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 (~40 min @ 15:35)

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

▶ 15:30 Speaker 1: back from recess this is a joint public hearing on order 214-146 pursuant to generalize chapter 40a whenever there is a proposed zoning amendment to our zoning ordinances we are required to convene a joint public hearing with the planning board to hear from members of the public relative to the proposed zoning change madam clerk could you please call the role of the planning board

▶ 15:59 Speaker 3: planning board member michael cassavoy here here uh mr edward cassidy here here

▶ 16:09 Speaker 3: is andy sewell's award here here mr paul king here here mr robert mccaddo here here

▶ 16:18 Speaker 3: Mr. Chairman of the Patrol, John Sadowski, Jack Walsh, and Chairwoman Collin-Rubin.

▶ 16:27 Speaker 1: I believe we have a quorum of both boards. At this point in time, we're going to commence the public hearing. We're first going to hear from representatives of the planning department who are going to explain the proposal, And then anybody who wishes to come forward and address us can come forward, and we will listen attentively to whatever you have to say. If you folks could start, please.

▶ 16:49 Speaker 7: Thank you very much.

▶ 16:50 Denise Gaffey: It's a pleasure to be here tonight. My name is Denise Gaffey. I'm the Director of Planning and Community Development. To my left is Manisha Bhutra. Manisha is a consultant, a planner with the Metropolitan Area Planning Council, MAPC. They're the regional planning agency. And we have partnered with them on this initiative. We've been working with MAPC for about the last 18 months, originally to do the visioning process for the real corridor, which culminated in the corridor with the real corridor plan, and most recently to work on this zoning initiative, which is one of the primary recommendations from the plan.

▶ 17:30 Speaker 8: So we're really pleased to have MAPC's participation this evening.

▶ 17:33 Denise Gaffey: And there's a lot of information here.

▶ 17:40 Denise Gaffey: know when i sent the order down there's a cover letter and the the ordinance itself and several other attachments so i'm going to attempt to outline these these different documents and i have a few slides to go through but i thought first it would be very useful to read aloud the cover letter that the planning board sent to the um the alderman and the mayor to initiate this zoning amendment um for the benefit particularly of the public and um who are watching from home

▶ 18:10 Denise Gaffey: and who are present this evening so they can understand a little bit of the background and the

▶ 18:14 Denise Gaffey: the process that sort of went into this so if you can just indulge me i will read this letter first

▶ 18:22 Denise Gaffey: it's about two pages and it's dated may 14 2014 date and it's sent to the mayor mayor don't honorable mayor dolan and honorable board of alderman to his honor and the members of the board at its regular meeting on april 28th 2014 the planning board voted to submit the attached zoning ordinance amendment to the board of alderman this zoning proposal involves the creation of a real corridor overlay district which provides opportunities for residential commercial and mixed-use developments in the tremont essex street neighborhood area it represents the culmination of approximately a year and a half long effort by the office of planning and community development and the metropolitan area planning council to determine a vision for the bb1 zoning districts along tremont and essex street as well as to develop zoning regulations which maintain the ease of access and walkability in the area while improving infrastructure and encouraging redevelopment that is sensitive to the surrounding neighborhood this zoning initiative stems from the commuter rail corridor plan for the area which was developed by MAPC in October 2013 the corridor plan was created as part of a public process which included two well attended public meetings with residents business owners and property owners to outline a vision for the Tremont Essex Street neighborhood area the commuter real corridor plan includes recommendations regarding land use and zoning transportation and public realm improvements the recommended zoning amendments in the plan are intended to help capitalize on the opportunities and overcome the impediments of the corridor in order to stimulate investment in the area following the creation of the corridor plan the Planning Board zoning subcommittee met weekly beginning in January of 2014 to draft zoning amendments for the area as recommended in the plan as part of this process the zoning subcommittee held a community meeting to gather feedback from residents about the proposed zoning amendment for the area this meeting confirmed that the zoning subcommittee and neighborhood residents share a common vision for the area a mix of residential and commercial office developments which are built on a pedestrian scale take advantage of neighborhood and the city at large for the past four months the zoning subcommittee has been working to draft a zoning amendment that promotes this vision the draft zoning proposal was favorably received at the community meeting and forwarded to the full planning board for review after further discussion and revision the full planning board voted unanimously to submit the proposed amendment to the Board of Aldermen for passage. The resulting zoning proposal, referred to as the Real Corridor Overlay District, is structured as an overlay district and will function the same way the Smart Growth Overlay District in the lower Washington Street area functions. This means that in the BB-1 zoning district along Tremont and Essex Street, a property owner can choose to develop according to the rules and regulations of the underlying BB-1 zoning district or the proposed real corridor overlay the smart growth district zoning language was used as the

