Planning Board - Regular Meeting

I said we haven't seen a full board.

I don't think I've seen a full house in two years. Full house. Somerville Planning Board for Wednesday, January 14th, 2026. Please come to order. Adequate notice of this meeting as required by the Open Public Meeting Act has been provided. Copy of the notice specifying the date, time, and location was one posted on the bulletin board outside of Burough Hall. Two mailed facts are emailed to the Courier News and three given to the clerk administrator. This meeting is a judicial proceeding. Any questions or comments must be limited to the issues of the board that the board may legally consider in reaching a decision and the decorum appropriate to a judicial hearing must be maintained at all times. Pledge. Please stand.

Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation, indivisible, liberty and justice for all. All right. We have next our oath of offices for Jason Krasa, Andrea Dair, and Tim Hayes. Oh, and Roger. That's right. Raise your right hand. I state I Jason Krasa do solemnly swear do solemnly swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States that I will support the Constitution of the United States in the state of New Jersey in the state of New Jersey

and that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same and that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same and to the government established in the United States and to the governance established in the United States and in this state and in this state under the authority of the people under the authority of the people I do further solemnly swear I do further solemnly swear that I will faithfully and partially and justly I will faithfully and partially and justly perform all the duties of planning board member perform all the duties of planning board member for the bur ofville for the burrow of Somerville to the best of my abil according to the best of my ability so help me God

certific Okay. Uh, roll call, please. Andrea Dair here. Chris Addex here. Larry Cleveland here. Tim Hayes here. Bill Kale here. Jason Krasa here. John Manilio here. Councilman Vroom here. Mayor Gallagher here. Chairwoman Warner here. All right. Uh, election of officers. So, first we have to do our chair prom. I'll nominate Jason Krasco to be promot

Andrea Dair. Yes. Chris Addex, yes. Larry Cleveland, yes. Tim Hayes, yes. Bill Kale, yes. Jason Krasa, yes. John Manilio, yes. Councilman Vroom, yes. Mayor Gallagher, yes. Lisa Werner, yes. We have Barry here, too. I'm still on there, right? [laughter] Oh, you know my first act, but this is how I found out. [laughter] Sorry, it was on my list actually. Is he going to vote on it then or we just Barry Van Horn? Yes. [laughter]

All right. Next up and then we're going to have the election of officers. We need a chairperson and a vice chair. Do we have a nomination? I'll nominate Lisa Wernern as chair. Second. Andrea Dair, yes. Chris Addex, yes. Larry Cleveland, yes. Tim Hayes, yes. Bill Kale, yes. Jason Kra, yes. John Manilio, yes. Barry Van Horn, yes. Councilman Vroom, yes. Mayor Gallagher, yes. Lisa Warner, yes. Congratulations. Congratulations. Thank you. All right. All right. So, now we need a nomination for vice chair. I'll nominate Jason Kra. Andrea Dair, yes. Chris Addex, yes. Larry Cleveland, yes. Tim Hayes, yes. Bill Kale, yes. John Manilio,

yes. Barry Van Horn, yes. Councilman Vroom, yes. Mayor Gallagher, yes. Jason Kraser, yes. Chairwoman Warner, yes. Uh, and just really thank you everybody for entrusting me with this again. I truly appreciate it. Um, all right. On to resolutions. We have PB260114-001 establishing 2 2026 meetings. We can do these all at once. Correct, Kevin, or do I have to do them individually?

All right, I'll read through it real quick and then if you have an issue, let me know. We'll pull it. Otherwise, we'll do one vote. Uh 260014 uh 02 designating official newspapers 03 authorizing the award of the non-fair and open contract uh to McN Yos and Kazinski. Uh that's for legal services. Uh O 011404 authorizing the award of non-fair and open contract to Colon Associates for engineering and planning services to the board. 01145 authorizing the award of the non-fair and open contract to CHA consulting to perform engineering and planning services as our alternate and then 0114006 authorizing the award of a nonfair non-fair and open contract to Mike Lumbardozi. Any issues with any of them for anybody?

