[Zac Bears]: Special joint meeting, Medford City Council and Community Development Board, June 24th, 2026 is called to order. Mr. Clerk, please call the roll for the City Council.
[Rich Eliseo]: Councilor Kelly. Present. Councilor Leming.
[Matt Leming]: Present.
[Rich Eliseo]: Councilor Malaney. Councilor Scarpelli.
[SPEAKER_26]: Present.
[Rich Eliseo]: Councilor Tseng is absent at the moment. Vice President Lazzaro. Present. And President Pierce.
[Zac Bears]: Present, six present, one absent. The meeting is called to order for the city council. Chair Carr.
[Doug Carr]: Thank you, President Bears. I'll call the roll call for the Community Development Board. John Anderson is absent. Sean Began? Present. Page Buldini? Present. Dina Calagaro? Present. Ari Gothman-Fishman? absent at the moment and Doug Carr present. So we have four, four present, two absent at the moment. We're expecting RA remotely.
[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Chair Carr. Meeting is called to order. Hearings 26093 public hearing proposed amendments to the Medford zoning ordinance, Boston Avenue neighborhood corridor district. So this is our I think third full public hearing, I think fifth meeting where it's at least been discussed in both of our bodies respectively for the proposed amendments to the Boston Avenue Neighborhood Corridor District. This would create a new district here in our city with three sub-districts along Boston Ave and is a mixed use corridor designed bring more vibrancy, mixed uses to the Boston Avenue neighborhood in the hillside. So what we're going to do tonight, I know the Community Development Board met last night and discussed some further changes to the proposed zoning amendment. The order of tonight is we will hear a presentation from Director Hunt from the PDS Department about what was discussed last night in the Community Development Board meeting. Then we will go to a presentation from Innes Associates, which will focus on the heights and boundary proposals for the three sub-districts. Much of what was discussed last night to my understanding is the definition of purpose-built student housing, so that's what the first presentation will be. Then we will ask clarifying questions, members of the boards, but we won't get into the deliberation quite yet. But if you have questions about the presentations, those are welcome. If it's, here's my opinion about the options, we're not gonna go there yet. Chair Carr and I talked about that, but he can talk about it as well. Then we will go to public comment so that members of the public will have seen the presentations. We will have asked our clarifying questions. Members of the public will be able to comment on the presentation and the proposal. And then after that, we will then have deliberation and discussion about essentially those remaining questions and decide where we want to go from here in terms the public hearing, does it close or continue, and what are the next steps for this proposal? Chair Carr, if there's anything you'd like to add.
[Doug Carr]: No, I think you covered it very well. I think we should dive into the presentations as quickly as possible so we can get this process moving.
[Zac Bears]: Great. I will then recognize PDS Director Alicia Hunt, who will share the update from last night's meeting. And then we will go to Emily Innis after that. And I do see Councilor Scarpelli, your mic's request is on? Oh, okay, great. All right. Floor is yours, Director Hunt.
[Alicia Hunt]: Good evening all. Thank you very much. May I just ask permission to share screen. I think I'm going to need to do that. So the board had a four hour meeting last night and went through a lot of details in the zoning and we've provided a red lined cop. There was a cop aversion in the packet V5 and we provided a red line copy to President Bears last night for this. I think that I'm going to start by sharing the red line copy, but I think that in the end, it'll be easier. So there's two main things. So actually, let me, sorry, I'm a little turned around. The board set aside heights, setbacks, dimensions overall to wait until here, the presentation that you are all going to hear tonight. So that is not part of what we discussed last night. The other things that we, Talked about was actually it was predominantly the student the purpose-built student housing But I'm gonna start actually just there was one other as I opened up my document and remembered the beginning of our meeting last night there was one other thing that was A change that I think is worth flagging there had been discussion of the amount of allowed required parking. And so the board was recommending that along Boston have in these new zones that the. Required parking is one spot per dwelling unit in all the zones for all the housing types that are allowed in the zones. So I just wanted to. That's one recommendation. There were a couple in the use table of just changing whether things were CDP or no. Most of this was based on recommendations that was received previously skip over the dimensions. And the next really significant thing was that we really talked about these purpose-built student housing. And since no members of the, here, I'm going to make this easier, sorry. No members of the public have really seen, sorry, I'm trying to do a find. All right, I don't know why it's not letting me find in my file, purpose-built, has seen the definition. So what I'd actually like to do is what I'm sharing is the red line version. But I think that I should start actually by sharing a clean copy so that people aren't focused on the changes that the board made to what in this associates wrote but rather that we are looking at the. rather we're looking at the text as it's intended to be read by a member of by somebody reading the zoning. So I'm just going to share. This is the right version of it. OK. So the recommended so the language is that a definition A building not owned or operated by a college or university that contains bedrooms primarily for students. Student residents must be enrolled in an accredited post-secondary educational institution. Bedrooms may be arranged around a common area with a kitchen, which is shared by individuals renting the bedrooms, or along a hall which provides access to a common kitchen space. Other shared or common facilities include sanitary, bathing, recreation, laundry, mail package rooms, storage, trash, and recycling, bicycle storage, and vehicular parking. Bedrooms shall be rented on an annual basis or for an academic semester or a summer term. Accessory uses may include fitness facilities, pools, parking areas, and similar facilities. A lodging or boarding house is not a private dormitory, nor is a rental of single-family homes to students. Now the way that this is sort of, this would actually be regulated by use standards. And so now I'm gonna go down to in the document, the use standards purpose built. Sorry. So these are the standards for it. Let me reset. In addition to meeting all other standards of this article, the requirements of this section shall comply with the following standards. So it would be within a mile of this college or university and I'll just state that all of the Boston Ave area that we have been looking at is within a mile. At this time the use table is only yes or it's CDB. So special permit CDB in the BA3, and it's currently no in the other zones. But we wrote this just in a way that if somebody tried to use it in another zone, this would, we felt this would cover that, those uses as well. But we were not recommending it in the BA1 or 2 areas. So we start with a minimum number of beds, no fewer than 150 beds, and no more than two beds per bedroom. And the intention here is that it needs to be large enough to really support a professional management company, and we didn't want somebody who was trying to make a quick buck just cram a lot of students into a building and say, look, I've got an on-site manager, and it not be really well done. And no more than two beds per bedroom. We all reminisced about experiences with colleges trying to cram three, four, and five students to a bedroom. And we didn't want people making a profit on that. That the building would have on-site professional management, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, including holidays. and that a management team shall include a property manager, an assistant manager, resident assistants, maintenance staff, and security in numbers sufficient to staff the property. The annual certificate of occupancy. So most buildings only need a certificate of occupancy upon coming online. This would need it annually reviewed. And the application shall include a sworn statement by the owner or authorized manager that the percentage of students enrolled in a university in Medford or Somerville to other residents, where other residents shall not be more than 20%. And I did want to clarify that. We could say that it had to be 100% students, but what we wanted to avoid was the idea that somebody was taking a semester off or they were having trouble paying their bills and they weren't actually enrolled until the last possible minute. And you may know that universities will kick kids out of the dorms for that. You withdraw partway through the semester. You get kicked out. We wanted to allow that those sorts of situations could occur and could stay. The other piece was conceptually that. These have to be students enrolled in a university in Medford or Somerville. But what if you had a good friend enrolled in Northeastern and you wanted to live with them and share an apartment? This would actually be allowed, but only on a small numbers. This would not be a flood of Boston students living in Medford, but it would allow for some exceptions. And then we talked about the fact that there are staff, particularly things like postdocs, who might actually want to stay on in the dorm where they lived when they were a graduate student. So this doesn't say an undergraduate student. You could be a graduate student. And so you might, as a postdoc or a newly graduated student, stay on for a while in the building, but only up to 20%. And that's a negotiable number, but it seems like a rational number. And we looked at that, and we said, well, if it was a 200-person dorm, 200 people, that would be 40 people in the dorm. could be not currently enrolled in Medford or Somerville University. And then the statement would also then go on to talk about the conformity with the operations and management plans, names and telephone numbers of the manager, assistant manager, a 24 by 7 contact. Last night we discussed annual fees for the certificate of occupancy. And I think actually upon consideration Danielle and I were discussing we should say that there will be an annual fee to be set by the Community Development Board. We think these numbers are reasonable but we don't like putting fixed numbers in the zoning so that if it seems that this isn't really covering our costs for review we could change them without actually having to change the zoning. And then an operations and management plan has to be presented. And so it is, it says before the hearing with the CDB, that's because this is only through CDB special permit this would be allowed. And that plan would include, I could read it through a bit, locations of entrances and exits, security plan, hours of operations for the staff, including non-residential uses. Any non housing uses on the site would be listed noise control plan location of parking and loading for residents visitors delivery moving centers a waste disposal plan a description of the duties and responsibilities of the staff member by title and a copy of the resident conduct policy and a sample lease agreement. So all that would be given to the city before this building gets approved. And then we said there needs to be a thought about how this could be converted to regular multifamily housing in the event that, you know, it's not working and they feel they need to sell it, et cetera. And so they can't have a gradual transition. It has to be a decision that they make and they have to apply to convert to non-student housing. And if they change the title, that that would be part of it. A change in more than 20 percent of the ownership entity could happen, or if the lease was assigned to another entity. There would be a hearing at the CDB where there would be material compliance with the approved operation and management plan, or that these are the reasons why it might convert, or that the property no longer meets the definition of purpose built student housing. If those things happened, the property would then be subject to all the applicable provisions of the Medford zoning ordinance. I thought it said including inclusionary housing, but I think we just said all the applicable provisions, which All of them include inclusionary housing. So at that time they would need to, if you converted this to be a regular apartment building, you'd have to meet our inclusionary housing standards and affordable housing at that time. I'll just stop there. That's basically our presentation from last night. The one other thing that we discussed in detail, well, honestly, it was after four hours, so it was not in that much detail, was the problem with the development incentive bonuses around affordability. And we have discovered that at low numbers, when there are lower numbers of units, these numbers People can play the game with this. There are loopholes. And we're not okay with those loopholes. And we need to figure that out. And we have not had the opportunity to fix the math on this. So what we did is identify that that is a problem. And Danielle, those were the highlights from last night, correct? There were a couple. Yeah, there were a couple of things on the use table where we recommended CDB or basically whatever had been previously approved by this group, we didn't even discuss. We just said that was approved and decided. And then there were some recommendations from the public on the use table. And I would have to flip to the redlined version if people wanted to see that. There were a couple of recommendations that people seemed to be pretty comfortable with.
[Zac Bears]: Great. Well, let's pause there for clarifying questions on this first half of the presentation, then we'll move to the second half of presentation with Emily and Paula. Do we have any clarifying questions from members of the council on what was discussed last night? Councilor Scarpelli.
[George Scarpelli]: Thank you and thank you for the board for putting together such detailed information. I think it's very important. I think that the questions that we hear over and over again that I would assume it doesn't need to be in, but just to be mentioned that the whole sorority fraternity process is in part of this process and Tufts University at this time doesn't have any fraternities or sororities. What I've been told I think that this is making sure that that is expressed and the community understands that process as we move forward. And I know that talking to a few of directors at different colleges, they mentioned that having some sort of process where any student that's brought into these housing opportunities, that they are to follow the guidelines of their specific university. So there's another layer of protection and another layer of policing per se that that there's an opportunity for maintenance of order and oversight. So I don't know if that's possible, but I thought that that was something that I wanted to share that as you move on to this process, I think the residents wanted to know how do we protect their interests when it comes to a development like this. So whatever that's worth, to share the the input that I've received from, you know, different members of academia that likes the idea but making sure that even though there's a management team in place but also having a tie-in to the actual accredited university they belong to that they also need to follow their accredited rules and bylaws. So, if that's possible, that'd be great. If not, we understand. Thank you.
[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Councilor Scarpelli. Director Hunt, if you could talk a little bit more about just the difference between the dormitory sorority fraternity and this and also maybe a little bit about, I know there were several conditions in the use, conditions of use. How would something like what Councilor Scarpelli was asking about fit into that if possible?
[Alicia Hunt]: I think I can follow this. So one other recommendation that we had is that I don't know if people have noticed but throughout all of our zoning dormitory fraternity and sorority house have all been lumped in one line together. And we actually don't think that's appropriate. We actually would like to see those split out by we I should say the board. I am not a decision maker on the board I'm just speaking for them. So we think dormitory should be a line. And whether that should have a no or a special permit CDB in each of these zones I think is open for discussion is basically what the board said. They thought that maybe it could be CDB special permit in BA1 and no in the others. But they were not led to that. That was sort of... where you kind of landed out, and they felt that given the public feedback, the discussion, it was better fraternity and sorority just said no across the board. And we actually went and looked at Tufts' webpage on fraternities and sororities, and it actually says that they would be located in Somerville. It never mentions Medford for them. To get a little bit at what you're saying, typically if there's a building that is a fraternity or sorority house, it is either owned by a university or by a national organization at this point. At this point, I can't imagine that any group of students could purchase a building in Medford. They just can't afford it. We I would recommend that our definition of fraternity and sorority across the board be altered to say recognized by a university. So what does happen and you will see longtime buildings owned by the National Organization of the Fraternity and not by the university. But if the university stops recognizing the organization, then that's a signal to the city that we don't want them in that building anymore either. So if we say in our zoning, you must be recognized by the university, then that puts that layer of university oversight in place. At this time, they're not allowed anywhere in our zoning, I believe. I'd have to triple check that, but we're not recommending to allow it. So we don't think it really needs to be addressed at this time but rather to go on the list of definitions that should be modernized. Does that get at your questions?
[George Scarpelli]: Again, I think that the more oversight, the more layers for protection for the residents, the better. I like that that has to be a special permit and tying it in. I don't mind completely separating it and saying we just don't allow fraternities, sororities, and medford. If you want to go to Somerville, go to Somerville. It's fine. So I'm fine with that.
[Alicia Hunt]: I will say in all transparency, in my past, I have been the facility core president for a sorority located at MIT. So I have actual direct experience with this. So I think that it can absolutely be managed. But I don't think it's necessary to go there at this time.
[George Scarpelli]: All right. Thank you.
[Zac Bears]: All right. Do we have any other clarifying questions by members of the council? Seeing none in person or on Zoom, we'll go to Chair Carr for questions, clarifying questions.
[Doug Carr]: Yes, sir. Thank you, President Bears. Go ahead, Sean.
[Sean Beagan]: Yeah, I just wanted to pick up on what Councilor Scarpelli had just said about oversight. So the way we tried to craft this regulation in regards to the purpose-built student housing specifically was to put in a tremendous amount of oversight. And the certificate of occupancy in this case, whereas Director Hunt said typically you just get one certificate of occupancy when your building's ready to open. In this case, your certificate of occupancy actually has to be renewed every year. You have to make certain representations to the city, so now you're on record that your building's in compliance. And there's a procedure in the regulation such that if we find that you're out of compliance, you can be brought back before the CDB and potentially lose your certificate of occupancy, similar to losing, say, a liquor license. We did try to be very mindful of that because this is a new use and we want to be, everyone to kind of be rest assured that there's going to be proper management which comes from the size of the building. It has to be big enough that they can afford to have proper management and staff. And the regulations kind of hopefully keep them honest and require quite a bit of information from them more so than if someone was building an apartment building, you know, There's management plans and things that are required here that wouldn't be required for someone just building an apartment building. So I think we tried to be thoughtful in this and do a thorough job. And as Director Hunt was going through it, I thought it actually read pretty well on the screen, better than I remembered it. Yeah.
[Doug Carr]: Thank you, Sean. Anyone else in the city board have any questions for Director Hunt? I mean we were all there last night for four hours so I think we know what's in there. Oh, Tina.
[Dina Caloggero]: I was just thinking about this when I was reading it on the screen. I don't know if it goes in the regulations or the standards, but I know for my job, I handle licensing. It's like my real job. One of the things we do is there's always a period of renewal to allow for the certificate of occupancy to be renewed and make sure the payment is in place, because we don't want a delayed payment. We don't want to run into problems if there are issues regarding the renewal of the occupancy agreement. So that's one of the things that will need to be addressed. The other thing I'm going to take up on Councilor Scapelli is that there also may be some type of memorandum or We need some legal help here, but with the universities to comply with the Code of Conduct as well. I totally agree with that. That makes good sense and it provides another god rail to ensure that it is a very well-managed facility. Those are my two comments. Thank you.
[Doug Carr]: Thank you, Dina. Ari, do you have any questions online?
[Ari Fishman]: I do not. Thank you.
[Doug Carr]: Very good. You're all set. Okay. Director Honda, I think we're all set from the city board.
[Zac Bears]: Great. All right. Well, let's move into the next piece of presentation. We'll hear from our Innes Associates or Innis land strategies group. I'll get there eventually team about the heights boundaries and those kinds of scenarios that they have drawn up. And then we will have further clarifying questions, not necessarily deliberation or please not deliberation. And then we'll go to the public for comment on these two presentations. So Emily and Paula, the floor is yours. And the mic is yours. And we do have the air on in here. So if we could just try to get the mic as close to our as possible. Thank you.
[Emily Innes]: Good evening. For the record, Emily Keyes Ennis of Ennis Land Strategies Group. I'm here with my colleague, Paola Ramos-Martinez, who is our Chief Resilience Officer, and I am just setting this up so we can actually see the entire presentation. And it doesn't want to do it properly. Okay, hang on.
[Zac Bears]: There we go.
[Emily Innes]: I'm just going to move it through so we have a full screen. So excuse that. So one thing I did want to call out for anybody who is at home and wants to zoom in, we do have the interactive map up. Here is the link and there's a QR code. So I'll just hold there for two seconds to give everybody a chance. to pull that up, and then I'm going to just very quickly remind everybody that we had the boundary changes, so if we need to get back, we do have the map showing all of those, but what you want to hear about is the heights. So at the end of the last meeting, we had developed roughly three scenarios for each of BA1, BA2, BA3. I'm going to take them through thumbnails so you can see them side by side, and then individually, we actually added a fourth scenario for clarification purposes after the working group meeting, and I also have the shadow studies for each of those. They move very quickly, so what I'm going to do when we get there is I'm going to show the whole thing, and then I will go through and do my best to pause at the right places. That's an overview starting with BA1 and I don't know why it is doing that. Starting with BA1 we have option A which is three stories base with one incentive. Option B four stories base with one incentive. Option C is three plus one with four plus one on the corners. I'm gonna give all sorts of caveats for BA1 because what we tried to do is pick parcels that, in theory, could be assembled, that had the right depth to show a mixed-use building. A mixed-use building is typically for a double-loaded corridor, which means a central corridor with units on either side, has a minimum depth of 60 feet, so we had to pick Lots that might accommodate 60 feet and we are making all sorts of assumptions about how parking might or might not be accommodated on site. So that is to say what you see here is a test merely to show what the height differentials could look like and not something that could necessarily be built as shown under most conditions. So with that with that caveat. The three plus one story so Boston Avenue coming down here from the upper left to the lower right will be similar for all three of these. Winthrop Street coming from sort of lower center up to the upper right hillside hardware location is here. Apologies to anybody who owns these properties, but again, just remember that this is a test. So with this, what you'll see is the ground floor is in this reddish pink. That is an assumption that it is commercial, just for anybody who hasn't seen these before. The darker yellow on top take us to the base height of three stories, and then the paler color in all of these is going to be the incentive, so in this scenario, it is a plus one incentive. For option B, you see the four stories plus one incentive. That one incentive is now at five stories, so you get the step back for the fifth story again, and that step back is from a principal street, so you see it in the front along Boston Avenue, and then on Winthrop, where you have a second frontage for some of these buildings, you then see it stepping back on the side as well. And then finally for option C, this option was to keep the 4 plus 1, so the 4 base stories and the 1 incentive story on the corner, and then the 3 stories on areas that are not, so the 3 plus 1 on areas that are not on corners. So with that, this is the first of the shadow studies, and we're showing them on two dates, February 21st from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., and then the second one, and I'll come back to it in a second, will be to show it in June. So this is the first one, and you're going to see it zip right on through, and then I will come back and pause, excuse me, at certain times so you get a better sense of what that looks like, but right now it's just on that. loop see the shadows coming in and then now I'm going to stop it so that you can see this one is roughly at 12 p.m. it's 11 53 on February 21st. I'm going to move it forward so that we can see it at one o'clock and stop there move it forward so we can see it at two o'clock and stop there and so you can see the shadows starting to creep over the rail line area and then stop it if I can because it flips off before you think but stop it roughly at three o'clock So you can see them stopping there. And so in this case, for most of the buildings that we're looking at, both the existing, which are in white, or our tests, which are in the yellow and red, most of them are along the rail line. I think this one last building here, where there's a little bit of an angle to it, it's starting to creep into these smaller buildings on the other side of the rail line. So I'm going to stop that one and escape out of it. And then this one, let me just escape out of that too, because I already said this is the same three plus one, June 21st, showing it from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., obviously with the summer hours. And of course, this would be this, the nice thing about it is this is this week. So you get a sense of what that would be like. It was just a couple of days ago. Again, let it roll through quickly, and then I will stop it at the right points. And we can just see where it is. And so you see a little bit longer shadows as we head to the evening. So let me stop this at 12 o'clock. Pause that there. If it wants to pause. So you see at noon, really not that much shadow. And then let's pause it at 2. I said pause it at 2. So that's 3 now. And then we're going to go to 4. roughly five, just after five, and then just after six. You can see in the summer the shadow profile is very different. The shadows are actually creeping along the rail line and don't have the same angle that a winter shadow would have. So what we did is we did this for the shortest and the tallest height so we didn't have 30 different scenarios. So let me show you with the 4 plus 1 option. Again this is February. See it all the way through. And then I'm going to stop it. here at just about 12 o'clock. Again, high noon, you don't get very much shadow. And as we already discussed, you don't get a lot of shadow in the morning on the Boston Avenue side because of the sun angle. This is at one o'clock in February. This is at two o'clock in February. And then right before it clicks off there. So 12, 1.30. 2.30 and then right before it clicks off. Sorry. Doing it on Zoom is not very helpful. Here's the 3 o'clock. So you see those, again, just starting, even with the 4 plus 1, just starting to hit those smaller buildings on the other side of the rail. And then let me show you the summer shadows, again, this week of this year. And you can see them creeping across. And then I'm going to pause it here. That is 1210 in the afternoon. Is this winter still? Sorry. Yes, you're right. Okay, June. Now we see the summer one going through. I'll let it play through and then I will, and this is again the same eight to six rather. And then this is roughly 12 o'clock, a little after 12. Sorry, Zoom keeps putting the controls right where I need them. I'm not very helpful of it. All right. There we go. Much better.
