Legal & Legislative Committee — 2025-09-02
Attendance
Cal Finocchiaro ; Mark Garipay ; Maya Jamaleddine ; Leila Migliorelli ; Devin Romanul ; Kimberly Vandiver
Agenda
- Call to Order
- Minutes Approval
- Public Comment
- Ordinances
- ORDNC-2026-3 : Amending City Ordinance to Implement a new schedule of fees for Zoning and Conservation Permits
- Orders
- That the City Council accept local option statute M. G. L c. 39, Section 23D for the Melrose Planning Board, Zoning Board of Appeals, Conservation Commission, and the Historic District Commission holding adjudicatory hearings to allow for members to not be disqualified from voting on a matter solely because of their absence from one hearing date.
- Adjournment
Minutes
CITY OF MELROSE LEGAL & LEGISLATIVE COMMITTEE CALENDAR● SEPTEMBER 2, 2025 Council Chamber, First Floor, Melrose City Hall Committee Meeting 7:28 PM 562 Main Street, Melrose, MA 02176 The public should take notice that the Melrose City Council may, on certain occasions, have a quorum in attendance due to standing committees of the City Council consisting of both voting and non-voting members. Members attending this duly posted meeting are participating and deliberating only in conjunction with the business of the standing committee. Attendee Name Title Status Arrived Devin Romanul Vice Chair Present Cal Finocchiaro Present Mark Garipay Present Kimberly Vandiver Present Leila Migliorelli Ex Offico Member Present Maya Jamaleddine Chair Present Non-voting council members Stewart, Hamilton and Karamcheti were present.
(ID # 12942) Amending Something Previously Adopted Amending City Ordinance to Implement a new schedule of fees for Zoning and Conservation Permits Recommend Place on File City Council
(ID # 12944) Acceptance of general law; decision; fund That the City Council accept local option statute M. G. L c. 39, Section 23D for the Melrose Planning Board, Zoning Board of Appeals, Conservation Commission, and the Historic District Commission holding adjudicatory hearings to allow for members to not be disqualified from voting on a matter solely because of their absence from one hearing date. Recommend Place on File City Council City of Melrose Page 1 9/9/2025 2:22 PM
Transcript
▶ 37:12 Maya Jamaleddine: um, and, uh, president Cle Lee. Also joining me non, uh, voting member, uh, counselor, uh, Stewart and Counselor Hamilton. And, and, and Counselor, Che. Sorry, I thought you're a voting member and I said you all good. No worries. Um, this, um, and this serves and as an notice, soft quorum for the record and in accordance with the open meeting law. This meeting is being recorded, recorded and broadcast live on MMTV. Um, and now with, um, uh, with no objection, I would like to, um, if there is no objection, I would like to open the floor for public comment. Seeing none, uh, public comment is now open. Um, this is the portion of the meeting where anyone from the public can speak on any item on the
▶ 38:14 Maya Jamaleddine: agenda for tonight. Um, if there is anyone in person, please come forward seeing none. Do we have anyone online? There's No one online. Thank you. Uh, there is, uh, no objection. I would, uh, make a motion to close public comments. Uh, seeing none, public comment is now closed. Moving to minutes approval. Uh, uh, if there is no objection, I would like to make motion to approve. Um, a minutes, um, from committee meeting, uh, of April 28th, 2025, and for committee meeting August 18th, 2025. Seeing no objection, uh, the meetings are now approved. Moving to ordinances, um, ID number 12 9 42, amending city ordinance to implement a new schedule of fees for zoning and conservation permits do maa. Good evening.
