Planning Board — 2022-02-28

Minutes

MELROSE PLANNING BOARD MEETING MINUTES Regular Meeting Monday, February 28, 2022 7:30 PM Remote Meeting PRESENT: Tim Bailey, Beth Delahaij, Anne DeSouza Ward, Brian Gregory, Paul King, Robert Mercado, Carla Morelli, Greg Sampson & Jack Welch ABSENT: None STAFF PRESENT: Denise Gaffey, Director and City Planner, Lori Massa, Senior Planner & Maya Noviski, Assistant Planner The meeting was called to order at 7:36 PM by Mr. Sampson. Pursuant to An Act Extending Certain COVID-19 Measures Adopted During the State of Emergency signed by Governor Baker on June 16, 2021, this meeting was be conducted via remote participation. Specific information 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 could be found on the City of Melrose’s website, at www.cityofmelrose.org. 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, or in the event that we are unable to do so, they would be post on the mmtv3.org website an audio or video recording, transcript, or other comprehensive record of proceedings as soon as possible after the meeting. A link was also available on www.cityofmelrose.org. Meeting access information was found at the following link: www.cityofmelrose.org/remotemeetings. APPROVAL OF MINUTES Planning Board Regular Meeting, January 24, 2022 Board Members had no comments or adjustments to previous minutes. Mr. Mercado made a motion to approve the meeting minutes. Mr. Gregory seconded the motion. All members voted in favor. None were opposed. SITE PLAN REVIEW Case 22-001, 148 Myrtle St., Brown Dog Properties, LLC Robert Bell, Attorney, began by introducing Matt and Joe Roman, the Applicants, and owners of Brown Dog Properties LLC. Attorney Bell took care to note Brown Dog Properties’ reputation for high quality work and the Planning Board’s prior support for projects developed through the company in the City. Attorney Bell continued by describing the property, previously owned by Planning Board Meeting Minutes February 28, 2022 Page 2 of 6 Brad Hutchinson, and explaining how this project not only fulfills the historical goals of the City but will also raise the City’s revenues while increasing the number of available housing units. He noted that it would not be feasible to have an affordable unit onsite but that the payment that they are required to make to the Affordable Housing Trust Fund will be substantial because these will be expensive units. Attorney Bell introduced Joe Roman who went on to describe the deficiencies with the existing property including issues with the foundation and the front porch, and various structural elements including high levels of lead paint. Mr. Roman argued that these concerns justified completely dismantling for reuse or tearing down the existing structure and replacing it with a net zero capable building complete with EV chargers, solar power, and bicycle storage. This building will have 5 units with three bedrooms per unit and one parking space per unit. The developers have met with potential neighbors who have expressed support and with department heads who requested moving the trash enclosure, expanding the sprinkler and utility storage room, and adjusting the landscape plan. Mr. Roman noted that they are still working on conducting a traffic survey and updating the engineering plans, specifically around storm water management. Ms. Gaffey concluded by explaining that the Planning Staff supports the project and the reduced parking request although the Applicant will have to provide justification for the parking reduction for the Planning Board to grant a special permit for the reduction. The Board then opened the case for public comment. Two community members spoke, John Ferrara of 18 Vine Street and Finn McSweeney of 160 W Wyoming, and one community member, Julia Kono of 154 Myrtle Street, submitted written comments during the hearing. The Board received letters from neighbor Richard Curl and the Melrose Pedestrian and Bicycle Committee prior to the hearing. The first community member who spoke expressed concern over the limited parking the development offers. He mentioned that there is a library close by and during the summer, traffic becomes increasingly heavy. He was worried that the development would not be able to contain overflow parking and would negatively impact the already busy street. This sentiment was echoed in Ms. Kono’s comments. Mr. Curl’s letter included tempered support and a comment about the design of the front porch. A Member asked about this comment and the Applicants like the porch design but will speak with their architect about the comments. Finn McSweeny, representing the Pedestrian and Bike Committee, voiced the Committee’s support for this project. He believes that this transit-oriented development has the right amount of parking spaces due to its proximity to public transportation, its walkability, and the developer’s commitment to bicycle access and storage. Several Board Members were in agreement that the number of parking spaces posed an issue. In response, Matt Roman highlighted the surrounding municipal parking lots with available spaces that residents’ guests could use. The City has an is a parking permit program that allows for parking in municipal lots overnight for a fee. Mr. Roman suggested that building managers will encourage people to not park on Vine St. or Myrtle St. and will alert people to the aforementioned parking spaces. Attorney Bell also suggested that these units will attract a certain group of people that are not bothered by limited parking, and buildings with a similar parking Planning Board Meeting Minutes February 28, 2022 Page 3 of 6 design have proven to be viable in other locations. Additionally, the reduced parking will allow for additional housing which will help the City meet its housing production goals. Several Board Members agreed with Mr. Roman and Attorney Bell and did not feel that this was a point of concern. Other points of concern from the Board included the accessibility of the bicycle storage room, soil testing results, a lack of safety measures around parking areas, snow storage and removal, and trash pickup. In response to the bicycle storage, Joe Roman explained that the storage would be for the winter and for longer periods of time; during the nicer months the property provides for residents to be able to park their bikes outdoors. Additionally, those who choose to bring their bicycles into their respective units can do so relatively easily due to design elements that intentionally allow for easy transport. In reference to the soil testing, Matt Roman explained that four test pits were completed with positive results – the soil is gravel, which will drain well. They dug 10 to 12 feet and did not find ground water. Mr. Roman also noted that due to the property’s elevation, which is higher than the neighboring properties, it is precluded from the water and soil issues facing surrounding properties and he will update the project’s drawings to reflect this. Mr. Roman went on to describe the curb work that will be done in the front of the property to mitigate parking safety hazards and the walkways around the property which will differentiate the parking and pedestrian spaces. Mr. Roman also noted that they would like to keep the retaining wall already on the driveway. The project’s current snow storage area raised concerns among many Board Members, both in size and placement. In the event that snow will have to be plowed and stored, the tenant occupying the fifth parking space will have to move their vehicle due to the location of the snow storage area. In addition to noting that there was not an abundance of space for snow storage and that the building may have to remove the snow from the premises, Mr. Roman suggested that with proper coordination, he does not think that the snow storage placement will be problematic. Board Members pushed back and requested more clarification on the logistics of a contingency plan if a tenant has to move their car and is unable or unavailable to do so. One member suggested possible uncoupling the parking spaces from the units. Additionally, Members raised concerns over the parking and space limitations for service trucks and snow plows. In response to questions over trash removal, Mr. Roman explained that there will be space for six totes along the driveway which will serve the entire building and for recycling and trash. One Board Member suggested adding a composting service to this building to help reduce both waste and environmental impact. A member pointed out that the design of the building and site works well with the context of the neighborhood. The landscape plan includes substantial planting that will enhance the development. This case concluded with Mr. Sampson requesting that the Applicant submit the parking memo, the response to the Engineering Department’s comments, and to further develop the plans for snow removal and storage. A motion to continue this case to the next Planning Board meeting on Planning Board Meeting Minutes February 28, 2022 Page 4 of 6 March 28th, 2022, was made by Mr. Mercado, seconded by Mr. Welch, and all members voted to continue the case. Documents: Application Materials, January 3, 2022 Response to Preliminary Review, January 3, 2022 Civil Plans, January 4, 2022 Landscape Plans, January 4, 2022 Heat Pump Locations, January 4, 2022 Construction Management Plan, January 4, 2022 Stormwater Management, January 4, 2022 Inspectional Services Letter, July 20, 2021 Green Building Overview, February 28, 2022 Case 21-002-R, 735 Newburyport Turnpike, John T. Pugh II John T. Pugh II, Applicant, appealed to the Planning Board for a modification on a previously issued site approval for the project at 735 Newburyport Turnpike. Mr. Pugh began by presenting a brief summary of the project which involves the demolition of the existing structures on the lot and the construction of a 94,000 square-foot warehouse/distribution facility. This property sits on the Melrose/Malden boundary and changes to the plans that the Melrose Planning Board approved occured during review by the City of Malden in connection with the Massachusetts Department of Transportation (Mass DOT) review. These changes include the reconfiguration of two of the three site driveways to improve truck circulation, an additional tractor trailer entry off Route 1, less onsite parking, less open space and increased permeable pavement onsite. Additionally, a channelized island was added to prohibit a left turn on Rt. 99 and a deceleration lane was added off of Route 1. Furthermore, the plans include the dumpster locations, bicycle racks on the Malden side of the property, and modified snow storage. Mr. Pugh sought variances from the Zoning Board of Appeals for modifications for the open space requirement and the maximum driveway width. Once Mr. Pugh concluded his presentation, Board Members responded with questions and comments about the need for the proposed number of parking spaces and the ability for trucks to enter the site from Route 99. Mr. Pugh said that trucks will be able to enter from Route 99. He also said that they are trying to balance the size of the building, maneuvering space, open space and parking. A member pointed that there may be a better way to arrange the parking rows to gain more open space. Mr. Sampson felt that while the safety improvements to the site plan were acceptable, he did not support the additional open space relief requested, maintaining consistency with how the Board felt previously. Many Board Members voiced their agreement with this stance. The Board then opened the case for Public Comment to which there was none. Planning Board Meeting Minutes February 28, 2022 Page 5 of 6 Ms. Morelli made a motion to approve the site plan with modifications and which was seconded by Ms. DeSouza Ward. By roll call all members voted in favor to approve the revisions to the site plan and none were opposed. Documents: Application Materials, February 1, 2022 Description of Proposed Changes, February 1, 2022 Revised Plans, December 22, 2021 Operations and Maintenance Plan submitted Feb 1, 2022 Planning Board Decision for Case 21-002, August 9, 2021 Previously Approved Site Plans Architecture Plans Previous Traffic Impact Study Letter Previous Storm water Management OTHER Housing Production Plan Update Ms. Gaffey gave a presentation on the final Housing Production Plan. This plan has had a robust public process over the past 16 months. Ms. Gaffey began her presentation by reintroducing the Housing Production Plan, discussed the planning process and concluded by summarizing the plan’s recommendations. The Housing Production Plan will be presented to City Council who will hold a vote in the middle of March and if approved, it will go to DHCD for final approval. After discussion, Mr. Welch made a motion to approve the Housing Production Plan and Mr. Mercado seconded the motion. By roll call all members voted in favor to approve the plan and none were opposed. Documents: Housing Production Plan, February 2022 RECOMMENDATIONS TO THE BOARD OF APPEALS Board of Appeals Public Hearing on March 9, 2022: Case 21-002-R, 735 Newburyport Turnpike, Pugh Management, LLC The Board found that the improved safety plans for the project were acceptable but decided to maintain consistency with their previous recommendation to grant a variance for the parking and driveway width but not the open space reduction. A motion was made by Ms. DeSouza Ward and was seconded by Ms. Morelli to send this recommendation. By roll call all members voted in favor and none were opposed. Documents: Applicant Materials for Case 21-002-R Case 22-003, 66 Beech Ave, Johanna & Kevin Cohan The Board did not have any issues with the proposed addition. They discussed the removal of a large window with no proposed window in the addition creating a blank wall on the house. They decided to not specifically put a recommendation about this issue in the letter. Ms. DeSouza Planning Board Meeting Minutes February 28, 2022 Page 6 of 6 Ward made a motion to send a neutral letter with acknowledgement of Staff recommendations and Mr. Mercado seconded the motion. By roll call all members voted in favor. None were opposed. Documents: Applicant Materials for Case 22-003 NEXT MEETING Planning Board Annual Meeting, Monday, March 28, 2022 The meeting adjourned at 10:15 pm.

Transcript

▶ 0:07 All right. Hey, Beth. All right. So tonight is Monday, February 28th, 2022. This is the regular meeting of the City of Melrose Planning Board, a meeting started at 7.30 p.m. It's a remote meeting being held pursuant to an act extending certain COVID-19 measures adopted during the state of emergency signed by Governor Baker on June 16th, 2021. Um, anyone's in the audience, this meeting will be available on the city's website and an 3 dot org and we can get started. So, our 1st, order of business. Um, actually, Denise, do you want to start with the intro? What do we save that? Did I miss that? Oh, yeah. Hi, yes, Maya is our new assistant planner and in the planning office. So please welcome her board. She started last week.

▶ 1:12 So brand new to the department and we're thrilled to have her on. We look, we look forward to working with you. Thanks me too. So our 1st order of business is the meeting minutes from the regular meeting of the planning board on January 24th, 2022. Anyone get an opportunity to review these? Do we have any comments discussions or did they look acceptable? And so we entertain a motion. Motion to accept the meeting of the January 24. I'll second that. Okay, so motion by. Bob 2nd, by Brian, any. Discussion or comments hearing none, um. Take a vote to approve saying, yeah, if. Approved or I, I. Hey, hi. Hi. Hi. Okay. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. I any abstentions or nays. I think we got everyone so we'll move then into.

▶ 2:36 The 1st site plan review public hearing for case 22 dash 0, 0, 1. 1, 48 Myrtle street, the applicant is brown dog properties, LLC. See, Mr Roman yes. Hi, everybody. Hello. Hey, we have. To to Mr Romans and, uh, yes, thank you. It took me a minute to figure out. Okay. Um, so I guess I'll start it off. My name is Robert bell from the Melrose firm of. Bell and Izzy, and we are representing the. The applicant, which is, uh. Corporately brown dog properties, but, uh, in reality is Joe and Matt Roman. We're both Melrose, uh, natives. We've done a number of projects in town that have, uh, met. Good reception by the neighborhoods and, um. I have a good reputation for quality work and, of course, uh, Matt is, of course, the developer 360 main street.

