Planning Board — 2021-03-08
Minutes
MELROSE PLANNING BOARD MINUTES Special Meeting Monday, March 8, 2021 7:30 PM Remote Meeting PRESENT: Anne DeSouza-Ward, Beth Delahaij, Paul King, Robert Mercado, Carla Morelli, Sharon Petrillo, John Sadowski, Greg Sampson & Jack Welch ABSENT: None STAFF PRESENT: Denise Gaffey, Director, Emma Battaglia, Senior Planner & Lori Massa, Planning Coordinator The meeting was called to order at 7:35 PM by Ms. DeSouza-Ward. Pursuant to Governor Baker’s March 12, 2020 Order Suspending Certain Provisions of the Open Meeting Law, G.L. c. 30A, §18, and the Governor’s March 15, 2020 Order imposing strict limitations on the number of people that may gather in one place, this meeting of the Melrose Planning Board was conducted via remote participation to the greatest extent possible. Meeting access and the general guidelines for remote participation by members of the public and/or parties with a right and/or requirement to attend this meeting was found on the City of Melrose’s website, at www.cityofmelrose.org/remote-meetings. No in-person attendance of members of the public was permitted, but every effort was made to ensure that the public could adequately access the proceedings in real time. An audio or video recording, transcript, or other comprehensive record of proceedings was posted on the mmtv3.org website as soon as possible after the meeting. A link was also available on www.cityofmelrose.org. BA Incentive Zoning and Parking Amendment The Zoning Subcommittee met to review a revised version of the zoning amendment that allows for incentives in the BA districts and parking regulations again to incorporate comments and concerns raised by the Building Commissioner, comments from City Councilors following small group meetings that Ms. Gaffey had with each Councilor last month, consideration of the Housing Choice legislation, enacted by the state legislature and signed by the Governor in January and adjustments to the incentive provisions based on specific developments in the pipeline. Mr. Sampson explained the highlighted changes in the draft. Some of the changes included the following. The language related to front yard parking and other parking regulations was cleaned up. The driveway and aisle width dimensions will be simplified in the next draft now that the clear-width dimension was removed from the amendment. Under the new Housing Choice state law, cities and towns can allow for parking reductions, as well as other approvals related to housing, by special permit with a simple majority vote. This change made it so that the parking Planning Board Special Meeting Minutes March 8, 2021 Page 2 of 3 reduction that was previously in the ordinance was changed from being allowed by Site Plan Approval to requiring a special permit. Members discussed if service stations should be allowed to have wider curb cuts. These wide curb cuts can be dangerous and not needed for the station to function. There will likely not be the creation of new service stations in the future. They will take potential changes to service stations that require Site Plan Review on a case by case basis. Developments that are currently in the preliminary stages of design are running into problems with the FAR limit even with a 4-story building so the incentive will include a FAR bonus. The incentive will also include reducing the open space requirements. Certain sites have no open space capacity so instead of having a nominal open space requirement, the open space can be more meaningful for amenities for residents. There is also the potential for off-site open space that is more impactful. The Board reviewed the proposed map changes. The Wyoming area map did not change. The area at Main Street and Emerson Street is better suited to have the BA-1 district for the redevelopment of parcels. They currently are in the BD district which allows for dimensions for buildings like the hospital. The Ward Councilor suggested that the eastern boundary of the proposed BA-1 should be expanded to Lebanon Street. Residential uses are allowed in the BD but are not permitted in the BA-1; however, mixed use is allowed in the BA-1 and many of the existing uses in this area are mixed-use. Medical uses are not as vibrant as other commercial uses for the ground floor of these main, pedestrian-oriented streets. In the BA-2 district, medical uses are limited to floors above the first floor for this reason. The Board originally discussed proposing a bigger area to be in the BA-1 and decided to focus it at the intersection; however, they found that it makes sense for the BA-1 to extend to Lebanon Street. The Planning Board gave the public an opportunity to speak. Finn McSweeney of 160 W Wyoming Avenue commented on Section 235-40.C. He suggested that more bicycle parking is needed if vehicle parking is reduced and bicycle parking should be considered in the list of items for the vehicle parking reduction. He also questioned if a traffic report is needed if a development is not providing parking. Susan Murphy as member of the Energy Commission provided written comments. She was asking for the Board to reconsider that energy efficiency and emission is a requirement for the incentive. The City is committed to be net zero by 2050. The Commission does a lot of work to try to retrofit systems for old buildings. Condo owners in the future will need to retrofit units, which will be burdensome. Since we cannot require higher efficiency for new buildings because the state building code prevents it incentives are the best way to do this. She finds that the way that the amendment is written we will not get efficient buildings unless the developer seeks it out. A building should use less energy than a building that could be built without the incentives. Ellen Katz of 70 Lynde Street explained that the Energy Commission would like energy efficiency to be required. Developers say that it is difficult to document energy use but engineers are doing this work already to determine the size of the HVAC units. The amendment could Planning Board Special Meeting Minutes March 8, 2021 Page 3 of 3 encourage Passive house or LEED Gold certification standards to ensure that the other possible community benefits are not outweighed by energy use. Using these standards in zoning is becoming more and more common around the state. Members were supportive of the suggestion to add bicycle parking to the list of considerations to reduce vehicle parking requirements. A member mentioned that bicycle parking is needed but it is not the only solution as we cannot bike year-round due to the weather. Members were not fully supportive of the suggestion to require the consideration of the environmental impact for energy use and emissions for the increased size of the building. The Building