Planning Board - Regular Meeting

Planning Board for Wednesday, July 22nd. I'm sorry, it is not.

What is the actual date today, please?

August 12, 2026, will please come to order. Adequate notice of this meeting as required by the Open Public Meeting Act has been provided. A copy of the notice specifying date, time, and location was, one, posted on the bulletin board outside of Borough Hall, two, mailed, faxed, or emailed to the Courier News, and three, given to the clerk administrator. This meeting is a judicial proceeding. Any questions or comments must be limited to the issues the board may legally consider in reaching a decision, and the decorum appropriate to a judicial hearing must be maintained at all times. Roll call.

Andrea Dare. Here. Chris Addicks. Here. Larry Cleveland.

Here.

Tim Hayes. Here. Bill Kael is excused. Jason Kraska.

Here.

John Maniglia and Barry Van Horner also excused. Mayor Gallagher. Here. Council Member Vroom. Here. Chairperson Werner.

Here. Please stand for the pledge. I have no additional comments. ARBs, we had two, one for 6 West Main Street, which was the facade changes, and another one for Cafe Picasso for the sidewalk cafe. They went through. Any comments? Again, it's just for our awareness here.

6 West Main, I like the balcony. I just wish there were maybe more fenestrations on the exterior. It looks like they're just going to repair the facade from, you know, the concrete facade damage and then just paint it. I don't know. I just, you know, just I think for future, I'm thinking it should be a little bit more in line with some of the fenestration detail that's downtown.

on the window treatments and maybe underneath just, I'm dealing with the applicant on the completeness for him to come back. So I will certainly articulate that. Is there any more direction on that, uh, around the windows, around the corners?

Well, and maybe it's just break, you know, the, the, I guess they're going to paint it. What is that like a gray? Yeah. Maybe some detail, some contrast detail, color. I don't know. I just think it needs to pop a little more. It's a very bland color. Bland may not be the right word. Neutral? Neutral color? Okay. So maybe something to contrast it a little bit.

Okay. Approval for minutes from July 22nd.

So moved.

One potential revision. Just in the discussion items, I didn't see any mention of our discussion regarding the addition of Tupac Avenue in the minutes. We talked about including that in the ECBD.

That was us asking to go to council. Correct. Because that's going to be discussed today.

But it's not in the minutes.

That we asked.

That we asked council. for approval.

I agree. I sent the email to Kevin. I know we're going to talk about it, but the council acted on it.

That we asked you to send. Yep.

Yeah. Okay. So I think we just have to amend the minutes to show that we had that discussion. Okay.

Any other corrections?

No.

Okay. Motion to approve?

So moved. We did. Second.

Andrea dare Chris addicts. Yes. Larry Cleveland. Yes. Tim Hayes. Yes. Jason Kraska. Yes. Mayor Gallagher. Yes. Council member of room. Yes. Chairperson Warner.

Yes. All right. We have our resolution for bagel. Nash to west main street.

One minor change. The certification of the board chair on the last page, uh, the change in the application number, it says 2025 dash two P it should be 2026. So moved with that change.

Second.

Andrea Dare. Yes. Larry Cleveland. Yes. Tim Hayes. Yes. Jason Kraska. Yes. Mayor Gallagher. Yes. Council Member Vroom. Yes. Chairperson Warner.

Yes. I do have a question. Sure. Did they ever get a chance to talk to people at six about unifying the dumpster area?

That's a condition of approval. So I know that they were looking for the resolution to be adopted tonight. I've been in contact with council. The second you guys adopt it and it's signed, we'll send it over to them. They didn't say that they had yet, but I have a feeling they might be waiting for this. And again, that's a condition of approval.

All right, so ECBD, our favorite topic. So before we go into some of the things that we carried from last meeting, so we did get the resolution, or request, was it a resolution from council?

Yes, a resolution.

Thank you. To look at Two Park Avenue, block 67, lot one is an area in need. So Mike, we have our marching orders, you'll start that? All right, thank you. All right, and that also Mike sent out, thank you, your map is much prettier than mine.

You can thank Ryan Baker.

Thank you, Ryan. You didn't like my different color markers and all that? Yeah, Matt. So I think we, is everybody happy where this has landed now that we have an official map? Any corrections, updates, adjustments?

Looks fantastic.

Okay. Go ahead.

So I'm assuming that this is the map as it stands now, after you complete your analysis that may expand the parameters. Okay. I'll shut up.

No, you're good. You're good. See, you're just thinking great minds think alike. So the next step would be, is we do need to look at, um, you know, Mike had recommended in the original, uh, the first area need that the, that, that extra lots and blocks of the County properties, you know, definitely met the criteria for area need. SO ADDING THEM IN, WE JUST NEED TO DETERMINE WHAT ZONE WE WANT THAT TO BE. BEFORE I GIVE MY OPINION, I TRY TO GIVE EVERYBODY ELSE A CHANCE. SO THOUGHTS, COMMENTS? JUST SO EVERYBODY IS CLEAR, IT'S GROVE STREET ALL THE WAY DOWN TO HIGH AND THEN BACK DOWN TO MECHANIC.

So it's the county complex.

The county complex. I mean, EB1 I'm looking at. So, I mean, just expanding that to match everything else that's in that exact zone.

Yeah, I think so.

I mean, for my opinion, when I looked at it, I really don't see anything else because we want it to blend with that area. I wanted everybody to have their thoughts and comments.

I think that's fine. They have buildings that would be existing non-conforming at this point, but for future purposes, I think it lands right in the same.

Yep. All right, so then the only last piece of the zoning area and area is we'll wait for that report on Tupac Avenue, and then that'll be the last piece that we're going to have to add into a zone somewhere if you recommend that, Mike. Okay. So then the other thing was parking. Did everybody get a chance to look at the parking? I'll start with board comments first before I go into it.

The background is the parking, the ECBD refers back to the borough's Schedule C. So what you have in front of you is the borough's, that's the parking requirements throughout the borough.

