Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Good evening, everyone. Welcome to the June 16th, 2026 meeting of the Cambridge Planning Board. My name is Mary Flynn, and I am the vice chair, acting as chair for this evening's meeting. Pursuant to Chapter 2 of the Acts of 2025, adopted by the Massachusetts General Court and approved by the governor, the city is authorized to use remote participation at meetings of the Cambridge Planning Board. All board members, applicants, and members of the public will state their name before speaking, and all votes will be taken by roll call. Members of the public will be kept on mute until it is time for public comment. I will give instructions for public comment at that time. You can also find instructions on the city's webpage for remote planning board meetings. This meeting is being video and audio recorded. and is being streamed live on the City of Cambridge online meeting portal and on cable television's channel 22 within Cambridge. There will also be a transcript of the proceedings. I'll start by asking staff to take board member attendance and verify that all members are audible. Jeff.

Thank you. This is Jeff Roberts from Community Development. H. Theodore Cohen, are you present and is the meeting visible and audible to you? Present, visible and audible. Thank you, Ted. Mary, I'll go back to Mary. Mary Lidecker, are you present and is the meeting visible and audible to you?

Present, visible, and audible.

Thank you, Mary. Diego Macias, are you present and is the meeting visible and audible to you? Present, visible, and audible. Thank you, Diego. Ashley Tan, are you present and is the meeting visible and audible to you?

Present, visible, and audible.

Thank you, Ashley. Carolyn Zern, are you present and is the meeting visible and audible to you?

Present, visible, and audible.

Thank you, Carolyn. Associate Member Dan Anderson is absent, as is the normal chair, Tom Senevich. So coming back to Mary Flynn, can you confirm that you're present and the meeting is visible and audible to you?

Yes, to all three.

Thank you, Mary. So with that, we have six planning board members present.

Thank you, Jeff. WE'RE NOW GOING TO GO TO AN UPDATE FROM THE COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT DEPARTMENT. AND FOR THAT, WE'RE GOING TO STAY WITH JEFF, ACTUALLY. AND JEFF, IF YOU WOULD INTRODUCE ALL THE STAFF PRESENT WITH YOU, I'D APPRECIATE IT.

ABSOLUTELY. I AM JEFF ROBERTS. I'M THE DIRECTOR OF ZONING AND DEVELOPMENT FOR THE CITY OF CAMBRIDGE AND THE COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT DEPARTMENT. WITH ME ON THE ZONING AND DEVELOPMENT TEAM ARE SWATHI JOSEPH AND EVAN SPRATRANI. and we have with us from the Community Planning and Design staff in CDD, Brian Gregory, and we have Chris Cotter from the Housing Department, and we'll be introducing him and possibly some other staff from the Housing Department a little bit later. So tonight's meeting, we do have one public hearing scheduled, which we're going to get to right away. And then following that we'll have some of our housing department staff as noted, who will be talking about a recent five-year progress update on the affordable housing overlay. That was something that was provided and discussed with city council a couple weeks ago, and we will, last week, I think, and we'll have a chance to talk about that with the planning board. So that'll be an exciting bit to get into. Just looking ahead to future planning board meetings, on June 30th, we have scheduled our annual utility reports meeting. So there won't be any public hearings. That will be an opportunity to hear from different utility providers in the city, the Department of Public Works, which manages the city's public sewer and stormwater. The Cambridge Water Department will be there to report. Vicinity Energy, which operates District Energy in Cambridge, and Eversource, which is the public energy, gas and electric providers. So we'll be hearing from all of those and an opportunity for discussion on June 30th. And looking ahead to July, we have a couple of things scheduled already, although these are I don't think they've been fully advertised yet, so they're still technically tentative, but we're pretty sure we've got them locked in. July 14th will be a public hearing on a zoning petition from a set of registered voters, the Doug Brown and others zoning petition, which relates to some of the regulations for residential development within the city and proposes some changes to that. So we'll have a hearing on that on July 14th. And July 21st, the week after a public hearing on a residential proposal at 9 and 25 bird street and 30 to 36 bay state road it's a lot of addresses but it's really one one lot that kind of touches some different streets um and so that's that's scheduled for july 21st we'll likely have some general business items sprinkled in there that that are will be nailed down and we'll have more information about those as we go along So that's what's coming up at the planning board. I'll just give a couple of updates on some things happening at City Council just earlier this afternoon. The Ordinance Committee held its public hearings on two zoning petitions. It was the Mass Ave and Cambridge Street active use zoning petitions, which the Planning Board heard at your previous meeting. Ordinance Committee discussed the Board's recommendation and the petitions in general. uh the the meeting was recessed uh without any any recommendations so it'll it'll come back for some further discussion so for anybody who's interested in where that discussion is heading um you know stay tuned for uh for scheduling of a follow-up meeting on that at some point and next week on thursday june 25th there will be a joint meeting of the housing and neighborhood long-term planning committees to discuss housing development within the city sort of a follow-up on previous meetings held in the spring to look at development since the multi-family housing amendments from last year and to talk about issues and that have come up and how those issues might be addressed so so that'll be in I believe the early afternoon THURSDAY. SO THAT IS I THINK THAT'S IT FOR MY UPDATES. I'LL TURN IT BACK OVER TO THE CHAIR.

THANKS, JEFF. BOARD MEMBERS, ARE THERE ANY QUESTIONS ON THE UPDATE FROM JEFF? Seeing none, thank you, Jeff. We're going to move on to the next item, which is approval of meeting minutes. The board has received certified transcripts for the meetings held on April 28th and May 12th of 2026. If there are any questions, please raise your hand now on either side of transcripts. Okay, seeing none, is there a motion to accept the transcripts as the meeting minutes? This is Mary. So moved. Okay, Mary. And then is there a second, please?

This is Diego. Diego.

Thank you. Jeff, could we have a roll call, please?

On that motion, Ted Cohen? Yes. Mary Leydecker?

Yes.

Diego Macias? Yes. Ashley Tan?

Yes.

Carolyn Zurn?

Yes.

Mary Flynn?

Yes.

That's all six members present voting in favor.

Okay. Moving on, the next item on our agenda this evening is a public hearing on case PB411, a special permit application by Syed Jaffrey and Carlos Ferreira to construct a six-story residential building with 23 residential units. Before we begin, I would like to note for the record that there are only six planning board members present this evening to hear the case. are required to approve. Does the applicant agree to proceed with the public hearing with the five members who are present?

Yes, ma'am. We are aware of that and fine with that.

Thank you. Great. Thank you. Actually, we have So it's six, very good. Okay, so we're gonna begin with an update from CDD staff. Then we'll have a presentation from the developer followed by public comment. And then the board will have a chance to ask questions. Finally, we'll deliberate and decide how we wanna proceed on this case. So I'm going to turn this over to Evan who will give us a brief update.

Thank you. Yes, so this is a six-story residential building. This is the first project before the board within the new Cambridge Street zoning district. So it's not on Cambridge Street. It's in the area of the... the CAM 6 district over on O'Brien Highway. This project has a bit of a unique history to it that I think the applicant will get into in more detail. The applicant is requesting a special permit to modify certain building and site plan standards established in the Cambridge Street zoning. The CDD memo summarizes the planning and zoning characteristics of the proposal and the urban design comments on the proposal. Staff are present if there are any questions and the board's action is to grant or deny the requested special permit.

Thank you, Evan. Our presenter this evening is Saidi Jaffrey. Mr. Jaffrey, you will have up to 30 minutes for your presentation, but please be as concise as possible. And if you would begin by introducing your project team, we'd appreciate it. Thank you.

Great. Thanks, Ms. Flynn. So my name is Syed Jafri. I'm the developer for this project. And on my team with me is Patrick Barrett, who has been a great partner with us, advising us on this project. And Patrick will actually take the lead in providing an executive summary of the project for a few minutes. And then that would be followed by Carlos Ferreira and Ahiris Newland. Carlos is our builder and engineer for this project, and Ahiris is part of his team. And Carlos will walk through some of the details of the project. And with that, I will hand over to Patrick.

Thank you, Said. And Madam Chair, Commissioners, I'm actually here on a voluntary basis this evening because I had helped Said and his team put the project together about a year and a half ago. And I viewed my job as being done. We had some community meetings. We put the project on a good path. And I think the history of this project is what makes it unique. It was subject to a variance in 2023. The developer who sought that variance then sold the project to site and his team. And at that point, the Cambridge multifamily housing zoning had been contemplated and then had been passed. So we began the process of a permit modification. The building permit had already been achieved for the site. So they had been approved for a four-story building. They got a permit for that four-story building and they began to pursue the typical permits for that demolition permit and then eventually through the process of getting a building permit. The multifamily housing zoning had passed and they looked to modification. That's when they had reached out to me and I had helped them assemble what at that point in time the zoning would allow for. It's an interesting time to be in Cambridge because the zoning does seem to change with more frequency these days. And having been here for a while, I feel like I'm just catching up myself. But the building permit modification was filed about a year and a few months ago. It did not occur to me at the time that it would take that long to get through a building permit modification. So fast forward to the CAM-6 zoning that was passed, it had some nuances in it that frustrated the development of this project. They had proceeded with demolition of what I believe to be was a Dunkin' Donuts at the site before. They began in earnest to build on the residential project. The foundation is the same. The footprint remained the same. And when they had engaged me, they weren't seeking to... developed the site as we're seeing with a lot of projects with multi-family housing to the utmost capacity. They were actually looking for a somewhat modest increase. They added two more floors, but they kept the setbacks that were originally some of the subject of discussion amongst the neighbors at the prior variance hearings that they had had. We've had one official footnote 37 meeting, which would be required under the new multifamily housing zoning. But we've also had, I think around three in total community meetings where we sent out the typical outreach to the 300 foot radius of Butters, trying to explain some of the nuances of the project, but also making the plans available to folks who wanted them and also putting up signage to allow for folks to inquire about YOU KNOW, WHAT THEY WERE BUILDING. SO THE REAL ISSUE IS, WHILE IN PROCESS FOR THEIR BUILDING PERMIT MODIFICATION, THE CAM 6 PASSED. AND I THINK MOST PEOPLE ASSUMED THAT THE CAM 6 WAS REALLY JUST CAMBRIDGE STREET. NO ONE IMAGINED IT WRAPPING AROUND ON 3RD INTO WINTER, I THINK IN TERMS OF NOT ONLY FROM THE STANDPOINT OF REQUIRING RETAIL AT THE BASE WHICH IS ONE OF THE SPECIAL PARTS WE'RE ACTUALLY LOOKING FOR RIGHT NOW IS TO LOWER THE MESONINE HEIGHT FROM 15 TO SLIGHTLY LOWER BECAUSE IT DIDN'T THE ZONES THAT WE WERE IN WERE BA AND C1 AT THE TIME AND THAT'S ALL CHANGED A LITTLE BIT NOW BUT YOU KNOW SOME OF THOSE USES WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN ALLOWED OR BEEN SUBJECT TO A SPECIAL PERMIT OR VARIANCE THEMSELVES SO The developer wanted to build an all residential project that was whether it's approved with the variance and you know, in this time of modification to zoning petitions have passed. And had the cam six now required a slightly more nuanced setback and the requirement for a full mezzanine height, interestingly enough, I think Jeff mentioned earlier. The ordinance committee was in session today discussing yet another modification to this area, which would remove. our air, our section of winter street from the cam six and effectively made this conversation moot and our project by right. So I think that they'll, and I mentioned that to speak to sort of the, the hill, we have to climb along the special permit. And what, and the, the relief that we're at, that we're seeking was contemplated fortunately by CDD. That's why we come to you with a special permit and not, we're not the BZA seeking a variance. Because I think Jeff and CDD understood that, like in all things in zoning, when you put a number down, you're going to eventually find someone who needs to move that around a little bit. I do believe that the proponent, Carlos and Saeed, have only been moving in good faith. They have kept in good contact with the neighbors. I've received some emails back and forth, even though I'm not officially representing any more, although tonight I am. But I wanted to make sure that the board understood where we were on the trajectory of this case. It's just, it's a weird one. And I think you're going to see this a little bit more coming down the line when, if we modify multifamily housing zoning, or if we add, you know, we make some adjustments to the cam district and district, there are lots of projects that are in application. And right now, and this is no slight on ISD. They have been inundated with smaller, smaller groups. But the backlog is significant. And if cases are taking six to 12 months to get approval through the application process, then, you know, the zoning could change. It normally doesn't happen, but that is where we are. I'll pass it to Carlos, and I do appreciate your time and your, you know, and Saeed's actually allowing me to speak ahead of time here. But Carlos. Yes. I think if there's, you know, if they actually, you know, I think at this point there's like a, give a presentation on on the the alteration that you're making um but make it you know short and beautiful um and then you know we're trying to make it so everyone get here in a timely fashion but thank you yes i mean uh so i'm just going to uh let me share my screen with the uh

