AI-generated transcript of City Council Planning and Permitting Committee 04-08-26

[Matt Leming]: Are you all logged into Zoom? All right, wonderful. And be sure to make them a co-host. And let's start the meeting. Livestream starting? Great. There'll be a meeting of the City Council Planning and Permitting Committee. Mr. Clerk, when you're ready, please call the roll.

[Rich Eliseo]: Is not here. Councilor Mullane.

[Liz Mullane]: Here.

[Rich Eliseo]: Vice President Lazzaro. Present.

[Matt Leming]: President Bears. Present. Chair Leming. Present, four present, one absent. The meeting is called to order. We are going to be discussing Boston Avenue, the first post Medford Square initial discussion of the restart to the zoning process. We are joined by the director of the Office of Planning, Development and Sustainability, Alicia Hunt, as well as Paul and Emily from the INIZ land group, and they've prepared a presentation for us on some of the initial work in the rezoning of Boston Avenue and the Tufts area. With that, I would be pleased to hear your, to see your presentation. Anything you've prepared for us, and please take it away. Yep. Right. All right. Is that good?

[Emily Innes]: Thank you very much. For the record, Emily Keyes Ennis of Ennis Land Strategies Group, and I'm here with Paola Ramos Martinez, our Chief Resilience Officer. Pleasure to be back in front of you all again. I'm going to share my screen, and what we're going to present to you tonight is basically just, as you said, Councilor, the kickoff for this discussion. So just check to make sure it is up there. There we go, perfect. And I'm just going to change it to full screen to make it easier for us. So the way we want to kick it off today is to just make sure that we are set on the boundaries of the Boston Avenue District and at the same time Some of the other areas that we're looking around here so we are going to be working over the next couple of months on the Boston Avenue corridor and the Tufts Institutional District. The maps that we have for you are the existing zoning the existing land use and the Tufts University ownership map and we have. Also printed copies for the Councilors in the room of just the existing zoning and the existing land use. You'll also see that there are borders that came out of the discussions last year on there, but what we want to do is confirm those borders, if not tonight, as soon as possible. This is part, obviously, of the overall spring 2026 rezoning. We are now in phase, So we will be having two community meetings and some additional meetings with city officials including the city council and the joint hearings with the city council and the community development board. And this is just the schedule through the next couple of weeks. So we have this meeting tonight. There's another planning and permitting and committee meeting on the 22nd and a public meeting which will be some form of presentation and listening session. on the 30th, and then back to planning, permitting, and committing, and then into the joint hearings. And then as we move forward, we'll add the rest of the dates on there. So with that, the boundaries, this is the Boston Avenue corridor, the existing zoning in the area. You can see the label for Boston Avenue, Tufts, and then Boston Avenue again. It's kind of interesting that we'll be looking at doing a zoning update that's split across the Tufts campus. I'm expecting some interesting discussions about what's there and what's not there. On the left-hand side, you can see the existing zoning districts. And it's quite an interesting area in that, in addition to having Tufts University and the uses that are associated with educational uses, we also have quite a mix of other zoning in here. We have the O2, the Office 2. We have some general residential and some C1 going on in the district. And then some of the the, quite a, a number of residential districts on either side. So I think it'll be an interesting discussion. And obviously apartment two in the brighter orange there. Now looking at the existing land use, so this is the second of the maps that you have in front of you, and we wanted to make sure you had printed copies for this one because you do have to sort of zoom in to see some of those smaller parcels. But here we've called out that turquoise, of course, is the Tufts campus and just We probably won't touch on it very much tonight, but just remembering that there is a portion of zoning law called the Dover Amendment that applies to institutional uses, which when we start talking about the Tufts campus, we'll go into more. But really for tonight, we wanted to focus on the areas with the yellow dotted boundary around it, so the upper and the lower parts of Boston Avenue on your screen. You'll see we've got a range of commercial and industrial in there as well as different levels of intensity for housing going all the way up from single family to apartments and condominiums there. And then that's sort of the fine grained, the smaller parcels with the higher level of mix of uses down to the southern part of Boston Ave. We'll use Plan South and then Plan North on Boston Avenue. Again, commercial, a mix of residential in with the commercial kind of block by block. You see the characteristics change of the land use. And then the Tufts University ownership, I think we have talked before at the end of last fiscal year about the fact that there's the Tufts institutional ownership and then there's also an entity called Walnut Hill. that owns properties for Tufts as well. So just getting a sense of how those fall the brighter colors are of course within the boundary of the city of Medford and then the paler same colors same ownership of the paler colors are in Somerville. We think it's important just to understand the context and then obviously Boston Avenue. north and south. So with that, that's just the quick presentation of the maps. As I said, our big goal tonight is to confirm the boundaries, make sure that we've got the right lines around the right places. And then that allows us to go forward with the more in-depth analysis and come back to you and propose some sort of mixed use districts and the different characteristics of those. And possibly whether or not the existing residential districts stay or there's another version of that. But all of that means that we need to look at the existing characteristics and with that the boundaries will be helpful. So I'll stop there. I'm going to leave the map up on the existing land use but I can always switch it to the others if you want to see the existing zoning or the ownership.