So I had a few questions, I guess, just for some clarification as we're moving forward. Starting on page one with the residential, is there a reason that a one-bedroom townhouse requires more than a single-family two-bedroom? As far as parking, when you look at it, if you have a one-bedroom townhouse or a garden apartment, you need almost two. And a two-bedroom house, you only need one and a half.

You're looking at a 1.8 versus 1.5? Yeah.

Yeah, I can get you that, Jason. It's basically, it's per RSIS. It is, okay. For the residential, we have to follow the RSIS. So the other option the board has on schedule, we can refer to the residential, just refer to the RSIS. You don't have to list if that would clarify it.

Yeah, so the only thing I could think of is that the I'm not gonna call it logic The thought process behind it is a single family You're gonna have a driveway and then maybe front of the street parking, you know available whereas in a townhome A lot of times you it's community when I say community parking, you know what I'm saying so maybe they want to a lot and account for extra spaces within their Lots and I'm not saying that that makes sense. I'm saying that I could see them looking at it, the RSIS, looking at that in that sense.

Typically, it doesn't matter, Jason, because over 0.5, you're rounding up. So when you start doing all the math, it still ends up at 0.6. You're rounding up to 3. 0.5 is rounded down.

And so I guess following up with this, is there a qualification of the exact size of the parking spot? For example, if you have a garage, does it have to be a certain width to actually count? Because I'm hearing that in this development back here, a large issue that they're having, the parking issue we're having, is because people have a garage, that counts as a parking space. But if you pull your vehicle in there, you can't open the doors to get out of it, basically. so they can't park their cars in there, so they park them on the street, and it becomes a storage unit.

It's the lawnmower place. That's what I have at my house.

So that's why I was wondering if there's a...

of standard in there and if we have any variation on that for those issues the standard is a 9 by 18 for rsis for surface parking lot i think the board does have some flexibility on garages because a 9 by 18 you literally put the walls up it's like having a car next to you on the line It becomes, Jason, exactly what you just said. The board could certainly say for garages, they have to be a 10 by 22. You come up with a higher criteria for the structure because if you have a wall there, It's a little different than a surface parking lot because the car next to you might be a couple feet over, as we all know. So I think there is some flexibility there, Jason.

Yeah, and I agree with Jason because at that point we required it because it's now counting as a parking spot, but now we're losing those parking spots.

Yeah. And then so all of these are based on...

The residentials are.

The residentials. So then into the services, where do those come based off of? Is that us?

That is the discretion of the planning board. This has come up on some land use applications. There's some services that are as determined by the board. And that's typically been done because of uniqueness and intensity of use.

Not medical, though.

Not medical.

So so I guess and and again, I don't want to go too into the weeds on it without Having those questions. There's but like for beauty and barber shops on page four It's three spots per barber or beautician so if there's two barbers and they're cutting hair you have to have six spaces and but only two people could be getting their hair done at the same time.

So I agree with you. I'm almost looking at this, and I want to throw this out there for discussion. So we're looking at this kind of because this is the way we've always done it. We have the DeSapio deck, which has two and a half floors of empty spaces all day and all night that the borough has access to. So why are we creating in this zone, why are we creating this parking requirement? I can see it for the residential. I get that. But for the retail and service, we want those spaces filled, don't we? Because it will help offset our parking requirement. debt.

Just to answer I think Jason's question for that particular one I don't know if this was the mindset but so you've got the barber itself the current customer and then presumably the one that's waiting to come so that's where I think You get the three per barber. Now, to the mayor's point, that's still absolutely true, but I think that's probably where that comes from.

I think the mayor is arguing that for this unique circumstances, it should have its own Schedule C, ECBD, and it should reflect the availability of the parking structure. That should be into the plan as opposed to relying on Schedule C of its applicable borough-wide.

Yeah, I would kind of like to see a lot more flexibility. And again, I don't want to oversimplify, but as determined by the board, it seems to fit a lot better. And I'm picking on the barbershop one just because there's a barbershop on Main Street that had six or seven chairs in there. If they wanted to go in at one of these smaller stores and redo it with six or seven people, they need 25 spaces?

It's never going to happen.

And so as, you know, board determined or we, you know, come up with something a little more flexible for it that we're not hamstringing people that, okay, because of parking, they need to now come to the board for ridiculous variance because we say they need 27 parking spots to cut hair.

So I just showed the mayor. My note was as determined by the board for all. Because I want everybody's opinion. I don't like putting my opinion out there first. I do have a question about the deck.

I was always under the impression that the deck was put in slightly overbuilt to accommodate all of the office space that the three buildings are there for already, and then maybe some of the overflow from the apartments across the street, across Veterans Memorial, because those buildings have restricted, so if we were saying 1.5 and they really need two, well, rent it across the street. Going across the street is one thing, but going from the barbershop that's on on East Main and walking all the way through to we'll park there becomes not, people are not going to do that. They're going to think that that's the parking deck for everybody else.

And I think we can publicize better. I'm also looking at like you have those places on South Bridge Street. Those, you know, that strip from Main Street down to Franklin Street.

Yeah.

You know, I would love to see them get developed into something and not be run down and dilapidated.

Oh, sure.

And that deck's not far, so I agree we can, you know, somebody could park there and go down. I park in that deck on a regular basis, no matter where I'm going, because I know there's always going to be an empty spot and I can get in.

But if a development came in there, a large building, and we said, your parking deck or your parking is over there. No, that we're not.

So listen, you've got to separate them out, but you also have to separate it out. The deck is a use that we can use. but that doesn't mean the deck is gonna satisfy everything. By putting in there as determined by the board, right, that is, so if it's a major development that's coming, we may require on-site parking. We're allowed to do that. If they're coming for a major site plan, we require on-site parking to help offset, because most of it will be residential. I was thinking this more of when I'm looking at all these uses that we just went through, there's no parking down there. So right off the bat, when you look at these, they all need variances. So the minute they come in, they need a variance. And I looked at it as this gives the flexibility to say we do have plenty of public parking, right? We do have the deck that is usable. There is on-street parking down there. You can pay on Main Street. There's plenty of parking down there, but it might not be attached directly to that store. So to me, and we went through this, or we still go through this, with all applicants that are on Main Street. It's the same situation. And I felt like as I was going through this, I'm like, we're going to discourage some of the uses that we want because now we're going to make them. It's mandatory. You have to automatically come in for a variance now.

because they're never gonna be able to meet the parking demand that was and that was my entire point what I was looking at my only question is is if we do that and we blanket across and say as determined by the board does that require everyone to come into the board then to get a determination by us so that's my question to Mike

I don't like that either, then. Because it's in a redevelopment area. If they're trying to take advantage of the redevelopment advantages, then I think that's part of the process that we have to help control that redevelopment process.

