Planning Board - Planning Board Meeting

Good. Thank you. Good evening, everyone.

Welcome to the May 13th, 2025 meeting of the Cambridge Planning Board. My name is Mary Flynn, and I am the chair. Pursuant to Chapter 2 of the Acts 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 is 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. There will also be a transcript of the proceedings. Please note that this meeting is not being live streamed on the City of Cambridge online meeting portal or on cable television channel 22. I'll start this evening by asking staff to confirm board member attendance and verify that all members are audible. Before that, we're going to go to Evan.

Thanks, Mary. H. Theodore Cohen, are you present and is the meeting visible and audible to you?

Present, visible, audible.

Thank you, Ted. Mary Leydecker, are you present and is the meeting visible and audible to you? Mary is absent. Diego Macias, are you present and is the meeting visible and audible to you? Present, visible, and audible. Thank you. Tom Sieniewicz, are you present and is the meeting visible and audible to you? Present, visible, and audible. Thank you, Tom. Ashley Tan, are you present and is the meeting visible and audible to you?

Present, visible, and audible.

Thank you. On the associate members, Dan Anderson, are you present and is the meeting visible and audible to you? Dan is absent. Joy Jackson, are you present and is the meeting visible and audible to you?

Present, visible and audible.

Thank you, Joy. And Mary, the chair, Mary Flynn, are you present and is the meeting visible and audible to you?

Yes, I'm present and it's visible and audible.

Thank you. That's five regular members present and one associate member.

Great. Thank you, Evan. The first item this evening is going to be an update from the Community Development Department. For that, I'm going to turn back to Evan. And Evan, if you'd also introduce the other staff, city staff who are at the meeting this evening.

Thank you, Mary. Yeah, so Evan Spatrini, I'm the senior manager for zoning and development. With me from the zoning and development team are Swathi Joseph and Jeff Roberts. Also from the community development department and the community planning and design division, we have Eric Thorkelson, Susanna Bigelin, And I believe Drew Cain should be on shortly. He may be having some connection issues. The meeting tonight, we have one general business item. There are no public hearings. The item is a continued discussion of the multifamily design guidelines. CDD staff presented on the draft design guidelines a couple weeks ago, April 29th, I believe, and the board heard public comment at that time as well. So that's on the agenda for tonight. Looking ahead, next Tuesday, there will be two public hearings. One is on a project review special permit at 350 Mass Ave. The project would convert existing office space to lab space. And then another public hearing is on a zoning petition by a group of 10 or more residents to amend certain dimensional requirements for religious uses. Also on May 20th, earlier in that day, the ordinance committee will have a couple of public hearings. One of them is on the zoning petition the board heard a few weeks ago, the East Cambridge Community Enhancement zoning petition. The other hearing at the ordinance committee will be the religious uses petition that the board will hear later that evening as well. And that wraps up our planning board meetings for the month of May. The next regularly scheduled or the next scheduled meeting we have will be June 10th, which we currently have one general business item on the agenda and that will be the annual utility report. I'll stop there and pass it back to the chair.

Thank you very much. So as Evan mentioned, that main item on the agenda this evening is a continued discussion on the design guidelines for multifamily housing. On April 29th, the board heard a presentation from Community Planning and Design and took public comments. So tonight we're going to have the opportunity to discuss the draft guidelines and also to ask questions of city staff um there are staff present for the discussion i know drew has now joined us um drew do you want to reintroduce some of the urban design staff and if you have any comments you want to make before we get into this sure thanks mary my zoom crashed on me so i apologize for ducking out for a second

But no, thanks for having us back again. And we're excited to answer any questions you all might have and receive comments, et cetera. Yeah, I would love to introduce a couple of folks here. First, I'd like to introduce Eric Thorkelson. So Eric, do you mind introducing yourself to people?

Sure. Eric Thorkelson in community planning and design. And I had to do with the creation of the guidelines and the affordable housing guidelines before them.

Thanks, Eric. And Susanna from our division is here as well, Mary.

Great.

Excellent. All right. Well, thank you all for attending. I'm sorry that we dragged you to yet another Tuesday night event, but we appreciate your willingness to give us this opportunity. I just want to say, in terms of public comment, as of 5 PM yesterday, the board had received written comments on the design guidelines from Ethan Frank and from Gordon Moore. So with that, let's start off with any questions or comments that the board members have on the guidelines. Diego.

Sure, I can start. Thank you. Yeah, I guess my pretty much question is like, just reviewed the urban design guidelines and i was kind of reviewing the multi-family and i was just curious if there was supposed to be some sort of overlap between the two um or if from what i understand i think the multi-family is more like a standalone only for multi-family um and i only say that also because i was kind of hoping that the formatting was going to be like the urban design documentation which was like it had the easy navigation. And I also liked some of the, you know, the colors and stuff that was that was done in the urban design guidelines. So just curious on, on the disconnect. And I also know that there's some differences in some of the subject matter. And it's kind of been moved around. So I'm not sure if, if you can talk a little bit about that.