Again, good night, members of the board. My name is Carlos Ferreira. I'm the engineer and also the contractor for this project. With me, I have Akiris Newlands. I mean, she was the designer part of my team that put this thing together. So this is like 8 Cambridge, Winter Street in Cambridge, and we are applying for a comprehensive special permit, doing like a comprehensive special permit presentation. The project is on the corner of like 3rd Street and McGrath Highway, even though like the address is 8 Winter Street, but 8 Winter Street is a little bit smaller. back from the property. The building, so this is like Winter Street here on the east is like Third Street and then McGrath Highway is like bordering the whole property. The building that we are proposing is like it's a six-story. This is like just the architectural layout and, you know, the introduction of like the THE MATERIALS AND THE TYPE OF MATERIALS AND WHAT WE PLAN TO DO THE FINISHES ON IT. THE PROJECT IS SIX STORIES, 63.3 FEET HIGH. THE RESIDENTIAL GROSS FLOOR AREA IS 24,819 SQUARE FEET, ZERO OFF STREET PARKING AND IS A TRANSIT ORIENTED DESIGN. So again, the lot is 7,404 square feet bounded by Monsieur O'Brien Highway, 3rd Street and Winter Street near MBTA bus service on O'Brien Highway and walking distance to the Lechamere Green Extension Station. Again, zero off-street parking, supports a residential transit facility and eliminating the drive with reduced sidewalks and vehicle conflict on the streets. As Patrick has mentioned, I mean, the project started with a busy board zoning board of approvals like in November of 2023. We started the application for the six story building in April of like 2025. We actually had a foundation prior to that, a building permit prior to that, and we started construction with that permit on July 18, 2025. And then in January 26, 2026, was adopted. We had a meeting with the city advisory review back in March of like 17 of like this year. The things that we are requesting there on the zoning, it's basically, you know, things that change it with the new zoning, the Chem 6 zoning, which is like front yard setback along like the most in your, Brian, because Zoning has like two different, there's like the main street and the secondary street. I mean, we find on the secondary street, the Monsignor O'Brien, we have a limitation. So we are encroaching a little bit into the setbacks into that area. The other... The other element was the ground story height, which is the new zoning request of like a 15 foot height along like a Monsieur O'Brien. And we are short by 2.43 foot on that. And the other is the entrance location. I mean, you're like the main access for, I mean, the main access of the buildings on a secondary street is on third street, not on Monsieur O'Brien. SO THEN I MEAN A BROADLY VIEW OF LIKE THE COMPLIANCE FOR CAM 6 IS IT SO RESIDENTIAL USE MULTI-FAMILY RESIDENTIAL PERMIT WE'RE ASKING FOR 23 UNITS IT'S ALLOWED 75 FEET SIX STORIES WE HAVE 63.3 FEET SIX STORIES BUILDING LENGTH IS 200 FEET MAXIMUM WE HAVE 73.2 FEET FACADE TRANSPARENCY PERCENT ON THIRD STREET AND 25 PERCENT ON O'BRIEN HIGHWAY. BICYCLE PARKING, 24 LONG-TERM AND THREE SHORT-TERM. WE PROVIDE 24 LONG-TERM AND FOUR SHORT-TERM. OPEN SPACE, WE MEET OPEN SPACE REQUIREMENT OF 23 PERCENT OF THE LOT, 2310 SQUARE FEET. THE RELIEF THAT WE TARGET IS GEOMETRY GRADE AND FOUNDATION CONDITIONS. WE'RE NOT ASKING FOR ANY OTHER REQUIREMENTS FOR THE ZONING. YOU KNOW, WE BELIEVE THAT OUR PROJECT SUPPORTS THE PUBLIC REALM. I MEAN, THE BUILDING FRAMES ON O'BRIEN HIGHWAY. IT'S AN INTERSECTION OF A CONTINUOUS URBAN EDGE. WE HAVE A VERY LARGE DOUBLE SIDEWALK ALONG O'BRIEN HIGHWAY. and we integrated the building with that on that side. We brought like a little bit of like a masonry pattern on the base grounds of the building to integrate that with like the surrounding buildings. And then we have like a cement board pattern with like a good, like a window, a lot of like window openings for the building. The open space for the building is it on along the left side of the building on this area, the land for the property extends about like another 20 feet in here This was like a driveway that has been used for the neighbors and for the access of a parking lot that's on the back in here for many years. And I think like the previous owner kept that area open. And we also, with the modifications, we didn't touch that. We didn't increase that area. So we maintained this drive, which is essential for the neighbors that are along our side in here. And, uh, and by that driveway, you provide like a people, uh, you know, deliveries or people that actually come, uh, drop off, uh, for the building to be out of the street. So people don't need to use third street for that. And also we have, uh, on the back of the building, we provided like a sort of, uh, uh, an overhang where we have like a trash and bicycle storage on the, on the back of the building. This section in here is for like a transformer pad. So everything is like hidden from like the view and enhance like the appeal of the building. We are proposing like the canopy trees. So we comply with the green factor for the zoning. Also the building is like files compliant, which is like, required by the current zoning. And then so regarding the planning board findings that we had like meetings with like section 19.3 objectives, you know, responsive like development pattern, pedestrian and bicycle friendliness, environmental mitigation, you know, like passive housing below the screen equipment, INFRASTRUCTURE COMPATIBILITY, MODEST RESIDENTIAL AND RESIDENTIAL DEMAND, CAMBRIDGE URBAN CHARACTER, HOUSING EXPANSION, OPEN SPACE ENHANCEMENT AND CLIENT RESILIENT. SO WE BELIEVE IN TAKING THE LEAD FROM THE PLANNING BOARD, WE MET ALL THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THIS WITH OUR DESIGN. Then what we requested in here, like for the approval, is that, you know, Section 17.705.1.3 site plan modification, find that the request modifications are limited site-specific in response to documented physical constraints. The lot is like a corner lot, and it will be hard to be able to push the lot THE BUILDING WITHOUT, YOU KNOW, IMPACTING THE NEIGHBORS MORE TO THE EAST OF US. SO WE HAD TO MAINTAIN THE BUILDING LIKE CLOSE PROXIMITY TO THE CORNER. THE 17.702 CAM 6 STANDARDS CONFIRM THAT THE PROJECT REMAINS BROADLY ALIGNED WITH CAM 6 HOUSING HEIGHT, MOBILITY, OPEN SPACE AND DESIGN OBJECTIVES. 10.43 special permit criteria find the proposal will cause no substantial detriment and supports orderly development, neighborhood compatibility, and public benefit. In 19.30, urban design objectives recognize consistency with the citywide objectives for housing, walkability, sustainability, resilience, and Cambridge urban character. And. And that's what that's what we had to present and if you guys have any questions.

We will get to questions in a short while, but right now we're going to move first to public comment and then we'll come back to plenty more questions and discussions. So as I mentioned, this is a public hearing. Any members of the public who wish to speak should now click the button that says raise hand. If you're calling in by phone, you can raise your hand by pressing star nine. As of 5 p.m. yesterday, the board had received no written communications on this case. Written communications received after 5 p.m. yesterday will be entered into the record. SO LET US CHECK ON PUBLIC COMMENT. OKAY. IT DOES APPEAR TED, DID YOU WANT TO SAY SOMETHING BEFORE YOU'RE MUTED?

I'M SORRY, MADAM CHAIR, THAT WAS AN ERROR.

OKAY. THANK YOU. APPRECIATE IT THOUGH. So let's see, it looks like we have at least one member of the public who wishes to speak. So I'm gonna ask staff to unmute the speaker and any others who may follow. Please begin by saying your name and address and staff will confirm that we can hear you. After that, you'll have up to three minutes to speak before I ask you to wrap up. With that, I'm going to ask Jeff to manage public comment.

Thank you. We have a couple speakers. The first speaker is Kenneth, and I apologize for mispronouncing anyone's name, just reading what's on the Zoom. But please give your name and address when you start. Kenneth Paik, who's followed by Heather Hoffman.

