Malden City Council 10/27/2026

Me.

I just want to test, can everyone hear me in the chamber?

The council will come to order. All rise and salute the flag. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Please remain standing for a moment of silence in honor of our veterans, service members and those who have given the ultimate sacrifice. We honor and acknowledge the Massachusetts, Pennacook, and Pawtucket peoples whose ancestral lands we now call home and on which we gather today. We express gratitude to the indigenous peoples who have cared for this land for generations, predating European colonization and continuing to the present. Moving forward we are committed to ensuring that the histories, voices, and contributions of indigenous peoples are recognized and respected in the life of our city. Clerk, will you please call the roll?

Council Colón Hayes. Here. Council Condon. Crowe, Lawong, McDonald, O'Malley, Sica, Simonelli, Taylor, Winslow. President Linehan. Here. Councilor O'Malley is online with us tonight in attendance via Teams, so all of the votes will be taken this evening by roll call vote.

Okay and we do see Councillor O'Mally thank you so much for being with us remotely Councillor O'malley Okay, so under the provisions of the open meeting law for those of you who are in attendance tonight please be informed that UMA Urban Media Arts is recording this evening's meeting. So be aware that there will be both audio and video recordings of tonight's meeting Is there anyone else present in the chamber tonight who's recording, in addition to Uma? If so could you make yourself known? Okay seeing none we'll go to our first order of business. First order of business is public comment. Public comment is allowed under council rules, each speaker is limited to subject matter relevant to this evening's agenda and speakers must keep their comments to two minutes or less. Clerk, do we have anybody signed up for public comment tonight?

We do not but we did get one email. Okay let's go ahead and read the email. Katie Dillon 198 Mount Vernon Street to the Malden City Council I am hoping this is the last time I'll write to you about inclusionary zoning this time around, not that I don't love corresponding with you all. I'm confident that you've heard the feedback from community members and experts over the last few months about the importance of adopting I'm sorry, the new proposal for inclusionary zoning so we can actually start building housing in this city. The current inclusionary zone is certainly well intended in its design but There have only been three affordable projects built in the last five years. That's not enough to meet the demand I hope you'll adopt this proposal so we can start to build some sorely needed housing Thank you very much warmly Katie Dillon Okay, thank you. Thank you next order of business Appointments and Elections. We have three of them before you this evening. Paper 440-26, Council Reappointment.

Dr. Scroon Carrington 551 Lynn Street Malden as a member of the Board of Health said term to commence upon confirmation by the City Council and expire October 22nd, 2029.

Okay so we do need a roll call vote for this.

I'm gonna go to Councilor Crowe. Can we actually read all of these? They're all from the Board of Health

They are. Right, okay. And they're all reappointments. Exactly. Paper 441-26 Council Reappointment John Colangeli of 9 Lynn Street, Malden as a member of the Board of Health said term to commence upon confirmation by the City Council and to expire on October 22nd, 2029. Paper 442-26. Council reappointment Dr. Kunar Singh of 1127 Salem Street, Malden as a member of the Board of Health said term to commence upon confirmation of the City Council and expire October 22nd, 2029. Okay, I do have a light from Councilor Winslow.

Yeah, I just want to recognize Ms. Carrington's name is Scooney, you pronounce the E and I know John Colangeli goes by Jack our former fire chief so but I just wanted to make sure that for the record her name is pronounced Schooney.

Okay, thank you for that. Okay so we need a motion to...

I'm going to make a motion just if you don't mind.

Yes, please do.

Since as the City Clerk had mentioned these are all reappointments to the Board of Health and so it is in past that unless someone wants to pull somebody out and bring them into personnel on appointments we have on the floor approved reappointments and so Dr. Carrington, Mr. Colangeli Singh, I would make a motion that we approve their reappointment.

Okay on a motion by Councilor Crowe seconded by Councillor Colón Hayes will call the roll On the first paper 440

Carrington, Colón Hayes, Condon, Crowe, Linehan, McDonald, O'Malley, Sica, Simonelli, Taylor Winslow, Council President Linehan. Yes. That confirmation has been made unanimously on paper 441 John Jack Colangeli, Councilor Colón Hayes, Council Condon, Council Crowe Lawong, McDonald, O'Malley, Sica, Simonelli, Taylor, Winslow, President Linehan. Okay confirmed unanimously. and on the third paper, 442 for Dr. Singh, Councilor Colón Hayes? Yes. Councilor Condon? Yes Councilor Crowe? Yes

Yes.

Councilor Sica, Councilor Simonelli, Council Taylor, Council Winslow, Council President Linehan? Yes. Okay all three have been reconfirmed unanimously.

Those three are confirmed next order of business

Council will hold public hearings on National Grid petitions to install five new poles and underground conduits. Paper 444-26 Petition, Massachusetts Electric Company DBA National Grid Plan Number 31286263 National Grid to install one joint-owned pole on Blaine Street beginning at approximately 60 feet south of the center line of the intersection of Lynn and Blaine Streets in front of 6th Blaine. National Grid, to install a midspan pole P5145 50 feet south of pole P2023. Now, we're going to install one joint-owned pole on Hancock Road beginning at a point approximately 60 feet east of the center line of the intersection of Blaine and Hancock road in front of 24 Blaine Street National Grid to install new mid-span pole P2025-50 60 feet northeast of Pole P20 25.

