Appropriations & Oversight Committee — 2015-07-27
Attendance
Jaclyn L. Bird ; Robert A. Boisselle ; Donald L. Conn Jr. ; Scott M. Forbes ; Gail Infurna ; Jennifer L. Lemmerman ; Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis ; Monica C. Medeiros ; Peter D. Mortimer ; John N. Tramontozzi ; Francis X. Wright Jr.
Agenda
- Call to Order
- Public Participation
- Orders
- ORDER-2016-6 : Appointment of Manisha G. Bewtra, 330 Grove St., for a three-year term on the Human Rights Commission, said term to expire on the last day of February, 2018.
- ORDER-2015-202 : Authorizing a Bond in the Amount of $400,000 for the Purchase of Real Property
- Adjournment
Minutes
CITY OF MELROSE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE CALENDAR● JULY 27, 2015 Aldermanic Chamber Committee Meeting 7:30 PM The public should take notice that the Melrose Board of Aldermen may, on certain occasions, have a quorum in attendance due to standing committees of the Board of Aldermen consisting of both voting and non-voting members. Members attending this duly posted meeting are participating and deliberating only in conjunction with the business of the standing committee. Attendee Name Title Status Arrived Peter D. Mortimer Chairman Present Jaclyn L. Bird Vice Chairman Present Gail M. Infurna Ward 5 Alderman Absent John N. Tramontozzi Ward 1 Alderman Present Monica C. Medeiros Alderman at Large Present Robert A. Boisselle Ward 4 Alderman Present Francis X. Wright Jr. Ward 3 Alderman Present Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis Alderman at Large Present Jennifer L. Lemmerman Ward 2 Alderman Present Scott M. Forbes Ward 7 Alderman Present Donald L. Conn Jr. President/Ex-officio Member Present In Attendance: City Solicitor Robert Van Campen, City Planner Denise Gaffey, Director of Public Works John Scenna, City Treasurer Art Flavin
ORDER-2016-6 Appointment Appointment of Manisha G. Bewtra, 330 Grove St., for a three-year term on the Human Rights Commission, said term to expire on the last day of February, 2018. Recommend Passage Board of Aldermen
ORDER-2015-202 Bond Authorizing a Bond in the Amount of $400,000 for the Purchase of Real Property Hold Appropriations Committee City of Melrose Page 1 Updated 8/21/2015 12:29 PM
Transcript
▶ 6:04 Peter D. Mortimer: Every member of the board is a member of this committee. I'm the chairman, Peter Mortimer. We're joined this evening by our vice chair, Jacqueline Bird, Alderman Tramontozzi, Alderman Medeiros, Alderman Boisselle, Alderman Wright, Alderman McAteer-Margolis, Alderman Lemmerman, Alderman Forbes, and President Kahn. This meeting is being recorded, it's being viewed publicly right now, televised publicly. And it's also being recorded for future use, you can get a DVD at MMTV. I'll go on their website and see the meeting streaming, if you wish to see this meeting in the future. Is there a motion? Motion to open the floor for public presentation. Second. Alderman Byrd has made a motion to open the floor for public participation, said motion was seconded by Alderman Forbes.
▶ 6:58 Peter D. Mortimer: All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, public participation is now open. And we would welcome any Member of the public here present who would like to come forward and comment or ask questions about any order on tonight's appropriations agenda. to tonight's appropriations agenda. Your questions will not be answered directly at this time, but all of them in the course of our discussion and debate about any orders on the agenda. We'll be ready for your questions as the evening proceeds. So we are open if anybody would like to come forward. First we have Steve Trulli. Would you write your name and address there on the sheet, Mr. Trulli, please? Thank you. You're welcome, sir.
▶ 7:57 I'm here in favor of buying the building behind Shaw's and tearing it down and creating 23 parking spaces. I think, as everybody knows, if they try to shop downtown, it's a challenge. I average probably two people, three people a day, complaining about parking. Back in March 13th, I wrote an article that was in the weekly news. I still have people months later walking up to me telling me they agree that parking is horrendous I've never had anybody tell me they disagree with that article it's the parking downtown is the lifeblood of downtown without parking we can't sell anything we can't pay our taxes that's that's a problem but if I I know it costs money it's a lot of money and there's a lot it's tough in a city
▶ 8:56 to try to get money with the federal aid and the state aid going in reverse you've got Melrose is hot there's lots of people moving into Melrose they all have cars you've got downtown buildings going at ridiculous amounts of money I eat the Irish bakery at 1.7 million dollars they're gonna tear it down for second floor on it and they're going to go back to that little uh highway metal thing there and that's going to eat up six or seven more parking spaces that's theirs they can do it cvs did it they took up 10 11 parking spaces when they expanded don stead at the gold coin stamp shop he went out back and he took his parking spaces and he built on it the more that happens the less parking spaces there are um since fidelity went in and fidelity is about 500 of those apartments
▶ 9:51 are in melrose it's easily i try to count them all up all the different apartment buildings conversions condos etc that have been built and are being built at this time 94 down on washington street across the street there's hundreds i don't even know how many are there there's some on tremont street on and on we keep bringing more people in the morrows which is a a good thing it's roughly around 1,500 units easily 1,500 units since fidelity went in if every one of those units has one car just think of them all trying to shop downtown just 1,500 of them forget everybody else is here but excise tax excise tax is collected on every one of those cars and my knowledge is excise tax is to be used for streets and road repair sidewalks possibly parking lots
▶ 10:37 possibly parking garage if every one of those 1,500 cars paid an average of $300 that's almost a half a million extra dollars a year that no one budgeted for no new was coming it's coming because of economics and all I'm asking is that we buy that building we tear it down we had 23 more parking spaces and we look to set up a fund that could continue to do that continue to look at properties on the on the very edges of parking spaces that we can get one way or another it's an investment in downtown you ask us for an override to invest in schools well people's property values are based on in my eyes two things they're downtown in their education and we have to spend money on both as a city I happen to be reading this article that was written in 1920
▶ 11:27 and it said Main Street Melrose by the light in 1880s was a prosperous principal thoroughfare with public transportation by horse, cars and after, that's it, after 1887, trolleys and after 1892, private vehicles. Parking was already a problem. Now this is going back to 1800. The alderman passed an order, number 1900, forbidding the tethering of horses to trees and bushes because there was no place else to tie them. Now we're talking about horses, now we're talking about cars. It's getting bad. I see people going across main street in the wrong way get on the other side because they see a parking space over there and now they're facing the wrong way in the wrong side of the street stop bucks the people go stop us think they own eastman place they're constantly parking there so
▶ 12:15 it's a small little some people think it's a lot of money i think it's a small little bit of money to start to to help parking downtown i mean i can't i just went up on some of my rents because our taxes are going up the mayor talks about and i think that was that same newspaper about helping downtown thrive and four paragraphs later talks about raising the commercial taxes because we're lower than most cities around you can't have it both ways you can't have downtown thrive if you keep putting a burden on the people who own the buildings who then have to raise their their rent structure and then those people are telling you i had you know psychologists i had two people not show up today they couldn't find a place to park this is the reality of downtown
▶ 12:57 so that's all I came to say I mean if you go back to the 1980s when Greenwood and Gately and Cerritani spent $20,000 of their own money I'm not sure how many of you seen that report I have one under lock and key they came out and said at the end because of all the cars parked all day and unsupervised it was five hundred and sixty one thousand missed trips a year to downtown think about 200 000 of them each one spending maybe 25 dollars on each trip how much money that would bring downtown and there's another article which i think i forgot to bring here but it was written in a hardware magazine that for every thousand dollars spent in a big box store or a mall there's 111 dollars might come back to the community usually it goes to nationwide things but for every thousand
▶ 13:51 dollars spent downtown in a little time like ours it's over 200 something dollars comes back to the city in one way or form boy scouts baseball team kids working at stores making money then spending their money adults working in stores downtown et cetera et cetera and even people who own the business spending their money in other businesses so i'm just looking for the city to support us not just for this one parking lot but to come up with a game plan to continue to do things like this a parking garage would be unbelievable I'm not sure how people feel about that and I'm not sure we even put it put it but you know something to look forward in the in the future thank you thank you very much mr.
