PUBLIC COMMENT

Transcript (~14 min @ 11:56)

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▶ 11:44 Leila Migliorelli: Um, at this time, I will motion by unanimous consent without reading the, um, read, uh, approve the minutes, um, from City Council special meeting on November 24th, 2025. Seeing no objection, those minutes are now approved.Moving on to public comment. I will motion by unanimous consent to open the floor for public comment. Seeing no objections, we are now open for public comment. Per Rule thir- 33A of the Melrose City Council Rules, this is a portion of the meeting where the public may speak on any item on tonight's agenda. Comments expressing any viewpoint on other matters are also welcome. Just a reminder that the public comment period is an opportunity for the public to share comments. Councilors will not respond. The public has up to five minutes for public comment. Um, is there anyone in the public wishing to speak tonight? You can just approach the table right there and state your name.

▶ 12:45 Speaker 1: Uh, good evening. Jim Bennett, 45 Wentworth Road. Hello, President Migliorelli and councilors. Sorry if I'm a little less coherent tonight, I'm recovering from a cold. I didn't prepare any comments, but I did feel moved to come down here tonight. And I'm here to speak about the draft demolition review, uh, resolution which you have before you. I just want to respond to a couple of, um, opposition sentiments on that, and then to talk just about the, um, proposed, um, time period for what structures would be considered under it. So first of all, and a couple of objections. Um, first of all, I know you received a, a letter to this effect, that this is something that is being done in great haste. And in fairness, I think bre- it was Councilor Hamilton who last time said, "Oh, this is a bit hasty." From my point of view, there's nothing hasty about this. As I mentioned at the last meeting, 10 years ago, I was working on this. And the Historical Commission, we had all of these old files with all the work that other commissioners had done before us. There were people who put a draft resolution on demo r-review together in 2003, if I recall correctly. So this is 20 years of wisdom, along with the wisdom coming from the City of Somerville, thanks to, uh, Laurie Massa, coming into this document. And yes, it is being done in response to the potential demolition of a particular house, and I'm glad the public's attention has been brought to this on account of that potential demolition, but that's typically how these things work. Some emergency comes to the fore and suddenly this thing that has been worked upon for so many years can now finally get the attention it deserves. So, I don't think it's an emergency thing, and it's not really about that house, because this will affect hundreds, if not thousands of structures. It's not targeting anyone in particular in any way, and there are no possible legal repercussions to come from that. Uh, that's my point number one. Point number two is, there was comment made about, "Well, we've heard from some members of the planning board, but what about the zoning board? What about the building inspector?" I would just remind you of this, this, uh, ordinance would set up a set of powers for a particular organization with a particular competency, which is on historic preservation. It doesn't overlap with the planning board. It doesn't overlap with the zoning board. Now, the planning board, as you know, does a very complex job. I couldn't imagine even being on it. They have so much they have to think about. And for them, historic preservation has been something way down the list of things they have to consider. But it's not their competency. And what this does is, it creates another board working in a different competency that they now don't have to worry about whatsoever. So there are parallel processes that go on and they don't actually intersect. So the idea that as a courtesy you could ask the planning board, "What do you think of that?" That's fine, but the idea that they should have some sort of veto on this or that ultimately their opinion matters somehow more than say any other group of Melrosians doesn't quite make sense to me. It's kind of like asking the Historical Commission what they think of what the Conservation Commission is doing. Sure, they have an opinion, it may be informed, but they are very different things. I just wanted to address those two objections, potential objections to this. And then secondly, I just want to mention about the window of time under which structures would be treated, which I did write in extensive comments to this board. Uh, I submitted that last night. Uh, there seemed to be two objections to the 100-year window. The first one was, "Well, let's just concentrate on the buildings that are older." But the thing is, older buildings are not necessarily more significant buildings. And the example I gave was the old Moynihan Plaza building. The bones of that ugly eyesore building went back to the 1870s. That was actually an old building, but it wasn't worth saving just because it was old. There are other buildings like that. There are plenty of buildings that are, um, just gable end houses. We have dozens and dozens of examples of this built between 1825 and 1875. If one of them went down, it wouldn't be the biggest tragedy in the world. But, there are some utterly gorgeous houses, shingle style houses, Queen Anne style houses built between 1900 and 1925, early colonial revival styles. This is the place where Royal Barry Wills, the great colonial revival architect, started his practice. And those would not be covered under a demo delay that ended in 1899. The other part of that is there seemed to be an argument that, well, if we cover up to 50% of buildings, that's too many buildings. But my feeling's quite the opposite. I think to myself, I want more buildings covered under this. And if you go with that larger number, uh, Director Massa told us last time that really only covers about nine buildings over a three-year period, according to her estimates. So really, you'd be looking at a rate of maybe three, maybe four buildings a year. If you bring it down to 1899, maybe the Historical Commission only has one building a year, so they really, at that point, are twiddling their thumbs. They don't have much to do. And bear in mind, just because it's covered under that window, it doesn't mean it's significant. So, so many houses that are pretty mediocre that I think Councilor Camaretti, Camaretti, you mentioned your cute house that, you know, isn't, isn't that significant maybe? Well, they would take one look at that and say, "It's a very cute house. It's not historically significant, so thank you, you're done here." And then they would not wait a year. It would just be over. So I'd just like you to think about these things in these terms. Last thing I will say, it is so important to me that a demo review just gets passed. So if you want to stick with the 1899 year, uh...You know, if I were in your position, I would say vote for it 'cause we get it on the books. We can adjust it a bit later. But if you have time tonight, and I know you have a pretty full schedule, I think a little bit of discussion about do we really want to move away from that 100-year standard that your director, uh, of, uh, p- of, uh, the Office of Planning and Community, uh, uh... Sorry, brain not functioning right now- (laughs) ... Laurie Massa, a lovely person, told you, um, it's worth having that discussion. Breath. That's all I have to say. It was off the top of my head. Sorry if it was a bit incoherent. And I'm done. Thank you. (laughs)

