Planning Board Meeting

Good evening. Welcome to the July 21st, 2026 meeting of the Cambridge Planning Board. My name is Tom Sieniewicz and I am the chair. Pursuant to Chapter 2 of the Act of 2025 adopted by the Massachusetts General Court and approved by the Governor, the City is authorized to use remote participation at meetings of the Cambridge Planning Board. All board members, applicants and members of the public will state their name before speaking. And all votes will be taken by roll call. Members of the Public will be kept on mute until it's time for public comment. I will give instructions for public comment at that time and you can also find instructions on the city's webpage for remote planning board meetings. This meeting is being video and audio recorded and is being streamed live on the City of Cambridge's online meeting portal, and on cable television channel 22 within Cambridge.

There will also be a transcript made of the proceedings. I'll start by asking staff to take board member attendance and verify that all members are audible.

H. Theodore Cohen, are you present? Is the meeting visible and audible to you? Present, visible and audible. Thank you Ted. Mary Flynn are you present? And is the meeting visible and Audible to you? Mary is absent. Mary Lydecker, are you present and is the meeting visible and audible to you?

Present, visible, and audible.

Thank you, Mary. Diego Macias, are your present, and is this meeting visible or audible to

Present, visible and audible.

Thank you Diego. Ashley Tan are you present? And is the meeting visible and Audible to you?

Present, Visible and audible

Thank you. Carolyn Zern, are you present and is the meeting visible and audible to you?

Present, visible, and audible.

Thank you. Going to the associate members, Dan Anderson are you present? Is the meeting visible and audible to you? Good evening Evan yes all of the above Thank you, Dan. And back to the chair, Tom Sieniewicz. Are you present and is the meeting visible and audible to you? Present, visible, and audible. Thank you Tom. That's six regular members present and one associate member present

Great, thank you Evan. The first item on the docket tonight is an update from the Community Development Department so please also introduce any city staff that's present at the meeting, Evan?

Thank you, Tom. Evan Spatrini, I'm the zoning and development manager. I'll do my best facilitating tonight's With me from the Zoning and Development team, we have Swathi Joseph and Mason Wells. Also from CDD on the Urban Design Team, Brian Gregory and I believe we should be joined by Adam Schulman from Department of Transportation. I don't see him quite yet, but I think he'll be on later. And I think that's for all... City Staff Tonight we have one item on the agenda. It's a public hearing on a special permit to construct a six-story residential building. We'll get right into that after this intro. Looking ahead, this is the last meeting in July.

Our next meeting will be in two weeks on August 4th where we'll have a public hearing on a zoning petition regarding short-term rentals. The planning board heard had a hearing on a similar zoning petition about a year ago that didn't quite get across the finish line. The council passed a policy order to make some changes changes to the approach. So that has kind of gone through that process and we'll come back around as another zoning petition. So, so that's coming up August 4th and then after that we don't have anything else scheduled but we do expect some more meetings to be put on the calendar in the next few weeks. A couple quick council updates.

The ordinance committee had their public hearing on the Doug Brown zoning petition this afternoon. the planning board heard that last week and made a negative recommendation on the petition. The ordinance committee felt similarly, I think there was a pretty similar discussion amongst the council as the planning board had and also made a negative recommendation on the petition. So that will go to the full council at the summer meeting on August 3rd and action may be taken on it at that point. the active use petitions, Mass Ave and Cambridge Street. Those changes will also go to council at the summer meeting on August 3rd

they will at that point we'll be able to pass it to a second reading and hopefully adopt the zoning petition when they are back in regular session in September. And I will stop there and pass it back to the chair.

Thank you, Evan. And I noticed that Adam Schulman has showed up here. So welcome, Adam. Are there any questions from the board for Evan on the update? No one indicates such, so I will move on to our agenda. Agenda item number 1. The next item is a public hearing on Planning Board Case 4-1. 12, a special permit application by BSR Birch LLC to construct a six-story residential building with 85 residential units. We'll begin with an update from CDD staff, then we will have a presentation from the developer followed by a public comment. Then the board will have chance to ask questions and finally we will deliberate and decide how we want to proceed on the case Mason.

Thank you, Chair. So this is the first public hearing on this application. The project involves construction of a six-story residential building with 85 residential units The Community Development Department memo summarizes the planning and zoning characteristics of the proposal, and the urban design comments on the proposal. Staff are present if there are any questions. There are also separate memos from the Department of Transportation as well as the Department The board's action is to grant or deny the requested special permits. Thank you.

Great, my notes indicate that the presenter tonight is Joanna Schneider Miss Snyder, you'll have up to 30 minutes for your presentation. We hope you can be as concise as possible and please introduce any of your project team that will also be representing you tonight.

Thank you, Mr. Chair and good evening to you and to members of the board my name is Johanna Schneider I am project legal counsel i'm very happy to be here tonight with a project proposed under the new multi-family zoning that the city adopted relatively recently We think that this is a great opportunity to create much needed housing in an appropriate location, which over recent years has really evolved to be more residential in nature. With me tonight are Seth Grady on behalf of the applicant BSR Birch LLC Hans Strauch and Michael Dennis from HDS, the project architect. Nick Campanelli from MDLA, our landscape architect Scott Thornton from Vanass, our traffic consultant. Olin Richter from Hancock Associates, our civil engineer and Samir Ahmadi from Envy Energy Studios, our sustainability consultant. We'll get into more detail in a moment, but I thought I would start with just a brief overview.

The project site which I'm assuming the board is all familiar with is a somewhat unusually shaped through parcel with frontage on each of Birch Street and Bay State Road As we get into the architect's presentation, you'll hear about how we have designed the building to have two true fronts, each of which are unique and intended to respect and reflect the character of each of Bay State Road and Birch Street. The site is currently developed with three small commercial structures and much of the site presently is a combination of paved and unpaved impervious area, currently used as employee parking for businesses on the site. We do not believe that this is the highest and best use of the site, particularly given the mix of residential uses in the immediate area and the tremendous walkability of the sites to numerous open spaces retail and transit. As Mason described, we are proposing to replace the existing uses on the site with a six-story building with 85 apartment units.

We will provide 15 onsite parking spaces and 99 bike parking spaces. As you'll hear from the project architects, the building has been pulled back from the property lines in excess of zoning setbacks in order to minimize impact on abutting properties. The design also incorporates step backs at the upper levels to create transitions between neighboring buildings. As you'll hear from Nick Campanelli, our landscape architect we are also proposing numerous site improvements including substantial new landscaping and entry clauses on each of Birch Street and Bay State Road. And we're also reducing the number and size of existing curb cuts. The building will be highly sustainable, it will be all electric and it will passive house compliant. With respect to zoning relief The project is fully compliant with all use and dimensional requirements of the zoning ordinance. Due to its size, we require a Project Review Special Permit under Section 19 of the ordinance

and in an abundance of caution we are prospectively seeking relief for green roof area under section 2235.3 as you'll see in the architect's review of the roof plan, we currently do comply with the 80% green roof requirement However, the practical reality is that the rooftop mechanical design will be refined as project plans progress and there is very limited space on that roof to provide any additional green roof area. We are absolutely hopeful and will make every effort to continue to comply, but in the event that we cannot, we are asking that the board tonight grant an exemption and allow us to make the required unit price contribution to the Affordable Housing Trust. in the event that we are not able to get to the full 80% once everything has been fully designed. With that hopefully brief overview, I will now turn it over to Hans Strach our architect to walk through the project in more detail and I will be back to answer any questions the board may have after our presentation. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Johanna. So I am Hans Trauk of HDS Architecture. Joining me in the meeting is Michael Dennis our design director and we also have Yiming Wei who's observing out there in cyberspace, the meeting. Not a panelist but he is very much a part of the project. I will, oh first of all Hans Strauch HDS Architecture 625 Mount Auburn Street. We're located across from the Mount Aubern Cemetery which i can see out my window here and we've been in Cambridge for many years So I will start by sharing. Here we are, can everybody see this? Is this viewable to everybody? Okay, great. Yes.

We also have listed at the bottom our other members of our team, Vanessa Associates and Vi Energy for Green Points and Green Architecture. Hancock Associates Civil Engineer and MDLA as well. I have to say we're really excited about this project and it's been a process, and I've really appreciated our interaction with the CDD folks helping us make this even a better project. As many of you are familiar with the location, most notable is the famous Sozio building here at the circle of Concord Avenue as it leads out to Fresh Pond. Nestled behind it is the project site. And we love this site, it's halfway if you will between Dennehy Park

and beautiful fresh pond, wonderful amenities for the city of Cambridge. And we feel a respectful connection between the two on the two streets that we front. Also near the property is a new development on New Street, the housing project. completed approximately a year ago, fronting Dennehy Park. Also of course all the retail that's happening We are in a transitional neighborhood. As you all know, there's residential development that has occurred taking over some industrial uses over on this neck of the woods across from our property is a large one-story building storage facility. So in greater detail,

As mentioned in the literature that you've received, these are three parcels but they're owned by one ownership group and we are combining them. It's a very unique property. I can't say that I've ever worked on anything of this shape before. with frontage, have done frontage on dual streets but not in this kind of way. So we have frontage Bay State Road and we have Frontage on Birch Street The majority of the property is pavement. Parking Paving, as well as sort of soiled areas here which are part of the landscape firm's storage area. Two-story or I'm sorry one story garage building Over here, another one-story building and brick office building. And then a three story office building fronting Bay State Road. There are curb cuts, three curb cuts.

One on Bay State Road which essentially we are preserving in its entirety And there are two down here that we are removing and creating a small curb cut over here. So, we are reducing the amount of curb cuts on the street. Burke Street presently has, as I had mentioned on one side, a one-story storage facility fronting one end of it toward Concord Avenue. And then on the opposite side, which this is our property, which has that I mentioned one story building office building and then a garage in the rear of this portion. There are four townhomes on the left of us that go up to the corner of Concord Avenue.

On the right, around sort of the corner, one can begin to see the three-story condominium residential buildings. Moving along to Bay State Road, this is the property defined here. There is a four-story residential building to our right, condominium building which has a garage underneath it. Right here is the entry to the ramp that takes you underneath that building to write another residential two and a half story building. Our property has an existing three-story office building, and a tree in front of it which we are preserving, a large tree and then to the left, two very nice three-story residential condominium buildings.

They too have parking which is screened here on the bottom of their buildings. So this is just a quick diagram that displays the zoning as it exists with both the setbacks and the height restriction for the six-story maximum height. We just simply show what the zoning We know this would not be a pretty picture if we were to extrude it straight up. That is the zoning. did not choose to extrude it straight up. We chose to, if you will chisel away at it both at the ground level and then as we go up with setbacks But basically, what you see here in the darker tone is the overall footprint of the proposed building.