[Matt Leming]: Thank you. I'm going to go first to questions from members of the council. Council President Bears.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Chair Leming. Thanks, Emily. Thanks, Paula. Thanks, Alicia. This is super helpful. I think, you know, some of the vision for the maps that we created last year was predicated on the idea that we would be doing kind of the comprehensive approach, and that's why there's some Certainly why in the Medford Square zoning for example and others there were parcels that we included in the boundary area but that we intended to maintain as a residential zone of some kind. And I think that the change in approach and the, you know, the pause and now the shift certainly for this phase and then the RFP, we'll see where that goes, I think we run into, a bit of an issue with this corridor in particular because of the block by block characteristic changes. I think for me, I think it's really helpful that we're talking about what's a Tufts Institutional, what's Boston Ave and that's clearly indicated on the map. Personally, I think we could do a focused version of Boston Ave in the next two and a half months. I think doing Boston Ave in the Tufts Institutional in the next two and a half months is a much different challenge. I also think doing Boston Ave in that more comprehensive way we had originally envisioned is probably not possible. So I want to think about that when we think about the boundaries. As I look at this, you know, I think looking at the C1, you know, let's leave Tufts as Tufts. It's mostly institutional, pretty much institutional use within the Tufts suggested zone. I think it's almost all institutional ownership within the Tufts zone. That's one thing. I'm not going to talk about that tonight. I think we need more time on that. Boston Ave, I think to me there's two questions. One, do you include the north side and the south side both? And then how much do you shrink those? The south side, I think you have some argument maybe that should be part of an expanded Broadway Corridor District that we come back for the next round on, especially given that a lot of the parcels, certainly the empty MBTA parcel at Boston Avenue and Broadway, which is probably the most ripe for development in that area, you know, it's on Broadway. So it's part of that Broadway Corridor Study, I think, if I'm remembering correctly. Did that study go all the way down to Ball Square? I think it did. So I think there's an argument to be made there. I could argue to include the industrial parcels on the northeast side of Boston Ave between the tracks and Boston Ave into something like this, as well as the kind of parcels bounded by Winchester Street, Harvard Street, and the tracks. But I think there's also I think a strong argument for saying let's do that as part of a Broadway adjustment in the next round because then we're not talking about doing a zone that is you know probably almost a mile at least half a mile separated. You know you're doing a north side and a south side. So my preference would be focus on the northern half map north west half of the district. And then I think the question is. Do you just leave out, do you just include the C1 and apartment districts, the current C1 and apartment districts and leave out the residential between Paget Street and North Street? Do you leave out all the GR on the southwest side of Boston Avenue and just then include also the O2, the PDD which functionally isn't gonna change and the half of the Whole Foods that's in Medford and the other half in Somerville? That would probably be where I would lean. I think if I was to include some parcels you know it would be looking at the existing use map maybe include the currently commercial or mixed use parcels that are not that are in that general residential district. That's the boundaries I would draw. And I think that that's a targeted area. It's clear that, you know, there's still some questions certainly I think in that apartment one district, you know, again, on the what do you put there? Is this all like a functionally an MX1 or a BA1, whatever we're calling it? But I think that that's the boundaries I would draw for Boston Ave. I think the Tusk boundaries, the institutional district boundaries make sense. And I think maybe we jettison the south half of this Boston Ave corridor and say that that's part of the Broadway corridor and we look at it that way. So that's my two cents.

[Matt Leming]: Let's see. I'm just, President Bears, I'm just curious, what, I mean, there were, this sort of came up in the, when we were rezoning Medford Square, there were some early calls to divide Medford Square into two different areas. I mean, what specifically do you think would be the challenges with just including both in there, and don't you think during you know, during this process, the entirety of Boston Avenue does have an effect on Tufts, so wouldn't it be, I mean, my thinking is it would, even though there are plenty of differences between the two areas, it would still be better to include both of them, if only because both of those areas do have a pretty substantial effect on the Tufts Institutional District, given that it's just the main corridor going through them. Yeah, just going to.

[Zac Bears]: Sorry, do you mean both, meaning the northern half proposed Boston Ave corridor and the southern half, or both being Boston Ave and Tufts generally?

[Matt Leming]: But both the northern and the southern half. My argument is I just want to include both of them because they both have a pretty substantial effect on Tufts University. Yeah, I mean, I think... I think that's the theme.

[Zac Bears]: My two cents is that the built conditions of the two sections are pretty different. And if you look at that southern section, it's mostly general residential or relatively recently built condos that are varianced into industrial district. On Boston Ave, yes. Yeah, so on Boston Ave between the, like between Titan Gas and Ball Square on Boston Ave. If you're on the right, that's that gray box between the, and that's, those two big long buildings are both condos built in the last 20 years that are in an industrial district, but obviously are not in industrial use. And I think that's indicated here. You know, Erickson Oil, that could redevelop. Titan Gas had a redevelopment plan. I think their financing is not. There Alicia looks like she wants to talk about it. You know I'm not you know I'm not necessarily opposed. I just think that like this corridor shape made a lot more sense when our proposal was an other corridors district that was like pretty broad and citywide. And for me at this point. The question of what does the hillside square, for lack of a better term, but the hillside area, that intersection, Winthrop and Boston, and what do the parcels at North Street look like? Those are really the big questions, development-wise, that we're facing right now. If you had me ask another question, or if I had to include one other thing, it would be that little corner of Harvard Street and Boston Ave. Also given the Broadway study and like that's the other piece of this, like in the other corridors proposal, the Broadway study, like the Broadway corridor and the Boston Ave, proposed Boston Ave corridor were all part of the same proposal. And so I think it made more sense integratively to have that in there at that point. And the other pieces, I really do think that Tufts Institutional is gonna take longer than Boston Ave and I think it's hard to talk about Our plan last time was to get Tufts Institutional done and then the other corridors district. So if Tufts Institutional is done, it's then easier to talk about the corridors in an integrated way because you know what zone and type of zoning is sitting between them. So that's my pitch for just looking at this kind of narrower target zone of essentially the area between Route 16 and and Nick's pizza.

[Matt Leming]: I guess the other thought that I had, and those points are all very well taken, but the other thought was that as we've been kind of discussing this in the internal working group, and this was going to be one of my questions tonight, but I did want to to put, I did want to have some area to put in a potential 40R or S district and do that before the end of June because that would end up saving us money for, that would potentially end up saving us 1.5% on the new high school if we did manage to pass one of those. And the area around the Greenline T Station would be pretty ideal for that. So if we cut that out, that's sort not really possibility. So it could be, I mean, there could be a logical argument for putting, for cutting that out. But if we did have discussions where it made sense to put an overlay there, then I think it would make sense to keep that in for this particular phase.

[Zac Bears]: I'll just quickly say I have a bunch of thoughts on 4DR, 4DS. I will withhold those because I think Alicia is going to talk a little bit more about it. Sure. I, you know, I do think the industrial parcels, you know, bounded by Boston Ave, Harvard Street, the northern piece of Winchester Street and kind of straddling the Green Line could be possible inclusion in this. I just think it's, if we're cutting that scope down that much, does it make sense to do that as part of this? And I don't think that necessarily, 40 R 40 S is impossible in this northern section. And I also think there's an interesting interplay between that and incentive zoning. And could we call something a 40 R 40 S for the purposes that you're talking about and obviously want people to build up to that point. And how does that interact with it with incentives.

[Matt Leming]: Council Vice President Lazzaro I.

[Emily Lazzaro]: want to, I would agree that I think that the top piece and the bottom piece are different foundationally in like the energy, the way the shops are, because Ball Square is very close to Somerville. It's like half Somerville. And I think that it's, it would be worthwhile to look at it separately. And the other is its own sort of tough square. And I would also agree that the other side of 16, that's still Boston Ave, still feels like if we're going to say Boston Ave, it should be Boston Ave. Like the place where P.K.G. is and, you know, all the way down to, you know, down to like Harvard. But I guess I wonder what the, goal is of breaking up these separate districts into different discussions. If it's all really just smaller little baby squares along one street when we could talk about them all maybe at the same time and Who, what's the difference except for maybe slightly fewer meetings? Like enlighten me. I wasn't on PMP last time. I'm new to this committee. Why would we make it take longer?

