Planning Board Meeting

The first item will be an update from Community Development Department. Please also introduce any staff that may be present tonight, Evan.

Thank you. Yeah, Evan Spatrini, I'm the senior manager for zoning and development, filling in for Jeff Roberts today. Also from the zoning team, we have Swathi Joseph and Becca Mapuri. and we have Eric Thorkeldsen, also from Community Development in the Urban Design, Community Planning and Urban Design Division. And then we also have Cassie Arnault, Janet Haynes, and Alexis Turgeon from the Housing Department. I believe that's all city staff here. Tonight we have one general business item. It's a planning board advisory consultation for an AHO project at 2072 Mass Ave. This is the second of two advisory consultations.

Looking ahead next week, March 10th, there will be two AHO projects, one at Corcoran Park and the other at 240 Broadway. This is the second of two advisory consultations for Corcoran Park and the first and only consultation for 240 Broadway. The board... might remember some of the multifamily zoning amendments last year made some changes to The AHO review process where not all projects go through this two round review process. So 240 Broadway is one of those smaller projects that only triggers one review with the planning board. So that's coming up next week. And that's all we have scheduled so far for upcoming planning board meetings.

We do have a few council committee hearings coming up that are related to some work that we're doing. Next Wednesday, March 11th, there will be an ordinance committee meeting to discuss a future potential zoning petition. on some follow-ups from the Mass Ave and Cambridge Street petitions related to active uses. So that's something that will likely come back around as a zoning petition for the board to review. So this is an initial conversation with the ordinance committee. Later in the month on March 24th, there's a housing committee meeting updating the council on... Central Square Planning. We did some planning and zoning work back in 2024.

So it's kind of an update on where that process left off. And then the following day, the 25th, there will be a joint meeting of the neighborhood long-term planning committee, and the Housing Committee on the annual housing review. This is also something that came out of the multifamily zoning amendments. it established an annual review on housing production. So that's something that we've been working on and will be shared with the council at that time. That's all we have for upcoming work. So I'll stop there and pass it back to the chair.

Great. Thank you, Evan, for the update. Are there any questions for Evan from board members? It appears there are none, so we'll move on to our agenda. Agenda item number one. The next item is an advisory design consultation of case AHO 9, an affordable housing overlay project proposed by CCHRE 2072 Mass Ave LLC and CCHRE 2072 Mass Ave Tenant LLC. to construct a new 12-story building to create 73 affordable rental units and amenities and 45 long-term and one short-term bicycle parking space. with a gross floor area of 90,472 square feet at 2072 Massachusetts Avenue.

We will begin with the CDD staff explaining why this is before us. Then we will have a presentation from the developer followed by public comment and then the board will ask questions and finally discuss the proposed design. With that, I'll turn it back over to CDD. I believe Becca will summarize.

Thank you. Good evening. So this is the second of two required planning board advisory consultation sessions for this affordable housing overlay project. As a reminder, DHO creates an alternative set of development standards that apply as of right for housing developments in which all units are made permanently affordable. The purpose of the design review is not for the planning board to grant or deny a permit, but to provide advisory comments on the design and its overall conformance with the city's urban design objectives and guidelines, which are summarized in the CDD memo. The Planning Board reviewed this proposal on October 7 of 2025 and issued a preliminary report on October 28 that was sent to the developer.

The developers submitted a set of updated plans and CDD zoning and urban design teams have provided reports on those to the board and staff members are present to answer any questions here today. The Department of Transportation has also provided a memo with comments on the transportation components of the project. And tonight, the board will review the updated proposal and decide what comments to include in a final report.

Great, thank you, Becca. Next, the presenter who I understand is Sean Hope will have up to 30 minutes for a presentation. though we hope you can be as concise as possible since this is the second time we have seen the proposal. So please introduce your project team and begin. Good evening, Sean.

Good evening, Mr. Chair, members of the planning board and city staff. We want to thank you. This is our second planning board meeting. We're excited to walk through some of the updates and changes as well as certain clarifications that we'd like to make based on city staff. Let's see, I don't see the slides up. Helpful. Okay, so the site is 2072 as you know. This is an AHO project and consistent with what the city staff has mentioned. This project is in compliance with the AHO guidelines as well as the ordinance that apply to this project. I'll briefly go through team introductions. If you can go to the next slide. So from the development team, we have with Capstone, we have Jason Korb,

William Kennerly, myself, Sean Hope for Hope Real Estate, and for our project architects, Bruner Cot, we have Principal Jason Forney, Greg Russell, Jackie McNone, and Austin Galeckini. So just briefly, I'd like to walk through the development summary. And I would note for the board, the staff has been extremely helpful helping us kind of look through the building program. making sure that we have addressed and or incorporated comments from the previous meeting as well as some staff design comments. So what you're looking at here now, this is the site. It's improved currently by Doral Khobab, which is a one-story commercial building. That operation is no longer in business. And to the left, we have the Russell Apartments. Also on the first floor is the Senior Center. And as you can see, there's a blank wall there that provides a little bit of a backdrop of what's there. Next slide. This is a site map.

Many of us are familiar with the site. It used to be the former KFC. And this slide shows how the building is sited adjacent to the corner of Walden and Mass Ave. On the left-hand side, you have some transportation data. We looked at a quarter mile and a half mile away. I think the takeaway is there's some green space, there's lots of transit, and you can see the Porter Square in the right-hand corner, and that is Shopping Mall, Commuter Rail. So in many ways, this site is well serviced by amenities and public transportation. Next slide, please. And so again, as I mentioned, after our submission, we continued to work with the staff. And so there's some different elements that you want to highlight. But to begin with, this is a 12 story structure. As required by the AHO, this is 100% affordable housing.

We have 74 affordable apartment homes that will be affordable in perpetuity. There are 12 homes at or below 30%. The remaining are at or below 60% AMI, which is area median income. We are proud that 72% are family units, two and three bedrooms. Passive House Certification, 600 square feet of the residential amenity space will be on the ground floor. As you can see in the corner image, we have an outdoor roof garden and resident amenity on the 12th floor. and then we also have 45 long-term bike spaces. I just would want to note on this form, previously we had 73 units and we were able to be efficient with our layout which and architect Jason Forney will walk through. And so we're proposing 74 units and we can walk through how that change came about. Jason, I would now turn it over to you to walk through the design updates.