▶ 21:24 Speaker 8: basis for creating the real corridor overlay regulations as the city has seen very successful

▶ 21:26 Denise Gaffey: projects permitted and created in the lower washington street area as a result of this zoning after extensive consideration the overlay zoning approach was chosen again because it provides for strong design and dimensional standards for new developments while ensuring that the existing businesses in the tremont and essex street area are not made non-conforming the density and dimensional standards of the real corridor overlay are roughly equivalent to the urc standards but adjusted to allow for a slightly higher density and dimensional setbacks that would allow for structures to be located closer to the streetscape the real corridor overlay also includes an extensive list of design standards in order to promote high quality design and create a pedestrian friendly environment in this area where all properties are located within walking distance to either Cedar Park or Highlands commuter rail stations. In addition to creating a new section of the zoning ordinance to accommodate the Real Corridor Overlay District, this initiative involves amending Section 235-5, definitions, Sections 235-6, which is the establishment of districts, Section 235-7, the zoning map, and Sections 235-71.1, which is the Smart Growth District. Section 235-5 is amended to add new definitions for assisted living facilities and substance abuse treatment centers to the zoning ordinance. Those definitions don't currently exist, those uses. Section 235-6 is amended to create the new rail corridor overlay district. Section 235-7 amends the zoning map to display the rail corridor overlay boundaries. The new designation applies only to the properties located in the BB-1 zoning districts along Tremont and Essex streets. And Section 235-71.1 amends certain provisions in the existing Smart Growth District. As you know, site plan review has become a very important tool, allowing the Planning Board to guide development to be compatible with the character of existing development in Melrose and to limit the negative effects or impacts of new development on the community. With the experience of a few site plan review applications in the Smart Growth District behind us, The Planning Board has come to recognize a few areas of the existing Smart Growth District regulations that can be improved to encourage the types of uses and development desired for the lower Washington Street area. In particular, the Board feels that prohibiting banks, financial institutions, and substance abuse treatment center uses from this area will be beneficial. Several additional modifications to the Smart Growth District overlay are recommended as well as noted in the material submitted in which I'll describe a little further later

▶ 24:00 Denise Gaffey: this evening. Essentially, that is the bulk of the letter. It concludes by attaching three documents.

▶ 24:12 Denise Gaffey: And I think I'll just show those documents. In addition to the cover letter, it's the 15-page overlay language. This is the text of the overlay. And there's also a summary sheet, which is two pages.

▶ 24:32 Denise Gaffey: and the lower Washington Street Smart Growth District overlay, which is modified in a track changes mode. So you can very easily see what we're

▶ 24:40 Speaker 8: recommending to modify as part of this process.

▶ 24:41 Denise Gaffey: And finally, we also attached, at a later date,

▶ 24:45 Denise Gaffey: a map for everyone's information. And all of this information is up on the city's website today for anyone in the public who wishes to read it further. And finally, the letter just concludes by, we usually do just by outlining the process describing the um the regulations for uh um for

▶ 25:04 Denise Gaffey: approving zoning which requires that the board of alderman wait at least 21 days from the date of

▶ 25:10 Denise Gaffey: the public hearing for the planning board to report back and um we recognize with this zoning in

▶ 25:16 Denise Gaffey: particular that this is really just the the first conversation that we'll have with on this we're

▶ 25:21 Denise Gaffey: really eager to hear your feedback to hear the feedback from the public and we look forward to

▶ 25:26 Denise Gaffey: coming back at a later date and in talking about it in further detail so with that i thought i

