ORDER-2014-146 : Amending Melrose Revised Zoning Ordinance to create a Rail Corridor Overlay District and other related zoning amendments as set forth herein.

Transcript (~41 min @ 10:56)

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▶ 10:42 Speaker 1: table alderman medeiros moves to remove the order from the table the motion is seconded by alderman inferno on the motion all those in favor anyone opposed motion passes the order is removed from the table before we start our discussion this evening i want to make sure that the public understands that we will not be voting on this order this evening that we are not able to vote on this order this evening uh that we are waiting uh for a report back from the planning board before we can further consider the order so no boat will be taken relative to this order tonight motion to suspend the rules alderman mcintyre margolis moves to suspend the rule so that we can hear from representatives of the planning department seconded by alderman medeiros on the motion all those in favor all right anyone opposed motion passes the rules are suspended

▶ 11:40 Speaker 1: good evening good evening miss gaffey my understanding is that we don't have a definition of substance abuse facilities and that's the purpose of why this is being included because we lack a definition in our ordinances is that correct um well there are two reasons

▶ 11:53 Denise Gaffey: actually the the initial reason was that we wanted to prohibit the substance abuse treatment center use from the both the corridor the real quarter that we're creating and from the smart growth district order and so there's language in there to do that I think there was a little confusion among the last speaker about that issue but the language here actually would prohibit that use but we created didn't definition of the use because there there was no use prior to that so the intent just so everyone is clear is to prohibit the use and that is that language is actually shown on the permitted uses if you read permitted uses on page three of the proposed rail

▶ 12:47 Denise Gaffey: corridor overlay bullet e or paragraph e actually says specifically that medical use is allowed but this use does not medical insurance architects engineers and real estate offices those types of professional and business offices are allowed but what is not allowed are banks financial institutions or substance abuse treatment centers so we wanted to be very clear that that use was not allowed in the real quarter as proposed do you have anything you'd like

▶ 13:17 Speaker 1: to add before I open the floor to questions no not really I'm just I'm

▶ 13:21 Denise Gaffey: really we're happy to be here I'm here with Carla Morelli who is the chair person of the Planning Board and we're happy to be here tonight to answer any questions or engage in a discussion with the Board of Aldermen about this initiative I think I kind of laid out all the background at the public hearing last week so I'm not going to go through that all again but we're just we're happy to be here and answer any questions that you have thank you any

▶ 13:47 Speaker 1: aldermen who have questions comments discussion points all the voice L in

▶ 13:56 Robert A. Boisselle: this corridor on essex street going all the way to franklin and so forth what's the average height of the buildings in that particular area how many floors it depends on where where you are i mean if

▶ 14:08 Denise Gaffey: there's some there's some elements of that corridor that are in south to north on essex

▶ 14:15 Robert A. Boisselle: street what would be the average height of the probably two and a half to three stories if you

▶ 14:24 Robert A. Boisselle: average maybe three stories if you averaged it out even four floors why are we moving to the

▶ 14:29 Denise Gaffey: five floors at this point uh the fi the fifth story is is an acknowledgement that these are the the parcels um are are somewhat constrained by their their lot size and we want to we want to provide opportunities for redevelopment and we want to do it in a sensitive and contextual way so that the fifth story we gave a lot of discussion about it as you know because you attended a lot of our meetings i just want to get it out because it has come up um we we had a lot of discussion about four stories versus five and and we decided that the fifth story would be would be appropriate as long as it was stepped back so it's step back 20 feet and so the visual impact of that fifth story is minimized by that step back provision but we but we want to be able to provide opportunities reasonable and feasible opportunities to redevelop so basically if you're sitting or standing in

▶ 15:19 Robert A. Boisselle: in front of the building and looking up you wouldn't see the fifth floor at all because it's like you're saying is pushed back onto the roof exactly so the

▶ 15:28 Denise Gaffey: visual impact which I think is what most people are concerned about would be

▶ 15:35 Robert A. Boisselle: minimized okay by that now we in this particular area that we looked at in the overlay that was presented at the meeting last time you have that overlay over a number of businesses in that area already well these when if someone comes in and takes that land well these residents or these businesses have first dibs on new development in the area can they resettle back into the community or are they just being pushed out of the neighborhood well I don't think the