Sure. And Eric, I don't know if you want to feel that I'm happy to as well, but it'll give you the right of first refusal.

Sure, I'll give it a try. In terms of content, they're meant to be compatible with different focus. Multifamily is just limited to talking about residential. The differences in format really are a result of the process that we went through to make them that the multi family grew out of the affordable housing guidelines, who had which had a process more similar to envision and envision alewife. And, and so we sort of just kind of continued with that where the citywide we're, we're really starting from scratch. So it's, um, You have a good point there, but we didn't take the effort of kind of reconstituting the whole format in order to make them more similar.

And I think a primary difference to Diego is that we did these in-house. The multifamily design guidelines were in-house based off a prior template we used for the AHO guidelines and that we had used even prior to that for more guidelines. The citywide ones were done by a consultant team. So beginning with the different aesthetic, a different template and format, And so we did the best we could with respect to content to kind of cross-reference each other and make sure everything we had in there was aligning. And I think you're very much right. You know, these are about multifamily housing, but there's certain areas where they overlap and complement each other. But with respect to the graphic layout, the template, it's partly just because we were building on prior guidelines that we had developed in-house versus a citywide, which used a consultant team.

Ashley, let's go to you next.

Thank you. I guess I have a high level logistical question to start off with. I know I missed the meeting on the urban design one. So, you know, like I know in the past, if it's different districts, say the East Cambridge or, you know, Mass Ave, then there'll be actually sections in the zoning ordinance pointing people or saying that, developers need to comply or try to stick with the guidelines. And I just don't remember, did we make any changes to the ordinance to point people to this document or how are people going to be able to find this document? Thank you.

Evan, do you want to field that question? I'm happy to, but I defer to you around zoning.

Well, I can start by looking back at the kind of predecessor to this design guidelines were the AHO design guidelines. And those were very explicitly called out in the affordable housing overlay. So these are meant to... kind of supersede those. So in that context, there is a sort of explicit reference, I think, to these guidelines. But that, you know, of course, is just in the AHO. But as a part of this, there hasn't been any zoning change that, to your point, sort of gives that explicit, I think, criteria when the board is you know, reviewing projects for, you know, relation to existing plans. So it's not explicitly referenced from any zoning change that we've made, but it is in the AHO.

And this is Jeff, and I can kind of broaden things out a little bit. One of the things I like to remind people is that guidelines are not zoning. So I think sometimes we kind of get wrapped up in like, well, what do these guidelines apply to and how do we attach it to? It's like guidelines are really not, they're not criteria for approval. They're sort of meant to be helpful in terms of informing the process. So we do have Article 19. Article 19 is what lays out the city's broad urban design objectives. And the urban design objectives are fairly holistic and talk about lots of different things, but they do also refer to the fact that development when it comes for review should be reviewed according to the objectives, which are what the planning board would be basing a special permit decision on, but kind of more broadly based on the planning that's been published and established for a particular area. So I think it's fair, say the planning board would be reviewing a project to refer to guidelines that the city has established as a part of that holistic review under Article 19.

Okay, Tom?

Well, I'd like to build on that question, which is how they're deployed, right? How do we use these? It's straightforward when people are applying for a special permit or going through the affordable housing overlay where it's dictated through the process that you would make a stop at CDD and get familiar with the guidelines, which clearly would be used probably as criteria for the evaluation of any project. But Something happened recently in our city where there was a groundswell of interest in figuring out how we support the creation of more housing. And I was wondering, as I was looking at these, especially with the note at the beginning, I think it's in the introduction, which suggests, come and see us at CDD. And I was trying to think, well, how do we take this watershed moment where now the city is more of a partner with people who want to create housing in this community. How do we encourage them to do that? What do they get when they make that call and arrive at CDD? And how might these guidelines be used as a tool to really change the way we think about development? Bunch of questions in there, but it's like the softer part, not the mandated part, proper review of this, but how can we make these kind of a friendly primer and a helpful primer? And how do we make explicit the amazing resources that are at CDD and what they can do to help with people who are promoting housing development?

