[Zac Bears]: So this card has gone absolutely nuts. So we're pulling 110 sale at $1,000. We're broadening about 500. This card looks really good in my opinion.
[Matt Leming]: Medford City Council, I think we're, is that, is that Zach or is that? That's me. Okay, we're hearing a TV in the background.
[Unidentified]: That was, uh, my mother-in-law just got her to lower it.
[Alicia Hunt]: Sometimes I have found that if you have not spoken on your mic, it like tries to zoom in on whatever the sound is in the sound and it'll pick up backup noise. And once you actually talk, it knows what to filter and doesn't filter and then filters better. I've seen that happen a couple of times, mostly with teams, but I've seen it happen recently.
[Marie Izzo]: Okay, this is the part where we wait for quorum and I start texting my colleagues desperately to log on. Yeah, I think we're just waiting for one more, so. There we go, there we go. Okie dokie. Uh, Zach, you got, are you able to talk Zach? Zach said he's having audio issues. Can you hear me? Yeah, I can hear you now. I heard that.
[Zac Bears]: Okay. You can hear me, but I can't hear you. Interesting.
[Matt Leming]: Okay. How'd you know if I, nevermind. Check your output microphone. Um, maybe I'm working on it, man.
[Marie Izzo]: Okay. Okay. Let's see.
[Matt Leming]: All right. I know. Emily said she's going to come for at least part, Emily Lazzaro said she's going to come for at least part of this, and then Anna not. I'm not 100% sure about, but she should probably be logging on. Pretty soon. All right.
[Unidentified]: OK.
[Marie Izzo]: OK, Zach, are you good? Yes, should be good now.
[Matt Leming]: Great. Okay, let's go ahead and get started. This is a meeting of the Medford City Council Planning and Permitting Committee. Just to set expectations for this meeting, this is a continuation of the discussion on Boston Avenue. We are expected to discuss the Tufts Institutional Zone in a little bit more detail. I believe on May 5th, but I don't expect that to be discussed too much today. Again, just because that did come up last time, we received a memo from folks at Tufts that the working group is going to be reviewing prior to putting out an initial proposal in early May. Right now, we're we are going to be discussing some of the borders from Boston Avenue and some of the starting points for that particular zone. I am realizing just now that I forgot to request that the clerk call the roll. So let's go ahead and do that.
[Marie Izzo]: Thank you. Councilor Callahan. Councilor Callahan is absent right now. Yeah, she just logged in. There she is. Literally just now. All right, we'll make her a co-host.
[Unidentified]: Present.
[Marie Izzo]: Thank you. Councilor Malauulu.
[Liz Mullane]: Present.
[Marie Izzo]: Vice President Lazzaro. Absent president bears.
[Matt Leming]: And chair Leming. Present, four present, one absent. The meeting is called to order. Yeah, so I know that Emily Ennis of Ennis Land Strategies has a presentation prepared for us, and I'm seeing Council Vice President Lazzaro is just now entering the waiting room. So we do have, now we have five present, none absent. Um, unless any Councilors have questions, comments or concerns, uh, I will turn it over to Emily to offer the presentation.
[Emily Innes]: Thank you, Chair Leming. I'm going to share my screen and, um, actually this is quite helpful having this online because it would allow me to zoom into some of the details I'm showing today if you all have questions on that. So you should all be able to see the screen of the presentation, correct? Great. Thank you. So just a quick review of where we are today. Talk a little bit about the scope and our position. We are talking today about the Boston Avenue corridor and in terms of the zoning and the land use, which you saw at the last meeting. And then we had some direction from the members on what to look at in terms of boundaries. There was however some back and forth so we went and did our zoomed in on to our non-conforming studies and we're going to show you that for what is temporarily being called Hillside Boston Avenue Neighborhood Corridor and the South Boston Avenue Neighborhood Corridor all names and boundaries to be discussed today. Just on the project scope, phase A was Medford Square. The city is still working on some cleanup items and where we're able to give input. We've been doing that. But right now we're in phase B, which is the Tufts Institutional Zoning and Boston Avenue. And we're working our way through primarily Boston Avenue at this point, although since Tufts is along that, that has obviously come into the conversation to date. We are here on the 22nd. We have a public meeting next week to just open up discussion and comments, get some feedback, have a listening session on this. Then we'll be back to yourselves on the 5th and start moving into the joint hearing on the 13th. I believe, but I'm not positive, we took the text that we had been working on last spring and cleaned it up so it only referred to the Boston Corridor. It was originally multiple neighborhood corridors. and have sent that out. So we're using that as the beginning text. I will say that over the Medford Square effort, we have learned a lot about things to maybe modify from that. So that has not yet been done. But that's the text that we're going to start with to work our way towards that joint hearing. So let's just quickly look again at the current conditions for Boston Avenue. So we had called out at our last meeting sort of two separate areas of Boston Avenue. split by and I want to also stress that the boundary around Tufts is not fixed yet it was just to give us a differentiation between what was going on on Boston Avenue. And you can see here, this is the existing zoning districts that are both within the initial boundary that we proposed, and this came out of last year's discussion, and the districts beyond that, so we can see the adjacencies. We also showed the land uses based on the assessor's data, and you can see that both areas have quite a mix of land uses. land use and zoning don't always match up, so it's something that we always look at. From the conversation, again, last time we had a discussion, we heard some thoughts about how the boundaries in both of these areas should be modified, whether or not this effort just looks at this sort of northwestern part of Basted Avenue, or whether we include some or all of this. We had talked about the fact that there are some areas of this that are solely residential and whether or not those should be added. So what we're going to do now is zoom into each of these districts separately, starting with the northwestern portion of it. And we're going to go through and show, we hope we have captured the discussion from last time as our jumping off point. So, the 1st thing is, you'll see the green, the solid green boundary is intended to be what we understood to be sort of definitely within the border, the quarter, the dotted line was a maybe. and then if it doesn't have a green if it's just that original black that's just there to show what we had originally brought forward but it's not currently considered to be within the corridor boundary so just to orient you so solid green is this part up here this part down here and then the dotted is the maybe because it has a mix of uses this area here that we left out so that's picket road and the parcels on either side of Boston Avenue there, that's mostly residential, so that's why it's not there. But the area with the dashes is a little bit more mixed in terms of uses, so that's why it's included. So just having a look at, so non-conformities are those dimensions of the existing buildings or lots that don't meet the current zoning. So if you're frontage, is not long enough, if your parcel size is too small, if your building's too tall, whatever that may be, that's an existing nonconformity. And the reason we look at them is because they create a barrier to reinvestment in a property. So, for example, if a homeowner wants to put a porch on their property, Or add a deck and they're nonconforming. They may have to come in for a variance. It costs more time and money. Same is true for a commercial owner if they want to invest in a commercial building. It's not set back far enough from the street. That means a variance. It's an additional step in the permitting process. So what we've done here, we're going to break down the nonconformities by lot individually, but this shows how many a property has. So if it's black, you can see a couple of blacks in here. It has six nonconformities, which is the highest number that we look at. If it's blank, like, for example, this property here, which is just white, it has no nonconformities at all. Most of them have two to three nonconformities with actually quite a few fours. And then up in this corner, again, just to orient you, is we're showing the current zoning. So you can see the O2 is that dark pink. The GR is general residential. Apartment 1 is that orange color. C1, commercial 1, is that peach color. And then there's a PDD3 overlay on top of here, which is why you see the hatching. So again, just to orient you. So the first measure that we looked at was frontage. That is the length of the lot along the principal street. And you can see there's some scattered lots here where the frontage is actually too short for zoning. We look at this by zoning district by zoning district. There's a cluster of, I believe, triple-deckers down here, for example, where the frontage is too small. The next one was maximum building coverage, and unsurprisingly for the density of this area, almost all or a good selection of the parcels are nonconforming based on maximum building coverage. So when we look at nonconformities, when we look at zoning changes, question one is, do we change the zoning to have fewer nonconformities? Question two, do we change the zoning to allow something else to happen? Also, lot conformity by minimum lot size. Again, a large number of parcels are much smaller than the lot size, minimum lot size required by the current zoning. So that is another dimension we'll want to take a look at. Also, fronts building setback. Again, most of these are a little bit closer to the street than are required by the current zoning. So that's another one we'll want to look at. And we look at nonconformity by use. So is this use allowed in the district in which it exists? And you can see there's a couple scattered ones. where we have, this is primarily an area that we weren't planning on including, but there are some residential units that are a little bit, have higher units than what is allowed by the current zoning. A little bit on the commercial side as well, in terms of what's allowed. So that's the upper part. I'm going to take you through our lower part, and then we can come back and look at all of these together. Same thing in this case, the same dotted boundary line here is what we originally brought forward from last spring. The green is what we heard could be under consideration if you decide that you want to take this up. So that's really a much smaller subset and in most cases this is because, well in all cases, this is because it's the industrial zone but also because there have been new buildings changes to use in this area. So it made sense to look at. But we did look at the rest of it We have a little bit of C1 here. Most of the rest of this is general residential. As you can see under this proposal, we are not including the general residential. It's just the industrial parcels. But again, looking at that whole initial area just so we can see what the relationships are, you can see in the general residential there's a lot of non-conformities in terms of dimensional standards. some along here in this area that has been redeveloped since the zoning was written, and then some clusters of non-conformities over here. Breaking it down a little bit, no surprise, frontage is also an issue in this part of the area. Again, these are all within the areas that are not currently considered. Same thing for maximum lot coverage, higher coverage than what is allowed under the current zoning, but not within our target area here or potential target area. Same thing on lot size. Most of the parcels in this area do not meet the minimum lot size requirements. Same thing for front building setback. Interestingly enough, now our industrial area is starting to, so where we hadn't really had much except for those little corners for the minimum lot size, in this, the front building setback is too close compared to the zoning required setback. And then just a couple of non-conformities. Obviously, we have residential in this area now, which is the industrial, so that's not allowed under the zoning, but maybe allowed, or the base zoning, I should say, but maybe allowed through other mechanisms. A couple of residential or commercial non-conformities in the GR district. And with that, I am going to stop there and briefly stop sharing my screen just to open up the discussion. But I'm happy to jump back to any of the maps that you might want to look at. Again, I think the decision that we are hoping to for the guidance we're hoping for is which areas should we include in this corridor district, because that will allow us to begin to modify the text to be more tailored to this, whatever the new boundaries are.
