The Community Development Board approved a modification to the site plan for 161 Mystic Avenue. The board also reviewed draft proposals for upcoming citywide zoning cleanup amendments, which cover formatting, height definitions, and development incentives.
[Chair Doug Carr]: Harmon Zuckerman, PB – He, Him, His): Good evening and welcome to tonight's meeting of the method Community Development Board. I'll call the meeting to order. Harmon Zuckerman, PB – He, Him, His.: : john Anderson. Present. Harmon Zuckerman, PB – He, Him, His.: : john vegan. Present. Harmon Zuckerman, PB – He, Him, His.: : He's both any Their page is muted. Very good. Dina Colorado is absent. Artie Goffman Fishman presents. And myself, Doug car chair present as well. Before we get started, just a couple of formalities here. Please know that the project materials for all projects before the board tonight can be viewed on the city's website. Man for mass dot o r g.
forward slash boards dash commissions community development board. And by clicking on current CD board filings. For those on Zoom, you can also find the link in the chat. I'll just briefly outline what we're going to be talking about tonight. It's one of our lighter agendas for the last few this year, really. We're going to be looking at a modification to site plan approval for 161 Mystic Avenue, which is the Leach Bay Road, which we previously approved. We'll get into that. We're looking to add two more feet of height to accommodate a second floor, which was not part of the original design. HAB-Michael Leccesereeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
[Director Alicia Hunt]: Sure, we have with us tonight are two graduate interns, Natalie Rodman and Izzy Chung. And Danielle will be joining us shortly. But until then, I'll be your staff.
[Chair Doug Carr]: Very good. Thank you, Alicia. All right, the first item tonight is the modification of site plan approval, SPR 2026-4MOD. This is at 161 Mystic Avenue, the Lechmere Road, which we approved relatively recently. The applicant is seeking to modify the site plan approval by increasing the height by two feet to accommodate a second floor use as the flooring showroom. At least there's any other context you want to give before we talk about this in detail.
[Director Alicia Hunt]: So I did just want to like, let people know. So there are different things that can occur with a site plan that's already been passed. And this one's an amendment, which would require a big public hearing. And that would be a very, if there was a large change, this is a modification. A modification is a more minor change. If something is absolutely de minimis, then staff can just approve it. And we felt that the change that they're presenting tonight is somewhere between de minimis and a minor change, because it is bringing the building in more in compliance with the zoning. So it should be a good thing to be more incompliant with zoning, but it wasn't so small that we felt we could approve it administratively from the office. So the applicant is here this evening to present that for you, and this is a simple modification to the site plan.
Whoever's going to present for the applicant, can you raise your hand or wave or let me know? Okay, thank you, Will. Normally, Danielle would already know this, but I didn't get that information in advance. Thank you. All right. You are a co-host. You can present now.
[SPEAKER_07]: Great. Thank you very much. Good evening, everyone. Sorry, let me just get this screen. Okay. Thank you. So my name again is Will Chalfant from KDI Architects. I was before you not that long ago for this project, and I'll just give you a little bit of background as to where this came from. Effectively, the owners have been discussing things and determined that if they're building this building, they might as well get everything that they sort of hope and dream for initially within the same footprint that was already approved. And it was gonna be relatively simple to do based on, we were previously gonna be using a pre-engineered metal building with these large trusses. And we're now changing that construction type, which, in reality, only the parapet has actually grown 2 feet. But as a result of flattening out the roof, we're now able to have this new 2nd floor, which I'll go through quickly. So, again, the height technically a lot of times the building height is measured to the actual roof, not the parapet. So, but I did want to just be transparent here. So. We have a 2 foot increase. Again, it's completely within the envelope as previously shown and then we have some minor glazing revisions because of the new structure. But actually, I think it's to the benefit of the project overall. I do want to point out the employee count doesn't change. We're not really we're not changing.
You know, suddenly going to have twice the floor space while we are much of this is really more of a future use for for storage. You know, they want to have storage for some of the additional flooring materials. This will give them an easier way to get up and down, you know, move these materials. So we're proposing adding an elevator. So, just to quickly familiarize everyone with the lot, it's an existing former auto parts store. And site plan wise, nothing is changing footprint isn't changing. I'd only point out that the stare we've added a stare here in the rear. And then, of course, we've got our elevator at the front, which is shown here on the floor plans. So, the 2nd floor is basically going to be wide open previously. This area was storage on the 1st floor. Obviously, we now have significantly more storage up there. Our machine room will be up there as well as an additional restroom, but. I do want to point out that we're very cognizant of a single egress out of here. Obviously, the building will be sprinklered, but we are going to be having occupant load. Obviously, we'll go through this when we go through ISD and the building department, but just want to point out that we're not going to be throwing parties up here. I just want to make that clear.
Everything's really stayed as is other than the roof is now flat as opposed to having a ridge down the middle as part of the pre-engineered metal building. One advantage that we've now been able to do is create a little more activation on the sides of the building, although these flat elevations aren't really doing that justice. We'll get to the renderings in a moment. But I just want to point out that it's a slight change in this parapet going up two feet. The cornice treatment's gotten a little larger. That's also partially to hide the elevator overrun, which is really going to be hardly visible from the pedestrian experience.
But we've been able to add windows to both the sides and the rear on this new 2nd floor. So it's a little bit less of a. Blank facade and a little more interest going on to create some activation on those side streets. So, again, just this looks very similar to what it did. We did the inside rendering a little bit, show some material rugs and things like that. I'll just point out here on the side. So you can see these windows now on the 2nd floor. If you can see where my cursor is. And then, of course, our parking lot adjacent to the proposed building, and then just an aerial familiarize yourself again. So, before we had more of a pitched roof, it's now flat. Here's the elevator overrun. And I will note, we took some artistic license and added some new street trees along Mystic Ave. We are not proposing to pay for those, but we do hope that they're at some point added there to freshen up Mystic Ave. So, with that, I'll kick it back to you if you have any questions.
[Chair Doug Carr]: Thank you. Well, appreciate it. I'll put it up to the board. If they have any questions, please raise your hand. Go ahead, Paige.
[Page Buldini]: Thank you so much. Well, it's so nice to see this again. And I actually looked back on my notes earlier today from when you propose this before. Thank you for adding a little bit of onto the facade in the windows. I actually parked next to the former auto body last night to go to an event at the Great American Beer Hall. So I'm quite excited that you are, you guys, what you're doing to this little area, because I think it's going to start, we have Arts Collaborative, we have Great American Beer Hall. So I think you're starting a really good movement, and especially where it's going to help bring that curb appeal. So I really appreciate that. And then with the elevator, with you adding that, did that change any Anything you had previously on that floor plan, or was that vision? Are you replacing it with anything?
[SPEAKER_07]: No, so, I mean, really. It's just living where we were previously going to have more floor space for display items, you know, like different types of flooring. They do also sell some hard goods as opposed to just carpet and rugs. So by losing that floor space, that floor space, excuse me, that was another reason why it was advantageous to gain this floor space up here where they may have a couple displays in the front. That's to be determined. But overall, the program has not changed at all on the first floor.
[Page Buldini]: Okay. Perfect. I love that. That's potentially more opportunity for, um, which we are rug, which I think is great. So thank you.
[Chair Doug Carr]: Thank you. Thank you, Paige. Anyone else in the board have any questions? Raise your hand. Go ahead. All right.
[Ari Fishman]: Thank you. We did that at the same time. Uh, Yeah, I think this looks great. And I think the addition of the elevator sounds like a really good idea if you're storing heavy materials. And just a logistical note here. You don't have to re go through fire and drainage right now, right? They do a separate. At the final, because I can't speak to that.
[SPEAKER_07]: Yes, that would and I would note because of the additional. Gross square footage did change the technical required parking count for the building, but because the employee count hasn't changed and we don't see any real influx in that we. Don't see it as a huge deal, but I did want to note that because I didn't I forgot to mention that in the presentation.