National Grid to install one joint-owned pole on Lynn Street beginning at point approximately 180 feet west of the center line of the intersection of Lynn Street and Sargent Street adjacent to the property line of 148 Belleville Street. National Grid to install new pole P2003 and anchors 30 feet east of P2002 on Lynn Street. National grid to install two joint-owned poles on Eastern Avenue, National Grid To Install New Midspan Pole P1977 50 feet west of pole P1978 across the street from 1080 Eastern Avenue and install new mid-span pole P2901 55 feet east of Pole P1980 across some street across the street from 1114 Eastern Avenue. National Grid to install underground facilities on Broadway and East Avenue beginning at a point 180 feet north of the center line, of the intersection of Broadway and Eastern Avenue

and continuing approximately 180 feet south on Broadway, and then east onto Eastern Avenue. National good to install a new cable duct bank from existing manhole 2-1 on Broadway to a new man hole 2-2 on Eastern Avenue to rise a poll P1979 across the street from 1080 Eastern Avenue.

Okay, thank you so much to our Clerk for reading those. I'm going to put on the podium microphones Introduce this and if folks have questions will entertain questions before we open the hearing And then of course, we'll hear from the ward councillor So if you don't mind introducing yourselves and introduce the petitions for good evening everyone.

My name is Zane. I'm with national Britain

My name is Cameron Roderick. I'm with Control Point Technologies. We're a contractor for National Grid.

Okay, welcome. Thank you. You have the floor.

So I'm just gonna open up for questions if you guys have any questions.

Okay, then I'll go to the ward councillor first. Councillor Sica?

Good evening Zane. I have a couple of questions on a couple different locations. So in front of Six Plain, why are you adding another telephone pole?

So the reason for this is because we're adding a new circuit due to the loading of the current of the current circuit that feeds the area. So with this added wire that we're putting up on the lines, we have to make this turn onto Blaine from Lindstreet and there has to be a way the tension on the cable. So, the best way to do it would be to put a pole across the street of Lynn and put a span guy wire which is pretty much just a supporting cable but we didn't want to interrupt with I believe there is a driveway right there. We didn't want to have it close to the edge of the driveway, so we found it best to install a new pole 50 feet south and purpose of this is to...

use less tension in the wire and that's one span so we don't need to pull across the street. So, we want to keep everything on one side of the road and try our best to not impede any driveways.

I see the whole driveway thing, but if I lived at Six Plain and I had three telephone poles in front of my house the way that you're planning to do to these poor people, I think it looks like absolute trash. It's a very short area from pole number 223 that's on the corner of Lynn and Blaine to the, is it the... There's too many numbers here. P5145, that's the one that's right after Six Plains driveway I think. Is there any other place that you can possibly put that? That doesn't like... These people are going to look out their front door and look at telephone poles. To the left and to the right.

The only thing that really can be done about this poll location would be to shift it one way or the other. We can shift it approximately 30 feet.

Closer to the telephone pole on the corner?

We can shift 20 feet towards the corner, 30 feet south.

Okay.

But the reason why this location was chosen at 50 feet is because we felt when we were in the field that it was probably between property lines and without impacting walkways, driveways that sort of thing.

Okay I'm gonna go to the next one but I'm pretty sure the people in the back was the gentleman out the door when i was overtaking pitches today so I want to ask him his thoughts because he, I'm pretty sure, are you guys at Six Plane? Yeah. Okay. I just, I would be uncomfortable with having that in front of my house. So maybe we can come to some sort of little to the left like closer to the corner so they're not looking... We'll figure that out. 24 Blaine, I have no problem with. The white markings on the sidewalks where you mark the X that's where the telephone pole is going correct?

as of now.

It says NG and then there's a circle with an X through the middle, so that is actually on Hancock Street, right? That's where it's going. I have no issue with that. That one's fine. 148 Belleville Street, on the corner of Belleville street which is actually on Lynn Street that's closest to Sargent Street. I have no problem with that location. the 1080 Eastern Ave. It also shows 114 Eastern Ave, but I could not see a little NG or a circle and an X at 1114. Is that? Hold on, Midspan 2901 in 1980.

I only saw a national, an NG and the circle on the X on the sidewalk kinda. It was closer to a bus stop opposite side of CVS?

Yes.

you know what I'm talking about? Is there only one poll going over there, why do we mention 1114 Eastern Ave.

So there's gonna be two polls across the street from CVS

and- So 1114 Eastern Ave is actually my father's business. So if I'm in his parking lot, and I'm looking across the street there's nothing on the sidewalk that says you're adding a telephone pole unless I missed it. There's only one down a little bit further. I don't think I took a picture of that one because it's, that location is fine but I just want to know if you're putting two more over there?

It's not just one. There should be two markings. If they're not, then we can go out and restate those.

Okay. All right. I don't have an issue with that. I just wanted to be clear, because I thought it was two poles but it doesn't look like there's markings for two poles over there so just double check that. Okay? And then the last paper after talking to Councilor Winslow about the underground conduit. We are getting ready to redesign Broadway, and we would prefer our city engineer to take a look at these plans of what you're gonna do with that location before we actually approve it to make sure that it doesn't disrupt anything we're doing with the new Broadway redesign, if that's okay?

