AI-generated transcript of City Council Committee of the Whole 01-31-23

[Nicole Morell]: It won't be the whole Tuesday, January 31st, 2023 at 6 30 p.m. Uh, it's called to order. Mr. Clerk, please call the roll.

[Adam Hurtubise]: Thank you.

[Nicole Morell]: stand present present six present zero apps. I'm sorry, one absent. The meeting is called to order. There will be a meeting of the Metro City Council Committee of the whole on Tuesday, January 31 2023 at 6 30 p.m. and the Metro City Council Chamber on the second floor of Medford City Hall via zoom. The purpose of this meeting is to discuss the proposed fee schedule for the planned development district proposals. Paper to do just one. The committee has invited a representative of the Office of Planning, Development, and Sustainability to attend this meeting. For further information, aids, and accommodations, contact the City Clerk at 781-393-2425. Sincerely yours, Nicole Morell, Council President. So the meeting notice says what we're here for tonight, and I'm actually gonna throw it to Vice President Bears, who made the motion with a request from the Planning, Development, and Sustainability Office for some suggestions as far as the amount. So I'll throw it to Vice President Bears.

[Zac Bears]: And thank you to Director Hunt and Director Schrader. We are talking about the fees that would be charged for planned development district proposals pursuant to the zoning code of the city. And we do have a document here shared with us, two documents shared with us, pulled together by Director Hunt and Director Schrader. One would be to implement the fee as discussed in our prior committee meeting in December, and the other is regarding Chapter 44, Section 53G of Massachusetts state law regarding some specifics around, I think, adjusting this to match what we need for that. So I will turn it over to Director Hunt or Victor Schrader, whoever, would be best capable to kind of share what these documents are, and then we can discuss our next steps on them.

[Nicole Morell]: We'll go to, I think, Director Hunt, I saw you, to you, or are you motioning to Victor? Victor, okay, great. We'll go to Victor Schrader.

[Victor Schrader]: All right. Good evening, everyone. Victor Schrader, Interim Economic Development Director for the City of Medford. Councilor Bears, thank you for summarizing. We did share a proposal for a fee structure based on a conversation with Council at your previous meeting. Just in summary, The fee structures as follows that all plan development application shall be accompanied by a fee calculated as five cents per square foot of floor area above 5000 square feet of construction, regardless of use. We took a look at fees in neighboring communities comparable communities. and here locally in Medford. And the fee structure that we discussed and City Council seemed comfortable with at the last meeting is modeled after that which we use for site plan review applications, the Community Development Board. So, you know, it seems to pass the reasonability test and the purpose of this is to cover fees for review of these applications. And so, you know, you know, given our history here in the community with this fee structure. We've, we thought that this was appropriate, and seemed at the last council meeting that that you all did as well. So we just structured it as kind of a cleaned up statement for you to include, consider, and include as an ordinance amendment.

[Nicole Morell]: Thank you, Victor. Any discussion from the council? Any questions? Vice President Bears?

[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Madam President. And thank you, Victor. So yeah, that looks good to me. And then I think I'll make a motion later to report that out as a report that out to the full meeting, it would end up being, it would be a, it looks like it's set up that it would adjust the appendix of the zoning code. So it would be a zoning change. So that would be one thing. And then I just had a quick question on the document that we got that it's the community development boards adopting consultant fees under 48, section nine and chapter 44, section 53G. And just my questions where I heard, you know, I saw in the email that the idea is that we just need to replace community development board with city council. But I also wanted to look at a couple of specific things in here, just under section one, if you do have, or, you know, I guess it's section one of that rule. It says when reviewing an application for when conducting inspections in relation to a request for special permit or site plan approval or other matter within its jurisdiction, Is there a thought that we should be specific and include something about planned development districts within this? Or do you think that, and again, maybe it's a legal question, but do you see any need to adjust that language to make sure that everything we may have jurisdiction over is captured?

[Victor Schrader]: I'll defer to Director Hahn.

