Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Okay. Good evening, everybody. It is 06:04PM. This is the 05/07/2026 meeting of the planning board. I'm Mike Capuano. I'm the chairman of the planning board. With me tonight is our vice chair, Amelia Aboff, our clerk, Jahan Habib, our members, Lynn Richards, Luke Shuster, Michael McNeely. We have a quorum, and, we have a number of items on our agenda tonight. But pursuant to chapter two of the acts of 2025, this meeting is being conducted via remote participation. A video recording of the proceedings will be available on the website, of the city in their meeting and events page or by emailing planningboard@SomervilleMA.gov.

This meeting is also being recorded. So we have set a number of items on our on our agenda. The first, our meeting minutes from 04/02/2026. Does anybody have any suggested revisions or edits or issues with the draft meeting minutes from April 10? Okay. Seeing none, the chair moves to adopt the draft meeting minutes of April 2, and adopt them as the final meeting minutes of that hearing, seconded by Emilia Lexi, can we please have a roll call?

John Habib?

Aye.

Lynn Richards? Aye. Luke Schuster. Aye. Coralie Cooper. Aye. Michael McNeely. Aye. Amelia Aboff. Aye. And Michael Kupiano.

We have meeting minutes. We have, 222 Broadway, which has been requested to be continued to 05/21/2026. I'm pretty certain that's already been read into the record, Jahan. Is that right? Yes. That's correct, mister chair. Okay. Well, the chair moves to continue that agenda item to May 21, seconded by Amelia. Can we have a roll call vote, please, Lex?

John Abid? Aye. Lynn Richards? Aye. Luke Schuster?

Aye.

Coralie Cooper? Aye. Michael McNeely?

Aye.

Emilia Aboff? Aye. Michael Capuana?

And the item is continued to the twenty first. The next is 1 McGrath Highway, which has received a request to continue to 06/04/2026. Chair moved to continue that agenda item to June 4. Seconded by Amelia. Lexi, for a call, please.

Johann Habib? Aye. Lynn Richards? Aye. Luke Schuster?

Aye.

Coralie Cooper?

Aye. Michael McNeely?

Aye.

Amelia Aboff. Aye. Michael Capilano.

That agenda item is continued. And at the discretion of the chairman, there are two other matters of other business. One is a recommendation to city council on zoning text amendment, and the other is discussion with the Office of Sustainability and Environment on and some updates. And so I'm gonna take those agenda items out of order because we have staff, here ready and present to talk, about some of the sustainability initiatives. And here is here is Josh.

And Steve.

Sorry, I'm having

a As as as as always, if if you all can just introduce yourselves for the record and we can engage in conversation.

Yeah, I just want to thank you all for having us here. I am Steven Nutter. I'm the director of, OSE, the Office of Sustainability and Environment. I'm joined here by my colleague, Josh. I'll let him introduce himself.

I'm Josh Eckertley. I'm your sustainability planner here in the Office of Sustainability and Environment. Thanks for having us.

Yeah, so we're going to talk today just about our zoning update, sustainability zoning updates that we're thinking about here, and just kind of go through that. I want to give you just a brief overview on the office, what we do on our climate forward plan, a little bit about our zoning that we have worked on, and then Josh will give you an update on a large measure of all the different things that we've been working on.

Lexi, we have a slideshow. If you would give me, sharing privileges, I can have that accompany Steven's introduction.

I just promoted you to cohost, so you should

be able to. Might take a sec.

Awesome. Thank you. Lexi, I assume you're operating the slides. Or Josh?

Josh.

Josh is great. Awesome. Thank you. Okay. So the Office of Sustainability and Environment, we were established about ten years ago.

We worked to improve the environmental performance of Summerville City government in general and also of the whole community. We've been working on improving performance, including addressing climate change, reducing energy usage and costs, minimizing the impacts, reducing waste for everyone in Somerville. We do a lot of cross collaboration. That's really kind of how we get our work done across all the different departments and divisions, and also in partnership with many different community groups and other organizations and other municipalities as well. So our goals are really to reduce our contribution to climate change.

As many as you may know, buildings occupy about two thirds of our emissions, and so transportation is about the other third of that. So we're working to prepare Somerville for these really now unavoidable impacts of climate change as part of our adaptation work, and really try to fairly distribute these opportunities that we create. So whenever we have system change like climate that we're working with here, there are some opportunities here. And we really want to make sure that we alleviate what happens, you know, to things, to people who are most burdened by this, as we know that climate change is a global thing. It affects people locally, and then within locally, it affects people unevenly.

So to accomplish that, we have our climate forward plan, which you can find on the website there, and you can find the dashboard and see our progress as we go through. It was released in 2024. There's 77 actions in that, a large measure of them around buildings. And we're actively working on projects that directly address about 70% of those actions, with more sort of in the pipeline. There are a whole mix of different types of actions from one off, not necessarily one off, but like short tasks, some more systemic changes as well.

We've been working on climate resilient zoning for a while in 2019. You can see on the slide here, we actually have the most stringent sustainability zoning. It was a big accomplishment. Of you may know, we basically started from scratch with our zoning. In 2021, we got more clarity from the state on what we can do to regulate building energy standards.

We adopted a specialized code in 'twenty three. Past couple years, we've had a lot of different public hearings and meetings around these different zoning amendments to align with the specialized code. And then this year, so here we are, 2026, we're going to propose some updates to the sustainability related parts of the zoning code, which are currently we're working on here. So I'm going to turn this over to Josh and let him Oh, I'm sorry. Yes.

Sorry. It's one slide. Tomorrow afternoon, if you come over to Lincoln Park, we are having a picnic in the park and some tree planting and a lot of information about our work around pollinators and to sort of it's a celebration. It's the end of our Sustainable Week, which we've had events running all week long. I actually just came back from Kennedy School to look at the energy efficiency upgrades we've been doing there and all the different work that we've been doing around that.

So now that spring is here, it's supposed to be a lovely day, and I think there's some tree planting happening as well. So some good times over at Lincoln Park. And I'll turn it over to Josh now. He can talk about all the things around the zoning history here.

Thanks, Steven. Sorry to give you that surprise extra slide on

Yeah. Yeah. No problem. No problem. Appreciate

that. And thank you, Chair Capuana, for having us and boards. When we, last spoke to you about this time last year, myself, and former senior planner, Emily Hutchings, were discussing these updates related to aligning our zoning ordinance with the specialized energy code, which entailed, bringing our requirements for the net zero density bonus up in ambition, which was to add LEED Platinum certifiable to any of these projects seeking the net zero density bonus, and it was to also reduce the language we had in our ordinance that was in conflict with that 2021 update clarifying sort of city and state, responsibilities as it relates to clean building regulations and materiality. And we reserved that section with you all, to make sure that this wasn't just removed from zoning entirely. What we said and what we promised was that we would keep doing the research that, OSE had already budgeted for at the time of our last meeting and come to you all again with a sort of list of proposals based on that research.