Of course.

Okay. All right. So the last one you want an engineer review? The last one will look in a table. So I would like to... probably do these separately if we could.

Okay, so I'm going to go to Councilor Winslow because I see his light on but we need to do the hearing. Yep, that's fine. I made a note of that. Thank you. I'll go to Councillor Winslaw next.

Yeah, no I just on that last the conduit thing. I did reach out to our city engineer. I mean we actually near a 25% design for Broadway and they're in the process of setting up meetings with utilities. And obviously, with Broadway and Eastern being that corner from Route 99 to Route 60 City. It's a critical intersection, so obviously coordinating on that is very important. So the city engineer is now aware of it and there will be some effort to Meet with National Grid on just everything related to Broadway, but that's this kind of being particularly underground work and that type of thing. And I don't know what the plans will be related to maybe upgrading Signal Arms, and all that. So it's a major. This is going to be probably a $20 million project or something like that or more. So it's a big thing.

And we've done a lot of underground engineering already and stuff like that, so it's important that this be coordinated. Thanks, great.

Okay, and I do see Councillor O'Malley's hand is up. Councillor O'malley you can unmute and speak to this before we open the hearing.

Yeah, I would just ask if National Grid could like in the future, I mean obviously you need to talk to the ward councillor. But when you come before us it would be helpful for those of us who are interested if you could explain at a high level what each of the projects is doing and why you're doing it just presenting it and not providing the context, I think makes it more difficult for us to do our job. And it requires many of us to have to ask a number of detailed questions, like even just the direction of electricity and stuff like that. Do you want to provide a little bit more context in terms of why each of the things are being proposed just so we better understand what's going on?

Of course. High level scope of the project is there's a large load on the current feeder, electrical feeder.

And could you just clarify which project you're talking about when you're doing this?

Yes, so this is the whole... This is for the entire petition. These are all interrelated? Okay. So it's one large job going from Broadway all the way down to Revere ending on what I believe is called Western Ave

Wesley.

Yes, yes. And so with this new added load that's been coming onto this feeder we are changing the source. So we're removing half of the load off this feeder and putting it onto a new one coming out in Melrose. So, half the feeders will be picked up by Melrose and then this half of the feeder now is going to be fed by the substation in Maplewood. With that we have to add an express line down the portion near Wesley Street. And to do that, we have to add some new poles, add some more support just to be able to support the new cable going up to that area. Does that answer your questions?

Yes.

Okay.

I'll defer to Councilor Winslow.

Yeah, okay.

Let me put your light back on, Councilor So you're starting at the Maywood substation which is just near the CVS and Broadway and then So that power is coming there. And then are you going all the way down Eastern Avenue with a bigger wire or I'm just trying to understand that? Yes, because I don't know. So yes, so that and then ends up at Lynn Street in that.

Yeah. So we're going we're gonna go down eastern now south on two I believe it's Blaine. And then you're going to take a left on the Hancock and you're gonna fall Hancock all the way up to, I believe its the... Beach to Wellesley Down Hancock all the way to pretty much the intersection.

You probably drove the whole thing today, right?

All right. So these are where you have to add some poles and some conduit. But otherwise there's going to be work going on all that stretch. Thank you. Thanks for asking that question, Councilor O'Malley.

Okay. Councilor Sica? And listen I get it over the last several years I think I've lost electricity more than I have the last few years, not several but I've been in my house for 27 years and I think the last couple of years have been the worst for losing electricity. So I understand the upgrades and when I went out and looked, I figured it was a need to support the service but the only one that I have an issue with is Six Plains so can we open? Yes Public hearing so we can speak to the residents that actually live in that house?

Yes, I have no other lights on. So I think we don't have any other questions from the council at this point. I'll declare the public hearing open Anyone wishing to speak in favor of the petition, please come forward. State your name and address for the record. Anyone wishing you speak in favour? Okay seeing none I'll declare that portion of the hearing closed Anyone wishing to speak in opposition to the petition please come forward, state your name and address for the record.

If you can come up, I would like to ask you a couple of questions if you don't mind. I apologize, I was rushing to my meeting. I got out of work late and I saw you in the door but I didn't have time to chat. You were the first one that I stopped at and I still had to make my way to all the other locations so I apologize. What is your first name?

James.

James, and you're at Six Plain.

Yeah, right where you saw me.

Yep, would you be okay if we got them to push the telephone pole closer to the corner? Would that make it better if it had to go anywhere?

You mean up where the other telephone pole is? Yeah, and the one that's at the corner. I just look at it as too much of a bad thing just gives some driver another target to aim for, to knock it on top of my house. I mean, it'd probably be better if it was farther away from my house a few feet up to the corner is better than where it is now, where they intend to put it now I'd rather not go there at all. I got one on each side of my house as it is, I think that's enough.

Yeah no, I agree. I was there today. If we don't do this what happens gentlemen? Anybody?

Sorry. There's got to be a way.

Find a Verizon house.

We can't hear you and the public cannot hear what you're saying.

