Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Sure. I was, well, another public comment thing that came up, I was wondering if the petitioners can answer, which would see if mixed use was ever looked at. I know that was a interesting thing to see whenever we see projects come through to have like a little cafe or something.

Thank you. So one more point of clarification that came up in comments and just to give the applicant an opportunity to share was the shadow study. It looked like it was in the appendix, the graphic appendix. So if you might talk to that a bit. And then my second question was, if you could maybe speak a bit of how the engagement process from January informed the design that we're seeing today.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. A number of things. I would like to see the 3D model.

That apparently is available. I would also like to hear from either Mr. Shulman or someone else from the Department of Transportation Their comments with regard to the comments were made today about traffic and parking. With regard to the proponent, I would like to know what the unit count is for the apartments and the approximate size of the various units. I mean, perhaps I was in the plans and I missed it, but I'd like to hear that again. The entry to the parking garage from Bay State Road does not appear to have any doors. It seems to me, and I'd like to know why not. It seems to me just fr

Well, I've read the memo from your department and understand that, you know, perfect study had been certified, but there, you know, there was a lot of issue comments today, uh, basically about parking, uh, especially with regard to whether the new project on new street had been included or not included. Uh, and also with regard to, uh, you know, traffic in the area. I'm familiar with the area, driven there many times. So I just wondered if you had any additional comments today after hearing the comments from the proponent and also from the public.

Great. Thank you, Mr. Chair. One question for the proponent. One question for city staff. For the proponent. So I was going to ask how the fire department would access if your site is a Pac-Man, how the fire department would access the units in the mouth of the Pac-Man. But I think based on Hans, what you said, you haven't met with the fire department yet. Is that right?

Yeah, I have a feeling they may look at it a little bit differently than Cosentini, but I appreciate that you'll follow up with them. For city staff, oh, so DPW is not here. So Evan, Mason, I'm going to throw this to the two of you. But I was... Surprised is a gentle way of saying it, to see that for 105 new bedrooms, there's no INI mitigation. And I guess, what is the threshold for INI mitigation? Do you guys know that off the top of your head? And how can a building of this size not trigger that?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So great presentation. I have a few very detailed questions, so I hope you'll bear with me. The first really is on site environmental conditions. I'm assuming that you guys have done environmental and Probably it's one of the reasons that it doesn't have a basement. I'm guessing encapsulation is best. Some of our citizens who called in raised the issue. There's a long history, not only with Danahy, but the fields and new school all have significant mitigation pieces. So I'm going to take these one at a time and just ask that... environmental reports and that the project i

Great. So a 21E has been performed and documented?

THANK YOU. This is a flood impacted site. In looking at our flood data, we have new 2025 flood data. The storm surge in 1% for this site is listed at 23.3%. but I see your grade elevations are at 22. Correct. First and foremost, I see a 10-inch rise of ramps to your mechanical, electrical, and transformer locations. That still doesn't get you out of the 1%. So I saw that there was... documentation at least initially for dpw for a flood certification document uh i'm curious how you would have received that with your critical infrastructure not elevated outside of the one percent uh and then the

PERHAPS YOU COULD TELL ME WHAT THE GRADE ELEVATION IS PROPOSED FOR, LET'S JUST SAY FOR THE TRANSFORMER.

So is the civil engineer able to answer that elevation?

Thank you for that. I think 23.3, if that's the high point, will be the minimum protection. Typically, DPW is asking for something above that. So I'd ask you to carefully review that. But thank you for that clarification. Just looking at the plans, it doesn't look like you get up to that elevation. A 10-inch ramp rise from 22 feet gets you to 22 feet 10 inches. One more question. So you're indicating two three-bedroom units in this, or a 91 plus thousand square foot building. Could you tell us a little bit about how you calculated the number of three-bedroom units?

THANK YOU. I ENCOURAGE YOU TO LOOK MORE CAREFULLY AT THAT. IT'S ONE THREE-BEDROOM PER 6,000 SQUARE FEET OF NET. SO MY CALCULATION SAYS THAT YOU'RE AT 10 REQUIRED. SO THAT MAY CHANGE YOUR CALCULATION SOMEWHAT.

will have to review all of that with you know the city's affordable housing folks and with cdd as we get closer to building permit thank you and my very last question i hate to be monopolizing this with very detailed questions but this is a special permit application um we haven't talked about the request for a reduction of green roof area um i'm curious about how those numbers were calculated i don't need to be detailed about it but just an observation there are no maintenance and clearance areas around it. It's known as green roof running right up to the parapet. That's typically not allowab

Oh, okay. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have two questions to traffic-related because, you know, we are here trying to make sure everything is safe to grant the special permit. So my first question is probably more towards the staff of DOT. I noticed that the traffic impact study pointed out there were, I think, multiple pedestrian exceedances. Um, I think it was new street and Bay state road. So I was just wondering, I apologize if I missed this, but I. Was just wondering if the staff had any recommendation as to how to mitigate those, you know, more more towards the pedestrian safety because I kno

My first part was more, and thank you for that. My first part was more towards if DOT, if staff can talk about what, you know, what are some thoughts about mitigation methods for the pedestrian exceedances? I'm assuming the project team does not want to offer that. So throw it to the staff. Thank you.