Just question Mike Lumbard. He's a synographer. Oh, he's not here. He's not here. I pointed as if he was, but I I I had asked Mike not to attend since there was not an application tonight. Yeah. Okay. Go ahead. Uh motion to approve. Second. Andrea Dair, yes. Chris Addex, yes. Larry Cleveland, yes. Tim Hayes, yes. Bill Kale, yes. Jason Kra, yes. John Manilio, yes. Barry Van Horn, yes. Councilman Vroom, yes. Mayor Gallagher, yes. Chairwoman Werner, yes. All right. All right. And we had an ARB for review. 68 uh West Main Street. This was 69 West.

I'm sorry. 69. Still have one of my glasses. I try. Uh and it's for sign and facade. It was pretty simplistic. We already did this internally, right? This is just Yeah, this is just a notification. The kumo. Yep. So, I will move uh the ARB. Do we have to or No, this is just a notification for us because we've already done it. All right. Uh, no minutes. Uh, no reszos. No. Yes. Thank you. Yes, please. All right, this is for 122 West Main Real Estate Varian.

Was there anybody not eligible? Uh obviously, uh Mr. Hayes, um I'll move the resolution. I'll second. Can you give a just a basic on what it is? The address is nice, but it's the central pizzeria.

Yes. No, I remember. Yeah, I just didn't know.

Sorry. Thank you. Yes.

Uh I'm fine. You had advised that uh uh Tim Hayes and and the chairwoman were not were not eligible. Uh, Andrea Dair, Chris Addex, yes. Larry Cleveland, yes. Bill Kale, yes. Jason Krasco, yes. Um, Barry Van Horn, yes. Councilman Vroom, yes. Mayor Gallagher, yes.

And Chairwoman Warner, I think we got that covered. Okay. All right. Uh, open business. So, there's nothing we're going to actually physically discuss tonight. Um, our open business items. So, anything that we've been discussing, I moved it we moved it over to open business so that we don't lose track of it. Um, but when it comes to uh the ECBD, Mike's just going to give us so that we are going to pick up next meeting back on the eastern uh as well as storm water. So Mike's going to kind of just give us a recap and let us off the hook for tonight and then next meeting is back on for full business discussion.

Yes. Uh thank you and behalf of the the professionals thank you board for reappointing all of us. It's wonderful. Great to be back. Um, on the ECBD, we left it that we're going to talk about bulk standards and drill down on the bulk standards on the East Main Street project. And secondly, we're going to be looking at I think the council has authorized the planning board to to expand the area to include some county property. the triangle that is going to be looked at similar to the West Main Street which is a new street Somerset West End. We looked at this is going to be around the county facility for uh if the if things change what does the the burrow wish to go in there and that's the property that's mechanic street. It's the triangle uh east main essentially with if you look at the zoning map where the county buildings are. So that is coming up on the ECBD. And of course, we're going to be looking at redevelopment zones, all of them, and the micro to see what needs to be modified, refreshed because they're getting I won't say it because the mayor gets mad when I say long in the tooth, but I Anyhow, we're looking at that. And then storm water, we left at the last meeting. We the planning board drilled down and came up with a framework of what they the board recommends to the council. I am going to be modifying the outline the table as we discussed to leave the stuff that was discussed and agreed upon consensus from the planning board and then so the board can discuss the other as like a Christmas tree. We did the overall structure. Now, we'll drill down to some of the details on what the board is going to recommend on what where the board wants to go with this. So, that will be in the next

planning board meeting. And Larry, just for your awareness, we I'm going to be sending a uh I'll have um the secretary do it. We're going to be inviting letting the environmental commission know that, you know, you might want to attend because we're going to be starting ready for some open public questions and comments. Y that'll be at the next meeting as well. Okay. Um any questions on the two of those from anybody? Um any did anybody I know that um we didn't really go into it too much in detail, but on the new noticing requirements. Did anybody have any questions while we have Carrie here now?

And and what I can do is I have just little blurbs that I can distribute to everybody. We can they can take a look at them and discuss a little more. I did talk with Kevin. You guys are all up to speed on everything. So obviously you have nothing to worry about. Um, but I'll circulate that if anyone has any questions, we can chat about it in two weeks.

