ORDER-2015-90 : Amending Melrose Revised Zoning Ordinance, Chapter 235, Article III, Section 235-6 (Division into districts) and other related zoning amendments as set forth herein, for the Commuter Rail Station Areas.

Transcript (~52 min @ 22:32)

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▶ 22:26 Speaker 9: Tabled Order No. 2015-90, Amending Melrose Revised Zoning Ordinance, Chapter 235, Article 3, Section 235-6, Division into Districts, and Other Related Zoning Amendments as Set forth Herein for the Commuter Rail Station Areas.

▶ 22:43 Peter D. Mortimer: Motion to remove this order from the table. Mr. President. Second.

▶ 22:47 Speaker 5: Alderman Waterman moves to remove Order 215-90 from the table. the motion is seconded by alderman forbes all those in favor of removing the order from the table indicate by saying aye aye anyone opposed motion passes the order is removed from the table

▶ 23:02 Peter D. Mortimer: motion to suspend the rules that we may hear from the appropriate cd officials here in attendance

▶ 23:08 Speaker 5: this evening second alderman mortimer moves to suspend the rules to con our garner input from the planning department motion is seconded by alderman forbes on the motion all those in favor aye anyone opposed and as i'm sure all of the aldermen are aware but the public may not be that we received a letter a lengthy letter dated march 24th 2015 from the planning board as is required by law and in the letter the abridged version is that they recommend that we pass the

▶ 23:47 Speaker 5: order as written would you folks like to make any kind of opening presentation

▶ 23:52 Denise Gaffey: that would be great thank you my name is Denise Gaffey I'm the director of planning and community development and on my right is

▶ 23:59 Denise Gaffey: Liz Werco who is the assistant planning director and on my left is Anne D'Souza Ward who is the chairman of the zoning subcommittee of the planning board and that is correct we did the planning board voted on March 23rd to submit a report which summarizes the discussion that occurred at the joint public hearing on February 17th regarding the proposed zoning amendment relative to the commuter rail station areas and in the in this report which is a about five pages pages in length we summarized summarized the discussion there were basically two two issues from that proposal that were that were discussed at length at the joint public hearing there was some commentary about the uses and some commentary about parking primarily when it comes to the uses that would be allowed in these commuter rail station areas we talked about how the planning board is attempting through this zoning to modify some uses that are currently around allowed which we don't think are appropriate for the commuter rail stations like automobile service stations and automobile related uses and we talked about uses that are currently not allowed like restaurant uses that are allowed by special permit but not allowed as of right being appropriate uses for the the commuter rail station areas and there really wasn't much discussion about that I think there seemed to be some consensus there the one that jumped out at us there was some commentary about had to do with the medical use and we were we I think as we mentioned at the joint public hearing the zoning subcommittee spent a lot of time thinking about this use and it is allowed right now in the in the community real station areas as by special permit and under this proposal it'll still be allowed by special permit but it would be prohibited to it would be prohibited on a ground floor it would be allowed on any other floor except for the ground floor and as we mentioned at that public hearing we we did that after a lot of discussion about what the the goals that we're trying to create in the districts in the community real station areas the goal of vibrancy and pedestrian activity and our feeling based on the existing medical uses that are in the station areas particularly in the Highlands area is that they tend to be very much closed off to the street because there's privacy issues which are totally understandable with the medical use and so it was raised by a member of the board that there was not a lot of distinction between medical use and professional office use so we gave that some discussion at our subcommittee meeting and at the planning board meeting and felt and we still felt strongly that we would like to propose keeping this innovative approach to medical use where it would still be allowed by special permit but not on the ground floor we pointed out that there is a medical district in Melrose it's a very vibrant medical district the BD district and that medical uses are allowed as of right in that district and we just we just we it was our opinion that if the professional office uses like law office and real estate and banks among others are different and do present themselves differently to the street so we were recommending that you um keep that provision in with regard to the medical use and then regarding parking there was some discussion it was pointed out at the joint public hearing about the special existing special permit provision that allows for parking substitution by special permit through the zoning board of appeals for to substitute required parking in municipal parking lots and we talked about how that that was an existing tool that's been in place for about 35 years in the zoning but we did we did do a little research on that after the joint public hearing and discovered that it's not a tool that's used all that often in fact there are really only three cases in the last 10 years that we could find that utilized that that tool of parking substitution so it's not it doesn't get i would say it's not a provision where we have to worry about there's there's a lot of exceptions being made that are overtaxing our municipal parking lot we still think it's a an innovative tool we wouldn't recommend changing that at all and

