AI-generated transcript of City Council Committee of the Whole 12-14-22

[Nicole Morell]: 22-533 and 22-581 committee of the whole meeting Wednesday, December 14, 2022 at 6 p.m. is called to order. Mr. Clerk, please call the roll.

[Adam Hurtubise]: Vice-President Bears. Present. Councilor Caraviello is absent. Councilor Collins.

[Nicole Morell]: Present.

[Adam Hurtubise]: Councilor Dykes. William is absent. Councilor Scarpella. Yeah, I see Councilor Scarpella. Can you hear me? Can you hear me? Thank you. City Councilor Tseng, present or absent.

[Nicole Morell]: Present. Present. By present to absent, meeting is called to order. There will be a meeting of the Medford City Council Committee of the Whole on Wednesday, December 14th, 2022 at 6 p.m. in the Medford City Council Chambers and via Zoom. The purpose of the meeting is to address outstanding questions from the recently completed zoning recodification and to set a fee schedule for the plan development district proposals, paper 22-533 and paper 22-581. The City Council has invited Building Commissioner Bill Forti, Planning Development and Sustainability Director Alicia Hunt, and Economic Development Director Victor Schrader to attend this meeting. For further information, aides on accommodations, contact the City Clerk at 781-393-2425. Sincerely yours, Nicole Morell, Council President. So as the meeting notice states, we are here tonight to talk through perhaps some scrivener's errors and some portions of the zoning recodification that was passed back in March. Some portions of it that may be for interpretation that we may need to take a further look at and actually vote for some zoning changes to update that. Scribner errors, if we were to address them, don't actually count as voting, as zoning changes as they were errors in copying or transitioning the document from one format to another. We also have the discussion around setting up the schedule for the planned development district proposals. That is something that was added in the zoning reclassification package and for these proposals there's a fee that we can charge and looking to have a brief discussion on what that fee should be. So I'm happy to hand over to any councilors who'd like to speak first or go right to Planning Development and Sustainability Director Hunt going to Vice President Bears.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you Madam President. Thank you everyone for being here tonight. Thank you for outlining all the stuff that we have to look at. If we could, I think maybe a three part approach from easiest to hardest might be the best way to go about it. If we could start and look at the PDD fee, I know that Victor said that that would be actually, we could put that in the council rules. So it wouldn't need to go through like a zoning process. It's already authorized by the zoning ordinance. Then look at the Scribner's errors and just get us all on the same page about what we need to do from there. And then the bigger piece, which will outlive this meeting would be, you know, substantive changes requiring a vote under the zoning laws, so that would be my preference.

[Nicole Morell]: I think that makes sense. Is anyone opposed to that approach? So first to talk about those PDD fees, Victor or Alicia, would you like to talk about that?

[Unidentified]: Give you a moment.

[Victor Schrader]: Good evening, Councilors. Victor Schrader, Economic Development Director for the City of Medford. Yeah, I guess, where would you like to start, President Morell? I provided you with some examples from similar communities.

[Nicole Morell]: I think the thing to keep- Yeah, if you want to just talk through a few of those examples, I can pull them up as well.

[Victor Schrader]: And I think the thing to keep in mind is the planned development districts are a new tool in Medford. They are pretty common statewide and across the country. Here in Medford, there's no minimum size, lot size for the PDD. So we could see a range of projects. Currently, we're considering a planned development district that totals about a million square feet. And then another that's residential, that's about 60,000 square feet. So as you would imagine, the million square feet proposal takes quite a bit more time and attention from staff and from council to work through than the smaller project. But I would liken these reviews to the site plan review process in the end. Council will be approving a zoning amendment for the planned development districts. So it might not be in the same level of detail as a site plan review, but you're going to be looking through plans and taking the time to understand what a development proposal is and how it'll impact the community.

[Nicole Morell]: And just to build on that, just for folks who, as you said, it's new. folks unfamiliar, the very simple form of this is basically someone coming to us with a project and saying, hey, you're not zoned for this, but here's what I would like to do in this space, correct?

[Victor Schrader]: Exactly, yeah. And so the first step is to propose a zoning amendment, and that's what the plan development district is. If the project is large enough, when they're moving towards permitting, it will have to go through a typical zoning process, but the zoning for the project will be established under the the plan development district, which acts as an overlay. Another thing to consider as you're weighing these potential fees is that we think these projects are good candidates for peer review, which is allowed under 53G, which is through the state code. The initial project we're reviewing now, we will be recommending to the CD community development board and council that an attorney come on to help out with the drafting of the ordinance language, just to make sure that it's responding to what the developer would like, but also is in accordance with our rules. So that's 53G allows municipalities to hire peer review consultants at the expense of the applicant. So those wouldn't be expenses that we would incur.

[Nicole Morell]: Vice President Bears.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Madam President. Thank you, Victor. In the examples you sent over, one of them was the 5 cents per, was it 5 cents per 5,000 square feet?

[Nicole Morell]: 5 cents per square foot.

[Zac Bears]: 5 cents per square foot above 5,000. Sorry.

[Nicole Morell]: And that's for site plan review.

[Zac Bears]: Right. Do you think, I mean, so that would be variable. It would, you know, we'd have a higher fee relative to the size. Do you think that if we went with that number plus the, you know, is there something that you think we should include in the council rules around 53G? Just to say we will, you know, basically should the rule be, here's we're setting the fee at 5 cents per. Yes. square foot above 5,000, and in cases where 53G applies, we recommend its use or something like that. Is that kind of what you're getting at, or should we not mention 53G at all?

[Victor Schrader]: I don't know how it would be applied to the council rules, necessarily. It's allowed under our current ordinances. Right. I'm not sure that that's necessary. I think that might be maybe something to think about further. I haven't looked into that myself, so I'm not sure I'm in a position to give you guidance on that.

[Zac Bears]: That's fine. In your office's position, would setting it as the same fee as site plan review be onerous, or would that be acceptable?

[Victor Schrader]: That seems in line with some of our peer communities. I was looking at Somerville's master plan special permits, $0.02 per new gross square foot. Ours is a little higher, but they both seem to be in line. graduating fees, which I think is probably the right approach.

[Alicia Hunt]: Sorry, I apologize for interrupting Alicia Hunt, Planning Director. We were just consulting because the CD board recently adopted 53G. We searched our ordinances just now. It is in our ordinances under the Conservation Commission. Wetlands has adopted it. The CD board adopted it as part of their rules and regulations. So in lieu of consulting a lawyer at this moment, I would say that the city council probably should take the language that the CD board adopted because that was prepared for us by legal counsel. and actually it was prepared by Jonathan Silverstein, who is now a partner with Mark Bobrowski. We use the language that he gave us and adopted it, and that the city council probably ought to perhaps check with Attorney Silverstein, but adopt that language as well to be proper. So sorry to interrupt and contradict you. I just wanted to make sure you had that. Thank you.

[Victor Schrader]: Great, thank you. No contradiction there. Are you all set?

[Zac Bears]: Yeah, I'll wait for the councillors, but I'll make a motion after everyone's had a chance to speak on this.

[Kit Collins]: Any other councillors wish to speak? Councilor Collins? Yeah, thank you. Nothing substantive to add. I think that's why we're having this discussion. I think this is a reasonable thing to, excuse me, reasonable thing to add into this process. I appreciate hearing about context from neighboring communities would make sure that our fee standards are in line and kind of create a consistent experience for developers in the area.

[Unidentified]: Any councilors on Zoom wish to speak at this time?