Thank you, Sean. And good evening, Chairman Sieniewicz, members of the board and city staff. I'm Jason Forney, principal with Brunercott Architects in Boston. As Sean We have continued to develop and advance the design of this building and tonight in our presentation we really will focus on The changes and additional details since our first hearing as requested. So this building has always been about transforming an underutilized site into an elegant contemporary building that has meaningful connections and experiences for his residents is a transit friendly development. and integrates best sustainable design practices. So we're continuing in that direction. So I want to start by just summarizing the feedback that we received.

We've kind of remembered that we were here in October. In our view, the project was well received and we received some very helpful feedback. which we categorized into four groups. So we discussed some thoughts on the exterior design to sort of work on Revising the geometry and the sort of divisions of the facade and to really work on coordinating the interior and exterior layouts and structure. We talked, I think the most feedback we got was about the ground floor and the pedestrian experience. We've worked probably the hardest on that. We talked about the site design and the way that Things in the ground plane we're connecting to the community. Things like bicycles and trash service and electrical service.

and then there were some comments about the overall planning of the building which were very helpful and have led to a set of improvements. So I'll start with the exterior design and just a little more specifics. We are asked to think about the size and shapes of the windows and the facades, the amount of transparency, the material quality, The way that we're sort of dividing the facade up with these vertical recesses to look again at the color and see if we can make it a little bit warmer. and other things like that. Thinking about the frame and the dimensions of the vertical and horizontal members. We were also asked to consider a few things which we did not do, and one of those is to consider balconies.

So I want to start off by highlighting a change that happened after our submission and working with the city staff. On the left is what was in the submission with three facade recesses and we realized that another change we had made in the in the sort of planning of the building caused us to no longer have a recess on the the east facade and so you'll see on the right with the big number four we've added a recess in the facade that you'll see in all of the subsequent materials. and that's to comply with the facade recess provision of the ordinance. So here we are looking at the building from the corner along Mass Avenue. You can see here, we sort of, one of the biggest shift was to move that reveal on the Walden Street facade.

Closer to Mass Avenue, which I think really highlights that corner. It turns it into a sort of wrapping volume with three bays on each side and really highlights that roof garden space on the top. We also worked hard to coordinate the interior and exterior units. Roughly the smaller windows are bedrooms and the larger windows are living rooms. And then here you start to see the changes that we've made to the ground floor to lighten it and to make it more transparent and to include a piece of public art or a space for public art. We just want to share the massing model of the building. This is also updated. So here we're looking at the north corner, the west corner, the south corner. and the corner looking as you're coming up Mass Avenue. So that's the massing of the building.

You can see the way it's divided by these reveals and facade delineations. Looking from the north side, sort of coming down the avenue, again, you see one of the things we've always liked about the design is the The fold that happens on the north facade along Mass Avenue that kind of highlights that place where the avenue bends. And again, you can see some of the things that I talked about on the first slide just from a different location. and a little bit closer. A little bit further back up the road, you can see how shifting that reveal forward really highlights that corner piece with the roof garden on it, which was an important element in our design.

Looking from the south side here, you can see the facade recess that I was talking about between the Mass Avenue This facade, we also moved the boundary of the building back. It was three feet from the property line. We moved it to five feet, which allowed us to open up and have a larger percentage of fenestration along this facade which was one of the the big comments. We did consider balconies along this facade as was suggested but It didn't really seem like a great idea to us in terms of resident safety and it would have added cost to the project. So again, more articulation and sort of material development of this facade. and looking from Walden Street, a similar thing working on.

We also moved this building boundary back so that we could have more, we could increase the amount of transparency and kind of open it up. Working on the materials, it's a slightly warmer palette, which we think harmonizes really well with the mass timber structure that you sort of see through the transparent parts of the facade. The last time we were here, we had a A dark gray brick on the ground floor and we've moved towards sort of a buff colored brick that you see here that I think really softens that ground plane and brings everything together. We've also added a a precast concrete base that would match it but give the kind of durability that you need in the urban environment along the ground plane next to those planters. I'll just go quickly through the elevations.

And I'm going to talk about the ground plane in a moment, but these are the overall elevations. The north elevation on Mass Ave. Seeing the kind of changes that we've made to the division of the facade and the fenestration. The Walden Street facade. South elevation facing the city-owned parking lot with a row of trees at the base of the building. East Elevation facing the Russell Apartments. Again, we opened this up, worked on the sort of subdivisions and recesses here. So I'm gonna shift now to the pedestrian experience. And what I mean by that is just the way that the building meets the ground. So you asked us and the city staff asked us to,

Consider making the building a little bit taller at the ground floor to give it more presence and transparency to consider Reshuffling the program on the ground floor in a way that would make the building, it would create more opportunities for fenestration and transparency. So we've worked on that. That's really the Southwest facade. We worked on the entry. We were asked to work on the entry and make it a little more prevalent and pronounced, more transparency, more visual interest materials at the ground floor. and thinking about the future of Mass Ave with the streetscape and the planning that's intended there. So here we are looking up closer at the corner of Mass Ave and Walden. Community Room is on the corner there.

And we were able to raise the building height by two feet. So it went from 16 to 18, and I think that's made a really nice difference. The ground floor is more prominent. We've flattened out the entry. It was previously recessed fairly deep into the facade and we've brought it out sort of in plain so it has more of a presence on the street. We've added, as I mentioned before, a placeholder for a mural or a piece of public art behind the bus stop. We don't know if the bus stop will stay or go, but we're planning for both. And I think either way, this would be a great backdrop for a piece of public art. And here you see the lighter brick that we've worked into the design along the ground playing this sort of buff color that also makes its way up through the facade recesses.

a little bit more around the corner here you start to see the planters that are featured one of the things we talked about last time was is there enough room for the planters along Walden Street. So what we've ended up doing is we think there is, but it starts to get tight at the corner. So we eliminate, we... Don't have planters at the corner on the outside of the building, but we have them on the inside. So there's sort of this jump from inside to outside. just an elevational view of that ground plane experience. and then Walden Street. If you remember before we had quite a bit of blank wall on this facade and so we've been able to extend the glazing of the community room further around the corner. towards the right of this drawing and then add windows into the management office and the mailroom and workroom.

which are really a part of that public realm too. And then sort of recalibrate the door that you see at the, Far end of the building is a roll-up door for the transformer and the door next to that is for the fire sprinkler room. So we've sort of more intentionally worked these into the facade. along with that planter that sort of comes down as Walden Street slopes towards the neighborhood. And again, all of this I think is improved and unified by using a lighter color brick. A view of that with the city-owned parking lot in the foreground and a row of new trees between the parking lot and the building.