Just to summarize the three big projects that we did, we worked with our regional planning, colleagues over at MAPC, the Metropolitan Area Planning Council, on a gap analysis of where our zoning code and the LEED standards had some divergence, and spaces where we had potential for increasing our ambition. We worked, with, some economic analysts on a fossil fuel free incentives study. As you know, Summerville was one of the communities in contention for the state's fossil fuel free pilot program. It was not eventually selected, but it was an ordinance that we wrote, and that was largely supported. And so we were figuring out how we can incentivize that program if we can't mandate it.

And then finally, as part of that work, we looked at some ways to incentivize additional electrical capacity in new development. So we stopped community members from hitting these snags as they try to electrify where they need to upgrade neighborhood level transformers and get stuck footing a large bill for their neighbors. We've also been working in coalition with Lexi and our colleagues in PPZ to make sure anything we're doing is also sort of commensurate with the work that's happening as part of the five year zoning update, or we are preempting some of our recommendations through our participation in the Assembly Square zoning effort, or as we start getting stuck into our work in Davis Square. So the MAPC Light Lead Gap Analysis was I actually misspoke earlier not just limited to the Somerville Zoning Ordinance, but it looked at a number of our different ordinances to try and make sure that we weren't conflicting one another across these different legislative pieces. In particular, the native planting and tree preservation ordinances have a lot of room for potential improvements and alignment with those lead analyses.

And so we've been working really closely with the Public Space and Urban Forestry team, trying to make sure that as we craft our recommendations, they're happening in concert with theirs. It was building on the work we were doing, me and Emily Hutchings, in our last meeting with you all, to avoid that, like, state preemption issue, that came out of the 2021 ruling, and then really maintaining Somerville's leadership in the region as a sustainability leader. The fossil fuel free incentive study was thankfully a wide array of stakeholders, including some of you all in these conversations. The economic analysis looked at three major tools to help incentivize that style of development, including some permit streamlining, which is in line with some of the mayor's new priorities, expanding some use classifications in line with some of the new state guidelines on clean energy siting, and then figuring out ways we can have potentially a little bit more elbow room for developments to incentivize green building through a few more flexibility allowances. Something we've experienced in the last few weeks as we've been doing more engagement around this is feedback from folks the room as well as people we've talked to in our engagement during Sustainable Week about these existing sort of friction points between our sustainability ambitions and conflicts in the code related to issues with citing clean energy infrastructure in ways that are limited by setback requirements, for instance.

So, looking at ways we can not just go beyond our current ambitions, but how we can actually meet our existing ambitions through reducing some of those barriers. I named earlier this perennial problem. I'm sure you've seen reporting in Commonwealth Beacon and The Globe the last few weeks about these challenges where some rivilians who have often been the ones who are taking the lead on trying to electrify their homes are running into challenges meeting the electrical demand because we have a relatively older system. Two neighbors get on board with a heat pump or with an electric stove, and you decide to join in, you might be the one to trigger a neighborhood level transformer upgrade that Eversource puts us sort of right onto you as the constructor there. And so we're figuring out ways we can better partner with Eversource and advocate for community members to avoid this issue.

Something I do in my capacity as your sustainability planner is install the city's EV charging stations, and we've been looking at ways that if that could be a potential trigger, we can use state grant funding for EBSEs to do some of those transformer upgrades to benefit the neighborhood more broadly than just providing that charging amenity.

Love I love my, my electric mini splits, and I am terrified that I might have somebody might have triggered something at some point. I hope that's not the case. I'm stop using them.

And and so all of that research sort of started concluding at the at the top of this calendar year. We wrapped up the fossil fuel free study in February and began synthesizing all of that research and disseminating it amongst the folks we had interviewed during the research processes and our colleagues in Inspectional Services, PPC, over the last few months. So we have a sort of socialized set of understandings from our colleagues as to what we're approaching, what we're trying to do here as, their sort of sustainability counterparts. Our hope is that, this meeting, we won't present the full finalized list, but just the, scope and breadth of our work, to sort of give you the lay of the land. And then as we delve into those research topics more specifically, we'll have additional engagement opportunities and and workshops through the end of this sort of summer season into fall, so that we have a really robust and community led updates process for you all to consider.

For each of the 15 various areas that we're working on, we've gotten a uniform research template. So, it's not just a potpourri of new zoning language, but each has a dedicated intent and impact. And we've tried to map out the potential collaboration needs, the public engagement needs, and whatever potential budget or staff implications there may be. For instance, something my colleague Elise Belarge, who's come before this committee or this board previously, updates to our flood zoning and adding a potential base flood elevation in line with our neighbors in Cambridge, which wouldn't just be a language change, but would be a major city project. And so topics like that will require and have major staff and budget impacts, and we wanna be as intentional as we can be when we make these recommendations, so they're not just recommendations, but they're actually actionable.

On the sort of mitigation front that Steven introduced earlier, we're looking at these fossil fuel free incentives from that report, and updates to that reserved section to clarify our intents and our goals for green building regulation through the zoning code. Things like deconstruction standards and working with partners like Lexi doing historical preservation work to make sure that, you know, greenest building is the one that is either already there or is using the materials that were already there. Same with sustainable development. A lot of the goals we've set are ambitious, but may not have our actual ability to meet them. So we're really trying to be realistic in addition to being ambitious.

The expansion of our EV ready parking requirements and making sure that we have additional things to say about the way electric vehicles are operating here in Summerville. And these are just a handful of the potential topics, and they will become deeper as we investigate them more broadly. On the other side of the coin, led by my colleague Elise, are resiliency related challenges, things like potential updates to the green score and vegetated roofs ordinance that are very much in the works with our colleagues in PSEF, Things like heat mitigation, Somerville is part of the Regional Community Health Resiliency Partnership, and we're here to turn those recommendations from that project into regulation. Pollinator preservation, stormwater management, this base flood elevation work. Different building performance standards, have been less able to be preempted by the state, are another way we can set that ambition and not be constrained by the specialized code.

Because, you know, we set the standard, then the specialized code in the state cut off to us, and now we're figuring out how we can continue to set the standard in the region. With that sort of general overview, Stephen and I are happy to take questions and any other sort of thoughts from the board as we are sort of developing our our pathway forward for research?

This is not my field of expertise, but we do have some of my colleagues who do work with all of you in your field quite, quite frequently. So I will refer to my colleagues on this, but I appreciate your presentation and the work that you're willing to do and teach us about. Yeah. Coralie?

Yeah. Thank you, Josh and Steven, very much. I I I just have a question about the the the 10 city pilot at the state level. Is still kind of possibly in the running for that to be to participate if it gets expanded or another municipality drops out? Is that still a possibility?