This is Jeff again. I can start since no one is necessarily jumping in on this one because it is I'll say it's not, you know, it's not a question that's going to have a, it's got to have a simple answer, but I can reflect a little bit on what I've been seeing and what we've been seeing, you know, here from our perspective, um, not just since the multifamily zoning amendments were adopted, but just kind of more broadly, you know, over the past 20 years that, you know, I've been at CD and we've seen kind of evolution of, of our work and the sort of culture around it. I think that, um, Developers who are interested in housing and those who are interested in the multifamily zoning changes are not universally, there's always exceptions to the rule, but I think that they are interested in engaging with us because frankly, it's a novel. I mean, we've had a lot of reactions from people who are still kind of having a hard time getting their heads around the idea that like we don't, like our zoning isn't just intended to restrict housing. It's, it's intended to enable housing. Um, and so we have to explain that a lot, but I think people are, are kind of interested. I think that's, that is something that, you know, along with just having a history of being, um, and the, you know, the planning board, I think gets a lot of credit for this, a history of, of being, um, open to housing development and not being just not sort of shutting the door to housing development is that it has brought people in so that they don't, the process doesn't start by looking at the city and looking at the city's regulations and guidelines as antagonistic, but looking at it as being constructive. And so I think that's, again, the past few months, my experience is people have been very open to talk to us about, like, just understanding the zoning, but even talking to us about, you know, sites that they're looking at and interested in. So, yeah. As part of that process, and as I've said before, the purpose of guidelines is to be helpful. And our role when people engage with us is to try to be helpful. We help lay out to people what the zoning says. We talk a lot about what our standards are, because even though the zoning envelope has gotten much broader, bigger, and more flexible for for housing. We still have lots of requirements. We have inclusionary zoning. We have green building requirements. We have flood resilience requirements. We have green factor. We have all kinds of things that still are relevant and things that people need to be aware of and need to do some work to understand. But we also talk about how important urban design is and when a development does have to come to the planning board or even now we have kind of we have both a um special permit review and an advisory review process and there's a by advisory review with other um in other kind of mechanisms as well including staff advisory review that's more laid out a little bit more explicitly in that process um you know we tell people how important it is to focus on urban design and we make make ourselves available like we we kind of impress upon people that we're here to help, um, to help them, you know, make their projects better. And that's what the guidelines are for is to help is to help designers and developers understand what, what is the city of Cambridge's idea of what a good residential project is and how can we help them get there?

Well, I know we're in the question period here, but growing out of this, thank you, Jeff, for, thank you, Jeff, for, um, going through that. But I think a suggestion at that introduction is to say, here's the process, right? And here's the resources. We have X, Y, and Z resources here at CDD to make sure you don't get tripped up and also to help you with your development process. Number one, talk to your neighbors. Number two, come to CDD or maybe do that more than once at the beginning of the guidelines in a way to kind of set the spirit of of how these things are intended to help. That's all. Thank you.

Eric, did you want to add to that?

Yeah, this might relate to what you're asking. The sort of mindset that the guidelines come from really comes from sort of two directions. To some degree, they say, here, if you do it like this, that would be preferable. You say, hiding your service area, things that are pretty cut and dried like that. but a whole lot of them really are not saying do this instead of this or do this you know they are um really asking the designers and the developers to think about what's going to be the impact of of a new project on the existing context and in some cases the future context and just try to grapple with the issues that are unique to that site. And so they have a lot of flexibility in terms of what they're advocating for. um and so i think that sort of correlates with what jeff was was talking about that um it's actually we really like it when people do come to us early in a project and we can sort of suggest what we think the issues for a particular site might be even before there's a project but um yeah next

So in thinking about this, it seemed to me that it really is a question of marketing a little bit, these guidelines. While the urban design framework has been in Cambridge for a while, it's usually, as has been said before, it's attached to a permit of some sort or a a more formalized review. And in this case, it isn't. So one thought I had was, you know, thinking about how do we get this document in people's hands, you know, particularly people who are not the ones who would normally call you, because those are the ones that, you know, would fall through the cracks. So it seemed to me that, you know, if there was a way of identifying sort of some of the smaller architects in this city or surrounding area who might be, and urban design firms too, who might be, you know, hired by an individual property owner, getting it in their hands, getting it in the hands of of other people who regularly participate in planning board discussions who might have someone come to them with a question, whether it be a lawyer, architect, or whatever. I also think it's important to get it out to all of the neighborhood groups and give them extra copies if need be. Get them in the libraries. Because I think, you know, neighborhood groups are also going to be very vigilant. They always have been, right? And so they're going to have their ear to the ground about what's happening. And, you know, generally speaking, I think in a neighborly way, you know, we all want our communities to be better. So, I mean, I would have no problem like going to somebody in the neighborhood who I knew was going to do something and saying, hey, by the way, did you know that the city has these guidelines? You know, I mean, Maybe it'll work, maybe it won't. But I think visibility is important on this. Ted, let me move to you.