[George Scarpelli]: If I can. Please. I'm excited that we've been looking at this process and moving forward, but again, I think anything we do would adhere on the side of caution without legal representation. I appreciate that. Someone has already done something for another body, but it's not our body. So I think that, you know, I wouldn't, I wouldn't proceed in recommending anything until we have a city solicitor look at it. This is, this is where I find myself in a conundrum when it comes to, um, you know, the thought process of as we move forward as this council and not having legal representation. I don't want to ask KP law for anything, because again, we don't know what their funding mechanism is in place with the city. We don't know what we pay and whatnot. So I know this is important about moving our city forward, but again, I think we need the pieces in place before we make any movement on anything. And that's right now. from what I've seen and what we've dealt with for the last few months, especially, is not having legal representation that responds to the council and our wishes. So I just wanted to share my concerns. Thank you.

[Unidentified]: Councilor Scarpelli. Councilor Bears.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Madam President. I would move to request that the Office of Planning, Development and Sustainability send a short draft for review by the Council of a PDD fee at five cents per square foot for any project greater than 5,000 square feet. And I would also move that the

[Adam Hurtubise]: Office of Planning and Development Sustainability forward us the language adopted by the CD board for our further review. You can make it one.

[Zac Bears]: It's one motion. You can make it one motion also that they forward the language around Chapter 53G adopted by the Community Development Board for our further review.

[Adam Hurtubise]: for projects greater than 5000 square feet.

[Unidentified]: Councilor Scarpelli, I see you have your hand up.

[Adam Hurtubise]: Yes. I'm having a tough time. Okay, I'm sorry about that. Again, this is just for review with the council, correct?

[Victor Schrader]: We're not asking you to go over. I just want clarification.

[George Scarpelli]: All right, thank you.

[Unidentified]: Okay, thank you. Mr. Clerk.

[Nicole Morell]: All right, so on the motion of Vice President Bears, seconded by Councilor Collins. Mr. Clerk, please call the roll.

[Adam Hurtubise]: Vice President Bears.

[Nicole Morell]: Yes.

[Adam Hurtubise]: Councilor Caraviello is absent. Councilor Collins. Yes. Councilor Nunez is absent. Councilor Scarpelli. Yes. Councilor Tseng.

[Nicole Morell]: Yes.

[Adam Hurtubise]: President Morell.

[Nicole Morell]: Yes. Five in the affirmative, two absent, zero in the negative, the motion passes. So moving on to scriveners errors that we are looking at in the recodification package that was passed back in March. Director Hunt, are you gonna?

[Alicia Hunt]: present those to us.

[Zac Bears]: Do you have something on paper?

[Alicia Hunt]: So thank you. We have a few different ones. I'm going to, should I just talk some briefly? So there are, let me put it this way. There are three categories. One is that there were some misspellings in the document and those we haven't tracked changes of the full document. And so I realize this evening that I should have sent you all that in advance to review, I apologize. But those, if I'm correct, are misspellings and missing punctuation, just misspellings. I feel like you're maintaining that document. So do you wanna just, what's in that exact version, and then I have the other ones.

[Victor Schrader]: Yeah, there's some misspellings. some strikethroughs that need to be taken out. The latest version that we have has corrected the references. There were some misreferences and carryovers from the old document. So for the most part, it's spelling some missing words that are obvious and things like that.

[Alicia Hunt]: So we'll send you that online. I have what we believe to be a couple, several other two that are obviously Scribner's errors, what was presented to the council and then what showed up in the document later are different. And since these have been being used by the development community, we have realized that those actually are being misinterpreted because of the way they were actually sent, put in the document. And then there was an error with the parking code table and the use table. So you may all remember, so let me speak to that one first. You may all remember that during the recodification, there was an agreement that there would be a new parking code, A1, that would be for multifamily. that would be 1.5. The CD board had recommended 1.2, the council agreed to 1.5. The final use table that was sent didn't actually have that code A1 show up on any lines anywhere. So that's a scrivener's error. You all had said that it should be in the multifamily ones. So I actually have a document that shows that, and I'm gonna give you these packets.

[Adam Hurtubise]: Here I go.

[Alicia Hunt]: I'm sorry. Um, so that's the first page of this is a lovely illustration showing that. The A one is not in any pop is not on the residential section, and it was very clear that this board intended this council intended that it should be as part of numbers four and five multiple dwelling Class A and multiple dwelling Class B. That that's should be there. We were reviewing the minutes and the video to determine whether the attached single family and the detached two family were also supposed to have the A1. We think so because it was very clearly stated in the document that was presented that single family would say it too. So we believe that that is just a Scribner's error and that needs to be edited in the use table to be sent to the webpage. The second page has two different sets of errors on it. So the second page that I gave you is a page from the document that the CD board sent to the city council. And it shows required spaces, and then underneath the part where it's yellow, That's the document that was sent to the city council that the city council reviewed at their committee of the whole. The third page is a page from the zoning and the yellow is what was highlighted from the first page. And you can see that the formatting is different. What was presented to you was a table for A and B. So for right now, I'm just addressing the table and letters A and B, the table became these letters A and B. The wording is a little bit different and the use of a hyphen is being interpreted by developers as a minus and as a negative. So rather than interpreting this as affordable housing units should have 0.5 parking spots per dwelling unit, they're interpreting it as affordable housing units get a credit of 0.5. So if they were actually looking at the A1, they would read this to mean one parking spot rather than the 0.5 that the council approved. And then again, for the line two located within a half mile frequency, those units should have 0.8 parking spots per unit. They're understanding it to mean should have a credit of 0.8. So they're taking the 1.5 and they're taking that down to 0.7. per unit. So you can see that they're misinterpreting it because it's formatted differently. So I would argue that that's just a Scribner's error. And that that's something that we could just change the tape, put it back to the table that was approved by the council and inserted an immunity code.

[Nicole Morell]: Yeah, I agree with that. I mean, you can also see there's not consistency between the And dash and M dash, it's actually two different types of dashes.

[Alicia Hunt]: Yes. So that, that was because that actually came to our attention. We didn't notice it earlier on, but because developers were saying to us, but your, your new code requires this. And we're like, no, it doesn't. And then when they walked us through it, we realized what was happening and it happened more than once. The next one there underneath it says notwithstanding the above table, non-residential uses with 5,000 square feet or less are exempt from any minimum requirements. This two asterisks instead of notwithstanding the above table is causing confusion. And it turns out that we have two non-residential uses by definition of less than gross, that was supposed to apply to the neighborhood retail and the, sorry, my brain just stopped on the other small retail. So we don't understand why that couldn't just be part of the table to go next to those two. And that's sort of a separate question. as to how to apply that, and whether there were other non-residential, so this actually, the way it's written, could apply to any non-residential use that's small, and whether that was in fact the intention. So I feel like we should think about that one for a minute. And then the third, or the fourth.

[Zac Bears]: Could we pause there, actually?

[Alicia Hunt]: Yeah, yeah. Thanks. So I didn't print out the whole use table, and I feel like it would actually be helpful to actually look at the whole use table and say what are all the non residential uses and did we intend that that is what was there.

[Nicole Morell]: So I just want to be clear and I apologize for the Councilors on zoom but so like this is what was delivered to us. from the CD board, and this is what came out?

[Alicia Hunt]: That's what came in the 150 pages of zoning.

[Nicole Morell]: Because this one has that 1.2, which I know is the recommendation.

