Historical Commission: Medford Square Historic Zoning Incentives - 2026-05-12

AI-generated summary. Written by gemini-3.8-flash from the transcript below, which is the record. It may be incomplete or wrong; it does not report votes. Every item links to the moment it began.

The commission reviewed historic preservation incentives and design review mechanisms incorporated in the newly approved Medford Square zoning ordinance. Updates were also provided on ongoing municipal preservation projects and recent architectural revisions to the proposed Tufts University swimming pool facility.

0:08 Medford Square Zoning Discussion — Doug Carr presented sections of the newly approved Medford Square zoning that incentivize historic preservation by offering dimensional waivers in exchange for design review, prompting discussion over how to resolve potential procedural conflicts with the city's demolition delay bylaw.
29:42 Vacant Seats and Onboarding — The chair reported ongoing efforts to solicit applicants for commission vacancies, while a newly appointed member provided an update on finalizing onboarding and swearing-in steps.
31:49 Project Updates — Hayward provided updates on various city projects, including Section 106 reviews, pending contracts for the Brooks Estate archaeological survey, tree clearing and plans for ground-penetrating radar at Thomas Brooks Park, stone and fence restoration work at Cross Street Cemetery, and ongoing neighborhood historic surveys.
40:05 Brooks Estate Parking Lot and Cemetery Expansion — Carr addressed neighborhood concerns regarding planned parking facilities at the Brooks Estate and the long-planned expansion of Oak Grove Cemetery.
46:21 Tufts Swimming Pool Design Revisions — Carr shared revised architectural drawings for the Tufts University swimming pool project that addressed previous design concerns by incorporating sawtooth windows and a glass vestibule to break up the brick exterior wall.
55:15 Meeting Minutes — The commission approved the meeting minutes.

[Vice Chair Ryan Hayward]: I'll call the meeting to order at 7.02 p.m. This is the meeting of the Medford Historical Commission, May 11th, 2026. We have a rather light agenda, so first up is the discussion of zoning. Doug, I believe you wanted to address the board and talk a little bit about the new zoning, Medford Square zoning, and how the Historical Commission plays a role into that.

[Doug Carr]: I do, yes. share something on screen. So just to give you the context here, the zoning in Medford Square was approved by both the Community Development Board and the Medford City Council just in the last couple of weeks. And that's a good thing. It was being worked on since early January when we started the process. And what's good about it is that if you recall, when we did Salem Street, when the Salem Street zoning was done more than a year ago, we put together a letter, said, you know, this zoning isn't really good because it didn't address any historical resources at the time. And so when we did that, It was not well received, but they passed it anyway.

And we said one of the things we're going to do this time when starting with Medford Square is to start putting in some historical protections with some teeth. And so I'm going to share a couple of pages from the final zoning that deal with historic resources and buildings. So it's just taking me a second to share. My computer is a little slow here today. Um, but basically this, this commission is part of the process. Um, you are going, we are going to be, uh, as long as we look at, at an approved, uh, sorry, I still can't get this to open.

So as long as there's a mechanism here that will allow the Medford Historic Commission to basically have design review for any changes that are done to buildings that we find significant, not perfectly preserved, just significant in Medford Square. And some of them already are. If they're on the National Register, they're on by de facto, they're already significant. So that's a non-issue. But what this means is that we need to spend some time and look at the buildings in Medford Square and determine which ones that we think are significant. Because if we do that, then what it creates is a situation where we can, you know, The developers who want to build or deal with the historic building, they'll have much more flexibility if they preserve the building.

The zoning that is often allowed is larger than what they can do now, but it comes with caveats. It comes with parking, setbacks, lot coverage, all kinds of things with zoning come with that. If we like the design or the adaptation of the existing building, or they add a floor like they did to the old Medford Cinema that we approved just a couple of years ago, we can waive all that. So we have the ability to give carrots, and the sticks are, if you want to tear it down, we're not going to let you build as big a building, and we'll require you to do parking. So there's a lot of incentives to preserve the building. re-imagine the building, add a floor to the building, keep the facade of a building in some cases, maybe that's all that will happen. That's not what I wanna start with, but that is an option.

So let me, I just got my document open, so let me share the screen, hold on a second. And I'll email this around as well, so you can read it on your own time. So, this is a 3-page out of about 20, I think, that the Community Development Board, it says here, made by special permit way the following requirements to incentivize the reuse of eligible historic structures. And it really just says what I talked about, dimensional standards.