That's still a possibility. There's two bills right now. One of them adds Summerville and one of them adds another block of 10. We would like to be in either of them. We would like to be in the and we would like for them to pass the extra 10 so that it's not just Somerville, we can actually share with all the other cities. It was oversubscribed to begin with. So let's have more.

Okay, great. Thank you for that.

Lynn.

You're sorry. Okay.

I didn't hear you.

There we go.

Thank you, Steve and Josh for this. I've actually been pondering this very issue for over a year now, pretty much the entire time I've been on the planning board. Just by way of background, I worked for the US EPA in DC for the Office of Sustainable Communities for fifteen years, so I've worked on a lot of these issues. I'm a national stormwater expert as a for example, so I want to give you that context because what I'm about to say is going to sound a little nutty, but I understand that the world is burning up. Like, I'm right there with you.

And I feel that you all are in a really difficult position because you're trying to thread this line between implementing policies and practices that can help Summerville, while at the same time not really driving up housing prices. And lead, the Platinum Lead, I'm still railing about it in my head about that. I was on the TAG, the Technical Advisory Group for the USGBC for about five years, and LEAD was always intended to be aspirational and not to be codified. So, again, the world is burning up. I'm right there with you.

But when we set, embedded in our zoning and set it so high for the developers to meet it, they're only, know, it's going to be the consumers that end up paying for it. And I was listening really carefully to what you're saying, and my concern on this. And again, I'm a fellow traveler here, right? And so you guys are walking this line of how can we really implement some of those practices while not, while ensuring affordability. Because from what I've seen in Summerville, there's two kinds of housing that's being built, either high end luxury or subsidized affordable.

And we've lost the affordability missing middle, not the missing middle on the whole different housing types, but how can we create more affordable or attainable housing? And in fact, we had a developer in front of us six months ago or something, and he said he was really trying to create more affordable housing. I mean, we don't have great words for this. He was trying to create more affordable housing, and the board pushed him. Is it going to be affordable?

Well, affordable in this context means it's being subsidized, but he was trying not to do high end luxury. So when we push a lot of these requirements, push them through, it's the only way the developer can get it to pencil is to increase the prices. And so I'm really struggling with that. Again, I'm a fellow traveler and I'm really struggling with some of the stuff that you talked about, like, oh my gosh, absolutely. Somerville needs to do better on stormwater and EVs, and like a lot of it is just an easy slam dunk.

But when we talk about the zoning, it makes me really nervous, and kind of going forward. I think this is a very fine line that we're going to have to walk, and I would just like to hear how you all have struggled with this push pull.

Through the chair.

I'd be happy to respond given, like, our department's process with you all last year. Because previously, Somerville's 2019 zoning, had codified LEED requirements for buildings over certain sizes. LEED Gold for over 25,000, LEED Platinum for over 50,000. We recognize that being a difficult standard to meet and in in conflict with state preemption, which is why, like, the lead requirements that we have are tied only to, the density bonus program. So our hope and the conversations we had with with with planning board members and developers during that update process last year was that the updated standards for resiliency and sustainability were tied to the ability to build denser housing.

Couldn't calculate whether that was like a

one to one.

Need to build more affordable housing. And I raised this when this came up, but I really want to hear more from you on how you're balancing changing the zoning with the how that gets translated into higher prices for the units and a decrease in affordability.

Yeah. I mean, think it's a very challenging thing. I'm new to the city. I'm new to the role, so I'll just qualify that. I think I would say that, you know, performance is one measure of construction cost and therefore what gets rolled off into the units themselves.

And there's many other factors in that whole pro form a. I appreciate you qualifying and the threading of the needle is definitely challenging for sure, especially in the market that we're in, especially with our own community values of inclusion. But. At the same at the same time, you know, I think that there's. There's performance standards that we have to that we have to hit and try for.

And one of our work here part of our work here in having all these different studies and very careful work, right, in understanding these unintended consequences that go through. And I think it's, you know, it's one of the reasons that we're we're stepping back and especially as as Josh mentioned, you know, in 2019, we said like, well, yeah, that's a great idea. Let's still do these things because they'll help us, you know, towards climate change. And we've pulled back from that because we've seen some of the unintended consequences. So our hope is that as we go through the different studies and the workshops that we have and get feedback from you all and feedback from our consultants and feedback from the community and working with our other departments that we can really try to reduce these consequences of really significantly affecting affordability.

Josh, do you want to add anything to that?

Absolutely, I'm happy to just add that, like, that was the core focus of the Fossil Fuel Free Incentives Program, to, like, figure out what pathways and what the, like, actual material, impact would be on development costs. If we added these ambitions while simultaneously adding these incentive programs like flexibility, informed standards, like streamlined permitting, and additional clarity and definition. You know, we saw both city and developer, like, potential savings, for those incentives. And and I believe that study was shared, at least the executive summary was shared with at least the board members we interviewed during that process, but I'd be happy to to share out that executive summary as well, because that was designed by economists far more well versed in this subject matter than I am.

Thank you. I would like to see that executive summary if that's possible, thank you for that. I might also encourage you all to look at a report called Growing Cooler, which was done by the U. S. EPA and NRDC.

And essentially what it said is it was a comparative analysis that more compact dense communities have a smaller footprint on the environment than sprawling communities. As we talk about moving forward, the fact that Somerville is already so dense indicates, hey, we're actually doing, we're actually taking on some like the very system on how we build and how we grow here in the city is already a step towards both mitigation and remediation. So I think that's an important piece in your framing as well, and now we're trying to further decrease it. So, let's take successes where we have them. Sorry, I've talked too long.

Thank you. Thank you, Michael, and thank you, Steve and Josh.

Person I saw was Michael McNeely. So, Mike, go ahead.

Thank you, Mr. Scherer. And thank you, Member Richards. I really appreciate your comments. Like you, very much, care about this topic in particular. It was the number one thing I was focused on when I first joined as well. So, really appreciate that you're joining in here. And, Josh, great to see you again. Steven, welcome aboard. Think, Steven, I've seen you biking around town a bit as well. So hopefully another fellow biker. Luckily. Yeah. I appreciate you guys taking the time to come speak with us again and the previous engagements. I think as you highlighted, you know, as far as our environmental impact goes in the city, like planning and zoning can be a really big mover here.

So I think my first thing would be just as you start out on your process and trying to reach conclusions and recommendations toward the end of the year, I'd love to find a way for this board or a subgroup of this board to have more intimate engagement in that process. Would love to be a part of that sausage making as opposed to just kind of seeing it on the back end and being like, I wish you used this other ingredient in that mix. So if that's at all possible, I even if it isn't me, would love if it was me, but at least some members of this team, think it'd be really important to engage. So specifically diving to to Lynn's topic about kind of incentives, you know, I think I also am increasingly concerned about costs and I think costs can kind of come from different things. I think costs can come from perfection around carbon emissions sometimes, right.