Commissioner has raised concern about enforcement of energy use and the encroachment on the building code requirements. The projects will need good documentation but there can be tension between what is in this zoning ordinance and the ability to enforce it. Energy efficiency and green building practices are included as an option to achieve the incentives. The Board would look for these measures but were not setting them as a threshold. One member said that National Grid is not doing any infrastructure improvements to allow for an increase in electrical usage and that may be a problem if everyone moves to electric heating. The Board will consider the environmental impact requirement more in consultation with the City Solicitor and Building Commissioner. There will be a public hearing with the Planning Board and City Council before the amendment is finalized. Under the new Housing Choice Law approval of the amendment would only require a simple majority vote of the City Council. Mr. Sadowski made a motion for the Planning Staff and Zoning Subcommittee to amend the draft zoning ordinance as discussed, pending final adjustments based on feedback from the City Solicitor and Building Commissioner, and forward the amendment to the City Council. Mr. King seconded the motion. By roll call, all voted in favor except for Ms. Petrillo who abstained from the vote. Documents: Draft Zoning Text and Map Amendment dated March 5, 2021 NEXT MEETING The next meeting is the annual meeting scheduled for Monday, March 22, 2021 at 7:30pm. The meeting adjourned at 8:40 pm.
Transcript
▶ 0:00 To read the statement again, I guess. I would just announce the meeting. Okay, this is the March 8th, 2020 meeting of the planning board, which is meeting remotely. And everyone who was listening previously knows we have to do roll call votes and we'll be very careful to mute our microphones so everyone can hear us. We have one item on our agenda tonight. It's a special meeting of the planning board and it's to talk about proposed incentive zoning and related parking regulation amendments to the zoning ordinance and we've been uh the zoning subcommittee has been working very hard on this so uh chairman of the zoning subcommittee will give us a short summary of what we're considering tonight okay so hopefully everyone received the latest
▶ 0:52 um update to the zoning articles which we circulated the updates were done for a couple reasons one was we received some feedback from the building Commissioner second some of you may know that we signed a new law in Massachusetts signed in early January that called housing choice which modified certain provisions the zoning acts related to boat requirements and special permit provide provide requirements and those appear to apply to some of the zoning that we're looking at so we we did kind of go through this very much in detail on the zoning subcommittee so I just was hoping to kind of get on some level items I can walk through the yellow in the highlighted provisions of the article itself very quickly if that works for everyone.
▶ 1:59 I think you might recall part of what we're proposing involves a map change and we'll show that at the end. It changes the zoning designation of an area close to where Caruso used to be in the area around it. If there's specific questions, that's fine, but I'm going to skip over stuff that was just clean up. I think in the table of conventional and density regulations. We added to this list and with a note about the dimensional incentives, I'll get to that in a little bit. We can skip down here so the changes to the parking. Provisions building inspector had some comments related to parking in the front yard set back. So there's some clean up here related to that. Most substantively and 235 dash 40.
▶ 2:58 Under the housing choice legislation. The cities and towns are allowed to adopt reductions zoning amendments that provided for. Reduction parking requirements, it can be done by a simple majority vote, but it's specified that it's done by special part. Previously identified this as a. To be done by site plan review. So now what we're proposing is that when a planning board is doing site plan review, they can also be a special permit, allow reduction in parking. And if there's a case where there's not a site plan review, the board of appeals will retain their right. To grant a parking reduction through special permit process as well. So, it's a little bit of a clean up to be consistent with the regulation and then some clean up on the language with for the requirements.
▶ 3:52 So, we can jump down to Greg is the special permit authority for the. The reduction in parking, that's also the planning board. In any, any situation where the site plan review plan board, if there's a situation that doesn't come to the planning board, such as just the change in use for. No site work, the board of appeals will also have the ability to reduce parking. Via their special permit. I see. Thanks. So, this next section is just basically some clean up from the building inspector. He didn't like the clear with. Provisions we had, so he wanted to go straight with a 10 foot 20 foot. And then we have to clean up some of the language regarding driveway aisles. So. Um, this will be consolidated a little bit further from what you see when we go to the.
▶ 4:54 The actual amendment, because we realized earlier tonight. That there's some efficiencies that can be worked in and how this is drafted, but. Effective, you know, we can get down to a 10 foot 1 way or 20 foot 2 way for residential and mixed use. Can I ask about the, um, the expanded with that are permitted at the way it's rewritten for. service stations and um for fire stations as well why service stations why would we allow up to 40 feet if i'm reading it correctly so that's the existing language right yeah i'm still questioning it i mean do we really want that from a traffic standpoint and is that necessary for the use i haven't really considered it i mean you know how we we don't want these free-for-all open you
▶ 5:52 You know, curb cuts and service stations, not always, but often do end up on a corner. And I think that aside from the distance requirement from the intersection. And have these sort of for all openings, I just, you know, just want to make sure that was conscious. I realized that before. John, John, would you want to. Pursuant to my review. Yeah, I mean, again, as much as we can keep it within this, you know, authority, I just see that we're going for as wide a curb cut as they can get as opposed to what they need. And that is maybe a minor item, but I don't think necessarily wider curb cuts are a good thing in general. Does that make sense? Yeah. I actually don't like the fact that it's written right now as it just may be increased.