▶ 4:16 Project the building that is mired in litigation, but which this board. Um, fully supported in prior hearings. And which you'll be seeing coming back at you under the new zoning. fairly soon. In the meantime, they have gotten involved in this project on Myrtle Street, on property that's been owned for decades by Brad Hutchinson, who's ready to sell it now. The property is, shall we say, well used. And it's an old building built prior to any building codes it has a number of construction difficulties that matt and joe can explain in more detail and more effectively than i can but the result is basically that it's not possible to work with the existing uh structure neither the the structural element elements itself or any of

▶ 5:26 the other components what will be i think they'll be able to retain um it's the the very nice uh granite and field stone wall that is that fronts the property which i note on the landscape plants is is due to be retained and reinforced or rebuilt when necessary uh the the pro the project basically fits into the overall goals of the city both the historical goals of the city in terms of replacing or redoing existing properties replacing them with modern up to code properties that fit within the neighborhood um but to create new housing opportunities wherever ever possible it will certainly raise the city's revenues by several multiples from what what the current uh take is on the property and in so doing you know play its part in providing growth revenue to the city that would be

▶ 6:45 two and a half exempt uh as it comes on stream which is a way that the city is able to uh keep up with inflation inflation hasn't been a number one enemy over recent years um in terms of uh the city's expenses but we all know what the predictions are for inflation in the future in the city always has a chronic need for more revenue than it can produce given the limitations of proposition two and a half um it's also going to be viewed as a partial response an appropriate response in a small way but a meaningful way to the chronic acute housing shortage that faces the entire eastern middle sex eastern massachusetts area and particularly the greater boston inside you know 128 suburbs melrose has seen itself through policies established by this board your board

▶ 7:56 and through several other means through reinforcement from other parts of the city that that it is a municipal policy to support the creation of housing new housing opportunities wherever feasible without offsetting adverse consequences Um, this is most recently been reaffirmed in the housing production plan, which I note is on your agenda tonight for action, but the adding of units, wherever possible is definitely a long established, you know, city policy, um, in the units are needed throughout the price spectrum wherever, because if the bottom line is that the housing crisis. Is a crisis of supply and demand of inadequate supply of limited supply and, you know, what appears to be insatiable demand as long as.

▶ 9:02 Right of Boston, you know, uh, continues to be a reasonably prosperous area. Um, we don't really have enough housing, you know, nearby. city in order to house the employees that boston area businesses need so so creation units is key affordable units you know are a function of units themselves you can't create affordable units if you don't create regular units in this case we're not proposing to put an affordable use on the property. But we are proposing to pay the substitute developer fee. I think it's well known that at the small unit number level, like five units, it's really hard to make the economics of providing an affordable unit work. But on the other hand the uh the substitute of money for an actual unit is not insubstantial in this

▶ 10:17 in this particular case because the unit prices that this property will generate in order to be able to pay for all the attributes of the property that we're going to describe to you tonight they're expensive and the unit prices have to be high enough to to pay for those things because it's it's really a more expensive method of construction and development than anything under you know current codes or current you know practices so by the time you do acquisition plus construction of the units as designed we're talking about pretty significant unit prices now those unit prices however are deemed to be feasible by matt and joe and those who advise them on on these subjects and they feel that they can they can do the project and make it work and

▶ 11:27 create the units and make a reasonable rate of return for themselves but actually providing an affordable unit at the regulations as they exist would blow the economics of the situation in such a way that it really wouldn't be feasible so that's why they're proposing to make the payment but we're talking about a payment that could be you know as much as 150 000 it's not insignificant and will have a meaningful contribution to the city's affordable count affordable corporations you know coffers and help them leverage to uh you know use it to create new affordable units in whatever manner it seems fit um matt will get into that a bit more but those that's basically the overview that i want to give

▶ 12:31 at the moment and joe and matt joe will lead off explaining you the components of the proposal and believe it that my comments at that point in readiness to come back when necessary to re-enter the discussion so at this time uh joe are you handy to um yeah okay i'm great um yep thanks bob so hopefully everyone can hear me okay if you cannot let me know um just picking up the webex format tonight so if anything's going around please let me know yeah so as Bob mentioned I guess just the I'll be as brief as possible because I'm sure there are questions and people have plans and in front of them etc but there are deficiencies with the existing property those include and were noted in in the back and forth with the planning

▶ 13:36 department but those include foundation there are several different sections the foundation there are structural elements including sill and major carrying beams and footings etc that either they're failing or away insignificant there's a lot of lead paint in around and throughout the building by the time you get done mitigating replacing carrying that away you're left with sort of a bare shell the porch is failing there's not proper footings so I think you start get the picture and that leads me i'm being a little brief on that because i think um a lot of that is included in the materials um but i'm happy to answer questions on that um but basically leads to i think what starts to get a little more interesting when we talk about melrose and sort of

▶ 14:24 the the moment that is now um i had sent a document around i apologize it did just come today so i I believe Lori was gonna distribute that, but it was sort of a green overview. And I think that's a term that gets thrown around or has been thrown around a lot in building and development. What's exciting for us as builders and former residents of Melrose is that that's a real term now, that means something. It's a different way of building that affords the residents of these buildings once complete with a chance to help reduce their carbon footprint, which obviously helps all of us. It's well noted we're in a climate crisis. Massachusetts has specifically made a lot of efforts in the last year and a half, couple of years.

▶ 15:11 The decarbonization roadmap that was passed by the state last spring has made it clear where the state wants to go on all this. And the bottom line is we need to get the combustible, the fossil fuels out of buildings. It's responsible for almost 30% of our warming here in the state of Massachusetts. And, you know, this is something we've been swinging our business this way the last couple of years. You know, it's something we feel pretty passionately about, not just because the time is now, but we feel like it's our chance to do our part. And, you know, fortunately, Matt and I have been sort of indoctrinating ourselves the last five to eight years. We started building in this direction a couple of years ago.

▶ 15:51 And, you know, our take on it is it's, you know, you have to far exceed all the stretch codes, the code minimums, think closer to passive house building. And we know that this is something Melrose's community feels strongly about. And so we felt like this project was a good project for us in Melrose to kind of bring that next level of building in these residents. So this is truly green built in that it'll be completely solar ready. So it's a net zero capable building. As developers and through many conversations with a lot of people who know a lot more about this in this field, we made a conscious choice a couple years ago to not include the solar on projects of this size and scope. The reason being and it's pretty

▶ 16:39 well documented in the industry that you really need a baseline of usage. So whether you have two occupants or four whether they're working from home obviously with covet or not so we do put everything in place to make it easy for the residents to do that we will help them with a solar package if they decide to do that um but we we stopped short of adding it for those reasons so that people can truly zero out the building based on their usage um we will have ev chargers at each um each unit um this is a completely um double studded wall assembly which i'm probably getting a little bit too much into the technical details but if anyone cares we can go more into that um so these are roughly 10 inch thick wall assemblies whereas your typical um home that we're

▶ 17:29 you know we see retrofitted in melrose or new england um is just a you know a three and a half or three and three quarter inch uh cavity so you have an opportunity for a lot more insulation that gets you closer to those um passive house standards and by doing so you're kind of wrapping the whole structure in this this in simplest form it's a really thick warm uh down jacket um and that makes it much easier uh more efficient to heat cool use less energy these will be fully electrified buildings um they will be bike and commuter friendly um and we'll we'll discourage the use of cars by by a lot of these features that we've put in of course people will still have cars but um so there's plenty of bike parking um i had a conversation with with finn mcsweeney

▶ 18:17 this week about that um and we extended some of the options just through that conversation so there are bike hoops there are some key post lock off locations that identified with finn that he thought would be good for um you know people who are more reliant on bikes as transportation um we will have some dry indoor common storage for bicycles in in the basement um and then of course people can use their individual units if if they opt to do that um it's a very walkable location as everybody knows um to both transportation and downtown so we're really hoping and and feel like residents in this project will take advantage of that um and then there's a whole host of other things that just go into building these buildings that i won't drag out

▶ 19:02 for this group but um you know everything from the materials resource sourcing things that are uh you know as chemically light and voc um you know friendly as possible um looking for fsc certified lumber as we're sourcing from our providers those sorts of thing um you know reclaiming as much of the material from the demo and from the construction as possible um we have another project going another city going now where we're making available the scraps the cuts from our framing to uh residents as you know people are home with coven and spending more time at home doing fire pits or heating their own homes we just don't want any waste coming out of these projects or as little waste as we can generate so um so at any rate that that's sort of

▶ 19:49 like the green overview um from a design standpoint um we were very conscious of sort of the vernacular and the style of the neighborhood we we get melrose we understand you know melrose is not the town that's looking to break the mold on these projects um we had a great meeting which actually has been a while since it happened but we've been in touch with a lot of the neighbors um We had a great meeting the end of last summer where we shared the overall facade and design of the project. It was well received by the neighbors. I think, you know, I think some of them may be on the call and may decide to speak. So I don't want to put words in mouth, but some of the notes I had from that meeting

▶ 20:31 were that the massing was appropriate for the neighborhood, the number of units was appropriate that they you know people found the building to be anywhere from attractive to not offensive obviously people have their own subjective interpretations I think that the fact that it is capped at about 35 36 feet and not the 50 feet provided in the zoning over there was appreciated it helps it to fit in with the surrounding buildings excuse me the fact that the parking is sort of tucked around back so there's not a lot of cars lined up in plain view of the neighborhood and just that we had obviously we I think a lot of people on the board know Matt and I enough to know by now we want that dialogue we want to make sure people are happy we want to accommodate where

▶ 21:22 possible with trouting fencing landscape you know tweaks of that nature so we've talk to a couple of neighbors about some some points on that as well and then we've just in the materials that are in front of you I'll just kind of close out with this and and maybe let the board start asking questions but we did meet with the department heads as well and there were some requested minor changes that are reflected in the plan so a couple of those that I'll just highlight because they were in the plans that were circulated today by Lori. But addressing the trash enclosure and that was part and parcel with snow storage. So we've moved the trash enclosures from the side rear of the property, what would be unit five to the side front of the property with which will have an attractive enclosure around it.

▶ 22:18 It'll be easier for the company that's going to be facilitating. We're going to have a company facilitating taking those bins out so they can operate with a few less bins than one per unit. So it'll be easy and easy out when that's done. Also accessible for the residents. And that allows the rear area next to Unit 5 to be used for snow storage in the larger snowstorms. We move some bike hoops that were in that area as well to keep it more open. We move those to the front of the parking area, sort of the front of the horseshoe. What would be parking for units 2 and 3, we identified labeled and located the fire department connection at the request of the fire department to the front corner of the building.

▶ 23:06 So, if you take a look at the plans, there's a walkway to the walkway that accesses units 2, 3 and 4 kind of goes through the building just on that corner on your right. you walk up that walkway will be the fire department connection and that was specifically where they had asked for it um as i mentioned we did expand the sprinkler and utility and common basement storage room to allow for bicycle storage for five bikes um and then we made appropriate adjustments to our landscape plan um to reflect all those changes um i guess just one thing i want to mention because we are sitting here um you know requesting special permit on the parking requirements for the zoning um we did not successfully engage um for the traffic survey so

▶ 24:00 that is something we're gonna have to work on um for the group it's just it's a tough time as i'm sure you've heard from other builders developers and residents it's a tough time to engage anybody buildings at an all-time high and people are pretty maxed out um but that's something matt's kind of taken the lead on and has been in conversation with uh and or reached out to several companies so we anticipate we'll be able to put that together and present something that's adequate but we do think with the proximity to transportation um the municipal lot across the street um and and just you know the encouragement of residents to use other forms of transportation walking uh bicycling public transportation that the one parking per unit would be viewed as

▶ 24:45 adequate um and then uh yeah so so i think that rounds out what i wanted to say oh i'm sorry there were some engineering updates that we're still working on with our engineering team uh that came from the dpw um and so we're working on those plans as well um but with that i will stop talking and hopefully open it up for questions discussion etc sorry could I just add one thing to that briefly so we clear we actually we changed the bedroom count as well I don't know Thank You Matt yep yep that's that's important that actually came up as a question with one of the neighbors as well so I think it's good to just get that right out there so through three bedrooms per unit not four as initially filed for thank you um so i'd like to just do a quick uh

▶ 25:42 round through um starting with denise and company to give us a quick update on staff reviews um it did does look like there's a couple um requests from the departments that are in process of being addressed and then if anyone on the board has any questions and then we can go to public comment Um, so, Denise, anything notable you want to make us aware of any highlights from the staff report? So so, yeah, we did prepare a staff report for the, for the board members. Um, just to kind of provide some, some background and outline. Um. Some of the regulatory, um, issues and and, um. Underlying this proposal, um, I think. I think Mr. has done a pretty good job. Providing an overview, we did have a department head meeting and, um, and he did mention the engineering engineering.

