City Council - Regular Meeting

testing check. Check.

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Alicia, we just wanted to coordinate with

Special joint meeting Medford City Council and Community Development Board May 13, 2026 is called to order. Mr. Clerk, can you please call the role for the city council? Councelor Kelly. Council Lemming present. Council me. Council Scott Pell present. Council Singh present. Vice President Lazaro. Vice President Lazaro is absent. President Beers.

Six present, one absent. Mr. Clerk, can you please call the role for the Community Development Board? John Anderson Sean Vegan. Paige Baldini present.

Dena Collierro. Ari Goffman Fisherman present. And Cherkar present.

Right. six present, none absent for the community development board. The meeting is called to order. Um, thank you everyone for being here tonight. We are kicking off our discussion of the Boston Avenue um corridor, neighborhood corridor district zoning. tonight uh in joint meetings. We've had uh several planning and permitting committee meetings um as well as reviewing the calendar for this process at our last joint meeting where we have come up with a draft of the Boston Avenue corridor. There's also um two maps which are attached to that agenda online um so folks can see the areas we're discussing tenatively. There's a Boston Avenue corridor upper hillside which runs from about um Nick's House of Pizza and Winthre Street to the Walkland Court, Whole Foods um and 200 Boston Avenue building. There's some residential areas in between that that aren't included. Um and then there's a Boston Avenue corridor south um area which includes some of the intersection of Harvard Street, Boston Avenue, Warner Street um and goes down Boston Avenue a bit towards Ball Square. So that's the scope of that discussion. Um the paper is 26093 offered by councelor Lemming and myself. um proposed amendments to the Medford zoning ordinance for the Boston Avenue neighborhood corridor district. And this is for referral to the community development board. So tonight um the city council would be voting to refer the draft before us to the community development board. Um the purpose of this meeting is to have a discussion um after a presentation from our planning, development and sustainability team and our in associates consultants or in land strategies group consultants um on how

we got to this point with the proposal. Once we've had uh that presentation and any initial questions or thoughts from members of the city council and community development board, we will then hear from uh any members of the public who would like to speak. I want to note that this is not the public hearing on the matter. The public hearing is going to come very likely on June 3rd. Um it was initially advertised in our previous schedule or discussed in our previous schedule for May 27th. uh at that on that day um there will most likely be a procedural vote just to have the public hearing Wednesday, June 3rd, um likely at 700 p.m. So that will be the opportunity uh for members of the public who want to make state their uh opinions uh on the public record. Um, at that point there will potentially be a a revised draft based on the discussions at tonight's meeting and the discussions at um a there's going to be a public information session on June 1st. So it would be June 3rd as the public hearing. You're welcome to speak tonight. Um but official comments as part of the record would be stated at the public hearing on June 3rd. So, just want to make that clear for everybody uh who's in attendance tonight. After we've gone through the Boston Avenue neighborhood corridor district, um we might have a a discussion again on the TUS institutional zone. The TUS institutional zone at this point, we are likely to take a a good chunk of time to get it right. Um not looking to approve the TUS portion of this before June 30th. um and not over the summer either. So we would I think the goal is to have some draft language for the TUS institutional zone and that's essentially the zone that would cover the properties owned by TUS

trustees of TUS college the campus and campus very near campus areas of TUS um have some sort of initial draft or or or version of that um but not be looking to try to approve that by the end of June and coming back and uh having further discussions. in the fall to make sure that we have the right structure and form for our TUS institutional zone. I think that's a fair summary. I've talked for quite a bit now um of what we're doing here tonight. Um if there's any questions from counselors or community development board members about the schedule and timeline or if Chair Carr, you would like to add anything at this time of just about the schedule and timeline. Um, we'll do that and then we will get into the Boston Avenue Neighborhood Corridor District presentation.

U, thank you, President Bears. Uh, I don't have much to add other than this is, uh, again, this is not a public hearing, so we any comments that are coming tonight really need to be repeated at the public hearing on June 3rd. And we're going to be asking questions, but we're not making any any suggestions tonight for any changes to the zoning, whether it's boundaries or anything. We're just going to be um understanding what's being presented. Give us some time to digest it. I think it's important that we have this as early as possible, which is tonight. Uh so that we can think about it and bring some some hard comments, you know, some some uh important changes to the next meeting, the first public hearing. So with that, I'll turn it back to you, President Bears.

Thank you. Do we have any further questions or comments on the schedule timeline? Uh, Dina, let me could you could you turn on your just hit the I just need to I don't know what mic you're s There we go. Just a point of clarification. June 1st is a public meeting. It's an information session. And where will that be? I actually am not 100% sure on the location. Do we have a final location? Director Hunt, I do believe that we have confirmed Breed Hall at Tops. I think that's the the name of it. It's the one on the corner of Winthrop in Boston. A breed breed memorial hall. Breed memorial hall. Former church. Yeah. Oh, the church on the

Yes, the former church. We've confirmed that location at TUS and it will be live streamed. We've confirmed that with Medford Community Media as well. June 1st. Okay. Very good. Thank you. Thanks. And again, that's a public information session. Information. There won't be more any decisions at that. Um the next the public hearing for this will be June 3rd. All right. Um, see no further questions from members of the council or members of the community development board. I'll recognize uh director of planning, development, sustainability, Alicia Hunt, and the team at the table.

Good evening, Mr. Chair, Mr. President. Um, with us tonight is Pa Pao Ra Ramos from Inis Land Consulting Strategies Group. Sorry. Um, and she will be presenting the Boston AB zoning to you this evening and she will be sharing her screen with the presentation. All right. Thank you, Paula. And do we have any copies out there? Sorry. I paper copies. Yeah, I gave the draft to everyone. You can take mine. Um, there are some over there as well

and the maps as well. There might be in that table some extra Great. Go ahead Paula

through the chair. Thank you. Um so yes I am PA Ramos Martinez. Um so we will presenting the Boston Avenue uh corridor. Um since it's the first time that we are showing that I we have some parts of the facing here. We already discussed them. Um we are now in the joint hearing. We had some previous planning and permitting committee meeting. Um those the first one and the second were more to establish the boundaries. Uh they are a bit different than what we were looking um last year. Um so it's basically we started with the same boundaries and then took the residential areas out. We did some non-conforming analysis to make sure that all of that uh made sense and we came um with a boundary that I will be showing in a in a few seconds. Um and then in the next um we had a public meeting uh the 30th of uh April um where we got some feedback from the community um especially during about the boundaries uh and about some of the what type of uses they wanted to um have in the area. Um and so we got some uh very valuable information. And in the last uh planning and permitting committee meeting uh the 5th of May, we presented the first draft. Um we got some comments from the counselors and city staff and what we are presenting today is that initial draft with the changes. So we started from last year with the Boston Avenue corridor. Uh these were the initial boundaries that we see in here. Um we have these two areas. One is the Boston Avenue corridor and the second were the Met Medford Tubs. We are

going to be looking today at Boston Avenue. Um so sorry in here what we see is the existing zoning that we have. So we have some uh commercial one, apartment one, general residential office 2, especially this in the northern area in here. We also have some overlay district. Um and then in the south uh of Boston Avenue we have industrial general residential and some commercial towards um uh broadway.

Broadway yes land use we see a lot of mix. It's um where we have the commercial and the office we do have commercial use and then we have different intensities of residential where we have the apartment one area we do have more density and along Boston Avenue some more intense residential but we will be not looking that at this moment we will be looking more at the commercial and apartment areas um and in the south as well We have uh there's a the the religious uh use some um commercial industrial and then some apartments. So after different discussions with um the city with the planning and permitting committee meeting and the city staff we established uh that new proposed boundary and is the one you see in the green line. Um and these are the proposed districts that we have um at the moment which is uh Boston Avenue. You're going to see BA1, BA2 and BA3. Those are depending on the intensity. Um the higher the number the in more intense the the mixed use district. Um so as you can see in here we have the Boston Avenue 1 which is a mix um district mixeduse district. Um and what you see is that the character of the area we have very small lots um for a commercial um and not very deep. So what we had in mind is to have a mix use that is the least intense and this is going to do with some of the uses but also the the height and certain

dimensional standards that we would allow. Um and then the bigger lots we see very different footprints from the buildings. Uh so giving us a complete different character than from the southern the the bluish part. Um in the north we see um the possibility for having a higher intensity uh uses and that is why is established that uh Boston Avenue 3. In any case we will uh see what uh what are the uses and what is the the dimensionalist standards. Um the south part as um this is the south part of Boston uh Avenue. Again we have these uh green area and that is the new proposed boundary. uh the residential districts were uh cut off from the previous um boundary and also the part that is more connected to the towards Broadway Avenue that will be also looked into the next um corridor. Uh so those were the ideas of why it is reduced to the point that we have uh right now. So here we have the existing current zoning outside the green boundary. We see that general residential and that's mainly residential housing uh one and two units. We have industrial at the end uh towards Broadway um some commercial one as well. uh where we have ball square um and then inside the boundary what we have is proposed that um medium intensity mix use that's the Boston Avenue 2 we already have some uh residential and some um mixed use uh

that are right now this is a five-story building fourstory building so we are kind of keeping that intensity so um The subd districts that we are proposing for the northern side, the hillside uh of the Boston Avenue is the Boston Avenue one and the Boston Avenue 3. The Boston Avenue 1 is that blue that you see in the map and is that transition towards the neighborhoods and the area that has that smaller and not very deep lots. And then in Boston Avenue 3 is the um hillside area near the river where we have this bigger lots, bigger footprint uh buildings. um the BA2 so the Boston Avenue 2 this is the south Boston Avenue and is that mid intensity so for the residential um uses uh so we have given the draft and it has the complete table of use I do have it and I can share it um at the end if you have any other questions I'm just going to go through those um where are the uses that are different in each of these three different districts? What is the difference and what are the things that changed from the last time? Um so Boston in attach unit one dwelling row house uh it will only be allowed in Boston Avenue 1. Um so mainly the lower intensity residential uses like a duplex, triplex, multiplex, those will be allowed in the Boston Avenue 1. They won't be allowed in Boston Avenue 2 or three and this is for discussion. Um the multiple dwelling more than six units will be allowed in all of them. uh dormatory, fraternity or

sorority house. Uh it's allowed in BA3 uh with a special permit through the uh community development board. Uh co-ousing will be allowed in all of the three and townhouse is allowed only in the BA1. Um there were some questions from the public last time about the different uh definitions that we have for dormatory co-housing um and and all the different types of residential that we have. So we have brought those ones as well into the draft so that we can have a discussion if there needs to be any changes to those. Um we will be looking at it later but I just wanted to make that clear that was asked and we have that um for the office and commercial uses um we have bank and other financial institution as a special permit in the three of them neighborhood medical this is a small scale medical uh office we have yes in the three of them medical office these are bigger scale is a special permit in BA1 and and it's permitted in BA3 as well as clinic um drive-thru retail sales and consumer service. So this was one thing that it has changed from the previous uh draft is a no in uh BA1 BA2 and BA3 is only allowed for um the pharmacy. Uh so it's drive-thru only for pharmacy and it's it has to go through special permit and it has some use standards. Um it in place with drive-thru uh this is a no in three of them. This is also a change. Um and motor vehicle light service station is also a change is a no in all of the three.

In industrial we have printing and publishing no in BA1 but yes in BA 2 and three. research testing laboratory yes in the three of them life science facility no in BA1 and yes in BA 2 and BA3 we also have um the definitions for research and life science there is a little bit of overlap so we can discuss if we want to bring uh new definitions and then for accessory uses uh accessory drilling units BA1 is yes because um we allow the lower intensity uses and so they could have an ADU and for the rest because we don't allow those lower intensity is a no. Family daycare home large is yes in all of them. Non-commercial greenhouse tool shed or similar accessory structure say yes in BA1 2 and not in three. Um and Kino is a city council. Um and this is one of the uses that um we are thinking if it should go as a different ordinance and not in zoning. Um so the different definitions that we brought is uh co-housing there was a co-l livingiving that then we last year we took out but we just wanted to bring it in in case we want to understand better those differences. Um we have the existing dormatory this was not updated so to discuss if this needs to be updated fraternity or sorority house and lodging house. So I'm going to read them um so we have time to discuss all of them. Um so co-ousing is a group of buildings in common ownership which include a combination of single unit, two unit or multi-unit buildings and one or more buildings with shared living spaces such as common room, library, dining room, kitchen etc.

Co-living is a building in which a group of residents pay rent to occupy a single unit with private bedrooms and shared living spaces including cooking and sanitary facilities. Such residents have input over the selection of the other residents living in the housing unit. Um this at the moment the one in blue co-l livingiving is not in your zoning. Um so just to if we want to include it or not dormatory um as your as per your uh existing definition any dwelling other than a sorority or fraternity house owned or controlled by an educational institution and occupied primarily as a place of temporary residence for persons who are employed or enrolled at the educational institution. Fraternity or sorority house. A dormatory in which during the academic year membership in fraternity or sorority is required as a condition to residence. lodging house. A dwelling in which living space without individual kitchens and with or without kitchen privileges is designed occupied or intended for occupancy by or led for conversation to five or more lodgers including a rooming house or boarding house but not including a senior housing facility, hotel or motel, dormatory, fraternity or sorority house or other building of an institutional or educational use. Um so we can come back to this one. Um and I know that there are some questions about dormatory. So I we just wanted to bring the definitions in. The other definitions to review uh that are not housing related is the life science facility. Um it's a facility for study testing and development of products or services related to chemicals, drugs or biological matter and research and testing laboratory. Those facilities used primarily for research development or and or testing

of innovative information concepts, methods, processes, materials or products. This can include the design, development and testing of biological, chemical, electrical, magnetic, mechanical and or optical components in advance of product manufacturing. The accessory development, fabrication and light manufacturing of prototypes or specialized mach machinery and devices integral to research or testing may be associated with these uses but excluding laboratories categorized as level three or four by the national institutes for health. So there are some um life science that could be included in the research and testing lab. sometimes uh as a marketing strategies life science is placed in a different position and that's why it's a lot of the times separated in a lot of the zonings um but just to if we wanted to rethink about this so then we go into the um the purpose um so the purpose of the Boston Avenue neighborhood corridor district is to allow a mix of uses including residential multif family and commercial to meet the following needs wider variety of uses and building types to support jobs and economic development near established residential neighborhoods providing options for living within uh walking distance of jobs, goods and services. Fluid transitions to and from the Chops University campus to allow integral approach to living, working, and learning along uh Boston Avenue from the Somerville line north of the Southern Street to the Somerville border at Ball Square. mixeduse, multif family and commercial uses at a density to reinforce non-vehicular travel between the adjacent neighborhoods to the jobs, goods and services within the um B uh Boston Avenue neighborhood corridor district development standards to provide landscape and hide buffers from the new construction within the Boston Avenue

neighborhood com uh corridor district for the existing abuing neighborhoods. Um and then we go into the dimensional standards. We start with height. Um so we have the maximum height. I just want to remember what is the base height and the incentive. So the base height is your by right um height. And then if you want to get those incentive stories, that incentive height, there is a public benefit uh list that if the developer uh goes through some of those um public benefits, then they could build uh up to whatever the height depending on the district. Um so this public benefits has attached a not a um not point system but they already tell you how uh if it's half floor or one floor and if you have those you can um get your extra height but the base height by right um your byite height will be the base height and so for the Boston Avenue one that will be in stories three feet uh for Boston Avenue 2 that will be four um 50 feet and for your Boston Avenue three that will be six. So what you have in the map the blue one could go up to three the green one in Boston south can go up to four and then the um orange in the hillside north side can go up to six. Now if you have the maximum incentive then we could have Boston Avenue could add one giving up to four. Boston Avenue 2 could go three more so