Well, actually, Mary, you were touching on what I was going to talk about. I mean, I actually think the guidelines are very user-friendly, depending upon who your user is. I mean, I think... the developers and larger architects will be aware of this and think about these things. But I think, you know, it's important that owners of property and particularly small owners, I think that's one thing that's lacking in the guidelines is more emphasis on what a small development can be. You know, say the three to six family unit that might be the only property that one owner has. Obviously, the guidelines apply to them. And obviously, if you go through them all, you can find that material. But I think if you know, they seem really key to medium and large scale developments, which obviously is necessary and we want those. But I think looking at some smaller projects and telling the designers and the owners of those smaller projects, have you thought about these things? You know, can you do it this way? Can you do it that way? Really would be helpful. And I think, when I think about that, you know, the glossary at the end is great, but maybe that ought to come at the beginning for people who aren't, you know, in the field and working with these guidelines all the time. You know, just, well, what is a multifamily? You know, we know what it is, but, you know, people might not think, well, it's a three-family house. um so i think you know maybe if what's in the glossary uh gets put someplace else um i also think there's a bit much of repetition that you know if somebody looks at this and says oh my goodness it's 70 pages and it is easy reading you know um it was easy reading and the the The drawings and the pictures are great and very helpful, but I think it might be a little off-putting for some people who really could benefit from looking at these guidelines and thinking about the guidelines. I mean, personally, I thought they covered, you know, pretty much, you know, everything that needed to be covered. But I think it's more how we can get it out to people and have them really look at it and read it.

Yeah, that's a good point, Ted, in terms of, you know, focusing on some of the smaller properties too. Cause you're right. I mean, I think for the larger projects, people are going to know their way around these things. They won't, they won't on the, on the smaller ones. And I think it's almost like, you know, it would be helpful to have like a pullout section or something on like the two to four unit properties, you know, what, how to manage those. Tom?

I think this is a terrific observation by Ted. Yeah, because obviously high rise, you're going to have to hire design professionals and they should be well-trained and they should be considering many of these issues just because of their discipline. And the smaller property owners, maybe not necessarily. And so this raises sort of my second question about this, which is a question that I also raised when we reviewed the urban design guidelines, which is, isn't there a hierarchy? Aren't there some issues that are more important than others? There is a uniformity about it's dictionary-like, encyclopedia-like, but I think it's okay to editorialize. One, a pullout section, yeah, that maybe says, okay, this addresses concerns for the city might have or suggestions the city might have for smaller developers, but I think I made the point discussing urban design. Actually, issues of sustainability aren't optional, really. I know we have other regulations that cover that, but highlighting that within the guidelines to say, yeah, tree canopy, it was subsection I, urban heat island, and I think it's sort of A1 rather than I in terms of a recommendation that I don't think we should be afraid to say, yeah, at this point in our history, in our city, these are issues that are very, very important. And maybe that's a pullout. So the third element that's a pullout that I would advocate for is the quality of construction. I was in one of our site tours. I was quite distressed sort of tapping on the sides of the buildings and realizing they're millimeters thick in terms of their cladding. And I was like, well, how long are these buildings going to last? And is that really what we would want in our city? Don't we want to promote quality buildings and buildings that might last not 25 years, but 50 or 100 years. So that's a fundamental issue around resilience and sustainability as well. So I would be unashamed to say, yeah, at this date, these are the things until we get them fixed that are more important than others within the guidelines.

Yeah, very good points. Other thoughts? In terms of staff, I know, I mean, every time we talk about something new like outreach, it's more work for staff and that sort of thing. But have any of you had discussions amongst yourselves as to how you might get this out more in the public so that people understood it. I mean, we know probably more people were interested in the whole multifamily zoning than have been interested in any kind of zoning for a long, long time. But that being said, I'm sure there are still many people in the city who don't even realize that the zoning ordinance changed. So I'm just curious, you know, if this has bubbled to the top yet for you folks or whether it's something you would, you know, now consider engage in conversation around?

Sure, I'm happy to answer that on behalf of the team here. feel like I agree with you in the sense that, you know, and just sort of going back to an earlier point about who this is useful for. And I think it was brought up that the neighborhoods, neighborhood organizations, the general public, you know, I think this is great in the sense of being able to kind of get an idea, not necessarily set expectations, but get an idea of what we imagine the city to be and these multifamily buildings to look like. And I think there's a way that we can through the release of this beyond just posting it on the website but actually making a little bit more of a concerted effort to our email list to the city manager update you know there are different venues we can use to kind of advertise that this is out there so that's something we could discuss internally I think but we hadn't imagined and correct me if I'm wrong anybody like a broader campaign of marketing and you make a good point about that but I think at this point it was more just sort of a digital release but we can of course couple that with you know with announcements to a certain degree.

Ashley, Thank you. I think, you know, Ted, Tom and Mary, your comments about like the smaller units is very insightful. And that just reminded me, I think oftentimes smaller projects or owners will go to ISD first because they don't know where to go. And so just making sure all the building inspectors, everyone at ISD, I'm sure they know about it, but they have copies or have things readily available. I think that'd be helpful too.