▶ 26:40 Denise Gaffey: Information, so we are still waiting to get a response on some of those issues, especially around storm water that we think are important given the location. Um, and some of the non issues in this area around drainage and storm water. So we do think it's going to be important to get those issues resolved. Um, with regard to the parking, I mean, we are, we. We support the, I, the, um, the reduced parking request in this location is a perfect location for. For minimizing parking and promoting, um. Cycling and walking and other means of transportation. Um, that the only 1 that does require a special permit. Um, in order to give for the planning board, um, to grant, um, has to grant a special permit for the parking reduction. Let me, let me say, and, um, in the way the zoning is written.

▶ 27:31 Denise Gaffey: There is a requirement that a traffic engineer present to the planning board, the justification for the parking reduction. Um, even though I think we could, it's fairly clear that all the advantages and why it would be advantageous in this instance. I think it's. Um, that is a requirement in the zoning. Um. So, we, you know, we really appreciate as, as mentioned, we, you know, we had additionally, we had initially when this project was presented to us to try to encourage the preservation of the. Historic building to the extent that that could be done and, um. We understand, I mean, it's not as desirable to. Would be more desirable to use the building if that were possible. I do think some of the information that has been presented is pretty compelling.

▶ 28:20 Denise Gaffey: And I do think we appreciate the design and the, um, the attempt to create a building that. Um, that fits within the, the, the neighborhood. Um, and with the, the details. Around the front porch and just makes it very pedestrian friendly. Um, and we're really supportive of all the, uh, the sustainability measures and, and, and think that that's, um, extremely. Valuable and worthwhile and yeah, that's. Pretty much our overview. Thanks Denise. Um, any initial comments from the members of the board before we go to public comment. Okay, so I'm going to, we're going to open it up to public comment. We did receive 1 letter from Richard curl. I think that's the only letter I had in my package, but to the extent.

▶ 29:24 That's part of our record. It doesn't have to be read into the proceeding to the extent. The girl wants to make further comments. He's welcome to, but I just want to make it clear that that is part of the. The record of this board, or anyone else you're if you'd like to speak, just please raise your digital hand. Um. Or you can also enter a chat to the host and we'll recognize you. So, ask you to, I did receive 1 email right? Um. During the meeting, so I can read that and we received a letter from the pedestrian and site committee that I sent to the board as well. Sorry, but yeah, that came in later. Thank you. Okay. Um. John, you're unmuted. Hey, yeah, I, I live on vine street and I run the corner from murder street there.

▶ 30:29 And I don't know if you're aware of this. I'm sure you all are is a is a library right across the street, but not too far from where this, uh, proposed housing is going into and and a lot of times in the summertime. You can't get down the street. I mean, you really can't and I am absolutely convinced that 1 cap per bill for per building per resident is not going to work. I mean, even if you have a second person visiting, you're going to have to use an additional space. I'm very down on that whole idea of one pocket space per resident. There also is a property on Vine Street right now that was given that particular, I guess 1, 1 per resident and vine street is a ridiculous street right now and I got a feeling that what's going to happen.

▶ 31:35 They're going to come around the corner and back there because there's no, there's no times. It was time time for people to pack and all that kind of thing. So I'm just not happy with the idea of one pocket space per resident, whether it be on Vine Street, whether it be on Myrtle Street, or any place else in Melrose. I know you're talking about having bikes, but I don't see too many of them around. I mean, I do see a few of them now and again, but it's not like the cars. There's more cars and bikes when you really come down to it. And you're not going to use a bike in the middle of the winter. So it's going to have to be additional. And if you have 3 bed bedrooms in that apartment house, or a condo, whatever it's going to be, you know, down right?

▶ 32:28 Well, there's going to be more than 1 car per resident in that particular condo. So that's that's my point of view. Thank you for the comment. Hi, everybody. Hi, I'm here on behalf of the Melrose Ped Bike Committee um to express our committee's support sorry address 160 west wyoming um to express our committee's support of the proposed development at myrtle street in particular we're supportive of the special permit request at the site for shared or reduced parking our members are highly supportive of transit oriented housing development in melrose and the idea that households within transit oriented neighborhoods should not be required to maintain and own storage for multiple automobiles. Myrtle Street is part of Melrose's historic core of neighborhoods which arose

▶ 33:20 alongside our rail corridor. This location remains amenity rich. This parcel is a two-minute walk to the library, three-minute walk to Shaw's and downtown, five-minute walk to the train station, and an eight-minute walk to the El Pond Lake Trail. Being centrally located, there are numerous parks, playgrounds, schools, daycares, and employers in the direct walkable and bikeable vicinity. Many of our members and officers, myself included, live in Melrose in single-car households with multiple children. That's exactly the sort of family unit we feel this proposal appeals to. Far from being an inconvenience, the freedom to conduct one's daily affairs without needing to use an automobile is one of the characteristics which drew many of us to Melrose in the first

▶ 34:06 place. We're confident that families will continue to choose Melrose for this reason, and that we can and should be building more housing which appeals to those families. When we learned of this proposal, we contacted the team at Ground Dog, as Mr. Roman mentioned, to ask the developers to put a little more consideration into supporting convenient bike access for residents. For many of our members in one-car households with multiple working parents, bike access really is key to making the equation work even in the dead of winter. Mr. Roman and I had a long conversation about different options of the building and he also told us the city staff had highlighted some of those same questions which is great given that we as a community do not have

▶ 34:48 design standards for on-site bike storage we appreciate the fact that the developer did voluntarily improve both the indoor and outdoor accommodations and feel that this development contains sufficient options to make daily bike access feasible for all the units embracing developing and protecting walkable cities requires a commitment on behalf of residents and planners alike to support a built environment which embraces walkability that means safer streets and sidewalks but it also means avoiding the temptation to build excess auto capacity within our housing stock we feel that this development has the right amount of parking for the location and housing type being proposed last year when the planning board held a series of public hearings

▶ 35:27 around changes to our zoning you heard loud and clear from the community that growth in our housing stock must center around sustainable design principles we feel that this project is the sort of development our community wants and urge the planning board to look favorably upon its review thank you everyone for your time tonight and have a good evening thank you anyone else thank you anyone else i can read the letter or the email that we just received i'm joining the myrtle street meetings tonight i live right next door and i'm concerned about that there's only five parking spaces each unit is four bedrooms i am assuming each unit will need at least two car parking spots one of the documents mentioned that this construction

▶ 36:15 and the finished project will not interfere with any traffic however there are only five parking spaces for five units this will cause overflow parking to be on myrtle street this is already very busy and ruined at times when people start parking on the street it causes difficulty backing out of our driveway as well thank you julia kona not seeing anyone else okay uh we'll keep thinking i have an input on that too i i also feel the parking is insufficient um you'll provide all the bike spaces you want but you should provide for the transportation that the people will actually use and that will be their vehicles this is a five unit three bedroom building it's going gonna have 15 bedrooms it'll have five pocket spaces it's just not going to be

▶ 37:12 sufficient everybody in that you in that building could have a bicycle they're still gonna have cars and it's still gonna have visitors and there's 15 bedrooms there so multiply it out times the people there's even multiple people per bedroom so you could have you know what's the number of actual people could be living in that building they're not all kids you don't you don't know that these are very expensive units I presume you know they probably have also expensive cars again I just think it's foolhardy to keep wishing away vehicles that people need and use every day thank you okay thanks Paul anyone else from the board have any comments I think to add to what Paul was saying encouraging

▶ 38:09 use of bikes the bike room doesn't look like it's super easily accessible uh so it looks like the only access is through the bulkhead right and even if i was looking at your landscape plan it doesn't even look like there's a pathway to get over there and i'm just thinking if people if it's hard for people to get to their bikes it might not encourage them to use bikes versus cars so maybe that's a something we can request for clarification for next meeting as well as how the bike space in the basement is accessed you can speak to that correct when the public comments are done if you want i can put a note on that thanks joe well um bob do you have a comment yeah i was just gonna ask if you and where you can put it on the screen site plan yeah it's gonna ask the same thing because

▶ 39:15 i do have some questions about how some of i don't have a second computer to look at the plans of the Do you want me to do you want me to present or do you want to yeah, can you put it on the screen the site plan or Matt? Would you like us to present it? Or do you want to. Control it, you know, Greg, if if it's. Possible for you guys to put up, I'm just not as familiar with WebEx. I could figure it out in a couple of minutes here if you want me to pull it up. But if you guys are more familiar and have it right there, I can share it. Do you want to look at the. This plan or the site plan a simple plan. Yeah, the site plan. I think it's on the bigger. Keep on going. Yeah, the next page. Yeah, I think is that the civil plan? Yeah, that's the 1.

▶ 40:15 The next 1 no, no, no, you're on the right page. Okay, that's the 1. So, Joe, do you want to explain it? okay yes sure definitely for for the benefit of the folks asking so um a couple questions or a couple answers rather so as uh finn mentioned we had a great conversation um you know i i'm although i'll confess i'm not a totally avid winter cyclist now i'm a pretty avid cyclist for a lot of my life and finn and i had a lot of discussions about the different types of cycling people do and sort of how they protect their, you know, their equipment. And so, you know, on good weather days and in the height of the season, you could see a lot of people leaving their bikes out outside for more of the time. So, I think we were viewing this as storage that

▶ 41:12 would be for many of the people who aren't using year-round or aren't, you know, as heartily using it through the winter. So, putting it away for more periods of time. And I think you would access sit up that front walkway and to the side we certainly can talk about a paving path or something um to help get around there but this will be all professionally landscaped and i think we're very open to having that discussion and and making that tweak um should the board see that fit um the other discussion that we had was you know whether people are in the know or not i mean your your average e-bicycle is hovering around three thousand dollars um you know i have a lot of friends in the mountain biking community and those bikes are as crazy as it sounds are approaching

▶ 42:01 twenty thousand dollars for for an e-powered you know high-end um you know mountain bike nobody is leaving that level of bicycle um that you know not right under their nose so i think if you um attract which i think we will in this location and you bring in people who are cyclists or avid cyclists um there's a good chance they may bring it directly in their unit and um you know it's an easy step or two up into these units into the main living area and they are open floor plan so i think that's a good alternative if you're if you're that passionate about biking um you know that's often where people are going to store that that really high-end daily use bike so i think you've got sort of a lot of different problems to the storage here um and we did expand that room

▶ 42:49 considerably um and and can look at you know again the the access over to that bulkhead area for that storage okay can i jump in on the uh the parking issue for a second uh is that all right channel I understand the concern that people have about parking on this site and what the future is going to hold. What the community may not be as familiar with, though, is that the market for this type of unit with a low parking census on site has already been proven to be feasible. It may not be generally accepted by the broader pool of potential buyers. But if marketed based on it being just one parking space, there is a subset of potential purchases who are attracted by that and they're they're paying the kind of money that this will

▶ 44:06 command already in many nearby communities and it's already proving itself to be you know viable and the reason for that it's just to generate you know it's partly just a generational divide and you know different differing points of view but um there there is if this is just marketed you know broadly to whoever comes in it's going to attract people with more cars if it's my market to people as being you know a one car only uh you know living community then it attracts us a smaller but still substantial subset that is in fact feasible and matt and joe they're not interested in building this and losing their shirt on it they wouldn't be taking the steps that they're taking to build the type of building

▶ 45:08 that that they proposed if their long you know five to eight years of learning about green building practices and what's going on if they hadn't already been come convinced that this is in fact the future so using you know the past as an analysis tool for figuring out the future for For new sites in Melrose, I think is, you know, by its very nature, you know, a mistake and approach to the situation. Um, if we were, if we were to continue to build. Properties for existing automotive, you know. You know, type use by the broad part of the public. We definitely could not and would not be able to meet our goals for housing production. Um, but would also be ignoring the very essence of Melrose as a transit oriented community. I mean, Denise, if I have had this conversation so many times that.