up to seven and Boston Avenue 3 it could go up to eight. Um then we have for the lot area um we have the minimum lot size lot area will be 33,000 for Boston Avenue 1 and two and Boston Avenue 3 5,000 frontage uh Boston Avenue 1 is 30 Boston Avenue 2 is 40 and Boston Avenue 3 is 40 facad buildout minimum because we have um in Boston Avenue 1 we also have the lower um intensity for resident ial so duplex and triplex um we lowered uh to 60% uh the facade buildout and then for the other ones uh we don't have this we go up to 80% um active ground floor is 75% historic conversion maximum historical conversion can be done in all of them um setbacks front setback is zero up to 20 if uh it is um activated. Then we have side and rear as zero minimum. Um building coverage is 80 uh% in BA 1 and two and up to 90% in BA3. This could go higher if they go um but then they have to go through green score um they have to do that mandatory. So green score minimum 25 uh and ideal 30 and previous surface is if they don't do green score um then they have to do the previous surface which is 20% BA1 and two and 10% for BA3 and open landscape

minimum is 15% BA 1 and two and 10% BA3 so then um for the additional dimensional standards and development ment standards. Um it's mainly uh from Medford Square. We brought that into Boston Avenue. Uh so the sidewalk with uh is the same. We talked about uh going a little bit um lower on the Boston Avenue since um we the existing sidewalk is not a lot. I think it's 6 to8 um and the lots are not very wide. So where there is no possibility um we might lower that uh stepbacks ground floor active frontage um there are no proposed changes into the high transition to adjacent residential residential districts. This is again um brought in here um multi-buildings in the lots that's is again in here um same waiverss as we had in Medford Square um for height for step back and for setback and then for historic buildings um the use standards um we have the use standard for historic conversion um we will have to bring the US standards for drive-thru for pharmacy. Uh it's not still on the draft. We want to discuss that before bringing it here with the city staff. Uh so that is still uh pending. Um and then we already had the discussion with the uh planning commission but we also wanted to bring it in uh again. So the incentives, we don't have any modifications at the moment, but if you're thinking any modifications, we can include them.

Development standards as well. We don't have any current proposed changes. So the ones that apply in Medford Square are still applying here. And parking reductions is the same um reductions and um and yeah, the same draft that was in Metford Square is in here. And before we go to anywhere else, um I would like to hear from all of you. Pella, could we stop the share for a minute? Or maybe we might need to go back to it to reference for questions.

Uh I was just asking Paula to stop the sharing. All right. Um All right. So, we've heard the presentation from PA and now we can go to any initial questions first from members of the city council. I know that we have had a couple chances to look at this already and ask some questions. Um, any questions for members of the city council? Uh, councelor Callahan. Oh, for some reason it's not on. Try to plug the

There you go.

Thank you. Okay. Um, so I have a couple of questions. One is one which I know director Hunt and Emily Andis and I discussed a long time ago. Um, so I think that's why I'm Oh, being reminded now. Um, and my question was, so we had removed co-living because it didn't seem to add anything. It's simply a rental apartment. There's really no reason for it to be in there. But the reason why we originally talked about it was to make a distinction between a lodging house, which is where the landlord selects people who are living in the same apartment or same unit together and people who choose to live in the same unit together because they're friends or, you know, they have something in common. Um, so seeing that lodging house is anything more than four people but it doesn't say anything about whether those people are choosing to live together like I forgot that if we I I don't I think I didn't realize that when we remove the co-living then suddenly anyone any five roommates suddenly become a lodging house. So I'm curious about that because I don't think that was our intention. I think the purpose of like discussing the co-living situation was to differentiate between these things and to sort of make it so that we could allow people who wanted to sort of live. I mean we have a lot of we have houses with five six bedrooms. We have a lot of professional young professionals who are trying to you know be able to afford to live here. And with our housing crunch, I think we want people to be able to live together if they live together well. But also the idea that we maybe want to discourage lodging houses, which means the landlord is just selecting people and forcing them to live in the same unit together. So that's my first question. My second

question um is just about the difference between yes the difference between the pvious service minimum of 20% and the open space landscape minimum of 15%. If you could just go into a little bit of detail about the difference between those two. Thanks. Okay. Um yeah, so we were going through it um with Emily about the first question and so the when we saw co housing we had the co-l livingiving we brought the co-l livingiving again and co-ousing was not really able to substitute the co-living because it's more of a multiple houses multiple buildings.

Correct. Um so that's why we said maybe we should bring it back. So I think that that we will have that discussion again and see now what he said um about the lodging co-l livingiving the problem was that for when we were looking this last year it was very confusing for everyone because that was like smaller details uh and so people were always asking what is the co-l livingiving why do we have that is that a boarding house Yeah, but I think that we can give another round and I mean I think I was part of that discussion and I think I agree that having a definition for co-l livingiving it just was not helpful.

So I don't think that we need a definition for co-l livingiving but I think is once you say like any five friends who want to live together suddenly they're a lobbing house like I'm not sure that that was the intent. Okay. So we can review that one. Yeah.

Okay. And yeah, can can we just comment on that because one of the things I think we need to do is to to involve like the building commissioner and how this is interpreted and the difficulty here is that building commissioners change as we are all aware. So you really do need language here that the reasonable person who is the building commissioner um as that person changes interprets the same way because one of the things that we have seen that we're not loving is what I think is a traditional lodging house where there are eight bedrooms each with its own attached bathroom and they each have a lock on the door and they have one living room and kitchen and it maybe does present as a house but Those are you typically rented to like seven or eight people separately who are all living individually and some people will you know that is a less expensive way of doing it. It also like over time can be problematic as opposed to you have a large house where you as a group of people have made a choice to live together. You don't lock your bedroom doors because you're choosing to live with these people. You may or may not housekeep together. You may or may not have like often in a group like that might have a shared meal once a week or something maybe, but that would be their choice. And one of the things we did during the recottification, which predates it, everybody on the council except for Zach and Councelor Bears and all of the CD board, this they um sorry,

councelor Sang was here for the recontification. Thank you. um was that we took out the definitions of family because and this is where the and I just share this because it has evolved over time and when you process that we're taking out the definition of family and we're saying you decide what a family is. We're not deciding for you. It literally used to say like husband and wife and children and um aunts and uncles but no further relation than that. like it literally spelled that out which was really problematic. Um and what we said was what we really cared about was the crowding that if this became an unsafe living condition then the board of health would go in as a crowding situation. And if you have 10 people who are choosing to happily live here and this house is big enough and you're not having crowding issues that trigger the board of health, good for you, right? But how do we do that? And I think there is actually a choice there. Do we care? And we have seen built in the last six years in Medford houses with five to eight bedrooms with each bedroom having an attached bathroom and they are being separately leased to individuals. And there was like sort of no way to say that's not allowed, that's a lodging house. How does that become a lodging house? Is it? And is it therefore actually not allowed under our zoning um as opposed to it just being a single family house? And I think that's but it's a question. I I did have somebody who was very low income come to me and say, "But Alicia, I could afford to live in Redford because I can rent one room in a house like that without kitchen privileges and now I can afford to live here." And so are we literally just discriminating against poor people? And you say if in fact there are problems then the police get called, right? like it's you know if there's a problem just like if you have a regular house and you have a husband and wife

and they get violent and the police get called right like that happens um so I think that's part of what we need to think about when we think about these and in modern today what should be here and I thank you for for raising it because it had kind of we had come at it as we're being really progressive and now I realize that maybe we're we haven't so

I think having the definition is great. Um, and I think having it allowed in certain zones is also fine. Um, but I I just wanted to raise this like it seems like from this definition any five people who want to live together are suddenly a lodging house and they won't be allowed in most of the city. Um, the other thing I do want to raise is that, um, I think there are landlords who rent out individual bedrooms and have people who don't know each other living together and those people may not actually realize that that's what it is because they're renting from afar before coming. So I think having something and maybe this is more of a policy that we could pass as a city council that if you are a lodging house that you have to disclose that in your application those kinds of things that it's a it's not a zoning question but I think it helps to have a clear definition of lodging house that includes something about the residents not having this that we removed from the co-living residents have input over the selection of the other residents living in the unit like I think that's an important piece of it that to me differenti the difference between a lodging house and you know

friends living together

and what I don't know and I think maybe we should look into is what are we allowed to do in terms of regulating leases right like saying this is a lease one lease for the whole unit with individual names on it that can get added and removed versus separate leases and people don't see what each other's leases say. Right? So, if you have a joint lease with four names on it and four signatures on the bottom, then you all know each other's terms. And I guess it is possible, right, that he could lease this unit with these terms and that li unit with that those terms and you don't know the terms the other people have. That makes me nervous. But is that what is our legal right or obligation to get involved in that? I don't know. I think we need to consult legal on something like that.

So, thanks. We'll just make a note. Christian, write it down, please. And I think that we should that my office should reach out to legal and ask them this question, have a conversation.

Before we jump into the You had a question about open space and permeable. Um, I think another thing to think about here is how zoning regulates structures and uses and like one of the main ways, right? Right. We do not have a rental registry. And so we do not know when whatever for whatever purpose someone may be renting a property what category does that fall into because you know they do not have to register with the city and say you know I'm renting a two family to a family and that accounts for one type of rental or I'm renting 20 rooms you know for two month three month four month terms and and that's a and that's a lodging house right like those are significantly um significantly different purposes. And I think the other thing that's important to recognize here is um that we don't have like there's one thing like when we're talking about zoning, if someone wants to build a lodging house, that's something that's going to go through a a zoning process. If someone is, you know, taking a building that 50 years ago was used as a lodging house and then was used as a as a single family or a two family for some time and it's not, you know, I I don't know exactly what the specific cases of it are, but like the city's not even interacting with that necessarily. That might just be a private interaction between a property owner who's writing up leases to somebody and the city's not engaged with that because we don't know that it's happening. Um, so I think it goes back to kind of

what can you do with zoning when even if you change the zoning to does private to private party, you know, contract even be when does the city even become aware of it? And like then what outside of zoning is the city's process for tracking and and registering and applying some sort of permitting or regulation process to lodging or um rentals, right? And I think those are kind of like that whole thing I think is actually a separate in some ways conversation from zoning. I think there's probably a zoning interaction if you're changing a use maybe or certainly if you're trying to build a new structure. Um but to me like some of these questions are actually not about like are not zoning questions. They're permitting and registration and questions. So I think that's just an important thing to put out there. um because it might be something that's separate from this discussion and and yeah and just back to one other thing just to add one other thing quickly um you know there's been a lot of literature review and and study more recently about how the decline of the boarding house lodging house model um in addition to the decline of any sort of state and institutional support um has led to increases in the number of unhoused people going back to the point that Alicia was talking about which is you don't have really many options at the low end of I can rent a room outside of like a YMCA um where there used to be more of those. So I will share that I'll um look into the ones that we were aware of two houses that were designed and built like this in Fulton Heights over the last five years. And I I'm going to I'll ask around in the city and see if anything ever came of it. Um, people were really nervous when they were built and there was some concern honestly about parking about the fact that they would have a lot of cars at those properties and what would happen. Um, and the other concern

was from neighbors was that they wouldn't be wellmaintained. Um, so I can ask and find out if anything has come of those. Um, and the other thing that, and I don't not sure how this all would play into it, but a landlord actually needs to disclose to his insurance company what's going whether it's a a uh a lodging house or whatever so that he's properly insured in the case of any kind of fire or event. Um, but I don't think the city would have any insight into the whether that's happening, right? We might find out after the fact, but we wouldn't know. And I just I'm going to throw in the fun fact is that when I was in college, the joke in Massachusetts wasn't a joke that more than five women living together was legally a brothel because the blue laws were still in place. I haven't looked to see if it's still there. Um, but we used to laugh about the fact that technically the sorority houses and some of the larger apartments were brothel

and and when we were doing when we were doing the recottification and I neglected to mention councelor Scarpelli as well um, of course being here but um, court decisions struck down the ability of cities to regulate like what types of people can live together based on like blood or f like that is not a legal that we cannot do that. So, um that's why it's not in the zoning ordinance. In addition to many other good logical reasons, it's also illegal.

We also I I feel like I just want to flag I think this is not an issue that we can solve just here in Boston AB zoning that but I'd like us to flag it and look at it. Um we have a number of interns also starting next week. So having them do some research on how this is being handled in other communities in Massachusetts is a wonderful summer project for uh one of our interns to look at and that this definition is a defi these definitions are for the whole zoning. Um, and so rather than trying to rush through and fix it with the rest of the zoning, what I'd like to suggest is we may or may not change something with this, but that we should do some further research and that expect that when we come back in the fall, um, we'll have more de depth of information to review for this.

Yeah. Just one last thing I do think it exposes a larger problem and question which is what is the city's regulatory framework when it comes to the rental of units in any way and the fact you know as we said two years ago the city does not have a registry with information to know what's being rented to and for what purpose and you know again that got caught up in a lot of other discussions and kind of turned in in a certain direction but I think that's like a problem that we actually do want to solve because you know for some folks That feels scary. I get that. But there's a lot of things that are going on where having more information would benefit the the city and understanding a what's happening in the city and are our our laws are both our zoning and our regular, you know, ordinances actually even reflecting what's happening in the city and giving us the ability to to control for it. So

here here just uh you had another question about the difference between the open space and the permeable.

Yes. So the permeable surface is when the green score does not apply then we will be looking into the dimensional standards that will apply would be permeable surface and open space landscape. Um the idea is that there is a minimum of permeable and that can be uh just um pvious surface so like parking uh surface asphalt or any kind of pvious material and then we want to make sure that there is a percentage that is also green and vegetation and trees and so that is the minimum uh open space landscape. So you can complete you can count the open space landscape as permable. Um so that 15% can be count with within your permeable and then you can add that extra 5% with perview surface and then you're fine.

Great. Thank you. I'll go to councelor Sang and then counselor melain and then I think that's all the counselors who have questions right now. Councelor S.