▶ 16:06 Denise Gaffey: intent is to push any of the businesses out that are currently existing and that's why one of the considerations we gave a lot of thought to was keeping is creating this as an overlay and keeping the underlying zoning because we're not trying to you know make anybody non-conforming and force any uses out that are and certainly if they're viable uses in the in the greater market there's no reason why that would happen we do think I think the other element of this rezoning that I want to just to step back for a second and just reinforce is that we are also looking at the neighborhood business districts for for rezoning and that's sort of the next phase that we will be presenting to the board in a couple of months and I think it makes sense I think collectively we think it makes a lot of sense to to focus the commercial and small business development in those neighborhood business areas not that there isn't an opportunity for that in the corridor and there are plenty of commercial uses that we would allow as of right but there's also opportunities in those small business areas that would be reinforced through a zoning change as well now just

▶ 17:19 Robert A. Boisselle: for a final question now you mentioned interest in the properties so far so right now what you're saying there are developers in the wings ready for these regulations to be passed to come in and do development type work at this time

▶ 17:35 Denise Gaffey: there is definitely some interest in in a couple of the parcels that is true the during lumber property which everyone is aware of there's there's expressed interest by a senior living developer in that that parcel there's interest in the parcel the Knight Harrison parcel which is actually a series of parcels that would be consolidated I think I think the owners of those parcels have been very very open about their interest you know in marketing them so we think we're actually trying to be proactive about it by creating a zoning that would allow for the uses in the dimensional criteria that we think is appropriate in the

▶ 18:19 Robert A. Boisselle: corridor good I had a chance to be up in Portsmouth about a month ago and when I go to these cities and so forth like to do sort of walk around in neighborhoods and so forth and this happened to walk into one onto one of the streets and there was a perfect example what we've been talking about there's businesses on the small businesses on the first floor and they're three to four residents above it uh and they really did a nice job uh in the way they presented it and the way they uh the decor of the buildings themselves so i hope you keep that in mind to make it a nice neighborhood in that point so good luck thank you very much Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Alderman. Alderman Lehman.

▶ 19:00 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: Yes. Thank you. I just have a question about the substance abuse treatment centers that we just talked about a little bit. And you mentioned in our last meeting when we discussed this that financial institutions, banks, and the substance abuse treatment centers were all going to be prohibited from the zoning, and that the banks and the financial institutions, you felt like that was covered here in the city and there were other areas where those existed and they you know that was the reason for that but could you talk a little bit about the reason that the decision was made to specifically prohibit the substance abuse treatment

▶ 19:39 Denise Gaffey: centers from this area well I think the the concern that we had is that the the use especially in the smart growth district where our original concern came but also in this along this corridor would not would not necessarily be compatible with the kinds of uses that we're trying to promote the multifamily residential or the assisted living or or even the mixed use wouldn't necessarily be compatible with substance a treatment substance abuse abuse treatment centers I mean we I have a little bit of concern about that particular use and and how it might sort of transform a neighborhood and I think there are probably better locations in the community perhaps in the our medical district where that use would be better suited are there any other areas in the

▶ 20:32 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: city that that is also explicitly prohibited from no no because the use

▶ 20:39 Denise Gaffey: wasn't explicitly defined I think we were concerned that if if there were a proposal for that type of use it might be considered a medical use because our medical use category is very broad and so that the building Commissioner might feel compelled to allow the use in a medical district in in for example the smart growth district or the real quarter district where we would be allowing medical use as of right so that's why we add that specific

▶ 21:07 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: provision okay so there are other areas in the city where something like that if it were it's possible it's possible okay great thank you thank you are you

▶ 21:16 Speaker 1: proposing to allow liquor store use in this corridor we are allowing for the

▶ 21:21 Denise Gaffey: retail food establishment that category of use that was created several years ago that allows for retail service businesses that provide wine and beer I think is along with food retail food and we recognize that there's the limitation already placed in the by the liquor Commission I believe on three of those licenses and that there are already three licenses in use today but if that were to change over in the future it might not be inappropriate for that use

▶ 22:02 Speaker 1: to be allowed in one significant portion of this zone but our school middle school high school complex yeah and I don't know if there's already a