[Matt Leming]: Sure. I think what Council President Bears was suggesting, correct me if I'm wrong, is that that be moved to a different, that be moved over to the Broadway corridor. Is that correct? So it wouldn't be considered in its own piece. It would be sort of moved to a different section.

[Emily Lazzaro]: But why? Same question.

[Matt Leming]: Yeah. Hold on.

[Zac Bears]: Yep. Yeah, I mean, it's just my opinion here. I think the mayor's decisions have significantly narrowed the scope of what we were able to do in this section of the project.

[Emily Lazzaro]: Could you help me understand, like, what the decisions were? Again, just because, like, I was paying attention broadly and mostly to residential conversations, but, like, what decision was made that made it so that we can't talk about the, like, sections of Boston Ave altogether?

[Zac Bears]: The other corridors proposal, if we go back and look at the draft map, included Main Street, Broadway, both of these sections of Boston Ave, pieces of Boston Avenue and High Street in West Medford, and it was kind of a coherent approach to doing corridor zoning.

[Emily Lazzaro]: Yes.

[Zac Bears]: The agreement that we struck So then all zoning ended in the summer. And then when we were coming back together, it was for this phase, a narrowed scope, which is just Boston Ave. So that pulls out, I think, three quarters of the proposed zoning around the other corridors district. That includes things like Pikaichi and certainly St. Raphael's. And that was bordering on the West Medford Square District. And there was just a lot of conversations.

[Emily Lazzaro]: It was like you can only do this, you can only do this, you can only do this. It's been overwhelming for residents to try to keep track.

[Zac Bears]: I don't necessarily actually agree with the substance of those comments but those were the decisions that the mayor indicated and so we're at a narrowed scope and I think.

[Emily Lazzaro]: So this is what we're able to discuss per the negotiations, so.

[Zac Bears]: Right. And I think it's, and I guess what I'm saying is I think it's kind of six to one, half a dozen to the other, whether this southern piece is more about, like, it was included as Boston Ave District, but it was bordering along a Broadway district, and I think. Do we have a Broadway district? As part of the other corridors project.

[Emily Lazzaro]: Oh, okay. But, okay. Well, then that, in that case, I maintain, let's do this. Let's do it this way. Let's do a bigger piece. Let's do the big piece we have.

[Zac Bears]: Sure, I think the other pieces we have to cut, essentially we have to cut out all the residential anyway.

[Emily Lazzaro]: Yeah, so good. Well, if we can reason on this part, let's reason on this part. Okay.

[Matt Leming]: I'm not against it.

[Emily Lazzaro]: We got a little bit. Let's do this part.

[Matt Leming]: So I'm not against.

[Emily Lazzaro]: Yeah.

[Matt Leming]: Council President Bears, so I could certainly see an argument for narrowing some parts of these. Like I was kind of eyeballing that sliver of road below North Street. So, you know, getting rid of certain parts of residential. and even narrowing that lower half there. But I am of the view that we need to rezone what we have while we're while we're able to. It wasn't, I mean, we sort of saw this with Medford Square where there were calls to divide it and then consider those in different meetings. And it's not all that difficult to rezone the whole thing in one go, even if the parts of them are substantially different, especially if we're trying to go for a more cohesive vision here. But I mean, these are all very good points that are being brought up. I'm going to go to Councilor Mullane.

[Liz Mullane]: These maps are definitely extremely helpful to be able to get a better sense and a deep dive, so thank you for putting this together and printing it out. I'm leaning here with President Bears in the sense of I'm trying to keep as much as we can between the residential and the commercial pieces that we've talked about. Where I see there's definitely more of an impact that we could have on that northern parcel, but on the southern one, just from, again, trying to look and see this piece of it, it feels like I would like to make a comment on that. I would like to make a comment on that. that kind of bottom half of the southern where we're at least getting more of the commercial side or is that really starting to parse out some of that zoning and slowing this down even further, which is not what I'm trying to do. But I'm just trying to figure out can we get the majority of the commercial or what I'm reading here as that commercial industrial side of it and eliminating some of the residential piece as we talk through. the zoning between commercial and residential.

[Matt Leming]: Yeah, I mean, looking at this, it does seem that the southern side, it would be kind of difficult to totally disentangle the residential and some of the commercial uses. It looks to be fairly mixed as it is. And I think what Medford Square always saw was that there are certain residential areas that were kind of like randomly included in there that were very clearly only residential in use. But they were kind of being included in there in order to have some sort of between the purely kind of commercial side of things and the residential side. So the idea would be maybe to put apartments in between those. I'm not 100% sure if that would be the same thing here. I'm going to go to Council President Bears and then I want, I know that PDS Director Hunt wanted to speak on some of these issues as well. President Bears?

[Zac Bears]: Yeah, I'll just be really quick and I want to hear from Emily and Alicia and Paula about this. Like I think some of this is about how do we just explain what we're doing to the public. I think we had a coherent explanation for the other corridors proposal that we no longer have. which is these are transformational areas. We, at the time, and I think in alignment with the comprehensive plan, and I still strongly believe this, said we want to transform some areas that are residential into mixed use areas. I don't think we have policy alignment from the mayor's office on that anymore. I think that's like a core issue here. I think it's why, and when you talk about the entanglement of existing commercial and apartment districts with small residential districts like GR, Smaller residential districts like GR, like I think it just narrows. I think that policy misalignment, which again I think is not in agreement with the city's comprehensive plan and the vision that we put together for the zoning, just means that we're really shrinking, especially in the southern side of this, really shrinking the boundaries of that district to the point where I don't think I feel comfortable saying, oh, that's also a Boston Avenue corridor district. It's really like a small, it's, It's a one side of Boston Avenue for a thousand feet district and like that's not a corridor to me. I'm not against including it. I just think like the lack of policy alignment has narrowed our scope. And to me there are really three areas of interest here. It's the hillside commercial node the North Street parcels and potentially the you know, Harvard Street, Boston Ave, Winchester Box, like and that's kind of like a third, if you look at the use map, it's the parts that are currently labeled as like commercial industrial uses, the big purple and then the two red across the green line from that. And I'm fine if we want to include that, but I just think the lack of coherence and the lack of policy alignment means like let's just get something Let's get something done, and I also don't want to bring a set of boundaries to the Community Development Board where they say, well, there's a bunch of residential in this, and we said we weren't going to do residential. And I just think we, yeah, I just think that that's important to think about. So I'm going to stop, and I do want to hear from Emily and Paul and Alicia.