▶ 6:56 If we have an opportunity to evaluate that, if it's appropriate, I think that's a good response. Yeah. I think even just adding that modest language, it could be demonstrated that it facilitates use or something, but still it's up to the discretion of the board. Okay, yeah, that is a language always been in there. Yeah. Really? Yeah, that's why we didn't really even we weren't even thinking about it. We just sort of glossed over that. We were looking at. No, no, I, I, I kind of agree with John. It's that's a pretty, pretty huge driveway. Yeah. Uh, yeah, even for a gas station, it's. Pretty wide, you know, I know you actually the most difficult vehicles getting into a gas station out there delivery trucks, but that's that's when they get deliveries and that's not frequent. But that seems like an awful wide driveway.
▶ 7:57 We should have some discretion on those. The concern I'd have here is won't there be times when. Won't there be times when we don't, there's no site plan review required. And so we might not always have authority over just a service station that's maybe just, I don't know. Coming in as a new service station, but there already was 1 there. I mean, there might be an awful lot of. And I'm just confused about exactly when we'd have jurisdiction. Over a service station or a fire station. That's a good point. I mean, any service station, if it involves site work. Should be subject to site plan review there. There's an existing 1 if there's no change of use. Yeah, not necessarily. Great. Okay, if there was an expansion of, like, the parking area or the building, we're expanding.
▶ 8:58 I'm more than 2500 square feet and it would trigger, but. So, if we're putting this in and try trying to at least exert jurisdiction when we do have it. Would it be a site plan review or would it be a special permit? I don't know, but 1, 1 thought I have is even if it's just. Those that cross the threshold of site plan review. I mean, I can think of is how many new service stations are there? Are we going to see in the future in Melrose? I think it's going to be more of a conversion over time as we convert to electric cars and therefore electric service. So I would see that as being. Other than getting like, we saw with the shell company. You know, over the years, it seems to me, it's going to be converting.
▶ 9:56 More than it is, you know, creating a new station. Right. And I don't know if that triggers the threshold to come in front of the planning board or not. Well, it will depend. Yeah, actually, I'm sorry. I think the answer to my question would be. If we could probably say as part of the site plan review process about the 40 feet. And it would only trigger occasionally, but. I think we could do that. Yeah, because I think that if there if there's an existing curb cut that that's large. That large, I'm not looking to see it be closed in. I'm just suggesting if somebody's doing enough work, but it triggers site plan for you. They not open up a curb that why that seems excessive and unnecessary. And not not positive, but I would consider generally a negative.
▶ 10:51 If other numbers agree. Yeah, I agree. And I'm okay with. Adding it even even recognizing that it may not necessarily capture every instance, but it would give us. In the instance of where, you know, there's your view, it gives the opportunity to review it. That's all I'm suggesting. That's fine. If other members agree. So I'm going to just assume we're good, but we can always come back to anything. So the last. Last part that we are looking at is the actual. Incentive zoning, as you'll see here, the biggest change we made is previously had been drafted to only apply to the BA 2. After consideration, we drafted it to apply to the BA 1 as well. Part of the rationale for limiting to BA 2 is we are concerned about
▶ 11:58 The possibility of allowing a 5th story in the district, and to address that. It's drafted so that only in the district can that 5th story be permitted. We also. Had previously had language that allowed the to be increased to be consistent with. A 5th story, but there was, we were running into problems where that would not necessarily allow an increase if you were only going to 4 stores. So. Upon reflection, we just went with a maximum of 3.5. The underlying for both districts right now is 2.0. so this represents a realistic, you know, a significant increase. for FFR. And the last thing we added was we recognize that there's certain buildings and sites in BA I and BA II that essentially have no open space capacity.
▶ 13:03 So instead of having a nominal open space, which is five percent the requirement, we are suggesting that you know through a special permit the requirement can be replaced with roof decks balconies green roofs or plazas um which in many cases provide an actually more like meaningful and usable open space amenity um the last thing we had it previously in there but we're retaining the you know requirement or um the planning board's ability to require a step back of the facade to minimize bulk that's just been moved around from the prior version. So with that I think I want to make you know again it is an expansion from the BA2 only to the BA1. We tweaked the FAR a little bit but I'm happy to discuss further just
▶ 14:01 wanted to provide that overview. So Greg I take it that when we see the map it'll be a lot more helpful for the members here to understand you know what affects potentially in the future but I take it that none of this reduces any current rights in terms of use or density it just allows for expansion of density under certain circumstances for new developments that essentially correct that's right it's with development also due to a special permit and it's with development you know are providing significant amenities or community benefits as part of the special permit okay and you know why I'm asking that I mean you know if we were to reduce owners ability for certain uses it's going to go through a public hearing process I take it anyway but it might
▶ 14:57 elicit a way to react negatively yeah i know in fact under the housing place legislation you know what's allowed is that you know citizens can adopt zoning amendments that um eliminate restrictions or um setback requirements or parking requirements if if it will result in the opportunity to build more housing or mixed-use development And so our whole approach on this was providing additional opportunities for development, you know, responsibly and, you know, in encouraging development that the city would like to see. So that we're trying to fit it in that bucket of promoting good development as opposed to eliminating existing rights. Providing the opportunity for the city to receive some potentially sizable committee. Can I ask a question about open space?