It's building height less than the 75-foot height max. and then the setbacks here for example that's 18 feet 6 inches I believe 14 feet 10 in areas that could have been 5 or We have 10 feet setback here, not just five feet. And we also begin to set back here, which you'll see in our design a main entrance to this side of the property. As Johanna mentioned, we're not going to go through all these calculations but we do comply with all the requirements of the zoning as our understanding. for this property. And then a quick overview as we enter into the project showing how we've transformed The edges of the property making it far more pedestrian friendly.

Embracing the sidewalks at both sides of the We have a usable public space here, entrance to the building off Bay State Road. on the other end, Birch Street as well. We have created what we believe will be a very enticing and nice not only for the tenants but also for folks walking down the street heading toward Fresh Pond and etc. This is an enlivened We have a Pet area here with a small seating area for the occupants of the building, not shown here but you'll see. And as we go up, we do have a roof deck So the general circulation of the building, this is the first floor.

It's from a pedestrian perspective as I mentioned entry off of Birch Street here into the and to the main entrance of our project, we have a lobby leasing mail et cetera amenities enlivening the whole facade along the street here. We have to have a water room and a transformer. The transformer we elected to internalize into the building and not have it as a freestanding element outside. We have a bicycle storage area with access to both those who follow here through this little alley out to Burt Street. and then also on this side a way to get out to Bay State Road. The way that cars come through the building for parking, we have a limited number of parking spaces, 15. It is one way off of Bay State Road.

This location you tuck under the buildings which is this gray tone, a darker gray tone. And in this area you are inside the building within a parking garage and then out to this edge here We recognize this is a hard edge and we have a solution to that that I'll show you in our elevations. The not so exciting things like trash, but we had to solve it here. Trash management Trash will be brought down to this location either manually or through trash chute and then on scheduled days, brought out for trash pickup. We are the only other than the four townhomes Folks who would be on the street. So right now there's only four folks living here across the street There is no trash generation at the present time It's a storage building

So as we go up the building, residential units are organized with As many exposures as we can have, get them for glass. The bay windows and the elevations you'll see have glass on their edges. Maximize Corner Opportunities. This hallway, we love to do this inside of these buildings, bring in some natural light. For the architects, we just mentioned this, but we normally have a hold open door here so we can see light over here. So I call it light at the end of the tunnel lobby here for the elevator will also have lights. and then as we begin to go up you can see some of the up the building us particularly at the fourth floor. We start to set back Quite a bit, particularly on Bay State Road. These are low setback locations, setbacks all along here as well.

and then ultimately up to the roof where we have a roof deck. The equipment for the air conditioning and heating are on the roof, called split system. Very efficient. They are set as far away as possible from the street. Their noise is mitigated for that very well. We have Accentec did do a study for us for all of our machinery on the roof and we passed a decibel level per ordinance of Cambridge. So the roof deck isn't a special amenity for us. We felt given its location, particularly with views of of Fresh Pond up to the upper left would be beautiful.

By the way, I failed to mention earlier we do have a calculation of units numbers. 1% one-bedroom and studios for this project. And we have 16 affordable units of which I believe that we have two, yes, we have three bedroom units as part of the affordable We are catering this project to a particular user that is more interested in public transportation. Hopefully bicycling, particularly with being next to such friendly bicycle opportunities. like Fresh Pond, Walking but also for professionals who are not seeking large residential but more of an affordable smaller apartments.

mentioned earlier this wall here, we call it our art wall. A facade of Birch Street, which shows a lot of animation along the street for the windows of the public. More public when I say public, I mean that space is for the tenants So I should use a different word. But anyway, tenant amenity spaces. But outside is all this green space and benching the benches that are open for public use. and this amenity here is something we have done art wall We have done that on another project in the Boston area. For this one, of course, we'll coordinate with the Cambridge Director of Arts and Cultural Planning for how to accomplish us. And this is the roll-up door. We tried to modulate the facade to be respectful of the neighborhood.

The zoning allows and we're providing the housing that is desperately needed in Cambridge, but we also wanted to do a scaled building that was immediate. as humanly, architecturally respectful for the neighborhood. On the Bay State Rose side, basically we are presenting a four-story facade. The upper levels set back considerably at this location. The entrance to the garage is off to the right here discreetly with very minimal, if any when you're at pedestrian level views of the parking spaces that are tucked under. So these of course show that everything a little bit more clearly.

We're very excited about the project, about its modulation of the facade, the setbacks to step backs Thank you for joining us. A public space and entry into the building off of Birch Street. Another view showing that we solved the Eversource requirement heights and a free space area for the electric vault, the transformer. We've had preliminary discussions with Eversource for this area. This is a screen wall that lets filters light through, I'm sorry air through Another view of that corner.

We have created this alley here. There is in front of the, right at the sidewalk location here a demarked area for folks moving in and moving out we expect that would happen right here and into the building And this is the facade along Bay State Road. I've mentioned the setback of the upper level to really enhance the four-story building, to make it more in scale with the neighbors. and it too has its pronounced entry. and then tucked in the back that I'd mentioned, the parking. And this is a solid wall we will have landscaping strip here that our landscape architect will describe And we again, we chose materials of warm... I'm sorry. Of warm colors, warm feel

The metal panel, we wanted something that would have longevity and need pretty much no maintenance, minimal maintenance over the years. So that it will have a nice fresh feel for the future and the variation in texture of materials giving it a nice sense of scale. So at this point I will turn it over to, but I'll have the brow. I'll point to things for our landscape architect, Nicholas.

Thank you Hans. Can everybody hear me clearly? All right, great. For the record again, my name is Nicholas Campanelli. I'm a landscape architect with MDLA 179 Lincoln Street in Boston. As Johanna and Hans mentioned, we're taking advantage of the provided setbacks with this proposed building by providing publicly accessible open space. We'll touch on the work that's inside of the right-of-way in a few minutes, but for the sake of this diagram I want to focus on the public right away itself along Birch Street. And I'm happy to get into details of specific trees as needed with questions later on, but we'll keep it general for the short presentation here. We have five existing trees along Birch Street. We're looking to supplement and add one additional where there's a gap between the rhythm of trees along that streetscape. Down on the ground plane, we're looking to maintain the existing concrete path as Hans mentioned. Removing one curb cut and maintaining one for the exit from the garage

As you swing over to Bay State, similar conversation. We're looking to maintain the large chestnut oak that sits alongside the curb cut that we're looking There's one additional street tree that's just off our property, but we recognize its location if you're just southeast of that. There you go. In between those, we're looking to supplement with one additional tree again to play off a rhythm that moves southeast on the plan. The screening, if we start bottom right Hans and kind of move counterclockwise along the plan We have a fence that lines this edge of the property facing the Bay State neighbors As you move around the property, you've got a ground-level planting pallet, vertical trees that separate the facade from 42 Bay State Road and our proposed facade. And that fence moves all the way down, down, and stops about five feet short of the right-of-way. The property line for visibility for those walking along the sidewalk

As you swing around towards 24 Bay State Road, as Hans mentioned before the 3D rendering this is a vegetated edge against the ramp down to the parking garage at the adjacent property. between our parking lot and theirs. and then once again a fence starts up and moves around the property along the southern edge, along our dog run which we'll describe in a little more detail later on all the way down to Birch Street. And again it stops just short of the sidewalk for visibility and security. The open space, just an overarching comment here. 7200 square feet of open space which is 29% of the site We're exceeding the minimum requirement of 15% for this project. 2,900 square feet of that 7,200 square feet is private open space. 550 square feet is public open space as defined by the City of Cambridge.

Roughly 6,000 square feet permeable open space which is 82% exceeding the 50% minimum requirement Again, that's just an overarching comment that we're looking to exceed not just meet the minimum requirements for the open space for this project. Before we move off the slide one simple note there was a discrepancy in the comment received regarding the cool scores from previous iterations and current The current set of plans, that discrepancy was related to the addition of a green roof. So the current score is currently 1.90 which still exceeds the 1.00 requirement for this zone. Hans if you could flip to the next page The one thing I didn't mention on the last slide, you can stay here Hans is related to the bike racks. We have along Birch Street, along this facade just off the plan of the left we have three bike racks which would service six bikes along Birch Street on the other side, which you'll see in the next slide. We have two bike racks, which will service four.

So in total that's five bike racks servicing 10 bikes. The theme of both these entries, and Hans you can move over to the next one as well or move on to the slide is that we're looking to provide defined entries with permeable pavers A bench that would serve the public realm. We're not looking to create a space that's for the private residents, we're looking at space that becomes a public amenity both on Bay State and Birch Street. Permeable pavers, raised planters That's the general theme for this project. Related to planting, this is an overarching theme and there's a great example looking at this slide itself. We're looking to extend the tree pits that run along Bay State Road again playing off the theme along the streetscape The plants themselves are gonna be a mix of grasses, ornamentals or ornamental trees, perennials. The idea is to use native low maintenance materials here We want to stick with that native palette. It's a standard practice for this point and something we'll be looking to incorporate with this project.

Hans, if you could slide to the next slide. So we evaluated a few different locations for the dog run in private little amenity space here It all came down to circulation of privacy and screening, and we felt this was the best location on the project. Related to screening along the southern edge, as we mentioned before, we're going to have a six-foot privacy fence We also have an evergreen vegetated screen inboard of that to provide a vertical edge beyond just the six foot tall fence. I'm looking to mitigate some of the noise that this space might create Again, the space is surrounded by evergreen shrubs, low perennials. We're looking to maintain existing trees up at the corner. One more additional ornamental tree that is tucked in against the proposed little amenity space or waiting space for the dog run. and then the dog run space itself is permeable. We're looking to use a piece down within this space, and the space itself would be defined by a low fence on bottom and top. You go to the next slide Hans?

which I believe is my last slide. This just gives a sense of the character with the permeable pavers on the bottom, the low benches that are tucked into more of an intimate planting palette That's a general approach for the project. The one thing we haven't mentioned yet is lighting, there is no exterior standalone lighting for this project all proposed exterior lighting is going to be building mounted It's going to be full cutoff, dark sky compliant. We're hitting all the checklists related to those items. Again, that's just standard practice at this point but felt it was worth mentioning. Happy to field any specific questions related to plant materials, trees, paving materials, etc. But at this time I think I'm turning it over to Scott Thornton.

Thanks, Nick. Scott Thornton with Vanessa Associates. Happy to have had the opportunity to work with the city and the development team on this project. We prepared a transportation impact study consistent with The scope of study that was issued by the Cambridge Department of Transportation, which focused on parking and curbside conditions, parking demand and reporting on transit, bicycle, pedestrian analyses as well as the rest of the Article 19 transportation analyses. The TIS was certified by DOT on April 16th, 2026 As Hans indicated previously, the project is 80% studio and one-bedroom units which we feel is likely to result in more individual renters with a lower parking demand and less reliance on Cars and Personal Vehicles.

