Name: Community Development Board 09/16/26
Uploaded: 2026-09-18
Duration: 1 h 56 min 48 s
Description: The Community Development Board elected its officers, voted to recommend deleting an obsolete zoning ordinance section on vacant properties, and reviewed a draft RFP for a new multi-year zoning consultant.

AI-generated summary. Written by gemini-3.5-flash from the transcript below, which is the record. It may be incomplete or wrong; it does not report votes. Every item links to the moment it began.

The Community Development Board elected its officers, voted to recommend deleting an obsolete zoning ordinance section on vacant properties, and reviewed a draft RFP for a new multi-year zoning consultant.

2:34 Election of Officers and CPC Representative — The board elected Doug Carr as chair, Dina Caloggero as vice chair, and Paige Buldini as the board's representative to the Community Preservation Committee.
6:29 Vacant and Foreclosing Properties Zoning Ordinance Amendment — The board closed the public hearing and voted to recommend deleting Section 94-7.5, with the deletion to take effect concurrently with the effective date of the new general ordinance under Chapter 10, Article 8.
18:34 Zoning Consultant RFP — The board reviewed and discussed a draft Request for Proposals (RFP) for a multi-year zoning consultant contract, providing feedback on public engagement tracking, a cover summary for proposed legislation, and geographic priorities.
1:35:00 Zoning Project and Administrative Updates — Board members expressed disappointment regarding the City Council's late changes to the Boston Avenue zoning district, while staff provided updates on upcoming developments and internal personnel changes.
1:53:38 Approval of Minutes — The board approved the meeting minutes from August 12, 2026.

[Doug Carr]: All right, good evening and welcome to tonight's meeting of the Medford Community Development Board. It's 6.36. We got started a few minutes later. I'll call the meeting to order in a few minutes. Before I do that, please know that the project materials for all projects before the board can be viewed on the city's website, medformass.org, forward slash boards commissions, forward slash community development boards. And by clicking on the current CD board filings, for those on Zoom, you can also find the link in the chat. All right, I'll call the roll call. John Anderson. John? You're muted, John. Present. Sorry. No worries. Sean Began. Present. Page Buldini.

[Doug Carr]: and myself, Doug Collar, present. Okay, before we get into this, I'm just going to briefly go over the agenda tonight. We're going to have just a few items. The election of officers and CPC representative will be our first item. Then we're going to have a continued public hearing on the zoning amendment for the deletion of section 94-7.5 vacant and foreclosed properties, foreclosing properties. absolutely nothing to do with the zoning pretty much that we've done for Medford Square and Boston Avenue. So it's a completely separate issue. Then we're going to be looking at the zoning consultant RFP that's currently in draft form. And then there'll be some general zoning updates and other administrative updates as well at the end and then minutes. So that being said, Danielle, can you please introduce the staff, the PDS staff on the call?

[Danielle Evans]: myself, Daniel Evans, Senior Planner, Alicia Hunt, the Director of Planning, Development, and Sustainability, and we also have Teresa Chapont, who is our CPA Manager, who can answer any questions about the CPC rep.

[Danielle Evans]: Oh, I forgot Izzy Chung. So sorry, graduate student intern. How could I forget?

[Doug Carr]: The interns in that office are priceless. That's what I've seen. So I appreciate you. Thank you. All right. So the first item is election of offices and representative to the Community Preservation Committee. In accordance with the CDB rules and regs, we are to annually elect a chair, vice chair, and a clerk in July. Obviously, that didn't happen. REA has also decided to step down as a statutorily required CDB representative to the Community Preservation Commission, so we need a volunteer to step in that position. I'll start by asking for nominations for the chair. I nominate Doug. Seconded. Thank you. Are there any other nominations for chair? Come on, folks. You know you want it.

[Doug Carr]: And myself, yes. Congratulations, I am now chair for, I guess, another year. All right, I'll also ask next to ask for nominations for vice chair. I nominate Dina. Seconded. Oh, no. Are there any other nominations? First of all, Dina, will you accept this nomination if it's done?

[Dina Caloggero]: So my job is like, I fill in when you're not here. Is that correct?

[Doug Carr]: I believe so. I try to be here every meeting, but I can't speak for the future.

[Dina Caloggero]: I know. You seem, your attendance is very good. I would be happy to do that if no one else is dying to hold that position.

[Doug Carr]: Is anybody else interested in the vice chair position? Hearing none, I will take a roll call. John Anderson.

[Doug Carr]: And myself. I promise I'll be here every meeting. I swear I won't leave you in the lurch.

[Doug Carr]: Moving on. I'm going to ask for nomination for the Community Development Board representative to the Community Preservation Committee. And I believe we have someone interested.

[Doug Carr]: Second. Second. Any other nominations? It's a great committee. I can speak from experience. So I'll call the roll. John Anderson?

[Ari Fishman]: Yes, and Dina or not Dina's page. I'm excited. You're taking it on. I think you'll be fantastic. It's been a pleasure and a joy to serve on it. Unfortunately, family demands mean I can't be on 2 committees at this point, but yeah, I'm excited for you to do some great work.

[Doug Carr]: And last myself, yes. Congratulations, Paige. I couldn't agree more with Ari. It's a great group and it's fun handing out more than $2 million every year to great people in groups.

[Doug Carr]: Very good, thank you much. All right, next item is the continued public hearing for the vacant and foreclosing properties zoning ordinance amendment. This is a proposed amendment to the zoning ordinance chapter 94 to delete 94-7.5 vacant and foreclosing properties, as it has been rendered obsolete by the recent adopted article eight, vacant and foreclosing properties of chapter 10, buildings and building regulations of the revised ordinance of the city of Medford. This public hearing was opened at the last meeting and the public hearing notice has already been read into the record. However, due to the late hour at the last meeting, it was continued to tonight without discussion. So in accordance with section five of the mass general law, the city council has referred this amendment to the community development board for a recommendation. Danielle, is there any additional context you'd like to give?

[Danielle Evans]: Yes, Mr. Chair. So when they adopted this, they passed this ordinance, um, August 4th, 2026. And part of it was that it wouldn't take effect until 365 days after its passage. So, um, that would be August 4th, 2027. So I'm not sure about when it's, so if you make a recommendation to delete this, um, Perhaps it should be asked the city council to maybe defer the vote until that time that the other one is in effect so that there's no gap in the regulatory power. Otherwise, I don't think if they vote to delete an ordinance, I don't think they can give it like a sunset or a time that it does. I'm not 100% clear, but maybe they can work that out.

[Alicia Hunt]: I've certainly seen in stuff that this will take effect as of or, you know, the first thing.

[Danielle Evans]: Does that work with zoning? I don't know how that works with zoning.

[Alicia Hunt]: So couldn't you literally say the first line be this section is deleted as of X date? or this as after X date, this section becomes null and void? I mean, you do it in regular ordinances.

[Danielle Evans]: Yeah, I'm not sure. And we've had so much going on that I wasn't able to get an answer on that. But I think that could be part of whatever is the correct mechanism to ensure that it's not deleted Until then, there's that the replacement general ordinance.

[Doug Carr]: So, maybe we should start drafting the language of the motion now as we're going to go through. Go ahead, John.

[Sean Beagan]: I was just going to say, is there a reason we're taking I know that the new ordinance doesn't take effect until. Sometime next year, why don't we just take this up? When this is going to become effective next year.

[Danielle Evans]: I don't I'm not sure, like, um. Councilor Leming had sent to us and said, please get this on your next available agenda. And then, you know, so I, you know, agreed to that. And then I saw about the doesn't take effect for a year and then after like I'd advertised it. So I'm not sure what the best course of action is for that. Because, I mean, they can't delete it until they get a referral, as long as you keep remembering to continue it. Or don't forget to continue it.

[Doug Carr]: I'd rather close this out tonight and put a date certain on it and get it off our agenda rather than keep it floating for a year. I think we'll just kind of lose track of it. That's my own personal opinion, but we need to have everyone chime in on this one, obviously. I think that'll be important. All right, so I guess I'm gonna open it up to the boards for questions and comments. We're obviously just had that one about the effective date and how to get there. That's it seems to be in a TBD position right now. Are there other questions procedural or content wise otherwise from anyone on the board about this particular issue? Go ahead, Mr. Anderson.

[John Anderson]: Well, thank you. I guess my question is, Did we review the new ordinance? I'm just curious why we need to delete the old one if we weren't involved in creating the new one?

[Danielle Evans]: Yeah, so it's the general ordinance is not under the purview of planning boards. So this is the council's domain. I don't know what happens if you have a superfluous or conflicting zoning ordinance. I think this is what we were advised.

[Alicia Hunt]: Let me clarify, John, the reason you weren't asked about the ordinance is because it is not zoning. The new ordinance is in the other section of the city laws, in the other rest of the ordinance, not in Chapter 94, and that is the City Council's purview. and they felt and they were advised that a vacant properties ordinance is not necessarily need to be part of zoning and they felt it did not belong in zoning. So they wrote an ordinance without consulting this body because it's a law, not a zoning. But it is section 94. The part you're being asked to delete is, if you were to not delete it, then you would have two ordinances, one in ordinances and one in zoning that conflict with each other. And people could argue neither one is in effect because people would end up in court arguing over which one is in effect.

