Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Alright. And now to clear this land use committee meeting in order, please note that pursuant to apt chapter two sorry. Chapter two of the acts of 2025, this meeting of the city council committee will be conducted via remote participation. We'll post an audio recording, audio video recording transcript, or other comprehensive record of these proceedings as soon as possible after the meeting on the City Of Somerville website and local cable access government channels. Clerk, please call the roll.

This is roll call. Councilor Davis?

Here.

Councilor Saeed? Here. Councilor Wilson?

Present.

Councilor Yuncampin? Councilor McLaughlin? Here. Four councilors present and one absentee of quorum.

We just have a few house cleaning items that we could have taken care of last meeting. I apologize for coming here now. I'd like to move to approve items one, two, and three, which are the minutes and two items that we had presented by the city. Does anyone have any discussion or objection? Clerk, please call the roll.

Approval of agenda items one, two, and three. Councilor Davis? Yes. Councilor Seed? Yes. Councilor Wilson?

Yes.

Councilor Mabaughlin? Yes. Those items are approved.

Alright. Please read the next item.

The next item is agenda item four. 12 registered voters requesting zoning map amendment to change the zoning district of 363 Highland Ave from mid rise four to mid rise five and from mid rise four to mid rise six, and one ten will have from MR four to MR six.

Mister chair, would recuse

for this sentence. Counsel Davis is recused. Yes. So do we still have a quorum? We have three here. I believe when we last discussed this, we had a conversation and most people seem supportive. Did not hear a motion at the time because we still have the land the planning board recommendation, which should be before us by the next meeting. Does anyone have any thoughts on this item? I see council Wilson.

Mister chair, thank you. I'm supportive of this. I have not heard from anyone in the public who's not supportive of this. It seems very much in line with everything we always talk about in terms of of, well, land use. Yeah. I'd eager to hear the planning board's, thoughts on this. I guess we could always discharge without a recommendation, or we could vote on it. I don't know. Happy to do whatever, but, this seems like, seems like a good thing to me, so I'm supportive.

Okay. Liaison Rodasi.

Thank you, mister chair. I just wanted to share, PPZ is in support of this amendment, and I asked to see if, planning board has made a recommendation at their meeting yet. He said that they are still presenting on this item to the planning board.

Alright. Thank you. Councilor Syed?

Through through the chair, I am supportive of this. My from my recall, from our last meeting, the reason we did not vote is that we're waiting for the planning board to make a recommendation. I am inclined to wait for that recommendation. Yep. It's just my

Alright. See Lia's on Radhasi again.

Thank you, mister chair. I I did wanna just clarify. The full council cannot vote until there's a planning board recommendation before the full council. The committee can still vote to discharge without a recommendation or or recommend for approval. So I just wanted to clarify that.

Alright. Thank you. Council Saeed, do you have a comment again? Council Wilson, you had your hand up and down.

Yeah. I was gonna say that. So, absolutely as I made my point.

Well, I'll tell you, as you said, council Wilson, no one is opposed to this. I know this site and, by eyeing it out would say it's a great site for something like this. So we can discharge without a recommendation, but I I'm gonna move to approve. And if, people object, we can discuss that at the next council meeting. Any discussion?

Mister chair, I think it's a it's a good good motion.

Alright. So moves. Please call the roll.

And roll call for approval on agenda item four. Councilor Syed? Yes. Councilor Wilson?

Yes.

Councilor McGaughlin? Yes. Three councilors in favor of that is recommended for approval.

Alright. We'll give council Davis a moment to come back. I intend on keeping this next item in committee. We have a lot to discuss on it in the coming year. I don't think we're gonna get it done at the last council meeting of the year or the last committee meeting of the year. I just wanna take a moment to thank you all. It's been an interesting term. I feel like we got a lot done, and we have a lot more to do. And I'm looking forward to working with the new administration to, address this. Councilor Wilson.

Yeah. Mister chair, I wanna thank you for, really being behind the idea of, you know, having this conversation and and really digging in on how we can do a lot better with this land of ours that's by these new tea stations. You know, things changed when the green line came into our city a few years back, and I I think this is a a really important thing that we've started the process here. I wanna I wanna thank our land use analyst for really bringing some thought provoking, presentations forward here. You know?