So I guess to that point, because that was going to be my next question, is how do we handle, so somebody wants to go in there, right, and it's a change of use, but it's an allowable use. Are we now locking them, no matter what, into still coming back to the board, even for just a single use, whether it's redevelopment or not?

Yeah. It would be because there's no parking. Yeah. So they would have to. So I don't like that. And then I think we should always get out of using as determined by the board.

So the board can only – the ultimate authority is actually out of the borough council because they're the ones who would say, yes, you can use our parking deck for this project.

But we're not talking projects, that's the problem. Let's just say, I don't know, one of the stores down there goes out and now all of a sudden they want to put a taco place in. It's a new application, change of use, now they meet, there's parking requirements associated with that. If we're saying as determined by the board, they still have to come before the board. So it's the individual uses that I'm asking about. Correct. You're right. On the larger projects.

Anything large, I think they should.

You know, it's an automatic. They're going to come before us and we can offset that parking as determined by the board.

I'm picking on a place like one of those buildings on South Bridge Street that's down further, one of the homes or something, or the shops or something like that. If somebody wants to buy one of those buildings and convert it into a small mom-and-pop shop and they have no other variances, the parking is going to be the only variance.

So rather than having them come here, we have a parking utility? the parking utility is the borough council. So couldn't we then say as agreed to by the parking utility?

I don't think we can. It's a land use.

Yeah, I think you're usurping then the jurisdiction of... No, because if it's just a change of use, if it's a pizza place and they want to make a taco place, it's not triggering... Why couldn't they just go to the borough council and say, you know, we want, we want as part of our compliance package with, with, uh, borough hall, why can't they enter into an agreement with the borough?

I mean, we, we could certainly look into that. I think that's a slippery slope. I'm trying to figure it out. No, I know. I get it. Yeah. I think that, and the other concern I have is the, as determined by the board, while it certainly gives you a lot of flexibility, which can be good. the subjectivity of it also leaves you open to questions from an applicant. So if in one respect you think only two is necessary, and then this one you think four, and then that one doesn't understand why, so you may be better off going with a lower requirement.

I was just about to say, so now flipping it, right, walking through and talking through that, because that was my biggest concern, wasn't it? It's not a development. It's not any of that. It's those small change in uses where they're still dictated by land use laws. I don't want to now screw them because we're actually trying to make it easier to understand that there's a parking issue. So now let's flip it. What if we just went to, I don't know, half parking spot for everybody? I'm just going to go real low.

I'm going to go even a step further because I agree with that. This is a downtown parking environment. Why, why other than the residential, why do they have to have a parking requirement? We have parking on main street. We have parking index. We have parking on the side on high street. We have parking on vets. Why are we creating this requirement? I'm just asking the question, why are we creating this requirement? We're, we're going to that model that we know this is the model we we've, we've done for the past 30 years.

So I guess that's a legal question. Can we, before we go any further, can we literally say no parking requirement? Absolutely.

Okay.

Can a lot of downtown areas do that? I didn't think we could. Sure.

For certain uses, again, residential is usually exempted, but for, you know, service, business, office uses, you know, along a main drag, a lot of towns...

So now this is all predicated on the fact that we have to strike a... a third agreement with the property owner. Yes, yeah.

Can we deviate from Like a minor site plan to a major? Because what if, for example, I'm just throwing something out there. This new area of need that we're now going to be including with all the county buildings. If they want to do something there, that's kind of away from our downtown. And if they want to get rid of all the parking spots they currently have there... and build something, you know, non-residential.

You're talking about the county complex?

Yeah.

Yeah, but remember, that's going to be subject to whatever redevelopment plan is in place, and that can address parking and will address parking separately.

That's why I'm saying I really want, yeah, and that's why I was trying to separate it out. Like, you've got the individual use changes, smaller, let's say, projects or smaller change of uses versus... YOU KNOW, A LARGER DEVELOPMENT THAT MIGHT WANT TO TAKE UP, YOU KNOW, FOUR OR FIVE DIFFERENT BLOCKS AND THEY'RE GOING TO COME BY AND COME IN. THAT IS MAJOR SITE DEVELOPMENT AND MAJOR SITE PLAN AND WE HAVE TO COME IN AND THEN THAT'S WHEN IT IS DEFINITELY AS DETERMINED BY THE BOARD BECAUSE WE CAN LOOK AT IT AND THEN WE CAN REQUIRE IT ON SITE.

Or the board could say that if the change you used to reuse the existing footprint, same intensity, no parking requirement.

And that's the other place I was thinking.

Additions or a much more tensile use would be subject to the board review for parking. But if it's reusing the existing structure, as the mayor had said, he went from a barber to a pizzeria or something like that. If they're using everything,

say there's no... And they're not changing the actual footprint of the building. Right.

No footprint. Nothing's changed. There'll be no parking requirement for that. Whereas if they went to a dance studio or something where it's a crazy amount of people, more intense use, or they're doing a big... But here's the thing.

I keep going back to this. It's not like this area's dead. We want it revitalized. But there are all active businesses down there. And I don't hear parking complaints. Well, I shouldn't say that. We hear parking complaints all over Somerville, right? It doesn't matter whether it really exists or not. But these businesses down there, every single one of them, to include apartments and things, are all functioning as is. So that's one of the reasons why I had started out with this of why do we want to now make it more strict and harder, to your point, using that same old model, because we don't really have an existing issue and anything that changes on from a major standpoint has to come before us for a major site plan anyway and that is definitely as determined by the board. So I, but I do like some parameters of, you know, not, and it really comes down to not changing the footprint. If you're not changing the footprint and you're going, even if it's a change of use, no parking requirements still.

