GRANT-2024-17 : Acceptance of a Grant in the amount of $100,000 from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Executive Office of Housing and Economic Development for Milano Park Improvements

Transcript (~10 min @ 4:56)

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▶ 4:54 Maya Jamaleddine: um, since we have members of the administration here tonight to speak on the items before us. I would like to entertain a motion by unanimous consent to suspend Rule 37 B before we proceed.

▶ 5:08 Maya Jamaleddine: Seeing no objection, the Rule 37 B is now suspended.

▶ 5:14 Maya Jamaleddine: First on our agenda for tonight is Grant 2024 dash 17 acceptance of a grant in the amount of one, uh, hundred thousand, uh, dollars for the Commonwealth from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, executive Office of Housing and Econ, uh, economic development for Milano Park Improvement.

▶ 5:39 Maya Jamaleddine: And, um, do we? Yes, Ms. Gaffey?

▶ 5:48 Speaker 2: Good evening. Good evening. Um,

▶ 5:51 Denise Gaffey: My name is Denise Caffey. I'm the Director of Planning and Community Development, and with me is the senior plan senior planner in the office, Lori Masa. Um, and we are here to request your, um, acceptance of a grant, um, that the city has received in the amount of $100,000. This is from the, um, executive Office of Housing and Economic Development. And it is, um, specifically designed for, um, to create additional community engagement, um, activities in our, in our downtown. So, um, we are proposing to use these funds, um, to build on the placemaking and way finding, um, efforts that we've been working on over the past several years. Um, specifically we wanna, um, take a look at, um, we're taking a look at Milano Park, which is a small open space area, um, at the corner of Grove Street and, um, Grove and Maine. And this park is named in honor of, um, Joseph Milano, who's our former mayor's father, a former, um, state representative and, and Melrose resident. And there is a, um, a plaque there in his honor. But, um, the park itself has fallen into, um, quite a bit of disrepair and is really sort of not, does not get a lot of, um, use. There's a very large planter with, um, overgrown plantings. And we sort of envision a process whereby there's gonna be more, it was gonna be a more open area with seeding and plants, um, um, and space for people to congregate. Um, uh, just sort of a, a nice kind of like facelift to that, to that corner. And we've been, we've, um, also been able to piggyback, um, with our relationship with the consultants we've been working with on our other place making initiatives. So it's really great, um, a great opportunity for us to be actually, um, do some of these improvements, um, with this, with this funding. And it's, um, very much a collaborative process. We're working with a lot of different, um, city departments, including the, um, public works and the parks department, um, very closely with the mayor's office, um, very closely with the Chamber of Commerce. Um, they've been involved in some of our planning meetings. Um, and so we really look forward to being able to just, to actually, um, build upon these, uh, some of our, uh, design ideas and, and bring in some new furnishings and, uh, and landscaping and, and make this a much more inviting space. Happy to answer any questions. Uh, vice Chair Williams.

▶ 8:30 Ryan Williams: Thank you. Are you planning to do any reconfiguration of physical space with this or is all the money going towards like plants and furniture?

▶ 8:39 Denise Gaffey: There will be some reconfiguration. We're gonna remove the, the big planter that is in, like, it is currently the focal point, but, um, it doesn't create a lot of opportunity for, for, um, you know, congregating. So that planter will be removed. Um, the, um, the pavement material, the bricks will be, um, um, replaced and there'll be a greater, uh, there's gonna be a bit of a lawn area, so there's gonna be a walking path around it and a lawn area for people to sit on. And then we envision, um, some benches, um, a nice, uh, sort of circular bench element around the outside that will allow for plantings in it. Um, I should have mentioned too, that we're also, we've been working with the Keith Melrose beautiful group. They got a grant to do a pollinated garden, and we're gonna, we will, um, we will sort of transplant that pollinator garden into this, this, um, seeding this bench that has a planter integrated into it. So, um, there's also opportunities for, for public art. Um, and so for some branding that we, we hope to be able to do with this funding. Hmm.

▶ 9:47 Ryan Williams: I know that, um, this is outside of the scope of this funding, but since it's the location that I frequent quite a bit, and we're talking about that red brick paved area on the corner of Main and Grove with the big planner in it. Mm-Hmm. Yep. It's one of the only intersections in Melrose that we have that has a right turn slip lane. Right. And slip lanes are known to be one of the deadliest kinds of intersection configurations because it encourages drivers to make quick right turns without paying attention to where they're going. And that one has a big pedestrian median in the middle of it. So when you're crossing Main Street to go south, you actually have to cross the street twice. First you have to cross Grove halfway, then you have to finish crossing Grove the other half of the way. So you could really take that land and knock out that slip lane and gain probably like 20% of open space just by drawing that line and widening that, where the, where the main lane is a little bit more to maintain that one lane direction on Grove. And like I said, a hundred thousand dollars is not gonna buy you the ability to, to do that. But I think in terms of planning for the future, it would be fantastic to expand this space over and like eliminating a slip lane would just be a safe streets goal on top of it. So that's a thought that I had and I look forward to seeing what you guys do with money. Great. Thank you. Thanks.