Especially, particularly, the part about, you know, parcel size, you know, about, you know? And also then just the interactions between the different the different districts. I thought that that you know, I mean, those were things that were not on my brain when we started this process, that now are sitting front and center. So I am sad I will not be able to play a part, in this going forward, but I feel like, this project's in very good hands. And I have every bit of confidence that the the next council's gonna get it done. So Yes. Thank you.

It's a shame councilor Wilson will have no role in the future of the city. Councilor Davis.

Thank you, mister chair. Yeah. I I the the the fact the council wants to think she's not gonna play a part of this is sure that's not what what he meant, obviously, but, I had to chuckle as well. No. I I just wanna thank you for put putting this meeting together. I know I asked for it because, you know, one of the things I'm really trying to to do as as president of the council is to make sure we follow the rules, you know, as strictly as as we can. And, you know, having this meeting to discharge these items is technically what we would be required to do, and so I appreciate you calling the meeting so that we could do it by the book.

Thank you. Council Saiyid.

Through the chair. Yeah. Speaking to this last item. Yeah. I wanna also thank you for getting the ball rolling on this and initiating this conversation. And, also, wanna thank Samantha for all the work, you know, we have been helping with. Yeah. Just, yeah, personally, like, meeting with you and getting a sense of, like, where we're at as a city and what we can do and the potential of all these areas has been extremely helpful. Yeah. And they look forward to working with my colleagues on this next year.

Well, I'll see you all sooner than next year. We'll see you next week and hopefully a few more times between now and then. Council Saeed would like to move to adjourn.

Chair, I just also wanna reiterate to councilor Davis' point. There are no other meetings, so this item will expire. So a new item will have to be entered if you would like to mark it work completed.

Let's mark it work complete. Thank you, Clark.

Perfect. And on adjournment, councilor Davis.

Sorry. Can I just speak to that last point? Just administrative point. And, Maddie, you may madam clerk, you may have the answer to this. But if it's marked where complete, it'll it it it has the list already been made of things that that may or may not need to be resubmitted? I just don't want this

to get

To my knowledge, there is no list of things to be resubmitted. Things expire, and then if someone would like to take an item up again, they can resubmit that item.

Let me put it another way. Miss Chair, I would prefer to leave to not mark this work complete because I don't not that it not that this is gonna get dropped or forgotten about.

It will go away, though. Like, enter the item again.

When are in place, everybody?

It will go away. But in the in the interim, when we're looking at at items that that are going to go away and making it and counselors might may be making lists of things they want to resubmit, I don't want something something to have been, you know, marked complete such that it doesn't show up and somebody forgets about it. So, I mean, look, with this one, I'm not gonna forget about it. Council Mogoff is not gonna forget about it. So I guess I'm, you know, I'm arguing.

But just from a from a process standpoint, you know, things need to be actively resubmitted. Someone needs to take that initiative to do it if we want something to to come back because of the way we approach this now. And so I I would just caution folks about marking something more complete and then not remembering that it was there when they go to look at the box on December, and and they don't see it. Right? If that makes sense. So

No. So I'm not gonna

Through the chair, what are the other dispositions available here beyond beyond marking work complete?

This was gonna be a five minute meeting, and it's a ten minute meeting. What's going on here? Councilor Davis, I I I would I think let's just mark it work complete because I am absolutely going to resubmit this, and we may even get new, counselors who wanna sign on to it. So I'm I'm not gonna forget this. There won't be an issue.

And mister chair Yes.

Can I can

I just say if it makes us all sleep be able to sleep at night here, it was set for discussion that this thing happened? We definitely did discuss that. Hopefully, no one comes away thinking that, you know, we think it's job done. But, you know, we we're supposed to discuss it. We discussed it. I think that's work complete.

Thank you. And I and I would say that I hope the future mayor, makes this a top priority in the coming years. The coming term, actually. Let's just get it done. So we'll leave this item work complete. Any further discussion? Seeing none, councilor Saeed calls to adjourn.

And honor German. Councilor Davis?

Yes.

Councilor Saeed? Yes. Councilor Wilson?

Yes, please.

Councilor McLaughlin?

Yes.

We are adjourned.

Good night, everyone. Thank you.