Appropriations & Oversight Committee — 2019-02-11
Attendance
Manisha Bewtra ; Robert A. Boisselle ; Scott M. Forbes ; Jennifer L. Lemmerman ; Kate Lipper-Garabedian ; Shawn M. MacMaster ; Monica C. Medeiros ; Peter D. Mortimer ; John N. Tramontozzi ; Francis X. Wright Jr. ; Michael P. Zwirko
Agenda
- Call to Order
- Public Comment
- Orders
- ORDER-2019-41 : Appointment of Josh Robbins, 18 Albion St., to the Human Rights Commission for a three-year term; said term to end on the last day of February 2022.
- ORDER-2019-30 : Amending Melrose Revised Zoning Ordinance, Chapter 235, Article XI, Section 235-73.1 Affordable Housing Incentive Program
- ORDER-2019-45 : Home Rule Petition to Amend Melrose City Charter, Section 2-11: Filling Of Vacancies, As Set Forth Herein.
- Adjournment
Minutes
CITY OF MELROSE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE CALENDAR● FEBRUARY 11, 2019 Aldermanic Chamber, Melrose City Hall Rescheduled Meeting 7:30 PM 562 Main Street, Melrose, MA 02176 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 Kate Lipper-Garabedian Chair Present Robert A. Boisselle Vice Chair Present Peter D. Mortimer Voting Present John N. Tramontozzi Voting Present Francis X. Wright Jr. Voting Absent Monica C. Medeiros Voting Present Scott M. Forbes Voting Present Michael P. Zwirko Voting Present Manisha Bewtra Voting Present Shawn M. MacMaster Voting Present Jennifer L. Lemmerman President/Ex Officio Member Present
ORDER-2019-41 Appointment Appointment of Josh Robbins, 18 Albion St., to the Human Rights Commission for a three-year term; said term to end on the last day of February 2022. Recommend Passage Board of Aldermen
ORDER-2019-30 Amending Revised Zoning Ordinances Amending Melrose Revised Zoning Ordinance, Chapter 235, Article XI, Section 235-73.1 Affordable Housing Incentive Program Recommend Passage Board of Aldermen
ORDER-2019-45 Home Rule Petition/Special Act Home Rule Petition to Amend Melrose City Charter, Section 2-11: Filling Of Vacancies, As Set Forth Herein. Hold Appropriations Committee City of Melrose Page 1 Updated 2/12/2019 3:13 PM
Transcript
▶ 14:36 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: This meeting is being recorded in accordance with the open meeting law. It can be viewed on MTV, both on television and streaming live, as well as on the City of Melrose website. Motion to open the floor for public comment. Madam Chair. Second. Thorp a motion to open the floor for public comment made by alderman Mortimer seconded by alderman Boisselle all in favor any opposed we are now open for public comment this is the portion of our meeting where any member of the public can come forward to make a comment on one of the three agenda items before us tonight motion to close public comment madam chair second there is a motion to close public comment made by alderman Mortimer seconded by vice
▶ 15:15 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: Chair Boisselle all in favor aye any opposed public comment is now closed the first order before us tonight is order 2019-41 the appointment of Josh Robbins 18 Albion Street to the Human Rights Commission for a three-year term said term to end on the last day of February 2022 motion to suspend the rules that we may hear from the applicant and the chair are you the chair of the Human Rights Commission the chair of the Human Rights Commission vice chair of the Human Rights Commission we have a motion to suspend the rules made by alderman Mortimer seconded by vice chair Boisselle all in favor aye thank you for joining us tonight I'd be happy to hear a few comments from you and then my colleagues may have some questions good evening I would like to start with thanking our
▶ 16:04 Maya Jamaleddine: former Commissioner Ellen rooster um for her service and hard work and all what she has done for the Human Rights Commission and the Morris community after her leave we had two excellent candidates who volunteered in different events and occasions however after the revision and deliberation by the Commission recruitment committee we put forward mr. Robbins as the candidate mr. Robbins heavily assisted our Commission in organizing and planning for our budget to be able to have funding for the rest of our events mr robbins tirelessly participated in all our events and meetings and has proven over the past months that he is a great candidate for this position after deliberation the commission anonymously voted to recommend his nomination
▶ 17:00 for the mayor and we ask that the committee vote to advance mr robbins nomination to the full board for approval thank you thank you thank you all for for having me here today and thank you for the the nice words um my name is josh robbins uh i have been in melrose for about seven years i currently work in the financial services industry my children two daughters are seven and four at the ecc franklin school as well as the roosevelt at the roosevelt i am a member of of the PTO Board, currently their treasurer, active in that role. And I have been an associate commissioner for the Human Rights Commission for I don't know how long. I've been participating for about a year now. So thank you for your consideration, and I'm happy to answer any questions.