Hi there. Thank you so much for your work on this. Um it's uh I think you can see that a lot of thought has been put into it. Um and um it means a lot to me because Boston A is one of those corridors that I've personally spent a lot of time in. Um I've lived close to it. Um and you just see how much potential there is with um how close it is to the Green Line. um the um connection to the TUS campus, uh the residences around there, the kind of community feel around there as well. Um and I think looking at it, everyone can see that um our current zoning hasn't given it the room. Uh it needs to become what it could be. So I think that this proposal is a really positive uh step forward for that. Um, and I I really appreciate that this builds on the work that we've already done. I was comparing this to the other um zoning reforms that we've passed um and with the um with the structure with the incentive bonuses and um ground force standards and all of that. Um I think it lines it's very consistent. It lines up. Um, and where it where it is different, I think it's really positive. Like it it makes sense for that neighborhood. Um, especially with the kind of um more kind of room for economic development and um accessory dwelling units. I think that's really positive. Um, I just had a a pretty simple question about um the things that were flagged as open questions in the document itself. I saw that um there's still notes about the distance thresholds for parking reductions, parking as a princip um as a principal use location um pharmacy drive-thru standards. I know

you talked a little bit about the pharmacy drive-thru um and of course we talked about definitions tonight as well. I just kind of wanted an update as to where we are on those pieces that are still flagged. Yeah. So, we had some comments on the draft. Uh, some of them were already discussed uh last time on the planning uh committee um in the previous planning committee. Um and there are some that are still that we still need to work it and talk to uh city staff with director Hunt and uh Evans. So to see if what we want to propose makes sense or not. So we need just a little bit more time with those use standards. We just want to make sure um and this also came from the city um that the use the the drive-thru would have enough space so that it it wouldn't uh back into the street and create traffic issues. So, we want to make sure that the drive-thru in that area um has standards uh that use has standards so that we make sure that they work and don't create any uh unwanted problems. Do you want to say anything more? Um and then the definitions is something that we wanted first to confirm. So I think that we will continue to work on them not for the Boston Avenue if that is the decision. Um there are some distance from the green line stations uh that we were talking about uh for the shared parking. We were talking about 750 feet from um the

the the one of the area. So we have some parking that is offsite. So, how long that distance should be. Um, and we have 750 for residential uses, thousand for uh nonresidential. We just wanted to make sure that those are still okay. Um, there are some So, we have right now the um Medford Tubs and then we have the West Medford um the the the the station train station. So, we just wanted to make sure that there is a little area where the half a mile it's not really um it it's outside those two circles. Let's say we had a half a mile circle for the metro tubs and half a mile circle from the uh train station. Um there are areas that are not covered. So, if we continue with that 0.8 reduction for residential, that is why that's the discussed distance from green line stations. Um it's really it's just a little bit so we can u maybe include them or if we want to do any kind of distinction and make sure in the reductions for parking that that is uh also uh taken into account and I think that those were mainly the comments that we had.

All right any further questions counselor Singh? All right, we'll go to Council Me.

Uh, thank you very much and certainly I can see a lot of the work that's happened since the last planning and permitting committee meeting. So, thank you all for that. Um, I just had going back to the definitions and the table because I know we had some back and forth around the different definitions for the housing. Um, looking at the amended document you gave us on um, page five under the residential uses, we are kind of still putting uh, dormatory, fraternity, or sorority house all under the same line. And I was curious if since we're keeping those as two different types of um, uh, definitions on page 15 between dormatory and fraternity or sorority house, did we want to separate that again in the table? And do we still want to keep it um uh for each of the different areas? No. No. And then CDB for for both of those. And I guess my other question was I know there was conversation about what the definition was specifically for the fraternity or sorority house. I don't know if this was the determined or the finalized one that you had in there. Um the dormatory in which uh during the academic year membership uh in a fraternity or sorority is required as a condition to residence. Um and is that sority house usually maintained or owned by the sorority or fraternity themselves or is it by uh the educational institution? And then my last question um was on page 15. I know there was a couple of question marks at the top of the page of um different definitions. And number two for the animal shelter, small animal rescue, it says small animal boarding, not dogs. And as a dog owner and have two small dogs, it would probably fit into the small animal category. I was just curious what exactly that definition was um to see if uh there

were still some options for my dogs or anyone else's. Sorry, I was uh just consulting with Danielle. Um Danielle and I both have direct experience managing sorority houses. Actually, we've both been frater,

in my case, they're they're called fraternity house corps presidents because it was a woman's fraternity. Um so we've both done that for different national organizations in the Boston area. Um, so I can say explicitly that the house is not always owned by the university. Um, that it is often in some cases owned by the um, national organization.

Um, but what we would recommend including in here is the language. Sorry. So that's why we thought it should not say owned by the university. However, it should say membership in a fraternity or sorority recognized by a local university because if a s if a university pulls its recognition of an organization like that, then we probably don't want them to continue to live as a group in a house in our community because that's the kind of reason why the the university would pull other than say Harvard who has just sort of drecognized them all blanketly. Um, so that's but we wouldn't have a Harvard organization here. Um, so that's sort of why we were recommending that language and No. Right. So I answered your question. They're not owned by the university always, but they are sometimes.

Sometimes. Yeah. No, I think that would be helpful because I know I um went to a university where they did have to actually pull some of those. So it is good to know to have something in there so we have who's has ownership or who's going to step in if that's no longer recognized. So I I appreciate that. Yeah. I've been there when um you know different university will pull recognition the house is owned by the national right um in Boston where you have so many universities what might then happen is that the national organization would put a group one of their members groups from a different university into that property

um and then if they came back they might you know flip the house back between the the two universities or they might subleasase to another recognized organization um to use a house for a couple of years while they reorganize. And basically what happens is they'll usually remove all the members of that fraternity or sorority and then they'll reorganize four or five years later and then they would still own their house and want to reuse it. And we have some of them in the Somerville uh Medford area but they're not in Medford right now. They're all in Somerville. Okay. Anything you would add on that? I just think

and then I guess um director hunt does that mean we'd want to split that number seven to separate out dormatory from what's considered a fraternity? So in fact the rationale for is that if one was going to allow it the appropriate locations for fraternity or sorority house would be in the neighborhood close to the university. Sure. And often so you're aware they're often supervised by a board an alumni board who oversee what's happening. there's always a live-in person who lives in the building. Um, so there there are a lot of controls on them. And on the sorority side, as far as I'm aware, they're all dry. Are they still all dry?

Yeah. Um, whereas a dormatory might be more appropriate. Like if one was if somebody wanted to put another a dormatory over in the uh the MA, what are we calling a BA3 area? That's where we would want to see more tall buildings off the campus. the areas that we're see saying BA1, we're not sure that we would want to see a dormatory on those on those streets there. Sure. Yeah. No, I think that's fair. I wasn't, you know, adding more into it. I wasn't sure if you just want to distinguish between the two if they come through, but have it own, right? Each use should have a separate definition and each use that has its own definition should have a separate line in the table.

Yeah, that's always trying to change what you were already doing. These have all always been grouped in Medfords. Um, but because they have separate definitions, they should have separate lines. It's sort of like proper housekeeping, even if the the allowed yes and nos are all the same. Yeah. And I I just want to add I think

we had said last time we should look at this grouping of definitions and generally modernize it. Yeah. Um because I think even dormatory again we're having this discussion about what what is an onampus dormatory at TUS versus what does a privately managed student housing possibility look like versus fraternities and sororities are private but oversight by universities generally I think like just cleaning that whole thing up and having a clear structure is is valuable. Yeah, I would agree with that. I think that's definitely very helpful.

Right. and our current so the so conceptually there exists such things as private dormitories that are owned by another organization that leases rooms to students those exist in the world um whether or not we want to allow them but they are a thing so this definition of dormatory only allows them if they are owned or controlled by the educational institution and I I will have to say that my experience with them not owning by the institution are not in the Boston area. I'm aware of them frankly in uh Paris and in New Zealand when they are where they are owned by another entity and you might have students from different schools all living together, but there's and I I don't know if people do those in the US. I know we've had

uh proposals that we should allow student housing and that would a student housing be a dormatory. Um, under our current definition, a dormatory is owned by the educational institution. Okay. Yeah. And I still I mean, and I also think that it should go through the CDB as well when it comes through, however you separate it. I just wanted to make sure if they're distinct and different to have them labeled that way. And just I just want to reiterate, we're not planning to make changes for this version at the public the start of the public hearing, but we could come with a list of here's what we've already heard. Sure. As a separate document so that you're aware

and then just the dogs. Oh, sorry. I missed the dog question. I have a question. What is the question? Why they were specifically labeled as not So there was some discussion of and this is Do you want to speak? It was about the animal rescue, the small small animals. Oh, yeah. Do you want to talk about it at all? It's Is it Is this listed here? Oh, okay. Yeah, it's on page 15 at the top.

Let's see. I'm I'm looking at Danielle because she has some recent experience with small animal rescue, which is different from a veterary clinic. It's different from a dog kennel. So, I don't know if you want to. Yeah. Yeah. So, Alicia has outed me as a frequent flyer at the Guinea Pig Sanctuary lately. It's so cute. Anyone who's Facebook friends with me would see those. Um, but did but they are in Salsbury and they opened there because they were having trouble with zoning like where they were before and it's just like just a charming little place and should we be able to allow things like that here? Like we they're different from kennels. um like how do how would we handle that kind of use um like a an animal shelter or things like that.

Right. So there's been talk about doggy dayc carees. We were just sort of uh stating that there is a different kind of thing for small animals. It doesn't have barking dogs, right? Guinea pigs, you can't hear them from outside the building. And apparently there are organizations that are trying to put together shelters for these smaller animals and whether something like that should be considered and allowed under our zoning. So thanks. All right. Um thank you councelor Maline. Councelor Lem.

Thank you. Um I agree guinea pigs are very cute. My uh social media feeds have been showing me videos of them. But in terms of uh parking requirements, I had a question about that. So I think it's it's in my head it's it's a goal to make this area uh less reliant on cars just given that we have heard we've heard feedback about traffic and it's a area with uh with a lot of students in it. And what I'm what I'd like to know is what are the concrete policy options for that? Like I I feel like it'd be too simplistic to, you know, go through table A and just shave off. 2 units um like just shave off 2 in each of the uh minimum parking requirements there. But I would I would sort of like to know what uh like what what options to make this area less reliant on cars exist for less reliant on cars in Medford Square uh exist for us that we could choose between. So, one of the things that we were discussing is I was digging a little deeper into the Mystic TMA and I realized that we had put their basic membership as a requirement. And when we went to the website and we were refreshing ourselves on it to see sort of other ideas and exactly what was included, we realized that we actually wanted to be we were re we wanted to recommend that it's a higher level of membership that we require of buildings um in order to include the things we could break out some of the stuff that they do and ask that um it Hold on. I'm

gonna Google it and pull up the list. Mystic River TMA. Oh, it's Lower Mystic TMA. Um, if anybody wanted to see it, the URL is actually lower mystictma.com. Um, and if you look under for companies, uh, they have a descriptions and then they have, um, a table that talks about the different membership levels. Um, and under their assoc, it's the uh, partner level. Um they do uh ride matching trip planning, but then they also have an incentive program. They provide the emergency ride home program, a carpull subsidy, vanpull formation assistance. Those are all things that you would never ask a building to do for themselves. It's more of a regional thing. And so having a building be part of a group like a larger group that's doing these things is actually what makes sense. There are a fi few things that an individual building could do on their own like MBTA subsidies and blue bike subsidies, car share subsidies. Um, but it's more cost effective if they're part of an organization that is doing that and is managing it for them. The building managers don't want to start doing this themselves. So, this is an organization that is in fact providing it in this area. Wouldn't that require the city have a uh transportation demand management program in order to kind of work out with the TMA?

No. What we're suggesting is that we just require that any building um has to join a local TMA and the only local TMA in the area is the LO lower mystic TMA. Um so if we say you must join a transportation management association at the level of partner or higher um then these things and provide those services to your membership or to your uh residents then you've done it and it actually we could require it of larger commercial industrial buildings as well with employees um because these are also available to employees. It's not just for people who live there. Um I don't know that like MIT provides a lot of this to their um employees um just because they work there. Um for a while actually we had access to some of this through the city because the state was providing it. I'm not sure if that's still something that the city could even subscribe to, but like the city could be a member of the low lower mystic TMA and then provide these to their to their employees. So, you know, I'm trying to think of the name of a large business. TUS probably provides a lot of this to their employees already. I actually think they may be a member of the Lower Mystic TMA. Um, but I don't want to say that for certain. Um, but anyhow, we don't have to pass an ordinance or anything. We just put it in the zoning that if you want reduced parking, you must join the lower Mystic TMA or you must join a regional a TMA that services this area.

Okay. And sorry for just just one small followup. Is it is it are there any other cities that have that sort of requirement to join like a straight up minimal like a straight up requirement to join if they want red parking minimums because I like I I I fully agree that that's a that's a very that's a very good idea but my impression was that it was mainly done under under a uh TDM implementation right where it's incentivized instead of required. Sorry.

Right. So, um I know that Everett has an ordinance that requires it and actually um lower Mystic TMA has a level of membership that is specifically to meet the Everett ordinance. Um they actually have one that's called permitted and that has some additional stuff that they have to pay for the site plan assessment and site plan implementation. Um that's part of their permitted level of membership. Um, and in fact, Everett hired the lower mystic TMA to help them develop their ordinance. Um, I was just I have notes from when I met with them and I was just trying to see if I had the answers to any of your questions in that.

Yeah, the Everett Everett has a very sophisticated TDM program. I know there there's kind of like the the uh the model for a lot of surrounding communities. It's usually what the lower mystic TMA points to when they're giving examples of that. So, I found

right I found in my notes that TUS is not was not a member, at least not when we talked with them. Uh oh, is this really from April 2024, but it was a a conversation they were having at that time. But but in conclusion, apologies again for the back and forth. The recommendation would be offer reduced parking minimums um in return for reduce parking minimums on the condition that they join the TMA. So we definitely think that so part of this is a large portion of this area is so all the area that we are considering right now to be uh the level one is within a half mile of the tea and all the parts on the south Medford the south Boston a section are within a half mile of a tea stop. So technically under our current ordinance they would qualify for the 08 parking. The part that is definitely not is on the northern the orange the BA3 and the little little piece of BA1 is like two parcels outside of the half mile. Right? So the half mile radius ends about one or two parcels before that zone. And so it it would be our recommendation that requiring them to do that as well as the to join at the permitted level or not permitted the um partner level as well as um required bicycle parking and sufficient uh ride share drop off and package drop off area and a sufficiently large frankly package room. um would all be required in order to have 08 parking. Um because they're they also have buses that run there. Um so that's sort of

where we're going with that. It's it's like outside the half mile by like literally feet. Um, so have them be able to give us these other things, the bicycle parking, covered bicycle parking, sufficient package rooms, sufficient drop off places, places for uh vehicles to pull off the main road, the you know the Amazon, the Uber, the Lift, Zip Car, etc. to be able to pull off and drop things off. Um, was there anything else? I think those are the ones that we had thought of. And I will say if somebody is aware of another thing that we should require of large buildings in order to be able to have the lower parking, happy to hear those. It just seemed to us that those would be the things that would push people. Right. If you live just over a half mile and you were getting from a tea stop and you were getting discounted tea passes, you might be motivated to walk over to that tea stop and use it. Um so that that's kind of where we were coming from on this.

Right. I I would I would recommend uh just reaching out to the TMA and uh ju just discussing that those policy options with them and sort of passing it by them just to see if that's something that um they think could work out with with their structure. Um that that that's that's my only request to the team.

Follow up. We've actually the CD board has required a whole bunch of recent buildings to join the TMA. Um so we might follow up with them and find out if that's occurred. None of those are open for occupancy yet. Um but there is a step that they do right before when they're doing the lease ups where they do a lot of education for new people and then when they have lots of people moving in, they'll have like a table in the front lobby to let people know about these options. So

just so we are clear in this proposal we have that anything that is within the um Boston Avenue has the minimum parking of the CO 0.8 8 um meeting the requirements that are in the section uh reduction to parking space um where we do have the TMA um and I think also the bike parking I will need to look at but we don't have that membership we have the basics so we will need to change those things right

um is it only for because right now that could also be without when we are not in the Boston Avenue everything that is located in that half a mile has directly that8 so it will be only actually for the areas that is not within that half a mile that we will apply the reductions

so I think this is something we should put in front of the boards to to think about and comment on I if I can state this clearly I think what PA is correcting me that I said that if you're within a half mile you get point8 automatically the way this is currently written is that that's not true on Boston A. On Boston A, you don't get the point8 automatically if you're within a half mile. You have to do these other things which might not be which and honestly I I put that to the board, right? Do you want to say if you're within a half mile because the original honestly the half mile of high frequency transit was done with the green line stations in mind. So

unless we reduce the 0.8 Well, that's so that would apply in the BA3. Yes. But if we want to reduce further if you are in the BI1,

I don't know that we want to Yeah. And we carried through the same parking shared parking ratios for dual use, right? if you had commercial and residential and you wanted to reduce the amount of parking spots. And I will say there's an example in there to help people understand how that would apply because it's not it's not obvious at first blush, but once you read the example, it makes sense. Question.