▶ 28:37 Denise Gaffey: there was also some discussion we have proposed in this in this communal in the communal districts which are now of course ba2 being proposed to be ba2 districts parking reduction from two spaces to one space for multi-family housing and um that was also you know there was some concern about that parking reduction that was discussed at the joint public hearing so this is a topic that we we talked about um at the planning board level and still felt that um again these this being um this being these being transit oriented areas and where we're trying to promote transit oriented development that the parking reduction is is really an appropriate tool to try to to try to to do that and we we point out in the report that it's a minimum requirement

▶ 29:32 Denise Gaffey: and that the it's we're trying to decrease the reliance on automobile and we find that it's we've seen a lot of projects that have come through the Planning Board for review where that parking reduction is warranted so it was our opinion that we would to keep the the parking the the reduction from two spaces to one space per unit in as proposed and there was also discussion about the shared parking provision that was recommended in the zoning amendment and this is the same language that's that was approved by the the alderman in the smart growth district and in the real corridor district and again we're trying to create some tools some regulatory tools to to encourage redevelopment where it's appropriate in the transit oriented areas and we point out that this is a it's a discretionary provision this would require review by the Planning Board and through a smart site plan review application process and there's a high level of sort of a high level of information and threshold that's required to be proven to allow for a shared parking arrangement so we you know we've we've seen cases in front of the planning board i'm sure ann can speak to this where where redevelopment was stalled by the need for additional parking is it's just not always feasible and yet you can see you can see examples especially in our commuter rails commuter rail station areas where there's ample parking in the stations which would be compatible for certain uses like restaurant uses so the ability to allow for that shared use we think is an innovative tool and again under through a site plan review process which which is a discretionary process with the planning board i actually think it would be a more rigorous review through the site plan review process than the current special exemption that's allowed by the zoning board of appeals so i think if you read that language really closely you see all the requirements that need to be met and i think it's um it's a very high standard so i we would encourage keeping keeping that in um finally the other issue that came up that was just briefly mentioned was this provision if we had given any consideration to bicycle parking and requiring it in the in the commuter rail station areas and and we tossed that around and realized kind of logistically it was a little bit cumbersome to try to do that within the existing zoning ordinance and in any event we have language in our site plan review regulations that that gives the planning board the sort of the authority to require bicycle parking so we thought it wasn't really necessary to modify modify that provision and it's basically summarized in the report aside from that there were a couple of housekeeping things that came up housekeeping modifications that we picked up on between submitting this to the alderman back in january i think it was and reviewing it again over the last several weeks and we just thought while we're sort of finalizing this presentation it would be nice to clean up some of these housekeeping items too the first one had to do with the mixed use and how mixed use is defined and currently in our zoning ordinance there's a footnote on the table of uses when you when you get to the mixed use it brings you to a footnote and it lists all these use particular uses where which would be allowed as mixed uses and we thought it made sense just to simplify that language and just change the mixed use definition footnote to say mixed residential uses shall allow use categories as permitted in the table of use and parking regulations so in other words if it's a permitted commercial use in the district it makes sense to allow it to be a permitted mixed use so the commercial use would be the first floor use and then the residential above it just simplifies the language and i think um it's not necessary to list all these uses and possibly exclude some that might make sense so that was one of the housekeeping items um another one had to do there were a couple of um a couple of footnotes on the table of uses that we realized upon just closer scrutiny that were obsolete and um no longer made much sense so one of them was and we're suggesting that we the alderman Street these provisions from the zoning as part of this proposal one of them is a provision that says minimum yard dimensions shall be increased by four feet for each story more than four and another one is a credit may be given in determining minimum lot area for abutting and adjoining city-owned land permanently set aside for uses such as parkland or playgrounds the extent of such credit shall be determined by the board of appeals these particular footnotes didn't make any sense to us i think they made more sense 30 or 40 years ago when the zoning was different and they just never got looked at again so when we went back and actually pulled some of the old zoning ordinances from 30 40 years ago 40 or 50 years ago it made a little more sense back then but we could see how they meant to be dropped along the way and they just they would they just weren't so it made sense to eliminate them now and just clean it up and then there's two more one has to do with off-street parking this is simply a typo and this would be a housekeeping change or an edit to the real quarter overlay district which was just approved and basically in this provision that's referenced here it should reference section