Using data from area PTDM reports that were submitted to the city, residents commuting by vehicle in the came in the Alewife and Quadrangle area were constituted approximately 38% of trips with transit a close second. This results in a relatively low trip generation of 19 to 22 vehicle trips and 16 to 19 transit trips during the AM and PM peak hours. The 74-78 bus travels on Concord Ave with the closest stops to the site located at the intersections of Birch Street and Fern Street with Concord Av. We conducted an extensive parking study evaluating on-street parking utilization over a 15 block area and covering 628 parking spaces. This is shown on the next slide

So this slide shows the three basic sub areas that were reviewed. We determined the parking demand based on recommendations from the Envision Cambridge Alewife District Plan and observed parking rates from those same PTDM studies. Parking at those projects was reviewed with demands ranging between 0.47 and 0.58 spaces per unit But we use a more conservative estimate of .75 spaces per unit from the Alewife District Plan. This, along with the unit count let us generate an estimate of 64 total spaces for the site. Subtracting out the 15 onsite spaces leaves a demand of 49 offsite spaces that we needed to find.

We did parking counts in October of 2025 over a two-day period when schools were in session. And, in the sub area closest to the site We observed between 54 and 63 on-street spaces available during times of peak residential usage, noted to be 4 a.m. and 10 p.m., for reference, the furthest point of subarea 1 which is shown in green on the left is 0.2 miles or about a four-minute walk from the site, and those are the intersections of Field Street with Alpine Street and Alpine street with Concord Ave Parking counts in the other two sub areas indicated between 106 and 120 available spaces each for each sub area.

So this indicates that the area streets have sufficient capacity available to accommodate the expected project parking demand of 49 off-site spaces. The next slide gets into project mitigation. And with regard to the special permit indicators of impact, there were 61 indicators that were reviewed. The project did not exceed any indicators by itself, however there are three indicators that are exceeded by existing conditions that are related to existing pedestrian delay and the existing lack of bicycle facilities on Birch Street. We have been coordinating with DOT on mitigation for the project, and I've identified elements shown on this slide

including a contribution towards a speed hump installation on Bay State Road to potentially reduce traffic volumes and speeds on the street. We've also coordinated with DOT and CDD and DPW on the location of a curb extension to provide a blue bike station in the area. The proposed location is at the intersection of Bay State Road with New Street and that would provide a blue bike station within 250 feet of the project, which could also be utilized by the neighborhood. and also goes towards the cities and Blue Bikes goal of spacing, having adequate spacing between the Blue Bike stations in the area. Other measures include the bicycle room with e-bike charging and a robust TDM plan with standard measures from

that are acknowledged to be successful in reducing parking and vehicle use at other multifamily buildings, both in Cambridge and the greater Boston area. Overall, our conclusion is that the project has no substantial adverse impact on city traffic within the study area. So obviously it will be available for questions. I'll turn it back over to Hans to present the sustainability aspects of the project.

As I mentioned early on, this will be a passive designed building. We have the expertise on board to do it. are doing it on other projects presently. And so this building from the perspective of Cambridge, it meets the Article 22 green building requirements. And we, as I said, are taking the Passive House pathway. It complies with the reduction of heat island effect and we're not doing the embodied carbon, but we're taking the other route for sustainability. But we will select sustainable and low-embodied carbon materials when feasible and the project will be all electric, and use high efficiency heat pump system in energy recovery.

And we will be following the FIAS Core 2024 approach We do have a 3D model of the building virtually if the board is interested in seeing it. But at this point, We would like to thank you for the presentation and we appreciate very much all of your time and Swathi's ability to put this all together, everybody together tonight. and everybody's involvement. So thank you, and I'll turn it over now to the chair.

Thank you. Mr. Strong, we've got a public hearing here tonight obviously so it's time for public comment so if any members of the public wish to speak should now click the button that says raise hand If you're calling in by phone, you can raise your hand by pressing star 9. So as of 5 p.m. yesterday the board had received Some really thorough written comments on this case from Kerry Morwedge, Myra Levine, Brandon Barba, Teresa Witkowska. Kelly Boss, Michael Kowalski and Talia Brown. So written communications received after the 5 p.m. moment last night will be entered into the public record. So I'll now ask staff, let's see, we've got... We have a number of people who raised their hands.

Thank you. And I'll ask staff to unmute speakers one at a time and you should begin by saying your name and address and staff can confirm that we can hear you. After that, you will have up to three minutes to speak before I will ask you to wrap up.

Okay, it looks like we have four hands raised so far. So please push the raise hand button to get in the queue. First up is Brandon Barba followed by Carrie Moore Wedge. Brandon, you should be able to unmute yourself. Please begin by stating your name and address for the record.

Yeah. Brandon Barba, 463 Concord Ave.

Go ahead. Go ahead, yeah.

Great, yeah, thank you. Good evening members of the board. Like I said my name is Brandon Barba. I do live at 463 Concord Ave in the condominium on the project's southwest property line. I want to be clear up front, I'm not here to argue against housing on this site But when you see a proposal like this, one would hope that it would be planned more effectively. I sent the board detailed written comments on the transportation study last week Tonight, I am asking for something that this board does well which is conditions in three areas. First, transportation. The study's three failing measurements are all pedestrian and bicycle facilities The Bay State Road crossing at New Street operates a level of service E and falls to F by 2030. And Birch Street has no bicycle accommodation.

The proposed mitigation is $10,000 towards one speed hump and a blue bike station. Neither touches the failing crossing. Last year, this board conditioned a project by the same transportation consultant on a rebuilt crossing, new bus stops and 10 years of annual monitoring. I asked for that same standard here Crossing Improvement at Bay State and New Street, the raised crosswalk the study suggests, and monitoring that is mandatory rather than as the study puts it if required. Second, the lot line where I live. The six-floor roof deck sits on the west edge of the roof directly above our homes and yards. The dog run and trash room sit on the same lines

A ground-level heat pump sits about six feet from the line at 69 decibels against a 50 decibel nighttime limit in an assessment that never models a second or third floor window. I asked the board to condition a final acoustic study at upper floor receptors with post-occupancy testing An engineered acoustic barrier rather than a six-foot slat fence. And screening or relocation of the roof deck edge and dog run. Please convert all of the staff memos' own open items into conditions. The CDD's question about the fence along 20-24 Bay State Road, the materials mockup before ordering and DPW's caution Thank you for your time and consideration.

Thank you, Mr. Barba.

Thank you. Next up is Carrie Morwedge followed by Kelly Boss Kerry, you should be able to unmute yourself. Please begin by stating your name and address for the record.

Hello can you hear me now? Yes. My name is Kerry Morwedge I live at 49 Bay State Road Unit 3 I submitted a series of questions. I'm not sure whether or not it's necessary to repeat them now, if you'll do that later. A couple issues. One is that this is the first time we've been notified, the units of Bay State wrote at 49 and 47 about the existence of this project. It seems like pretty far along. The first concern was that... As this unit and as 52 New Street and as many of the other New Street units have gone up, there has been no evident push to do mixed-use zoning. So if Alewife in this neighborhood is expected to like

Absorb a lot of people, it would be good to also have opportunities for businesses, local businesses to exist in the neighborhood other than like a McDonald's or a Panera or other kinds of places at the mall behind us. And it seems like given the fact that we've got Bonnie's Garden Center, there's other kinds of... businesses in the neighborhood, I was surprised to not see any kind of mixed use zoning here. And the other major issue that'll go on is that When it's rush hour, there's often traffic is backed up from the rotary all the way to Birch Street on Bay State Road. And so adding a garage that enters on that space will create like create a bigger problem with the traffic impact. The parking is pretty tight around Bay State since there's no parking on New Street,

I'm a little skeptical about the parking study and like the feasibility of that as a resident. Not always easy to find spaces, particularly as like construction crews in the neighborhood often use Bridge Street and Bay State as their parking areas. The other aspect I'm curious about is that there are no crosswalks on Bay State Road and between New Street, and Birch Street. So it'd be good to add one of those particularly given that there's a daycare center across the street that children might cross towards. There's also an issue about like there's a garden center across the street that has not been mentioned at all in this meeting. And it would be interesting to know how a six-story building will affect the feasibility of light at Bonnie's. which is used by many members of the community and those are my major points.

Thank you, Mr. Warwick.

Thank you. Next up is Kelly Boss followed by Aster Liu Kelly, you should be able to unmute yourself. Please begin by stating your name and address for the record

Hello? We can hear you.

No, we couldn't hear you Okay thank you I would like to just reiterate Kerry's statements about us finding out about this just last week I can actually see my unit in the pictures that Hans presented and the fact that i live this close and now just hearing about this for the first time is very disappointing especially when there were two community outreach Events held in January. I don't know what criteria is used to determine who gets informed about these things, but this isn't right. Something better needs to be done, especially on a project of this scope and size. Um. I guess another aspect I'd like to bring up is it was mentioned that they would be looking at installing a speed bump on Bay State Road. Is that just something that they want to do or is something that will be mandated and actually followed through on?

As far as the parking study, I can't find Appendix 9 in any of the public statements. And I hope that the TIS report and the parking story will be made public so people can actually look at that and scrutinize it. Another aspect of this is if the parking study was done in October of 2025, the building on New Street which would have about 70 units also without a parking spot at that unit would be on Bay State Road. and people are just now starting to move in there. So the parking study is not up-to-date, it does not take into account the residents of the 52 New Street and what overflow parking will flow into Bay State Road and Birch Street. I think it was noted that a cutout will be made on, will be removed from

Birch Street, but another one will be added. So will there be any other losses of parking spots on Birch street that are currently available is a question I have? Also, what is the timeframe of this project? When is the expected start date? When does the expected finish date? And as far as the one-story storage facility on Birch Street I don't think it is publicly well known that that area has highly elevated levels of trichloroethylene in the ground soil area. I don t know if that will be communicated to the residents there. There is currently a Department of Environmental Protection study being done on that area for mitigation. Trichloroethylene has shown to raise Parkinson's rates by five-fold in buildings neighboring contamination.

So will the city or responsible authorities be Informing residents of this new building Of this contamination That is all I have Thank you Mr. Boss

We have one more speaker in the queue. If you do wish to speak, please raise your hand now. Looks like a couple other folks have raised their hands. So, next up is Aster Liu followed by Jesse English and again if you do want to speak please raise your hand now Aster, you should be able to unmute yourself. Please begin by stating your name and address for the record

My name is Astrid Liu and I live at 42 Bay State Road, Unit 1. That is the building that is essentially in the corner of the suggested building. So a few things I wanted to speak about today. First of all, I'd like to add on to what Kelly was talking about in terms of notifying the people that live around the area I was at both of the community outreach events held earlier this year and at both events, I asked about how The group was planning on reaching out and kind of letting the people living in the area know future updates. The first time I mentioned this, I was told I would be given an answer at the second meeting. And at the What kind of information are you looking for?