I would even take it, I would take it a step further. I don't know if it's, if it's changing, I think it's the use. I think we have to look at the uses and say, these uses, we don't need to have a parking requirement. Those uses are not highly intensive uses, and they can be satisfied by existing on-street and existing deck parking. There are certain uses, like a dance studio, where you've got 30 kids and 30 cars because it's bringing 30 parents in. 60 parents or 45, whatever it is, and that's going to generate a huge demand. And then I think that's the one that would be, you know, as determined by the board. So I think it really goes by the use as opposed to the square footage.

I don't think I meant square footage. I think what Mike's point was is if you're not changing the footprint, because it works now, and you're going to a similar use and you're not changing the footprint, no parking required.

But if they do come in and they change the footprint and it's a low-intense use.

Then that has to come before us.

Yeah, because if they change the footprint, it's a side plan.

It's got to come our way anyway. Okay, yeah, all right, I see that. Right, yeah.

The questions I had is that the EB1, the B1 zone has no requirement. Is the EB1 enhanced B1? Is that what we're calling it, that?

No, eastern.

But it's modeled off the same B1. So if we're doing B1 everywhere on Main Street, B2 zone is where it starts to 1 per 250 square feet.

And I think that's where we just arrived in that. So in the EB1, if it's static... it's not going to generate a parking requirement if it's a redevelopment it's going to come to this body anyway as it would on west main street for west main street project be reviewed by us as well so it it satisfies what you're talking about I think it does, right?

But I still think that the intensity of the use, you could have the same footprint, the same square footage, but do something different there that would generate a stress on the regular course of business and the regular parking. For example, if you have a store that's X by Y and it was a small mom and pop office and now it's a barbershop with six chairs, that's six cars, one fridge chair, and two extra cars. So there you go. Now we're at, like you said, 20-something.

So I guess my point in this district, and my question is, do we really, and to that, because I agree, that the use of the inside of the building does... change and change how many people may be coming. But if a business owner thinks that he can bring in business, be successful putting six chairs in an office building and renovating it, and that his people will have no problem going and paying for parking in one of the parking lots and walking over and walking down our main street and possibly stopping in for a slice of pizza or whatever it may be, is that a bad thing for us?

That's exactly what we want. That's what my point is. We've been doing this downtown forever. We have very successful businesses that are thriving down in the ECBD currently, and all their customers are able to find parking.

We want foot traffic. That's the concept on Main Street. We want foot traffic. Again, we almost go the other way when we're saying you have to have parking on your space. We're almost pulling that foot traffic away for anybody coming into town.

What I'm hearing is the ECBD should have its own parking standards and criteria, and we shouldn't be relying on the Schedule C and the borough ordinance. Yes. It should be specific, built into the plan. And I get the message.

You're hearing what we're saying?

Absolutely. And I can work with Kara, who wants to come up with this language, to put it right in the plan. Okay. It's simple. It works for what the board's direction is. And to that end, I really like the map, but I have some concerns that it's not on the agenda tonight. For example, we have the cobalt and the station house are now in the EB1. These are apartment buildings, which aren't allowed in EB1, so I don't want to make a nonconforming use of something that was just built.

We're going to have a lot of nonconforming.

So that's a good point. Why don't we cut it out?

I'm going to either, if we're happy with this, if the board were allowed, I would have to tweak the schedule a, so that there's some caveats in there to, to address this or we carve it out.

We'd have to do the same with the County properties in too.

Do they have to remain in for the pilot? I don't know the answer to that. Right there. Yes.

They're in the redevelopment plan. But if you look at EB one, apartment buildings mid-rise are not permitted. So what I don't want to do is make cobalt in the station house non-permitted uses. So if we're happy with the drawing, the EB1, calling in the EB1, then I would have to look at this, tweak the Schedule A to clarify this and put it in green so the Board could see that my concern is not conforming uses. I don't want to create at the board.

So are we, can we put a footnote on it that, I hate the term grandfathered, but that's where I'm going. A footnote that, you know, an existing is not nonconforming. We're not automatically turning that into a nonconforming.

That's the language we'd have to come up with.

Because I get it. Or the other option is we literally are going to carve out and we'll come up with another zone just for them. Because we all talked about this. There are certain things we didn't want in the EB-1. I don't want to have that confusion. I don't want to have. So maybe it's easier to actually just take that portion and just have that one more zone. Go another place that's specifically for those properties.

What was the zone called when those buildings were built or being developed?

Well, it depends. You had a base zone, then you had the overlays.

No, no, no. That's what I'm saying is, okay, how did it get in?

Larry, it was EB3. Okay.

I think that's cleaner because then, all right, looking down the road, the apartment buildings are no longer being used, sold. when it's a pre-existing non-conforming, there are legal things, legal rights associated with it, and now it's conforming, but it's not conforming, was the ban, like, I think you're better off just making that a separate area.

I'm more comfortable cutting that out, because I could see something getting missed, something getting lost, and then, so it was, I'm looking at it now.

Because what about the bank?

What I'm doing on the back end is once the map is finalized, I'm going back through Schedule A to making sure We don't, the board's aware of non-conforming uses. Are we okay with a Wawa and veterans? That's what I'm doing on the back end, just to make the boards aware of what permitted uses throughout the zone, the EV1 is saying. And it just popped up about, we have the, the one building is the Social Security building. I'm just looking at the uses. that are most likely going to be there for a long time in the future just to make sure if they're not permitted uses that we thought this went completely through of how we're handling this.

So on the base districts before, so this was, it was because of the overlay. It wasn't because of the base districts, base zones, sorry. Because none of the base zones allowed for mid-rise or high-rise.

except for the park Avenue stuff that we talked about in the flood hazard zone. That was the whole high rise, which the board does not want to go with.

Right. But I'm saying even before we, we touched certain things. So I don't remember what the other, no, actually this is the one you had updated. Sorry. Um, It was because of the, what do you call it, the overlay. Is that how it, so can you look at what that overlay had?

Yeah.

And we can just redo it maybe as an EB2?

Yeah.