In some cases getting to 80 or 90% fossil free can be a big impact without necessarily putting that same cost burden on others. So I would love if we had some type of way of, you know, maybe being flexible to the point that there's a cost benefit analysis. Maybe this came in your early, you know, review with the economists. So perhaps some already touched on something that came up before, but I just want to highlight that there. I think that's something that, you know, we as a state have missed on when we pushed on explicit renewables, for example, you know, if we would have, you know, put a little bit more focus on energy storage and trying to have more baseline resources, This could have been a little bit of a cheaper deployment of renewable energy in our portfolio mix as a state, right?

So I think just being mindful of that kind of stuff and also taking into account resiliency, reliability as we focus on cleaning up the city. I think that's really important. So one last thing I wanted to kind of point in here was, you know, I know we started to talk a little bit about system impacts and how, you know, one neighbor can trigger this upgrade. This is the same problem we've had over in generation for quite some time now, right? Where you have a bunch of developers also in that last one is the one that tripped the substation and then that tanked the project with no more solar could be built in that area, right?

Over time Eversource and National Grid were able to work with the DPU to set up systems that allowed someone to kind of front the bill and then kind of expand out over future applicants, so on and so forth. I feel like that's something I wanna emphasize that we should try to help address. I'm not sure whether or not Eversource can approach the problem the same way with load as it can with generation, but I feel like that's something that city can potentially help absorb. And I think, kind of dovetailing into your incentivizing developers to do things that are better for the greater good. I would love to see a way for us to implement tools in our neighborhood plans or even like some neighborhood plans that allow developers even more development scope, whether it be height or flexibility.

If they are able to solve bigger problems like putting in a large scale geothermal system that cannot just make their local facility all net zero, but also the surrounding neighborhood. Right. So I would love to see that kind of get into our neighborhood process a bit. That could be in the form of one developer paying for it and giving them those bonuses. It also could be the equivalent of a linkage fee where like one developer pays for that stuff upfront and then gets credits later or something like that.

I think finding ways to to make that account burden on that developer lower will encourage them to be a lot more creative about this stuff. Because I think at the end of the day, developers would love to solve these problems if we give them the right financial incentives. So I've also said a lot, I apologize as well, but like member Richards, I think this is an important topic and it could really move the needle for our city if we continue to integrate that into our planning process. So thank you.

Thank you, Michael. The next one I saw on the list was John.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just want to thank OSC for the presentation. I really do appreciate it. Similar to two of my proceeding planning board members, I'm also very much concerned about the equity factor in all of this, trying to balance out the added costs versus the need for, green enhancements improvements.

One specific question that I had, and this might be a consideration for for the future if there isn't a ready answer available. So I understand that OSCE stated goal is to fairly distribute the opportunities created by climate action and alleviate unequal burdens. But when it comes to some of these green building mandates and leave requirements, we know that they typically increase construction costs. Has there been any consideration around a study to understand the affordability impact? Something that shows maybe like a per unit cost increase, you know, if there were any zoning amendments that would be imposed and how that would really interact with the city's inclusionary zoning requirements.

If there hasn't been, I would strongly urge you to consider it. And I think this board would certainly like to see, I as one board member would certainly like to see any even preliminary analysis that might be possible. So thank you so much.

Amelia? You're mute.

There we go. Thank you very much for the presentation and the time, and I know I have the benefit of already having had some discussion with you both in the pre meeting, so I won't take out too much time repeating myself, but I just want to sort of raise to the group because I thought Lynn's topic was an interesting and a good one to raise. But in my mind, affordability and sustainability are two of the most important goals among the city's many goals. And I would rather see us compromise on other Like developing in Somerville has so many burdens that it's up against, that if we are trying to chip away at things to, I think as everyone wants to, you know, see more production at more affordable prices, I I want to say this without being adversarial because I think Lynn had a good point, I want to sort of add to it. Like, can we be I think it goes to the broader sort of question of zoning and some of the topics that were happening in like the transition planning about how can we make it easier for development to happen in the city and how can we make it easier for housing specifically in the affordability bracket that we're talking about?

And like, do those things have to come off of the sustainability balance sheet, so to speak? Or can we find other ways in other city departments? Like, are a lot of aesthetic, tonight's other topic is a great example. There are lot of other aesthetic things maybe that we have guidance on for development that I would sooner chip away at than our electrification goals. Just using that as an example, but I think in conjunction with Lynn's point, encouraging all of OSPC to think through if something has to give what it is and if there's a broader discussion to be had perhaps around sustainability isn't where I would choose to give.

I think there are, me, some other areas first, but I'd probably take some from a bunch of them.

Yeah, through you, Chair, if I could just if I could comment briefly. I mean, I mean, I think, you know, the affordability is really key and I appreciate the nuance that, you know, that we're really looking at an entire system. It's not. And we're looking at an entire system, not just like within the building itself, but also within the whole neighborhood itself. Right?

Like what what happens? I think in construction and building development, we often think of like the scope of the of the site and like, that's the only thing we're working on. But like, we're all, you know, neighbors here. We're all we're all working together. And, you know, I think, Michael, you somebody said that, you know, that and I just I just mentioned this like it.

We happen to live in the density in New England, and and just the sense of that right there is like you you already get a golden star for sustainability for just living here. Right? So that's always a plus. So how do we keep pushing with sustainability, and especially if we can free up other ways, whether that is different construction techniques, you know, we have a mass timber is sort of, know, coming coming up in various various places. You know, you know, the cost of construction is just in general, whatever it may be.

I think all these things are on the table. All these things are part of it. And we'll take a nuanced approach all the way through for all for all of this. Hopefully, that's helpful.

Billy, well, those all of your questions.

Thank you.

Okay, I just want to make sure we got everybody. I saw Luke Stone, so I'll recognize.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Helpful to hear all the back and forth before I go too. Two lines of thought on my mind, and I'll start with the cost discussion. Amelia's comment made me kind of wonder if the city in recent memory has ever done some sort of cross cutting look at these issues.

And I have this sense, you know, purely from the happenstance of the neighborhood conversations I have that Somerville has a reputation of being a place where it's really hard to get projects permitted, that that time adds delays, that we're layering on other requirements like through the sustainability plan. And it all just adds up to making Somerville a really tough place to build. I see some head nods. Now maybe it's the case that everybody thinks their community is the worst place in the world to get a project done. Amelia's point's, I think, helpful one that we shouldn't be looking at these in isolation and maybe some of these costs we're much more willing to bear than others and a process that put them side by side would be really helpful.

Anyhow, I'll just pause there. I have another line of thoughts, but any reaction to the folks who've been around longer if there's been something like that or?

Do you remember last year I said that a Tufts student master did an analysis that said on average it takes five seventy two days to move through the permitting process, and I think Cambridge is six months. So that kind of gives you a sense of we just keep layering on, and it just becomes more and more difficult to kind of move projects forward. Sorry, I interrupted you, Steve and Josh.