▶ 14:37 truly any other Member of the public please hi good evening please state your name and record and name and address for the record please sure my name is Rebecca Baraldi and I own a business at 538 Main Street in Melrose right over here and I also wanted to show support for the concept of additional parking in downtown Melrose Steve put everything very eloquently and I'll try not to repeat a lot of his points but Melrose has a very a very loyal and strong customer base but Melrose also has customers from outside of the immediate community as well I have regular customers that come from Peabody and Revere and other communities that surround the Melrose area and one of the most frequent comments I get is geez I would come here more often except I
▶ 15:35 can't find parking and we definitely hear that from residents within the town as well it's interesting he brought up excise tax and I was going to bring that up as well and I wasn't even thinking in terms of motor vehicles I don't know about all businesses but my business I pay excise tax on every particular item that I bring in I pay an excise tax on it and that goes to the community so the more customers that actually come into the store the more money that I'm spending and giving back to the community so that's also I think a very interesting point I think that Mowers is a very desirable community in the past oh I don't know five six seven years it's come up on the top ten lists of communities to live in outside of Boston and I think by adding additional parking
▶ 16:27 as Steve pointed out it enhances your downtown walking area Mowers is one of the last communities that still has a downtown area where people can park their car and walk to multiple businesses it's win-win you're making your downtown area more accessible to its consumers you're making which in turn makes the businesses more successful which in turn makes the community more desirable for people to come in and that makes you as he pointed out makes your house prices your house prices continue to go up and it keeps Melrose desirable I truly can't think of a detriment to adding additional parking spaces especially in the location that's being suggested I don't know if as a parking garage as was mentioned I don't know if something like
▶ 17:20 that would be feasible but I do think it's something that the town surely needs should seriously consider and I hope that you take our thoughts into consideration so thank you very much for your time thank you rebecca good evening connor how are you tonight i'm very well how are you guys thank you please uh put your address on the ledger sheet good evening my name is conor mcguire and i live in the neighborhood where this proposed parking lot is going to go i'm at 4 cherry street which is actually just adjacent to the intersection there um i am i've been in the city for over 30 years i've owned a home here for you know the last eight or nine years or so um i've been active on different boards in the uh in committees on the
▶ 18:20 city trying to make mellows you know it was a great place to grow up it's a great place to buy house and live here and raise my family and i actively volunteer to continue to make it a great place i agree with many of the comments that the previous two speakers had regarding making continuing to make Mars a nicer better place I disagree entirely with the approach that they're taking I hadn't heard the article that was read before about not tying horses to trees because of the congestion and I think that that point may be unintentionally proved a point that I was hoping to make tonight which is the traffic in parking is always a problem and adding parking spots in this way is not a smart way to deal with this this problem that we're
▶ 19:05 having there is a congestion issue with that parking lot and as the mayor even pointed out I found out about this in the Free Press article that was published last week and the mayor mentions that there are other strategies regarding maybe employee parking maybe having them park in the more remote lots or behind City Hall because the peak times for shopping downtown maybe differ from the lots on Berwick or you know behind Puppuccinos or over by in City hall we've actually had in Melrose there's been professional consultants do traffic studies and parking studies and they found that there was no lack of parking all the peak times that were addressed they discovered there were ample available lots parking spots in lots just not in the necessarily high
▶ 19:49 high frequency zones so I think it's a lack of education about where the where the spots are how the employees are actually parking where they're parking There are many solutions that don't involve, you know, a large expenditure of money that you're, you know, it's, I feel like it's almost hypocritical, the city is saying, we don't have enough money, we want this override, yet they're going to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to buy a commercial property, which by the way, when that building's sold, would be a asset for the city because you're going to be taxing it and getting thousands of dollars from that commercial property. And by purchasing it, you're turning it into a liability.
▶ 20:25 all the money that you are borrowing you lose the actual tax revenue from the parcel since the city now owns it so you're taking something that's actually adding you know money to the city coffer which is a commercial property and turning it into a liability which you know and then asking for an override it just seems very very inconsistent and again I've supported many of the projects that happen around town so this is this is you know I'm not against development in this way in general I have a couple notes here and look and see um you know again i live in the neighborhood it's it's actually going to have a very negative impact directly on the neighborhood it's you know one of the things that people love about downtown
▶ 21:03 and the fact that you can park and visit multiple businesses well taking that lot away is taking a business away and i heard suggested here tonight we should keep doing this keep expanding the parking lot like this there's no end to that you just you won't you know the mollification of melrose is not going to make it a nicer place you know the ample parking you know no no great city is known for having excellent parking it's the it's the things that are there that are not parking that make it worth visiting um and considering that the professional study was done that says that there's not a lack of parking i don't see how it makes sense to actually spend money to to have the city set up to lose the money um you know 90 of the time or more i live in the
▶ 21:42 neighborhood i walk around here constantly i shop downtown i you know frequent the businesses that we're talking about tonight you know 90 of the time or more there's ample parking you walk through there there's a few peak times during the day where there's an issue and there's other ways that that can be dealt with that don't involve a huge capital cost and burdening the taxpayers of the city and a loss of you know the law firm that's there now you know what's the next business is going to come in there that might be another asset for the city that makes meller's a great place to live no one's going to say oh there's 23 more spots let's go hang out in the parking lot down there that's great you know not to mention the air pollution in the neighborhood you know
▶ 22:16 You know, this is not just a commercial zone. This is a residential neighborhood also. There's apartment buildings down there. There's people, you know, like myself and my family and my, you know, my young child and other families. There's a daycare there. You know, the more cars that are down there, in that respect, just adds, you know, to a poor air quality. And there's this well-known factor of induced demand. You know, they've done highway expansion projects across the country. They've done parking lot expansions across all these cities in the country. what ends up happening is right now people that might carpool down here you'd have the same number of people maybe going down to the restaurant you
▶ 22:48 make more parking spots now instead of me swinging by my friend Mike's I was to pick him up to go eat you know eat dinner you know now we'll both drive instead so you still have you know a patron count that's about the same but you have this induced demand because it's bigger I grew up here and before the big dig it took you know between a half an hour and an hour to get into the city well they did this huge project and it still takes a half an hour to an hour to get in the city it's just the expansion of these projects it's it's it's old-school thinking this is like 1960s 70s 80s thinking of how to like fix a problem there's been you know a great book which prior to this being a topic it's a 700 page book about traffic and free parking and I read that because
▶ 23:29 this stuff interests me is I don't know if anybody else here has read the the the cost of free parking by Donald Shoup who's the UCLA professor they have these great programs in San Francisco they're adopting because that's another congested area that they said you know we have a parking problem what are we gonna do and I'd be happy to talk with any about the solutions that are in that book I can consolidate it down a little bit for you from the 700 pages to some of the takeaways but the there are ways to deal with this you know and like you know the real issue is that if people expect ubiquitous free parking that guts and destroy cities like that is that is a problem never mind if you're taking away a potential business from the city and another amenity that we
▶ 24:14 could have there are ways that you can like price correct you know and I know they used to be meters on Main Street and I know nobody wants to hear about paid parking but personally if I was a waiter downtown and there's been studies show this is true that if if somebody's willing to pay for parking let's say hypothetically you put meters on main street right so the premium spots are there and maybe the maybe the free parking is in the less used places like the back of the parking lot or behind city hall well all of a sudden you know if you're looking for parking and you're desperate to shop i'll pay a quarter i'll pay 50 cents i'll pay a dollar what you know whatever the market rate is so that
▶ 24:48 i can park right so if you can't find a parking spot you don't have a parking problem you have a pricing problem you're taking something that you know that my point about the waiter if there's a if there's a parking spot here for a dollar and that guy will drive around for half an hour to looking for a free spot the clients that are willing to pay the quarter the 50 cents for a parking spot they're gonna go into the stores and they spend more money per trip they they tip better they do all the things you want so the businesses I haven't discussed this with any of the people in chamber of commerce in the business but this this data and I mentioned the book before there's tons of research talking about if you price
▶ 25:26 the parking appropriately the businesses benefit from that price correction because all of a sudden the people that are willing to spend short money to get a convenient parking spot are walking into your store buying the products spending willingly but also not sitting there for three hours because they know they have to keep feeding the meter so they're efficient and they don't park the car for longer than they need to and then another client can come in and person can use it and for um the way they do it in san francisco is they price correct it so that there's essentially there's always a spot available on the block so if the if the block is always full that means the price is too low and if the block is more than you know one or two spots
▶ 26:01 empty that means it's too high and they do a price correction every month to get it to kind of get a sweet spot and they let people figure out what the appropriate rate is to park um and again it benefits the businesses which again i'm a huge advocate for the business is a small business i shop at these stores i'm not anti their business it's just the structure is not the proposed solution has been proven across the country to not be the right solution um i think i have one or two more notes here and then i'll move on um i mentioned the study that's been done that shows there's no no problem with it um the mayor's already mentioned remote employee parking you know the restaurants when they get crowded you know the city behind city hall is empty we could