[Matt Leming]: Thank you. Thank you, Emily, for that presentation. If any Councilors have any questions, feel free to raise your hand on Zoom. I will say just me personally, and I've been thinking about that south border area for the past week or so. I think a big part of this Boston Avenue and Tufts zoning is we kind of, all of it, with both the Tufts institutional zoning and parts of that south part that goes up to Ball Square, we are gonna be having to think a lot about what Somerville does when we're considering this, just because those areas do suddenly transition off into Somerville. I know that that, that part of Boston Avenue that leads into Ball Square. It's a very interesting transition kind of from a neighborhood that seems immediately like residential plus the big apartment building and then goes right into Ball Square. So it's an interesting part of the city where you start to where it kind of like starts to transition from the more dense residential of South Medford into some more commercial areas. So that I do personally feel like it's worth considering. Also, just because a lot of, with some of these presentations, I am realizing how many of those areas under Boston Avenue are non-conforming and are just a little bit, have a lot of random things sort of thrown into them. So that is, those are just two aspects that I feel like are topically related, even though the geographies do tend to be a little bit different. I would like your, I would like some of your thoughts, um, on first, and this could be a PDS question as well. Why, what sort of led to a lot of this nonconformity, like historically, and how, how is it usually dealt with in zone and Um, and zoning changes. Um, I know that you might not have, like, the whole history of all this stuff here, but if that is something that you could just comment on from your own expertise.
[Emily Innes]: Um, I'm happy to comment on it and sort of the general aspect, uh, with not necessarily going into specifics. Part of it is it's just it's New England in that zoning really didn't come into play until actually 100 years ago. Happy anniversary Euclidean zoning from 1926 court case that really talked to the separation of uses. It's not that cities haven't separated uses before. It's just They hadn't done so at the sort of the scale and depth that was authorized after this particular court case. But what happened, of course, is if you think about it, a lot of our New England cities and towns, villages were already starting to be built out prior to zoning coming in. And then in some cases, the zoning that was put in later was aspirational rather than Matching what was on the ground and so we have that combination of uses also fairly historically we had smaller scale commercial mixed in with with neighborhood uses as well. I can think of any number of towns where they had corner stores that have since disappeared over the years, for example, so. In general, our development patterns frequently in the New England area frequently do not match what's in the zoning because those development patterns were already set. We also have to look at the fact that many people were not, you know, necessarily owning automobiles. Some of those smaller lots, for example, I see it in Medford here. I see it in other parts of Massachusetts, where we might have triple deckers in particular, or two families where they were walking to local neighborhoods. Actually, it's kind of interesting that that idea of walkability has come around. But they didn't have to do car storage on their lots. They might have had a tram or a trolley that came down the street. They might have had local goods and services relatively close. They might have had only one member of the family commuting into the city to work, and that was walkable to a train station. So some of those triple-deckers you would never be able to build now because they can't have that amount of parking on that lot. So that's where a lot of these things come in and that's why I talk about the need to consider how much nonconforming you have if you're doing a zoning change because many people want to preserve these neighborhoods that have these close relationships between the buildings. But if you're making it harder to invest in by having them be non-conforming, you definitely want to address that. So that's that stage one. And then the question becomes for some of the larger lots, for some of the commercial uses you might want over time, for areas that you do want to see develop, how do you think about what is the aspirational aspect of that where you want to allow something new to happen? And then it's the, how do you have that transition of the new respecting the old? And where does that happen? So those are kind of the three things that we're thinking of as we look at this area. But the nonconformities are really those historical development patterns. And then who put in the zoning? What were they thinking at the time that they put in the zoning? Did they want something to change? Were they looking for that ideal aspect? Why were they not considering at the time what was on the ground? And for that, I'd have to delve deeper into Medford's zoning history to understand.
[Matt Leming]: Great. Thank you. I'll go to Council Vice President Lazzaro.
[Emily Lazzaro]: Thank you. I actually wanted to mention something fairly similar to what Chair Leming said, which is that I think it's important for the public who does pay attention to these meetings because it has a lot to do with our neighborhoods and our commercial squares and corridors and what we want to see, how we want to see our commercial areas expand. that what is there now has happened much more slowly than we might have wanted it to because of the way that the laws were written when they were written and because of how prohibitive that can be for businesses that are coming in or businesses that want to expand or people that are building homes and developers that do want to build housing for people in Medford who want to live here. So when we have laws on the books that are preventing people from building, Even preventing them, have already prevented them from building the buildings that are currently there. So illuminating that for us, I think, is very critical. And the more we can see that allowing our zoning laws to reflect what is in actuality currently Medford. And then from there, allowing there to be even more of what we like about Medford and even more of what we want to see in the future. That's what we've all been trying to do here. That's what we're trying to reflect in these meetings and in our changes that we're making. forward. And I know we feel like we've said this a lot, but I think sometimes people come in for the first time at times like this, or, you know, later meetings, even, and we'll have to keep saying this stuff, just to in case there's somebody who's brand new, or somebody's watching a recording of this meeting for the first time, and they and this is their first entry point that we have to keep reminding everybody that what Emily just said about why were people making the laws about zoning when they made them? What were the ideals they were trying to uphold? And that can often be ideals that we no longer hold in this city. So I'm not saying anything about that on Boston Ave. I don't know what the ideals they were trying to uphold on Boston Ave were, but clearly it didn't reflect what Boston Ave wanted to be, wants to be right now, because there are so many variances. There's like one parcel that has no variances. That's insane. So there's like it like it's not reflecting what is actually even there. So I think it's really helpful to see this stuff. Um, educational and interesting. So thank you so much for putting that together. It's really useful.
[Matt Leming]: Thank you. Council President Bears.