And the only reason I found out about this current meeting was because I walked down the road at the right time and I happened to see a small poster on the door. and so I would love for there to be more kind of information in this aspect of just getting people to know about what's going on In terms of the parking research, it doesn't personally match up with my experiences. I have had a lot of difficulty finding parking especially on Bay State Road where I live especially last couple of weeks. I don't know if that has anything to do with people moving into the new building on New Street and the parking on Birch Street has been getting more difficult as well, especially throughout the day

And in terms of the kind of increased pedestrians and bikers that this new building would bring, I am worried about their safety. as the speeds of cars going down especially Bay State Road throughout the day is Honestly, a little scary at times for someone walking in the area and I'm not sure how much the speed bumps would even help. As in the area nearby there are many speed humps installed and I don't really see cars slowing down for them. Lastly, as kind of the building that would effectively be in the corner and kind of towered over by this new building I was hoping to start a garden in kind of backyard

And I just, I don't even know if that would be possible considering the size of the proposed building and the amount of shade that the building I live in would be in. That's it. Thank you.

Thank you. Next up is Jesse English followed by Susan Leslie. Jesse, you should be able to mute yourself please begin by stating your name and address for the record

Hi, I'm Jesse English. I live at 27 Corporal Burns Road and I want to echo the comments from the previous people particularly the parking study I think That's wildly optimistic, is all I'll say. I just wanted to comment on the bicycle parking. There's... Recently, quite a increase in utilization of e-bikes. And this is 99... parking spaces for bikes under the building or below the building. And so my question and request is how many of these bikes will be e-bikes? What will be the mitigation for fire?

Because I think everybody has seen the horrible stories about fires from e-bikes and how difficult they are to put out. So I think that's a concern that would be a problem for the whole neighborhood and obviously not good for the builders, so I would hope that there would be ways to mitigate and decrease that risk. And lastly, on the comment about the storage facility which is owned by Lyman Real Estate Trust That's been a DEP, Department of Environmental Protection site since 87. And we still don't know the boundaries of contamination

They have a consent order in place, not because the DEP revived interest but because the neighborhood has vigorously pushed. I think one of the concerns was stated, would residents know? And I can tell you that the DEP and the city do not try to be transparent about the conditions We have now much better communication but it has taken tens of thousands of dollars and enormous amounts of work. and we had to have a whole, another engineer replaced. The first one replaced because the first one that we were dealing with was so unprofessional and the DEP does not prosecute the engineers that run these sites. So it's really a do-it-yourself oversight.

So, it is really challenging. I'm saying this to the residents that beware and I would hope that these builders in the city would warn people. Thank you.

Thank you, we have one more speaker in the queue. Last call if anyone else wants to speak please raise your hand. So Susan, Leslie, you should be able to unmute yourself now. Please begin by stating your name and address for the record.

Hello! This is actually Bruce Leslie Pritchard and I'm here with my wife Susan Leslie and this is her computer. That's why it says Susan Leslie. I'm very concerned about the effect that this project would have on the traffic. I live over here at 153 Fairweather Street, a few blocks away and I'm very skeptical of the estimated number I realize it's an estimate And it also is the amount of vehicle trips that are being predicted seems surprisingly low to me.

Someone mentioned that during rush hours, traffic is backed up on Concord Ave as far as Birch Street. I'll tell you it's backed up as far Fayerweather street several blocks further up and You know, sometimes just to get across Concord Ave., if we're just going across, we need to take a right because the traffic going in both directions is so heavy and congested. and it's only gonna get worse with a project of this size. So I'm very worried about that, I think it's going to make life and I wish that the project would include many more parking spaces for the residents to have. It sounds like the neighboring Apartment Buildings have Thank you for joining us.

and the last person who mentioned the thing about the e-bikes, if that's currently marked as 99 bike spots have they considered these e- bikes Take up a lot more room and a lot of the bikes that folks are riding around on now. I know this because when I go to park my bike at the grocery or shopping centers or wherever I go, There are bike SUVs out there now that are much, much bigger. So it may not turn out to be 99 bike spots down there after all. Anyhow, thanks for your consideration. I hope this thing can be kind of brought back to scale and build more parking for heaven's sakes. Thank you.

Thank you. It looks like we do have one more speaker. Tyler Giannini, you should be able to unmute yourself. Please begin by stating your name and address for the record.

Tyler Giannini, I'm at 16 Corporal Burns Road. And can you hear me? Just want to make sure. Yes. Okay, very good. So I just want to join the course of concerns about the traffic and parking, just add a little bit more texture to that. I think that one of the issues may be that the timing of the studies, 4 a.m., 10 p.m. and noon don't capture heavy volume Sobrinho-Wheeler. But there are times that I don't think are captured by the study, in addition to the concerns that it predates the opening of the new facility. New housing on New Street.

I think that is a legitimate concern and may mean that the new study needs to be done, which I would suggest be done. There's also heavy traffic related to a bakery in the area, very popular bakery which we love to see but we already have double parking on Corporal Burns because of that. So again, that's not going to happen at 4 a.m or 10 p.m but other hours so I think the study needs to also capture these high volume periods when people are looking for parking and this would definitely affect that So those I think are the main issues that I would add on to the generally agreeing with the neighbors about the concerns about traffic and parking in the area. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Giannini. Evan, how's our queue?

That looks to be the end of the queue.

Okay. Thank you. Well, a number of questions have been raised by the public. I want to give the petitioner a chance to address some of those questions. I know they were – I saw them taking notes here so if there's Certainly there's similar concerns over a number of speakers. Maybe you could address some of those concerns generally and then some of the specific questions that were raised.

Certainly, we would be happy to do so and thank you for the opportunity to respond. I'll start with the questions and comments that were received about notice. We did in conformity with the planning board's rules and regulations, and in coordination and communication. The CDD staff did provide notice of the two public meetings that we held back in January. On December 18th, 2025 we did a certified mailing to an entire abettors list that was generated from the city's GIS system. We also provided invitation flyers to CDD for posting on the City's website. And then with respect to this meeting, the city provided as far as we know adequate and appropriate legal notice and we also completed the posting requirements with placards on the property.

So I'm sorry if folks didn't know but it was not for lack of effort or lack of compliance with the city's rules and regulations With respect to the question about contamination of the property, obviously we are planning a significant development on this site. McPhail who is currently in the process of evaluating The environmental conditions, any conditions that are detected in soil or groundwater or otherwise obviously will be reported to DEP in accordance with the Mass Contingency Plan and will be cleaned up as necessary. to ensure that this is a safe site for residential use. With respect to the traffic study, Scott Thornton is probably best able to answer those questions. Scott I would ask if you could hit on in your responses a couple of specific topics.

One, the timing of the study whether it included the New Street project which I understand was not Thank you for joining us. and then a little bit more about the mitigation that you have been discussing with DOT staff.

Sure, so in terms of the In terms of the New Street project, they have a... They have a supply rate, they have 43 on-site spaces for 107 units. which gives them a ratio of about 0.4 spaces per unit That's not far off from what we observed in the city PTDM reports of about .47 spaces per unit. So there's probably, you know, there may be some spillover that extends down to the Bay State Road area, to Burt Street area.

But that's probably a small component. I think that there's always going to be some Some traffic and some parking demand that kind of spills over, whether it's from visitors or some other use that goes on to those streets. just as a normal condition. In terms of the use of Bay State Road There's currently about 71 employees in the existing office building and the other buildings that are part of the site that are currently occupied. that are currently parking on Bay State Road and on Birch Street.

And, you know, accounting for the 21 spaces on site, that's about 50... vehicles that will no longer be traveling to the area once the site is developed. In terms of In terms of the mitigation that was discussed, the mitigation for the speed-up is a contribution To War, contribution to the city for the city to add the speed hump. And in terms of the speeds that we observed out there they averaged about 21-22 Miles Per Hour, over the two-day period that we did the counts. There may be you know and that's the average

There's other quantities of speed measurements that are higher. It's given that that street is designated by the city to be a bicycle priority street. They're interested in reducing the speeds further, hence the... The desire for the speed hump. And I don't believe there are any other losses of parking on Birch Street, There's a proposed area of restriping that would be used for some... Service activities, but I think it's probably a minor change not likely to result in any loss of parking.

And then with the other mitigation component, looking at the Bay State crosswalk. That's a tricky location because it's right at the intersection or very close to the intersection. with Concord Ave, where Concord Avenue intersects New Street and then wraps directly into Bay State Road. That intersection I think you need the wider area there The wider mouth of the roadway in order to accommodate trucks that may be turning onto Bay State Road. Now, what we're proposing there is

at the curb extension along the north side of Bay State Road for a blue bike station. I don't think it would be an appropriate area to put in a raised crosswalk because again of the vehicles that are turning from from Concord Ave on to New Street onto Bay State Road. I think there'll be a lot of jostling of vehicles as they're making those maneuvers I will say with regard to the parking study, The fewest number of spaces that we observed were in that subarea one.

So, you know, they happen to be close to the site happens to be The numbers that we observed happen to be enough to compensate for the project and the desire to provide 49 off-site spaces. but then with a number of leftover spaces available. But then those two other areas have roughly double the number of spaces, over 100 spaces during each of those time periods. And in terms of the distances from the site, the furthest point from From the site for that sub area two is about 0.4 miles, about a nine minute walk from the site. For sub area three, the furthest point from the sight

is off of Walden Street intersecting with Garden Street to the north and Vaseline to the south. And that's half a mile, which is about an 11-minute walk from the site. You know, there's a number of residential properties that have their own driveways. Something like 47 out of the 57 houses that are in that area, that sub-area one. which reduces the parking demand for the existing neighborhood. So I think that along the expanse of this study area for the parking analysis, there's quite a bit of parking spaces available. And the only other comment that I wanted to touch on

had to do with the times of study not capturing peak time periods. So we looked at the peak, Times for residential parking demand, which is usually overnight or late at night. So that's the 4 a.m. and the 10 p.m.. Any use, you know, during the day people would be assumed to leave the area, to go to work, to school, to appointments. So those spaces will be available for other users whether it's for the Universal Playground or You know, construction or some other service activities. And then those spaces would presumably free up and be available for residents to come back to utilize So in the 12 noon time period would provide a...

would provide a measure of the spaces available for those other uses. But again, we were focused on the 4 AM and 10 PM time periods in this study. And we do have the other The other data for 12 noon, across the three sub areas it's about 350 parking spaces that we noted were available. I know that's a lot but A lot of information to absorb quickly.

Yeah, thank you. All right. At this point I'd like to... Steer the conversation now to board members to see if they have any questions for city staff or for the proponent at this time based on the presentations. Diego.

Sure, I was another public comment thing that came up. I was wondering if the petitioners can answer what you would see if mixed use was ever looked at. I know that was an interesting thing to see whenever we see projects come through Sounds like Little Cafe or something.

Hans, can I ask you to answer that question?

Sure. Getting rid of my muting. Yeah, so it was not part of the project from the start and we did not look into that. It does create additional challenges for trash traffic and all the other things that roll into any sort of Thank you very much. We will consider anything you ask us to do, but it would be very difficult for us to incorporate it.