[Laurie Krieger]: June play.
[Emily Innes]: Yeah. Sorry. I don't know why it's doing that either. All right, well, we'll go on to the next scenario, and we'll come back when it's not conflicting with the two controls. Okay, BA2. So this is the one that we have four options in because of the different options on the different sides of the streets. So option A is four plus two between Boston Avenue and the rail line, and three plus one on the other side, Winchester, and the two properties that belong to St. Clements. Option B is 4 plus 2, same place, and then 4 plus 1 on the other side of the rail and 4 plus 1 on the St. Clements. Option C is 4 plus 3 in the middle and 3 plus 1 on either side. And option D is 4 plus 3 and then 4 plus 1. I'm going to show it to you larger as well so you can see it individually. So 4 plus 2 here in the middle, same color scheme. For both of those, you can see the 3 plus 1 on this side, 3 plus 1 on this side, 4 plus 2, and therefore the step backs there. This is option B, so 4 plus 2 in the middle, but floor plus 1 on either side. And these shadows, just so you can see, I forgot to mention it earlier, all of the shadows you see in these studies are 6, so June 21st at 2 p.m., just so you know what that looks like. Option C is 4 plus 3 and 3 plus 1, so 4 plus 3 in the center here, and then 3 plus 1 on either side. And option 4 is 4 plus 3 and then 4 plus 1. And again, just note that adding that 4 plus 1, that plus 1, the fifth story, means that there is a step back. You see Winchester Street here, Boston Avenue here. and Bristol Road here for people looking at that. All right. Videos. See it play all the way through. So this is the February shadows at our lowest level. And I'll just let it go through twice here rather than trying to pause so you can see the loop. And you can see in the longer winter shadows, they do make it across the... Oh, I know what's going on. Okay. I figured out what the problem is, guys. The escape button that allows me to get out of the controls for the video is also the escape button that causes the controls to interact for for Zoom, that's why we're seeing that. So this again is June, I mean February, and then this is June. Did it stop sharing? Okay, thank you. Yeah, I'm bringing it back up. I will be happy to share that. Thank you for letting me know it stopped sharing. And then I will go back up here. Okay. I'm just going to leave that alone. Okay. February and February. And for those of you who see the black boxes on the top of the screen, the escape key is controlling both of those, so I can't do anything about that. My apologies. Zoom and PowerPoint don't like each other. So this is February again, just so you can see it go through. And then June. So you can see the shadows moving across. Again, this is at a different angle. BA2 is a different angle relative to the sun than BA1 is. So you see a different shadow profile here. I'll let that loop again a second time. And then we'll move on to the next version. And then this is the... February for the tallest height, so the 4 plus 3 and the 4 plus 1. Same time frame. And then I'll move to June and let it loop through twice. And I'm happy to go back after we've seen each of these and look at them again and pause them, just in the interest of tallis height and then tallis height for June. OK. All right. Is this the June one? Did we not get the June one? OK. Let's move on to the next one. We'll just fix that one. I'll come back to it. And then BA3 final. So the three options 5 plus 2, 6 plus 1, and 6 plus 2. Paola's going to find the June for the last scenario for BA2 and then we'll put it up. So 5 plus 2, same thing. So we've added the walking court development. Just to clarify, we did this as an unofficial schematic model based on the plans just to show you roughly where these buildings would be. This is not a construction diagram, but it at least gives you a sense of what this looks like compared to what we're doing as our test scenario, again, in BA3. Same caveats for the others. June 21st at 2 p.m. for the shadows that you see here. Option B is the six stories plus a single incentive. Note we kept the height five stories along North Street here. And then six stories plus two incentive along Boston Avenue. We kept the five stories at North Street. We think that might be an interesting thing for you all to discuss. And then the two incentive behind it. And then no change to the walking court. This is February 21st for the scenario, for the smaller one. And again, I'll let it loop through twice. We can come back and pause if we need it. And also again, this area, BA3, is a slightly different angle to the sun from BA1 and 2. And then this is the June one. So you can see the shadows moving. across at a slightly different angle because the sun, of course, is at a different angle for the summer. This is option A for February, option B. Oh, we did shortest height to shortest height, that's why. Option B. All right, taller height for February, for June rather. Again, and obviously the June is a longer video because it's a longer period of time. And then Tallis Height for February, which I don't think I showed. So this is February, and again, we're ending about 3 o'clock in the afternoon for February. And that is what we had for the different scenarios. I am happy to go back and show any of the ones that you want to see. And I should say for the record we were, we had submitted one yesterday with just the thumbnails and not the larger ones. We will be giving this to the planning staff to post on the website afterwards so people can look at the shadows.
[Zac Bears]: Great. Thank you guys.
[Emily Innes]: Yep. And let me stop sharing.
[Zac Bears]: Great. Do we have any clarifying questions from members of the city council or do you want to take a look at one of the scenarios again? Liz, Councilor Mullane, then Councilor Stroud.
[Liz Mullane]: Could we do the BA3 scenario again? Do you mind just doing the last one again, the shadow studies one more time on the last section? Yes, please. Thank you. Sorry.
[Emily Innes]: I was navigating there first. Yes, exactly. Okay. Get rid of those controls. All right. So this is BA3. This is the tallest height, option C, February 21st. Yeah. I'm going to see if I can time it, so I pause very close. Look at that. So that is the ending time. That is roughly 3.07 p.m. on February 21st. And then let me go to, this is the June. And again, I'm gonna let it go through once, and then I'm going to try and pause it at the end. And let's see. All right. And that is... Sorry, the... Here we go. June. There's something about this.
[Laurie Krieger]: All right.
[Emily Innes]: So this is June and it's about 5.51 PM. I'll just hold it there so people can see it. Okay. And I can do it again if you want to see it. I'm just going to leave it back up again, just June, and then let me know if you want to see February again. This is the tallest. Paula is reminding me that this is the tallest version. Do you want to see the shorter? Okay.
[Dina Caloggero]: Hang on. This is the tallest.
[Emily Innes]: This is the tallest. This is the shorter. So this is February, about 3 o'clock. And then. You sure I don't think we were because the tallest is first on this one. OK. And this is June at about 551 for the shorter one. Yeah. Yes, so Director Hunt made a good point in our conversation here. The original zoning had suggested putting the step back at the sixth floor and above. And we had proposed, I'm not sure it made it into the changes, we proposed the step back at five stories and above. So that's one of the reasons you're seeing it there. And then the other thing is, and I also think that we did not have this in the zoning, we had recommended that North Street be limited to five stories. So that might be some of the confusion that's going on there. Yep. Yep. Any other scenarios people would like to receive?
[George Scarpelli]: I not the scenario, but just for clarification that people that are watching the understanding that February and June would be the most impacted months. Or is that just to inform everybody that?
[Emily Innes]: Yes, Councilor. Absolutely. Why we chose February and June. Those were the dates for the daylight standards in the. So what we wanted to do is given that the Once the daylight standards were passed, the February 21st and June 21st were within those standards. We wanted to make sure we also showed what it looked like during those same dates. So there would be consistency. So thank you for asking that.
[George Scarpelli]: Thank you for the clarification. That's good. It's good to hear the five stories. That's impressive. Thank you.
[Zac Bears]: All right. Do we have any further clarifying questions from members of the council? I'll turn it over to Chair Carr for clarifying questions and then we'll go to public comments.
[Doug Carr]: Okay. Would anyone on the City Board like to make a clarifying question to Emily based on the presentation we just saw? Don't see anything. Are we online? Do you have any comments or questions, clarifying questions?
[Ari Fishman]: Not at this time, thank you.
[Doug Carr]: Okay. I just have one minor one I think it's worth mentioning that. Not every existing building that could be rezoned was shown as new building, right? We just chose a portion of it. I think it's worth just explaining the logic that there's actually, it could be more, but you chose, just to be an example, that you chose certain areas of all three zones that you went for. If you could just elaborate on that for the folks who are listening.
[Emily Innes]: Yes, absolutely, I'd be happy to. So we did sort of a quick susceptibility to change analysis, and what that means is under the zoning, it's a combination of what we think might be more possible to change, but also, as I mentioned with the caveats earlier, those that had the right dimensional standards to modify a mixed use building, or a model of mixed use building. So a couple of things that go into that. One is the way the zoning is set up, it's achieving a couple of goals. One is just simply reducing the number of nonconformities. One is allowing a wider variety of uses. Both of those don't require any new developments. There's no. But then the third thing is whether or not there would be new developments now. These are mixed-use districts, but within those mixed-use districts that could allow a residential building, a commercial building, or a mixed-use building. But the mixed-use building has certain characteristics that make it useful for a fit study, a site model like this, and that is a higher ground floor, the requirement to have a certain width of the building that wouldn't be necessarily required for, say, a straight commercial building. So they make it useful for FITS studies. So if we're going to do a FITS study for a mixed-use building, we need to understand which parcels could accommodate a mixed-use building. That's why I was talking about choosing those that have the right depth. So in each case, we looked, or in each of these areas, we wanted to see where there might be a parcel assembly that would be useful for a FIT study. And by parcel assembly, I mean we're taking several parcels in order to fit this model on there, where there might be a vacant lot or an existing use. For example, we looked at a lot of the one-story buildings and said, okay, if you're going to allow more than one story. It's probably going to be a one story that could possibly be useful for modeling. So it was a combination of what's on the ground now, whether or not that parcel depth or width could work, and then could we just look at what happens if you add a couple of parcels together to allow for that sort of development. A couple of the other things that we considered was ownership levels, whether or not, for example, a building had already been recently built. So, for example, BA2, there's some fairly recent residential buildings on industrial parcels. That's not likely to change, but the other industrial parcels in that area that hadn't been built upon, maybe they could. And then some of it, for example, the two St. Clements properties, what we did was we modeled the existing footprint and just increased, so basically the building that is there now, the two buildings that are there now, and just added stories on top of them to see what that would look like. In no case are we suggesting that any of these parcels would be developed the way they're shown here. It's merely for illustrative purposes to understand what the height could look like and what the shadow study could look like.
[Doug Carr]: Thank you. That's very helpful. I guess the only other question I had was the historic buildings around St. Clements, the two schools. whether it's any of the three versions of the BA2 that you modeled, if they're all significantly more than those buildings, is there any incentive to save those buildings? Because some of them go up to, I think, seven stories, right? So there are quite a lot of potential new real estate. How would there be any incentive to save that building if you could build so much by just getting rid of it, because if we did this in Medford Square, we try to incentivize by limiting the height, and then say you can build more, because we started with a lower number, I think. I guess I'm not seeing the same approach here, or maybe I'm not reading it correctly.
[Emily Innes]: I think for the two St. Clements buildings that we modeled, we had not had those in our original boundary, so we modeled them according to your suggestion to add them and to see what they would look like at those different heights. I think we kept the same incentives for historic buildings in this zoning as we did for Medford Square. the same ability to do the historic conversion as we did for Medford Square. But the reason we modeled them was essentially at your request. So we are not making a prediction one way or the other as to how they might develop. I will say that They are existing three-story buildings. You would know better than I as an architect how those buildings could add stories on top of them, the type of structural reinforcement that might be necessary. I'm making an assumption that they weren't built to be able to support additional stories, so that might be one thing to consider, but those were not originally within the boundaries.
[Doug Carr]: Thank you very much. Yep. All set on this.
[Zac Bears]: Great. If there's no further clarifying questions, and I'm seeing none, we will go to open the public hearing. So for the public hearing, we will take folks here in person at the podium or on Zoom. We'll alternate between in person and on Zoom. You will have three minutes. You can share your name and your city or neighborhood for the record before you speak. and we will go from there. So if you would like to comment on the proposals as well as, you know, the presentation and kind of the decisions that we are going to be looking at tonight, please come to line up behind the microphone here in the chambers or raise your hands on Zoom. All right, we'll start at the podium. If you could provide your name and your city or neighborhood. And you're gonna have a little more than three minutes because I gotta get the timer going. So take the extra time.
[Nick Giurleo]: Thank you very much. My name is Nick Jorleo. I live in West Medford, 40 Robinson Road. I generally support spending more time with getting the use table right on the zoning. Generally, I would say I support discretionary permit requirements for uses that would be more controversial to the community. So for example, larger housing projects. I look at the multiple dwelling use, for example. Under the current draft, it allows for six or more unit structures as of right in all three sub-districts. I think that should require a special permit. Another good example of this would be the neighborhood medical office. I know you all voted on that at the last meeting, but I'd recommend a special permit in all three sub-districts for that one as well, just given the issues with the vagueness of the definition. And I think one thing to keep in mind is when you're allowing a use as of right, you're taking away community discretion. You're saying developer can go to the building department, get their permit, and be on their way with their project. The community discretion aspect of this allows for residents have a say in what their neighborhood look like. And I think generally that's what we should be thinking about when we're looking at zoning. I'd also say with the use table there's some unreasonable restrictions that I see. I'm looking at the motor vehicle uses for example. You know why are they all not allowed. I know, you know, people have said this before me, but yes, people have cars. It's a reality. You know, they need them to get place to place. So as much as it'd be nice to walk, I mean, it'd be great to have a place to like fill your gas tank up or to get your car repaired. So why aren't we allowing those uses? And also just generally blue collar uses. You know, why are we restricting those? I think blue collar uses are great for the fabric of the community, certainly for the tax base, but also just for the character of a neighborhood. So let's consider allowing those as well. With the dormitory fraternity use, you know, I wonder why actually it's even in the zoning to begin with, because I'm thinking that TOPS will just make a Dover Amendment argument if they want to build a frat or sorority. They might be able to somehow twist their way into saying this is an educational use, even though we all know what goes on in fraternities and sororities. And I think that'd certainly be debatable. Finally, as for the heights, I know that's kind of the focus of tonight's meeting. I'd say we've gone a little too high. I especially think this is true in BA3, 6 to 8. I think it's far too much for the neighborhood. I know this wasn't even an option considered, but I'd go even lower than the options that were presented to you. I'd go 4 plus 1 on that. I'd like to see a neighborhood that really isn't overcrowded, that really does preserve the quality of life for residents of the hillside. And yes, I understand the goal for many of you is to increase density, but we do have to be realistic in a lot of ways about things like traffic and just quality of life, health. There's a lot of different things to think about. So I hope you'll take the time and make those considerations. A lot of these technical suggestions I laid out for all of you in a letter, which I submitted as a public comment in writing. Thank you.
[Zac Bears]: Thank you. All right, gonna go next to Chris Bennett on Zoom. Chris, if you could give your name and city or neighborhood for the record. And you'll have three minutes.
[Chris Bennett]: Hi, my name is Chris Bennett. I live on Martin Street in Medford. I am a member of the Hillside community. I have a couple of questions specifically related to how this is presented. I'm not an architect. I'm a special education advocate. I also have a good basis in medical terminology, but when we're talking about architecture, it's not my game. I'm having an issue when I'm trying to look at some of the schematics that are being shown without street signs or street names for me, because it's very hard for me to picture it. I can't think that way. So I would like to see this is Winthrop Street. This is, you know, whatever side street that is that you go down off across from North Street. But my major concern is the height that we're talking about. And when I was listening, why are we doing these kind of things that we why are we keeping it a height limit like because of Medford Square? And I'm thinking, That's like comparing apples to oranges because this is like a community area here. I mean, you have certain places down on Boston Ave, but you have a lot of homes too. You have a lot of three-family homes, you have a lot of two-family homes. But the final thing that I wanted to ask about was why we're talking seven stories in that little area there. That really concerns me. We don't know. We've already put up a huge dormitory. That's impacted my drivability for a long time. I'm talking about going in the opposite direction now toward West Medford Square. I try to avoid going through Medford Square. I usually use Boston Ave all the time. And I'm just, I see the traffic that hits there now, and I'm just overly, like, seriously concerned about that. Thank you.
[Zac Bears]: Thank you. We will go back to the podium, if you could give your name and your neighborhood for the record, and you'll have three minutes.
[SPEAKER_31]: Sure. My name is Kristen Lugowski. I'm in Medford Hillside also. I think in general, having mixed use is a good thing. Obviously, we need more housing, and we could use some more businesses around to help get the neighborhoods, you know, vibrant. You know, Medford could use a little bit more going on. My main concerns again like Chris I think are some of the height things. You know I want it still feel like a neighborhood when we have mixed use. And again I do want to see more housing for people that they can afford to. But the B3 really concerns me because I was looking at the shadows and it did definitely clip some of those. you know, residential houses in both February and in the summer, right? So I would not want to be in one of those houses and lose the little bit of sunlight I get every day. So I would, the other thing that concerns me about that is the way the houses, maybe it's just the modeling, but right now those buildings that were there or are there are pretty offset from North Street. And the modeling, it had it right up against the road. So maybe that's part of the issue for that shadow. The other thing I'd like to see, if you guys ever do more modeling on the shadowing, is to see what it looks like for when the sun's coming east, because it was really hard to tell with the houses on the other side of Boston Ave towards the university how that shadow would impact them. really easy to see what the shadow towards the railroad track looks like. But you couldn't really see how those other people on the other side were impacted because the east facing sun comes in that way and they would be eclipsed by some of those houses probably. And again it's just the way the view of that modeling happens. It's really hard to tell how when the sun's rising that impacts those houses behind those buildings. So I think that would just be something to take into consideration when you're doing this. It doesn't impact me directly, but I just, I walk through those neighborhoods all the time with my dog, so I'm very familiar with the area. But it's just those kind of little things, just again, great to have more mixed use, great to have more housing, but again, just thinking about the impact to the neighborhood directly. The other thing too with the student housing, every student, unit gets one car, we don't even do that for affordable housing. There's a lot of good public transportation. Does everybody need a car? I mean, I have one. I'm privileged, but I also have a house with a driveway. A lot of the people who live off of Boston Ave don't have parking. So I know you're trying not to take away from their parking, but it also is just why do we have all this public transportation if we're just going to assume everybody needs a car? So just some other things to think about. So that's it. Thank you.
[Zac Bears]: Thank you. We will go back to Zoom. We will go to Laura Longsworth on Zoom. And if there's anyone else in the chamber who does plan to speak, if you could just raise your hand or come to the podium, just so I'm aware. We'll go to Laura Longsworth on Zoom. Laura, if you could write your name and your neighborhood, and you'll have three minutes.
[tTQZY1IK4s4_SPEAKER_01]: Hi there. Laura Longsworth. I live on North Street in Hillside. I thought a lot about the student dorm and I just really would prefer that we didn't go this direction. I think it's kind of building a monoculture in an area where I would love to see just regular housing built. I do think that inviting a concentration of students into that neighborhood is probably not great, not great for the neighborhood. It kind of creates an anchor situation where you have a dorm at one end, a Tufts at the other end, and some of the conversation is about bringing students out of Hillside, and I just think it instead is going to do the opposite. It's just going to create kind of a belt of students And I think it's going to create a pretty noisy environment and I appreciate the discussion about how to manage that and, and students need to answer to their university and so forth but that's kind of complicated maybe not realistic because they're at different universities, what does that mean and what takes priority the city's noise ordinance or the university. And then just the number of people I'd like to hear how many people we're talking about in this building, because you're saying two beds in a bedroom. How many bedrooms? I mean, there's a lot of factors that can go into putting a lot of people in here, especially if the height requirements stay as high as you're talking about. So I, too, am an advocate of that. of bringing the heights down. And just circling back to the fraternity-sorority discussion, I think if we don't want those, they should just come out. Because from what I read, most of the off-campus fraternities and sororities, it's true, they're not owned by the students, because that would be unaffordable. But they're also not owned by the national chapters. They're actually purchased and created by groups of alumni and then rented out to students. alumni actually probably would have some buying power. So if we don't want them, they just should not be in there. Those are my comments. I do feel like, I don't know, I don't know where everyone from Hillside is because everybody I talked to says they don't really want a dorm. And I, and then some are surprised that they're hearing about it for the first time, which surprises me, but because there's been a lot of discussion about it, but I think people don't quite know. So yeah, I think you're, you're going to find you're catching people by surprise. Thank you.