Sorry, Danielle wants to ask a question. Um, thank you. It's a question and also to clarify because we I believe in this section we're allowing the um the special permit granting authority to grant waiverss to reduce parking but that they can so they're empowered to reduce parking beyond the 08 correct I think include that if there is um because the the 08 is the point8 is automatic not discretionary if they get that

but if they wanted to reduce it further beyond that. I I think that that is a an authority that they would have without having to go to the zoning board. And if so, I mean, do should there be guard rails on that or should there be strict criteria of when you could do that?

Okay. Um, so right so did Paula just pulled this up for me that on page 29 um I feel like I should tell you the section number but you have to read it up go up under development standards um which is 9 94-988 um when you get down to parking after parking is waiverss and this is it says the site plan review author at the request of the applicant the site plan review authority Authority may wave the requirements of of 988 development standards in the interest of design flexibility, but that is that is where the parking is, isn't it? Uh, okay. So, that's design standards, not parking. So, we don't actually have a waiver statement at the end of the parking section. So, actually, that's something we should add in if we want it. I'm looking at you. You didn't find it either, right?

It's in the waiver section. What section? Sorry, I'm just so under 984 dimensional waiverss uh is a parking waiver. So that under uh no that's under eligible historic buildings parking. So that's just if it's a historic building it has a waiver. It's in the main ordinance.

Right. So that is something that's in our regular zoning ordinance not in this subsection. So we need to see does that apply here or do we need to call it out here? Because it does seem that if you know if somebody comes forward and puts here's why and the board agrees this makes sense the board should have the legal authority to do it rather than saying you must go to the zoning board for a variance. Yeah it should apply but we should right it should apply but we can make sure that there is something in this uh chapter that refers to that. Okay.

All right. Sounds like there's some more research to do there. Um, all right. I'd see no further questions by members of the city council. Do we have any questions from members of the community development board at this time? Uh, if you could just press the button on your mic so I can turn on the right one. It's the little the little head. Yeah. All right. Uh, member member began.

Okay. Thank you, uh, Mr. Chair. So, couple uh, points to note. So on the table of uses uh in for BA1 we have as allowed uses uh attached one unit dwelling, detached two unit and a three-unit dwelling. And do we want those uses under this new proposed boundary? It seems to me that we're not those would be residential smaller residential uses that I don't know that we need those in this new proposed smaller boundary. uh that we have for um for Boston A. We also have um and I think that might have been a carryover from the Medford Square zoning and I think we got rid of those uses in Medford Square if I remember. And then um you also have adult use marijuana in here is a ZBA, but my memory of the current adult use marijuana ordinance, you couldn't have adult use marijuana in this area would that was the only zones that were that was allowed under the current marijuana ordinance was Mystic A and um industrial or industrial zones. So, I think that probably has to come out. And then in regards to parking, um my understanding of the current zoning ordinance in Medford is that the permitting authority, whether it be CDB or uh ZBA, can wave as much or as little of the parking requirements as they want if they think it's in the best interest of a project. And that's in the general ordinance because I remember reviewing that when we were doing a Salem Street project. So, and I I think we're I think the permitting authorities need that power because frankly, even with the

smaller reduced parking minimums of 08, I I know there's going to be applicants that need are going to need parking relief uh from those requirements. That's all I had right now.

Thank you. Any response on you guys? You don't have to. Yeah, I would just the reason that we have the two and three unit dwellings allowed is because on these blocks they currently exist and they seem to be fine like that if they wanted to be knocked down and replaced. Honestly, I right now we have people who want to knock four unit down and put in I I think they said 40 units which I thought might be a bit much on that parcel. We'll see. Um, but if they wanted to put back a three-unit, a new three-unit on that block, it seemed reasonable to us. Um, but that's really go walk it and what do you guys think and what do you want? So, oh, the marijuana under So, there there is another ordinance that addresses marijuana and where it can go. There's both language in zoning and there is language outside of zoning. And so if we were to allow it in other neighborhoods other than the commercial and industrial where it's currently allowed, I believe that we would have to go back to that other ordinance and update that to say that it's allowed in other areas as well. Um, and honestly that was when it was being passed at the time how people felt about it. Um the reality is that we have issued three permits but only two have gone to construction con construction. Um one is open. Uh the third permit has been issued. It's on Riverside Avenue. Um they in they have they've been in contact with us. They still intend to open over there but the reality is it's been like five years. So maybe they won't. Um, and then there would be we we do get inquiries kind of

regularly saying, "Do you have a a uh retail marijuana license available? I have a client who'd be interested in opening a location in Medford." Um, and we usually say to them, "We do not." Because they are all currently have um agreements with the city for three locations. So, I think it's something to just take seriously. Is this an appropriate place to have it? um whether that would be acceptable and if so it may or may not ever happen, right? It depends if these other three are successful over the next 50 years. Somebody will close and somebody else will open somewhere else if you think in the the 50-year time frame. So, we were putting it in front of the board. We'd heard it might do well in this neighborhood. So,

all right. Um and Chair Karm, I apologize. I didn't see you, but Chair Carr.

Uh, thank you, President Bears. Um, this is a great, uh, first start in my opinion. Um, I do have a few questions. I do have a few comments. Um, I I do want to ask kind of about a little bit of the philosophical um, underpinnings of this BA1 section of the zoning. It was described, I believe, by Paula, as a transition from, I guess, a higher scale to a the neighborhood. That's that's I think how he described it. And I when I look at what's in there, I see dozens of houses that look indistinguishable from the general residences that's just the other side of a street. like I see um seven or 10 houses that are now in this zoning that could be up to 50 feet high uh with incentives uh potentially and right across the street are a dozen houses that look almost identical in terms of age, character, scale that are left off. And I I feel like this is the a kind of a leftover from the Salem Street approach which was to upzone almost everything. And I just want to understand that better. Maybe Paula, you can speak to that. And why, you know, why we seem to be capturing some houses just because there might be a handful of buildings, larger scale buildings within that district, but not the whole, like why are we stretching it beyond the the intersection of Winthrop and Boston F? Just as a broad general statement. If you could address that, I would certainly appreciate it.

I'll I'll let Paula chime in. Some of the reason is because the current zoning is apartment one. So anything that is general residential I believe we left out. But if it was currently in an apartment uh district that was one of the kind of didn't want to downzone essentially I think was one of the principles even if the the built environment doesn't reflect what the current zoning is.

Thank you for that answer. I guess I I guess I disagree with it respectfully, council bears, because you know there's if you look at the zoning meford had for the last 50 years, there's some insane things in there and if they had built what's in there, we would all have a poor city. So I don't feel that the it's it's a reasonable answer, but I don't think it's the right answer. But obviously, this is my first time looking at this. I you know I want the entire city board to debate this talk about this and and and look at look at boundaries carefully look at scale and massing carefully because I feel like this is a lot of this is very good. I think this is a a great starting point and some of the things that we did in Memphis Square as a group both the city council and the city board are carried over here um which are good because I thought we we we made some good progress and not everything applies but a lot of it does. So uh we can we can obviously uh talk about that uh as we go forward. Um I do I there there is a um some of the text of the historic uh requirements for historic buildings. Uh, I've presented those to the Method Historical Commission on Monday night of this week and they actually have some uh some questions and some comments and I sent Danielle an email. We don't know to debate that now, but I do want to kind of get that into the pipeline. They think there's a slight bit of contradiction between the historical commission's uh uh charter, if you will, uh their their rules and regulations in a different section of the zoning that the new section we think uh there's not there needs to be more clarity there. So, I think it's a language correction. Again, we don't need to get to that at tonight, but I just want to put it on people's radar for something to look at when we revisit the text and we get we

get further down the road. Um I would like to u I believe echo what councelor Callahan said about co-l livingiving. I think I feel like uh you know there is as long as it's not a a health issue or a sanitation issue etc. and and people are not being lied to and coerced I don't think it's really the the place of the city government to be telling by people how they can live or what groups of people can live as long as as long as those fundamental uh issues are addressed. I think councelor bears you, president bears, you addressed those very well that there's a little bit of a some zoning but some uh some more kind of enforcement and and and more procedural outside of zoning as well. So those are my initial comments, but I do think um you know that again we're only seeing this for the first time. I feel like we're going to have uh some discussions about boundaries, some discussions about what belongs here. Um, and we'll get into that as we go forward. I want to move this properly but in fast but also uh very thoughtfully. So I'll I'll hold any further comments until later. But thank you.

Thanks. And just one other uh piece of context and I appreciate the perspective Doug on the I agree the the original zoning for the city certainly passed after much of the city was built out has some pretty wild stuff in it to in many cases limit things that we probably want to allow. Um, just a little more context on the on the apartment one. I think there's also a a contiguousness uh thing about the block basically the half block between Pigot Road and Winthre Street. Um, and you know, do we want to make that district dis like non-ontiguous because of the built environment? So, I just wanted to give a little bit of the context from the meetings that we had. We kind of were like, "Yes, the apartment one district." A, it's the apartment one district and it goes basically this far because there's stuff at the far end of it that you probably do want to include in something that allows a mixed use. You know, there's about a block or a half block of um singlestory commercial. There are, you know, a couple of large apartment structures and then you have two or three families sprinkled in there. Um, and some of those even I think are well there's just a lot of units, you know, at least three units in some of those structures. So, that was just kind of some of the thinking. I think it certainly could be refined and adjusted, but that was basically why we were like, this block makes sense, but the next block doesn't. And some of that was just what the zone is now. And some of it was that, you know, do you want to have two or three parcels not contiguous with the rest of the zone, but obviously fitting into what we want on the other side of that block. So that that was that was a piece of it as well.

I appreciate that context. I do. And I I think we should obviously dive deeper into that because I feel that if you take that approach that you have to you have to go to an entire street to make a block then you are changing the context a lot. you know, you are you are you are that you're really upscaling significantly um from Padav all the way to Boston to Winrip Street in a way that I I guess I question. You know, obviously um people reasonable people can disagree. I don't I don't think it's I just think if people saw what that could mean from a scale perspective, they might think, well, that's just not the character of a street that I that I want. Especially if two or three houses do it and one doesn't and suddenly they're the dwarf surrounded by giants. You know, I there's something to be said. And again, um for continuity and some of these buildings are almost 100 years old. I don't think they're significant by the definition of historic, you know, that we have for the more, I'd say, institutional and other religious buildings, but but I think there's there's a there's a question here of character and scale that I think we need we need to debate as a group. And I'll leave it at that.

All right. Yeah. And I appreciate that. Um, and looks like Pa and Alicia have some stuff there, too.

Right. And we just wanted to clarify what's currently allowed there is apartment one and there are a lot of buildings most of the buildings there are more than uh none of them are single family actually per the use table per the use map they're at least three and there are a bunch of four to eight and 8 plus unit buildings there the zoning that's currently proposed is a 3 + 1 so a lot of these buildings are three stories already. This is allowing four stories. So, I I respectfully disagree that four stories next to three stories is towering. Um, and the rest of our zoning, like the housing, the general residential area is allowed two and a half stories, but I think that there are a lot that are actually kind of hitting three stories. And to be clear, two and a half means that the peak of your house is actually at the height of the third story. Um it just means that you have slanted roofs and that you're not a flat rectangular. Um but a lot of these are full three stories as we look at them from street view.

Yep.

The other thing that we were thinking about is that over time as this develops having a vibrant uh business area and there are a lot of popular businesses there. If you go over there on a Saturday, it's hard to get a coffee because the coffee shops have lines out the doors. Um, it it's just really bustling and it really feels like it could support more businesses if there are more storefronts over there. We know that the storefronts that are vacant are not vacant because they can't find people to rent them. They are vacant for other reasons. So, so that's sort of why we were sort of expanding that to help make that area a more vibrant area with more being more attractive for the neighborhood.

And I appreciate that and that's a great explanation. I thank you for that and I but I think what we should be saying is that we're basically planning long term to essentially wipe out all those buildings. So, you're going to have you're going to need retail if you want to extend that retail district. That's an honorable and reasonable thing to do, but we should just say it because those houses are coming down. We're not going to convert a three a three- decker flat roof on Boston A into a coffee shop, right, with a staircase and not ADA. They're all coming down under and it's again, I don't think that's a bad thing as long as we clearly state that's the intent. And I don't think that was clearly stated. It's kind of buried in there. We can read it. But now that you say it, all right, I kind of get that. You know, it's but we should just be honest with people. It's like your house may not be here 20 or 5 years from now because we're looking to expand the commercial district along Boston and we drew a line. That's a reasonable thing to do.

Thank you.

Yeah. And I mean I think you know the intent would be if someone in that one block area could compile all of those properties and come up with a plan that would go through the process of site plan review then maybe there would be that change right I just like I don't disagree like the option would be there the intent I think intent is a word that's a little more complicated you know um that might be a goal that we would want in the future but I think I don't think we we don't have common ownership it's not like the intent today is to say those buildings are all in common ownership so in two years we want that to be the city is saying we want that to be what it is. I think it's saying that I think Alicia was talking a little bit about what's that 25 30 50 year horizon that it would be reasonable on on 10 to 20 years horizon that if if someone said okay I think I can put all these properties into common ownership and then I can lengthen the commercial block because we want more businesses in this neighborhood and it's a thriving neighborhood that's something that would fit into our zoning. Um, so I agree like that to me that is the intent, right? I think the Medford Hillside and the the things that are that block next to to Boston Avenue and Winthrup Street like that is the commercial heart of this neighborhood and we want people to be able to go there and buy things or go to entertainment venues or live there. Um, so but I think I think when we start to say the intent in you know I don't think the intent is that we think that in two years suddenly that block's going to be different. And so that's just a that's maybe I'm hedging a little bit there but um you know I just worry when we say the intent is that those buildings are not going to be there. We can't make that you know the city city's not going to buy them and knock them down. So, you know, and that, you know, that I just want to be clear that that's not what's

what that means. I hope that's that's okay. Uh, Councelor Callahan, I appreciate the opportunity to give a short response. Um, I think it's really important in our entire conversation about zoning that people here as well as the public understand that zoning is about allowing things. Zoning does not mandate any change. Zonate does not force change, right? zoning just means that, you know, something could happen. It doesn't, you know, mean that your house will ever be changed, like nobody can change your house. Um, and often zoning changes and 10 years later, the majority of the properties within that zone have not changed. So, I think let's be I I'm I'm I'm want to push back a little bit about this idea that we're when we change zoning, our intent is for every single property to be changed. Like, that is definitely not going to happen. And I mean, this maybe there's an idea that somebody would buy up every single property. I mean, uh is that is that a likely thing? I mean, maybe in this one location if you know something. I don't know. But I really want to push back against this idea that like we here who are deciding upon zoning have the concept that the zoning we are choosing the purpose is that in some near future every single property will be changed. Like that is definitely not how I'm looking at it at all. And I think it's also not a realistic way to look at it. And I hope that you know if we need any advice on that we can ask the zoning consultants about what change in cities similar to ours usually looks like and we have asked that question in the past and it is not you know the answer is not that like in 20 years every single building has changed like that's just not how zoning works. Thanks.