▶ 17:52 Alderman Tramontozzi. Alderman Tramontozzi. Well I want to say thank you Mr. Robbins for stepping forward and I certainly will support this nomination for the position and I thank another Ward 1 resident stepping forward and bringing their talents to the city and this capacity so thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Alderman Medeiros. Thank you. I'll defer to President Lemmerman. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. I just actually would like to echo just Alderman Tram and Tozzi's and say thank you so much for being willing to step up for this position. I've had the opportunity to chat with Mr. Robbins before and hear a little bit, you know, about his community involvement and thoughts in the city and have appreciated
▶ 18:45 Monica C. Medeiros: your dedication. Didn't know about the school as well as clearly dedicated to the commission as an associate member for a while now. thank you and also thank you to the Commission as a whole for all the work that you do thank you thank you thank you very much I was wondering if you could just talk a little bit about your background and about any goals you might have or agenda that you feel you would bring to the Commission yeah thanks for the question you know if you had asked me that about a year ago when I applied for the role I might have had a slightly different answer but I've had the privilege of working with all the commissioners for about a year now and really got a sense of what it is that they do what the varying members of the
▶ 19:31 Commission are focused on what their agendas are and what what they're targeting and you know really with my background I've been in finance financial services strategy roles what what I found is is probably my best opportunity to support the Commission is really around helping us figure out how we do more as a commission how do we grow how do we expand our impact in this community how do we increase the the opportunities that we have to connect operationally with the budget work so that's been primarily my focus Thorp Thorp definitely some things as we as we are able to expand those opportunities that I might want to address but right now that's been been my primary focus I was nominated as treasurer of the Human Rights Commission
▶ 20:24 Monica C. Medeiros: as well so you know being able to support us there and try and expand that role a little bit thank you nice to hear that and it's thank you for your work especially I'll also say on the PTO as the treasurer because I know that that's always a role that people are looking to fill and not everybody is you know interested in doing that so it's nice to see a committee that's made up of many parts that support each other thank you Alderman Bewtra thank you on thanks for coming tonight and thanks for applying for the Human Rights Commission and for your active community involvement I'm really excited to you know maintain a good link between our local PTO s and the Human Rights Commission so I hope
▶ 21:07 bring that lens to your work there. I just wanted to know if you could touch a little bit more on, I know it's obviously in your cover letter, but why the Human Rights Commission? Yeah, you know, the short answer is I felt I could do more. I had friends on the Human Rights Commission when the opportunity arose and positions opened up. I wasn't aware of the Human Rights Commission, and it resonated with me, and I felt that it was a great opportunity for me to add more to this community so that was really my motivation at the time to see what I could do and you know expand my horizons and make sure that we were one community open for all to the best of my ability great thank you any other aldermen second you have a motion to recommend me by alderman trim and
▶ 22:01 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: Tosi seconded by Alderman Mortimer on discussion all in favor aye opposed thank you this motion carries we will refer this recommend this to the full board at our next meeting and you don't need to be there for that meeting but we really appreciate your time and your commitment to serving Melrose thank you very much thank you all appreciate you next item in our agenda is order 2 0 1 9-30 amending Melrose revised zoning ordinance chapter 235 article 11 section 235-73.1 affordable housing incentive program this follows our joint hearing with the planning board that occurred on January 14th and we've received from the chair of the planning board a cover letter and a revised a slightly revised zoning amendment motion to recommend for passage second Thorp a