▶ 46:13 We can practically finish each other's sentences, but, you know, by the, by the. normal rubrics of transit-oriented development. Virtually every site in Melrose is considered transit-oriented because it's within a relatively short distance to one of the various public transportation nodes. Melrose is very highly serviced by public transportation. It always has been, we hope it always will be because that's what we are as a transit-oriented community. it has been the strength of melrose in the past and it can be the strength of melrose in the future if we if we design and plan and market you know some of the problems that have happened in the past in melrose is that properties that might have had limited parking on site were not marketed

▶ 47:14 in such a way as to eliminate potential occupants who would have multiple cars and as soon as people started moving in they started asking for into or demanding you know public parking spaces you know on the city's properties but that's a matter of how the property is marketed in the first place and matt and joe are committed to marketing in such a way and it it in effect it's part of their transportation management plan for the site is is the marketing and that's it so be comes more or less self-selected i don't want to beat that you know um beat that from you know any further but i think that that's that's something that's got to be taken into consideration here okay thanks bob um any other planning board members have questions or comments

▶ 48:18 can i have a question in the site plan greg go ahead bob yeah you know i didn't have any problem on the on the parking and like uh mentioned on the uh folder you know the problem is the because it's a bigger apartment three bedroom if this is a two bedroom uh with the you know with only by parking space yeah i don't think i have any problem at all see what's happening is because uh become three bedroom now you're having a bigger family that move in there but in any way i'll leave that alone for now but on the site one my question is uh did have you guys done any test fit on the side uh because you're designing this as a cloud factor is the materials on the on the areas good enough to percolate the the rain that's going to go through this building

▶ 49:13 is there any test pit done on the job what kind of soil they have sure hi bub i could um speak to that um so we did do test pits uh we did test pits early on so we did um two past two test pits in the rear of the property and then two coming down the right side of the property um so one of the things that was asked in the um engineer's letters that we we supply that data so we will um but it was the test pits were witnessed by the engineer um and it's all uh extremely good um sort of bony gravel so it's actually it's great we didn't um i don't recall exactly how deep we went but we were roughly 10 to 12 feet with no evidence of water um so it's drastically different than the soil conditions um joe and i had proposed i'd like to

▶ 50:09 say like two years ago but in reality it was probably five years ago another project on um went to replace it that we ended up not developing but that was um all sort of peat and wet conditions and um this property is based on having the retaining wall it is um you know quite a bit higher in elevation than some of the neighboring properties that are having some issues with with water and soil conditions so um we're looking pretty good but we will have that on an updated drawing sort of yeah okay that's good and joe on the on your updated uh site plan drawing i assume will it show what kind of curving you will you have some curving around this parking lot though so right now um sort of the parking is bordered

▶ 51:01 by a you know will be differentiated by a by a walkway a paver walkway um we could put parking blocks but i just feel like they're sort of a tripping hazard and just unattractive i don't think we necessarily need them um we are going to have to do a little bit of curb work out front which you know will be uh granite curving you know uh similar to what's there how about along the side of the driveway you have that i think you have uh both side of the driveway is like what is that like a retaining wall or a curve or whatever yeah yeah it's somewhat of a retaining wall there's not much of a gray change um there's currently an old uh granite wall there that's actually quite nice that we would you know it we would like to try and save that granite and reuse

▶ 51:50 it okay so if you're going to come up with some sort of a retaining wall will you come up with some sort of a detailed plan what type you're going to use uh sure we can't we certainly can and then going back on your sidewalk or a paper right so when you're at the edge of your parking lot where it butts the paper is that something that the car can just drive right over it or when they park is anything you know nothing to stop the car to to drive over that sidewalk are you planning to put any curb stuff there or just curve along there it's something we've been discussing um the the problem with it is this is in my opinion because it's not it's actually it abuts to a walkway so for instance in certain instances where you would

▶ 52:40 put where you would pull in where the car has you know where there's nowhere to go um but maybe a fence or something i think it might make more sense um but i feel like this could just create a tripping hazard so i'm more of the mindset of not to put in parking blocks there but I'm going to comment on that. Yeah, you should take a look at that because when they kind of spike, they're more tending to go right through that sidewalk. Just take a look at it more. I think you should put some sort of a curbing there or something, or maybe a curb stop for safety also. There's another thing also you mentioned, I think your brother mentioned it, Matt, there on the snow storage area. If it's a lot of snow, what are you planning to put it? We're behind the building. Is there any access to go there? How do you bring the curve?

▶ 53:34 Essentially, what would have to happen is. The car parking in the loan spot would have to move. So, in the event that there's going to be a big storm, I think, you know, previously the night before that have to be some coordination. And they would have to park, um, uh, sort of behind behind 1 of the 4 cars there. then the snow storage would just go behind that spot and there's not a ton of snow storage so in the event of any heavy snow there's going to have to uh you know in an event like we just got i think you're going to have to truck some snow out of there i agree i agree with that i think most likely you're going to have to drop it away though okay what kind of uh you're relying on that

▶ 54:22 vehicle to move out of the way before you remove the snow in that parking space so he's going the place will be full of snow so he's going to have to move his car to where in front of the other cars where it's awful this is not thought out at all you're going to be shoveling this whole place by hand you can bobcat it but you can't dump it anywhere because if that person isn't home they're they're not moving their car. So the car is gonna be in the way where all the snow goes. Well, it's gotta be coordinated, right? I mean, these are people- Okay, so you're gonna tell that person, you can't go out this week, go away because we need your car moved at some point. It's gonna snow and you're gonna predict that.

▶ 55:06 It's not a plan and I don't care. I don't live there and I don't have to deal with the snow, but I mean, just think about it. Yeah, how are you gonna- Paul, just to, can I jump in for a second? Go ahead. This level of building the people's expectations coming in and I hear your point loud and clear. Um, a couple just Bob mentioned sort of like. Looking back in the past, I mean, we've got some experience doing these size buildings. We, we know pretty well who who the buyer is what they look like. Um, they have an expectation. You, you, I think pointed out that these will be pricey units. I mean, that's just where. Delrose is in general, never mind, you know, these units, they expect a level of service of

▶ 55:51 professional management and snow removal. You're right that space behind the cars will have to be cleared out first, and then you would have that car move. I mean, we've had other sites where you've had to have this sort of coordination. But the big point is most of these people are going to be fresh out of the city. And this is like a dream for them compared to what they're moving out of and they're used to these types of scenarios so i actually don't think you know we've got a couple of good local snow removal contractors most of our people that we put in place as we sort of manage through the end of a building um generally have stayed on the building has kept them on and they're you know have become the landscape uh and snow snow removal provider

▶ 56:32 and they're good they're really good i mean they're used to doing this type of stuff so I hear your point loud and clear, but I don't think it has to be that complicated in this instance. If I could make a comment about the parking and the snow removal too. I'm comfortable with just five spots. Just knowing the future of work, I'm guessing one of the three bedrooms is often going to be an office. It's not necessarily a big family, and I do think you just market to the people who only can live with one parking space. But I do think the snow removal is unrealistic and I think it most likely will have to be taken off premise just knowing people's lifestyles and they aren't necessarily there all the time

▶ 57:23 or available storms happen at odd hours. We mostly know a little bit ahead, but it's not always convenient to have a car available to move after there's been some plowing. So that might not be realistic in my mind, but I'm sure the way you do that to handle it is just take the snow off premise and the cars stay where they are. I did wanna ask about visitor parking because even when people live their life with one car, they often have people come over and I know there's a city lot there. It seems to me there was a study a while ago And we have a lot of spots available for occasional overnight visitors in our city lots. Is there any, most of the most of the spaces are empty at night. And we do have a, the city has an overnight permit parking program, so any resident can purchase an overnight parking.

▶ 58:22 Pretty realistic, and they can park in the municipal lot and they just have to move their car in the morning. It can't be there. It's not a 24 hour pass. It's an overnight pass. Right, but there's ample parking spaces. And is there parking my memory is that and I probably should have looked at the signs on Myrtle street, but is there parking on Myrtle street in front of this property? I thought there was not on a street right there on the other side of the street. i think the other side right some parking yeah right there's hardly any street parking on myrtle street it's almost non-existent that's what i thought yeah i'd like i did have a team oh go ahead go ahead take it away because i have questions about other things well i mean my

▶ 59:12 other concern is there isn't even really space for a service truck in other words not only is they're not parking for more than the four cars but if somebody's got to have a plumber or electrician they're going to have to park on the street and when you do plow snow it isn't usually just one vehicle um this site looks to me like it's going to have to have a contractor that has the uh the capability of of doing snow removal both with snow blowers and probably with the bobcat and you know i don't even see where those vehicles could be left while this is going on without contributing to the tight situation on vine street and myrtle street already so just to you know i'm i'm not against the project in any way but i

▶ 1:00:08 just the four spaces alone with no other space i'm having a problem with that if if I could just mention some of the stuff I think we're maybe comparing this to sort of like what might be the norm in Melrose or what might you know sure it'd be great if we had enough space to have two plus car parking but I think like as far as moving cars and things like that so I manage a property in Somerville that has three cars a chair a three-car tandem driveway and they leave keys in the in the front hall and they they move each other's cars and if we just think about like logistics of snow removal and we say this this would be a cakewalk in comparison to virtually any property we looked at in somerville or cambridge and they all manage it right it's

▶ 1:01:01 just it's just having the right technique having a plan and executing on it like sure this isn't we can't hire a snow contractor that comes in with this ford f-350 and a snow plow and says i'm just going to plow everything like that's clearly not going to work there's going to be hand work there's going to be bobcat work um you know there's going to have to be some coordination with the residents making this work right i mean if somebody has that spot that needs to be moved for snow storage and they go away they need to leave their keys and it might not work the first time but they'll certainly realize that and if we put together a plan and present it to the people that are buying these places um it will work and i think the other thing is just going into the

▶ 1:01:43 number of car parking like i feel like this is a conversation the boards had before we've had before with other boards i mean it really is self-selection i i find that there's people joe and i were on our fourth house of this caliber and i find that previously someone might as a status symbol or whatever you want to call it might say hey i have three car garage and i have three cars and i have these big cars well it's almost like a status symbol to say hey i have no cars and look at how cool i am i don't have one car and we only take uber and that's who's buying these houses that joe and i are building that they're paying a lot more money to live in a house that's energy efficient like this and have this um less of an impact on the

▶ 1:02:31 environment but it's like a whole mindset um and to go back to to the bicycles i agree like they very well could be and i've seen this it could be out of these five units it could be three units that don't have bikes at all and don't really bike but we need to be prepared for that and in case that there are but i also feel like we have all this what what ball bell was speaking of is we have all this transit i mean that's who we want to market to and get to buy these properties is is maybe people that don't have a car and that maybe uh one of these spots is left open for a visitor and rented back to the condo association or left for visitor parking i mean that is very conceivable based on you know what joe and i have seen with with our four other

▶ 1:03:21 project so that's a few comments there oh sorry go ahead i don't disagree with any of that my only concern is i would not want to see the neighbors be the ones that have to pay the price you know parking is really tough on vine street parking is is almost uh non-existent on on myrtle street and um you know if this were a high rise a typical high rise we had one One couple per apartment, and maybe an occasional child. Okay. But this is to me almost like a garden style apartment complex. And, you know, I see families, at least in most cases, 1 or 2 children and. They're going to have friends over, they're going to have birthday parties. They're going to do all the things that I, that normal, normal suburbanites do. And, um, and I think it's.

▶ 1:04:21 it's tight i think it's really tight i agree with what you're saying i think one thing that we need to remember is the shaw's parking lot or the municipal lot that people i think will certainly use when they have birthday parties and other things we got to remember that if we drive by there the closer you get to shaw's the more it's it fills up but often if you look at this end the winthrop end of that parking lot during the day certainly at night but even during the day and almost all the time there's spots open there it very rarely i've driven through that parking lot a zillion times and very rarely is that parking lot at capacity no matter what day or what time there's usually spots at that end which lays out nicely because it's you know the end of the

▶ 1:05:03 parking lot closest to us so i agree i don't think vine street is a place for for people to park and i think we need to encourage people not to park there and say hey this is this is where there's available spots and this is where we would like to see people you know you you know use this make best use of this of this parking lot so i'm just going to so you yourself are just saying now that there won't be enough space here and people will seek spaces other locations paul exactly sorry i just want to respect because ann's still trying to finish what she was asking and brian's had his hand up and i do just want to say overall i think the concerns about the parking are such that you know this is justifying the request that we've made for the the analysis

▶ 1:05:54 and i think a lot of this conversation should be reflected on the deliverable which is you know talk to us about what the plan would be how you're going to deal with the marketing how you're going to recommend you know there's no contractors services to include these items and you know how you're going to provide information to the future buyers about the overnight parking arrangement so i i'm not suggesting the whole conversation should be cut off i just do want to keep moving a little bit and i do i also just want to reflect you know this is a little bit more of a deliverable that we're expecting to see so i think there'll be an opportunity to continue this conversation um with that i think and you you're going to finish and then brian had his hand up so

▶ 1:06:36 So you're on mute, Anne. Thanks. Maybe my question works better without you. I'm curious. I think that it's true. When you give us more information, are you going to make it? Are they condos or apartments? Condos. Condos. So will it be part of the sale documents? Something about parking, are you uncoupling it from the units? So, maybe you'd have an opportunity to mark the unit that doesn't have any parking. And also, what are you going to put something in there about a concierge or something that everyone has to leave a key with the concierge in case that, I mean, those kinds of things, the logistics would be helpful to know how it works. Because not a lot of people want to leave their car keys, even if they only have 1 car that they use on occasion.

▶ 1:07:32 Um, but aside from parking, I also was curious about the front porch design and set back in the, uh, retaining front, but I don't know if Greg, if you wanted to keep the conversation in 1 area 1st, and then the other things. Sorry, um, if if you have a question you want to throw out there, that's fine and we can wait to answer it or they can. Bring back more information. Do you want me to speak to that and about the retaining wall on the front and the side or is that sent an email and was interested in having I think. And, of course, I don't have it all in front of me. I printed out some of the documents, but not all. I think it was a. You know, encouraging a railing and more front porch use and I really am not here on the design of the front porch and how it looks and.