[Zac Bears]: Thank you. Thank you, Emily. Thank you to my colleagues for their comments. Kind of three things. One. I appreciated the overview as well as my colleagues said, and I think, um, tying it to some of the bigger issues, some of the things that we see around, regionally around housing, transit, transportation, access, walkability. Go back to what you were saying, Emily, about the development patterns and the fact that our cities were not built to be auto-centric and car-centric communities, and we don't have enough space for that to be the future. We can't build you know, large suburbs with big lots and, um, a five car driveway. It's just not, we don't have the space for it. And it's one of the things that's really driven. Um, I think zoning laws that came in after our city was built, didn't really reflect that our, our geography and the way that we've built our cities can't be transformed unless we start You know, demolishing neighborhoods and building highways and you know that and that was tried to an extent and Medford is still suffering from that. You know, 70 years later. And it has driven housing cost issues, traffic, lack of local neighborhood businesses that you can walk to. And we've made some changes and we're making some improvements. And I think the tide is turning back towards more livable, walkable communities that are focused on people and not just on vehicles. And I think that that's a really important understanding as well of what we're trying to do. So I appreciated us having that be part of our conversation. I also think your point is well taken, right? We do live in a society that is dependent on cars, and that's going to take a long time to shift if it does shift. So we have to be aware of that. as we move forward. I think neighborhoods like this where you do have significantly more transit access, we don't have the the Charlie line down Boston Ave anymore, but we have buses, we have some walkability to the Green Line, you know, maybe some hopes at a Green Line extension down to Route 16 in the next three decades, and I think that's something to think about because it's still on the books. And this is the kind of place that was built for people to walk around and use transit. A lot of people in this neighborhood do that. You know, these these these homes that don't have, were not built in the lots, don't have car storage. People live in them and walk places or bike places or take transit. And we do have some parking on the street as well. Some parts of this neighborhood have ample street parking that's often unfilled, other streets don't. But that's something to think about in the long term as well. My other two things are much more specific than what I just said. On the boundaries, I think it is helpful to I mean, I was kind of pushing the, let's just do the hillside part of this. Let's not look at the south side of this. It seems like there's folks who feel differently about that. I'm not gonna put up a stink if we wanna look more at the south side. So just to say that, I think on the hillside piece, it makes sense to, for me, I think to consider the inclusion of everything that's currently zoned apartment one. in the hillside zone in addition to the kind of commercial nodes at either end of that section towards Winthrop Street and towards Route 16.
[Emily Innes]: I'm just going to bring it back up, Councilor, so you can see. I think that's the orange.
[Zac Bears]: Yeah. Go ahead, Emily. Sorry.
[Emily Innes]: No, sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt. Just for people watching at home, this apartment one is the orange piece, and then that with the PDD3 over it. So you would see that here, and then you would see it down in this area as well, just to orient everybody.
[Zac Bears]: Yes, and I think, yeah, the C1, the apartment one, and the O2 districts, you know, most of the C1 and O2 are already included. I think the rest of that apartment one really deserves consideration for inclusion. That would be my thought on the boundaries here. I think this is close and there's probably other opinions about the rest of that apartment one district, but I think it's worth including. We still have some of that development pattern very actively of corner businesses that are not entirely in the core. commercial area, especially in that apartment one district going northwest on Boston Ave. So I think it makes sense to include them there. The last thing that I wanted to bring up, because I know that there have been conversations about it. And, you know, obviously, there's a basically just this idea of at scale or significant private taxable student housing. I know that there has been interest in that towards the O2 zone. There's a bunch of vacant lots or unused lots there right now. The property owner has had multiple proposals and ideas for that over time. He's contacted me and said that there's an interest in A student housing their private and taxable student housing. And I think it's worth taking a look in the drafting that you're doing for this district to include something like that. I think the definition would need to be specific about the purpose, like. it would be similar to our mixed use residential large scale. I don't think we want a definition that allows someone to just turn a triple-decker into six units of student housing or something like that. I think that's very different than the purpose, but a significant increase in student-focused housing could also help with the larger housing shortage in the area, where you do have a lot of students who are usually not here 12 months of the year, but a lot of units are being rented to students. There's potential that the Tufts project may help with that in some ways, but there are thousands of students living in private units in the area. And, you know, there seems to be some interest in that kind of project. So I think something around that would be helpful. to see as as part of the um as part of the draft but yeah very you know specifically i don't think we want to be replacing you know small scale residential or like the commercial properties near Winthrop street with that kind of structure i think we'd be looking more at the the other end of the of the corridor and just two things around that i think there's some questions around parking and inclusionary that come along with that and i'd be interested in your input on creating a definition and an approach to that that would be workable.
[Emily Innes]: I'm taking notes as we go. Thank you for that. So just to confirm where the started line is, is the apartment two districts. So you are suggesting that we make that a hard line and include that with the district. And then this pink area, the O2, which is consistent with this area here, look at maybe a larger scale, private student housing in that area as maybe a sub district of that area, similar to the way we've done the mixed use sub districts before.
[Zac Bears]: I mean, I think it could be a use that maybe could be applied in other areas, but maybe would be applied in a sub district in that area for the purposes of the zoning. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, uh, Director Hunt.
[Alicia Hunt]: Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just sort of wanted to comment on that. So you're aware the the city the staff have heard from a couple of developers interested in things that they consider student housing. And we've asked them to send us examples of what they've seen in other places so that we understand and we're all on the same page about what we're talking about. And so we've actually had requests about locations on either side of the Tufts campus about this. And we have started to develop a list of pros and cons that we were discussing internally before taking it to any outside groups Because there are things to consider around inclusionary housing and parking requirements and how those things would work and how that would work on like in the big picture, is this a long-term student housing or is this a way for somebody to build something cheaply? And then in eight years they go, oh, now I'm letting anybody live there because I don't have student demand. And how does that change and change the character of it? So how do you then maintain that requirement for long-term student housing? And so these are just sort of questions that it all raises. And it's not that we, landed anywhere, like this is definitely good or definitely bad, it really does seem to have like complications. So I just wanted to like flag that that's something we have been thinking about and we're not really sure where things should go. Also, there are no examples in Massachusetts that anybody has been able to give us, particularly because they've tried in Boston and Cambridge, and they could never come to terms with Boston or Cambridge around how do you handle inclusionary slash affordable housing.
[Matt Leming]: Council President Bearsford.
[Zac Bears]: Yeah, thank you, Alicia. I appreciate that. And, you know, I think it would be interesting to hear from the Innis folks as well, and if we could share anything you've been working on on that with them. It's definitely something where we need to make sure we get it right. So I appreciate that. And, and I think, you know, to me, I think there is a certainly that long term question. And I would be interested in how, how we could consider that more. But I think there's a flip side of addressing the you know, we've had this priority with Tufts, right, from a nonprofit perspective of, you know, it's been a pretty consistent demand on Tufts that they build more on-campus housing to house their students on campus. I think that led down a road that there is obviously a huge project that's going on for that. There's been a lot of disagreement about the scope and scale of that project. And it does seem that that's basically them saying, well, we did it. And that's our big attempt for a while. And even that doesn't, makes a dent, but it's not going to change the overall environment completely around the rental market in this neighborhood, where we just have a lot of units going to students that could be going to to families, and I think that's something we could potentially address with a solution like this.
[Emily Innes]: We would love to see what Director Hunt and her staff have collected from developers so far. And we can certainly poke, I know, some non-Massachusetts examples. It's been a while since I've looked at them. But in that case, it might be interesting to see how they've fared over time. So I'd be happy to look into that and coordinate with Director Hunt and her staff.
[Matt Leming]: Thank you. A question for both Emily and Director Hunt. I know there are some emails about this, but Um, for any of the drafts right now, are there any change is are the changes that would need to be made to it to make it sort of consistent with what we have going on in Medford square is. Is that going to be a big lift and can you describe maybe, like, where what some of those changes, um, what some of those changes would end up being and potential places where you think that's something that was decided for Medford square may not make a whole lot of sense here. If any. Director Hunt.