▶ 16:03 Sure, so if a development site. Starts at the back of sidewalk and there, you know, and we're building back right off the street and there's really no opportunity around the building. for open space. What is the purpose of open space for a building like that? Is it for the benefit of the people that will be residing in that building or is it for the benefit of the people that live around that building? Generally, how do we regard that? I'm thinking about the change to creating a green roof or a plot or a roof deck or something like that, which is clearly for the Benefit of the people in the building. Yeah, I think there's also a recognition that a lot of these properties in the hard, you know, dense business districts.
▶ 16:56 Denise Gaffey: And in our downtown don't have any additional lottery, right? They're mostly built out by buildings. So, right, so there really isn't an opportunity, even though there's only may require 5% open face. It really isn't an opportunity to to provide that. So that's why we came up with this provision that. allow for the plenty board to essentially waive that strict requirement um in replace of these other more uh creative ways of allowing for open space like the roof deck for the balcony how would we make a decision on a case-by-case basis whether we would recommend something that's private to the residents versus a contribution to a city fund um well this isn't talking about a contribution to a fund neither the streetscape fund
▶ 17:51 Denise Gaffey: well that's that's different any any um development that uses this incentive tool at all um to add an additional story or to relax the floor ratio will as a threshold contribute to the street agreement and then they will provide additional benefits which are enumerated here Okay, so those, those 2 things, those 2 things aren't aren't linked. We would basically determine whether or not. Some sort of entity can be provided for that development for the benefit of whichever group we think could probably realize, you know, I should clarify. I mean, you're right. If they're going to use this. Provision, they'll still, they will also be contributing. But isn't that isn't the thought also that there is sometimes to meet the 5%, we might be looking at a building that's putting a little strip of grass along the side of the building.
▶ 18:54 It technically means 5%, but it's not meaningful to anyone. Exactly. There might be time when we want the flexibility to say, you know. What would be nicer is if you had a roof garden. And, you know, maybe it might be slightly visible from the street. It's more for the people that live there, but that's more meaningful. So, I think this is, I always thought that was to give us that kind of flexibility that maybe that 5% wasn't really helping that much. Anyway, we might see a place where we wanted to be able to wave it for this kind of. Uh, plus, yeah, I think that's right in my experience is that 5% usually ends up being the area that you can't use for some other reason. It's the alleyway that's subject to an easement or, you know, where the dumpster is going.
▶ 19:41 Or something, it's really, it's painful. Yeah. And increasingly we're seeing developers also ask for relief from that. Like, you just can't provide it, right? Well, this gives there's a little more. I think this is a nice tool to allow for something meaningful. For the for the tenants. i think it always be a case-by-case basis too you know depending on you know the surrounding buildings and what space is adjacent and all that there's a lot of factors to it and when i sense open space provision it provides you know many of those things that you mentioned carla you know it is for the people there it provides again space and it is for maybe the public i i don't think we have the scale of developments you know like in big cities where
▶ 20:36 they want a public open space type thing you know i don't think we have the scale of development that would call for that kind of stuff but there is it does benefit again the neighborhood in the areas too in in a lot of cases as well as the the users of that building but it's going to be useful i mean if it's like you said if it's just a little piece of grass over here big deal you know what does that do for anybody you know gonna have to purpose and provide a benefit to someone No, exactly. I'm thinking of the case of 419 Main Street, and we've been going back and forth with them on open space to try to achieve something meaningful. And it's not really for them. It's to screen their view of the building and the parking lot and all that utilitarian stuff for the people that are back there approaching the building.
▶ 21:23 I think it's a good tool. I agree. And this makes sense to, um, I know we want to switch so that essentially covers the, the changes and we're happy to go into a little more detail. I didn't know. We do have a few attendees that. Indicated they wanted to make comments. I don't know if it makes sense to, I believe most of the comments directed at the density incentives program. Or we can switch to cover the map change 1st. I don't know. I was inclined to look at the map change just because it's pretty simple. It's one area switching from BA1 to BA1 to 2 and the other from BA1 to BA2. That way, everyone will know where we're talking about and then although technically, it's not a public hearing if we have
▶ 22:17 Denise Gaffey: some participants from the public that would like to make a comment, probably a good time to hear it. But I'd like to see the map for everybody. I think it's pretty straightforward. I think Emma's on it, right? Thanks, so the 1st, couple of slides are the same have not changed at all. This is that area that is surrounded by Main Street to West Wyoming and grow. and all the way west to just east of Bird Street. So all of the parcels that are yellow and that are surrounded by the dash mark are currently BA1, which is our downtown zoning. And the proposal is to rezone all of those parcels to the BA2, which is our TOD, what we're calling our transit-oriented zoning districts. And so that hasn't changed from what we reviewed before.