[Danielle Evans]: Because this is chapter there, the general ordinance, the new one is chapter 10 and the zoning is chapter 94. I see that now.

[Alicia Hunt]: I don't know if I should say this, but this body makes a recommendation to the city council and they vote. And they already made up their mind to pass the ordinance in chapter 10. So why are we holding? You legally have to hold a public hearing and then you have to give a recommendation to the city council. It's a legal requirement. So you have to open the public hearing and take public comment.

[John Anderson]: So if I understand you, the purpose of this public hearing is not to discuss the new chapter 10, but just to say, is it okay to delete this vestigial organ?

[Alicia Hunt]: Yes. Okay. It doesn't feel good. I see that. I totally understand. It's the law.

[Danielle Evans]: Do we keep that vestigial organ until the other bigger organ is ready to take over the functions and more?

[Doug Carr]: Wow, we've gone into medical school or something. All right. Are there any other questions or comments from the board? Okay. We'll have one more chance. Hearing none, I will now open up the public comment period. I'm going to do my preamble. Anyone who wishes to provide comments can use the raise hand feature, which may be under reactions in your Zoom, or if you're dialed in on your phone, you can use star nine. You can also message Alicia in the chat if you're having technical difficulties. Is there anybody here who would like to speak on this issue before I get any further into the preamble? It doesn't feel like this is going to be a hot button item. I guess seeing none, hearing none, then I will pause and I will close the public comment period for this particular issue, for this meeting. Are there any other board comments regarding this? Mr. Anderson, go right ahead.

[John Anderson]: Yeah, I don't want to waste a lot of time on this since I guess there's nothing we could do about it. But one of the things that I found, one of the things I found that was disappointing was there's nothing in here really with special handling of derelict buildings. Is that correct? Or is that handled somewhere else? Because I know personally of a derelict building that's down by the river in West Medford. There was a serious fire there. The building's just been sitting there for years.

[Doug Carr]: Yeah. Daniel, Alicia, do you have any thoughts on that? John's right, I know that building, I used to live three houses down from it.

[Alicia Hunt]: I was not involved with the vacant storefronts, the vacant ordinance, vacant building ordinance at all.

[Danielle Evans]: Yeah, it was really outside of our office. I mean, maybe Kayla was a little involved, I think, but.

[John Anderson]: Yeah, well, yeah, I'm sorry. I mean, you have enough else to do. I mean, if I want to make it, if I want to raise it as an issue, I guess I could speak to the city council myself.

[Doug Carr]: That's it. Thank you, John. Anyone else? Otherwise, I think we need to kind of come up with some language for this, this, uh, this motion and a date certain.

[Sean Beagan]: The motion would be to recommend the deletion of Chapter 94-7.5 to be effective concurrently with the effective date of Chapter 10, Article 8, vacant and foreclosing properties.

[Sean Beagan]: The new ordinance doesn't have an actual date. It just says 365 days from the passage of- Very good. Whenever they passed it.

[Doug Carr]: Thanks for that. Yes, thank you, Sean. I appreciate that. All right, I'll do the roll call. John Anderson? Yes. Thank you. Sean Began? Yes. Page Buldini?

[Doug Carr]: And myself, Doug Hargis. The motion passes six to zero. Thank you very much, Sean. Thank you, Paige. All right. Moving on to our next item. It's the zoning consultant RFP. So in line with public procurement laws, a new RFP needs to be issued. in order to engage a zoning consultant for the new multi-year contract for the city's zoning updates. This covers, I believe, the next two and a half plus years. This is the city board's opportunity to provide input on the RFP before the city council votes on it and goes out to bid. I think we need a bit of context here from Danielle and or Alicia on this 1, because there's the version I saw last week was heavily edited. This 1 has been cleaned up a little bit, but there's still some comments out there and tell us about the timeframe as well. I think that's really important for people understand. when it's going out, when interviews are going to happen, when the person will theoretically be hired, and when we'll actually start zoning for the next consultant, which could be in it, but could be any other consultant who chooses to bid on it. Is that correct? Alicia? Go ahead.

[Alicia Hunt]: Um, so, sorry, sorry, I was. Dealing with something, so this particular. So I'm repeating some of what you just said. We've been working with Innis. I think there's an open question as to whether or not we should continue with them just this fall to do a little bit more work this fall or whether to take a break. But by next, a city contract can only be three years long at the maximum. So the, we need to go out to bid to do for another, basically what I've recommended is three years of consulting on zoning. We think it's going to take a while, who knows if it'll take that long, but give us time. And what we started with was the RFP that we used COB, Erika Vandenbrande): Four years ago, originally, where we hired in us, so what you saw dug in the heavily edited version was the original rfp with a lot of track changes in it. COB, Erika Vandenbrande): And so the committee, and I will say the mayor Councilor Leming myself Danielle our interns some of Doug and Sean. made edits to that document, there was some reworking of that document and restructuring of it and some of it is thinking about what is the process that we want. After all of that, it seemed to me that it would be much simpler because putting on this agenda and the council plans to discuss it in two weeks, it has to become a public document. And it would be much simpler to just look starting with the clean version. So we just accepted all the changes basically. So you're looking at a clean, like I can read this and think about this RFP. document. And what we want to spell out is what is the scope that we want from a consultant on this. So what we're asking for the board is to look at the scope, does this make sense? And I will say there are two sort of important portions of this document. One is the scope that is laid out, and does that capture what we want, what they should be giving us pricing on? And the other is the part where we judge them. And I think maybe it's relevant if I explain a little bit about the process of hiring a consultant, because I think this municipal procurement is new for most of you. Should I? I agree.

[Alicia Hunt]: Okay. So there are different ways of doing municipal procurement. And what you probably have heard about and people talk about is low bid and how you have to hire, you have to have a very detailed scope and you have to hire the cheapest person. There are other alternatives, actually, when you're building a building or, you know, doing construction, you probably are going low bid. When you're doing something like this, hiring a consultant, you're not going low bid. So what we do is we lay out what we're looking for from a consultant. We asked them for two proposals. One is a scope proposal called the technical proposal. How are you going to handle this. Have you heard what we've said, how do you think the process should work, what are you proposing to do, what are you going to bring to this that is worthwhile, and also what are your qualifications? Like how long have you been working? What similar work have you done similar to this? Why should we hire you? And that's their technical proposal. And they're asked to give a price proposal. And that comes separately in a separate sealed envelope or a separate file electronically. Then the committee takes the rubric that we have put into this RFP. So if you go near the bottom of the RFP, and I'll pull it up in a minute and tell you page numbers, there's a section where it says, we're asking about, you know, what's your proposal? And then it has, this is a definition of, Izzy, what was the word we used? Not qualified. Non-responsive? That's the lowest, that's the top. HAB-Juliette Boone, Moderator, Secretary for Policy Information & the Future:"Advantageous, very advantageous?" HAB-Juliette Boone, Moderator, Secretary for Policy Information & the Future:"Yes, so very highly advantageous, very advantageous, advantageous, acceptable, and non-responsive, and we give those numbers 0 through 5. And so we lay that out, and then everybody, so these different sections, scope proposal, timeline, qualifications of the the proposers and there are a bunch of things and one of the things and and then the committee then takes that rubric that we put in the RFP so everybody bidding on this has seen the rubric and then the members of the committee grade these the proposals based on that rubric They fill out their score sheets, they send them all in, have a feeling they're going to send them in, like me and Danielle, or maybe to Izzy and Natalie, who are going to compile the score sheets, and everybody who bid on it is going to get a score that's going to be based on this subjective objective of their proposal. Then we have a meeting, and we look at those scores. And once we have those scores, then we open the price proposal. And then we find out if the one that everybody liked the best is the most expensive or the least expensive. And then we can do interviews. And then we have somebody find it, procurement will check references. And so then we take our conversation, our scores, the results of our interviews, if we choose to do them, and our price considerations, and the references and we look at that as a package and we say, who do we want to hire? So price is a consideration, but it's not low bid. Like we could hire the least expensive, but we don't have to. So that's the process. And this is the document that lays out that process. And the one thing in there where I sort of hesitated. So we've already gone partially through a process like that for a communications consultant and we have proposals. And so the intention is for the committee to score the communication proposals, select a communications consultants, And in this RFP say that the zoning consultant must work with the communications consultant. And one of the things we want to score them on is what do you say about that? How do you propose to work with that person? Right? Like that's, there are different ways people could respond to that, but there's a, one of the questions is how, like, how, how well do you, does it look like you guys are going to work together based on what you say back to us? Um, so that's what we want comments on tonight or tomorrow. This is not a public hearing. This is, you know, the CD board, Doug and Sean wanted the CD board to have the opportunity to weigh in on this document. And on September 30th, the city council is going to weigh in on this document. And then we will put it out for pup for the people to bid on for approximately two months.

[Page Buldini]: Yes. Thank you so much. So in the past, who was on the committee for the decision making? By that, do you mean back in when we hired Ennis?