[Matt Leming]: Yeah, and one point that I will make, and the residential and lack of policy alignment on that is, very well taken, but kind of like a more, I guess, dumb point for me is in terms of messaging what we're doing, if we say we're rezoning Boston Avenue, then a person who is not paying attention to this at all, but knows that we're rezoning Boston Avenue would assume that we're rezoning the entirety of Boston Avenue. So even if there are policy misalignments going on here, then, if we're saying that we're rezoning all of Boston Avenue, but then we're not, but then we come back to a certain part of it later, I think that potentially could confuse residents even more. But yeah, I'm sorry. I'm gonna go to... Sure, but that's a bigger deal from a messaging perspective than like subtleties and policy misalignments with the Mayor's Office Council, Vice President Lazzaro.

[Emily Lazzaro]: Thank you. I hear what President Burrs was saying about, and I think that I do agree with that. I think that thinking about it more as a square, the Boston Ave district is really the, like, it's much more like the intersection where Tamper is than Boston Ave. And the other one is Ball Square. And if we think about it that way, then it doesn't get out of alignment with not doing residential right now. And if that's what we're trying to avoid, then we can do the other one at another time. Or could we, I guess my question is, could we do the ball square section as part of the Tufts Institutional District?

[Matt Leming]: I don't think we'd be able to do that. I don't really know what is... No, like the Tufts Institutional District would really only pertain to area that's owned by Tufts and if we... How do we have any control over what that's owned for?

[Emily Lazzaro]: I mean, if Tufts ended up buying all of the area... No, but why would... Then why do we even have to talk about Tufts Institutional District at all?

[Matt Leming]: The needs of a university are a little bit different than... But why do we dictate anything that... We don't dictate anything that they do.

[Emily Lazzaro]: OK. That's fine. If we do and we have to talk about it then that's fine. We will do it eventually but it doesn't what we were not allowed to say anything about the rest of it as part of that zoning. Sure.

[Matt Leming]: OK. I'm going to go to PDS director Hunt right now.

[Alicia Hunt]: Hi. Good evening. There are a couple of things. I have like so much information that I could share with you but I just sort of want to touch on a few things and then you tell me where to go. One is that I think that we do need if you want to consider 40 our process in this then we should have a quick conversation. Me explain what that is. and the timelines, because the reality is we can do the zoning for this completely separately from the 40-R process, and we kind of have to. And I want to touch on that. The other two things that I just want to very briefly address, a little bit of what Councilor Lazzaro was saying, just so that you all have this in your mind. Last year, I think it was just last year, unless it was the year before, Medford and Somerville did a joint study on the Broadway corridor ball square area with consulting information and all kinds of information. We did community outreach, etc. that if we started talking down there right around the ball square T, I'd want to make sure you all have that. That's also bringing so much more information in that it feels to me that it's too much for people to be digesting all of that information as we're trying to understand better the needs of Tufts, which I can talk about sort of the Dover process and why we do need to seriously consider what the zoning is on their campus and why Both the city, the staff and Tufts would all be in a better shape if we had zoning that was appropriate for a campus rather than what is currently there. Happy to talk about that. So those are the things that are kind of here in my head. And what do you want to hear about.

[Matt Leming]: So to summarize, do you agree with the idea of cutting out the Ball Square area entirely?

[Alicia Hunt]: I would recommend it, just because we have so much we could bring to that. We couldn't do it a good service in a short period of time. And I will tell you that there are the parcels that are closest to Harvard Street. Some of them, the Titan Gas, they already have all their site plan review, their zoning, et cetera. If they wanted to pull a building permit tomorrow or in the next year to build a 40-unit building with ground floor commercial, they could do it because they have all that. They've done it. On the other side, on Winchester Street, there are some parcels that I would just refer to as in play. People are talking about doing stuff there. I think that if we don't rezone, they're very competent and they may come forward with a planned development district just so that they can move forward in their timelines. I don't know if it'll move forward that quickly.

[Matt Leming]: Okay. So a reasonable timeline is cut out the south part and then potentially have council consider a planned development district for areas along Winchester Street.

[Alicia Hunt]: If the developer and the property owner want to move in it more quickly than this council is right willing to do the area zoned industrial there's industrial buildings there and there is serious consideration of a multifamily building. So.

[Matt Leming]: I would like an explanation, the two things that you just offered to talk about, I'd like to hear about both of them. I would like sort of a layman's terms explanation of how Dover interacts with the Tufts Institutional District and sort of how this could be different from most forms of zoning.

[Alicia Hunt]: Right. So in a big picture, so first of all, they're zoned general residential and apartment too, as you just saw. When they come forward with a site plan review with a project if it completely meets our zoning then we just go through a site plan review process if it's a big enough parcel and it gets approved. If it doesn't meet our zoning, then they have to request waivers and waivers under Dover for the things that don't meet our zoning. And if I'll just be very blunt, the project that everybody is still up in arms about, the dorm, the things that that didn't meet in our zoning was the parking, having parking on the same, right next to the building, and was the setbacks for a couple of feet. And technically for a tall building it's supposed to be set back like I feel like a mile from the road but I'm exaggerating but that's right it's supposed to be set way back based on the height length division something like that it's a weird formula. The current zoning in the apartment two area allows quote all other uses to go up to 15 stories. Therefore they were not asking for a waiver for the height and that was not something that the board had the legal authority to push back on because it was allowed by right the height. So when people said well can't we push them to make it lower like well we can but we're just kind of asking nicely. We had no teeth there. On things where it doesn't meet our zoning, then they kind of have to do some level of proving that they need it, that it's the right thing to make it affordable, that it's appropriate for their site. They don't just get it. And that's where a lot of the disconnect on this project was, was that the part that people hated, nobody hated that it was five feet from the sidewalk. Like that that was actually kind of nice to have it right there and very walkable and nobody wanted them to surround it in a sea of parking. We actually kind of like the idea that parking can be in the garage or their other garage. That's why we actually want zoning that's appropriate. The other thing that keeps coming up is whenever they need a variance, because what they're doing doesn't meet our current apartment two zoning, they have to go through the entire site plan review process. They wanted to make some changes to the outside of a building up on top of the hill that nobody could see from a public way, that was gonna look classy and nice, and was like, okay, they're putting a glass atrium on it to make it ADA accessible to add some elevators and things like that. Not legal by zoning and they had to go through a full site plan review for that. That was a waste of everybody's time and effort. Their consultants their staff our staff to review it. There was no reason that that atrium area had to go through site plan review other than legally. because it needed a variance because it didn't meet apartment two zoning. So that's where we'd like to see zoning that talks about a campus and what's appropriate on a campus. And this is the place where we should talk about what are the heights that are appropriate. Is it two and a half stories like our general residential district? Is it 15 for all other buildings? No, it should have some number in there. And I think that's what we're going to discuss over the next couple of weeks.