[Alicia Hunt]: Right, that is in fact what was presented to you that the council deliberated on.

[Zac Bears]: We adopted this but changed it to 1.5.

[Alicia Hunt]: Yes, I'm not trying to say that that was an error, but this is actually, it's why when you look at the words in the document, we know that you were, thought that there would be a table that would show up that would reflect this. Right, right.

[Nicole Morell]: Vice Mayor Bears.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Madam President. Yeah, I mean, I think these first two are just very clearly formatting and Scrivner's errors. And the intent of the council was clear from our discussions as to what they should be. So, you know, I would move to, you know, adjust the draft to reflect the parking code A1 in the A2, A3, A4, and A5 spaces on the use table. And I can hold for the clerk. Yeah, I would move that, you know, we correct the Scrivener's error and in the parking, move that we correct the Scrivener's error and place the A1 parking code in the PC column for uses A2, A3, A4, and A5. And that's, we're on the same page, that's what we want? Yeah, okay, great. And then further, I would move to, you can make this part of the same motion to adjust the final draft document to correct the Scrivener's error for the incentives for alternative minimum residential parking requirements to restore the table. I would move to correct the Scrivener's error under incentives for alternative minimum residential parking requirements to restore the table format. And then I'll hold off on this non residential uses with the 5000 if we want to talk through that more. As I read it, that's part of the incentives for as I read it as was presented to us not as was included in the draft that was presented as part of only the incentives for alternative minimum residential parking requirements. That's how I read that.

[Alicia Hunt]: Oh, so that if it was in a mixed use building.

[Zac Bears]: Correct.

[Alicia Hunt]: And there was a non-residential commercial. There was a commercial use in the residential building. Correct. And it was a small residential.

[Adam Hurtubise]: Correct.

[Alicia Hunt]: That makes a lot of sense.

[Adam Hurtubise]: Yeah.

[Alicia Hunt]: We're happy to go back and review the tape if you want. I did actually have an intern who looked at the rest of this, but I didn't ask her to look at that section of it. And unfortunately she couldn't be here this evening.

[Nicole Morell]: Um, but I'd be happy for that review just because I remember we went back and forth a lot about like convenience stores. That was in a separate section, but I'm just like, okay. I'm happy for anyone to overrule me, but I, you know, I'm a little wary to go off my own memory.

[Zac Bears]: That's fine. And I think the review is great. I'm just saying, I think. that neither of the interpretations that were presented before were really correct. No, not to say. No, no criticism intended. Just, I believe that that's only for projects that are using this A1 parking code. That's my, that's my understanding of, that's how I see it presented here. That was my understanding of how it was included.

[Alicia Hunt]: Amanda, do you remember at all this redevelopment Since Amanda staffs the CD board, she often remembers things that happened at those meetings, because she wasn't at all the other meetings.

[Zac Bears]: Yeah, I see this as star.

[Alicia Hunt]: Yeah.

[Zac Bears]: And then the table, and then the sentence, notwithstanding the above tables, residential use with 5,000 square feet or less of gross usable for exempt from any minimum requirements, and meaning that if you have a non-residential use of 5,000 square feet or less in a A2, A3, A4, A5 use, that is what is exempted from the requirement. But I would be happy to be corrected. That's my recollection of it.

[Alicia Hunt]: I'm happy to also have Lynn go back and review the meeting, because she sent me some links and timestamps from when we talked about this in the meeting. So it'll be easy for her to go back and see what we were talking about.

[Zac Bears]: Great, so I would motion that PDS come back to us, review the meeting and come back to us with an understanding of what happened in that meeting relative to correcting any scriveners errors when it comes to non-residential uses under, I'll just leave it at that.

[Adam Hurtubise]: I would second both motions.

[Nicole Morell]: Thank you, Councilor Tseng.

[Adam Hurtubise]: with any, with, you know, to share the context around the non-residential uses clause included in section 6.1.3. Three. Okay, and I have your, hang on a second. Cause I have your other motion too. I want to read that back.

[Unidentified]: Yes, please.

[Adam Hurtubise]: Vice president, the other motion is vice president bears move to correct the scrivener's error and place the A1 parking code in the PC column for uses A2, A3, A4, and A5. He further moved to adjust the final draft document to correct the scrivener's error under the sentence for alternative minimum residential parking requirements to restore the table format. And I have councilor Tseng second on both of those on that motion as well.

[Zac Bears]: And the only change to the first one is it should be incentives for alternative minimum

[Adam Hurtubise]: Oh, under the incentives we're not sending this for.

[Zac Bears]: Yeah.

[Adam Hurtubise]: Yeah. Okay. Hang on. And then the other motion was, uh, to request the PDS review, review prior meetings and come back to the council to share the context around the nonresidential uses clause, including included in section 6.1.3. Yeah. Okay.

[Nicole Morell]: So on the motion, uh, by some bears as seconded by Councilor Tseng, Mr. Clerk, call the roll for the first motion.

[Adam Hurtubise]: Vice President Bears. Yes. Councilor Caraviello is absent. Councilor Collins.

[Kit Collins]: Yes.

[Adam Hurtubise]: Councilor Knight is absent. Councilor Scarpelli. Yes. Councilor Tseng. Yes. President Morell.

[Nicole Morell]: Yes. Five in the affirmative, zero in the negative, two absent, the motion passes. And then on the second motion, Vice President Bears, seconded by Councilor Tseng, Mr. Clerk, please call the roll.

[Adam Hurtubise]: Vice president bears. Yes. Councilor Caraviello is absent. Councilor Collins. Yes. Councilor Nettie is absent. Councilor Scapelli. Yes. Councilor Tseng. Yes. Councilor Morell.

[Nicole Morell]: Yes. Five in the affirmative, zero in the negative, two absent, motion passes.

[Alicia Hunt]: So we, Madam President, we also have a formatting recommendation that it's actually easiest to see from this first page where we have background, which conveniently puts the parking code table on the same table as the table of uses. The parking code table shows up in page 18, and the table of uses shows up at the end, which is around page 200 something. And it is our recommendation that we actually take out, basically merge the two tables by getting rid of the parking code and just putting the requirements straight into the use table, which is the way it was under the old zoning, it makes it dramatically easier to read and understand. And that is just simply a straight substitution of that, and that would be our recommendation. I would put it forth that we would suggest that that could be considered a scrivener's error. I don't think this, there's nothing, there's no change, there's no substantive change in the document to do that. It's just an editing. Thank you.

[Nicole Morell]: Is there a chance you have one this is a document we can just send to the Councilors on Zoom?

[Alicia Hunt]: The Word document or the PDF?

[Nicole Morell]: Yeah. Oh, this one. Yeah, just the one that, just because it's kind of hard to conceptualize if you're not looking at it. It will take me about, would it be easier?

[Alicia Hunt]: I don't know if there are other people on Zoom. Or if you want to share your screen. I could log in and. Yeah, if you want to share your screen, that'd be great. About 30 seconds.

[Zac Bears]: Just if you could email around the documents after the meeting.

[Nicole Morell]: Happy to do that. Great, thank you. But I do as, as you look for that. I agree, this is something I found, personally, a little kludgy in a way. It did not have to be, so.

[Adam Hurtubise]: On to that point, Madam President.

[Unidentified]: Vice President Paris.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you. Could we keep the tables in their relevant sections and then just adjust the use table itself? Sorry.

[Adam Hurtubise]: Sorry, I know you're doing two things at once, so I can hold off for a second.