▶ 23:22 Denise Gaffey: We're going to jump ahead to the 4th slide and so this is the area of the other 1 we talked about previously was. Taking a small portion of the medical district, which is in red and that's the district medical district. And we spent some time thinking about those parcels, especially around the intersection of Maine and Emerson. And along the street, we thought a better fit. For zoning is the 1, which again is our downtown zoning and. Many of the parcels, many of the buildings there today don't really don't. They are a benefit today to the 1, to the medical district and also the medical district allows for 8 stories, which. You know, it makes sense for a hospital, but it doesn't make sense for.
▶ 24:15 Denise Gaffey: We're trying to redevelop, for example, and so that's what we're trying to we're trying to do. So, when we met when we met when I met with small groups with city counselors to, to give them some sort of basic understanding of zoning. We're going to propose. So, it was suggested that we consider pulling the boundary of this changing district to the all the way out to Lebanon street. Initially, we initially the eastern boundary. Ended right at the parcel behind Caruso's on East Emerson. That 2nd, 1 in, and it ended at the 1st parcel on main street on the South side of Emerson. So, we'd be pulling it out to Lebanon street and encompassing an additional 10 parcels. It's part of that part of this change and that's that was.
▶ 25:12 That was the suggested recommendation that we look at that. So, Denise, do I understand that the area that's dash now? 8 stories is permitted because it's medical use. Yeah. Wow. I know. It's just a kind of a weird in the medical district. I think it'd be hard to get any story building on any of these individual parcels, right? Because they're pretty small. Right. Right. But, um, but even even, you know, aside from that, the uses kind of better correlate with the, I think the only exception is. To be very transparent about this is the residential uses are allowed in the BD. Straight up, so single family and multi family, and they're not. They're not permitted in the VA1, but mixed use is, and you can see a lot of the underlying
▶ 26:14 Denise Gaffey: building typology there is mixed use. In the past, Denise, correct me if I'm wrong with some of the overlays done in the past, we have gone in the direction of limiting more the medical use because we didn't see that as vibrant as other uses in the city. Is that correct? Yeah, if you recall a while ago, we did, we did modify the zoning to allow for medical use in the VA too, but only on an upper story. So not on the 1st floor. For that, for that reason, but that that tool is limited to the VA too. Okay. Any thoughts about this? Would you extend it to Lebanon then? Or what's the, what's the suggestion when we make this proposal to the council that. It would expand the boundaries. 11 on it is it possible just to expand that or.
▶ 27:22 You know, the map here, so we can see what that would encompass. It's shown. See, the gosh, that's been going out to 11 on now. Oh, it does now. Oh, yeah. Sorry. Oh, I see. I see it. Yep. It's shown. I see. Yeah, thank you. And it also identifies what each of the existing uses are. So you can see. What's there now, so this is up to the board, obviously to support as part of the zoning change. But it makes sense to me. Yeah, it was always a. A judgment call where to stop the change. So, going a little bit further, it just, it probably makes a couple of nonconforming uses, but it. Makes sense in this area to make it more of a. Business districts in a medical district, so would medical be prohibited in terms of new development.
▶ 28:25 Denise Gaffey: Is that if you scroll down the table. In the context that I see, you know, we know there's medical offices now, right? Yep, yeah, so the. Well, this table table highlights some of the uses and how they are. So, how they're different and actually, I would include this 1 omits the mixed use, which we should probably include because. The mixed use is allowed by right and the and the. So, there's no change there and also, I think it's kind of worth pointing out that the miscellaneous professional use and office use is allowed by right in both. as well so we'll probably amend that table just to show that so literally what is the change in this table with respect to medical office well and a new medical office would
▶ 29:24 require a special permit okay so if there were a medical office there now and it was changed to a use that is allowed by this table if then they wanted to convert it back to medical office they'd have to go through the We'd have to follow the process that the table dictates. Okay. Any other comments from members of the board before we see if there's any. Public members that might want to make a comment. All right. Well, if there are any participants that are here. Listening from the public and would like to make a comment. Or ask a question if you could somehow signify, I guess, either in the chat or by waving your hand or contacting. The city chats, probably the best way. So, we have 1 member in McSweeney who's raised his hand.
▶ 30:31 So, we'll unmute him. Okay. Thanks everybody. 10 McSweeney, 160 West. The comment is on the parking reduction provisions section, which I think right now is 235.40. And thinking through the way that 1216 Essex went, right? Mark Carroll and his team actually had reached out to the federal committee a few months before the hearing and asked if we had ideas for making the building more bike friendly. And our top recommendation was, you got to put more bike parking in the, you know, in the garage. And he said, yeah, you know, we don't really, really think we have space for it. And we said, you should drop a parking space. And he said, yeah, I don't think we can do that. And then they got in front of the zoning board and the zoning board made the same comment and they said, sure, we can do that.