Yeah, I think the more people see it around town and they have it in the right hands, the more it will get used. So, you know, I think, like you said, the city manager, the regular city updates, I think that's, you know, putting something in there, maybe putting in reminders periodically. um you know i think the library does uh weekly updates as well so if we you know get it in the hands of the libraries you know i'm sure they would be willing to assist us in getting the word out by focusing on it um yeah and i again i do think you know neighborhood groups you know other city boards and commissions um that you know may have you know, whether it be, you know, the bicycle committee or the sustainability committee, anything that's sort of related to what we do, you know, if they're out in their neighborhoods and they start to see things, you know, again, I think, you know, the more of us who kind of bring it up and talk about it in the public, the easier it's going to be for people to take advantage of it. So, Anyway, I think that's really the most, from my point of view, that's kind of like the most important part. I do think, you know, structurally, you do have everything in there. I mean, there's lots of wonderful, wonderful material in this document. As Ted said, I think, you know, there is some need for making it a little bit more user-friendly for the smaller property owner. And I think really that's the group that I think, as we were going through the zoning, that most neighborhood groups or citizens who spoke were concerned about, right? The ones that aren't going to get the review, the ones that aren't going to be in a neighborhood that's all two-family dwellings or whatever, and now we're going to have you know, the mix. So I think to the extent that, yeah, that we can do something that's helpful for those folks when they think about, you know, redeveloping their property, it'd be terrific. And I love Tom's idea about, you know, detailing more the resources. And, you know, maybe we even Maybe even put in you know something about that there is a list of neighborhood organizations, if you wanted to talk to you know people in your in your community, other than your immediate neighbors about about what you're proposing. And then I didn't have I had a couple of. Specific comments. Just in terms of see if I can find it. One was in terms of the site design. When we're talking about streets primarily consisting of residential buildings, you're talking about the street wall and how new projects. uh should generally align with the facades of their neighbors um there wasn't that much in there about setbacks for those types of projects um there were references to um multi-families in commercial districts and that you know that there should not be like visible side yards but i think in terms of the smaller projects that we're talking about that are solely in residential neighborhoods, that maybe we could have a little bit more guidance in there as to what is reasonable. For example, if everybody has a five-foot setback all around them, that they take that into consideration. Or if it's a little bit more, maybe they think about trying to mimic that more specifically. And then the other thing, and I mentioned this offline to Eric previously, was there was In the parking, there was one particular photo of at-grade parking and how to screen that and everything. And it was a picture of a multifamily building with three parking spaces with arches. And it looked better than the other project that I'm thinking of on Mass Ave. But my mind immediately went to at-grade under-building parking. that's just kind of there. And I know when I spoke to Eric about it, he was saying that he was envisioning it just showing individual cars as opposed to just an open deck, something that makes it feel more residential, more homey, like a garage kind of thing. So I think a little bit of refinement in those regards might be helpful. Tom, before I go to you, I'm just going to go to Eric because Casey wants to just respond to that.

Okay. Yeah, that's a good point. And maybe that's not the best illustration of that particular design for the garage. Yeah, you're absolutely right. We definitely want to avoid those ones when you just sort of see the sea of parking with a bunch of white painted legs between the cars. And It needs a better explanatory caption and it also needs maybe a different view that shows how the end of that parking garage, I think there's a solid wall there facing the street. So you're not looking straight at the cars. This is a view of its kind of internal. But yeah, really good points. And by the way, I'm looking through them and finding there are all sorts of cleanup things that still need to be done, including there's a few places where there's a an illustration that isn't the one that's meant to be there. When we updated links, some of them kind of led us to the long illustration. And there's a lot of little bits of cleanup to do in terms of fixing minor things about the text, clarifying text. Actually, the question of redundancy, repetition was a big one on our minds. And also when doing citywide Because everything is connected with everything else sort of in a city. When you try to kind of do it in a kind of organized linear hierarchical way, you have to make a lot of decisions. And so we were sort of trying, I think, in both to strike a balance between if somebody is just looking at one section of one chapter, that they find the right concepts in there. on the one hand but also not just endlessly repeating the same stuff over and over again so um it is an issue and it's it's we're just trying to find the right balance for it um but we i think there are some places where it's sort of says the same thing over and over again more times than you really need so we'll take a look at that as we do a little more cleanup great great

Yeah, I think as Ted was mentioning before, I mean, it is a very readable document. It's just it is long. And, you know, for the person who's never dealt with anything like that, it might be just like, oh, where do I begin? But I understand what you're saying in terms of how difficult it is sometimes to balance the repetition with sort of making it more succinct. Tom, let's go back to you since you've been patiently waiting.

No, I don't have so much of a question as maybe doesn't even have an answer, but I don't know if we're at that point in the, maybe Ted's got a question.

I think at this point we can just do whatever.

Go free.

Just discuss, discuss, ask questions, whatever.