[Alicia Hunt]: So that's the document on the screen now. So those two, the table on the parking code table is on page 18 of the zoning and the table of uses, which is on the left side, that's at the end of the document. And as you can see, it's just a letter, but there's no reason why we couldn't make this a little wider and put, you know, one per DU and we could put at the bottom DU equals dwelling code at the bottom of that page. And then the others are all very, very self-explanatory. And then insert those into the use table rather than having a separate full table.

[Adam Hurtubise]: Councilor Scarlatoiu.

[George Scarpelli]: Yeah, my only concern is this is what the recommendation was from consultants, correct?

[Nicole Morell]: Do you count that, Dr. Hunt? Yeah.

[Alicia Hunt]: Yeah. All I can say is that the consultant lawyer and he doesn't have to use the zoning all the time. And when we have people trying to use this table, they've found it very difficult and it's hard to go find it in our zoning because once it's up on unique code, it's hard to search and find where is your park. I mean, it's possible to search. but it's kludgy and it's not simple. So that's our recommendation is to make it easier for people to use it.

[Nicole Morell]: Councilor Collins.

[Kit Collins]: To me, this seems like not a change in substance, but rather a change in formatting. I like the idea of integrating the two tables together. I also found it very hard to find the various tables, reconcile them, the way that they currently exist in the document, streamlining that I think is probably good for everybody. I would be happy to have them consolidated if that was kind of permissible under the category of scripters errors, which it seems to me that it would be because this is not a substantial change, but just to reformat it.

[Nicole Morell]: Thank you, Councilor Collins. Councilor Tseng.

[Justin Tseng]: I was going to say something similar. I believe a city code is difficult enough to work through and understand. The more that we can do to streamline a document like this and make it understandable and more accessible to people, I think that's good work that we should be doing. If we look at the table, it does already say and parking regulations. And I think because that's already in the title, it would be very logical to accept the director's suggestion there.

[Unidentified]: Thank you, Councilor Tseng. Going back to Councilor Scarpelli.

[George Scarpelli]: Again, is this, I mean, this isn't something that's, is this something we can recommend for just a question for Councilor Pabowski, and then get back to us because it's been a while, but the understanding why we added and formatted this, it was always with a sense of understanding with our process. I'm a little hesitant to change something for the fact that it might not be just a Scribner issue. That's my concern.

[Nicole Morell]: Just making sure I heard you. You said this is maybe a question you'd like to see go back to Attorney Bobrowski.

[George Scarpelli]: Right, I don't want to be in any violation of calling this a Scribner error and not, you know, and not understanding the true, you know, reasoning why Councilor Hrabowski had us formatted this way. So that would be my recommendation that if we could, for this piece, just request any, you know, response from Councilor Hrabowski.

[Nicole Morell]: Understood, thank you. I believe that's something we'd have to pay for as we're out of contract, but I'm just noting that, not to say that as no, but just noting that. Vice President Bears.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Madam President. I think I can understand the difficulty in usability because the parking code is listed in one place when it, or the parking table, code table is listed in one place when it maybe should have been listed in two places. You know, I can understand where Councilor Scarpelli is coming from. Like we never saw a table of uses presented to us that had, you know, it was always written as these codes. It wasn't written into the parking, into the table as the actual required spaces. I agree it's not a policy change, but I do understand the question around, you know, These other things we've looked at, we were presented something, thought we were voting on one thing, and it turns out that the draft that we voted on had errors in it. This one would be a slight adjustment to a draft for ease of use, and I can understand that. Something that I think may fall in the middle of that is I think to Councilor Tseng's point, it says table of use and parking regulations. And my understanding of that was that you'd have your use table, and then your parking table, your loading table. Like right in the in that section like I can, I don't think that. And I don't know if we were presented that at some point but I believe when we reviewed the documents we reviewed the use table in the parking table in the loading table at the same time. So, you know, I could double check on that. But that would make sense to me as a scrivener's error if. It's all the way up in section 6.1.3, and not in the in the table of use and parking regulation section to have the same table, you know, in that section for review, which would be different than changing the actual use table to remove the code letters and include the parking requirement itself so so to make sure I understand you're saying.

[Nicole Morell]: have it in both places? Yeah, exactly.

[Zac Bears]: And that's how, you know, again, I'd have to review the specific documents or something that happened nine months ago, but I remember when we reviewed the use table and parking and loading, reviewed them all at the same time. So to me, it would make perfect sense to have the existing tables that we were presented be in that section as well.

[George Scarpelli]: I think that would be, I agree with that. That makes a lot of sense. I agree too.

[Nicole Morell]: Yeah, I would also agree.

[Zac Bears]: Thanks. Did you guys catch that?

[Alicia Hunt]: Was your final to actually have the table, the code table in there and then actually have the table at the end as well?

[Zac Bears]: Yeah, just like, so how it is now have the use table and then have parking table and the loading table in that appendix section.

[Alicia Hunt]: We can, right, so basically add those over to the appendix section. I feel like there's no reason why we couldn't just do that now. It's my understanding that a copy from Bobrowski of the changes have gone to MuniCode, but not the use table. So we'll add that to the use table before we send that to MuniCode.

[Zac Bears]: And just specifically on the MuniCode thing, because I've been in some back and forth on the two, we're waiting to make sure we have all our ducks in a row before we finalize.

[Alicia Hunt]: So I realized that as I'm sharing screen, I could just show you the typos throughout this, if you wanted to take the time to step through them this evening.

[Nicole Morell]: I can go either way. I know President Bears, you have to step out at seven.

[Zac Bears]: I mean, I'll push it a little bit. I mean, I clearly.

[Nicole Morell]: Knowing the building commissioners here too, so.

[Zac Bears]: Right, yeah, I mean.

[Nicole Morell]: Councilor Scarpelli, I see you have your hand up.

[George Scarpelli]: Yeah, no, as I went through the document, there really weren't major, I didn't see major changes though. I mean, there were spelling errors or grammatical errors. I don't think it was anything that was of substance. I mean, maybe, can anyone, you know, maybe I missed some things, but.

[Alicia Hunt]: So there are things that are of substance that we think are worth discussing, but we haven't brought those up tonight. What I have in the document, which I could just share to you is frequently the, The word the is missing the T, so there are a lot of he's where it should be the. There was at least twice the word or instead of of. It was clearly an error. Those are the primary types of things that we've seen through this document. There was one or two others. Sorry, it is so many pages, and I was trying to skip to each of the track changes that we have in here.

[Zac Bears]: If at this point, can we just throw it up and get it out of the way? If there's a version that's straight up.

[Nicole Morell]: Yeah, the only ones I would probably be most concerned about, I thought this feels very minutiae, but I feel like the ofs and the ors are the ones that have the potential to change meaning where the other ones, the he's and the these probably don't.

[Alicia Hunt]: I'll just do it this way. So why don't I, if you have all are amenable, I'll just switch my share. Sure, yeah.

[Adam Hurtubise]: while we're waiting to pull it up, I'm happy to stop.

[Unidentified]: I'm happy to move to include the

[Zac Bears]: parking table and the loading table under the use table under that section, the table A section.

[Nicole Morell]: In place under, again, physical space?

[Zac Bears]: Yeah, yeah, yeah, place it, yeah, below it.

[Adam Hurtubise]: I'll second that.

[Alicia Hunt]: Let me know when you have that, Mr. Clerk. Okay, so if I flip through these, table of use regulations is table A, not appendix A.