Perfect. Thank you. Uh, master plan. Uh, we will be picking this back up now. I'm going to be meeting and getting from the burrow all the committees that did actually submit and make sure that all those committees that we have all those pieces. We're going to collect that. We're going to try to organize it and then we will be full swing in starting to because we have not really technically we haven't opened up the review. We wanted those people to look at that. Um, so I I I think um you know around I think it was in February I February

I think February 11th is when we're going to make that. So the first meeting in February is where we'll announce we're going to be open for full review actually doing the review um and then begin the process from there. I'm hoping to have everybody that package of all the comments from all the different committees by then. um tree ordinance. We will be moving on to that next as well. Um most likely we will be starting that on the 11th as well. We should be done with storm water by then. We didn't want to overlap and really inundate everybody. Um but even in starting it, we'll have you know Mike do like we did last time that initial presentation to us where do we stand? Um and then we can start into you know our review like we did with storm water zoning has been that overall. Um one other item too was West End will be coming. Um the council has basically said yes they are accepting that we um made that an area of need. We need to get down and we will start this um next meeting. We this won't delay because it's not a heavy lift. We need to look at the new areas and new lots and blocks and we need to apply some bulk standards to them and then that will once we do that that'll go back to the um I almost say planning board back to the council for that final okay and adoption. All right. Um I think that was it for my notes.

Yes. Yes. Yes. Yeah. So basically, like I said, council said, "Yes, we we we accept what you guys said of of recruit, you know, including them all, but we just need to get down those details um as a board for them." Uh the last thing is um the timeline, you know, as we've been moving along, like I said, we've had all these items. Um myself, Jason, and Colin are are I I do have all my notes for you, Colin. Um we

I know it's all right. Um, we've been really trying to look and and adjust the timeline as needed. Um, I'm we should have it as a firm on a lot of it really is what we're kind of moving around our start dates. We're finding we were a little overzealous with our initial timeline of expectations of and we don't want too much on anybody's plate, you know, um three, four and the addition of the storm water and tree ordinance kind of threw us off on that timeline, but we should have a new updated with that general guideline of when these items will be starting um for you for next meeting. Okay. I have no comments except that, you know, 2025 was a great year for us. It was very busy. Um really looking forward to 2026. I think it's going to be just as busy. We have quite a few things on the burner for us that will be coming before us as well as all the work that we've been doing on all of our plans and I truly appreciate all the work you guys do and really looking forward to 2026. So, thank you for everything.

Lisa, super quick question. Um I know there's one floating around. I think I've seen it, but do we have any type of map that shows the the um redevelopment zones just kind of all in one? It's it's somewhere. I can't remember where it is. Maybe send Can you resend that outline? Map. Okay. Awesome. Thanks, guys. I can get you that. And just to follow up, we the planning board will look next month at some tweaks on the housing element in fair share. Oh, yes. Thank you. So, you'll just So, we have to tweak it as part of the process. So, it's about 90% the same. We can certainly discuss that next month, but just so it's on the everybody's agenda.

Sorry, I'm writing a note and I can't do two things at once at my age.

Okay. Uh I am going to open up the meeting to the public. All members of the public wish to address the board. Any matter not listed on the agenda may do so at this time for items. Hearing none, I will close public session. Uh, chairwoman, I just have one comment. I do want to introduce uh Jason Monday. Uh, Jason's going to be helping us at at some of the public meetings, the board of adjustment, planning board, and and the council with with some of the technical items and then we we'll advance them as as we see uh, you know, as we need to potentially roll call matters. Uh, we do have a couple voids in the office right now. Uh, your November, December, and these minutes will be worked on within the next two weeks.

Okay. Thank you. Yeah, absolutely. Mayor, I was gonna try to get in there before. Go ahead. You go first. No, he's gonna make a motion for [laughter]

Well, then I'll go first. No, I I actually just want to dovetail on what the chair had uh had had mentioned. One, thank you. Um we have constituted a board which I think is extremely professional, extremely um dedicated to Somerville, extremely educated um and we've brought a whole lot of different talents to this table and uh and I'm excited about what we have here up at this up at this deis. Um we have a lot on our plate. We have a lot uh this is going to be a very busy working board uh this year especially uh and as as the chair said I'm I'm excited about it. We we did this 20 some odd years ago and it reshaped Somerville into what you see today. We have the opportunity to do that again for the next 20 years. So um an exciting time. I thank you for stepping up and raising your hand and saying I want to do this. um it's valued and uh and and it's appreciated. So, thank you all and uh we look forward to a great 2026.

A nice light easing into 2026 on the planning board side. So, I need a motion for German. So moved. Second. All in favor? I. All opposed.