▶ 1:08:27 Why the neighbor would like a different design. Did you see that letter? Yeah. Yes. Yeah. So the front porch is not a common front porch. I do think it would be used, I think it was talked about, you know, maybe having a half wall to lend some privacy. I mean, I truthfully have not had a chance to talk to our architect Peter Quinn about that. You know, I think the front porch is great. I think it's inviting. think it's you know fits in nicely with the neighborhood and um you know i think it's a little bit tomatoes tomatoes you know if you have a railing or if you have it a half wall there um i think it's just sort of a personal choice on that but i think the porch proportionately and logistically and everything else lays out pretty good and there is a nice front wall

▶ 1:09:25 too which which our hope is to keep that and if we can't keep it um we'll certainly rebuild it with the with the same material okay so the plan is to maintain a wall there even if it's not the exact wall that's there now yeah and if it's not the same you know if it's not the same wall it'll be the same stones reused it would just be you know rebuilt it needs a little bit of attention but it's in pretty good shape and our hope is to just keep it um going down the side of the driveway there's granite blocks and that would um our hope would be to reuse those for the retaining wall and calling it a retaining wall is a little bit of a stretch i mean it's like a tiny little garden wall it's you know less than two feet in height and um but we would like to you know it's

▶ 1:10:11 beautiful you know 150 year old granite that we would like to reuse going up the driveway okay thanks um i'll use the questions thank you greg thanks ann brian yeah hi um i just wanted to voice my support for the five spaces um i can speak from experience i have a kid i live in a single family with four bedrooms and i have one car so we're not an extinct species yet um it does exist uh you know i personally for me it's at risk for the developer and i'm comfortable with that if nobody wanted to live in a place like this with only one car then the units just wouldn't sell we have an overnight parking ban so people can't park on the street overnight like you could in the city or other places so it's going to self-control for that amount and they don't sell

▶ 1:11:00 we learned a lesson but um you know our housing production plan is you know accentuating the need for housing in melrose our melrose forward master plan said we want to develop in the existing areas and not in the green belt which is slowly being eroded um mac's perfect parking fit which was only done in 2019 suggested that melrose is 25 over parked and 20 new developments that they sort of charted for a period of time uh going nightly to them and sort of you know writing down how many cars were physically in each parking space so that seems to suggest to me that the um the demand isn't necessarily there uh there's a perception of demand and for the net zero action plan you know we're not going to make that if it's going to be you know lots of combustion vehicles

▶ 1:11:43 so i think this is a walkable community it's why i moved here um i take the bus every day to work well when i go to work my wife does as well we drop her kid off at daycare on the bus um so i just personally think that you know if you think about a parking space is roughly 300 square feet between the space and the driving area it's a three-story building multiply it out it's 900 square feet that's a one to two bedroom unit downtown boston so you know that that represents a lot of space and i would just hate to see that further eroded when we so desperately need housing for more vehicular parking thank you thanks brian Anyone who hasn't anyone else from the board have comments, especially and obviously we'll be continuing this tonight based upon the requested additional information. But so, Carla, if you want to go and, you know, if anyone else can collect anything that they'd.

▶ 1:12:39 Like, to see as part of the response, that'd be helpful to. Go ahead, Carla. Thanks, Greg. I know we'll probably get to design down the line. Um, but. I just wanted to ask a question about the trash storage, and I might have missed this detail. It looks like you've got space for six totes along the driveway. Is that right? 50 gallon totes. The city standard, I believe what the DPW is now trying to work out is that The city standards for a household, it's a 45 gallon tote for trash and a 45 gallon tote for recycling. Or not to exceed and so I'm just trying to figure out where all the recycling is going to go. I get that. Everybody will be able to fit their trash every household in 1 of each household in 1 tote. But.

▶ 1:13:39 I regularly put a trash bucket out of recycling. and there's only two of us here so i'm wondering where you're going to gather all of the recycling material so and fighting for that yes so we've talked about this a lot so this will be a managed building so there won't be um totes that are assigned to each unit they'll be for the collective whole and i mean honestly what we'll probably have is in an ideal world with the buyer that we'll market will have um four recycling bins going out and and like one and a half trash bins going out that that's what we see here um so that that would be uh just to jump in so carla just to specifically answer it's not five trash barrels and one recycling it's those are meant to be less than one per unit

▶ 1:14:37 Either split 50 50, or as Matt said, you know, like, like you were indicating your household generates maybe more recycling than you do trash. Mine does too, by the way, by a long shot, and my town went to much, much more restrictive trash measures. Um, which everyone grumbled about and everyone got up in arms and guess what? It's working just fine. Um, so at any rate, um, you know, the, the people won't have to worry about putting it in bin 1 through 5 as Matt said, they can put it in. Any sort of open trash bin, and then it'll be taken out, but fair question. So, you're, you're comfortable based on your other developments that you've provided enough. Sort of cooperative trash removal and recycling collection there for all the households.

▶ 1:15:23 Yes, yep, we haven't had trash browse overflowing or complaints or shortages or anything like that. Yes, we are very sensitive about that now in Melrose. We have to keep it. We have to keep a tight lid on fast for sure. And that's part of the reason I think that. For the new guidelines, you know, in terms of the new. Trash bins and whatnot, so just wanted to double check on that. And Greg, just because I'm here, I might as well offer a comment on the design. I think it's very well designed. I wish we had seen some recent applications that looked like this. To be honest, I think it's a very unobtrusive way to fit 5 units on that site. And directly in keeping with the language of all the buildings surrounding it. I think they've done they've gone to a great deal of trouble to to.

▶ 1:16:18 diminish the massing so that it doesn't overwhelm the site and each each sort of grouping of the townhouse is there are enough twists and turns and insets and moves there with dormers that it really breaks down the massing overall and I think it's extremely well designed And I know from this applicant and their architect, the site is usually very well planted as well, which really makes a big difference in these developments as well. You know, it's one thing to put up a building with tiny little plants around it, but I think the complement of all the planting surrounding it and the paving materials is, it just makes for an extremely well-designed environment. So, I'm encouraged by what I see, and I'm not troubled by the parking requirement. I, I do have more than 1 car in my household, but I do know that there are people that are making do with less and they, they choose to do.

▶ 1:17:23 So, and they will self selected and live in this. This development, so I don't really have trouble with the 5 parking spaces. Thanks, Carl. Chair. Thank you. Any other board members? Again. I just have a quick question, Greg. The existing structure, I think it's in the 1700 year. Is there anything on a historical thing on this building? Existing house? Before you demolish it? is there a did you go through the historical commission on this or anything i can speak the best i can to about so i think it is it it it does pay me a little bit it is a nice house i i won't you know take that away from it um it's it's more in the you know probably 1880s was when it was built um as far as i know there's there's nothing that the city has implemented like a demo delay or

▶ 1:18:34 anything like that that would prevent us from tearing it down um joe and i have talked also just for whatever it's worth about um dismantling it rather than tearing it down so that's something we're looking into um which some other municipalities do so it's it's rather than crunched up with a excavator it's the whole house is hand dismantled and and um for reuse so okay is this something requirement that you have to go through housing uh historical commission for this or no no we don't have that requirement all right all right thank you so we only have the district that this is what's added okay thanks um so i i don't want to cut off any more comments but i you know it does sound like we've got a number of requests related to the parking analysis

▶ 1:19:34 that i think have um been put out there you know if anyone wants to add to that anything in particular they'd like to see with that analysis you know please uh you know weigh in i do think the um number of items that denise mentioned from the dpw's report as well on stormwater that i think are being addressed but um don't are they coming up with a revised plan on this uh greg uh from like a dpw is looking for some spot grades or yeah there was a number yeah i think there was not i don't know that would necessarily require plan changes but there was additional documentation requested so i you know one of the reasons why we like to have that closed out is you know occasionally we do see that that does affect placement of stormwater features and you know we don't want

▶ 1:20:32 this to go through and then realize that the stormwater system has to be redesigned and relocated so a clean review from the dpw would be helpful well dpw gave me he gave my engineer some angina that was a they had a lot of requests there which are really which are you know they're all valid it's very thorough what they want so we've been working on it i understood and next screening we'll have a more revised plan so yeah or just some more detail or something that's all yes yeah i think the drawings are well done anyway though even on the landscaping you know yes thank you yeah well beth paul tim i know you all had a chance to weigh in but anything else i think others have asked all the questions that i had in mind so i'd like to just add something

▶ 1:21:25 the vein of uh you know kyle was talking about the recycling and the trash and it's not a carbon issue with this project but i just want to have people who are developing property start thinking about it because it's actually something i began doing and i think it's a super thing to promote and i would love it is it's composting we put our composting thing out on the street once a week as well uh it probably reduces the weight of my trash by like half you know it's probably a fraction of the volume but most of the way uh and we have a composting service and i find it a very good thing you know we were throwing that stuff down some people like to stick them down the garbage disposals i just spent all summer jackhammer in my basement out to pull my clogged

▶ 1:22:13 drain pipe out so i don't encourage jumping things down your garbage disposals but i think it's just a consideration they're not very big i don't know if you haven't seen them uh and it's a super thing i i i highly uh recommended it so uh paul for whatever it's worth it i live in wenham and we have uh composting pickup so we have trash so this does it yeah the town so we have trash recycling composting um and you're right it makes a huge difference um and what my dogs like about composting is sometimes my kids forget to close the bin and they go have fun and yeah but um i think that's a great idea and i know there's a couple services that do do pick up in melrose already so to get on one of their routes would be probably be pretty easy so it's a really nice

▶ 1:23:02 thing i like it i yeah again i was on the fence you know my wife was pushing me far and i'm like what do i want to do that far and instead of doing it i just i think it's wonderful yeah yeah all All right, um, sounds like we've got, you know, a decent list of things to require a response. So, I, you know, assuming that any, any last minute questions from from. Or bad or Joe before we. I did not, uh, could I entertain a motion to continue to, um, great. Can I just ask? I know there was somebody hanging on for a while who wanted to make a comment. I don't know. Still out there, but you might just want to circle back. Sure, yeah, I guess I thanks Denise. Is there any other public comments that maybe didn't get a chance to and this will continue to be open, but, um.

▶ 1:23:59 If you were hoping to say something, we missed you, you know, feel free to send an email. Oh, did you see Liz Donaldson? Is that who it was? Yes. Thank you very much. I appreciate your calling on me. My questions were answered by other people and asked by other people, but thanks so much. No problem. Thank you. All right. Well, um, anyone want to make a motion to pro continuance to the March hearing. Yeah, I can make a motion to continue this, uh, uh, for the next, uh. Hearing, I mean, next meeting on the 148, uh. Myrtle street, we have a 2nd. Okay, all in favor say, aye. All right any names or abstains. Okay, we'll see you in a month. It's 28 March. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. All right, so moving on our next case is case 21 dash 0, 0, 2 dash are.

▶ 1:25:20 735 Newburyport Turnpike. Applicant is John T. Pugh, the 2nd. I think everyone probably recognizes this is a modification to our previously issued approval. We're bringing in the team. All right, John, I'm not able to make you a panelist, but I have you unmuted. Okay, I have a presentation I need to share. Is that going to be a problem? Um, if you can send it to me, I can present it or if there's someone else on your team. Here that, um, share it, um. Should I is Michael Rosen here as a. Should be a panelist as well. Am I not logged in correctly? I can just log out and log back in quickly if that's helpful. I have no idea every once in a while. This will happen. Um. Fine, I can let me just email you my.

▶ 1:26:39 I can quickly send it to you. Sorry. Just give me a 2nd, just while we're while we're doing that. I'm also going to mention that, um. This matter is also before us later tonight as a recommendation to the board of appeals. So. of appeals case 21-016r so we'll take separate motions on that recommendation but i think from a practical perspective we're going to treat them collectively assuming no one has a strong objection to that attorney rosen do you know if there's anyone else that i should make a panelist I'm looking down the list now. John, should we be making Ellen a panelist? Yes. Those are hand raised. And do we need to make Doug and Bonnie and Ajay panelists? Are they going to be speaking?

▶ 1:28:12 They might have to speak, but the expectation is that they won't. but if it's easy to do then that would be helpful sure yeah i'm going to be presenting and if there's questions the team is prepared to answer them so that's the expectation who was the third person uh aj bowman laura could you also make um mike lawton a panelist as well did you say that last name again i didn't catch it sure hunting h-u-n-t-o-n so i just sent you a link lori okay unfortunately it's a large pdf hopefully it's not an issue um if it is uh we can have maybe one of the other team members share it bonnie or aj and then i can just kind of speak to it i have it up there oh great okay thank you all right fantastic thank you all right so uh good evening uh honorable planning board members

▶ 1:29:44 chairman sampson uh ms gaffey ms massey master excuse me uh my name is john pew uh next slide please i'm with pew management uh my business partners bonnie bowman or bonnie burgett and aj bowman are also on the line this evening as noted a moment ago next slide the project team is also available members from lang and cha and riw next slide please so the town line in i'm just going to kind of refresh our memory on things in terms of where the project where we are and then provide a quick update on next steps it's about 10 to 12 minutes so we'll just get into some of the details the town line in as we all know is a blood in the community with crime drugs and illicit activities but tonight we can change all that with an approval of this site plan

▶ 1:30:38 modification next slide please this is a image of the approved plan a 94 000 square foot warehouse facility uh the design includes inviting friendly uh front pedestrian friendly frontage along broadway a building to accommodate one to two tenants and the building is going to be built and operated to the highest class a standards to attract companies that will bring good paying jobs in addition to these sustainable features both on the site and in the building we also expect it will improve the flooding situation on route 99 broadway and increase tax revenue next slide so at our last meeting we discussed some of the different sustainable features for the facility with the board those features have been incorporated in the approved conditions

▶ 1:31:29 so the proposed development transforms an old motel into a state-of-the-art warehouse facility that incorporates these green building practices and features while also cleaning up the neighborhood next slide uh so just want to remind everyone of the location here the location is a uh is split uh i'm sorry the next slide please the next the location is split by the city of malden and city of melrose municipal boundary runs effectively through the buildings you can see highlighted there in yellow and for this reason uh you know and it's also bounded by route 99 and route one so there's there's both of these cities as well as mass dot that has to provide input for the project so these are particularly challenging because there's