▶ 23:06 Robert A. Boisselle: motion to recommend me by alderman Bewtra seconded by alderman mortimer on discussion alderman Boisselle i'm sorry vice chair Boisselle reviewing the documents here i have very little incentive of actually voting for this especially one section is the parking incentive the results of the meeting and there was a question of always proximity to public transit would be a consideration to lower lowering the parking requirements and from the experience that i've seen so far no matter how close you are to the orange line or to transit there are two cars in the family going together and reducing this is going to try to to push the parking into the to the parking lots that we have by permits and that has caused a problem in
▶ 24:15 Monica C. Medeiros: the past and I to vote yes on this I would have to have that area stricken from that from that document so at this time I will not vote for this particular document thank you we have a motion to recommend anyone else any other discussion alderman Medeiros thank you I don't see we did receive a an update from the planning the planning board as a result of their meeting but I don't see that we have received it in our email but I don't see it added to the order so I'd like to move that we add that to the order the the letter of the result of the planning board's meeting after and I apologize that I don't have the date in front of me after our public hearing and maybe it's the view that I'm in in IQ I'm too so I see that the letter from the chair is part of our
▶ 25:40 Michael P. Zwirko: agenda packet dated February 4th 2019 I think that the language that Vice Chair Boisselle is rep flagging for us is on page 3 of 5 and packet page 9 correct so I believe it is part of our agenda sorry thank you I expected it to be at the end and it's at the beginning so okay any other members wishing to provide a comment at this time yes aldermen's work oh thank you madam chair the only thing that I I appreciate the comments made by alderman Boisselle with regards to parking and you know at the public hearing there was one comment to me that that really stuck out and I thought about this for a while and I i attended the planning board meeting as well subsequently and mr usterman who's on the affordable housing consortium mentioned that in his feeling or his belief that the trust had only
▶ 26:49 Michael P. Zwirko: gained about 200 000 of funding over the previous 10 years and that he would appreciate it if there was a way to accelerate the growth in that trust and i think this proposal i know this proposal seeks to up that percentage to three and I thought about over the past couple weeks about maybe potentially raising that to further kind of hit a target that mr. Oosterman was talking about because what that trust will allows us to do is really some creative planning with respect to affordable housing which is an issue outside of Melrose it's currently in the greater Boston area and certainly in other pockets in the country but I held off on that I felt that if the need to drive the funding higher that would have been something
▶ 27:35 Michael P. Zwirko: that would they would have worked out following our public hearing so I just wanted to raise just the issue that I understand where mr. instrument's coming from an accelerated funding for the trust would be appreciated but I guess I'm in hearing a little bit more discussion on it I'm more favorable towards the detrimental effect that could actually have for developers and the like so I'm happy with this amend this ordinance and zoning amendment as proposed to us and I hope that we can push this forward in in short order Thank You madam chair Alderman Mortimer I'm very very torn on this order I appreciate Alderman Boisselle comments and I seconded this for the purpose that we could discuss it and maybe take a vote and at this instance I'm not even