▶ 18:34 Speaker 7: Thank you. Um, I just want to point out for the public, at 8:00 we have a public hearing on the property tax classification. That leaves us with four minutes. If there is someone in public wanting to speak, they think they can keep it under four minutes, I'm happy to have you, uh, participate and share your comments now. Otherwise, we'll wait until after the public com- other... after the public hearing. Hi. Thank you. Um, Pat O'Leary Thorpe, 52 Maple Street. Um, I just want to, uh, urge you all, I called some of you and, uh, I just wa- I contacted some of you and I just want to urge you all to pass this demo review, um, ordinance. Melrose, having lived here all my life, is- is just moving too fast and we're seeing, um, things come up after the fact. And so giving it... this would give the citizens more time to plan and look forward to as well as the different boards that exist. So please pass this review. Thank you. Thank you. Is there anyone else wanting to speak in public comment?

▶ 19:38 Speaker 7: I'm serious

▶ 19:41 Speaker 8: about

▶ 19:43 Speaker 1: 24 Main Street. I'm serious. (laughs) Michael Abdow, 253 Main Street. I am here today to talk about, um, the ordinance that we're- we were just discussing. Uh, I'm an abutter to 244 Main Street, the Benjamin Lind home. Uh, it is a beautiful gem of a home. It's a beautiful piece of property. I'm very, very fortunate to have that as, um, a neighbor. Um, I'm very, very concerned about the development. Uh, I'm very concerned about losing that home. Um, and more than anything, um, I'm really concerned about the, uh, disturbance that this development is gonna have, uh, for my family, uh, for our property. And, um, I have a lot of questions, so I'll be reaching out to some folks. Uh, I'm in Ward 5 and, um, I- I urge you all to, um, please go ahead and pass that ordinance so we can, um, at least get ourselves some time and, uh, give attention to the value of the history of Melrose. And this home is a prime example of that vi- value. Thank you so much.