▶ 25:49 Denise Gaffey: would just launch into a couple of slides if i can get this to work great great so um just by way of

▶ 25:53 Speaker 8: overview i i'm actually just going to quickly go through the first couple of slides because we

▶ 25:58 Denise Gaffey: really already talked about the background here the the commuter rail corridor plan upon which

▶ 26:03 Denise Gaffey: this whole process as based and the plan identifies as as i mentioned earlier recommendations for land use zoning transportation and public realm improvements there's a market study analysis that was done initiated by mapc as part of that process which has some interesting information

▶ 26:18 Denise Gaffey: about what we believe the market demand is for new development along the corridor and we also

▶ 26:25 Denise Gaffey: discuss and break down the the comments that were received by the community in the two neighborhood meetings that we had. And I would encourage everyone to take a look at the document if they haven't had a chance to do it. It's on the website. You can reach it through MAPC's website at MAPC.org-slash-MLROS-TOD, T-O-D stands for

▶ 26:47 Denise Gaffey: Transit Oriented Development.

▶ 26:51 Denise Gaffey: And then, again, this next slide is just outlining what the major recommendations from that study, which were the land use and zoning recommendations, transportation, and public realm. And of course, as I mentioned, the planning staff and the planning board have been working on the zoning amendment recommendations since January. And that's what we're here to talk about tonight. And on this slide, I'm just identifying the major proposal,

▶ 27:16 Denise Gaffey: which is the recommendation for the creation of a new section in the zoning ordinance. This section would be numbered 235-71.2.

▶ 27:28 Denise Gaffey: So that would fall right behind 71.1, which is the Smart Growth District overlay for the lower Washington Street area.

▶ 27:33 Speaker 8: And this would be a new overlay for the real corridor overlay district.

▶ 27:35 Denise Gaffey: And on the right of that slide is a map that outlines the corridor. It's a little hard, I know, to see on this small slide. slide but it essentially runs from along the real corridor from Melrose Street

▶ 27:54 Denise Gaffey: self skips over the BC which is the Cedar Park neighborhood commercial area and then continues on Essex Street essentially to where the station landing

▶ 28:09 Denise Gaffey: property is on on Foster and loops back on Willow Street and that is again as As was mentioned, the underlying zoning is the BB1 zoning and we would keep that zoning

▶ 28:18 Speaker 8: intact and overlay these additional, the reason it's called an overlay is it allows for additional

▶ 28:26 Denise Gaffey: uses through this overlay tool and for property owners.

▶ 28:36 Denise Gaffey: So the goals, again, of the proposed rezoning is to help capitalize on the opportunities and overcome the impediments of the corridor, stimulate investment in the area via implementation of the recommendations in the plan and offer zoning that will enable desired development where there is a market for that.

▶ 28:53 Denise Gaffey: And while I showed you, I just want to loop back for a second here, while I showed you the boundaries, I will point out that in the text of the zoning itself, all the parcels

▶ 29:06 Denise Gaffey: are identified. So the map and parcel numbers for all of the parcels, there's about 40 of them, are identified and articulated in the zoning, so it's very clear which parcels are in the zoning overlay

▶ 29:18 Speaker 8: and which parcels are outside of the overlay.

▶ 29:20 Denise Gaffey: So now I'm going to get into some of the sort of detailed proposals.

▶ 29:28 Denise Gaffey: And it is, as I mentioned, a 15-page document, so I'm not going to go through it line by line, but I'm going to attempt to just hit the highlights.

▶ 29:39 Denise Gaffey: And the first slide here is the purpose section, and this is our attempt to sort of outline and articulate what we think a real corridor overlay project should look like and what

▶ 29:50 Denise Gaffey: distinguishes that from another project in Melrose. But the purpose of the overlay district is to promote economic development and neighborhood revitalization through the redevelopment of underutilized structures in sites, to provide housing options which are sufficient to meet the needs of households at varying income levels in different stages of life, to promote high-quality, sustainable design that reinforces and enhances neighborhood identity, to create a pedestrian-friendly environment that promotes walking, bicycling, transit use, and encourages reduced vehicle ownership, and finally to promote a mix of compatible uses. And these are very similar purposes in our Smart Growth Overlay District as well.