▶ 26:40 set up a valet service so that the restaurants have this nice valet service and people can have their cars carried back to the to the remote spot so they can eat conveniently and park conveniently i mean four hundred thousand dollars to buy this lot and rebuild it like you know the city could fund a valet service for i'm sure for for a while and maybe have it subsidized by the chamber of commerce for for you know an experiment or a trial run um you know that's that's a lot of money um that they could they could experiment with to solve this problem in a different way and still maintain a tax base of that property um there's essentially unlike the people that spoke earlier i see really no benefit to this unlike them who said they don't see a perceived
▶ 27:17 benefit i mean a lack of benefits it's it's it's it's tying horses to trees like the guy said like it's the same problem you're going to put 23 spots in and people are still going to complain about the lack of parking it's just it's not going to fix it um i think that might be about it oh there was a restriping um study that was done as part of that survey in the survey i believe and only some of the measures were done to correct it the lot that's for sale now i know at least like two or three more spots might be able to fit because they have two driveways they have the city kimball court street and then there's the driveway that connects through i'm not sure that like you know if they have any legal right that the back of their property has to be an exit to the parking
▶ 27:54 lot you know most properties have one driveway in and out so it seems like maybe that could get closed off when this property changes hands if there's some sort of grandfathering in there so that could benefit by maybe adding one or two spots using using the existing square footage more efficiently I know a parking garage would be very expensive but it would be the same type of idea of using the square foot efficiently which you know would include things like parking structures you know that that doesn't remove commercial uses on the perimeter which benefit the community and lastly you know again because I do sustainable design work and construction work for what I do you know do for a living and the news feeds that I have are talking
▶ 28:31 about services like uber and autonomous cars that are being made by 2020 by by Tesla, by GM, by Ford, by Google. I mean, using a 1960s solution to a problem that probably won't be a problem in five or 10 or 20 years, it's going the wrong way. You know, I read that article and I felt like, I checked the date on the top of the paper, like is this really 2015 and they're talking about expansion of parking lots, and at the same time we're talking about driverless cars that will drop you off and you know, it seems like science fiction, but it's not. These things are happening. Nevada, Florida, Michigan, they've already approved autonomous vehicles on the roads. it's um it's really happening and I'm excited about that but I'm depressed to
▶ 29:08 think that the city thinks that this is actually a good long-term solution and again no no great city is known for having abundant parking it has to be a place where people are willing to carpool or park a little remotely walk an extra block to get to a great a great city or a great downtown area and you know that's how the places that I typically visit if I travel and go on vacation or you know I don't just go places with strip malls because they get good parking you know I go places that have something worth walking to so I want I want the downtown area to still be a place worth walking to not just through thank you thank you very much anybody else wish you to be heard yes sir good evening Jim O'Loughlin 39 Lincoln Street Melrose I've received
▶ 29:58 many compliments from friends and relatives about our downtown and I always brag that we're lucky that we don't have a main state highway running down through the middle of it I enjoy using our downtown and patronizing the local businesses and I support additional parking for retail tail purposes especially on a moderate scale like this but we don't have a state highway running down through the middle of the town and as a result a lot of traffic is getting pushed out onto residential streets and I can tell you Lincoln Street where I live a lot of that traffic is going 40 or 45 miles an hour it's becoming increasingly unsafe in the past month there's been three accidents within two blocks of my house two on Lincoln one on Upham one of the
▶ 30:48 accidents on Lincoln Street left a skid mark a hundred feet long how fast is a car going to leave a skid mark a hundred feet long so from my perspective we We don't need anything that brings any more traffic into Melrose. Our residential streets were not designed or intended to handle the speed and volume that some of them are seeing. So as it pertains to this order, I have two requests. First, I'd like to understand what definitive and aggressive steps are being taken to make sure that these new spaces and all of the spaces in the municipal lots are not and will not be used by commuters medford has a terrible problem with this and i've heard complaints from our retailers from my perspective i don't want to see any more north shore commuters
▶ 31:40 flying down my street because we provided them a free and convenient place to park second i'd like some assurance that these spaces will not be used to facilitate future residential developments in the downtown every unit of housing that comes into the city has the potential to put 20 car trips past my house every week and if not on my street on one of the dozen or so cut through streets throughout the city there's probably one in every ward i would not want to see the acquisition of this property exacerbating the already heavy volume of traffic that some of the residential streets are saying now i recognize that these are narrow comments on a narrow topic but they are indicative of a bigger picture problem and concern an
▶ 32:33 apparent increase in traffic volume throughout the city to that end i was very pleased that we got funding to update the city's master plan i think a page one objective of that master plan should be a commitment to take aggressive steps to reduce the volume and speed of traffic in this city and to back that commitment up with resources thank you for the opportunity to express these concerns i support the acquisition of this property to provide for a moderate increase in retail parking but i would like to see some definitive steps taken to prevent additional traffic resulting from non-retail use thank you mr o'laughlin are there any other Member of the public wishing to come forward to be heard please yes the gentleman who spoke third
▶ 33:47 he lives very close to the neighborhood his parking lot is and if he lives that close he probably does walk downtown but a majority of people in morrows don't live that close it can't walk downtown our population greatest generation is larger every day in Melrose and they can't walk downtown it's not let's just come down to the facts we're just you know we're not in San Francisco we're in a tight New England town the survey that they just did that I think he's speaking about I think was flawed it wasn't done as good as the Cerritani survey it was done on a couple of days it doesn't say what days doesn't say what the weather was it could have been raining those days and sure there'll be plenty of parking
▶ 34:34 spaces if it's pouring they don't tell you what the weather is it wasn't done in each different season seasons very downtown if you do it in August the place is empty everybody's down the Cape he talks about the building we're losing a retail building the building hasn't been used in three years in three years nobody's put an offer on that building except for me I wanted to buy and I didn't I couldn't they didn't want to come with my price it wasn't worth what they were asking right it's got a tremendous mold problem in that building so we're not losing a retail spot we're adding parking space let's let's just be realistic about that you can talk about all the studies in the world but until you stop putting all the studies here
▶ 35:14 and we all get a chance to read them they don't mean anything you can talk about study study studies I agree with him people aren't efficient with their walking around downtown we've given them three hours now I think three hours is a long time even if you're having dinner three hours is a long time so maybe it was a number of different things we can do the mayor has been very nice to put me on the parking Commission I want to see if we can reduce that three hours back to the two hours I want to see some 20-minute zones we used to have them in couple of them disappeared they went to a half an hour we have we were renting parking spaces for people to park all day long for $250 a year when huntress
▶ 35:56 and woody and a few other guys are getting a hundred and a quarter a month we should be at market rate a thousand or twelve hundred dollars I'd like to see that get up there make it worthwhile to us to have those guys if they want to park all day then that's what they have to pay to play and they should be directed where to park they should be directed to Berwick that's the only place they can park it behind City Hall I have eight or nine people who park all day with all day parking stickers behind Starbucks that's one-third of the entire parking lot tied up all day the nighttime parking and mr. Sena will agree with me when those people should all be in one spot if they want to have a place
▶ 36:38 to park they should all be behind City Hall so his crew when it snows can plow all the rest of the parking lots without having to work around all these cars who just decide I'm gonna park here tonight then I'm gonna park over there cuz that's plowed but this isn't plowed my parking lot was a mess I was plowing myself there's a lot of things that we can do I know the traffic coming on Lincoln Street is just like the track up up the street we said that when the mall went in we said there's gonna be a lot of traffic going up Porter Street I'm up the street how are you gonna stop it this is a free country you know there's people who want to come to this town there's people building buildings in
▶ 37:14 this town without these buildings he's 1,500 apartments plus we'd really be in dire straits for taxes so I guess we do have to find some way to live with that and as a retailer downtown and the person who owns a building downtown I want to have people more people to come downtown so they can shop and spend money and visit my tenants upstairs so they can make money and on and on and on all I want to say thank you if we're going to encourage people to come in from other cities to shop downtown we better get cops on the street to slow them down it's ridiculous thank you good evening how are you tonight my name is Ellen Hutchins I live on Florence Street and I just wanted to say that I support what's being said about a comprehensive plan
▶ 38:12 beyond just the additional parking spaces I see some merit in the additional parking spaces but I want to note from the committee what exactly is going to be done to try to enforce the parking better so that there can be more turnover of spaces and the other reason that I'm here tonight is to really talk about community safety and a more visible police force I walk dogs every morning I walk for exercise and it's becoming less and less safe particularly crosswalks my alderman has provided me with data in terms of a real reduction in terms of revenue that's been brought in comparing the last two years for non parking violations it averages out to about $30 a day that's brought in when you divide it by 365 days so I want to know really why we're not having a much
▶ 39:09 more visible police force and what can be done to really make this a safer place to walk and hopefully that will make it a little easier to park as well thank you thank you very much for your input I just want to add one clarification so I did mention a bunch of studies that were done and many of the items in that again that 700 page book which is essentially studying itself is actually not just all theoretical they're based on real-world world examples and real projects that went with options like one that's being considered with adding parking versus other types of solutions that maybe set it up for higher turnover of spots and things like that so that the demand was it wasn't an induced demand situation so it wasn't all just theoretical and again
▶ 40:10 Peter D. Mortimer: I can talk about the satellite so it's very of that unless you want the details but it's not just theoretical it's actually cities across the country of very similar to our own thank you very much anybody else would like to speak at public participation I hear something from you alderman Burt like a motion to close we have a motion to close public participation from alderman back to my goal is to be seconded by alderman Burt all in favor please say aye any opposed Hearing none, public participation is now closed. First. I just looked up and I said, that's going to confuse me. Sorry, throw you off, I'm sorry. I don't think they're going to fix us up. No, I don't think so. You're about 100 times pretty.