On the site design elements, we talked about, the comments were about loading and drop off. Streetscape Design and thinking about the future of Mass Avenue. Continuing to see our intent to widen Walden Street as a positive thing. We talked about a tree that's on the Russell Apartments building that could be affected by our construction. And I just talked about the planters. And we talked a little bit about bike room and concealing trash. It was suggested that we think about parking on site, but we are not doing that. There's zero parking for this project. Starting with the site plan itself, we are continuing to work with the city.

We've met with DPW and Traffic and CDD sort of collectively to think about There's two possibilities. One is that the drop-off could happen on Mass Avenue. The other is that it could happen from the city parking lot. And we really need to Thank you so much for joining us. We are showing some seeding hypothetically along Mass Avenue which kind of some benches and planters which could be there if that If that is a part of the Mass Avenue plan. Sidewalk is really nice and wide right there. But we know things could change with separated bike lanes and things like that that are being considered. So we're We're aiming to be flexible and allow for that plan to evolve.

You can see the corner planter that I talked about where it jumps from inside to outside, which leaves plenty of space to walk around that corner. and we talked about the existing tree which is just to the east of our building One of the other benefits, if you see this drawing, the red line is where the building used to be. So by pulling it back, it was actually at the property line on the ground floor because we didn't need any windows. So we've pulled the whole building back five feet and we think that will increase The possibility of that tree surviving. But if not, the team is committed to replacing it. And our landscape architect thinks that an American hornbeam or hornbeams would be a good replacement tree for that if that were to happen.

but we also have a full tree protection plan from our arborist who thinks that there's a high likelihood it will survive. A couple other things to note on this drawing. We've reoriented the doors for the trash room. They were opening straight out onto Mass Avenue and now they're opening into the alleyway between our building and the Russell Apartments, were concealed solution. There is a door from the bike room also into that alleyway. So we were able to conceal. Moving the building back gave us a number of advantages there. Bike Parking. Sean mentioned this earlier, working with the CDD staff and realizing that if we use a certain type of rack that we could actually fit

45 bicycles on the ground floor, whereas we had a small bike room on the second floor to accommodate that 45. But just by looking at it a slightly different way, and using a certain type of rack, we can get all these bikes on the ground floor, which is great news. The other thing we worked on with the bicycle parking is a better access to the room. We are still sort of encouraging people to come into the building with their bicycles. It's an 11 foot wide passageway. from the front doors and then one turn into the bike room before we had a couple of turns and a much narrower way into that. Alleyway. And we contemplated putting a door to the south, but one of the big

The last request from our community meetings was to keep all of the traffic and energy and services on Mass Avenue and not in the neighborhood. in addition to that there's a grade change between the inside of the building and the outside and then that is a buffer planting area that we're really is one of the primary ways of of us achieving our So there were several reasons that we chose to not have bicycles come out of the south of the building. We've continued to work with the city on sort of the reimagining of Walden Street and taking it from One 10 foot lane and two, I think, eight foot lanes to three proper 10 foot travel lanes. And remember that we're sort of giving back a little bit of our property to be able to do that.

but also cantilevering the building from the second floor and beyond to kind of create a balance there. So the sidewalk is seven foot two from the building edge with a two foot planter which leaves about five feet for walking. except when you get at the corner then it opens back up. The last sort of category here to go through our adjustments and changes is about the building planning. We were encouraged to coordinate tighter with our structural grid to think about the relationship between the inside and outside. improve bike room access, make it clear where our accessible units are to confirm that we have the right amount of laundry machines and then we talked about

just providing a little more detail about the concept and arrangement of the roof garden, which I'm excited to show you in a minute. There was some discussion about considering a basement level, considering to move the roof garden to a different part of the building. and to consider eliminating the generator. But I think as we work through those, there was mixed opinions on some of those. Those are things that we decided not to pursue. So I'll start with the second floor plan. and this is showing where that bike room was that we have determined we no longer need and so our current plan moving forward would be to convert that into a two-bedroom apartment and that's why The number has changed from 73 to 74.

This also makes the building stack perfectly, which is a good thing for our economics. so this doesn't change the way the building looks or feels on the exterior the windows and facades all remain the same it's just an internal building change So that's the same as the typical floor. We've worked with incorporating the inside and outside and thinking about how the windows relate to the units, whether they're living rooms on the corner or bedrooms along The property line with the Russell Apartments. And also we have three structural options on the table, all of which can be coordinated with this grid. Three different ways of using mass timber, which remains an important part. of our concept.

And we were able to achieve a variance at the state board. to expose more of the mass timber than is allowed by code. So we see that as a very positive thing and we'll just, allow for the mass timber to be an important part of the interior of these units. We are showing our more detail on where our accessible units are. We have eight. Group 2A units, three one-bedroom or two bedrooms and one three-bedroom. In addition to that, we have distributed them equally across the building and amongst the different unit types.

And at the 12th floor, we have confirmed that with both the vendor and the building code, we have eight washers and eight dryers, which is one for every 10 units. I'm gonna focus on the roof plan for a second and then the roof garden. Another thing that came up in our discussions with the staff was sort of encouragement and guidance to pull the equipment away from the edge in accordance with the The zoning, so this was the roof plan that was in our submission package and this is the roof plan which we would move forward for, all of which moves the equipment back from the edges. I should say that the renderings were all done with the screen closer to the edge, so this will only improve the way the building looks and feels from the ground.

and then we are including a small solar array on top of the mechanical room and elevator overrun. So since we last met, we met with Jason and Sean and their team, pulled together residents of Frost Terrace, which is another project that we worked on together. And we had a Community Engagement and Design Charette with them about Hey, if you lived in a building like 2072 and it had a roof terrace, what are the kinds of activities that you would like to be able to do up there? And so this... You know, challenge some of our preconceptions, which were about, you know, larger gatherings and being able to do things as a group. What we learned from them is that they would really like to have

Just to be outside and be in a place surrounded by the city and surrounded by plants and being able to do the things that you do on a more regular basis, like sit at a table and eat, sit on a couch and read or talk to your friends. and then for the kids in the group to have somewhere that sort of felt like their own. So this revised roof terrace design includes kind of Three zones, one with the large picnic table and benches, one with an L-shaped couch, kind of looking out over the edge. and another with a small play structure. And this is a rendered version of that same plan. A small play house for, kids that live in the building. So this is not a high intensity or activity roof. It's more of a relaxing place to be surrounded by green and sort of Sense that you're in the city as opposed to one that's about walking up and looking over the edge at how cold the view is.