Because I don't think we have that anymore.

We don't have an EB2.

An EB2, in my opinion, maybe you make it where it's exactly the same as EB1, but you're allowing so that they're not non-conforming.

Right. So the direction is to come up with a zone so that these are not nonconforming, a special zone that covers the properties, right? Yes. That's really what we're trying to capture. Right. Okay.

Good catch, Mike.

Well, I wanted the board to lock in the map and then go back. I would just do this on my own to make sure that Schedule A is that we're all making sure we're looking at the 30,000-foot view of what's going on because if COBOL comes back for an addition or something and all of a sudden it's not conforming and everybody's head explodes of how this happened.

No, and it's a good point. Anything that's already been redeveloped in there, we should make it an allowable use moving forward. We should not do that to them, any of them.

So I will I will direct I will look at schedule is to catch anything else and I work with Ryan will carve out the properties.

The South side of that just those properties because then you have the bank and you have some right houses mixed in there to the right next to the bank.

Yeah, I think it's just these two.

It's just the two properties, not the two houses on Hamilton. So you can't do just from vets down. You have to carve those off, I think.

I would be okay. Is this Hamilton here?

That's Hamilton, yeah.

I would be okay, you know, bulking that EB2 into those houses. Because if those properties, I don't know, maybe one day they sell and waste buys and wants to expand because it's still allowing the single it's not excluding it all we're doing is allowing for what's currently there that doesn't mean because it's going to be EB1 which it's which these those two are already in EB1 all we're saying is it's also allowing the mid-rise right okay I'm fine with that then because yeah if the bank wanted to I don't mind carving out just the bank property, but I think anything up to Hamilton, I think all those lots right there should be allowed.

I will look at carving a zone out, something that's easy to understand and makes sense that covers the existing developments. Obviously the concern is not having retail or mixed use on East Main is the concern. I don't think the Board's intention is to have a apartment building right on East Main. That's to have a mixed use to have foot traffic and everything. We've been wired.

So Right.

So same model is to the mayor's point same model and concept and thought process we have at Westmoreland So I will work with Ryan and we'll come up with a Carve out I will relook at schedule a I know it's on the agenda tonight anything that some of it's not finished, like we didn't finish the text. I'll put green on stuff that I just said for discussion should you agree to put it on the future agenda. And we'll look at it that way. Because the language, if you look at the flood hazard zone, right now it says see text. And the reason being because that language, I'm going to have to work with CARIB because we had discussed working with the zoning ordinance right now for the flood hazard ordinance, but allowing the existing uses to continue, but any expansions or change of use would be a problem in the flood hazard zone because we're trying to get it back to green. My concern is not to cause a taking, being you have private properties there which are being used. And in my opinion, those uses need to be permitted. but the expansion and the change of use is what we, the plan has to clearly articulate. If you have a property, let's say it's on Park Avenue in the flood house, it's on residential property, and you want to make it into a barbershop, obviously that is a change of use. and we're leaning towards prohibited, but if you want to expand, let's say it's a two-family, what's the language for allowing the expansion when the intent is to go back to green?

So that definitely we would have to look at the...

It's very tricky language.

Because in some of those properties, it might not be possible with the new rules.

Which may solve the problem.

Yes.

Right.

So, no, I'm kind of just thinking that through in my head of the ending of, yes, I agree we need to, because it needs to tie all together. Right. Can we also... Because I feel like we're nearing that completion of the review, right? It doesn't have to be for the next meeting, but can we get a list, can you put a list together of all the open items now that we have left for the ECBD? Because I feel like we're getting to a point where We might be missing some smaller things. Again, finalizing a Schedule A, where we're at with Schedule B on the bulk standards. I want to make sure that we have that, especially as we're trying to near the end of this.

Right. What I'm trying to do is... Board has great comments. John, Jason, great comments. I'm reacting to them. Kara's reacting to them. I don't want to try to tell the board what to do, but I'm just doing cleanup on the back end. Okay, we like the map.

That's kind of what I'm getting at. Where did we trigger that now we have some gaps and some holes that we need to fill for things like this? That's what I'm looking for.

I can certainly do that. I come up with points that the board should just discuss and say, Cole, that's not a problem. That's a problem. Yes, okay. To look at the whole picture. We looked at the maps. We have Schedule A. We just made direction on schedule. The parking we're looking at and the bulk standards. We're going back to two and a half and three-story zoning, and that bulk standard needs to reflect that zoning intensity as opposed to a six-story building. So those are the, I think, what the chairwoman is saying is to get on paper to have the board key in on those items.

Yeah.

Right?

Agreed.

So don't think I'm silent. I listen to John. I listen to everything. I'm just taking notes and looking at all this. After we get the plan drawing right, let's go back and do cleanup to make sure. Yep.

And I think that's that point that we're at. There's a lot of cleanup and a lot of tying in now because we did do a lot of siloing on this. We looked at individual pieces and now I think it's like, okay, let's take the jigsaw piece puzzle and put it back together and see what we're missing. All right. Thank you, Mike. Um, All right, so the new element that we're looking at is circulation. Mike, you had sent that out. Thank you, Ryan, for sending that to everybody. I didn't really have much comment. Mike's going to go through, and he's going to get us updated, and I want that as part of... Because we did come down.

So we'll come back to that.

Yeah, Mayor, we only did the two and a half. The only red in that bulk standard on Schedule B was the two and a half and three acre, I mean three story. The rest of it, we have to reflect that. We have not looked at setbacks in the rest of it.

Because now you don't have EB3.

Right.

Because in the EB1, I'm looking at the improvement coverage percentage. And, you know, we're trying to extend the rest of Main Street to 100%. Why aren't we... So just a couple notes that I had if anybody wants to go before me All right

The 2015 study that we refer to in here, I think twice. I don't know if we have an updated one or if there is an updated. Because, you know, it's talking about in 2015, the estimate of what percentage of people are driving and everything else. I don't know if that's really true. Jermaine tour, 2026, yeah. And then for the, where is it? Are we still contemplating the idea of the tunnel through underneath? Because I believe that's kind of blocked now with the new construction that's happened.