▶ 31:32 And some of the provisions right now. You know, I think that as as a base case, right where we see buildings in locations like that, which are, we really, really, really would prefer as a city to have as few new cars coming downtown. That's possible and right now what we're talking about, you know, approximately public parking. That's that's car park. You know, open spaces for car sharing like zip car. You know, that's we don't have that in Melrose right now. I'm wondering if there is something we can do and maybe it's as simple as. Putting in a number here, which just clarifies. That provision of a higher number, a higher number of bike parking spaces. Would serve as evidence. Of a developer's ability.
▶ 32:34 To reduce the parking requirements. In the same way that, you know, you've added the proximity to public transportation, just to make clear. To developers, or anyone reading the zoning that. That works in their favor, I think if you have some. You know, brings a 14 unit, um. Building downtown and they say, we've got 14 bike parking spaces. I think to have the zoning clearly. Say, yes, that sounds like a great qualification for you to reduce the, um, the, the parking requirement on site. I wonder if we can do something like that to make more explicit. The city's desire to. To have that be a primary option for people who are living downtown. That's that's that's what my comment is. That's that's my 1st idea is to.
▶ 33:35 Is to just put it in there as a part of that section. And then, I guess the other thing I would say is. You know, the requirement of having a. A study from a traffic engineer, if you're doing a building like that. Where you're, you're reducing the parking and maybe provisioning by parking. this reads to me like um they would still be required to do a traffic report which seems a little inconsistent to me but um yeah i think you'll see where i'm going with this um so appreciate the time um and thank you very much thank you is there any other participant that uh that's listening or member of the public that wanted to make a comment I've heard from Susan Murphy and then Alan Katz, so I'll unmute Susan first.
▶ 34:35 Okay, thanks. Okay, Susan. Hi, can you hear me? Yeah. So, yes, I'm Susan Murphy. I'm chiming in as a member of the Energy Commission where I've worked on the greenhouse gas inventory and the Net Zero Action Plan that's being worked on and run the heat smart melrose campaign to promote heat pumps and we you know we including ellen had provided some sort of more specific and rigorous language about energy efficiency and such in the past that has made it into the final language and so i wanted to ask you to reconsider including something more specific and just and ellen actually has some some language and But the context I just want to point out is that the City of Melrose has made a commitment to be net zero by 2050, and I hopefully don't have to explain how essential that is for mitigating the climate change impacts that we're already seeing and are only going to get worse.
▶ 35:40 And we do a lot of work with existing buildings, trying to make them more energy efficient and bring in clean energy. And it is so difficult and so expensive to retrofit these measures into existing buildings. And I think it's really widely recognized that new buildings need to be net zero, net zero ready, like moving in that direction, ASAP. And one of the challenges for a municipality is that we don't have control of that because we can't require higher energy efficiency. and we can't require specific heating systems because it's all governed by the state building code. And so we are not allowed to require something different. And the state, the board that promotes the state building code is sort of controlled to a lot of extent by developers. So
▶ 36:29 it's very difficult to get really aggressive energy efficiency changes in there. So one of the ways municipalities can address this is through this kind of incentive, by giving a density bonus, requiring higher energy efficiency, requiring clean energy. If you do that, you're not limited by what the building code requires. So we really, really want to support this. But the way it's written is not going to result necessarily unless the developer just happens to go in that direction with buildings that we are not going to have to retrofit well all within the useful lifetime of the building and its systems. So we really think there needs to be more rigorous requirements in terms of energy efficiency
▶ 37:16 and clean energy. And so I think Ellen has the specific language that she had already sent to Denise, but the idea would be like, at a minimum, you're going to build a bigger building, you're making a bigger problem and a bigger retrofit problem unless you require it to be more energy efficient and that at least they should have a whatever this building is should use less energy and produce less carbon emissions than the one they would have built as a right and that could be you know in the requirements like you can you have to contribute to that street scape fund and you have to show that you're not using any more energy or producing more emissions that would have been done by a building below right it's totally doable if you get a 25 bigger building you can make it 25
▶ 38:00 more efficient use heat pumps instead of gas heating it's very doable and it would you know put us in this issue you know i just hate to see us you guys approving some building that you know there's open space benefits or something but we end up going in and the developer has you know not spent as much on insulation and then we're going in in 10 15 years telling condo owners that they need to do expensive retrofits to meet a net zero standard that could have so much less expensively been done when the building is built so that's the that's the comment i want to make thank you for listening thank you and then we have one more person okay ellen cats right hi Hi, you can hear me correct? Yeah, OK, thanks. So Ellen can't 70 line street just to follow the great.
▶ 39:05 Entree Susan Murphy just just stated, but. Yeah, what we're recommending is that the board require a higher level of building performance or prerequisite before other community benefits are provided for consideration. So, as an example, you know, you know, there's some specific language could be that following the set the section that requires contributions to the streetscape fund. There will be a requirement of documentation that demonstrates that the environmental impact specifically the energy use and and emissions of the proposed building and incorporating the increased height if they are dimensions, I guess, in the BA.2 section allowed under the section, but that it should be equal to a length of the building had it not sought such incentives.