▶ 35:11 Denise Gaffey: 4a and not 5a there is no 5a so we would just fix that typo and then the other one is in section 235 dash 71.2 affordable housing um also in the real quarter overlay district zoning it was another similar type of typo it should refer to the paragraph that's cited should refer to section 235-71.2 and not 71.1 i think 71.1 is actually a slow Presentations ordinance so it was just a typo so we would propose making that change while we're modifying the um the rest of the zoning and And otherwise, we really did, as President Kahn states, in summary, we do not recommend making any further modifications to the proposal that was sent down. And I just would reiterate that the planning board and the zoning subcommittee spent quite a bit of time looking at this and considering this modification before it was presented to the alderman. we had several meetings probably um eight or nine meetings where we we including spending time walking the districts the different station areas and taking photo documentation and looking at the density and discussing what appropriate density was and what appropriate uses were and i think it i think it's a very i think it was done in a very thoughtful way and i would just encourage coverage your support and certainly welcome your questions I don't

▶ 36:40 Speaker 2: want to belabor the point but I was thinking how we did work really hard so of course this means a lot to us because we spent a long long time a good part of the year looking at it and talking about it and thinking about it so we're pretty we're really strongly recommending we're advocating for what we believe because we all talked about it and we we think these are all good ideas and I realize it does put a lot of faith in the planning board because there are some tools here that are at the discretion of the planning board provided the applicant meets the standard you know some of the parking things that are minimums we could require more the um the shared parking idea you know that's you have to have an awful lot of professional information you know traffic analysis and engineering traffic engineering information but still there is a discretion of the planning board and i realize that these provisions seek to give some tools to the planning board to be a little discretionary around these areas so it is faith in the planning board and i i at least want to throw in that uh i've been on the planning board probably longer than i should be probably 20 years now and i have to say that even over all the changes of people that have been there the planning board is a pretty trustworthy board there's an awful lot of really dedicated people that know more than me about it, not just, I mean, we have a great planning staff that's very professional urban planners, but we also have engineers and architects, and I've never seen any reason to doubt that they're pretty rigorous and they're very careful with developers, and so I want to at least recommend that from my perspective, planning board's a good board to do this, to have these tools and attempt to have a little discretion with some of the uses in these special areas around the train stations and if I could

▶ 38:28 Denise Gaffey: just say one thing I forgot to mention this earlier but after speaking with Alderman Medeiros earlier today she reminded me that she raised a comment at the public hearing that we we neglected to pick up on in the report and it had to do with the parking permit program so I did put together a really brief memo later in the day which you may not all have had a chance to see but I'll summarize it very quickly because she Alderman Medeiros had been asking for some data about how many parking permits were sold by the parking clerk and when we talked today we talked a little about the parking supply and and whether the parking permits may be taxing the the parking supply so I did put together this memo and it outlines it outlines my knowledge based on a conversation with the parking clerk recent a very recent conversation with the parking clerk and to our knowledge they have currently he has sold 200 overnight permits and these are the permits that allow a resident to park in any municipal or commuter rail station lot overnight just to get their car off the street if they don't have street parking there they can park between 2 a.m. and 6 a.m. they need to move their car out by 6 a.m. in the morning and in order to important avoid any enforcement and I'm 200 of those have been sold and in addition to that parking permit we have a merchant permit in town and these are permit these are parking permits that are sold to business owners or employees and that allows a merchant an employee or a business owner to park in the municipal lot all day long during the day and there are 90 of those that have been sold and in terms of parking supply and this is information that I lifted directly from the parking study that we did two years ago we did a pretty rigorous study of the downtown parking and we counted literally counted all the spaces and there are 1,275 spaces in the downtown area just downtown that is a combination of public and private so obviously the 294 spaces that are private are not really not really able to be used for public parking although we do recommend in the study that these would be these would be great opportunities for some shared parking arrangements because certainly like for example you can think of the Co-op Bank or the Daring Lumber parking which is empty all night long and might be appropriate if there was a restaurant or some other kind of use a compatible use nearby but anyway that's another topic there are 283 on-street spaces in the downtown and 698 off-street spaces in the municipal parking lots downtown and then in just specific to the commuter rail stations we have a hundred and ninety-five spaces in the commuter rail stations that's broken down as follows 33 and while on the Wyoming station 68 spaces in Cedar Park and 94 spaces in the Highlands and I don't have the data readily readily available for the on-street parking and those three station areas or for the municipal Lots and in the Highland area for example I just didn't have an opportunity to count all of those but I think in summary the feeling was that the existing parking permit is not really taxing the parking supply based on these numbers and based on the supply that we have um so that was pretty much the gist of the memorandum and with that i'm happy to answer any questions hey do we have any questions