▶ 22:11 Denise Gaffey: prohibit prohibition or limitation in the liquor regulations about that there may be it is interesting I was thinking about this issue and I didn't recognize that that the retail food establishment use is allowed in the underlying zoning today it's allowed in that bb1 corridor it's also allowed in the industrial a corridor which is the underlying smart growth area so I but I do think that it is there's regulations that would override that concern okay well I'm not

▶ 22:44 Speaker 1: going to indicate what my views are right now maybe at the end of the meeting I'll make a couple of points I'll let the other members speak

▶ 22:53 Gail Infurna: Alderman Inferno thank you very much mr. president thank you for coming out tonight to answer our questions or whatever first of all I am delighted to see that we're finally doing a zoning for assisted living I think it's much needed here in Melrose I know in talking with families or senior citizens they all want to stay in Melrose as they age so I think this is great that we're finally including assisted living in in the zoning ordinances the I have a question regarding parking and I remember last week when you were before us or a week and a half ago whatever you talked about that you really went around and took a little survey of the assisted livings to try to form formulate your one one per four units one space per four units I think that kind of works to a point but I just wonder if you asked this question and whatnot I know many assisted livings run community events where they have a you know large population that comes to that facility and I think I'm a little concerned with the typical parking maybe in this particular area because if it were to overflow the assisted living when they have functions like I say most assisted livings are very active with community events where would they park because that area is fairly congested there's not like side streets it's it's kind of a you know an area where there's not a lot of side streets to take some overflow so it's just something to look at maybe to kind of just think about and maybe ask around at the other assisted livings to see how it really works out but i just know it's pretty congested down there it's not like you can park along essex street you can't park along willow street you can't park along you know tremont street you can't park along all these little streets um so that it may be a problem but i just wanted to throw that out there other than that i i'm certainly in full support of it and once again delighted for assisted living finally coming to melrose okay thank you we can look into

▶ 25:00 Monica C. Medeiros: that question a little bit further thank you welcome maderos thank you i thank you for all the work that you've done to put into this i've been uh pleased to be part of i think many of the meetings dating back to last year and before and i think it's very important that we are taking a proactive view and approach to to addressing this and and making the zoning in such a way that it brings in the kind of growth and the look and feel that we want to encourage um generally i have very few concerns but uh one being parking but in the residential use i know i know you said you went around quite a bit on this and i am a little bit concerned about the

▶ 25:49 Monica C. Medeiros: the one unit per residential unit and feel like it might be better to go with 1.5 I believe you might have said that's what it is at Oak Grove Village and in that area is 1.5 because this this and it's and it's worked up there and it's and we haven't had problems but this area is a little bit different and I know you're thinking vision in a visionary sense on that but it is a little bit different it is you know yes close to all these commuter rail stations which is wonderful but those stations are different than oak grove in terms of you know how convenient they are we know that you know the commuter rail state the commuter rail doesn't run as long into the evening it doesn't run as frequently and should these units become

▶ 26:46 Monica C. Medeiros: condominiums and sometimes people's people's life starts out that they may be working in boston and it's a great way to commute but as their lives change and sometimes people you know get married have kids the jobs change but they're still in this unit it might make them need to have a car where they didn't when they first moved in so it just seems like one unit per one car per unit is

▶ 27:17 Monica C. Medeiros: is a little bit tight and you know there's not a lot of room for overflow I know there's a commitment to not going into overnight on-street parking so it

▶ 27:32 Monica C. Medeiros: just it seems like it's it's it's idealistic but maybe not realistic for a number but I think also Alderman Farmer pointed out we definitely need some assisted living in Melrose it's not and not just the residents that want to stay here but their families that want to be able to have their their relatives close

▶ 27:55 Speaker 3: to them so they can visit easily and frequently and I think that you know

▶ 27:59 Monica C. Medeiros: Alderman Kahn brought something up with the specialty food stores and maybe they are allowed in the current zoning but this might be a good opportunity to look at perhaps prohibiting that use in this district because that is awfully close