[Nicole Morell]: Yeah, we'll just go through this, and if the councillors have an issue, just speak. Otherwise, we'll take your silence as agreement.

[Alicia Hunt]: All right, I didn't figure out a way to jump. These are comments, these are the things that we all just discussed, so I'm not stopping. But then here, be provided within key front yards should be the front yards. And we actually think it should be the required front yards. But if it's easier, we can just say the yards, the front yards. And then it's very clear what we're talking about here. There's a missing paragraph line there. We notice everything. Here again, he supply and demand of on-street parking, thus supply and demand of on-street parking. Oh, there's a missing space between that and the number. This says, such sign shall be mounted. We believe it should say such a sign. So here, this one is a little bit harder, and we might need to save it for later. Access via a driveway or driveways directly the property. I assume it means directly abutting the property, but we'd actually have to go check something.

[Zac Bears]: Which section is that?

[Alicia Hunt]: This is on page 43. 6.47. Thank you for making that. 7.1, yep. This one is on-sire retail, should be on-site retail.

[Zac Bears]: Very specific retail.

[Alicia Hunt]: Here, and statutes enforced by the fire chief should be enforced. Yeah. Like I said, a lot of these are really minor. This one is the first of or question. In no instance shall the Board of Appeals issue a special permit to any person convicted or violating GLC 119. We thought it meant convicted of violating.

[Zac Bears]: That seems like a clear of.

[Alicia Hunt]: The next comment there is actually a bit more substantive that there's some confusion about what this means, but we'll save that for.

[Zac Bears]: That's 7.2.

[Alicia Hunt]: Yeah, it was what they meant by hours of operation or retail or wholesale, and whether that applies to restaurants, which we think by inference does not, but it's not clear and we get that question periodically. Down to page 72 of 142. Here we go. Oh, I'll just note this is one of the substantive ones that we will come back to you, is that we need a definition of ownership because we're running into some places with states and trusts, something we're working through right now. So that's on our list. That's specifically in the ADU section 821, but the recommendation would be to put a definition of ownership for the document. And then there's a need to define bona fide temporary absence. Like, what does that actually mean?

[Zac Bears]: What's a bona fide temporary absence?

[Alicia Hunt]: How do we, yeah, how do we enforce that? So we just sort of are noting those now for, we think this one might, do you think this one got fixed? This is a section reference that is missing. If you see, I have, there are three asterisks there. We think, okay, we think the most recent draft has that reference.

[Zac Bears]: And that's just where GL4021D is in Medford's ordinances?

[Alicia Hunt]: Yes. Okay. And then these are some, the references we believe were all fixed when Attorney Bobrowski sent us the most recent version a few weeks ago. But we checked and these things are not. The typos were not. Could you go back up? Those are references that we believe have been fixed. Okay. Again, an incorrect reference. Oh, so this is where some words, this is what Victor was meant earlier by strikeouts. These strikeouts still showed up in the version that was sent to us. So we actually want to delete them so that they're not there.

[Zac Bears]: That makes sense to me. Can you just hold it for one second?

[Unidentified]: Yeah. Okay. Some of that is just like tense agreement stuff.

[Alicia Hunt]: So the version that you all were sent, this version has strike struck through things and that didn't make any sense. Do we think that the development linkage fees definition never made it into the version? So that's something we'll put. We'll need to see what the language is for development linkage fees and provide the council with it because it is very much defined in our zoning, but it's not in the section on definitions. Under high frequency transit, service takes place more than three times per hour in the same direction during its prime daytime schedule. Prime is not a word that is used commonly and to talk about transit, but peak daytime schedule is a defined term that is used in the industry. So we think that there was an intention there to meet peak, not prime.

[Unidentified]: I'm personally comfortable with that. Any, uh, disagreeable Councilors. I see your hands up, but I don't know if it's just been up or it's a new next one.

[George Scarpelli]: Sorry. That was previous. I'm good. So this is, this is good so far. Thank you.

[Alicia Hunt]: And this is at the very end. The sale of goods in large quantity for the purpose of resale, we think that comma doesn't belong there.

[Zac Bears]: And then- We're even getting this grammar squiggly under it.

[Alicia Hunt]: That's it, right. That's why the grammar squiggly is there. Comma doesn't belong there. But more, the last one is again, at the end of the sentence yard, the definition of yard, there's a random slash that ended up there, we were gonna delete that. And that is the last, sorry, it's not 250 pages, it's 142 pages.

[Zac Bears]: And is there anything that's in like the use table or the appendices that needs to be corrected?

[Alicia Hunt]: We have not seen any, right? I'm checking with these guys. Because we all use these documents, so we all like crowdsource from each other

[Victor Schrader]: I don't recall any besides the reference to the market production.

[Zac Bears]: Great. Right.

[Alicia Hunt]: Then I would move to... In the use table, there were some highlights that remained, like the yellow marks. We thought we would just delete the yellow. There was no intention for it to be colored.

[Zac Bears]: Yeah. That makes sense. Then I would move to adopt all of the Scrivener error fixes included in the document just presented by the Office of Planning, Development and Sustainability, except for, and I'll give you the except for when you're ready, Mr. Clerk.

[Adam Hurtubise]: Mr. President, I move to adopt all Scrivener error fixes included in the document provided by the media to except for

[Zac Bears]: except for section 6.4.7 access. And then I guess the rest of it, I took notes I had, so this is not part of the motion right now. I had the 7.2 restaurants included, that didn't seem like it was an adjustment, it was a question. I had the 8.2.1 definition of ownership and bonafide temporary absence, that seemed more like a question than an error. and the development linkage fees definition, that seemed like more like a question or a mission than an error. So I'll leave, I don't think we have to include that in the motion, because you're not gonna, yeah, so we're all on the same page. Yeah, just the 6.4.7, yeah.

[Adam Hurtubise]: I have your previous motion, Vice President Bears, to include the parking table and the loading table under the use table A section, physically placing that table before the other table.

[Zac Bears]: Yeah, below, physically placing that table below the other. Yeah, and it should be the table A section.

[Adam Hurtubise]: Not just the A section. The table A section. Yeah.

[Alicia Hunt]: And I think that our building commissioner, sorry, I was trying to say Commissioner Bill and that didn't, our building commissioner had a few things he wanted to mention as well.

[Unidentified]: Great.

[Nicole Morell]: Yeah, we can take these motions. Do you want to take a motion now?

[Zac Bears]: Great.

[Nicole Morell]: So on the first motion, What do we have for the, which one is the first motion?

[Adam Hurtubise]: Vice President Paris, would you include the parking table below the table under the use table in the table A section, physically placing that table below the other table?

[Zac Bears]: You could change the word under to below, though.

[Nicole Morell]: We're just trying to make clear that it's, yeah. It's not within, it is physically. It's not under the umbrella.

[Zac Bears]: Digitally.

[Adam Hurtubise]: It's below.

[Nicole Morell]: I believe that was a second from Councilor Tseng.

[Zac Bears]: Councilor Scarpelli, I think.

[Nicole Morell]: Oh, Councilor Scarpelli, yes.

[Zac Bears]: Not to second for you.

[Nicole Morell]: Yeah.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you, no, I did.

[Nicole Morell]: All right, so on the motion of Vice President Harris, seconded by Councilor Scarpelli, Mr. Clerk, please call the roll.

[Adam Hurtubise]: Vice President Harris.

[Nicole Morell]: Yes.

[Adam Hurtubise]: Councilor Caraviello-Lopez. Yes. Councilor Scarpelli. Yes. Yes. Yes.