[Zac Bears]: Thank you Laura. We'll go back to in person name and address for the record and you'll have three minutes.
[Patrick Gallagher]: Thank you very much. Pat Gallagher I'm here with Goulston and stores on behalf of Tufts University. Just wanted to quickly weigh in on the student housing proposal that we've heard about tonight. And I think we're still digesting this and understand that a lot of thought has gone into this. We do have some concerns from what we've seen so far. This is not something that Tufts is involved in. And I think, frankly, based on the minimum size that is being discussed, we'd have some concerns on a supply and demand standpoint and whether there's really enough demand to support that size of a development. And I think from a supervision standpoint as well, when Tufts thinks about its dormitories, these are buildings that have Tufts resident assistants. They are part of the university. And so to have a facility that doesn't have that same sort of structure is something that I think, you know, we would need to think about. So, you know, still kind of reviewing the proposal, thinking about it, but wanted to echo that I think Right now, Tufts has some concerns with that as well. Thank you.
[Zac Bears]: All right. I'm going to go to Jenny Gilbert on Zoom next, and then we'll go back to the podium in person, and then we'll go to David Roach, and then Lori Krieger on Zoom. So, Jenny.
[SPEAKER_03]: Hi, my name is Jenny Gilbert, and I live on North street. I'm actually neighbors with Laura and I agree. I support mixed use housing, but I'm really concerned about the height of the buildings and the. the plan for the dorms especially. I've lived on North Street for about three years. We have a lot of traffic. We have a lot of heavy traffic. We have a lot of trucks going up and down the street. The road is in really bad condition right now. And I think I just feel like without a solid traffic plan, but even with one, putting that many people in the neighborhood will really be a crisis for congestion. I mean, this year, when we had the snowstorms and one side of the road was closed, people had to park blocks away from their house who didn't have parking. And not everybody has a driveway on the street. Yeah, so I just wanted to express my concern about those things. Thank you.
[Zac Bears]: Thank you. We're going to go next to the podium. If you give your name and your neighborhood and you'll have three minutes.
[ir8Km2ErkFk_SPEAKER_04]: Okay. Good evening. My name is Lorraine Thornhill. I live on North Street for over 20 something years and I'm concerned about It's great to bring a mixed-use building, but I'm concerned about the height that I'm seeing here, about seven stories. Also, I'm not clear about how many people are going to be in this building. As I just heard Jenny say, I believe we're neighbors. When there was a snow emergency, where is it going to be parking? Boston Ave is a main artery, so there is no parking on Boston Ave when there's during a snow emergency. And on North Street right now, already during this last major, major snow storms that we had, there was not sufficient parking and everybody does not have parking garages. Are we also considering, um, the residences, the residents that live around there, and do they know about this proposal? I happen to hear about it through somebody else. Everybody, as you can see, does not attend these meetings or watch these meetings. Is there going to be signage or are we going to get a reverse call to say what is going on? How can we voice our opinion about this? But I am very concerned about this dormitory or housing that we are proposing to have of seven. What I heard was six stories. I'm not too sure if that is true. So I'm just very concerned. Thank you.
[Zac Bears]: Thank you. I'm going to go to David on Zoom. David, if you could provide your name and your city or neighborhood for the record and you'll have three minutes.
[UXjoTYnBHEI_SPEAKER_05]: Thank you, David Roach, representing the owners of 222 Boston Avenue. I'd just like to clarify one thing out of the gate, talking about the use here. This is just a proposal for an allowed use. Obviously, there's a long way to go between approving zoning and realizing a project. There could be a multifamily mixed use building here. There could be many other uses. But we're just trying to keep the options open here as this zoning moves through. We've had folks expressed interest in this as a potential use, so we thought it would be a good idea to have it be allowed. Obviously, if there is not a demand, it won't get built. But it does represent an opportunity to get students out of the two and three family homes. And I don't know why it would be a bad thing to create that kind of opportunity within the co. As for the use in its definition, the CDB did a great job last night, I believe, of crafting some detailed language to protect the best interests of the city as it relates to this potential use. I was a bit surprised to see it being discussed as a CDB reviewed use because a special permit really exists for uses that are simple and vague to create these guardrails that the CDB was spending last night crafting. There's a significant amount of conditions that were proposed that would typically be the kind of conditions that are crafted in a special permit. And I was expecting that the purpose of that was to create this as a buy right use. So a little surprised by that being discussed. As for the height shown, I have to be honest, I've been in this business for a long time. I think shadow studies are not the best way to represent really anything. Picking the time of day, the time of year, no one really could ever agree on what is a good amount of shadows. To every neighbor, any shadow is too much. The reality is that a large building will cast shadows and it will never make it look in a favorable light. But the proposed heights that were shown within the shadow studies for the BA3 zone were a bit surprising along North Avenue based upon the past discussions initially. and has had proposed in this zone a 98 foot height for North Avenue. And I would remind folks that the current zoning allows for 85 feet, which is the equivalent of seven stories. So to limit that to five stories is surprising and would create building forms that are really not buildable and the incentive zoning would be watered down. So I would just consider that A step back, as shown on Boston Avenue, would still give the protections of not creating a large wall, as I think is the primary fear of most folks when it comes to tall buildings. So a step back is appropriate, but limiting the height overall doesn't make much sense to us. Thank you for your time.
[Zac Bears]: Thank you. We'll go back to in-person. You can provide your name and your neighborhood for the record, and you'll have three minutes.
[Maryanne Adduci]: Mary Anna Ducey to North Street. If I'm correct the Connor I'm concerned with the corner of Boston Avenue North Street. If I'm correct you said that that would be six plus two.
[Emily Innes]: And North Street is, well, it depends on which scenario you want to look at.
[Zac Bears]: Marianne, if you could just direct your comments here.
[Maryanne Adduci]: I'm just correct.
[Zac Bears]: Boston and North? Boston and North. Yeah, there's three proposals.
[Maryanne Adduci]: I want the maximum.
[Zac Bears]: 5 plus 2, 6 plus 1, or 6 plus 2. So those are the three proposals. 6 plus 2 would be the maximum. Yes, that's the height.
[Maryanne Adduci]: Okay, which I would be opposed to that height. At a previous meeting I asked Chair, well I didn't ask Chair Carr, I asked all of you to walk Boston Ave to get a visual of what's there today and try to visualize what you're proposing here and Doug Carr did that and he said at the last meeting, which I think is helpful. The other thing I would like to bring out at the end of the last meeting, President Bears, in a discussion with Danielle from the CD office, you said this, just because we increase zoning doesn't mean they will build. Well, of course they will build. A developer will come and somebody will build. So we should not over zone, not create higher, we should put the ideal, not the maximum, because someone will come along and make the maximum. As far as the North Street corner, the land slopes down. The part closest to the track is lower than the part on Boston Ave, so I don't know how if you do a step building or what you would do there, but an eight-story building there would be a lot. I've asked the mayor's office, and I'll ask all of you, I mentioned it at a previous meeting, to do a traffic study on Boston Ave, because the traffic on Boston Ave today is not good. especially during rush hours, it takes four to five changes of lights to go from Nodd Street through the Winthrop Street traffic light. And people tell me, I don't go out that early in the morning, but they tell me it's the same in the morning. That's today, without the addition of potentially 900 people living there. Because Walkland Court is going to start construction, we got a letter this week, very shortly. So when that's finished, there's going to be 300 to 350 people there. Plus, if you could potentially put 600 people in a dormitory, not all of them will have cars, but many will have cars. You'll have that many more people on Boston Ave. So before you decide anything here, that traffic study has to be done, and it has to wait till September, till the students come back from Tufts. So I haven't heard back from the mayor yet. She's out of town today or yesterday. So basically that's my position. Thank you.
[Zac Bears]: Thank you. We'll go to Jonah on Zoom. Jonah if you could provide your name and neighborhood and you'll have three minutes.
[M2dn2QxmG2g_SPEAKER_01]: Hi, thank you. My name is Jonah Dakota and in South Medford. And I have a few questions. Am I allowed to get responses at this point? Or is it just going to be some recorded record of a question? Can you even answer that?
[Zac Bears]: If you use your comment period and you ask questions, we'll keep a recorded record of the questions.
[M2dn2QxmG2g_SPEAKER_01]: Okay, so I feel that I'm confused because in the last meeting that I attended via Zoom, in response from the planners to the outrage over the shadowing of the Tufts building and the proposal for shadow lines at a 45 degree angle from the property line, that that's been appearing, at least from the shadow study that we saw this evening, ignored. And I'm wondering about, of course, it relates to the height complaints that we've heard before and the shadowing that was demonstrated. And the second piece of my question about shadowing is that the sun in February is 10 degrees higher than it is in December. And I understand that some choice was made to show this in February as the deepest shadow time, rather than the winter solstice in December, where the shadows were most extreme. I was under the impression that shadows were going to be observed when it came to height restrictions. And there was an explanation about larger buildings in Medford Square and using the highway as a buffer for that height. And has that been ignored? Because if it has been, then we need to revisit at least the public comment about shadow lines. And I'm of the opinion as to what's already been expressed Through some folks here, I share their opinion that having sunlight in your life, in your day, blocked out by tall buildings, or even short buildings on a tall hill, would be a problem for their neighborhoods, for the people who live there. So I'd like to actually get some response to where the deviation from the clear explanation in the last meeting about being conservative with building heights and their effect on shadowing neighboring properties as a response to the problems that we've already created for those that live near the larger science building in Tufts. Thank you.
[Zac Bears]: Thank you for your comment. We will go back to the chamber. I think we have someone who'd like to speak in person. If you could provide your name and your neighborhood, and you'll have three minutes.
[Angela Murphy]: Angela Murphy, 16 Carding Street, and I've been on Carding Street for 70 years. And we moved to Carding Street because it was not a condensed neighborhood. We had a chance to move to Somerville, but we didn't because there was land and green space at the house we purchased. So I want to say right now I am opposed to having four, six, eight, and ten story buildings along the Boston Ave corridor. If you must build, then limit the buildings to four stories with no incentives to go higher because the higher the buildings, the more they will cast a shadow over the surrounding neighborhoods of single family and two and three story buildings down elevation from the hillside. The recommendations for providing green space is not guaranteed, as I understand from being to another meeting, because the green space you provide may not be sustained. And a rooftop garden does not benefit the neighborhood because it's not visible to the neighbors, and it is only usable to the residents in the particular building. So that, to me, is useless green space for the neighborhood. A traffic study needs to be done and adequate parking provided for residents in the buildings so that vehicles do not spill onto the surrounding streets, and fix the roads to accommodate the extra traffic. Right now, Boston Avenue is in such disrepair that you can break an axle if you go in some of the holes. When I asked why you are preparing higher density housing in the Hillside neighborhood and throughout Method, it was said, if I understand correctly, I hear it, that there are people who wish to live this way. Well, since this affects the established surrounding neighborhood, I wish to ask for you to walk the neighborhoods, walk the streets, canvas the people who own the houses there or reside in the houses there. You have meetings, however, communication about where and when these meetings take place has been lacking and insufficient. I only find out at last minute sometimes. If you actually walk the neighborhoods in Boston Ave, you would see it is a vibrant hub of activity for all who reside there in the Hillside neighborhood and hopefully see that what you would propose would have negative effects in many ways to the people who have lived there over the long term or moved there because they moved there to take advantage of what the neighborhood offered. Any business you approve should, I'm sorry, any business you should approve, I'll be a little longer, accommodate all who reside in the Hillside neighborhood and provide services for students, families and seniors alike and be accessible to all and provide parking you would need for those who aren't able to walk. It's nice to say you have walkable neighborhoods, but there's people at a certain age or people, families with children who can't always walk. to these neighborhoods. And the businesses that are there now are established. And it would be a shame to lose any of them, as it was a great loss to lose the Hillside Hardware Store, which was known throughout the state in New Hampshire as the store to go to for paint, and prominently displayed and promoted over TV stations at different times on different programs. These buildings will accommodate many new residents and put a strain on our grid. I was informed that they are having rolling blackouts weekly in random neighborhoods throughout Somerville because it is so densely populated that their grid cannot handle the load. And not just for a few minutes, but for two to three hours at a time. My cousin lives in Somerville.
[Zac Bears]: Angela, you're over by about a minute now, so if you could wrap up.
[Angela Murphy]: I'm sorry, can I just wrap up? I have just a couple more things.
[Zac Bears]: In a sentence or two, yeah.
[Angela Murphy]: Why are we accommodating Tufts in some instances at the expense of the negative effects the proposal will have on the Hillside neighborhood? If they need to enroll students, more students, and they need to have housing for them, why isn't it not possible for them to build up on their already existing campus housing? And yes, this proposal is not done right. If it's not done right, we'll create a transient community and an established neighborhood where neighbors know neighbors and take pride in owning a home in Medford, surrounded by green space.
[Zac Bears]: Angela, thank you.
[Angela Murphy]: Thank you.
[Zac Bears]: Go to Lori on Zoom. Lori Krieger, if you give your name and your neighborhood and you'll have three minutes.
[Laurie Krieger]: Hey, I'm Lori Krieger at Medford Hillside. Nice to see you all again. I want to thank the CBD and Alicia and all of y'all for the updates that you made from yesterday and looking to close the loopholes so that we can really make sure that housing is for people. I think whatever we can do to ensure that it's really, really super important. I think that from my vantage point, I know like if we can make some of these buildings a little more human scale, and that if we can at all, incentives for affordable and moderate housing to be as high a percentage as we can possibly make it, 20% still feels too small to me. I'm still wondering if a significant amount of storefronts were made on Boston Avenue, how it would impact Medford Square. I'm just I know I'm being a little bit redundant but I just every square has empty storefronts and every main artery has empty storefront so why, how do we make sure that it's used. That's all I care about. I'm not all but mostly. Today, the President of the United States refused to sign the Affordable Housing Bill, which eliminates the ability of venture capitalists to buy up whole neighborhoods. How can we as a city or at a state level protect our communities for people to live in their homes or to live in their neighborhoods instead of it being just money for money's sake somewhere? I'm seeing more homes for sale on the hillside than I ever have. And I'm really curious as to what's prompting this. Is it that greed quotient? And basically, I'm looking at more people talking about a concept called ethical capitalism. And I think that our long term goals, it's essential that we really focus on human environmental centered design. Whatever we do, it's got to help the living, breathing things on this planet. And this moment of unregulated capitalism won't last forever. And in terms of Tufts and the VCs, watch what they do, not what they say. Let's be super mindful that it was five stories. Tufts was going to be five-story buildings. And then it took a minute, but they became 10 stories. And there was nothing we can do about it. And I will no longer get to use the sun to melt the ice on my driveway in the winter. So I know. Anyway, thank you all so much.
[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Lori. Is there anyone who hasn't spoken yet in person who'd like to speak? Yes, come on up. Give your name and your neighbourhood, and you'll have three minutes.
[W1Pcx_tDASA_SPEAKER_44]: My name is Rita Donnelly, and I live at 35 Johnwood Road. And I would just say I know that we need housing. I've walked my neighbourhood. Most of the houses on Orchard Street are owned by realty companies that are renting to tough students. I heard of four, since the last meeting, I've heard of four houses that have been purchased in Medford by out-of-state people who are using the houses as bed and breakfasts. Now, when I did the senior abatement, there was a big thing about bed and breakfast, that you had to register with the city. And I'm wondering if all these people are registered as a business in a bed and breakfast, because I don't think they are. I mean, four houses, two family houses. They're keeping one apartment for themselves, the out-of-state person, because their kid goes to Tufts or Harvard or MIT. And then they're renting out bed and breakfast. So it's turning into a transient neighborhood. My neighborhood is a nice neighborhood. I live on a single family street. The neighbors are changing now. The young people are moving in. The older people are moving away. And it's nice to see the little kids play. If you bring in hordes of people, that changes the whole neighborhood. You can't be bringing in hordes of people. And yes, it would be nice to have a seven-story building for low-income housing. There's not going to be no income housing. You're going to get one or two apartments out of that whole building. You could have 12 apartments in that building. You're only going to get one or two affordable housing. I had a lady, can I say where I work? I don't want to get in trouble, Jim will kill me. But anyways, I work at City Hall. And I had a lady crying because she was going to be evicted. She had no place to go. I sent her to the mayor's office because I didn't know what to do with her and she was being evicted and she had no place to go. I understand. I was a single parent. I had three children. I cannot tell you how many people would not rent to me because I had three boys. If I had girls, maybe they would think about me. But because I had three boys, they would not rent to me. And it was very discouraging. So I am not opposed to affordable housing. But there has to be a solution that you can get this affordable housing without changing the neighborhood, without turning it into little, you ever see those hotels in Japan where you just buy the bed? You can't have that and expect to have a neighborhood. And you cannot have developers buying up all these houses, reconfiguring them. The one on North Street, it was a single family home. There's three apartments in that house now. It was a developer. Do you think he's selling it to low income people or renting it to low income people? I don't think so. It's a disgrace what's happening to this city. I really want you to pay attention to what you're doing here, because if you just look at it, oh sorry, if you just look at it in a vacuum as the housing, all right, and not take into account, there are gonna be cars. I love that parking department. I call them up, because the people from Tufts are parking on my street. They don't wanna pay the fees for the garage at Tufts. So to be having buildings without parking is ridiculous in that neighborhood. I called the police on one Saturday because I was trying to go up Winter Street to take a right on Boston Ave towards North Street. And I sat through four sets of lights. And then when I turned, I couldn't go anywhere because the food people were parking on one side. They blocked off some of the parking spots or dining. And the bus couldn't get down the street. So I called the police. I said, I'm sitting here. I don't know what to do. I can't back up. People are behind me. People are in front of me. And the bus is coming at me. What do I do? You have to look at the neighborhood. and decide how you can meet your goals. It's not, Salem Street is not like Hillside. The Square is not like the Hillside. So just be very mindful. And when they were doing the Green Line, they were saying, oh, all these people are gonna come. Now, and this is my last thing. For Arlington, they're gonna come and take the Green Line. We have the buses that go to Lechmere, they can take the Green Line. Now they're gonna eliminate those bus routes. So what is going to happen to those people? They're going to be driving to the green line to get to their jobs. Because people are making decisions just on what they're focusing on and not looking at the bigger picture. So I'm sorry if I'm crazy, but I really feel passionate about it. And I love my neighborhood. And I hope that it doesn't change too much. But I do understand the plight of people, because I lived it, not being able to rent an apartment, not knowing where I was going to go to get my kids' stuff. And I did have wonderful people helping me along the way. So thank you for your time.
[Zac Bears]: Thank you. We'll go to Judy Weinstock on Zoom, name and neighborhood for the record, and you'll have three minutes.
[Judith Weinstock]: Hi, everybody. Thanks again for holding the joint meeting. I think that they're really, really very important. And as you know, I'm usually here, and here I am again. A couple of just quick things, and I do want to be pretty brief. In terms of the potential for non-university student housing on North Street and Boston Avenue, or frankly, anywhere within the one mile of Tufts, I know it's not the job of the city council or the community development board to worry about things like supply and demand that the marketplace in theory will take care of those things. But I do know and I feel like you've heard a lot, a lot of pushback. from the neighborhood around the scope and size and numbers of students that would need to be there to make it a financially feasible project for the developer and the property owner. I actually have no doubt, and I wrote a letter to this effect, that the property owner will find another very profitable way to use that land. if in fact this land use is either delayed, as I think it should be, and it'll probably end up being something that's better, actually, for the community. To someone else's point, who said a lot of people in that neighborhood, it's not my neighborhood. I'm in the hillside, but I'm not that far down. It actually has appeared from the public side to be an incredibly speedy process to bring up online a brand new land use, particularly of this type, given the sensitivities of particularly the Hillside neighborhood with regard to all that happened over the last year with Tufts. I do think that it will be very difficult, even with the regulations that the board has crafted, to really make it a viable option for the residents who live in that area. I would like to see a pause placed on it. I think that it's really only been publicly discussed, I think, for about eight weeks. I think that's a really, really short period of time to try to craft a brand new land use. It has this much opposition and needs so much planning in order to move it forward. And I do think supply and demand is an issue. And I'm not convinced that it will be a viable option for the developer once Tufts brings up that 10-story dormitory building. Moving on to the heights issue, I actually think I find it really complicated. I think that the multiple proposals are really tough to follow. And I would caution and I think some members of the CD board feel similarly. You know, you'll have an opportunity to modify zoning in the future. There shouldn't be a 25 or 30-year break in between reviewing it. And I would go for more moderation on building heights, and particularly on the corner of Winthrop and Boston Ave. I'm not sure where the five-story potential on corners has come up or why it's coming up. But that just seems like sort of overreach on those corners at Boston Avenue and Winthrop. And with that, I know there's a lot of tensions between the city needing additional revenue and residents needing a break on property taxes and all of that can only come through growth. So I'm all in favor of growth, but I think that the community development board and the city council need to be a little bit more reserved in allowing really tall buildings to emerge out of this new zoning. Thank you very much for your time. I appreciate it.