▶ 28:17 Denise Gaffey: to our our schools sure to the first question or point about the the parking we did that was an issue we did spend a lot of time talking about and I would agree it's a it's a little bit it is a little bit aggressive I think we were looking we are really trying to foster this transit oriented development concept that's worked really well in the smart growth district I will point out that this we do allow we do provide or require a provision for our visitor parking which is something that's not typically done in Arizona it's not done in the end in our zoning today so we we make a special accommodation for visitor parking to try to offset any concerns about about that but you know in the other the other point is this this is a this is a minimum requirement and what we have found with developers and we've been reviewing a lot of development proposals over the years is that they usually have the best sense they have a very good sense I should say of what the their demand is going to be for parking and based on the the market that they're planning to tap into and they don't typically they they typically provide the right amount of parking what we're trying to do is send a message here that this is a transit oriented area and there's a lot of opportunities for transit besides vehicle use and there's as you know the parking requirement the bicycle parking requirements and things that too that we're trying to encourage and we're hoping that it will sort of help to you know tap into that sense of you know alternative ways of of of commuting and lifestyle and so I think that's that's sort of what we're you know and what we're trying to get at and and again we also have we do have the benefit of a lot of recent projects and some other we've surveyed some other areas too and and think that that's a viable number as a minimum obviously they're they can provide more parking could you go over the visitor

▶ 30:23 Denise Gaffey: requirement oh sure yes it's one visitor space per 10 residential units and our

▶ 30:28 Monica C. Medeiros: other zoning does not have any no it doesn't it doesn't and our zoning right

▶ 30:31 Denise Gaffey: now is is is overly generous I mean the requirement for parking is is more than we typically need it's two spaces per dwelling unit and that in that would include I guess that would technically include visitor parking in it because there's no separate provision for visitor parking but the Planning Board frequently in recently in recent years frequently waves that parking requirement because it really is more parking we need and the last thing you want is too much parking because the other thing we have found in some of the even today in some of the some of the pre-existing multifamily developments in near these transit areas they if they have excess parking there's a temptation to to use it right to maybe sell the parking space or rent it and I don't think we necessarily want to be creating those kind of opportunities so that's just another way of thinking about it and something to weigh that's good

▶ 31:32 Monica C. Medeiros: because you you know the experience and knowing that you're often waving the parking requirements is something that oh yeah we might not know here so I'm glad that you know I asked him that he shared that we used to try to convince developers that they didn't need as much parking and now they're just coming in proposing less parking because they're finding that these types of developments people are self-selecting them because they want that lifestyle it's a

▶ 31:59 Speaker 3: lifestyle choice not to have a car and to get around by train so we don't have to convince them anymore they're convinced and actually I did have one

▶ 32:06 Monica C. Medeiros: other question for you I know we've already received one mass works grant for infrastructure I understand that the governor's office that they've they're having another round open that would cover some residential uses and things like that do you do you think that we would be a candidate for this and are

▶ 32:33 Denise Gaffey: you aware of or is there anything that you've probably not this round yeah it took us several rounds to get the this last one and I think what really tipped the scale for them was all the the work that we were doing the sort of the proactive work we were doing in the zoning realm in the connections that we were making to the to the Franklin Street in the Highlands commercial area so I'm not saying we wouldn't be able to be successful in the future if we came up with a clever you know proposal but it probably not probably they wouldn't even consider us this round to be honest because we're we're still implementing a project we're still haven't even early shovels in the ground yet on that project so they probably have to have a successful project before we can apply for another one hey thank you we're always looking at those opportunities as

▶ 33:18 Speaker 1: you know thank you thank you thank you all of these projects would be subject to our special permit our site plan review process yeah can you people at home don't know what site plan review is can you give a two-minute synopsis of how the process works two minutes will be hard to do but it is a process it is

▶ 33:36 Denise Gaffey: a process whereby even even if if a project comes in under this rail corridor overlay in there as of right for the use and they meet the interventional criteria they still need to get approval site plan approval by the Planning Board and that approval is designed to make sure that what is being proposed is you know compatible with the neighborhood architecturally and that it doesn't create any negative impacts so we look at we look at everything from traffic to snow storage to parking layout to landscaping and in all the infrastructure below ground drainage sewage water supply you know if there's blasting involved we're going to want to talk about that and we're going to lay out a we're going to evaluate all the issues and then they'll likely be a series of conditions that I developed that we would put on the development in terms of any mitigation they need to provide or just you know requirements for those items that I just outlined so it's um it's a very rigorous process as Carla can speak to and our planning board is pretty uniquely skilled and talented in that area we are we have really tremendous skill set in our planning board so I'd say they're very successful meetings and the public also has an opportunity they're all public hearings so the public always has an opportunity to comment and the planning board is very respectful of their comments and and always works through any of the issues that are raised thank