▶ 28:26 Peter D. Mortimer: sure how I'm gonna vote when it comes up momentarily I talked to a gentleman the other day who just moved into a studio apartment near Wyoming and he asked what you know why do we have the ban on overnight parking in Melrose and I told him because it prevents illegal apartments because people conscious park on the street parking would need have to need to be provided it prevents illegal boarding houses that people can't do that and have extra people living in apartments where in this city we're only supposed to have four unrelated people living together but you can get around that if people can park their cars on street but this gentleman moved into a studio apartment he was fully apprised you have no parking with this and he says why don't we get rid of this ban on
▶ 29:27 Peter D. Mortimer: overnight parking people go in knowing that this is the way it is in Melrose with this order and ordinance like this and then as Bob excuse me as alderman Boycelle aptly pointed out people then say let's get rid of the ban on overnight parking and another problem is when you're a police officer we have 84 miles of roads in Melrose and when you're a police officer and you ride the same 84 miles of roads in Melrose day after day week after week month after month year after year you start to know them like you know your living room you know that Thorp a little toy that's behind that the kids toy is behind that chair Thorp a quarter over there behind that sofa the scissors is in that the sewing basket is over there under the under the sideboard you know
▶ 30:22 Peter D. Mortimer: everything about your house and when you're a police officer in Melrose you know everything about Melrose and when people have to park their car in the driveway overnight they tend to put it in their driveway even during the daytime when they come home from work or they come home from dropping off the kids, so you don't have to go out at 10 o'clock at night when you're half asleep watching television or reading. You don't have to say, oh, I forgot to put the car in. You just put it in automatically. That means when police officers drive up and down the street, cars don't stick out. A car does stick out that's a strange car in the neighborhood. They run the plate. They find out it's someone who's got a record for horrible crimes against people.
▶ 31:02 Peter D. Mortimer: They run the plate and they find out that this guy is not from Melrose, somewhere far away and he's up to no good in Melrose so they they look around they find him he tells them a lie about why he's in Melrose and they tell him don't come back to Melrose and that's that that that gets lost Thorp also the aesthetic value is the streets just look a lot better when you drive through Melrose it's so much better than when you drive through other communities that surround us because there are no cars on the street we have the beautiful arched the beautiful canopy effect of the trees that we strive so hard to protect and replant in Melrose and if you don't have cars up and down every street it just
▶ 31:43 Peter D. Mortimer: looks so much better so those are three good reasons and there are others why we don't want to have this so as Alderman Boycelle pointed out people move here knowing that they do not have a parking space and then right away they say gee we got to get rid of that ban on overnight parking so I think something needs to be done. I don't know if it's on the wish list to have a higher parking garage behind the fire station. There is a little bit of an underground market of people who have extra spots in their driveway that exists in Melrose now where people will rent a parking spot from someone who has an extra spot in their driveway for $50 a month or whatever the price may be so it's a problem we want to be open and we want to have
▶ 32:36 Peter D. Mortimer: affordable housing but we also want to keep the suburban feel of Melrose and it's it's a tough call it's a tough call because you know causal problem America still lives on the car as much as we have all the talk about transportation and we're not to the point where we're Harvard Square or Davis Square or Central Square or Austin or Brighton yet where Thorp thousands of people who live every day without cars and call ubers or if they're taking a long trip they rent a car for the weekend we're not there yet in Melrose we're still suburban and people love their cars and most of America still loves their cars so it's it's our community is in transition and flux in a lot of ways a A lot of tough questions before us of what Melrose will look like in five years or ten years, and it's a tough call.