[Nicole Morell]: Yes, 5 million firm is during the negative two absent the motion passes and the second motion is to in short, except all the scriveners.

[Adam Hurtubise]: Yeah. Do you have a second on that one?

[Nicole Morell]: Second. Councilor Collins. So on the motion of Vice President Bears, seconded by Councilor Collins, Mr. Clerk, please call the roll.

[Adam Hurtubise]: Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

[Nicole Morell]: Yes, finding the infernus or the negative to absolutely motion passes. So now we'll go to building for sure bill 14 to talk about just some good evening Madam President Councilors, thank you.

[Bill Forte]: So, you had asked for me to weigh in, Mr. beers if you would. I've only been here for two months.

[SPEAKER_07]: I haven't really had a chance to dive in to a lot of this stuff, but there are some things here that I see that are problematic.

[Bill Forte]: Some of the suggested changes here are going to be substantive, so I would just ask that you maybe consider them and perhaps have an attorney look them over. I'm not the best legal advice you can get, certainly not, but I'll just tell you that... To that end, are any of these very timely?

[Nicole Morell]: or these things that we can wait consider until we might bring it.

[Bill Forte]: Yeah, sure we can wait. You know that they're for your consideration. You know, I don't think that they need to be voted in tonight. These again are only suggestions so but I'll touch on the most important item I think if I may just before we jump into the details sorry Mr. Commissioner.

[Zac Bears]: I know you're doing some great stuff in the first couple months. something that we had kind of talked about with Commissioner Moki and Director Hunt all the way back two years ago was that what we've done so far was a phase one. It was a recodification. There's some policy changes, obviously, but it was really to bring the zoning code into modern era, modern formatting section numbers, etc. And I don't think you were here yet, maybe last time, or maybe weren't at the meeting or weren't invited to the meeting last time we discussed the scope for a new zoning consultant. we had always considered a phase two piece. And I'm not sure if you're aware of that, but a phase two where we would then look at some really substantive changes, updating the zoning map. I see here you have the zoning map, but I wanna hear about all of it, but updating the zoning map, maybe even changing, moving, adjusting lines for districts, creating new districts and kind of taking that more like a holistic look along alignment with the comprehensive plan. So I just wanted to put that context out there so we're all on the same page, that that's something that we wanna do next. We have money for it in our budget secured in June, and I think it makes a ton of sense for us all to be on the same page and having that conversation together. Great, terrific. Great, thank you.

[Bill Forte]: President, thank you, through you. So the zoning map I find is kind of outdated. The 1965 version that the zoning ordinance refers to, the street names are all kind of muddy in there. It's not color coded, which creates a big problem for interpretation. I find that having a non-color-coded zoning map can be confusing. I do have some tools and they're all buried in the office. I have a Mylar version and then I actually have a spreadsheet that has each property with the zoning on it. I also found a very useful tool, AccessGIS, which has a pretty accurate depiction of most of our properties in our zoning districts. It's actually pretty accurate. In addition to that, I found out that Steve Morse was working on a PDF version color coded that I now have in my office as well. What I would like to do is, what I'm doing right now is I actually went out and got magic markers and I'm coloring this old 1965 map to try and match as closely as I can to the draft PDF map that Steve Morse has created. And what I would like to do is I've asked the mayor to allow me to employ an intern to help me go through the entire zoning map and come up with a, an adopted version that not only is color coded and electronically comprehensive but also that it's interactive with GIS. I think it's going to take me approximately three months to get something together that I can present to this body. And I would like to do that as soon as I can get the draft put together. I just want to make sure that we have an electronic version that's interactive with the public. There's no reason why the public should have to call up and find out what property is his own. property is in they should just be able to go on GIS and find that out themselves. So that is my goal to my biggest concern about the zoning ordinance right now as it stands.

[Nicole Morell]: And when you have that, email me and we'll get it scheduled.

[Bill Forte]: Yeah, sure. I surely will. And what I'll do is I'll submit that draft and give you all a chance to look at it. And then you certainly can schedule a working session as you did with this. Great. That'd be great. Thank you. Yeah. So that is going to be my biggest focus over the next three months because it's problematic. And I just want to make sure that we're giving out the accurate information. We don't want to get into a situation where It's not clear what zone it's in and, you know, that sort of thing. Under principal uses, I had a very similar ordinance in my last job that basically says if it's not specifically listed, it's prohibited, okay? Uses are, you know, they do differ and it's something substantially different that I agree that it should be, you know, it shouldn't be allowed. But in cases where uses are deemed similar, just because they're not specifically listed, and I'll give you an example. Internet cafe. An internet cafe is where people sit down, and they go on their computer, and they grab a cup of coffee and a donut, and they do their work. OK, that's one thing. But then you would have the exact same thing in a McDonald's restaurant. What's that? A McDonald's restaurant's an internet cafe. You can go there. You can have breakfast. Now you have a fast food element. Okay. So, you know, although there might be the same exact use in that one way, it's not a McDonald's. It is a, you know, it's not that busy. It's people who are businesslike. And so it's been problematic to strictly enforce this provision. So what I suggest to add is, at the end of section 3.1 point one at the following at the end of the paragraph, however, the building commissioner may determine like uses deemed to be similar in nature, with assistance from the planning director, and I say that because You know, I think that the planning director is probably the most qualified person to maybe have that discussion with. If the building commissioner, you know, me or whoever's in the future has a problem with determination, if it's not exactly identified and uses change all the time, new uses come up all the time. One of the latest ones is the panic room, the game room where you go in and you, you know, you have this room and you've got to figure out how to get out of this room. There's nothing in any zoning ordinance for that. Right. Yeah. Well, I call it a panic. I call it a panic room. But what it is, is, you know, you have this game where, you know, it's like, you don't know. Yeah. The rocket's going to launch off if you don't kill the countdown. You know, you got to figure out how to kill the countdown. You know, these kinds of uses are they entertain? Are they amusement uses? Are they arcade uses? Are they, you know, are they inside game room? I mean, they're very hard to define, you know. You know, a simple thing like an art studio. I had a person who wanted to open up a coloring book room and there was nothing in the zoning ordinance for it. What am I going to do? Say no and crush everybody's fund? Of course not. So you have to kind of look at it and say, this is a business use, you know, is it an arts and crafts? Is it, you know, how many people is it going to attract? You know, what are the impacts? And so, so I, I think I'm only suggesting this because I just found it to be problematic in the past and to have the I think that the building commissioner, whoever's in this seat should be qualified enough to make a determination, a judgment as to whether or not that use is going to be impactful and, uh, you know, therefore, you know, degrading or, or, you know, some, somehow, you know, more impactful than what a regular type you should be. So, so just something for you to think about, um, under accessory uses, um, this is another one that I, uh, have problem with now and again. Um, so, um, The operation of an accessory use shall not create a visual impact of the premises where located or to the neighborhood. Any accessory activity shall not generate noise, glare, heat, smoke, and I've added this, odor, fumes, or electromagnetic transmission. When an accessory use occurs as part of a business, commercial or industrial use, measures to mitigate all of the above shall be required. Okay, so we, and I'll just finish this off light non nuisance manufacturing shall shall be deemed an accessory use. So, in my opinion, we don't really have mitigation measures for sound, unless it's part of a special permit. Okay. So, I mean, your ability to be able to control those things is fine if you have, you know, an impactful, you know, significant project that's going to be near a residential zone. You know, currently, I have a problem with, you know, residential property in an industrial zone. where I may not have the authority to be able to enforce noise measures, you know what I mean? And so I know that we probably need some help with the noise ordinance. I don't know where in the general ordinances where some measurements are taken from the property line. I haven't had a chance to dig into it enough, but I may make recommendations in the general ordinance as well. But I think that this section needs to be considered, okay? In addition to that, just if I, if I may, on that section, have you, is this just what's currently in the zoning or have you know this is what I suggesting it should be changed to and basically there's no big change to the, to the substance of this is just adding a couple things. Odor is one of them. And I'll say like, again, if you have like recreational marijuana, obviously you can you can make that have all the control but right but things like a bagel factory, you know, I mean people love bagels right they smell great. If you're sitting next to one every day and all you smell is yeast, it's disgusting. You know, and so those, you know, same with a microbrewery. Microbreweries have a tendency to generate odor.