▶ 40:07 Whenever the requirement like this, there's sometimes some concern that, oh, it's going to be expensive to model the building and to have an engineer prove this, document this. But in actuality, engineers for these types of projects are already doing calculations besides the heating and the cooling systems. So that, I mean, this is really, you know, it's consistent with the work that they'd be doing anyway. And another thing to consider would be that we could be encouraging the developers to meet Passive House or perhaps LEED Gold standards or certification by stating that buildings that come in proposing to meet those rating levels will have a has been satisfied. So, in that case, we're basically, you know, encouraging them to to move to that level. And, you know, as Susan said, is that the community benefits should be assessed on this baseline improvement?
▶ 41:21 Because, you know, we want to ensure that, you know, that the benefits do not get outweighed by, you know, the by excessive energy use and and emissions from a development that received incentives um and you know i i think this is reinventing the wheel it might be new for melrose but it's it's you know it's becoming more and more common around the state um so in any event um and i'm happy to you know i can send out the specific language um again as a suggestion so thank you thank you Is there anyone else who had a comment or suggestion? Okay. As a board, we should talk about any of the sections that are something we want to discuss before we decide what we're sending to the counselors. But it looks like the two suggestions we just got for changes would be
▶ 42:39 actually adding a number 8 maybe in 235-40 under C just saying one of the things that we'd consider in parking reduction provisions would also be provision of bicycle parking and maybe alternative transportation facilities you know such as offering electric bikes so you know I think that was what was happening on an Essex Street so it's specifying something that we might consider anyway but it's asking for a specific uh note here that it's something we'd look at it does come up here also um in the incentives for um for um increased density and then as i understand it and there was a little bit of feedback or i was having a little trouble following some of the last speaker because of the clarity of the audio but that it
▶ 43:42 would be um asking the uh developer to demonstrate that the increased density or taller building would would have no more environmental impact than the smaller one that was allowed by right Right meaning environmental impact, I guess, energy usage or admissions. I don't know. What does everyone think? I mean, this is something that can come up during public hearing too. When we get to that phase of any zoning ordinance change. I know we did review that language in an earlier meeting. We did, we did. Yeah. I mean, you know, honestly, as far as adding some language regarding the bicycle spaces, I think that's fine. That makes sense to me. I like the idea about the green building thing. The problem I have is
▶ 44:52 you know, the building commissioner has raised concern about enforcement of any of these measures. So, I You know, building encroaching on a building code issue can be tricky. So. If if we had a solid basis to. If we felt comfortable from a legal perspective that we could do it. You know, I, I'd be okay, but as it stands, I think we're, we're including it in as an option. To demonstrate compliance for the incentive. I certainly think would be something we look for. but we're not mandating it as a requirement as a threshold to meet the incentive so as much as everyone comes before us and checks that box i am i have been concerned about having that be a threshold for the incentive because of its encroachment to the building code
▶ 45:55 the building commissioner uh raising that sorry go ahead jack The other issue I have, I mean, I can see a big move away from fossil fuel for heat in this area. And I think on the face of it, it's a good idea. The downside to it is every building you do that to, you're increasing the electrical consumption over a building that would be, let's call it a hybrid where you have gas heat and electrical for cooling um and and frankly i don't see a national grid doing any infrastructure upgrades to uh accommodate everybody switching over to electric heat which is what heat pumps are um so at some point in time and i don't know what that is because i don't know what the capacity of the grid is but we're going to reach a point where
▶ 46:57 we can only do so much changeover from from fossil fuels to uh to uh electric heat and um you know until i see some sort of a move by by national grid to put heavier cables in and and it would really be nice to see them on the ground rather than more and more electrical cables being strung through the city. It's a complicated thing. It takes more than just language is my feeling and as a bicyclist, and I know there are at least three of us on this board that are bicyclists. It's not practical to bicycle all year round in Massachusetts. I know that as much as I love to be out, you know, it's been several weeks since it's been. Practical to use a bicycle to go anywhere. So. Again, that's a, you know, and if we start taking away too much parking.
▶ 48:01 And requiring a bicycle parking. That could have an effect on the area a little bit. My opinion. There's so many thoughts because it always sounds good to do the, the most green thing. Other members of the board didn't we have already what's written in examples. Of the kinds of things that the board would consider. In terms of allowing the higher density, whatever it might be. Or we could at least write that in if it isn't written in already. Not not a definitive threshold, but just that. Consideration for added. You know, bicycle parking, are you talking about reduction provisions? I'm not sure where it was, but I remember reading it and what we reviewed tonight. Or what I reviewed prior to the meeting tonight, I thought there were examples of of the kinds of considerations the board would.
▶ 49:11 You know, consider in its deliberation, whether. To allow a certain other. You know, ability to identify or eliminate certain other requirements. Well, obviously, Greg, you can probably, Denise, you can clarify, but I think we mentioned bicycle parking specifically in the incentives that for the increased height and density. But I think tonight's suggestion was the parking reduction provisions to just add it as one of the considerations to allow reduction in parking. We'd have to be careful thinking about how much we would, but in this case of what he's building on Essex Street, that suggests we had done one less space for parking. It would give us some flexibility. It's a suggestion to add it to the list of considerations, right?