Hello, my name is Kenneth Peck. I live reside at 47 Gore Street, but more importantly and more significantly, I'm actually adjacent to the private way that is referenced in the plan. I guess technically 10 Linehan Court. I've been I know the history of the project. I've been active on the previous with the previous owner and. I did meet with Syed and his team last year when they first purchased the property. And at that time, they gave reassurances that they would pretty much follow the previous plan. from the previous owner. And some factors were adhered to, for instance, the width of the private way. However, some other things that were not written down are popping up in these new plans that are quite concerning to us as the people who actually live adjacent to this property. I think there's a lot of practical aspects of the usage and layout of this property that doesn't make sense and is very frustrating to us as abutters. Basically, it's just impractical to have this towering six-floor building right next to my home looking straight into my backyard. Just the experience of having the construction work there now just highlights how poorly planned the layout for the parking and traffic and trash is. I can't access my driveway 20% of the time with trucks blocking the private way. I've previously asked for advance notice for these things, and it doesn't happen. And it happens very frequently. And I understand they have to get the work done. And so this temporary inconvenience is understandable and manageable. But we're at the point where this thing is going to be coming up and 23 new neighbors are going to be moving in, all ordering their food deliveries. And then they're going to have their friends and Ubers drop off and block the way. And they're purposely designing it to actually literally block my driveway. And it's very frustrating. I've communicated this with them before. And they should establish no parking, no standing zones right in front of my house because it's gonna be blocked. I know, I understand that. And if they had just gone ahead and thought about the design in advance and moved the trash and their loading zone towards the back or towards their Winter Street address entrance, instead of intending to block it, you know, intentionally designed it to block the Third Street entrance, You know, I wish that they had communicated this and heard the butters voices instead of just waving their hands and saying, you know, we just want more property, more property. And I understand my time is up, but I'll probably write a letter to communicate and express more viewpoints. Thank you.

Thank you. The next speaker is Heather Hoffman, who's followed by Quentin Smith.

Hello, Heather Hoffman, 213 Hurley Street. I can tell you one of the reasons you didn't get any earlier correspondence is that people would have had to read the city calendar to notice that this was on it. I think that the whole idea of just notifying the butters and not talking to the larger neighborhood and not talking to the neighborhood organization that was intimately involved with working out the variance was a mistake. And that is a mistake that can be rectified because you're already hearing people who are not happy with how this design has gone. They don't feel heard. And I don't care if you have a thousand meetings, if you just hold them and don't respond to what people tell you is important to them, then, you know, why did you waste their time? What I would say is that we would like very much as a neighborhood to meet with these guys and I understand that they have the right to change their plans when the zoning changes to allow them to do more stuff, even though they got a variance. And part of what comes with a variance is an understanding that we've already allowed you to modify the zoning for certain reasons. So, and I also understand that you don't expect it to take a year. to change your building permit. So I understand that there have been frustrations on their side, but they could have talked to the larger neighborhood and gotten information and possibly gotten allies, which tends to make things go better. So I defer to the abutters for the actual conditions that they're dealing with. But I will say that the moment I heard, oh, well, all of the loading and unloading and everything will happen on Linehan Court, I thought, are you nuts? That does not seem like a reasonable accommodation, especially for a building that's half again as big. So I hope that they will ask for a continuance so that they can talk to the neighbors some more, because I am certain that there is a good resolution that can be worked out and we would like to help. Thanks.

Thank you. The next speaker is Quentin Smith. That's the last hand raised. So if anyone wasn't called and you intended to speak, now is the time we'd like you to push the raise hand button so we can have you in the queue. You can go ahead.

Hi, Quentin Smith, 86 Plymouth Street. Can you hear me okay? Yes, we can hear you. Great. So this, I actually did hear about this despite not being an abutter. This is sort of my extended backyard. I'm just over the line from East Cambridge into Wellington-Harrington. This seems like exactly the kind of project that we're trying to encourage construction on, and I think you know we're not it's not seeking a building that is significantly larger than the zoning is intended to allow it's not you know it's. we're trying to fix it feels like this is trying to fix a. an edge case in all of the different requirements that just hasn't quite worked in this particular scenario. And I do want to respond to the comments about traffic. This used to be a Dunkin' Donuts. And I remember going to that Dunkin' Donuts, I've probably been there a dozen times over the years. It was open, I think at times it was 24-7. So it's not like we're talking about taking a residential property that previously had a couple units on it and now has 20 units worth of people there, we're talking about a property that previously had probably hundreds, thousands of cars every day coming in and out to go to the Dunkin' Donuts. So to me, the traffic arguments in this very unique scenario seem not significant because it already was a property that had lots of traffic. So I just wanted to say that this seems like exactly the kind of construction we should be supporting. It seems like a very simple and small adaptation to the conditions that exist in this particular site, and I would encourage the planning board to approve this permit. Thank you.

Thank you. So we have a couple more speakers. Audrey Cunningham, followed by Elio Cutone.

Hi, yes. I am a direct abutter. My driveway opens up to the private way.

Can you start by giving your name and address, please?

Oh, sorry. I'm Audrey Cunningham. I live at 49 Gore Street, directly behind where the project is. We have had many meetings with the developer. They did agree to give us more space so we can access our backyards. However, it is a problem as far as what we're worried. We're concerned about snow removal. We're concerned about trash collection. There's a lot of stuff we're concerned about. And the man that just spoke really is nowhere near our neighborhood. He is not in a butter. I mean, to think he would say anything about a project that directly affects people that have lived here literally for hundreds of years. I mean, my family's been here for a hundred years. You know, and we have been working with the developer. And we have some things to iron out. Carlos had said that he would, if it becomes condominiums, I don't know how we can do it, but he would assure that there would be snow removal. The trash collection is still an issue. We don't know how that's going to, and that they probably won't know until it begins. But we would like them coming in off of 3rd Street and then exiting via Winter Street. and again, we'd like to know the hours, the hours of all the deliveries, the hours of the trash collection. So there are a lot of things to iron out that we can continue to do with the developer. They've been reachable, so that hasn't been an issue, but we do have definite concerns as abutters, not by someone that lives blocks and blocks away. That's about all I have to say. Thank you.

Thank you. And the next speaker is Elio Cutone. You can unmute yourself and begin with your name and address. If you can hear me can begin with your name and address.

Don't know. The person is unmuted, but clearly not communicating. Do you want to let's give them 15 more seconds and then just assuming it's a male, if not, I apologize. But Mr. Couton, if you can hear us, please begin your your comments. And if not, then I guess what we'll do now is muted again.

If you unmute, you may need to change your microphone settings or just make sure you're speaking directly into the microphone on your computer or phone.

All right. Well, I'm not sure that we're going to get this resolved at the moment. I'm just wondering if we should just move to board discussion and then if we are able to connect with Mr. Couton, we can take the comment. When he is audible.

OK, why don't we do that? I will so I'm going to remove. I'm going to lower the hand and if you think you can resolve the issue then you couldn't can raise your hand again. Will try one more time as long as we haven't gotten into deliberation by that point.

Alright, yeah, that's unfortunate. Okay, so with the possibility that we may go back for that one speaker, other than that, we're going to move forward to questions. board discussion and additional written comments may be submitted for the record. We have received written materials from staff at CDD and those staff are available to answer any questions that the board might have and the applicant also is available to answer questions. So let's start with that and Before we enter into deliberations, we'll double check again to see if we can connect with that member of the public. So who would like to start with questions?

Ted. Thank you. So I don't know if this is for staff or for the proponent. If zoning had not changed and I understand there would have been a four story building, what under the current proposal, other than or in addition to the two additional height stories, what other changes are there from the original proposal that got the variance and the issuance of the building permit?

I'm happy to answer that. Sure.

If that works for the team, go ahead, Mr. Barrett.

Thank you. So, Mr. Cohen, there were a couple zoning changes so the original variance uh sought variances for uh setbacks and um being that it's a corner lot it was subject to five point four point five point two four point three um it's also in a ba it was also in ba zone so it had um uh it was also in ba zone but also there's a back sliver of it that's in a c1 zone so It had some FAR issues. It had some setback issues. All of those were ameliorated by the passage of the multifamily housing zone. So under the multifamily housing zoning, our modification was all by right. It was only the passage of the CAM-6 zoning that came after that that caused an issue for us. The biggest one being, of course, the first floor mezzanine height. It's kind of hard to change. And I think that's the... You know the crux of the problem is, we have a steel frame in place on the building site with an elevator shaft we'd have to essentially scuttle the entire project. To make it compliant with the cam six zoning which also is why I mentioned earlier that the Council is now again looking at modifying this and removing this area from the cam sex, which would make this entire evening somewhat moot. Does that answer your question.

uh partly so i i understand it's the two additional stories and now you're saying it's it's the issue of the first floor height yeah are there any other changes uh as to the say the envelope of the building The abutters are complaining about various things, about access and other issues about the access way. Were those issues, have those been changed from when the variance was granted?

No. Audrey, who was speaking earlier, she was the... like primary attendee of all of our meetings. And I think when we had met with ISD with actually abutters in attendance with Peter McLaughlin and Jacob Lazar to talk about our proposed changes, one of the things that they were very concerned with making sure that right-of-way in the back was maintained, which we did. In terms of envelope, on the third street side, We kicked out an area for the transformer, but that didn't impede the right-of-way. That's in a different zone of the building. But in terms of the right-of-way, we're not encroaching any more on it than we were before.

Thank you.

Ashley.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I have a few just clarifying questions. The first one is there's some of the documents mentioned a comprehensive permit or seeking one. I just want to confirm the proponent is not seeking one because, first of all, we can't grant one, but also that would require ZBA approval. And the second question is, SO JUST FOR CLARIFICATIONS, IT SOUNDS LIKE THE MODIFIED BUILDING PERMIT WAS NEVER ISSUED, IS THAT RIGHT? SO THAT'S WHY OR ISSUED IN TIME BEFORE.

I DON'T UNDERSTAND THE FIRST QUESTION.

Yeah, there's some building material, or excuse me, there's some materials, even the presentation tonight, references a club rehab stuff permit. I just want to confirm you guys are not thinking one, because that's 40B, okay, BZ, okay. Understood, okay. The second question is, I just want to confirm, it sounds like the building permit, or the building permit was never issued in time. Is that, okay.

That's correct. That's why we're here. That had been approved with

Got it. And then this is kind of a side issue, but I was just curious. Does I don't know if the staff or the promoter knows there is on the plans. There's a little parcel sliver of land next to the highway. I was just curious who owns that right now. It's grass. And then the fourth question is, so just for clarification, I know there's a butters who talked about a little head court, but right now that's 10 feet. It might help reading the plans. It looks like the core will be, or the driveway will be expanded to 25 feet. Is that right? And so is that going to be shared? Is that going to be just 15 for your use? If you can clarify that. Thank you.