Hold on, we need you to speak into the microphone please when both of you are speaking. Thank you.

So if this poll location does not pass within the 30 foot buffer that we mentioned earlier. Then, we go back to engineering and see if there's not really a good option because we've tried to do it without adding a new pole just because we have to deal with, when we do the design it has to be designed to the worst case scenario. So that's if there's 60 mile an hour winds with four inches of ice covered on the wire We can't design anything less because if we do, then what happens when a bad storm comes and the pole comes down? That would be on us.

It'd be on me. If it stays where it is now. Probably be in my living room.

Okay, so do you have authorization to even move that poll closer to the corner or do we have to table this paper? in order to figure that out. Maybe we can meet out there one day and check it out?

That would be a possibility. We are not allowed to set up a poll due Do you know how far away it is from the current telephone pole?

50 feet? Yes. So you think you can move it over another 20 feet, that's what you're thinking?

Yes we could shift it towards the corner 20 feet from the proposed location

James, if we had no alternative would you be okay with it going 20 feet closer to the corner instead of close, 20 feet close to your house? Okay.

Thank you for coming. Okay, I do see Councilor Winslow's light on and Councilor- Oh James, what's your last name honey?

Fitzgerald.

Thank you so much. I'm going to go to Councilor Crowe because I haven't seen Councilor Crows light on yet. Did you have a question for the public hearing?

I did have a to do anything underground so you're not adding a pole. I mean, that might be a little more cumbersome but there's been other opportunities that we haven't done the poles above but send it underground

Not really.

Can you come closer to the microphone?

There's not very much opportunity in this location just because if we wanted to go underground, it would most likely having to add, still you have to add a pole similar to how we're doing at the beginning of Eastern Ave in Broadway. We were adding those two poles so we are able to rise up, come on from underground and go overhead. have the same sort of situation going on where you had to go underground on a pole and then come back up to go overhead. And with those poles, it takes away our clearances. We have to keep proper clearances that's why we're adding more poles for that equipment

Winslow, did you have another question?

I guess the other question is there's just something other than a wooden power pole. And I mean, I know I work on a project in Somerville with National Grid might have been maybe another utility, but in Union Square where they needed a stabilizer and we had them instead of... They ended up putting Solid metal pole instead of a wooden pole. And just, you know, that's a different way to do it. So I just don't know if there's enough space here or how that is an alternative or whatever.

So other than wooden poles, it is a possibility. It would be something that would have to go back through engineering and with that I would have point that towards national grid specifically, depending on what they want to do because it's not usually a standard way they try to build. It is something .

It's still a poll. In Maya is still a poll regardless. Gentlemen, quick question. Do we have to table this paper to get you

Push it over 20 feet.

You'll be able to do that, so we're gonna change that wording on this paper to 20 feet from poll number 2023. I mean 30 feet from pole 2023? So it'll be moved over 20 feet from the location you have spray painted right now?

Correct.

All right, James, I think that's the best we're going to be able to do. Are you okay with that? I'm sorry I tried to get it away from your front door as much as possible. I apologize. So, I need a motion.

Right now it says 50 feet south. You're talking about 30 feet. Oh right, we need cardinal directions, not right and left.

Oh come on, I don't have that in me tonight. Zane, what are we doing? What do we change in this paper to?

It's going north.

We're going, thank you. So it's going 30 feet north from- 20 feet north. I'm sorry, 20 now. 20 feet North.

To the minimum of 30 feet.

50 feet south of pole, yeah so 20 feet to pull 2023, because it says 50 feet south of Pole 2023. So it's 20 feet north So it's going to be 30 feet south of Pole 2023. Sorry. It's been a long day.

30 feet south of pole 2023, that's what we're going to change it to.

and maybe you can decorate it with Christmas lights or something. No, I'm just kidding. No I feel terrible.

Okay. Okay we still have the hearing open so I'm going to give one last call anybody wishing to speak on any of the petitions. The hearing is open for all locations. One last call. Seeing none and hearing none, I will declare. Oh, I'm sorry, Councilor O'Malley. You can unmute. James, you're all set. You can go sit down, thank you so much.

Thank you, James. You could close the hearing and I can speak after.

Okay understood, I will declare that hearing closed then. Okay, Councilor O'Malley, you have the floor.

So just so I understand, it's coming from the substation by Broadway down Eastern Ave doing the squiggly stuff through the neighborhood and going to Wesley Street?

Yes.

And where you're not adding new polls, is that a new line just going on the existing polls?

Yes. Okay.

Yeah. And I mean, I guess the other thing we need to think about and maybe this is not the petition because there's already a ton of polls but if this was to be going into a new neighborhood that doesn't have polls or something like that We might want to consider having this stuff completely underground, to Councilor Crowe's point. So thank you again for providing more clarification.

Okay, thank you, Councilor O'Malley. So we are looking for a motion to grant all those. Are we tabling the last one?

We're going to remove the last. Remove the last Yeah, how do you want to do it?

On our end they're split already. We have five different petitions, right?

Well your company submitted this as one petition with five different projects built into the same petition So I guess my question would be, can you take care of the first four? Can you do the rest of the whole project if one piece of it is taken away? Yes. Well, we can either table that one part of this petition or you can ask them to come back with a new petition after speaking to the city engineer.