▶ 41:09 Peter D. Mortimer: Very nice, lots of business. Sorry about that, Mr. Chairman. No worries. You have everything in order, it's a good idea. The first order we have before us is order 2016-6. It's the appointment of Manisha G. Butra, 330 Grove Street, for a three year term on the Human Rights Commission. Said term to expire on the last day of February 2018. Motion to suspend the rules to bring the applicant forward. We have a motion to suspend the rules that we may hear from the candidate for a position on the Human Rights Commission. It was seconded. Oh, the motion to suspend the rules. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, we are under suspension. Thank you, welcome. We see other Member of the Human Rights Commission have come here in solidarity with you.
▶ 42:05 Peter D. Mortimer: Very nice to see. Would you like to make an opening statement or proceed directly to questions? We can proceed directly to questions. All right, we all know you pretty well from your work with the planning here in Melrose. course um annie alderman wishing to have a colloquy with miss butra please see oh we do have one okay thank you alderman Medeiros thank you very much yes uh we do appreciate your service to the city this far and i know you've been very involved in some of our planning but i i would like to just hear a few minutes about why you're interested in this position and if you could share that with us that'd be great absolutely well um I initially found out about the Human Rights Commission when I had inquired
▶ 42:51 Manisha Bewtra: from Mayor Dolan about the city's non-discrimination policies and that led me he forwarded on my email to Maureen Busby who then invited me to attend a few of the meetings and I got the opportunity to attend and found that the conversations around the table at the monthly HRC meetings were very much in line with the types of ways I'd love to make a difference in Melrose and in my life in general I have really focused a lot of my sort of professional as well as personal volunteer efforts in terms of advancing equity promoting diversity a lot of the things that the Human Rights Commission is all about so this just seemed like a really great fit in a way to contribute to the community that goes beyond what I do as a city planner thank you thank you very much thank you
▶ 43:49 Francis X. Wright Jr.: very much Alderman Medeiros Alderman McAteer Margolis please I just want to say thank you very much for stepping forward I think you're a great example of the kind of of the kind of Commissioner that we would be looking for and you have big shoes to fill but you have a great team working to work with too so good luck thank you thank you thank you very much alderman mcateer margolis alderman wright please thank you mr chairman i just wanted to say that i've had the opportunity to work with uh manisha both here and elsewhere and i've always found her to be a thoughtful professional person capable to not only work with city officials but with people of all different backgrounds um professionally and otherwise um and i think uh we're very lucky to
▶ 44:41 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: have her uh as a candidate so welcome welcome back yeah i agree very very well said ultimate live moment please yes um i just wanted to sort of add to some of manisha's praises um you know we had had some just personal discussions um a few different times uh where manisha talked about some of the ways that she was interested in getting more involved with the community and um her goals at the time and um when i saw that this uh was an opportunity that came forward it seemed like just a perfect fit for some of the ways that you were hoping to focus your energy so um thank you for you know volunteering to work more with the city in this way yes thank you specifically for your encouragement of course is there a motion please motion to recommend a second
▶ 45:24 Peter D. Mortimer: we have a motion to recommend from alderman Tramontozzi duly seconded by alderman forbes all in favor please say aye aye any opposed hearing none this order has been recommended for passage at our next full board meeting which is on august 17th you need not come again we appreciate your service to the city in the past and in the future ostensibly and thank you very much thank you take care have a wonderful evening the next order we have before us is order 2015-202, authorizing a bond in the amount of $400,000 for the purchase of real property. Alderman Wright, please. Make a motion to suspend the rules for the purposes of having city officials come forward. Second. Alderman Wright has made a motion to suspend the rules for the purposes of having the relevant city officials appear before us.