▶ 41:58 Jaclyn L. Bird: or comments alderman bird thank you mr president thank you all for being here tonight and and uh for the information that you've compiled for us can you just talk a little bit about um something that i don't think came up during the joint public hearing which was um the height restrictions for the um for the new reclassification for the different zones if you could just talk a little bit about what the discussion was around determining the four stories i know in some places in the existing zoning it actually says eight stories is that right in certain areas so we obviously want to clean that up but that um but that four stories when i was driving in some of the different areas that would be effective uh it would or be affected sorry it would be quite a change from some of the kind of single story building areas that we have now that may not be going anywhere for a while but that it would change maybe right you know five years down the road could you talk a little bit about what that discussion was with the Planning Board and how you got to the four

▶ 42:51 Denise Gaffey: stories sure sure I mean I think it took us a while to get to that to that conclusion I think basically I think the sort of the Eureka moment was for us was when we realized that really our downtown is so successful and our community real station areas could be just as successful as our downtown with the right mix of uses women with the right density and the density in the downtown is essentially four stories 50 feet it does say eight stories in the zoning and that's one of the things we we hope to fix through this zoning provision because eight stories obviously would not be desirable in the downtown or in the community areas but the four story provision actually works pretty well and if you walk the whole length of the downtown from Wyoming to Linfels Parkway you'll actually see a lot of examples of four-story buildings you'll also see examples of two-story buildings that are 50 feet tall like the YMCA and some of the other older buildings they just are three-story buildings that are 50 feet tall because that it they were built taller back then and when they originally built and I think that density density just feels right it seems like it works and there are examples even we looked we looked at all the buildings in the three commuter rail station areas and I think Cedar Park is probably the example a good example of a station area that has examples of that density right now it has four-story buildings in it and and again we felt that that didn't feel overly dense that you know the massing seemed appropriate for the for these business nodes and through the site plan review process we know that the massing of buildings and the density buildings gets really close scrutiny really close for me so we were just very comfortable that that would that would be appropriate all right excellent thank

▶ 44:42 Jaclyn L. Bird: you that's all for now mr. president thank

▶ 44:51 Speaker 5: you anyone else well the next year Margolis I just want to thank you for

▶ 44:53 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: your work and having attended many planning board meetings I and some site site plan review I'm happy to hear of your lengthy discussion on the parking and how it relates and works with the site plan review and I think that you are more than likely correct that by making that exemption and shared use part of the site plan review process it's you know going to be kind of more scrutinized and restricted in a way than just even like cutting it down to 1.5 spaces or something like that so I think it's it's good to link those two together and I just I think that this is a zoning plan that right now might sound a little bit extreme in some ways to us but I think it's for the future and I

▶ 45:58 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: I think the boards that we've had and the direction that we've been going, we're planning according to how the future should be. I'm thinking, like, now they have all these parking apps on your phone, you know, and you could even visualize something like that happening in some areas like that down the road. You know, maybe not next year in Melrose, but maybe four or five years from now. If we have a couple of new restaurants down at Cedar Park or wherever, Um, you know, you could definitely see those kinds of things happening. And I, I definitely think that this is, um, a document that will, that will help us craft the future and withstand, um, the test of time and the

▶ 46:37 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: developments that are coming before us. So, um, I'm very much in support of it and I hope that the board is as well. So thank you for your work.

▶ 46:45 Speaker 5: Alderman Wright.

▶ 46:46 Francis X. Wright Jr.: Thank you, Mr. President. Um, I appreciate all your work. your work I know this was a long process and I think it's a very good result I think I said it before I'll say it again I support this I support projects that want to take advantage of our ready access to public transportation I think that by limiting and I support limiting the number of spaces for automobile parking and motor vehicle parking because it does one of two or three things which is it encourages the location of residents in those spots who intend not to use vehicles but intend to use public transportation it may as a result become somewhat less attractive because obviously you aren't encouraging people who have more than one vehicle and therefore will keep down the price of of those units potentially so that young families some of whom I know in my neighborhood who have stretched the dollar to buy a house and so I have one car shared vehicle and and as a result they could live in a unit like this they could they could take advantage of this maybe it would keep the price down a little bit and it's also attractive potentially to our elderly residents who might want to stay in Melrose who might be at a point where they only need one

