we've heard from everybody. So with that, I'm going to close the public comment for this meeting. Not forever, just for this meeting. And recognizing that it's 10.30 and I've been standing up here for over four hours, I need a quick bathroom break. Is it okay if the board takes a quick break? Okay, great. We'll be back in five.
[Unidentified]: Hard to say.
[Emily Hedeman]: All right, so we've closed the public comment period for this meeting on the aforementioned topics. What I'd like to do now is open it up to the board for further questions and discussions. But what I want to remind the board is that we had decided that this meeting was to hear additional public comment. We got through the queue that was on zoom in person. We didn't hit everybody that had signed up on the 18th, because you know some people didn't come back. We're accepting written comment until July 23. and we are planning to deliberate and give direction to the consultant on August 6th. So my perspective is that what we should do is we should digest the public comments that we've received this evening rather than deliberate, continue to read through public comments, continue to receive written comments and stick with our decision to have our next discussions on August 6th and stick with the timeline that we have announced to the public. I see Peter's hand, but I'm also curious.
[Unidentified]: Yeah.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yes.
[Alicia Hunt]: So I just I wanted to like sort of clarify the next step because there was sort of this rumor on the out in the public that the board was never taking any more public comment on this after July 23rd. So just to sort of mention that the idea was to Give direction to the consultant August 6 get a new version in September and take public comment on the new version. Yes, but that's just take a hiatus on public comments so that there's nothing new between early September and now. So people don't feel they need to be paying attention to all the changes. There won't be any changes until a new version comes out September. So I just wanna make sure that, cause it was very confusing to people who thought that this board was not taking any more public comment ever.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah, that's really helpful clarification. Thank you, Alicia. And John, I see your hand.
[John Anderson]: I think the reason for that was there was a robo call that I certainly heard it that way on the robo call.
[Alicia Hunt]: Sorry, the robocall texts were not all being run by me before they were made. Sorry.
[John Anderson]: It's not personal.
[Emily Hedeman]: It's good to know kind of where the source of that information may have been. So thank you, John. I'm only subscribed to the texts, because like most millennials, they don't pick up my phone unless they recognize the number. OK, so Peter, I see your hand. Did you have any questions, discussion, any thoughts on what I just said?
[Peter Calves]: Oh, no, I was going to agree with what you said. I was going to say that we should take time to digest this information and any further public comment we may receive between now and the end of the month and reconvene on this issue to deliberate and provide direction to the consultant on the 6th.
[Emily Hedeman]: John, Ben, Sabrina, Ari, Adam, any thoughts?
[John Anderson]: Agreed. Are we going to approve the minutes?
[Emily Hedeman]: That's a separate agenda item.
[John Anderson]: OK, good.
[Emily Hedeman]: We're going to stick to this one for now. I'm ready to go home and see my dog, but we've got to do things in the right order in the right way. Ari, I heard support. Is that correct? Yep. Great, thank you. And I think I saw a thumbs up from Ben, thumbs up from John. All right, so what I'm going to look for is a motion to continue the hearings to a date certain. So for residential and ADU deliberation, that's August 6th. Do we have a date for the squares?
[Unidentified]: I know I've seen something.
[Alicia Hunt]: Christian, can you message me the spreadsheet, the, sorry, the, you know what I mean?
[Emily Hedeman]: I can't talk if you understand me. The one that lists the planning, yeah. Thank you. You said it's in our document? Okay, you sent it via email.
[Unidentified]: But you should get it to you. Send it to me via email.
[Emily Hedeman]: And then I'm also wondering, because what I'm hearing is, and I think it's a great suggestion to split the residential and ADU, almost similar to how we've talked about splitting the different squares. Is that a split that we need to decide tonight? I don't think so.
[Alicia Hunt]: So technically the ADUs and the residential are separate documents that you're reviewing. So they're legally separate already. And we had actually asked to bring the ADUs forward because we thought you needed to see them before deciding the residential piece.
[Emily Hedeman]: Okay, so we don't need to do anything around that.
[Alicia Hunt]: So I have what I also have is all our planned potential meeting dates.
[Unidentified]: Sorry. That's you. you guys decide, because it's open tonight and you guys have to continue the squares to a date certain and residential to a date certain. It is possible that the other corridors will get referred out of City Council next week, in which case we think you want to open that either the 6th or the 20th. There's also going to be a site plan review coming through. I met them today, and I didn't realize they were ready to talk. I just wanted you to know that I have your attention like this. I'm also going to be out of town on the 20th. Right. I mean, in theory, we can move. Oh, we don't have to do. So when to continue these has to be done tonight. OK. The thing you don't have to do tonight, we can do them for email. is the executive session. Janelle's asking to do a special meeting in 30 minutes on Zoom. Yes, next week or the week after.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah, we'll coordinate that with the board separately. Okay, so let's continue. So we're going to continue the residential and ADUs to the six. And then I'm going to say this louder into the microphone.