Thank you. Now I looked down and then all of the hands went up, so I don't know what order they went in. So I'm just going to use the tiles merry.

Thank you. So one more point of clarification that came up in comments and just to give the applicant an opportunity to share was the shadow Study, it looked like it was in the appendix, the graphic appendix. So if you might talk to that a bit and then my second question was If you could maybe speak a bit of how the engagement process from January informed your the design that we're seeing today.

Sure, hang on share screen okay now I'm going to go to appendix Okay, so we did prepare a shadow study at all the normal required times of the year. So here in June from our building, shadows, different times of day. Obviously 9 a.m. is the most acute so the middle of the day tends to be less so. It's clear that in December, the shortest day of the year where the sun is the most acute, the greatest number of shadows.

So in general, when you look at this. You'll see at least for the four story building next to us on this side are hardly any I heard that the individual who lives, I believe right here questioning what would happen with a garden. Here is June 21st noon. I think that Clearly, it is a large building. We recognize that. I think a four-story building wouldn't necessarily throw as much shadow into this corner but it would throw appreciably a certain amount. So we recognize that. We did our best to, within the zoning,

Do better than what the zoning allows. recognizing there's a review by this group. We did set back the building further from the property line, we set the building back on setbacks on the building itself on the upper level so This is public information and all the information that we submitted. So, that's that one. And the other question was how were we informed? I think in general, folks were very concerned about how the street edge would work. I think a lot of this work was done by our landscape architect Making the Street a Friendly Street. I think many times people are worried about traffic, we certainly understand that.

Scott's point about the fact that there are quite a few occupants in this office building presently who will no longer be parking. on the street. Many of these units or apartment buildings all have parking and so on. We have added not an enormous amount of parking on Birch Street, but by taking two very large curb cuts away and just having one here. certainly has offered greater parking opportunities. I can't say exactly what the number is, but there are more parking spaces.

I can't touch on one other item, if you don't mind that was asked about e-bikes and how that would be incorporated into the project. We have not yet done that, but I would imagine and we are happy to coordinate the continued development of this Bicycle Parking Area with the bike parking czar of Cambridge, which we would anyway have to review all this again in the next stages of our design. We do, as you can see, have a little additional space. But I would assume that if somebody had an e-bike they wouldn't have a normal bike as well. I mean, those are things to consider. We do have some additional space. Yes we have a bike

Repair Station, which we will shift out into a location that's not so central for circulation, which was a comment by the staff. We have a battery Thank you for joining us. It's called Wood Frame Over Podium. The first floor will be all steel and concrete, so the ceiling over this whole The floor level will be three-hour rated concrete, so any fire below there not only will be suppressed by fire extinguishers Fire Extinguisher System.

It'll also be held back because we have concrete there and that should, and of course all of our work with both electric vehicles which will have here as well, as well as e-bikes. And the issue of flammability will be addressed in the construction drawings, will be reviewed I'm sure by the fire department and the Department and the building department to make sure we have built a safe structure.

Mr. Chair, if I may add a few things responsive to Mary's question about how we changes to the project in response to comments that we received at the public meetings.

Sure, please.

Okay, thank you. So included in our special permit narrative that the board has is a summary of the issues raised and questions asked and I think that when we had our community process back in January, we received many more questions and comments than things that we could necessarily respond to. There were a lot of comments calling into question The methodology behind the traffic and parking study, similar to what you've heard this evening. And Adam Schulman is here from DOT and can speak to the process of reviewing our TIAS and the parking study that was in it. ultimately that was certified and ultimately you've seen DOT's position on those things in the memo that Adam submitted to you. Similarly, we received a lot of comments criticizing the city's Thank you for joining us.

In terms of more specific feedback that we received and did respond to, we received a lot of questions about the types and locations of the proposed green space at the project. At that time, that was back in January. We were still working on the site design and the landscape design. The plans that we shared with you in our filing do represent an evolution of the landscape design, particularly with respect to the frontages on Burch and Bay State Road. We also were asked about the dog run location, which you saw during the proposal. I know that was a concern for privacy reasons and sound reasons One of the things that we did after the January meeting was to add some columnar trees to the site plan along the edge of the dog run in addition to the fence in order to create additional both visual and acoustic buffering in that location.

Okay, great. Thank you. Ted?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. A number of things I would like to see the 3D model that apparently is available. I would also like to hear from either Mr. Shulman or someone else from the Department of Transportation Their comments with regard to the comments were made today about traffic and parking. With regard to The Proponent, I would like to know what the unit count is for the apartments and the approximate size of the various units. Perhaps that was in the plans and I missed it, but I'd like to hear that again. The entry to the parking garage from Bay State Road does not appear to have any door. It seems to me, and I'd like to know why not.

It seems to me just from aesthetics and privacy and security issues it would be beneficial. There appears to be a door exiting the garage on Burke Street, so why not one at the entry? With regard to the doors to the transformer room, do they really need to be that tall? sort of are a different size from everything else in the facade. And if they do have to be that tall, whether there is some way to, I don't know, maybe have them two-tone or something to otherwise fit within the appearance of the facade.

I can start with a bunch of them since we're on the drawings and just remind me if I forget anything. With respect to the unit question, down here at the lower right you can see the percentages of unit types. And as I had mentioned, one bedroom and studios make up a vast majority of the project. The unit sizes are noted on our drawings. 880 square feet for a one bedroom plus den. I mean, they are varied. We have studios which are just shy of 500. A lot of this is gonna continue to be juggled within the, or fine-tuned within the shell. But here's a two bed at 1,080, 1,088.

So we have a varied size as you go up the building, but they're nice size. Two bedrooms, one bedroom of various sizes, studios a bit smaller. And we've done these kinds of units before and have succeeded in having them leased. So the question about the transformer, it is huge. A challenge for us, not to be a huge being. It was a challenge time-wise to figure it out and it is big. It is actually a, we had to create a two-story volume here for it. And then the, let's see if the elevations... Back here, yeah. Elevations you can see here but I'll do it in the 3D as much easier for you to see.

Sorry to flip things, so here's one view of it. That is literally the height mandated by Eversource for the free area space and height for airflow that there's on the corner here as well. And this concept, these are not... Well, there will be inside here an operable component here. It won't have to go all the way up But I did see something like this, which I thought was really well done in Brookline at the Hilton Garden Hotel, which is – of Brookline near Route 9. I believe Johanna would know better than me, but I literally walked by it on the ground level and didn't even know that... And I had to do a double take as an architect. I sensed something and I saw this screen

We're trying to just blend it into the building. It's a heck of a lot better inside the building than a freestanding Thank you very much. Why didn't we put a garage door here? So this is the entry. I suppose we could. We certainly would look into it. You can see in the rear here, perhaps we could recess it a bit. We don't object to it. We just didn't think of it. We definitely could consider it. So thank you for the comment. Now with respect to other, what were the other? I ran out of...

My notes don't have the other one. What else did you ask, Ted? Well for you actually we need to be the 3D model. Oh that's right! We have the 3d model So we'll have to... Mike, do I stop share or do I just...

I think I can just... Okay. Yeah, you may have to stop sharing. I can stop. It's not... Yeah. Okay. Okay. So I'll just sort of... Go through the four major vantage points of aerial views that overlook this site and give a good idea of context. So, this is a view looking north You have Dennehy Park in this area here, the Fresh Pond Mall in the background here and then you know Fresh Ponds off to the left edge of the screen here. and we'll move looking west.

You know, you have Fresh Pond in the background there and Dennehy Park in the foreground here. Well, Fresh Ponds Mall beyond One more view looking south. Again, Dennehy Park on the left edge and Fresh Pond on the right. Fresh Ponds Mall is off screen, off the bottom. This is actually the new residential building that was recently completed. And another view looking east Fresh Pond off the page on the bottom and Dennehy Park up here. And I can, this is a live active model so if there's a particular view northwest southeast that you want to focus on, just kind of let me know.

Okay?

Thank you. We may come back to that. But Ted, you asked that Mr. Schulman maybe make a comment on the traffic report.

Hi, Ted. It's Adam Schulman, Department of Transportation. Maybe just repeat your question so I can make sure I give you a good answer. I've heard a lot of comments about Questions and comments. I want to make sure I know exactly what your question is.

Well, I've read the memo from your department I understand that the perfect study had been certified, but there was a lot of comments today basically about parking. especially with regard to whether the new project on New Street had been included or not included and also with regard I'm familiar with the area, driven there many times. So I just wondered if you had any additional comments today after hearing the comments from the proponent and also from the public?

Sure, yeah. So first I'll say I think the responses that Scott Thornton provided were all accurate and true. I think regarding the parking study, people should remember that parking is not required by zoning. So I appreciate that they did a very robust parking study as part of their traffic impact study. Don't forget, a parking study is a snapshot in time. This is what they found on this particular day or days. and, you know, every day can be slightly different. But I think it seemed to be a pretty... It seemed to very professionally done and well-done and seemed to accurate in terms of where they found on street parking that was

and when it was empty, Scott talked about they found frankly I think more parking spaces further away than the blocks directly surrounding this project. But people always want to park their cars right in front of their homes or at least right on their street. That's not always the case. That's part of living in the city. If you have to unfortunately park on street, don't have your own off-street parking space. But I think the study showed that there is a A lot of on-street parking that's not being used at various times and and it certainly seemed to be a lot more on-street parking than certainly lots of other places in the city that are more compressed and built up. I think, in terms of

52 New Street, new housing project. Like I think Scott mentioned it might not have been fully occupied at the time they did parking counts but they did include the estimated number of vehicle trips that that project would generate as part of the parking analysis and part of trip generation analysis. So someone mentioned, they were surprised about seeing how many Thank you very much. The trips from the new street project. They should also remember that Traffic Study took into account existing trips that's generated by the existing building. So what we're looking at is about as net new trips, so when we subtract out how many trips we think are currently occurring at the existing site

and then you add in the trips that might be generating from this project. You look at the net new trips, and that's also why the numbers is Seems lower than maybe people might recognize because this was looking at net new trips, not necessarily total trips that will be generated once the project's fully, fully occupied. But the net new trip is what really matters And it is low. People tend to think there's a lot more vehicle trips generated by projects than there actually are, so we go out and count actually count cars coming in and out of garages and things. And so we find that it tends to be somewhere like a 0.2 to 0.4, It tends to end up often being a lot less than people expected, but that's just what it is.

And I think the study was accurate about that. So let's see, that was parking traffic. There was concerns about speeding which is actually one of the reasons why we think adding a speed hump on Bay State Road would be beneficial. There's a comment that there's too much traffic and there should be more parking. We hear that, that's often sort of So that's one of the reasons why, um, a lower parking ratio is desirable over higher parking ratio because that also encourages more people to not own a car if possible. So I think that kind of covered like people said.

Feel free to ask any other questions.