Apologies, Lynn, and then through the chair, if I may respond briefly. This is these are conversations that we are actively having, especially with our colleagues in ISD and our PPC colleagues during the five year zoning update. We've gotten a lot of comments as we've done this engagement about people developing who wanna develop with a high ambition. For instance, I was talking to a woman who noted that our zoning has allowances for additional width due to insulation for a passive house, development, which she was trying to do. But her development was already, preexisting nonconforming due to its width, and that, sort of superseded the allowances we had for additional width.

So, that, like, kind of very mechanical challenge, or, people who can't add a mini split or additional infrastructure because that interferes with setback requirements. These are places where, at least us in our office, have identified places where, as as vice chair Aboff noted, there may be an openness or potential to pull back on some of our requirements to meet our sustainability goals. And these are just for developers, and and residents who are in the same boat as far as ambition goes and don't have to be, necessarily, like, dragged up to a higher standard due to our our our code. I will also note we have only three ISD zoning reviewers, and we have a highly complex, zoning code. So, I would advocate, for, anyone listening to continue advocating for staff capacity in that, inspectional services department because it's tough out there.

I've been a strong proponent of expanding ISD. Yeah. Lexi.

I'm actually in the the PPZ team doing the five year zoning plan. And right now, I'm the urban design commission coordinator as well. So we're trying to reduce that the amount of meetings that projects have to go to UDC, and we're trying to reduce the amount of meetings or the amount of projects that are required to go to I to USD U S to Urban Design Commission. And then we're also we made pre submittals optional. And then neighborhood meetings, we're trying to streamline with, city council and try to make those not required for as many things and edit that in the ordinance.

And then we're working on a couple other things. We're doing research right now and trying to change the ordinance to make it a little bit more permit quick quicker to get through the permitting process. So we're in the middle of a lot of that, but I really think that the pre submittal meetings being optional, not requiring as many UDC meetings, and changing the neighborhood meeting process is gonna reduce it a lot because a lot of that time is is taken up. It'll take up and there's two weeks in between each one, so that can take, like, months and months just to get through that process. We're trying to nip that in the bud and then change the ordinance with different setbacks and facade build out to reduce all of these requirements.

Yeah. Great. Helpful reminders. And, you know, the vision of one perfect single comprehensive approach that fixes all this, you know, is is pie in the sky but these tactical efforts to one off streamline the process is great and there are just so many fronts to work on on that. I was gonna raise one other line of thoughts about the plan. I don't know if Amelia, saw your hand go up if you had something related to this piece of discussion.

I was just gonna try to quickly draw a line that is very clear for me, but I'm not sure if it is the same line other people would draw. The efforts of buildings, the owners of buildings in the NR District to improve their energy performance feel to me like a almost totally different topic than the question of sustainability standards for buildings that are being developed by developers, whether they are multifamily or truly commercial. And I don't know if it's productive to bifurcate the conversation in that way, but for me, when I was speaking, I was thinking of it in terms of commercial scale development. But I think the question of how we can better facilitate and remove roadblocks for just homeowners to be making these improvements is a very worthwhile topic with a different set of obstacles and solutions. So I don't know if it's worth going into that in this conversation, but I wanted to raise that because we were sort of mixing and matching to my mind.

Sorry for interrupting you, Luke.

No, no, helpful distinction. Yeah, that's a genuinely helpful, yeah. Well, I'll just raise the other the other line of thought relatively quickly which is coming back to Lynn's point about density as a climate mitigation strategy. To me, that was like the big elephant in the room as I read this whole plan. And I'm curious for a reaction like even the the actual mitigation goal at the very beginning is reduce some of those contribution to climate change.

And I wonder if that's not actually the right goal. Like if the goal should be it's a little mushier but reduce you know per capita emissions nationwide. However, Somerville can help. What's on my mind with with that, you know, not very artful construct is just, I actually, my intuition is like, maybe the single best thing Somerville could do to mitigate climate change would be to double its population of people living in a dense transit, well, served community. Total emissions in Somerville would go up under that scenario but if more families can live in Summerville and not own a car and they're in multi family housing that is smaller and therefore costs less to heat and cool and has shared walls.

So it's much more efficient to heat and cool. I'm pretty sure that like the client, this is not my expertise, but I've seen this argument made somewhat persuasively that that actually should be the top goal for cities. And then it's kind of interesting the list of all the zoning, potential zoning amendments on the mitigation slide near the end. Not a single one was considering proposing allowing greater housing density. I don't know. Did you all consider that? And what's your reaction to that line of argument?

Through the chair, I apologize that I wasn't clear enough. Incentive programs like we have with our existing net zero density bonus are absolutely a part of our, like, research agenda.

Sorry. I guess in my mind, it's not and I made this point when we talked about it last year, like, what's the what's the thought I'm having? Like just allowing more dense housing independent of whether it needs to also be lead platinum.

Yeah, Luke. So what you're suggesting, for example, is that in the Midrise three, it becomes Midrise four.

Yeah, just like that seems like the best thing we could do in summer to innovate climate change.

Yeah, we've seen a couple of different projects where we've all been, oh gosh, if it could all, if it could only have been like another story or something along those lines. And again, this is independent of the, you know, lead platinum or whatnot, but just, and it gets to these incentives of like, okay, if you're going to do, you know, create an extra affordability unit, you can go up to four or something along those lines. Like, kind of think you're right. We're missing the bigger picture here. And in it, I loved Johan's comment around cost benefit analysis, and it would almost behoove us to of on a and I don't know if carbon is the right unit of measurement, but if we spend x amount to reduce y amount of impact, and then, you know, kind of look at it look at it that way, like what what's going to yield the the kind of greatest benefit?

And I feel that that's kind of missing a little bit, like we kind of know and we're kind of guessing. You know, I was surprised we didn't see composting. Like, how much of food waste is being thrown away that creates methane that bup bup bup bup bup bup. Anyway, thank you, Luke. That was a great comment.

Happy to leave it at that, I guess. Feels I'll just underscore, like that top line goal feels really important in just narrowly talking about fewer emissions coming out of Somerville, I think is thinking about it narrowly.

Yeah, through you, Chair, I point well taken. I mean, I think if you did comparisons between cities, right, Somerville, we're always going to be the winners, right, just by nature. But but then how do we prepare for an even for a completely different future? Right. So I think that's that's and how how do we do it with with intentionality?

And I think that's really the place that we're trying to get to with all these different studies and with, you know, with with having this piece. I think that we, you know, we definitely we look at all these at these at these pieces and and see if we have a around consumption based emissions inventory. It's part of our greenhouse gas, you know, inventory emissions. And it does definitely look at the per capita footprint. And so it's just there's other there's other pieces beyond beyond this, you know, in the climate forward plan and just in a lot of all of our work.

But I think, you know, just hearing loud and clear from the comments here, I've been I've been taking notes from everyone that affordability is is like top line and, you know, important to keep it as affordability and sustainability is like number number one. And then, you know, could be coming down from that.