[Ari Fishman]: Great and then my 2nd question was, I know you mentioned you're not putting on the street trees, but the landscaping on your land is this kind of the same not being impacted.
[SPEAKER_07]: Right, right. And in fact, just to, sorry, not to go on, but we are loaming and seeding this currently concrete area that is not on our property, but in discussions with the city, they wanted us to do that, which I think to Paige's point earlier, will be kind of a starting point, hopefully, of all of Mystic Ave.
[Ari Fishman]: Wonderful. I'm excited to see this project come to life.
[Chair Doug Carr]: Thank you. I appreciate it. Go ahead, Sean.
[Sean Beagan]: Thank you, Doug. You just mentioned parking. Increasing the square footage, do you have enough spaces to still be compliant or do you need a waiver?
[SPEAKER_07]: I believe we were previously granted a waiver. Let me just go to the zoning table. Because for a retail establishment based on it, it's a square footage calculation. And so we were previously short on the number required, which was 22. we're providing 11. we do have a letter, I believe from The, the, uh, the owner outlining what their traffic flow is that this is this isn't sort of a traditional commercial retail space in the sense that you're having people coming in and out. It's more of a. They're doing a lot of wholesale deals selling to, like, a developer to, you know. 50 rolls of carpet or something, so they have, like, at max, usually 5 to 7 cars in their lot currently a little bit further down. So they feel this is more than adequate despite the added score footage for for product storage.
[Sean Beagan]: Yeah, I mean, I don't have any issue with the number of spots you have. I just don't want you to get hung up at the building department if you if they so no, that's a good point. We should get that. We can put that on the record if you want to so that you don't have to come back here.
[SPEAKER_07]: And if that's possible, that'd be great. Thank you.
[Sean Beagan]: And then my other question I had is, so the staircase in the back of the building, is that, that's an internal staircase? Correct.
[SPEAKER_07]: Okay. Yes. Yeah, it's not a fire escape.
[Sean Beagan]: Okay, great. And then the second floor, is that just going to be for employees or is that going to be part of the showroom?
[SPEAKER_07]: They're, I think they, they want to have the flexibility to potentially bring folks up there if they, uh, if they can, but I think predominantly it's going to be used as storage and, uh, we don't really have like an office space for. You know, like an all hands meeting. So I think they may carve out some, you know, uh, employee space up there.
[Chair Doug Carr]: Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Sean. Uh, back to you, Paige, go ahead.
[Page Buldini]: So sorry, that was unintentional. I was unable to unmute, but thank you. No worries.
[Chair Doug Carr]: Anyone else have any questions or comments? Well, I'll just say a couple of things. First of all, I think it looks great. I mean, I think we've done We approve this. It's essentially the same. I'm glad you must have had really tall ceilings or a ton of space on those trusses. It's now being put to use. I think you're being very efficient with your space and getting the most for your construction dollars. That's a good thing. Consistent with almost every project we've ever approved, there's more windows on the blank walls than ever before. That's a good thing. I think the butters and the future tenants on either side. There's a lot happening on Mystic Ave. I think on the historic commission, we saw a storage facility coming down the pike soon that's going to be there. Mystic Ave is definitely a street on the move these days. We're looking forward. We've seen a lot of development already on it just the last couple of years. This is a great improvement. I think I'm good with what we have now.
I guess I will entertain a motion to approve this if there wasn't any other comments or questions. Go ahead, Alicia, before we do that.
[Director Alicia Hunt]: I was just texting with Danielle and checking something. I don't remember. I was looking at your beautiful signs, and I felt like they were appropriate. And if they're over a certain size, they need a special permit. And I just thought I would mention that because I don't think we can issue a special permit at this meeting. But this board has the authority and the, the primary 1 is. not to exceed two square feet for each linear foot of building frontage, or 100 square feet, whichever is less. And then the secondary, if you have frontage on a secondary street or parking lot, which you do, is one square foot per linear foot of building frontage of the facade to which the sign is affixed, or 40 square feet. So you might need some waivers or special permits for that. And I'm sorry, we didn't catch those earlier, but I'm pretty certain we would have had to do a legally noticed public hearing. So you might want to just arrange that before you get to the end of the project. If those signs are bigger than that. I just felt like it was more appropriate to mention it now than after everything else that occurred.
[SPEAKER_07]: Yes. Yes. No, I appreciate that.
[Director Alicia Hunt]: Okay.
[Chair Doug Carr]: Okay. And as you said, Alicia, that's that can happen anytime during construction, right? So we don't need it's not a, I mean, I'm sure you guys want to get out of the way as soon as possible, which is right. It's it's relatively quiet time for us right now. It's not a bad time to come back and get that done.
[Director Alicia Hunt]: Yes, we just try when we're doing a site plan review, if we know that there's going to be big signs, we can do it at the same time as the original site plan review. And there doesn't need to be any additional meetings, but people don't usually think of it. So sorry.
[Chair Doug Carr]: So there's no other reason we can't entertain a motion for approving this, correct?
[Ari Fishman]: I so move.
[Chair Doug Carr]: Very good. Sean, are there any language features you want to put in this approval beyond what we've seen on screen tonight?
[Sean Beagan]: Just the parking issue that I mentioned. If we want to approve it and approve it with the number of parking spaces depicted in the plans that were presented at tonight's meeting. Okay.
[Chair Doug Carr]: All right, so that's what the motion will be then. It's actually not a change, right? There's no change.
[Sean Beagan]: They changed the gross square footage of the building, which put them, I think, into another category of spaces. Previously, I think we had approved or given them a waiver or a special permit, I can't remember which it was, for spots based on the prior size of the building. Okay.
[Chair Doug Carr]: 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, HAB-Jacques Juilland, Moderator, The Hab-Jacques Juilland, Moderator, The HAB-Jacques Juilland, Moderator, The HAB-Jacques Juilland, Moderator, The HAB-Jacques Juilland, Moderator, The HAB-Jacques Juilland, Moderator, The HAB-Jacques Juilland, Moderator, The HAB-Jacques Juilland, Moderator, The HAB-Jacques Juilland, Moderator, The HAB-Jacques Juilland, Moderator, The HAB-Jacques Juilland, Moderator, The HAB-Jacques Juilland, Moderator, The HAB-Jacques Juilland, Moderator, The HAB-Jacques Juilland, Moderator, The HAB-Jacques Juilland, Moderator, The HAB-Jacques Juilland, Moderator, The HAB-Jacques Juilland, Moderator, The HAB And myself, Doug Carr, yes, the motion passes five to zero. Thank you, Will, appreciate it. Thank you for coming.
[SPEAKER_07]: Thank you very much. Have a good rest of your night. Cheers.
[Chair Doug Carr]: All right. Moving on, the next item is discussion of items to include in the upcoming zoning cleanup draft amendment. I think there was a series of four Word documents I saw in the folder from the PDS staff. Who from PDS wants to run the show, Alicia, in terms of going through them? You're on mute.
[Director Alicia Hunt]: We hadn't really talked about it, but Izzy or Natalie, would one of you like to talk about them? And if not, I am perfectly comfortable speaking off the cuff. I just figured I'd give you the opportunity if you wanted to talk about them.
[CAS00002514_SPEAKER_03]: I feel like at least for amendments A through C, there's not too much to review or discuss. I think it's mostly D, which is about the incentives that maybe Natalie and I have a bit more to contribute, but I think the other ones are maybe more formalities.
[Director Alicia Hunt]: Why don't I introduce the formalities and then you take us through the incentive zoning table? How does that sound?
[Chair Doug Carr]: Um, so before you do that, can you can you put this in the context? Because we're just talking about issues today. We're not actually debating. We're just trying to get the right.