[Matt Leming]: Thank you. And would you also be able to talk a little bit more about the given overview of the 40 hour process because I do I don't really. Like my whole motivation for the 4DR process is it saves us 1.5% on a debt exclusion for the high school if we just have that. So what does that process look like? What support would you have to get it approved by the state before the schematic design is due February 2027? And is that something that just PDS would do or is that something that NS would potentially support? Because I don't think that would be in their contract if it's outside of this.

[Alicia Hunt]: So I was not familiar with 40R last week, but we were motivated by the numbers and what we heard from our MSBA consultants. And I did get on the phone today with the state's person who manages the 40R program for the state. So I have a lot of very fresh information in my head. The way they describe this is it is the carrot to the 40B stick. So 40B says that if you don't have enough affordable housing in your community, A developer, if they include 20 percent affordable housing, can basically ignore your local regulations and rules around zoning, et cetera, and build what they want to build because they're going to add affordable housing. 40R says to a city or town, if you put zoning in that allows more density in appropriate areas, particularly in transit areas and downtown areas, more density and require 20 percent affordable housing in it, then the state will give the city money. There's some upfront money for creating the zoning. There's actually money per unit for units developed under the zoning. And those numbers are nice, but frankly, the idea that it could be $8 to $12 million on our high school project is really motivating. And so I had that very blunt conversation with them today and I said talk to me about the process and timelines. So the process is three steps. The city sort of figures out what they might want to do and where. We fill out their application and we have to have a public hearing on that application. Then we submit that application to the state and they take time to review it. Once they approve it, either fully or conditionally, conditionally might be we approve it if you make these changes. Then we put it through the zoning process. It's an overlay and we have to have our public hearings on that overlay. And then they review it again and then if it qualifies they approve it. We didn't change it too much because they recognize we might change it during that public hearing process. Then they review it again. They give us an approval or conditional approval. We could get some money up front for that. I talked to them about what those timelines, I said here's the deal, we need it done by December in order for it to be meaningful to us, because what is motivating us here is the money on the MSBA project, much more than any money we might get, because the densities don't scare us. Their idea of dense is nothing compared to what we already have existing in Medford. And so they said that basically a lot of their time is figuring out those financial calculations in order to give the city money. So if we wanted to take a look at what money might be available up front and say you know what, that is nothing compared to the money from the MSBA. We're willing to waive our up front money we would get from the state, they could most likely, and he's confirming this with his supervisors, fast track our application to get it approved much more quickly than they normally would. And then we would still be able to get the money per unit that gets developed down the road. The nice thing that's also a little extra carrot in this is that if units are approved under this overlay, using this with the additional 20% affordable housing, And school children move into those units. There is an additional payment from D.O.R. to the school department through Desi that they can get money ongoing basis for students that live in those apartments. which I think is kind of nice and fascinating. I couldn't tell you the dollars like off the top of, in fact, he doesn't know. He basically said that that part is managed by DOR. So the money per unit is out of his office. He was honestly thrilled to hear that MSBA was talking about this and that MSBA was still having, promoting this program.

[Matt Leming]: It sounds like we get a lot of money for doing this. When do we start.

[Alicia Hunt]: Right. So and I basically said we were very interested. And so some of the calculations are the new units that you are now allowing to be built that you were not allowing to be built under your base zoning or your original zoning? Because I said, but we want to upzone it anyhow, right? We want to make it denser. Are we shooting ourselves in the foot? And do I need to say that? And he said that actually they compare it not to the overlay to the base zoning at the time the buildings are being permitted, but the overlay to your zoning one year prior to when you submit the application. So if we submit an application in June they're going to comply apply it to this zoning our zoning right now and it doesn't matter what else we change. The difficulty is I don't know if I said the number it's three thousand dollars per unit that gets actually developed under it. That's kind of real money. That's very comparable to what our linkage fee is right now by the way. I think linkage is a little closer to thirty eight hundred dollars per unit. That said if we zone it as a base zoning say just take this area in North Medford. We have some North Medford North Broadway the area by North Street and Broadway. There's Boston Ave. Sorry. Oh my gosh. Boston Ave and North Street. So part of it is that they look at what is developable. What is the lots that are essentially vacant. And we have vacant buildings out there over there. And we allowed them to build up to eight stories on the base zoning and then we come in and put in an overlay and we allow nine or 10 zone stories but you have to make it 20 percent affordable. They're not going to do that because most developers these days want to do seven or eight stories. And so there's no motivation for them to do it. They did say you can put the 20 percent affordable in your base zoning. The difficulty is we would want to run it by the state first. They would want to look at it before we actually voted on the zoning. So there's a couple of choices here and one is that we go through the early process right now figure out the zoning do the planning and permitting public meetings. put together a proposal to the state, this is what we want it to be. And then send it to the state, and then come back and vote on it in the fall through the zoning public hearing process. And just require all of it to have 20% affordable housing. We might have some very angry property owners.

[Matt Leming]: Yeah, council, Council President Bears. One moment, just gonna.

[Zac Bears]: So two things it sounds to me like we should talk about 40 hour but we shouldn't talk about it in relation to Boston Avenue. Or pieces like we could propose overlays in different parts of the city where it makes the most sense.

[Alicia Hunt]: We, right, it doesn't have to be Boston Ave, and we could in fact, I've been sort of tossing this around today in my head, what if we did one for Medford Square, because we already, the transom project is already proposing 20% affordable housing.

[Zac Bears]: Right, I think what if you proposed one for a piece of Medford Square, maybe a piece of this, some part of this district, I don't know if it makes sense for.

[Alicia Hunt]: We could put the overlay on.

[Zac Bears]: I mean, technically, we could put the overlay on the PDD3, right? It's probably cheating even more than the transom.

[Alicia Hunt]: So they do do it on public housing and stuff like that. It has been. If they've already pulled their building permits, which they have, it's too late.

[Zac Bears]: Yeah. Okay. But, or maybe on the half of the Whole Foods lot or something, right?

[Alicia Hunt]: Yes.

[Zac Bears]: But also maybe some of the parcels on Mystic Avenue. Yes. Those would be my three top picks. I mean, we did Wellington Transformation, and I'm thinking on Mystic on the short side, if that makes sense, on the southwest side of Mystic Avenue where you might be able to put a 40 hour overlay that takes someone up to six where it's four right now. And I don't know, this is very, very back of the napkin. Mainly what I'm saying is I think we should separate the two conversations. We should have a 40 hour conversation. We should identify the best places in the city. Does the district have to be contiguous?