Ain't nowhere else. I wanna thank you both for your time tonight and having a nice conversation that I'm sure is going to be continued into the future months and future years.

You.

Well, I want to thank you all for having us and for your offer. We've heard from a couple folks about just deeper, more somewhat informal collaboration as well. We always welcome more minds and more thoughts and more discussion. It's really, you know, I say that we actually have a staff of about 80,000 because it's all 80,000 people in the city, you know, so it's going to take us all to get there. So I just really appreciate your participation and interest.

No. I appreciate, all of all of your hard work, Steven and, and and Josh, and thank you for your time tonight.

Thank you. Thank you.

Luke, I need to ask, do you have a digital background or is that really what's what's going on back there? Because it's it's it's it's it's very Simpsons, my friend.

Fine. No. It's just the light coming through the trees into the into the background. So, yeah, enjoy this. At

this time of year in this hemisphere localized entirely in your living room?

In Lagoon Square. Yep.

Okay, so I got some something beeping here. I don't what the hell it is. Thank you. Okay. Next and last item on our agenda is to talk about the proposed boomer amendment that was raised at a joint hearing a number of weeks ago, I think on April 16.

And so what I'll do is I will make the disclosure that I was not present at the April 16 meeting, but I have since reviewed the video and the written comments that were received as a result of that, agenda item on the joint hearing. And I am ready, willing and able to discuss and vote on that item tonight. My affidavit was submitted, for earlier today, so it should be all set to go. I see Luke too.

You know, so I submitted my affidavit, watch the video of the the meeting I missed.

Okay, cool. Let's hey, Lexi, you're with us, right?

Yes.

Okay. What I'm gonna ask is so generally when a citizen led or an advocacy group led zoning amendment comes to the planning board comes with the land use committee through a joint hearing. I'm always very interested to hear if the administration and through through staff has a position on the proposed amendment or amendments. And if not, if there is guidance that the administration can give as a result of that particular level of public public participation.

Mhmm.

So so do you know if your department has a position on this proposed amendment that we took testimony on and received written comment on?

I'm not I have not been too involved in this. I think this is mostly being Dan and Alvaro. But

So I I I will I will say that. I appreciate that, Lexi. I I will I will say this as as one member based on that kinda historic tradition that we have of of asking administration input into advocacy group and citizen led zoning amendments. I don't think I wanna take a vote on this this evening because I I I would like that input to to see kind of where we are as a as a as a city, as an administration. And I wanna take that into consideration as well before I feel comfortable voting, which is generally what we have done when it comes to amendments of this nature.

So I am more than happy to engage in discussion with all of you now that we've received public testimony both orally and written. And

Yeah. I I apologize for that. I've been to Alvaro for, like, a while, but he, didn't have any materials, and I don't have access to his to his folders to Nope.

He he also he also might not might not know offhand too. And so that's that's something that I will ask you to kinda dig into on your end to see if there is a position, you know, by you and your colleagues and and by the administration on this proposal, if there's something that might be competing coming out by by your office, you know, either either parallel or a contravention because I I kinda like to see the entire universe of what's happening before I I move forward. I Yeah. It to the. Yes. Of course.

Mister Sheridan?

Hi. Amelia, saw I saw your hand. Yeah.

I think I recall from the land use committee presentation that this was a revised version of the applicant's presentation that had been done in consultation with the city. So just building upon your request, I would love to have more information on, like, the role the city has Mhmm. The involvement of the city in putting together this revised version, which is a slightly different question than Mike's, although related.

I think it I think I think it I think it kinda dovetails, and I think we're at least you and I, Emilia, are of the same mind that I wanna have this discussion tonight, but I also am not ready to quite, call for a vote on a recommendation yet. So who wants to start? I'm happy to go. I see Lynn. Yeah.

I have more I have more questions. You know, I reread, I reread the zoning proposal. And so, I'm just wondering if anyone else has some clarity on this. Because the first time it came through, we saw some really, what I thought were not very attractive interpretations of how getting rid of the dormer could look. So first question that I have is, is anyone concerned that moving from two and a half stories to three stories will unintentionally move into three and a half stories?

Though it said very clearly, you know, the dormer is can't go above the roofline, but but I I just I just wondered if anyone has any concerns on on that. I read through really carefully. I keep coming back with no, but that was concern. And then the other concern that I have is a dormer can be the entire and I'm asking folks if I read this right, the dormer can be the entire width of the roof, and it can go all the way up to the roofline. So is it essentially now we have like a box?

That's that's that that that is my understanding, Lynn, the proposal by by this advocacy group.

That it could be just a box, we're not talking about taking a dormer that's maybe one foot off the roofline and extending it most of the way, And so we're losing that kind of architectural detail.

That was my understanding through presentation that was given by the applicant group. And I'm happy to be contradicted by anybody that might have seen differently.

Thank you, Michael. Yeah. Because, because, you know, you read this and you read it really carefully, and you read it really carefully the next time, and you want to make sure that you're really understanding what the worst case scenario of, of this could be. And that's the lens through which I was reading. Alright. Thank you.

Yep. Yeah. Sure. So what what what I wanna do real quickly before I guess as part of this discussion. Right? So a number of people who spoke at the public hearing expressed a little bit of inquiry about why is the dorm room and the way it is? How do we get here? Who did this? What the heck? What what were you thinking?

As many of you know, I have the good fortune of having never left, and having been on, in in in this city my entire life. So I was here when we did the the dormer amendment. It was I think it was under George Proakis, so it was it was a while back. The intention behind when we originally created the dormer amendment, as I was thinking back, prior to I want to say 2012, the planning board was and it was tasked with being an advisory board to the zoning board of appeals. So, basically, their entire case docket fell on our docket as a duplicate docket where we could take, not public testimony, but public comment, on proposed zoning amendments, as well as special permits and and other permits that were allowed by, by the ZPA who who was the permit granting authority.

And it was the remit of the planning board at that time to give advisory opinions to the ZPA on their own docket. Effectively, we were running through the public consternation before they had to. So we had to clean up a bunch of the mess before they they got it. 2012, 2013, we ended up changing the zoning ordinance to remove the planning board's responsibility as a as an advisory board to the ZBA. But I remember very, very clearly that between when I started here 02/2020 I wanna say '12 when we changed the ordinance, dormer issues came to the planning board as an advisory issue pretty frequently.

And the reason it became kind of a matter of consternation is as so many people know, we are, you know, the most densely populated community in New England, one of the most densely populated cities in the country. And when you can reach out your window in some parts of the city and touch your neighbor's house, the issue of massing in homes abutting other homes was a was a real issue. The architectural aspect of it and the visual aspect of it, Lynn, was was also a part. So what we did is we limited the idea of shed dormers and had some certain setbacks, added glazing requirements to make sure that you weren't just building a third story because building a third story, especially at that time, required a special permit, required a bunch of other review steps. And so we were trying to minimize, one, people increasing mass into their homes that were going to impact immediate neighbors, which in a city quite as dense and and small as some of them a real thing.

