Remarks by Amelia Aboff
32 remarks on the record, newest first · Page 1 of 2
- Play at 1:29
Not quoted here: it may name a member of the public. Hear it at the meeting.
Planning Commission · Oct 1, 2026
- Play at 8:29
“I think you got a round of applause for that. Well done. Thank you. And with that, we will turn it back over to your meeting, Jerry and Kevin.”
Planning Commission · Oct 1, 2026
- Play at 44:09
“If I may just quickly share you and Camden. Courtney, thank you so much for the presentation. Will planning staff be able to join a planning board meeting to answer more detailed technical questions about this application? I just want to ensure that this isn't our only opportunity to have a dialogue with you because I don't want to take up the time of the public testimony.”
Planning Commission · Oct 1, 2026
- Play at 44:42
“I see Member Lynn Richards' hand up. Lynn, do you want to raise something before we have public testimony on this topic?”
Planning Commission · Oct 1, 2026
- Play at 45:01
“Thank you so much, Lynn. Have a great evening.”
Planning Commission · Oct 1, 2026
- Play at 45:04
“Chair Youngkamp, and happy to have the public testimony. Thank you.”
Planning Commission · Oct 1, 2026
- Play at 1:31:25
“For the record, apologies to Chairman Ewen Campin for me not being able to be here. And this is from Chair Mike Capuano from the Planning Board. Apologies to Chairman Ewen Campin for not being able to be here tonight. I want to address the three main issues I see with this amendment. First, we already have parking maximums in our ordinance for commercial and mixed-use buildings and transit zones. We're proposing to reduce these on a building-by-building basis. It's good that we want to encourage walking in our commercial areas. However, we ought to be discussing district-wide parking needs…”
Planning Commission · Oct 1, 2026
- Play at 2:06:34
“We do have a number of other items in the planning board. So if we could clear in first, I'd be grateful.”
Planning Commission · Oct 1, 2026
- Play at 2:06:43
“I move to adjourn the joint hearing so that we can reconvene our planning board meeting seconded by Jahan. Alvaro, can you please call the roll for us?”
Planning Commission · Oct 1, 2026
- Play at 2:07:03
“Hi. Thank you so much. Have a great evening.”
Planning Commission · Oct 1, 2026
- Play at 39:14
“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…”
Planning Commission · Sep 17, 2026
- Play at 40:44
“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.”
Planning Commission · Sep 17, 2026
- Play at 4:58
“Mr. Chair, should we make a change from our normal preference for applicants to be on video in this case where the applicant is actively driving?”
Planning Commission · Aug 20, 2026
- Play at 34:50
“Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have other questions which I'm happy to field after my colleagues have raised theirs, but just administratively, I'm having a hard time finding the lead questionnaire in the application. It's referenced a number of times in the narrative as in Section 9, but I don't think we have a copy of Section 9 as far as I can tell. That might be a staff issue or it might be an applicant issue, but I'd love the opportunity to review that before our next conversation with you, if possible.”
Planning Commission · Aug 20, 2026
- Play at 44:01
“Thank you. Just wanted to follow up on Lynn's very well framed question. So talk to us a little bit more about sort of the flexibility here between the lab and office uses. If you'd already constructed this as a lab, I know you could sort of still lease it as office with just different fit-outs, but obviously there are several million dollars of costs associated with a lab construction that you might choose not to invest in if you expected to have this primarily leased as office. What will the remainder of your very long permitting process look like if you get this fully leased in advance to…”
Planning Commission · Aug 20, 2026
- Play at 46:53
“Okay. So if you had a, an office-only user that you were building this building for, you would leave it to their discretion whether to build the plans as they are with the lab capacity or whether to redesign to meet an office standard?”
Planning Commission · Aug 20, 2026
- Play at 47:12
“And are there tenants in the market that you are talking to that are a worm where you feel like you have some kind of a sense of where this could go? Or are we still in a not building on spec, but in a speculative stage of trying to get through entitlements before you're able to go have those conversations?”
Planning Commission · Aug 20, 2026
- Play at 48:42
“Thank you. And again, just in terms of differentiation between this and other lab buildings that are fully permitted and unbuilt in the market, I would just love to hear your assessment of sort of how Assembly is looking for a flagship tenant, which is, I assume, what you're sort of looking for here compared to the rest of the Camberville would-be lab market.”
Planning Commission · Aug 20, 2026
- Play at 51:35
“This has no reflection on your project. I'm just thinking about it from the board's perspective and a lot of the conversations that we'd had about the master planning for assembly five or six years ago, when I think there was this big push that like co-locating a bunch of lab buildings here would be greater than the sum of its parts in terms of that cluster effect. And I'm just sort of curious whether that's still the sentiment or whether we feel like the market has changed so much that that's less applicable at this moment in time.”
Planning Commission · Aug 20, 2026
- Play at 55:31
“Mr. Chair, I just wanted to acknowledge Lynn had mentioned earlier she might have some additional questions. I don't know if she's ready to voice them this evening or not.”
Planning Commission · Aug 20, 2026
- Play at 1:34:46
“I don't want to wade too far into this because I have a conflict of interest around the Boynton Yards development and have done my best to learn as little as possible about it.”
Planning Commission · Aug 20, 2026
- Play at 1:35:00
“No, but I'm going to raise a question just about how this district is meant to operate. I thought that in Union Square and Boynton and some of the other master plan districts, we were including underground parking and parking in general in those developments in part to be accessible to the neighborhood. I know our ordinance requires that parking to be unbundled. And I thought one of the rationales for that was to create opportunities to have other developments not require parking and to lease that parking at commercial rates. So I just want to, I guess, general question to my colleagues or to…”
Planning Commission · Aug 20, 2026
- Play at 1:36:24
“Thank you. Normally when I say things like this, I think I am coming from a place of of knowledge. And in this, I want to be very clear that I'm coming from a place of intentionally having learned very little. So definitely not my usual. No, certainly that that's a good point.”
Planning Commission · Aug 20, 2026
- Play at 1:38:53
“I'm sorry, Mr. Chair, I just wanted to follow up on the design point before we close out. It looks like there might have been one facade of the building that did not match the others going around, like perhaps it was all the lap siding without the masonry detail. I didn't get a good look at it, and I don't think I have this plan set uploaded yet. So I'm not sure if you can bring that back up, but I'd love to just... ask if we could revisit that either today or on the 17th. I think often the planning board has an interest in ensuring that buildings sort of feel complete around all three…”
Planning Commission · Aug 20, 2026
- Play at 1:53:20
“Wanna say hi? I don't mean to distract us. Sorry.”
Planning Commission · Aug 20, 2026