Carlos, can you speak to that last question?

So the land belongs to Syed, and that's part of our lot. It's not like an easement. There's not like a driveway there. The actual drive is only the 10 feet, I believe, 10 or 15 feet. That is the driveway for the property. Actually, the prior developer in Syed maintained that setback over there, you know, as in good faith to work with like all the abutters. I mean, if we went actually by the zoning, I mean, we could have like a zero setback over there, correct? Paul?

What's that? On that side of the property. Did you just call me Paul? Oh, sorry. Sorry. That's okay. It happens. It happens all the time. So you're in a BA zone and there are zero setbacks. There's also limited open space. I THINK THE REAL DISCUSSION REALLY IS ABOUT THE MULTIPLE ZONING CHANGES, HOW WE CAME UPON THE SHORES. TO ANSWER YOUR QUESTION, THE DRIVEWAY IS BEING MAINTAINED AS PART OF THE PROJECT AND PART OF A PROMISE TO THE NEIGHBORS. I THINK ONE THING THAT HAS BEEN CONSISTENT WITH SAID AND HIS TEAM IS THEY HAVE REACHED OUT TO THE ABUTTERS AND THEY'VE BEEN KNOW YOU'RE GOING TO SEE THESE PROJECTS AS THEY COME ALONG YOU'LL PROBABLY SEE ME WITH THOSE PROJECTS AND THEY'RE THEY'RE VERY DIFFERENT FROM THIS PROJECT IN PARTICULAR BECAUSE THEY'RE NOT REALLY USING THE MULTI-FAMILY HOUSING ZONING TO MAXIMIZE THE FOOTPRINT OF THE LAW THEY'RE SIMPLY THEY THEY DID KEEP PRIMARILY WITH THE CONSTRAINTS OF THE VARIANTS UM SO YOU KNOW THAT DRIVEWAY UM WILL BE THAT THE AT LEAST THE 10-FOOT SPACE WILL MAINTAIN AND SHARE

And how I'm reading the plans, I'm sorry, this is Ashley again, but it seems like it will be expanded by another 15 feet, is that right?

Yeah, yeah, we're maintaining that. I mean, the whole length from the building to the adjacent property is like 23 feet.

25, is that what it says? Okay, got it.

Yes.

Thank you.

Okay, moving on, let's go to D&R next.

Um, I guess I have 2 questions and just the follow up on the name court, because 1 of the public commenters brought this up was kind of curious. If thought has been given to the trash pickup, and if they could exit on that private way onto winter street, and also sort of that landing in court expansion that actually was talking about is going to be sort of the. loading area for like drop-offs and pickups um and then my second kind of that first part was like two questions but the second part is um again following up on Ashley's because I don't know if we got a response was the that grass space that's on the highway and winter street kind of like who I know it's not on your property line but I wonder who that belongs to so I can answer the first two questions I think in terms of

um, programming for the building. Um, this is a corner lot, the intersection itself into McGrath highway. If you know that area, as you pull in, there's not too many places really that are safe to stop along that corner. It does make sense to encourage cars to come in and pull in to pick up and take out. I think, you know, there's an inconvenience there, but there's also on the other side of that, in terms of your other question about who owns that lot, um, happens to be another client of mine. Um, who right now is being used as a parking lot. I think there's plans in the distant future for potential development. They were a lab developer Now they're not. So they're trying to reconfigure their planning for that site. But I do think in terms of, nothing's ever etched in the stone, but we also are working with traffic and parking and trying to make sure that we satisfy CDD's requirements as well. So to the best of our ability, I think a lot of these, trash comes once a week. Uber drivers, Amazon, all of the accoutrements of the city doesn't come all at once or all day long, or even with some significance. I have a location in central square. That's a hotel. We have multiple restaurants and spaces. Lots of deliveries actually come to that site and it's barely, you know, you don't really see much interaction at that corner. I think it will be the same here. I think it's a little bit overplayed in terms of the congestion that you'll see. But I do think, you know, this will be a professionally managed building. One of the commenters had shared concerns about snow removal. That's our responsibility 100%. That's part of whatever programming and plan we'll have. And the same will be for how we handle loading and unloading in terms of hours of operation. And I will just say that when you do apply an hours of operations requirement for loading and unloading, it's just like zoning. If you, if you make a rule, it's, you know, it's what's the expression, you know, no plan survives execution. So you try to do your best. And I think we try, we try to limit those things to their best of our ability, but certainly not to be an affront to our neighbors or something that's also going to frustrate the purpose of the people who live there. But I think in terms of the discussion, like we're always open to further discussion. I think the programming for the building has not yet been, it was not a hundred percent, a hundred percent, but I do think that's the sort of best solution we have at the moment.

The sidewalk along like McGrath highway, that's a state road. And that whole sidewalk, it's actually part of like the state right away. Thank you.

Mary.

Thank you. So my question is staying a bit on the Linehan and the private way. On the south side of the building where everyone's talking about the roughly 25 foot, is there a reason you couldn't plant within the property line area, pull out the planter area? I'm just wondering if there was any reason it has to be paved versus soft scape.

So the right-of-way is paved. I think the entire lot is paved. I think in terms of why it could not be, is that what you're asking me? Are you asking for us to create...

I guess i'm asking there's the 10 foot that's already functioning for the driveway access and that turns into 10 foot on the private way, especially hearing from a butters relative to visibility, it looks like you could get say at least a 10 foot say planter and still have a 15 foot wide. you know, paved that's broader than what it is today and get trees into that zone potentially. So I was just wondering, is there a logistical reason why that couldn't be planted?

When we looked at it, Carlos, you can speak more to this in terms of shadowing. Go ahead.

It's a, it's a very, um, It's very hard for the people that have cars over there. If we diminish that driveway, they will not be able to get into their houses. They need at least like the width of the car to make the curve because the fence is like right on the property line. So they need like, they need all the land that they can have it to make the turns over there.

I think maybe I'm not being understood. It's 25 feet wide.

Yes. Could it be 15?

Yes, exactly. A two-way. I think you've answered the question.

Okay.

Mr. Jeffrey, did you want to add anything?

Yes, ma'am. You know, I just wanted to share with the board a couple of my comments. You know, I heard about Lillehen Road and people talking about access. And I want to just share with you that, you know, throughout this process, you know, this building got its permit, I'm looking at the notes here, back in October 2024, right? Yeah. we have shared the design of the building, the drawings with the neighbors. And as Patrick said that to the extent that we had meetings at ISD in Cambridge with the neighbors, in the meetings, looking at the plans. So the point that I'm making is that we were very clear that Lillehen Road is the area where we will be doing the loading and the deliveries and the trash will go. And the other thing is that, Mary, you asked about the width. You know, you heard from Carlos that we went out of our way to give up the footprint space so that there can be more space on Lillehen Road so people have a wider road and they don't feel like they are crowded, right? So we gave up some footprint space there, right? So my point is this, that, you know, my understanding is that our today's discussion about the special permit you know, really is about, you know, what changed with Camp 6. And I honestly feel that, you know, at this stage, the neighbors knowing and hearing about all these things that we are doing for the last two years, right, all of a sudden saying, oh, well, you know what? I mean, I don't want somebody doing anything on Lillehen Road, right? And the last thing I would say is this. you know, the neighbors, right? They don't want us to do anything on Lillehen Road. And they forgot to mention that, you know, I paid, you know, $9,000 this last winter to just clean up the snow on Lillehen Road and no one else is contributing to that, right? So I just wanted to share that with the board that, you know, we have been honest and transparent. And now it's almost like people are digging back and trying to change things that have been discussed with them and shared with them very openly over the last two years. Thank you.

Yeah, thank you for that. Yes. And I will note that, you know, this hearing is on very specific items relating to the, you know, the first floor height, a couple of the items that, you know, that you brought up and Linda Ann Road was not among those. the topics for change or discussion. So just to clarify, when you last met with ISD and the neighbors, the plan that we're seeing now for Linehan Road is the same as what was presented back then. There haven't been any changes. Is that correct?

You know, it was exactly the same. And Carlos, I will let you also make a comment as the engineer.

Yeah, it was the same plan that we presented. Nothing changed from the application. The only thing that changed was the zoning.

Okay. Yes. All right. Thank you very much for clarifying. All right. Any other questions from board members before we move on? No. Okay. I just want to take a minute, Jeff, and see if we can go back to Mr. Kutone and see if we can make that connection before we move to deliberation.

Yes, I'll just note this is this is sort of an unusual step we're taking just for this one speaker because normally when we close public comment, we don't go back and forth or public comment. So we'll try once again with Elio Kutone, if you could unmute yourself and begin with your name and address.

It doesn't look like we're going to have any more success this go around. So let me just reiterate what was said earlier in the evening, which is that written comments will still be accepted for the record. So I would encourage Mr. Crotone to submit any comments that he has in writing. I'm sorry that did not work out, but we are going to close public comment and move on to board discussion. So we've had questions and answers and who would like to begin this evening's discussion? very quiet this evening. Ashley, thank you. Thank you.

Overall, I think it's, I actually love the look of the building. I know it's a unique site. It's on a corridor. And as, you know, pointed out earlier, there is a buffer space between Um, the building and the site between and the highway that's, I guess, owned by the state. So that helps in not needing the full setback that is required on the cam 6. so. I'm personally fine with the relief that the applicant is seeking. I love the balconies. I love the different colors on the side of the wall that has fewer windows. So overall, I'm in support. Thank you.

Thank you, Ashley.

Anyone else?

Carolyn.

Thank you. I will say I'm less in love with the look of the building. It feels a little bit retrograde somehow in my mind. I think the CDD memo had a lot of really good comments on coloration and facade and dealing with the differences breaking out the retaining walls versus the ground floor of the building. SO I WOULD PAY ATTENTION TO THE DESIGN COMMENTS AND THE CDD MEMO. BUT GENERALLY, I AGREE THAT I'M NOT OVERLY CONCERNED WITH THE RELIEF THAT IS BEING REQUESTED. I ASSUME AN EASEMENT WILL BE CREATED FOR THE ACCESS ROAD WITH THE NEIGHBORS, WHETHER IT'S THROUGH SYED HIMSELF OR WITH AN EVENTUAL CONDO ASSOCIATION, AND IT WILL BE IN EVERYONE'S INTEREST, INCLUDING THE NEW TENANTS. TO REMOVE SNOW AND MANAGE TRASH. AND THAT THAT EASEMENT AGREEMENT WILL BE A GOOD OPPORTUNITY TO NEGOTIATE A LOT OF THAT STUFF. AND IT SOUNDS LIKE THEY'RE WILLING TO DO SO. SO WITH THE CAVEAT THAT THE CDD MEMO HAS A LOT OF REALLY GOOD INFORMATION AND RECOMMENDATIONS IN IT, I'M IN APPROVAL.