[Alicia Hunt]: I'd have to check my notes. It was me, and it was City Councilor Bears, and I'm pretty sure Councilor Collins And I honestly don't remember who else was involved. I'd have to literally go back. It was 2022. Awesome. No problem. Four years ago. Just wanted to kind of see. So we kind of knew. Right. So we are back proposals. So right now we have not finalized who's on the committee for this one, but we did, if it's at all helpful, put together a committee for reviewing the, um, the communications RFP and, I'm going to have to say this off the top of my head, because my email is mildly broken right now. So me and Danielle, although we left ourselves an out if only one of us wants to do it, Steve Smerdy, the communications director, Councilor Bears, Councilor Leming, Doug Carr. I don't think we put you on it, Sean. I can't remember. You weren't at the meeting, and I don't think we made you do it.

[Alicia Hunt]: I think, oh, and the mayor said chief of staff Nina Nazarian, if she has time to do it.

[Page Buldini]: Perfect. That makes sense to me. I just wasn't quite sure. So I just wanted to make sure about that. And then I don't know. I kind of I read through because I think this is really exciting and a great opportunity from everything we've learned that I've learned. But one thing that kind of, I love that there is the communication consultant and liaison, but I'd love there literally to be in this document where after we have those public meetings that we require and it might be a collaboration with that community communication consultant. that we actually share what the public said, because I feel like that was really something that we, we knew if we were at the meetings, and it was helpful, but I think for the public to see that we hear them, we see them. and then it can be somehow produced. And I'm not, we don't have to get crazy with like maps and stuff, but I feel like having that documented could be really helpful, sharing what the community wants, and then going forward, helping to create the plan, if that could be possible.

[Alicia Hunt]: Yes, so I'm going to double check because whether this so the idea of the communications consultant has been somewhat for them to really help getting the word out, facilitating meetings with with members of the public, and I'm going to look right now and see if we put in their scope. uh, synthesizing this information back, there's definitely something in the, this RFP about, um, tabulations of comments and summarize, like, comments. Somebody in this group had said, uh, that they really liked how we had had interns who like, they liked knowing how many unique commenters there were. And I have a sense of like which commenters commented like every single meeting versus this was a new comment.

[Page Buldini]: Yes. That data would be really helpful. And just when we're really helping to see what the neighbors want and the community wants, I think that could be just a, and it's also, it's showing the community. We hear you, which is our goal.

[Doug Carr]: Are there other comments or questions? There must be. This is a really complicated issue. I do want to put the dates on screen briefly, Alicia, towards the end, just so we can get a sense of time frame here because we don't need to do it now. Other board questions? Go ahead, John. You go ahead.

[John Anderson]: Speaking of the public comments, I wonder if we can also classify them by people who are actually in the area that's being rezoned versus comments from across the city. I mean, everybody has the right to be heard, but it's nice to know what comments are coming from people directly affected and what comments are coming from people who, they're citizens and they just sort of like the idea.

[Alicia Hunt]: So I'm gonna put in here so I just put in the chat, I found the section that where we had said about the outreach quantification of public engagement. I'm miserable to record trying to tell him unique speakers. Um, and I'm going to add into, I'm just going to put a comment for now and we'll wordsmith it, including what, uh, whether they're in the affected slash immediate area. Right. Cause somebody, you know, if we heard from somebody on Boston app who was two blocks out of Boston app, that's the immediate area, you know, but like, that's kind of what you're getting at. Right.

[John Anderson]: Exactly. The other thing is, I don't know where you would exactly put it in this document. But I think it does impact the work the consultants would have to do if everybody thought this was a good idea. The way things have worked, the way I viewed it is, the consultants work with the permanent planning committee. I don't know how many meetings they have, probably lots of meetings. They come up with proposed legislation and send it to us. And it's quite complicated reviewing that, particularly if we don't have a lot of time to do it. But even if we do have a lot of time to do it, it's pretty complicated. It would really be great when it gets referred to us. If there were some sort of cover memo, some sort of executive summary, summarizing what the main changes are, what the alternatives were that were considered and rejected. Now, this doesn't have to be a treatise, but if it also includes a guide to what to look at in the legislation, I think that would save me a lot of time. And the more time we can spend on this constructively, I think the more constructive our comments and suggestions will be. So specifically, I'm asking for some sort of cover memo that comes in with the proposed legislation when it's referred to us by the Permit and Planning Committee.

[Doug Carr]: Thank you, John. Anything else, John? Otherwise, I'm going to move to Dina. I think that's it for now. Thank you, John. Go ahead, Dina.

[Dina Caloggero]: Yeah, I like John's comment regarding where the commenter is coming from. You know, one of the things when we were looking at Salem Street, when the commenters were saying their address, I had a little map, you know, so I was like, hmm, that's across the street. Park Street's very close, you know, in regards to someone speaking across the city. So I think that's really important because, you know, It's one of those things, it's like, well, you can build a very large building, but wait a minute, not not near me that can go over there. I think we need to really take note because it will impact the most and, you know, especially with Salem Street. We were, we were getting comments from, I think it was Almont, which is very close to that street. Otis Park, you know, those are the streets that were really impacted by that. By that project, I think that's a, that's an extremely. Important point and I also like pages comment too, but those public meetings, like, almost like a grid. Of some of the things that come up, because those, those are important things to consider too. As part of the, you know, the process and coming up with the zoning recommendations. So, thank you for that.

[Ari Fishman]: Yeah, thank you. I think it is valuable to know where people are in context, but I do want to be clear in this conversation and in the future that that does not mean that the opinion of people who aren't within two blocks of a particular project is not relevant. I think that some of these comments are veering in that direction and that it is city planning and we absolutely should take special note of local people, but that's not exclusively the opinion.

[Alicia Hunt]: So we should note it. I will point out a process, a thing that the city council has appeared to adopt that feels relevant for this board. And they've started asking not for addresses, but to say your name and your neighborhood. and some people still give address, but it seemed to me that that was easier for people to understand that you might not know where Gaston Street is, but you know what they mean if they say North Medford. And there is nothing that says we have to give people address. Yeah, I had a map in front of me.

[Danielle Evans]: Yeah, so I, I believe that we don't have to legally require that someone give their address. Um. So, yeah, I think neighborhood or. Get getting people used to, like, identifying with their ward since we're going to 4 days. Um. I know it's several a lot of times, so they'll mention their ward. That's that's part of, like, your identity, like, 7, ward 6.

[Doug Carr]: Okay, when I was sitting next to Zach at some of those common meetings we had over the course of this year, I asked him, and he said exactly what Danielle did, which was he doesn't ask people their address. But I like the idea of your neighborhood, if you so choose. I don't want to ask anyone anything they don't want to give, you know, because I feel like that's that can get, I don't, as Ari said, I don't want to kind of discriminate against someone's opinion because of geography or because I think they're not really in a bother, even though, you know, it doesn't matter. You're in the city. You speak for the city. You know, we're one city. So it's a delicate subject. We should be cautious, I think. But I think I like the idea of trying out the neighborhood idea and seeing how it works, but not requiring it. You know, giving people a saying, if you want to provide this information, so be it, but we don't. I started to stop asking for addresses again on Zach's advice and I felt better about that actually. All right, moving forward, are there any other comments? Sean, anyone who have? Go ahead, Sean.

[Sean Beagan]: Sure. Just one thing that I was thinking about, and I don't know if we need to put it in this RFP, but I would like to make, as a requirement of whoever our next zoning consultant is going to be, that one of the things they do is they take at least one actual on-site Physical, you know, observation of the neighborhood walk through, you know, however, they can get through, but with maybe a member of the planning department, a member of the city council and a member of the city board. present and maybe just walk the area. Sometimes I get the feeling that everything's being done at a desk with maps and Google and street views, which are really good, but not the same as if you're standing on the sidewalk next to a building.

[Doug Carr]: Any other comments? Alicia, you were looking for comments tonight or by tomorrow into the week. What are you thinking?

[Alicia Hunt]: I think that anytime you want to send them over the next week, like between now and the 23rd, and I say that because we're going to then share a version. So the intention, so you're aware, it's a little minutiae, the city council uh, technically will have it on their city council agenda for Tuesday, the 29th. That is should be indicated very clearly to refer to committee. They have no intention of discussing it on the 29th, but they feel that per their process, they must have it on their agenda, give it a paper number and refer it to committee. But they're scheduling that committee meeting for Wednesday, the 30th. Any of you are welcome to sit in on that committee meeting. It'll be a committee at the hall. There's no reason not to, but you don't feel obligated. So what I'm saying is they need a copy, whatever version they're going to put in their packets for Thursday the 24th. So if you use track changes, I'll blend them in. If you use, if you just send comments, you know, I'll have Izzy and Natalie to work with us as well to sort of incorporate any comments in or even if it's that you just want to raise the concern, if you want to talk about it, we can set up a time. I want to have those by the 23rd so they can all be in the comments for the 24th when we send that packet. You can attend on the 30th and participate then too if you want. I expect there to be changes the night of the 30th. Our goal as a committee is to have what comes out of the night of the 30th, the version that we would hope to advertise and to put out there. Fiona informed me earlier today that we missed an advertising deadline because we were shooting for, hold on, I had those dates. Those are not the updated dates. Oh, they're in that email I sent, Danielle. I don't have access to my email from the last two years right now. The inbox starts in 2024. That email I sent laid out the proposed dates and it was like advertising. And so you have to advertise a public procurement a week before it's available. And so we were going for advertising early October, making it available by the, there we go.