Okay. Well, I'm conscious of the fact that we're sitting with a lot of people who work for the community development department. So we're building relationships. community. I love that. Right. And that's fundamentally what we do here at the, at the planning board. And the fact that this starts with the premise, or at least it's Genesis was here were guidelines that were produced for affordable housing. And why don't we have guidelines for all housing? Right. Why is affordable singled out? People who live in affordable housing deserve great design as does everybody in our community. And I love that as a value in our community. Right. So I, you know, Further, you know, I'd like to emphasis multi-generational, somebody who's growing a lot more gray hair than I used to have, but also can we emphasize in our guidelines places for more children and for that. There's some, I know the guidelines touch on it, but that's a question of hierarchy. Is that something, that's something I would foreground. I think that trees, Mary Lydecker's not here tonight. Trees fix everything, right? walking out an alewife around some fairly ordinary buildings with mature trees around, and it was a magnificent environment. And if there's a way in which we could say that over and over and over again, trees not only are helping with our climate, but actually they help aesthetically and spiritually for this community that we're trying to build. So this leads me to my last point, which is not, I don't know if it's a question. I was thinking about great buildings that may be couldn't be described by the guidelines. And I was very fortunate early in my career to, I was helping to administer the competition for the Holocaust Memorial in Boston, volunteered for that. And one of my jobs was to take the jurors around Boston and get them to their hotels and stuff. And so who was one of these jurors? It was Frank Gehry. And Frank Gary had flown in from San Francisco and I had to pick him up the airport and he was in a rage. He's always in a rage, but he was in a rage because he had gone through design review in San Francisco where the guidelines are binding, by the way. And they were trying to tell him to make his buildings with a base middle and top the way that our guidelines do. Ours are guidelines, not binding. And he said, well, what if I want to build a fish? And in fact, if you know his portfolio, he actually did build a fish, right? And so I was thinking, okay, there are buildings, some of the most extraordinary buildings in our city. They're not housing, but they don't comfortably conform to our guidelines. The Stata Center, for instance, Frank Gehry's building in MIT, I'm trying to figure out, okay, how does that fit into our guidelines? Or even more recent buildings like the Broad Institute, which doesn't make sense as it's interesting relationship to street wall, which isn't conventional in terms of its planar geometry. The Carpenter Center over at Harvard, right, in a very rich context, but it isn't built consistent with our guidelines. And so where is the space within the guidelines? Where's the encouragement? Where's to take some risks and maybe break the rules and come up with some iconic housing, right? There are other examples that violate the guidelines, the octagonal, hexagonal buildings on Franklin Street, the apartments surrounded by parking. They break every rule of the guidelines, and boy, did we ever need guidelines to try to fix those sites, right? So there's very good reasons for that. Not every building can be an object building. But I was wondering about that. How do we encourage that? And that led me to an idea that maybe we need to talk about what is great design within the guidelines. What's considered great design? It's a very dangerous thing to do. It's a very hard thing to do without being prescriptive. But I think it's possible to say that not only that's what we expect in our community, that's what makes great cities and makes a lively community, but here's the criteria by which you might begin to understand what great design is. And I always go back to, well, first of all, a dangerous idea. And maybe I need to stop there and see how other planning board members might feel about that. But I have some suggestion about how we might define great design, because it's the world I live in. But I self-consciously want to know how other board members might feel about something like that.

I see lots of looks. There's Ted.

Thank you, Ted. And now I 100% agree with what he said, Tom. We certainly do not want to stifle innovation and we don't want to stifle, you know, imaginative different things that don't comply with the guidelines, which is why their guidelines are not animated. Right. Ad nauseum about what would we have said about Boborg when somebody came to Paris and said, here, I want to build this building with all the... utilities on the exterior and painting it red and green and showing everything, which what I wanted to say before is that the drawings and, you know, Mary, your comment about the underground underground, the street-level parking, was maybe the guidelines ought to show things we really don't like and that we don't want to see. You know, we don't want to see a huge field of parking with a building right in the middle. You know, we don't want to see a lot of different types of things. So maybe some examples to say, you know, this is not what we'd really want to see. And these are examples of things we think are better. I still think this document has to be understandable and usable by the non-architect, the non-developer, the person who's thinking about doing something, and the public at large who are going to be looking at this. And we don't want them to immediately say, oh, this is horrible, rather than being able to think about, well, this accomplishes X, Y, and Z. And, you know, I think that fits in with the idea that maybe there's a hierarchy of things that are more important right now. Yes, we want to have more housing. But yes, we need more tree coverage, more canopy. Yes, we need less trees. cars, less parking. Yes, we need more bike lanes and safety for pedestrians. And to the extent that the guidelines can have people thinking about these issues and thinking about how whatever they're going to be working on can meet some of these issues. And obviously there are going to be people who are gonna say, I just wanna do this. And if it complies with zoning, you know, so be it, you know, they're going to get their way. If it's not prescriptive, you know, then they can do what they want to do. But if we can really, you know, educate people as to what is preferable and why it's preferable, I think that would be a great thing. Yeah. Yeah, and if I can go back to something else, you know, the city manager sends out a brochure several times a year to, I think, every resident. and they're very informative and you know it doesn't require somebody to go to a computer and look up you know what these design guidelines are obviously the manager is not going to i don't think is not going to send out all the guidelines but a couple of paragraphs or a page in you know a report saying This is what you know the CDD has come up with and what the planning board has endorsed and we think these guidelines are important and you want to be thinking about them and they are available in the library or you know here or there or wherever. I think if we can get other aspects of the city to jump on this issue and be promoting it. I pay my taxes twice a year at City Hall, and there's a desk right next to the treasurer's window that's filled with newspapers and magazines and other reports about the city. and you know doesn't necessarily have to be there but maybe there is some other place in city hall uh where these things can be made available or or in the annex when people come to deal with their parking permits or with their tickets that there could be a desk with some of these materials on them so that they're before people all the time yeah i think those are all great ideas um and i think you know

