Appropriations & Oversight Committee — 2024-09-23
Agenda
- Call to Order
- Public Comment
- Agenda
- ORDNC-2025-1 : Amending Melrose Zoning Ordinance Chapter 235, Articles I-XVI to recodify, or restructure and clarify, the contents of the Melrose Zoning Ordinance.
- APPT-2025-9 : Appointment of Jeffery Ugino, 41 Howie Street, to the Zoning Board of Appeals
- Adjournment
Transcript
▶ 41:03 Maya Jamaleddine: And joining me, our Vice Chair Williams Councilor gpe, Kara Shetti Osky, Stewart Vandiver, Hamilton Romano, and President GL Lee Exofficio. This serves as notice of the Quorum, uh, for the record in accordance with the Open Meeting law. This meeting is being recorded and broadcast live on MMTV. Um, on our agenda is now is, uh, public comment for the, uh, for the two items on, on, on our agenda for tonight. Um, so I will motion by unanimous consent to open, uh, the floor for public comment. And seeing no objection, public comment is now open Chair Jamian. Just a quick point of order. Councilor ro is here too. It's okay. I'm so sorry I missed your name. Uh, for the record, councilor Ro is also with us.
▶ 42:05 Maya Jamaleddine: Um, we are in, um, public comment and this is the portion, uh, where anyone for, uh, of the public can come forward and speak on any item of our agenda. Seeing none present in person. Do we have anyone online? There's No one online. Thank you. And, um, I will move by Unanim consent. If there is no objection to close public comment. Public comment is now closed. Um, on our agenda for tonight, we have, I'm sorry, I lost the order. Yes, thank you. Um, appointment of Jeffrey, um, Eno 41, um, how street to the Zoning Board of Appeals, um, and it's appointment 2025 dash nine. Good evening, Madam Chair and members of the Council. Um, thank you for having us here tonight. I'm pleased to present Jeff Eino as a member of the ZBA.
▶ 43:37 Jen Grigoraitis: Um, as you can see from his resume that's attached in your packet, he brings substantial le civil legal expert expertise, excuse me, around, uh, real estate law and land use. He has served, um, he's as a US attorney in the District of Columbia, as well as clerking for land court, um, and is currently in private practice, largely operating down in the South Shore. Um, so really look forward to him bringing those experiences to Melrose. He is also a veteran and has served on our Veterans advisory board and is looking to get back into the boarding commission world, so to speak. So, thank you. Uh, good evening to the board or to the council. Uh, thank you for, uh, taking the time to speak with me
▶ 44:16 and hear me this evening. Um, I professionally, as it relates to the ZBA, I have been doing this work for about 20 years a after law school. I was a, a clerk on the land court, um, with Judge Trombley there. We heard, routinely heard zoning, board planning board, um, appeals cases, land, land disputes, property boundary disputes, that sort of thing. Um, after that I was at the law firm of Pelman and Page, which is now KP Law, which is primarily municipal law firm. Um, there I did a lot of similar land use type work. Um, litigated zoning, planning, conservation commission, uh, those types of land cases. Also did some zoning enforcement, um, board of health enforcement there. Um, been with my current firm for about eight years now.
▶ 45:06 And there I still do a lot of the same work with, with land use and zoning. Um, I regularly litigate, um, planning board, zoning board cases. Um, we're based in Norwood. I work out of our Winchester office. So we work generally all around the metro area. So we don't have much Melrose work. I think we've had one Melrose developer in eight years. It's come before. I can't even remember if it was the planning or the zoning board. So, um, yeah, we, I also do some small business, um, advising work, some, some business litigation as well. So, um, I will, I will point to, um, Greg Sampson, who suggested that I, I, uh, come to the ZBA, that there was an opening and I'm happy that the mayor appointed me to, to serve.
▶ 45:50 And I think I could bring some experience and, um, some insight, especially with the, the zoning ordinance changing a little bit now as well. So, happy to take your questions. Thank you. Any question from my colleagues? Councilor gpe? Thank you, uh, Madam Chair. Um, Mr. Gino, thank you, uh, for volunteering. Your resume is, uh, very extensive and I look forward to supporting this nomination. Thank you. Any other question or comment? Councillor Hamilton, I Just want to, I took a look at your resume. Thank you for your service to our country and now for the experience that you bring to the city. Thank You Very much. If it's appropriate to do so, we make a motion to recommend. Second. Thank You. We have a motion to recommend made
▶ 46:39 Maya Jamaleddine: by Councillor, um, Hamilton and seconded by Vice Chair Williams. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay. Thank you again. Thank you to the council. Thank you. This will move to full council. Next on our agenda is Ordinance 2025 dash one, amending marrow zoning ordinance chapter 2 35 articles, um, ix uh, six to, uh, record or restructure and clarify the contents of the mayor zoning ordinance. Hi. Good evening. Hi, good evening. Um, we're delighted to be here tonight. And, um, we're here really to, um, um, assist as you continue to deliberate on the zoning reification ordinance that, um, was initiated by the planning board. Um, and just as a recap, we had a joint public hearing between the planning board
▶ 47:41 Denise Gaffey: and the, um, city council on August 19th. And a week later, the planning board met, um, and discussed the, um, the issues that were, um, raised during that, during public hearing and the questions that that came up. And those are now documented in the report that the planning board issued, um, following that meeting. So, um, essentially, um, the report kind of outlines again, like that discussion, and we didn't really make any other substantial changes in recommendations based on the discussion. We basically just kind of explained in writing the issues that came up. We did do some, some make some further tweaks, some wordsmithing to some of the, um, zoning, um, um, pieces of the zoning. So we did issue a revised, um, amendment dated,
▶ 48:32 Denise Gaffey: proposed amendment dated August 26th. And in that version, which is attached to the order, along with the report, we um, highlighted those, um, items in the draft and the proposed zoning that are, um, further modified based on just kind of looking at a little more closely refining some, some of the wording, um, making some adjustments. For example, the, uh, one of the councilors raised the question about the illustration for the dormers. So we, we did, um, modify that to make it clearer and things of that nature. Um, but, um, we don't have a presentation planned. We're really just here to answer any questions if any of the council members have any based on the report. Thank you. Any question? Councilor Stewart?