▶ 48:19 Francis X. Wright Jr.: vehicle but and I think you know parking is an issue in Melrose and everyone wants to drive downtown when they would need to go to the shows or they want to go to the pharmacy or the hardware store or the Y and we've seen more and more that these this parking is becoming an issue and I think with more and more units being built down by Oak Grove I anticipate those people want to shop in Melrose Square as well because it's such an attractive place to shop and they're gonna need places to park so the more we can encourage the building of residential properties that restrict parking I think will keep less and less vehicles out of our downtown both parking and traveling and in some small way at least limit the congestion uh yet take advantage of our our goal of allowing for more density in our rail corridors thank you thank you all of them thank you um i i want to thank

▶ 49:15 Monica C. Medeiros: you miss gaffey and your staff and the planning board and the zoning board and i know you do work very very very hard all of you and you you know having attended and watched many of these I know it's a tough process to go through and for good reason because you know we in Malrose we are very you know we're a very unique community not like so many communities around us where we have you know a little bit of a city feel but really a nice with a nice you know walkable downtown that we all get so many compliments on and but yet so residential in use and with so many I think of our residents and so much of this the success has been you know looking at our development very carefully and making sure that we're maintaining you know sort of the quality of life issue of how people think of Melrose and I think that's worked because clearly you know we just designated the hottest city last year you know in the state in terms of our real estate market so certainly you know what we've got here is something that's very desirable and certainly as as you go through the process as new developments come in and give it a very rigorous scrutiny and you hear a lot from neighbors and things we also you know do bring something to the table I think as as Alderman and we hear some different concerns sometimes you know well after development is in place well well after and you know I I support these changes abuses I think the this is this is a good part of you know opportunity for our community we have to if we want to be able to continue to add housing units especially and it's very important that we and maintain that quality of life you know it's important to look to these areas like the commuter rail districts where there is rapid transfer you know or semi rapid transportation options or other public transportation options walking options and things like that and adding different uses so that the residents there can sort of go there and stay put but that being said I you know I I do have concerns about reducing the required amount of spaces from two to

▶ 51:57 Monica C. Medeiros: one and in so much of the city you know I know that is the case at Oak Grove it's okaro village it's 1.5 and you felt like it could have gone to one is that

▶ 52:11 Monica C. Medeiros: it was it was reduced by a special permit and the Tremont Street corridor that we just changed the zoning for is to one is one correct so this is quite a

▶ 52:21 Monica C. Medeiros: lot to change the three commuter rail in my eyes it's quite a lot to change the three commuter rail districts plus this would also amend any multi-family unit

▶ 52:34 Monica C. Medeiros: allowed in the downtown area in the BA 1 the BA 1 existing so that's that's quite a big part of the city and and I do you know I've personally felt the you know the difficulty sometimes for getting to our Board of Alderman meetings even to parking downtown there when we have events here than you hear that you know sometimes people it's not every time but when we have big events especially big event at Memorial Hall or something or a big large large wake or something over it at Gately's downtown that you know it can cause some some tough parking and and sometimes cause people to give up looking I also on the flip side I hear a lot of very positive things about Melrose in downtown and and especially in comparison to Malden that geez it's great that you know you can go downtown and you can park your car and you can do your shopping and and people very happy and come to Melrose from other communities where you can't do that I

▶ 53:42 Monica C. Medeiros: hear some frustration during the day about parking in the Highlands area I'm really glad that you put together this memo for us which is in IQM to which I should point out to everybody and it's it was interesting to see that the Highlands station has 94 spaces which is actually the most of any so now my next question is are those spaces being you know is that is the problem in the neighborhood just people who don't want to pay to park and want to park for free or is it that we're running out of space during the day that I'm not I'm not sure

▶ 54:24 Monica C. Medeiros: But seeing these things and knowing that that's such a big area, I feel like that's too small for me to go so soon to one space.

▶ 54:38 Monica C. Medeiros: So I am going to make a motion tonight to amend the proposed changes that go from two spaces per unit to 1.5. so it goes from two to one right now to change that one to 1.5 so that's a long-winded motion to make an amendment to change that to my computer just shut down on me to

▶ 55:05 Speaker 5: to 1.5 alderman medeiros moves that the parking the minimum parking requirement for the new rail corridor zoning district uh the 1.5 for a dwelling unit second motion is seconded by

▶ 55:24 Speaker 5: alderman Boisselle is there any discussion relative to this motion or further discussion on the order

▶ 55:33 Robert A. Boisselle: at large alderman Boisselle we've had our discussions concerning parking and so forth and it's interesting for a facility that has underground parking, the Windsor complex that you have near Oak Grove, near Transit Line, and so forth. This afternoon, taking a public transit bus through the area, passing to it, looking down the street, every parking spot was filled with vehicles. For a facility that has public transportation that everyone can take and only needs one car, there seems to be a lot of cars parking above ground. And I'm not sure what's underground at this point. There may be people going to 128 or 495. But my opinion, 1.5 should be the marker for any of these facilities that are being developed for multi-residents.