Now, there's a couple of criteria here. It says that they could follow the the exteriors rehabilitated by the Secretary of Interior Standards for the Treatment of Historic Properties, which is a very strict requirement. Most buildings are not going to be able to follow that. That's the kind of thing you follow for you know, the Royal House and the Brooks Estate and things like that. But it says, or as approved by the Medford Historic Commission and Community Development Board, lot size, frontage, historic building coverage, et cetera. So all that is in play if we can just I'll go on the next page. If the Medford Historic Commission determines that the building or structure does not qualify as an eligible historic building, the building is not subject to the definition. But if it is, then all we do is find that building significant and this is the process they have to go through for that building. So, what we need to do, and we have all the Form Bs, Medford Square, and a Form A, is basically make a list of all the buildings that we care about. Think of, let's see, obviously, if you just go to Medford Square, in the heart of Medford Square, where the big oil building is, where Forest Street and Route 60, There is 5 different buildings on that corner, right? Think of the 2 low store 2 story buildings that are there right now. I think 1 has the real estate office. Another 1 has, I think, a restaurant.

Those buildings are zoned for higher. but we wanna preserve those buildings. So again, there might be an opportunity just like down the street at the Old Medford Cinema and say, okay, well, let's keep the building, see if we can add a few floors, make it a sympathetic design. We would have the approval for that design. It would go through here before it goes to the CD board. That's the process that we've set up in order to get basically de facto design review for historic buildings in Medford Square. And this is a template that we want to use throughout the city going forward. We didn't do it on Salem Street, but we're going to go back there and fix this. I think at some point, hopefully this year, but we're going to do it in Boston Ave. We're going to do it in West Medford. We're going to do it everywhere we can because we feel that we looked at a bunch of different zoning options with the consultant. It's really, really hard to actually prevent somebody, if they're willful, to tear down a historic building.

We've seen that here, right? If somebody really wants to do it and they wait out our 18-month demo delay, there's not much we can do. But if we can, you know, if they're going to build something new and it's only half as big as what they can build now, and we force them to put parking on the site, which probably doesn't fit, like it may become a de facto veto to doing that in many cases, because we're incentivizing saving the building through all these things that are listed on this new zoning. So let me pause there. That's a lot to digest.

If anyone has any questions, we can just open this up a little bit for discussion. I have something here.

[Vice Chair Ryan Hayward]: Yeah, I have a couple of questions. So, 1st, does the CD board charge to review buildings under their processes?

[Vice Chair Ryan Hayward]: Does the Community Development Board charge for projects reviewed under their authority? So this is a part of like the Medford Square zoning. So any project that has to come before you that would concern us in this process would be a project that they would have to apply for and pay for review in front of the CD board, correct?

[Doug Carr]: I'm not sure if they pay until they pull a building permit on the CD board. I'm not actually familiar with that. That's not part of our review process. Is that in fact the case right now for any building?

[Denis MacDougall]: Do you know? Yeah, sorry. Yeah, there is a fee for filing before the CD board. It's project dependent, so larger scale projects have one fee smaller. It's sort of a sliding scale in a way. It got changed maybe, it used to be just I think a flat fee and then they changed it a few years ago because it didn't make sense for a very small project and a gigantic project to be having the same fee.

[Denis MacDougall]: Yes. Okay. All right. Linkage only crops up on a certain, there's like a threshold for linkage as well. Yes.

[Doug Carr]: And those linkage fees are now being linked to, I believe, inflation, or we're raising them. They've been stagnant for about 30 years, I think, since they were created. And we're gonna raise them, I think, a certain percentage of a year based on a formula that we've worked out with the planning department. Other questions, Ryan?

[Vice Chair Ryan Hayward]: Yep. So on item C, effective ineligibility determination. So this sort of works both with the other item above that you have highlighted. So do you see this as a separate process from the demolition delay review or do you see that as triggered by that they would need to apply for demo delay review in order to get the determination of significance out of us. And I question that because, and Ines maybe should have picked up on this, it either has to be a separate process, or it has to be the demo delay process, it can't be both. One cannot eradicate the other. So for example, item E, if it's a separate process, it can't make it ineligible for the city's demolition delay process. But if it's the demolition delay process, then the findings either are or aren't.

It should just simply reference item three above should just simply reference the demo delay process.

[Doug Carr]: It's a good question. I'm not sure I have the answer, but I know that the intent here is that we do not have to wait to find building significant for them to put a demo. The anticipation and the discussion we've had over the last few months is that we find this stuff significant preemptively for things we care about. Starting in if it's square, we don't I don't want to wait. I want to find it significant so that it automatically kicks in this process. That's my understanding. It's a good question.