It's about being in community with your fellow residents. We were asked to look at sort of illustrate how this might happen technically and this is a sort of a section through the roof terrace by ground or landscape architect. So the planters would all sort of be built on the structural deck. And then the furnished areas would be a combination of wood deck and precast pavers on a pedestal system so that the roof drainage and roof slopes just happen underneath them. with taller plantings around the edge that really become a part of the building and the landscape. Ground also, one of the questions from last time was do plants thrive and survive at heights like this? And so these are,

Six examples of projects by the same landscape firm that are at similar heights from 14 to 17 to 19 stories that have all been in service for quite some time and sort of show that this is a reasonable place to put plants and people. and what I will leave you with is, you know, this has always been an important part of our design that there's this special outdoor place that occupies what some people would say is the most valuable real estate on the site, the 12th floor right on the corner. And so that remains a very prominent feature of this design. And I will turn it back to Sean to close this out and turn it back to you.

Thanks, Jason. I think we presented a lot, so I would now turn it back to the planning board if you want to do public comments or ask us any questions.

Great, thank you very much by my stopwatch, 29 minutes, 27 seconds, so just under the wire. Thank you for being on time. According to the zoning, we will take public comment. And we do that at these design review sessions. And I would like to remind speakers that the board's action tonight is not to approve or deny this application. but to provide advisory comments on the design that has been presented and evolved since the last presentation. So any members of the public who 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 nine. And as of 5 p.m. yesterday, the board had received some written comments from Young Kim, Frederico Mushnick, and Pamela Winters.

Written communications received after 5 p.m. yesterday will be entered into the record. So I will now ask staff to unmute speakers one at a time. 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. Evan, are you going to? Run that tonight for us.

Yes, thank you. Thank you. We have, excuse me, we have three hands raised so far. So just a reminder, please push the raised hand button to get started. in the queue. The first speaker will be Young Kim followed by Luke Smith. Young, you should be able to unmute yourself. Please begin by stating your name and address for the record.

Yes, we can hear you. and members of the planning board. I respectfully request if it's possible that this meeting be continued or could be applicants submit your revised review package that clearly and systematically respond to the issues outlined. Height may be allowed as of right, Thank you very much. 12-story residential mass timber building under the affordable house overlay. This is precedent-setting advisory review. That benchmark is not conjecture.

In 2024, the same developer team acquired the Roseland First portfolio using Cambridge Affordable Housing Trust funding. with a CDD memorandum explicitly referencing a plan to combine those six parcels with first terrace to develop the combined lot as a Mass Avenue Affordable Housing Overlay Corridor Project. That assembled land area totals approximately 150,000 square feet. roughly 17 times the lot before you tonight. Even how tightly a 12-story building can be accommodated here at the right, the review standards you established tonight will carry across in scale when similar height buildings are proposed on the combined site.

This project is designed, designated as AHO-09 in CDD's pipeline. Of the eight AHU projects that preceded it, at least six submitted detailed response matrices clearly linking planning work comments to specific transitions. The current submission does not provide the same level of traceable documentation. A revised package should include a traceable matrix and clearly address Contextual Transition and Upper Level Modulation, Continuous Accessory Path from Curb to Accessory Units, Promise by DPW and transportation for possible solution in the future will not be acceptable. There will be

I don't remember how many accessible units there are, but without any committed accessible paths, this will be, this will not fulfill Design Guidelines, Urban Design Guidelines. The chairs in indoor and outdoor spaces are proportionate to 74 units. What you are providing is not proportional. Clear documentation of renewable contribution Domestic hot water strategy, peak load performance, and system redundancy. Are the electricity provided by the sufficient to accommodate this large unit. Long-term health and materials stewardship consideration for 12-story laminated mass timber structure.

There is no city guideline for building this type.

Okay, Mr. Kim, you're beyond your time here. And thank you for your comment.

Can I just say one sentence, please?

One sentence, yes, go ahead.

When height is permitted as of right, documentation clarity becomes one of the few remaining mechanisms for proportional accountability for a project of this scale and precedent-setting nature Thank you very much for allowing me to finish my statement.

Thank you, Mr. Kim, and thank you for your correspondence as well. Next speaker.

We have one more speaker with their hands raised. It looks like a couple more have raised their hands. Please, if you do want to speak, push the raise hand button to get in the queue. The next speaker will be Jamie Choko. I apologize if I mispronounced your name. You should be able to unmute yourself. Please begin by stating your name and address for the record.

Yeah, hi, thank you. I'm Jamie Siakow. My address is 12 Ridge Avenue, number 3. Yeah, so I own a place, maybe... A block and a half or so from the proposed location. Yeah, I guess I just wanted to say I'm excited about this project and I'm excited to welcome You know, have more affordable housing in our neighborhood. That's it. Thanks so much. Thank you very much.

The next speaker will be James Zoll and that is the final speaker in the queue. If you do want to speak, please push the raised hand button to get in the line. James, you should be able to unmute yourself. Please begin by stating your name and address for the record.

Hi, this is James Zoll, 203 Pemberton Street. and I am happy that we've reached this stage in this project. I'd like to thank Certainly the principals and their architects and staff that have helped bring this project to this point. It looks beautiful. I think it'll be a great addition to the neighborhood. I would also like to thank the planning board members both the current ones and the ones who remember an earlier version of this project perhaps six or seven or so years ago And I'm very happy that, as I say, that we've got to this point, that we're going to have 73 new homes in the area in a wonderful looking building. and...

I hope this is as young Kim says I hope this continues to provide an example of designing housing and approving housing and reviewing the AHO and applying it that continues long into the future. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Zoll.

The final speaker in line is Kirsten Greco. Kirsten, you should be able to unmute yourself. Please begin by stating your name and address for the record.

Hi, yes, Kirsten Greco. My address is 2103 Massachusetts Avenue, directly across the street from this property. and I actually live in an affordable housing unit. Our condo building is nine units and there are home ownership opportunities. The one thing that I wanted to ask about was the widening of Walden Street in the documents that were provided before the meeting. It said it was dependent on something to do with something underground. Eversource, I can't remember exactly what. But there's some discovery that has to take place to determine if you can actually do what you're proposing. What happens if you can't widen Walden Street?

So that's one. And then are you thinking about ways to enhance the safety of the alleyway? We have an alleyway. on our property. Well, sort of. And random people walk back there all the time. We've had several incidences with Unhoused people. And so just want you guys to think about safety in that area for their residents and neighborhood. and that's it.

Thank you very much. Good questions. We'll have the proponent to answer those. Anybody else, Evan, that you see?

We do have one person. It looks like they raised their hand. Luke Smith. You... You should be able to unmute yourself. Please begin by stating your name and address for the record. You are still muted if you're trying to speak. Okay, maybe we can move on. There is another person who has raised their hand, Christian Abney. should be allowed to unmute yourself. Please begin by stating your name and address for the record.