▶ 56:35 Speaker 5: you anything further on the motion to i guess i would just i just want to comment that i mean one

▶ 56:44 Denise Gaffey: of the reasons we went with the one space per unit is what we're finding especially in the downtown

▶ 56:48 Speaker 7: and we think we'll have the opportunity in the community rail stations as well is that

▶ 56:52 Denise Gaffey: a lot of the developments that that are happening the mixed use developments in some of the residential pieces are smaller or small units and i'm thinking of like the project

▶ 57:03 Denise Gaffey: right next door to city hall here the beacon hill building the 11 units that were built above that project and I think it's kind of developments like that that wouldn't be able to happen with the two space requirement they tend to be small units that have single people in them and so that one in particular I know has the residents of that development either have one car or they have no cars so

▶ 57:30 Denise Gaffey: would view is that you know that setting that as a minimum would help to encourage the and foster redevelopment in these more densely located areas where we think there's a lot of transit opportunities and the need for the cars just isn't is great and i don't know if

▶ 57:47 Speaker 2: ann you want to you know i did want to at least point out that the first project we had in the new rail corridor where there is one one per unit is the minimum the developer came in and said the kind of units i'm building they're going to need two so he's asking for two so i just wanted to point out this is just the minimum it's not saying that people won't build projects it get it's very market driven and if you're not going to be able to sell your unit or market your unit without more because you feel like you are making bigger units that need more parking that those developers are going to do that so there is some self-regulation it's just a minimum so the proposal was let's give ourselves the leeway of a low minimum for some of these small units where we're finding we just don't need that kind of parking we we might be asking them to do an awful lot of paving that just ends up empty paving that isn't very pretty in these kinds of areas. That was the thought.

▶ 58:37 Robert A. Boisselle: Alderman Boyce-El for the second time. And the question, are you referring to the Essex Street project? Yeah. Well, they were having problems with their parking arrangements, and the only reason it finalized is because Deering Lumber's storage barn collapsed, And they're leasing that parking lot of 20 spots. So they had an overabundance of parking at this point.

▶ 59:03 Denise Gaffey: I was actually, I'm sorry, I meant the Essex. When you said the Essex, it's the condominiums next door, which was also called the Essex.

▶ 59:09 Robert A. Boisselle: Well, those condominiums next door are parking in the public lot, are they?

▶ 59:13 Denise Gaffey: They actually don't use them. They have a couple of spaces there, but they don't use them because there are a few spaces behind the toy store building, which is owned by the same owner.

▶ 59:23 Robert A. Boisselle: but I don't know how they got their cars out doing this past February because there's only one entrance let me tell you there was no way to maneuver her vehicle out of that spot with snow so all right you're right for the for the

▶ 59:39 Denise Gaffey: 99 Essex Street project that they did need to secure additional parking in order in order to make the meet the parking requirement right I don't know

▶ 59:51 Robert A. Boisselle: that they're all being utilized well take a ride by this evening you'll see about ten cars in that second lot at this point thank you very much mr.

▶ 1:00:00 Francis X. Wright Jr.: chairman other right Thank You mr. president I mean I understand all the men boys else point I think if you have the parking people will move to those units because it'll be attractive to that many more people and people who have vehicles we'll find melrose just as attractive as people who don't have vehicles and i really believe that if you're going to have units this close to transit and downtown that we'll have no trouble filling those units with people who only have one vehicle or less we want to be walkable we're trying to be bikeable so you can get to the train we want to encourage people to take the bus in the train we have congestion downtown you can't get down main street you can't find a place to park i think that this is the way to go that i think that the planning board has done a great job they recognize the problem i i fully support what they have before us and i hope everyone will vote

▶ 1:01:00 Speaker 5: for it thank you alderman mcintyre margolis um thank you mr mr president um i think alderman