I believe it did, Ted? Yes, no, great. Thank you. Great. Thank

Great, thank you Mr. Chair. One question for the proponent and one question for city staff. For the proponent, so I was going to ask how the fire department would access if your site is a Pac-Man, how the Fire Department would access the units in the mouth of the Pac-man. But I think based on Hans what you said, you haven't met with a fire department yet? Is that right?

Oh, I'm on mute. Am I on mute? No, we can hear you. No, but we have a... I reviewed this with our code consultant. It's called the Cosentini Associates because I had the same concerns as you. I wanted to make sure that we would be compliant with what's called NFPA and also access requirements for the fire department. And we are in fact, I can't give you all the specific reasons, but they did do a quick look-see for my benefit because that's the kind of thing I don't want to go to sleep not knowing. Don't want So yes, we are compliant. We will be reviewing this with the fire department that would be a next stage thing. We know that's very important for fire safety not only for our building but for the neighboring buildings as well.

Yeah, I have a feeling they may look at it a little bit differently than Cosentini. But I appreciate that you'll follow up with them for city staff. Oh, so DPW is not here. So Evan Mason, I'm going to throw this to the two of you. Surprised is a gentle way of saying it to see that for 105 new bedrooms, there's no INI mitigation. And I... I guess, what is the threshold for INI mitigation? Do you guys know that off the top of your head and how can a building of this size not trigger that?

Not being with DPW, I don't know it off the top of my head but i do believe it is documented in the memo. I believe it's something like 15 000 So it's compared to what's on site now. So there is a use on site that's generating sewer and stormwater runoff, and so it's per the city's detailed statutes and rules for what triggers an I&I.

Okay, yeah, I forgot about the mitigating or the solving for what's already there. Thank you, that's helpful.

Yeah, you're welcome. Thank you, Carol. And Dan?

Thank you Mr. Chair. So great presentation. I have a few very detailed questions so I hope you'll bear with me on the first It really is on site environmental conditions. I'm assuming that you guys have done environmental and probably it's one of the reasons that it doesn't have a basement I'm guessing encapsulation is best some of our citizens who called in raised the issue There's a long history, not only with Danahy but the Fields and New School all have significant mitigation pieces. So I'm going to take these one at a time and just ask that that you have done those environmental reports and the project is compliant.

Do you all hear me still? Johanna touched on that. We are still in the process of evaluating it, but it's a very low-grade situation for us as it relates to The initial review by McPhail, who is well known in this area. Their offices are in Cambridge. We saw that we Concerned about it, of course. We will do whatever reports are necessary and do whatever mitigation is required. But preliminarily, it looks very low grade for us. and yes, the idea of being slab. It's called Slab on Grade. We don't have a basement because we're first of all, we didn't want to minimize any displacement of water in a very Thank you for joining us.

Any of the underground issues. We have this problem not only on urban sites, we probably have this situation which we've mitigated on a project in Bedford, which is a similar slab on grade. It's all solvable. and done with care and with health and safety of occupants as well as neighbors.

Great, so a 21E has been performed and documented?

It is in the process. I don't know if it's been fully finished, but honestly McPhail has prepared I have not reviewed them yet to tell you whether a 21E has been completed at this point. I can't say that.

Thank you. So my next question, you touched on briefly in terms of water conditions. This is a flood impacted site and looking at Our flood data, we have new 2025 flood data. The storm surge in 1% for this site is listed at 23.3%. but I see your grade elevations are at 22. Correct. First and foremost, I see a 10 inch rise of ramps to your mechanical electrical and transformer locations That still doesn't get you out of the 1%. So I saw that there was... documentation, at least initially for DPW for a flood certification document. I'm curious how You would have received that with your critical infrastructure not elevated outside of the 1%.

And then, the follow on is I assume the rest of it is all termed as recoverable. So perhaps you could address those.

With respect to being out of the floodplain and the elevation 23 or if it's 23.3, If we're not, I believe our drawings mentioned something but we have civil engineering and it's in our appendix. I can bring it up now but they did the flood review for the project and established for us The elevation we needed to bring all of our, for example, the transformer mechanical equipment out of the floodplain But the other elements like our lobby and main entrance and parking areas, amenity spaces because we don't have any living space on the first floor of the building. We can be at the lower elevation, which I believe is close to... I think we have it set at 22. We're going to get it right. We based it on the information that was given to us.

I don't think Hancock can talk to it right now, but they are very professional civil engineering firm. We'll make sure that we have established the correct elevations moving forward. I have it in the appendix if you want me to bring it up on the screen.

Perhaps you could tell me what the grade elevation is proposed for, let's just say for the Transformer.

I think we set it at... Elevation 23. But I'd have to confirm that if I were to bring up our... And if it's supposed to be a 23.3, we'll set it at 23.30. For sure, we'll make it work.

We do have our civil engineer. I'm sorry to interrupt, but our civil engineering Olin Richter is an attendee and Olin if you can hear me and you want to raise your hand and ask to speak perhaps respond to this board member question? I think I saw him on there.

So is the civil engineer able to answer that elevation?

I've just asked him to join. Can everyone hear me? Yes. Okay, so yeah I'm Olin Richter. I'm with the civil design team at Hancock So all the critical equipment, a transformer is located within the building and it's going to be at 23.3 which is the 1% LTFE Everything on the first floor, as Hans said is not deemed livable space. It's an occupiable space which can be at a 10% LTF fee at elevation 22.0 There is one door that's below that due to grading and to meet ADA standards. And that's at 21.5, but it's going to be recoverable space as it's just going to an entrance with stairs going up So all the water can flow out of that and it's defined as recoverable.

And then all of the living spaces will be on the second floor, which I forget, it's at like 33 or something, 34. So it'll be above that 1% LTFV.

Thank you for that. 23.3 if that's the high point will be the minimum protection typically DPW is asking for something above that so I'd ask you to carefully review that but thank you for that clarification Just looking at the plans, it doesn't look like you get up to that elevation. 10-inch ramp rise is from 22 feet gets you to 22 feet 10 inches. One more question. So you're indicating two three-bedroom units in this? So my understanding it is a one

One, and again this will all be vetted out for final design. I believe it's one per 5,000 square feet of the affordable. I don't have the equation right in front of me but it was done from that equation relative to the way the units are measured for gross area. So, the gross area of livable space sometimes is different as many times different than the actual gross square footage of the building. And so we were basing it on the way or the way it was described by the city's mandate for square footage. And again, this will all be reviewed again. We're not trying to be sneaky. We were just saying that's how we did it

and we're happy to sit down with the folks and get it where it needs to be if it ends up being more than that. And it's more than, but that's how we did it using the equation presented to us Mathematics, whatever.

And if I can just add to that those three bedroom units were included in the project um to satisfy the city's inclusionary zoning requirements um in terms of three-bedroom units based on the square footage of the residential area in the building. The product type that we are seeking to bring to market really is, as Hans said at the outset of the presentation, a smaller typology which we think is an underserved market in Cambridge overall and in this part of Cambridge in particular. So the focus for the market rate units and you know, the majority of the affordable units is those one bedrooms in studio units. which are the predominant typology but we do have those two three-bedroom units in order to comply with the inclusionary requirements.

Thank you, I encourage you to look more carefully at that it's one Three bedroom per 6,000 square feet of net. So my calculation says that you're at 10 required so that may change your calculations somewhat

We will continue to refine the numbers at this stage. The numbers are preliminary because we don't even have a final square footage of the project, but obviously we will have to review all of that with the city's affordable housing folks and with CDD as we get closer to building permit.

Thank you, and my very last question I hate to be monopolizing this with very detailed questions but this is a special permit application We haven't talked about the request for reduction of green roof area. I'm curious about how those numbers were calculated, don't need to be detailed about it but just an observation there are no All right. Thank you very much, everyone. It does seem to me that there's going to be a reduction up there, although those paths typically are excluded when you're calculating your 80%. I don't have enough information really to weigh in and opine on an early read on that.

And my very last comment, and this really goes to kind of special permit here from The planning board is, did you consider at all stacked bike parking? That is a special permit that's available here from the planning board. obviously takes up a lot of square footage just out of curiosity, given that you're looking for other special permits where there is a reason that you didn't look at like stackers. So and that's the end of my comments.

These are great detailed comments and thank you. I'll start to answer the bike question, and Hans, I don't know if you want to pull up the roof plan and just talk about the methodology that we employed Get to the calculations. I know that there was some consultation, I believe with DPW about how we what we were counting and what we're not counting but with respect to the bikes again going back to the fact that we are at least at this point programming this to have a majority of one bedroom and studio units. We didn't think it was likely that most tenants of this building would have more than one bicycle, so we are providing bike storage in a 1-to-1 ratio We didn't see the need to take up additional common area or living area, to add additional bikes when we're assuming that many of these units will have one occupant.

Is that a good enough answer?

Relative to the green roof, I think we have to get to that later. I think there's some misconception that you're looking for relief there but I think what we have talk about maybe in the next phase is What percentage of flexibility would need? Because you've even admitted that you're not sure exactly whether you can comply, but it is 10%, 5% of the overall requirement. I think we have to get down a very specific number on that if we can, but I want to go to Ashley.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have two questions to traffic related because we are here trying make sure everything is safe to grant the special permit. So my first question is probably more towards this or the staff of DOT, I noticed that the traffic impact study pointed out there were I think it was New Street and Bay State Road. So, I was just wondering, and I apologize if I missed this but I was just wondering if the staff had any recommendation as to how to mitigate those, you know, more towards the pedestrian safety. Because I know there were recommendations about how to decrease traffic but And then my second question is for the project team.

And just given how badly it's raining out today and I gave up on my bike, left it at work but can you talk a little bit just about Uber, Lyft drop-offs and what you have planned for that. Thank you.

Okay from the parking that would be Scott, I can certainly talk about Ubers and Park. We are at the entrances both sides of the building. Lobbies noted on the plans. Clearly a... There's space inside the building for an individual to wait for an Uber to pick them up. We expect that there may be a little, in order to do that, there might be a double parking. We didn't want to take parking spaces away just for that kind of purpose. One could potentially sneak in front of the parking garage areas That's not so nice.

People do it anyway if it's a quick drop-off situation. That's happened to me. So we recognize that will be part of the way of people moving around. I'm sorry, the first part of your question was related to... My first part was more towards if DOT staff can talk about what

What are some thoughts about mitigation methods for the pedestrian exceedances? I'm assuming the project team does not want to offer that, so throw it to the staff. Thank you.

Thank you, Ashley. I'm happy to just answer that question. So the project had what's called a pedestrian level of service exceedance at Bay State Road and New Street basically crossing Bay State Road. It's an unsignalized intersection and the result of the calculations was a pedestrian level service E. The city, and that triggered the exceedance. It's an existing condition. Anything that is E or higher, an E or an F Pedestrian level service is considered an exceedance and it's used to sort of help red flag a location that needs, that should be looked at exactly like you said. Like oh, is this a place that warrants some type of treatment? to make it better.