THANK YOU.

Yeah, first off, thank you for the discussion on the driveway. I know it's talked about a lot, but it's just a lot of interesting stuff that came up, but I appreciate the responses by the proponents. I'd say two comments on the memo. One of them is the pattern on the on the building. I'm not the biggest fan, but I can see it kind of tying into sort of the building that's across the street. If you're looking that way, the taller building kind of has the same language, you know, the white, black and sort of random I don't know, I just think it needs a little bit more work and I think that's in the memo. And then the other one is the outside. I feel like there needs to be a little bit more sense of place at the entrance. And I think that's why I was asking about that little green space that's on the highway. because that seems like a perfect spot for a bench or something if you can't fit one onto your site. And I think that's also in the memo. So I'll just highlight those two things to focus on as you progress the design. Thank you.

TED HARDIE- Ted.

Well, thank you. Yeah, I'm fine with the design of the building. Yes, there's a lot in the staff memo that I hope the developers will look at. But in terms of what they're seeking in terms of the special permits and the changes in the zoning going back and forth, it seems to me this is a situation where they shouldn't be penalized by everything that has gone forward. And from my point of view, the addition of the two stories looks like it will add another eight housing units. And so I'm all in favor of that, that, you know, going from four to six stories, I think is actually a good idea. And I would suggest that the proponents be in touch with CDD again, with staff again about some of the design issues, but I think in terms of what they're seeking for the special permit, I'm fine with that.

Okay, thank you. Mary, what are your thoughts?

thank you um so I think relative to everyone else here I feel like the reasons this has come back have been well articulated and it's clearly a rezoning issue so I have no problems with the building uh adding the extra stories it's not to my taste exactly but I I truly just don't think it's an appropriate forum to have those conversations that time has passed Now, I think echoing the staff memo, the public realm and the landscape is not complete. And so my comments relative to say the drive are really relative to pieces that have not been designed. And I say that because even if it has gotten a building permit, and this is maybe as much to city staff and the internal processes as it is to the applicant, I'm quite surprised that this is a proposed landscape cool factor that achieves a building permit. Not to say it doesn't hit the marks, but our colleagues in places like Somerville require landscape architect to stamp it. There's no information on, say, soil. depth detailing anything like that so this is not to me this is extremely underwhelming on the city side about accepting this as the as a place for this and you know maybe it's the context months in your highway and I don't feel like it's worthy I don't think even with a harsh context, and it was a Dunkin' Donuts, I think it's a mistake to not really pay attention to that now. So when I was talking about the access, a lot of the commenters said that they want to make sure your trash goes off the private way. Why isn't it one way? Why isn't it one way in one way out? And just asking the question first time I've seen this. So it's really asking the applicant and more than that, the city, a 24 foot driveway cut is a road. You're doing a road, so treat it as such. You know, when I look at that Nessa Selvatica up in that corner that has a tree opening, I mean, why isn't all of that green space? Now, these are questions you don't have to answer to me, but I'm also saying the city can't tell what you're doing. And so again, to the city, really? You know, I feel like you want a tree to grow. The most you could tell that they're getting is, you know, like 25 square feet of soil. I feel like there's... I would expect more from that. You know, even picking a Nyssa, this is a really tough place. Everyone's been talking about the snow. Nyssa doesn't even do well with salt. So I just feel like there's a rigor to the landscape that's missing and it's a challenging site. You have a lot of grade change around that corner. It looks to me like the wall follows the property line, which is a very odd thing. So again, I would just urge, as you think about the final design for the landscape, I have no comments on your elevator core. And your floor plates, those are going up. Dig into that. You know, I think that the community around you has said things that there's still time to get right, if not by a designer, then by a landscape contractor who can help you make sure that it's worthy of redevelopment at Cambridge.

Okay, thank you. So I'm thinking along the lines of my colleagues, and I don't have issues with the relief that's being requested. But as others have noted, that there are items in the CDD staff memo that I think, point to areas where further review is needed or, you know, definitely suggestions for things that overall would improve the project. And I think, you know, to the extent that you've already engaged the neighborhood and, you know, seem to have a balance, sort of a 50-50 balance, at least based on tonight, of people who still have issues and others who feel like there's been adequate outreach. You know, as Mary said, there is still a chance to work on that driveway edge. You know, I know that you don't need relief from us to do it, but I think it's to the extent that you can continue to work on it and just be sure that it's as attractive as possible and that there is as little... impingement on neighbors' access, you know, to and from. And I think that would be helpful. I know we live in a city where all are affected by deliveries, et cetera, et cetera. But I think, you know, you've come a long way and you're very close and, you know, to the extent you can continue to encourage the support of your neighbors, I on the items that have been called out. So with that, I think what I'm hearing from the board is that we are ready to grant the permit with conditions. But in order to do that, to grant the permit, we need to find that the proposal meets the following criteria. And this is just to summary the detail of it is in the CDD memo. Basically for the Cambridge Street building and site plan modification special permit, which is section 17.705.1.3, the criteria are that the planning board may approve modifications to the building and site plan standards upon finding that First, the criteria in Section 17.707.2 are met and modifications respond to site specific conditions that result in a design that is equally supportive of the purpose And I think in general, the housing that's being provided is something that definitely meets the objectives of the district and certainly the bicycle parking and the sort of transit oriented design as it was referred to in the presentation is in keeping with the Cambridge Street District. Then there is the Cambridge street general special permit criteria, which is section 17.707.2. In granting a special permit within the Cambridge street districts, the planning board shall find that the following criteria are met. The proposal supports the purpose of the Cambridge street district as described in section 17.702. Development plans are in general conformance with the vision and goals of the art Cambridge street planning study. in 2023 and the citywide urban design objectives in section 19.30 of the zoning ordinance and are consistent with the citywide urban design guidelines published in 2025 and the design guidelines for multifamily housing as applicable and those guidelines were also published in 2025. And then beyond that we have the general special permit criteria and section 10.43 which i'm not going to read because we've all seen those over and over again, and they are in the memo and and therefore part of the record. So. Is the board willing to make all of those findings and you can just raise your hand or just to. give me a heads up that we have enough shake your head or raise your hand. Findings, findings, findings. OK, good, alright. So with that the memo, the staff memo does contain suggested conditions to be included in the special permit decisions, and there's also the standard conditions for continuing review and certification by staff that the conditions are met. Are there any other conditions that the board would like to include? Now I think the memo was pretty comprehensive. OK, are there any other suggestions from staff at this point? Alright, hearing none. Then is there a motion to grant the requested special permit with those conditions based on the board's finding that the applicable special permit criteria are met? Could I have a motion please?

This is Carolyn, so moved.

Thank you, Carolyn. Is there a second, please?

Ted, second. Thank you, Ted.

And Jeff, maybe have a roll call, please.

On that motion, Ted Cohen? Yes. Mary Lidecker?

Yes.

Diego Macias? Yes. Ashley Tan?

Yes.

Carolyn Zirn?

yes mary flynn yes it's all six members present voting in favor great thank you uh well gentlemen uh from the development team thank you very much for your time and your presentation and uh i appreciate the continuing work that you'll do with cdd thank you everybody tonight and i just want to say you guys saved the only permitted iz project in the city so thank you

Thank you. Thank you. All right. Good evening.

So moving on, we're going to talk about housing a little bit more about housing. The next item on the agenda is the discussion of the five-year progress review of the affordable housing overlay. The board will hear a presentation from community development department staff. And after that, the board will have an opportunity to discuss. So I think Jeff is going to begin and then it will be followed up by members of the housing staff. Jeff?

Yes, thank you. I will be very brief and turn it over to the housing staff. This is simply a discussion item for the planning board. I thought just to sort of tee it up, this is something that was provided to the city council as noted, and we thought it would be helpful to bring it to the planning board as well. The planning board, of course, has been very actively involved both in the creation of the affordable housing overlay back in 2020, as well as in the ongoing review and implementation. So interested to, and the Z&D staff as well as the housing staff and urban design staff who are still with us are happy to engage in some discussion as well. So with that, I'll turn it over. So Chris Cotter, who's the director of housing is here and Cassie Arnault will be giving the presentation.