[Vice Chair Ryan Hayward]: So, yeah, it will matter because we can't apply the demolition delay. without consent from the owners. That's literally how we carry the process right now. So we can't initiate that without everybody's consent on any property that we push forward on. unless and if it's being necessitated by something like cpc we do those as they come this seems like it's a separate process but there it doesn't have to or should not reference the city's demolition delay review process and that part should be stricken from this zoning, do you see the conflict? Because it's a zoning procedure and if we find something is not, it's either significant or it's not, but what happens if they turn around and go to demo the building? Well, if we found that the building is not significant because it's not something we want to review at the time, it automatically, according to this, makes it ineligible for the demo delay. But that doesn't, that text doesn't override our text. You see the conflict here? So there's some KP law needs to figure out, or somebody needs to figure out how they all interplay, because that will, we cannot leave that out in the air until it, you know, for somebody to exploit a loophole.

[Doug Carr]: No, I see your points. And I think there has to be some there. And I'm not surprised that this would be the case, because this came up actually pretty late in the game. Only a couple of weeks before it was actually done. As you know, because we were looking at other things like overlay districts, we're looking at historic districts, which are still an option. You know, we don't, we're not precluded from doing a historic district in Medford Square. In fact, you know, you and I, Ryan and others, We've talked about that during this process as one of the tools that we have, but I thought this was the most powerful tool we have. We just have to make sure that it does not create legal ambiguity or contradictions between the existing process and this process. That's what you're saying, and I don't disagree with that.

make it preemptive. I want to basically like, you know, there's no, is there no, is there a reason we cannot find a dozen buildings in Medford Square that we care about significant right now if they're not already?

[Vice Chair Ryan Hayward]: It has to be under a separate procedure, right? So this is creating a separate review procedure that is not, because it's not, I want to get away from the the demolition portion of it. So for example, my recommendation would be, and we should probably, you know, and other members can chime in, they should go back and strike the reference to the city's demolition delay review and note that it's a separate process, even though it can use the same language as the demolition delay.

It should not reference it at all if it's a separate procedure. Then we're free to, because they're not asking somebody to demo, we're simply identifying the historic property when we're doing what we're allowed to do under MGL 40-C, I believe.

[Vice Chair Ryan Hayward]: Just the bottom one. The bottom one that references the city's demolition delay, I would remove that.

[Vice Chair Ryan Hayward]: Because then we're creating a separate procedure. And it, you know, removing that is not going to be as simple as, you know, you guys are going to have to talk it over and then the. Council's going to have to talk it over and it's going to have to go through the revision procedure again. But this affects other things that are happening in zoning. I don't know if they're just going to reference this once and carry it through neighborhood by neighborhood or if it's just going to be copy edited, but we'll start here in Medford Square.

[Doug Carr]: Ryan, are we saying if we strike this, but you're saying would you strike the whole E?

[Vice Chair Ryan Hayward]: Yep, I would strike the whole thing. That has nothing to do with the city's demolition delay review process. If the owner decides to apply for demolition, that's separate from the zoning procedure.

[Peter Miller]: I'd have to think about it more because I'm not sure. A high level, I think that it would be good to avoid conflicts between this part of the zoning and our demolition delay law. But I'm not sure I'm totally clear on the why's and the minutia of what bad could happen. So I'm just, I'm not 100% sure how to respond, because I'm not sure I fully understand the conflict, I guess. I can see that we don't want a conflict, because if there's a conflict, then it could result in probably the opposite of what we're trying to do by some method. So, you know, because The people who want to bypass stuff like this are clever, and they're good at exploiting loopholes.

[Vice Chair Ryan Hayward]: Right. The thing that I just want to point out is that Medford's Historical Commission's power to designate buildings significant or preferably preserved are triggered by an owner or a representative application.

[Vice Chair Ryan Hayward]: For a demo under chapter 48. This is under chapter 94. This is a given, a power given to us under chapter 94 for zoning, but I want to make sure that we're referenced in here. So we establish a procedure. It's a separate procedure from the demolition zoning. And it's clear that we're given this because usually zoning falls under you know, the CD board and the zoning board of appeals and the building department. We're new to this portion of the city's, you know, administration of buildings. So I just want to make sure that we're in there and that it doesn't conflict with chapter 48, which is the zoning, the demo delay stuff.

[Vice Chair Ryan Hayward]: Oh, sorry. I was just going to say that this chapter 94 should not override our procedure. It shouldn't reference our procedure at all. It's a separate procedure altogether that does something that helps zoning. But I want to keep those two apart.