I like the idea of showing examples of what we don't like, you know, contrasting. Because I think that does, or that, it's so subjective. And Tom probably has a good way of sort of explaining what is good design, given your illustrious background and all. But, you know, I think for me, it would be hard to describe what is good design. I mean, I know what I like when I see it, and I know what I don't like. So I think it's kind of a combination because the document is going to be used by various people. It's going to be used by professionals and it's going to be used by the average citizen. So to the extent that there's like the verbiage that describes good design with some examples, but then I think that what not to do pictures are, are going to be equally, if not more helpful, um, In terms of photographs.

Yeah, as long as the not-to-do are from other cities, right?

Well, that's true. Either that or a planning board has a problem at their own house and they want to volunteer.

To describe what good design is, there was a Roman theorist, a Roman critic who Petruvius talked about Firmness, commodity, and delight, which all sounds very academic, but you can break it down pretty quickly. Firmness is simply well-built substance, right? It's not a plastic building. It's not a tinny building. It's something substantial. That's great design and great architecture. Commodity means neither should it be gold-plated like Donald Trump's bathroom, or it has to be economic. We understand that. development community and owners need to do something that makes sense economically. So there's a balance there. And that's where the skill of the designer comes in. There's that wonderful illustration that shows a wall of 20% windows. And just through a few design tricks, it looks magnificent on the right side. The left side looks like, I don't know, a Russian prison. And then you take the same wall to window ratio and you do a few but lines and change the proportions and there's magic there. So that's where the commodity comes in. Yes, we can build it economically, but if you add design there, it could be amazing. And then delight, that's the Frank Gehry element. I guess the delight, which is should lift the human spirit. The building shouldn't be boring. They should surprise you. They should delight they should be the Boberg when you come across that in Paris you're like oh my god you know how did that happen and isn't this magnificent right you know so that also requires bravery and encouragement from us community builders to say yeah we'll try that and then you get the Carpenter Center which is I don't know maybe I have strange taste but that offers a lot of delight to me so So firmness, commodity, and delight. And you can put it into modern language that people understand rather than Latin. Yeah.

Yeah, or French. No, that was very understandable. So thank you. You just enlightened me a tad. Ashley. Ashley.

I was just going to say, I like Tom's idea. I think anyone who's talked with me for a while knows I dislike form-based zoning because I think it leads to, or sometimes, a lot of times leads to very boring buildings because you have to comply with certain dimensions and forms. Yeah. Yeah, and I think that's, I think what Jeff alluded to earlier, the fact that these are guidelines is helpful and allows for flexibility. One thing I think about is that the images that are provided are both good and bad in terms of, you know, if there are a lot of images that are similar, then it might constrain or I guess, influence people to think it should be built exactly as, you know, the six photos provided. And so maybe going off of Ted's point earlier about is there a way to condense a little to the... I think that all the photos that were picked were really great. And there were a few times where I was like, oh, these two look almost the same. And so maybe thoughts of... removing it, and maybe that would make space for putting an example of this is what we don't want might work, or even just keeping it short. So that was just one thing I thought of. Thank you.

Great. Any other thoughts, comments, questions?