▶ 30:35 Denise Gaffey: And the definitions and applicability slide, this is essentially just outlining that a

▶ 30:45 Denise Gaffey: rail corridor overlay district project has to comply with all sections of the zoning,

▶ 30:51 Denise Gaffey: again Section 235-71.2.

▶ 30:56 Denise Gaffey: Requirements of the underlying zoning district are modified only for rail corridor projects. And finally, any requirements in the zoning ordinance not specifically modified in this section remain in effect for real corridor projects, and real corridor projects are subject

▶ 31:13 Denise Gaffey: to site plan review, and I think that's a really important piece of this.

▶ 31:19 Denise Gaffey: This is also, again, this is the same process that we use with the Smart Growth District

▶ 31:21 Speaker 8: overlay.

▶ 31:23 Denise Gaffey: These are projects that if they meet all of the dimensional criteria and they're in allowed

▶ 31:27 Denise Gaffey: use, they become permitted uses, but they nonetheless still have to go through a rigorous

▶ 31:34 Denise Gaffey: process in front of the planning board.

▶ 31:40 Denise Gaffey: Our site plan review process, for those who are familiar with it, is quite rigorous, and we have very strong standards and criteria in our zoning ordinance, and we think it's worked really well to try to help manage development, manage maybe any of the negative impacts that might be related to a development project to sort of understand those in advance and control for them and have very strict and rigid architectural design standards that

▶ 32:02 Denise Gaffey: we think, as evidenced by the projects in the lower Washington Street area, have served

▶ 32:08 Speaker 9: the community really well.

▶ 32:13 Denise Gaffey: And this is just, this slide is simply a slide of the zoning, this is the, obviously the city, the entire city of Melrose, and you can't see it very well, but it breaks the city down into the different zoning districts, and I'm afraid you can't, really can't see very well but there is the corridor right here that we're talking about the other thing i like

▶ 32:35 Denise Gaffey: about this slide although you can't read it quite well on the screen is it has all of the dimensional criteria for the different zoning districts here which is useful to refer to and

▶ 32:48 Denise Gaffey: so establishment of the real quarter overlay district and i know that some of this may sound a little bit redundant but this is this is language in the ordinate the um in the proposed amendment that just establishes the rail corridor the rail corridor is an overlay district that applies to land in the bb1 district along essence hermont street east of the railroad tracks

▶ 33:12 Denise Gaffey: and again all of the parcels are identified in the zoning permitted uses this is a pretty important slide these are the uses that the subcommittee and spent a lot of time talking about and thinking

▶ 33:23 Denise Gaffey: about whether these would be appropriate uses of these are the kind of uses that we want to

▶ 33:28 Denise Gaffey: encourage we've deliberately excluded certain uses which we can talk about and we've presented this in our neighborhood meeting to the community in order to get

▶ 33:38 Speaker 8: some feedback and and and receive positive feedback for for this I'll read

▶ 33:40 Denise Gaffey: through the list the permitted uses in the corridor would be multifamily residential townhouse in apartments retail uses personal and consumer

▶ 33:51 Denise Gaffey: services sort of like your dry cleaners and your tailors retail food establishments actually that's not on the slide but that's the retail food

▶ 33:59 Denise Gaffey: establishment is the the was the is the use that was created a few years ago by

▶ 34:05 Denise Gaffey: the by the alderman for allow for retail food stores that allow for the sale of

▶ 34:13 Denise Gaffey: beer and wine professional and business office like architects and engineers that kind of thing insurance companies veterinary hospitals that's a use it's actually not allowed we don't think anywhere in Melrose and we thought it would be there there are some some examples of that use already in that corridor and we think it's a it's a good news restaurants and coffee shops we'd

▶ 34:35 Denise Gaffey: love to encourage that artists studios assisted living that's another use that's currently not allowed well it's not a use that's articulated in our zoning ordinance so we create a definition for the use and we think the corridor would be a great location for an assisted living type proposal.

▶ 34:53 Speaker 8: And finally, mixed residential and business uses, mixed uses.

▶ 34:57 Denise Gaffey: And these are some of the dimensional and density regulations, which I will walk through.