▶ 46:22 Peter D. Mortimer: And give us a little discourse about this order. Ladies and gentlemen, please proceed. That was seconded, all in favor please say aye. Aye. Seconded by Alderman Boyce L for the record. Any opposed, hearing none, we're already under suspension, but we're resuspended. Good evening, Mr. Chairman. Good evening. This is City, for the record, this is City Solicitor Van Campen. For anybody in the gallery or anybody watching at home, City Solicitor Van Campen, who's about to speak. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm joined by City Planner Denise Gaffey, Director of Public Works John Shenner, and City Treasurer Art Flavin is here as well to answer any questions Member may have. preparing this evening's order and presenting it to you mayor dolan has asked me to read a statement
▶ 47:10 to the Member of the committee for the benefit of the public so i will do so at this time as you are aware the city of melrose has an agreement to purchase the property at one kimball court this historic acquisition is contingent on your approval of funding this acquisition i truly believe this is an historic once in a generation opportunity to expand parking in our downtown and provide further economic opportunities for our downtown business district in voting on this order i ask that you please consider the following items the asking price for the property was 425 thousand dollars the current assessment on the property is 373 thousand dollars but the city is able to acquire it for three hundred thousand dollars the department of
▶ 47:57 of Public Works estimates approximately $100,000 for design, demolition, construction, site work and other professional services. As you are aware, very few properties in the hot Melrose real estate market sell for the asking price, let alone below it. In this case, dramatically below it. For us to be able to achieve this goal of increased parking, in this case it would be between 21 and 23 parking spaces at this price is truly incredible I would like to publicly thank judge Killam and his family for their civic-mindedness and working closely with us to make this transaction a reality although there have been other perhaps more generous offers for this property I am aware that judge Killam is pleased that the city will be able to
▶ 48:45 expand parking in its downtown business district as a result of this purchase this is a reflection of his many contributions to the community as well as those of his father who purchased the building during World War two when it was an 11-room multifamily dwelling and established his law practice in the building in 1959 it is very important for me and for judge Killam to recognize this legacy through this purpose purchase we have a multi tiered approach to improving parking downtown that has been ongoing and has made progress over the past few years as you know we have a parking committee that has made improvements including adding spaces to Dill's Court through the reconfiguration of parking spaces improved drainage improved snow removal better signage and
▶ 49:34 public education of a parking access another group has been working over the last several months on a plan to address the issue of employee parking which will released in the fall the fact remains however that although a study has been conducted to talk about additional parking any opportunity to increase spaces in such a significant way is a game changing opportunity for our community in review of possible properties this is the only parcel whose cost is within the range of affordability for the city the other properties in the district would sell for far more double or triple what the city would pay in this instance this is a unique parcel that has not been used for several years that was mentioned earlier
▶ 50:19 and its strategic positioning allows for the most parking per square foot without disrupting any other property or the flow of traffic into the dills parking lot i have already shared with you the considerable interest as well as the actual purchasing of property in our downtown one example being Moynihan Plaza this trend is not going to end the downtown has evolved over the last decade and will continue to evolve and we must as a city prepare for that in advance nothing is cheaper than it is today and four hundred thousand dollars to purchase and construct an extension of the Dill's Court parking lot is an outstanding deal for taxpayers in the coming years as it is today I ask for your full consideration and your
▶ 51:03 positive vote on this order those are mayor Dolan's words and I just want to mention to Member of the committee that the agreement that is presently in process would result in a purchase price of three hundred thousand dollars for this property we're targeting based upon the information that was contained in your packet 23 additional parking spots which would reflect the size of the current parking spots that already exist in that lot and we're here to any answer any questions that Member may have about the transaction itself the design work or any other parking analysis that we're conducting Thank You city solicitor van Kampen alderman boys out please any documentation that you submitted the overlay of the parking lot and so forth you've done the designs
▶ 51:55 Robert A. Boisselle: landscaping and labeling and so forth I don't is there any lighting in this parking lot I don't see any lights to light up the parking lot at night I know the house itself had lights that sort of lit up the area but now it doesn't seem there isn't any sort of illumination of the area is that will that be a problem use existing utility poles whether they be on myrtle or in the parking lot itself to okay so check some wall light is this part of the lighting program that we that was discussed in the past concerning we can try to incorporate it with that or we'll just do it all right uh is there any thought for these 21 spaces i mean there was discussion concerning permit parking using any of these spaces for permit parking um i think they would i think i believe they would end
▶ 52:57 Robert A. Boisselle: up being utilized the same way that the rest of the spaces well in in the original aspects in front of the or behind the building there were 12 permitted spots i believe and you're knocking out one two three four five six seven of those so are they going to be incorporated into the 21 spaces I'm not I'm not aware of the permitted status that you're referring to is there signage in yeah there signage all along each spark each parking spot has a sign that's associated there so the other permits going to be extended into this parking space I believe the idea would be to make all of these three-hour spaces just like the rest of the parking lot any any signage that might reflect a different type of status is going to be eliminated when we modify
▶ 53:51 Robert A. Boisselle: the plan later this year with the new parking permit our merchant permit program so it'll all be three-hour parking all right the cost of the parking lot according to documentation here came up to ninety nine thousand nine hundred and sixty four dollars and when you divide that into by 21 particular sites comes out to about forty four thousand seven hundred and sixty which is pretty close to the standard nationwide between four thousand and six thousand dollars for a parking space development and so forth so that's there John you gave some pretty good numbers here and very right on target with this but the total project cost comes up to six hundred and seventy five thousand dollars basically you're borrowing money here I mean three hundred thousand gives
▶ 54:54 Robert A. Boisselle: you two hundred and thirty four thousand coming back a print is small so you can need a magnifying glass to see this and the one hundred thousand you're borrowing gives you you're paying forty thousand so it's a hundred and forty thousand for the construction and just about five hundred five thousand sorry five hundred thirty four thousand seven hundred dollars so the total project in the long run is six hundred and seventy five thousand dollars I just want to make that clear when you add in all the interest to this project and if you do year use a 200 foot square area and you're paying about 161 dollars a square foot on that so the parking is needed the taking away of a business which well
▶ 55:49 Robert A. Boisselle: the business has no one has actually made any effort for the building itself so that no one's interested in the building to do any parking and they're not interested in converting it to any home because of the homes in the other way now you're going to eliminate the Kimball Court Street or roadway is that correct you're shifting it into the center of the parking lot but you're giving access to I guess I guess it's the VFW access to their driveway okay so are taking up two two parking spaces to get that driveway through technically yeah yeah okay and that's the existing width of their existing driveway a lot of space and a half all right very good thank you very much thank you mr chairman thank you alderman boy cell
▶ 56:47 Jaclyn L. Bird: anyone else wishing to be heard alderman bird please thank you mr chairman um miss gaffey could you talk a little bit about the history of how this particular project this particular um real estate transaction came about and when did we start looking at this as a potential um acquisition for parking how long has it been going on i've heard a couple of things tonight that i'm just trying to figure out it sounds like the property has been sitting vacant for a while i was wondering sort of has it been on the market for a long time and it but then it says we're putting in a low offer and they're accepting it i'm just trying to figure out a little bit of the history if you could give us that first i can try i don't i may not be able
▶ 57:28 Denise Gaffey: able to answer entirely I don't know exactly when the property came on the market or how long it is sat on the market I've heard it represented this evening as well that it's been three years sitting vacant and I don't know that it's been on the market for three years but I do think it has been vacant for quite some time I don't believe the city really began to actively pursue it until very recently maybe you can clarify that but I think it was it was recently and I think it's partly tied to to the fact that we have been working we've sort of brought the parking study back off the shelf to for the purpose of tackling the Merchant Park permit program and and I think so there's been some a lot of discussions with the committee about parking and in parking
▶ 58:18 Denise Gaffey: pressure and so I think I think it was just the awareness of the parking issue tied with the availability of this parcel that sort of got it to gel okay can you talk a little bit I know the master plan committee is forming and that that's in the works what is the time frame of that master planning committee coming about and how does this fit in are we jumping the gun on kind of moving forward on looking for the 23 spaces if we haven't really thought out kind of an overview for the whole city as far as parking can you talk a little bit about that I mean I'm sure that you always have to keep moving you have to stay in motion while you're planning I get that but at the same time this seems like a fairly good sized project and a good amount of money to borrow how does
▶ 59:06 Denise Gaffey: it fit in with the long-term vision for the city on parking so I think the I think the master planning process which is just getting underway and it's about a year-long process um is um is going to is is so broad in its scope it's really looking at so many so many different elements of the city from land use to open space to demographics and public facilities and and traffic it's not really a parking study per se i think the parking study that we did that was alluded to this evening um and back in 2012 is more relevant so i i think and i think this acquisition um kind of ties in more appropriately with that study than it does with the master plan so i don't think the the master plan and the fact that it's going to take
▶ 59:58 Jaclyn L. Bird: a year to go through that process is um is is terribly germane or that we would want to necessarily postpone this acquisition for the completion of the master plan and what is the time frame on going forward on this is there some sort of rush for trying to not rush but you know what is our time frame if it has been sitting vacant for quite some time you know personally i would like to have a little bit more time to kind of look at and hear more about some of the different concerns that were brought up tonight what is the time frame that we're looking at currently for this transaction um as far as time frame is concerned what i what i would say is there's no there's no set finish line at this point there's no closing date as the transaction
▶ 1:00:41 contingent on funding approval from this from this body but i would say although we're not aware of how as we sit here tonight how long this has been on the market alderman what i will say is when the city became aware that there were no significant offers for the parcel it became clear that there was an opportunity to acquire a contiguous parcel to an existing municipal lot for a relatively low number which is why we made the offer we did back in June as far as timeline is concerned it's entirely dependent on public works if they have a particular timeline within which they'd like to build and do the demolition and then the construction but as far as the transaction is concerned there's no current timeline the only thing I could say is that
▶ 1:01:30 Jaclyn L. Bird: because we are a municipality the city is not able to bind itself to an agreement right now without approval from this body so we would stand the chance of perhaps losing the deal if you will the longer we wait okay miss Gaffey can you talk a little bit this and and one of the Member of the public talked about this earlier as well and and I had the same reaction when I when I read about this proposal it seems to be a little bit in conflict with the of philosophy or trend that we've been going towards the last couple of years um about kind of with new projects and new developments going away from having tons of park excessive parking pushing pedestrian safety pushing bicycle safety all of that so i'm just kind of confused as to
▶ 1:02:24 Jaclyn L. Bird: now why this is the big you know piece of the puzzle here can you talk a little bit about that are we moving away from that is this just part of the overall plan that we're looking for 23 space it seems like what we've heard of more and more and more is that we want less cars downtown you know as far as the congestion the traffic the wear and tear on the roads and all of that not to um put aside the concerns of the shops i completely understand their concerns as well i'm just it seems like it's in conflict with everything that we've heard over the past year or two as far as where we're going with development well i i guess um my philosophy with development you know has not change and is certainly in that in that general direction to towards less parking being needed
▶ 1:03:07 Denise Gaffey: especially for residential development especially for residential development in in areas that have excellent transit options like you know pretty like our neighborhood commercial areas and our areas along the oak grove t station and in our downtown i think that's true i think for for development purposes, we have seen that there is less of a need for residential parking. People are more interested in housing options where they can take advantage of public transit. And I think this situation is not necessarily incongruous with that. I think it's a different scenario. I think here we're talking about commercial parking or parking parking for our merchants and parking for our retail and I am you know I I agree with
▶ 1:04:04 Denise Gaffey: a lot of the comments that were mentioned earlier by by the resident who talked about the parking studies and and talked about the implementation of the permit parking program and I think that is going to make a big difference when we actually get that done later this year but the fact remains that the Dill's Court parking which is the this parking lot is what is called is um is the parking lot in the city that has the greatest pressure it is consistently the parking lot that that has the least amount of availability and that's that is consistent with the the data collection that we did there in fact we weren't even planning in our in the parking program that we roll out at the end of the year we weren't planning to identify any parking spaces as merchant
▶ 1:04:48 Peter D. Mortimer: parking through this new parking program in in this lot just because there's so much pressure in this lot already so so it we do think this is a this is a great opportunity and it isn't a nessus and it's a needed opportunity for the viability of the merchants downtown all right thank you and may I ask you to If we could pause your questions for a moment, under our rules, we need to convene the legal and legislative committee briefly. We'll open it, I presume, Chairman Tramontozzi, and then we'll bring it quickly to recess so we can proceed with this discussion about this order. And you will have the floor when we return. Alderman Burke. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, I think you need to call for a vote on a motion.