All right. Um we'll go to Paige Baldini. member Baldini.

Thank you so much. Sorry to not be there in person and I appreciate everybody who is there. Um I have a couple questions. I very much appreciate what Chair Carr said because I think it is very important that we do talk about the vision for Boston. Um and yes, I do appreciate councelor Barry's and or president Barry's and councelor Callahan. Um when we discuss zoning, we are we are trying to you know provide a essentially a groundwork for the vision and I listened to the planning and perving meeting last week and I do know that there is thoughts around walkability and you know an area in which we should have residents that can commute via you know bicycle. So I think we do need to be mindful of exactly what we're thinking about when we see the vision for this area. So, thank you Doug uh Chair Carr because I do appreciate exactly how you said that. Um so I have two questions. One of them is about co-housing because I am excited to learn more about that. But my question about co-housing is how come the Boston app corridor has completely different um the the table for dimensions than Medford Square and what's the vision on co-housing being specifically different than it was in Medford Square? Um, I think I'd really like to know where um the thought is at. And Paula, I have another question and this could be a really just simple this is how we do zoning. Um, but when I was looking at the map, and this just might be my brain, I saw the BA1, 2, and three, and I'm just interested why we have BA1 in the middle and then BA2 and three to the left and to the right. Just when you're looking at a zoning map and again I can appreciate this just might be you know how we do zoning but when I see BA1 it could be like Walking Court then we go down to the hillside BA2 and BA3 and I'm not talking about the dimensions but

just literally looking at the map to make it very easy for the community to see it so that they can understand where their neighborhoods are. Um so just if I could ask Paola just to help me understand that so I can um share that with the residents that asked me as well and that are on this meeting. So, thank you because I see a lot of Hillside members here. So, co-housing, just a quick question about that. Um, and about and then my last question would be about the setbacks. Um, I do appreciate and understand how important is when we think about setbacks. Um, but a specific experience that I experienced as a business owner on Boston A is we have tight sidewalks, but we also have tight roads. And I appreciate we can have a bike lane. I think that's super important. But due to the snow removal um and just the abundant amount of snow, we unfortunately did have the bike lane impacted because cars were parking in the bike lane. So I do really want to be mindful. Also, when we we put the set if we change the setbacks on specific parts of Boston, we're limiting those commercial spaces, specifically the cafes, to have outdoor seating. And I think that is one of the wonderful things about my neighbors is the community is always sitting outside. Kids are up there. Dogs are up there. And I just really want to to support the business community and I don't want to limit that. So I think those are four questions and I can repeat them. Um but I would love some clarification please. I will super quickly jump in while it looks like they're getting ready over there and say the the BA123 is is to try to match the Medford Square and the other zoning where one is the lowest um intensity or height and like three is the highest. So like the one is 3 + 1 um I'm going to get it wrong. The two is 4

+ 2. 3+ 2 and then no 4 + 3 and then ba3 is is 5 plus 6 plus two. All right. See I I got it but from lowest to highest. So but I'll now turn it over to them uh for the rest of it. Concept conceptually you would always look at the the whole map, right?

Yeah. So usually different districts can happen in many parts of the city and it then it can change. So if we do them by location if then we put that district somewhere else and right now it's very specific to Boston Avenue. So that could happen uh but usually we put it bec on intensity because then it can change a mix one can happen in other part of the city uh and then that location changes and so your one two three then now it's completely different. So it's basically for the flexibility usually one two three does not go with the location geographic location but it goes by intensity

right so the idea is that the one is signaling lower intensity for this area the two is sort of a medium exactly as president bear said and right now for this exercise of doing the zoning we're looking at this small area and these maps and you might want to read them left to Right. But normally you'd look at the whole city and you would find it and it wouldn't you wouldn't be thinking about these as a left to right kind of thing. You this would just be a spot in the city that you're looking at. Um so it's just what the the your experience is an artifact of the fact that we're only showing you this small area. So um but I didn't catch the other housing.

So the the goousing and those definitions we will continue to look into it. Co-ousing is more about multiple buildings. So it's different from co-l livingiving uh and is having multiple buildings in a lot uh where you live in your unit. Let's say uh you're I don't know ADU and another person lives in another part uh on another building and then there is one building that has every share like a big living room big kitchen that everyone can can share. So it can be in multiple buildings that's more co-ousing. The the other thing I think if I understood you why would we have different definitions for these things in Boston a area and we just want to be really clear that's not what's happening here. So in fact if you look at the cover page it says what sections we're looking to amend of the whole zoning code. So for the definitions we're looking to amend the zoning section or the definitions section of the zoning code. So if these different definitions were adopted that are on page 15, they would apply to the entire zoning code everywhere in the city. And actually I think that's really important for people to realize that it's not that there would be a different definition in one part of the city. Um so we have done some things and there are parts of the zoning in general that have specialized definitions. uh the wireless that there's a section on um telecom equipment. It has definitions within it. There is a section on vacant storefronts that has definitions in the zoning within that section. Those are very much with that section. In this case, we're not recommending definitions within this section of the zoning. We're recommending that we change some of the uh universal definitions in the whole

code. So I just want everybody to be very clear on that. Was that the question? Because I I may have gotten lost at some point. No, that's okay. So it was just a clarifying question. I'm just I'm literally looking at the Meford Square District table. It's section 943-2C table A. And with co-housing um it has different recommendations for MS one, two, three and four that it co-housing comes before the CB the CB board where when I was looking at the one from today it's just different. It's um it's BA1. Yes. BA2. Yes. BA3. Yes. So those are just different

I think. Right. And I think what basically it it sort of got overlooked in the Medford Square area. One of the things that we did for the process this time that we didn't do last time is that Danielle and I and Paola and Emily and um sat in a room together and went through every single item in our use table to say whether or not it belonged is a yes, no, or special permit in Medford Square as a first pass to give you that recommendation. Um and the last time it we didn't do it that way. And so I think we didn't think as closely about all of them. Um and so I think there's been misunderstandings about co-living throughout. If I was doing Medford Square over, I would make it allowed every the co-l livingiving allowed throughout because I don't see why it would be limited. Um but people were confused and it didn't feel like a good time to to go on that one little item.

Okay. Um thank you, I guess. And then um setbacks. Just a quick question about the change for the setbacks. What is which change? Sorry, that's okay. I think let me I'm on my computer. So, let me try to pull it back up. That these setbacks are different than in Medford Square. Yes. And I think it was when Paulo was explaining it's because of the sidewalk sizes, but I could be wrong. But it's not the sidewalk. It's not the

So, there's two different things going on. There's a different area where we actually talk about the sidewalks. And just to be clear, um, because I think, uh, I caught something that Paola said, it's the depth of the lots that are not so near Winthrop Street. The lots are not very deep and the sidewalk is not very wide and the road is not very wide. So, if we required 12-oot sidewalks there, there would not be very much parcel left to build on. Um, so we thought that we should look at that number and maybe that number would be better to be 8 feet at that area. Um, just to to not eat up people's parcels too much. Um, so that's the section. Um,

is page 18 the two. Okay. So, right. So, the way it's written in here is that the 12- foot sidewalk should be created, but if it's not feasible, um, if there is insufficient parcel depth, um, then the setback could be reduced to allow an 8-oot sidewalk, and that that would be something that would be done at the CD board level. Um, and then the active the maximum set book back of 20 feet is because you don't want things set way back and far away from the road where you want to have an active uh social and in feeling. Um, was that the piece of the the setbacks that was different?

Yes. Thank you for explaining it that way because I just want to make sure especially if we're doing mixed use as I believe it should be um specifically in that area that we don't take away sidewalk space for if it would be like a cafe or something because that's super important up there. And if they wanted to build for a cafe space, the 20 ft would absolutely allow for it like for a an outdoor space for the cafe. And if they wanted the cafe to be right up, then we're just asking for an eight foot wide sidewalk so you know it's safe. Wonderful.

We need to have a good space for them to line up when the line is going out of the door and onto the sidewalk. We want space for their line and space for people to walk past the line and go on to the next business, which in fact I've had to do. All right. Um, Dina, if you could press the Yep. Great. And then we'll go to Ari.

Paige asked one of my questions. Um, okay. So, we were talking a little bit about definitions. And so, definitions would apply to all zoning, right? As well. So, one of the definitions that we just always seem to be bumping up against every time we zone is high frequency transit. Could we please define it? Right. Let's define it this time. I think it's really important we do that because we're always bumping up against it when we discuss the parking minimum. So, let's do it, folks. We can do it. Um, I think this is a good start. I am very very eager to listen to some additional public comments from the um the residents that will be affected by the zoning in this area. And I I do agree with councelor Callahan that zoning gives permission, but the permission that has to be given has to be gradual at the same time. So we need to have um items in here that prevent a 98 foot building to be put up against a house. Right? So I'm looking in the document and I this is the first time that I've really even really digest even looked at this but we need to have provisions like what we did in Memphis Square right stepbacks setbacks um I noticed that the daylight minimum standard has changed in this we should also put in the design guideline shadow studies as well to protect the residents and um right shadow studies And I'm looking at this and I know that area of Auburn Street. Um, so we're looking at Walking Court and it's in BA3 area and I know it would be through incentives, but the height could be 98 feet. So I'm on Auburn Street and there's a 98 foot building. So it it's really important again that we have the

right provisions and protections in those areas. So we have gradual permission uh to do those things. So, I look forward to walking around the area, looking at the boundaries. Uh, I have to admit I look forward to it this time because it's spring and summer and it was quite cold when I did it in Method Square. So, um, looking forward to that. Boston Avenue, there's even less parking than Meford Square. And there's a couple of shops up there that I really like, but I can't find parking sometimes. So, I think we really need to look at the parking in relationship to the highfrequency transit guidelines and what we're going to put in these areas. Um, I agree with Paige on the co-ousing. Uh, where I live, we've had two family houses that were redeveloped. There's nine bedrooms in a two family house, right? Nine bedrooms. And guess how many cars? eight that park on the street. So, as much as we want walkability, we need to face the parking issue as well. We do. Uh, one of the things I noticed was that on page nine, there's no gas stations. There's no gas stations. No motor vehicle repair. Um, now I'm thinking there's Daily G. There's a gas station all the way down the end of Boston Avenue and then there's Titan, but I don't think there's another gas station around there. And if you think about it, if you look at the north end, there's no gas stations. But there's a couple on the outskirts. The gas is crazy priced and people have to go out and to the area to do that. People have cars and they need gas and they need them repaired as well. So I think we should take a look at that. I think co

co-housing should be the community development board. And the other thing that I had, we really need to define uh neighborhood medical office versus medical office because I don't want to revisit the whole issue that we dealt with with Salem Street with the MX1, MX2. We were talking about methodone clinics. We want to make sure that we clearly understand the differences between each one of those areas so we know what exactly we're giving permission to be built in those areas as well. Those are just some of the general comments that I have. Again, I look forward to walking around listening to the public and and what they have to say with this. And I thank you for the for the work you put into this uh for this for this this first pass of the document. Thanks. Thank you. And I'll go to Ari.

Thank you. Um and thank you to Innocent Associates for this great first pass. I think we are starting off a lot further than we did on the last round and building on a lot of the collective lessons learned. I'm excited to be starting this conversation. A few kind of comments to throw in. many of them in conversation with the earlier bits. The first one is do we have a specific itemized document of changes that are coming up that we would like to make at the end? Um kind of a cleanup. I'm thinking specifically of the comment Alicia made of, oh, we would absolutely want co-l livingiving and co-housing in Medford Square. That was just not the fight that was picked at that time. Um, that's a very specific zoning change and I expect there to be many more like that that will come up as we identify different issues. Um, and I'd love to have that as a document for us to be able to refer to and kind of have a cleanup at the end of this zoning process and not wait until an additional process because while some communities zone regularly, Medford does not have a history of doing so. Um my second comment

really quickly on that one. Ari, we we have kind of a third track going which is called

we're calling it PDS building cleanup. um which is we've had a at least one meeting in the planning and permitting committee where we have a list of a bunch of stuff from PDS, a bunch of stuff from the building department and some of the things that you just mentioned where we want to do a essentially a cleanup of the whole ordinance and we're keeping a list. I'm seeing Danielle nod that we have a long list. So just just so you know we we do we are doing that and we want to do that. It's kind of its own process and the intent is to do that. Um, but outside of the inis process that we're doing for Medford Square and Boston F. Sorry to interrupt you.

Lovely. I was hoping that would be the answer. I figured it would be. Um, and I'm glad that we all can know that. Now, um, my second comment is about this idea of changing the neighborhood. Um, I respectfully disagree with um, Chair Carr. I don't think there is that zoning is about a clear intent in this case. This isn't something like the transom overlay. We are creating the permissions and allowances. Um and this is a vibrant area that is growing. TUS is always growing. There are large buildings and very vibrant businesses there. And we are saying that if someone wants to upscale, they're already frankly not single family houses that that is a reasonable thing that doesn't need special permissions. Um, and I think that that is a permission that even if you think is not appropriate for everywhere in Medford is, I think very very appropriate to this specific corridor. um and that we should be kind of remembering that this is not about a specific intent unlike transom where there was a specific vision um and that the vision here is much larger um about co-housing kind of onto my third comment I'm a big fan of co-housing co-living um I think lodging houses there are understandable concerns I think they're a very important part of the lowcost housing picture that has really disappeared over the last 50 to 100 years and that we should not be banning. Um, and I'm excited to see us permitting it um with kind of the necessary uh safety constraints. Um, with parking, that's something that we'll

obviously discuss. We always do. Um I think there are plenty of tools in our toolbox uh that for specific projects where we can limit the impact of that. This is also a corridor that is very close to the green line. And from experience of living in co-ops in my 20s, there's a lot of people who are very excited about not having cars um who live in that sort of community, especially more on the planned co-living um or planned co-housing. Sorry, I um but the planned communities uh a lot of people who are intentionally car-free. Um it sounds like we've talked about setbacks, but I'd like to explicitly talk about wanting to make sure there's permission and encouragement for outdoor seating for cafes and other businesses. I think that is something that brings a lot of value and personality to that neighborhood as well as all neighborhoods. Um, and that can be an often unintended consequence. Uh, and then the last one is just a small comment about animal shelters. I'm not really sure where we are on that. Um, there is a cat uh, rescue outside of Medford Square that I think is not a model for the rest of the city. Um, so if we talk about it, I would want to make sure how are we talking about um, doing this responsibly and ethically. And that's obviously zoning is not enforcement of sanitation laws. Um but that I think it is something that can be important and can be done not ideally and uh kind of broad vision. I'm really excited to see this as a vibrant place with lots of housing and lots of businesses. there's a lot of people there. Um, and kind of living there, going out for coffee, going on the green line, taking the bus, going to school, going to local jobs. And this is a

vibrant area that will hopefully continue to grow over the next 20, 30, 50, 100 years.

All right. And I will recognize Director Hunt.