So you'd be approving it pending engineer review for the last item? That would be the third option.

We could do that too. Then you wouldn't have to split it off and table it that way if you're already putting the additional... Yeah, as long as YEM looks at it and it doesn't have any issue I'm fine with that. Are you fine with

Yep, go ahead. There's a pretty substantial amount of work that needs to be done around Eastern Broadway so and it's not going to just be the city engineer it's gonna be our you know I think BSE group So it's a pretty significant thing. So I think just, it isn't so easy to table that. Yeah, I think it needs to be thoroughly reviewed by that project team. Yeah, I would just suggest splitting that off and then having... Split it off and have them... I mean, it may go quickly. They might be back here in a month but I just think it could be knowing I don't know if you've done the underground work there, but There may be a stormwater conduit through there. I know there's a lot of flooding at the corner of Eastern Broadway that has never been addressed. It may not be on any public records, so it's a complicated spot

maybe a lot of re-engineering that's going to have to be taken into account. I don't think it's it isn't just a tweak or something like that, it's a complicated spot.

So do you want us to table it? Or do you wanna split in and have them resubmit the petition separately?

I'm fine with splitting it and tabling the split paper then they can come back and say maybe one meeting and the engineers will be fine.

So I do see Councilor O'Malley has his hand up again, I want to make sure to let him speak to the discussion.

Yeah, this is just to point out the reason why splitting. This has been proposed as one paper and I'm sure National Grid would like us to do this all at once but it's a great reason of why we have ruled 3201 which is allowing any councillor to split a paper where there are separate propositions as in here. So I just want to point that out. This is an example, doesn't require any vote. Thank you.

Thank You Councillor O'Malley So I do think that's what we were looking for, a motion around it. Yes, so I'll make the motion to split the paper. Okay, so motion by Councilor Sica to split And that's for Broadway and Eastern Ave, just the final component of this petition. Yep. Okay. Do we need to do a roll call to split if someone's remote or can we just split it? We can still just split everything.

You don't need to vote, right? Sorry.

I don't think we need a vote to split the paper, but I want to give them specific instructions that they should come back to us with a brand new petition. I'm going to repost this and everything so it'll be fresh. Like, I don' t want the floor to be hung up by one. Okay, I understand.

So we were just discussing under our council rules anybody can split of the paper as Councillor O'Malley was just starting to say We just want to be super clear that we will give you instructions to come back with a new petition, even though we aren't going to take a vote on the split-off paper because our rules allow us to just split it off procedurally. we would like you to come back with a fresh petition per what Councilor Winslow was saying about how complex the project is. And so, we are gonna take a vote on the rest of them now with the conditions that we've been discussing.

So for the underground work Are you just looking for us to speak to the city engineer and confirm with him that there's no issues or is there anything else?

Well, according to the City Engineer as of today he has not seen anything surrounding this work and he would like to look into it before we vote on it. To make sure that it doesn't disrupt Broadway corridor redesign.

So is it not a possibility to just put a condition on the whole thing that city engineer would review the underground work before we start, before it's approved?

So what we decided... Yeah, Councilor Winslow. I'll put your light back on one second. Go ahead.

The challenge is we have a whole engineering team already designing that area and so we're asking National Grid to review what we're doing already so it's not just it's more complicated. you may actually have to find another way to do it. So I just not familiar enough with what our design team, but basically we spent the last four years planning doing underground work so we have a pretty advanced design that that is literally going through the final review before public meeting. So you guys need to be part of that review and take it in a serious way, and it might fundamentally affect what you got applied for. That's just how it is. Let's say it might go through smoothly, but I just don't want to give an impression that YEM is going to approve this next week. There may be more complicated, so I just don't want to give that impression. So thank you.

Okay, so will I make a motion that we approve for other locations?

with the amendment regarding the 30 feet.

With the amendment, we're guarding the first one six plane 30 feet south of pole 2023 with all our normal conditions.

Okay do I have a second to that? Okay, on Councilor Sica's motion to grant seconded by Councilor Crowe with the following conditions that one, that the engineer be called when dig safe is notified. Two, that streets and sidewalks be restored to the satisfaction of the Director of Public Works, and the third condition that Councilor Sica just stated regarding the first Blaine Street petition with poll P5145. which we will double. 2023 that we will get the wording, make sure the Clerk has the wording correct. We will call the roll.

Council of Colón Hayes? Yes. Council Condon? Yes Council Crowe? Yes McDonald, O'Malley, Sica, Simonelli, Taylor, Winslow, President Linehan.

Yes. Okay so those petitions have been granted Thank you for coming. We'll follow up on the other, yeah of course one second.

Do you know when this work is gonna stop? No?

Well now they probably really don't. Not anytime soon.

All right, thank you. Not before the winter probably next spring maybe?

You don't know? Nothing. We have a bunch of approvals before this proceeds forward. Okay. All right.

Thank you.

Okay Thank you.

Next order of business.

Paper 445-26 be it ordained by the Malden City Council that the Code of the City of Malden 12.16.010 Table of Intensity regulations, business uses, motel hotel max height to read six stories not to exceed 75 feet. This is sponsored by Councilor Winslow.