▶ 35:05 Denise Gaffey: And before I do that, I just want to flip back for a second. A couple of uses we decided not to include. We specifically decided not to include banks and financial institutions in the corridor.

▶ 35:17 Denise Gaffey: We thought there were banks, there were plenty of opportunities for banks and financial uses in other areas of Melrose. We specifically prohibit drive-throughs of any kind in the corridor.

▶ 35:29 Speaker 8: And we also drive-throughs, any type of business that has a drive-through component is prohibited.

▶ 35:35 Denise Gaffey: And substance abuse treatment centers is another use that we prohibit in the corridor.

▶ 35:50 Denise Gaffey: dimensional and density regulations so again kind of going back to well a couple of things the the interesting thing about this quarter is it's it's

▶ 36:00 Denise Gaffey: not quite well used well the smart growth district dimensional criteria was very helpful for us as a starting point what we recognize pretty quickly is the

▶ 36:09 Denise Gaffey: quarter itself looks very different the parcels are much smaller they're longer

▶ 36:16 Speaker 8: and shallower, and they have a different profile. So we really had to sort of step back, and

▶ 36:22 Denise Gaffey: we couldn't just simply apply the dimensional criteria that works so well in the Smart Growth District. We really had to think. We had to look very closely at what we had to work with

▶ 36:32 Denise Gaffey: and then develop criteria that we thought made the most sense.

▶ 36:38 Denise Gaffey: And so the minimum lot area, for example, is only 10,000 square feet, and that actually Normally that's because there are many of the parcels are about that size. There are actually quite a few parcels that are smaller than that. And we recognize that there will need to be some consolidation of parcels in the future in order for redevelopment to occur throughout the corridor.

▶ 36:59 Denise Gaffey: There are some parcels that could be redeveloped today under this criteria, but other parcels will need to be consolidated in order to get to that size.

▶ 37:08 Denise Gaffey: the 10,000 seemed like a comfortable minimum lot area frontage minimum

▶ 37:14 Denise Gaffey: frontage is 50 feet minimum lot depth is 90 feet again that's sort of an acknowledgement of the existing lot depths which are about they're there

▶ 37:24 Denise Gaffey: anywhere from 90 to greater than that but they're not usually less than 90 and

▶ 37:31 Denise Gaffey: 90 is a pretty pretty comfortable distance minimum front yard we actually have something interesting here we have a minimum front yard in a maximum front yard and we spend an awful lot of time as a subcommittee talking about what these dimensions should be and we came up with 10 feet for the minimum and 15 feet for the maximum and so the reason for that is we really want to try to encourage the structures to be closer to the street we want to try to create a sense of place and try to enliven the streetscape and help to fill in some of

▶ 38:01 Denise Gaffey: the gaps that might exist along the corridor today by sort of having a more um you know conforming and consistent streetscape and so um that's that was our thinking with the the 10 feet minimum and

▶ 38:15 Denise Gaffey: the 15 feet maximum there's a minimum side yard setback of five feet we have a provision here that makes an exception if the parcel abuts a urb zone which is a residential zone there are only

▶ 38:31 Denise Gaffey: I think two parcels like that in this corridor, but there are a couple of parcels that are adjacent not to commercial, not to a commercial district, but to a residential district.

▶ 38:35 Denise Gaffey: They're the parcels along Union Street in the corridor.

▶ 38:43 Denise Gaffey: And so we thought if there was some redevelopment to occur there, that there should be a more generous setback to those parcels.

▶ 38:48 Denise Gaffey: And minimum rear yard of 10 feet, and again, 15 feet would be for the URB zone, and 5 feet for a corner lot.

▶ 38:59 Speaker 8: And the reason the corner lot is different is in Melrose, if you're a corner lot, you have two fronts and two rears.

▶ 39:01 Denise Gaffey: You don't have a side. We talked about the maximum front yard, although there is a provision that allows for a slightly more generous setback on the front yard,

▶ 39:15 Denise Gaffey: as long as there is a courtyard area or some kind of seating area, so an area for the public to enjoy. And the residential density is very similar, as I had said before, to the URC's density. And we're sort of looking at the URC, which is one of the closer residential districts to this corridor as a guideline for the density.