Good evening. Just because both of the last two members mentioned the whole setbacks in the residential, I do want to flag for people that this we did carry this through into this version. So, if you were to look in the 983 dimensional requirements after the table, the next page, which is currently 18, has um uh both step setbacks, but it has side and rear setbacks. If it's adjacent to a residential district with a a residential use of four units or fewer, the applicant shall provide a landscape buffer of at least 10 ft from the line. And so that would be right now this is all surrounded by general residential. So that would all of that would require it. And then we included the height transition which is the whole 45 degree angles. So if you are allowed to do something tall but you're adjacent to residential then you have to um have do them the math on the angles and stuff. And somebody had commented that the daylight standard was not here or different, but it is it was carried it was copied and pasted over. So it it is the same as the version that was passed in the end um of the Medford Square.

Right. Right. And again the the maximum setback of 20 ft is allowed to create an active public plazas in there. So, I just wanted to address there won't be a change because to address those comments because those are already in there. Um, unless somebody thinks that what is in there should change. Also, the step back. Yeah. And we also included the step backs, which is the sixstory and above has to be stepped back so that it doesn't look like a straightup tower that it it you don't see it as clearly. All right. Thank you Ari. I'll go to Chair Carr and then John Anderson.

Appreciate that. Um I I think what would be helpful for the city board going forward is something that Inennis is did uh very successfully in Memphis Square which was a series of sections on some of these transitions so we could see the setback setbacks and we could see how it goes from you know five stories to four stories to three. They're they're brilliant diagrams that I think help visualize for the whole city board these transitions so that we could understand them better and clearly some of the ones here where we're going from single family or general residential to upwards of 80 ft like those are the ones that are going to be the most critical. So I leave it to and in the group to try to just pick and choose the ones that I think would help tell the story and and prove and demonstrate visually and graphically how how that transition can happen so that we do not negatively impact uh a person who's been living there for a decade or 20 years or a house that's been there for 100 years. Thank you.

Thank you. And I'll go to John Anderson. Uh thank you. Uh, my comments are sort of in random order. I've just been sort of scribbling things down as topics came up. Um, first, I hate to do this, but I have to respectfully disagree with Director Hunt about two and a half stories versus three stories. I think they do make a big visual difference, but you know, I guess that's a matter of personal opinion. Um, we have TUS Institutional, of course, cut out from the corridor.

Um, I guess my question is, is TUS institutional because that is land owned by TUS? And where does Walnut Hill fall into this? Does Walnut Hill have properties that are in the corridor? Is Walnut Hill considered part of TUS for this discussion or not?

Generally, the institutional zone is around the campus proper. Um, mostly properties owned by trustees of Tus College. Um, there are a couple of things on either side of the line. There's a couple trustees of Tus College, maybe one that falls into the boundaries of the Boston Avenue corridor. There's a couple Walnut Hill properties. I think actually that's in some of the documents that there's a map that Inis made showing that ownership. Okay. Um but generally the TUS institutional is the campus and the nonprofit doexempt um relatively geographically contiguous uh TUS. Um yeah.

Uh is there are there buildings in the corridor that are do amendment protected? I'll go to director Hunt on that.

So I think the way to address it is that they it's do amend it. It's do protected if the if TUS owns the property and says we are using this for an educational use. So right now there is a building in the M the BA1 area that is owned by TUS but they have not stated that they are currently used. It's not in use. It's a vacant building. Right. So it's not being used for the educational purposes. They could come forward with a proposal that says here's our educational use. This is dop protected. They might not. Um so to sort of enhance what President Bears was saying is that the idea is part of the area is a campus, feels like a campus and should be treated like a campus. Right? If you go up on the green on the hill, do we care how far apart TUS builds various buildings or when they attach them to each other or whatever? That's their campus and it should feel like a campus. When TUS owns buildings on our city streets, then they should actually feel like they blend into the neighborhood. And so there are some I'm looking to see if we have street names on here because I don't know them off the top of my head, but this was sort of the other item, right? So they own properties on Tesla, Edison, Capen Street, Emory, that area. But that's part of the neighborhood. So right now, those are not on the table at all. That would be under the residential zoning. But it's our general professional opinion that those should not be zoned like a campus. Those should be zoned like a neighborhood. And so that's where the distinction is between TU's institutional zoning and along Boston a whether or not they own it. We feel like it should be zoned like a down a small downtown commercial district and not like a campus. That's kind of the distinction that we're getting at with

the two different zones. And part of what count what President Bears had said earlier about not really going to have a a fully baked TUS zoning this quickly is because as we go through it, we don't think we should just take the Medford Square zoning and adapt it to TU's campus. That doesn't make sense. We should just look at it and say what kind of zoning is appropriate on a campus like this. And that's and we don't have a ready and we have said to toughs to the consultants to other people can somebody give us a copy of institutional zoning you like from somewhere else and nobody has come up with an example. They've all said no, we don't like that, we don't like that, we don't like that, and we don't like that. But nobody's given us a template to work with, which is meaning we're it takes more time if we all have to come up with this from scratch. And at this time, it's on in uh agency to come up with this from scratch, not my office.

So even Harvard doesn't have such a thing. We don't like it. No, that's the thing. TUS doesn't like the zoning that Cambridge has for Harvard or their zoning for MIT. There's a lot of zoning for different universities in Boston. and they said, "Don't look at those." You know, there's zoning for Brandeise. They're like, "No, we don't like that one." Right? Nobody's come up with one and said, "Actually, this works well." But maybe Waltham likes the zoning. We might be the first, maybe we'll come up with the first institutional zoning that people like, I don't know, I get a little punchy late at night. So

um about co-housing I noticed um for parking it said 1.5 per dwelling unit. How do you determine the number of dwelling units in a co-ousing situation? That's a good question. Great question. Great question. Meaning you understood the question.

So well usually so there's co-living and co-housing. Co-living, if you remember, was like one house with a lot of people in it. Co-ousing is typically multiple small units that have also some larger shared spaces that they use together frequently for cooking meals and stuff like that. Um, so technically you would have it. You would be able to count up the multiple the small units that exist. Is 1.5 the right number? I don't know. But I agreed to not debate residential parking limits other than what we've been doing so far. Right now they could apply for the lower, you know, do the incentives, join a TMA, have bike parking, that kind of stuff, and they could have the lower parking too. So

um co-housing versus what was the alternative? co-l livingiving which is what we were talking about the at the beginning of the meeting we were discussing co-l livingiving which is the idea that are you regulating who all is in the unit together with each other right one big unit that was the example of each bedroom having its own bathroom and a lock on the door is very different from everybody has their own unit that they lease separately but they agree to a shared and the huge differences like other that like they agree to their shared community values and living together as part of living there

right but okay but co-l livingiving um I I still don't understand how you would define dwelling units in co-l livingiving just number of bedrooms we're that is that in in the list at this time I think it's not in the list at this time right it's not in the use table So co-l livingiving's out. We we did we didn't feel that it was necessary. I think I don't know if you want councelor Callahan take it away.

If I may. Thank you. Um I I will admit that I'm slightly sad that the word the definition of co-l livingiving has ever been brought up again because it literally we we removed it because it doesn't mean anything. It was we had a reason why we thought we it might be useful in some way but it really is like a rental unit. That's all. It's just the way that all sorts of people live in a rental unit that don't happen to be a family, but we've already removed the whole definition of family. So, it literally it just means a rental unit that this doesn't mean anything. So, we should just not don't worry about co-living. Co-ousing is actually quite different. There's one in Malden. Uh there's one in uh JP. Um there are two in Cambridge. Uh and that is architecturally a very very different thing. So you're not ever going to confuse a two family with co-housing. Co-ousing has like

20 or 30 units. Every unit is a completely separate just like an apartment except they're often a little bit small because they will have um shared they'll have like shared rooms. So there will be a different building often that might have a cafeteria like a kitchen and a seating area where people can where maybe up to 20 people can eat together. They might have um and then some different places depending on who lives there have different shared rooms. So they might have um a guest room that anyone can sort of sign out and have an out of town guest stay in and that would be in the the like a jointly owned building. These these are architecturally very different and usually it people spend like 15 years get putting together a community and then building a different you know architectural buildings. So co-housing is actually a very very different thing architecturally that we do not have any of in Medford.

Um I'm happy to talk more about it. Anyone who is interested I would love to talk to you more after the meeting. But co-housing is a completely different and co-living is literally it's just we let's not even mention it because it's just a rental unit. I I'm surprised there's no co-ousing in Medford. I seem to recall reading about one that was being proposed 10 or 15 years ago. I guess it never happened. There is no co-ousing in Medford currently. Okay, not to beat this to death, but here goes. So co-living would, you know, so six or eight people decide to share a large house, that would be one dwelling unit. Yeah. And it's and we can't regulate or control that. So

Okay. It's not definable and and it's not really a zoning question. So they get one and a half parking spaces at one car. Okay. Well, I mean, I'm just trying to understand. I'm not No, no, no. I'm just I'm just trying to illustrate the point, right? Like um there might be a single family house right now that has six bedrooms, but it already exists, so the parking is completely like that that if it already exists, it could be used for that and the parking regulation doesn't even come into effect, right? or they're just parking on the street.

Right. I'm just saying like so many of the units in the city have almost no relationship to the things in the parking code because they predate the zoning or are otherwise like they weren't they're not under construction. Yeah. Right. Um side setbacks of zero that means buildings are built right up against each other with a shared exterior wall. Okay. The fire department has no problem with that.

There's there's building codes to allow it. If you walk down Medford Square, you'll see a lot of buildings like that. Basically, you just have to have fire rated walls in between them. Um, you either have to have fire rated walls or I think the number is 10 feet separation. Okay. Um, so it's builders choose to do fire separate firewalls.

Okay. Um, I'm sort of I looked at the recording of the April 30th public meeting and I'm trying to figure out what I learned from it. Um, you know, the residents were asked to provide input as to what should be uh how the zoning should be done in the corridor. They didn't have this level of detail. They had the maps. They had the maps. Um I don't think they had any concept of what was being proposed and their the biggest thing I heard was no more tall buildings. Um, so I guess my question is who are the stakeholders that we're working that who are the stakeholders who we're serving with our zoning proposal? And I was really glad that you included the um where is it the

the purpose

the purpose and I didn't see that really being communicated to the residents and I think that's an opportunity. Um does do you have any I wonder if Yeah. page page 16 um talks a lot about reinforcing non-vehicular travel between adjacent neighborhoods. It sounds, you know, sort of like the village concept, a kind of self-contained village where people work and live and shop in the same uh contiguous area which would include adjacent residential areas, I guess. And I'm having a hard time visualizing that on Boston A, which is also a main thorough affair of sorts during rush hour.

Am I the only one who thinks that this is a problem? I guess so. We'll see what the residents have to say. I just would encourage um enough communication so the residents know what's being what's really being proposed. Thank you. That's it. All right. Thank you, John. Um do we have any more questions from members of the community development board?

All right. Excuse me. I have one other I have a request. Um I love the new maps. Would it be possible to get ones with uh building street numbers on it? That would simplify walking around and understanding what's really going on. That would simplify it tremendously. At least the borders.

At least the ones on the board. Yeah. Um, we had a similar problem in Medford Square where the the maps the the color coding was very confusing and I had to ask three times to for that to be u fixed before it happened. So if if early on we could get maps that that help us with numbers so you can walk around and really you know walking court it's not so bad but you get into some of the other areas and you get tired of sort of counting little bo little boxes. Um I don't know if director hunt or Paula you have some

we were just discussing how what you could or could not see. I mean we we could try print like GIS could display those numbers. We could do a version for the board members to use for their purposes. But if you printed numbers big enough to read them, you wouldn't be able to see the outlines of the buildings that you currently see. Right? So, it's sort of like what do you it it might be you might also need a magnifying glass to see the building numbers. So, the beginning and the end of the numbers just to help the the names of the streets are there so you would know you've hit a new block by the name of the street. Maybe we can take that offline because it's just a logistical thing.

Let's just discuss that. Yeah. After I just wanted to mention the interactive uh viewer and there you can just put the name of the street the number and you can access directly to see exactly which building you want. Um we will have to upload uh for best Boston Avenue. Okay. All right. Yeah, we're going to take this discussion offline. Thank you. Just seeing no further discussion by members of the community development board or the council, anything else you want to say to close out before we move to um some public comment. Uh Chair Carr, let's proceed to the public comments.

All right. Okay. Um so we're going to move to some public comment. um if you would like to speak on Zoom and again I just want to clarify I know I said this at the beginning beginning of the meeting but that was now two and a half hours ago. So um the this is not the public hearing for this proposal. This is an initial discussion. The city council is the only body taking a vote tonight. We would be voting to refer the Boston Avenue Neighborhood Corridor District to the community development board. Um, if you'd like to speak at this point, um, you're welcome to make a comment, but if you want your comments officially recorded for the record, um, you should come to the June 3rd public hearing, which is the next time that, um, we'll be holding the public hearing on this matter as a joint body of the city council and the community development board. Um we do have um you know at least one uh person who um has wants to speak tonight here in the room. They represent a property owner in the area. Um so that is one one person. If there's other folks who would like to speak um please raise your hand on Zoom and we'll alternate between in person and on Zoom. So we'll start in person in the chamber. Um, uh, you can come up here if that's okay and we'll just move this microphone over here. Yeah. And if you could, um,

yeah, we'll get you.

All right. So, your microphone should be on and you should be able to share. Uh, it's There we go. that looks like we have about four people. I'm gonna keep it to about five minutes each.