[Zac Bears]: That sounds, sounds great. I'm just, so, so odor, fumes, or electric time, electromagnetic transmission, you added. And then did you add this sentence when an accessory use occurs as part of a non-business?

[Bill Forte]: Yes, I did. Okay, great. So almost the last half of this paragraph is all added. Fantastic. Yeah, you can compare it. Yep. Yeah. And then this is another one too. mechanical penthouses now my experience in the, in the city of Waltham mechanical penthouses on laboratories have become enormous, they are 30 feet in height plus, and they can have equipment on top of those when you don't set limits on mechanical penthouses and I think in your current zoning, mechanical penthouse. So basically what they are is these mechanical rooms that are above the roofline. that are exempt from your height in the zoning ordinance and right now there's uh you have like hvac or there's something yes it's usually hvac equipment it could be anything a number of uh things it could be uh elevated penthouse but but what's happening now with laboratories and i expect a big surge of laboratory to come this way What's happening with these is that because there's no limit on the roof and the square footage of the laboratory is so valuable, they're putting most of this mechanical equipment on the roof, not only for more space in the building, but for energy efficiency and the fact that this is where all this hazardous, these fume hoods and so forth are. My concern is that when they get too big, especially with the view of Boston and Boston Harbor and some of the nicer areas here, you could get a conflict where a mechanical room, if there's no limit, and I've seen them have no limit in the last jurisdiction I worked in, they become problematic. And so again, if they're by right and there's no special permit regulation to be able to control those things, they could get pretty much out of sight. So these are parameters that I suggest that I think would work for any laboratory. They wouldn't be restrictive and they would protect the interests of the city and it's a person's right to a view, other than looking at a huge mechanical penthouse. So those are really all the substantive suggestions that I have for now. Again, I would disregard split lots. I think the only suggestion that I'll make is that on the split lot, you have the way it's worded currently,

[Unidentified]: Excuse me just a second here.

[Bill Forte]: I made an attempt at this because I thought that it should be changed. But after I read what I wrote, I realized that it doesn't help. So we don't want to cause more damage than what's there now. Sorry. All right, so the way it's worded right now is when a lot is transected by a zoning boundary, blah, blah, blah, the lot may also at the option of the lot owner. be deemed to govern in the smaller part beyond such zoning district. I think this is a really bad idea. This allows a person to be able to expand their industrial use by right 30 feet beyond a zone line that might otherwise protect, it might have bought up to a general residence zone where people are trying to sleep at night. And so my wording is incorrect because it actually increases the impact rather than lessens it. But I think what needs to be, added to this is that if a person wants to expand into their lot, it should be by special permit. So I think that's the best way to do it. Then you're not really changing a lot of substance. You're just directing it. You're not saying that someone can't do it. You're just saying that it's going to require a special permit, or at minimum, site plan review, or SPGA, or community development board. All right, so those are all the changes that I have for now, and I'm gonna work really diligently on this zoning map and get this straightened out, because this is a big priority for the department and for me. Could you email this to the clerk if you haven't, or I know- Yeah, I'll email it, and I'll take off section 2.5, but I'll actually add my suggested change in there. I'll retype it as it is there, and just reword, and I'll put it in redline, okay?

[Nicole Morell]: Great, thank you.

[Bill Forte]: All right, thank you very much.

[Zac Bears]: I'm going to step away now. I'm comfortable discussing all of that at a future meeting. All of it sounds reasonable. I just wanted to say that before I step out. Thanks.

[Nicole Morell]: leave and then, Director Hunt, if we discuss possibly talking about your suggestions. We talked at a previous meeting, we motioned to get some suggestions from the planning department about what wording might be to go through the phase two of the zoning work we're looking at.

[Alicia Hunt]: Right, so Madam President, I have a sort of a brief suggestion that I would then follow up with the language if it's amenable. As we were talking through these and realizing that we have such a large range of potential changes, one of the things that we often do is we employ an on-call consultant. So what happens is it will do a request for qualifications, and we will ask for consultants to tell us why they'd be a good fit for this job. And we would list out what the first few tasks are and what some potential future tasks might look like. And then we review, they submit them as if it was a bid process, they submit their qualifications, we review them and we choose one or more. So the land use planner, or the land use consultants that are doing park design, we actually have three on-call consultants. But in this case, I think we would want one that would be a consulting, we'd ask for a consulting team of planner and lawyer. to serve and that the first task that we would include in this would be to review our comprehensive plan and our current zoning, and then to meet with the council and the planning staff and the building commissioner to review what are all the issues, and then help us narrow down, figure out which are the ones that we wanna take first, which are the ones that we could batch easily, and then scope out additional tasks based off of that. as to then move forward. As part of such a proposal, we would ask them to provide us rates that they would charge for this work. And then we would know what the rates would be. And we could ask them each time we say, we have this project, can you give us a quote for how much time do you think this will be, provide us with that. And I think that that process would serve us well, because we could qualify them for three years. We wouldn't need to have the funding for three years. We would have the funding for task one or the first couple tasks. But then we wouldn't need to go through a procurement process every time. And we would have some certainty of knowing that we would continue to work with the same team over the course of a couple of years of work. Because some of these things will go through quickly, some will not. That's my recommendation. I think I'll just take a minute to let you know. of two other things that are very zoning related in funding. For the MBTA communities, you may be aware that we need to come back with some zoning recommendations and changes. We have just in the last few days been notified that we are being paired up. We're getting technical assistance. There's a well-known planning consultant, Ezra Glenn, who has been assigned to Medford to work with us on the MBTA communities process. So we'll start working with them. We'll bring you something to review for that. And we also applied for a grant from the MAPC and the Barr Foundation to fund a staff person for one year to work on climate zoning. And we've just been notified that we've received that grant. So that is very exciting. We'll start drafting a job description to put that forward. So those things are also gonna be working on the side.

[Nicole Morell]: Wonderful. I do see Councilor Scarpelli with his hand up. Councilor Scarpelli?

[George Scarpelli]: I'm a little confused, Madam President. I'm sorry, Ms. Hunt, you kind of lost me. I believe that the question was that we asked this to go to the department heads. Now, whenever I hear the word consultant, please forgive me. With the financial hardships that we might have and not understanding what's going on financially in our community, as soon as you said the word consultant, it just, I, everything froze for me and I apologize for that reaction, but that's what, that's the, the nature of the beast now. So I'm confused. I thought that the question that you asked, Madam President, if you can repeat that it was for. Yeah.