[Director Alicia Hunt]: So there's so the way zoning can get changed. Is it first? Somebody has to propose a zoning amendment to the city council, right? Then they refer to the CD board to public hearing, then they have a public hearing, and then there's a vote. So the law says there are certain groups that are able and allowed to propose zoning changes. One is the City Council. One is the Community Development Board. One is a private landowner. And I'm pretty sure there's also 10 or more residents, but I'm not positive off the top of my head on that, but you're one of those bodies. So we've been talking back and forth with the city council for a long time that there is cleanup work that needs to happen. And we should start thinking about it and we know that this board is very interested in fixing the incentive table. And 1 of the goals of that is to have 1 incentive table that is referred to in different from different zones. So that you're not what incentives are. Let me just frame that so that generally the same incentives are. Available throughout the city, and there might be some tweaks in some locations, but it, but the more consistency there is the better, especially, you know. 1 bench shouldn't get you something in 1 zone and not in another zone, or it's 2 benches in 1 zone and 1 bench and another right? There should be consistency across the city.
So that's one thing, and that's what we're gonna have Izzy and Natalie talk about. The other is that I have been continuously saying we have some really straightforward stuff that the lawyers have told us we have to do. So actually, I would love to share my screen. Each of these is very short, show you, like, this is actually what it is. And I believe, I will run this by legal, but we believe that this could just go through the zoning hearing process as is and could then be applied throughout our zoning. So the first one that I have here is, oops, I gotta move things around my screen, there we go, Amendment A. So I've decided to call these each, give them a letter, so they're each separate, so you can look at them separately. So Amendment A is to standardize the formatting throughout the ordinance, because over the course of time, with the various changes that have been made, they've had different formatting in different sections, and the formatting can matter. And therefore, we weren't allowed to change the formatting that went in front of the city council. And so this is actually providing a standard formatting that we would then apply to the entire document and what these things look like.
So this is amendment A, right? Let me then, I believe in only sharing one window at a time. So I'm then going to open up Amendment B. Oops, sorry. I have Amendment C. Where did B go? All right. So Amendment B. is to standardize table references and number formats throughout the document. This was actually something that Christian flagged for us, is that everywhere we have numbers and percents, they should be written the same way. It helps with confusion and readability of it. So this is Amendment B, and it also has a formatting for titles and captions.
I will tell you that one of the ones that we didn't just dress up for tonight, we want to double check that things haven't changed, is actually there are no titles on tables throughout the entire document. And so one of the amendments that we would be able to have for you in two weeks if you wanted is propose names for each table throughout the document so that we could have a list of tables and they'd be easier to refer to.
So then amendment C. This one is a little bit more important and it's a little bit more meaningful. And so this is a reminder, this is the height. So if you all remember that we adopted a new definition for height during the Medford Square zoning, please let me know if anybody needs a refresher on that conversation. But when we did it, there was a mistake made, and the word height and a definition for height was given. But what was actually in our zoning was the words building height, and building height had a definition in our zoning. So technically, we actually have to edit the zoning to remove the definition for building height, and then throughout the document, change the reference from building height to height.
And I will say there is sort of that we could leave the words building height throughout, and we could actually say change the definition of building height to this approved definition of height. This is what the building commissioner had recommended as a much more standard height definition. And it was truly the removal of this one that is causing that needs to actually occur. Is there any questions about that one?
[Chair Doug Carr]: Just one. I did receive some texts from an individual who claimed that nobody had any idea that we changed the definition of height slash building height for the entire city when we did Method Square. That's not what I remember. I remember the opposite of that. But I think when we get to this point. And we're going to be obviously having a public hearing to discuss this. I think we want to spend some time on this that people know, because this is really important because it's the building, you know, if you've been looking at the zoning charge for. five, 10, 20 years, this changes it. The way it's measured is different. I just want the public to know that and to make sure that that's broadcast as far as it can be. We didn't do anything wrong. It wasn't really our focus of Method Square. It came along with the ride because we thought it was a better definition. You thought so, and it's thought so, we thought so. But its significance to the city, I think, was underplayed at the time. At least it was for me. So I think when we revisit it, let's make sure that we're, you know, give an example, graphic example of the old version and the new version so that we can have an intelligent conversation about it and show people what it means for their house and for one or two buildings in the city. That's what I would request when we get to that.
[Director Alicia Hunt]: And we had some people, we actually had somebody who said, you didn't do it legally because you didn't, Just advertise that you were and we literally did. We literally did say in the advertisements what sections we were changing and this section 9412 definitions was in the legal advertisement that we were making changes to that section. And it is completely understandable that your average resident would have no idea that that is the definitions for the whole document. A zoning lawyer should, right? Like somebody who works in this field should know those are the definitions for the whole document.
But you can imagine that a resident might not realize it. So it was all done right. There were several discussions and multiple meetings about it, especially the one where the meeting was realized that different people were making different assumptions about how the height was measured. And then we realized that in fact, reasonable people were measuring it, assuming that it meant something different than what was actually in Medford zoning. And then we came back with the definition, there were slides on it, it was part of a meeting, but one, it's easy to imagine that people weren't paying a ton of attention to it, so.
So that's C. Anything else on that? All right. And then, Izzy, do you want to share D and walk through it? Good evening, Danielle. Let me make you a co-host. Sorry, I just realized that I have to do that. And we had discussed, and Izzy thought that she and Natalie would present the incentive zoning table.
[CAS00002514_SPEAKER_03]: Sure, I can share my screen. I recommend sharing just the window. Okay, is everyone able to see that? Yes, so for this amendment, which I think Alicia had sort of given the high level overview, but because in each iteration of the rezoning, we created a different incentive table for each district. They're all slightly different from each other with the Boston being the most recent 1. and if you remember in that iteration, we close the affordability incentive loophole. So. That's one reason why the tables need to be updated in general for the other districts. And so we were sort of thinking, and I think the intention originally was to have just one overarching table that would apply to all of the districts and the future ones that will be rezoned, which would make it easier for it to be updated. And as part of doing that, I think a discussion that had come up previously was about the proportionality and how some of these incentives could actually be carried out. And so as part of our internal staff review about that, we also did some research into some of them, particularly the ones that felt like there were less guardrails or less information maybe on how that could actually be done in practice. So in this document specifically, we included all the sections from each district. So the Wellington Square Mystic have all the all the ones that have been done so far and all of the references to the tables and the incentive bonuses and we sort of pulled out all the things that would need to change. 1 other thing to know is that in each district, there are different. um like slightly different texts and how things are referred to and so we also just want to standardize um how we talk about that so for example in this first one um there's not really a mention that these would be held to the table of dimensional requirements. So we would just want to add that. So we sort of base this on what was most recently done in Boston Ave. But in general, I think there's things to discuss here for the board, particularly in terms of the incentives that you do want to offer in the larger table that would apply to all districts. So we would essentially remove all of the individual tables and replace it with one general table.
And so in this document, we collected all of the individual ones, but I think the most important one to look at is the one at the end, which is the one that staff have started updating, just proposing what we think could be good recommendations for how to improve the table. We sort of use the affordability incentives as our standard or baseline for what is worth a story or a half story because that was most recently discussed with you all, but we have different recommendations and I don't know if it makes sense to go through all of them one by one, but Natalie and I sort of individually looked into each of them somewhat extensively, so that could be useful to discuss. And I think the other thing that we want to mention is that We the PDS staff had talked about how it would be really beneficial for the board to have a rules and regulations document that corresponds to this. So this would be like this table would be formally adopted in the zoning, but the board could also. create a rules and regulations document with more specific maybe like design guidelines or things that they want to see that don't necessarily have to be tied into the actual zoning ordinance, but you all can create that. And we had sort of started to draft that, but I think depending on what you want the incentive to look like in practice, you can add that to that separate rules and regulations document.
But yeah, I think if you all want to discuss. And Natalie, if I'm missing anything, you can jump in.