There's already a curb extension right there at that location where that crossing is, and that's often one of the type of treatments that can be done to help improve conditions. It's also what calculates is gaps in traffic since I'm signalized As a pedestrian, you basically have to wait until there's a gap to then cross. But it also stops at a location where cars will have to stop for a crosswalk So this particular calculation is a little bit slightly misleading because it's sort of geared more towards like a mid-block type of situation where cars are, you know... Thank you for joining us.

In reality, cars will stop and the pedestrian crosses. So it's probably not as bad indicates in terms of delay for pedestrian to cross it. And so, you know, when we have exceedances, we do consider like is there something that could be done A curve extension often is something that could be used as a good thing, but like I said it already has one. Raised crossings is another treatment that sometimes considered But that doesn't necessarily affect the results of the analysis determined by the pedestrian level service. And I think Scott actually talked about a good point where race crossing there might not be desirable So we think that it is It is an exceedance.

It is correct and correctly done, and it's an existing condition. We don't think this project itself makes it significantly worse or different. So for this project to sort of mitigate it simply It didn't rise to that level, and how we would mitigate it is not clear other than having a curb extension. And actually the proposed one of the mitigation is to take that existing curb extension and make it even longer, for us to put a blue bike station. That could also help sort of like calm that location down but you know, it's heavily used Intersections have really used rotary and the intersection kind of combined to one. And it also, you know, I think Bay State Roadshow is often as like sort of a cut through for people to avoid using Concord Avenue traffic and stuff.

So that's again, one of the reasons why we're thinking a raised speed hump on Bay State Road even though we put some on Concord Avenue. Further around the curve putting a raise device on Bay state road could be yet another way to discourage people who do use Bay State roads as a cut-through. Maybe that'll help discourage which would then affect the traffic at those intersections, could help the pedestrian crossing a little bit. So that's, I guess that's the answer to that we didn't really come up with any particular and other thing besides extending the curb extension putting blue bike station there that would sort of address that exceedance. Great, thank you.

All right. At this point, my questions have largely been covered. Thank you. I've got very thoughtful fellow board members here and I think at this point we're going to move to board discussion of the proposal and where we stand and what actions we think would be appropriate tonight relative to this application for a special permit. So does somebody want to start with the discussion phase here? Diego, thank you.

Sure I'll start um yeah uh first thank you to the petitioners and to staff it's i think it's a really interesting project in so many ways and for the public commenters I think it makes my job easier when I have public commenters who are bringing up topics that they're familiar with. I am familiar with this location, I really understand that Bay State Road and New Street intersection. It's something that I bike through all the time, and with my kids is one of the parts where I really had to stop Make sure that people are seeing you. It's probably the most dangerous intersection that I have to experience getting to Danahy from, you know, Watertown Greenway. So and I understand it's a tricky intersection, and this project doesn't really elevate that concern.

But it's good to have that discussion about that intersection, It's just something that we keep thinking about. The other thing that was kind of alarming to hear was the storage contamination site across the street and certain risks aligned with that. Again, I guess that's outside of the project's purview but it's still alarming to hear and I'm glad someone brought that up and then lastly is the shading. I think as soon as I saw this, someone brought it before, the Pac-Man that was a great As soon as I saw the building, I just knew that the daylight for that 42 Bay State Road was going to be impacted. but you know something that came up a long time ago in the multi-family zoning change was just one of the things that we had to sort of sacrifice to get more housing and I think with that, I'll say the things i do like about this building.

I do like that it's bringing so many housing units you know exceeding the open space is something that we hear all the time It's great to hear that you're doing that The distances that you set from the setbacks really work for the building and the shape. And the massing, I think is really attractive. I think the design overall really works I think the materials are great. You know, the step backs and the way you have a streetscape from this character to the subversion base state, I think works really well. I think Tom brought this up about the roof. I was thinking about the green roof requirement and I think that's important to keep, and i think that percentage would be nice to keep lower That's a board sort of discussion, I think that we're gonna have to talk about.

But overall like I think I approved building in the project and they get answers a lot of the objectives that we have. Thank you.

Thank You Diego. Mary?

Thank you. And I'll start out by maybe echoing Diego and appreciating seeing a multifamily housing project come along. We've done a lot of reviews lately and haven't had a lot I appreciate the team working and the developer It's very unusual the kind of Pac-Man aspect. I do have some concerns about the way it resolves mostly on the northeast edge. The view number two, I think is the most telling. It's the one where the existing buildings on the road, create kind of a little L that for the landscape architect I feel like figuring out how could be maintained or accessed.

I think that's the most challenging for me. I also may be echoing some of, bringing back some of Ted's Thank you so much for joining us. garage door on that would be likely a benefit to make it not feel so relentless as a parking entry. So I appreciate your willingness to explore that. and you learn something every day, Transformer. I didn't know they could really be that large but I'm certainly happy that it is inside and not outside. We didn't talk a lot about, you know truly the massing. A lot of the views I think the way that you've done the step backs and stayed a little further I really do appreciate that and I think that that will matter.

Certainly some of the views show how that kind of creates a breakup of the massing in a more interesting way. Sometimes we see a lot I'm a little concerned about all-metal panel. especially because and you know it will really come down to the quality of what that product is but fading can be an issue certainly denting but also detailing so poor detailing can really reveal Thank you for joining us. But I would also suggest maybe reconsidering the base, especially where metal paneling gets the most

I'm interested in maybe seeing an exploration of an alternative material for that, but certainly I think we will as part of this see mock-ups of the exterior facade which i think will be important and so forth. In terms of the unit sizes, even if you're hitting the requirements I'd certainly love to see a few more family units. Making sure that even though this is filling a niche that it's doing this great thing that we're all hoping for right? Of creating communities that have different types of users. The young worker, the older you know The older retiree, the families. So I think if you can keep exploring, if there are any ways to get a few more of those kind of family-sized units in, that would be really great, especially with that proximity to Tobin and Danagy and Fresh Pond.

I'm hoping, I'll just say this that the blue bike is a requirement not just a I wasn't totally clear on that and I couldn't quite figure out where it was. I don't think there's a need to show me, but I'm just hoping that can be a requirement that is included because for folks who don't have the bike, but also people who do commute, it's so useful. I think that gets... Get through most of it. I think the only comment I would have, and I appreciate that it sounded like the engagement was maybe more sharing information a little back and forth. So I think continuing just sharing information with the community Obviously, if they miss the January it is not too late right? So making sure that remains a part of it especially if there are any environmental concerns just to make sure they all feel comfortable and aware.

as that's moving forward. I think I have one more thing, but it's escaping me. It's getting late, right? Yeah, it is getting late.

Thank you, Mary. Dan?

Yeah, thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Excuse me. So I'm very supportive of additional housing. I think that this is an appropriate place to put it. I think obviously we need to take into consideration neighborhood impacts, traffic and such but i think as Adam Schulman pointed out that parking is not a requirement for this project um and there are Many areas in the city where on-street parking is much tighter. So I'm sympathetic to the neighborhood and its competing interests for us to evaluate that. and in general, I do have a few comments about the building. I'd love to see the articulation of Bay State Road elevation treated not just with a step back but a little bit and so on. Thank you for joining us.

and many more. A kind of three-story, sorry four-story height rather than I think up to five if i'm reading the elevation correctly. and you know I guess really focusing on the roof plan we've really had very little conversation about it. I think that there's some creative ways to get more attractive roof deck space, I'm hesitant about a 13 foot 10 kind of hammerhead deck configuration. I'm sure that you will continue to develop this, but I guess I'm not quite sure whether at point of kind discussing what next steps should be, but certainly in terms of the kinds of information that you've provided and the kinds

My questions, it still feels a little early for us to be saying yes to this. And I guess as a little bit of a clarification Joanna just to the bike stackers that would be in lieu meeting all of the requirements. In other words, if you did a bike stacker that allowed two bikes in place of one, you could reduce your square footage by half So just be something to be mindful of. We haven't heard that request for special permit here at the planning board, but it is allowable. I know CDD staff have one, I believe at Broadway and Inman. So there's precedent within the city for those. It's a lot of square footage, so you may want to consider it. And then lastly just that I'm supportive of smaller and broad range of unit counts but I am concerned

were early times. So I guess my general feel here is that I haven't heard enough information to feel like I could really weigh in on a special permit yet, but I'm just speaking for myself.

Great. Thank you, Tan. Carolyn?

Thank you. Yeah, similarly... Well I don't know if similarly but To reflect on what some of my other board members have said, I really appreciate the presentation. I appreciate the public meetings you guys have had and the work that you've done with city staff. And I appreciate everyone that's called in from the public. Um... I also would have loved to have seen more family-sized units, and I understand what you're targeting and where you're going. But this is one of the cities that wants more family sized units. That's not the norm necessarily. I do certainly appreciate the... Larger percentage of open space and more importantly, the larger percentage of permeable open space, particularly if we're talking about green roof coming down from 80%.

I do think our green roof I think that's a very manipulatable green policy, to be honest. So I'm not sure it has the teeth that it should anyway. Um... Oh, and the Transformer screener, without having seen the one in Brookline in person it for now just looks a little bit clunky on the renderings. And so I'm curious if there's any way to... Yeah, I think someone had mentioned making it adding some kind of bicolor or adding. I know you're going to work with the Arts Council on the garage door maybe adding something there to make it a little bit more interesting and visually appealing. Those are my thoughts for now, thank you.

Thank you Carolyn. Ashley?

Thank you. My notes are a little scattered, but thank you so much for the presentation. I really appreciate the proponent trying to play with depth The project look a little less massive or take up as much space. So really appreciate that, like seeing those details. There still are I would say maybe it's on Birch Street. There are certain angles where it is still a very, very big and long building. And I wish – I might be in the minority, but I wish there was a way to – Maybe it's different colors for different wings of the building, but to break it up a bit because especially when we saw this in the diagram earlier. I don't know if that's something

I think I'm also in the camp of, I don't love all the metal cladding. I think some is good, but particularly for the upper levels and I think also the transformer door is somehow the combination that makes building read a little lab-building to me. So I don't know if it's the color on the rendering that's causing me to think it looks more like a lab building, but anything to soften the look of the building I think would be helpful. In terms of the transformer door, I actually don't... I think the reason why it looks really big to us is it's a lot closer to street than the rest of the building and so Maybe that's why it looks so big to us who are seeing it unplanned.

But again, like all my other board members have said, if there is any way just to break it up a little and make it less imposing because it is the closest to this street, that would be helpful. Otherwise, I'm also in the same camp as a lot of my fellow board members. I wish there were more three bedrooms. I think this is a great location for it. and you know free buttons are also great for young people who want roommates, who want a little more community. And so I think that's a good thing to explore and allow more flexibility in the future but otherwise my only comments is that I do think we should, you know, as part of the conditions, I know DOT said or put a condition that the proponent contribute to installing a new speed home.