[Nicole Morell]: So what I, um, we had asked at a previous meeting when we first talked about the scope of work for working with, uh, The Chamber brought the second part of this. We had asked the planning department just to give us some language for what we might call this next phase. And that is what... So if you'll remember, we were told... I'm not... Okay, so hold on, hold on.

[George Scarpelli]: I'm sorry. This is a question. So the question you asked is how we're gonna call this, correct? No, we had the- No, I'm asking the president. I'm sorry, Ms. Hunter.

[Nicole Morell]: I understood that we had a question for how you would frame this scope of work, what we would call it, how we would get someone to work this with us, knowing that we do want to go with Attorney Bobrowsky.

[George Scarpelli]: Right, so this has nothing to do with Ms. Hunt's department getting a consultant. This is for us to certify and get a consultant for the council to move on to phase two, correct, Madam President?

[Nicole Morell]: Correct, and these are just suggestions. This is nothing that we're voting on.

[George Scarpelli]: I know that. I appreciate that. But again, I don't want to muddy the water here. The process is for us to work on phase two so we can get our consultant that we want. I don't want to keep, because now what it sounds like to the public is, oh, there's another consultant going on for this that we're asking for. We're not asking for a consultant, correct? For Ms. Hunt's office. We're not asking for that right now.

[Alicia Hunt]: This would be a consultant to work with the city council on the new zoning on the, when we went to the procurement office if we were to just hire a lawyer who would help with language, you could hire a lawyer but if you're going to hire somebody who's going to look at the zoning and recommendations, you need more services than a lawyer would provide. So you need to get multiple quotes. So you need a scope of work to put out to get the multiple quotes.

[George Scarpelli]: So I would actually not, this changes. So now I'm just a little confused. So now this, this, the scope of what we thought was going on has now changed because of this. That's what it sounds like to me.

[Nicole Morell]: So I, you know, we talked to him about phase two, he had mentioned bringing in

[George Scarpelli]: by a part of his team. Correct? Council President. I'm sorry. I was just confirming with you that that's Councilor his team would have the help us with those, those aspects, not bringing in another one. So again, I don't want to muddy the water and then possibly lose the, the, the services of, of council. That's, that's, that's what that's all. That's my worry right now. So apologize for my confusion. But again, I think that, I think we're going down a road that that moves away to what we originally wanted. That's phase two with Councilor Hrabowski and his team to help us with these issues that Director Hunt is putting forward, but makes it sound like we're needing other consultants to bring in. And I don't want that to have someone we can have at the planning department for the next three years. No, our hope is again, to drive this straight forward what we want, to help us with phase two, period. Thank you.

[Nicole Morell]: Thank you. Yeah. What director hunt is explaining. I had reached out to Fiona Maxwell about this, just trying to understand what the procurement process is by law, by state law, and it is, if it were just Attorney Wabrowski, him alone, no part of his team that aren't lawyers, then we would not have to go through the procurement process and get bids. But because his team, at his suggestion, would include a partner that is a land use expert that is not exclusively an attorney. Right, he was suggesting a planner. A planner would work with him in part, then that kicks in the state procurement law where we would have to get three bids.

[Alicia Hunt]: And one option other than three bids is to ask for qualifications, look at what their qualifications are and to choose the one that you like best out of the qualifications. And I believe that that would be actually a good process because then the council could look at who they are and it wouldn't be about choosing the lowest price one. but rather the one that meets the council's needs the best.

[Nicole Morell]: And to Director Hunt, I was speaking with Director Hunt before the meeting, and this is something she can send in an email to for us to review on our own and bring up at a later meeting, just to un-muddy the waters a little bit, hopefully. Councilor Collins.

[Kit Collins]: Thank you, my clarification was already made.

[Nicole Morell]: Any further discussion on this point? Councilor Collins.

[Kit Collins]: I just want to thank Director Hunt and your office for going through the process of describing our proposed scope of work. You know, we have a pretty giant task ahead of us. This sounds like years of work to me, which is great. I'm really glad that we're thinking big and taking this on. And I think it makes sense to, you know, to start with scoping out exactly what this will look like, including what is even the process just for dividing it up into similar parts and bite-sized chunks. So though I tend to be an impatient person, I'm really glad that we're going through this deliberative process of first discussing what is this going to look like, what's involved with getting started. This sounds really reasonable to me. I'm glad that we're preparing for a first step. So thank you.

[Nicole Morell]: Thank you, Councilor Collins.

[Justin Tseng]: Thank you. Um, I also wanted to thank a few people. I want to thank Councilor Scarpelli for asking those questions. I think they were helpful for me to understand what we were looking for as well. And so thank you for those questions. I want to thank Director Hunt and Vic in your offices for the work that you guys have been doing and for the corrections and guiding us through the process. It's been super helpful. I'm excited to see what we do next with you guys. I know we've talked a lot through our comprehensive plan meetings, the client plan meetings about the work that That is the role that zoning has to play and and so I'm, I'm excited to I likewise I'm excited to embark on on this phase two journey with you guys. Um, it sounds like we have. quite a lot of low-hanging fruit to go tackle first, but it's definitely exciting. And I also wanted to thank Building Commissioner Forty for the, I think, very common sense, very straightforward notes that he had and recommendations that he had for us. I think something that's particularly, I think, uh, remarkable or commendable about the notes that he had was that, um, it's, it's very much think future thinking, um, preparing for the development that might, and will likely come to Medford. And, um, that's super helpful to hear as a Councilor. So thank you all for, um, for the work that you've put into this. And I'm very excited to, um, get on, uh, get working for, uh, zone, uh, for phase two of zoning.

[Unidentified]: Thank you, Councilor Tseng. Any further discussion from the Council? Any members of the public who'd like to speak? Do I have a motion?

[Adam Hurtubise]: Motion to adjourn.

[Nicole Morell]: Thank you, Councilor Scarpelli. I think we just have to decide what to do with the papers and report on the questions.

[George Scarpelli]: My apologies.

[Nicole Morell]: I'll hold your motion until the time.

[Kit Collins]: I'm just thinking through what an appropriate motion would be for the last piece of this. I know we're already expecting a follow-up committee.

[Alicia Hunt]: There's a separate paper that wasn't on the agenda tonight asking for the scope.

[Nicole Morell]: Yeah, I think we'll have an additional, we have to have an additional meeting on a few of these items, so I think that can be addressed then. I think if we just report out the questions that were addressed and keep the paper and committee, that should cover all our bases.

[Kit Collins]: Well, I had a motion to report out the questions and keep this paper in committee.

[Nicole Morell]: So on the motion of Councilor Collins to report the questions and keep the paper in committee, seconded by.

[Kit Collins]: Second.

[Nicole Morell]: Councilor Scarpelli.

[Unidentified]: Mr. Clerk, please call the roll.

[Nicole Morell]: I mean, they're not really questions, but it's just, it's the language of Robert's rules of order.

[Adam Hurtubise]: All right, vice president absent. Councilor Caraviello is absent. Councilor Collins? Yes. Councilor Nunn is absent. Councilor Scarpelli?

[Unidentified]: Yes.

[Adam Hurtubise]: Councilor Tseng? Yes.

[Nicole Morell]: Yes, four in the affirmative, zero in the negative, three absent, motion passes. On the motion of Councilor Scarpelli to adjourn, seconded by- Second. Collins. Mr. Clerk, please call the roll.

[Adam Hurtubise]: Yes.

[Unidentified]: Yes.

[Nicole Morell]: Yes, four in the front is here and then I get three apps and the motion passes. The meeting is adjourned. Thank you everyone.