[Alicia Hunt]: So I thought I would jump in. There's sort of two kinds of things. One is some of the structural cleanup things that are just, I think that it might behoove us for Emily and I or Emily and Daniel and Christian and I to sit down next week and just flag these that are obviously we should always carry these through going through. For example, Christian and Paola did a great job cleaning up footnotes. right, and having some standardization there, great. Obviously, we're going to carry those through. There were some other, like, structural ways, things that we did that are just, like, obviously, we should do that, but they haven't yet been applied to this or any of the others that were drafts before. And I think we just need to go through and make sure we're all on the same page as to, like, what those are. Some of it, I mean, another easy example for you is that we separated out the section on waivers and
[Emily Innes]: wait waivers and the additional dimensional standard dimensional standard.
[Alicia Hunt]: We said those should be two separate sections. Obviously, there should always from now on be two separate sections. Those are right. That's easy. The ones that we actually need to then then we can flag which are the ones that we should look at. Are they area specific or not. And that is things like step backs, because that has everything to do with what's in the neighborhood and how wide the streets are and what are you next to and the parking where we said, like, here's how you can get automatic reduced parking. Those are things that come quickly to mind. We probably want to carry through some of the historical conversion, the historical protections. And I think we put that in the incentive section. And I think we actually need to think thoughtfully about how tall does somebody actually want to build a building? What's our minimum height in this area? What's our max height? And what do we give them that's not so much that they will then take the incentives to protect the historical or to give us the other things that we want. And there were a couple of incentives that we modified the language of. that are, again, things we should just carry through everywhere. So we probably just need to have a working session, like Emily and I, to go through and say which is which, and then lay them all out in front of you as to where that all stands. You could get that in email once we figure it out.
[Emily Innes]: I completely agree with that. I think there were some of those structural changes to the format and the organization of the content that worked really well in Medford Square that we should, as Director Hunt noted, just carry forward. I think there's some interesting conditions in this particular area. For example, in Medford Square, the height was, the topography was changing going on the north side of the street, and here it's on the sort of northwest versus the northeast side of the street going along the direction. Um, so we definitely have to look at where we are placing height. And as Director Hunt noted, some of the other dimensional standards, um, some of the required setbacks might be a little different depending on where we are and what we're doing. Um, and I think, again, the incentive zoning, uh, was starting to get a little bit more fine-tuned for Medford Square. We just want to check that that fine-tuning we did for Medford Square, is it appropriate here? For example, those historical conversions or something else makes sense. Do we keep those? Do we need to modify something else? So I think a working session between city staff and our team makes a lot of sense to kind of lay that out and then come to you with, we think these are the appropriate things for this particular district. Yeah.
[Matt Leming]: you know, the things that my general, like high level goals for some of these is to make it so that people don't have to, so that the zoning is in a state where people don't have to request variances for everything they do. And clearly there is a lot of commercial uses in the North part of Boston Avenue. So considering just making that to be mixed use. With regards to the borders, I understand that we want to, You know, we generally want to avoid the purely residential neighborhoods because there's an agreement with the mayor to keep that at the end there. But if there is, if there are areas that are zoned for some sort of, you know, general residential that already have a number of nonconforming commercial uses, then there could be a good conversation there about transitioning that into into mixed use. So yeah, that's generally my view there. And of course, any policies to make, especially this part of the city, which tends to have a lot of college students and is transitioning to some of the more walkable parts of Somerville, more walkable and incentivize more affordable housing is always something that I personally would like to see. In terms of timelines for doing this, at the next meeting we have on our schedule, which I don't have in front of me, but I think it was May 5th. Do you think that you have enough time to sort of take some of this feedback and direction and come up with both an initial draft of the Tufts Institutional Zone and an initial draft of the Boston Avenue Zone as sort of one package to present? Or is that not a workload you think you'd be able to meet within this time frame?
[Emily Innes]: I think we could definitely do the Boston Avenue corridor. Let me think about the Tufts Institutional. I would like to get to it sooner rather than later, but I don't want to. I think we learned so much from the previous work on Medford Square and the two other corridors that I don't think it's going to be a heavy lift to do Boston Avenue. Tufts is a different entity in terms of the way you deal with the campus and the extensions of the campus or the adjacencies of the campus to the corridor. So I'm not sure I want to commit to a full draft, but I think at a minimum, we would have these are the parameters of the things that we think this zoning should include. and be able to talk that through. We may have the full draft, but I think at the very minimum for Tufts, we should have, we think these are kind of the zoning buckets for Tufts and be able to have a conversation about direction, even if we don't have the precise language.
[Matt Leming]: Okay. Okay. Yeah, because we'll also be having that feedback meeting or the public information session on April 30th which we'll be discussing some of the logistics for that tomorrow where we could be expecting some feedback. In terms of the format of the zoning and the Drafts of Medford Square that were set to approve on the 28th, as well as of course the Tufts Institutional Zone, those are sort of their own zones. So we have the Tufts Institutional Zone, which has been expected this entire time, and the Medford Square zones, which came out of the CDB process. Would generally like to avoid making each district its own zone. If we can, because it could be that we did, we did like a lot of fine tuning on Medford square but I imagine that a lot of what we come up with for Boston Avenue could be generally a. framework that could then be reapplied to the other squares that we come up with and at least have some consistency there. I think when you're reviewing zoning, Medford Square is enough of a unique entity that it could justify some of its own districts. Of course, Tufts is Tufts, but for the rest of the squares, I would like to try as much as we can. This is as much on the CDB as it is on as it is on anybody. I would like to try to keep consistent zones throughout the city so that it doesn't become too fractured and confusing for new readers. But yeah.
[Emily Innes]: So the idea, just to jump back to the original idea of having multiple neighborhood quarters that all had the kind of the same sets of sub districts that could be applied geographically, but each sub district kind of had its own, you know, if you were an MX1, you had this set of dimensional standards, probably the set of uses. Mx to its own dimensional, but you could apply that Mx one Mx two across multiple quarters. I think that could be part of the conversation we have with director hunt and her staff of if we are thinking about Boston Avenue as a prototype for those other. neighborhood districts that we had talked earlier this spring, how might we consider this part of the structure differently than if Boston Avenue were its own corridor district and then Broadway was its own corridor district. I think we can have that conversation about structure if that makes sense Director Hunt.
[Matt Leming]: Yeah, yeah, I would like to. Yeah, again, it's it's just for it's just for consistency. I personally liked the the MX one MX two system that was that was in some of the previous drafts. I'm seeing director hunt has raised her hand. And I personally would like to see that applied to the zoning moving forward. But of course, I'm only one decision maker in this. So we'll see what the process ends up producing. Director Hunt.
[Alicia Hunt]: I'd like to sort of understand what the motivation is, because when a developer is looking at a parcel or an area, they're looking at their area or their parcel. Right, they might say, where in the city am I allowed to do these things? And what we found was we had this MX1, and we had it in Miss Gabb, and we had this MX1, we had it on Salem Street, and then we had it in Medford Square. And people kept saying, every time you change something in Medford Square, now you're changing Salem Street. And we're like, no, no, we're not changing Salem Street. Every time we, and that's why we had to, now it's MX1A, because now we're, because we're changing other areas. Each area, each part of the city is very unique and they're different from each other. And that's part of the trouble we were running into that what's appropriate on Mystic Ave is very different from what's appropriate on Salem Street. What's actually different in that area of Boston Ave that's hillside, that's right next to the Tufts campus. And actually you're gonna find that what's over there on the edge, the bigger parcels that were whole foods, And the Cummings building are those are different right and you want different character and you want different scales of buildings in those areas. And that's part of what we were running into. And why we started to say now we need to name it differently. And I think part of the difficulty we've run into is this idea that Medford had like eight districts and they had applied eight districts to the parts of Medford that looked like Malden and the parts that were like Somerville and the parts that were like Winchester. And that kind of became, it didn't make any sense anymore and everything's nonconforming. I'm gonna share a link to our current complete zoning right now, which is actually a file on Muni code but it is not in the regular MUNI code. And you'll, for people to sort of look through this, you can all bookmark it. It's really useful. It's the updated as of March 25th. It's may become out of date as of next Tuesday when you vote on Medford Square, but it's to give you an idea of what it does look like when there are different sections and tables embedded throughout it, so.