[vIXAnO_MxfQ_SPEAKER_04]: That was great. Thanks, Izzy. I guess I'll just add a couple minor things. One, especially since this will be the big standardized table, we wanted to make sure that the formatting was really easy to follow. So with the affordability incentives, we actually had the numbers incentive 1A, 1B. So we thought that that format should be carried over to the other incentives as well. So that's why you'll see those track changes. For example, like incentive 3 vibrant neighborhoods, so then, especially since people will be referencing this table, it's just a little bit easier to follow and we didn't add any incentives. I just want to. note that we either just kind of refined the language, maybe changed from, say, a full story to maybe a half story. Everything is either a half story, an additional half story, or an additional full story, especially because for the affordability incentives, It was either half or full, so we didn't want to exceed and have things be inconsistent in that way. And so again, we either removed incentives that seemed too much of a giveaway or just kind of tweaked the language a little bit, but again, didn't add anything, just sort of tried to refine as much as possible. But again, if there's any questions on specific ones or bigger picture, we're happy to answer.
[Chair Doug Carr]: So, open up to the board. Are there any questions? I mean, I think people need to obviously spend some time to review this, but maybe compare it to what we passed on both Boston Ave and Medford Square. But does anyone on this board have any specific questions for Natalie or Izzy? Go ahead, Sean. You're first and Ari next.
[Sean Beagan]: So yeah, my question would be, so in general, based on the changes that you've suggested, is it easier or harder to hit these incentives for a developer? What would be, I'm just looking for an opinion.
[CAS00002514_SPEAKER_03]: I would say for the ones that I looked at, so I was thinking about like the pedestrian plaza, the open space, a lot of those, some of those community amenities. I would say it depends on what, like if you end up creating a very detailed rules and regulations that you can sort of stipulate things that you want that to look like. So a park, for example, right now it's just a blanket, like it just has to be a park. And so if you had specific things you wanted to see, In that park and you wanted to explicitly require that I think that would be useful to sort of. Outline, which is the intention of the rules and regulations. Um, I would say in. Because we removed some, it becomes harder and that there's just less options available.
And then one that I just want to highlight is there was a streetscape improvements one but we staff felt pretty strongly that they're already doing some sort of improvement by widening the street and that's Like, we didn't feel that a half story would be worth them just paying the cost of putting down a couple benches or even other streetscape elements. We really wanted it to be proportional. So I would say in that sense, they're having to give a little more to get the incentive, which I think is sort of the intention of what the table is intended to do.
[Sean Beagan]: Thank you.
[Ari Fishman]: So my question is, I remember we've discussed quarter story incentives in the past, and I wanted to know kind of what the thought process was on removing that as an option. I don't necessarily have an opinion about whether that's good or bad. I'm just curious.
[CAS00002514_SPEAKER_03]: Natalie, you might have more thoughts on this, but if I remember correctly, I think Yes, the earliest iterations had quarter stories. And I want to say by the time we got to the Boston Avenue one, they had all been either changed to a half or a full story. So that was actually a change that was prior to us, Natalie and I, looking at this. That was something we did think about, especially for some of the smaller ones. Could we make them just worth only a quarter. I think if that's something the board would be interested in doing, especially if there are things that you do want to see, but you don't think that it should be worth as much, like that is definitely in your purview to sort of change that in the table. These are just recommendations based on what we had researched, but ultimately it is your sort of say in what you want to see in the table.
[Page Buldini]: Great, thank you.
[Chair Doug Carr]: Thank you, Ari. Go ahead, Paige.
[Page Buldini]: Thank you so much. I just want to say that I appreciate AB specifically. I think it will be really wonderful and easy for anybody coming into the city to want to do anything with our incentives if they can read the zoning very clearly. So thank you. I agree with Doug explaining the difference within the discussions with building heights and height will be really helpful. There has been confusion on that. Are there any of the incentives that we have changed or removed that we think are significant I unfortunately didn't get a chance to fully look through this. I looked through it about an hour before, but I mean, I can totally look back on my own, but anything that as a board that we should just acknowledge.
[Director Alicia Hunt]: I would share that the one around streetscapes I actually feel like is worth like just talking about a little bit more. It's less. So it's two things. One is these things are really inexpensive compared to the affordable housing. Who would ever do something like affordable housing, if you could put in. So in order to include this around community amenities. They really have to be flushed out more detailed, because it's unclear one or more of the following street trees, wait, did we just give them a half story for planting a street tree. Like that feels really disproportionate to the rest of this plus everything in that bucket are things that we feel are within the realm of the CD board to require through site plan review and to just require you need to put public bike parking in front of your building. You need to put into street trees, right? Like, we've never said, oh, a bench would be great there, but you should put a bench in, but the board really could benches are cheap. We can order a, like, a, a, I think a Danielle not Danielle. Amanda was installing. A bench installed in a park where she had to pour the concrete pad. We were looking at under a 1000 dollars. Right and this is, you know, a commercial scale, like, sturdy bench. So that's why we sort of said, these are things that the board should be requiring through site plan review, not giving them bonuses for doing. And so a developer who may have been eyeing those may say, you just took away the ones I wanted to do. What's with that? I also could see them arguing, oh, I should get one half story for the tree, and one half story for the bench, and one half story for the bike parking. You could read it that way. That's not what we meant. Um, but so that's that's where you could imagine that a developer might be took away my. The thing I wanted to do, so that's that's, um, that's interesting.
[Chair Doug Carr]: I, 1st of all, are there any other board comments before I chime in John or anyone else at the end? Any of their follow up comments?
[John Anderson]: Yes, please go ahead. John. Yeah, I'd like to chime in to that point that Alicia just made, because there's no specificity, you know, like the water feature. Well, that could be very inexpensive. There's no definition of what these things are or any relationship to the size of the building. So if you're building a hundred unit development, you got a lot more bang for your buck for your pocket park than if you're building a 20-unit building. It seems to me, I would say it's a little stronger. We're giving away the affordability bonus for the larger buildings, which is where we really need it the most.
[Chair Doug Carr]: Thank you, John. All right. I I guess, Alicia, I have a few comments and questions here. The menu you have is a good start, obviously. There were other things that we had discussed during the course of this year. Some of them were, one was the definition of kind of the historical incentives to save historic buildings and applying that across the city, but we We had a meeting with the historical commission. There was a bit of a conflict between their process we had in the zoning. So that's something we need to resolve and clean that up. That would be citywide as well. So I'm sure that's, I guess I didn't see that in here, but I didn't spend a lot of time with this because I didn't have time right before this meeting, but is that, is that that incentive is in here somewhere, right?
[Senior Planner Danielle Evans]: I have to ask Izzy and Natalie. I could also pipe up, so it's in here in the table, but it it's explained in text. I think in the, the body of. Well, it was just the Medford square district zoning. Yeah, is he and Natalie sorry to jump in there. Because there is there will there be more language that kind of explains it or.
[CAS00002514_SPEAKER_03]: Um, I, to my knowledge, we hadn't drafted anything, but I think we were that was definitely something we had noted is that this will need to be revisited. Yeah.
[Chair Doug Carr]: Okay, thank you. Appreciate it. But we are going to apply that back to actively to the entire city.
[Director Alicia Hunt]: I would frame it this way.
[Chair Doug Carr]: If the board didn't have anything, and then it would override that, right?
[Director Alicia Hunt]: Oh, sorry, we had some network outage and I thought you would stop talking.
[Senior Planner Danielle Evans]: Yeah, the key froze and then it caught up, but I didn't catch that.
[Director Alicia Hunt]: I was, so Doug, I would put it this way. If the board wants to apply that throughout the whole thing, you all should say that, ask us to help draft up some language and we can work in the office to draft some language to present back to the board if that's the way the board would like to see it go.