[Alicia Hunt]: We could have multiple 4DR overlay areas. The other thing I just want to flag that we can't do is we can't put it on our 3A area, which is the MBTA Wellington zone, because that specifically said that we cannot increase the required affordable housing. Well, I guess you kind of could. You could have two overlays. Overlay on an overlay? They could choose whether to use the 4DR overlay or the Wellington. Also not all of Wellington is 3A. Right.

[Zac Bears]: Right. But you couldn't put it in the base.

[Alicia Hunt]: You couldn't put it in the base, so you'd have to do a separate overlay and have two overlays over that area. Yeah.

[Zac Bears]: So that's... I would pitch that we don't try to entangle these two into these three, Tufts Institutional, Boston Avenue. And again, I think... And Alicia and Emily and Paula can talk a little bit more about this, but I don't think it's that hard to say we're doing the hillside Boston Avenue neighborhood corridor. And it's the section of Boston Avenue down to Nick's Pizza, which is just a decent amount of length on that side, up to the Somerville border on Boston Avenue. And it's a little narrower, but it is, I think, commonly understood by the public as the Hillside neighborhood. And it is the Boston Avenue corridor within the Hillside neighborhood. We can decide which order we want those five words to be in that we think makes the most sense and is the easiest to explain. But that's why I'm suggesting it. And again, I don't have an issue if we want to try to do some of the industrial parcels in the south section, but I just don't think it, I don't think it makes a ton of sense, especially given the context we got from Alicia, which is there might be, there's already a project that could do work. There's basically four lots there that could be something. One of them already has this permit, they just have financing issues and had issues with the track construction. I haven't heard of anything with the Erickson site. oil site and then on the other side it's like what the glass store and the garage on Winchester Street.

[Alicia Hunt]: It's the whole purple area there. Yeah. But it may not go all the way to Boston to Harvard Street.

[Zac Bears]: OK. So it's that parcel kind of it's the glass door might be in that little corner. Yeah.

[Matt Leming]: It would make it would make sense I think to keep the red and the purple areas if we are going to we are going to cut it off. But I'm going to go to Council Vice President Lazzaro.

[Emily Lazzaro]: I was going to say almost the exact same thing as President Bears. I really agree with what you said about splitting these up and that hillside section should be its own thing. I loved what Director Hunt said about the context of the ball square area and the 40R. It's so confusing. The 40R projects sound amazing. I've never heard of that before. It sounds incredible. So I really look forward to talking more about that and looking at all the places that we could do it. So I'm really in favor of that, and I also want to apologize that I have a 9 o'clock hard stop I have to leave. But I really, this is all, I think it all seems really exciting, and that seems to make the most logical sense to me. And we shouldn't see it as a loss of the ball square area, but that there's more potential for us to talk more about it within a greater context.

[Matt Leming]: And Council President Bears, you mentioned the three candidate areas for a 40-hour district. It would be Mystic, the Whole Foods, Mystic Avenue, the Whole Foods lot, and what else?

[Zac Bears]: Medford, what Alicia said, Transom, Medford Square. I mean, and those are just to, you know.

[Matt Leming]: Okay. Yeah. Brainstorm. Oh, wait. Sorry. Put it on again. I accidentally clicked the wrong button.

[Alicia Hunt]: Sorry, if I might. I think that it doesn't hurt to put an overlay like this over a lot more areas because people don't have to use it, but it's something that's an option. The main caveat is that we might want to do one area, and if I was going to choose something to do right away, I would do Medford Square because we have a project proposed that is already planning to do 20% affordable housing. And I would do that right away. And by doing just one area right away you're keeping it simple. and you're getting it passed through the state more quickly. And then, and we might as well include several of these parcels here, a bigger area, because they could also use it on the rest of Clippership, perhaps.

[Matt Leming]: Sorry, but didn't you say it didn't apply if they already took out the building permits, or did I?

[Alicia Hunt]: Yeah, the transom project is probably a year from pulling a building permit.

[Matt Leming]: Oh, okay.

[Alicia Hunt]: So we're good. And then, but you're right, this is a good tool that we should understand, figure out how to use, and apply to some more areas. We absolutely should. We could also work with the housing authority about areas they see for future development and do it there as well. But my only reasoning for doing a smaller and one area first is so we can move quickly and have it legally in place by the time The MSBA needs it. And I will just flag that I think that we could, I hate to say count on, but the aiming for the 1%, the 0.5, I need to get some clarity on, cuz it sounds like it's for incentivizing one through three family housing. And that didn't quite make sense to me, so I, I really wanna better understand that.

[Matt Leming]: Could, could that be the 40S?

[Alicia Hunt]: So, it's, now 40S is the part where you get money for the school department.

[Matt Leming]: Oh, okay.

[Alicia Hunt]: Right, it's, but the .5, and it says this or this, and I understand this, and I, and I don't fully understand the or parts. So, I just want to be clear that 1%, yes, the .5, maybe, let's, we gotta look into it.

[Zac Bears]: Yeah, and it's a point on the reimbursement rate, so that's like a whole other MSBA rabbit hole not to go down. Sorry, Councilor, let me. Yeah. Wait, sorry, did you want to? I did want to speak, but then I started talking without asking you.

[Matt Leming]: Yeah, yeah. Let's just take a pause on that for now. You want me to not talk? No, I'm kidding. Yeah, go ahead.

[Zac Bears]: Go ahead. Motion to replace the chair. I withdraw the motion. I withdraw the motion.

[Matt Leming]: I withdrew the motion. Anybody ever tried to chair a meeting when Zach is in the room? It's not the easiest thing in the world.

[Zac Bears]: No, it's not for anyone. I'll accept your apology later.

[Rich Eliseo]: I apologize. I said I withdrew the motion.

[Zac Bears]: May I make two points?

[Matt Leming]: Let's, yeah, yeah. Okay, great. I think I can take two points.

[Zac Bears]: Great. That makes sense. My one question, my two questions, Alicia, is there a minimum size, you know, and it's not questions for you to answer now, but I think it's just things to bring back as we do more research. Is there a minimum size to the overlay? And would amending an existing overlay to meet the conditions of 4DR qualify us or does it have to be a second overlay? Because we could amend the overlay. We're already doing an overlay for these parcels, so I'm just wondering if that overlay mostly, I'm not saying we should amend that overlay next week. I don't think that that is a good idea. Yes?

[Alicia Hunt]: Sorry, it would have to be after the fact. Right. I will ask that of the state tomorrow or next week. I would encourage that if we were going to do it here, rather we should do, so they have a very clear template where they give us almost all the words for the entire overlay. And my impression is that the closer we stick to that, the faster things go through. So frankly, Christian and I saw that for the first time today. So we'll review that. And if we're going to do Medford Square, I would again include the other parcels on Clippership Drive. because they have a high potential for returning for redeveloping in the next year or two.