Hi there. I'm Christian Abney. I'm at 44 Callender Street. I wanted to say that it was a beautiful design and I really appreciate the responses to the feedback received. I was just wondering how the changes After the first advisory consultation affected development costs and where the per unit development costs stand as is. And that's it. Thanks so much.

Thank you, Christian.

It looks like that concludes the list of speakers. So I'll hand it back over to the chair.

and Mr. Smith, since you can't dial in, please feel free to correspond directly with the planning board in writing. We'll get that into the file. I'm sorry, the technology didn't serve you tonight. Without that concludes public comment, We'll move from public comment now to board discussion. We'll start with questions for the project team or staff that the board would like answered tonight. And I would appreciate also Great, Mary.

Well, I have two questions and one of them builds on one of the public comments. I feel like I have to ask the question about Walden Street. It seems like... There are two options. If you want 10-foot lanes, you either get rid of a lane, get rid of the turn lane, Not coming at this from a transportation perspective, so that's why I'm somewhat asking this to the city. Or you do what you've done, which is widen. the road which creates a condition where on the right side of Walden you cannot have trees there's not space you've lost about four feet that you have today you actually have three options the other is you don't change anything it kind of stinks as a driver but you can make it work it works today um so That's kind of my first question is did the city think about study alongside the proponent both of those options? How did you land at let's make the road wider? And I also want to put this in the context of the

Urban Forest Master Plan, which includes a design strategy that says when you have narrow sidewalks, one option is you narrow the road for more planting space. and the city is working with the proponent on the opposite direction. So asking the city to speak to that. And then the second somewhat related is the Mass Ave design and study. What's the timeline on that? When could we... anticipate seeing the approach to that landscape.

Okay, well, we're going to take answers as the questions come up rather than summarizing them. We did that last week successfully. Does the proponent want to address those questions that Mary just raised?

I'm having to begin the answer, but I also think that's a question for the city as well. Can you identify yourself, please? Sure, Jason Korb from Capstone Communities. Thank you. I'm the co-developer with Sean. I mean I think we're agnostic for whatever the city would like to do out on Walden Street. So I think whether they go down to two lanes or we give a portion of our land and make it wider three lanes, That's all fine with us. I don't want to put words in Sean's mouth either, but we would defer to the city on that. The person, the member of the public that asked the question about The impediment in Walden Street to potentially widening it. There's a very large Eversource electrical conduit that runs underneath the sidewalk. We've done a number of studies. We've done everything short of actually digging a test pit out there. We've looked at Eversource records.

We've done ground penetrating radar surveys. We think that we can do it based on all the information that we've gathered. If we do a test pit, which we're hoping to do, We've been in communication with DPW for them to do it. You know, it's obviously very difficult to do right now with all the snow we've gotten. But that's how we'll have a definitive answer. I believe, Mary, that also impacts tree trees though too and how deep, you know, I guess maybe you could do something above grade. Obviously, you would know better than me. But certainly, street trees where the roots go below grade, I don't think work because of that conduit. I'm just not sure in the current plan there is the width. So does that answer your question?

It does, and I think it really is more for the city in terms of transportation planning. Certainly, City Department of Transportation is pro making it wider for the safety and the function of that intersection. Totally understandable. I'm you know maybe just for everyone's benefit and for the record asking for kind of that unpacking from the city of why does it have to be Thank you so much for joining us. Raymond Park. So really kind of a city question.

I can jump in just quickly. We don't have anyone from transportation here tonight, but we know Transportation and DPW have been working closely with the applicant to work on these things. It's an important... I don't know if anyone can fully speak to the planning rationale for widening Walden Street or not widening Walden Street and also You know, the timeline on the Mass Ave design and how that's progressing. But maybe we can we can follow up with some of those answers as we and the proponent work with DOT and DPW. Appreciate the question though. Thank you, Evan.

Other questions from board members? Diego.

Uh, yeah, I have two questions and one of them is sort of two questions in itself, but it's like the same concept, um, sort of pedestrian safety. Um, I see the planting on Walden Street and it's five feet and I'm wondering if there's a concern with that, if that's narrow compared to like the existing condition, you know, just talking about how busy that intersection is. You have these cars turning, going into the Walden Street and then sort of the planting pushing you into Walden Street. And maybe you could put like the planting on the other side, so like in between the pedestrians and the street of Walden. And then on the same kind of concept is the public comment question about the alleyway that actually hadn't come to my mind. on the safety of that. And I don't know how developers sort of address that problem sometimes. And then my other question is the roof screen. You sort of have that rendered as like a wall and I'm wondering if material for that.

has been chosen, or is that sort of this opaque look that it looks like on the renderings that I've seen? Thank you.

who wants to take those questions from the development team.

So I can maybe try two of the three of those. Maybe Jason Forney can talk about the materiality of the screen. You know, I think you bring up one of the, One of the attendees as well as the planning board members talked about the gap between the buildings. And it's interesting because we had a pinch point previously and there was some concerns about not being able to for fire safety and that. Then you pull the building back and you have a nice buffer for bikes and things to be brought out. But then as you imagine, now you have a kind of a dark area. One of the suggestions that I think that we could employ would be motion sensor lighting. right you know dark corners allow for people to get in areas and there's also some issue about people in Porter Square coming down the avenue and looking for places to congregate so I do think that there is the opportunity for some motion lighting We also have the benefit of not having windows along that side.

So if we did have windows, lighting might impact privacy. But because we have a blank wall, I think there's an opportunity throughout the stretch of that to be able to do some kind of shoebox focused lighting to make sure that area is lit, especially in the evening times. And then on the corner with the plantings, part of the idea was when we were giving some land to expand Walden Street. Those plantings are on our property. even though they're hugged against the wall. So I don't know that you're now putting planters on city property, which could be an obstruction. But I do think that as Jason Forney talked about, At the corner, as you get closer to the corner, the planter is actually on the inside of the building. And we did that especially because of that pinch point. Right now, cars turn and kind of hop the corner.

so we did try to add some vegetation there are no currently street trees on Walden so we try to soften that edge at the same time pulling back the planters from the corner for some of the same reasons but that is an area that's not going to get a lot of great light And so, you know, I think if the planters are an issue, they're mobile so we can move those.