[Unidentified]: And then we'll continue the squares to the The only problem with moving to other dates is that we can switch with planning and permitting, which is a problem for me and Daniela and her consultants. Yeah. So let's move all. I'm thinking continue with all of them to the sixth. You could do that. OK. And then you can decide if you want changes or go without. OK. Some of them, that's an option. I want to hear from Daniela and her consultants I just, I want, I want the six to be like so rich with deliberation.
[Emily Hedeman]: Right.
[Unidentified]: Don't take public comment. Deliberate. Yes. And decide. You don't have to close. And I don't even want to talk about squares. Yeah. Wild pencil. It's going to be riveting. Okay.
[Emily Hedeman]: So through the joys of logistics, I think we need to continue the hearings for residential and ADU, West Medford and Medford Square all to August 6th. August 6th, yes. August 6th will be the board deliberation. What'd you say? Well, yes. That's a little auspicious, isn't it? So we're going to continue those to August 6th. And we may or may not talk about the squares, but we'll update agendas to reflect any change in that schedule. That's kind of the best we can do. And then for the executive session, we're going to coordinate
[Unidentified]: schedule it over email.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yes, we're gonna schedule it over email with the board. Yeah, Alicia's gonna take it.
[Alicia Hunt]: So I talked to our lawyer and she said it would be best if we could just do a short Zoom executive session sometime in the next week or two. So I was gonna have probably Danielle or myself email you all tomorrow to figure out the scheduling on that.
[Emily Hedeman]: And with that executive session, if it's through Zoom, it'll still be publicly advertised. We'll open in, public meeting, convene into executive session, and then vote out of executive session.
[Alicia Hunt]: Right, there'll be nothing that would prohibit you from also talking in the public. It's just that you would, right, you would ask for that.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah, I just want to clarify that, you know, if anybody does want to join that Zoom, we'll follow our normal kind of like a Zoom procedure. Any other questions?
[John Anderson]: I wonder if you could just send out an email with the dates you've set for what we're discussing.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah, and I would like to have it as a visual for our next meeting as well.
[John Anderson]: I'm sorry?
[Emily Hedeman]: I would like to have it as a visual for our next meeting, even if it's just a Word doc or a spreadsheet.
[Unidentified]: No, not right now.
[Emily Hedeman]: But yeah, that's a good point, whether it's the board members or the public. Any other questions from my Zoomers? I'm seeing none. Okay, so what I'm looking for is a motion to continue the hearings for Neighborhood and Urban Residential, AGU, Medford Square, and West Medford Square to August 6th. I'm looking for that motion. John has the motion, can I get a second?
[Michael Corbett]: Second.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you, Peter. We're gonna do roll call vote. I'm gonna call him as I see him. John Anderson?
[John Anderson]: Yes.
[Emily Hedeman]: Ben LaValle? Peter Kalbs?
[John Anderson]: Aye.
[Emily Hedeman]: Sabrina Alpino? Aye. Ari Goffman-Fishman?
[Ari Fishman]: Aye.
[Emily Hedeman]: Adam Behrens?
[Unidentified]: All right, we lost Adam.
[Emily Hedeman]: And then I, myself, Emily Hedeman, am also an I. That's everyone, right? That's here. All right, great. So now we have minutes. And before we move into minutes, just thank you so much to everybody that's here in person in the chambers or on zoom. We really appreciate your thoughtful and meaningful comments to help us through this process. So thank you. So the next item we have is minutes. I'm looking for a motion to accept the minutes from June 18th and June 25th.
[John Anderson]: Can I make one request?
[Emily Hedeman]: Yes.
[John Anderson]: First, let me complicate, excuse me, compliment Christian for taking such excellent minutes. How you can record all that so quickly is amazing. I would suggest on the 18th minutes, right around towards the bottom, after it says board member Lavallee agreed that looking at squares and corridors, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and then you start start talking about dates. It's a little bit hard to figure out which proposals are being referred to when the dates are mentioned.
[Emily Hedeman]: Okay. Do you have proposed language for revision? What we could do is we could not accept those minutes and then maybe kind of go back on those. Yeah, that'd be great. Okay. Did anybody have any comments for the minutes on the 25th, June 25th? Seeing none. Okay, so I'm gonna look for a motion to accept the minutes from June 25th, 2025. Oh, yeah, Christian?
[SPEAKER_32]: If you scroll down to the bottom, so it goes over the discussion of the schedule, but then it lists the full schedule further down in the June 18th minutes. But if it's still confusing, you can still not go on it. Just to clarify.
[Emily Hedeman]: So you're mentioning the italicized text?
[SPEAKER_32]: Yep, at the bottom of page 11, It says the board developed the following schedule and it details the schedule.
[John Anderson]: Are we looking at the same thing?