▶ 1:10:19 Jaclyn L. Bird: We're at the point in our deliberations where Alderman Byrd has the floor, and she will continue now with her colloquy. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Last thing I wanted to go over tonight was just sort of, I guess what I feel like I'm sometimes looking at when we hear about these proposals, is I always feel like I'm not getting to see the total picture, I'm just seeing a portion of it. And I think that probably the department heads are so used to being, having that perspective every day, working with these subjects every day that it's probably clearer to you maybe than it is from where i'm sitting so what i'm hoping to do is to have some time to look at the traffic study that you referred to for 2012 i'm sorry parking study and to also hear from the police jeep as to some
▶ 1:11:06 Jaclyn L. Bird: of the concerns about traffic enforcement and some of the issues on the cut-through streets that were brought up and those types of things as well as hearing from dpw maybe in greater detail than tonight on how the feedback has been on changing the two-hour parking to the three-hour parking and if in fact it's been beneficial to the merchants downtown you know to your credit i think you're good about trying to put forth proposals that are going to create solutions and then sometimes we have to say this didn't work and i want to just make sure that we're getting at the best solution possible here to me it doesn't sound like it's an extremely urgent situation so i would like to keep it in committee if possible until we get some more information
▶ 1:11:52 Peter D. Mortimer: to just have a little bit more context around it and i'll make a motion to to keep it in committee thank you mr chairman alderman byrd has made a motion to hold this order in committee second second the motion we have a second of the motion to hold the order in committee made by President Kahn. Discussion on the motion, Mr. Chairman? I think under the rules of general discussion, we do have people in queue ahead of you. There was no motion on the floor then. There was no motion on the floor, correct. Go ahead. I would defer to the motion that's on the floor if I'm next in- Very good, and yes, and Alderman Wright was after you. Please proceed, President Kahn. Yeah, just briefly, we're not meeting in full board again until when, Ms. Hancock?
▶ 1:12:42 Francis X. Wright Jr.: August 17th. It would seem to me that if we need to have additional committee meetings on this issue between now and then we certainly could schedule them if there are aldermen who feel that they need more information relative to this order. Thank you, President Kahn. Now we're back in queue. Alderman Wright, please. On the motions before I speak in queue, if I may speak on the motion. Yes, we're on the motion now. and I since we're under suspension of the rules have we entered into an agreement under which there are any time frames that would borrow us from or prevent us from continuing this matter to another night because I know how the real estate market is and this news you lose correct we currently do not have a
▶ 1:13:34 any sort of binding agreement with the seller one of the reasons for that is the city doesn't have the authority today even with funding in place to do so because the procurement Act 30 B required the city to post notice in the Central Register that it considered this a unique acquisition of real property given its location its proximity etc so it's a hurdle that municipalities have to follow and jump over we wouldn't be able to execute a purchase and sale on this property until at the earliest August 2nd so the additional two weeks wouldn't wouldn't hamper the deal in any way to August 17 presuming there's still a deal to be had correct and I'm not suggesting there isn't but it sounds like we don't have correct the the only issue that arises is that once my notice
▶ 1:14:23 requirement under 30 B expires and I can sign a purchase and sale on behalf of the city of Melrose it at that point would become contingent on funding from this board so we could still execute a purchase and sale in early August and if the board decided not to approve this order on August 17th then the city would lose its deposit if we are not prepared to enter into an agreement what once the Central Register runs is there any indication that we could lose the deal or do you just not know or did you like in good faith understanding that we we I mean both sides are acting in good faith the seller is very anxious to close on this transaction and I've represented August 17th as the absolute sort of end date for me to assure the seller that funding is in place okay
▶ 1:15:24 Robert A. Boisselle: Okay, thank you. On the motion, thank you. Thank you. Alderman Wright. Alderman Boisselle, please. Getting to this timeline, is there any problems with the financial package the way it is here now? I know the feds are talking about an interest rate as you get closer to September. Would that be affected in any way if we delay it? Yeah, I'll let the city treasurer answer that question if he could. It's going to be a short answer. No, right? No, we wouldn't execute anything until November anyways. We do all our borrowing, this borrowing season is in November. You'd give me the authorization, we'd use cash on hand to execute the transaction and then replenish our funds. There would be no impact on the interest that's stated here in the document at that point?