Thank you. Um I appreciate the time. Um my name is David Roach. Um I'm an independent development um advisory consultant here working with uh one of the property owners in the uh proposed BA3 zone. I just want to start by saying that I'm uh thank you to the members of the council, the board, and uh planning staff. You guys have done a done a fantastic job um with this process so far. Took a few minutes before I came here tonight to buzz through the agenda packet and um one of the things that we're really hoping to see and and get is certainty moving forward. Um so for example to see that um there's a requirement for a shadow study and as a developer that's one of the things we always get concerned about not because we're opposed to doing them but because there's never any sort of metric defined as to what is actually a good and bad shadow study and to see that there's the two-hour daylight requirement just reading that as an example tells me that you guys have thought this through when we're trying to be helpful to giving everyone certainty so we can move forward together. Um so that just very encouraging to me. um the issue that I wanted to speak on tonight. Um and again, I've you don't need to hear much about me. I've worked in development, worked as an engineer, and um you know, I I I've had a lot of experience with this. Um so, we wanted to suggest an additional defined use. Um it's known in the business as uh p purpose-built student housing. We could call it private student housing. you call what you want, but it's a use that doesn't really fit into the categories as defined. It is what uh Director Hunt um said is is done elsewhere. I' I'd say it's actually done quite frequently around this country. In fact, even in in in this area, often it ends up becoming a public private partnership, but in this case, it you know, we're suggesting that it just be allowed as a private use, which is um student housing, but not necessarily owned or affiliated with the university. um

this is of scale. This is not we're not thinking about this of of of small developments, but a larger scale development that would be be uh managed. So, it would feel a lot like the dorm definition, right? It it would it would be it would feel like a dorm, but it's not owned by the university. It's uh it's private. It's taxable. And there's ways to enforce that. It is actually uh used uh only by students. It's not like an apartment building because it wouldn't be um set up to be open to just the general public. It would be specific for students. These developers like to do this because for two reasons. Um when folks send their kids away to school, they want to know that they're living in student housing. And the universities are more likely to funnel students to these developments if it's truly student housing versus something that is taking on the general public. So, we'd like to see this as a defined use. Um what does this solve? Uh I think it's pretty clear that the um you know with not all the uh the the uh university students being housed on campus and we're going to you know TUS is the the most approximate university obviously um this has an impact on the affordability and the availability of housing to the general public um we can keep the students in the familyiz units but if you create another opportunity either a dorm through the university or something like this you can really alleviate the pressure that that creates in the local housing market. So a 600 bed building, which would be a larger building, um could dis, you know, could could reduce the displacement of 150 to 200 apartments that could be opened up to families or other other other young professionals or other otherwise because this would create an opportunity to get them out of that housing stock. Currently, there are 2,000 plus uh students living off campus in Medford, both undergrad and graduate, 3,600 between the two communities of Somerville and um in Medford. I went on Co-Star, which is a private uh you know, is a is an aggregator of of rental information. The average monthly rent on on on CoStar in in Medford, which is this is going to be the larger development. This doesn't pull every

single uh unit in Medford, was just over $3,000 a unit. If you drew a half mile radius around the center of Tus, it's 4,300. The impact that that TUS has, you know, the students themselves have on the housing costs is significant. can't necessarily attribute all of that difference to the students, but there's certainly some portion of it. Um, so you can establish a use in and require that it, you know, either they have a anou with the university that they accept the students, they're going to enforce the code of conduct. Um, you know, these buildings would be staffed to professionally managed, they're of scale. Um and you can have an an enforcement mechanism that you know that would uh run with the uh with the building's certificate of occupancy. So the building department has the ability to enforce that is truly occupied by students and that's what developers of this kind of thing want. Um parking is another thing that is different with students. Students tend to have fewer cars. They're there for a short period of time. They're there to learn. They're not there to go drive around. I know that that was the case when I was in college locally here. Um, TUS reports that 16% of students occupied by single occupancy vehicle, but the majority of that number is probably off-campus, you know, commuters and not necessarily residents of the area. So, there is evidence that there's not a lot of demand for cars for students. Um, we'd suggest something in the order of 0.15 to 0.2 two uh five uh parking spaces per bed be something that we would include in use like this which is consistent with the dormatory definition of one space per four beds just because there just isn't that demand I think this this would operate very similarly to that

um sorry David that's quite all right that wasn't me well no that was a that was the the timer if you if you want that was the end of it so we're suggesting that this be considered as a use there's other things that we we have opinions on of what what uh came out tonight. But this use it doesn't fit into the bucket of dormatory. It doesn't fit in the bucket of of multif family. It's a specific thing that's in between. Thank you. Thank you. And um I think if you could share share some of that with with the planning PD we have a copy and we can share that with the members of the council and

Yeah. Yeah. So we'll share that with all of the community development board and the planning development sustainability and appreciate the comment. Um, all right. Anyone else in the chamber? I'm not seeing anyone right now. So, I'll go in order of the folks I saw on June on Zoom. Um, I'm going to allow you guys to turn on your video and we'll go to Judy Weintock. Judy, name and address for the record, please.

Hi, everybody. Judy Weintock at 144 Burgett. I wanted to make a suggestion. Um perhaps Powell and and Alicia can and um Danielle can decide if this is a good idea or not. I actually think that this definitions issue that we're having between co-housing, dormatory, fraternity, sorority, apartment building, you know, and thus and on and on and on, not to mention this brand new category that was just presented. I actually think we need a table of requirements because trying to define these things in pros just actually hasn't worked. I think it's very confusing. I think that if there are characteristics that are associated with each of these different forms of housing or living situation that they ought to be enunciated in a table that would make it just so much easier. It would be like the use table where the characteristics are in columns above and if the type of housing met a particular characteristic they'd have a check mark and if they didn't they would say no. And I do think that it will help the public to really understand the differences. I understand that the categories across the top could be incredibly broad and long, but they need to be specific enough that you can actually tell the difference between this dormatory proposal that was just proposed and the dormatory that by the way will house 650 students at TUS um when it opens in in two years or a year and a half. um you know what distinguishes those two proposals in a manner that not just the board can understand but that the public can actually understand. Um you know I think there's going to be lots of time I hope to talk about things like parking. I have some feelings about parking. I also agree with Doug Carr around considering intent doesn't mean that the city is trying to force down the throat of its

uh its inhabitants specific projects. But everybody knows that sort of you know follow the money and when you allow for certain types of uses developers who are the people with the most money in the world of real estate will find a way. Right? And so having real consideration for what do you want your neighborhoods to actually look like matters a lot. Not just to have them possibly walkable, but be realistic. If there's no supermarket within a mile radius, most people will probably drive to a supermarket. Um, so I think there's going to be a lot of more time to talk about those things, I hope. But this definitions thing with the types of housing that's being proposed um really needs a whole lot more clarity from my perspective. I find myself pretty confused um without understanding it in a lot more detail. So I hope that we'll get there. I hope that some type of um table can be developed that will help distinguish what the characteristics are of each of these different types of housing. And I think for tonight that's it. Thank you all. Thank you, Judy. Right. Gonna go next to Jeremy. Uh Jeremy, name and address for the record, please.

Hey, good evening, Jeremy Martin, 65 Burger. Um, thanks for another opportunity to comment on this. Um, there's a lot of great work that's been done and very much appreciated. Um, let me try to keep my comments tonight focused a little bit more on how materials are presented, but I do have just a couple thought small things on content. Um, uh, I think it's, um, really helpful to start the presentation by seeing the existing zoning in context, seeing the street from end to end, understanding that. Um, I think we're missing some important information when the new proposed maps are presented that we have not yet seen those in context. we've only seen them in two zoomed in uh maps and u I think we really need to zoom out again and think about this as a complete corridor. Um with that um I appreciate that there's being you know more care more time given to the TUS institutional zone. That's something that that I've asked for and and I know that um everyone recognizes that it needs a certain level of of, you know, specificity and care. Um I hope though that we don't just completely set it aside because I think when you're looking at a corridor, it's important to think about how these zones that we're creating on Boston Avenue are going to relate to a potential institutional zone. And so while we may not finalize that institutional zone in this process, in this time frame, we shouldn't just forget about it. It should be a part of these discussions. I think you're going to talk about it some tonight, but it should be on the maps. And what that means for Boston Avenue, what the potential institutional zone on Boston Avenue looks like should be a consideration so that we understand this again comprehensively end to end for the corridor. Um there was a lot of discussion earlier

about uh really good discussion about zoning as as a permissible um rule versus telling people what they need to do. Um and I and I appreciate the the discussion of that. Um though we aren't saying what will happen, we are saying what could happen and I think it's important for the community to understand the potential of what could happen with this zoning. And again, um, I think Doug, uh, Chair Carr referenced this, um, in talking about some of those sections that have presented for other parts of the city, but seeing an elevation or a simple 3D massing model, which I think have been provided in other areas of the city to see the implications of a of a 6 plus two um, in some of these areas or or even the relationship between parts of the community that we aren't resoning right now and these places that we are uh to understand the potential implications of this would be really helpful for people to understand. So I I just think there's a lot more detail that needs to be presented to the community so that people who aren't following this closely who want to understand it but don't aren't you know aren't familiar with zoning can understand the the the implications of this process. Um um I heard mention earlier that the green score doesn't apply to all of the potential zones here and I I would just appreciate it doesn't have to be tonight but some clarification on when and where green score does and doesn't apply. I think that's a really important tool for our city um not just to cover permeable and uh imperous payments but tree protections uh improved landscape improved public realm. Um, so to in my mind, green score should apply to any kind of development that is in a mixeduse corridor. Any kind of mixeduse project should have a green score applied to it. So, just appreciate some

clarification there in the future. Um, and then specifics. Um, a lot of talk about dorm and living definitions tonight. Uh maybe this matters more for the institutional zone than it does for the the Boston F corridor, but please took a look at that dormatory definition because what is being built on Boston Avenue right now does not meet that definition of a dorm. It is not owned by the university and it will not be operated by the university and the residents raised this when that was before the community development board. It was set aside. That's the past. But um we need to be this is another example where we need to be really careful with our zoning around the institution um so that there are not loopholes that can be used um to build an apartment building that say it's in a dorm it's a dorm um and then we have plenty of access to gas stations in this neighborhood. Um we don't need more car centric uses. we we need to accommodate cars of course um but we don't need more of those uses. So I am glad personally to see that we're we're moving away from that. Um and then last I'll say I think it's you know I know people on the call that you're hearing from tonight have given a lot of feedback. I know more people will give feedback as this reaches a broader audience. I think it's helpful to hear where community input has shaped these proposals. Um, I'd love to hear very specifically like we heard this and so we acted this way. Not just clarifications that people are asking for, but actual outcomes of people showing up to meetings, um, giving feedback, being consistently uh, part of these discussions. Um, if we want community input and we want people to be engaged, we have to show them that it it results in something and it means something. And so I hope that again as these proposals are are presented in

more detail to a broader audience that people can feel like they are and see where they are having an impact through providing input to these bodies. Thank you all for all the great work that you're doing. Very much support this and look forward to more more hearings and more comments. Thanks everyone.

Thank you. Um, and yeah, on the visualizations, that'll definitely be something that, you know, we had some kind of very very early looks at a at a massing suggestion for at least one parcel at our planning and permitting committee meeting. I know the PDS staff um and and as folks looks like we said I saw some nods about the sections. We might be able to do some of that for June 3rd. So, we will definitely have some of those visualizations. Um and you know I think we'll talk more about at the public hearing as well kind of now three plus years of the public process and you know what is coming from the comprehensive plan what was the vision for this area and the feedback we heard there all the way through um meetings in 2024 25 and now 2026 where we incorporated um the input of of our residents and uh appreciate Jeremy, you and others who have been um consistently part of this and spreading the word out in the community about the process and trying to get more people involved because it's helpful to have folks in the room sharing good suggestions. I think some of what you heard I'm sure some of what I said was something that you said at some point tonight. So, I think that's uh that's something we're trying to do as well. Um there was one really specific question. I don't know if Alicia or Pala you could answer it in two seconds. What's the threshold when the green score applies?

Yeah.

Um Yeah. So when it doesn't apply, so every uh project that has to go through site plan review has to go through green score. Um if they are not going through site plan review, so basically a lower intensity residential like two, three, uh four units, they wouldn't have to go for a green score. and basically is because those type of developers you wouldn't have landscapers um or you know it it usually is very green. It's more permeable. We are not worried. Usually we have lower um maximum building coverage. So that's why we don't go through uh green score for those. But any other project that has to go through site plan review will have to go to the green score. and and you noted that one of the for those lower intensity um or the projects that are not subject to site plan review there's an alternative metric which is the

you will have the permeable uh the minimum permeable surface and the minimum open landscape so which is 15% of landscape and 20% of the permeable great thank you all right um and now I will go to Laurel Ruma Laurel name and address the record please and thanks for being here

hi everyone Everyone, my name is Laurel Ruma. My address is 149 Burgett Avenue. Um, thank you for making the time for this tonight. Um, I don't believe TUS also needs to go through the green score or site plan review if that's correct. So, there's another exception to the rule. Um, I would certainly not be in favor of another 600 bed dorm, whatever you want to call it, um, just down the way on Boston Avenue with two going in here. As you can imagine, the concern of the neighborhood Even though the horse really is out of the barn unfortunately char chair car about the keeping character of the neighborhood um the the idea of having a a an alley of 10story dorm buildings is just horrific. So you know let's be realistic and what we're actually wanting for this corridor and you know that size building is just certainly not one of the things um I'm looking forward to in this process. And the other thing is too is the reality of TU's plan to have 75% of the students back on campus. Like that's part of the business plan. So having a private dorm compete with the the business plan, I'm sure that's not necessar I mean of course it's a free market. You can do whatever you want. But I you know in general um I just uh having that many large dorms on our side of campus instead of anywhere else is is certainly not something I I would support. Um, so the other the thing I what I mean by the horses out of the barn like already, you know, we're going to see a lot of development where we are in Boston a is the place to put it. Winthrip and in Boston is critical, but the entire corridor is really. So if you look from Route 16 all the way down to Ball Square, there's so much opportunity. And the reason that there's so much opportunity is because of those tough students once those dorms are complete, their range and where they go is going to expand and it's going to go all the way to the Whole Foods all the

way down Route 16. So the idea of having mixed juice opportunities from Route 16 to Ball Square is really encouraging because that's what you are building here. um whether or not we want to keep the character of our hundred-y old houses is absolutely a moot point at this juncture like that doesn't exist anymore. Um the way the zoning works, the way that the city is developing, the way the entire region is developing, we can no longer uh expect to stay in our single family homes forever and ever and ever. It's the way the economy is moving as well. So to carve out specific residential areas to keep them residential, I suppose that's fine as long as they are they are UR1 or UR 2 and they're affected by everyone else like as we are in this like bullseye right at the toughs green line station. Um because I don't see us living in this bubble. I don't see single family homes sustaining on Boston Avenue. There was already two three family homes. Why not, you know, make that opportunity to actually create stepped up, step down neighborhoods instead of having a 10story dorm building and then a three family home. Like there's certainly opportunities here for gradations. And I think that's something, you know, I would certainly like to see leaned into like let's make a more diverse neighborhood, not just eight, six to 10 story buildings and then threetory houses. Um and uh the idea that these buildings are going to dwarf houses. Yeah. Well, welcome to our reality at this end as we all know what runs downhill. Like this is just the way it is. We have 10-story buildings built on a hill. If we didn't want that, then we shouldn't have apartment 2 zoning that allows such buildings to be so big um and tall surrounding an area of residential houses. But like I said, we're barely an

area of residential houses and in the future certainly won't be. The other thing I have issue is these lots, if you look at the plan, are some of the largest lots available in the city that still have single family homes on them. And I hate to think that we're missing out an opportunity um to possibly do something bigger and better on some of the biggest lots available on this Boston Nav corridor that's they are currently set aside for residential only. So, you know, there's something to be said about let's be creative um and what's possible. And perhaps those business I mean sorry those homeowners understand that they have one house on 10 square 10,000 square feet and that's frankly not fair or andor they have a massive opportunity to put even more there. So, you know, from the Titan building on and then the Clement Elementary School, whatever that building is that's currently unused, that should certainly be a massive opportunity for a 10 8 to 10 story building because it is already a massive building, a massive lot, a massive opportunity.

Thank you, Laurel. And and I appreciate that. And like I tend to agree with you the scope has narrowed significantly. You know we are you mentioned UR1 and UR 2 which um existed at some point in the discussion but the residential discussion has you know we've been limited the mayor has basically said we're not having that discussion. So that's why the scope has narrowed so much and you know my hope is in the next round of um the next RFP and the next discussion when we're coming back to this more holistic and comprehensive approach we can look at the step down um elements that you're talking about because when we started in 2024 and based on the comprehensive plan we really did have more of that that approach or at least trying to get to that approach that you mentioned of um looking at these areas in totality and not saying let's just look at this really narrow strip of Boston A and just the parcels adjacent to Boston A um and not look at the residential only areas because there really is in the long run a need to look at it as an integrated corridor um I think we're we tried to preserve as much of that as we could um immediately adjacent to Boston A and and looking at the TUS institutional zone but then there are these gaps especially that gap on the north side where it's a general residential zone zone and and basically the agreement we got to so that we could keep doing zoning at all was if it's a residential zone, we're not talking about it right now. Um so I agree that that um does limit some of the creative thinking and I appreciate the comment and your other comments too. That was just the one that stuck with me. Um we have one more commenter with their hand raised. Um Janie Telerita. Janie, if you can give your name and address and um we'll start the timer.