[Chair Doug Carr]: Okay. I think even though it was intended for Medford Square, I think it would apply citywide to any zoning quarter. Basically allow the historical commission to select and choose the buildings that they would deem important and want to have it not be preserved in some fashion, but allow a change, a re-imagination, etc. The consensus I thought amongst this group was that that was a miss on Salem Street that we wanted to fix. and make it citywide going forward. Go ahead, Danielle.
[Senior Planner Danielle Evans]: Yes, thank you, Mr. Chair. That was my recollection as well that, you know, this, how we've been approaching incentives has been, you know, kind of like learning as we go and been, you know, rather iterative and that we wanted to, you know, take what we learned and, you know, different little tweaks here and there, and then have them apply to all the districts where incentives are an option. Um, so there'll have to be some narrative text. In the standalone development incentive bonus section that talks about that process and I know at least the process for the, um.
Historic rehab credits and 1 of those was deleting that section that reference demo delay and just getting that out of there because that was confusing things because it said, like, if you take advantage of the incentive, then. You know, there's. The demo is like, it was talking about things that the historical commission could or couldn't do and our zoning ordinance can't tell other boards what to do. It's not an enforceable part of it and it just confuses things. So we were going to use different language, like, instead of.
Instead of using the, like, the specific demo delay terms about. Preferably preserved or. Yeah, we'll just find a more neutral term and use that instead. We have not gotten to developing that language yet, but that's my recollection of how we're going to move forward.
[Chair Doug Carr]: Correct, Danielle. And I think unlike all the other language that we're developing here, that we will be developing and refining, That needs to be pre-approved by the historical commission because we want to make sure that that group is in full coordination with this. We already had a separate meeting about that just to talk about the issues. Everything else is within our purview, but that one is going to take a little bit of back and forth before we get the language correct, I believe.
[Senior Planner Danielle Evans]: Because if we're going to ask them to do something, we want them on board.
[Chair Doug Carr]: Right. We need to get the language right. And I see that Ryan Haywood is actually on the call. He can, if he wants to, he can certainly chime up on that as well. But that's up to you, Ryan. I know it's a work in progress. Okay. The only other things I had on my list was that we had talked about Salem Street. There were three things that we were trying to look at Salem Street that based on the Harmon Zuckerman, PB – He, Him, His): Square experience in Boston have Harmon Zuckerman, PB – He, Him, His.: : Almost historic resources. I thought one was the parking ratio that we established more or less as 1.0 and the one project that came for us. Harmon Zuckerman, PB – He, Him, His.: : We could we could put that in the zoning and saying that's for the whole quarter. If that's if that's what we feel is the right approach. Harmon Zuckerman, PB – He, Him, His.: : Because we debated that extensively on the sales free project in the spring, I believe. So I think this is an opportunity to to reopen that conversation and choose choose a number or give us some kind of guidelines on that, because they weren't there. And I feel like the board has a stronger feel for it now that we've approved a project in that area. Go ahead, Ari.
[Ari Fishman]: Certainly, I'm happy to have that discussion. I do want to say that I think it would be wildly inappropriate to have a single parking ratio for the city. The parking situation in the square should be different than in the heights.
[Chair Doug Carr]: I apologize, Ari. I meant the parking ratio just for Salem Street, not for the entire city. That's what I'm talking about. Sorry about that. I agree. We are choosing it based on the context of each neighborhood. I agree with that. Okay, good. Thank you. I appreciate that. Anything else? Are you good?
[John Anderson]: Okay. John Innocent, go ahead. Now that you bring up Salem Street, I also wonder when we talk about changing the definitions of height, for example, height, building height, are we retroactively changing what was already approved for Salem Street? wouldn't those new definitions apply there as well if we say that this is the rule throughout the city?
[Chair Doug Carr]: Go ahead, Alicia.
[Director Alicia Hunt]: So the best way to address that is to actually explain what the definition was and what it was changed to. The definition was that you measure the height from the curb in front of the building, at the frontage of the building. And so if you have a property where you have a curb and you walk up a flight of stairs to the building, and then you have the building, you start measuring from that curb, not from the base of the building. Or if you have, like we had in High Street, properties where the ground is quite low below the actual curb, you measure from the curb, and those are like bonus stories down there. That's the definition that the city had, and everybody went, wait, what? You don't measure from the ground that the building sits on? And what was explained to us by our consultants and by our building commissioner was many, most communities measure from the ground or the average ground if on a slope that the building sits on, not from the curb in front of the building. And the reason I say that is because Salem Street is flat. There are no buildings where the curb and the ground are at different heights on Salem Street. So effectively, nothing changed on Salem Street. Things changed, for example, and where we really see it in a commercial area is High Street and Medford Square. That was a big deal. The place that we didn't think about where you also see it are places where the residential neighborhoods are sloped. Right? So you can all think of properties that you know, where you have to walk up a flight of stairs before you to the start of the building. And not just because, you know, oh, it's six steps up or six steps down, right? Because it's like a split level, but it's literally you walk up a flight of rock before you get to the start of the building. It impacted those buildings and that was not something we thought about, but basically what was happening was that somebody whose house was up on a ledge was not entitled to two and a half stories for their house by right. They were only, and I don't even understand this because some of those are up on ledge, two and a half stories above, but they start measuring from the ground and you're only allowed 35 feet from the curb.
Does that help? And that's why the answer is both yes, it impacted Salem Street, and no, there are no properties on Salem Street that it actually impacted.
[John Anderson]: I guess I'm asking the more general question. I mean, I think it's obviously desirable to have uniform definitions across the city, but don't we need to view these really on a case-by-case basis to see how they apply to the district to which we're amending the zoning.
[Director Alicia Hunt]: When you're doing something, you would never have a setback you have from different things. But you wouldn't have a different definition for a house. Things that are definitions, you want the same definition throughout the city. You would not have a different definition for what's a veterinary clinic in different parts of the city. You wouldn't define a, I'm trying to think of different types of things, but what's an office building? You wouldn't define a multi-unit building differently, right? So height is one of those things. You wouldn't define setback differently in different parts of the city. You would have the setback that is allowed to be different in different parts of the city. So that's the best example. You wouldn't define height differently but you would allow different heights in different parts of the city.
[John Anderson]: How would that apply in the example you gave of the house that you have to start by walking up, you know, a long flight of stairs before you even get to the building? Right.
[Director Alicia Hunt]: So I think that that's where I would argue that we've been taking away those property owners' rights for years by saying they can only have one story because they're built up on top of a rock.
[Senior Planner Danielle Evans]: Or no stories.
[Director Alicia Hunt]: Or you could say, let's look in Filton Heights and say, should the height that's allowed only be 20 stories, 20 feet, 20 feet, instead of 35 feet? Should we allow a lower height in neighborhoods that are hilly?
[John Anderson]: Well, but wouldn't it depend on the particular property?
[Director Alicia Hunt]: You can't have zoning property by property.
[John Anderson]: All I'm suggesting is that the way we define height, there might be a reason to define it differently in different neighborhoods.
[Director Alicia Hunt]: Not the definition, the amount that you allow, yes, but not the definition.
[John Anderson]: OK, I don't want to beat this to death. But if you say because Fulton Heights, there are lots of properties built into the slopes, therefore, we're going to define a, we're going to set a different number for height in that district. that's going to affect houses in that district that aren't on slopes.
[Director Alicia Hunt]: And I'm not saying we should, I'm just saying that's how you would address it if you wanted to. It's like you might allow or require a five foot setback in South Medford, a 10 foot setback in North Medford, and a 30 foot setback in Lawrence Estates. You might choose to do that because you wanted to reflect different kinds of neighborhoods. I'm not suggesting we should do any of that. But it's, right, a setback and a height are conceptually the same kinds of things.
[John Anderson]: OK. I mean, that's certainly one way to look at it. I would think if I were a homeowner and building a house, I'd wonder, I'd wonder why can't I have my building be loom above the street? I'm not allowed to do that, but the guy across the street from me can have a building that looms way above the street because he starts by going 10 feet up a hill. But I guess nothing's perfect. And of course, somebody can give a variance in special situations.