[Doug Carr]: Is that, I mean, this is what we're talking about, right? As a starting point.

[Alicia Hunt]: Yes. because- Yes, I don't remember. That's in the RFP, isn't it?

[Doug Carr]: This is the document we have in our packet from tonight. But it doesn't appear we'll be really debating zoning until February 1st, 2027, essentially.

[Alicia Hunt]: There's no way. So the only thing we could do is we could have NS work with us or we could do, we've talked about that there are changes we could make like that incentive table. That's a product of what Danielle and Izzy and Natalie have been working on. So we don't believe we need a consultant for that piece. We need a consultant for the big things. So there is some talk of doing cleanup starting next week, the 30th with the council.

[Doug Carr]: In previous meetings, I'm not sure if it was July or August, we talked about at least, tell me if I'm wrong here, if I'm remembering, four or five months for each zoning, whether it's Tufts, Wellington, West Med, each group got at least four months, maybe longer if it was complicated. But if we're not starting until February at the earliest, then isn't this fall, wouldn't this be an opportunity to go to clean up what we have now, Boston Ave, Medford Square, the historical issues that we're trying to do globally? And frankly, Salem Street, shouldn't we go back and kind of clean up all, essentially all three of those areas while we have a pause in the process? Is that something that you think would be, Alicia or Danielle, would be the proper use of this time? Sure.

[Alicia Hunt]: three or four parcels along Mystic Ave that got left in the old zone, that they're like three parcels scattered, only ones left in the old C2, and they need to either be assigned to the mixed use or assigned for now to their abutting general residential zone until something else happens. But yeah, there is this cleanup. HAB-Masyn Moyer): It's just thinking about like this board could put forward. And I think the city council has sort of expressed through President Bears and some of these meetings that HAB-Masyn Moyer): You know, the, the, the CD board wanted to put forward like these kinds of cleanup changes, you know, refine some definitions. I don't know if you all saw the brouhaha about height. But the bottom line is, when the definition of height was proposed in the Medford Square zoning, they didn't use the exact same words as we previously had in our definitions. So technically, both definitions are in there right now. And it's very clear that one was intended to replace the other, but legally, we have to delete the old version, right? This is, when we say cleanup, like, And somebody has to propose it to the city council. It legally cannot be me and Danielle. Legally, it can be this board. They will then refer it back to you for a public hearing, which you'll probably... So here's what makes literal sense to me, and you guys can say if you think something else would work. We all, we work through some stuff. We bring you some stuff at a CD board meeting. You go, yeah, we should, this looks good. You send it to the city council. They send it back to you and we advertise a legal public hearing. And if the public has comments on it, you take those comments and maybe you make some edits based on that. And then you send it back to the city council for their public hearing, which at that point, if we're saying things like delete the redundant definition and substitute this table for that, because it's more clear, like it should be a no brainer. We don't need a consultant for that part.

[Doug Carr]: I didn't think so, especially, you know, I've always wanted, I said many times, I want to go back to Salem Street and make sure that the parking that we've addressed and the historic and the other things we put in both Medford Square and Boston Ave, make it in there into Salem Street as rector. So we don't miss an opportunity there for protection and for the standard that we've established at both Medford Square and Boston Ave. You know, this board clearly spent A lot of time in Medford Square and thought the process was superior to what the rush job we had in Boston Ave. And we obviously don't want to repeat that. This document doesn't say anything really about process. It doesn't say about, you know, it says you're presenting, actually it says presenting independently to the city board and to the city council. I think it does say that in that document. It doesn't say anything about joint meetings going forward.

[Alicia Hunt]: Harmon Zuckerman, PB – he, him, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, in public meeting and going through it all. The city council likes hearing about the concepts and the ideas and then saying, sounds good, give us a document that reflects that. I think that that's why it lends itself to having separate meetings actually early on, right? Some of this like big picture, they say big picture, here's what we want. The CD board takes it before the public hearings and goes through it in detail. And then you have a public hearing maybe that is joint where you all have already gone through the details. You've gotten through your opinions on it, your thoughts as professionals in the field. And then that joint meeting is now hearing what the public thinks about it. I think the pain was when you tried to this board, see things kind of for the first time, digest it in a public hearing setting. That was hard.

[Page Buldini]: And I like the idea of having that public meeting first so we can gather what the public wants instead of being like these are our massing maps. this is what we're thinking, oh, wait, what do you guys think? Because I feel like that's where I even was like, oh, wait, this already is kind of created. What can we do in a way that still supports housing, the green score, all of that, even though I can already physically see it. So I think having that public opportunity before to really gather, and not to say that PD office didn't do an excellent job, like even the Wellington study, I'll go back to that forever and ever and ever, that was incredible. And me and Kate got to put the blocks up to like actually design the buildings, like that was great. So I know it works and I know it's helpful, but then getting that information, getting the data, that we can then create planning and permitting, you know, the consultants and then us, I think is that was like the little piece before it's like, half way created, and then we're all like, oh, it's already up.

[Alicia Hunt]: Can I sort of reflect back what I think I'm hearing you say to see if I'm processing it? Sort of this idea that it's good to hear from the public early before there's anything. So we tried to do that with Boston Ave and tough zoning, and I think it wasn't structured right. Right. I think we could structure it better to say like, what kinds of like here are some different kinds of heights you could put in. What do you guys like about your neighborhood right now and what would you like to see different about your neighborhood. Tell us about the businesses that you love, and the houses that you love and tell us about what you wish was also here. and sort of getting that understanding by giving them a couple of little examples. Do you like it when it looks like this and show them something in Medford? Or do you like it like this? That's something we did with our parks design, where we went out to the park and we said, this is a clean slate. What do you want to see? And then we came back with iterations of like, here's what we heard. This is some zoning that kind of reflects what we heard. do you like this?

[Page Buldini]: Yes, that's, yes. Thank you for putting it into, you know, clear words. Because I just, I really, even seeing from what Doug shared, and it was so great, Doug, that you, it was able to see at the City Council meeting last night, but some of your drafts and drawings, and nothing against Emily and her team, but then I could actually see it in a way that would be architectural. And I know that it was meant for specific reasons, but I know back, and I think Ari, you might be able to speak to this because I know you were on the board then, when there was those real-life pictures of the houses, I was like, oh right, I actually can walk down my street and see what that looks like. That, it's so simple, but I just, it's also, and if I had a note here about accessibility and inclusion to make it for the visual, for the hearing, and I know the communication consultant will do that, but it just feels more inclusive to the whole. And I also appreciate that you all have put it out so much public participation, and if people don't participate, that's on them. So I'm owning that, and I know that as a business owner, and I know as a human, you can only give the opportunity, but I think knowing hey, this is what we really want, you know, Tufts Institutional Zoning or West Medford, whatever. Come here. Like, this is your opportunity. We've learned from the past.

[Danielle Evans]: Yeah, so I think with the exception of the Tufts one, which I wasn't at that, because I think I was staffing zoning board or some other meeting that night. But the Boston Ave public meeting, the public hearing was already open. So, it's confusing, but you shouldn't have a public input meeting. During the public, it was really confusing and that was more of a clarification meeting. I think it was kind of. Spun as and also this, the format of sitting in rows, having a presentation and talked at and then. Asking people to just raise their hand and give input is not a good format. It's better in small groups or a charrette. It just felt like a classroom. And what do you think in the back? It just wasn't real meaningful input. And so we have our comprehensive plan, but that's not all the input. That's a roadmap. It's really general. And then we have these You know, neighborhood plans for some of them, we don't have them everywhere. Um. And then, so that should also be something that we take from and then you have these, like, kickoff, like, getting down into the. Details of, like, a kickoff to then form. The 1st draft, and then I think the city board needs to be part of that. And then the public hearing can be opened and start talking about that, but it's just. It was too much that it was already fully cooked. And it's hard to change things.

[Dina Caloggero]: Dina, you have your hand raised. I was like, I'm sitting there, I'm trying to remember what I was going to say. Oh, I should have wrote it. Let me come back to me. Come back to me.

[Doug Carr]: Are there other, so we basically have a week to get comments to Danielle and Alicia, or a little bit less. I would, I wouldn't, I want to give you guys a little time just to be able to coordinate and put everything in one place. I hate to see that rush. So then the week afterwards is City Council. And then the interview process comes. Dina, you remembered.

[Dina Caloggero]: I remembered, I remembered. Yes, yes, I'm getting old. That's why I'm on the Council of Aging. So, I think it's important too that we stress what the current zoning of the area is. You know, I've had folks come to me and talking about the zoning and without an awareness of the zoning that currently stands that is part of that area. And I think something a little more in depth than, you know, this is an SF1 and SF2, but if we had more of like a pictorial thing, you know, because sometimes if you think about it, the zoning that we are recommending, and that is being implemented, is sometimes better than what is there, right? So I think that's important too. So it's like, this is what it is right now. Give a detailed discussion. And then I like a lot of the ideas that have come out in discussing with the neighbors and then going towards a better solution to what the current zoning is. Because that's really what we're doing here, right? We're redoing zoning that has been in place in Medford for a very, very long time. and we're trying to fix it. So I think that, I think if we do that, that would be wonderful.