[Matt Leming]: Yeah, okay. So what you're saying is, uh. It likely is with the direction things are going in right now. It probably will end up becoming sort of the. The opposite of what I propose, and we are likely going to have, like, a Boston Avenue district to West Medford square district, et cetera, et cetera.
[Alicia Hunt]: I feel like that's my instinct. And especially unless we're going to go back and then change Salem or Mystic Ave. I could imagine that what we put on some of the areas we use on Boston Ave, we might use on the other end. We might use down on Main Street because they're very similar look and feel. They might be appropriate on the far end of West Medford. That's actually the part that borders the Arlington. You may want, we may need to look at that as well, because there's a whole commercial node down there that people just kind of ignore, unless you do your dry cleaning down there. So it's really hard to say at this stage in all of it. But I don't want to lock us in just because it feels like it'll be easier for people in the long run, because zoning isn't easy for anybody. Yeah.
[Matt Leming]: Council Vice President Lazzaro.
[Emily Lazzaro]: Thank you, or if you live over there like I do, and walk to all those stores. I just wanted to say I have to hop off and pick up my son from soccer practice. And I want to make sure that if I hop off, oh, yes, I missed that. Councilor Callahan is here. I just didn't want to mess up the quorum. If I leave this meeting doesn't have to end, is that correct? that correct? Chair Leming? Yeah, yeah, I think I can come back. I'm also going to come back.
[Matt Leming]: Yeah, like there's Councilor Mullane is here.
[Emily Lazzaro]: Yes.
[Matt Leming]: And Council President Bears.
[Emily Lazzaro]: Excellent. Thank you. I'll be back.
[Matt Leming]: Bye. Have a good soccer practice. OK, well, again, there's not a whole, again, with the way that this process is where we're only considering one thing at a time, a lot of this will be, a lot of the end result will be dictated by how things go in the process anyway. So I guess that sort of bigger picture stuff might not be, might not even be as applicable guidance at this stage regardless. But anyway, all right. So what I'm hearing is that we likely will have a draft of Boston Avenue by the 5th, possibly possibly a full package to hear by then. And of course, we'll have some extra feedback as well. Councilor Malayne.
[Liz Mullane]: Thanks. I just wanted to go back to Emily I know you were mentioning about the north part and the south part and the last conversation we had, we were trying to figure out just, I guess, or maybe I should. say it differently. I was trying to figure out how much of it was commercial as compared to residential, and I think that's part of what you're asking tonight, right? That we're identifying which of those boundaries are we going to continue moving forward with. Would you mind sharing the screen one more time and just showing me that South Boston area again, or the South Boston ABA area again? I've just, I know we had the conversation about trying to address it or at least look at it more specifically around commercial and not as much with the residential. And in this new draft, did you find that? Are we still in that same, would you say it's more residential commercial? Like I'm still trying to figure out, I would love to move forward, but I'm concerned because I just don't want to pick a parcel that will still have a lot of residential in there and not as much commercial, like we said, we were going to kind of focus on right now.
[Emily Innes]: Yeah, absolutely. I'm happy to. So this is, again, last time we had this sort of dotted line was the whole area that they brought forward from last spring. And then after the conversation at the last planning and permitting committee meeting, we narrowed it down to this green dotted line, which is the former or the current, sorry, industrial area. There is that little peak of C1 right there. And then if we go to, I'm just going to jump to the not lot conformity by use. So yellow residential, pink C1, gray industrial, but you can see the gray industrial has some of those newer residential. There's a little bit of three family in the general residential, which is non-conforming. There are two of these commercial parcels that are in the general residential right here. There's no non-conformity in those little commercial parcels. So there's not a ton of non-conformity in this area, maybe just those two. I think, you know, originally the discussion was maybe we wait until the city moves forward to looking at all of the neighborhood districts. To deal with these and I think we had taught at one point talked last spring about this idea of neighborhood commercial hubs within the residential districts to deal with existing like neighborhood level commercial retail cafes laundromats, things like that. You could put this off, these areas that are kind of not within our included, you could put those off to when you discuss neighborhood and then think about those two non-conforming commercials as part of that neighborhood hub strategy if you wanted to. I think that would be a reasonable discussion to have.
[Liz Mullane]: Okay. And the current, the green dotted one, that's what we're looking at right now to make the decision on. And that one at this point, per our last conversation, is really focused on the commercial side and getting less and less of the residential. Okay. Thank you.
[Emily Innes]: Yeah, because it's currently in zoned industrial, but has residential in it. And that's newer residential. So again, because it is newer, I could go either way on an argument on whether or not you wanted to include it at this stage. You could say, look, we've got residential here. We have residential is a different scale within at least part of this. Do we want to let this go? I mean, you do have some existing commercial in this area, commercial industrial in this area as well. Do we want to let this go and deal with it when we come back and deal with the neighborhood? Do we want to call this out because there's this kind of emerging mix of residential and industrial in here? And we just want to say, well, if these other things shift towards residential, maybe we want a different set of standards for them. But I see Director Hunt's hand is up, and I'd love to hear what her thoughts are on this as well, because she's more familiar with the exact changes that have happened recently. Sure.
[Matt Leming]: Director Hunt.
[Alicia Hunt]: Thank you. Some of why I wanted to chime in is because I think what's really helpful is to understand what's new, what's old, what's ripe for redevelopment, and what the timeline pressures are on these. And so if you look at COB, Erika Vandenbrande. She-Her, Hers. And they had so much trouble filling that even after the green line open that they came back and got permission from the city to turn that into another residential unit. And but and it's new right so sphere luxury there that dark brown that's new, it's not changing, it is what it is. The yellow, I'm less familiar with, but it's also a relatively new and it's condoized, which makes it way less likely. But if you looked at it from the ground, you would see it's pretty new, not what's going on there. So that's not any pressure. And all those, you know, those are two and three family houses across the street. Hard to see from Google Maps because a lot of them are blurred out. But then there is some, the gray building is the one across the street, actually, from the one you're circling.
[Emily Innes]: This one here?
[Alicia Hunt]: Oh, no, yeah. No, you were right. The right, that one. That's an older industrial building that we've kind of been wondering, and it's a vacant lot next to it, when they're going to come and when they're going to ask for a change. But the corner is Titan gas and car wash, and they have permission to build like a 45 unit building there with the ground floor commercial, and they've just been dealing with the costs of. construction and it's a longtime property owner. And so who owns Titan Car Gas and Car Wash, who would build the residential. So he's kind of like not in a big rush to build it, but he has permission. Right behind him is a bunch of industrial buildings, which I will just say they're in flux, they're in play. And there has even been talk of whether they should come put their own proposal in front of us. rather than waiting for the city to rezone it. But I did want to mention across the corner from Titan Car Wash, because that is the old church and school. St. Clement's Church is still there. But St. Clemens school is closed and the school has been using that or the the church has been using it for a long time. And I do wonder whether we if we rezoned it to be something that would allow mixed use residential. it would incentivize the church to sell it. They had an affordable housing proposal at one point. It went a couple of stages in Medford around 2018. And then that proposal basically did not get funded, got withdrawn. No, it did get funded, it got withdrawn. But something that would encourage the church to do something better with the school than to use it for occasional gym events and stuff might be useful. And I did just want to raise this idea that the stuff across the street that's Tufts, Tufts isn't changing that, that's new buildings. But should it be zoned as a campus or should it be zoned as a mixed use area? because it's a mixed use feel for the city. And whether we actually want the Tufts, there's parts of the Tufts campus that are a campus, and they should be treated like, you know, a campus. But there are parts that are on our city streets, like this across the street here, and whether that should be actually zoned, like, like it's part of the community, and behind it on either side of the train tracks there. Right, like they're facing residents. should those be zoned like a mixed use property or should they be zoned for a campus? And I think we need to think about that.
[Liz Mullane]: Are you saying that in that specific areas that we were looking at with the green piece of it, it would behoove us to move on that quicker in terms of trying to get some of the zoning? Are we missing opportunities, are you saying? Are we still a little bit more in flux as you're?