▶ 33:35 Manisha Bewtra: So I'm still not sure how I'm going to vote, but I just wanted to expose my thoughts so people know maybe why I'm going to vote the way I'm going to vote when I decide. Thank you very much. Alderman Bewtra. Thank you. I appreciate the perspectives of Alderman Boisselle and Alderman Mortimer. as i'm reading it on again in the cover language as well as in the ordinance that um the draft ordinance the parking requirement is actually not going to change with regards to what's being allowed elsewhere in the city through zoning that's already been passed by this board um i would I think Thorp a difference between sort of I think I think if anything maybe we need to look into are there buildings that provide spaces that are being underutilized there have been parking
▶ 34:34 Manisha Bewtra: studies done here in Melrose but also in lots of other communities like ours that indicate the market isn't there to require additional parking beyond one space per unit and that generally developers will build more parking if that is what is required to make their development marketable especially when they know that there is already an overnight parking ban in place um so i i'm just concerned that that sentiment while informed by experiences in your wards and i very much acknowledge that um it's not actually based on utilization of existing parking and need for parking from multifamily units so I would caution us against kind of increasing the parking requirement particularly because it is already in
▶ 35:30 Monica C. Medeiros: keeping with other zoning elsewhere in town thank you alderman Medeiros thank you yes now I mean I in past discussions and I share this concern about decreasing the number of parking spaces required to half a space but my understanding with this ordinance change is that this this part of changing the zoning table is really just administrative that it's not going to change the zoning for the entire city it's just that we have voted and and and I did not support however you know we we did pass zoning then the final version for the overlay districts does allow only half a space per unit now I certainly think we could perhaps if Thorp enough of us who want to see that increase back up to one space excuse me but certainly file in order to
▶ 36:36 Monica C. Medeiros: do so in the zoning but in terms of this I mean the meat of this ordinance is is affordable housing and it's definitely something that that we need i don't think that this ordinance will encourage over development or anything like that if anything i think will actually be a little bit discouraging to developers because it will make it a little bit less profitable for them to make unit to create you know large units of housing but require more affordable units this change in regard to the parking is is really just administrative in a table that we should have made the change to the table at the same time as we did the overlay zoning and I think it's just an administrative thing that didn't catch up so I share the concerns
▶ 37:30 Monica C. Medeiros: about reducing the number of spaces I don't think in our regular zoning we should do that and I don't believe that this ordinance changes that in our regular zoning it's just in the to to keep up with the the changes in in past specific overlay zoning that we've passed you know I think this is a good balanced order I know I said this at the last time and I encourage you both to consider that and just remind everyone that we do have overnight parking stickers available for purchase and they're I think $180 for the year which can be purchased if anybody can't you know park overnight in at their residence that you know the there are designated lots that are city lots that residents are allowed to park
▶ 38:22 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: in with this permit and that's an option that's available to them and I you know is somewhat affordable I'd say thank you any other aldermen wishing to speak I'll just take a moment to just note that i appreciated the planning board chair's letter to us in which i think the board did a nice job identifying different comments that were provided at the public hearing both from members of the public and then i think questions that we asked of the city planner and the board and that i was pleased to see that there were a couple revisions to address some confusion and that the city planner also followed up with school enrollment data regarding the number of students at the Melrose public schools who are enrolled
▶ 39:11 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: in these larger multifamily rental complexes finding that 2.1 percent of the total enrollment of the Melrose public schools live in the four complexes so I thought this was a helpful cover letter to the ordinance so we have a motion to recommend made by alderman Bewtra is there a second second seconded by aldermen's work go any further discussion all in favor any opposed opposed okay that motion carries and will be recommended to the full board at its next meeting the last item on our agenda is order 2 0 1 9 dash 30 excuse me is 2 0 1 9 dash 45 home rule petition to amend the Melrose City Charter section 2-11 filling of vacancies as set forth herein this order was sponsored by Alderman Wright he did reach out to me earlier today to say
▶ 40:10 Monica C. Medeiros: that he might be late or unable to attend and if he and it appears that is the case and he made a request that we make a motion to hold this in committee for an upcoming meeting so moved okay I that is move a motion to hold this in committee is made by alderman Mortimer seconded by alderman Forbes all in favor be opposed yes alderman Medeiros thank you I just wanted to ask for a moment of personal privilege just to let the public know that the school committee meeting that was scheduled for tomorrow night which is anticipated to discuss the staffing the budget staffing levels has been canceled and will be rescheduled as we're anticipating snow and bad weather so it's set to be rescheduled for February 14th at 7 p.m. so that's
▶ 41:00 Monica C. Medeiros: Thursday February 14th Valentine's Day because we love our schools and in our students and it will be at 7 p.m. thank you can be a nice pre-dinner date motion to adjourn madam second motion to adjourn made by alderman Mortimer seconded by Alderman Boisselle. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Thank you. We are adjourned.