[Doug Carr]: Thank you. Thank you, Dina. Other comments or questions from anyone on the board? Okay. A couple of small items. When I spoke to Zach, he, Give me a reality check of the calendar for next year with the high school being I think the five literally the 500 pound Corolla that's going to document going to take up a lot of energy and meetings etc next year that that may limit he thought he was speculating about putting words in his mouth, but he thought that might. limit the ability of both the city board and the city council to get a lot done in calendar year 2027, because there's a hard deadline. I guess Alicia or Danielle, is it June for the high school? Is there some, what's the drop dead, go ahead. Well, have I answered that question first, Alicia? Like the larger calendar, because that was a big issue this year.

[Alicia Hunt]: No, I think Alicia, you got this. I have been told that they have already scheduled a vote on a debt exclusion and that that date is early in June and I can't remember if they said six, seven or eight. Okay. A special election. I'm going to guess if one of those is a Tuesday, I'm going to go for that. it would be a special election. That would be the only thing that would be on it would be the debt exclusion and the plan given our MSP a timeline. It's June and I only know that because I was in a meeting with Councilor bears and Mayor Brianna, where they said that otherwise, I wouldn't know it.

[Page Buldini]: Yeah, no, I think, Director Hunt. Yep. That's what I've been kind of told as well. But my question would be with That would be for the debt exclusion, but would it come before the CD board? Would we be having meetings about it?

[Alicia Hunt]: So that's in a different stage. Right. So I do not 100% know the stages of when things happen, but there is a point where the school will go through site plan review, and it would come in front of the CD board for site plan review. But that wouldn't be until after they do. I don't know, honestly, if that would be what stage that's in. I do encourage all of you to stay informed about the project because as a board that will be asked to eventually weigh in. And honestly, the education of our youth is really important, whether or not we have children who will attend that school, because we want smart educated residents. Well, we want to have well-educated residents in our community so we care about the school they go to. That, I'll get off my soapbox. I do know there's a public meeting, community meeting tomorrow night about sustainability. I am personally hoping to attend it. It's online. We can make an active effort to share with you all that. And I can reach out, sorry, I just remembered that I had gotten a call from a member of that committee that one of the architects that I forgot to return. I'll reach out and find out what the timeline is with respect to our board. And I will put this on my list for tomorrow to do.

[Page Buldini]: I think that'd be super helpful, because I think what I realized as a person that feels quite passionate about the high school, I miss those meetings. And that was something that was really unfortunate. So if we know that ahead of time, that would be really helpful so that if we are active participants, we don't have to do what we did.

[Dina Caloggero]: Yeah. I would suggest that if there will be any changes due to the potential large amount of work needed for the high school or other things, we should probably take a look at the timeline in the RFP, right? Because what did we put in there? I think Tufts institutional zoning is long overdue, and we should do it. We really should. It's been stalled and do it. And I think you can balance both if it's coordinated properly. But if you do make changes to that timeline, you should reflect them in the RFP.

[Alicia Hunt]: And so I think that's where originally somebody had put in here and I think it's from the original RFP that the contract would be two years. I think we should just say the contract is for three years and that we should ask them also to propose timelines that they think are reasonable. We've said in here that we want to break it up into different sections. I've started to form a personal opinion that the residential zoning itself should also be broken into separate sections. So you're not doing all the different parts of the city at once. But right, you do Fulton Heights and then you do West Medford, you do these separately. So each of those could take six months. Yeah. And, but I think this sort of one of the things that we do think could happen. So, there are two things that could occur, we could hire, we could end up hiring in this associates and they will come in with a world of knowledge already about our community. And they would be ready to do whatever we asked them of. and if it was as tough as institutional zoning, they'd already have a background. We could hire a different firm. And then it might actually make sense to ask them to take February, March, and April to spend time going through all of these documents, coming out and walking the city with groups of people to better understand the concerns and what we're looking to do and to change. And then to start really, really have zoning happening in the heart of Medford local election season next September. Just had to throw that in there.

[Doug Carr]: If we're taking off the summer like this year again, which I think we all needed, that means that we basically have only May and June and then September, October. We might get one thing done before the election where I thought, which is okay, but I thought we were going to get at least two, but it sounds like we may not even get one, which is okay, but that's the reality of the calendar if that's the case.

[Alicia Hunt]: And I want to just be clear, I am not trying to drive this schedule. I'm sort of trying to convey what I know is happening. And that if Councilor Bears and Councilor Leming and Mayor Brianna say, actually, we want to like hit the ground running in February, then I'm going to say you're the boss.

[Doug Carr]: Yeah, I guess I don't know how everyone else feels. I think we have some momentum going. We're going to have a pause here no matter what we do. But I guess I don't want the pause to be for a year. I just don't. I want to keep moving forward if we can. Go ahead, Ari.

[Ari Fishman]: I think it would be a really bad idea to totally lose momentum. I want us to get at least 1 thing done. And 1 of the fundamental challenges we face is community understanding literacy and awareness. And 1 of the benefits of having momentum and having it as a continual process is that more and more people are learning. And I think if you give people a year without doing it, they're going to forget everything. And if we can stay on it, it doesn't have to, in fact, should not be at the same frantic schedule. But I'm not okay with us doing nothing for a year, or even doing just cleanup. I think we need to have at least one major zoning. And each time we're doing education, we're doing even scaffolded education of there's new people onboarding, there's people getting deeper, and we're getting layers of community input. We got to keep going.

[Alicia Hunt]: And if I might put my professional hat on here and actually give advice. I think, and I think that Danielle might agree with this one, that we should actually, so let's set Tufts Institutional Zoning, maybe we'll do that this winter, maybe we can do that, but actually the Wellington area, we have this report, we have this information back, I believe that it's been presented to you all, if it's one of the things we want them to look at, that is something that That's an area that I think we could address first that people are interested in, but I don't think people are going to lose their minds over. And then it might be actually a good place to start in the spring, having these public meetings, doing this and not feeling with no deadlines, no timeline, no like, oh, we must finish it by June 30th. But rather, let's start working on it, and let's see where we get, and then whether that's the first one, and then finish it off in September-ish time window. Because it would make a big difference, and I think there's a lot of stuff there. And we're aware there's development interest there, and there's some areas that'll never develop unless we change stuff. And even the people who want, like, there is some desire to keep it industrial, and it is industrial, but our industrial zoning does not lend itself to modern day industry. So saying, actually, we don't want to change what that is, but we want to modernize it might be the messaging that allows us to engage with the community. And we don't want to wait too long after that study, or people will have forgotten that they gave input on the study.

[Ari Fishman]: I think that's a great idea. And I'll also flag that that's an area that is right near transit, doesn't have a lot of single family homes. I think that the emotions will be very different and also have a very high impact on some of the development that needs to happen and will happen. So, I think that's a great idea and I appreciate Alicia explicitly giving advice when you think it's called for. Thank you.

[Doug Carr]: So I concur 100% because, I mean, no zoning will be uncontroversial, but I think we can do well in that area. So that would suggest then to everyone that we use the fall to clean up as much as we can, do some homework on Wellington for planning on it, start to think about what we're looking for. We can actually do some things. without a consultant. We can walk the neighborhoods. We can look at, we can think about boundaries and zoning. We can think about what we've already done and how it might apply. And then when they come on board, I agree with Ari. We would say we start in February or March and we go, when we finish, we finish. It could be, it will likely not be June. I would say September, October is realistic, but I think that I like that game plan as an outline, but I wouldn't want to hear from everyone else. Go ahead, Paige.

[Page Buldini]: Yes, thank you. I think that's awesome. And I think it would be really helpful, too, if there were any updates on some of the site plans that we've passed to see what's working there, what's not working there, CAPI's case 108 progress. And then also if we could get an update on the connector, because I know that was a big thing with the path and construction over there, because I feel like that's a really wonderful thing that's happening as well for transit. And I hope with the Wellington study and everything we are learning about that, that's just really good info that we have all together. So are we able to change the timeline or the schedule of what we're doing? Is that something that we could do?

[Alicia Hunt]: I think that this is a I mean, Doug and Sean, you've been in these working group meetings that it's a discussion and that putting some recommendations out there. Yeah. We kind of ordered them in the RFP in a way that we thought maybe made sense, but it. We right now have Tufts 1st and Wellington 2nd.

[Doug Carr]: Right, but you have a caveat on there that is that this is discretionary and can be changed, right? And I think that's exactly what we're talking about is potentially changing it.

[Ari Fishman]: Although I, now that I kind of, we say it that way, I do think that there is some danger in putting off Tufts institutional zoning because they are on a building streak and they will utilize any lack of guardrails that is available.

[Dina Caloggero]: We got to close that loophole. Ari, I completely agree. There is so much construction happening and there's more to come. I live down the street and lots of neighbors are very concerned about what is going to happen next. Talk about momentum.