[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Judy. Is there anyone in the chambers who hasn't spoken who'd like to speak? All right. We're going to go to Jeremy Martin on Zoom. And I think that's our last comment for the hearing tonight. Jeremy, name and address, name and neighborhood for the record and you'll have three minutes.
[Jeremy Martin]: Jeremy Martin, I also live in the hillside over on Burgadave. Thanks for the opportunity to speak again tonight and to be able to see some of the presentation before commenting. I appreciate the adjustment in the format on that. I first want to speak up as someone who is very much in favor of added density in our community. I disagree with the notion that more people can destroy a neighborhood. If anything, I think more people makes a neighborhood more vibrant, more lively, more diverse. And I would like to see that in my community. And I say that as someone who drives, who bikes, who walks, who has a young child. Many of the things that people say they had as a value in this community and why they lived here are the reasons I live here. And I think it can be a better place even beyond what we know now. So I very much support the premise of this proposal and what's being considered. On the student purpose-built housing, I just want to say, I do think that... Jeremy, it looks like you got muted.
[Zac Bears]: or muted yourself, I'm requesting unmute.
[Jeremy Martin]: Yeah, sorry about that. Can you hear me now?
[Zac Bears]: Yep.
[Jeremy Martin]: Yeah, sorry. I just want to say on that that I want us to consider whether we're working against ourselves if one of the goals of this zoning is to create more housing for the community at large at Medford, and instead replacing that housing with something that's exclusive for students. Corners like the one at North Street and any of the other areas of this proposed rezoning are the very places we should be putting buildings for the Medford community, not for students. Students should be on campus. And so please consider that we're actually undermining the bigger goal of this entire thing. And then the last thing I want to focus on is that corner of Winthrop in Boston Avenue. I know that Tufts has suggested that four stories is not financially feasible for redevelopment. I haven't been able to see the details of what the statement is there, but please consider that Tufts is likely not to develop this on their own. They'll partner with a private developer. And so you should ask if the interests that are being conveyed are the interests of the university, Or are they the interests of their for-profit development partner? This is the same situation that led to a 10-story building, and you've heard many times how that has worked out. Also remember that it's likely to be a proposal that will be submitted as a Dover project, which will also severely limit The community development board and any other city boards oversight of the project. But setting all of that aside, please also take into account the real conditions on this corner. It's got narrow sidewalks. It's got fast moving traffic. And we need to determine if it has the capacity to meet the size of building that's being considered. I would encourage you to go visit Boston Avenue now and understand the relationship between a relatively narrow sidewalk and a 10-story building. That's exacerbated even more on this corner. If this building were to be any more than four or five floors, likely more than four. What's there now is only two. So with all of that said, really appreciate the work that everyone has been doing on this and look forward to continuing to review progress. Thanks.
[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Jeremy. And thank you to everybody who spoke. Really, you know, have appreciated the public engagement. You guys already both spoke. We already spoke tonight, so. I'm just, we're going to keep it to what it was, but, you know, everybody had a chance to speak. Thank you, Angela. We already went through the speaking, so I'm sorry, but we've closed the public hearing for the evening. We've closed the public hearing, and I gotta follow the rules. I'm sorry. Thank you. Well, I would really prefer that you didn't do that.
[Maryanne Adduci]: Mary Ann, thank you. All right. Sure.
[Doug Carr]: A couple people mentioned, just I want to, I don't want to respond, we can't respond to everyone who made comments, but any use that happens, as Emily mentioned in her presentation, there are parking requirements for every use, I believe. And certainly the North Street, Boston Ave site, the BA3 sites, they're going to have substantial parking, whether it's a multifamily or purpose-built student housing. It could be a lab. It could be anything. But there are parking. We try to be realistic and recognize that cars exist. And even though that street is very well served by transit, I do agree with the comments about the buses. need to be preserved. We want to get people to that green line that we spent 15 years getting to Medford so that we can take people out of cars where possible. I know that's not possible for everyone. I just think that's worth reiterating.
[Zac Bears]: Thank you, yeah. And it also came up, you know, a couple of times. We saw some visuals tonight. Those visuals do not represent projects that have been proposed or attempts to create, you know, pull permits or even designs that have even been imagined. Those are really just kind of attempts to visualize a potential building based on the zoning. As Emily and Paula noted, most of even the attempted visualizations likely wouldn't be feasible given the dimensional requirements, the parking requirements of the zoning that's proposed. So even what was shown for the shadow studies, it's unlikely that buildings of that size and mass could be built with the zoning that has been proposed. So when I say, you know, that the zoning doesn't mean that someone's going to build something, that's what I mean. There's a lot of things that go into zoning. I think we took a very, in my view, conservative approach to say, let's make these possible buildings look really big and see what the shadows look like, but with the understanding and the assumptions that Emily and Paola laid out, which is actually even those buildings that were proposed there probably couldn't be built. And I do think another thing to talk about here, right? the land values and the building values in the neighborhood are really high. And that means that building new things is expensive. And this is one of the things when we talk about environmental benefit or new housing units, there's a reason that projects become more possible when the height limit is higher. And it's because it's more environmentally friendly to build a single building. It's more efficient to build a few more units on a single building than separate those into multiple buildings. And given the kind of economic environment that we're in right now, that's one of the reasons that some density is really important. Because if we say no, if we say it's three stories and six units, like, things just don't get built. So I think when we're talking about finding that middle ground about what change looks like, you know, we could, and I'm not saying anyone's proposing this, right? No one has said let's put 25 story buildings on Boston Ave, right? No one from the community development board, no one from the city council. But you're seeing in Davis Square, and it's different, right? There is the red line right there, that that is something that someone is coming in and proposing in a relatively nearby neighborhood. I think that when we talk about three-, four-, five-story buildings and in a very specific area of this zone, in areas that already have some tall warehouse buildings that have been part of our city's history for 100 years, over on Boston and North Street, This is a scale that is reasonable. That's my personal opinion. It's not saying let's just get rid of zoning and let people plop 25-story buildings wherever they want. Like, I don't think that's an approach that any of us want to take. But change is difficult. And adding three to five-story buildings in parts of this corridor and a couple of places where a six or seven-story building would be possible, is something that is reflective of what it costs to build new buildings and what is feasible change. So that's my personal perspective. I think we've spent, you know, three months just talking about this proposed zoning. Certainly the city council has spent the last two and a half to three years talking about our city's comprehensive plan and housing production plan, our climate plan, and worked with the Innist Land Strategies Group and the Planning Development Sustainability Office to craft a framework to find reasonable but significant change that makes our neighborhoods more vibrant, that invites mixed uses, that brings in the growth and revenue that folks were talking about. Because one of the things we don't talk about a lot on these projects is They will make improvements in the neighborhood, like you will see roads repaired, you will see better sidewalks, you will see new trees. Those are things that happen when construction is done as well. It's not going to happen everywhere. We're not going to have unlimited and infinite money. The revenue, the way that taxes work, right, in cities and towns, the way that Massachusetts law work is you can either ask the people who live here now to pay more, that's called an override, or you can bring in what's called new growth, and that means allowing construction and new buildings in parts of your city. and the revenue that comes with that. And when we're in an environment where the cost of running a city, the cost of fixing streets, the cost of running schools, the cost of paying policemen and firefighters is going up faster than 2.5% per year, that's why we see a lot of the issues that we see as a city. We don't have enough revenue to pay for even maintaining the services the city provides now. Growth is essentially other than asking the people who are here to pay more than 2.5% per year, which is not something that we want to do. Growth is the only other way to raise revenue to fund city services. And I think that something that we've talked about for the last three years is how do we have smart, reasonable, growth that does help raise revenue and improves our neighborhoods. And I think that this zoning proposal by and large reflects that consensus and the work of planners and a lot of community input over the last six years. So that's just my two cents on all of that. With that, do we wanna talk about how we want to deliberate about the, do we wanna start with the heights and the boundaries?
[Doug Carr]: Yes, I just want to make a couple of quick comments. I don't think there's anybody on either one of these two bodies who's not in favor of a lot of development because the options that we're talking about, even the smallest one of the three, basically the three different tiers of possibilities for BA1, BA2, BA3, I don't even think the small ones are small in my opinion. And if there's one theme I'm hearing here tonight, it's that There's a lot of people who are not thrilled with what they think is excessive height on some of the proposals. And that's the challenges that we, when we talk about, I'm not sure we're talking about the same proposal right now. Right now we have a menu of three options for three different zones. So there's potentially nine different zoning tracks we could be going down tonight. And just one other comment about time. We spent four months working collectively together on the Medford Square, and we got it right, in my opinion, not perfect, but very good. As far as I can tell, we've been working, the CD board itself has been working on this for less than six weeks, and I think closer to five. And so that's 25% of the time for something that is critical. It's like, I just think, we need to be a little bit more thoughtful and pace ourselves. You know, I want to get this done, but I want to get it done right. And I know that most of the people on the city board share that. We've said that repeatedly in Medford Square, and we're going to continue to say that. I'm hoping we get consensus, but the next hour or two talking about about height and massing and options will determine if we're talking about a consensus plan or not. And that's where I think we stand right now. So let's talk about the next steps.
[Zac Bears]: All right. I think it would be useful for us to go back through the height and boundary options, like zone by zone. And I do want to recognize Councilor Scarpelli first.
[George Scarpelli]: Thank you, Councilor Villescaz. Before we move forward, I think that understanding the messaging that we're hearing is vital. I think that going through the process the way we went through the process together with Medford Square, I truly hear and feel that even if people weren't happy with what was finale, they were still content with the process. And that to me is a victory. Just to share, I know that I was the one on the mountaintop screaming about community involvement with Salem Street and the concerns we've had. And I think, to your credit, Mr. President, we took a responsible approach to making sure that we are now listening to our residents. look at the timeline and I also understand that we do have a tight timeline but at the same time I would concur with Chair Carr in the fact that the process with the height requirements are something we can work through tonight but I've also heard from a lot of people even tonight as I'm sitting here Residents that feel like this is just the beginning of the process, they feel like they still need to be heard. They're afraid of the neighborhood that they love, the neighborhood they bought into, the neighborhood that they grew up in. But at the same breath, they're not afraid or they're not scared that They understand that there's a process in place that we know that needs some change. So I mean, what I keep getting back on my end are different studies. I know that we talked about traffic studies in the past, but in this quarter, especially, understanding the traffic studies, understanding the density issues, understanding the setbacks. So these are going to be important hours as we move forward, because I think what is evident are the height restrictions and the heights of what we're looking at for this corridor. But I too want to caution everyone or express the feelings that I'm sharing from the residents that have reached out to me that this is hopefully a process that isn't done tonight or move forward tonight because of a timeline, but maybe looking at it more of a totality and say, we want to get this right. And using the Medford Square piece as a partnership really showed why it could be successful. Believe me, I know how hard everybody's worked here. I know, especially you, Councilor Bears and Councilor Collins, who isn't here, Councilor Leming, who took over that role. what that's meant in the last couple of months, especially. I mean, I've seen the meetings, I've followed the notes and the responses, but I think it is, you know, it hasn't been viewed in a long, long time. And this is a huge change for our community. And I too understand new growth is what's going to support our community financially. And it's something we haven't had in many, many years, but I just wanted to share after the comments that our residents presented in the multi text messaging and emails receiving that I promised that I would share their concerns of speed and height and neighborhood feel and making sure that that was expressed. So again, thank you, Mr. President.
[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Councilor Scarpelli. I think we should go through the major decision points and then we can decide how both bodies want to move forward once we've talked through kind of the decisions that we have to make tonight. Thank you. Maybe let's start with the BA1 options and we can see if there's discussion from either body. Oh, yeah, there you go.
[Emily Innes]: Okay. Let me just move the controls over and set this up so we can see it in full. So just for those of you who are online, I did put in the chat the interactive map link just because I know it's hard to see street names on here. And so for those of you who may want to zoom in while we're talking, that might be helpful. Let's start with the Heights, President Bears. I'm just going to walk you through the scenarios again. So in BA1, option A is a 3 plus 1. Option B is a 4 plus 1. Option C is 3 plus 1 along the length of the street with 4 plus 1 on the corners. Just show you one at a time. So this is the three stories plus the one incentive. This is the four stories from the one incentive. And this is the three stories plus one incentive in the mid part of the block and the four plus one on the corners. I'm not going to go through the shadows again because that will take a long time, but let me go to BA2.
[Zac Bears]: No, let's just stick with BA1.
[Emily Innes]: Oh, you just want to stay on BA1? Okay, then let me go back and show you the three options.
[Zac Bears]: All right. I think it's talking, you know, members of the Council, we have these three options before us. I think we should kind of see if there's consensus on the Council about which of these options we would prefer to move forward with. Councilor Callahan.
[Anna Callahan]: Thanks, I would say of the three areas, BA1, 2, and 3, this one from the shadow studies does seem to be the one that the shadows really just go mostly across the tracks. So, you know, I don't have a strong opinion and I'm happy to be convinced, but of all of the areas, this one I think could have the four plus one. So that's kind of where I'm leaning, but again, I don't have a strong opinion. Thanks.
[Zac Bears]: Thank you. I mean, any other Councilors on BA1? Councilor Scarpelli?
[Anna Callahan]: Hang on. You're not on.
[George Scarpelli]: Thank you, Mr. President. Again, I don't think that I'm ready to move forward with a vote, but I think that, like I said, I look at, I understand a representative from INIS explaining the February and June, but I also understand the concerns that I've heard of shadowing and that might not be the best process, but I would stick with option A with the lower process, so.
[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Councilor Scarpelli. Councilor Leming.
[Matt Leming]: Um, I, I feel like I feel like personally, I could go with options, uh, with options beer. Beer see on this 1, I mean, a lot of. I got a lot a lot of my concerns with this 1, just revolve around, uh, uh, being able to do something with, uh. Uh, hillside hardware, um, and just. Allowing appropriate development incentives, um. leaning leaning toward leaning towards option B. But I could be I could be convinced on B or C in this case.
[Zac Bears]: Any further comments by council members? All right, I'll turn it over to you chair. Oh, Councilor Malauulu.
[Liz Mullane]: Thank you. And again, I appreciate all of the conversations and feedback that we've heard. I mean, we've been going through this for a while now and we've heard and I've received, you know, a lot of positive feedback as well of seeing some of the zoning come through. Certainly, having gone through all of the budgets, also recognizing that this is another avenue for us to really look and help to generate for services that are very much needed throughout Medford. I would probably go between option B or option C. I can see, I feel maybe I'm leaning more towards option C, the 3 plus 1, 4 plus 1 on the corners. but again, um, you know, uh, not hard and fast, but I feel like that might be the best option given some of the information that we've seen tonight. Thank you.
[Zac Bears]: Thank you. Councilor Maloney. I'll turn it over to chair car.
[Doug Carr]: Very good. Okay. Who would like to go first on the board? Go ahead. Page.
[Page Buldini]: Can I just ask a clarifying question? Two of those options have an incentivized zoning story?
[Doug Carr]: They all do.
[Page Buldini]: Okay.
[Doug Carr]: Plus one is the incentive.
[Page Buldini]: So I know last night we had a discussion, sorry to turn, about the affordable housing table. And I'm concerned if we're talking about options with incentivization, but we're still unclear with one of with one of those options. Is it wise to continue to discuss these if we're not clear if these options are even applicable? Is it okay if I ask Danielle that question? Or Director Hunt?
[Doug Carr]: I would like to hear Danielle and Alicia, their response. It's a fair question.
[Alicia Hunt]: So if I understand your question, it's if we're removing one of the major, so, The proposal on the table is we either would fix the incentives. There's a problem with the incentive for affordable housing and that can't be done tonight. It's going to take us a little bit of time to work through the math and the scenarios to figure out how to incentivize affordable housing in a way that's worth it to the city so that we get the height we want and the units. So if it was adopted tonight, we would have to take that section out because it is a major loophole. And we don't want people applying and building with the major loophole in there. And it leaves other incentives. Other incentives are still there, but they're not as attractive to people in general. They're less likely to be picked up, particularly in the BA1. The other incentives are really unlikely that anybody would use them. So the affordable housing is truly the only real incentive for this area. So the two options on the table are to basically adopt it. without that in it soon or continue working on this the staff need and the consultants through the summer to sort of figure this out. We need a couple of weeks which basically takes us through the summer to bring it back in September at which point we believe that we can do incentivized affordable housing to do these incentives and that that would work. But we can't adopt that tonight like we don't have the ability to. So if one was to leave it with the incentives, then it would just not get used. If say it was passed tonight, nobody would take the incentives. And they may or may not propose something over the course of the summer. A savvy developer would say, yeah, but the city is putting better incentives in in the fall that we want to use, and we'll wait. So that's kind of how I see it. Either, right, it's adopted without it and developers will wait and things in this area won't happen or we adopt it all in the fall with the incentives in there, in which case there are meaningful incentives for people to use.
[Zac Bears]: I just want to be clear. We're not talking about adopting any zoning tonight, right? If what we're talking with the choice before us is to close a public hearing which then starts a clock for the city board to make a recommendation and the city board can make a recommendation that we should update the incentive and that would there would be time to then update the incentive or the city board can make a recommendation to remove the incentive. But I just wanted to clarify like we can't vote tonight to adopt the zoning. We're not adopting final zoning at any point tonight because that's, It's just not possible.
[Alicia Hunt]: Right. Thank you for clarifying that. Nothing would get adopted tonight. If the hearing was closed tonight, they would stop taking public hearing. The CD board would have technically 20 days, and then the city council could vote after that. But the city council doesn't have to vote. The city council could wait until the CD board comes with its recommendation on how to do this. There just wouldn't be any further comment on that. In the terms of the incentive housing, I'm going to say it's super technical. Like, I can't imagine that anybody other than a lawyer or a mathematician is going to end up with comments on it. We would publish sort of, here's the table, this is why we think this works. I don't know, given vacations and stuff, that we could do that in 20 days to put it in front of the CD board that soon. Could we put it in front of the CD board in August? I think that's rational. But yeah, that's kind of where we would stand with it. Danielle wants to add to it. So I'm going to say that Danielle and some of our interns have been studying this a lot.
[Danielle Evans]: Yes, thanks Paige for bringing that up. Yeah, I feel very strongly that this needs to be fixed so that we can actually get deeper affordability and additional affordable units. I think it'd be a real shame if because of two months we have to delete these and either properties are redeveloped and And we missed these opportunities. But I did want to ask a question about the timing. I believe that the City Board does not have, if they didn't close their public hearing, then the clock doesn't start. Because the order of operations is that the City Board has a public hearing and then they close their public hearing and make a recommendation to the City Council. That's when the shot clock starts when they close a public hearing if they keep it open then it's still open. There's no clock just because city council closes their public hearing.
[Zac Bears]: Right. I mean I think and maybe we should just go the other direction here. I was thinking we could talk about the substance and then talk about the process but it sounds like we're in the process.
[Danielle Evans]: I just wanted to clarify that because it was brought up.