▶ 1:32:24 different zoning in the two cities different allowed uses different regulations that we've been navigating and we believe these challenges are why the property has not been redeveloped and is in the condition is in today next slide please uh so the just a quick kind of overview touching on where we uh where we've been uh so as you can see the uh approvals that we've received in the city of melrose mapped out in the left side of the screen there then we went to malden we recently received a special permit from the planning board in the city of malden i've had an ongoing conversation with the mass dot so we've had a variety of both formal and informal conversations and these have influenced the design and that's why we're here this evening

▶ 1:33:12 to discuss some of those modifications to the previously approved site plan next slide please so those changes include uh really the big focus of those changes involve the reconfiguration of two of the three main primary site driveways and that involves the addition of a channelized island at the southern broadway driveway as well as the addition of a deceleration lane at route one those have resulted in some adjustments to the open space to the parking count and other minor items that we'll touch on in just a moment next slide please okay so the what you see here is the uh previous site plan that was approved uh in the kind of the blue outlines there is just showing the the driveways that have been

▶ 1:34:06 updated and reconfigured uh in the red and green arrows that are shown on the screen there those represents the primary truck access routes for the project at the last previous site plan iteration that was approved next slide please and so this site plan is showing the updated uh driveways which allow for improved truck circulation safer uh access for vehicles uh on onto broadway there's a there's a we'll see this we'll kind of zoom in in just a moment and you can see some of the features there uh and it now adds this access for truck tractor trailers uh from route one so that was not available previously because of the the design the trucks could not make that turn so all of the main truck access was was off of route one previously now we anticipate

▶ 1:35:07 that the majority of the truck access will be off of route one because there'll be a direct access point there as opposed to having to use the interchange and then as trucks exit the site as you can see on the left side of the screen the red arrow that shows how trucks will uh will will leave the site go north on 99 to the route 1 interchange just north of the site and then they'll be able to go north or south on route 1. some of the some of the additional kind of changes that took place as a result of these these updated driveways include an increase in the permeable space on site we know that's an important piece as well as less on-site parking which was something we had discussed with the the board the last time we were we were here next slide please

▶ 1:35:56 so this is meant to be uh an animated slide so please excuse kind of it's a little bit there's a lot of information on here this is showing the uh the driveway changes this is the route 99 driveway so as you can see highlighted in yellow is the channelized island there is that island prohibits left turns under route 99 so trucks leaving the site as you probably know route 99 is a very busy road so through our conversations with both the mass dot and the city of malden we've uh reconfigured this this uh to make it safer and also help with uh we believe it helps with the the efficiency efficient movement of trucks and traffic in general uh so we've also uh adjusted some of the curb cuts and modify the driveway width as well and just

▶ 1:36:47 highlighted in yellow i want to point out is the uh is the crosswalk that's been updated again And via some of the conversations we've had, especially with specifically with MassDOT, MassDOT was pretty clear in terms of what it wanted us to do with both the channelized island as well as the, as well as that crosswalk. And so this is the result of those conversations. Next slide please. Uh, this is a detail of the route 1 driveway. So highlighted, excuse me highlighted in yellow. There is the new deceleration lane. That's running adjacent to the southbound traffic on route. 1, this will create the ability for tractor trailers and other passenger vehicles and trucks to safely. Enter the property from route. 1.

▶ 1:37:42 Also will have the impact of decreasing the truck traffic from on route 99. we, as we discussed in our previous meeting, we don't believe that there's going to be a significant amount of traffic associated with this development. But the traffic that is associated with the development will be decreasing in meaningful way with this new additional deceleration lane. next slide please okay this is just a highlight this is the showing the previous site plan and what we're doing here is highlighting in the red with the red boxes the parking spaces that had been removed as a result of some of the design changes in the site plan so we went from 107 total spaces down to 98 spaces next slide please modified open space so we've

▶ 1:38:38 had to modify the open space given some of these updates this is the previous plan that was approved 27,000 square feet about twelve and a half percent of the total open space of the total site this is which we received a variance for previously in the city of Melrose next slide please uh the updated site plan this is showing the uh the total that's now 25 711 square feet about 11.8 percent of the total site so this is uh one of the variance modifications that will be necessary just want to remind everyone again in the city of malden there are no requirements for open space so what we've done is we've next slide please what we've done is we've added uh permeable asphalt you can see the on the left side of the screen is again just to remind everyone is

▶ 1:39:33 the melrose side of the property on the right side is the malden side of the property so in the uh june and july hearings we had conversations with uh with with the planning board uh melrose and that resulted in a series of uh square footage that's uh permeable asphalt to add additional infiltration for storm water and then highlighted on the right side of the plan is the uh the area the 4 860 square feet of additional new permeable asphalt uh and this and that's a part of the the special permit the from the malden planning board so i want to highlight that quickly uh just touch on the pr the actual total permeable area of the entire site uh has actually increased by 66 excuse me six percent to about 35 665 square feet so overall it's a net we believe it's a net benefit

▶ 1:40:32 uh next slide please and this is showing uh just quickly kind of touching on that we've added some dumpster screening as a result of the conversation with malden as well as the bike racks on the malden side of the property and uh we've uh there's been some minor modifications to snow storage areas next slide please so this is just touching on the variance modifications that will be required the open space uh the requirement here is 20 percent the variance that was received was for 12 and a half percent and uh the updated calculation is about 11.8 percent the maximum driveway width 24 feet is the typical driveway width 44 feet was the variance that was received and 57 feet is the number that's shown at the the main driveway area next slide

▶ 1:41:32 so the proposed warehouse facility provides solutions to many of the problems of the site today next slide please tonight we can make a positive impact together we can create jobs increase tax revenue improve the route 99 corridor with the approval of this site plan modification we would like to work together with the planning board to arrive at a solution that is a win for everyone so thank you very much i appreciate your time we all appreciate your time and be happy to take any questions you might have uh thank you appreciate the presentation um i think if uh does anyone on the planning board have any initial comments or questions all right actually let me just pause and ask denise if um Just letting us know where we stand with respect to the review by the city and departments.

▶ 1:42:29 Denise Gaffey: So yeah, we did send the materials out to all the standard department heads and in particular, we did touch base with the engineering department to make sure they were satisfied with the revisions regarding the egress, which is a major change, and they had no further comments. They were satisfied with that. Okay. Yeah, I personally will just say from my comments, I really don't have a problem with the change to the layout. I think, you know, just for the boards, you know, to refresh the memory of the board, we did not support the open space reduction Variance recommendation to the previously. I personally would continue to feel that same way. From a site plan perspective, I have no problems with the change.

▶ 1:43:32 But with respect to the ZBA recommendation. I would continue to not support. The additional relief requested. But that's my personal opinion. If others want to weigh in and ask questions or provide any comments, please do so and then we'll open up to the public hearing. Just one question, Greg. Go ahead, Bob. I just want to repress my memory. The trailer, can they still go in on the site from Route 99 or the only entrance now is on Route 1? Hi, Bob. Nice to see you. The, the trucks are able to go to access the site on both route 99 and route 1. we do anticipate that most of the trucks will directly access the site off of route 1 because it's because it's an option. But if, for some reason, a truck were to drive down route 99, they would be able to access the site from route 99 so that we think that's important. So that the, we don't cause any headaches traffic headaches.

▶ 1:44:55 I think this is an important piece of the trucks can get into the site. If it's, you know, if you could imagine their GPS takes you down with 99, you'd want to have the ability for trucks to access the site. so john is that the driveway on route 99 to enter is a wide enough for that grapple trailer to go in or you have to go through the wide turn to enter the site yes yes sir bob yes it is um if you look at the uh if you look at the detail of the route 99 driveway uh the island has been designed in such a way to allow for the swing of a truck safely uh and whether they're coming northbound or southbound on route 99 the expectation is most will be coming from southbound 99 from the interchange but there is accessibility either

▶ 1:45:46 way in case uh in case they need to access this okay and there will be a sign that it will be a right turn only for the trailer to go out on route 99 that's correct yes sir that's correct Thank you. Anyone else from the board? Yeah, Greg. I would say, you know, maybe similar to you, I support the safety improvements, but are the open space driven mainly by a parking requirement? And is that ours or Malden's? I mean, I think the open space is driven by the size of the building, ultimately. I guess my question is, are 98 parking spots really needed for the. People who will be on site at any given time. I'm just not clear on that. Hi, Beth. Hi, Beth. Happy to happy to answer that question for you. The, the, the typical minimum amount of parking spaces for a facility of this type is 1 to 1000.

▶ 1:46:58 um and so there's a is a requirement for just the functional purposes of a building of this type and use um i think you know you you could uh there's there's a lot of questions you could certainly ask about what was the driver for uh you know for the open space and kind of where that kind of came from i think primarily it's it's both the size of the building and the functional requirements of the building the truck court is obviously a big piece of the of the paved area and that truck court is really the minimum size for a truck court of this type of building so we we've tried to optimize it as much as possible both between the functionality of the building and the potential user as well as the the open space requirements and some of the other

▶ 1:47:49 requirements and there also is just to answer your other question there is our requirements from malden for a certain minimum amount of parking as well so it's really a balance i think a lot of the the challenge for this design and this this process has been kind of balancing the needs for both cities and the mass dot uh in a way that uh responds as sensitively as possible but while also respecting uh the different um different parties influences and and requirements hi i've uh one question i don't know if this is getting a little too into the weeds but um and feel free to push back everybody but looking at the um parking along route 99 and broadway uh if instead of sort of being parallel to route 99 you were to pivot it so that it was instead

▶ 1:48:45 parallel to the building you'd sort of flip it though because obviously you sort of got to take a little chunk out of it at the top um you could pick up the three spaces you don't have right now like you know because it's not perfectly symmetrical at the bottom and fit another four and so you could consolidate it into one drive aisle with all the spaces off of that it would sort of justify all of the open space towards route 99 which is the public realm as much as route 99 can be um and and might give you a bigger area for like bioretention or rain gardens or or other things, just because it's all consolidated, it wouldn't sort of make the entrance area a little more constricted. So I imagine there would have to be

▶ 1:49:23 some sort of maneuvering with that. I haven't had a chance to run that all through. I just sort of doodled quickly over it on my side computer here, but just an idea I wanted to throw out there. Thanks Brian. Carla. Yep. Sorry about that. I've got two means of communication going here. I agree with you, Greg. Although I see, I understand the reason for the modifications to the site plan, I think the safety reasons, they make a lot of sense. I don't support as a board member, the reduction or relief from the open space requirement. So, I agree with you that I think we should maintain the same condition and not be in support of that, even though I think they've, They've done a lot with what they're working with.

▶ 1:50:50 I just as a precedent, I don't feel comfortable with supporting that. Thanks, Carla and Paul. I think the same as Carla and you, I think. It's just kind of Kelly go even further down and open space even, but obviously it's going to look a lot nicer than what's there and the. The change in the access and egress for trucks does look a lot safer. It just is too hard for further reducing open space when it's such a. It seems to me, there must be some way to make up a little bit more open. I don't think I, I think we should stick with our previous position, but I do support the change in the. That's a seagrass there. Can I just add that? We are increasing the existing open space by over 200%. What's there is it is a completely paved, uh, asphalt lot.

▶ 1:51:58 Um, just want to make sure everyone kind of remembers that this is not a beautiful, uh, idyllic place today. Unfortunately, and, uh, and we believe we're, you know, as I said, we're really trying to balance some of the challenges with. different requirements functional and regulatory and uh but certainly respect you know the the thinking and appreciate the feedback any other board members um so i you know as far as the open space goes that is that is not our decision that that's the recommendation to the board of appeals so you know if we separate this out um you know personally i would recommend you know approval of the modifications to the site planner approval um i and i think consistency we would our letter to

▶ 1:53:00 the board of appeals would be that we you know again if everyone agrees that we don't support the relief required for the open space um so i'm going to kind of approach these separately but let's start with the site plan approval modification oh actually pause is there anyone from the public who wants to speak on the application if you do please digitally raise your hand or chat to the host of the meeting and we'll recognize you I see no one I don't see anyone either okay we'll keep it open for a minute but um if would anyone aboard you know want to make a motion to approve the site plan approval modification um subject to the i don't even know that we have modified conditions that would be necessary i'll ask denise to clarify that but

▶ 1:54:09 uh greg this is carla still moved okay do we have a second a second okay so that's a motion by carla and a second by ann and i guess denise is denisa laurie do we have any recommended or any changes to the conditions other than just reflecting the updated plan set there was a a tweet to a condition about the crosswalk and um received additional information from the applicants on on that the original site plan had like a patched mark for for the crosswalks pavement marking along the openings of the driveway, which looked like a good idea and they weren't on the revised plan, so there was a commission change about that, but the MassDOT actually recommended a different kind of crosswalk indication,

▶ 1:55:15 and it is on the plan. It was difficult to see with the, the black lines that were there, but, um, so that was in the, um, a condition for the staff report, but we can remove that because it, it is, um, it is on the plan. Okay, so I guess the, the motion would be to approve and the conditions are largely unchanged otherwise, other than just modifying the, the references. Um. any further discussion hearing none i'll take a roll called vote um ann hi yeah hi ryan hi carla hi uh jack hi paul hi bob can't hear you bob all right tim hi bob do you want to do a thumbs up for an eye okay and i'm an eye so that that carries so it's approved for the site plan review um and again from uh from as far as the rep board

▶ 1:56:42 of appeals we typically you know just make a recommendation they they did not agree with us last time i don't know that it will be anything different but we can just my my inclination would be to you know send a similar type of ladder um as before does anyone feel differently or if someone wants to make a motion then we can is the the board of appeals the variances are i'm getting confused the variances are for parking width of driveway as well as open space So, so, Laurie, can you drive away with the parking? Yeah, they don't need it. It meets the parking requirements. So driveway with. In open space, open space. All right. So I'll move the variance for the, the height of the building as well, but that's not changing in this proposal.