[Peter Miller]: No, I agree. So I guess the other corollary question then that comes up for me just off the top of my head is that, looking at it from the other viewpoint, if we as a historical commission, uh, designate certain buildings in Medford square, wherever as historically significant or significant, um, would that, let's say going in the other direction automatically mean that we don't have that part of the process for, let's say somebody does file a demolition permit for one of these buildings or a part of one of these buildings. In other words, for us as a historical commission and our business, our administration of the demolition delays law, does that mean that it's significant for our purposes as well? Not just for zoning purposes, but for historical commission purposes as well. You see what I'm saying?

[Vice Chair Ryan Hayward]: Yeah, I mean, that's the conflict that I'm not really sure because once a finding is made, the way we interpret it with the demo delay is that that's in perpetuity. So, you know, the way that this is written is saying, oh, if we find the CVS building is not significant, that means that we can't review it for demolition in the future. you know, that that doesn't that doesn't jive when they're not when they haven't yet applied for demolition at all. So there's there's just issues that have to be sorted out. That's all.

[Doug Carr]: I agree, Ryan. I'm agreeing with both of this. There's definitely some clarity issues here, but I think You know, there's not going to be 2 different definitions of significant, right? It's going to be found significant. It's going to I believe it should apply in both cases in different context, different zoning chapters, different, but there's still there's not just there's not too significant. There's only 1 right.

[Peter Miller]: And what I think maybe it should be stated explicitly that. The ruling of significance applies to this zoning and it also applies to. you know, historical commission business or however you want to word it.

[Vice Chair Ryan Hayward]: Well, I, I, I don't know if I would do that because then what happens when we make determinations of significance for CPC, right? So it's the same, it's the same deal. What I would do is Doug, if you are going to make changes to this, my suggestion would be, has been, you know, item three up above could just simply say has been designated by the Medford historical commission as historically significant, uh, by definition and reference our definition in Chapter 48, so that if and when we make changes to the Demolition Delay Bylaw, it changes automatically by reference there, rather than having to hold yourself to a particular language.

is how they should have referenced that, because we have the same three. It's listed on the national register, listed on the state register, or blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But then if we decide to change that in the future, they don't have to go back and change this language. They can just say, oh, it's referenced in the demo delay process. if we're going to separate the two procedures, then they should leave this language here. So just, you know, something to keep in mind.

[Peter Miller]: Just to split hairs here for a second, so are you saying that we would find it significant for the, let's say, building Q on the wherever, on Main Street or whatever, or High Street, we find it significant but it's only for the purposes of zoning. Is that what we're doing? But it doesn't so that we would have to vote again. If a demolition application was filed, would we have to vote again for significance? If we already found it significant for this purpose, I guess is what I'm asking.

[Vice Chair Ryan Hayward]: That's a good question. We could just simply say, I don't have an answer there, but we could just simply say, oh, there's a determination on file for another procedure, so that it's clear we didn't act on somebody else saying, oh, you're going to demo this building, and then just say, OK, now you can move to, I guess if it was significant, you can move right to the public hearing. But, you know, so it sort of expedites.

You know, I just don't know. I don't know what we would do if we didn't have a determination of significance. I guess if we didn't want to do it, we would pass on review. But none of this item E here doesn't address what happens if the city passes on review, because that's not a determination. that's a pass, so it technically is not ineligible, right? So you see where I'm going with all of this, that like there's other things that need to be digested in here, but that's okay. We can do that while the city deals with Tufts zoning, right? So we should work on both of these, and then I guess we gotta see what they say about changes.

[Doug Carr]: Yeah. And, and I'm not even sure this has been, I mean, it's been approved, but I'm not sure it's actually been formally filed yet. You know, it's like, you know, there's, there's, there might be an opportunity.

[Vice Chair Ryan Hayward]: Did they do the three readings? Sorry. Did they do the three readings at city council?

[Vice Chair Ryan Hayward]: If they've done the 3 readings, then it's it's live. It may not be up online yet, but it's live. It's live at the 3rd reading. Oh, I can ask that. I'll ask that.

[Doug Carr]: Yeah, that's fine. Look, we, we want to basically, you know, if we, my intent here is we find something significant. So that when somebody comes before us, we've already predetermined that. but we also get another bite of the apple. If they bring a project to us and we haven't found it significant yet, we evaluate it just like our normal process, right? And that would, I think whether we did it now or two years from now, I believe it should still kick in this requirement, right? Because we're playing within, I think per your earlier comment, Ryan, there's two chapters we're dealing with here. There's chapter 94, right? And then there's the other chapters that we normally live within, right?