Yeah, I'll jump in on a few of those. I can get you a dimension of what the sidewalk is now before the meeting's over. I don't have it on the top of my head, but I believe it's a little bit narrower than it would be in the finished condition. And then as far as the roof screen material, we haven't chosen one specifically, but I think in my mind it would be a metal panel or a perforated metal screen that would kind of be the same tone as the building. and we're gonna choose all of our final materials based on a series of onsite mock-ups, but I think that's what we would have in mind.

Great, Diego, does that address your concerns?

Yeah, thank you.

Great, thank you, Ted.

Thank you. So I have a couple of questions. I'm just curious with the wood on the interior and slide page 32. As I read or look at the rendering, it appears that there is a wooden column just sort of floating in the middle of the corner units. Is that really what's going to occur? It doesn't show on... Any of the drawings showing the interior of the units, it's just in the rendering, and I'm wondering if that's what is really intended. You indicated you're still working on various options for the wood on the interior and you showed some pictures. where there are just dead spaces and just really wondering if that's what the plan is.

In keeping with the interior on the units, as I think I understand the floor plans, There will be units in the middle of the building on the east side which are below the height of the Russell Apartments. And so there are windows there, but are they going to get any lighter air at all? I can understand the units on both ends. The sides will still get light and air coming from the north and the south, but I'm concerned about those units on the east side, which are just going to be facing a brick wall five feet away. And then my last question is, you talked about making final determinations about the colors of all the components.

So you helpfully referred us to the building, I believe it's 678 Mass Ave. I will confess that I'm perfectly happy with the brick and the sort of yellowish buff color. I'm not wild about the gray. And I'm wondering if you have considered some other colors. 678 is a combination of sort of buff tan and a darker reddish brown. and I wondered if you had thought of something similar for here more in the reddish, ochre, russet categories. You know, I can understand the concept of the of the colors you've chosen, but I think something tending more into the red would tie in much more with the brick in the Russell building.

and with the brick in the Henderson carriage building across the street and I think that would be preferable, but that's my opinion only. Anyway, those are my questions.

Thank you, Ted. I'll take them in the order that you asked them. I think on the structure, we are indeed looking at three options of of dealing with mass timber. One of them would have, it would be this traditional post and beam that would have a smallish column in that corner. I think that's something that we've, We've done before in corner units and it's really, I think, would be all right. The other option is to have smaller columns and a point loaded, so no beams, which would make the column in the corner even smaller. And then the third option is to do bearing walls and Mass Timber. So we don't know which one of those we're going to end up with, but they're all on the table. Some of them would have a column in that corner. But I think I'm comfortable with that. I've seen, you know, Well-designed units that do have exposed columns in the corners.

I think it's a trade-off of being able to have the corner window. In terms of the east side, I agree with you that there's one Thank you for joining us. Sobrinho-Wheeler, Tan, Watkins, Zern, Zusy, Cambridge, Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler, Tan, Watkins, Zern, Zusy, Cambridge, Councilor The two units on the east side that are on the top and bottom of the building or north and south have the benefit of also having windows on the north and south facade. So that does help mitigate that.

um that situation and then I think I'm trying to see if I can you know most of the units um are above the Russell Apartments building. Even though that's a six-story building, it has very tight floor-to-floors. And then in terms of the colors, I think... We would certainly be willing to look at other colors. Other people have mentioned that too. I think that our kind of intention here is to depart from The colors, the reds and bricks that are in the neighborhoods and sort of signal a more contemporary, light, airy building. but I'd love to hear from others on the board and we will consider that as we go forward and really get into our materials and mock-ups. Thank you for your questions.

Any other board members with questions? I have a few. I wanted to zero in. I think the... the alleyway that was referenced in the public comment and Diego began to look at. Have you considered a gate at the Mass Avenue edge to potentially It doesn't have to be fortified or anything, but just to give a sense that it's private property back there.

Yeah, I think we would do a lock gate there. We'd have to work with the housing authority next door because our property terminates three-quarters of the way through that alley. But we have a great relationship with them, and I'm sure we could figure something out with them. So yes, I definitely see us putting in a gate. We need it on both sides, right? Obviously, we'd have to work with the fire department.

I wanted to focus in on, I don't know if we can bring up slide 34, but it's also a point that was raised in the, or it was page 34, I don't know if it's actually slide 34 in the PowerPoint, but a point that was raised in the memo as well that as the architect in me is puzzled by and it's actually the way that the joint comes down and addresses the glazing there you can see were all three corners, the two base structures on Mass Ave. We're looking at a detailed Mass Ave here at the entrance, obviously, and then the glazing come together. And to my eye, it's a bit of a car crash of all of the pieces coming together at that corner. The previous iteration, as I understand, had a more rational relationship between the gridded structure and the base below. So I don't know, I don't have a solution for it, Mr. Forney.

It looks like a detail that should be looked at again. Thank you. The sign hides it. The rendering's clever.

Maybe that's telling. I think it's something that we can continue to work on. Don't disagree with your comment. And there's just like everything, there are trade-offs. We're trying to get more transparency on the ground floor. pulling it back in alignment would be really nice, but we debated that internally and I think we would continue to do so as we develop the design. Eric has been really great to work with on this project and I know that comment came from him and we sort of pushed and pulled a lot of things together, but I think we would continue to work on that.

Yeah, if it was Louis Sullivan or H.H. Richardson, you just put a big piece of ornament there and hide them. A piece of stained glass or something. Anyway, so I'm sure you can figure that out, but it does... The building is so carefully considered all the way around. It sticks out as something that potentially there you can see by the way where the gate might go as well right in there which I think makes sense and could address the good concerns raised by the

We could consider continuing the public art across the gate too, which would be a...

So my other line of questioning really is simply trying to understand the depth of the detail on the facade. The building looks like it has a lot of depth, but as I looked at the renderings, It became clear, you know, the glasses rendered clear, more or less clear, but of course, The glass will appear like the Russell apartments do in this elevation. The glass will appear dark and flat. And so there's great depth in the renderings because you see the insides of the apartments. I wonder, I'm concerned about it being too flat and the 3D model that didn't assuage that concern. So I just want to understand how many inches have we got and how flat is it?

I'm going to look at some drawings, Tom, and answer your question in a minute or two. That could be very accurate if I do that. Oh, okay.

Okay. All right. Yeah. So some shadow, I'm just, this board member is looking for some shadow there. This isn't just a graphic.

Yeah. The frame is proud of. The gray panels and windows by, you know, I think three or four inches. It may not be showing that way in the renderings. And then the windows and the So there's really one shift from the frame to the other thing. And then the recesses between the frames are very deep.