[Zac Bears]: Yes, well, no, and I think that that was my point, right? We, the decision tonight is do we want to continue a public hearing? Do we want to close a public hearing? Do we all want to make the same choice on that? Do we want to make different choices on that? I think something that we have heard pretty consistently from folks is there's been a lot of meetings and we did outline a process in January and then an updated process in March and April. indicating like what would be the ways to, for people to participate in this process. If we continue the public hearing, then we continue asking people to come back and attend more and more meetings and make comments again, feel either obligated or interested in continuing to do that. I was, I think there's a couple of ways that we could go tonight. We could all continue public hearings if we do that, then we can't really have a joint meeting on this until the fall because the mayor said I don't want you to have public meetings on zoning during the summer. We could both close a public hearing tonight if we agree on the substance of the height and the purpose-built student housing proposals, like if we agree in principle that these are things we want to do, these are generally the heights that we want to have, and what needs to happen next is the technical elements of what is the actual language. I certainly think that the Community Development Board could meet over the summer to finalize the incentive technicality. Like I think we all agree we want an affordable housing incentive, right? That, we agree on that. That's the substance. Like it's just that there's a technical issue where on small projects with a lower number of units, we're having math problems. So, you know, We all agree that we want an affordable housing incentive. Do we need to continue the public hearing to get more public feedback on something we already all agree on? I think that's just kind of the principle that I'm trying to put out there. So I think we could all agree to continue the public hearing. and push this out for several months. I think we could agree for both bodies to close the public hearing if we agree after discussion on the substantive process that we're in a general consensus on heights in the sub-districts and in a general consensus that the purpose-built definition that you all really worked on last night is something that we all agree to and then you and PDS, the city board and PDS could work out the technical final version of the recommendations that you were to submit to us. If we're concerned about the shot clock, I'm sure that we could agree as part of the vote that we're not going to schedule a vote until we receive recommendations from you guys. As the person who puts things on the agenda, I can say I won't put it on the agenda until we receive recommendations from you guys. So I don't want us to get caught in that piece of this. Because it's, yes, closing the public hearing, starts a nominally starts a shot clock. But it also gives certainty to the public about what the rest of this process is going to look like. And if per the mayor's directive we're going to continue the public hearing it means there will be no recommendations until September or maybe even October. And I think we should really consider whether that's the timeline and the process that we want to have here. Because I think there's a way for us to have continued discussions to get it right, to get the text of this right, if we all agree largely on the intent and the substance of the decisions that we have to make. That allows for the CD board and PDS to work over the summer. And I think that can happen if we're saying we've closed public hearings because that's what the mayor said we shouldn't be doing over the summer is having public hearings. If we choose to keep it open, then I think We're just going to be months, months out from here. And I do think, frankly, you know, we'll hear maybe from councilors and CD board members a disagreement. Maybe the council says we do want to close the public hearing, maybe the CD board says we don't. then I think you guys would have a process on your own and you would have maybe some more public hearings and then you would come up with recommendations and then whatever you recommend would come back to us. But that would be more akin to the process that we had last time where I think there was council disagreed with some recommendations and chose not to adopt them. I think something we've been trying to do in this process is to avoid that, to try to have consensus with both boards. So I do think that if we take two paths here, we might be in a situation where, A lot of some public hearings and work and recommendations are made and then it comes back to the council and the council says well we agree with six out of eight of them. And so I would like to try to avoid that. My personal opinion again is that I think if we were to if we agree on the heights and the major decisions that we have tonight. would be to say that the public hearing process is concluded tonight, but that the CD board and the PDS team could work on finalizing the recommendation language over the next couple of months. That's my personal opinion. People probably disagree with me.
[Doug Carr]: That's TBD. I believe, Paige, you still have the floor. You have one question, and it took only 12 minutes to get answered, but that's cool.
[Page Buldini]: So unsure of the process, even though we're not supposed to say that.
[Doug Carr]: We're making it up as we go along.
[Zac Bears]: That I would not endorse, that statement. I think we have options and we're deciding on them.
[Page Buldini]: So what are we doing? Am I?
[Zac Bears]: I mean, if we want to talk about, if we want to pick a path or do you want to talk about the BA 1?
[Page Buldini]: I would love to pick a path.
[Zac Bears]: All right, so we want to talk about process.
[Page Buldini]: Yes, please.
[Zac Bears]: Well, yeah, I mean, we could go to the council if Councilors have a preference for how we move forward. Or Doug, if you want to talk with the CD board about how you think you'd like to move forward. And then we can come back and talk, try to agree on the heights and the student housing definition.
[Doug Carr]: I guess I'm hesitant. I think the process, in my opinion, would grow out of largely if there's consensus. All right. If there's not consensus, the process is going to be different. And that's why I think and I appreciated the comments about the BA1 because it's clearly some consensus over here. I would like to know if there is over here too, because I think to chair bears earlier comments, if there is consensus, it's going to be easier to get to the finish line. But if there's not, I think we're talking about September. That's just the way I see it. But I, I don't know where you guys stand on this. We didn't talk at all last night about heights and massing and we've had, I know, look, I proposed five stories for the BA-1, and then I pulled it back after thinking about it. So there's been evolution. There's back and forth. the new option with the five on the corners, I'd have no idea what anybody thinks about that. And that's why I think at least getting a sense of that would help, it might simplify the process or not. So I guess I would ask you to, and if you agree, to make a request, make a sense of your direction for each one of these zones to see if there is consensus here, because that will, in my mind, change the process. So let me go back to... Go ahead, Paige, again.
[Page Buldini]: Thank you, Jay Carr. So I will go with, I don't know if we want to put the options back on for the public?
[Doug Carr]: Yeah, let's put the options back on screen for the BA1, if that's okay, just so everyone can see what we're talking about. It's like, let's make a deal.
[Page Buldini]: As a resident and business owner that is on this strip, I will go with option A, specifically because I look at that corner every day, and I love that corner. And it's really tricky to turn. If you're coming from Boston Ave to take a right up Winthrop, you're going up a hill. So I go with option A. Okay.
[Doug Carr]: Dina, would you like to go next?
[Dina Caloggero]: Emily, could you do me a favor? Could you show the shadow study again? And I think it's important. Someone said, one of the comments for the four plus one and the extra, is that we give a little geography lesson of what we're looking at too. Because hillside hardware isn't a hill, I agree with you. I've walked the area many, many times. There's a little house, too. It's not just tracks. There's some residential houses back there, too. Yeah?
[Doug Carr]: Go ahead, Emily.
[Emily Innes]: Thank you. Can I just confirm? So we have a shadow study for the 3 plus 1 and the 3 plus 1 and the 4 plus 1. Which do you want to see?
[Dina Caloggero]: All of them. 3 plus 1 I'm fine with. But look at 4.1 and then look at the small house behind Danish Pastry.
[Emily Innes]: So we don't have a 4 plus 1 shot. We can do 3, 1. OK.
[Dina Caloggero]: Yeah. That one's fine.
[Emily Innes]: OK.
[Dina Caloggero]: See that house? And I guess the question someone brought up. Will the 45 degree angle be implemented for that small house behind Danish Pastry?
[Emily Innes]: You're talking about this house here? Yes. So the 45 degree angle is when the building is abutting a residential area. That building is included within the BANCD. So the 45 degree angle would not be applicable to that house.
[Dina Caloggero]: But someone lives in that house, I think.
[Emily Innes]: Of course, yes.
[Dina Caloggero]: And then, OK, so that's what I wanted to point out. So I'm going to go with the first option, option A. The 3-1. And the reason why is that if you look at what we did for Medford Square, Medford Square was pretty much flat. If you look at the high street area on the corner, if you look from high street across the street, they're pretty much flat. And I think we did like 4.1 or 3 plus 1 on Medford Square. But the street's wider. Boston Avenue is really, small. You know, the sidewalks are small, too. I think one of the residents brought that up, too. So I'm going to go with the lower. I'm going to go with the lower, the 3-1 on BA-1.
[Doug Carr]: Thank you, Tina. Ari, would you like to express an opinion on Zoom?
[Ari Fishman]: Yes, I would. Thank you. I am between options B and C. I think 3 plus 1 is essentially what we have there now. And this is an area that has the capacity to support more. I think that one of the benefits of allowing for increased development and incentivizing going a little higher is that there is, as President Bears has said, they will then fix the sidewalks. We will be able to get wider sidewalks. One of the things we talked about yesterday was 12 foot sidewalks. eight feet sidewalks, 10 feet sidewalks, which are all magnitudes improvement over the six feet we have now. And I think that allowing the higher possibilities of B and C mean that we're actually going to be able to get the benefits we want, including wider sidewalks, better visibility, and a better life experience overall. So I'm voting B or C.
[Doug Carr]: Thank you. I appreciate it. Sean Began.
[Sean Beagan]: I will also be option A. I think I've been option A since this process began several weeks ago, and I believe option A was the proposed heights that came out of the city council permanent planning committee. So that was the original proposal that came out of the city council committee. I think it made sense then. Chairman Carr had recommended some higher limits, but I think I heard him say he's kind of taking a step back from that now. So the sponsor of the higher limits is, I think, withdrawing that. So I would say maybe everyone should follow his lead and just stick with the three plus one. which was what originally came out of the city council to the community development board.
[Zac Bears]: I think you had a great idea.
[Doug Carr]: It's tough to put the genie back in the bottle sometimes, isn't it? OK. So that leaves me. Obviously, the three plus one seems to be the consensus. I was definitely, even though I proposed it, the option four and withdrew it, basically the five story. And I was convinced, largely by Emily more than anyone else, is that it just seemed like most of those sites couldn't make it work, you know, that they, and I didn't think there was a lot of value in that. That's how I took it. I am open to option C, but I greatly prefer option A just because, again, I think it's a reasonable height, a reasonable massing, and it doesn't greatly change the character of the neighborhood, which I think is, numerous people have brought up, and I think, You can imagine a four-story building on Boston Ave without a lot of imagination. You see it all over. And it's not going to be. Remember, it's 4 tenths of what tops this building now. It's a small fraction. It wouldn't tower over you. It would still allow plenty of sunlight. It would be very pleasant. A lot of Medford Square is like that now. Think of the big old building. I think it's five stories, but it feels human scale. I'm definitely in the option A with my colleagues. I'm open to C, but if I had to choose, I would choose A. So I think that's just, that's where we are.
[Zac Bears]: Can we live with A? I heard some A's, some B's and C's on the council. It sounds like we have a pretty solid A for the Community Development Board. Councilor Leming?
[Matt Leming]: Yeah, again, my, my only concern with this is, again, the, the letter that we were getting from Tufts that said that with with option a, and this, this is what changed my view on it with with option a, we. basically wouldn't be able to get anything done with Hillside Hardware. The incentives for development just wouldn't be there. That's really my concern with this. I just don't want to pass zoning and still have the storefront that folks have rightfully complained about the most in the area be unchanged.
[Zac Bears]: Any other comments from members of the council? Councilor Scarpelli?
[George Scarpelli]: Can someone just share what the height by footage would be, 3 plus 1 and what the height by footage, 4 plus 1?
[Emily Innes]: It's 50, right? Yeah, it's 50.
[Zac Bears]: 50 feet width, okay. It's 38.
[Emily Innes]: 50, we confirm it's 50 for a 3 plus 1.
[Zac Bears]: Yeah. Thank you. For 3 plus 1. Yeah. And what's the 4 plus 1?
[Emily Innes]: Another 10. So we would say 62, the potential for allowing some flexibility for a pitched roof or for a higher ground to ground.
[Zac Bears]: Thank you.
[Emily Innes]: Or floor to floor for the ground.
[Zac Bears]: Do we have any further comments by members of the council on the option for BA1? George?
[George Scarpelli]: No, I'm sorry. No, that's all I had. I think that I was with the three plus one.
[Zac Bears]: Is there a motion? Councilor Callahan.
[SPEAKER_26]: I would make the motion.
[Anna Callahan]: I would prefer that we do pass some zoning. And we can talk about process later. I don't want to get into that right now since we are putting it off. But I would prefer that we I mean, I would certainly rather that it was the corners, option C, but I mean, I'm okay with option A. I just, I fear that if in this area, which has the least amount of shadows and is already, you know, a commercial quarter and, you know, which I think is also busy and would be fantastic for like, you know, the mixture of residential and business, If we're not up zoning anything here, then we're not going to in either of the other places. So that's my only concern is like if we're not, you know, like the voters, not just voters, I think the residents of the city have talked about housing and the lack of appropriate housing and the You know the data on our need for housing that is a different look that's not five bedrooms and six bedrooms that you know the need for how for different kind of housing that we have in the city is real. And you know it's been 40 years. We haven't had any zoning so you know my my concern is that if Let's not talk about passing stuff in September or putting it off but even if we pass stuff today like I'm OK if we do the least amount. But I just feel like it's not really answering what I think that residents want. So you know I could go with a if that's our only option. You know I think going with C gives a little bit more options on the corners. So.
[Zac Bears]: Yeah, I mean, I think going back to the process question, it sounds like if we're in consensus tonight, there's a possibility that we move forward into the technical and like finalization phase after tonight. It sounds like if we're not in consensus tonight, then we're not moving forward into any phase until September. So, that seems to be the choice on the table. So I heard a motion from Councilor Scarpelli to move forward with option A, three plus one for BA1s or second. Seconded by Councilor Malayne. Mr. Clerk, if you would call the roll for the city council.
[Rich Eliseo]: Councilor Kelly. Yes. Councilor Leming. No. Councilor Malayne. Councilor Scarpelli? Yes. Councilor Tseng is absent. Vice President Lazzaro? She's actually not here. She's absent. And President Bears?
[Zac Bears]: Yes. Is that a 4, 1, 2? Yes, right, okay. 4 in the affirmative, 1 in the negative, 2 absent.
[Doug Carr]: I'll entertain a motion for BA1 option A. Second. I'll call the roll. John Anderson is absent. Sean Began? Yes. Page Buldini? Yes. Dina Calagaro? Yes. Ari Goffman Fishman.
[Ari Fishman]: Yes.
[Doug Carr]: And myself, Doug Carr, yes. The motion passes 5-0 with one abstention.
[Zac Bears]: All right, let's move to BA2.
[Emily Innes]: So BA2, we had four scenarios. It was the 4 plus 2, so the higher scenario is always to the middle with Boston Avenue on one side here and with the rail track on the other side. And the shorter scenarios are always Winchester Street here and the two church properties here. So option A is 4 plus 2 and 3 plus 1. Option B is 4 plus 2 and 4 plus 1. Option C is 4 plus 3 in the center and 3 plus 1. And option D is 4 plus 3 and 4 plus 1. So effectively, to simplify it, In the center between Boston Avenue and the rail, it's either 4 plus 2 or 4 plus 3. For the two side areas, it's always 3 plus 1 or 4 plus 1. I'll take you through so you can see it up close. This line here, this is Boston Avenue. These are the newer residential buildings here, and this is the rail line. This is Winchester Street along here, and then these are the two St. Clement parcels here. So you can see the 4 plus 2 and the 3 plus 1, the 4 plus 2 and the 4 plus 1. The 4 plus 3 and the 3 plus 1 and the 4 plus 3 and the 4 plus 1. I'm happy to go back through any of those.
[Zac Bears]: We have a discussion from members of the council. Councilor Mullane.
[Liz Mullane]: Emily, can you tell me what is the current zoning for this area too?
[Emily Innes]: We're just going to, yeah, this is, so the area where the four buildings in this cluster are, that's currently industrial. Okay. And the other side, we're just double checking the map further up. We're going to the interactive map to confirm. For all of those of you online. Oh, thanks. Even better. Okay. It's a general residential. I just wanted to make sure it wasn't the other. It's general residential for the St. Clements. I don't like saying that it's the wrong thing. I'm sorry. Right up here. It's been a long night. Thank you, Paige. You know, some people just say being helpful.
[Liz Mullane]: Thank you.
[George Scarpelli]: And the footage for all three, because I'm looking at My concern, again, is what we're hearing, and you're talking about directly 2, 4, 6, possibly 8, 9 homes on Winchester Street, that the higher we go, we've eliminated, it would look like we eliminate so much natural light. To me, it would be concerning. You know, I'm going to stick with my trend in these two areas with option A, I believe. If you go back to option A for me.
[Emily Innes]: Take us back to option A, yep.
[SPEAKER_26]: If you can show us.
[George Scarpelli]: So 4 plus 2, 3 plus 1. Could you explain that on the Winchester street side?
[Emily Innes]: In terms of the number of feet?
[George Scarpelli]: Yeah.
[Emily Innes]: Okay, so the four plus one we have is 62. That's the five stories, so four at 50 feet, and then the additional 12. Now, we have been discussing at the table here, we've been doing our calculations with a 12-foot floor-to-floor for residential, because we also wanted to give some allowance for a pitched roof, but it is more common for a residential floor to floor to be 10 feet. So we could reduce those heights, the heights that we've calculated in the past to be a 10 foot residential floor to floor.
[SPEAKER_26]: Okay, that would be.
[Emily Innes]: We can do those calculations now, councilors, as you all debate and then give them to you.
[Zac Bears]: And we're talking about a 14 foot commercial first floor? Yeah.
[Emily Innes]: Yeah, 14 foot ground floor for commercial, yeah.
[Zac Bears]: So it'd be basically for the Winchester side would be 44 feet under that. Under this option A. OK, thank you.
[George Scarpelli]: And I think that's where I feel comfortable. So I would feel comfortable with option A. I have one.
[Zac Bears]: If we could go to option C for a second. I think this is an interesting one because I think it meets Councilor Scarpelli what you're talking about on the Boston Ave, St. Clements properties and the Winchester Street properties. But I don't know that 4 plus 2 or 4 plus 3 on that on the Erickson fuel and the Titan gas. I don't know that there's much impact of the difference in those two things.
[George Scarpelli]: And I think that's a good point.
[Zac Bears]: I think that option C, we could meet the kind of neighborhood transition question that you're bringing up, but keep the four plus three on those two lots because it's just surrounded by either tall things or a Tufts engineering or a rail track.
[George Scarpelli]: That's a great point, Mr. President. I would feel comfortable with the option, with this option as well. I think I'm just more concerned with the residential side of Winchester.
[Zac Bears]: Do we have any further discussion on from the council or do we have a motion for the BA2 option?
[SPEAKER_26]: BA2. The option C. Option C then.
[Zac Bears]: On the motion of Councilor Scarpelli, seconded by Councilor, you want it? Sure. On the motion of Councilor Mullane, seconded by Councilor Callahan to move with BA2 option C. Yeah, you, yeah, I mean, Oh, probably right. We'll take the vote after you guys. Yes. Sorry.
[Doug Carr]: That's okay. I just don't want to have fighting motions if we can avoid it. So I guess I'm going to, again, turn to the CD board in terms of asking what you guys are thinking. It sounds like you're in deep conversation already. Okay.
[Zac Bears]: Just say it out loud for open meeting purposes.
[Doug Carr]: Yes, that wasn't a quorum, don't worry. Who would like to go first?
[Emily Innes]: So option A, 4 plus 2 in the center, 3 plus 1 on the sides. Option B, 4 plus 2 in the center, 4 plus 1 on the sides. Option C, 4 plus 3 in the center, 3 plus 1 on the sides. And option D, 4 plus 3 in the center, 4 plus 1 on the sides. just move it back, and I'm just going to move it back to the tile so you can have them all at once.
[Doug Carr]: Go ahead, Dina.
[Dina Caloggero]: Emily, could you just, I'm sorry, could you just do the shadow study for option C for me? And I'm looking at Winchester Street too.
[Emily Innes]: So we only did the shadow studies for the shortest and the tallest option. So option C is not the tallest option. OK.
[Dina Caloggero]: Then that's fine. OK. There was one of the shadow studies that I saw that was lots of shading on the residential area across the street. So that was probably scenario D. Right. I'm going to go with option C.
[Doug Carr]: Emily, if I could just chime in about what we just talked about with the Florida floor heights. I'm getting a slightly different number from the buildings that my firm has built in this city over the last 15 years. We tend to do 10 foot 8, 18 inch trusses. 9 foot ceilings, because that's the market standard, and a little bit of tolerance for their floors. So we actually go to 11, just to give us some play. I don't know what you would be using for a structural system for a 10, but it would be very thin. And I think it's more conservative just to use 11, if that's what I always use when I'm planning a building.
[Emily Innes]: Yeah, we're happy to do that. So we're going to calculate those in a spreadsheet. I think we've been waiting to understand which stories you have before calculating. We had made some recommendations previously, but then we had all these options, so we didn't calculate the four to four, but the options. But we're happy to use 11.
[Zac Bears]: I also think the flexibility of, you know, if you're doing 10, 10, 8, and then 11, you know, I do not build buildings for a living but given my many many zoning meetings and having Doug here next to me it would seem to me that if. If we stuck at the 12 and the person said, I would like to build 11 foot stories, they will do that. And that might be the most economical option for them. But that if we kept it at 10 or 11 and they said, well, I can't make this building work unless it's 11 foot 3 inches, then that's probably a barrier that we're putting into the zoning for no reason. Because they're probably going to build 11 foot stories anyway. So that's just something I want to.
[Doug Carr]: The reality is that these are wood frame buildings sitting on a concrete or steel podium, either When you say seven stories, you're talking about five stories of wood over two stories of steel or concrete podiums. And when you're talking about a four stories, I think you're talking about a three over one, which is not actually that common a type, but it could be slab on grade too, you know, if it's a big enough site. So I agree with Zach that a little bit of flexibility, which I think we're doing by making 11, doesn't really change the mass and scale. It just gives flexibility for reality for construction.
[Zac Bears]: I was saying I don't think there's a huge difference between 11 and 12. And I think we probably want to stick, we had it at 12 originally.
[Paula Ramos Martinez]: So if I may clarify, so we usually do for a mixed use building 14 in the lowest level and then 12 for the higher levels. Just to allow for that flexibility is something that we have seen in other communities to be doing that calculation of heights. We are happy to review those, but we recommend that height.