Hi, thank you. Um Janie Telerita, 68 Charwood Road. Um sorry, bad lighting tonight. Um I have some comments and some questions. Um and I'll just jump in, I think, first with with some questions. Um there's a I I really want some clarity on the timeline here. There was a mention of a June 3 hearing. Um I have not Tonight is the first I've heard of any specifics about this. I did not have time to review any any materials before jumping on to this call. Um and I'm going away for 3 weeks. I will not be here on June 3rd. I want to make sure I have time to comment. Can you clarify when when you're taking what date you're taking public comments until um and yeah, just more guidelines on timing to for this. Um so that's my first question. Um, there was some talk of incentives and and I' I'd like to hear more about what constitutes incentives. Um, and um, a little clarity about daylight. These are just some comments that have come up tonight that are I think important and just have a little clarity around. Um, and just a few comments. There was there was talk about changes not happening overnight. Um, when these when zoning changes go through, um, that's not true. That's already

happened. Um, if you look at Boston A and I just want to clarify those of us who are in Hillside on Charwood on Bergget on Brookings, we look at Boston A, it is part of our neighborhood and so what happens there impacts us personally and directly. Um we have seen drastic change just in five years with the green line coming in which has been a wonderful thing of course um it also had an impact in removing all the trees and the train tracks which has had a huge visual and sound impact on us. Um and it's also wonderful that we have the green line. So just to be clear, um we now have a 10story block long wall being built. So to say that change happens gradually, um that that that that's not true. Sorry. Um it it's it's here. It's happening now and it's impacting us massively. Um I heard comments about um the space or lack of space between buildings. Um, we don't need yet another wall of buildings. Um, and I haven't heard anything about affordability. I'm sure that's one of the incentives. Um, but that's an incentive is kind of a bribe and not a requirement. Um, I think that allowing developers to build whatever they want, um,

with the idea that we'll have more and more units and the more and more units will eventually bring rents down and housing costs down. Um, I I don't think that's going to happen. And I haven't seen it in other cities where tons and tons and tons and tons of housing has been added and the rents have just gone up and the rents have gone up because the developers charge high rents and they wouldn't be building if they didn't think that they could continue to charge high rents or um build and and sell units for top dollar. Um anyway, just a few comments around that. Um it is really exciting to see some of the possible uses. The idea of you know a walkable vibrant Boston is wonderful with small businesses and cafes and um sidewalk seating. Um all of that is would be fantastic. and we've we're we've gotten some of it and it's been really great for the community. So, would be great to have more. Let's just not let's just keep it in human scale and not be dwarfed by outsized buildings that make us not want to be there because we're sitting in a big block of shade all day and because it just doesn't feel good. Thank you.

Thank you. Whoops. Um, thank you, Janie. One, uh, I just to address the process side of this, you know, I think we all heard the rest of the comments. Um, we'll have the public hearing on June 3rd. I would expect that that would be continued at least one further meeting. Um, we have a meeting scheduled also for June 11th. And given the short time frame between those two meetings, it really wouldn't surprise me if that was continued further into June. But I would say the dates to have on your calendars are June 3rd and June 11th um for the public hearing on this. And that's another opportunity for folks to come um and that would be the opportunity to speak in the public hearing which is required by the zoning law. Get your comments on the record. Right. Do we have any further public comments? I'm not seeing any hands on Zoom and not seeing any in the chamber. All right, we're going to close out that public comment portion on the Boston Avenue Neighborhood Corridor District. Um, I think it is worth it. It's come up a couple times. I talked about it at the beginning to just do a quick overview. um director Hunt and Paula about what our goals are for the TUS institutional zone and the timing on that. I think we indicated at the beginning of the meeting that we um do not believe we will have a final TUS institutional zone by the end of June for approval, but the goal is to have a a kind of a framework or even potentially an early draft of that zoning. I don't know if there's more a little more context that you guys would want to provide.

And that's uh paper 24033 TUS institutional zone discussion. So the current intention, Mr. president is to have a draft for the 1 of June um for people to start looking at. Um that's current that is the plan from Inis uh land use strategies. So we'll see we'll look at it. Um I think it's a great question for the boards and the council. What do they want to do? How do they want to handle this? And what's the next steps? um in a very high level way. Um we also have to put out an RFP for zoning consultant uh for like the next phase and I will tell you that we have not had the bandwidth to really review that document and make any headway on getting that RFP out. It's frankly just a matter of manh hours in the office to get that done. on our side it is there is a draft that's available to uh the counselors on that subcommittee and the um uh members of the CD board that are on that basically the the working group as well as well as the mayor it's available to them all to look at I am not aware of anybody having had the bandwidth to do more than acknowledge we have the last draft the last time we put this out to bid and that we have kind has said we really should redo that now that we know with all of our lessons learned. Um, so

we have no timeline on putting that out. Although I will say it's my personal goal that we could have it out for consultants to look at during the summer and then we could actually make decisions on hiring in September. Um, just because of the length of times things take.

Yeah, appreciate that. Um, and I'll recognize that chair car and councelor Leming in a second. I just want to kind of echo um the capacity question that director Hunt just raised. I think even having it out in the summer with a decision in September is an ambitious timeline. Certainly the council um we have to do this, we have to do the budget and we have to do the five or six other things we're working on. Um so I think us being able to get together even in a planning and permitting committee meeting to even review a final product never mind give comments on the stages um before that um is would be ambitious to try to do by the end of June if it's running in parallel to this this project. So this part of the project so I just wanted to put that out there. Um I'll go to Chair Carr and then councelor Lick.

Thank you President Baris. Um, I would like to make um a pitch here that that we not rushed the TUS uh zoning. I feel like we've just had one brief conversation with TUS so far and I feel like I I I feel like we need to bring to to to come together and find out what we want. I I don't know how ins can create something without input from the city council and the city board to start from because there's there's such a wide variety of different ways it can go and so many intersected things. I just don't think there's the time to do it properly. Just we're going to get Boston done I think by June 30th. I can see that based on what I see in front of me tonight and the comments like there's a there's a path forward there. I just don't see that on toughs. we by even getting a draft by June 30th. I think it will dilute the time we have. I would really prefer that we we gather more information and feedback, give it to NIS, let them work on it in July, come back with having knowing what our thoughts are to to develop that draft, but not put something down that we none of us have really seen before. I I don't think that's the right way to approach something as sensitive as TUS. And Tus is going to obviously have several there's going to be a dialogue back and forth for months with TUS, I think. And I just think it's I just doesn't feel like it should be part of this process. Just my own personal opinion, obviously.

Thank you, Chair Carr. Um, and we'll go to Councelor Lemming.

Yeah. Um, I I I can take a shot at uh uh looking over the uh looking over the RFP. Um, just want to put that out there to, you know, commit myself to doing it because it's just one of those things that everybody can sort of put on the back burner. Um, but I by saying that during a public meeting, you know, I'm kind of putting the expectation on myself. Um, yeah, with I mean I I don't think anybody thinks at this stage with regards to the toast institutional zoning that we'll have anything close to a finished product by um by the end of June. And the problem with any any expect like we don't have in is past past June 30th. Um and that that's that cut off is something to keep in mind there when talking about the timelines. Um, I think that having an initial draft out there is very useful for the public conversation because one, we are going to have a good amount of public of feedback between the memo that TUS gave us and the feedback that we get from the June 1st uh session. and we it will be very useful to the public conversation to have something out there. So I feel like when people are kind of talking about the toughs institutional zoning and there's no drafts like there's no even there's no like it all just becomes very amorphous and you know if there's something out there then people can have like something to oppose or get behind and that kind of starts that public feedback process. So, I feel like it's it's useful for the public to just have something to to look at, some initial ideas on paper so that over the summer they can sort of think about it. Um, and then of course we'll we'll get something back. Um, you know, the agreement said we're not going to talk about anything. We're we're not going to have any

meetings on this over the summer. And then you get back in the fall uh and then you know we'll people who have had those conversations uh around the community people in individuals on the council and the CD board will have heard from folks and I feel like we'll have a better idea of where it stands but I just want to keep the conversation from being kind of vague uh for too long.

Yeah. And I do wonder Thank you, Councelor Leming. I do wonder if the word draft versus the word framework I think it would be helpful to try to have I think we need a milestone if we know that we're this contract is ending we need a milestone that has some sort of work product that sets the foundation for us to build on it either with a new team or whoever wins the next RFP or even internally with the planning development sustainability staff um in September right we need some sort of milestone that develops some sort of product that we can take all the work that we've already done and work from. And I think the question the thing that keeps coming with the toughs institutional zone to me is what are the questions we're trying to answer? And it seems like we don't have that all of the different models of institutional zoning are um deficient in some way. And so the question is what are we trying to do? And maybe if we could come up with three, four, five, six um things that we're trying to control for to develop a framework um that might be a valuable work product and even something that could be brought to the June 1st info session with some options. Just kind of my two cents and I do see a member Sean Began. So I'll recognize member Began. Yeah, I was just thinking why don't we have TUS give us their proposed zoning ordinance, what they want, draft it fully, have them do it, and then us work backwards from there. What do we like? What don't we like about what they want? Takes the burden off our contractor who's only got another month and a half. Takes the burden off our planning department who's already overworked. They can do it. They know what they want. Let them draft it. and then we'll mark it up.

I I think there's value in a few directions there. Um, one of them being that it seems like we we might not like what they want. Um, and I could see value on both sides of that question, right? One is let them put the things that we know we don't want on paper and then they've said it out loud. The flip side being does that mean we're letting TUS write our zoning or does it even appear to be that we're letting TUS write our zoning? And I think we need to be very clear. Um, and I I think you were implying it that we're writing we're asking that question kind of in a in a negative. Um, I don't want to put those that in your mouth, member began, but um,

I'm suggesting it in terms of from a practical standpoint. If we draft something and give it to them and they hate it, it's just gonna it's going to be five more meetings of them browbeating us for what they want. Let them draft it and we'll and they'll pro the changes we make maybe less than you think or we think. Yeah. And plus it it saves the city money. We don't have to have a we don't have to have our um our our staff or our contractors doing the work.

I'll go to Chair Carr. I I I think it's an interesting idea, Sean. Um remember remember TUS did give us a memo. They've kind of told us not in a zoning map, but they have actually outlined what their preferences are for the zoning. They were quite specific about height and about a bunch of things u parking and and and Roco and the company, they've they've had a first pass at that. What I what I'm concerned about is when I see these maps, you know, and we just went through this in Memphis Square. It took it took so many meetings to get boundaries to shift to just a little bit. It took us forever to get historic resources into the plan. These map these maps sometimes have an inertia and a and a will of their own. And I'm worried if the map is developed for TUS without any input from the city board with very little input I think so far from the city council that that becomes the deacto plan and I just don't I don't think it's a good idea to create a plan without an idea behind it that comes out of the city. The city, I think, owes Inennis clear direction in what they want, what we want for TU's zoning to protect Medford, to allow TUS to grow. Um, I'm not looking to to make TU's life hard, but we have a situation on Boston Avenue that is an absolute disaster. And one of the concepts behind whatever zoning we put together for TUS has to be never again for what Boston have has become because that is terrible and a lot of people earlier spoke about that and they need we need to assure metro residents that they're not going to be in the shadow of tus for the next 50 years if they want a 10-story building or they can use the do amendment to get whatever they want if we give them opportunity and I have to we have to

start with something that we feel is right from effort and fair to tough and there is a reasonable compromise in that in my opinion. Thank you chair car. Councelor Leming

yeah I mean giving giving toughs the ability to draft the initial zoning basically let's them you know set the playing field for everything. I I don't I don't think that's a great approach. And uh besides besides that, like if the it's I feel it's not really money um in most cases that's the issue. It's time, you know, time that's spent in meetings, time that's spent scheduling things, time for both bodies to discuss um effort to to do the outreach. Um, and so, uh, yeah, I I think I think the intention behind a good way to summarize the intention behind the TUS institutional zoning, from what I've been hearing, is a way to allow TUS to grow without the city totally giving up any leverage it has in that relationship. Um, and that that's that's the best way that I can think to summarize the direction um that uh that that that we'd like to go. Um, and you know, I I think I think it should be the city's consultants uh or planning staff with the capacity that they have to come up with an initial draft. And the initial draft could be something that that nobody agrees with, but even having that will kind of like let people figure out what they want. It'll help pe get people's opinions out there. So that's why I think just like having something there uh would be would be extremely useful for the conversation over the summer.

Thank you, Councelor Leming. All right. Do we have any further discussion on this question at this time? Seems like we kind of have a general general thought of how we're going to go forward, but maybe some of the specifics we'll need to discuss further. All right. Um, then we need to take a vote as a city council only to refer Oh, sorry, John. Go ahead.

Um, I think we should consider u Mr. Been's proposal because by even though toughs may we may disagree with everything they want but it sets a limit on what they're going to ask for. Sort of like when you're selling your house, somebody puts a bid in. Well, you know you can get at least that. It seems to me the person the person who makes the first move actually loses something.

Um we could uh certainly take a vote on such a motion. It seems to me that there's a potential for a motion potential for a second. Um outside of that I um you know cons consideration. No not right now.

Okay. You know consideration it's it's in the air. It's been floated. It'll I'm sure it'll be part of further discussion. So it certainly could be considered going forward. Sounds like we don't want to um have the motion on it right now. Um so that's heard. Let's um dispose of our We need to take some disposition votes tonight to move the process forward. So, we do have the paper 26093, which is the proposed amendments to the Medford zoning ordinance um Boston Avenue neighborhood corridor district. Um that's for referral to the community development board. So, this is a vote of the city council only. Is there a motion uh from a city councelor to refer this to the community development board formally? on the motion of councelor Callahan, seconded by councelor Lemming.

Um, any further discussion by members of the council? Seeing none, Mr. Clerk, could you please call the role? Council Kelly. Council Lemon, yes. Council me, yes. Council Scott Belly. Oh, we didn't hear you, George. Sorry about that. Uh, yes, Council Singh. Council Singh is absent. He's absent. Vice President Lazaro is absent. And President Beers,

yes. Five affirmative, two absent. The motion passes and we've referred this to the community development board. Um we will be scheduling the public hearing. Uh the next time we will be having the discussion of the public hearing will be June 3rd. Uh there may be a noticed um meeting to continue the public hearing to June 3rd. Just FYI, but that would be on May 27th. But that will not be the discussion. We just need to it's the legal process. So I'm working that through with Danielle. June 3rd is the date to keep on your calendars. Um, I don't think we need to do anything with the next paper. It's really just an updates paper. It's been on like four committees and um, so I think we can just leave that. We do have general public participation on the agenda. Um, if there's any further public participation. All right. Seeing none in person or on Zoom, is there a motion? Uh we'll go through the council and then the community development board. Uh motion to adjourn by councelor Mlain, seconded by councelor Callahan. Mr. Cler, please call the role.

Council Callahan. Council Lenning. Yes. Council me. Yes. Council Scott Belly. Yes. Council Sing absent. Vice President Lazaro is absent. President Bears. Yes. Five of two absent. Uh the motion passes. Uh, is there a motion on the community development board to adjurnn? On the motion of member Caligaro, seconded by member Anderson to adjurnn. Mr. Clerk, please call the role for the community development board. John Anderson, yes. Sean Began, yes. Paige Baldini, yes. Dina Kajiro, Ari Goffman, Fishman, yes.

And Cherkar, yes, sir. Thank you. All right, that's six in the affirmative, none in the negative. Motion passes for both bodies and the meeting is adjourned. Thank you.