So, we have to coordinate them and make sure that they agree and don't contradict, but they are separate processes, but there's a lot of overlap. It is complicated. Okay, all right, so I definitely have some things to go back to for Ennis and Alicia and Danielle on the planning side. Other questions, Sarah, Luke, anyone else who, I mean, I'll email this around. This is not an urgent thing. We don't need to do this in a week. Um, we need to do it, you know, I think in the next month or so to kind of make sure we, you know, I'll talk to them about this, about the, the language refinements. Um, but if you, if you have any questions, this is the time to at least start the conversation.

[CAS00002523_SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, I don't right now, but I process better after I read things a few times.

[Doug Carr]: Okay, well, I'll email it around and you guys can take a look at it. And then we can continue this conversation, but I think once we get, I think we should be looking at, you know, starting to evaluate the buildings in Medford Square that we care about. I think that's something we shouldn't wait for any demo delays, which could take years. We should go right at it and say, these are the buildings we care about. I'll give an example like St. Joe's School. It's not going to be a school anymore after next month. That's going to be a redeveloped site. We want that to come before us, whatever changes they make. It could be a combination of preserving and teardowns and new buildings. We're going to have a say in that and I think that's really important for this group.

The city board is basically saying, you guys get the first bite at the apple as historic commission for historic buildings. They still have a role, obviously, they're not an important, but they want to hear our recommendations and opinions.

[Vice Chair Ryan Hayward]: Okay, thanks Doug for helping get that on the. on the zoning and in the zoning.

[Doug Carr]: I'm not surprised that it needs some tweaking. I think some of the language, this zoning is never meant to be carved in stone. Both the city council and the city board have agreed to revisit the zoning on a very regular basis. This is not going to be here for decades. Anytime we see a project that we get a result that may not be what we intended, they're going to go right back and look at that. I think that's the right approach.

[Vice Chair Ryan Hayward]: Okay, any other new business before I move on to old business? Okay, onto old business, vacant seats. I have nothing, but I think I'll ping the mayor's office to see if we can't get our press release out again to see if she'll target the commission. Again, we have new members and some outgoing members still, so I'd like to get a couple more, see if we can get a couple more applicants on the table.

[CAS00002523_SPEAKER_07]: Almost I did the so there's like four parts. There's a couple of forms I decide there's an ethics training thing that I did and then there's like the the Corey forum that I think just Proves that I was never an inmate or something like that So I I think I had to like apply for one of those and then I think I feel like once I can get that send it to City Hall, so I actually I emailed Lisa at City Hall and just confirmed that was the thing that I had to actually like have in hand before I get sworn in. Um, so if, if she gets back to me and says that, like, no, like I don't, then I'll just go and do it. But that's the last thing I'm waiting for. And those were just like the four things they asked me to do before going in.

[Peter Miller]: The Corey check and do the ethics training before you're sworn in.

[CAS00002523_SPEAKER_07]: Okay. Maybe, maybe I misinterpreted all that and I can just go, go do it then. Yeah.

[Vice Chair Ryan Hayward]: If you have your appointment letter, go see the clerk. You can be able to see him at any time. He, you know, they may ask you for ethics stuff. Just tell them it's in process.

[CAS00002523_SPEAKER_07]: Okay. Yeah. Cause I already did all the training stuff. I was just waiting for that form. So if maybe I just misread all those steps. So yeah, I'll, I'll do that then I guess.

[Vice Chair Ryan Hayward]: Yeah. OK, that's it for that. MHC, MHS rather. I haven't heard anything regarding the section 106, so I'd like to try to again chase down the consultant and maybe I'll do that through Community Development Office. Dennis, I'll reach out to see if we can't. work together to try to get them to respond, because I'd like to be a part of that process early on. So. But otherwise that's probably going to go silent. Our letter went out for the section 106 review on the South Medford bicycle connector. We'll see if the state responds at all. So that's it for that. I don't have anything on properties under demolition delay right now. Right now 41 Mystic and 16 Manning are just there hanging out.