▶ 39:35 Speaker 8: The URC is a sort of density that I think the community is pretty comfortable with.

▶ 39:40 Denise Gaffey: We've had a couple of projects like Station Landing and 185 Essex Street that kind of conform to that density.

▶ 39:51 Denise Gaffey: So that's where the 35 units per acre kind of fit into that model.

▶ 39:59 Denise Gaffey: Maximum floor area of 1.5, 10% open space and that may not seem like a lot of open space but it's sort of an acknowledgment that there's a lot of open space already in the corridor. There's actually one of the beauties of the corridor is that there's an abundance of parkland and recreation land along it, and we thought the 10% would be adequate.

▶ 40:18 Denise Gaffey: And finally, there's the maximum height. So the four stories and 50 feet is the maximum height, although we allow for a fifth story and up to 62 feet under certain provisions, and that, again, is kind of an acknowledgment that we have parcels here that are a little bit more modest in size and we need to be

▶ 40:40 Denise Gaffey: little bit more creative about about the allowance for density and however that

▶ 40:47 Denise Gaffey: said if if a part if a development proposal is to to go to that height to exceed the four stories and go to the fifth story it can only be done under a

▶ 40:57 Speaker 8: step back provision so the that fifth story has to be stepped back about 20

▶ 41:02 Denise Gaffey: feet and and that's to sort of minimize any of the visual impact from that

▶ 41:08 Denise Gaffey: additional height the other the other thing that's required is a public amenity associated with that additional height the granting of the additional height there's a requirement to sort of give back in terms of a courtyard or sitting area and there's more more details in the language of the ordinance and how that's going to work but for the purposes of the presentation that's that's essentially what the what the intent is and parking is the next slide

▶ 41:37 Denise Gaffey: we are attempting here to really take advantage of the fact this is this is a transit oriented area and as we talked about a lot as we talked about a lot in the vision study in the planning document that was done we really we we

▶ 41:54 Denise Gaffey: are blessed by having close proximity both to Cedar commuter rail station the Highlands commuter rail station downtown lots of bus service and even Oak Grove mass transit which isn't that far away so we think given the the close proximity to transit that we can be a little bit more liberal about the parking standards so what we're recommending is one space per dwelling

▶ 42:17 Speaker 10: unit and one space one visitor space per every ten residential units for

▶ 42:24 Denise Gaffey: residential use for office retail and other uses the requirement would be one

▶ 42:30 Denise Gaffey: space per 500 square feet gross floor area and for assisted living which is a little bit different we had to sort of educate ourselves about the assisted

▶ 42:39 Denise Gaffey: living use and what their needs and requirements are and we did a lot of research in other communities and talked to other planners and other communities

▶ 42:48 Speaker 9: about what they what they think reasonable parking standard is and came

▶ 42:52 Denise Gaffey: up with the standard of one space per four dwelling units plus one space per employee on the largest shift so we know all the employees are going to be have their own parking we're really you know we we are concerned we don't want to

▶ 43:07 Denise Gaffey: have create a parking problem with projects and have spillover parking into

▶ 43:13 Speaker 9: the neighborhoods and we but we think there's an opportunity here so the four

▶ 43:16 Denise Gaffey: dwelling one preferred dwelling units in one space per employee should allow for sufficient parking again understanding with the assisted living use that many of the the residents in development like that do not have cars do not have access to cars

▶ 43:34 Denise Gaffey: but they do have visitors so we want to be sure to accommodate that and there's regulations regarding off-street parking setbacks i'll just quickly read through these from a public street the setback for parking is 20 feet and we're trying to just we would like to try to create a create place spaces and places that don't look like parking lots so that's why the setback for the parking from an internal way five feet from a structure five feet from a side or rear lot line where a budding property is also within the overlay district it's five feet from a lot line abutting the railroad right-of-way five feet and from any other side or real lot line it's 10 feet bicycle parking

▶ 44:28 Denise Gaffey: we are this proposal would require parking bicycle space of one space per five dwelling units for residential uses one space per five vehicle parking spaces for the assisted living facility use and for all other uses one space per 1,000 square foot gross floor area and