▶ 35:21 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: you Baldwin McAteer Margolis Thank You mr. chairman and having attended some of those public hearings I am always fascinated because there's always somebody who thinks about something that you know the general public or a neighbor wouldn't think of and you know snow removal or snow storage or things like that or that the way a truck is going to pull into the back of a building and so you guys just I mean I have great confidence in your ability to to guide these developments but from the from a kind of starting with the big picture and then going down a little bit this this district starts at Willow Street is that right basically it starts at Willow and Essex right right so for a long time we've kind of talked about this block here from Main Street down to Willow Street do you envision that coming on eventually as part of this piece or will that be a separate proposal at some time I don't know that

▶ 36:17 Denise Gaffey: we would necessarily extend the overlay I mean we didn't really look at that we were we were well we did but we were we thought it made sense to work with the underlying boundary which is the the extensive business it is the current boundary we're some we are very simply overlaying this this zoning on top of

▶ 36:40 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: that that's why you didn't go past Melrose Street also correct because it's a different it switches zones correct that's correct it becomes a residential

▶ 36:46 Denise Gaffey: zone yeah on the other side between Melrose and Franklin so when all of this

▶ 36:55 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: wonderful development starts to happen and I know this might this is not really

▶ 37:06 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: your purview but do you envision road work utility work water sewer do you envision those kinds of things happening in that area I think so I think there

▶ 37:12 Denise Gaffey: would likely be some and I think it's a good opportunity frankly for some upgrades to the infrastructure but I certainly think it's likely that a lot of the infrastructure there is you know in need of upgrading so those are some

▶ 37:28 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: considerations that as a board we may be faced with budgeting bonding or working with DPW for funding right and some of it may be met and you know managed just

▶ 37:44 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: through the development itself right right I saw that you have a in the density language I think you have a requirement for open space requirement that 10% of the lot has to be dedicated to open space and is that in addition to whatever parking they have is that the parking is not included in that open space or it is included in the parking is not included in the open space and then you also have a streetscape improvement fund correct that the developer would have to contribute to correct based on the square footage yeah

▶ 38:26 Denise Gaffey: square footage or if it's residential it would be based on the unit count and

▶ 38:31 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: that and those monies would go into a separate fund like the time we just like

▶ 38:35 Denise Gaffey: the open yep we modeled it we just did sort of modeled it after the open space fund which is what we've used for the smart growth district but we thought it made more sense here since open space isn't so much a concern there's lots of open space surrounding the corridor that it would be and it sort of met our goals of trying to improve the whole streetscape if we created a streetscape

▶ 39:02 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: fund that could be used in the quarter itself and so you'd envision like maybe an extension of the Victorian lighting or sidewalks or sure mm-hmm okay and And when you talked about the developments having the requirement for, like, covered bike racks or whatever you call them when they're little bike garages or whatever, is there any provision for or ability to consider bike lanes in that area, or would that be part of if there's an engineering process?

▶ 39:34 Denise Gaffey: Well, there are considerations for bike lanes in the corridor in the vision study we that we did along with MAPC last year and so we think we think there are opportunities for that I mean as part of that study we went out and actually measured the width of the roadway and and you could certainly incorporate you could certainly incorporate a bike lane into the term on Street quarter so it's just it's not the kind of thing you could work into zoning right you know or or it would be also probably hard for a project to do.

▶ 40:07 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: It's not something that can really be done piecemeal. Exactly. We have to wait until we decide to do the whole road.

▶ 40:13 Denise Gaffey: Right, and that's more of a community discussion as well.