▶ 50:24 Denise Gaffey: I don't see any downside to that. I think it's just another factor to consider. But I think it does, but to the caller's point, it also calls it, you know, calls attention to. Yeah, as a, as a, as an issue, and it's a way to get to that parking reduction. Or, at least for consideration in the right direction. Right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I just can say, it's 1 of those situations where we have a. Illustrative list that. Probably could be eliminated altogether in, but by providing an illustrative list, it almost seems prescriptive to what someone should look at. So, you don't want to miss something that could be a viable reduction technique. So, right. What Greg is saying is the housing legislation very succinctly.
▶ 51:20 Denise Gaffey: The part of the planning where I can reduce the parking, I think, you know. For providing multi family housing, it just makes it a really doesn't. You know, we don't have to elaborate on all these different factors, but but I do think they are good from an awareness standpoint. I think overall, in terms of, you know, climate change. we're trying to turn an aircraft carrier around here is maybe the analogy that comes around your mind and i can appreciate for those that take it seriously and understand you know the damage that's been done and try to turn this around if we don't take uh dramatic steps more quickly um we've got a tsunami coming here and uh that's the balance here it's difficult to
▶ 52:06 try to do too much too fast but at the same time we've got to do a lot so you can begin to turn that turn it around so i am i'll just point out that ellen did drop in the chat the language that she was she had proposed earlier as a um as an additional provision or additional threshold requirements we can certainly review it with the city solicitor and with the building commissioner And get some feedback. Yeah, I see. Her suggestion is to make it D. 1. B, so it would be required. It would not be a consideration as part of 2 D. 2. That's that's what they're recommending. Right? Right. And I, I do think we probably want to ask the city solicitor. What he thought, because we were already cautioned that we may be pushing.
▶ 53:15 Beyond what we have the authority to do, although, you know, we're in favor of doing everything we can. Wasn't the building commissioner also that I heard that. Was concerned about being able to enforce that where there's. I can appreciate this on his shoulders here to. Try to force or, or, you know, check that it's being adhered to. That's correct. He was concerned with enforcement several of the provisions as part of his review. So, we're holding the line on a lot of them. And, you know, hopefully we get projects with good documentation that make it easy to agree to and approve. But there is there's tension between what. Is being what we're asking for is in consideration of the incentives.
▶ 54:21 And with what is really covered by zoning, someone call that healthy tension. Other comments by members of the board. We were hoping tonight that we would be able to come up with a final draft that we're ready to submit to the city council as a proposed zoning change. I guess I generally would like to suggest that we could. Take what's been drafted, um, run a couple of the provisions we discussed tonight and, you know, run those to ground. Um. And if everyone is on board, you know. Pass it on, obviously, once it goes to the city council, there's. The planning board and city council joint hearing, so it's not final until it's voted on, but. I think, you know, at the point where we probably can.
▶ 55:28 Put these out there, we're talking about doing 2 separate ordinances 1 for the map change. And 1, for everything else with the everything else now being a simple majority vote by the city council. On housing choice, so, you know, I don't know if we need formal motion, but, you know, I. My hope to let it roll once we tweak a couple of these items per tonight. What you're suggesting is for the board to vote tonight. on what we've seen and then um you know allow the zoning subcommittee with the office of community development to do the tweaks i would i would advocate that and make it a motion is there a second i'll second that second okay um further discussion i mean i think we're uh unless i hear
▶ 56:27 anything uh anything else from members of the board i think that the tweaks that we're talking about are just a few items that came up for discussion maybe adding something about bicycle parking or provision in the parking reduction and then looking into how far we can what we can require for environmental impact legally on the incentive for the for increased density And I think there were a couple language clarifications. We just, I think the driveway aisles to be clear on that and make sure that's clarifying exactly what we want. But I think that's pretty much it. It's the draft that we have the map changes we have and those 3 things. That can be done with the Sony subcommittee, probably just share and the city solicitor and planning department.
▶ 57:28 So, I would include that in the motion and otherwise to accept as, as drafted with those items that you identified. Denise and Greg and my is that pretty is that pretty fair? Absolutely. All right. So we do have a motion and a 2nd. Any further discussion by members of the board anything anyone wants to raise. Before it go, I mean, clearly, there's going to be it goes to the city council as a zoning amendment as to the amendment proposals and we will have a public hearing and the public will be allowed to speak. And there can be modifications. Before final vote before we send our review to the. City council, and before they finally vote, so there's still time, but if there's anything else. There's not anything else. Why don't we have a vote and you can say aye or nay
▶ 58:30 when your name is called. Jack Welch? Aye. Greg Sampson? Aye. Carla Morelli? Okay. Beth Delahaye? Aye. And Andrea Susan Ward? Aye. That's everybody. Okay. So it's unanimous. We'll submit that to the City Council and then I'm sure we will hear back from them for public hearing and recommendations. Well, we should have an update on that at our next meeting later this month. That's right we have 1 on March 22nd, right? That's our regular meeting. That's right. Is there anything else on our agenda tonight? No. Okay, the only other business I can think of is to remember that March 22nd is our annual meeting. So, I need to hear from people about zoning or about subcommittees, like zoning subcommittee or design review, especially.
▶ 1:00:17 All right, because remember, we have to be voting on that and also appoint voting on chair and clerk and clarifying the appointments to the subcommittees. On the 22nd. Okay. Okay, thank you for everyone for coming and we're adjourned for tonight. Good night.