Brooks Estate archaeological survey, the consultant sent us back a bunch of contract edits, so I believe Fiona released that today. So we're just waiting for the city to finalize the contract so we can get that out the door. Again, it's been taking forever. Thomas Brooks Park. I don't know if you guys have been by, but if you happen to drive by the park, it is very different. We did a lot of tree work. The neighbors have been generally supportive about how much is there. The biggest change was we did clear cut the area where the archaeological site is because there were numerous dead black locust trees there that were threatening the location. So we took them out along with invasive Norway maples. We did leave some. There's one gigantic tulip tree right in the middle there that's sort of historic and a couple of black walnuts. And, you know, we only did that area because we have a replanting plan for it with the archaeological cap. project that we had Peter Headland designed for us. So the mulch is spread on the paths, sort of giving the park some greater definition. The next thing that we'll end up doing is The feasibility study for all the crosswalks and whatnot, the engineering department asked us to do that. So now that this project's wrapping up, we should be good. The one thing that we may do as part of this now that the site is so wide open is We may do a one acre ground penetrating radar study of that particular location, because I believe, based on historic accounts, that there is an earlier 17th century house that stood right in front of Thomas Brooks's house. They were there briefly at the same time, and they burned down in the mid-19th century. 18th century, so it's quite possible that it's still there and there's a lot more stuff in the front yard of Thomas Brooks' house. So I'd like to do a larger survey there using a portion of the CPC money that we received for phase two, knowing that I won't need the whole amount that we would previously have used for sidewalk painting and all of that when we're just doing the feasibility study for it.

So that's going to be exciting because GPR is really non-invasive. They can get a much larger area. So we'll get to see both, hopefully, the house locations, if they're there, or any wells, or outbuilding foundations, things that are sort of hidden that right now are in the dark. So that's sort of exciting. That's planned for hopefully summertime, if I can get the city to move on contracts. Any questions on that?

[Vice Chair Ryan Hayward]: So the Thomas Brooks house was built in 1725, existed until 1865. The earlier house was his father's house. It's like 1690, 1700-ish and existed until about 1750. There was a fire and I suspect they did not rebuild it, probably because it was older. not as nice as the later 1730s house. And it was, there's various accounts. Some say it was, you know, 25 rods. Some say it was 25 yards. And there's a big difference between those two. Could have even been 25 feet. It's not uncommon to have 18th century houses close together. So, but we, I will say that when we were digging the front yard of the Thomas Brooks site, we were coming up with, tiny fragments of 17th century imported materials. So very, very tiny. So it's obvious that it had been plowed under for many years. But, you know, it's there. So that tells us that the site has the potential to have that.

So And hopefully the GPR survey comes back similar to what they did at the Royal House when they scanned Royal Park, they found all the paths and some wells and things like that, the driveway. So hopefully the same thing happens for our land, but we will see. Any other questions? And then Cross Street Cemetery, I managed to get the headstone project underway with Daedalus Consultants, Daedalus Conservation rather. I also was able to bid out the restoration of the iron fence and the fieldstone wall. Those are also going to be done by Daedalus, so that is, the project's complete. And I have some additional money, so we'll be doing ground penetrating radar at the front of the cemetery site there. to determine whether or not that space is full or not, and to be able to find a clear space for the Veterans Department to put a flagpole in that area in the future.

That should take care of the last of the CPC funding, and we're hiring Fannin Laner to clean 20 additional stones beyond those that are being conserved by Daedalus. So, good use of CPC funding. Public bidding actually helped us there, got costs down and was able to do more out of it. So, it's great news all around. For the survey project, Hastings Heights is plugging along. We got some of the inventory forms. We have some additional funding left in our budget, so we're likely to spend that on an extension of that project. MHC has promised us an additional $6,000 if we pony up four, so I'm just waiting for them to get the contract for the extension so that we can lock that money in and get a few more inventory forms for that neighborhood.

I haven't heard anything on the start of the Brooks Estate project, but that'll be coming. But normally it starts around this time, and they haven't even put out a call for the meeting of people. I'll keep you guys posted as that project gets started.

[Vice Chair Ryan Hayward]: No, no, no. That's the survey of the Brooks Estate neighborhood. So that's the neighborhood just on the west side of the railroad tracks and some of the stuff on the east. And that's it for general projects that I've got. Any other things? Doug, you're working on the parking lot at the Brooks Estate?

[Doug Carr]: Yeah, there's been, I've heard from Jen that there's been some rumblings that for I give a better term about the idea of building a parking lot of the Brooks estate even a partial smaller one which has been in the master plan for over 15 years and has it's just been you know essentially always been there and and some there's been a couple of loud folks on on Grove Street who are objecting to it they're also objecting to the cemetery expansion which was for better and worse, was set in stone 30 years ago when the Brooks Estate was created as an actual entity. It was cemetery land before 1997. So both of those things are, you know, they have been in the process for decades, but some people just don't want a parking lot or the cemetery to expand, but that ship sailed decades ago. We're just trying to answer people's questions and tell them what's possible and what's not possible. But there's no, you know, the economic engine of the Brooks Estate has always been the carriage house as a multi-purpose function facility. And you have to have some parking there. We have as small as we could, 50 spaces over two phases. And if you don't do that, there's no carriage house and there's no Brooks Estate long-term solution that's financially viable. So that's just a fact of life. It may just be an unpleasant fact.