▶ 11:03 Maya Jamaleddine: Thank you. Next is, uh, councilor Kati.

▶ 11:08 Manjula Karamcheti: Hi. Thank you for being here. It's always very exciting to hear about improvements to the city. Um, my question is very simple and basic. The funding is specifically for this site only. It won't be used for anything else.

▶ 11:21 Denise Gaffey: Um, we don't, no. We think we're gonna need the funding. All of the funding for the site. Correct. Okay.

▶ 11:30 Maya Jamaleddine: Thank you. Thank you. Um, next councilor.

▶ 11:32 Mark Garipay: Thank you. Thank you for being here. And behind the park, there's the brick wall sloped with trees. Zach, that gonna stay, that's

▶ 11:38 Speaker 2: Gonna stay Yep. As

▶ 11:39 Mark Garipay: is. And are we doing any new plantings in there

▶ 11:42 Denise Gaffey: Or No? The trees that are there, we looked at that very closely actually. And the trees that are there that provide sort of the screen to the, to the parking and the dumpster that's behind that screen are in really great conditions. So we actually are, are not going to, going to, um, do anything about those plantings. They're in really, they're, they're thriving.

▶ 12:02 Mark Garipay: Okay. And we, as a historic district then, is it on Foster or does it go

▶ 12:05 Speaker 2: All the way? It's on Foster. Okay. That's right. Alright.

▶ 12:07 Speaker 1: That's you. Thank you.

▶ 12:08 Maya Jamaleddine: Point of clarification to, uh, cons. Cher's question. Uh, the grant cannot be, is specifically done for Milano or is it just not enough for you?

▶ 12:22 Denise Gaffey: No, it, there's no language in the, in the grant, um, itself that, that restricts it to Milano Park. That's just how, um, working with the mayor's office, how, and, you know, um, what we thought was the best use of the funding. We just, I think just based on our preliminary meetings with the a the designers that we're working with, we don't think we'll have a lot, we'll have any excess money to, to spend anywhere else. Alright.

▶ 12:45 Maya Jamaleddine: Thank you. Um, councilor Stewart.

▶ 12:47 Robb Stewart: Thank you Madam Chair. Thank you. Ms. Gabby. Is there any requirement for matching funds?

▶ 12:53 Speaker 2: Oh, there's not. Great.

▶ 12:53 Robb Stewart: And on the property for Santa Fe, does, does it end right at the building or do they have a certain buffer?

▶ 13:02 Denise Gaffey: There's a very, very narrow strip. Um, there. So most, mostly most of that is all city owned land.

▶ 13:09 Robb Stewart: Are you gonna have to survey any of this or are you

▶ 13:13 Denise Gaffey: No, we don't need to do any survey work.

▶ 13:17 Robb Stewart: Okay. And we won't get in trouble with Santa Fe or the person? No. Who owns that building?

▶ 13:22 Speaker 2: Um, no, I'm not worried about that.

▶ 13:23 Robb Stewart: Okay. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Mad.

▶ 13:26 Maya Jamaleddine: Thank you. Any other question? Council?

▶ 13:29 Cal Finocchiaro: I'm excited about this. It's in my ward and I feel like that area sort of not is neglected, but downtown further and sort of in the center gets more, you know,

▶ 13:39 Denise Gaffey: um, attention. So I'm excited to see this. Oh, that's great. Yeah. And we look forward to working with you. I know the mayor's office may have reached out to you about, um, now that it is, it is your award. And so certainly happy to welcome you to our end of our meetings if you wanna participate in that. Yeah, I would love that. Okay, great.

▶ 13:55 Maya Jamaleddine: Thank you. Any other question? Okay. What is the will of the committee motion To recommend? Uh, we have a motion to recommend made by Councillor Chetty. Second, seconded by Councillor uh, Stewart

▶ 14:13 Speaker 5: Vice Chair Williams? Yes. Councilor Repe. Yes. Councillor Stewart? Yes. Councilor Chetty. Yes. Councillor Hamilton? Yes. Councillor Vandiver. Yes. Councilor Romanul? Yes. Council for naca? Yes. President Elli? Yes. In charge Maldi? Yes. That motion passes.

▶ 14:30 Speaker 4: Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you both.

▶ 14:34 Maya Jamaleddine: Um, next we have order 2024 dash 28, requesting the appropriation of 5,500,000 to pay costs for design and engineering of a new Merose Highlands Fire Station and new Merose police station.