[Alicia Hunt]: Madam President Councilor bears. Thank you. We were just reviewing the legal so at the very top of that it refers to some state to state laws that make this possible. So this is basically. laws that allow a body to not just hire a consultant, anybody can hire a consultant anytime they want, but actually to charge the costs of hiring that consultant back to the applicant. And it's a fairly standard activity. I was actually just reviewing it to see if they specifically call out the plan development or whether I'm going to say I searched on the word zoning ordinances or bylaws may also provide that our development unit so special permit. Um, yeah, I was just reviewing that I think that it wouldn't hurt to include that explicitly. Um, but the idea that it's anything under your body. It would be, it could be used for seems appropriate. It's actually, let me take a quick look at the 53G itself.

[Zac Bears]: Yeah, and while you're looking, if I may, Madam President, yeah, I realized after asking the question, other matter within a jurisdiction really should encompass it, but given that we're specifically proposing the change for planned development districts, since that's something we'll be handling, you know, I'd like to just see it added as well to the language.

[Victor Schrader]: Through the chair, I might suggest that in addition to planned developments, adding zoning amendments in general, because there may be a situation where an applicant would like to amend zoning, a zoning district, and for example, legal review might be necessary for that. And so broadening it even further seems appropriate.

[Zac Bears]: Got it, and then my only other question, I'll leave it actually. I think it's answered by what we just said.

[Alicia Hunt]: And Madam Chair, Madam President, if I might add, one of the things is that this technique is new to the city of Medford. We had to set it up and start creating it, but our finance director was actually quite familiar with this and was actually very surprised that we did not already have many of these accounts Each time a project comes in front of the body, we get a quote from consultant on what it would cost or an estimate of how much we think the fees would be. And then we have them give us a check for that amount. It gets deposited into a particular account, a 53G account per that project. And then the invoices for that work get billed directly to the city and we pay them directly out of that account. It's very clean and at the end of the when the decision is rendered if there's funds left in the account they can be very easily returned back to the applicant or if the funds run out it's very easy to see that they're running out and so that let the applicant know that things have gotten more expensive. The CD board has been looking at this and the zoning board is using it for the 40B project.

[Nicole Morell]: Okay, thank you. So address your questions. Any other questions from the council? Any members of the public wish to speak on this? Back to

[Alicia Hunt]: Sorry, Madam President. Sorry, I actually just wanted to address something on the other items. So these, to be clear, these are two separate items. One is application fees for plan development districts. In that, the language that I provided is not actually in your zoning code. The entire ordinances of the city of Medford at the very end have an appendix A, which is a fee structure for everything for the entire city. And so this is inserting this item into the fee structure. So it's not technically in the zoning. Appendix A is separate from the zoning.

[Zac Bears]: Um, on that point, um, so it would just be treated as a standard amendment to the ordinances versus the zoning amendment.

[Alicia Hunt]: That would be my understanding. I'm happy to provide the link directly to our zoning code. I dropped it into the chat if President Morell wanted to, but it's an appendix that is to the entire, um, I do wonder, and that's how I read this, because appendix B is rules of the city council.

[Zac Bears]: Right. And that's not zoning and section 9.2 authorizes the creation of a fee for the purpose so it's already authorized it's just actually stating what it is somewhere in the ordinances.

[Alicia Hunt]: So, sorry, I just wanted to make sure that was clear. It's very different from men zoning and not a men zoning.

[Zac Bears]: No, that's incredibly helpful. So thank you. I have two motions. So motion one would be to report out the language regarding the amendment to appendix A under the paper number here, which I don't have in front of me.

[Nicole Morell]: seconded by Councilor Anderson. All those in favor?

[Zac Bears]: Aye.

[Nicole Morell]: All those opposed?

[Zac Bears]: Um, well, I guess what's easiest at this point, I'll just file a new paper with the rules amendment for this. So no motion, I'll just file that.

[Nicole Morell]: Any further discussion or anything else from you, Alicia or Victor, that you'd like to add? Discussion from the council? Seeing none, do I have the motion of Councilor Scarpelli to adjourn, seconded by... All those in favor? All those opposed? Motion passes. Meeting is adjourned.

[Adam Hurtubise]: Thank you.