▶ 1:16:14 Monica C. Medeiros: Not with the discussion you're having about delaying the process. All right, thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Alderman Boycelle. Well, anyone else wishing to be heard on the motion made by Alderman Byrd? Alderman Medeiros, please. Thank you. In terms of timing, in terms of how this has come about, have any of, I know we heard one of the abutters mention that he learned about this by reading about it in the newspaper. It's a little bit different than some of the things that we normally do. it is sort of a proposed change of use of the property and is this something that we're required to to post or have we reached out and had any kind of meetings with the the residents or neighbors or fliered and perhaps maybe
▶ 1:17:09 we could do that before our next Board of Aldermen meeting just so people could get some information as of today there there hasn't been a formal neighborhood meeting to discuss this what I will say is if the city is able to purchase the property there would be a public process to talk about the impact that this parking facility would have in the neighborhood through the site plan approval process in addition the city would have to file for a variance to the Board of Appeals in order to accommodate 23 spaces that's the best case scenario the worst case scenario be 21 net spaces so there would be a public process there as well and notification to a butters etc but as to your question there hasn't
▶ 1:17:51 Monica C. Medeiros: been anything up to this point and we do have in our order here like a final concept plan I think is what it's called I do see that that includes some benches and or at least a bench did you talk a little bit about like any kind of green space or improvements that are beyond you know parking spaces themselves we've created a um i can speak to that we've created a a walkway a new walkway from myrtle street into the into the parking lot along the um the northerly property line between the property in question and and the next neighbor we've created as large of a Green space as we can as a buffer between the neighbor and and this current property which will become the parking lot Obviously, we're going to put trees in the green space as well
▶ 1:18:53 Monica C. Medeiros: The balance of the lot we tried to Create as many spaces as we could as efficiently as possible possible thank you um you know i'd be willing to to give this a little bit more time to discuss uh i do think that you know right now this is you know something that the air issue of parking has come up before this committee many times i guess in this past year in particular as we've talked about different zoning and changing some of our zoning i have felt that we've had some some parking space availability issues I know I've gotten to speak with miss Gaffey who at one point had told us that I think not necessarily in this meeting but there's at least 700 spaces I think if I'm correct you had mentioned that we have available to us in the city that were
▶ 1:19:50 Monica C. Medeiros: not on their off street spaces I remember it's not that good I was prepared for that meeting with that number but yeah I'd have to look at the parking study we do have a breakdown of all of the numbers yeah and I think it was quite a lot and just I think our conversation when something like we have you know lots of spaces and I think you know we had talked a little bit off out of this meeting about Malden and I hear many people from Malden's you know say that geez Malden's nice but I don't want to go there because I can't find a place to park and my friends in Malden will probably kill me but but that people come to Melrose because it's it is better to park at and I know there was some of the talk that you know people don't come to a city because you can
▶ 1:20:36 Monica C. Medeiros: park there but I do think they do kind of come to a city because they can park there especially if they have they're older if they have families that it's hard to kind of get them in and out of the minivan and the strollers and running into the street with the kids sometimes that you know you don't want and just do that um and it and it does add something but in part of our conversation was that malden really has lots of parking spaces but sometimes you have to go a little bit beyond what you're comfortable with and this is an opportunity to i think there's lots of things that we could do to improve our parking i'm glad there's a parking committee available but this is an opportunity to take a space that is very obvious that this is where you're supposed
▶ 1:21:23 Peter D. Mortimer: to park for downtown and for all those people where they want to go and park in a place that's easy this really does would give them more spaces in a place that's easy and where you mentally expect to park i do think we could do more to educate people about some of the other spaces that are available downtown but um thank you thank you alderman medeiros anybody else wishing to be heard on the motion to hold this order and committee seeing no one else wishing to be heard on the order to hold the senate in committee it was made by alderman byrd who seconded please by alderman president khan seconded um seeing no further discussion on the order to hold it in the The motion to hold it in committee, all in favor, please say aye.
▶ 1:22:12 Peter D. Mortimer: Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, this order will be held in committee. As President Kahn pointed out, we couldn't pass until August 17th anyway. So we will, as chair of appropriations, I will let you know that we will have another appropriations meeting before then, at least one, maybe two. And we can discuss this further on a point of personal privilege. Alderman Wright, please. Mr. Chairman, I would have preferred you held that motion until we were done discussing this. We have with us five Member of the administration. We've got ten Member of the board here this evening, and this is an opportunity to ask questions. These people work all day. I know it's part of their job to be here, but it is the summer.
▶ 1:22:59 Peter D. Mortimer: It is the evening, and since they're here this evening, I would like to keep this discussion going this evening so that I can have an opportunity to ask some questions, make some points, and I'm sure there are other Member of the board who might want to do so as well. All right. We have had the motion to hold it in committee. There are a few options that could happen here. I don't think we're going to have a motion for reconsideration, although that is a possibility. We could make a motion to suspend the rules and continue discussing this if that's your option. We're under suspension, aren't we? We are under suspension, but this is kind of a suspension of a different nature, so I would like to see if it's the will of the board
▶ 1:23:47 Peter D. Mortimer: that we continue this or not wait. So may I consider that you wishing to suspend the rules to have this discussion go on? So moved, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Alderman Wright. And that is seconded by Alderman McAteer-Margolis. So at this point, for Member of the public and Member of the administration who are here, this order is going to be held in committee, barring any motions for reconsideration, which probably won't be forthcoming, but under the suspension of the rules that was just made and seconded and I presume is going to be voted affirmatively in just a moment, we will continue the discussion informally and then discuss it again at another appropriations meeting. All in favor of the motion to suspend
▶ 1:24:29 Francis X. Wright Jr.: and continue the discussion, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, we will continue the discussion, although the order officially will be held in committee. Alderman Wright, please proceed. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This is a general question, but I'll point it initially to the city solicitor. It's my understanding that when a municipality buys a piece of real estate, it cannot pay more than 125% of the assessed value of that property if it intends to do to pay more than that then you basically you're barred from paying more than that right so the only alternative at that point would be eminent domain correct which is a more lengthy complicated process than a straight real estate transaction exactly and the the lot in question we're
▶ 1:25:38 Francis X. Wright Jr.: getting for beneath assessed value correct correct value is 370 correct this is the the agreed-upon purchase price is approximately 75,000 less than the current assessment in a hundred and twenty five thousand dollars less than the original asking price and just so there's no issue about when it was assessed can we go do we know when it was last assessed is there any I in our records reflect 2015 on the on the city database so okay so it's not hasn't been assessed recently like in the last few months or anything like that not that I'm aware and as relates to parking and traffic and all those things I think it's pretty well known amongst the administration that I'm in favor of pedestrian access and bike access and
▶ 1:26:42 Francis X. Wright Jr.: generally not in favor of bringing more vehicles downtown however I do recognize that that we've added a lot of residential units to the city as mr. truly pointed out particularly in the pine banks and Oak Grove area they're continuing to be built and even if those transit oriented units those people are going to have vehicles and they're going to want to shop and we want them to shop in melrose so i presume denise part of your reasoning is that this is a unique piece of property we're getting a unique unique price by adding 20 odd spaces we are not it's a moderate increase and that that does not in any way impact or change the city's philosophy as relates to encouraging pedestrian and bike use in the city I see them as kind of different
▶ 1:27:51 Denise Gaffey: different issues like you said I mean there we have we have we have added a lot of housing units over the past ten years in Melrose and certainly we've added more residents as well and and we do encourage them to shop downtown I think i think this this particular acquisition is um is unique because of its location and because of its um the the ease of expansion the possibility to easily expand the existing lot and it's and it's the lot that that has the most pressure like i mentioned previously downtown and there's very i mean we all know the lot we all know downtown we all know that there are only a a handful of properties that surround particularly that proper that parking lot that we could even look to
▶ 1:28:41 Francis X. Wright Jr.: acquire and if we did that then we would be looking at again only paying up to 125 percent of the assessed value we all know what real estate is going for in melrose so houses get and properties get listed for more than that and they sell for even more than what they're listed for so if we're looking at buying any other property i i presume what the administration has looked at is the fact that we're probably looking at eminent domain to take a piece of property and when you take it by eminent domain as the city solicitor should be able to confirm i believe um you may not know what you the value of the property you just um acquired for years to come because if the seller does not or the former owner does not agree with your evaluation you're going to
▶ 1:29:28 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: end up on an eminent domain procedure is that correct mr correct okay thank you thank you mr chairman thank you alderman wright alderman mcintyre my goal is please thank you mr chairman um and um i appreciate the um opportunity to continue this discussion uh while we're well we're going to con also hold it in committee um and i was going to ask about the eminent domain so that's i'm happy that alderman wright brought that up but um ms gaffey just um do you happen to know how many merchant all-day parking permits we currently have issued in the city um i can't remember the number offhand i think that would be really helpful for us to have going forward i can absolutely have that information yeah i mean probably i think that may have originally
▶ 1:30:18 Denise Gaffey: been part of the 2012 study but i yep and we've updated it since we've actually say anecdotally I've recently analyzed it and got all that data from the parking clerk so I have that number I just don't want to throw out a number and be wrong so I can bring that to the next meeting and is it the intent then of the parking committee or whoever's makes those decisions to eliminate all of those all-day parking permits in the city in the downtown area of the city so the idea is to create a sort of a two-tiered parking permit program where we provide free parking permits to employees in the downtown if they are willing to park in more remote areas and in the plan will be to to to to dedicate spaces for
▶ 1:31:16 Denise Gaffey: merchant parking it would be for merchant parking and customer parking Obviously, if you're a customer, you can park there as well, but they're going to be the parking spaces that are in the more remote areas like Berwick Street and the further corners of City Hall and the Pappagino's parking lot and the Livermore parking lot further north on Main Street. We would count up a certain number of spaces. We would put signage up, and we would encourage the merchants to park there with a pass that would allow them to park there all day. and there would also be another tier which would be a more expensive parking permit that would be more like a market rate parking permit of about $600 a year that you could park you need have the flexibility to park somewhere closer so
▶ 1:32:00 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: that's kind of the system we're looking at right now and that would be available to people who a either didn't live in Melrose or work in Melrose so we could have commuters from reading buying those permits and parking in our lots no no No, it's only available to employees. Oh, only available to employees. They're just merchants. They have to demonstrate that they work. I believe one of the public participants talked about having some of his employees park in the lot behind Starbucks that he was paying for parking. Yeah, he might pay for the commercial parking permit today. So there are spaces like behind there that are all-day permitted parking that would no longer be that, or they would then go to $600?