▶ 39:37 Hello. Good evening. I'm Lori Masa, the director of, um, uh, office of Planning and Community Development. Um, and I'm joined here tonight by Brian Thorpe, who's the chair of the Zoning Board of Appeals. Yes, Good night. Good evening for both of you. So we're here tonight to request, um, amendments to the city Administrative legislation, legislation to increase the fees for boards and committee staff by the Office of Planning and Community Development, which have, um, fees that are, uh, in the code. Um, this is in response to Mayor Gregor's request for all boards to review their fees last spring, um, due to the budget shortfalls. So the zoning board of Appeals, the planning board and the Conservation Commission, um, reviewed
▶ 40:20 and voted on fees considering the advertising costs for legal notices for the applications before the boards, the length of time since the last increase, and the rates charged by other municipalities. The zoning board of appeals added fees for multiple variance requests, time extensions, revisions, repetitive petitions. The planning board, um, in decreased the base fee by, for square footage for the site plan approval process, which resulted in increased fees for that permit. Added new, um, site plan approval fees for accessory dwelling units, increased marijuana use, special permit fees, um, and added fees for time extensions, modifications, repetitive petitions, and increased fees for, um,
▶ 41:07 Maya Jamaleddine: subdivisions, which was, which were very low. The Conservation Commission added fees for their most common type of application, the request for determination, um, and the increased fees for notice of intent, permitt extensions, um, amending order of conditions and added fees for certificates of compliance. So I'm happy to answer any questions, um, that anyone has about the fees. Yes, thank you. Any, uh, one from my colleague have any question saying none? I do. Oh, you do. Go ahead. Okay. Um, do we, um, made me forget, um, now it, I, I hear you that this due to the, um, budget, um, shortage and if, if the override passes, are we going to move it back to what it was? Or are we considering keeping the same changes?
▶ 42:10 Maya Jamaleddine: We would keep the same fees that we're proposing right now. Um, we did look at what other municipalities charge and felt that the proposed fees are reasonable, so we wouldn't, um, we wouldn't pull back on them. Okay. Um, so, so now I'm, I'm just for the, uh, public that's watching us, um, referring that this, these changes are due to the shortage in budget that we are having is one of the reasons, but the other reasons is also in comparison with other municipalities. We are on the lowest, um, that we are charging fees. Is that what it is? Right. We are in the lower end. Um, it's also been quite some time since the fees have been increased. So, um, we felt that it was, you know, reasonable to increase them, um, even if the override passes.
▶ 43:00 Perfect. And what about, um, you know, um, seniors, uh, older adults or, um, low income? What are the recommendation that we're providing with those, um, increases? So we did consider the, um, the typical applicant of these different kinds of land use permits. And so for kind of the, um, smaller scale projects where, you know, um, a resident, you know, of a, a single family, two family, kind of the non-commercial uses, um, they generally have lower fees and then the larger developments have higher fees. So that's kind of how the, the fees were viewed. Um, these kinds of permits are typically for, um, you know, altering structures or, um, doing some kind of work for property. So, um, we, you know, it's somebody that's requesting to
▶ 43:59 Maya Jamaleddine: be spending money on their property to enhance it or, or make it typically make it bigger or, um, something like that. So, um, those are, um, you know, if somebody wants to do that kind of a project, they typically have the, the funds in order to proceed with that kind of a work. Mm-hmm. So what I'm hearing is you are already can, taking into consideration and, uh, between the commercial, uh, use or permits and the residential permit, that is, you're kind of separating between both. Yes. And, um, there is no recommendation for senior, uh, older adults? No. Okay. Okay. I don't have any other questions. What is the will, uh, counselor? Sorry, I just, your line of questioning I thought of one as well.
▶ 44:46 Kimberly Vandiver: Um, I was curious as far as the budget impact, um, if given recent trends, if you could attempt to kind of estimate per year what this change would bring us in additional funds. So we don't have control over how many applications, um, we get. So it, it would be kind of just a, a guess. Um, it's not, it's not going to be a whole lot of money. It would, you know, probably be a few thousand dollars. Um, so, you know, again, this isn't gonna save the city, um, by increasing the fees, but it is, it is something. So, um, we thought it was important to move forward with it. Thank you. Thank you. Uh, councilor gpe, I'll make a motion to recommend. Second, I have a motion to recommend made by Vice Chair GPE
▶ 45:35 Maya Jamaleddine: and by Councilor gpe and seconded by councilor, um, RO, um, on discussion, seeing none. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay. This motion carries. Thank you, uh, for, um, uh, being with us tonight and for all the information that you're providing. Um, moving on to ID to orders ID number 12 94 4 that the city council accept local options that statue MGLC 39, section 20 3D for the Merose Planning Board, zoning Board, and, uh, of Appeals Conservation Commission and the Historic District Commission holding, um, I hate this word, adju. Adjudicatory. Okay. I'm not gonna try it. Hearings to allow for members to not be disqualified from voting on a matter solely because of their absence from, uh, one hearing date.