[Director Alicia Hunt]: They can. And so what we were finding is that people were coming for variances to be allowed to build two and a half story houses.
[John Anderson]: Yeah. And I would imagine they were generally given them.
[Director Alicia Hunt]: Generally, yes. As far as I'm aware. OK. I actually, I'm only aware of one case and it happened to come up in May of this year, which is what brought it to our attention. It's the only one that I've ever been aware of.
[John Anderson]: Okay. I don't think it's appropriate to discuss this tonight, but at some point, I would like to have a better understanding of what our powers really are when we do site plan review. and do special permits, because it's not clear to me what we can insist on, what we can only suggest. And when you add in the Dover Amendment, that puts a whole other dimension on the question as well. And I'm not really sure what legal ground. I'd like to have a better idea of what legal ground we stand on moving forward.
[Chair Doug Carr]: Yep. Danielle, you had a comment?
[Senior Planner Danielle Evans]: Um, well, I was I can talk about that the site plan review since. Remember Anderson just made that comment so currently site plan review is not in chapter 48, which is. What all the cities and towns besides Boston. Need to comply with for their local zoning ordinances so site plan review is done a little bit differently in every community. It's a, it's a, it's a creature of local government. So right now, it's kind of case by case. And most of the rules have been kind of made in case law of what you can and can't do, because technically, if there's a big Y in the use table, that means by right. And so they're allowed to do that use. And then.
You really aren't supposed to deny it and unless you don't have enough information, you can condition and ask for all these changes to mitigate. You know, any adverse effects are so that complies with. The development standards are your criteria for approval, but ultimately it's. You know, if they appeal it, a judge could. Decide if you overstepped or not, if it was a de facto, like, denial, the landscape is kind of all over the place. But there is a bill that's currently. And I think it's with the Senate that. Discusses adding site plan review to 48, which actually.
really takes away, I think, a lot of teeth and really affirms the limitations. So there's a huge difference between site plan review process and what you can require in the special permit process. There's a lot of kind of scary language in there, and I can forward that to you all at some point.
[Chair Doug Carr]: So, Danielle, that has not passed yet, correct?
[Senior Planner Danielle Evans]: No, we should be, people should, you know, provide content. I don't know if there's a comment period or I feel like some of these changes to 48 kind of just like sneak up on us. There was quite a few over the summer that weren't on my radar, but I'm trying to track these. And regarding height, I forget what I was going to say about that before, but yeah, it was a lot of, Yeah, the only place that it would really affect of the. Places that we've changed things. Would be Medford square and if we hadn't changed the height, then it actually would have allowed really, really tall buildings. For example, down where the. At the end of high street originally, it was there. I think there are 8 stories. And there was like, oh, we're just zoning this to be the same height of what's there. But I was like, no, no, that's not right at all. Because if you have the height and number of stories based on what's there now, it would have been measured at the curb, so it would have been even taller.
And for the neighborhoods, I mean, there's topography changes everywhere. So everyone could be a little taller or shorter than Um, their neighbor and. When we look at changing height requirements. I mean, that's something that could be considered, but we don't want to encourage. like a lot of grading and alteration of topography, a lot of removal of earth in order to build what someone across the street could have. I know in the Heights, anyone who's ever gone trick-or-treating knows that there's like whole sides of the street that you just don't go to because it's way too many stairs and your kids are gonna freak out. Those people should be able to have their two and a half stories
[Chair Doug Carr]: If I could just pull this back for just a little bit of lessons learned. Think of all the buildings we've approved this year at Kissapawna Ways, Salem Street, Main Street, Cappies, just those alone. Those were all by right uses, weren't they? under the zoning for those respective places. Were any of them special permits? Because I don't recall.
[Senior Planner Danielle Evans]: The Cappies and the Kiss 108, was there a third one you mentioned? But no, those were by right.
[Chair Doug Carr]: Just Main Street and Salem Street. Yeah.
[Senior Planner Danielle Evans]: Oh, Main Street needed a use variance. That needed a ton of variances. Salem Street, that under the new zoning that was Technically by right the use, but it was the dimensionals that needed waivers.
[Director Alicia Hunt]: They needed waivers rather than variances from the zoning board because of the new. Uh, zoning so that's sort of a useful thing for people to start to, like, process the difference when the zoning board gives variances. It's a very strict rule. They can only give variances based on the height. shape and height, height is not right. Why is that word in my mouth? The shape, topography or soil conditions, which typically means things like, is it contaminated? So, or maybe like, so topography, right? If there's ledge, that's a reason to give a variance.
There's brand new law, which is what Danielle was sort of alluding to. that variances can now be given in consideration of adding additional housing stock. But that is brand new this summer and predates all of our zoning work. So when a building needs a variance to be built, it's very strict. And there have been times when the board will look at it and go, you know, this project makes sense, it's good for the city, it fits the comprehensive plan, but there's no legal reason for us to give this variance or they have to like really work hard to give it. Whereas when we say here's the rules, but we can give waivers through the CD board, the CD board can give a waiver because they feel like it makes a good project and it works And it's the right scale and it works in that space because they feel like it's the right thing for the city. Right? That's the legal test that's going on, you know, and then the resident residents come and say, it's not the right thing for the city. You take that into account. Right? What are their concerns? We've certainly seen some stuff passed at the zoning board where actually they had this shape and topography reasons why they should be allowed to do it and the neighbors hated it. And the board was like, we understand, but we don't have a legal leg to stand on to deny this because they meet all the tests. And I will say there is a different thing that goes on. So that's one thing, that's variances. The zoning board, and Danielle's more of an expert than I am in this, because she's served on one for 10 years, so correct me if I get any of this wrong, can give, so if something is already non-conforming, they can do a finding. And a finding is not a variance. A finding is typically, and in Medford, our language is written that it is not more.
Substantially more.
[Senior Planner Danielle Evans]: Substantially more. Detrimental than the, you know, existing right. It's in a section 6 of 48.
[Director Alicia Hunt]: So, then they have a lot more leeway. They don't have to look at the topography and size of the parcel. They can just say, well, the proposed project is not worse for the community. So we can allow it, but that has to be an already pre existing non conforming building. And so some of this zoning and some of the site plan review is you can't deny stuff as easily. You can't deny stuff through site plan review, but you also don't have to give these waivers. If a board comes, if a project comes and says, I want a height waiver or setback waiver or whatever, and we've written into the zoning that there are waivers, those are discretionary.
[Chair Doug Carr]: Context in which this has come up with several people who have contacted me since the zoning of Boston Ave was passed and vetoed and it's still up in the air right now is akin to what John Anderson said. What is the power of this board to control, sculpt the design of that project without a special permit. And I think from previous discussions, Danielle and Alicia have said, we have more power with the special permit, less without it. But it's not black and white. There's a lot of judgment in there. As Danielle said, you can't put so many restrictions on it that it's unbuildable. You're going to court then. That's not by right anymore. HAB-Michael Leccesereeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee moving at the margins, I think. We're not generally saying cut three stories off a building, anything of that scale. I feel like, again, back to John's comment, when we cross a line, I guess we'll know it, and maybe he'll tell us if we think we are crossing a line. We ask that you advise us if you think we've gone too far and what our limits are when we're talking about these projects.
[Director Alicia Hunt]: And you do have the power to deny special permits, but but there's a lot of controversy around that. Right? So this board denied a special permit for the, a. Because for a number of reasons, I won't go into them here, but there was like, a list of reasons that it was denied and the applicant said to us in that meeting. You don't have the right to do this. I'm going to court and he did. And we, our lawyers, spent nine months in court on that. I have the bills to speak to it. And actually, the judge dismissed it and said we were right, but they had the right to appeal. And so it's been appealed again to a higher court.