Yeah. Okay, well, that's reassuring. And certainly the bottom... The ground floor, thank you for making it 18 feet. There's lots of depth and shadow where it matters the most, right? Because that's where people will be closest to it in the environment. So I think that's it for questions other than, you know, I'm a tree advocate like other, not as articulate as other members on this board, but it seemed that the, there's probably a way to work with the city to get bigger shade trees on that parking lot on the parking lot side and I don't know whether you know the alley whether there's possibility to even get some trees not right between the two buildings but is there a way to Not just save the one tree, but try to get something living back there. Since we're stuck on Walden Street, as it's already been described. Okay.

That's it for questions. So I think unless anybody else has got a question. Let's move to comments and discussion from the board at this point. Who wants to lead off?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Happy to start. I guess first off, thank you for the proponents and thank you for city staff for your hard work on this. I sometimes, you know, I'll speak for myself sometimes coming to these design review meetings and not sure you know how effective these are and this is a very encouraging meeting to see. The changes that have been made since our last meeting, in particular, I really like The fact that the rooftop mechanicals are pulled back, this building at its current state, Mass Ave, has pretty long sight lines and so It'll be pretty obvious. And so really appreciate that. What else? Mass timber. I'm glad to see the project is still being proposed as a

Mass Timber High Rise, and I do love seeing the additional articulation on the south side of the building because it is one of those long sight lines. I think that's a lot of facades right now Let's see, a few things I would like to see going forward or maybe things to think about as you guys progress. One thing which is actually something I think one of the community members brought up and we've discussed a bit here, but just the Five feet, I don't want to call it alley, but a gap between building and Russell Apartments. My initial thought was, did Russell Apartments actually want a fence between...

The buildings if you know if the trash room and bike room are going to be accessible but you know it's between you guys and them. Any way of using lighting or gates or whatnot to make it safer I think would be helpful. I would really like to see any way there could be additional short-term bike racks. I think right now there is one and I know that will be dependent on what comes out of, you know, planning or layout for MassVav, but ideally there could be more especially near the lobby entrance for guests and even residents of the building and then just a few small things you know

We came out of the Mass Ave zoning and planning recently and one goal of the Mass Ave zoning is to really activate Mass Ave and you know so I think the way we can do it here is with the community room and so I don't know if this has been discussed but is there a way to If the community room isn't always used by the residents of the building as their way to, as a benefit almost to community to allow members of the community to rent, The space on off hours. So this is something to consider I think would be great and make this part of NASA very lively and I think on a similar vein, just, you know, What art can we add in the windows in addition to the mural behind the bus stop?

So I think those would be helpful, especially as we you know think about Mass Ave in the long term so that's all I have thank you great thank you Ashley Diego

Yeah, I second a lot of things that Ashley just said. It's so cool to see a mass timber building, especially this tall and so prominent. And I think when I look at the color scheme that you're proposing now with the lighter scheme compared to the previous one, it's grown on me. I did like the contrast before of the brick, but I think now that you sort of Jason mentioned that it's sort of the distinguish between the context around it. Makes me like it even more. I do like the mural on the front on Mass Ave. I'm happy that you put that there. And I think it's a great recommendation by Ashley to expand it some more. It's probably my favorite part of the building. The building is so tall and sort of this warm color and then you go to the street level and it's this really vibrant art space. I think that's really exciting.

I think the last concern I have is the south facade, actually. That's the only one that's a little flat to me. maybe if you could add a little depth between it just reads as one mass now whereas before it read as sort of two separate masses with a higher contrast color scheme It's a great project. The roof garden looks awesome with the amenity space. I think that's going to be great for the people that live there. and the bike access with that little alley is great, even though there's some security concerns. I think that's a big win. Thank you.

Thank you, Diego. Carolyn.

Thank you. Yeah, so similar to my colleagues, I really appreciate the work that you have done with city staff, both the Transportation Department and CDD and the planning staff. It's awesome to see the changes to the pedestrian experience. I really appreciate the mural. I really appreciate the added fenestration on the management office and mailroom. Maintenance Office. I think they're added, but they're great. I was really glad to see that you were able to get rid of the second floor bike room. Shawn, nice work on that bike rack. That's a huge win. and yeah, oh yeah, I love what the feedback from the community meeting. that impacted the design of the rooftop space. I think that's really exciting to see. Thank you for being back in front of us and for continuing to work on this.

Thank you. Thank you, Carolyn. Ted?

Well, thank you. I pick up on most of the comments made by my colleagues. I really like the project. I think it looks great. I appreciate all the work you and staff have done, and especially the written work you gave us, which broke down each question and your response to it. and why you did or did not do something that really made it very helpful. In terms of design, I think the improvements you made have been great. I especially like the change in the windows at the back of the western facade. And I'm very glad that the open space on the roof did not move. I think it's great that you can see it as you travel up Mass Ave. and actually seeing trees there. I hope it'll be great up at the rooftop.

I think everything you did. I am concerned for people who may be living in the apartment that has really no direct view other than a brick wall. I'm anxious for as many departments we can get, and I can understand that you and staff and the department all are in favor of that. I'm a little concerned that those people will have a less than wonderful experience in their units. I've already said what I need to say about the color scheme. I understand what it is now and I can understand people preferring that to other things. I just think a richer color might be preferable from my point of view. But I really like the project. I think it looks great.

And I'm really anxious to see it built.

Thank you, Ted. Mary Lydecker.

Thank you. And so, echoing my colleagues, I both really like the project. I think it's a beautiful building. and I really appreciate I think as Ashley described I think we're all getting to understand what's our role when we do these design reviews that are not binding in any way and I really appreciate how much you paid attention last year and the minor changes make big differences and so really appreciate that responsiveness I will echo as well I really like The way that the roof terrace evolved, especially the responding to the meetings with the people who will live there. And it very much resonates with me. I agree. I sometimes just want a space to go and you don't want to feel like you need a Thank you for having me. Little House. I feel like that feels doable.

If in the long term they want to flip it out with something else, they can do that. So I think that is coming along really well. And I actually think that the the way that you have building framing it I think one of the biggest things on a roof is going to be wind and I'm hopeful that that will mitigate some of that and also thank you for ground doing the section because it also validates okay you guys have soil depth to get somewhere close to what you're representing so really appreciate that. Most of my concerns remain really at the ground and in some ways are not as much the purview of this applicant as they are, I think, the city reflecting on the Mass Ave. Plan. What's that going to look like? We know that across the street, this whole zone is within one of the shade priority areas for the Mass Ave study.

across the street there's a real priority because there are no street trees in front of that carriage building you guys can't do anything about it but your building's going to look a lot better if there are some street trees in the vicinity and I'm hopeful that as the city explores that they get some on the very broad sidewalk in front of you with the bus stop on the Walden Street side I do think just to follow up of what's the transportation rationale for widening it? Because I think that... based on the city's objectives to be prioritizing pedestrians, trees, all these other things. I think it's just answering the question. If there's just a fundamental, it absolutely has been on the agenda to do this and this is enacting it, that's great. I looked at that duct bank. It's about dead center on the current sidewalk. and the tree has to be three feet from it, the tree well.