[Vice Chair Ryan Hayward]: I think it would be very helpful, and I may have said this before, I think it would be very helpful if your easement holders wrote even a small letter supporting the project. Obviously, they have approved the project, so they endorse the project, but I think having that public statement saying, for example, somebody is honorable as the, it's the trustees of reservation that has your conservation easement, right?

[Doug Carr]: Yeah, and DCR is also involved. We're actually meeting with them tomorrow to just talk about a few details because they haven't looked at the plans in a couple of years. They've approved the project conceptually. They did that years ago. We have a letter from 2011, I think, that actually gives us, you know, because that's when we completed the detailed, you know, it was kind of a first pass at the Access Drive and submitted the plans to them back years ago. So I can request that. It's a great idea. I agree with that.

[Vice Chair Ryan Hayward]: Yeah, and I think people should just be aware that modern changes are a part of making a site viable. I look at how successful the sites are, for example, the Trustees and the Crane Estate. There's parking there that wasn't originally there. There's features there that make the site much more accessible. And DCR can say the same thing about their properties. They have the historic curatorship program where some of their buildings have or previously residential turns, you know, use. It's just a fact of life that you have to have some changes in order to, you know, in order to make the site better and more accessible for the public. But also, you know, some of those come with mitigation, which you're doing through landscaping and, you know, restoring the building and making, you know, the overall site more accessible.

[Doug Carr]: So I couldn't agree more. And honestly, the cemetery expansion is going to be a challenge because it's going to be a design challenge. We want to integrate it into the landscape. We don't want it to feel like a piece of the Oak Grove Cemetery was dropped in the middle of the estate, the seven acres that was segregated for the Oak Grove Cemetery expansion back in the 90s. We want to have the trails path across the path. It wants to feel integrated into the landscape, like an open meadow. There are flat headstones. There's things we can do.

[Vice Chair Ryan Hayward]: Yeah, I'm less concerned about that. I think based on the preliminary cost estimates for the development of that site. and that could just be it may have changed and maybe they had to reel it back but the initial cost estimates based on the number of site burial sites they were not a one-to-one break-even it was a far exceed development cost so really it will come down to I think honestly the residents are going to end up having to decide whether that is The city's going to go forward with as much planning as they can, but ultimately, it's going to be the residents that decide that or decide the priority like, do they want a new facility building that's been renovated or new versus expanding into the seven acres? That's part of the difficulty. All of those projects come up against a new fire station, a new Medford High School.

You know, I'm project sort of doting along, but I don't I don't think it's I think it's going to hit a roadblock at some point.

[Doug Carr]: It could. It is, it's a challenge because even if it goes forward, it only buys the Oak Grove Cemetery about, what, 10 or 15 years, and then it's done.

[Vice Chair Ryan Hayward]: Well, the question, yeah, the question is, what is the cost to develop that site, and what is the income come out of it, and can the city just simply, for example, if that number was, say, $5 million or something like that, let's just say it costs $5 million to develop that site, okay? Could the CPC just buy the land from the city for conservation for $5 million over multiple years and therefore they don't have to spend a dime, right? This is something they don't have to spend a dime. It goes all towards endowment of the existing site. And yes, you're still left with the problem of what do you do with the burials, but you know, they've made their money there and, you know, the city doesn't have to take any risk of losing money out of it. So just, you know, we, we have to look into that.

[Doug Carr]: It's going to be a long process, Ryan. You're not wrong about that.

[Peter Miller]: Doug, I had one other question for you. You were going to talk about the, the tough swimming pool.

[Doug Carr]: It's actually good news. Ron, are there any other items you need to go over? Nope. OK, let me share my screen again. So I conveyed the general, without naming names, the general dissatisfaction, I guess is how I'd say, for the design. Let me just second.

[Peter Miller]: And that was at a? Community Development Board meeting? It was, yes.

[Doug Carr]: Yeah, they did a couple of really interesting things. There was a lot of pushback. We said, I pushed hard. I said, you really need to do something on this. It was the 300 foot long blank brick wall. If you remember, they originally had this giant tufts written in brick. It was very negatively perceived. But I got to give the architects credit. They did a great job. They created this saw tooth. Windows that still prevents a foul ball from hitting it from the nearby baseball field, but it brings light in and it just it just obviously gives shadow and relief, which is what we were asking for. So I thought this was a really positive move.