[Alicia Hunt]: I don't think we're missing opportunities, because what we're talking to are longtime owners who are just who are partially waiting for the construction market to get better. At the same time, they're looking at highest and best use for their properties. But I am thinking that we should be thinking about St. Clemens as part of the mixed use and not as part of the pure residential. And we shouldn't just write it off because it's owned by the Catholic Church, I think. So if the Catholic Church decides to do something with it for church uses, it will come under Dover. If the Catholic Church decided to sell it to a developer to make a couple of bucks off of it, then it would be 100% subject to our zoning. And we have, in the last 20 years, seen churches and their buildings get sold to developers and become housing. There was a church on Fellsway that is now just, you would never know a church used to be there, but there was 25 years ago. Okay, thank you.
[Matt Leming]: My inclination is we should just keep all of those in this current set of zoning, get it done sooner rather than later. I mean, I think we were, I mean, we were talking about a lot about dividing Medford Square up at certain stages, just as some of it was conceptually different, but I don't think that making a proposal for some of these areas is going to be, is really gonna be like, a whole lot of work, especially because it could potentially mean that we get, you know, better development onto our tax basis slightly faster. So yeah, that's just my view is to keep those areas.
[Alicia Hunt]: And actually, if I might, Mr. Chair, I just wanted to clarify the St. Clemons properties was not within the dotted line we were looking at. And so I'm actually saying to add that into the area.
[Emily Innes]: I was just going to bring that up, Director Hunt. Let me just show where we were. So these are the St. Clement properties here. So we would bring the dotted green line just to confirm what we're all talking about. We would bring the dotted green line over, include those properties, and then actually these parcels go a little bit off screen, but we would include those really existing. Yes, they're owned by Tufts or contribute to Tufts, but they're really existing mixed use. That allows us to consider not just the dimensional standards, but the development standards of any building that is, to your point, Director Hunt, going to face the residential buildings. How are they relating to those existing residential buildings? And then that would continue to cover these parcels that may be in play either now or in the relatively near future. So the line would go across here, follow this line up, and then right now the proposed Tufts boundaries would include these parcels, but perhaps this line continues up, captures those parcels, and then comes back down to join here.
[Alicia Hunt]: And to be clear, if Tufts developed them, like redid them as science labs, which a lot of those actually are, then they would use Dover and that would be fine. But we would be having some guidelines on the heights and uses that are more appropriate next to the neighborhood. And if Tufts for some reason said, actually, we want to sell these to a developer to redevelop them and make some money and invest that money somewhere else, then we would have our, what did we put our zoning on them for? So.
[Matt Leming]: Yeah, anything in this area that's not obviously purely residential, I think should have some sort of border around it because it makes, this is the part of the proposal where it makes sense and the rest of it would come in a future residential proposal later on down the line. That's my view. I don't know if you need a motion from council to do that, or if this could just be general feedback that you bring in.
[Emily Innes]: I think it can be general feedback if that's okay with the councillors. So what I've got is at the top, we're adding the northwestern part of Boston Ave. We're adding all of the apartment two that were outlined in the dotted line. And then down here, we are solidifying that dotted line. We're extending it up to take the church and those two. Tufts parcels within this boundary and then thinking about how we apply the zoning to those to allow really for a mixed use neighborhood going forward. So I think that is good guidance. To allow us to start to think about how we would, um, create the zoning for these two areas. If the Councilors have no objections to that direction.
[Matt Leming]: Yeah, I know that this is hyper specific, but I'm curious about the to the to commercial. spots right next to Ball Square. The two, they're not in our boundaries at all. What are those?
[Emily Innes]: These two? I can stop share and bring up Google again. Hang on.
[Alicia Hunt]: One of those has turned over, I believe has turned over recently. They are literally in the residential neighborhood on a residential street. People have been We haven't really gotten any complaints about them.
[Matt Leming]: Just kind of curious about the building that was literally on the Somerville-Medford line and how that's handled, but it's probably a very unique case.
[Emily Innes]: So it's these two here right along the tracks?
[Alicia Hunt]: Right, Ground Up Innovations. That's very new there.
[Emily Innes]: But then as you move over, here's Broadway. And then I think we are into Somerville at, I'm just gonna check my map here. Yeah, we're into Somerville after those two properties. So right about here, it moves into Somerville.
[Matt Leming]: All right.
[Alicia Hunt]: Roundup Innovations is actually, so that area, I think it used to be like a plumbing. It was a place where they had, like trucks and stuff. And if you click on Roundup, you can see that they basically, it looks kind of like a maker shop. They prototype things in their engineering shop there. There's an inside picture of it when I clicked on their little bubble.
[Emily Innes]: Yeah, it has the feel of a former sort of Trade plumbing as you said Electrical not like full contractor yards, so So yeah, that could be that could be dealt with in a number of different ways Or you could it makes the line a little bit harder if you include it but It could be called out and done. Let me just reshare this and I'll show you how I if you did want to include those now that we've had a look at what they look like on the ground. So the green could sort of jog over the tracks, capture those and come back in. I could go either way on that. I think you could have it as sort of a neighborhood hub piece. Although to be fair, we were really thinking about more of those about local services and goods kind of thing for the neighborhood hub. I'd have to think about that a little bit more. How would you not make the line look weird, but include those?
[Matt Leming]: Director Hunt.
[Alicia Hunt]: So an interesting thing is that we've been having, there's not a lot of market for large R&D, large development kind of stuff. But we've been hearing from a lot of small companies looking for small spaces to do light industrial, like makerspace-like things, which is actually why we've been working to try and get 400 Riverside in a shared-use makerspace kind of thing. And by makerspace, I don't mean where you as a resident would go in and use it, but rather you are a small entrepreneur who is outgrowing your basement or your garage, and you need a space to move your equipments to. But you want not the couple like a 2000 square feet or 3000 and not a big building. And we've been hearing from a lot of them and actually the place 15 Winchester has been telling me that they've heard from a lot of people who are looking for this. really small industrial space and there's nowhere to go, which is kind of fascinating. We've been trying to think about what to do with that because he'd make a lot more money with a, you know, multi-story residential building there. But there's actually this demand and the dance studios and the karate studios that want spaces, he's got a dance studio in there right now. So it's interesting understanding what the demand is, and like what somebody would actually pay to build.
[Emily Innes]: Yeah, that's a really good point, by the way, on the difference between filling new commercial ground floor and rehabbing existing commercial ground floor and adding a little bit more flexibility to the uses that are allowed in them, because it's a lot easier. Those spaces are likely to be cheaper because they're existing already. It is easier to fill them. So I think that's something else that we could have. as part of our conversations, Director Hunt, as we look at the uses, as well as the areas and the dimensional standards, and then bring that back to the Planning and Permitting Committee for their review and discussion.
[Matt Leming]: Yeah. That sort of zoning for, like, residential area sort of maker space, I think, would be a very interesting use, particularly for this area, so I would be interested in hearing more about that. Yeah. All right. Are there any other questions from Councilors? Seeing none, are there any questions, comments, concerns from members of the public? If you'd like to speak about any of this, feel free to raise your hand on Zoom and we'll take you in the order that you come. I am seeing First Judith Weinstock. I'm going to ask you to unmute. And you have three minutes.
[Judith Weinstock]: Hi, it's Judith Weinstock at 144 Breguet. For some reason, I'm unable to get a visual, but that's not a problem. I'm a little curious about what would drive the decision at this point to include two Tufts buildings in those boundaries without some consideration, at least openly, about what other parts of the campus have a similar issue, you know, there are plenty of, you know, up on College Avenue, bordering Boston and George, as everybody knows, there are plenty of property there that Tufts owned. I guess I'm just a little, I get a little concerned about carving out two buildings along and abutting the tracks on Boston Avenue without really understanding the rationale for doing it at this point, before you've looked at institutional zoning. for Tufts. So I guess that would be my question. I'm wondering if anybody could address why you would do that starting tonight. Council President Bears.