It's, you know, it's not like we, you know, live with, know, you quarter acre zoning where, you know, I wanna throw a porch on or something's gonna impact anybody. It's gonna impact people. So we did that intentionally. We did that knowing that people were going to try to make that a third unit or third floor. And there was a process by which you can make another unit where you can ask for another floor, and we didn't want to just grandfather people the opportunity to have that happen.

So I I look at this particular change as being a deviation from where the city was not too long ago. It it wasn't 2012. It was, like, 2016, 2018 when we when we made this change. So it's not like, oh my god, the city has completely changed in the last XMRV. No.

It really hasn't. You know, the same considerations exist now as it did ten years ago or thirteen years ago when we made this change. And so my concern is by not respecting the public process that we went through to get this dorm amendment with the recognition that people in in dense neighborhoods had with neighbors just putting up massing an additional unit without any further review. What what that speaks to when we kind of go against that. And so as a unless the administration has a strong position on this, to the contrary, I'm not inclined to make this recommendation based on the the factors and discussions that went into creating the dormer amendment to begin with.

We now have a a different zoning code, which allows, three stories. Right? And my answer is if you want a third story, put a third story on. You know? If you can do it, do it.

And one of the things that I saw when I was reading public comments was one particular person decided, they were going to try to quote me from a hearing a year ago with a quote that quite frankly, I I I don't think is simply don't think I said that because it's not how I feel. It was likely taken out of context, where I don't believe in housing or something like that. You know, the the city has done, and I've been supportive of, you know, increased housing and density initiatives since I've been on this board now for eighteen years. Right? I am not someone who wants to take away from the opportunity for people to expand some of what goes on in, in in their house.

If they want to add a third story, we now have a provision by which they can do that. By tacking on a shed dormer, and as Lynn says, just throwing out a box on top, I don't think is the appropriate way to do that. We we have this amendment for a reason. I was there when we did it. There was a lot of public testimony and neighborhood discussion that went into it that followed from neighborhood fights on these issues.

I am I am not necessarily on board with taking a contrary position in 2026 because an advocacy group has decided to do this. So that's that's kinda why I am on this. There might be a middle ground, and I'm happy to talk about it, but that's that's kinda how I I looked at this. Michael, your your hand went up first. So I wanna definitely have a conversation with you too.

Yeah. Thank you, mister chair. Clearly, you stirred the pot a little bit based on the fact that you got so many hands raised so quickly. So I'll be pretty brief if I can. So first you brought up two interesting things that I think I wanna split apart a little bit, which are the mechanics of putting this process through versus the like feelings we have on the amendment itself.

So I actually increasingly am concerned about how slow the public process has been for reengaging and getting new input on items like this. And so just as one member, I wanna highlight that I actually am supportive of this avenue of new types of zoning changes with a huge asterisk that I think it's also extremely important that that process go hand in hand with the city, right? So as brought up earlier, I think it's important to get feedback from the city as to whether or not this is consistent with them, that they were in fact engaged along the way and that this isn't gonna conflict with something that they already kind of

have in flight.

So with that big asterisk there, just wanna highlight that actually I do want this process to exist. And I do think I wanna increasingly pay attention to it. Having said that on this topic in particular, I agree with you, Mr. Shedd. This is one of those like hot stove items that's really easy to bubble over when there's neighbor conflicts.

And I'm concerned about this basically reducing neighbors ability to negotiate changes that impact their direct neighbor. Right? I think this this includes things like building new decks, all these other issues that are a lot more personal fences, things like that. And so in this topic in particular, I'm a little bit nervous of having a sweeping change like this without, you know, having a little bit more of a longer community process for lack of a better phrase. I do wanna highlight that the group generally had a lot of positivity in this proposal.

There's lots of positive written comments. This is a more vocal organization within the city, but nonetheless, I do wanna honor the fact that there was a lot of positive support as well. So I fit a little bit in the middle on the spectrum here. I think if I really had to vote today, I wouldn't be that comfortable because I still would like to see that city input. But in general, I just wanted to highlight those two things that A, I'm not necessarily supportive of things that are hot on topics like this that don't allow for public process for neighbors.

And also I wanna emphasize my support for using this as a tool to expedite changes in the city because our city is rapidly evolving and it's become apparent that we're not always keeping up with what the population needs.

Thank you very much. I saw Luke next only I saw you next, so I'm gonna call you next.

Okay, Dick. My put my Simpson's hand down.

After you your Simpson's living room.

Steamed hands. A I'll I'll a duff beer after we after we adjourn. Mr. Chair, when you were going through the history, was following closely because it was just history I don't know. I think I got lost when you started referring to the dormer amendment. I was I think I was thinking you were referring to this one, and then I realized you were referring to the 2016 round or something. Right? I

I I say 2016. That date might be might be off. But, yes, it was it it it preceded this.

It but not to make this too much of a direct back and forth, but I just wanna make sure I'm tracking your what was on your mind there. Like because what I'll say what's on my mind in response, but tell me if I was missing a key point that you feel like this was discussed, debated publicly around roughly that time and reopening that now feels too soon or just I'm just wondering if it's about too soon or just, you know, you might just on substance not think it's a good idea.

No. No. Look. Yeah.

I'm I'm happy to have the discussion. Look. I I I don't think it's a matter of too soon. I think it's a matter of this this was discussed and this was decided over a long public process. And if we are going to do that again, the public process was an engagement with the administration, with the city, and with our elected officials and not with necessarily an an advocacy group.

And if that's the case, I think the concern that I have, and and I I think Michael also shared is I I wanna see if the administration and our elected officials are on board with with this proposal. If, you know, if the entire board of all of them and the administration say this is the way we should go, that's gonna color the way I look at this too. So so it was it's the way I came at it was this was a discussion that was had not forty years ago. It happened ten years ago when people still had an issue with the the amount of an availability of of of housing and affordable housing in in some of the region, and and how we can address it. And that was part of that discussion.

So this isn't something that hasn't been considered and hasn't been debated in some old in a long time. It it has been. So it's not necessarily a a a time proximity issue. It's more of a of a process issue of is this what the city wants or is this what as as as you all were saying, a respectable but but vocal advocacy group wants.

That's helpful. Just a quick reaction on the process stuff and then a thought on the actual substance. But I worry there can end up being a little bit of pointing at each other, like we're engaging in the process now and we're gonna be making a recommendation to the council ultimately for them to decide. So they also wanna know what we think on the substance of it. And I do feel like, Michael reminded us this, and maybe others already, I'm losing track with that.