I think they did a good job in this facade. And they also turned the entrance vestibule, which is a very blocky, solid mass, into a glass box. And you can kind of see it on the lower left of the screen. I have other renderings here that show it better. But I think the design really, I was impressed just how how much it was approved by these small moves. And it's not approved yet. We had a meeting last Wednesday. I think the people are good with the site or the plan, the architecture, the parking is its own issue because remember Tufts doesn't really have per building parking. They have campus parking and they have garages and they have lots. And so that's not, we kind of got past that. There was still a final open issue and that they didn't submit the final elevations to match these drawings or the floor plans because they were done so quickly. They only had two weeks, maybe it was three weeks, and there just wasn't time to get everything lined up. The location of some of the crosswalks and safety features on College Ave were still an open issue. I think a week from this Wednesday will be the final meeting where I believe it will be approved with conditions that they all are. But I think this is a much better building, and I told Tufts that as well when they showed it.

[Vice Chair Ryan Hayward]: Do you think they might be willing to do nice interpretive panel. They got that nice-ish area off to the left, which I believe you said is the glass box vestibule for the entrance. They have all that brick along there, which would be great if maybe we could find a way to incorporate an interpretive panel that talks about what that site was. It's actually, you know, it's really important. It's part of the Stearns Estate. It's brick yards, and actually kind of ironic that they're using brick, because I think that's a great tie-in.

[Doug Carr]: Yeah, it's a good question, Ryan. I think they'd be open to it, but it probably would be a standalone sign. It wouldn't be on the building itself if I had to guess. They're pretty opinionated, and rightly so, about keeping the building kind of their branding clean. But if we said we want to tell people about the history of the site, I think Rocco and Tuss would be open to that. OK. But do we actually have that information actually handy? We have to create that, obviously, right?

[Vice Chair Ryan Hayward]: Yeah, it's not handy, but there's lots of information out there. I'm sure Tufts has, if they dig into their archives, photos of some of those areas. we can look at, I would sort of consider it what we did in Medford Square for the plaza, sort of a, you're standing here and this site relates to, you know, what is the Brown and Brew? What is the George Luther Stearns Estate? What is, you know, College of, you know, and the history of the, you know, Tufts and the Green Line, Tufts Station, all those things can be told through that particular location.

[Doug Carr]: Yeah. This is the front view. with the glass box, and you can see that it's not as oppressive with the windows glowing at night. So I think it's gonna be, I mean, it's a very modern building, very stark, but I think they did a good job. You can really see into that building now. It does glow and it does wash around. The perimeter of the building has, I think, a nice little glow from the windows. But, you know, the south facade, you got to be careful with that, obviously, with the swimmers.

So it circulates. It's much better, I think. I think so. And they did it fast. One of the challenges, and we're having a conversation with Tufts, obviously, about zoning, but not this time. We're doing Boston at first, then Tufts. We separated out Tufts from Boston F. So there's a little bit of time on Tufts. But they're going to be breaking ground on this in June. Really? Wow. Yes, because the students are away. It's going to take two years to build, a little less than two years.

But what that means is they've been essentially bringing us 100% construction documents to these approval meetings. That is not good faith because we should be seeing stuff a lot earlier so changes can be easier. They've got CDs here and they've got to make significant changes to a CD set. Think of how many hundreds of drawings there is for consultants, structural, MEP, electrical. We need to see schematic design and conceptual design. Not CDs. And that's what this is.

[Doug Carr]: Yeah, but I think that's one of the reasons, you know, the dorm building on Boston Ave was, I mean, they started, they broke ground on that pretty quickly after it was approved. They had that one in the can too. So they had no incentive to really change anything. You know, they took a very hard stance because they had a schedule and they had a developer and it's a PPP with, you know, national housing developer. So we gotta, and I told Rocco this, not in the public meeting, I told them separately, I said, look, we gotta have a better dialogue here and it needs to start earlier so that we can let you know when there's an issue and not have you running around like a chicken with your head cut off.

[Vice Chair Ryan Hayward]: Good, good stuff happening. Any other new business? Old business that I forgot? Okay. Hearing none. Meeting minutes? Peter sent around stuff. Any questions, comments, concerns? Otherwise, I'll take a motion to approve.

[Vice Chair Ryan Hayward]: Okay, great. Did I miss anybody? No. That's it. Okay. Yeah, it's weird not having Janet here. Okay, motion passed 4-0. Okay.

[CAS00002523_SPEAKER_07]: Oh, that's right. No, sorry. I just, I just went along. I just went along with it.

[Vice Chair Ryan Hayward]: It's three. It's still four to zero because in that case I have to make up the quorum. So, um, so Peter, it's a yes from me. So it's four zero.

[Vice Chair Ryan Hayward]: Uh, okay. Motion to dissolve the meeting. And I will second that because I can. I'll go around the room. Peter?