[Emily Hedeman]: So it's two paragraphs above the italics.
[John Anderson]: Correct. Oh, two paragraphs, sorry.
[Emily Hedeman]: The board developed the following schedule except more. Verbal comments on the current proposal of the July 9th meeting. Here we are. Okay, except written comments on the current proposal until July 23rd. The board will deliberate and give direction to the consultants on August 6th. do one more round of public dialogue on September 3rd, and then potentially vote on September 17th or October 1st. And again, these dates are as best we know right now.
[John Anderson]: Okay. Why don't you just italicize that so it stands out?
[Emily Hedeman]: Okay.
[John Anderson]: Then I'll be happy.
[Emily Hedeman]: Okay. Do we need to submit a new version of the minutes? Are we able to? Oh no. Accepted as amended. Okay. Accepted as amended. Great. Any other comments on the 18th of the 25th? Seeing none. So I'm gonna ask for a motion to accept the minutes from June 18th as amended and June 25th.
[John Anderson]: So moved.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you, John. Can I have a second?
[John Anderson]: Second.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you, Ben. I'm gonna call him as I see him. John Anderson?
[John Anderson]: Aye.
[Emily Hedeman]: Ben LaValle? Peter Kalbs?
[John Anderson]: Aye.
[Emily Hedeman]: Sabrina Alpino.
[Haggerty]: Aye.
[Emily Hedeman]: Ari Goffman-Fishman.
[Haggerty]: Aye.
[Emily Hedeman]: And I myself, Emily Heatherman, am also an aye. The next item that we have is zoning updates. What's going on with zoning, guys?
[Unidentified]: Sorry.
[Alicia Hunt]: The last time I was able to discuss with city council members, they indicated that they were planning to refer the corridor zoning out of their commit out of City Council to this board on the 15th. So next week. There, they have not even begun any discussion on parking, other than there was a public meeting to sort of hear concerns. Beyond that, the, the discussion that is sort of background discussion has been that we need to look at some of our details in parking around like to allowing tandem parking like what the some of the current rules are not clear and some of them cause trouble the way they are as opposed to the number of spots per unit and the board the City Council planning and permitting is going to get a presentation next Wednesday night on what is currently allowed and required in parking in depth like beyond just the how many units but per spots per unit. That's the update on zoning, and I did hear from a developer today who has a building that they are planning to file for site plan review, it is going to be as of right in the the MBTA zoning area around the Wellington area. And so I do expect that that will start to make its way through department head comments sometime in the next couple of weeks. And I do think it'll come to this board in August or early September. So I just wanted to let you know that there was a project like that coming.
[Emily Hedeman]: Awesome, exciting new neighbors for me.
[Alicia Hunt]: Yes.
[Emily Hedeman]: Is there anything we can do to slow down the referral of topics to the Community Development Board from the City Council?
[Alicia Hunt]: Politely ask the City Councilors, although I will say that the corridors is the last piece that's developed and that sort of fits in with, like it's those missing pieces in between the residential and the squares. the wellington area that is not come the part that area that's like stop and shop and wagmans and that that's our industrial area and there has been no work done yet on that so we don't and we are doing a wellington transformation study we've hired consultants to do an in-depth study of that area so we think they'll have results next spring And that would produce recommendations next spring for the board to look at. Great.
[Emily Hedeman]: Next spring looks a little clearer for us.
[Alicia Hunt]: Yes.
[Emily Hedeman]: Potentially. Potentially.
[Unidentified]: Yes.
[Emily Hedeman]: All right. So at this point, I'm looking for a motion to adjourn. Don't all jump.
[John Anderson]: So moved.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you, John. Looking for a second.
[John Anderson]: Second.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you, Ben. I'm going to call him as I see him. John Anderson.
[Ben Lavallee]: Aye.
[Emily Hedeman]: Ben Lavallee.
[SPEAKER_24]: Aye.
[Emily Hedeman]: Peter Calves.
[SPEAKER_24]: Aye.
[Emily Hedeman]: Sabrina Alpino.
[SPEAKER_24]: Aye.
[Emily Hedeman]: Ari Goffman-Fishman.
[Haggerty]: Aye.
[Emily Hedeman]: And I, myself, Emily Hedeman, am also an aye for adjournment. Thank you so much to members of the public who are still tuned in on Zoom or are here in the chambers. Thank you so much. Thank you to city staff. Thank you to my fellow board members. And have a good night. Cheers, everyone.
[Unidentified]: Recordings
|
total time: 5.28 minutes total words: 172  |
total time: 1.46 minutes total words: 169  |
total time: 2.01 minutes total words: 66  |
total time: 1.64 minutes total words: 192  |
|
total time: 2.22 minutes total words: 404  |
total time: 1.4 minutes total words: 136  |
total time: 1.19 minutes total words: 144  |
|