Sure, I'll start. Yeah, first, thank you to the petitioners and to staff. I think it's a really interesting project in so many ways. And for the public commenters, I think it makes my job easier when I have public commenters who are bringing up topics that they're familiar with. I am familiar with this location. I really understand that Bay State Road and New Street intersection. It's something that I bike through all the time. And with my kids, it's one of the parts where I really have to stop, make sure that people are seeing you. It's probably the most dangerous intersection that I have to

Thank you. And I'll start out by maybe echoing Diego and appreciating seeing a multifamily housing project come along. We've done a lot of reviews lately and haven't had a lot of special permit reviews like this. So that's exciting to see. I appreciate the team working and the developer working with a very irregular lot. and making it work. You know, it's very unusual, the kind of Pac-Man aspect. I do have some concerns about the way it resolves, mostly on the northeast edge. The view number two, I think, is the most telling. It's the one where the existing buildings on the on the road create

Dan. Yeah, thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Excuse me. So I'm very supportive of additional housing. I think that this is an appropriate place to put it. I think, obviously, we need to take into consideration neighborhood impacts, traffic and such. But I think as Adam Schulman pointed out that parking is not a requirement for this project. And there are many areas in the city where parking on street parking is much tighter so I'm sympathetic to the neighborhood and it's competing interests for us to to evaluate that and in general I do have a few comments about the building I'd love to see the

Thank you. Yeah, similarly, well, I don't know if similarly, but to reflect on what some of my other board members have said, you know, I really appreciate the presentation. I appreciate the public meetings you guys have had and the work that you've done with city staff. And I appreciate everyone that's called in from the public. I also would have loved to have seen more family-sized units, and I understand what you're targeting and where you're going, but this is one of the cities that wants more family-sized units. I know that's not the norm necessarily. I do certainly appreciate the... larg

Thank you. My notes are a little scattered, but thank you so much for the presentation. I really appreciate the proponent trying to play with depth to make the project look a little less massive or take up as much space. So really appreciate that. Like seeing those details. There still are I would say maybe it's on Birch Street. There's certain angles where it is still a very, very big and long building. And I wish, I might be in the minority, but I wish there was a way to, maybe it's different colors for different wings of the building, but to break it up a bit, because especially when we saw

Go ahead, Ted. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Well, my comments are pretty much the same as all my colleagues. In general, I think it's a handsome building. It is very brown. And I think Ashley's comment about perhaps DIFFERENT COLORS FOR THE DIFFERENT WINGS MIGHT BE AN INTERESTING THING TO EXPLORE. I CERTAINLY APPLAUD HOUSING AND THE NEED FOR MORE HOUSING. I WOULD LIKE TO SEE MORE FAMILY SIZED UNITS. I UNDERSTAND Uh, now I understand, uh, what your demographic is and who you're looking to, to rent or sell to, but it is such a wonderful location, uh, near the parks and, uh, fresh pond that it would be

Right. So I'm glad that Dan brought it up and it's come up, the roof deck. So I think one question I had is I'm also very underwhelmed right now by that space. It doesn't seem very welcoming or it's hard to figure out how it's... serving the users and I was wondering and this has to do with say shade we've had so many hot days and you know you know how much shade would be important so the trellis if that's a shade structure doesn't seem large enough I think the hammerhead aspect seems challenging to understand what that would feel like and certainly we didn't see any drawings that really show

Thank you. And I think to that point, I was going to say my understanding is that, you know, if there are major changes to the plans that, you know, the building department technically should not sign off on it if they're too different from what we approve. So I don't know if that's of any assurance, but, you know, if they suddenly decrease the route by a significant amount, it would be flagged.

Ted. Well, I hear what Evan is saying, but since we can condition special permits all the time, I cannot imagine why we couldn't give a condition that we would waive the requirement, but no more than X percentage. You know, maybe it is uncharted territory under the Cambridge and the zoning ordinance, which I don't have before me right now, but I don't see how we could not put a condition on it like we put conditions on many other special permits. Great.

Make sure I'm unmuted. I just wanted to weigh in support a little bit of Mary's comment that I guess I'm trying to recall the Concord Ave review, but What I'm struggling with is a very diagrammatic roof plan that doesn't really raise in my mind to a full design proposal. I just see green and some diagrams. And I think that a rooftop amenity is extraordinarily beneficial and would like to see this done well. ALSO HAVING SOME EXPERIENCE WITH THE COMPLEXITY OF ROOFTOP DESIGN. I'M QUITE SURE THAT HANS AND HIS TEAM WILL WORK THIS OUT, BUT THERE ARE A LOT OF ISSUES TO WORK THROUGH BOTH FROM THE MECH

I think it would be great to see it again. I mean, just as in the, you know, the affordable housing overlays, we have two meetings to discuss design. And this is a big project. And I'm very comfortable with a lot of it. But I think there are issues that are outstanding. And you know, the proponent can go away with knowing that, in general, we're very positive about it. But there's, we'd like more information about.

don't have particular strong feelings, but I was just going to say, one thing I noticed is the floor plans we saw, which is different than a lot of the residential floor plans we've seen recently, don't have, don't show where the windows are going to be. And I think that would actually be helpful and maybe appease Carolyn's concerns about like fire and just like all of that. So I think that'd be helpful.

Yeah. I'm kind of the same as Ashley. I'm, I could go either way. My trouble is when, at what point do we allow staff to continue design review with the petitioner? And what point do we ask for a new, another design review? I also like the previous, you know, times when we had two design reviews, and I'm not sure if that's going to become a standard where we start to have two for these projects, you know. That's it, but I'm good either way. Mary.

Well, I would have said that at least the rooftop needs should come back, right? Like that should be a condition no matter what. But I think because so much of today was really focused as it should on the traffic and parking, which is such a neighborhood concern. there were enough unresolved. And Ashley pointed out a great one, which is those windows. I would love to see, you know, where I was talking about that building, the gaps between the existing building and the new one that are hard, some views into that. The 3D model you did was great. So we might spend a little bit more time. I just a

Tom, since I've been elevated, I'm happy to make that motion.