[Alicia Hunt]: You know what, maybe I'll put this on Izzy and Natalie to do a little research. off the top of my head, so the athletic side is all in the general residential zone. And I don't think there are any loopholes there. But we should double check that. I don't think that they can build a 15-story building there by right. I think they're limited to 35 feet, because when they did the aquatic center, they made a point of saying that they were meeting the zoning. Right, but we should double check that.

[Doug Carr]: Yeah, I'll come to you in a second. Alicia, when we spoke with Tufts, we were quite specific in asking for at least an annual update for their plans, right? So they owe us that, as far as I'm concerned, January. They owe us at least a year look ahead, if not more. And I think we need to hold them to that, I think, as part of the kind of, for lack of a better term, just a handshake agreement that was offered and accepted, I think, as a, not a condition, but as a working relationship with Tufts. that being blindsided and coming in late with 95% CD stats for buildings is simply off the table for we need to know ahead of time. And I think we need to put that in motion this fall. Go ahead, Dina.

[Dina Caloggero]: Yeah, I just want to stress that as a person that lives very close to touch University neighbors are very, very concerned about the only appears in school right now. What that area zone for it is in a, it is in a. highly residential area, and the fear is because of the pachyderms that were built on Boston Avenue that Elliott Pearson will be moved to where the Dame School was, and there'll be some other pachyderm type of facility that will be built across the street. So, huge concerns here in the neighborhood of South Methodist Hillside regarding what Tufts will do next. I stress, I would do Tufts institutional zoning. It's a tough one, but we should get it done.

[Doug Carr]: Well, Alicia, Danielle, we won't have a consultant. When does Ines run out? When does the clock run out?

[Alicia Hunt]: In theory, so we extended their contract with no cost. there was two pop things that could happen. So Boston Ave wasn't done. So we hadn't finished paying them for Boston Ave. So when I say we did a no cost extension, I mean, we extended the date of the contract for no additional money and we're paying out what the rest of the part on Boston Ave for what they've been doing right now, like through last night. They gave us a proposal to do Tufts institutional zoning. And we discussed this lightly with the mayor last week and she asked me how much money we would need to accept that and that she would put a paper on the city council asking for the money to pay to have them come work with us on Tufts institutional zoning this fall. So if we want to do it this fall, we can ask them, we can accept that contract and honestly, If I was to make a recommendation, it would be let's get started on it. Let's see, maybe we don't finish it, but maybe we, we, because they have started stuff they've done some research on it. There have been some public meetings there's clearly need to be more. Tufts would really, they have said to me several times, they would like to work collaboratively on it. They'd like to see, can we get to a win-win where they can do things they wanna do, but the community is happy about it.

[Dina Caloggero]: Right, right. I don't know. There's momentum there. There's work that's already been done, right? Let's continue.

[Doug Carr]: All right, so I've heard two different things tonight. Do we want to make a motion not to be, this is not binding because there's the mayor and the city council. We can't tell them what to schedule, but it's the sense. I'm going to get a sense here of people who want to go with Tufts or they want to go with Wellington. Those are the two options on the table to start. What do people want to do? I guess I'll just go around the room and ask people to give us a preference.

[Alicia Hunt]: So I will just tell you that I just checked. In the GR zone, other permitted principal structures has a limit of 35 feet and three stories. So if they wanted to build seven stories, they would have to be making that case and asking for that under Dover. The three stories would be by right, just as an FYI.

[Ari Fishman]: Before we go around, can we have a kind of bullet point summary of what the options are? Just because I think we've talked about a lot of things that all reasonably have priority and I want to make sure that I understand what the ask is in short sentences.

[Doug Carr]: That's fair. Let's see. So is option one, Tufts Institutional Zoning with Innis, with an extended contract, is that, that's one potential option?

[Alicia Hunt]: That would be bracketed, that would be this fall. With Innis means this fall.

[Doug Carr]: Yep. Okay. If we did Wellington, would that be Innis too, or would that be, that would be the new consultant or potential next consultant next year?

[Alicia Hunt]: It is my opinion that we could not do Wellington this fall. We would, if say we had no limit on the contract, we could start this fall, but we would not finish before this contract runs out.

[John Anderson]: Go ahead, John. Question. Can't we do some pre-work on Wellington this fall though? I mean, Talk about different alternatives, walk around a little bit, get the lay of the land. I mean, I don't know the area well, except for major highways that pass through it.

[Ari Fishman]: I think the challenge is that the consultants provide have the expertise to understand what the actual options are, but someone correct me if that's.

[Alicia Hunt]: I'm wondering if this would be helpful, and I hate to commit myself to more what time would be, but so we have the transformation study. that has recommendations. And I'm wondering if what I'm hearing is it would it be helpful to make that real by printing out some copies of it and going over there and pointing and saying here on this map here where it says this, that's this that we're sitting in front of. Okay, now let's walk around over here. We're talking about this area and that's what this is and like do some hand waving. In my mind, that would be a group of the board. I'm not sure that I would want to advertise that as a big public event. If it was a big public event, I'd want a consultant to lead it. If it was going to be you guys, then I feel like Kayla or I could probably do that, if that would be helpful.

[John Anderson]: I think that would be useful. I have to admit, I didn't realize that the Wellington transformation study was that specific. It seemed a lot of rather general recommendations there. But I'm willing to be corrected if there were things that were specific enough that we could go and say, look, this place right here, this is what they were talking about.

[Alicia Hunt]: They were suggesting some areas to be. Ground floor commercial with residential some places to remain. industrial, they had some vision around, could we convince the owners of the wetland that we should have a ring road around it and be inward facing? And there are parts back there that you've probably never seen.

[John Anderson]: Definitely. Was this basically based on input from the public? To what extent was there expertise from Alicia and Danielle? to sort of guide the process so that things are being recommended that would probably fit well into city planning. I'm not being very good at explaining things.

[Alicia Hunt]: So these are planning consultants that did it. Okay. And I will say that Kayla in our office managed the process and I met with them several times. Danielle, I don't, can't remember.

[Danielle Evans]: I reviewed and made edits to the final report. Okay. Yeah. Right. Or like Kayla told me like, look at the section and so forth. You know, I made some edits and comments.

[John Anderson]: If I can ask another question, would it be possible for us to get the long awaited thesis on the Dover amendment that Christian did?

[Alicia Hunt]: I got it. Danielle, can you send it to the board? Yeah, I can do that. Can I just drop it in your packet for tonight? Yeah, you should do that. Is that an easy way for you guys? Sorry, he emailed it.

[Doug Carr]: You said it to myself and John as part of the zoning subgroup, I think. We should have it.

[Alicia Hunt]: I'm trying to think about where I saved it. Let's see if I launched it.

[Alicia Hunt]: Right? And that's where I was just if I can put it in the packet before this meeting ends, that would be can I put in the packet?

[Ari Fishman]: It's also likely available as open access because tends to put most of its thesis. I am the tough digital library.

[Ari Fishman]: Yes. I wanted to clarify. I mean, I think a tour of Wellington with Alicia would be wonderful and delightful and very useful. I don't know. Is that being pitched as an alternative to doing an entire zoning of an entire area having like a two-hour walk around that feels non-equivalent options. I feel like those are not mutually exclusive.

[Page Buldini]: but it would be so much less work. It would be a fun field trip.

[Ari Fishman]: I think we should do it. I absolutely agree and I think we should allocate and acknowledge the amount of time and work it will be. But I do want to get us back to this, what are we actually deciding between? It can be a check thing of select multiple, but I feel like a three-hour thing is and four-month process are options that can both be selected. Sorry, Alicia. I'm sure future me will regret this too.

[Alicia Hunt]: Would it also make sense to do a walk of the Tufts campus? I feel like we could ask Rocco to tour members around, If we have a forum, I feel like we need to post it as a field trip. This is something that conservation commissions do all the time. But we don't have an open case in front of us, so it's just exploratory.

[Ari Fishman]: I would love a tour of Tufts campus by Rocco. I'm extremely familiar with it. I worked there for five years, but I would love his perspective. And I think that many of us are in the habit of taking personal field trips when we're working on a thing. I know other members have mentioned it. It's something that I do. But I think the discussion we were having was about bigger picture planning, and this feels more like a tactic than a strategy. So, I would love to drag us back to the strategic discussion.

[Sean Beagan]: I'm for doing Tufts Institutional next, since we just did Boston Ave. The area is somewhat fresh in my mind still. I'd rather just keep going in that neck of the woods, so to speak.

[Doug Carr]: And it sounds like That's the only part we could do within this fall.

[Alicia Hunt]: Otherwise, the other thing we've been talking about is this cleanup work, which I personally think that we have to do as well. But and I will tell you that before Christian left, we asked him to break it up into three different groupings. And one is like things that he identified as typos and things that are misformatted or numbers that are wrong. The lawyers told us we could not correct those as scriveners errors. We have to put that list in front of both boards and legally vote on them. The second list was things that felt like really easy. Here are missing definitions, things like we're moving that duplicate height definition now. things that are truly not controversial and have that as a batch that moves through. Then there's a group that are also considered cleanups, but people might want to argue about. I'm sorry, Doug, I always put the Salem Street stuff into that. We don't need a consultant for it, but people might get upset and might argue. I would like to have the technical stuff separated. from the arguing so that we literally could just clean this part up and now let's take some time and thoughtfully discuss the things that not everybody might agree on. And so we do have that broken up like that.