[Zac Bears]: Yeah, and I think if that's the recommendation and We're talking about 44, 47, or 50 feet, right, at 10, 11, and 12. And it sounds like even if we were to allow 12, Doug's experience is that many of these are 11. Yeah.
[Doug Carr]: Go ahead.
[Dina Caloggero]: So just just a point of clarification. So when we're looking at we're voting on the options. We're also considering the maximum heights to right of the building. So for B.A. to 70 feet.
[Emily Innes]: So to clarify, we are looking at both the stories and the number of feet in order to govern the height. That is correct.
[Dina Caloggero]: OK. So when you showed us the different options, I'm assuming the tallest building for BA II is 70 feet, correct?
[Doug Carr]: Not for BA2 option C. That seven story would have to be more than 70 feet because for the 11 in the ground floor would be taller. It would be closer to 80 I would think.
[Emily Innes]: So you'd have 14 plus for a seven story building. You would have 14 plus six times 12. Right. OK. At 86. And the code limit is 85. So they're going to be 85. So it would be 86, 85. OK. Good.
[Doug Carr]: Right up against the tracks. Yeah. I just want to make sure I understand. I'm still option C. We have still option C. Okay, thank you. Paige, you want to go next? Go ahead.
[Page Buldini]: Thank you. So I'm going to be annoying. I know we're not supposed to talk about other things, but as we are talking about height, will we have an opportunity to talk about setbacks? Because when I look at that, which I know these are just ideas, it's so close to Winchester Street. That's what makes me nervous with a setback. And on this table, the setback is zero to 20. Side and rear is zero. So are we going to talk about that another time or should I make my just height decision?
[Doug Carr]: Well, tell us your concerns. You're saying that the middle buildings, which are the tallest in this zone, you're concerned about them casting shadow on to Winchester Street?
[Page Buldini]: Or just where they're oriented, which again, maybe is just to show us, but it's another tight street.
[Zac Bears]: Are you talking about the buildings that are on Winchester, like this, the right side of the diagram? Yes.
[Page Buldini]: Thank you. Only because my daughter does gymnastics there. So like obviously we're there every day. I walk that block every, well every Tuesday. We're taking a break for the summer. But those houses are right there too. So I know that depending upon the height we'd be mindful because this is a residential area. So different than on BA1. So we'd be mindful of the 45 degree angle. Okay.
[Zac Bears]: I have a clarifying if you don't mind Emily. Yeah. It looks like the building furthest south or the most, most to the right and down is set back from Winchester Street some amount. But then the building at the corner of Boston or at Harvard and Winchester is not set back from Winchester. Could you maybe go into that a little bit more?
[Paula Ramos Martinez]: Yes, so just to be mindful, we do require that the sidewalk is a minimum of 12, which at the moment is not. So it will be almost double the size, and then you can build a zero lot line. But you always need to give that 12 foot sidewalk. We showed just the minimum and the maximum, so the one that is on the northern part is at that, like, zero lot line, and the other one is the 20-foot setback, which, in this case, what we require is you can build up until 20 if you activate. So if you put some landscape, you do some terrace, you do something. So there is what we showed is those two options mainly. Okay.
[Page Buldini]: Okay. Thank you. So I will go with option C. Thank you.
[Doug Carr]: Option C. Emily, is it a possibility that that top incentive floor on both the St. Clement's side of Boston Ave and now the Winchester side, which are the same, Many other places in the zoning, I think to your credit, you're proposing that the incentive floor does have a little bit of setback. And I wonder if that would kind of get you where you're looking to go, Paige.
[Emily Innes]: So that's correct. The step back at the upper floors was originally proposed at six. We tested it in the B.A. three. It's starting at five stories. So these are the three plus one is four stories. So currently as the zoning is written it wouldn't apply. But that's certainly something that you could discuss as an option.
[Doug Carr]: I think it might get a few people over the line here as the sense I'm getting it's not a huge. But it does break down that mass. It does allow that it is south facing directly on Winchester Street. It should help.
[Zac Bears]: I do wonder if, given the height, doing the step back, again, I don't build buildings, but it might be easier to just say instead of 0 to 20, have it be like a 6 to 20. And it seems to me that setting it back at the first floor would be less costly to the builder than building a fourth floor at six feet step back from a structural perspective. You get what I'm saying? Yeah, especially if we're only going to do four floors here. I don't think putting a step back on that fourth floor, I just think that people won't use it. So if we're worried about it, maybe we just do it at the ground floor. And maybe we do it just from Winchester Street, right? Yeah.
[Emily Innes]: Yeah. We, yes, I think, I believe that we are all in agreement that we would prefer, for a four-story building, we would prefer a deeper setback and not doing the step back. Yeah.
[Doug Carr]: I think, I think, you're good with that, Paige? Okay.
[Zac Bears]: No, we're trying to step forward.
[Doug Carr]: I can't wait for this to be midnight.
[Zac Bears]: No, we're still 9 o'clock. We got this, guys. OK.
[Doug Carr]: You're all set. OK. Ari, do you want to make your opinion known, please? Speak for yourself, George. Ari, are you there? Yes, I am. Oh, very good.
[Ari Fishman]: What do you stand? I had been between a few options, but seeing the consensus around C, I don't have an objection to that being the consensus. I'm OK with C. And the discussion of the change setback also makes sense. So that works.
[Doug Carr]: Very good. Thank you much. Sean Began.
[Sean Beagan]: And Bear put it very well, why that option C makes a lot of sense.
[Doug Carr]: And this is going to be an easy one for me. I'm going with my board. I do think there's great value in option C. I think it does protect both the neighborhoods. It protects Bristol Road. It's not shown here, but the St. Clements High School, I think, will have the same fate as the buildings shown, the two smaller buildings shown to the south on Boston Ave, the elementary and the rectory, potentially. I know these are just theoretical, but I think St. Clements Road, which is the gently arced street on the left side of this diagram, will greatly benefit from just having a four-story building. It's only a little taller than what's there now. I think their quality of life in their neighborhood will be protected but enhanced by this change, so I am also on option C for the BA II.
[Zac Bears]: We had a motion by Councilman Lane seconded by Councilor Callahan for option C. Sounds like maybe like a minor amendment that set back on Winchester Street wouldn't be 020 B6 but on the Winchester Street deeper. Yeah. All right. Great. Is that an acceptable amendment. Councilman Lane. Great. So. On the motion of Councilman seconded by Councilor Callahan as amended by Councilor Mullane by acclamation. Mr. Clerk please call the roll. Genius.
[Rich Eliseo]: Councilor Callahan. Councilor Leming.
[M2dn2QxmG2g_SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
[Rich Eliseo]: Council Malone. Yes. Council Scarpelli. Yes. Councilor Tseng is still absent. Vice President Lazzaro is absent. And President Bears.
[Zac Bears]: Yes. Finding the affirmative to absent the motion passes. Chair Carr.
[Doug Carr]: I'll entertain a motion for BA2 to be option C, the 4 plus 3 and the 3 plus 1 as amended by the city council in the previous motion. At second, I'll call the roll. John Anderson is absent. Sean Began?
[Sean Beagan]: Yes.
[Doug Carr]: Page Buldini? Yes. Dina Colagaro? Yes. Ari Goffman-Fishman?
[Ari Fishman]: Yes.
[Doug Carr]: Thank you. And myself, Doug Carr, yes. The motion passes five to zero with one abstention.
[Zac Bears]: All right. BA3. And since this has come up a couple times, could we just say what the existing zoning is now and what the existing height, that maximum height allowed by the zoning is now, both in stories and feet?
[Emily Innes]: We are working on the maximum height, even as we speak. Can't take notes and calculate at the same time.
[Zac Bears]: Sorry, no, the current, on the current.
[Emily Innes]: That's not going to be any help whatsoever. It's the O2 district and the C1.
[Zac Bears]: And what's the, what's the height maximum for those two right now? Right now? Yeah.
[Emily Innes]: Do we have that? Oh, it's six for one. Yeah. We're just double checking it. Does it have the old? Oh, it does, good. Thank you. See, again, thank you, Paige. C1 commercial building.
[Zac Bears]: Okay, Paige is closest.
[Emily Innes]: Residential building for the C1. Residential building, six stories by right. Commercial building, four stories by right. Hotel, 15 stories by right. O2, office two. Other permitted structures, six story by right.
[Zac Bears]: All right, and the feet?
[Emily Innes]: They don't have the feet. You don't have the feet in your current zoning.
[Zac Bears]: Oh, we don't?
[Emily Innes]: No.
[Zac Bears]: Wow. See? Can you make the bad old zoning? Well, I think for the O2, it is six big stories. And I think that was the intention. And I think we'd have to look back at it.
[Emily Innes]: Sorry, they do have. They just don't have it on the map. You do have it, Danielle. Danielle, is that a technical term? Danielle says that the existing heights are crunched, which we believe is a technical term. If you want to pass it over or tell me, I can give it to them. It's by use, so it'll just take us a second. 75 for the six stories. 85 for the O2. Because it's the labs, the O2 six stories is 85 and 75 for the C1 six stories.
[Zac Bears]: All right. So basically max heights right here right now are 75 to 85 feet under the current zoning.
[Emily Innes]: Yes, except for that hotel.
[Zac Bears]: Which is 150, 200 feet. Oh, darn.
[Emily Innes]: So just to confirm the options for consideration, option A is the five plus two, option B the six plus one, option C the six plus two, and then of course we have that variation that we're showing for discussion of five stories only on North Street, which we're showing in each of these. So I'll just go through again. Option A, five stories plus two incentive. Option B, six stories plus one incentive. So the same height. And then six stories plus two incentive. Okay. And I'm told it is 86 for the seven stories, which would be option a and B and a 90 92 for the eight stories, which is option C. Great.
[Zac Bears]: I will go to Councilor Scarpelli and then wrong one. Councilor Scarpelli and then Councilor Callahan.
[George Scarpelli]: Thank you. And I know I'm very cognizant right now with the height, because I think that's one of the biggest concerns that we heard, both the height and the parking, I think. Chair Carr mentioned that in that area there is ample parking, but for the, and correct me if I'm wrong, if that's what I heard, but either the 5-2 or 6-1, we're looking at an increase of possibly just one foot. So it's not, you know, because I think we've all heard the fear that 10 stories and it's going to tower over. I think that, Member Buldini mentioned that, you know, the setbacks now, I think that's a great question. So understanding the setbacks in that neighborhood as well in those areas with the 5-2 and 6-1, I personally, I'm going to stay away from the 6-2. So my option would be with the 5, either the A or B, but it would help if we understood the setbacks. So we know what the shading would be because I think You're not going to see much of a drastic difference at 86 feet to what is already there.
[Emily Innes]: That's a great question, Councilor. So right now, the setbacks are, first of all, to set back to create the 12-foot sidewalk, and then after that, it is the zero to 20. So they could build on that line once the sidewalk is widened, because that widening happens on the private property, and then from there, they could build up, or they could set back up to another 20 feet in order to do the activation that Paola spoke about earlier.
[George Scarpelli]: OK, just to help people understand. So this could be actually set further back to what the existing building is now?
[Emily Innes]: It could be set. We're just going to double check the measurements to be able to answer that question of what the existing buildings are. Because you have an excellent point that there is an existing five story on the lot that we chose. But that is further in, so we're just going to measure that.
[Doug Carr]: Are you talking about the existing five-story Elizabeth Grady building? Yeah. Because that's nowhere near.
[Emily Innes]: Yeah, that's further back than 20 feet.
[Doug Carr]: That's like 100 feet back, isn't it? Sorry? Isn't it more than 100 feet back from the sidewalk? Yeah. Yeah. I don't have a question.
[George Scarpelli]: That's a good catch.
[Emily Innes]: How far back is that one? Yeah, it looks about. We're just double checking. I think we're talking about two different buildings. 64 and what on that on the other end? So we have one building, the building that is closest, it's parallel to North Street and it is closest to the rail track. It's actually slanted compared to the street line. So at one end it's about 30 feet back and at the other end it's about 60 feet back. And then there's another building that's set in a little bit further as you get closer to Boston Avenue. But still, if you're measuring from Boston Avenue, it's right up against the sidewalk. But from North Street, it's set back.
[George Scarpelli]: So the existing footage is acceptable for options A and B. my fear and not understanding really the the difference of setback. I know that, um, share car, you know, sharing that 100 ft. It makes a huge difference. Um, especially when you look at the residential homes on North and Boston apps. So, um, why don't you move on to someone else? Council business? Well, I think I'm gonna need a minute. Thank you.
[Anna Callahan]: Yeah. I just want to see if I'm understanding correctly. We have two choices that have two floors of incentives and if I'm correct that means like we are getting the community is getting something for those two floors. So I would lean toward A or C because both of those in order to get the height required for them to do something for the community. So that's kind of my preference, if I'm understanding that correctly. Thanks.
[Emily Innes]: And just to confirm, yes, the incentive floors do require that the developer provide a community benefit from that menu of choices that we looked at. So you're correct in option A and C. Option C has the higher ultimate height if the incentives are realized, but they are both two floors of incentives. Option B is a single incentive floor.
[Zac Bears]: Any other Councilors with questions on BA3 or opinions? Councilor Mullane?
[Liz Mullane]: Just quickly, in option C, the 6 plus 2, you said that's 92 feet, and right now it's 85 feet, so we're just talking a little bit of difference, but more benefit with the added incentive. Is that what I'm hearing? Sorry.
[Emily Innes]: We actually corrected it just as the mics went off last time. It's 98, not 92. So. So it's 80, 86. 86 to 98, yeah.
[Zac Bears]: The code's probably 85 on A and B and then 98 on C. 98 on C. And the current zoning is 85 in the O2, 75 in the C1 for residents. Correct.
[Liz Mullane]: Got it. Thank you.
[Zac Bears]: Option B was my idea. If you just want to get rid of it, that's fine.
[Doug Carr]: I'm not sure that's helping you. It's all right, I already had my version go down tonight, so don't worry about it.
[Zac Bears]: It's the role of the chair.
[Doug Carr]: Yes. Are there, so you're done on.
[Zac Bears]: I think we're, well, I do have an opinion. Please. I'm fine with option A or option B. It sounds like there's a general preference on the council for option A versus option B. I'm fine with either one of those. Okay.
[Doug Carr]: All right. Moving to the CD board. Who would like to be the first victim here to offer their opinion? Go ahead, Paige.
[Page Buldini]: Quick question. Packet or in place? How high is that?
[Doug Carr]: That is 107 feet tall. 107 feet tall. 10 stories. 10 stories.
[Page Buldini]: Yep. Okay. And so the 98 would be?
[Doug Carr]: It's nine feet less.
[Page Buldini]: Got it. Okay. Thank you. So I'm going to go with option a specifically what you also mentioned, um, Councilor Kelly and I love incentivized. I'm hopeful we fix the affordable table. I know we will. Um, because I think that's an excellent option and not to be the person that keeps going on the lower floors because we do need housing. But this board I think is really trying our best to help with housing production and massing. So option a for me, please.
[Doug Carr]: Okay, thank you, Paige. Dina, would you like to go next?
[Dina Caloggero]: I'm just going to favor A or B. I'm comfortable. A or B with me as well. I think B might be better, but I could be persuaded either way. I'll go B. Okay, thank you.
[Doug Carr]: Ari, can you go next, please?
[Ari Fishman]: Sure. Like option A with option C as my second choice, I think that we can handle a good amount of height here. If we're doing it, we should be maximizing community benefit. I think having two floors of incentive zoning is significantly preferable to one, and I'm fine with A if that's the preference.
[Doug Carr]: Thank you, Riley. Sean Began.
[Sean Beagan]: It's currently zoned for six stories by right in that area. And then the two, I'm okay with you earning two incentive floors above that. And I think floors five and above are going to be set back. based on the current zoning proposal. So I would be okay with option C here.
[Doug Carr]: Okay. Dina, you had another comment?
[Dina Caloggero]: Oh yeah. And each of those recommendations would go with some type of setback. So we're talking about the 12 foot sidewalk at the front of Boston Avenue and then the additional eight feet up to 20, right? To make it a 20 setback, 20 feet setback.
[Emily Innes]: Good question to clarify. So the first step is to get that 12-foot sidewalk. Then they could build right there. So just say that as with the previous example, they had to set back six feet in order to get a 12-foot sidewalk. They could have a zero setback there, or they could choose to do another 20 feet in order to activate the area.
[Dina Caloggero]: So in that case, they could build like a plaza or some active front to make it appealing and not like a box.
[Doug Carr]: Yes, they could step it back to that box.
[Dina Caloggero]: Thank you.
[Doug Carr]: I'll just say my own personal opinion is I tend to lean towards A. I think I always thought that a seven story building, if well designed, on that corner, that respected that corner and tried to not put as much mass as they can just by through the shape of the building. There are options. I know this is just a diagram, so this is not what the building is going to look like, but it's a useful diagram to kind of see what a bulk of the building could be. But I think there's a way forward with that site that would be actually quite a good design. It's big enough for whatever the use is. So I'm definitely on the option A side. I just think C is a bridge too far myself. It's just too close to what Tufts is. And I know it's only a little bit less, but to me, it will be far less oppressive if it's well designed. So, that's where I stand. So, time for motions.
[Zac Bears]: I heard A a lot. Is there a motion for the City Council on the BA3? Oh, Councilor Leming. Oh, yes. Thanks, George. I didn't see that.
[Matt Leming]: No, sorry. I'm kind of sleepy right now, but I was just sort of staring, so I figured I'd chime in since I've been Didn't didn't do that. No, I, I mean, personally, I'd agree with Sean on this one and say, uh, see would be my, uh, my first preference given like, yeah, given the heights that are currently in that, in that area. Um, and the fact that we really do need development in the city. Um, uh, so I feel, but, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm fine with a personal line.
[Zac Bears]: Right. Do we have a motion Councilor Callahan? No. We approve option A. On the motion of Councilor Callahan to do option A for the BA3, seconded by Councilor Scarpelli. Mr. Clerk, please call the roll for the City Council.
[Rich Eliseo]: Councilor Callahan? Yes. Councilor Lohan? Yes. Councilor Maloney? Councilor Scarpelli? Yes. Council is saying is absent, vice president is absent, and president bears.
[Zac Bears]: Yes. I have the affirmative, two absent, the motion passes. So that's BA1, BA2, BA3.
[Doug Carr]: Entertain a motion mirroring what the city council just voted for, for the BA3 at 5 plus 2. And seconded. Second. John Anderson, absent. Sean Began. Yes. Page Buldini. Yes. Dina Calgaro. Yes. Ari Goffman-Fishman.
[Ari Fishman]: Yes.
[Doug Carr]: And myself, Doug Carr. Yes. Five to zero, one abstention, motion passes.
[Zac Bears]: So that's BA1, BA2, BA3. Good job everybody. We did good. We still have a few more things to do. I actually wondering, I was wondering if we could, just take a vote to say that the recommendation should include an updated affordability incentive and just make it clear. I think we all agree on that, but I don't think it hurts to just put it out there.
[Doug Carr]: You had a comment?
[Emily Innes]: No, I was just being preemptive. So I do have a question, but not on this.
[Zac Bears]: about the affordability incentive? Nope, that's what I was saying.
[Emily Innes]: I was waiting for the next thing to come up.
[Zac Bears]: Great. Go ahead. So maybe we could just quickly put that in. I think it makes a lot of sense so that we want whatever the CDB recommendation that comes back on Boston Ave to include a fix to the affordability incentive issue. Is there a motion on the council for that? A motion of Councilor Callahan, seconded by Councilor Malayne. Councilor Leming, do you have discussion on that?
[Matt Leming]: On the affordability incentive, not that specifically, so I can wait.
[Zac Bears]: Okay, great. So we have that motion that we would like the CDB recommendation to include a fix on the affordability incentive. Mr. Clerk, please call the roll.
[Rich Eliseo]: Councilor Kelly. Councilor Leming. Yes. Councilor Scalpelli? Yes. Councilor Tseng is absent. Vice-President Lazzaro absent. President Bears? Yes.
[Zac Bears]: I have the affirmative, two absent. Chair Kerr?
[Doug Carr]: Yes. I want to take a motion for the Community Development Board to endorse the affordability fix as previously noted and the incentives by Sean Began, second. Second from Page Buldini. I'll call the roll. John Innocent, absent. Sean Began? Yes. Page Buldini? Yes. Dina Colagaro? Yes. Ari Goffman-Fishman?
[Ari Fishman]: Yes.
[Doug Carr]: And myself, Doug Carr, yes. The motion passes 5-0, one abstention, one absence.
[SPEAKER_06]: Great.
[Zac Bears]: All right. Do we have anything further? Emily, did you have a question on heights, boundaries, or dimensional before we move on to purpose-built student housing?
[Emily Innes]: I have no question on those. I do have a question on boundaries.
[Zac Bears]: Boundaries.