[Zac Bears]: No. Thank you, Councilor Leming. Thank you for the question. Yeah, I would be more inclined to say let's make that decision when we've had consideration of the Tufts Institutional Zone. I understand the arguments and it may well be that it makes more sense to apply a different district type to those properties, but I do think we should try to have the conversation holistically. And I don't think we need to necessarily make that call right now. It's just my two cents on it. But I understood the arguments, and I think they're fair from both Emily and Alicia, that those two properties and the structures on them obviously have a pretty significant neighborhood impact and a different impact than, say, something at the top of the hill on the campus. And I think another question, as we move through the tough institutional considerations in general, it seems like we're moving away from saying there's just one big zone and it has this kind of Somerville-like ordinance framing, so it might make sense to have some sub-districts within the Tufts Institutional Zone as well. Again, my two cents there.
[Judith Weinstock]: Yeah, I mean, I guess my question is, it just seems without really distinct rationale and knowing that there might not, maybe there will be other places where you feel that that is a reasonable way to go as well. But I guess I don't feel like that those conversations have happened, at least not with the public. So that's all. Thank you.
[Matt Leming]: Thank you. And we will be getting into the Tufts Institutional Zone. And like Council President Bears said, discussing these items more holistically. I do apologize for any confusion there. But the purpose of this is to kind of like to try to get stuff within the Boston Avenue and Tufts area and we the way that these meetings are being structured is we're kind of trying to like divide even somewhat artificially those um those conversations so we will be getting to a more of a discussion about the tufts institutional zone at a later meeting my hope is my hope is may 5th we'll have a solid proposal to uh discuss with folks but the formal the formal public input session where we hear from folks about that should be at uh uh april 30th I see that Emily and Alicia both have your hand raised to talk about this as well. I'm going to go to Emily first.
[Emily Innes]: Thank you very much and thank you for the question. I think from our perspective, we are seeking input as to where the boundaries should be. So we've heard a proposal tonight to include them for the reasons that we discussed. That could be a very valid, that could be a valid reason for including them. in the Boston Avenue corridor. It could also be a jump start to discussing as Judith Weinstock suggested, are there other areas contiguous with the campus that have those same characteristics and then as Councilor Bears suggested maybe there are some districts that address those and they're within the institutional boundary rather than in Boston Avenue. So I think I said at the beginning, I know I said at the beginning that the Tufts boundary is malleable as is the Boston Avenue boundary being malleable. We're kind of hardening up that boundary a little bit tonight so that we can write zoning for it for discussion. But I would certainly expect that as we continue to move forward with also looking at the Tufts institutional zoning, that boundary might still be subject to shifting for all of the reasons that we just discussed tonight. I don't think we as the consultants yet have a hard, this is definitely Tufts institutional, this is definitely not Boston.
[Matt Leming]: Thank you, Director Hunt.
[Alicia Hunt]: So it was actually my recommendation that we talk about Tufts Institutional Zone and Boston Ave at the same times in the same meetings because of this reason. Because I think there are some areas that it is actually really worthwhile to talk about whether they should be zoned like a mixed use area or zoned like a campus. And that there are a couple of areas that we should be thinking about that. And the other one is, the triangle between Boston Ave, the railroad tracks and Winthrop Street that is directly across the street from, well, I don't know how to frame it. It's not directly across the street from the new dorm under construction, but that area, right? Should that be part of the campus and treated like campus or should it be treated like a mixed use area? I think that is the whole reason to have these meetings is to talk about the various edges and how do we deal with the edges? Because also a public way that is literally in the middle of the Tufts campus is different than a public way that is a main thoroughfare like Boston Ave. So we need to think about them.
[Matt Leming]: Thank you. Council President Bears?
[Zac Bears]: Thank you. Yeah, and I kind of have a different perspective on it. I think we can set a relatively clear principle and line in saying that properties that are owned by the trustees of Tufts College should generally be considered for some sort of institutional zoning. Now, whether that's a campus type district or potentially some sort of mixed use district with specific kind of Tufts oriented requirements, I think that that addresses the edge issues. But I do think we should think about the privately owned, mostly not by the shell company that I can never think of the name of.
[Jeremy Martin]: Walnut Hill, I think.
[Zac Bears]: Walnut Hill, that sounds right. But, you know, still a private, privately owned, even though affiliated with Tufts. I do think like there's clarity for the public in setting a clear line between those two things. And I think actually the boundaries we have are pretty close on that. And I don't think that means we can't have the conversation about what mixed use looks like in the edge cases where those properties may be owned by Tufts formally. But I do think it helps to clarify the process because I think there's going to be, even in those edge cases, specific things that we're going to want to put in place since the ownership and development potential is still different given the Dover amendment. So that's, I actually think we're really close to having a clear line. My preference would be let's include the Think Clemens property, but not the Tufts owned property on that, on that, on those two sides of Boston Ave, north of Harvard Street. Because I think that just helps us to have the right conversations about the Boston Avenue zoning and about the Tufts institutional zoning options.
[Matt Leming]: Thank you. Going to go now to Jeremy Martin. Going to ask you to unmute.
[Jeremy Martin]: Hey, good evening, everyone. Jeremy Martin, 65 Burgett Avenue. Got a few things I want to comment on tonight. I'll do my best not to ramble, try to cover them all, but I think really helpful to hear the presentation tonight and see the disparity between our current zoning and the current uses of this corridor. I hope that we are thinking of the future here. I see Boston Avenue with its two new green line stops as being one of the probably most rapidly changing parts of our city, if not now, very soon. And while I understand the kind of nuance and carefulness around whether predominantly residential properties should be included in this zone or not. 10, 15, 20 years from now, that may be less defined. And I think we should be encouraging mixed use across the entirety of the corridor. I would advocate for a more cohesive and unified zoning approach to this corridor rather than a piecemeal approach to it. Um, it's really difficult for me to see one property, um, next to another that are zoned very differently, and it almost pits properties against each other. Um, I also, uh, agree with Alicia that it's really hard to think of these, um, these boundaries as separate, because as you have pushed on one this evening, you've pulled on another, and, um, I will admit, I appreciate, Matt, that you've acknowledged it, but, uh, Disappointing to come to another meeting that was billed as Boston Avenue and Tufts and really only focus on Boston Avenue. You educated me last time that the advertisement was for Boston Avenue only, not Tufts. Tonight that was different. We need to be talking about these in conjunction with each other because while we might have a line in how we treat them, the way that they function and the way that people experience them and the way they contribute to our city are very much co-joined. I also agree with the notion that this corridor should be treated differently than other corridors because it is different than other corridors. It has different pressures than other corridors, other squares. And so making sure we're responsive to what this place needs is important. I'd really love to hear more from the council on the conversation with Tufts specifically. What is being discussed around that in private meetings? How much of that will be shared with the community and the public? It's a little unnerving to know that some of this has been delayed because of private conversations. And I get the need for that, but also think there should be transparency there. And lastly, I'll just ask that if we're at a point where we have not yet seen as a public details on the Tufts institutional zone, but on April 30th, we're being asked to provide feedback on something or input on something. We did that last year. We gave you a lot of input. We're really eager to see what the outcome of that is and what the response back is. And so again, to... to not have touched that yet in this discussion. Seems like it puts the community at a disadvantage to be able to understand what's being considered and what's being proposed there in a Q&A session where I want to be able to ask questions about a proposal, not tell you again the same feedback and challenges that we told you last year. So I hope that those meetings that are upcoming that will touch on the Tufts Institutional Zone will have proposals and suggestions as a part of the presentations. Thanks for the time tonight and the extra time.