▶ 1:57:35 Okay, so that we send a letter to the board of appeals supporting the width of the driveway and the new configuration. but opposing the decrease in open space based on the same thing that you said last time. And it's a motion. Give a second. I'll second. Carla. Thank you, Carla. Any discussion? Okay, all in favor, you say aye and we'll do a roll call again. Anne. Aye. Beth. Aye. Ryan. Aye. Carla. Aye. Jack. Hi, hi hi. Hi, and Tim hi, and I'm an eye. All right so that. And we'll we'll send that letter out and copy you. Thank you very much everyone appreciate your time. Thank you. Good luck. Thank you. All right. So. Now, we are on to the housing production plan presentation and vote. Denise wanted to get there at 930, so not bad.

▶ 1:58:54 Denise Gaffey: I can't believe it. You are right on. It's 930. Perfect. Um, so, um. We're just going to pull up a presentation. Give us a 2nd to do that. Everybody see that. Okay. All right. Fantastic. Well, um. Very excited to finally be at this. Juncture with this process where we have a final, um, copy of the housing production plan to present to the planning board. Um, we've been at it for about. 16 months now, and, um. Um, as everyone knows, we've been working, um, hand in hand with the, um, metropolitan area planning council and there are. Consultant on this effort and, um. We received a grant 16 months ago through the Community Compact Program in order to retain MAPC services and to undergo this really important planning effort.

▶ 2:00:03 Denise Gaffey: So, Emma, who you are all very familiar with, is now back at MAPC and has been helping to finalize the plan in her new role, her new old role. So, she was hoping to be here tonight. Something came up for her. She couldn't make it, but she does send everyone her regards. So I wanted to give it on to Emma and we'll get right into it. So. Hopping on to the next slide. So, just quickly tonight, I'm not going to, I'm going to go through these slides relatively quickly. I know you've all had a chance to to read the plan and knowing how diligent the planning board members are. I'm sure you have all read the plan. Many of you have also gotten comments to us on the point on the plan when it was a draft when we sent it to you as a draft a month ago. So, for that, I'm, I'm, I'm appreciative.

▶ 2:00:56 Denise Gaffey: Um, so this is just going to be an overview, um. To reintroduce you to the housing production plan, um, briefly share the planning process that we went through. Summarize the recommendations, answer any questions that you might have and then ultimately the point of tonight's, um. presentation is to get a vote from the planning board. Next slide. So, just as a reminder, a housing production plan is a strategy that communities use to guide development of housing, market rate, and affordable. And we dig in deeply into the community's needs and housing goals and then identify strategies to achieve them. This is the first time Melrose has done a housing production plan ever. We've done, I've been involved in two master plans in all my times here and

▶ 2:01:44 Denise Gaffey: Our master plan effort always includes. A pretty substantial chapter on housing. But if it doesn't, it never has allowed us to get into the kind of depth. Um, on the housing issue that a housing production plan can do since we're. Only looking at housing and the timing for this, of course, couldn't be more. important because we know what a crisis it is right now in this region, not just in Melrose, where we've seen housing prices skyrocket, but also throughout the region. So this is an important process to undergo. Next slide. So the housing production plan is defined by Mass General Law Chapter 40B. So everyone is aware of Chapter 40B and the in that statute that will allow developers to build in a community that has not attained 10%

▶ 2:02:50 Denise Gaffey: of affordable housing on the subsidized housing inventory and how they, you know, a developer might use a comprehensive permit process to develop without regard necessarily to existing regulations so the statute is um is aware that you know for communities um that that is not necessary uh developments are not necessarily always well received and that um a planning it's important for planning communities to plan to um to try to attain the 10 affordable housing you know and all and just meet their housing needs um so the 1440 statute sort of outlines what a housing production plan process will look like and the housing finance agencies look favorably upon communities that have housing production plans i mean we consider it a best

▶ 2:03:46 Denise Gaffey: practice um and to to do an assessment like this to have a plan a housing production plan And in addition to the goal of getting to the 10% affordable housing, you know, having 10% of our housing stock as affordable housing, there's also just very good reasons to have a housing plan and to understand what the needs are in the community and to try to address them through housing. So, that's what we attempt to do with this plan. This plan, let's go to the next slide. It is the last slide also pointed out. It's a 5 year plan. So, we are, we're, we're thinking in terms of we're looking out over the next 5 years. With the strategies and action items in this plan. So. Next slide here, we talk a little bit about the process.

▶ 2:04:44 Denise Gaffey: A lot of engagement involved in this process, as you can see through through this slide. We began working kicking, we kicked it off with the 1st meeting of the advisory committee back in the fall of 2020. Um, and then we, um. Did a lot of research on, um. On our housing needs, looking at looking at the data and the demographics. Um, came back several times to meet with the committee. In order to prepare for our 1st engagement. And, um, which occurred, um. Late in the fall of of 2020 early winter and then we had a 2nd engagement where we, we went back to the community to talk about. Housing goals and strategies and development opportunities. So, um, basically this sort of gives you a sense of, um, from beginning to end of all the different components and then overview next slide.

▶ 2:05:42 Denise Gaffey: And that's a lovely graphic about how we, we do some analysis and then we go to the community and get some input and hear their reactions and their feedback. And then we. Do just some additional analysis and it was a really a really robust process. Next slide so some specific information regarding our engagement and of course, this is all outlined in great detail in the plan. So, I'm just gonna, this is just a snapshot. I mean, we had, we had what we thought was terrific participation in our different engagement campaigns. We had a webinar where we had about 60 participants back in the fall of 2020 and we also had an online open house. All of this, of course, took place during COVID. So, we could not meet in person for any of these engagements, but the online open house was a really, really, really great tool.

▶ 2:06:39 Denise Gaffey: um people uh had to had to submit had to commit a fair amount of time because there was a lot of really good information that was presented and we had about 160 75 people participate and provide responses that um that helped us to formulate our goals and our strategies for the next round of engagement and so in the spring of 2020 we had another webinar and another online open house we also um spent a little time uh last summer um outside of starbucks in the downtown area where we we brought some of the information with us about um development opportunities and trying to get feedback from the community from residents about where they like to see development happen so that was um that was a really nice event as well and then most recently

▶ 2:07:32 Denise Gaffey: We've had a website available for this process throughout where we've engaged with the community. But for the last month or so, when we put the draft out, we got about 70 responses from the community to the draft plan, and that was really great. We got some interesting comments. Um, I'd say pretty much the comments kind of led us to conclude that we had a really balanced plan because we, we heard from people on both sides of the issue in terms of development. I mean, of course, there's always going to be people who feel like there's too much development and they're concerned about traffic. But, you know, we also got many comments from residents who felt like this was a really well done plan and really supported the plans objectives.

▶ 2:08:22 Denise Gaffey: So, we were, we were pleased by that, but we can get into that in a little bit further next slide. These are some additional engagement opportunities that we took advantage of. We, we met with the city council on a couple of occasions, the city council, in addition to the planning board, the city council also has to approve the plan. So, we, we, we very much engaged with the council throughout the process. We met with the Human Rights Commission, really interested in getting their perspective and asking them to also reach out to their networks. And so we could engage as far and wide in the community as possible. We also met with, attended a meeting of the Historic Commission and sought their feedback on the plan.

▶ 2:09:13 Denise Gaffey: We noticed from our engagement, The engagement opportunities that we had that we, there were certain sectors that we didn't that were underrepresented. You know, because of the pandemic and the virtual format, we didn't. Hear from as many seniors as we typically do for for these kinds of engagements. If we were to have an open house. Say, at City Hall or Memorial Hall, we would often have a lot of folks come out to that. So that was 1 segment that was underrepresented also young people. That is not too unusual for not to hear from too many young people. So we, we made a point of reaching out through our networks. Through many different networks from the advisory committee and others to try to talk to people 1 on 1.

▶ 2:10:09 Denise Gaffey: Um, from some of those underrepresented groups, and we've got some really great feedback that way. And also, we had a couple of focus groups meetings where we talk with government officials about the kind of constraints. That they see sort of the physical and infrastructure constraints around development. And also, we engage with real estate professionals. To better understand from their perspective, where they see the challenges in the housing market. Next slide, um. We had a really terrific advisory committee. Our committee included our very own great Samson. And, um, city counselor, Jack. It also attended all of our meetings, and it was ready to have that connection to the city council. So he could.

▶ 2:10:54 Denise Gaffey: Also keep the city council up to date on the progress. Um, you can see just I'm not going to read all the names, but. um i think our consultant from mapc repeatedly told us how sort of intimidated he was by this group because they had so much great housing experience um so we were really pleased by by the makeup of the group we met seven times over the course of the project and um and received really great feedback from from the committee next slide um this is just a fun word cloud and this was based on one of our engagements when we asked residents uh our participants to to provide a couple of you know one words to describe the community or the or how they would like to how they envision melos to be so i think this is

▶ 2:11:48 Denise Gaffey: kind of a nice snapshot of some of the um some of the attributes that we all love about melrose and we're trying to encourage next slide so um the development framework is um basically we we we're framing our development so one of the things the plan requires us to do is to actually identify development opportunities and that's development sites in addition to developing identifying development sites um where we we can promote um more housing creation also just different ideas about addressing our housing constraints throughout Melrose and it's important to do this within our in the framework of our community and so all of our our goals are kind of framed around our unique character of course you know we are

▶ 2:12:46 Denise Gaffey: we are we have a downtown in a real corridor that that runs downtown where We have, you know, very dense development and we've been, and I think safe to say our, our policy around housing development in recent years has really been around promoting. Multifamily and mixed use in our downtown and along our transit rich areas. And I think we've been very successful with that and they. And a lot of the comments that we got through this process, we're really supportive of that approach. Um, not exclusively, I think there was also, it was really good to get feedback from from participants to who wanted to see development in other areas. So, when we talk about some of those other areas, our mid density neighborhoods are.

▶ 2:13:36 Denise Gaffey: These are the areas that are are adjacent to, but not in the downtown core. And there we have a lot of, um, um. You know, we have opportunities, I think, for this missing middle housing type and by that we mean not necessarily the single families, but not and not. Larger multi families, but opportunities for. 2 and 3 families, and some of the smaller and multi family type or townhouse uses. So, and then we talk about our low density neighborhoods, the areas that are more of the outskirts. That were later to develop in Melrose where we see larger lots and predominantly single family homes. Um, so, you know, we look at sort of. Um, the opportunities there might be encouraging cluster development.

▶ 2:14:31 Denise Gaffey: Um, or maybe allowing for accessory dwelling units. Um, and possibility of also allowing for. In addition to single family homes as a right, maybe 2 families. So, we'll get into that next slide, get into that further. In terms of development opportunities again, I mentioned that a requirement. Is that we, we identify development opportunities. This was not particularly hard for us to do. A lot of quite a few of these are actually what we call in the pipeline. These are, these are locations that. That we are aware, because, um, property owners or developers have reached out to us and expressed interest. Um, we know to from some of the recent zoning work that we've done that these areas around, um.

▶ 2:15:23 Denise Gaffey: Our computer real stations and around the downtown area. Are very, um, are very ripe for redevelopment. So, many of these locations are, um. Are our properties that we expect will be redeveloped in the near future, or we'll be able to take advantage of the new incentive zoning that we recently the planning board recently created about a year ago. So, these include the property on Franklin street, Franklin market also the post. That's right right behind that off of Franklin street. Um, there's a project site on West Wyoming out there's the site at 360 main street and then of course, Caruso property, which, um, um, it's been. Um, somewhat of an eyesore for many years being in a vacant state, and, um, is currently under new ownership. So.

▶ 2:16:19 Denise Gaffey: There is a real opportunity for redevelopment there, which we're pretty excited about. And then there's some other properties that we think would be. Would be great redevelopment opportunities, including the site on Main Street. A site on Washington street. Greenwood property, which is really the only property. It's an active construction business right now, but we think there's. Um, possibility for redevelopment there under the smart growth zoning that we've done the smart overlay zoning. And a couple of sites on term on street. And the site on street that's next to the new assisted living. So. These are these are the sites that we talk about. As development opportunities in the plan next slide.