[Emily Innes]: So I just wanted to know if that was going to be part of tonight's discussion.
[Zac Bears]: For BA1.
[Emily Innes]: BA1 and B, well BA2 I assume that you have accepted the St. Clement's properties.
[Zac Bears]: Yes.
[Emily Innes]: So yeah, it's just BA1.
[Zac Bears]: Yeah, so we, I think for BA2 we included the St. Clement's properties. Right, BA3 we took out Walking Court. We excluded Walking Court. It's BA1. Yes. I mean, we didn't necessarily decide. My personal feeling on it, and I can go to councilors, and I can go to you guys, is if we're keeping the lower heights, let's keep the boundaries as they were proposed. That's my personal opinion. I don't know if, yeah. This is for BA1. There was a proposed, like, boundaries reduction that had been tossed around. I think we should keep the, leave it as is. All right. Seems general consensus on the council, leave it as is. Sure. CD board.
[Doug Carr]: Okay, what are folks' thoughts on the boundaries for the BA1? Yep, I can. Yeah, it's probably worth putting it on screen Emily, just so people can get the graphic representation of it.
[Emily Innes]: Just one moment.
[Zac Bears]: Man, is that an old hand?
[Matt Leming]: Well, I mean, yeah, this was the two boundaries issues were the exact things that I was going to ask about, you know, request. Yeah, request to vote on those.
[Zac Bears]: Council said we're good with original boundaries on VA1. So if we have to come back and vote on it, but the city board is talking right now.
[Emily Innes]: So just to explain this, the red dashed lines here are the parcels that were proposed to be taken out. The green is the original boundaries. So it's just these areas, the red dashed lines that were proposed to be removed from the original boundary.
[Doug Carr]: So I'd like to just engage in this a little bit more. I've actually done a little bit of more, based on the conversation we had at the last meeting. I actually spoke to a real estate person evaluating those properties, and this is a person I've known for many years, and she didn't think there was an economic way to really develop those to a four-story height, given that every one of those buildings is worth at least a million dollars, and some of them are condoized, which you mentioned at the last meeting. which I think is why you referred to them as probably not a short-term development potential. I don't know if that's the exact term, but that's what you meant. So I personally have actually changed my mind on this because I actually don't think it's going to happen. I think we're zoning something for something that will probably not happen in at least 20 years, if ever, because to assemble five or six of those properties at over a million dollars tear them down, build a four-story building with parking, you're not going to make a dime. I just don't see it happening for almost every single one of those properties. So I guess my opposition, which I had in the previous meetings, was largely about the character of the neighborhood, but I just don't think it's going to happen because the numbers in my The evaluation with a real estate person who crunches these numbers every single day, she just doesn't think it's going to happen in a long time. It's just economically. The other parts we talked about, because they're larger sites, because they're bigger lots, I think they're easier for the rest of the BA1, largely. But the area outlined in the red dash line, I just don't see those triple-deckers in many of those buildings changing for decades. evolved opinion, if you will. Anyway, I would reach out to the city board and see if they have any thoughts either way. Dina?
[Dina Caloggero]: I liked you for when you proposed the change in the boundaries. I was with you. I felt that was right. But after you just persuaded me, after looking into it a little bit deeper and speaking to real estate, I think I'm fine with keeping the boundaries as is. I will go along with that.
[Doug Carr]: Appreciate it. I wouldn't propose it if I thought the neighborhood would be damaged by it. I just don't think it will.
[Dina Caloggero]: I think your logic is compelling, and I think that sounds fine to me.
[Doug Carr]: Thank you, Dina. Paige, would you like to go next?
[Page Buldini]: I agree. And thank you, Doug, for explaining that, because you explained it before, and I appreciate that. So agreed.
[Ari Fishman]: I'm fine with that.
[Doug Carr]: You're fine with the original boundaries?
[Ari Fishman]: Yeah.
[Doug Carr]: Thank you. And Sean?
[Sean Beagan]: Yeah, I'm fine with the lower heights. I'm fine with the original boundaries because I don't think the heights are going to be at any point in the future much higher than what's there now.
[Doug Carr]: Okay. Thank you, Sean. So. I think we're good. I think we're good.
[Zac Bears]: Yeah. Boundaries done.
[Doug Carr]: Do we need a motion?
[Zac Bears]: No, I don't think we, I think we're not changing anything. All right, I think that leaves us with the purpose-built student housing as the last kind of big thing on the plate. You guys talked about it, what? You guys talked about it a lot last night. I don't know if you have opinions. We took overview at the presentation tonight. I don't know if we want to start. I think we could go either way. I don't know if, yeah. We can start with the CD board it looks like.
[Doug Carr]: Maybe, Sean, you're the one who actually drafted the original language and did a lot of the wordsmithing and editing. Maybe you could take the lead on this one.
[Sean Beagan]: So again, Alicia did a very nice job of kind of setting out what this use is and what it's intended to be at the beginning of the meeting. But just to recap, so essentially this is, you could think of it as a dormitory, but a privately owned tax generating building for students with some exceptions. And what we're trying to do in regards to the students is make limit that mostly to students who are enrolled in a college in Medford or Somerville. There's only one college I know of in Medford or Somerville. So essentially it would be we're trying to get tough students out of the neighborhoods, free up some of the two and three family houses that they're now occupying and get them into a larger, more traditional type dormitory setting. We did build in a number of safeguards and I think those will be useful for the Community Development Board when they're evaluating, you know, if a proposal comes forward on this use, those will be helpful and they'll be helpful going forward. One of the things that I wanted to add either into the probably into the definition perhaps, was just I think that there should be an allowed retail use on the first floor of these buildings in the event that the developer wanted to put in a cafe or put in some retail use. That might be nice both for the residents and for the neighborhood. So I think that should be included without, because this is not a mixed use development. It's its own purpose built housing. So I think we would need And Emily can correct me if I'm wrong, but I think we should make some specific allowance. Oh, she left. Paula can correct me if I'm wrong. So I think we should make some specific allocation for retail use. And then Alicia had mentioned that if they lost the use, that they'd be subject to all the zoning ordinances, including inclusionary housing. But I don't think we have in here that they're excluded from inclusionary housing, which we should probably mention, and which may also exclude them from some incentives for the affordable housing incentives as well. So they'd have to go look at other incentives.
[Alicia Hunt]: So we were just sort of discussing that. Sorry that we have been back chattering but we're trying to be as efficient with your time as possible. We're going to work some things out over here. So. I firmly believe that they should not do inclusionary housing because in order to do inclusionary housing you have to be on the state list. To be on the state list you have to do a public lottery and you can have no restrictions about who is eligible to live there other than income. For Medford's inclusionary housing, you don't want randomly lotteried people in that are not students into these units. That would not be appropriate. So we, one, do think it needs to be exempted from inclusionary housing, with the caveat that if it ever became multifamily, it would absolutely have to do it. That means they cannot take that incentive. And it does mean that we were looking to see, well, what could they do? And we are, of course, looking at the BA3 area. That area, it's very easy for them to do. There's a half story for parking underneath and behind. That's very easy for them to get. We would expect any building there, frankly, to be doing that. The other thing is that we think a pocket park would be really appropriate because this is such a large parcel. So we think they would take that up on it. Some of the others are for putting some plaza area and seating like some amenities that's available to the public. So that also seems very reasonable for them to be putting in there. So those were sort of the other things that seemed reasonable is that the development provide a minimum of 50% of the ground floor rents, meaning commercial rents, at no less than 15% below market for a minimum tenancy of three years for non-residential tenants. So basically we also think giving discounted rents to the commercial or non-profits is also something they could take up on that. So we do see that there are a bunch of options there. that a project like that could take up. I believe that one of the reasons for wanting to do this, the student housing, would be because they would save money on not having to do affordable housing. We have had the tough storm as part of their agreement with the city of Medford provided a payment to the affordable housing trust sort of in lieu because obviously they would never do affordable housing in a tough storm. So we haven't talked about anything like that but requiring some sort of payment to the trust is not a crazy idea. We would definitely need some time to do math to figure out what would be an appropriate number. Or you could just say, we actually need the student housing, so let's not worry about that. If it ever becomes an apartment building, then they have public housing. So I think I answered even more than your question.
[Sean Beagan]: Yes, yeah, no, that was great. I didn't have anything else, Doug.
[SPEAKER_06]: Questions?
[Zac Bears]: Yeah. Do we have questions from city councillors at this time on the proposed purpose built student housing use? Yeah. Or thoughts or comments? Do we have a motion? Councilor Scarpelli.
[George Scarpelli]: I think that, like I said earlier, the work last night by the Community Development Board and our team, I think that eliminating what we can eliminate and what we can control, I think we put in some safeguards that I thought that adding those in, the review every year and making sure they're in compliance, I think that really prepares the process to have oversight. And I think that that's key but I think that the biggest question is as we move forward with this process, there might be more that we can add to these processes, these mandates. Would that end tonight or could we have option to keep, to look into that? Like I know I said that, you know, I know that although the gentleman from Tufts came up and said that Tufts doesn't like it but it's going to happen so maybe as part of the management process, understanding the process and policies of what Tufts mandates and or Harvard mandates that part of the management plan, whatever is required by, the management team that the more stringent rule applies but still has to fulfill what each individual academic institution that they represent that comes in. So I think that's my process right now is understanding if we can really do more as we go along because I think that what we heard is great but there's also, You know, keeping, that's why keeping the public portion open until maybe going through the incentive process gives us that ability. But that was my two cents, Mr. Beers, and it's getting late, Council President, so I'm starting to ramble.
[Zac Bears]: I mean, it sounded like, want to give some direction to PDS and the zoning consultants around maybe adding some additional requirements on the management plan?
[George Scarpelli]: We were here till midnight last night.
[Zac Bears]: All right. Sounds like take a little more time is what Councilor Scarpelli is saying. Do we have other comments from members of the council? Take a little more time with the management plan. All right. Councilor Callahan, Councilor Millan, Councilor Leming. Councilor Leming.
[Matt Leming]: So the motion to move forward with this would just be to include the definition for, sorry, it's really late for me, for a purpose built housing into the use tables.
[Zac Bears]: Yep and it sounded like Councilor Scarpelli wants to continue to discuss the management plan as well or like see if there's additional conditions for the management plan. All right. Any further discussion Councilor Kelly and Councilor Malayne.
[Liz Mullane]: I felt like the Community Development Board had put together a pretty robust plan on it in the discussion of what they pulled together. So I don't know what more else that would need to be discussed because it sounded like you already had put a lot of thought and effort into it. So unless I'm missing something, I don't know. That's what it sounded like to me when Sean ran through it.
[Zac Bears]: Yeah, okay. So it looks like the consensus on our end is a motion to move forward with the draft that you guys came up with last night, and with maybe a little bit more detail on the management plan as it relates to interacting with the institutions. All right. That seems where we are, so. Okay.
[Doug Carr]: I had Ari raise her hand. Ari, why don't you go next, and then I'll go to Dina after that.
[Ari Fishman]: Thank you and this was just a small note based on what Alicia was just saying about the decreased rents for mixed use on the ground floor. Are there any limits on who's eligible for that? I'm thinking of like the Cummings building had a Starbucks and while a Starbucks is a neighborhood amenity, I don't feel that they need the decreased rent. I'd love to be able to encourage local small or non-profit uses rather than these large chains. If that's feasible.
[Emily Innes]: Yes, Ari, thank you. So there's two incentives related to ground floor uses. One of them is for the, I'm just pulling it up here, minimum of 50% of the ground floor at rents no less than 15% below market for a minimum tenancy of three years to qualified non-residential tenants. This would be nonprofits or local businesses under 10 employees. And then there's how to determine that market rent. And then there was another one, which I'm not seeing directly in front of me, but we had talked about. that they would, oh here it is, rehabilitation project, so this is specific to rehabilitation projects, maintains the pre-construction rent for existing ground floor tenants for two years after the post-construction certificate of occupancy has been granted. So that's not specific to any particular business. It's just assuming whoever is there now would get that benefit, where the other one requires that it be qualified to nonprofits or local businesses under 10 employees.
[Ari Fishman]: Perfect. Thank you.
[Dina Caloggero]: I just wanted to say, you know, with the purpose-built student housing, I thought about it a long time, I did. And just as I was thinking about it, on my street, a developer came in, took a two-family house, and they're going to convert it into housing for students in development, not a family. And right now in my street, I have a two-family house, nine bedrooms, nine bathrooms, absentee landlord, trash, rats. And I'm hoping that this will take some of the students out of the neighborhoods and really bring back some of the family and really the character that, you know, the street once had. So, that is my hope.
[Doug Carr]: Sean, do you have any final comments? You're good?
[Sean Beagan]: No, I'm good. I think just in regards to... One second, Chuck. Yeah. Yeah, I was saying, I'm good. Just in regards to Councilor Scarpelli's concern, just keep in mind that this use is subject to CDB approval and special permit, so there'll be an entire separate, probably multiple hearings through the CD board if someone proposes this use.
[Dina Caloggero]: All right.
[Page Buldini]: Go for it. Thank you. And I know we didn't talk about it and we're not going to talk about it and that's okay. But we did go through and Director Hunt described we removed, we recommended to remove dormitories, fraternities and sororities and separate them. And then we gave our comments about no to sororities and fraternities across the district. And then for CBD approval. So I think that's important that we had discussed that as well as we really thought hard about this.
[Doug Carr]: Okay. I think we're ready to vote on this for both. But I do want to also talk about, there's a lot of cleanup, not just some additional language on the purpose-built student housing, but I think Alicia did a great job summarizing the major comments that we made yesterday but there were probably a dozen that we didn't even talk about because they were just too small and there's a lot of administration markup and I want to call on Danielle and Alicia to talk about how we would, if we get a consensus here tonight, and we prepare to have it on almost everything, which is wonderful, how we clean up everything in a pace that is realistic, that takes into account vacations and summer and all that, but still allows a final version because anyone watching tonight cannot point to a map that we've seen and voted on. We voted on nine different pieces. So there's not a document we have right now. We say this is what, you know, we know what we're voting on but we've done it piece by piece. We need to put it all together and that time frame is not going to be by June 30th. It's really not. Thank you for agreeing with that with your laughter. Everyone needs a break. You've been killing yourselves for the last six months. I want to get it in a realistic time frame that gives you time to think about it, time to edit it, to ask hard questions, to fix the problems that we had. we have in Bedford Square that you uncovered recently, all that needs to happen and still move this process forward. I'm looking for a path.
[Zac Bears]: Right. And I think just to, and I agree, I want to hear that from everybody. You know, if we have consensus on the major issues we've heard from the public multiple times, we understand now we need to take all of the aggregated comment and votes tonight and put it into something. That seems to me something that can happen over the summer per the discussions with the mayor. And so that's just where I was coming from on this. Like if we decide, again, if we were to vote tonight to close the public hearing and then the CD board said, well, we are going to have a meeting in early August and planning and development and sustainability said, we can do all of putting all of these pieces together into early August. Do you guys have a meeting at that point with the final draft, with the map, You know, and then you referred recommendations out to us. We actually wouldn't, you know, we could hear those in early August or early September as well. Yeah. I don't know what your schedule is.
[Doug Carr]: It's August 12th is our August meeting. Okay. So that's when it would be and that's, you know, a reasonable time from now, enough I think to get it done. Do you want to speak, Alicia, rather than miming it?
[SPEAKER_06]: Are you guys ready for Doug's question?
[Doug Carr]: The process side is over there. We can suggest things, but I want to know what's realistic from you guys. So let's talk about that before we
[Alicia Hunt]: So we were discussing dates a little bit and a lot of this is So if I could say this, if the CD board wants to continue tonight, then you must pick a date certain, and we have to sit here and figure that out. If you want to close it, the public hearing, but then we come back and have another meeting where we say, here are all the changes, this is our recommendations, this is the cleaned up document, and what I'm expecting is that these are not robust changes. These are, you know, you said there should be a setback on Winchester feet. street we have to like exactly how many feet is that set back like we have some ideas you know but we don't think that substantial we think that's right so we have to get those exact words those numbers and stuff so I think that's the question is which way do you need if we don't keep the hearing open, then we could just say that we'll bring those back in late July or early August, and we can go away and we can survey the board and find out who's vacationing when and who's available when to have another meeting. Danielle and I know when our vacations are, but you're going to want to have the board there too.
[Doug Carr]: Right. But the, I guess the, the piece I want to make sure we, I feel like I want to give the public an opportunity to look at a final draft plan.
[Alicia Hunt]: So you want to keep it open.
[Doug Carr]: I want to keep it open, but I want the process to go, to really move forward, to say that we are agreeing. This is what we're agreeing on. So that if you are a developer, you know for certainty that this is coming. We've made the key decisions tonight. But it might not be effective until September 2nd when we have our, first meeting in September. That's our date certain September 2nd is our.
[Alicia Hunt]: So your intention. So right. So this is actually possible that you can continue to a date certain which is September 2nd. And then you could have working sessions. We could have like two meetings with the CD board in between to show you like the details.
[Doug Carr]: Right. And that still gives people an opportunity to talk about the purpose-built student, how to talk about the heights and massing to make sure that there's not a revolt. Like I feel like this is a common sense. Compromise, like this is not maximalist. This is, it's a very big proposal but it's, I feel it's defendable for people who want development but also want to protect the character of the neighborhoods. I think it does balance, walk that line very well in all three zones, all three subzones.
[Zac Bears]: I would just add that you don't have to have a public hearing to have public comment. Like you can have public comment on your recommendations, you know, that's possible as well. Yeah.
[Doug Carr]: But if we did want to keep it open, does it really slow down the process given the summer, given the schedule we're talking about? I don't feel it's actually, because we're moving down the line with a plan that is being fleshed out and detailed. And I think this board can commit to closing it on September 2nd and referring it to the city board that night, because I feel You give people two months with a finished plan, plans, massing diagrams, final text, and not coming the day before the meeting but two or three weeks beforehand so that they can, you give them every chance the public which hasn't, you know, unless they've been up for, 40 of the last 48 hours, they probably haven't seen both four or five hour meetings that have dove into the details of this meeting. I see George wants to.
[Zac Bears]: I'll go to George. I think personally to me, it's your discretion to go down that path. We're not, we're not, we're not around on the second. So we might close. I mean, it seems like there might be energy to close ours. Yeah. I'll go to Councilor Scarpelli.
[George Scarpelli]: I can, I can appreciate it. But I, you know, my, you know, where I stand in this Council President, I think that, you know, if we're going to go down the road with looking into different options or finalizing different options, I think keeping that public comment period open for the residents that might feel tonight that they haven't been part of the process. I think, really, it solidifies the process that we're trying to move forward after the Salem Street Corridor. I think that having that option that we keep it open, I don't think it'll hurt. I really don't. I think that we still have to, we're waiting anyway. So I think that keeping it open just gives everybody another opportunity to feel that they've been listened to and they've been part of the process. So I would also recommend that we keep the process open if we can, just for that reason. I don't think we need to rush this piece, especially when we need both to come to a finale. So thank you.
[Matt Leming]: Sorry, did you call on me? I can't your microphone's not on.
[Zac Bears]: Yes, Councilor, let me get your hands up.
[Matt Leming]: Yep. So I so yeah, I would advocate for closing the public meetings tonight for a couple of reasons. One being that if we've listened to a lot of the public comment over the last couple of meetings, we have seen a pattern of residents having real fatigue with the process and not really being clear when things are going to end. We did advertise, we did say that we would get Boston Avenue done by June, June 30th. People like deadlines, that was the promise that we made to the residents and tonight we've come to an agreement on the major parts and all that really needs to be done is cleanup. Now, Mass General Law has a couple of, has sort of spells out what the rezoning process is and the relationship between municipal legislative body and the planning board for how this goes. So they, after the closing of the public of the public comment period in which, you know, residents are commenting on sort of major decision points that come up, then the planning board after that gets a set period of time to finalize the recommendations to clean up any any minor points that might need to be that might need to be decided upon so procedurally with the way that this process goes under under mass general law, it would make sense and it would be the clearest step to the public that to close to close the hearing and do. the cleanup process in its own meetings, which again would not preclude public comment, but I think it would make it would send a very clear message to the residents, especially the very many residents who've attended these meetings and have been frustrated at the. pace of the process and, you know, the forever meetings and so on. It would send a message to them that, yes, this is going forward. The other piece is that, again, as President Bears said, given the deal we made with the mayor, if we kept the public comment period open, I don't think that any work could actually be done over the summer. So if it were closed and we send the message that this is just, you know, this is just cleanup zoning that we're doing, this is just, you know, this is just getting the recommendations together into one piece of paper, then there's a very good case to be able to do work on this over the summer just to get those pieces together. And residents will get, an opportunity to look at the final piece and then commented it later at the city council meeting in which it is passed and ordained so you know it's not like it's not like the CDs meetings or the joint hearings or the final or the final stage here like that. that package is presented to residents several different times after this. So I think it makes the most sense. I think it sends the clearest message. I think it will give the most people faith that this process is going along. And if we leave this meeting saying that neither body closed the public hearing, we're gonna continue to the fall, I think it just muddles where we're at. That's my feeling.