No?

There's still that possibility, so we can leave, okay. And then the other thing I think we should be adding into here is a possible recommendation going from the DSA's review that they did was also their review of Main Street and the changes on Main Street to slow traffic down for pedestrians, for pedestrian safety and everything that they have that whole plan that they're applying for grants for and everything. For pedestrian safety to slow Main Street down and you know looking towards pushing people the through traffic you know on veterans or on the Outsides of it, so I think that should be included in here as well I agree, and that's the only note.

I had on this was focus on pedestrian safety, so It's it's our circulation analysis, but it's it's from 20 years ago and It has changed, as Jason said. So, you know, we're a walkable community. We've put in infrastructure for walking. We have the Petersburg Greenway, our sidewalks, and we're encouraging people. So the overall circulation has to reflect, I think, a safety component for the pedestrian. That's kind of like the overview.

And just a thing, I mean, I don't really care, but do we need to keep referring to Veterans Memorial Drive, formerly called Urban Drive? No. I think we could probably pull that out after 30-plus years.

In addition to pedestrian safety, I'd like to consider cycling safety and also the people that use the e-scooters. I was in Miami the last couple of days. Actually, I was there about five hours ago. That's why I'm so tired right now. But they have really nice cycling setups. it really is helpful. The cars seem, they put it on non-main streets, so you still have a lane for cars, you have a green zone, then you have cycles and bikes and scooters there, and it seems to work very, very well, as opposed to New York City, where it's, I'm there a lot too, it doesn't work very well. So I think there are models out there that we could use to, you know, kind of, you see more and more people on these scooters and if they had a safe zone to drive in, you know, yeah, I think that's a good, actually fewer, you know, problems in the future.

Yeah. And just to that with the DSAs, I think in the number three there saying the circulation pattern within the borough is focused on Main Street for east and west travel. I think maybe we need to say, you know, for local travel and using Veterans and High and Cliff for east to west a little more. East to west through traffic. Through traffic, yeah. Because this sounds like we're trying to push everybody onto Main Street and force them to drive down Main Street.

I agree with that. And then how do we, is the intent, and I might have missed it when we discussed some of those Main Street safety things that the DSA brought up, which I agree with. But how do we make sure that Veterans Memorial is the chosen route for people rather than Cliff and High? Would that be the intent? Because that's probably a better thoroughfare. Correct. But I could see people using Cliff and High as a default because they're coming down and it's a little easier to get to.

I was hoping some very good signage through traffic this way.

I also think that goes to Tim and Jason's comments about pedestrian and other. If those become the more pedestrian and scooters and bikes routes, it starts to diminish some of that. So it's kind of punching the pillow a little bit.

The other issue is that the DSA mentioned extensively about trying to encourage the move of Route 28 onto Veterans Memorial. That kind of control back to the town would also help with the circulation because it would be less traffic, good or bad, but if people are following Route 28, they're staying on Route 28 and they're going around. It's a bypass, no different than the bypass in Hillsboro. We have, you know, people use it. Maybe not as faster, but it gets you.

I did have one other thing to possibly bring up, and I don't know if this is too detailed for master plan concept. For the circulation of 28 over by Vanderveer. They did the Gaston Ave left-hand turn years ago. Significantly helped that going south up Gaston from 22. The school gridlocks everything around there. So I don't know if that's too in the weeds for the master plan. But when you talk about circulation, the morning hours at Vanderveer and the evening hours at Vanderveer, there is no circulation there.

A left-hand turn lane or something like that would Well, what if we just did a more of a general statement or you know surrounding around? school areas, you know improving public, you know, you know pedestrian safety as well as Circulation and traffic concerns, you know more of because you got the same thing at the high school, right? You got the same thing at the middle school during those hours, and to everybody's point, it's twofold. You're increasing major concerns for the students who are walking and parents who are walking, but it's also a vehicular gridlock.

That makes more sense than mine.

And under the borough collector roads, I would like to see this beefed up about having the collector roads serve residential uses, particularly on the borders with the surrounding communities so that we don't encourage cross-connection with the collector road or dissimilar uses, just more language in there about what a collector road is really used for.

Yeah.

Just because I've been... Dealing with this issue?

Yeah, so to that end, you've got the main arterials, you've got the collectors, but then you have the rest, which is 80% of the rows in town. And the biggest complaint is traffic speed. So should there be something in here that just talks about how advancing pedestrian safety through road configuration as roads are repaved, or there's a way you can configure roads to inherently slow traffic down. Circles. They're making a comeback in New Jersey now. It's a traffic circle. I don't know if we need traffic circles in Somerville.

I was thinking in my head, where are you going to put a circle?

You know what? In our neighborhood, it would work. It would work very well, actually. But the idea that while we go into road reconstruction in various parts of town in these neighborhood roads, how do we look at it? And again, we've always done it. Just pave it, get out, put in the Belgian block curbing, and get out. Well, let's look at it, and let's figure out, is there a way that we can improve with, to Tim's point, bicycle and or electric motor scooter, whatever, lanes, and or some type of bump outs, whatever it is. Traffic calming, complete streets. Complete streets.

Thank you. I was just about to say, to that point, and I don't know how many people here, I know Brian and I have, but on the regional center, we've spent a lot of time on that concept as well as connectivity, you know, connecting us all within the regional center and I think, we'd be remiss if we didn't also bring that into part of our circulation plan on how that works as a whole. So I did not have time to pull all that from the regional center, but it was a note of mine that I wanted, I really feel like we need to pull that because it's something all of our circulation does affect everybody else and their circulation affects us. And we've talked about this extensively at the regional center.

We have. And we've done complete streets in the borough. We've done complete streets in the county. So maybe we look at that and we actually include those as appendices into the master plan. Why not? So maybe if we can pull those up and maybe circulate it to the board so this way they can see. I think that's – because now we're delving into the neighborhoods where instead of just focusing on main and bridge and high and cliff, let's go into the neighborhoods and see if we can't solve some issues.