[Matt Leming]: Yeah, thank you, Jeremy. So just to touch a little bit on the conversations that were had with the Tufts representatives. So we had a couple of folks who were with the Tufts Community Relations team sort of insist on meeting with the zoning working group. And We, we had that meeting on April 22, it was, it was internal essentially the outcome from that meeting was not to get into all like the nitty gritty but it was send us a list of bullet points of the things that you would like to see like literally spell it out for us. Um, and they did send us a list of bullet points, which will be public in account in a council packet. So it'll be sort of very clear what Tufts has said to us, but there was, there was an insistence, uh, coming from them that they wanted to have a conversation with us prior to making anything public, uh, like prior to make any public proposals. And we, you know, And we did indulge in that. And the reason it wasn't, you know, the reason that it wasn't like we didn't have anything brought up at this meeting is basically because of the timelines that our consultants work in. So if Tufts gives like a list of bullet points on, I believe it was April 16th or 17th when they sent it to us, then that is not enough time for Emily and Paola to sort of come up with a proposal that takes those bullet points into consideration. Not that we're going to be, not that we're going to be like listening to everything from those bullet points, like from their list, but we did sort of like want to know where they're coming from, the things like what tough sort of issues with the zoning was. I will say that in that conversation there was sort of like there was this sense of like you know any like we're not going to be having like like like this this is a one-time thing we're not going to be like having a bunch of these like secret conversation with Tufts folks if you're going to like if you're going to like tell us what you want yes you do need to like write it down and then give it to us and then that will be made public So yeah, I would say that a lot of the back and forth was that, and a lot of the delays in getting the Tufts institutional zone was because of that sort of process. It was because the rezoning process did kind of blow up. um last year and i have a lot to say on that um but we are trying to like be but we are like earnestly trying to be as nice as we as we uh can to anybody who like wants to work with us um to as possible and so yes we're gonna we are gonna like take a meeting with them we're gonna like have a conversation hear them out but there's not going to be this pattern of like behind the scenes conversations. Anything that Tufts want is going to be and will be public at the end of the day. I hope that offers some clarity of the behind the scenes aspect of all of this. I will say that the way that the schedule is sort of set up, and the reason that we're sort of having these other public information sessions again is because, you know, we were being, like, there was a lot of criticism last year of, like, not being open enough about these things, not being, like, not having, like, enough outreach to the public. So yeah, we're having two public information sessions on this. and I wanted them to be scheduled ahead of time. One of them on April 30th and the other is going to be on June 1st to kind of invite folks from the neighborhood. And I understand that that means, unfortunately, some folks will be coming in that have already come to many of these meetings and will be saying the same things. And yes, that is a disservice, but we are sort of But it is just kind of, yeah, it's an unfortunate kind of reality of dealing with a very complex process on a very stringent timeline. It is my hope that we'll be able to get something by the end of June that satisfies as many people as possible and that will actually be passed by the council. And this is the, the best way that we had to do it, all things considered. So yeah, that was a bit of a lengthy answer. Apologize for that. I'll go to Council President Bears.
[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Councilor Leming. And yeah, I would just add that I think there is a somewhat competing priority set of wanting to have updated zoning for specifically tough zone properties in the institutional zoning area because of what we've seen with the past practices and projects that have not met the bar for community engagement and the outcomes of them. And making sure that we have the time to get the community input. And to Jeremy's point, yes, it is in some cases, another round of community input and you know we were having conversations like this a year ago and then there was a nine month you know six to nine month pause on the whole project um put in place by the administration um so that's frustrating for sure and I think there's some some tough specific questions that may take longer um to to get the right answers to to make sure that we have zoning that can be um holding that institution accountable as best as possible given the very limited accountability tools that municipalities have both in mass general law and both zoning and non-zoning um and it's a huge frustration that I have and that I know that the municipality you know municipal government in general has and municipal governments around the state have with the lack of accountability of these large educational institutions and obviously in some other places, healthcare institutions as well.
[Matt Leming]: Thank you. I'm seeing Jeremy Martin has his hand raised. Go ahead.
[Jeremy Martin]: I'll ask you to unmute. Thanks, Matt. And I appreciate both of those responses. very much willing to put in the time. I know my neighbors are. We just want to have an opportunity to see what's out there, but I understand where you are in the process and certainly the complexity of it. I did have one other question for Alicia and some of the points she was making earlier about the church and about Tufts-owned buildings or institutionally-owned buildings, whether that's a religious use or a educational use. Alicia, you mentioned a scenario where something could be developed as a religious use or an institutional use by that nonprofit owner, and it would be subject to Dover. You described a scenario where those properties could be sold to a developer and then they would be subject to the standard site plan review. Is there also a scenario where that property is leased by a nonprofit institution to a developer? And what is the applicability of Dover in that situation? Thank you. Director Hunt.
[Alicia Hunt]: Chair, and I may, let me comment on this and I may actually refer this to our graduate student Christian who literally defended his thesis today on Dover at Tufts UEP. If the building is used for educational purposes and designed and used for educational purposes, then it's subject to Dover, if it is used for non educational purposes and I believe it says regardless of who owns it, then it's so. You know what, Christian do you want to speak to it because you can actually I think you're going to be way more coherent than I am off the cuff on this. You don't mind.
[1fMf4x8f4z0_SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. So, under the law, the court requires that a educational or religious institution must serve an edge like educationally significant or religious goal. and be the dominant purpose of the use. So if a religious institution like the church were to lease that land, if it's not a predominant use that supports a religious mission or educationally significant goal, it would not qualify for Dover protections under the law. So if it was a primarily residential building, it would not receive Dover protections and have to go through the standard process regardless of it being owned by a religious institution.
[Alicia Hunt]: And I think the big clarification, right, because there was this question came up with the Tufts dorm, because it was being developed by a private developer, but it was on land owned by Tufts, and it was being used by Tufts for Tufts housing, and only Tufts students, enrolled students may live there, which is why it serves the educational purpose, as opposed to if it was leased to a private developer and leased out the units leased to the general public, then it would stop being a Dover use.
[Matt Leming]: Council President Bears.
[Zac Bears]: I think just to further clarify on Christian's example and congratulations on defending your thesis and then coming to this meeting. It sounds like to go a step further, if the church was leasing a residential property you know, let's say they lease something, they built homes on it, and those were leased to the public, as Alicia said, for rent, that would not qualify, that would not be tax exempt. If they were built, you know, using that for housing of clergy members or of the church for the religious purpose, then that would continue to be Dover exempt. Similarly, so you slot an educational institution in there. If Tufts wants to rent to the public, that's not exempt, but if they want to house their own students, then that is. I'm seeing nods. All right. That's correct.
[Matt Leming]: All right. Thank you. Seeing nobody else, going to close public comment. Do we have a motion on the floor?
[Zac Bears]: Motion to...
[Emily Innes]: Before you put the motion on the floor, I just want to clarify for the next meeting of this body, we're going to have those revised boundaries. We're going to leave that Tufts question open. I do hope that people understand that the presentation was designed to answer a very specific set of questions from the previous meeting and not to put push debate in one way or the other. We just wanted to have that guidance. We will have the draft Boston Avenue zoning and then we will have, if not a draft of the tough zoning, at least sufficient kind of buckets for that zoning that we can have a conversation about that and have a conversation about direction. I really liked the idea of coming to the meeting on the 30th with some sort of summary from what we heard about from the work next spring, but also do want to acknowledge the point that we may have people who are showing up there for the very first time. So we will have a review of both the Boston Avenue and the Tufts area, and we're going to recombine the presentation. to address both of those. Just want to confirm that that's what we're looking for for the next meeting. So that we're preparing the right materials for you all.
[Matt Leming]: OK, thank you. Thank you. Do we have a motion on the floor?
[Zac Bears]: Motion to congratulate Christian on defending his thesis to keep the paper in committee and to adjourn.
[Matt Leming]: Second. on the motion to congratulate Christian on his thesis, keep the paper in committee, and adjourn. Mr. Clerk, he told me he gave me a private message saying his Zoom audio just went out. Rich, are you still there?
[Marie Izzo]: Yeah, I can hear you. I'm just on a delay with the YouTube. Got it. When you're ready, please go ahead. Give me one second. Yep. Councilor Callahan?
[Unidentified]: Yes.
[Marie Izzo]: Councilor Malayne?
[Liz Mullane]: Yes.
[Marie Izzo]: Vice President Lazzaro?
[Liz Mullane]: Yes.
[Marie Izzo]: President Bears? Yes. And Chair Leming?
[Matt Leming]: Yes. Five affirmative, none in the negative. The meeting is adjourned. Thanks, everybody.
[Zac Bears]: Thank you. Good night.
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