Um, right. So we have to go back to court on it. Um, Danielle had to give testimony and death depositions on it. Like there was a lot of research and work done. Um, so yes, you can deny a special permit, but you really do need a good reason. Like you need a reason that can hold up in court because if somebody has gone through all the work to apply for a permit here, like. it might be worth it to them to then go to court. I'm not saying you shouldn't deny them. I'm just saying there has to be good reasons, right? Whereas site plan review, it's more like, oh, I don't like the height of this. And so it does wonder, right? Somebody proposes a building anywhere and there is a special permit and the board just says, well, it doesn't feel right. Not sure I like the developer. That's not gonna hold up in court, right?
So, so we have to have like tests and what are the, like, the things that you're, you're measuring against basically.
[Senior Planner Danielle Evans]: And 1 of the things when, but the decision when the judge threw out their case, it's really interesting read. One of the things that it reaffirmed was that just because a use is allowed by a special permit in the zoning district doesn't mean that that use is appropriate in every site, that it's, you know, some places it's not appropriate. And that was part of the basis of the denial. I think only RE was on the board then.
[Ari Fishman]: The case was very entertaining to read, though. The judge was not entertained. The judge was, in fact, my favorite line was essentially, the city says this will increase traffic. The applicant's own study says this will increase traffic. I don't understand where the disagreement is. They are allowed to decline it if it increases traffic in a detrimental way.
[Unidentified]: Yeah.
[Chair Doug Carr]: Very good. All right. Um, I think I want to kind of put a pin in this and I guess I'm going to ask Alicia and Danielle talk about next steps here. Cause we, we have a lot of issues. We have a lot of text to refine. What, how much time do you guys need to pull all this together with staff, clean it all up and get us something that we can then have a hearing on knowing that we have to talk to the historical commission before, at least on that piece. Um, What's the, what's a reasonable amount of time for that?
[Director Alicia Hunt]: Are you asking specifically on the historic one? Or do you mean all the, everything we've talked about tonight? So tonight we've talked about the incentive, the height, the incentive table, the height and the historic commission and the other stuff on Salem Street.
[Unidentified]: Yes.
[Director Alicia Hunt]: And just so you saw my example of having like amendment A, amendment B, amendment C. One of the reasons why I wanted to show that to you tonight was sort of this format, because it allows for this board, for the city council at any point to pass something through, table something else, amend something. past something, right? They're separated clearly and distinctly. And so one of the things that we would, it feels right to me that the historic thing, that should be its own thing, separate from the incentive table, the historic incentives, because it's language in the body of the text, or should we group it together with the incentive table?
[Chair Doug Carr]: I'm not sure, but I thought we were trying to put any and all changes for any and all Salem, Medford Square, Boston Avenue into one giant bucket.
[Director Alicia Hunt]: I would say we try to put them all forward at the same time, but that they're separate things, like separate motions. I would think of it that way, as separate motions, so that they're easy to talk about and grapple with. Then the Salem Street, we could put all the Salem Street together in one bucket.
[Chair Doug Carr]: Okay. So the Salem Street, the city wide, and if there's anything new to Boston out of Medford Square, that would, in theory, just be in that whole bucket, right? Okay.
[Director Alicia Hunt]: If that's what you guys think about it. Then we can merge them, you can separate them out. You could say, let's move this part forward and not that part. I'm going to look at Natalie and Izzy and Danielle and say, what do you guys think about like timeline and language? And I'm also happy to loop in our lawyers at KP Law and ask them for input on any of this. I think some of it, it wouldn't be bad to have them sort of review as well.
I think I'll just do that as we have stuff ready to send you guys before that's ready to send you.
[Chair Doug Carr]: Okay, Danielle, any initial thoughts about timing?
[Senior Planner Danielle Evans]: It'd be good if we can get things, use this interim time before phase three starts. So, if we know that that time period that we aim to get through as much as we can. Before the start of phase 3. So, I don't I don't think we should rush anything. Because there's no real rush. And try to get this right, because there are a few little things here and there when you start applying the zoning to an actual case. And you're like, oh, well, that shouldn't apply to this lot. That doesn't make any sense.
You can find things here and there.
[Chair Doug Carr]: Phase three won't start until I imagine the spring, if not later. Is it possible this could be in draft form by maybe the end of the year? Is that possible or is that too soon?
[Director Alicia Hunt]: I actually was hoping we could have it in a couple of weeks. Like our thought was to do this now and refer it to the city council soon. So you could have these public hearings this winter before stuff starts with the new zoning. And that's also why to give you like different chunks, There, this, the editing of the zoning will never be done. There are so many things. I have like 120 page document with things that could be edited. What we're trying to do is send a manageable bit at a time so that it's not overwhelming to the board, to the city council and to the public.
[Senior Planner Danielle Evans]: Zoning is never done anyone who thinks zoning is done doesn't understand zoning.
[Director Alicia Hunt]: Right? So, I would honestly, I would rather have this board take the incentive table. Say, let's send it to the city council and do a public hearing process and then let's get some Salem street stuff and let's look at that and then send it through. And so different meetings, you're looking at different topics. Okay, as opposed to trying to do too much in any 1 meeting.
[Chair Doug Carr]: 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, Harmon Zuckerman, PB – Peter Vitale PB, He, Him, His): All right, well, why don't you guys, I guess I would, I would request that you just start organizing the pieces and just let's just let's when one's ready. Let's go with it. Harmon Zuckerman, PB – Peter Vitale PB, He, Him, His.: : I just want to pause here and recognized Jerry Martin. He's joined the meeting, your hands raised, Jeremy unmute you if I can go ahead, Jeremy. You have a question or comment.
[Jeremy Martin]: I do share car. Thank you, Jeremy Martin hillside neighborhood. I'm sorry I came to the meeting a little late I was wrapping up a conservation commission meeting so I missed some of the discussion, but I just had a couple comments on the pieces that I did here. I wanted to applaud the proposed removal of the streetscape improvement incentive from the package. This board has probably heard me say, perhaps ad nauseum, that I think that those types of improvements should be baseline parts of development projects. And I think the discussion here reinforced that, that those should be something that we expect from all developers, or at least not something they can use as an incentive.
I just wanted to also call back to maybe some discussion that happened earlier in the year as you were considering Boston Avenue and some other zoning things about an incentive associated with public art or community art and want to get that back into the hopper consideration if I can and I know that there's Some really reasonable concern about the scale of these incentives and one way that some communities deal with that is to indicate like a percentage of the budget. that be applied for community art, a percent for art or things like that, where there is a real metric that can be applied to achieving that incentive. And then lastly, just thank you for the discussion about the difference between special permit and site plan review. There's a lot of discussion about that going on in the community. I think we all need more clarity about it. I hope that that you continue to define that and make clear what can and can't be done. Thank you all for all the work that you're doing. That's it. I'm off to bedtime. Thanks. Thank you, Jeremy.
[Chair Doug Carr]: I appreciate it. Good luck at home. Any other final comments on this topic? Otherwise, we can go ahead, John Anderson.
[John Anderson]: Just a quick question. I wonder if someone could state where we stand with the zoning on Boston Avenue at the moment. Is the zoning that's currently in force, the 2025 zoning, i.e. what it was that we started with, is that what's legal now? I mean, you know, the city council made changes, the mayor vetoed it. What's the legal status right now?
[Director Alicia Hunt]: That's a good question. It is my understanding, having seen a couple of memos, that it is vetoed. So there was a question as to whether she can veto just the one motion and amendment that was an amendment to the main motion, or whether she has to Um, veto the entire thing and I think that if we can get past the pandemics of it. Uh, I expect that we'll see it back on the city council, like, the cleanest easiest thing for the board, the city council to do is just put the whole thing back on their agenda and revote the whole thing. Um, as I said that out loud, I sort of wonder because it was this. public hearing whether they have to advertise it, which adds this very weird layer of confusion, because our charter says that if the mayor vetoes, so the mayor has to send in a letter saying what she's vetoing and why, and then the city council can vote to override that or can vote, re-vote the matter, but not within 10 days of that letter. So they're at least 10 days have to elapse after the veto before they can take a vote. And they must take the vote within 30 days.