Thank you, Jeff. Chris, are you able to share your screen with our presentation? And I will just, I think you'll be able to guess when it's time to switch to the next page. Thank you all very much for entertaining this. We will be quick so that we can leave time for discussion, but we thought we would just give a quick overview of the report as it was issued just a little over a week ago. And as Jeff said, went to the council last week. WHEN THE OVERLAY WAS ADOPTED IN 2020, IT INCLUDED A PROVISION THAT WE CONDUCT AN ASSESSMENT OF THE OVERLAY'S EFFECTIVENESS. CHRIS, YOU CAN SWITCH TO THE NEXT PAGE BECAUSE I OUTLINED SOME OF THE WAYS. NOPE. ONE PAGE BACK. SORRY. All right, I think, sorry, you have a different presentation. I will just share with, I can just speak from this. So the overlay zoning language described several specific components of effectiveness that we were supposed to look and describe in terms of whether it increased production of affordable housing WHETHER THE HOUSING THAT WAS CREATED WAS LOCATED THROUGHOUT THE CITY AND WHETHER THE HOUSING CREATED SERVED RESIDENT NEEDS. THE SECOND HALF OF THE REPORT INCLUDED QUESTIONS REGARDING THE EFFECTIVENESS OF THE COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT AND ADVISORY DESIGN REVIEW PROCESS. And I think we would all agree that at the time it was a real open question about whether the overlay was going to be able to actually unlock production of affordable housing, which had been very challenged. The report describes the challenges our affordable housing developers FACED IN PRODUCING HOUSING AND THE WAYS THAT THE OVERLAY WAS DESIGNED TO ADDRESS THOSE CHALLENGES MOST IMPACTFULLY BY OFFERING AFFORDABLE HOUSING DEVELOPERS AND AS OF RIGHT PERMITTING PATH IN THIS ADVISORY DESIGN REVIEW PROCESS. So, Chris, you can switch to the next page. So this chart that summarizes some of the information that was in the overlay report gives a really great snapshot to answer those first three questions. As you can see here, there's 16 overlay projects listed, which is a sharp increase from the amount of production we had been seeing prior to the overlay. Two of those projects are actually completed and occupied. I think five are now in construction. One is about to begin construction and the others are in various stages of seeking financing and going through the community process. We also have one NEW PROJECT THAT HAS SURFACED THAT WILL BE BEGINNING THAT HAS JUST BEGUN THE COMMUNITY REVIEW PROCESS AS WELL AS OUR AFFORDABLE HOUSING DEVELOPERS ARE SEEKING SITES AND HAVE PURCHASED SEVERAL ADDITIONAL SITES THAT WE EXPECT TO SEE AFFORDABLE OVERLAY DEVELOPMENTS BEING ADVANCED IN COMING YEARS. This chart also shows the variety of types of affordable housing that the overlay has allowed developers to create. While the majority of the housing is affordable rental, there are two examples of homeownership housing, which is great because that has been extremely challenging to advance given the more limited financial resources available for affordable homeownership. There's also most of the affordable overlay projects are also what we call family housing, which is housing that includes a majority of family sized apartments that are designed for families, include family oriented amenities. BUT WE ALSO HAVE TWO DEVELOPMENTS THAT HAVE A SENIOR COMPONENT, ONE THAT SERVES EXCLUSIVELY OLDER ADULTS, THE BLANCHARD ROAD PROJECT ADVANCED BY BENE BRITH THAT JUST BEGAN CONSTRUCTION SEVERAL WEEKS AGO THAT WILL BRING 110 UNITS ONLINE FOR OLDER ADULTS IN CAMBRIDGE. And then HRI is working to secure the final bits of financing to begin construction on their 28 to 30 Wendell development, which is mostly family but also includes a senior component. Finally, the first development to get under construction, the second one to get permitted, was the CHA's 116 Norfolk Street project, and it was the first to be completed. It's now completed and occupied. I think there's a photograph coming up because we give a little highlight of it. And that was designed as permanent supportive housing. And I'll explain a little bit more about that project as one of the examples that was included in the report. But it offers really beautiful housing for formerly homeless Cambridge residents. And then the third question that the report addressed was the neighborhood distribution of affordable housing. And this map, if you just go back, Chris, one slide, just so I can remember all the neighborhoods. You can see this list of neighborhoods in that final column. There are affordable housing overlay developments in eight of the cities. and eight of the city's 13 neighborhoods. I think the only one that doesn't, that affordable housing developers have looked at sites in all neighborhoods with the exception of area two, which is where MIT is located. And in recent weeks and months, the CHI just bought a site in Wellington, Harrington, where they expect to be advancing an overlay project. And HRI just purchased, completed the purchase of another site in Cambridge Highlands. So particularly the projects that are in Cambridge Highlands, Baldwin neighborhood and Strawberry Hill are very notable to us because those are neighborhoods that were extremely challenging for affordable housing to be able to get to be feasible and the overlay is likely responsible for making those developments feasible in terms of PERMITTING AND FINANCING. THIS MAP IS A NICE MAP THAT OUR COLLEAGUE BRENDAN PUT TOGETHER THAT JUST SHOWS GRAPHICALLY THE DISTRIBUTION OF AFFORDABLE HOUSING DEVELOPMENTS AS OF OCTOBER 25, WHICH IS 2025, WHICH WAS THE FIVE-YEAR ANNIVERSARY. So continue on. So the overlay, as I said, the overlay report included a review of the effectiveness of the advisory design review process. We included a number of examples. We included three specific examples that I'll go through, but it also talked about how the process works how the process initially was designed when the overlay was originally adopted how that changed through the the two amendments that occurred um in 2023 and then again in 2025 and how affordable developers have been navigating the that process and just broadly we can say that we have observed it working very, very well and working as well or even better than I think was anticipated. All affordable housing developers have, I think maybe with the exception of one, far exceeded the number of required mandated community meetings, oftentimes supplementing the formal overlay meetings with other informal opportunities to engage with the community. They also have worked, we've worked with the Affordable Housing Trust to participate in this process. All affordable housing projects so far have required local funding from the Affordable Housing Trust and the zoning requires that the planning board report go to the affordable housing trust just to keep the affordable housing trust in the loop we have coordinated the trust's funding commitments with the overlay process and in cases where the trust for for other reasons needs to make a funding commitment before this process is complete the trust will make their funding conditional on reviewing and accepting the planning board's final report And I think that has been helpful for developers and helpful for staff. And Chris, you're working off an older version of our presentation, so I'm jumping around, I apologize. But the three examples that we included in the report began with 116 Norfolk, which as I said, was a CHA development where It was an existing SRO property that was occupied, so they were initially talking to their existing residents on plans to update that housing by converting those SRO units to studio apartments and adding on a rear addition to expand the number of residents they could serve. um before the overlay process formally started with the first overlay community meetings they um spent a long time engaged with their own residents and with the surrounding neighbors um so that at the first overlay meeting when i joined there was a fair amount of understanding of what the CHA was trying to achieve and a lot of conversation about where that addition should be located on the rear open space back behind the existing building, how the historic existing building should be treated, how the connection from the addition, there's like a little path walkway space, how that should be oriented and designed. and how the mature trees on the site should be, which of the trees should be preserved as the building gets situated and trying to do the maximum preservation of those trees. The community process started in February 2022. The CHA held several meetings, and during that process, it was identified that one of the immediate neighbors was particularly unhappy just because they were going to be most impacted because they were closest to the big open space that would now be replaced with the addition. The CHA did work with that neighbor. to make as many changes as they could to try to mitigate the impact on that neighbor. And as other neighbors were pointing out, the distance between the new addition and the existing house was very similar to the rest of the neighborhood, but everyone understood that this was a big change for that particular neighbor. THAT DEVELOPMENT THEN MOVED ON TO THE PLANNING BOARD PROCESS AND WAS AT THE PLANNING BOARD IN JULY AND SEPTEMBER. VERY GOOD COMMENTS CAME OUT OF THAT PROCESS WHICH THE CHA INCORPORATED AND YOU ARE SEEING A COMPLETED IMAGE OF NORFOLK WHICH STARTED CONSTRUCTION IN 2023 AND WAS COMPLETE IN 2025. SO, CHRIS, IF YOU WANT TO SWITCH TO THE NEXT SLIDE. So Weldon Square, we see this as one of the examples of the process working really well, even though it was a little bit of a bumpy ride for everyone. This was an early development. I think we may have approached things differently if it had started the process later into our experience with the overlay, but as many of you may remember, this is a development owned by Wynn, where they have an existing housing development and they wanted to add about 100 new affordable units to their existing development. And they initially were advancing a scheme that had two buildings. Some thought it looked okay and worked. There was a lot of skepticism among some of the neighbors, and then it increased. OVER A NUMBER OF MEETINGS WITH MORE SCRUTINY ON THEIR SCHEMES AND IDEAS FOR REVISITING PLANS. WINN WAS SCHEDULED TO PRESENT THE PLANS TO THE PLANNING BOARD IN NOVEMBER OF THAT YEAR. decided that it didn't make sense to continue to pursue that plan given the input that they were receiving from so many of their own residents as well as neighbors. And so they paused their designs and voluntarily pulled their submission from the planning board and revisited things and spent the next number of months redesigning the development and came up with a, I'm sorry, I misspoke. The first plan was a one single building and they redesigned their single building into two smaller buildings on opposite ends of the site that was much better received from many in the community as well as their existing residents. And the planning board received that plan fairly well, but did end up having a number of very specific recommendations and some criticisms of the site plan and circulation layout and suggestions for improvements. THIS IS AN EXAMPLE OF WHERE THE TRUST ROLE WAS VERY USEFUL AND INTERESTING. THE TRUST HAD REVIEWED THE WALDEN SQUARE DEVELOPMENT FOR FUNDING AND WERE EXCITED ABOUT THE 100 NEW UNITS. BUT THE TRUST POSTPONED ACCEPTANCE OF THE PLANNING BOARD'S DESIGN MEMO PENDING WIN RESPONDING TO THE SUGGESTIONS THAT THE PLANNING BOARD HAD SHARED. WIN SPENT THE NEXT NUMBER OF MONTHS WORKING WITH CITY STAFF AND THEIR OWN DEVELOPMENT TEAM AND MADE SIGNIFICANT IMPROVEMENTS TO ADDRESS THE COMMENTS FROM THE PLANNING BOARD TO THE SATISFACTION OF STAFF. THE CIRCULATION PLAN IS MUCH IMPROVED AND REFINED. THEY MADE CHANGES TO THE LANDSCAPING IN RESPONSE TO THE SPECIFIC RECOMMENDATIONS FROM BOTH CITY STAFF AS WELL AS THE PLANNING BOARD, AS WELL AS FACADE IMPROVEMENTS. SO THEY ARE NOW PREPARING TO BEGIN CONSTRUCTION LATER THIS YEAR OR EARLY IN 2027, HAVING ASSEMBLED THEIR NEEDED FINANCING. And I have one more example. I'll zoom through because I think I've sort of made the point, but the 28 to 30 Wendell is an HRI development. It initially started with only one of the two sites before they had bought the second site. They restarted the community process when both sites were acquired. This is a good example of an affordable housing developer that elected to supplement the formal overlay process with other community engagement to to help explain what they were looking at as well as get input in different ways from the neighbors and community. They offered a walking tour of the neighborhood where they had their architects point out different architectural elements including setbacks in landscaping and site planning and facades and height. Then their last overlay meeting was in person and also included opportunities for the participants to talk about color and materials and other things. This was also an example that we included in the report where their initial plans contemplated a building that was nine stories. This was falling right in between some of the changes that allowed different heights at the overlay. And in large part due to concerns from neighbors, HRI agreed to drop the proposed height from the contemplated nine stories to eight stories. And that is where they were when they came to the planning board. And then as you may remember, for those of you that were participating in that hearing, the planning board had some excellent comments at the first and second meetings on ways for HRI to improve the facades. improve the layout of the windows and the cornices, as well as landscaping and site design. And that development, they're now hoping to get the financing needed to begin construction next year. So that is the quick overview of what was in the overlay report, and we're happy to get into any more detail.