Yeah, because you could do what Tim was talking about and take our east and west and north and south streets and make them one-ways. And then you can have those bicycle lanes that you don't have to do anything because parking is an issue. But if you had like, you know, cliff, for example, goes one way and then high comes back the other. Now you have that same thing that would slow down people coming off of 22 as well. If bridge went north and Grove went south. Now, there again, you have the means for crossover. You could have those bicycle lanes. You could have those pedestrian corridors. And it would make things, you wouldn't have that cross traffic, which is why I think we run into issues where people want four-way stops and things like that. That's a radical idea. I'm pretty sure everyone in town would freak out.

It's a concept. But it's a concept.

It's a concept and then you wouldn't have to do much to add in those bicycle lanes and those other lanes because now you're making it where you're pulling everything in. There are obviously other roads in the area that I think would benefit from this, but I think we think about the large intersection at the top of Grove where that's a big intersection by the hotel there. If that was one way, we wouldn't have to worry about it because now you only have... you only have traffic going in one direction by the county building and everything like that. It certainly would be a radical idea, but it would incorporate some of those things pretty seamlessly and quickly and probably cut down on a lot of the issues that we've seen as our borough has grown.

Yep. Rod, you hit the nail on the head. That's how we did Division Street.

Yes.

It was supposed to be to convince everyone it was one way to open it all up. It came out so fantastic that after a year or two, the borough decided to keep it closed. But the concept was one way and circling around urban, not urban, the other, what's Alfonso Street, uh,

union union that was going to be the reverse circulation rogers in my opinion you hit the nail on the head well if you think about davenport because of the middle school in the high school if that was one-way traffic yeah you would open up that entire area for better circulation for school dismissal and arrival for both of those buildings again or i mean your phone's ringing already I'm pretty sure I'd be out of town.

You might want to silence your phone for the next week.

I'm pretty sure I'd be running out of town on a rail, but it certainly, I think, some of the things that we're talking about, it would be radical, but I think over time, if we looked at it and did some studies. It's a healthy discussion.

It's a healthy discussion. And I think that's a good point, because I think a lot of what we're saying here is, that old just you know hey here's what we have this is what we're like it's more about okay where are we going and what does it fit with where we're going and where we're at because I don't think we fit where we're at even anymore so I think to that point that's what we're trying I feel like we're trying to do in here is to encourage that out-of-the-box thinking but hey we need to reevaluate this just because it's been this way the whole time doesn't mean it meets the needs for our circulation and how we want to move around town right now up in Milburn

They have Milburn Avenue for a section of it is one way, and Essex Street's the other street. And it is traffic calming. The traffic stays in one way going towards Maplewood. And then there's a crossover that comes back on Essex, basically the back road. They're parallel to each other, but for about 3 quarters of a mile. the traffic is split.

If you look at the major shore towns, they all do that. And they do it for a reason because it does cut down. Like you have shore traffic, don't get me wrong. But they do it for a reason for that circulation, circular pattern of, you know, you want to come back around, you miss something, you got to go around, you got to come back around. Like they don't want that dual two-way traffic. They want you to use that circular pattern. And I think we could definitely... find many areas. When I say that, again, I don't want my phone ringing either, but I hear, I think there's many opportunities to review this and look at it is where I'm going.

I think if we approach it from the standpoint not of moving cars, but of moving people. Yeah. And moving them either through feet or through bicycle. And I think if you start with our Petersburg Greenway, because we have this beautiful diagonal trail that runs from one corner of the borough to the other, that forms the start of that discussion. And then how do you now make connections off of that diagonal line? That's where I think we begin.

Because I think one of the, and I will say one of the most, I'm trying to find the right word so that my phone doesn't ring. I really can't think of it. Bicycles on Main Street. It is one of those things that they're not allowed, right? But we don't really give the kids all their alternatives.

They're not allowed on the sidewalk, and you really can't put them in the street.

That's what I just said. We don't give them an alternative, right? And I think a lot of times on the side streets, it's the same thing, right? It's very condensed, you know, because I just had this conversation with multiple people about when we were sitting outside on Main Street, and they're like, this is ridiculous. It's not allowed. Why do they keep doing it? And I said, listen, I hear you. And it is, you know, it can be dangerous. There's a reason we don't want kids riding up and down Main Street on bicycles. It can be very dangerous. But I kept thinking about the fact we're not doing anything to discourage that. When I say that, no offense back there, yes, police can say, hey, you're not supposed to be doing this. That's not discouraging. What I'm saying is we're not encouraging something else as a means of an alternative. You can't do that on Main Street. So what could be? And I feel like that is, I'm just going to go back to that circular, right? Going back to that complete streets. Right. Complete streets take, you really have to think outside that box because, you know, Main Street, no, I don't think Main Street would ever get approval from DOT to do one way, but if you look at it, it would solve a lot of problems that we have. It would completely solve that you could have bike lanes, you could have safe, right, where they have no other place to, I mean, minus go, how about you go on a side street instead of Main Street? I'm not going to go there, but.

Plainfield Route 28 is split on one-way streets for a certain part in, right in downtown middle of Plainfield.

So it's not unprecedented. Right. But it's just very difficult. But yes.

Something to look into. Correct.

Something to look into.

because that's where we could really, again, angle it with DOT and say we have veterans, veterans is gonna be fixed once the DOT finishes approving all of it. But then we have that bypass and we could, 100% make those nice green strips down either side of main street and really make it a comfortable place for people to, to bike and walk and, and have, you know, we, it was even the parklets and everything else during COVID talking about moving. And if we had that ability, then it would be great. And then you increase that circulation, you make it safer and it gives people that opportunity to, to ride their, you know, motor transportation and walk and feel safe.

Right. And some of the residential streets are incredibly wide, back to Tim's point. You can almost put a boulevard in it or put a bike lane because some of the width, there's a wonderful opportunity to use some of the existing blacktop for other modes of transportation or green it up if there's something that you want to green it up with. Some of these roads are just amazingly wide, back to Roger's point. all right so the charges to redo this to make it more reflective of where the borough really is yeah and then where we're going right where we're going and then also get those um the regional center if you can to get regional center people can see those streets and okay thank you anything else on circulation before okay i didn't think so um

The only thing under open business that I want to actually just touch on, Mike, can you give us an update on these two pending projects that have been pending for many months, 6 West Main and 122 West Main as well?