▶ 44:46 Denise Gaffey: we think these are pretty pretty high standards for parking we don't really have anything quite like it in our zoning it's probably even a little more aggressive than our smart growth district zoning we think but we think it's appropriate again we're trying to encourage the use of alternative means of transportation and we think by requiring bicycle parking that's going

▶ 45:08 Speaker 8: to help to attract people to these developments that are have that mindset

▶ 45:14 Denise Gaffey: and open space in streetscape enhancements we already talked about the

▶ 45:20 Denise Gaffey: the requirement for 10% open space we have also setting up a requirement in

▶ 45:25 Denise Gaffey: here that rail corridor overlay projects will contribute to the city's streetscape improvement fund it's just it's being this is it this would be a new fund this is a little different than the smart growth district which whereby we created an open space fund and thought that that made sense that to contribute to open space and recreation needs in the community in this case since we're spending a lot of time talking about this particular corridor and the need for streetscape improvements and the fact that there are a lot of needs in the in the term on Street corridor for revitalization we thought it made sense for the fund to contribute specifically and directly to

▶ 46:08 Denise Gaffey: a streetscape improvement fund so the zoning would create this fund developments would need to contribute $1,100 per dwelling unit for the for residential units uses and $1 per square foot for all other uses and design

▶ 46:25 Denise Gaffey: standards probably five or six pages alone of this ordinance goes into all the design standards so I'm not gonna go through that all tonight I'm just gonna

▶ 46:35 Denise Gaffey: we've got a couple of bullets here just to identify the different design standards and they're very actually very similar to the design standards that we use for the smart growth district and we think again that that's been really successful so there's standards regarding building design architecture and materials things of that nature landscaping general site design parking standards site lighting standards infrastructure and signage and affordable

▶ 47:03 Denise Gaffey: housing any project any development in the real quarter overlay district just like the smart growth district or really any other project in mellows would would

▶ 47:12 Speaker 8: be required to contribute to the affordable housing program which is

▶ 47:17 Denise Gaffey: essentially 10% of residential use for residential projects 10% of the units

▶ 47:29 Denise Gaffey: are required to be affordable and those units would count on the on our

▶ 47:36 Denise Gaffey: affordable housing inventory and this provision is also in our smart growth

▶ 47:40 Speaker 9: district provision and a it's about owning ownership and maintenance of

▶ 47:44 Denise Gaffey: common facilities internal streets ways and parking areas she'll be privately owned and maintain maintenance shall remain the responsibility of the owner real quarter projects with dwelling units for sale she'll have a residential residential residents association in order to ensure proper maintenance of common open

▶ 47:58 Speaker 10: space and facilities.

▶ 48:00 Denise Gaffey: And phasing, development phasing. We have this provision in the Smart Growth District also that for some projects, certainly

▶ 48:10 Denise Gaffey: for larger size projects, maybe this won't apply as much in the real corridor as it does in the Smart Growth District corridor, but we do at least want to plan for the possibility that projects may be phased and we do allow for that. Rail corridor project may be developed in phases and the phasing shall be specified and outlined in the site plan approval. So it has to be part of that original permitting approval. Lot area coverage, open space, affordable housing, off-street parking, required mitigation shall correspond with the sequence of development such that during each phase of a rail corridor project these requirements are met.

▶ 48:57 Denise Gaffey: And finally, this slide is just articulating what I had read in the cover letter that we're also amending a couple of other sections of the zoning ordinance. Just to be clear, while we create this overlay district, we also need to amend a couple of other provisions. For example, Section 235-5, which is the definition section of the ordinance. So we have created a definition for assisted living facilities. have created a definition for substance abuse treatment centers and if that's approved by the alderman those definitions will then get incorporated

▶ 49:26 Denise Gaffey: into our zoning and I didn't I didn't create a slide for them but there is those definitions are outlined in that two-page handout the summary handout amend section 235-6 again that's just this is sort of a housekeeping thing just to say that we're creating the district amend 235-7 to display the boundaries just to make it clear on that and we'll make it clear on the zoning map we'll probably outline the boundaries in a dark print and then finally amend section 235 dash 71.1 to modify certain provisions in the

▶ 50:04 Denise Gaffey: existing smart growth district and again as I mentioned is a sort of mentioned in the cover letter we recognize as part of this process that there were some sort

▶ 50:16 Denise Gaffey: of new ways of looking at things or innovative techniques that we hadn't been thinking about when we created the Smart Growth District or just some new uses that we wanted to include or exclude that we hadn't originally thought about with the Smart Growth District. So we thought it made sense to use this process to also make those changes.