▶ 20:50 Speaker 7: Thank you. Anyone else willing to... Two minutes. (laughs) Former mayor. (laughs)

▶ 21:02 Paul Brodeur: Terrified to be here. It's good to see you all again. Um, Paul Broder, private citizen, 125, uh, Trenton Street. When I first heard about demo delay, it was in the context of, um, what we called at the time Oak Grove Village. There were some folks, um, that took their interest from that. At that time, that was a concern to block a particular development that, you know, from one person's perspective was a bunch of dilapidated factories, uh, weren't- weren't worthy of preservation, of course. A more informed body could probably do that better. Um, fast-forward to my time as mayor when we were considering development of Essex Street across the street, and that's a little bit of a different thing is that is a, uh, a demo prohibition based on its presence in historic district. Little bit of a different animal. Um, those buildings from a layperson's point of view, old, dilapidated, basically failing, not doing much for the tax rolls, to be sure. Uh, and it took that building through original permitting being demo being blocked, 40B sale of the property, potential for calling out of 40B and then- and then back into 40B with some evidence along the way that quite frankly was a little bit suspect around some of the finishing and the sconces. Um, so that- that certainly concerned me and again, that- that- that kept the property off the tax rolls for a significant amount of time. Demo delay in and of itself isn't a bad idea, right? It's all how it happens and how it's executed and what- and what body does it. Um, on- on a kind of a... I'm- I'm- I think the 1899 date is a good one for the reasons that Ms. Massa explained, uh, along the way. Um, but I'm thinking about the administrative piece because, well, the historic commission, while we're not recruited with the idea of administering this change, certainly has a skill set around evaluating historic properties. But as I understand the ordinance, the- the- the proposal, the latest version says it will take effect immediately and I get why. That's because of the concern about that awesome property on Main Street. But the ordinance also says that that body is going to have to create applications and processes by which this will be administered. So I'm not sure, given the- the desire to be expedited, how, uh, how is that gonna work until that body has the opportunity to flesh out, you know, the draft regs, draft procedures to make that happen. Uh, and finally, since I know folks have talked a lot about with good reason how many communities do demo delay. And that's- it's absolutely true. Um, but in this area-A lot of communities around us, not only do demo delay, but they've done the Community Preservation Act. I suspect no one really is too excited about talking about the potential of another tax increase- (laughs) ... going before the vo- going before the voters probably in the next 10 years. That, (laughs) that having been said, without resources to put into community preservation, um, real dollars, that's, that's where the power is. If you really want to protect a property- (clears throat) ... permanently, you need to intervene more aggressively kind of thing. You need to buy it, right? You ne- you, it, it's, it's almost too easy to say to a private property owner, "I got bad news for you. We have d- you, you've owned this for X amount of time. We are gonna limit your ability, potentially, to profit off this." Now, bigger developers will get through it because they have the financial resources to kind of ride out the process, which is a year plus the bureaucratic steps that it takes you to get to a year, so I suspect it's closer to maybe a year and a half if someone's really, really gonna fight it. Um, but to do, you know, to put our money where our mouths are and put dollars behind community preservation and not just put it on the property owners, I do think takes a, a mechanism like CPA in the long run. I know we're not there yet, but I thought that was an important thing to share.

▶ 25:49 Speaker 7: Thank you.

▶ 25:50 Speaker 9: You bet.

▶ 25:51 Leila Migliorelli: Okay. Um, we will recess from public comment and open it back up after the public hearing. So, since we were running seven minutes late, um, I will motion by unanimous consent to open the public hearing for the FY26 Property Tax Classification, um, discussion. We have with us tonight, um, the, uh, Head of the Assessing Office, um, Sarah McLellan, I believe. Yes. Um, and she will be presenting, she will present the information. Councilors will have opportunities to ask questions. And if there are, if there's any public comment on this, um, we can do that after, um, the questions. So, uh, with no further delay, um, Ms. McLellan?