[Zac Bears]: Certainly a high potential. I agree.

[Alicia Hunt]: Some of them are vacant. They better get built. Yeah. My second point. And minimum size? I don't think so. I was just checking.

[Zac Bears]: Yeah. I just want to make sure on that. We don't have to answer that right now. I just think that's the other thing. We need to do enough to qualify, right? My other point is actually back to the boundaries for the hillside Boston Avenue neighborhood quarter district as so coined by me. Maybe one too many words. I think we really should look at the C1 and the apartment districts on this north side. I think we should think about including the, maybe including the commercial parcels that are in a GR district but no other parcels in a GR district. And I really think that we have a model. I think the O2 gives us a massing model for that parcel. I think the PDD, I can never remember which one it is, but the walk-in court PDD gives us a massing model for the base and to include the district that is the Whole Foods parking lot largely in half of the building. And then I think, you know, the old MX1, whatever we want to call it now, gives us a general model for a chunk of the parcel. Winthrop and Boston intersection area. And I know we're supposed to be talking about boundaries, but that's my pitch to you guys. I think this one's pretty easy. I think we have most of what we already want here. We just need to update the base. And I think that really, to me, the only big question is, does a 4 plus 1 MX1 make sense at Winthrop and Boston? I don't know. So that's my pitch. I promise I'm going to stop talking now. And I think that that would be my boundary thoughts. And I'm interested in what you guys think about that.

[Emily Innes]: It's a lovely pitch. Can I ask a favor? Do you have a pen with you? Because there's a reason we gave you printed maps and the idea is that you can draw on them and we might even be willing to trade a non-printed map for a map that has a drawing all over it. For the rest of that, I will just note for all of the councillors as they're thinking about the zoning update, you know, there's two reasons to rezone something. One is because you're being aspirational. You want something to happen. But the other is, and I just want to flip back and forth between the zoning map and the land use map, because I think what's very instructional is that you see these big blocks of color on the zoning map. They look very regular and organized. And then you go to the land use map. and you understand that there's a variation in what's going on that may or may not match the zoning. So one of the things that Paula and I were just talking about very briefly was we had done those non-conforming analyses for you at some point last year and that it might be worth us bringing those back to inform the next stage of the conversation of if you're changing the zoning What does not currently comply with the zoning and is there a reason to address that and to help out that noncompliance. As we've talked before noncompliance can be very expensive in both time and money for somebody who wants to comply and wants to do something new. So you know loud and clear we hear you on the aspirational on trying to work with the comprehensive plan and the areas that it identified for those aspirations, but we also want to make sure that we are considering the non-conforming and how we can assist existing property owners with that. So we'll bring that forward as part of our next discussion.

[Matt Leming]: All right, so you haven't spoken too much. I mean, I understand it's more of a listening at this stage. But is there anything sort of in this conversation that we've had that you would sort of push back against or recommend a different path? Or do you overall agree with the consensus here?

[Emily Innes]: You know, I think the thing that concerned me a little bit about this, Paola and I have not talked about divorcing the two bits of Boston Avenue, so I'm speaking only for myself, feel free to jump in. There are some similar characteristics when you just look at the overall mix of uses that's going on, lot sizes, but I do think that, especially with the ball square study there, it does make a great deal of sense to look at the sort of the southeastern half of Boston Avenue, that small southeastern portion, and maybe use the idea of splitting them and mostly focusing on that northwestern line, maybe that little consideration for a few of the things done here. It feels like the southeastern portion already has things happening, and so the impetus to rezone it might be a little bit less, but I would like to at least look at the characteristics in terms of non-conformity before I went one way or the other.

[Matt Leming]: Yeah, it does. Okay.

[Emily Innes]: Disagreement, agreement, anything to add? Okay.

[Matt Leming]: Okay, so I'm sort of hearing from the consultants in general. agreement that you're not quite sure about cutting the southeast portion.

[Emily Innes]: I think it makes sense given what I heard today. I just want to do one little double check back at the office with that just to see if there's something. We only gave you two maps just to see if there's something else in the work that we've already done that might suggest that you would want to consider something different. But overall the direction of focusing on that smaller area does make sense.

[Matt Leming]: Yeah, I think. I was, I'm probably the only elected official here that doesn't, that wants to keep it but I sort of outvoted here. But I would still appreciate any commentary that you all might have after you've had time to do more research on it. The advantages and disadvantages that we might not have touched on in this committee of excluding it no matter what we do decide here. I'm going to go right now to Councilor Malauulu.

[Liz Mullane]: Thank you Councilwoman. I just had one kind of quick question in terms of some of the other boundary lines. If you don't mind going back just one slide. So within the Tufts piece of it where it's the orange and then the light piece of it but then that boundary still goes down further there. Is there a reason why we're keeping that piece of it within the Tufts side and why we wouldn't have When you flip to the next slide, it shows that looks like more the industrial commercial side of it. Why would, there might be a reason, I don't know, but. Oh, okay.

[Emily Innes]: Oh, oh, oh, wait, sorry, this is my bad. It is the ownership, so if you look at the purple and red rectangles right sort of here, and then you go down to the ownership slide, those are actually owned by Tufts University, so that's why they're within the boundary. And the same thing here, it's really interesting, right below this sort of pointed area of Boston Avenue, you see a lot of residential single, two, three family in there. But when you jump to the ownership map, quite a few of them are in fact owned either by Tufts or Walnut Hill and that's why including in that where and that's why I'm hesitant to just say go ahead when we only have two three maps in front of us and want to just you know double check and never like making a decision on just a few points of data, so Yep

[Matt Leming]: Great. Council, President Bears, are you, I can't quite see, have you marked the map?

[Zac Bears]: I would make a motion to keep the paper in committee and adjourn, but that's just my suggestion.

[Matt Leming]: Wait, do you, could you follow that motion up with a motion to request that, in his review the boundaries discussed here and an additional motion to request initial drafts of a 40R overlay for Medford Square in addition to requesting from the Medford, did you say the Medford Housing Authority for potential other for other potential 40-year districts within the city.

[Zac Bears]: I will happily motion to request that the Innis team, the Innis Land Strategies Group team, come back with a proposal on the Boston Avenue corridor based on the discussions tonight, the boundaries. Also that the Planning Development Sustainability Office start work and come back to the committee with suggestions on how we can approach 40R and that those should be separate things. And also further to keep the paper in committee and adjourn.

[Matt Leming]: Great. We have a motion on the floor. I'm going to first, because we haven't done that yet, open it up to public comment. If anybody on Zoom, I'm not seeing anybody in the room, but if anybody on Zoom would like to comment on this, please raise your hand. I'm seeing Jeremy Martin. I'm going to ask you to unmute. Mr. Martin, please state your name and address for the record. And you have three minutes.

