Councilor Chen Update

Transcript (~3 min @ 39:12)

Speakers identified by voice; unnamed voices are numbered within this recording. Auto-caption text — verify against the video.

▶ 39:11 Jason Chen: Councilor Chen. I'd like to make an update on the Summit Avenue development, which is going to the Zoning Board of Appeals on March 11th, and that's their final time to make a, uh, a decision on behalf of the city. Is there a way to share the screen, or should we not worry about it?

▶ 39:27 Speaker 3: Uh, do you have-

▶ 39:31 Jason Chen: All right, great. So for those who don't know, Summit Avenue has been going on for at least a couple years, and it started out as a proposal. This is up in the Highlands. It's one of the highest parts in the north part of the Highlands. Um, it's neither here nor there, but it's also, uh, within shouting distance from where Councilor Karamcheti and I live. So up on this small block, you've got two houses there right now, and the proposal is for 28 townhouses, and if you look closely at the topographical lines on the right, it's pretty steep. And there's a number of abutters, which I've highlighted in yellow, who are directly concerned about water runoff issues, a significant amount of blasting, and also how all that, how all that water, with which they already have in their basements and in their yards, is going to be affected by a huge amount of land change.

▶ 40:20 Speaker 8: And so

▶ 40:22 Jason Chen: some residents have hired engineers. The city has also done a number of consultant peer reviews, all concerned about just the sheer size of this. Many residents don't oppose development, and they know that something will go there, but the sheer size causes the design to have to do a bunch of funny things which may not hold up over time. So we're really concerned about what the due process is for these types of developments that are 40Bs, but there's... They really do impact the health and safety of the resident abutters. So there's no direct action for the committee right now, but it is something that the city may, may have to take up and, uh, appeal in some way.

▶ 41:06 Bradley Freeman: Thank you, Councilor Chen. Any other updates from councilors? Councilor Williams.

▶ 41:09 Ryan Williams: Uh, not an update so much, but I just wanted to thank the, uh, people here, Councilor Vandiver, for your idea for the committee- community meetings. That's fantastic. Uh, and Councilor Chen, um, I know that Councilor Karamcheti has also been working with constituents on this issue for several years, and I think between the two of you in this concentrated area, that people are very well served. So kudos to all of you, and I appreciate the information.

▶ 41:32 Speaker 11: Yeah, I would... Oh, sorry.

▶ 41:34 Manjula Karamcheti: Councilor Karamcheti. Um, I would just add, in, in addition to the concerns that Councilor Chen surfaced, there are other access issues around fire trucks being able to get up safely, um, DPW services being able to maneuver, um, wildlife issues. It is a complicated piece of land to develop on, um, so there are just an extensive amount of safety issues and constituent concerns, um,

▶ 42:06 Speaker 11: that hopefully will be addressed in some way, shape, or form.

▶ 42:10 Manjula Karamcheti: And this is maybe the second or third iteration of a plan that has, uh, been proposed for Summit, um, over the past few years. So it's been a long-standing, um, situation, and the more voices involved, the better.

▶ 42:28 Speaker 12: Any other updates? Councilor Park. Uh,

▶ 42:31 Speaker 9: not so much as an update, as a question. I don't know if we're entertaining questions about the projects at hand at this-

▶ 42:37 Bradley Freeman: I think we probably wanna keep it limited to just the updates, because it was not noticed.