▶ 1:01:02 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: Alderman Wright is correct. These units will attract a population that is either starting out or ending their residence, perhaps, in Melrose. I know, in my personal experience, we have a large lot of land. We have a big driveway. As we think about downsizing and know cutting back on our work we're thinking about getting rid of a vehicle um and not just um you know because of the expense of it but because of the fact that we can walk places in melrose and i think the more we develop um our commuter areas like um cedar park and the highlands and the more businesses that go in there the more opportunity there will be for the residents of those areas to stay in those neighborhoods and not need to come downtown with a car or they can walk downtown I mean you can walk downtown from pretty much anywhere in Melrose unless you live way up at the top of Swains Pond or something you know I just I think what is the point of stressing our rail corridor and our access to public transportation if we're just gonna really say well it's there but you know meanwhile if you want a couple of cars you can still you know you could still do that and as as Mr. Sousa Ward says the developer may find as I think they did in those in the newer condos that you're referring to and they were priced at a fairly high market value that people some people wanted two cars because it was they were paying four hundred thousand dollars or whatever they were paying for those condos so I don't have a problem with leaving a minimum of one I think those older apartment buildings down there utilize in Cedar Park utilize overnight parking at the rail station I think there's lots of other opportunities for people to make arrangements if they have a second car with other parking spaces neighbors shared parking I think if we have to get creative about it we can but I agree I don't like the idea of taking that area that we're trying to kind of beautify a little bit and make it more attractive and covering a lot of it with asphalt so that just to accommodate two parking spaces in an area that we should be focusing on attracting people who are willing to utilize you know public transportation or biking or walking or other forms so I again also support this and I think that it's a little bit of a leap of faith as you say towards trusting the Planning Board but I do believe that with the experience that you all bring to the table and the site plan review process that we have in place no matter who's on that board going forward I think you have set the ground rules that will allow us to keep Melrose the way it is without and move

▶ 1:04:21 Speaker 5: forward at the same time thank you thank you anything further on the motion to amend the proposed ordinances all those in favor of the motion indicate by saying aye aye all those opposed motion fails

▶ 1:04:40 Monica C. Medeiros: Alderman Medeiros thank you I just I wanted to also thank Miss Gaffey when we spoke today you said that you the mayor is kind of reconstituting the parking committee parking working group yes parking working group so I think that's a very good idea and I hope that that will work to alleviate some of the the issues that I think do currently exist and and hopefully look at this moving forward i know that one part of our conversation today was in two areas in particular with people who are employees about looking at some different designated spots for employees and also in terms of overnight parking looking at either maybe specific spaces in specific lots or specific lots in general to tie right now we believe that the permits for overnight parking are not tied to any

▶ 1:05:37 Speaker 7: particular lot or any particular parking lot right so yeah that could be something that

▶ 1:05:45 Monica C. Medeiros: could be looked at to outside of this board um to look at to alleviate that and you know a lot of the time where i see issues is in that say from you know 6 30 or 7 o'clock when people come home until the restaurants and stores close especially that probably peak time from 7 8 9 o'clock so be done to help alleviate that with that being said i'd like to move to accept the amendments

▶ 1:06:16 Speaker 1: that are in the revised letter from the planning board on march 24th i think the proper motion

▶ 1:06:19 Speaker 5: would be to uh adopt the ordinance change that are part of the order i don't think i don't think is the letter making any substantive changes that weren't in your original order

▶ 1:06:30 Denise Gaffey: it's making some housekeeping changes that weren't in the order moves to adopt the housekeeping

▶ 1:06:38 Speaker 5: changes that are made at the end of the letter second second by alderman mortimer is there any discussion on the motion to amend the ordinance all those in favor aye anyone opposed motion to

▶ 1:06:51 Speaker 5: recommend the order as amended mr president alderman mortimer moves to recommend the order

▶ 1:06:55 Peter D. Mortimer: as amended excuse me that'll be a motion for passage we are at full board is there a second

▶ 1:07:01 Speaker 5: motion seconded by Alderman McAteer-Margolis on discussion Alderman Byrd

▶ 1:07:07 Jaclyn L. Bird: thank you mr. president I just wanted to ask one other thing we've heard some talk recently about issues of handling the number of students that we currently have within the public schools was this something you know that we were seeing increased numbers for instance in kindergarten registration and the ECC registration and all that can you talk a little bit about was that factored into this kind of big picture discussion on what we're looking at I know a lot of what we've seen a development recently has been one and two bedroom units which are probably less likely to have you know large families or families with young children maybe especially if they are moving into a unit with one car that sort of thing but was that factored into the do we know that information when this was all being factored in and certainly we're seeing at my son's school you know folks that are from some of the new developments which is great we want to make sure we can handle what we're what we're building yeah well I