So I think we should make that a condition and similarly with the blue bikes, thank you.

Thank you, Ashley. I'm going to go to Ted next before I give Mary a second chance at the plate.

Go ahead, Ted. Thank you Mr. Chair. Well my comments are pretty much the same as all my colleagues. In general, I think it's a handsome building. It is very brown and I think Ashley's comment about perhaps Different colors for the different wings might be an interesting thing to explore. I certainly applaud housing and the need for more housing I would like to see more family-sized units. Now, I understand what your demographic is and who you're looking to rent or sell to But it is such a wonderful location near the parks and fresh ponds that it would be a great place for families.

You know, I really do think there ought to be a garage door on Bay State Road and dealing with it with the Arts Council is a good idea. and whatever you could do about the door to the transform room would also be helpful. I agree that yes, having the transformer inside rather than somewhere outside is beneficial to everybody. In going to the issues we really have to address, parking and traffic. Parking is no longer required, so getting any is good. and the traffic issues, I think Department of Transportation's comments in their memo. And from Mr. Shulman today

really make it clear that, from my point of view, we could make the findings necessary. with regarding to traffic and parking for the project review special permit. And finally, with regard to the green roof I think the chair's comments that we need to have some sort of percentage that could be reduced. It's great to hear that you're really trying to comply with the 80%. but I'd rather not give a massive special permit allowing you not to meet it without some restrictions on how small it could become. Other than that, I think what my colleagues have said about the design issues are all good and things for you to consider. Overall, I

Thank you, Ted. Mary, back to you.

Great. So I'm glad that Dan brought it up and it's come up the green, the roof deck. So I think one question I had is, I'm also very underwhelmed right now by that space. It doesn't seem very welcoming or it's hard to figure out how it's serving the users. And I was wondering, and this has to do with say shade, we've had so many hot days and you know how much shade would be important. So the trellis If that's a shade structure, it doesn't seem large enough. I think the hammerhead aspect seems challenging to understand what that would feel like and certainly we didn't see any drawings that really show the quality of that space could also consider, even if it's an extensive not intensive roof maybe there are planters around it that help to amp up the feeling of a bit of enclosure. It'll probably be windy

But the main question was in considering reducing requirement for that green roof, I'm kind of asking my colleagues here. would we want to in some way tie it to also you know kind of the quality of that design of the top experience and space right if we're going to take away you know reduce one thing I would want that also to be offset a bit by A higher quality, a more compelling outdoor space for the tenants.

Thank you, Mary. Ted, forgive me. Evan's got his hand up here. Maybe he can interject something.

I don't know if I need to jump in right now, but just on... Well, I might as well. You have. Thank you. I appreciate it. Just on the green roof reduction special permit. Identifying a kind of maximum percentage reduction in that required green roof is not something that we've done before. And it's, I think a little unclear Thank you for joining us today. The way that the zoning sort of reads is you get a special permit and you can reduce the required green roof area

by paying you know a fee into the affordable housing trust per square foot that you reduce it and that's sort of the criteria for granting the special permit if they pay that fee in lieu then they sort of meet the Thank you so much. The way that we've done it in the past is the special permit has been granted to allow for that reduction and then at the building permit phase, Number has been calculated based on the necessary reduction. So I would caution...

I think it would be uncharted territory if we tried to identify a sort of percentage and have that maximum as a condition.

Okay, I think some sage advice. Ashley?

Thank you. And I think to that point, I was going to say my understanding is that if there are major changes to the plans, that the building department technically should not sign off on it if they're too different from what we approve. Ted. Ted.

Well, I hear what Evan is saying but since we can condition special permits all the time, I cannot imagine why we couldn't give A condition that we would waive the requirement but no more than X percentage. You know, maybe it is uncharted territory under Cambridge and the zoning ordinance, which I don't have before me right now. But I don t see how We could not put a condition on it like we put conditions on many other special permits.

Great. Ms. Schneider, do you want to respond to this particular point? Just quick briefly because we're in board deliberations here.

Yes, and I apologize for interrupting but i did want to point out that in June of 2025 this planning board with many of the same members on it granted prospective relief from the green roof requirement without any conditions to PB 407, which was a project at 745 Concord Avenue. There was no discussion of conditions and it was a very similar situation. where we presented a green roof that was at that time compliant, but we were concerned that as the mechanicals were further designed, they might dip below that. And again, that was not conditioned in any way.

Okay, I appreciate that, but the world's got hotter since then. Daniel?

I just wanted to weigh in and support a little bit of Mary's comment. I'm trying to recall the Concord Ave review, but What I'm struggling with is a very diagrammatic roof plan that doesn't really raise in my mind to a full design proposal. I just see green and some diagrams, and I think that the rooftop amenity is Thank you for joining us today. There are a lot of issues to work through both from mechanical side, from the ERVs,

all the requirements that the city has on this from articles 19 and 22. I would feel much more comfortable Seeing this in a more developed piece rather than granting the special permit. Again, that's my opinion but rather Thank you for joining us. The requirements of Eversource and the complexities of a flood impacted site, and the way in which those things are resolved technically have a significant impact on the aesthetics of the building and our ability to really weigh in on it. Just I guess reiterating what I said before, which is I would have a hard time ruling favorably just on the state that the project is in.

Great. Okay, thank you. We're going to get to that particular point very shortly because the hour is growing late. I mean just a few comments from the chair here has been waiting patiently. Thank you for joining us. You need to figure out how to split that. Some of it's vent, some of it is actually door and access maybe there's a way to change planes or color to reduce the impact of that garage door absolutely Wonderful that this is a passive house. I don't want to have that loss. This is a Passive House project, the level of energy efficiency that this proponent is striving for is laudable and that will play back into my comment about a green roof. Also

The extremely thoughtful correspondence that I received from neighbors did have a chance to think about that. It was very, very helpful and was able to satisfy myself Thank you for joining us. Being in shadow means that the lights are going to show even better then. So, um, that was all as a result of correspondence that I was able to dig into that in advance of this hearing. Um, I would say, uh Yes to the Garage Door. I also believe that we should look at more three-bedroom units if we can, so that's a pretty radical change I think potentially here.

I do believe that the roof design is not quite at the level of the rest of the building. and the materials. Ashley's point is well taken, the all metal panels it's also been stated that those are vulnerable to denting into wear and maybe we want to consider something more durable at the lower levels of the building so I can see, it will depend on the wisdom of the group here that potentially we would want to see this again. Dan is on the record already saying that's something he'd like to see in light The roof being not up to the same level as the rest of the building. How are other board members feeling at this point? Continue, do you want to see it again?

I think it would be great to see it again. Just as in the affordable housing overlays, we have two meetings to discuss design and this is a big project. I'm very comfortable with a lot of it, but I think There are issues that are outstanding and the proponent can go away with knowing that in general we're very positive about it, but there's things we'd like more information about.

and I think largely editorializing, largely the traffic issues have been discussed at length here tonight. And they're complicated and they're rich but I feel like We're satisfied with where we are landing, at least that's the support member's view. Anybody else on feeling whether they would like a continuous Ashley?

Don't have to grow strong feelings but I was just going to say one thing I noticed is The floor plans we saw, which is different than a lot of the residential floor plans. We've seen recently don't show where I think that would actually be helpful and maybe a piece Carolyn is concerned about like fire and just like all of that so i think that'd be helpful yeah another level on those plants at Diego.

Yeah, I'm kind of the same as Ashley I could go either way. My trouble is when, at what point do we allow staff to continue design review with the petitioner and what point did we ask for a new another designer view? I also like the previous times when we had two designer views, and I'm not sure if that's going to become a standard where we start to have two for these projects. That's it, but I'm good either way. Mary.

Well, I would have said that at least the rooftop needs should come back. Right? Like that should be a condition no matter what. But I think because so much of today was really focused as it should on the traffic and Parking, which is such a neighborhood concern. There were enough unresolved and Ashley pointed out a great one, which was those windows. I would love to see where I was talking about that building the gaps between the existing building are hard some views into that. The 3D model you did was great, so we might spend a little bit more time. I just also want to convey, I do think I'd like to see it again but I also wanna reassure the applicant It's not because I don't think it's a good project and has merit. It's really continuing to work out those details just to make sure they feel affirmed that, you know, really happy to see a project like this coming through.

My sense is The board is looking at a continuance here on this to address some of the issues. It's generally positive feedback here. I think you're over some hurdles that were challenging after now... pushing to three hours in the hearing. So I think at this point, what I'd like to do is... entertain a motion to continue the hearing to a future date with the request that we've outlined for additional information Evan you're raising your hand

I just thank you, Mr. Chair. I just wanted to maybe take an opportunity and ask Mason on my team Just confirm what we understand to be the revisions or additional information that we need for this continuance. There was a lot of good conversation, but I just want to make sure We understand exactly what we're asking the applicant to provide. Mason, do you have a good sense?

I think so, yep. I think a lot more focus on the green roof. Some of the specific design elements, specifically the transformer relationship to this street. I'll have to go through some of my other notes, but I think with recording everything we should be fine to meet with the applicant after this. Okay.

communicate what we'll need going forward I do need to ask the app Swathi

No, I can wait. I just have a speech.

I would like to ask Ms. Schneider we're now entertaining a continuance is that something the petitioner has Thank you, Mason. I'm confident with the transcript as well that you're going to get more than you need work with the petitioner to make sure that they come back and address some of our concerns. Swathi?

Just a reminder to appoint the associate member to be a voting member, thank you

Thank you. Yes, okay. So we're entertaining a motion to continue the hearing so I'm looking for somebody to make that motion but before we do that just to be clear We are appointing Dan Anderson as a board member to vote on this particular motion tonight in light of somebody recusing themselves tonight. So... Dan, you're willing to vote. I'm willing to vote. Okay, you're hereby appointed. I don't have to do that by vote, right? No. The board chair has some power. Some power! It's good to know. Okay, I'll remember that. All right, so I'm looking for a motion to continue this to a date certain in the future for continued review of

and elements of the design that we raised tonight in the hearing. So I'm looking for that motion. Tom, since I've been elevated, I'm happy to make that motion now. Thank you, Tan. And a second to Dan's motion.

This is Carolyn, second.

Oh that was a near thing excellent okay you made it Dan your motion stands at this point any discussion on that motion nobody indicates such I would like a roll call vote on that Evan thank you

On that motion, H. Theodore Cohen? Yes. Mary Lydecker? Yes Diego Macias? Yes Ashley Tan? Yes Carolyn Zern? Dan Anderson, and Tom Sieniewicz. That's all seven members voting in favor.

Great. We will see you in the near future.

Thank you very much for the time. I know it was a very long night and we appreciate it very much.

Well, thank you. Any further comments or questions from staff or the board? If not, the meeting is adjourned. Thank you everybody for your patience tonight and your hard work. Thank to the proponent and community for coming out with such thoughtful comments.