▶ 40:18 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: And how about, are there any restrictions placed on the developments from like the MBTA and the corridor, and the actual rail corridor behind those buildings? I mean, do they have, they don't have any restrictions

▶ 40:35 Speaker 4: height or not not that I'm not that I'm aware yeah so I mean they've been at the

▶ 40:42 Denise Gaffey: table or involved in the conversations they have not to be honest with you I just think of that tonight yeah well I mean I can look at that question it's interesting question I just don't think it's you know we're talking the the zoning is going to impact private you know property not the teeth it's part of

▶ 40:59 Speaker 3: due diligence of any development the developer would have to investigate whether there are any easements MBTA easements from the tracks out towards the street okay I had a client down on that corridor once that came across something like that there was a an area that they couldn't build on it was it was pretty minimal right but we don't know of any regularly spaced easements or other

▶ 41:24 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: things that would prohibit and the only other thing that kind of comes to mind is like you know how the MBTA has has just been really aggressive lately with like you know their public advertising at train stations and that sort of thing I you know I don't know if there's any you know regulations guiding that at all for in terms of how close it would be to residential housing or anything like that because I'm sure people don't want to be looking out their windows at a big

▶ 42:00 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: huge ad for you know vodka or something and then speaking of liquor the liquor and food stores which is already allowed in the zone right it's allowed it is a

▶ 42:10 Denise Gaffey: permissible use in the BB one zone right yes right and I do believe from when the

▶ 42:16 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: liquor Commission was here before that when they were talking about the downtown locations that they granted to there's like I think it was like a 300 foot zone or something from churches and schools so that was my understanding but

▶ 42:37 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: I'm not an expert on the I would not I would not I would think we would be able to regulate that with liquor with liquor licensing regulations as opposed to zoning so I would not really be in support of taking that out because I think going down the road you may you know ten years from now have an opportunity or somebody may close a store and there may be a license become available so yeah I think I think it's gonna really just change the whole fabric of that neighborhood I think it's gonna be very exciting and I look forward to the rest of the proposals in terms of Cedar Park and the rest of the the areas as you're going forward so thank you for your work and we'll look

▶ 43:22 Speaker 1: forward to hearing back from you thank you anyone else

▶ 43:27 Robert A. Boisselle: other boys out parking I always liked that 1.5 unit is that point five is one of those small imports from Italy that we're trying to get in here I mean I've

▶ 43:40 Robert A. Boisselle: always it's a micro unit but I've always been at the meetings and so forth that I've always been pushing for two vehicles, a minimum, at this point. And there's always comes back with excess parking. Every day, I go by the Oak Grove situation, every, and you look down those side streets, every parking space is filled to, even the parking spaces at the far end are filled with vehicles. I know there's underground parking, but you gotta pay for that. And that's where these second vehicles aren't using them. They don't want to pay the outrageous cost. They're parking on the street. So 1.5 units, I hope there's a good Italian vehicle dealership nearby because they're gonna make a lot of money on this deal. All right, we have a particular industry that we postponed in discussing or even talking about for a year. It's called the medical marijuana dispensary. In this particular area, is that similar to the Substance Abuse Treatment Center? Could you put a medical marijuana dispensary in this corridor?

▶ 44:55 Denise Gaffey: Well, right now you can't because there's a moratorium.

▶ 44:58 Robert A. Boisselle: We're not discussing this here. I mean, we're still talking about a year down the road here, which is we agreed not to talk a moratorium for a year to discuss this. And what I'm sort of fearing here is that that year and the developments go, all going to come together at the same time the question is now there's the definition of the substance abuse treatment center is similar to the medical dispensary America medical marijuana dispensary would that be in the same quote medical district but would that be covered under it I don't

▶ 45:35 Denise Gaffey: think so I think about it yeah I think about it and you in your you're right to remind us about the miracle right it's coming real close expiration is coming very close and that's right one of the initiatives we want to get going on right

▶ 45:50 Robert A. Boisselle: as well so yeah all right that's something to think about now we talked about all the Madero's talked about the infrastructure going be going on on the Essex Street and so forth and we kept keep talking about willows were willow to Franklin so forth but there's a section from willow to Myrtle that if If all this roadway is being completed, are we going to extend the roadway right up to Myrtle to no potholes and so forth? I just want to see potholes from Myrtle to Willow and then a clean highway for the rest of the way. I'd like to have the whole street looked at and done at that point.