[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Councilor Leming. Councilor Scarpelli.
[George Scarpelli]: I can, I thank you, Mr. President, through you to the Chair. I can appreciate that, but I just want us to look at history. The last time we looked at something that really wasn't truly a big deal where we left the public comment open, it became really bigger than it was. And I think that this isn't, this isn't, this is low hanging fruit. I don't think this is a big deal if we kept it open. If anything, if finding an end date may be asked to keep it open until our August meeting where it gives the finality so people are secure in the date in August, our meeting in August. That if there's anything in between there, we can look to see if it's something substantial that we all agree with, that we can add on to when our consultants can work on it before the CD board gets their finality. And I don't think this is a deal breaker. I just think that this could be something that when it's all said and done, we've done everything in our power to listen to everybody People that have fatigue that are waiting, waiting another few weeks isn't a big deal, I don't think. It's the people that are finding out now that really don't think at this minute, and I've had a few messages that Understanding this process tonight, we did a lot tonight. So understanding this process now and saying, okay, now I get it. Now this, I feel comfortable with this. I feel comfortable. Can you give me an explanation about this point? And that's probably it. It's something a lot that I think we can handle as a council. So again, that's my prerogative. I think that this is why we have an elected body that we can vote and that's what the process is. But I don't, like I said, I think that keeping it open just offers that last person that needs to feel that they're being listened to. I just caution you to remember back on Salem Street. That was the biggest issue with the end there. So I'm beating a dead horse so I move on. Thank you Mr. President.
[Zac Bears]: Thank you. I do have Councilor Leming. I don't know if Director Hunt you wanted to add something.
[Alicia Hunt]: I'm going to let you all finish. We figured out dates.
[Zac Bears]: Great. All right. Councilor Leming.
[Matt Leming]: I do appreciate that. I will say that, so we heard some comparisons with Medford Square earlier in the meeting in terms of this process. And all things considered, there was some contention there, but that process went pretty smoothly. We did have, and we had, joint hearings that were one month apart. We had a couple of those and there was quite a bit of time in Ennis' contract then to do that. I think what we discussed with this with Boston Avenue was, I don't I don't think it's necessary that it take quite as much time as Medford square one because we have had about as many meetings just a shorter time in between in between the two of them. But. But also because we've incorporated a lot of the lessons from Medford square a lot of the fixes that we put into Medford square things are broken with the zoning we were able to incorporate in Boston Avenue. So it was, so we are able, so I feel like we've gotten to that point where we can sort of where we've sort of streamline the process and. Again, what we've been we put out we put out schedules we put out messaging to the public that we would have sort of a final product by by June 30, and you know, to me, to me deadlines are pretty important. I think that, you know, I totally respect what my colleagues saying, but I also think that if we keep the public hearing open, then given that Boston, you know, Boston Avenue is, it's an area that we're, you know, it's fairly dense, a lot of residents live around there. You know, we're gonna have, we will have, anytime we have a new meeting, a new public hearing, there's going to be, new residents who maybe have never heard about the zoning process at all and it's the first time they're hearing about it. And I think that's just I think I think that that's that's just what happens any time. Any time you have a new meeting, there's always going to be folks who, you know, maybe it's their first time hearing about it. But I think overall, keeping with deadlines and keeping with a schedule on the whole incorporates more faith into the process and tells people that, yes, this is moving along. And it's it's important for messaging as I see it.
[Zac Bears]: Too many further comment by members of the council. Councilor Malauulu.
[Liz Mullane]: Sorry, I keep jumping ahead. No, that's great. Sorry. I guess I just wanted to ask, I kind of did it on the side here to George, but Councilor Scarpelli, but even if we close public, quote unquote public hearing, people can still send in comments and then we can still read through and see and be able to get that information as well. Is that, I'm just, people can still send stuff in to us as well.
[Zac Bears]: I'm seeing someone saying no to me from the audience.
[Liz Mullane]: I mean, people can send stuff in, but it's closed as a public.
[Zac Bears]: I think it depends on what counts. I think it's like, if you close the public hearing, then the comments that people receive are not legally part of the zoning amendment record, but we can have public comment at any meeting that we choose to have.
[Liz Mullane]: Okay.
[Zac Bears]: So I think it's yes and no. Got it.
[Liz Mullane]: All right. Fair enough. Thank you.
[Zac Bears]: We would be saying we've made the major decisions and we're closing the record on the major decisions, but it doesn't mean that at a future meeting we cannot open the floor to public comment and feedback, right? It's like a 40A thing and then a meeting council or CDB rules thing. Two pieces there. Well, I have an opinion, as I usually do. Yeah, I mean, personally, I tend to side with Councilor Leming and Councilor Malauulu here. I don't think closing the public hearing means we don't hear anymore from the public. I just think it means it's a signal to the public that we have consensus on the major elements of the zoning. I would feel more comfortable if we both did that. I think if the CD board wants to keep the public hearing open to an August or a September meeting, and kind of wants to figure out how that relates to the mayor's, you know, condition that we don't have meetings in the summer, I'm open to that. I think if we all agree tonight that we've reached consensus on the major decisions, but you guys want to keep the public hearing open, I think we would close ours. You could keep yours open, send your recommendations to us, and then we will consider those recommendations when they come back at a council meeting. Probably it sounds like it would be a September council meeting at that point. The 15th, I think. But it sounded like Alicia has dates. I don't know what the proposals are there.
[Doug Carr]: Before you do that, Alicia, if you don't mind, I'd like to actually ask the CD board if they want to close the public hearing tonight or leave it open. And then you can, Alicia can, I think you probably have option A and B with dates, but depending on which avenue we choose, go ahead, Paige.
[Page Buldini]: Sure. I would like to keep it open, please. Thank you.
[Doug Carr]: Sean, do you have a thought?
[Sean Beagan]: Fine closing the public hearing at this point with the caveat that President Beard had mentioned earlier that he wouldn't move to pass any zoning or vote on any zoning at the city council level until we send him our final draft.
[Doug Carr]: Which we'll talk about dates in a second. Ari, do you have any thoughts on hearing open or closed?
[Ari Fishman]: I see arguments in both sides. I think that there is a practical benefit to making it clear that the major decisions have been made. I also have been very clear throughout this process that it is incredibly important to me that the public have a full iterative cycle on each major zoning, that they see a concrete plan get to provide feedback and we go back again. So I think actually to me a reasonable compromise feels like city council closes, we leave it open. And I think that gets us the benefits of both. And I don't want to belabor this discussion indefinitely given that it's 10 p.m. and that all of them lead to the same practical conclusions and it's entirely just what we call it.
[Doug Carr]: And Dina, any thoughts on open versus closed meeting for us? Not, sorry.
[Dina Caloggero]: I could go either way. I am, you know, I'm more Sean Began. I would feel fine with closing as long as we can continue to receive off the record comments and that we get confirmation from the city council that they will not do anything with our recommendations.
[Doug Carr]: Understood. My personal hesitation is because when we finished Medford Square, we actually had a plan. We'd had all the pieces written, clear, in writing, going into that last meeting, and we just don't have that now. I really hesitate to close off an avenue for public discussion for people who may have no, haven't been following this because they've been, you know, finishing up school, trying to deal with the high school. There's been so much going on this month that it's been almost impossible for us to even schedule meetings together and separately. So I tend to want to keep it open just on our side. I think you guys should close it if you're feeling comfortable.
[Dina Caloggero]: I just wanted to say I'd love to hear the date. And I would be more than willing to work over July to get it done.
[Zac Bears]: I'm just going to quickly come back to the council. I'm going to go to Councilor Callahan.
[Anna Callahan]: Yeah, I just wanted to super quick mention that the one real effect that I think it has to open or not or to close or not close the public meeting is on any developers who may be considering working on a project. And we do have one that we know about that is considering working on a project. And I think without closing the hearing, They can't really feel sure that there is any consensus. It just means that it is technically up in the air and they cannot move forward. So, you know, that's a consideration, I think.
[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Councilor Callahan. Director Hunt, you want to talk about the dates? Alicia?
[Alicia Hunt]: Sorry, I try to have things worked out before we put them in front of you. So here's what I think we just were discussing, is that we think that it would be useful for the board to have two working sessions in the summer, and the first one should not be too soon. And so we were proposing July 29th. I'm just across the board sticking to Wednesdays for consistency. So that's what we were considering would be the first working session for this, which is when we would all come back hopefully with worked out stuff. And then potentially we'd ask people if they're available to hold maybe August 19th. That would normally be a regular CD board meeting date, because we do the first and the thirds. And then if we needed, if things got completely worked out the 29th, great. And if not, then that's another session to come back to. and actually continue the public hearing if you're choosing to continue it on the CD board side to September 2nd because that sort of sticks to that plan of that's when there would be something by then, by a week before then at least for the public to look at, to be able to comment at. It's actually robustly long enough from now that we'd feel good about saying we could put something out real for the public September 2nd. the CD board could in fact have a real meeting, get public input that week, perhaps vote out a final version at that night, and then that's far enough in advance of, I think I heard that the city council's first September meeting is September 15th, then they could actually receive the recommendations on September 15th. It feels like it would work for us without stretching this all through the entire month of September and October, because I think the other option truly is to say, we kind of do nothing. Our next meeting on this topic at all will be September 2nd, and we'll start doing working sessions, and I don't really want to drag this out all fall.
[Doug Carr]: To clarify working sessions, is that everyone here or just the CD board?
[Alicia Hunt]: I think that it would be the CD board like we did last night. Like last night, the board was online. It was very collaborative. It wasn't everybody take your turn. It was like, let's have a conversation, like a group of people could have a conversation and work through something. It worked really well. It doesn't work when you have 14 people. It does work with five or six or seven. And that if for some reason you felt that people, so we'll continue to get public comment. We cannot prevent people from sending us messages, and you'd have those available to review. Whether or not you allowed people to speak during that meeting, you might say we wanna hear from the Tufts rapper, from the other student housing guy, I don't know.
[Doug Carr]: Can you clarify what date did you think, did you say that the final draft, plans, text, when would that be available to the public under this scenario?
[Alicia Hunt]: So the thought would be the public hearing would be September 2nd. And so I'm looking back sort of a week and saying you know by August 27th or 26. I mean so if we met the 19th it actually might be tight to get it the 27th. We might want to consider and we don't have to set this right now. Would August 12th be another like July 29th. Two weeks later is August 12th.
[Doug Carr]: Why do you think we need two sessions?
[Alicia Hunt]: And the 12th is your regular night. Maybe you just need one. I'd rather hold a date in my calendar.
[Doug Carr]: We have the dates, right? We have an August meeting anyway, right?
[Alicia Hunt]: So one of the things that I figured out is that I'm away a lot of your meeting dates.
[Zac Bears]: This is what I mean, though, about process fatigue and clarity. If we agree that we're basically on consensus, and you guys need maybe three to four weeks on this calendar to pull all the documents together, To have the final map the final draft work through the technical comments like sounds to me July 29th have that ready for people to review and then if the city board says that's the thing then it can be just on the website for a month.
[Alicia Hunt]: That would be the best.
[Zac Bears]: You can have a meeting on September 2nd and put it out there. But I just think that's, to me, like, you know, if we say, well, there's going to be something the 29th and maybe the 19th and there'll be a week, like, that to me does, if the reason we're doing this is Doug's stated reason and kind of what Ari said, which is like an iterative chance to review. The product over some period of time one final meeting where the public knows this is the meeting I go to a five comments on this product. It seems like just having one bite at the apple in between July 29 you know gives. Yeah just if that's the reason we're doing it and the reason I say this too is because. I think we're leaving this meeting, right, and folks said, right, like, well, there's like three different, like, procedural options but it all largely has the same result. I think what we say with those procedural options is meaningful. Like, I think that we all have agreed here we have a consensus on the major issues. To me, if we close the public hearing tonight, that confirms that there's a consensus on the major issues. It seems like that's not the option that we want to take or that the CD board wants to take, so I respect that. But I do worry that the, the more working sessions, the more meetings introduces the opportunity for us to lose that consensus because we won't be together.
[Alicia Hunt]: Right. And there will be- So why don't we just say that we think we can have a draft, we think it would be the final draft by July 29th. We don't think we could do it before then. The, the board normally meets August 5th and I'm not recommending that date because I am completely unavailable. I'm away and I'm not gonna have computer access.
[Zac Bears]: That, that part of the scheduling.
[Alicia Hunt]: But we do have a standing meet, wait, the meeting on the July.
[Zac Bears]: Dates is, dates is on your. Oh.
[Alicia Hunt]: Once a month. Oh, we were trying to have just once a month meetings for the board?
[Doug Carr]: Yeah, we have the 12th only on August, on our schedule.
[Alicia Hunt]: Okay, I didn't know that. Are you here? I am here August 12th.
[Doug Carr]: I think that's on the city website.
[Alicia Hunt]: It's not in my calendar. Sorry, I'm getting a little, it's okay. So we could actually just say we'll meet The 12th, which is the standing planned meeting for the CD board, could, so that's when we'll have materials for you. I just don't want to make it too close to, cuz your next scheduled meeting after that is September 2nd.
[Doug Carr]: Yes.
[Alicia Hunt]: And if you continue to 6, September 2nd between the, the 12th and the 2nd, that's, that's three weeks. And I think that the goal is that what you see on the 12th is what we vote out.
[Doug Carr]: Pretty much, yes, I agree. Henry, you have your hand raised. Sorry. Do you have a comment here, Henry?
[Ari Fishman]: Yeah. I think given this discussion, I changed my mind. I'm happy to close it. And I do see the argument for having the messaging around a really concrete timeline. I'm starting to see things really stretching out indefinitely. So I'm now with Sean and Dina. And let's close this. We'll have the iteration. in the dates discussed.
[Doug Carr]: Thank you, Ari. Director Hunt, are we still massaging schedules here?
[Zac Bears]: If there's a majority on both to close, we don't have to pick dates tonight.
[Alicia Hunt]: Okay, so we recommend that you continue to September 2nd, which is already a scheduled meeting of the board. And that we'll expect that at your August, August 12th meeting, which is also a scheduled meeting, there'll be a draft for you to see. Okay.
[Doug Carr]: So.
[Alicia Hunt]: Yeah, you can close it. Oh, if you close it tonight, then great. We'll have a draft for the 12th, August 12th meeting.
[Doug Carr]: I think we want to put this to a vote for the city board to close or not close. And I'll entertain a motion on either way from anyone to see if we want to, motion to close it, motion to keep it open until September 2nd. Hold on.
[Sean Beagan]: Thank you. I would move to close the public hearing portion of the hearing with the caveat that the City Council will not act on the Boston Ave zoning until they receive a final draft from the Community Development Board.
[Doug Carr]: And a second? Second. Sorry. Paige, go ahead.
[Page Buldini]: Is it out of turn to ask a clarifying question? Not at all. I know we've always kept the system that we have a clean copy before we close anything so we can make sure there's always public comment. Are we going back on that or is that?
[Doug Carr]: That's what this vote's about because, you know, let's just see what the majority of the board says. And I think that's the way we're going to determine that question because some people are obviously willing. If you want to close the hearing, you're obviously doing it. And I respect that decision without a final copy in your hands.
[Page Buldini]: So then no. All right.
[Doug Carr]: So we have we have a motion and it's been seconded. So I will call the roll.
[Sean Beagan]: She's taking back her second.
[Page Buldini]: I never said any of that. I seconded.
[Doug Carr]: I thought I heard Ari the voice from the heavens here. So on the motion to keep the meeting, to close the meeting, Sean Began, seconded by Ari, roll call. John Anderson is absent. Sean Began?
[Page Buldini]: Yes.
[Doug Carr]: Page Buldini?
[Page Buldini]: No.
[Doug Carr]: Dina Colagaro? Yes. Ari Goffman-Fishman?
[Page Buldini]: Yes.
[Doug Carr]: And myself, no, the motion passes 3-2. So we are closing the public hearing.
[Zac Bears]: On the, is there a motion on the city council to close the public hearing?
[Matt Leming]: So moved.
[Zac Bears]: On the motion of Councilor Leming, seconded by Councilor Callahan. Mr. Clerk, please call the roll.
[Doug Carr]: Oh, what?
[Zac Bears]: Should we not vote on that? Did you not vote on that? All right. We can still make a directional motion. We just needed to take a vote on the motion to include the purpose-built housing definition. Yeah. With the direction about the management plan. So just call the roll on that and then we'll call the roll on the next motion.
[Rich Eliseo]: Councilor Leming? Yes. Councilor Malayne? Yes. Councilor Scalpelli? No.
[Zac Bears]: On his own motion.
[Rich Eliseo]: Okay. All righty. Councilor Tseng is absent. Vice President Zahra is absent. President Bears?
[Zac Bears]: Yes. According to the affirmative, one of the negative, two absent. The motion passes. Okay. On the motion of Councilor Callahan, seconded by Councilor Malayne to close the public hearing. Mr. Clerk, please call the roll.
[Rich Eliseo]: Councilor Kelly? Councilor Leming? Yes. Councilor Mullane? Yes. Councilor Scarpelli? There's a no. No? I didn't hear that one. Councilor Sagan is absent. Vice President Zahra is absent. President Bears?
[Zac Bears]: Yes. 4 in the affirmative, 1 in the negative, 2 absent. The motion passes. I mean I think we should say you guys are planning a working session August 12th to finalize the recommendations based on the votes of this meeting and then at that point we will not schedule anything on our agenda until we receive the recommendations back from you and that will be the process from here on out. Great.
[Doug Carr]: Any final words from planning PDS in terms of schedule or to the public? We still are welcoming public comments even if we're not
[Alicia Hunt]: So public comments at this point won't be part of the public record, but we cannot prevent people from using our form and filling it out and submitting comments, which we will continue to put in the folder. We'll make it maybe a second folder for comments that are not legally part of the public record.
[Doug Carr]: Post legal comments folder? Okay. It is what it is.
[Alicia Hunt]: And, and this board remembers that you have a meeting July 15th because you had a, the inclusionary zoning was continued to that date.
[Doug Carr]: That's the next. I'll entertain a motion to adjourn the CD board, sorry.
[Zac Bears]: We want a motion to reconsider the student housing vote. By Councilman Lane. It has to be in the affirmative. It has to be someone in the majority who moves to reconsider. Second. Seconded by Councilor Callahan.
[Matt Leming]: Sorry, nobody's mics are on. Can you like clarify what this is?
[Zac Bears]: George just wants to vote yes on including student housing.
[Matt Leming]: Come on, George.
[Zac Bears]: On the motion of Councilor Callahan to reconsider, seconded by Councilor Malauulu, the purposeful student housing vote. Rich, just remember who did this, Rich. Callahan, Mullane, reconsider. Yeah. Thanks to George, correct. So we have to. All right. On the motion, Mr. Clerk, please call the roll.
[Rich Eliseo]: Councilor Callahan? Councilor Leming? Yes. Councilor Mullain? Councilor Scarpelli? Yes. Councilor Tseng is absent. Vice President Lazzaro is absent. President Pierce.
[Zac Bears]: Yes, five in the affirmative, two, none in the negative, two absent. The motion passes. We now have to vote on the original motion.
[Rich Eliseo]: Okay.
[Zac Bears]: So just use the same slip. We're re-voting the original motion to include the purpose-built student housing with the request for some additional guidance on the management plan in terms of how it relates to this, that one.
[Rich Eliseo]: Four, one, and two.
[Zac Bears]: Yeah. So re-vote. Mr. Clerk, please call the roll. We're just voting to include student housing, but George voted no, but he wanted to vote yes.
[Rich Eliseo]: Perfect. Perfectly, perfectly fine. Councilor Callahan?
[George Scarpelli]: Yes.
[Rich Eliseo]: Councilor Leming? Yes. Councilor Malayne?
[M2dn2QxmG2g_SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
[Rich Eliseo]: Councilor Scarpelli? Yes.
[Zac Bears]: Yes, five in the affirmative, none of the negative, two absent. The motion passes again. Is there a motion to adjourn by the City Council? Motion to adjourn by Councilor Callahan, seconded by Councilor Millane. Mr. Clerk, please call the roll.
[Rich Eliseo]: Councilor Callahan? Yes. Councilor Leming? No. Councilor Millane? Councilor Scott Felly?
[Zac Bears]: Yes.
[Rich Eliseo]: President Bears?
[Zac Bears]: Yes. Five in the affirmative. Four in the affirmative. One in the negative. Two absent. The motion passes. The meeting is adjourned for the City Council.
[Doug Carr]: Motion to adjourn. This is community development board, please. Second. Second. John Edison absent. Sean Began? Yes. Page Buldini? Yes. Dina Caldero? Yes. Ari Kaufman-Fishman? Yes. Sounds like on your
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