So they could not have had it on their last city council meeting, it was too close to the veto. They could have it. I'm unclear what happens if they have to advertise it as a public hearing, because there isn't I'm not sure how that timing works. If that is possible, I feel like I should say something like that to Laurel tomorrow. But they can take it back up. We assume it's not in effect. Nobody has tried to utilize that zoning, right? If nobody files anything under that zoning, then the question is moot. Like, who cares if nobody files anything? If somebody files something, then we send it to the lawyers and ask them to untangle the situation.
I expect that the city council will put it back on their agenda, and I do not know how they will vote on the detail, the whole special permit. I have no idea. I do expect that they would pass, revote Boston Ave and adopt it overall, but I have no idea how they would vote on that one matter. Yikes.
[Senior Planner Danielle Evans]: Can I just add something to that, through the chair? That's a good point that you brought up, Director Hunt, about the timing. And so you can have things in your charter that say how they would respond or what action they would have to take after a veto, but they still need to comply with Section 548 of how you pass zoning. I don't know what the process is that it has to have a new legal advertisement, you're notifying.
[Chair Doug Carr]: Isn't that physically impossible within 30 days because they can't do it within- You just need two weeks.
[Senior Planner Danielle Evans]: The public hearing notice needs to be posted two weeks before the public hearing, and it has to run in a paper general circulation. But the first one's at least two weeks. And so depending on which paper you use, if you use the Herald, it can run every day. If it's the other one, the merged one, there's a huge leach time. They never make that.
[Director Alicia Hunt]: My understanding, technically, the veto was September 23rd. That's where I'm getting concerned.
[Chair Doug Carr]: They're taking it up next week.
[Director Alicia Hunt]: I assume they are, but I don't know. Nobody has consulted me on that.
[Chair Doug Carr]: Okay, I'm going to go to Paige. Go ahead, Paige.
[Page Buldini]: Just real quick, because I know we had closed our public comment. Would this ever come back to our board for discussion?
[Director Alicia Hunt]: They could start the legal process over again. We could go review 40A. So Danielle, at the beginning, I think right before you got on, I was mentioning who could propose a zoning change. It's the CD board, it's the mayor. No, not the mayor. It's the CD board, it's the city council. It is a property owner may propose something on their property. Can a group of 10 residents? I think so. I think that's what it says. Which would say that, for example, if the CD board wanted to legally propose that the city change the zoning of all properties in the city of Medford to be 10 feet, the CD board could start that legal process by sending that to the city council as a motion to consider. Right? So.
or the city council could start a zoning, like any motion they wanted through the zoning process. That's why I was asking about the, I'm opening a can of worms I shouldn't open.
[Page Buldini]: That is interesting about that. But I also think just really going back, that was really helpful to hear about site plan review and special permit. And I think the public is kind of craving just a really simple way to understand. And not to ask more of the planning office, but if there was any way just to have it in a very easily digestible form, I think we've learned obviously with RFP, with communication, we're all seeing where that is confusing. I don't know if that's possible and not to ask more, but I think that was helpful to me. So thank you.
[Unidentified]: Thank you.
[Director Alicia Hunt]: We'll see if we have that skill set in the office. I will tell you that 1 of the things we're looking to do with the new, the new zoning project is to hire a communications consultant where they would specifically be tasked with making things digestible. So that would be somebody whose expertise is in communications, who went to school for communications, not for planning, where we would make sure what they put there is correct. But like, when you say to me, can you make that digestible? I can do this verbally. I cannot make a graphic. I cannot. So I'm going to see who in our office maybe can, but that's why we would hire a communications consultant.
[Page Buldini]: And Director Hunt I have to say listening to the committee of the whole meeting last week you explained that so clearly and I really appreciate you advocating for that because I know that's something that we had all advocated for so thank you because that was spot on and I really appreciated listening to that meeting you saying that so thank you. Well thank you.
[Director Alicia Hunt]: I'm I'm good verbally but not in the sort of that graphical written form or you know things that are digestible bits No.
[Chair Doug Carr]: Okay. I think we should basically close this part of our meeting. I think we've covered a lot. I think we have a lot to do. I think we have not an exact rule map, but certainly a template of where we're heading. for how we're going to change the zoning, and we'll leave it up to you guys to kind of get the pieces in the right order, in the right place. And then we'll do them one at a time throughout the fall if it goes into the new year. So be it. We do not have to set a deadline, especially around the holidays, that is unreasonable at all. So, either that's the discussion of the cleanup zoning. Are there any zoning? I mean, we have talked a lot about zoning updates, any administrative updates. Is there anything else we didn't cover, Alicia or Danielle, that we need to general zoning updates or administrative updates?
[Director Alicia Hunt]: I guess I would share that the just that process, I think we kind of alluded to it, but sort of officially we have proposals for communications consultants. We have a small group that is reviewing those and is looking to interview some finalists. Not next week, but the week after I think I don't know that we can get them set up for next week, but maybe and. then it's the committee that reviewed it is who we would try and do that.
And then we are getting ready to put out the RFP for zoning consultants, the way it's currently drafted, you all saw. I did update the language to say a three-year contract, because there's no way that what's in that scope would be done in less than three years, and three years is the max allowed. And if we're done early, we just end the contract early. So that is complete. I sent the committee a complete draft today with all the dates and everything in it. And if nobody has any comments or anything on it, then that is what is getting publicized on October 26th. I think that's the date that was in there.
And with it being due just before Christmas, we're looking at late December 17th to have it due. With the idea that we would review the proposals in early January. That is my update sounds good.
[Chair Doug Carr]: We did help us draft design guidelines as part of the scope of work for whoever the next zoning consultant is. That will fill that bucket we've talked about as one of our goals for this year. Can I just add, Doug?
[Director Alicia Hunt]: When I met with the council on that, they asked if we could make it mildly more vague and say design standards and or guidelines. And for the consultant to recommend whether we should have guide standards and or guidelines, because standards are in the zoning and guidelines are the CD boards, like rules and regulations.
[Chair Doug Carr]: Understood.
[Director Alicia Hunt]: Right. And so that we just, we made it actually a little bit more broad so that it, we weren't pigeonholed and upfront.
[Chair Doug Carr]: So thank you for clarifying. Okay. All right. Um, That all sounds good. Next item is approval of minutes. Can I have a motion to approve?
[John Anderson]: Motion to approve the minutes. Seconded.
[Chair Doug Carr]: Thank you. Thank you, Sean. Thank you, John. All right, roll call. John Anderson. Yes. Sounds like a yes. Yes. Yes. Very good. Page Buldini?
[Ari Fishman]: Yes.
[Chair Doug Carr]: Thank you. Dina Calagher is absent. Ari Goffman Fishman?
[Ari Fishman]: Yes.
[Chair Doug Carr]: And myself, yes. The motion passes for minutes five to zero. Any other items, Danielle or Alicia we need to discuss? That's the last item on our agenda other than adjournment.
[Sean Beagan]: Good. Motion to adjourn.
[Chair Doug Carr]: Okay. Good luck at the conference tomorrow, Daniel. All right. Motion to adjourn. John Anderson. Yes. John Bega. Yes. Page Buldini. Yes.
[Ari Fishman]: Yes.
[Chair Doug Carr]: Thank you, Paige. Tina Calagaro is absent. Ari Goffman-Fishman.
[Ari Fishman]: Yes.
[Chair Doug Carr]: And myself, yes. Motion is adjourned. We'll see you guys soon. Thank you very much.
[Senior Planner Danielle Evans]: Good night.
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