[Jeremy Martin]: Thanks, Jeremy Martin, 65 Burgett Avenue. Glad to hear that you all are taking public comment and not adjourning just yet. Thank you for that. It's been an interesting conversation tonight, and as you know, many people in the neighborhood have been following both the institutional zone and the corridor as it was discussed in the last round of updates. I think I understand why now the two zones or the two districts are being discussed at the same time or reviewed at the same time, but hearing the conversation tonight, it really focused on the Boston Avenue corridor piece of this and not the Tufts institutional zone really at all, and so curious to hear why that was in this meeting and how they will be combined or not in future discussions. More specifically, the Tufts zone, as it's outlined and was just part of the discussion, that includes Some parcels that are not Tufts owned and their residential properties, but it also leaves out some Tufts owned residential properties. Can you all explain why that is the case? The economic development report that was just shared references a new, that Tufts is pursuing a new science and tech corridor along Boston Avenue. I hope that you all are all aware of that, but we're all very curious about how that will be factored into this zoning effort. And again, how the, Leadership of the city through zoning can put pressure on Tufts to provide an institutional master plan or some kind of plan that helps the community understand the university's intentions and what's coming next. Looking more specifically at the Tufts zone, and in particular, the part that is north of Boston Avenue, I hope there's some careful review of how the adjacencies between the neighborhood and the residential areas, particularly where the institutional zone hooks around and envelops parts of the neighborhood, how a broadly applied institutional zone will be addressed, particularly to those adjacencies. And then there was some discussion earlier about the residence hall building or the apartment building. And I think that it was misrepresented what the community's concerns were and the broad concerns that we have about that building and still have about it. And also the impact of all of the waivers that were granted because there were more than just parking and setbacks. And I hope you'll all drive by that site and I think you'll see very clearly why we had those concerns. And just reinforces the importance of really carefully thinking about the scale of university development in proximity to a neighborhood and the impact that that has on the community.

[Matt Leming]: Thanks for the time. Thank you, Jeremy. Let's see. I tried to write down the points that you brought up. I can speak to some of it, too, as well. Thank you. I'll address the points that I can speak to, and then I'll pass it over to Council President Bears and PDS Director PDS Director Hunt. So with regards to why we didn't really discuss the content of Tufts, of the Tufts Institutional Zone too much in this meeting, we do have an internal working group with the city which consists of myself, the In His Land Strategies group, the mayor, Council President Bears, Councilor Scarpelli, two members of the Community Development Board and different staff within the city. We did receive a request from representatives of Tufts. They wanted a discussion before anything was made, before we publicly proposed a Tufts Institutional Zone. So we decided to make a motion. to that request before we got to that. We'll be having that discussion tomorrow and the first and the next planning and permitting committee meeting after that should be April 22nd. In terms of the borders for the Tufts Institutional Zone, it's true that Tufts does own a number of residential properties that sort of border what the campus is. I believe the logic for not really expanding the institutional zone out to those is because But zoning wouldn't necessarily be dictated by what Tufts decided to, by the properties that Tufts decided to buy directly around them. So we wouldn't necessarily be changing the zoning to include all of the houses that they purchased, because they potentially could purchase more in the future. no matter what their acquisitions are, the zoning should remain relatively consistent and have certain borders that make sense to most folks. In terms of the concerns with the resident hall building, as well as the new science and tech corridors, as well as the, Yeah, I believe those two points, I'll let either PDS Director Hunt or Council President Bears speak on that, whoever would like to. Council President Bears.

[Zac Bears]: I'm not going to characterize the residential hall because that was not the characterization I made but I do want to speak to the other points. So number one, the notice for this meeting, this was primarily to discuss the Boston Avenue map boundaries so that's why we didn't talk about Tufts tonight by and large because this meeting was about how do we, from the other corridors proposal from spring 2025 to talking about Boston Ave. So Tufts is definitely going to be talked about. There was an initial proposal that was discussed in several public meetings last year and kind of especially the community info session that was had, focus group session. I think since then certainly Director Hunt has indicated that there are maybe some differences of approach that we would want to take with the fundamentals of that zone. So that's one piece on Tufts and on the Boston Avenue and I completely agree with what you're saying Jeremy about the. integration especially on the north side of Boston Avenue into the neighborhood. What does that look like? I don't think you can treat the core campus on the south side of the tracks the same way that you can treat the kind of athletics area for lack of a better term although it now has the Cummings Center and certain other properties. So I think that's a really important consideration to make. I think I'll let Alicia and the INNIS team, you know, maybe not at this meeting, maybe at the next meeting, talk a little bit more about why the Tufts Institutional District boundaries are drawn the way that they're drawn. I think it's in addition to, like, certainly ownership is a factor, but I think, like, the uses are also a factor, and largely the uses on the north west side of Winthrop Street by Walnut Hill and Tufts properties are residential or small office uses. That's not universally true. But I think that that's different from kind of the core campus integrity. Jumping back to the original point, the reason that we've mainly been talking about the Boston Avenue boundaries tonight is because when we outlined the plans, that was the first thing we had to knock off the list. We needed to get the other corridors proposal. into shape for this part of the process. And now we'll be coming back on the 22nd, the 30th, and then on May 5th with enough time for the Innis team to take in these discussions, bring back some new drafts, and also for us to finish up Medford Square. So those are just some of the reasons why we landed here in terms of talking about the Boston Avenue map boundaries tonight. That's the first box we needed to get going so that we could have these conversations. So thank you for attending. And I apologize, I didn't mean to say that we would adjourn without public comment. I was just making a motion to kind of capture all of the actions of the meeting and then move to the public participation on that motion before we concluded. So thank you for being here and for paying such close attention to this work. It's really important to have residents engaged.

[Matt Leming]: Thank you. I don't know. Alicia, did you maybe want to address the residence hall issue?

[Alicia Hunt]: I spoke to what I could remember off the top of my head, a project that was finished 14 months ago. If he remembers the details differently, I'd have to go back to the application to tell you exactly which waivers they applied for. I remember it differently.

[Matt Leming]: All right. Thank you. Not seeing anybody else that would like to participate in public comment on Zoom. I'm going to give a couple seconds to let folks raise their hands if they have anything else. Going once, going twice, sold. I'm going to close public comment on the motion from Council President Bears, seconded by Councilor Malayne. Mr. Clerk, when you're ready, please call the roll.

[Rich Eliseo]: Councilor Callahan? Councilor Millan? Yes. Vice President Nazaro is absent. President Bears?

[Matt Leming]: Yes. And Chair Lim? Yes. Four present, one absent. Motion passes. The meeting is adjourned. Thank you.