Appointment of Raj R. Singh, 255 W. Emerson Street, Melrose MA 02176, to the Board of Appeals.

Transcript (~4 min @ 34:48)

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▶ 34:46 Maya Jamaleddine: Seeing no objection, the rules are now suspended.

▶ 34:51 Maya Jamaleddine: Uh, the first item on the agenda is appointment of Raj R ing, uh, 2 55 West Emerson Street in Merose, mass. 0 2 1 7 6. To the Board of Appeals, we have Madam Mayor and Mr. Singh.

▶ 35:09 Jen Grigoraitis: Good evening Counselors. And Madam Chair, thank you for having us tonight. I am pleased to present you all with my appointment for Raj Singh to join the zoning Board of Appeals. Um, Mr. Singh had actually expressed some interest in serving in this board some time ago, and I really appreciate his tenacity and willingness to serve. Um, as you'll see from his resume, I think he brings a really interesting and important mix of macro understanding of the issues that come before the ZBA. He holds a PhD in urban planning from MIT and has worked in private industry around assisting municipalities with planning. He also is a homeowner in Melrose and, um, owns a rental property. And so I think as we often, the ZBA can often be thought of as the place people go when there's huge developments in town. But it's also the place where residents go to get a variance to put on a deck or make an adjustment to their front porch. And so being able to kind of carry both of those, um, approaches, I think is really important to such a critical board. So I'm thrilled for his willingness to serve and present him for your consideration.

▶ 36:09 Speaker 11: Thank you. Mr. Sang, what would you like to thank words?

▶ 36:12 Speaker 10: I think you covered everything I was gonna talk about. So, yeah. Um, yeah. I ha you know, I got a master's in city planning and a PhD and, um, my career moved away into software and databases, but it would be one, it would be great to get back to, uh, doing a little bit of that is there.

▶ 36:29 Maya Jamaleddine: Thank you so much. Yeah. Thank you so much for, um, for being with us tonight and for, uh, stepping up. Uh, anyone from my colleagues have any question?

▶ 36:44 Maya Jamaleddine: Seeing none, what is the will, uh, counselor, uh, Romanul. Sorry, I just

▶ 36:47 Devin Romanul: Figured I I'm just interested in your, uh, first of all, thank you so much for being willing to serve and, and for the mayor, for, for the nomination. I'm curious, you know, not to comment on any particular development, but like, what, what you are seeing based on your experience in city planning, uh, cities, uh, here and nearby as they struggle with the, uh, push and pull of, uh, housing crunch versus, uh, you know, some of the challenges that happen as you, it's A tough one right now. Create Density. I'm just, I'm, I'm interested to hear how you're thinking about city development and things that, that the board should look out for and this body should look out for Yeah. As We consider. Yeah, it's tough. I mean, on one hand you have, you want development to grow around public transportation, right? On the other hand, you don't want to have too much density. You know, you don't want to change a place too fast.

▶ 37:32 Speaker 10: So it's a tough, it's a tough, I guess we're all struggling with this question in the, uh, 1 28 area, right? Yeah. So, yeah, I think it's, every, every application would have to be looked at closely.

▶ 37:47 Speaker 10: It's hard to make a general statement. Yeah. I dunno. I I didn't mean to put you on the spot. I'm just,

▶ 37:54 Maya Jamaleddine: Um, vice Chair Williams. I'd

▶ 37:56 Ryan Williams: Like to make a motion to recommend this to the full board.

▶ 38:00 Maya Jamaleddine: Second, we have a motion made by Vice Chair Williams, seconded by Councilor Ro, uh, to recommend on discussion, seeing none.

▶ 38:11 Maya Jamaleddine: Um, all in favor? Aye. Aye. Any of opposed? Congratulations. And we will, this will be moved to the full council to, uh,

▶ 38:20 Speaker 11: for a full vote. Thank you. Thank you.

▶ 38:21 Jen Grigoraitis: Thank You very much. And since I don't think I'm before you again tonight, I wish you and yours a wonderful Thanksgiving.

▶ 38:26 Speaker 3: Alright, thanks. Thank you.