[John Anderson]: Okay. Go ahead, John. May I ask what would the timeline be for that? That clean up, you mentioned three areas, which makes a lot of sense to me.

[Alicia Hunt]: give us some deadlines. I heard words that the City Council said last night. So when they, they seem to think somehow they've gotten in their heads that the 30th was a joint meeting to work with the CD board and that there was gonna be cleanup. Because when they originally said, let's have a B paper saying that whether the, school, the purpose built building, student housing should be by right or by special permit. Can we discuss that at the meeting on the 30th when we're going to do some cleanup? Now, the meeting on the 30th has been intended to be the RFP. And I was not preparing materials for them for the 30th, but I am hopeful that I can go relook at those files that I got from Christian and that I might be able to give them the the really easy stuff, which are also voluminous.

[John Anderson]: I guess at some point, since the city council meeting has come up on numerous occasions, I wonder if it would be, for those of us who didn't attend that, I wonder if I could get a brief summary of what happened there. people have been sort of alluding to, but not wanting to talk about.

[Doug Carr]: I think that's on our next agenda. And John, I don't want to go down that road. Okay, sure. But we want to talk about that in the administration. But let me, I want to go back to Ari's comment here. We have We have really three things on the table. We have Tufts institutional zoning within us in the fall. We have cleanup of existing zoning, which includes Salem Street, Medford Square, Boston Ave, whatever that means in terms of language, whatever missing pieces we think are there and we need to get into that. And then do we do the third? A third part would be basically laying the groundwork for Wellington. We would do homework, we would do research, we would look at what's been done to date. look at maps, but we would just start to familiarize ourselves with the area and be prepared. But I don't think we get deep into the zoning, certainly not by the end of this calendar year. That's three different, it could be very big things. I think that's one too many, frankly, myself. But those are the three things I've written down. I want to, again, circle back to people. What do you think is realistic? If we have a consultant who's not coming on board till March, that's when Wellington really takes off. So could we do Tufts and clean up this fall and start Wellington in the new year, even though Wellington may be covered in snow, Dina, to your point, for the first few months? Anyway, I'll put it out there and start with Paige and then go to Ari.

[Page Buldini]: Sure, thank you, Doug. I think what Sean said too, Dina, I think Ari, we're all kind of saying the same thing. I love the idea that we've talked about Boston Ave. The residents are engaged. For that matter, so tough does make sense. Um, if we could get that wish list. That'd be wonderful if we could have a walk about Rocco, that would also be wonderful. Um, and just thinking about what our goal is there and if if is, you know, available to help out with that as a consultant, I think that would be very good too. Um, so I think that would be where I would go.

[Ari Fishman]: Yeah, I think I, we could reasonably do. 2 out of the 3 parts of the cleanup and kind of get 2 parts done. Sorry cat that 3rd part, you know, stick it in, start it where there's kind of quieter meetings. So the choice seems to be between Tufts versus Wellington. I think. we should keep the momentum on Tufts. And in terms of getting it done in a kind of concrete amount of time, I think there is an engaged community that will be enthusiastic about creating limits and having rules there. And I think it will be a different set of conversations than kind of starting from scratch community engagement wise from Wellington. So I think the size of the project fits the size of the time and allows us to do a substantial chunk of clean up. So that's where I'm currently.

[Page Buldini]: Sorry, I completely forgot. Daniela or Alicia, do you know if there are any, say, plan reviews or bigger projects that are kind of coming up that we should be mindful of? Not that you don't know if it's not out there yet, but just so we also are aware.

[Alicia Hunt]: Yes. Great. There is a project on Mystic Ave that has told us that they plan to file with the ZBA to be on the ZBA agenda in October, and that would put them here probably in November. And we also, it's really little, but we know that there's, you know, that two houses on one lot thing that you heard last month, there's another one of those that's on the ZBA agenda this month, and that one will go through the same process.

[Danielle Evans]: Well, I haven't heard back from, um, that person that had an idea for forestry, you know, that old building and.

[Page Buldini]: He was, I met him at the library when they didn't have a SWAT that whole, that was really cool. He was saying that he was going to reach back out to you.

[Doug Carr]: What about the overlay district behind city hall, the three parcels, that whole developer, like any chance of that coming back?

[Alicia Hunt]: Yeah. Oh, transit. That should be happening this winter. He wants to go to construction next summer, so that should be this winter. I have encouraged him to talk with you, Doug, in advance. I have encouraged him to meet with Danielle. Last time I said that, he said they weren't ready. OK.

[Alicia Hunt]: If they come forward with a proposal ready for site plan review in the next three months, I'll fall out of my chair.

[Doug Carr]: Can only play in the hand you're dealt. Okay. Should we close out this conversation? I feel like there's general consensus, do Tufts, do cleanup, start Wellington as soon as we finish Tufts or the winter breaks, whatever comes first, something along that line as a broad general outline for the next six months. That's kind of what I'm hearing here. Tell me if you disagree. And we can act accordingly. Okay, sounds like there's consensus, I think. It's reasonable for the time we have, and we don't have any artificial deadlines, so we can take our time. And we won't probably start Wellington until we finish Tufts properly. Okay? All right, I think we should move on then. That was a useful conversation, but I think we need to keep this moving here. All right, so that's it for the RFP again. I'll just get your comments to Danielle and Alicia in the next week, and then we'll take it from there. Zoning project and other administrative updates, I think this goes to what, I don't know who wants to tackle this one in terms of what happened last night. I guess that Dina saw the whole thing. Alicia, you were there. Tanya, were you there, but you thought it was done, and then it wasn't done? Maybe you could give a five-minute synopsis of what your perception was and what actually happened.

[Alicia Hunt]: I'd love to hear what Dina and Paige saw. All right. Then I did actually stay on to the bitter end, and so I could fill in if other people didn't.

[Danielle Evans]: Can we just say the facts, like what was approved? Yes, so City Council passed a version of the Boston Avenue Neighborhood Corridor District with the 10-foot step backs for the BA3. And for the purpose-built student housing, they made some changes to how that would look. The first vote was to eliminate the requirement that the students be attending a, I don't know if it was university or educational institution in Somerville or Medford, but they kept it at the 80% as students. So they took that out. I believe that was the only change the first time. And so they, there was a lot of debate back and forth about whether to keep a special permanent on, which, I was a little surprised was a discussion because I thought that had been. Was one of the decision points from the June 24th, but it was raised and. The 1st vote was 3 to 4, not to change it to a special permit, but then later in the evening. There was a vote to reconsider it. And they change the vote to take away the special permit so that the. Purpose-built student housing is now by right in that BA3, which was a surprise that that happened so late. And I will reserve any other comments for now.

[Page Buldini]: So I happened to be on, as I had shared with the board, to support Dena, which is very exciting. And I was also very excited because there were three common VIC license that I was supporting. Have you seen it? Have you seen it? Yeah. Yeah. Raza was in the Bobiti. So there's some great economic development in the city. So I was excited to be there. But I actually made a little statement only because I had to put my thoughts together because it was a long night. So if you wouldn't bear with me, if I could read it, if that's OK. These are thoughts of my own. And Kate's here with me too. I just want to be honest, I'm really disappointed and confused by what would happen last night. I trusted the process and the agreement we had reached together with the city council. At our June 24th joint meeting, the City Council, the CBB, us, voted to agree on the main aspects that would go into the final draft and would not be open for further debate. That included the table of uses specifically, which uses would be allowed by right and which would require a special permit. The two changes adopted last night were not recommendations or referrals from the board, and they were significant. I have made the motion to send this forward to City Council, so I take responsibility for opening the door. I believe, and I could be wrong, that Sean raised the possibility that other changes could be made, but I genuinely did not believe it would unfold this way. That was something I've learned now. I was also confused about why additional public comment was allowed last night when we had already closed our public hearing and completed our process. I just would love clarification on that. I agree the need for housing as well as the interest in making the corner on Boston Avenue productive and generating revenue for the city, but the late night reconsideration felt really unfortunate, familiar to what we had gone through in the past. And I thought we had moved past that. A lot of thoughtful work went into establishing guardrails for this new type of development, especially given the concerns of the surrounding neighbors. I'm disappointed about how this happened. And I think it makes it very clear that we need to have that strong new RFP going forward. So thank you for listening. Excellent. Well said.

[Doug Carr]: Very good. Um, do you know, would you want to add anything? You gave me some play by play.