Diego. As the document stands, I thought it was pretty clear to read. I agree with a lot of the planning board members and what they're saying. I work a lot in creating user experiences. So when I hear the planning board talking about this document and who's going to use it, there's this idea called usability testing where you know who's going to use it. And I think for me, just like bridging the gap between this and the urban design guidelines, I think would help a lot of that. The urban design guidelines had the core values that were part of each sort of chapter or sub chapter that's in the document. And I think that kind of ties the idea with the idea of good design that Tom was talking about. But the multifamily design document also has something at the beginning, which is the principles of good multifamily design. And I think that's probably one of my biggest comments or critiques is that when I'm reading this multifamily design and I have the urban design, I kind of lose what the multifamily purpose is. And I kind of want to see what urban design, I know that's because I'm biased as a planning board member and I just saw the urban design guidelines. But it would be nice to have a reminder, kind of like the core values of multifamily throughout the document. And I'm going to also just echo Ted's comment about how long the document is. Um, I don't think it's too long. I thought it was easy to read, but I do think that having those navigations is just something that's easy to like skip through. And to me, like, which was the last principles in practice, I thought that was a really awesome section where you get to see the massing of, of different stories relative to neighborhood context, which I think is a lot of what a lot of people worry about. um and you can kind of in your mind imagine like that's sometimes you have in those diagrams you have two lots that are going up but you can imagine that it's just one lot it'll kind of limit that massing a little bit so um i think it just helps the conversation um because i i'm not sure how other planning member members go about their day but people know i'm a planning board member and they ask me these questions and i'm like Well, you know, the massing, but now I have that document that I can say, look, there's this great massing document that we have and we can look at. And, you know, it's a good document. Just some of my comments there. Thanks.

Yeah, no, I think that's helpful. The, you know, I think, yeah, sort of linking principles together, you know, in terms of Caroline Miller, How, how does this support, because it is, you know if the whole point behind this discussion is that we pass this new multifamily. Caroline Miller, zoning and you know, and that is something that's very important to the city it's, and so I think understanding. Caroline Miller, You know that kind of priority and it gets back to what time and Ted and others have said about. sort of the hierarchy and how does it fit in with that in terms, so you get the housing, you've sustainability, the need for the tree camp, all of those things, I think. And so in a way it's almost like putting, I think like a mini envision Cambridge, the summary right at the very beginning. and then you know maybe something that just explains why there is specifically a multi-family document as opposed to it just being part of the city-wide urban design guidelines and then you know further refinements as as you guys it on staff find the need for them and then following up on some of the other suggestions the board members have made So in terms of where we are, Steph, do you have questions, comments for us? Things that aren't clear?

You have to go back to all my notes, Mary. No, I'm just kidding. Yeah.

I don't know.

Well, I know you have more work to do, but I also know you're anxious to get this pulled together. I know, you know, obviously a few members of the board couldn't make it this evening, and Mary Lydecker is one of them. Tom noted, you know, her focus on landscape, and she has said that she will be sending comments to you for your consideration. So let's see. Anything else from the board then? the document and i want to thank the staff i mean it's just it's been an incredible amount of work i mean both just in terms of you know getting through the zoning and then you know developing these guidelines that are specifically targeted towards the you know that that major change in in city policy um you know it's a lot of work a lot of thought a lot of detail that's you know and you know as i think it mentions in the in the in the text itself, you know, that's what it's about is the details. And I think you guys have done a great job of capturing it. All right. Well, then if there are no further comments or suggestions, I guess we can kind of wrap things up. Any last thoughts? Okay um okay so we then are going to need a motion to conclude oh I guess before that let me just ask um what should we do as a board in terms of follow-up with you on this document or will you eventually come back with it to with another final version or you know how can we help I guess is what I'm asking.

um you know i think what i'd like to do is kind of reflect on the notes and go through them and see if we do have any clarifying questions and maybe we can you know share those with jeff and swaffy or whoever might be best to communicate with um i don't i'll have to confer with Eric and others. I'm not sure we plan on coming back to represent the guidelines again. So, you know, I think what might be most helpful for us is just to kind of go through these notes, see what we can accommodate and make changes to the guidelines. I think there's some great suggestions around how do we promote these a little bit better. And that's something we can do in working with our communications team. But then there's a whole series of comments that were really helpful. So I'd like to work with Eric And Suzanne on this as well, just to see how we can integrate some of these comments.

All right. Well, thank you for your continued good efforts. Appreciate it.

Yeah. Okay. The feedback.

You're very welcome. All right. So with that, then I think we are concluded. So I need a motion to conclude first, the discussion on, on this particular item. And this would be for full board members voting. So could I have a motion to conclude the discussion on the multifamily housing design guidelines?

This is Ted, so moved. This is Tom. This is Tom, second.

Thank you, Tom. Evan, could we have a roll call vote, please?

Yes. H. Theodore Cohen? Yes. Diego Macias? Yes. Tom Sieniewicz? Yes. Ashley Tan?

Yes.

And Mary Flynn?

Yes.

Okay, that's all board members voting in favor.

All right, thank you all. So that concludes our business this evening. Any other comments from staff? Yeah. I want to thank Wally again for adding another night to your already busy schedule. Yeah. And board members, any other thoughts or comments before we say goodnight?

No.

All right. Well, then we are concluded. The meeting is adjourned. Goodnight, everyone.

Wonderful. Goodnight, everybody.

Goodnight.