▶ 50:37 Denise Gaffey: example we are suggesting modifying the permitted uses to exclude banks and financial institutions in the smart growth district much like the real quarter also to exclude substance abuse treatment centers as we're proposing for the real quarter and also to a lot but to allow for retail food establishments

▶ 50:56 Denise Gaffey: which wasn't a use when we created the smart growth district several years ago so those are the changes in in that particular section there's also a couple of modifications that were changed for some language changes allowing for some

▶ 51:09 Denise Gaffey: shared parking provision and this is language that when we presented the zoning to the public in our neighborhood meeting two months ago we got some great

▶ 51:21 Denise Gaffey: feedback from residents actually about shared parking and trying to encourage

▶ 51:27 Denise Gaffey: unique and innovative ways of creating parking so we got some we actually had some nice language contributed by one of the members that we we tweaked and incorporated into the zoning and we think it makes sense to put it incorporated into the smart growth district zoning also there's a provision

▶ 51:42 Denise Gaffey: that we've tweaked about sustainable design that we that we've recommended there's also some more we tightened up the language about screening the parking and screening loading areas.

▶ 51:57 Denise Gaffey: And we also tighten up the language in the signage piece to prohibit signage above the

▶ 51:59 Speaker 8: first floor.

▶ 52:00 Denise Gaffey: So, again, these are now provisions in the real corridor overlay that we think should also apply to the Smart Growth, so we recommend those modifications.

▶ 52:11 Denise Gaffey: And that is all illustrated in the document that's 18 pages, and it says, Lower Washington

▶ 52:22 Denise Gaffey: street industrial zone and it's done in track changes so you can pretty easily go and see exactly what we're recommending modifying I think that's it

▶ 52:35 Denise Gaffey: that's it for my overview and really look forward to hearing hearing your comments hearing from the public and continuing this dialogue thank you very

▶ 52:42 Speaker 1: much if you ladies could step back for a moment so we could see whether there other individuals who wish to speak during the public hearing is there

▶ 52:52 Speaker 1: anybody in the audience who wishes to speak about the proposed zoning change and actually before I call anyone forward people who are watching at home should understand that no vote is going to be taken this evening this is the introduction to these zoning changes to the Board of Aldermen as miss Gaffey said this matter will be referred back to the Planning Board which will make a formal report to us and the Alderman will discuss this at future meetings is anybody in the audience who wishes to speak relative to the uh matter that's before the

▶ 53:25 Speaker 1: public hearing it does not appear to be anybody else who wishes to speak chair would entertain

▶ 53:30 Speaker 1: a motion to conclude the public hearing so moved second we have a motion by alderman mccarty margolis seconded by alderman Boisselle to close the public hearing all those in favor anyone opposed motion passes the public hearing is hereby concluded the chair would entertain a a motion for a short recess moves to recess motion seconded by Alderman Forbes on the motion all those in favor anyone opposed what stands in recess filled the back to this seat

▶ 54:08 Speaker 4: please up time for the board thank you hey thank you for approaching here

▶ 54:28 Speaker 1: okay we're going to reconvene the board of aldermen and continue on with our alderman's meeting for this evening

▶ 54:37 Speaker 1: With respect to Order 214.146, the Chair would entertain a motion to retain that order on the table. So moved. Second. Alderman McAteer-Margolis moves to table that order. Motion is seconded by Alderman Boisselle. On the motion, all those in favor? Aye. Anyone opposed? That order shall be laid on the table.

▶ 55:01 Speaker 11: Order 2014-167, reauthorization of the inter-municipal health agreement between the City of Melrose and the Town of Redding with regard to shared health services.