Thanks very much, Cassie. And thanks to all of the housing team and other members of the department who put the report together. It's very interesting. First of all, it was amazing to me that it had been five years already. And then, you know, secondly, just to see the number of projects moving forward was very illuminating. So thank you for that. Board members, questions for Cassie? General comments? items you'd like to discuss. Ted.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I have a question. So I'm delighted at the concept of 1,000 units being created, but I'm wondering, there's a reference to Jefferson Park of 278 units, but is it not true that an enormous number of units, existing units, were demolished in order to make way for this new project. And I'm just curious, you know, at least with that proposal and perhaps with some of the others, was there really a sum total increase in units in Jefferson Park or are we ending up with the number we had, although they will be far superior and newer and function much better. So I'm just curious about the numbers.

Jefferson Park initially, you're right, was 175 units, I think. At the time of the construction, I think as many as 75 had been taken offline because of mold and habitability issues. So you're right. These were occupied units. They had to have folks relocated. And so the net new, when we're talking about 1,000 units, That's not necessarily the new because some of those were replacement units. Same thing at Norfolk Street where there was, I'm forgetting how many exactly, there was some SRO studio units that then became fully reconfigured into studio apartments along with the addition. I would say that in the cases of those redevelopments, the CHA would say that those existing units had a limited lifespan remaining. And so this opportunity was the only way to make those that those housing units habitable and good, high quality housing for the long term. In all the cases, if you remember, they had looked at preserving the housing and what that would involve. And the overlay allowed them to add additional units. They're doing the same thing at Corcoran. And actually, Corcoran is not the phase one is in our numbers, but phase two is not in the count because they had to split up that redevelopment. But in the second phase of the Corcoran redevelopment, they're hoping to add at least an additional 100 units as part of that. So the overlay is offering the opportunity both to ensure that the existing number of housing units are available over the long, long term, but also opportunity to add the housing.

Great, thank you.

Ashley, what's your question or comment?

Thank you. First of all, thank you for the presentation. I'm very encouraged to hear that the housing trust does, you know, look at our reports and take that into consideration. So that's great to hear. I had a quick question. So as you pointed out, there are, you know, few and far between. in between ownership or home ownership opportunities. And so I was just wondering, is that something that developers bring up when they apply with the housing trust? Is that something that like is a condition or I don't know.

I was just curious how that if that is at all considered. I'll try to answer and Chris may want to jump in more on that. So we, for the most part, developers will find a site and decide what they want to do on that site and bring it to us. There is a real challenge in creating affordable homeownership because the cost to purchase sites and the cost to build the housing is so expensive that it needs a lot of subsidy. And for better or worse, in the last decade or more, the subsidies available for affordable homeownership are extremely limited so that it really relies on city funding mostly to make that possible. And so it's much more feasible to create affordable rental. Also, the scale of the housing that we're, you know, for these bigger sites, um creating a very large homeownership development that's 100 affordable which would be required under the overlay might be more challenging although the overlay does allow a greater amount of mixed income in in homeownership you're always allowed to have a small segment of 80 to 100 in the overlay in rental but for homeownership a development could be half and half so there would be a little bit of variation to make it a little bit more of a mixed community But yeah, so we encourage that and certainly small infill sites and other things would be perfect opportunities for something like that. And we're very much open to taking proposals from developers for homeownership.

Other questions, comments? So I have one question and a comment. I think I was impressed to hear that a couple of more sites had been purchased by our nonprofit housing developer friends. And that kind of leads me to the question, which is, you know, my concern has been with the new multifamily ordinance changes, which, you know, obviously will do a lot to increase the number of units. But it seemed to me that it sort of put the AHO at a disadvantage. And I know, you know, there were some things that... tried to offset that disadvantage, like the extra hike, but a lot of benefits seem to be included now for everybody. So I'm just curious, like what kind of feedback you've been getting from the nonprofit community as to, you know, are they seeing it, you know, prices are going up, it's making them harder to find, it's making it harder for them to find sites, you know, just what have you been hearing?

It's a good question. I would say that when the overlay was first adopted, I got calls from a lot of owners of sites trying to sell, and I don't get as many calls because they probably have other people to call. But in most cases, those weren't opportunities that made sense. I think we'll have to see. It's still early days, and we're very pleased that the CHA and HRI were able to to secure these sites that we were looking at. And, you know, they really look at it in a different way and try to do different things on the site. So a site that works for an affordable housing developer may have different considerations than what works for others. I see Chris has his hand up, so I'll let him add to that.

Yeah, just to pick up on what Cassie's saying, I think that we're seeing still a lot of competition for sites. You know, AHO has really been instrumental in, allowing us to build a deeper pipeline of all affordable housing than we've ever had. And so it's really two things. It's the AHO, it's the funding that the city has through the trust, which has allowed agencies to pursue these sites a little bit more aggressively, to bring them in knowing they can build a little bit more, knowing they've got the certainty to move through the process and the funding that's there. The multifamily, you know, people make it hard of hearing about this. It's still a little bit too soon to really say what the impact is. You know, it's still, you know, projects are still moving through the process of, you know, permit review and proposal. So I think we've seen more competition for sites, but some of the smaller sites where, as Cassie said, we might expect to see infill homeownership where the financing models lend themselves to that. But we are still seeing the affordable housing providers be successful in competing for sites as Cassie mentioned a couple of recent purchases so what you see in the report I think is a you know a big part of our deep pipeline but there's actually more coming when you get into the uh you know the the meetings that just starts just beginning to talk about the the two parking lots in Porter Square or the site that CHA purchased in Wellington Harrington so there's even more coming than the report shows because we're just looking at the five-year window yeah

Great. Well, it's nice to know the pipeline is still there and it'll be interesting to see over the next couple of years how things play out. The only other comment I had was just in regards to a project like Walden Square. I'm really happy that the trust has taken the board's role in this as seriously as you have or they have and that they try to hold the developer's feet to the fire. The one piece that's sort of missing for me is the feedback to the board, to the planning board as to what actually happens. And I don't know what the best mechanism is for that. I don't think it has to be a public hearing. Maybe it's just a memo or just some way to inform us, but I don't doubt that improvements have been made to what we saw, but I have no idea what those improvements are. So it would just be kind of helpful to close the loop with us, particularly on projects that are on the more controversial side. But I know it's a lot of work that you guys have to do in terms of reviewing, keeping things moving. So just a little food for thought for the future in terms of how the process might work.

Mary. Thank you. So the first comment I think is everyone says thank you for putting together such a comprehensive report and outlining it so clearly. And it does seem very positive. I felt like that, you know, unambiguous, which, you know, was very nice to see. I was especially happy to see that the distribution you know, it's hitting lots of different neighborhoods. It doesn't feel like it's just one place. And that is so many family units and maybe picking up what Mary Flynn was just describing is seeing so many under construction. Cause I always wonder that too. It's, you know, well, has it stalled out at some point? Right. So that's very exciting to see so many of these are, are under construction or teeing up for that. And maybe layering for what Mary you were talking about is I wanted to reflect a little bit on having gone through these now and doing the two-phase review. I feel like over... My overarching feeling is that that is actually going well. It feels like when we get to the second one, they've often addressed comments. I think one of the things that's often a common is it feels like sometimes some of the early massing or big decisions come a little bit late. So I think sometimes there's not as much of a gap. Right. As would be helpful both for the develop the team really and and for planning board. So just continuing to maybe think about what the right moment is to engage planning board, especially because it's planning board. It's like it feels like we should get some chance to kind of be part of that earlier zone. And then maybe to Mary's point. I agree. Sometimes, you know. I, there are comments, but you know, you can see that it's heading the right, not, it's just going in a direction that you, it's less controversial. The controversial ones are the tricky ones because often those are where we are AMBASSADORS FOR THE CITY IN SOME CASES, RIGHT? PEOPLE WILL ASK ME ABOUT SOMETHING, AND FOR THESE, SOMETIMES I DON'T QUITE KNOW. SO MAYBE IT'S SOMETHING THAT PLANNING BOARD, WE THINK ABOUT FLAGGING ONES THAT MAYBE WE WOULD WANT AN UPDATE IF THERE IS A CHANGE. AND IT'S VERY REASSURING TO HEAR THAT THE TRUST TOOK SOME OF THOSE COMMENTS AND THAT KIND OF SEQUENCING TO HEART. SO THANK YOU.

THANK YOU, MARY.

ASHLEY. THANK YOU. SORRY. Similar to Mary Lineker's second point, I was just wondering if the housing staff had any feedback from the developers that come more frequently. I know when we first started this process, it was a little more frequent where we'd see proposals and it was already set, not set in stone, but it was 70% there and there was not much we could change. So I was just wondering... HAVE YOU RECEIVED ANY FEEDBACK FROM DEVELOPERS ON HOW THIS PROCESS IS GOING FOR THEM AND DO THEY HAVE ANY RECOMMENDATIONS?

THANK YOU. I CAN PROVIDE A QUICK ANSWER AND THEN CHRIS AND ZONING COLLEAGUES MAY WANT TO TIME IN. I THINK THAT THIS HAS REALLY BEEN A GOOD AND SATISFYING PROCESS. I HAVE TO SAY THAT I THINK AFFORDABLE HOUSING DEVELOPERS, THEY MAY, YOU KNOW, grown that things still take long. I think they really appreciate the different opportunities for input. And I think that they all agree that the projects at the end are much better for the input that they receive at the different stages, particularly from the planning board. I think it's a question, you know, the overlay was developed to address a lot of the challenges, including the predictability and the timing and the sequencing of affordable developments. And the way we've set things up and, you know, the recent changes, including the multifamily changes, have impacted the mandatory number of planning board meetings for some of these. So some projects you'll start seeing will fall below the threshold of needing to planning board or even any advisory review by the planning board. But I think. IN COMPLETE AGREEMENT, FOR THOSE THAT HAD TWO PLANNING BOARD MEETINGS, THE CHANGES THAT THEY WERE ABLE TO MAKE, EVEN WHEN THERE WERE MODEST RECOMMENDATIONS AT THE FIRST MEETING, IT REALLY WAS A BENEFICIAL PROCESS FOR THE DEVELOPMENTS. I THINK IT WOULD BE USEFUL FOR US TO CONSIDER, YOU KNOW, what level of project design makes best sense to come to the first meeting because if there's that you know if if the planning board sees a very early design and then they only come back to one more meeting that might not be very satisfying and getting really the best input from the planning board on those refinements that the planning board has been able to make to the final designs before the development is able to sort of make final changes to get the building permit versus being on the early process. And it seems like the only alternative to that would be to go to multiple planning board meetings, which is getting a little bit back to where we were before the overlay. So it's an interesting challenge to think of how best to use the planning board opportunity to get the design input that helps these projects. But Chris and others should share. And I think in terms of figuring out a way to share back, I think that's really interesting. And I would like to talk to our zoning colleagues and understand what they think on that.