▶ 1:32:40 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: those spaces I think I forget what we're still sort of formulating the plan I'm not sure if we're gonna target that's another one of the parking lots in town that's that gets um that has a lot of pressure on it because it's so small and you've got the Y and the Starbucks and in the hardware store so we may not have any you know we may not allow any of those parking spaces there and try to keep that available so I mean I guess that's kind of where I'm going with this conversation is having worked in another community close by that also has very similar parking and limited parking issues as an employee there we had we had no choice but to park quite a distance from you know there was no upgraded permit available it was a paid permit and it was far away you know I'm
▶ 1:33:31 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: concerned I mean I think yes we probably do need more centralized parking but I'm really concerned that this is not necessarily going to solve this problem unless we get really serious about these all-day permits and employee parking and I really feel very strongly that any anybody who has a business downtown should really not be having their employees park close because it's it's detrimental to their own business you know they're cutting off their nose despite their face I mean why unless it's somebody that has to go in and out a lot for whatever reason and that is of course understandable but you know I appreciate that we're going to continue this discussion because I think it's important to have all this information before before we really do make the
▶ 1:34:27 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: final decision I think Melrose is a very walkable city I mean it's got like a pretty high walkability rate when you look online I think it's I don't know 70 80 percent something like that I personally do a lot of my errands downtown walking I think I would qualify as a senior citizen so I don't think we're a city like San Francisco that has a ton of hills that you have to go up down and even if you live in the highlands we you know we can do that too but um it just it just kind of concerns me that we're um you know not that that building is paradise but you know we're tearing down a building to build a parking lot and it just sort of concerns me i would like to see if we do go forward with this that we can in addition to some green space maybe we can put some bike
▶ 1:35:16 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: racks in there um you know i'm really not sure mr shenna what you have for plans to make it a little bit less concrete do we have to do any kind of mitigation for drainage anything like that right now that's not about the plan it's not part of the plan but is there a need for it to be part of the plan in any way no not that i'm aware of okay and where um it's sort of hard to tell from this but the the driveway the driveways that are on either side of that building now will be consolidated into one down the middle right now there is a there's the main exit out of the parking lot and then there's the driveway to the property right the driveway to the property would essentially be closed the main exit will shift towards that former driveway location and we'll
▶ 1:36:08 Denise Gaffey: make some dry some drainage adapt some adaptions to the drainage system to accommodate those changes in the in the curb cut and there'll be spaces on the left side by the elks also so as you leave as you leave the main part of those you'll be able to park on the left and the right and the right as you make your way out okay and miss gaffey you said we would have to go to the um or someone said you have to go to the zoning board of appeals for this so by right or by space what how many can you do so to get to maximize the the parking here and get 23 spaces and those are 23 um net spaces um they're um they're designed to be the same size as the parking spaces in the rest of the lot which is slightly smaller than what our zoning ordinance
▶ 1:36:55 Denise Gaffey: requires our zoning ordinance requires the parking space to be 9 by 18 and these are about 8.5 by 18 so they're slightly smaller but they happen to be consistent with the size of all the other parking spaces and they're perfectly adequately sized and in fact a lot of communities will have a that have that smaller dimension as a requirement so ours is a little more generous but nonetheless to get the 23 spaces we would need to get a variance from the zoning Board of Appeals if they did not grant the variance then we would get 21 spaces has there been any consideration giving I know to like when you're in a garage a lot of times there are like smaller even smaller spaces that are like compact car spaces have we looked at any of that opportunity for our
▶ 1:37:41 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: outdoor spaces I think we haven't but I think it's a good idea to look at compact cars and see if we might be even be able to leverage another space or do something creative and then finally my final questions are on the financing of this and we don't have mr. de la Rousseau here but we do have mr. Flavin so thank you mr. Flavin is there any is there any way any of this could be paid for out of funds on hand as opposed to bonding the construction or anything we can't take any of that from I mean there's nothing in the budget stabilization fund or capital one of our funds that we have you really don't want to touch your stabilization funds um this as far as balances and other accounts I'm not aware of any Mr. Delarusso might know more but um there's
▶ 1:38:40 everything we have is budgeted and planned for the next year well in terms of the budget I was thinking of some of the other um I thought we had like a capital improvement fund I'm not sure what that's designated for snow ice deficit any future monies so it's not there's not going to be a lump of $100,000 available if there was it would go to knocking down the snow and ice okay thank you thank you mr. chairman McAteer my goal is alderman Medeiros please thank you I just wanted to keep this quick but if miss Gaffey do you know these parking committees are they there's more than one parking committee I think you mentioned are they that that the mayor is put together in terms of advisory yeah do you know if they're
▶ 1:39:34 Denise Gaffey: full right now or is there a way if there's people at home that have you know ideas of what we might want to do I suppose this discussion might spark some of that where they could direct their comments just to the mayor's office yeah so it is just one parking committee and it's kind of a spin-off from the group that we had originally back in 2012 which was a when we first embarked upon the parking study we did that we did it sort of as a cooperative project between the planning office and the Chamber of Commerce so we have several Member of this committee our Chamber Member in addition to some others so it is the one group it's been meeting it's been meeting for the past several months it's
▶ 1:40:18 Robert A. Boisselle: met for you for maybe four times so and certainly if people are watching this or have comments they should direct them to the planning office to my attention and we would we can bring them up at our next meeting thank you thank you thank you all remember Daros Alderman Boyce L please we talked about a bicycle rats in one of these spaces and so forth as I know some merchants like Walgreen down the road here is basically has a charging station out front is there any thought of putting a one or two charging stations for the electric cars that are coming into the community to while we're shopping we'll charge car at the same time getting a charge of power for the vehicle well I know we just installed
▶ 1:41:07 Robert A. Boisselle: the two the two spaces and the charging station right behind City Hall here I think we'd want to evaluate how how much you use and how's that coming no it was just installed about a month or two ago have you monitored so I think that's something we can look at and you look at something how that's going along and if it's really being used a good rate maybe a good time we have a parking lot here and putting something in for the public to while shop charge your car let me little catch get something moving I think the other thing we might look at is um would be it would be great if we could get a zip car and in our downtown that's another option at that point now you mentioned eight point six feet by
▶ 1:41:52 Robert A. Boisselle: eighteen feet some of the readings I've been doing is showing more by ten by 20 has a standard parking space is this in our it's in the zoning okay I see a lot of the standards are showing 10 by 20 but it's even the question concerning smaller cars never mind just a mini car there's a mini mini car that sits when you see it on the street on Main Street it only takes a third of the parking space and you have this big gap between the next parking space I mean if I mean I mean, I've seen four of those cars in Melrose so far in one day on Main Street. It really looks strange and you may want to look at these mini cars for smaller spaces. That would be a nice way to provide an incentive for that type of vehicle, sure.
▶ 1:42:42 John N. Tramontozzi: Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Alderman Boycelle. Motion to adjourn. Alderman President Kahn has made a motion to adjourn the Appropriations Committee. Second. Seconded by Alderman Boycelle. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, the Committee on Appropriations is hereby adjourned. Please stay tuned for legal and legislative. Well, we'll reconvene the legal and legislative committee as everyone knows prior to us recessing. We held the public participation session of this committee meeting, which Member of the public came forward to speak on behalf of, regarding the orders on the agenda. So moving forward, we have a few orders. I'll start with order 2016-7,