▶ 46:46 Okay. Also, you're speaking on this, um, order. The floor is yours. Okay. Well, thank you. Um, so there, this, our second request tonight is to adopt the Mass General Law, chapter 39, section 20 3D, which is a local, uh, option to accept, um, the part of the state law that allows for a member to miss one meeting of a public hearing and still be eligible to vote at a future meeting. Um, the city or the, at the time Board of Alderman did adopt this law in 2006. Uh, but there was no reference to the boards and commissions to which it, it applies. And so we are bringing it back, um, before you to make sure that it's valid and for before we use it. Um, and so this adopting, um, this law would allow
▶ 47:36 for a member to miss a meeting when there's multiple public hearings for a case. And they would have to, um, listen to the recording of the meeting and get up to speed and sign that they've done so, um, before being eligible to, to vote, uh, at, at a future meeting. This, uh, request is for the land use boards of the city. So the planning board, the zoning board of Appeals, the Conservation Commission, and the Historic District Commission. Um, the reason why we find that this is important is, um, because oftentimes if a member is absent, um, we typically know ahead of time we have great board commission members, but sometimes things, you know, come up and, um, we'll find out at a meeting that, um, we don't have
▶ 48:22 all of the members that are eligible to vote. And an applicant request will request to continue to a future meeting. Um, the members of the public that come then can't say what they'd like to say because we can't open the public hearing. And so it causes a lot of frustration, um, for the public and, you know, also, you know, applicants and their, um, consultants as well. Um, so, and by adopting this, it, um, you know, sets up a fairly easy process, um, to still continue on with the hearing, and then the member listens to the recordings, um, and is able to participate in the vote. Um, and we have, you know, staff for all of these boards who are able to easily record the meetings, um, and make it possible for members to, to listen
▶ 49:12 Mark Garipay: before the next, um, before the next, next meeting. Thank you. Have Councilor gpe, and then Councilor Fina Chiro. Thank you, Madam Chair. Um, I'm happy to, happy to see this, uh, this, this was one rule that was very, um, like, I couldn't figure out why. 'cause you know, a, a resident could come up, come in front of the Board of appeals and someone could be away on business. They volunteered jobs and then all of a sudden they gotta go through the whole whole process again. And, um, so I'm happy to see this and I will enthusiastically, enthusiastically support it. Thank you. Counselor Ro. Thank You. Um, I just have one question. So if, if a commission member, um, misses more than one, is this
▶ 49:57 Kimberly Vandiver: Right? They can only miss one meeting. Okay. Mm-hmm. Great. Just wanna clarify That. Thank you. Um, counselor Kara Shey, if there are voting members who have questions first, they should go. Um, counselor Van Dever. Uh, thank you. Uh, I guess my question, uh, posed to the committee and consider making an amendment is just that I saw in the first footnote on Attachment A that this talks about, um, other types of, um, boards in Melrose that hold, um, relevant hearings. And so I, I'm just curious if anybody would want to expand this further than the, um, the set of, um, boards that are currently included in this order. So it's open question for discussion. Thank you. Thank you, Uh, for the chair.
▶ 50:50 Mark Garipay: Um, I would, I'm happy with supporting this as is if you want to come back and change it. 'cause I don't know all the boards and commissions that we have, I'd rather get a full list, but I'll, I'll support this as is as proposed to us. I don't know that I would wanna, um, make a change right now. Uh, I'm not saying we can't in late date, but I don't wanna make sure we, we miss a board and commission that, uh, is not included. Thank you. Ms. Maa, do you have any comments on the suggestion that, um, We did consider, you know, being inclusive with this, um, proposal? Um, typically the, um, other boards and commissions, um, that hold public hearings have typically one night of a public hearing, and so it's less of an issue.