Yeah, I mean this idea came up. We've just been reviewing our use tables and one of the things we have before the Rules and Ordinance Committee is looking at changing how we handle a permitting of hotels. And one of the things I just did some research that showed in our area, Most of the hotels that have been built over the past 25 years have been six stories, and we limit that to four stories generally. So my proposal here is to put this paper in and actually just refer to committee so we can have some further discussion of staff input. It's not ready to get sent to a joint meeting, but then we would be discussing this alongside the changes in changing the proposal. We're talking about is going from site plan review for special permitting from hotels to site plan review.

So it would be good to discuss these things in tandem because if we make the change from a special permit to site planning review and still make it very difficult to have hotels doesn't really accomplish what we want. So I think it's a good time to have this discussion and get some staff input. But, you know, I just think it is practical. This is taller hotels are what the hotel market is building. They don't build motels anymore So it's just something to have a discussion and any counselor who has time to have input and stuff like that. But I'm just making this proposal so we can talk about it in a couple weeks, in rules and ordinance and get any staff input McDonnell.

I just wanted to be added as a co-sponsor to the paper if I can. I'm glad to see more positive ideas about how to support our economic development and would be happy to make a motion to refer to committee, that's welcome.

Okay, we'll take that up. I do see Councillor O'Malley has their hand raised. Councillor O'malley you have the floor.

I was also going to be asked if you need a sponsor and I will second Councillor McDonald's motion.

Okay, seeing no further lights on for discussion. On a motion made by Councillor McDonald seconded by Councillor O'Malley we will call the roll to refer to ordinance.

of course. Okay, so for the vote, Councilor Colón Hayes, Council Condon, Council Crowe, Council LeWong, Council McDonald, Council O'Malley, Yes. Councilor Sica, Councilor Simonelli, Council Taylor Winslow, Council President Linehan? Yes. That paper has been referred to Rules and Ordinance Committee.

Okay that is referred to ordinance. Next order of business.

Paper 446-26 be it ordained by the Malden City Council that the Code of the City of Malden Title II Administration is hereby amended by striking subsection 2.12.165 C, Supervision of Animal Control Officer and adding 2.12.105D, Supervision of Animal Control Officer and I believe everybody has a handout in front of them that speaks to this ordinance. Okay, Councilor Winslow for the paper.

Yeah, you know, Maria Louise and the Mayor's Office called me this past week and just talking about as things are changing various departments, and we do have an animal control officer that has different strengths and skills as the past officer. And the thought was it would make sense to really shift that position to be under the health department. And there's many things and there's a memo here from the mayor that explains that there's the Animal Control Officer does like related to rabies, vaccines and just health inspections related to animals. Like if someone has too many animals in their you know, they're causing a health issue. So the thought is that it would make sense to actually transfer the position which is right now under the police department to the Health Department

and this is just simply the, right now in our ordinances it's the animal control officer is under the supervision of the police department. This would just shift it to the health department if you look at the really big language here, thank you Clerk Cagno. This is what we would be ordaining it's basically striking out this section of the code where the supervision of the animal control officer is under the police which that is section, I guess that's 12.165C and then basically transferring those responsibilities to the health department 1212-105D and explain that in the future, the animal control officer will be under the Department of Health and Human Services. And explain those

and you can see there's this expansion of public education, urban wildlife and animal wellness all there. So my thought is that this is pretty straightforward and I don't think it really needs to be referred to committee. That's why I asked that this and the language we put out there. But I think it's something we could just vote to enroll, but if any Councilor wants you know, have it referred to committee. I'm happy to have that but my suggestion is this we enroll it if people can look at this in a couple weeks when we come back you know if we can hold it if we need to My suggestion is it's pretty straightforward. We should just enroll it, so that's the purpose of the paper thing.

Thank you, Councilor Winslow. Councilor McDonald?

also would love to be added as a co-sponsor to this. Thank you for this, I think this makes a lot of sense and I'm really excited about our new animal control officer. Yeah, I'd be happy to support a motion to enroll. I think Rules & Ordinance has its hands full at the moment and I agree are all straightforward and benefits from being put in place as quickly as possible. Do we have any concerns?

No, we don't have any concerns. I'd be happy to make that motion. Okay. I don't see any other lights looking to speak so on a motion by Councillor McDonald seconded by Councillor Winslow In roll, we will call the roll.

Council of Colón Hayes? Yes. Council Condon? Yes Council Crowe? Yes Counsel Luong? Yes Consul McDonald? Yes Councillor O'Malley?

Present

Sica, Simonelli, Taylor, Winslow, Linehan. Okay so that paper has been enrolled okay next order of business

Oh, sorry. Yeah, what am I thinking?

I think my suggestion is just we wait two weeks. It's not an emergency. Okay. So I think we should save that process when there's something more. Sure, no problem.

Yeah, that's true. No need to send it to committee. Okay.

Paper 448-26. Ordered. that the FY2027 General Fund Appropriation Order Schedule B for the fiscal year July 1st, 2026 through June 30th, 2027 be and hereby is amended by reducing the appropriation for the Department of Public Works by $800,000 from $9,525,480 to $8,725,480 said reduction shall eliminate the $800,000 appropriated within the Department of Public Works FY2027 budget for the FY2026 snow and ice deficit, which will instead be raised on the FY 2027 tax recalculation report. All other provisions of the FY 2020 27 appropriation order shall remain unchanged. McDonald.