▶ 2:17:10 Denise Gaffey: Couple of other things to mention that we are required. As part of this plan to set targets. For new development, we based our targets on both. We provide a range based on the 2010 census and the 2020 counts. We were, we were kind of doing this when we first started this process. The 2020 census was not available to us. So, we sort of are a bit of a hybrid in our approach, but essentially what we. we have identified 237 through a range of 237 to 294 new housing units which will be needed over the next five years to get to safe harbor which would be our 10 basically we're at eight percent right now in terms of our subsidized housing inventory and ten percent again is the goal and and then just when you talk about safe or harbor and just to

▶ 2:18:12 Denise Gaffey: clarify what that means if you if if you are able to demonstrate that you need these production targets and um these annual production targets then you have safe harbor which means a 40b developer cannot present an um an unwanted 40b for a one-year period um or a two-year period depending on how many units are created so that's what that's what those targets are referring to next slide um quickly this these are the um housing goals that we identify in the plan um i think they're pretty self-explanatory and i think they are um with their um terrific goals a mix of housing um racial equity to advance and promote inclusion and um racial equity and to enrich the community through increased diversity in their housing

▶ 2:19:09 Denise Gaffey: stuff um affordable housing obviously we want to do what we can to expand and preserve deed restricted and subsidized housing opportunities for low and moderate income housing households including family households it's very important it's very important sentiment to enhance neighborhoods with the housing that we do create so using housing as a tool to enhance our neighborhoods and that means balancing it with all other community priorities like open space like historic preservation economic development sustainability walkability and resilience and then to continue to engage with the community one of the goals is to have a develop an ongoing engagement and discussion with the community to promote an understanding around the role that

▶ 2:20:04 Denise Gaffey: housing plays in melrose and in the region next slide so um to get there we've got um um i think four primary strategies and um we'll just quickly mention the strategies and there's quite a few um action items so so we have the overarching goals we have four strategies and then under each strategy we have a series of action items and those are the um that's those are the those are the items that we're going to be working on once we have an approved plan then we sit down to do the hard work of implementing these um these action items to get us where we want to be in five years um many of them um involve zoning and many of them will involve the planning board um there's a kind of a nifty table in the in the plan that outlines all of the strategies and

▶ 2:21:06 Denise Gaffey: action items and also the the lead agency and the supporting boards and commissions that will help to implement these different action items so um i don't think we have the in this slide presentation but you get a sense for for um you know for the different groups that are going to be involved in making this this happen um so to speak just quickly about this one um involving zoning using zoning and design guidelines to encourage the missing middle housing that fits into those existing contexts so i just wanted to point out this first action item um i think when we originally had this in the plan it was um it was talking about allowing for two family homes and town homes in the um in the downtown and real corridor area and we we got a fair amount

▶ 2:21:58 Denise Gaffey: of feedback during our most recent public comment period about trying to encourage um two family homes or not to limit that to the downtown area so we think that's an opportunity and i mentioned it earlier to maybe take a look at some of our um our lower density areas where we do have bigger lots and there may be opportunities for for two families for example without without you know changing the character of the of the neighborhoods there in any significant way so we brought in the um this action item um to allow for that consideration um obviously we've talked in the past about um amending the zoning to allow for accessory dwelling units that's a really important tool and um we think there's a great opportunity to get here in melrose with the

▶ 2:22:50 Denise Gaffey: housing stock that we have with the desire for so many um residents to to remain in their homes but where they might have um they may be over housed but looking for ways to stay in their homes we think um providing for an expanded approach to accessory and dwelling units beyond just the in-wall apartment approach that we currently allow by special permit is something we should consider and could be a very effective way for us to create housing units in melville so that's something that's on the list and also um many proposing amendments to the dimensional parking requirements to allow for smaller housing types um and um density bonus bonuses to incentivize conversion and expansion of historic structures i think those two are really important and so interesting when

▶ 2:23:44 Denise Gaffey: we had our earlier conversation about the property on myrtle street um i think these two these two issues here really came into the fore right how do we try to other ways to incentivize preserving historic or older older buildings um and right now we don't really have that any tools in place so this would be a really nice tool to to consider in order to do that um and then design standards for mixed use multi-family infant info and replacement development um that was something that came across during that process next slide strategy b is to encourage production of de-restricted affordable housing units create more deeply affordable options i won't get into all of these items here but i will mention the community preservation act because that one

▶ 2:24:36 Denise Gaffey: um generated a lot of comment um i think we one thing we learned from from the comments we most recently received is that um there was a lot of perception that this plan was going to result in the adoption of the community preservation act once it was approved and i think um i think it's important to kind of point out that this is a plan it is only a plan i mean it's a very important tool and it will set our um you know it will help us to prioritize our work in the coming years um but it is a plan and it's going to require a lot more work um by a lot of other a lot of people and it's going to require and something like the community preservation act will actually require city council approval to have a ballot question and then it requires a campaign really for um

▶ 2:25:34 Denise Gaffey: for the whole community to weigh in on so we can't make it happen with our housing production plan if only we're that easy but um we do think it's a really important idea and we do think if we're going to get serious about these goals and action items we need to have some funding sources to do that and a community preservation act is an ideal funding source for that not only does it dedicate funding for affordable housing it also dedicates funding for historic preservation and open space and all of these things work together and um it's really important and i think you know we're just there's only so far only so far we can go with zoning um you know without having having some other resources at our disposal so um i think so what we did do is we did make it clearer in the

▶ 2:26:27 Denise Gaffey: plan um you know what the community preservation act is and how it is ultimately adopted and some of the different options that are that are um available to communities in terms of you know what the rate you know the rate structure could look like and what kind of exemptions exist for people who are low income or um you know may not be able to afford that additional um fee so i'll skip ahead to um the next strategy strategy c which talks about encouraging a fairer more accessible private housing market um you know we think there's opportunities to create a downtown payment assistance program. We, right now, we refer people in Melrose to the North Suburban Consortium, which is a consortium of communities that we work with that makes decisions

▶ 2:27:22 Denise Gaffey: around housing, home funds, federal HUD funds. But the way it is structured, it's very hard for, because our housing prices are so high, the down payment just is like a drop in the bucket. It's not very effective so we think if there's a way to create a program in melrose um that would be really that would be really helpful and allow some people who you know who may grow up in melrose but can't afford to live here um or who who want to move to melrose but can't you know that opportunity um we encourage the adoption of universal design standards in new housing construction and we also have this idea of exploring local requirements for a notice of sale and notice of rent increase to help decrease housing instability and then finally i think strategy

▶ 2:28:18 Denise Gaffey: d encourage sustainable development for deciding and design of new housing so here sustainability and sustainable development has become increasingly more you know, more important and a high priority for us. So we'd like to continue to do what we can to promote sustainable development. And I mentioned earlier this notion of cluster zoning to promote open space and encourage ecologically sensitive development in areas that are low density areas. Next slide. And then we have some just general best practices that we recommend in the plan. And probably the most important 1 there is to create an implementation committee to oversee the implementation. Of the plan, and to continue the public discussion around housing.

▶ 2:29:16 Denise Gaffey: Next slide so just briefly. Again, as I've mentioned the planning board. By statute, the planning board and the city council both have to adopt the plan. For it to take effect and for it to be eligible for approval by the Department of housing and community development. So, hopefully we get a successful vote tonight and we'll be sending it soon after to the city council for approval. And then after that happens, we would send it off to for their approval. And then if the plan is approved and Melrose permits. The targeted affordable housing units that I mentioned earlier. Then we may be able to apply for a safe harbor status. From a chapter for the development in the future. Next slide again, this is just to reiterate that.

▶ 2:30:20 Denise Gaffey: Implementation is that this is a plan and it doesn't. The, you know, the hard work is going to follow and and there'll be a lot of steps and a lot of engagement. With the community around any of these additional, any of those action items that that are that I mentioned. City council and planning board will obviously play a key role. And in determining which recommendations are advanced. And when and what they're going to look like, um. And most of the recommendations do require. Actual vote by planning board or by city council. And again, the implementation committee will be very helpful. And making sure this, um, this plan actually is implemented. In the over the next 5 years and that the community is engaged.

▶ 2:31:13 And I think that's it. So, that is, that's just the snapshot of what the plan. Looks like, and happy to talk in any specifics about any of the components or any of the action items. That you might be excited about concerned about any feedback. Did a great job though. Oh, great. Thank you. It was a lot. It wasn't it was a lot of work. We had a great a great group of people. Great committee. Right can speak to that too. I'm sure. Yeah, I second that. Um. I have read a lot of it, and I also participated in some of the online stuff over the last couple of years and I thought it was very thought provoking. Very well done. Of course. Hi, hi goals now that we have to do all this work. I know a lot of work. Yeah, I.

▶ 2:32:20 I know, but I do support it, so I'm ready to vote. Yeah, and I think, you know, the only thing I'll add to this is. You know, 1 of the things that's kind of interesting about it was. The wide gamut of options that are in there from, you know. Direct funding to zoning changes to, you know, I. I hope that everyone can recognize that. This is like a huge list of options to pursue, you know, with 1 goal of. Well, multiple goals, but 1, real goal is just to generate the housing we need. Um. So, you know, hopefully everyone is ready to vote. Yes on it. I appreciate if we can proceed to a vote. And, um. The other thing I'd say is, you know, to the extent you hear any, as we move to the city council and the next steps, you know, we want to be advocates to, to move this forward and.

▶ 2:33:22 You know, there's certain conversations we're all going to have with people and obviously not everyone's going to agree that the CPA should be passed tomorrow. But, um, I think having a discussion about it is is worthwhile. And if we can encourage adoption by the city council as well, to the extent, you know, you have those opportunities, you know, please do so. Yeah, that's great. And I can let everyone know when it's going to appear. On the council's agenda, so do we just wanted to take a motion then to approve the housing production plan as presented. So moved to do that. Thanks, Jack. Is that Tim who seconded? I second it. Okay. Um, so it's got a motion to say any further comments or discussion.

▶ 2:34:26 No, I'll do a roll call. So, um, say, I, if you approve Bob. Hi, Carla. Hi. And hi, Beth. Hi, Ryan. Hi, Jack. Hi. All right, Tim. Hi, I'm an eye. All right. Thanks. Everyone. Thank you all the hard work again. We do have 1 more ZBA case. It's case 22-00366 Beach Street. Johanna and Kevin Kohan. It is a variance for a small residential addition. They want to fill in this corner of the house. The proposal does include a 2nd floor addition as well, but that's By right, um, so the, the required side yard is 10 feet in the existing house. Is 5 and a half feet and the addition would be at the 5 and a half foot setback as well. So, the staff review is that, um, the. Small addition to add some living space, um, doesn't appear to be detrimental.

▶ 2:36:00 They are removing the large window and not adding a new one or proposing a window in the addition. So it does create a blank wall on that side. So the applicant should consider adding a window because it doesn't seem like it would negatively impact BFI on this side. Thanks, Laurie. Anyone have any questions, comments, or thoughts on how to proceed? like a neutral letter from my perspective with you know the notes added i i agree i think it feels that way i'm only reluctant to i don't like the idea of the blank wall but i wondering whether i don't know if i feel that strongly to ask them to i guess consider changing it would consider adding a window is a good idea but i don't feel strongly about asking

▶ 2:37:15 them that and i have one question which is it looks like they're also removing a window in the entry which doesn't maybe seem like it's part of the construction as much or that may be at least adding that back maybe a simple win for helping that facade a little bit anyone else feel strongly about the design comments all right i think i'd feel best if we just made them more like comments then uh you know i i guess i'm hesitant to push too hard on something like that that's where i feel like it's more taste they're following the side sideline of the house and i think it's a neutral letter no objection yeah i mean that's fine and honestly i mean i think our transmittal letter includes the staff this this report so it'll be noted on that anyway so i kind of agree

▶ 2:38:27 with you we can just be neutral and then the comments will be reflected in the notes there okay do we have a motion yeah i'd like to make a motion on yeah go ahead dan i was going to say since i'm the one who said it so many times um i will uh move that we send a letter not objecting and taking a neutral position on this leaving it up to the board of appeals and um obviously noting the comments in the staff letter second that Okay, all in favor you just say, we'll do it voice. Call on this 1, just say, aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye. Any opposed or abstained. All right the motion carries. Um, so that's it. So next, the next hearing is, um, March 28th, uh, it's noted as being our annual meeting. Um, so we.

▶ 2:39:35 We elect the chair positions and. Uh, committee positions, um, if anyone has any. Strong feelings about positions, uh. You know, feel free to reach out to Denise or I, or. Speak up if you're want to take over. Don't hesitate to reach out. and then the other thing please you know if anyone is interested in um voicing opinions we uh denise and i were talking earlier today about the return to in-person meetings um currently virtual meetings have been extended through the middle of july um you know some people feel comfortable in this virtual world some people would benefit of being back in a conference room to to work these out so you know let us know what you're thinking and obviously we'll continue to

▶ 2:40:34 Denise Gaffey: just kind of play it by ear but um if you have strong opinions why another just let us know one other um thing to note the 52 west emerson street uh mock-up will be ready uh the developer said tomorrow it'll be up so i'll leave that when i see it but um it will be soon So, we'll be contacting you all to find a date to, uh, to meet there to look at them. Walk up. Yeah, it sounds like he's he's a bit anxious at this point. It's although he told us 2 months ago. It was going to be. Up in a week, but, um. You know, we'll, we'll reach out and maybe there's a morning. This usually it's the design review subcommittee members who meet on site. And we try to do it around your work schedule. So. You know, early morning or late afternoon or something like that. So we'll.

▶ 2:41:34 We'll be in touch. Of course, anybody's welcome to come. Okay, sounds good. Thank you. Anything else anyone. All right, thanks everyone. Thank you. All right. Bye. Thank you. Thank you. Good night. Good night. Good night. Everyone. Bye-bye.

Original documents

• Minutes (CivicClerk PDF)
• Agenda (IQM2 PDF)
• Bulletin (IQM2 PDF)
• Minutes packet (IQM2 PDF)
• Agenda packet (CivicClerk PDF)
• Agenda packet (IQM2 PDF)
• Other (CivicClerk PDF)
• This meeting on the city portal