[Dina Caloggero]: I was just amazed at, uh, you know, when we, when we agreed to close the public comment, I thought that we were going to make limited changes on the document that was on, you know, agreed to by the City Council and the Community Development Board. So, you know, I figured it would go more like Method Square, right? I thought we did a good job. And there was many more changes, you know, the 10 to the 60 on our end, the limited shadow studies. And, you know, I felt, yes, that would be a discussion last night, but then the other pieces were thrown in, too. So perhaps, you know, maybe we shouldn't rush through things as quickly and make sure that both the Community Development Board and the City Council, if you have a joint meeting like that, agree and clearly understand what we both are agreeing to, to avoid the type of maneuvering and voting that I witnessed last night. I left after the Boston zoning. I couldn't stay for the approval of my appointment. It was just too late and I went home. I did turn it on just before I was watching the news, and it was still going on. And that's when I saw Justin saying, requesting to rethink his vote on the special permitting. So I was surprised at that late night. I think it was close to 1130 that I watched it. But perhaps that's just an indication that when we come to an agreement, we need to both sides need to make sure that we clearly understand what we're agreeing to. Because if that doesn't happen, I think it's a failure to close the public comment at that point. And that's it. The 80-20 was taken out, the 80% for some of the whole method students. I guess they were discussing that's more like a boxing us into just having tough university students, and it could be opened up to all. And that was done. But those are things that we could have discussed when we were together. And if you think about it, that meeting when we both came to an agreement and closed the public That was kind of a interesting meeting too, right? There was a lot of comings and goings. And again, I think this is a reflection of trying to rush everything through towards the end. But c'est la vie, live and learn.

[John Anderson]: Could you just clarify what they actually decided on the 80-20?

[Dina Caloggero]: Yeah, the 80%, I think in the regular, I'm sorry, I read regulations all day, and the zoning requirements was that 80% of the students would have to be from Tufts University, students of Medford and Somerville, clearly meaning more Tufts University students. And the 20%, I think what, well they, they changed it to I think any, any, any, I don't have the recording. Um, and it's, you know, one thing I do want to state, it is difficult to understand all the word, you know, everything that's being said in the chamber because there's so much echoing that happens. It's, I think where you, you get a better understanding and you understand people much better when we're in zoom. Um, but they made it any institutional educational institution.

[Dina Caloggero]: So that makes sense to me. Yeah, you have to be a student. And then the 20% is kind of what we agreed to where, you know, maybe I didn't pay tuition. I couldn't afford the tuition, but I wanted to stay. And I think Alicia did a really good job explaining that yesterday to the city council going over that point as well. But again, you know, those are the things that we should have made sure we clearly understand. There was just way too much going on trying to push it through. the end of the city fiscal year, I think.

[Doug Carr]: Yeah. Sean, do you have any comments or suggestions from what you've heard?

[Sean Beagan]: Yeah. Thank you, Doug. I think I agree with pretty much everything Dina just said, which is that I think a lot of us had a bad feeling about how fast the Boston Ave zoning was moving. And for whatever reason, we allowed ourselves, and we probably shouldn't have, we allowed ourselves to be pushed up against a fictitious deadline that had something to do with, I think, a combination of Innis's contract expiring, which and also maybe the end of the fiscal year, but I don't know that the end of the fiscal year has anything to do with zoning. But that meeting on the 24th of June was, to my memory, like a four-hour meeting. And it was not conducive to good discussion. I think the whole concept of student built purpose housing was probably the actual document that contained language about student built purpose housing. I think maybe we had seen the date before and probably city council was seeing just that day for whatever city council members were there. So I'm not shocked that there were changes. but I think the process needs to be different going forward. And I think the way we ended Medford zoning is the way we should end all the zoning with us having a complete final document that essentially just has to be passed to city council for a vote. No real items left to debate. And we didn't do that on Boston Ave. And I think it's our fault, it's city council's fault. And the events of last night kind of are symptomatic of everything that happened in the two months leading up to it, I think.

[John Anderson]: Thank you, Sean. John, do you have another comment? May I just comment that I think part of the problem is that only a subset of the city councilors are deeply involved in the rezoning. Um, that was the meeting where a half of them walked out in the middle of the meeting because they had some other commitments. Was that that meeting. Remember, Zack bear said he had to go and do something. Somebody else had to go home. That was the meeting. Yeah. Yeah. I think I think we should have just adjourned at that point personally.

[Ari Fishman]: Hi, so I talked with page earlier today and kind of heard the news and I'm baffled and. I mean, I do want to kind of explicitly say that we don't have any power to hold them accountable. We can send them as pretty a package as we want. And they could have done the exact same thing. And there is no recourse. We only send them recommendations. So I do want to kind of, am I extremely unhappy? Yes. Do I think, am I fully convinced that our choices were causal to what happened? Not 100% sure. I feel like that's the only constructive things I have at this moment, but don't worry, there will be more.

[Doug Carr]: Thank you. I appreciate that. I didn't see the meeting. I've only heard about a second hand. I'm disappointed because I feel we had. There was a reason we did joint public hearings. And they were far more successful in Medford Square than they were in Boston Ave, obviously, because we had many more meetings between them and we had more time to be thoughtful about it. But I think That all that being said, the schedule with the chaos and all that, there was still a choice made here to basically ignore this board on some key issues, which is not the spirit in which we got together with the city council at the beginning of this year. And I'm disappointed by that, and I've expressed that disappointment. directly to Justin text form. I haven't been able to actually catch him on the phone, but to Zach as well. And I don't know how that's going to animate or guide us going forward, you know, because I feel a little bit like I agree we had, we did not have veto power over the city council, but there was an agreement that we would both try to walk the line together and not try to one of us get too far off the consensus path. And last night was the opposite of that, and it was deliberate. And I feel that trust has been broken. That's my personal opinion. And I want to rebuild that trust, but it's going to take two to do that, and I don't know exactly how that happens. But what Paige wrote is very good. One thing I thought of is we should put a letter which would be basically page based on what you just wrote with a with a little bit of a group edit saying dear city council this is the consent this is what this this is the consensus of the board you know this is what our opinion is we were you know and i would we could do that or not do that i would we could talk about that um now or or we can sleep on it uh but i feel like i feel like a common communication would be helpful just to, again, more or less say, never again, let's do better. But also this was not in the spirit of what we did for the past year. Politically, I'm not looking to throw anyone on the bus. I'm not looking to point fingers, blame. It happened and it was unfortunate and it looked bad optically from everything that I've heard. And I don't like that either because it doesn't make the city look good. No matter what you think of the opinion, that process was bad. So that's my sense of it and I'll leave it at that. And if anyone has any additional thoughts, please raise your hand.

[Page Buldini]: I'm happy to share what I wrote also, and please, whatever input to it's truly I do take responsibility, but it's also. For the board, however, you want to share, please do, but I'll happily share that to you, Doug, and then we can pass it out.

[Doug Carr]: Why don't you share that and I'll look at it and think about it and there's no hurry here, like we don't need to get this done in 24 hours, but I feel like a response would be useful, I think, to hear the collective will of the board, whatever that is. Other comments, thoughts to If not, then are there any other updates, Alicia or Daniel, that are unrelated to last night that we need to touch upon?

[Alicia Hunt]: Did Kaylee get promoted to economic development director since your last meeting or before? I'd like to keep you updated on staff updates.

[Alicia Hunt]: So Kayla's our economic development director and we have open positions and we have interviews scheduled for her role economic development planner and get interviews scheduled for community development block grant manager. Um, we also need an office manager, that position I've been reviewing resumes. I'm still looking for solid resumes of somebody who'd be a great office manager. That's a heavy financial finance admin job, as well as, you know, it's not just sitting at the front desk and being nice to people.

[Doug Carr]: Very good. Okay. All right. The only other two items we have are minutes and adjourning. Would anyone like to make a motion to accept the meeting minutes from 8-12-26? John, you're on mute. Did you?

[Doug Carr]: I thought that's what you said. If I second, anyone? Second. Thank you, Sean. All right, John Anderson. Yes. Sean Began. Yes. Page Buldini. Yes. Tina Calgaro.

[Doug Carr]: And myself, Doug Carr, yes. Motion passes six to zero. All right, I'll ask for a motion to adjourn. So move. Thank you, John.

[Doug Carr]: Oh, I love it. All right, John Anderson. Yes. Sean Began. Yes. Page Buldini.

[Doug Carr]: Dina Colagaro. Yes, I think I saw her say yes. Yep. Mary Goffman Fishman. Yes. And myself, yes. Thank you all. Two hours, almost a minute. Good job, everyone. I like two, not four hour meetings. So thank you all. We'll see you. Two weeks, Danielle, right?

[Ari Fishman]: I think so. I won't be at the 30th because I will be in Ireland for work.

[Alicia Hunt]: I might be in the 30th. What's that? We don't have a meeting. I might not be able to come to the 30th. City Council, it's not a CD board meeting. It's a City Council meeting to work on the RMP. You are welcome to come if you want to. Next meeting is October 7th.

[Danielle Evans]: Yeah, your calendar should be updated, I hope. There was some weird which happened in like several of the meetings were not in the calendar. I apologize for that, but I hope it is fully popular.

[Danielle Evans]: Yes, 7th of the 21st, then November 4th and 18th. and then December 2nd and 16th. And that's the end of that.

[Dina Caloggero]: I do want to say there's a couple of those meetings that I won't be able to attend. My daughter is getting married.

[Danielle Evans]: Can you make sure you update your, can you update the RSVP? Yes, congratulations to your daughter by the way. That's exciting. Yeah.

[Doug Carr]: We won't make you chair the meeting from the wedding. Doug's going to be out that day. I'm going to crash the wedding a hell of a bit. All right.

Page Buldini total time: 8.54 minutes total words: 1680

AI-generated transcript of Community Development Board 09/16/26