So I'd like to request that we refer this to the Finance Committee, and we will take this up promptly. This is related to the reason that we've had to postpone the tax hearing today. And it's because snow plowing, unlike I think any other municipal expense, is treated distinctly under the law. It can it is paid in the next year and it's treated as a special kind of expense. So given, I think the tightness of our budget and given how much snow had to get plowed last year Our CFO has put this forward to make sure that we've got our I's dotted and our T's crossed, and that the significant appropriation is in the right place on the budget. So we're gonna hear more about that stay tuned for the Finance Committee next, well the 10th sorry because we're not meeting next week.

So I'm sure we'll queue this up for the 10 and we'll provide some more information in advance about how all of this works and get this sorted out so that we can proceed with our annual certification of the tax rates. I move, we refer this to the Finance Committee.

Okay, on a motion by Councillor McDonald, seconded by Councillor Luong to refer this to Finance. We'll take the roll.

Council of Colón Hayes? Yes. Council Condon? Yes Council Crowe? Yes McDonald, O'Malley, Sica, Simonelli, Taylor, Winslow, Linehan. That paper has been sent to finance. Okay, next order of business. The next two papers are enrolled ordinances that need to be ordained. Paper 327-26 be it ordained by the Malden City Council that the Code of the City of Malden 12.12.030 Youth Regulations is hereby amended as follows, as written in the body of the paper. Okay, Councilor Winslow.

Yeah I just you know as we ordain this I know uh just make clear so there were i believe about 15 changes to our use table so this would be making it for hospitals, expanding where we could have those. Those could happen in industrial zones. Business schools would be allowed more broadly Medical centers would be allowed by right in a lot of new places like business highway, business commercial industrial zones. We would have restaurants that are not fast food places allowed by right in business highway industrial zones. Body art would be allowed in a business and industrial zones Convenience stores would be allowed by right in business and industrial zones.

Licensed massage therapists would be allow more broadly from Business Network and other residential Zone, or ROs. Oh, that's overlay. Adult daycare would be allowed by right in business highway industrial zones. Kennels would be Business Commercial, Business Highway and Industrial Zones. Research and Development would be allowed by right now in Business Commercial and Business Highway. And Towing would be allow by right in Industrial Zone. So it's just that's what this is doing Remember, we had split the paper in two. The rest of the paper is still on committee but those are the updates that we would be ordaining tonight just to be clear so just making it easier Proceed with building those type of businesses in those zones.

Thank you Okay, thank You councillor Winslow I have a light from Councillor Simonelli

Thank you, Madam President. I just want to say I think this is... You know, I'm all for this. I think it's a great paper and something that I was looking into in my neighborhood to allow growth, economic growth in my neighbourhood but then you get into kind of like spot zoning because Route 60 kinda goes through the whole city of Malden and just to do in my neighborhood would be kind of, A gray area, I think. So I do like this paper. I think it's a great way of us moving forward and doing some economic growth here in the city entirely. to allow these type of businesses to be by right and to be allowed in these districts. So, you know I just want to say that I think it's a great paper and I'm all for taking out a president

Okay, thank you, Councilor Simonelli.

I make a motion to ordain and thank you for staff for all their work on putting this together as well. Thank you.

Okay, on a motion by Councillor Winslow to ordrain, seconded by Councillor Colón Hayes, we will call the roll.

Colón Hayes, Condon, Crowe, Linehan, McDonald, O'Malley, Sica, Simonelli, Taylor Winslow, Council President Linehan. Yes. Okay that paper has been ordained. Okay, that papers been ordain next order of business. Paper 415-26 be it ordained by the Malden City Council that the Code of the City of Malden, Title II, Chapter 24 is hereby amended by adding Section .075 Assistant Department Head Salary Schedule and inserting the following positions as is outlined in the body of the paper. Okay, Councilor Winslow for the paper.

Yeah as we discussed and we enrolled last time these are just some adjustments to salary schedules per our you know recent procedures for our assistance in many departments so So I would recommend that we ordain this. Thank you, Greg.

Okay, so we have a motion by Councillor Winslow to ordain. Seconded by Councillor Sica. We'll call the roll.

Council of Colón Hayes? Yes. Council Condon? Yes Wong, McDonald, O'Malley, Sica, Simonelli, Taylor, Winslow, President Linehan. That paper has been unanimously ordained. Okay, next order of business. Committee reports. Paper 434-26, the Standing Committee on Rules and Ordinance to whom was referred Papers 335 and 335A Series of 2026 having considered the same make the following report.

Okay, on a motion by Councillor Winslow, seconded by Councillor Crowe to receive the report we will call the roll.