So if you got rid of a lane, instead of widening the lanes, you could probably get your street trees, which would be about four down that length, even at 30 feet. So that's pretty substantial. I think even that little urban design move of when you notch a street like that to widen it out for the second turn lane you're basically saying from someone on Mass Ave you're looking down that street It's a vehicular priority, right? Whereas it looks great when you look dead down the sidewalk and that curb line, it's saying, pedestrian, you come here. Raymond Park down through here come along right and I think that that ties more effectively to the residential neighborhood you're trying to tie to obviously you have that parking lot in between right now But it creates this moment of, well, then you have the jog and the parking lot. So it's really urging the city to maybe follow up with this group and the public about why this has to happen. And a lot of the public will say, great, I hate that intersection when I'm in a car.

but kind of rethinking it towards the pedestrian bicyclists like convince you know kind of compel that story on the other side. I was also thinking Diego a bit like you like maybe the planters on the Curbside. It's always tricky with like stormwater and irrigation is going to be easier straight from the building. But I would say when I look at rendering 36 on page 36, Whatever you plant there, A, it's probably not grasses because it doesn't get great light. Make sure it's kind of like robust and scaled to the building. And I know ground will get there. in terms of I'm sure they haven't done a lot of the planting design down on the ground. But when I see the lower stuff, it feels to me like it's going to end up being a mulch bed that no one's doing anything with. and on the trees on the back in that rendering as well they're kind of like two types of trees and they look a little bit wimpy again and I feel like probably with the The scale of the building, and I think as Diego was describing, that back facade is tricky anyway.

You probably want something more stronger in form, upright, and more uniform, right? You only have six, so this is not the place you need to... build your biodiversity just make it like a single gesture to create that kind of barrier or not barrier let's not call it a barrier but that kind of transition to that parking lot which probably will evolve and I think that would speak better at the base of that building where you're also kind of concealing a blank wall. Down at that edge and probably you could do grass, you could do something else, but I'm sure ground will kind of look and do what they can with that. And so again, I really like the building and we just urge that the city continue. to work with the applicant and also work on all of our streetscapes to make sure that at the end of the day, this is great and aligned with the vision from the Mass Ave planning study, both on Mass Ave and on Walden. Great, thank you.

Wow, thank you, Mary. I knew I could count on somebody to talk about trees in a much more articulate way than I can. I'm just saying more trees, but Ted.

I just wanted to respond to something Mary said, and I know it's not the proponents. or R. Bailiwick to make the decision. But as someone who goes through that Walden and Mass Ave intersection many, many times a day, I think it's incredibly unlikely the city would do away with a lane because the left turn lane and the right turn lane on to Mass Ave are already now quite backed up all the time and to think that they would go To just one lane where you would have to go either left or right would just cause near chaos for drivers in North Cambridge and Huron Village and through the whole section of Cambridge.

I'm just suggesting that it probably wouldn't happen. But we don't have to make that decision.

Great. Thank you, Ted. All right. I love living in a community where we have a debate tonight and we're wrestling with bikes versus affordable housing. And... Tonight, we've got an extra unit and we were able to still accommodate the bikes. And what a great kind of discussion and great kind of design problem to be in the middle of and appreciate the way that it's come out so that we added a unit. Mass timber, I agree with Diego, really exciting to have the tall mass timber building. Well, why is it exciting? Yes, it sequesters carbon, but that's rather abstract, but important. The interior renderings are humane, right? There's wood there. There's wood ceilings. It's not drywall. And to Ted's comment and concern about

the units that have no light yes that's a New York City condition probably but you know what inside that unit you've got wood ceilings and maybe wood columns um so we're doing our very best to try to make a building that uh to some degree has some humanity in terms of its detail and I really appreciate that aspect of that structural A decision that the development group has made together. So if it doesn't take too long at the end of this, Love to understand what the variance was all about and your doggedness to build the building out of that system. I did not comment about color in question because it's not a question. I agree with Ted, it might be an opinion. I don't know why people are afraid, why architects are afraid of color. I understand the beige and the palette. and the coolness of the whole thing.

But gosh, it would be great to have. So even the mural is rendered in kind of pastel colors. And couldn't we paint them? Mullion's Orange or something. I don't know, maybe I'm a child of the 60s and a splash of color would go a long way. So I agree with Ted. It would be great to, rather than gray, It's not a bank, it's where people live. I wonder if we could look at maybe another color. And certainly brick is an inspiration with what's there in the neighborhood. I think this is the first planning board hearing, and I was on the zoning board 10 years before the 14 years here, where we're doing design review for a playhouse.

I also think that's wonderful because of the values that that says about our community but also about The proponents care about the spaces and the people that will live here. Of course, I'd want more playhouses, but, you know, let's start with this. It's an acknowledgement that multigenerations will be inhabiting this place. It is family housing. and what a wonderful thing that that thing's up 12 stories in the air, a bit of a temple. So thank you for that. I too like the building and I like the care that you've taken with it. I will say what other board members have said. The fact that you've listened carefully both to staff and to the planning board and then organize those thoughts both in the written

Submissions in advance of this hearing and also tonight in terms of the way you presented in a very respectful way, even when you didn't do what we were hoping you were going to do. I think goes a long way to earning credibility in the community and certainly showing respect for this process. And as chair, I just have to single that out as being a really laudable way to proceed. So thank you very much with the care you've taken with the process. I'm sure it's frustrating at times. So with that, I'm in favor of this. I am looking for a motion to conclude the design consultation and submit a final report with our comments to the superintendent of buildings in support of the building permit applications. Do I need a motion to that effect?

This is Ted, so moved. Great. Thank you, Ted. And a second.

This is Diego, second.

Thank you, Diego, very much. Evan, we'll have a roll call on that motion, please.

H. Theodore Cohen? Yes. Mary Flynn is absent. Mary Lydecker? Diego Macias, Ashley Tam, Carolyn Zern, and Tom Sieniewicz.

All right, so this concludes the business on our agenda tonight. Are there additional comments from staff? None indicating any additional comments from board members? If not, we will adjourn. Thank you. Thank you.