This feels like it's been a this round has been a two round process already where we've had two public hearings, had deliberations. So to me, it's just, on process, I feel comfortable considering all this and considering a change if if we think the change merits it. On the substance, I do have some sympathy for the, you know, the concern that this is like a backdoor route to 3rd Floors. It makes me appreciate. I am just genuinely confused about the current state of 3rd Floors in the NR districts.

And can I just, I guess, check and if this gets too complicated to clarify perfectly on the fly, we can pause it? Because and actually maybe this is even better for when the planning staff, you know, is is ready to talk about at our next meeting. But we there was legalization of triple deckers, are three stories in the NR. Those are only allowed in some parts of the NR though. And I I'm just genuinely curious.

Is is a typical two and a half story right now, they can't just go to the full three stories. Right? And what are the conditions under which and why why are why are why some of the going to be pushing for this dormer amendment if if they could just do a full third story anyway? I'm sure there's just some real fun basics on this in here but.

No. I I I get that. That that is exactly why I'm hoping to get some of the feedback from from staff. Because that triple decker amendment was heavily engaged with the with the staff, with this board, with with the land use committee, with neighborhoods on how do we want this actually to be operational in the city and and how do we want it effectuated. And I'm wondering if this is, like like you said, a backdoor around that.

And that was a concern to me. That's been a concern for for NATO's for a very long time when it came to, to to dormer issues. So I I think you're you're hitting the nail right on the right on the head. And I think we just want a couple of, clarifications. And I'm going stop you real quick because Lexi came on. I don't know if she has a response to this or if she just wants to hang out.

No, I was just going to clarify that I've gotten a lot of the detailed nuances with the previous zoning ordinance and the one now is a lot with ISD. So I can take note of all these and get certain clarifications that you're wanting for this discussion after.

Thank you. Luke, I cut you off my friend. Don't know if you had any more

I'll pass the mic real quickly to say, I think this concern around, is it a backdoor way to a 3rd Floor in a way that really wasn't intended? I think so one for us to take seriously and getting some of the facts around what 3rd Floors you can currently do in the NR will be helpful for me and just really understand those details. Just remind folks, one of the strong arguments folks were making for this is just brass tacks, allowing families to add floor space to a unit does help us with the key goal we talk about in many other contexts all the time, which is larger units to keep families here. So that's a strong argument in favor in my mind. So I'll leave it with that.

Think that's a very good point as well, Luke, and I appreciate that. Next person I saw was Amelia. So I

I'm gonna try to be the first out on the ledge to propose a middle ground, understanding that we've not yet covered a lot of the baseline and we need more information in a subsequent meeting. I think the fenestration changes that were required here are extremely reasonable. Even if we don't take action to change the dimensional allowances of how big a dormer can be, I don't think any neighbor should care whether a given dormer has a small window in it or a big window in it or has no windows in it, so someone can fit a wall of plumbing to add that second bathroom or whatever they're trying to do. So I would venture that even if we are going to move more slowly or reject some of the other components that we try to consider that potentially as a separate task and component of this. Because even if we made no other changes, I do think that the amount of administration that's currently required probably is really infringing on people's ability to either turn a stair or have a demising wall or and I think we can at least solve that problem.

So, I think the aesthetic impact of that, in my opinion, as one member is pretty minor. So I would put that out for consideration.

Find it it's it's not even a rebuttal. It's a it's a it's a recognition of some of the fights that we used to have that we used to adjudicate on behalf of some of the administration issues was, so you throw a dormer on your house that's going to be, you know, four feet from my place and you're throwing a wall of windows against me. I need to shower. I need to change. I need to have a life and not have just a bunch of windows looking out of my house.

So I think you're you're actually talking exactly what some of the fights were, you know, a a bunch of years ago in a in a in a way that recognizes that that can impact not only how you use the space that you're allowed to build, but also how it impacts the the people immediately adjacent to you. So good good on you, Amelia, for catching something that you weren't even here for.

Well, I know I'm an old timer, but I'm not that old. Right? So

Yeah. No. I think you know what? The fact that you're addressing it means it's something everybody thinks about. Right? It's like, how do I use the space? And how does the space that I use impact the people who are 10 feet away from me? So I I I think that's a 100% on on the on the right track. Were you did you have any more to add? I don't wanna cut away from you.

No. I'll save any other commentary for after we've gotten some additional information from Steph.

Sure. I saw Lynn's hand.

Thanks, Michael, and thanks for the history. So, again, I have a few questions. I agree with Amelia. I, I actually, my bedroom is in the 3rd Story with a bunch of dormers, and so my bathroom is all windows. So that creates a number of issues on how, I mean, I just take showers in the dark, and I have plants and all sorts of, like, you know, because I do not want to put blinds up.

But, anyhoo, it seems to me that the dormer, the dormer dimensional standards can be fussed with independently of going from two and a half to three stories. Like, I everything that we heard was when we're trying to put dormers on, and it's a little dormer here, and a little dormer here, and a little dormer here, and how are we going to get livable space, and pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, It's like, oh, okay, all of that makes sense to me. But then they said, now we can go up to three stories, which kind of I, so going to Amelia's kind of middle ground of I would be open to not only changing the fenestration, but also the dimensional standard. So we're not getting a box that, you know, you have to stop a foot or two from the end and a foot or two, like there's ways of putting it so it can be a singular dormer, But I am not, I am not, I am not understanding the two and a half to three. And going to our prior conversation that Luke said that we should be allowing greater housing In this particular, like we're responding to a community led development.

I can see giving a little bit here, a little bit there. But if we're going to allow broader three stories or four stories elsewhere, it should be a much bigger process where we specifically talk about that. So, this feels like an Amelia comment. In my mind, we should almost separate out the two and a half to three to the dimensional and the other standards on that. And if we're going to have a broader conversation about increasing density, a la our prior conversation, that should be done, I think, in a more systemic way and led by the city.

You're muted, Michael.

I said, who else wants to talk to us? I think I actually think this is a really great conversation with all of you because I'm lucky to have all of you as very bright and and insightful and engaged board members who care about things like dorms and how it impacts the way people use their property and how it impacts neighborhoods. I think we do want to wait on some feedback from from staff before we make a recommendation on this. So if nobody has anything else, I I think are we are we done with business? I think we are done with business.

But tonight, wow, good for us. Okay. The next when is the next meeting? Two weeks? Yeah. I think it's the twenty first. Right? Yeah. Okay. So the next meeting is gonna be the twenty first. And so does anybody have anything they would like to add for the good of the meeting before we adjourn on a beautiful Thursday night? K. Seeing none, the chair moves to adjourn seconded by Amelia. Letty, can we have a roll call, please?

Jahan Habib?

Aye.

Lynn Richards? Aye. Luke Schuster? Aye. Coralie Cooper? Aye. Michael McNeely.

Aye.

Amelia Avoff. Aye. Michael Capilano.

Lighting board is adjourned. Have a great night, everybody. See you in a couple of weeks. Bye, everybody. Take

care.