Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Okay, good evening, everybody. This is the regularly scheduled meeting of the Planning Board. It is September 17th, 2026. Pursuant to Chapter 2 of the Acts of 2025, this meeting of the Planning Board will be conducted via remote participation. A video recording of the proceedings will be available on the City website's Meetings and Events page or by emailing planningboard at somervillema.gov. This meeting is being recorded. I am Mike Capuano. I am the Chairman of the Planning Board. With me tonight is our Vice Chair Amelia Aboff, our Clerk Jahan Habib, and our members Michael McNeely, Coralie

I'm doing well. If you could introduce yourself for the record, please.

Great. And so what we have is no recommendation on our staff memorandum for this application on the grounds. And is Kit the planner on this one? Yeah, it is my understanding that this application has not submitted all of the required materials that staff needs in order to make a recommendation and to assess the application fully.

Okay. And so, Nicole, just so you know, it's the policy.

So what I'm going to suggest to you, because usually it's the planning board's practice not to take applications to be heard that that have not yet either been complete or have not been fully reviewed. by staff in order to weigh in because that may change the nature of your application and presentation to us. It's my suggestion to you that you continue for another couple of weeks so that Kit and the relevant staff will be able to review that material and update our recommendation memo so that you can get a recommendation one way or the other.

Okay, our next meeting is October 1st. Will that be a good enough duration of time for you to review, Kit?

Okay. So the applicant has made a request to continue this agenda item to the 1st of October. So the chair moves to continue that agenda item, seconded by Amelia. Alvaro, can we please have a roll call? Aye. Lynn Richards.

This agenda item is continued so that staff will be able to review any of the missing materials and make a recommendation accordingly. Thank you.

Okay. And in a similar way, it's my understanding that 6 Wheatland Street has not yet completely submitted all of the required materials in order to get the Appropriate staff to weigh in, but what I'd like to do is invite the applicant for Wheatland Street to come in and just have a quick discussion on that. And who is the case planner on 6th Wheatland? Is it Alvaro? Yeah. Okay.

So this technically hasn't been read into the record yet, but we're not actually discussing the case. Do you think that a review of the TAP Alvaro will change the nature of this application in any meaningful way?

Okay, so in some ways, that's a formality as opposed to the previous case, which was more substantive. Okay, then what I'd like to do now, then is John, could you read into the record the notice of public hearing for 6 week? Because I don't think it's been done yet.

Thanks for the clarification, Alvaro. It's good to obviously have that on the record for... Going forward. Adam, I don't know if you have members of a team that need to be shared or unmuted or whatever. Yes, we do.

I only have a few comments, but I'm going to reserve them until after public testimony, if there will be any. But does anybody on the planning board have any comments or questions that they'd like to ask of the applicant or of staff before I open up testimony? Okay. With that, I'm going to open up this hearing to public testimony for anybody that would like to speak in support of the application. please hit the raise hand button and I will call in. Going once, going twice, seeing none, I will close that portion of the public hearing and open it up to anybody that would like to speak in opposit

Thanks, Michael. The next person I saw was Luke, and I do see Lynn's hand after that. Thanks.

Yeah. So, Luke, I'll respond to that. It's been the practice of the board to require a complete application, a complete review. That's kind of the standard that we've got in order to write a decision that complies with Um, the ordinance and state law to make sure that we have, in fact, considered everything that we need to consider. Um, we have held other projects for, um, for taps. Both both ministerial and substantive and I would be. reticent to speed this one along when it's not quite there yet. I'm expecting that when we reconvene on this, it will be a 30-second discussion. That's my guess

So I'd like to get Alvaro's view on that.

Okay, good. Okay, next person I saw was Lynn and then Carly and then Amelia.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just wanted to follow up on Luke's comment. As one member, personally, I feel like if a tap is what's holding something up and it only has to do with bicycles, I personally would feel fine about advancing it anyway because I think that bike parking is something that is nimble and low stakes. And when we're talking about things that have to do with the vehicles and turns and safety, that to me, that is in like a different ballpark. And so I just wanted to respond to Luke's like, I know I've been the holdup on some taps before. And like, I always have a great deal of conc

So Luke and Amelia, I would kind of follow where you're going on this. The only hang up I have is what Alvaro said a few minutes ago. Were this something that could be fit into a condition, mobility would have told us that. as they have done in the past, and they didn't do that in this circumstance, which means there's something that's not quite right.

Oh, I absolutely defer to Alvaro and mobility through him. I just wanted to offer, to the extent Luke was proposing sort of an alternative framework for moving forward, I wanted to offer a layer to consider in that. Thank you.

All right. So good discussion. Good application. Our next meeting is October the 1st. I'm going to leave written comment open until Friday the 25th at 9 a.m. Planning board at summerhallma.gov is where they can be directed. The chair moves to continue this agenda item to October 1st, seconded by Amelia. Roll call, please.

Thank you. See you in a couple of weeks.

Appreciate it. Last item on our agenda is 8 Medford Street, which has previously been opened. It has been heard. Testimony has been taken. The board had asked a few questions, raised a few points. It's been a few weeks since the last time we all met. I believe the applicant has submitted some responses to some of the board's questions and concerns. And I think we are probably ready to proceed tonight. But I just want to welcome the applicant and attorney. Is there anybody else on your team that you need to bring up?

Okay. So, and I will say this, as I'm sure, you know, we have, I haven't seen in a while, but every so often we do get an application that has some sort of a, either an explicit or an implicit agreement with some sort of a neighboring property that has some, you know, some parking that's, you know, utilized after business hours, whatever it is. So I'm glad you were able to explore kind of that as well as. kind of an identification of other, other options. So I, that's a great idea.

Okay. Those were kind of my questions from the last time we got together. Does anybody have anything that they would like to add for the good of this meeting based on kind of the new information that was presented this evening? Carly?

I appreciate that. Thank you. Anybody else before we move this application along? Okay. Following public testimony review of the submitted materials and deliberation of the required considerations outlined by the ordinance and move to approve with conditions as outlined by the staff memo on the supplemental staff memo, the residential special permit in the mid rise for district. 2nd, to buy Amelia. You got a roll call place.

Aye. Following public testimony, review of the submitted materials and deliberation of the required considerations outlined by the ordinance, I move to approve with the conditions outlined in the staff memo and the supplemental staff memo, the residential site plan approval in the Mid-Rise Ford District. Seconded by Amelia Ivov.

Planning board has nothing else on its agenda prior to a Joint hearing between the land use committee and this body on October 1st. So, no further business before the planning board at 752. 652 PM, the chair moves to adjourn. 2nd, and by Amelia.