▶ 1:08:01 Denise Gaffey: think that conversation about school children when it comes to housing and multifamily housing sort of comes up a lot in front of the Planning Board when we're looking at different permitting different projects and our sense from the data that we get from the from from the from the developers in terms of who they're marketing to and the number in the size of the units and also just from the literature on multifamily housing is that the the number of school kids generally is quite small and I think in that is and that's true even if you look at the data at Oak Grove Village or Stone Place the numbers I won't say there are no school children there there are but for for example at Oak Grove Village with 400 units I think there's probably about 15 school children so it's a pretty small correction I think there's definitely a bubble going on and I think there with the housing prices and the values being what they are and with the winter weather that people just kind of lived through, there's a lot of interest in selling the big old homes. And I think it is freeing up housing for young families, and I think we're seeing larger family sizes, too. And so I do think that is having, you know, to some extent, I guess, the creation of the housing that may be providing opportunities for downsizers is helping to create, to allow for. think that's actually all a very good thing I think seeing the population grow is a is a positive positive thing for the community you don't really want to see your population stagnant or decline and I think vis-a-vis this particular proposal we really view this more as an economic development initiative as than a housing initiative housing is not allowed as of right in the communal stations and we don't change that it still requires a special permit and so So we do encourage mixed use, which would allow for residential above commercial, which we think is a great tool and really will help with vibrancy and help these commuter rail station areas succeed. But those aren't the kind of units that have school children associated with them. Those tend to be the smaller units and the single women or single men who live in those kind of units. So we don't see it as creating a lot of housing. It's more of an economic development tool.

▶ 1:10:18 Speaker 7: Great. Thank you very much.

▶ 1:10:19 Speaker 5: Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you. Alderman Medeiros for the third time.

▶ 1:10:23 Speaker 7: Thank you.

▶ 1:10:25 Monica C. Medeiros: One of the other things we sort of briefly again spoke about on the phone, but I wanted to speak about it more in terms of what's allowed in this order. And I know we're going to have no more than five feet as a setback. And as we get into buildings that may be higher in stories and require less parking as right or have the option to go lower in units and really go towards people who don't have cars, that we may see a need for more shared vehicles for pickups and things like that, like for for instance, from taxis, or Uber, or Lyft, or the shared ride services, or even things like the ride from the MBTA. And we don't have, we have one taxi stand in the city right now.

▶ 1:11:21 Speaker 1: Would it be allowed if a business,

▶ 1:11:28 Speaker 1: or if a development wanted to,

▶ 1:11:31 Monica C. Medeiros: to maybe sometimes we see these kinds of structures where one floor juts out and there's sort of a spot where you can have some kind of area

▶ 1:11:43 Monica C. Medeiros: where they could pick people up that would be beyond the five feet of setback.

▶ 1:11:55 Monica C. Medeiros: Is there any kind of thought towards making developments or encouraging designating for instance a shared space or another taxi stand or

▶ 1:12:10 Speaker 1: something like this would that be prohibited and I don't think our zoning

▶ 1:12:15 Denise Gaffey: would do anything one way or the other to address that concern I think that I don't know that that's like a traffic Commission discussion about signage for

▶ 1:12:27 Monica C. Medeiros: that would be but for for a development that might want to have a space in front of there it's in some places some streets are wider than others but maybe there is a place for pickups I mean we're our goal with this I mean we'd

▶ 1:12:39 Monica C. Medeiros: love to think that people aren't going to have cars but right well our goal

▶ 1:12:45 Denise Gaffey: also would be to not have the car in the front of the building like that's why we have that minimum setback we really want this the building to be right on the back of the sidewalk we just think that helps it's why our downtown is so successful it helps from vibrancy so you know the parking would ideally be in the back or some somewhere out of view and there would be nothing to prevent that kind of a you know allowance and I think that's a discussion the board has certainly with the bigger projects under site plan review they're required to

▶ 1:13:14 Denise Gaffey: provide transportation demand management type of tools like I we talked about Oak Grove Village and how when that was permitted 12 years ago we required two zip cars and at the time zip car said no they couldn't come in there was no demand for it and now there are two zip cars there I mean it's take it took them a few years they had to build out the entire project and then they the culture had to change and there are now two zip cars at Oak Grove tea station too and I think it's just a matter of time before there's one in the downtown area and I think that is some of that is just cultural and you know just changing mindsets and things but it is there's the kind of discussions that we often have with site plan review level thank you anything else it has been a motion

▶ 1:13:58 Speaker 5: that's been made and properly seconded to pass the order as amended could you

▶ 1:14:11 Speaker 1: call the roll please miss O'Shea yes yes yes yes yes yes what it passes thank

▶ 1:14:36 Speaker 9: thank you very much order 2015-129 communication from massachusetts state lottery commission regarding keno to go license at village variety 446 main street melrose mass that order will go to the president Presentations and license