▶ 46:28 Denise Gaffey: Right, and we would do that as part of our review for a project, especially if there was a project in close proximity like the Deering Lumber Project that would give us the opportunity to kind of survey the conditions both you know directly in front of that project and anything adjacent to it and sometimes we use that as an opportunity to do some public-private partnership

▶ 46:51 Robert A. Boisselle: right have the city maybe well part of that part is partnership is from Essex

▶ 46:57 Robert A. Boisselle: south on Willow Street is that roadway going to be expanded because I can't see trucks supplying that facility getting into that facility or having trouble in

▶ 47:11 Denise Gaffey: that neighborhood yep so we do see one of the benefits of the redevelopment of that site being just that an opportunity to widen willow it's willow street to make it consistent with the southern portion of Willow Street which was

▶ 47:31 Robert A. Boisselle: widened when station crossing was okay thank you very much and again either go

▶ 47:38 Robert A. Boisselle: one or two per unit in parking thank you very much Thank You mr. chairman Thank

▶ 47:42 Speaker 1: You Alderman Alderman McAteer-Margolis for the second time sorry I forgot I had

▶ 47:44 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: a question about the parking when Alderman Boisselle brought up the 1.5 in the in the language you've talked about shared parking between various developments and location close to municipal parking now I know you can't really tell us about shared parking yet because we don't really have any I don't believe thing that's on the books yet for sharing between different parcels but I wonder if going forward you could identify like the municipal the public parking lots within that area for us just so that we would know you know the distance and how many spaces they are and I know I know there are already some

▶ 48:36 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: apartments on Tremont Street I think that use by permit overnight parking at at the train lot. So, you know, how many of those are being used currently? You know, what would the overflow opportunities be?

▶ 48:54 Speaker 4: Okay.

▶ 48:56 Speaker 3: Sure. And I think 1.5 is fine.

▶ 48:58 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: I actually think one is fine, but I think 1.5, you know, as you said, Carla, a lot of the developers will come in and kind of know what their market is too.

▶ 49:10 Speaker 1: Thank you. Alderman Medeiros.

▶ 49:13 Monica C. Medeiros: I just want to clarify because I said suggested I'd like to see 1.5 but it is proposed as one in this in this proposal that's correct so thanks that's anyone

▶ 49:29 Speaker 1: else well since the Planning Board asked us to give some feedback I think I'll give a little bit of feedback if the board will indulge me I actually was lucky enough to be the chairman of the committee that developed what became the ordinance that became the overlay district in the oak grove area which i believe has been quite successful i'm supportive of this change the philosophy behind this change is to take an area where residential uses are not permitted and to allow us to have mixed use which i think is going to benefit everyone i've been before the planning board as an elected official and as an attorney and uh i am confident that as our planning board is currently constituted they do a very good job with the site plan review process um two two things that i have concerns about five stories seems rather high for me for melrose i don't know if i could support that and

▶ 50:31 Speaker 1: i don't see any way in the world why we would want to make any possibility where somebody could open a liquor store whether it's 305 feet or 310 feet or however within our high school middle school complex there is absolutely no reason for that to be listed as a permitted use and if it's currently permitted in that district the zoning should be changed i don't think we want to have people coming out of our athletic fields and our schools students and walking by liquor stores so i i would would be very disappointed if this comes back to us having that listed as a

▶ 51:12 Denise Gaffey: permitted use that's it can I ask you if you feel the same way about the smart growth district for that use because it was also being proposed to be added the

▶ 51:18 Speaker 1: smart growth district district is different in my mind this street runs along little league fields swimming pools soccer fields the middle school the football field the facility that's used for gymnastics for children virtue I would say 50% or more of our youth activity fields are in this area I do not want to see liquor stores in that area at all I don't think you have the same concentration of youth activities in the other district oh should I lay

▶ 51:54 Speaker 1: the order on the table mr. president second I'll be Madeira I'll be Mortimer moves to well table the order seconded by alderman boys out on the motion all those in favor aye you opposed motion passes the orders laid on table. Motion to adjourn, Mr. President. Alderman Mortimer moves to adjourn. Seconded by Alderman Inferno. On the motion to adjourn, all those in favor? Aye. Opposed? The board stands adjourned.