Thank you, Cassie. A couple thoughts. First on the sharing back, I think that's a really good point. And I apologize that we're not sending back over some of the update memos that we do bring back to the trust that outline some of the changes that are made when we get to a point where the trust is holding off accepting the report and we come back with an update. That would be an easy thing to send back to you all so you see those and we'll make a practice of doing that. On your question, Ashley, I think the thing that came up early, and I don't know that it's still coming up, it was kind of a get acclimated to the process was time. And I think the concern that we heard from some of the affordable housing providers that THE PROCESS STILL TOOK A BUNCH OF TIME. IT WAS JUST SPENT DIFFERENTLY AND KIND OF A LOT MORE GETTING PREPARED TO HAVE THE DISCUSSION WITH THE PLANNING BOARD AND TO GO THROUGH THE COMMUNITY MEETINGS AS OPPOSED TO MORE BACKLOADING IT. AND I THINK THAT WAS A BIT OF A learning curve for folks to understand it's not really a time savings it's more kind of changing the process to uh front load it and allow more certainty and allow more of a an understanding of things would move forward and so i think with that kind of understanding i think we've seen that the process moved more smoothly as opposed to you know people think well there's a buy right past the permits it must be quick but you know it's not and i think even when things get to the board there's already a lot of work that's gone into it and so that's a little bit of the of the I think the learning curve that we've had, I think, you know, in the housing on the housing team, I think with the zoning team and some of the other departments that are involved with some of the early review, because we do want to make sure that we're getting all the perspectives into development as it's moving forward. But I'm turning it over to Jeff and folks on the zoning team for anything to ask because they're they're intimately involved in these things as we preparing them to come to the board.

if I could just interject, I made the huge omission of not recognizing the massive contribution our urban design staff make to these projects. I glossed over it, and as you could guess, I had been, I had prepared, I'm working off a little home laptop, so I have very limited, and I was relying on the presentation and not any notes, so I completely forgot that, that we do huge amounts of work with our local in-house experts, And, you know, one of the biggest successes of the overlay was the design guidelines that Eric and others developed that have now been expanded to be used to all multifamily in Cambridge. And we've been, you know, other communities, other architects, people just can't believe how excellent those are. And I think those have been an amazingly useful tool as the early designs take shape. So, as Chris said, there's a lot of work that goes into these projects before they make their way to you. And I think that affordable housing developers always want to put their best foot forward for you and don't want to disappoint the planning board and want to get good response. But we recognize that the planning board can also, you know, provide useful insight into some of these decisions. And so it's a tough decision. But I just wanted to acknowledge the work that our urban designers do, because that is massive and a huge reason why these are successful.

Yeah, and I would just echo what everyone's saying and Swathi can weigh into. When she's not coordinating these meetings, she's largely coordinating all the meetings with Urban Design, with Public Works, other departments that are involved in the review process to make sure it all gets orchestrated. And it is different, I think, for developers going online from going through a process that was mostly the BZA to a process that's a planning board process and one that's advisory, it's still, I think, caught some people by surprise of how in-depth the process can be and how closely we really look at these projects and what kind of feedback they receive. So it took a bit of time, but I think we've all been, as Chris said, on a bit of a learning curve and understanding how to work through a advisory review process, which is not necessarily an easy glide for the developers, and certainly not for staff either. It takes a lot of care and attention to figure out how do we how do we sort of all play our roles effectively to make sure that as the planning board is seen you know we're sort of making making good progress and improvement of a design in a project through a through a period of time which you know doesn't result in an approval step you know doesn't result in a point where someone says okay this is it it's done it's it's more of an of an ongoing process um and I think over time we've all learned how that process works most effectively. And I think that a lot of that is to the credit of the staff and being able to kind of work with this process and understand it. And the housing team really having an established relationship with developers, which goes back for a long way. And really the city having been a partner in these projects for a long time, makes a big difference in how we engage with the developers. And I think that's extended even, you know, it's interesting with the affordable housing overlay that we're seeing, as Cassie mentioned, we're seeing developers that, affordable housing developers that we hadn't worked with before, you know, coming into play and getting engaged through the AHL where they hadn't necessarily been engaged with, you know, comp permits or other permitting we've done. So I don't know, I guess Swathi, Brian, want to add anything?

Sure, I can jump in. So I think you do as well. Yeah, no, I think it's been a really productive process. I think I really enjoy actually working on the design review for the for the affordable housing projects. There's a really great mission alignment, obviously, housing is one of the critical issues for the city and providing housing, especially for those who might be the most vulnerable residents. And so there's just this natural alignment there that I think carries through in terms of the conversations and what the overarching goal of the projects is. I feel that We probably have maybe more touch points with a lot of affordable housing developers in terms of design than we would with some of our other developers. And I think that's just to the credit to how intimately they're sort of interested in understanding how best to align their projects with, as Cassie mentioned, the urban design guidelines that we have, which are really meant to be sort of to set the table in terms of what the city is looking for as a community. And, you know, there's obviously the priorities of the individual development. It's really about sort of managing the two of those. So we've definitely heard your comments on terms of being able to sort of maybe When when is best to sort of interact with these projects, and I think we're continuing to sort of evaluate and refine that as. As Cassie mentioned, you know, sometimes if you catch it too early in the process, things can sort of substantially change or details that are sort of important materiality and other things can be sort of ill defined and. When you would get to a second meeting where you can comment on those, there's no opportunities, as you were sort of alluding to, is to sort of see what the end result of that is. So I think, you know, in dialogue with you, we can continue to consider that. But I think that so far, I'm really happy with the processes and the buildings that have gone through to date. I think it's been a really... interesting challenge because fundamentally the idea behind the AHO is to allow for larger developments to provide that affordable housing to make it pencil out and so it it asks a different question of what contextualism is it's not just about mimicking maybe size but about picking up on proportionality materials and other things but I think it's been a conversation that a lot of developers we've worked with have been really interested in as well and willing to work with us on

I think Jeff and Brian has covered most from the zoning and urban design side. One thing I would add is this evolution of the age of project review has been very interesting and very informative because there has been. Real constructive feedback and communication from the developers, which is quite refreshing, because the ultimate goal is to increase the amount of housing, which is a dire need in the city. So. WE STAFF, EVEN THOUGH IT CAN BE CONSIDERED ADVISORY, WE STILL PROVIDE A LOT OF GUIDANCE THROUGH THE BUILDING PERMIT AND THE OCCUPANCY PERMIT TO BE MINDFUL OF THE TIMELINE THEY ARE TRACKING AND ALSO THE BUILDING OCCUPANTS. WE DEFINITELY WANT TO SUPPORT THE COMPLETION OF THESE PROJECTS, TAKING INTO CONSIDERATION ALL THE EFFORT AND TIME THAT HAS GONE INTO THESE PROJECTS.

Well, I'm glad to hear that, you know, we're all learning from the process as it evolves, and we're going to learn a lot more. You know, I think, again, the upfront timing, you know, for the planning board is, you know, it's come up quite a bit, as I recall, over the various hearings. So, you know, I'm just thinking, like, I know a lot of the developers have websites that they put up once they, you know, start the community meeting process and things like that. And, you know, You know, sometimes you hear about them because it's a project that makes it into the newspaper. But other times, you know, you don't hear about the project until it's on the planning board agenda. So I'm just wondering if maybe there's a way of just kind of letting the board know kind of what is in the pipeline so we could just start digging around on some of these sites ourselves and, you know, just get a sense of how it's flowing and what some of the community feedback might be, you know. I'm not sure exactly how you do that in the context of open meeting law and all that sort of thing in terms of, you know, how we structure stuff on the agenda. But, you know, if we see things that way, you know, we might be able to provide some comments without the developer even coming to the board just based on what we're seeing on their site or hearing. So I don't have the answer. It's just a thought. And I would appreciate it if all of you would mull it over a little bit more and maybe we can collectively come up with A way that doesn't require the developer to go through extra steps, but maybe there's a way we can you know how to feed into or learn from the steps that proceed they're coming to us.

um chair if i may just provide a quick response to that um we do denote not really um just this planning board special permit projects that require early community engagement meetings um you know the monthly email that i share with you um to you know bring to your attention these projects are coming up um one of the links is exclusively for SUCH HO PROJECTS. AND IF YOU, YOU KNOW, CLICK ON, IF IT'S ADDITIONALLY HELPFUL, WE CAN SHARE AS THESE COMMUNITY MEETINGS ARE GETTING ESTABLISHED OR SCHEDULED. IF THE PROJECT HAS A WEB PAGE, WE CAN DEFINITELY SHARE THAT INFORMATION WITH PLANNING BOARD. AND YOU RAISED THE POINT ABOUT, YOU KNOW, HOW THE PLANNING BOARD CAN PROVIDE FEEDBACK. we basically say you reach back out to the staff directly and then we can provide additional information and as long as we are mindful of you know the open meeting law requirements uh we can definitely bring those websites to your attention terrific yeah and thank you for reminding me about those those links because i often don't pay any attention to them so it's a good reminder um all right any other

Questions, thoughts? No, okay. Well, again, thank you. Not just for the report, but for all of the great work you all do you know, coming out with an end result, like we see in this five-year report, it's really, uh, it's, you know, it shows that you guys do really terrific work and, and we appreciate it very, very much. You're doing a lot for the city and, um, it's, you know, it's again, one of those things that makes me proud to live here is that the kind of work and the product that you guys, that you folks can come up with. So with obviously a lot of input from that development community, but well done. Um, With all of that, then is there a motion to conclude the discussion on this item?

Yes, Ted's approved.

Thank you, Ted. Is there a second? Ashley, second. Thank you, Ashley. And Jeff, could we have a roll call vote, please?

On that motion, Ted Cohen. Yes. Mary Lidecker?

Yes.

Diego Macias? Yes. Ashley Tan?

Yes.

Carolyn Zurn?

Yes.

Mary Flynn?

Yes.

All six members present voting in favor.

Terrific. Thanks to all of you for coming this evening and for the report and the presentation. We really appreciate it. Thank you very much. So with that, I think we've concluded the business on our agenda. Does staff have any additional comments for us?

We'll see you again in two weeks.

Two weeks. Okay, very good. Board members, anything you'd like to add before we adjourn? Okay, seeing no one, we are adjourned then. Thank you all very much. Enjoy the next two weeks and we'll see you again.