▶ 51:38 So that's why it's proposed to before proposed with, um, with these four, um, boards, although it could, you know, be expanded whenever you choose to do so. Thank you. Um, counselor Karen, she, Um, thank you. So this makes sense to me. I understand it and why it would be important for someone who misses one meeting to be able to vote. I think my question is more on the side of like, do we really have the capacity to like record every meeting in the Cassidy room to capture public comment? And I'm particularly thinking of the Board of appeals meetings, the planning board meetings that are the bigger developments where there are numerous engineering reports, you know, blasting reports, traffic reports,
▶ 52:32 and a lot of residents who come and speak on those and just sort of do we really have the capacity to capture all of that and the different spaces and places. Board of Appeals is still online, Cassidy Room for Planning board, just kind of just wanna make sure that the things that need to be reviewed so that board members really have all the information to be able to vote that, that we have that system set up. Mm-hmm. Um, and I also saw that there are some parts where, um, the board member needs to certify by affidavit that they've actually reviewed all the documents it's filed in the city clerk's office, and are we gonna really do those things and are we set up to do those things? Mm-hmm. Yes. So we, um, as you mentioned, the zoning board
▶ 53:26 of appeals is holding their meetings remotely. And so that's very easy to, you know, we post all of their, their meetings. Um, and so it's, it's very easy for, um, the, the zoning board to be able to go back and, um, review the, their meetings. Um, we post all of the materials for all of these boards and commissions on the website. So the mat, the written materials are, um, easy to find and, um, we compile all the written comments and are able to email those, um, easily. So for the, the other three boards and commissions on this list, they meet in that Cassidy conference room and we're able to, um, purchase a, uh, recorder that's $25. It's a digital recorder that you can, um, put in the middle
▶ 54:09 of the table and it can pick up all the, um, the voices, um, during the meetings. And so, um, we, you know, are already kind of set to do that once we get the approval, um, to make that small purchase. And, um, there's a, um, lots of templates from other communities that have adopted this rule of the certification, um, of the, the member. Um, I work for the City of Somerville for a number of years and, um, we, um, used this, we're able to use the, um, this kind of so-called Mullen rule. Um, the, the Mullen rule actually is the rule that, um, stated that you can't miss a meeting, but it's, that's what it's called. Um, so, um, it, it worked, it worked very well. Great. Thank you so much. Appreciate that. Thank you. Any other question?
▶ 55:07 Maya Jamaleddine: I do have a couple of questions, if you don't mind. Um, are these recordings going to be archived or, or stored somewhere or doing it after it's used? Uh, we could save them, um, in the, in our files. Um, there isn't a requirement that we do that. It, it's just the certification from that board member that they've listened to the recording after the meeting. And, and if just trying to, um, think, uh, in a way like forward, if someone requested, um, the recordings from the public, is that something that we are going to be able to provide it or just for the members who missed those meetings? If a member of the public requested it and we had the information, we could provide it to them. Um, you know, we're not required to record our meetings, so,
▶ 56:08 Maya Jamaleddine: um, we won't record them unless, um, there's a board member that's absent that we, we know we need to kind of use this rule to, um, to have them eligible to vote at a future meeting. So, um, except for the zoning board meetings that are currently still online, um, we have all of those on the website, but, um, we would only record them when needed. Okay. So it's not going to be recorded every time. It's just when someone is, uh, absent, that's when we record it and there is no guarantee that's going to be stored or being able to, uh, provide it if someone requested from the public to have those uh, records. Okay. My other question, now, if, uh, uh, the one time, uh, being absent, is it throughout the year or is it
▶ 57:02 Maya Jamaleddine: It's for that specific case. It's just for that case, but it's not like they can, I guess I'm, I'm trying to understand, is it for if they miss more than one meeting, um, is it something that's going to be counted or is it just per case? It's just per case. Per case. Okay. So often for, you know, depending on the case for the, the zoning board of appeals, they're kind of larger comprehensive permit cases. You know, if they have like three or four public hearings, it would just be, you know, for that specific case. And then the next case that came along, a member could miss one, one of those, you know, if they had three public hearings and they missed one, that, that would be Allowed. That makes
▶ 57:50 Maya Jamaleddine: sense. Thank you. Um, I don't have any question. What is the will of the committee Councilor gpe? I'll make a motion to recommend. We have a motion to recommend made by Councillor gpe. Second. Seconded by Councillor. All in favor? A. Aye. Any opposed? Seeing none. This order will be, um, uh, recommended to the full council. Thank you both. Um, thank you. I appreciate you being with us tonight. With that, uh, we have, that concludes all our, um, uh, agenda for tonight. And we have, uh, adjo, uh, adjournment. If there is no objection, I would like to make a motion to adjourn. Seeing none, we are now adjourned. Good evening. The time is 7:52 PM Um, today is Tuesday, September 2nd, 2025. I am President Melissa.