6 West Main, which we just got direction on architectural fenestrations, as the mayor said, and address it up. They just submitted. There's a couple items on the resolution for preliminary approval they have to do, and they're just not there yet. For example, proof of publication of the board approval, they had to provide that. It just wasn't there. So they're ready to go, but there is five or six items that they have and not satisfied yet. So you've seen the drawings. The drawings are almost done, but they're missing letters from the SRVS saying no connection fees. proof of publication stuff that isn't a heavy lift, but yet needs to be addressed. So that's 6 West, 122 West Main Street. That's the formal happy feet that was approved to be, I guess, the new central pizzeria or pizzeria. They have submitted nothing and to be proactive I did a compliance review with essentially a punch list based on the resolution and the items needed to make sure it's clear and Ryan that was done what last week or two weeks ago.

Do you recall the I think it was even longer than that. I was in touch with the architect He's supposed to be submitting plans, but I haven't seen anything from him yet. I

Yeah. So they have a punch list for lack of compliance review. Uh, but we haven't received anything since the board granted approval on that.

Okay. Thank you. I just want to make sure everybody had an update where we're at with those. All right. Uh, at this time, I'm going to open up the meeting to the public that wish to address the board in any matter that's not listed on the agenda for tonight. Um, all parties interested in addressing the board may approach the microphone, state your name, full name and address. OPEN TO THE PUBLIC. ANY PUBLIC UP FOR COMMENTS, QUESTIONS?

GUYS, YOU GOT ANY QUESTIONS?

YEAH. All right, so I'm Jaskaran Singh from Somerville's Troop 84. I'm a Boy Scout. And I was just here. I was doing my citizenship in the community merit badge. So I was just researching how does a board work and a few issues about the board. And my main concern was about pedestrian safety. So I discovered that you guys were really concerned about pedestrian safety. And pretty much all of your logistics issues were based off of pedestrian safety at the base of it. So that answered one of my questions that I came here with. But then I also had another question for another requirement of the merit badge. And I was just wondering what can we as students, as teenagers, and as scouts do uh to like kind of aid in the borough's um i guess work in pedestrian safety and overall logistics regarding pedestrian safety as well that's a great question all right word you can have that at first i'll jump in i was gonna say otherwise it's going right to the mayor so first of all thank you for coming second of all thank you for being a a scout and third

Your presentation skills far exceed many people who come to that microphone.

Yes.

You project yourself, your voice is strong, and you do a very good job. So I think that's Dad. You should be proud. There's a lot you can do. If you're working towards your Eagle Scout, perhaps there's something that you can work with the borough on implementing as a part of traffic calming or pedestrian safety. You can come to meetings. If you see something that concerns you, reach out to Borough Hall. We have a public safety committee. If you'd like, you can be on it. I think having a younger person on it lends a different perspective to that committee, which is a lot of older folks. They may not want to hear me say that. And the officer in the back is actually the liaison officer to the Public Safety Committee. So I think there's a number of different areas, and really all it is is what you did tonight. It's stepping up, raising your hand, and saying, I want to help. How can I help?

All right.

All right, thank you so much. But keep up those good skills. That's great stuff. Good. Thank you.

So my name is Ravi Dotseni. I'm his brother. And we're both working on the same merit badge. So my issue was mainly about data centers, the many data centers being built in New Jersey. So I know Somerville isn't really a more open place where data centers can be built. but what can any of you be, how are you guys taking steps in order to make sure data centers are built or not built in a way that it won't affect the people living here? And how can a person like me, like a scout, or any other citizen be helping in that type of area? I'm taking this again, Brian.

Okay, coming at me again. All right, so number two, dad, twice proud. You know, I... Data centers, it's an interesting issue right now because we need them. You know, you stood and you looked at your phone for some notes and guess what? We need the data centers to help fuel all of this. So, I mean, Somerville, I think, is at a point where we really, as you said, we don't have that space. I don't think it's going to be something that's going to affect us. The bigger issue behind the data centers, I believe, is the use of natural resources and the idea that it starts to jack up utility rates. And there's this big scramble by a number of different municipalities to, we can't have them, you know, I think the legislature, the state legislature, has to take a very active role in this and begin to define that. They need to define it to create, you know, there's not a drain on our water system, which a lot of the data centers do for cooling. There are, you know, different aspects. Why can't they use geothermal? So I think that's where the state has to step in. The idea that our electricity rates are getting jacked up because now they're the primary user of electricity is completely wrong. A whole tenet of the Board of Public Utilities and the utility companies is they can't put, they can't use somebody else's project and place that cost or burden on the rate payer. I hear that all the time when I want to move power lines into the ground. Oh, we can't put that on the rate payer. Well, that's exactly what's happening here and that's where I think the state has to step in and I think talking with your state legislators and saying, look, we understand that there's a need for these data centers. There is. Everybody gets in their car. What do they have in their car now?

Data.

When they get home, what do they have? Data. They go shopping on Amazon, what do they have? And so when they're coordinating and trying to say, we don't want data centers, they're going on this and using the data center to get that information out. So it's kind of a little bit of a dichotomy. But I think the issue is the use of natural resources and the rates at which they're consuming these resources to the detriment of the general public. That's how I see it. Individually, municipalities are looking at this and they're trying to tackle this. And this is what happens in New Jersey all the time. The municipalities are trying to take the lead and trying to figure out how to get this done. And then the state has to play catch up to the municipalities. So I think your efforts through your friends, through your local state and state legislators, making that issue known, exactly what you did tonight. Go speak with a legislator and say the same thing. I think that's laudable. It's great. It's good stuff.

Okay. Thank you so much. Did that answer your question? Yeah, it did. Okay.

Thank you. Great job, guys.

Great job. Any other members from the public? HEARING NONE, I WILL CLOSE PUBLIC SESSION. AND A MOTION FOR ADJOURN.

SO MOVED. SECOND.

ALL IN FAVOR. I DON'T KNOW WHY. ALL IN FAVOR. AYE.