▶ 49:15 Robb Stewart: Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you Ms. Gaffey for, for coming before us. Um, fences still three feet, Pardon Me? The fence, the, the zoning ordinance for fences, the height of the fences, is it still three feet? Oh, You mean the setback is three Feet? No, the height, Um, Within the front yard or a corner lot. We did not change that. We did not change that. Okay, great. 'cause I had heard that there, there might be some changes because of the way things are manufactured. I just wanna be sure that that is staying at three feet. Yeah, no changes to that. Okay, Great. Thank you. Thank you Madam Chair. Thank you. Any other question from my colleagues? Uh, president Mali? Thank you Madam Chair. Um, I just have a question on,
▶ 50:02 Leila Migliorelli: or potentially a proposed amendment. Um, sorry, I'm just now scrolling to try get, get back to my spot on the signage, um, part in article temp. Um, I know there were some comments when we met last time about, um, you know, I'm happy to see that you've, you know, the 30 day restriction is removed to, to stay in line with, um, the constitution. Um, I still question the limit to the signs. Um, 'cause I think as I'm reading it, 18 square feet total, no more than six. So that's just three signs, right? That would, it would be roughly six. Six signs. Six signs. Okay. Sorry. Um, and whether that, whether we have to be concerned about the limit of signs or we, like, I just want you to expand on that, whether
▶ 50:53 Denise Gaffey: that's at all limiting free speech by limiting the number of signs you can have in your front yard. So we, we, we kind of tried to clarify in here that, that, um, based on the case law, the view that physical characteristics of the in that relate to signage in the zoning would are appropriate to regulate. Okay. And we were concerned about, you know, conditions of, of clutter and blight if there were too many Mm-Hmm. Of these, um, signs in people's lawns. So that's an attempt to try to create, um, a limit on that. Okay. It's a recommendation. Okay. Um, thank you for correcting me on my math too. No further questions at this time. Okay. Any other question? Counselor Hamilton? Thank you. Uh, just quickly, so on the quick question of signage.
▶ 51:39 Maya Jamaleddine: So the aggregate is 18 square feet, so that could be six conventional size signs, or could that be one three by six sign? Yes. Okay. Thank you. Nothing further. Thank you. Anyone else? Okay. Seeing no further questions, uh, what is the role of the committee? I'll make a motion to recommend to the full board. Second. Second. Okay. We have a motion made by councilor, uh, by Vice Chair Williams, seconded by Councillor Chedi on discussion. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay. Thank you so much. Thank You very much. Um, wait, have To do roll call. I think we have to do a roll call. Yeah. Come In. Right. This is a roll call. So we are gonna do a roll call. Anything could happen there. The suspense.
▶ 52:42 Mark Garipay: You Might wanna come back officially. You just wanna hang out for a second? Okay. Councillor Repe. Yes. Councillor Stewart? Yes. Councillor Rum. Chaney? Yes. Councillor Reky. Yes. Councilor Hamilton? Yes. Councilor Vandiver. Yes. Councilor Remodel. Yes. Councillor Occhio. Yes. President Elli? Yes. Vice Chair Williams? Yes. Chair Jamal. Dean? Yes. That's 11. Yes, It passes. Thank you. Thank you so much. Councilor Garipay. Yeah. Um, just a point of, uh, information. Um, I just want to thank the administration, Ms. Grm, president Nielli for, uh, um, I think everything went smooth tonight and I think everyone, uh, came together and, um, I think, uh, I think everything went well. I think mm-Hmm. I mean, we, we got stuck with, um,
▶ 53:35 Maya Jamaleddine: no clerks tonight, so it, uh, it all came together. And I wanna just, uh, thank the administration for all the help to get this done. Thank you. Thank you. Second, appreciate all the efforts done and the administration with the vacancies that we are facing. Um, and I hope, uh, whoever is watching and they are interested in applying for these positions, please do so. With that said, make A motion to adjourn. Second, we have a motion to adjourn made by councilor. Um, Gary, please. Seconded by Councillor Stewart. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? We are adjourned.