Councilor Colón Hayes? Yes. Council Condon? Yeah. Council Crowe? Yeah Council LeWong? Yes Council McDonald? Yes Sica, Simonelli, Taylor, Winslow, Linehan. Winslow? Okay, yeah. So as we started

Several months ago, the city about five years ago passed an inclusionary zoning law that intended to make it more possible and actually require and many more. We also have multi-unit housing developments over eight units to include affordable housing units so when we adopted that, and this is really that five year update. So we've had plenty of discussions in the Rules and Ordinance Committee, and gone back and forth. And so right now before you there's essentially based on some legal advice The original paper that was filed, which was basically to strike the whole section and replace that with new language. One key principle was reducing the amount of required affordable housing from 15% to 10%. then and also having some more incentives to build that.

What we got was from legal, we got advice that the incentive section under state law would be, should be voted on separately because that would only take six votes majority to pass versus just the overhaul of our zoning otherwise takes eight votes. The first thing we did in committee was really separate the paper into, separated out the incentive section out from the rest of the papers. So the incentives section is now and the rest of the paper is 33526. So just to talk about the first paper, so that is just really changing the language that describes how inclusionary zoning works, how it's defined who will oversee it.

So that is just really revamping that language so that's just the process of how we go through determining like our and Community Development Office will be highly involved when someone goes in. Particularly, there's sort of two classifications. If someone proposes a multi-family housing development of more than eight units that is just called inclusionary zoning. A percentage has to be set aside, so 10% of those units would have to be affordable and the regulations describe what the affordable units are the Community Development Office gets involved in that. Now if someone comes with a project that's 100% affordable units, that also goes through a process so we... The major point of these new update and the descriptive section is really to define better what an inclusionary project is as well as an affordable project.

So, the committee recommends that Spadafora, Taylor, Malden, Councilor I'm striking out the definition of what was called a mixed income project because now, the way that proposals and incentives work is basically standards that apply for any project that's over eight units. that's really a market rate, but some affordable units. And then other ones that would be 100% affordable. So if something is 50% affordable, 50% inclusionary that would be considered an inclusionary project. So, so that was what the recommendation was. I know Councilor O'Malley did propose this paper as proposed by community office was that

we would be reducing based on recommendations from our consultants that 15% requirement for forwardable units, though that's a great desire because of inflation. and because of high interest rates right now, it's very hard to plan and require that 15%. So the recommendation is we reduce that requirement to 10% That's basically based on market data. And having sat on the committee when we set that first 15%, there was a lot of technical expertise that goes into looking at the market and really establishing what can work, so there's a lot of analysis that is based on. So that was... That's the first thing we would be looking to enroll,

may first have amendments to change the definition of inclusionary project as proposed, strike out in Section D mixed income. and then we would have to vote favorably. So I don't know, Carolyn, you're a little puzzled. There's a long way to go but... We just want to make sure that we have everything.

Yeah, so we needed to...

Yeah, so we poured it out favorably with two amendments to update the definition of a inclusionary project per recommendation and to strike the definition that was for mixed income projects. So, so that would be, that's great.

Okay. I see a few lights with counselors who want to speak to the paper. So I'm going to start going down the line first with Counselor Colón Hayes.

Thank you so much. thank the team from the OSPCD office and the chair of ordinance, and everybody else who worked on this. This was quite... It's my first year on ordinance. I wanted to be on ordinance, I asked for that as vice-chair this was a lot to take on and I just want to thank you for all your hard work, but for anyone watching also to know that a lot of thought was put into this. I had community members reach out to me very concerned about going what seemed to be backwards from 15% to 10%. I myself had a lot of questions about that, but I reached out to not only the experts here that we have, but experts in the field that I know that are colleagues of mine that I trust and we had long conversations about it. So I did come around and think this is the best way to go, and also that when I spoke with Director and Alex Pratt to make sure that people know we could come back before five years.

This is done every five years, but if we see some kind of change in the market which would be amazing and more affordable housing was to be developed, McDonnell.

I'm very grateful that we are here and ready to vote on this because it has been a lot of really rigorous process to get us to this point. Inclusionary zoning is one of the key tools in the toolbox to get affordable housing built, and ours is just failing to do that right now. units are not getting built under our policy because it's fundamentally like a carrot rather than stick kind of policy. And it says, you know we're gonna require that you do certain things but we're going to give you some bonuses to make it work because the way that you, that the developer pays for the affordable units is the margin they make on the market rate units. so much has changed since we, as Councilor Winslow said in the committee report. Since this was initially passed I wasn't on the council. I in fact remember giving a public comment

in support of this and wishing we had a higher percentage, but the reality is that you cannot force people to build things if the numbers don't work. and as I think our staff have clearly said, you know 0% of 15 is still zero. 15% of zero is still there we go yeah that's what they said thank you which is to say it doesn't matter how high the percentage is if it doesn t actually succeed in getting units built. We did a really helpful Breakdown, which was in the outside study of how these projects are financed. That means that it's not just the developers who have to agree they make work but the folks who loan them money who look at every dimension of the project. And it was really clear that right now, Malden doesn't make sense to build in under the existing law which is why the projects aren't happening for these affordable projects.

This is, I think both a good faith effort to help us get those projects underway that I do believe will lead to more housing. I also think that it's important that we demonstrate as a city that we are trying to work with the community of developers that is trying to build affordable units. And I think this is very reasonable, if anything, I wish we had been able to provide a little bit more incentives through this change but it's important they get done And so I think that means we have to find a place that, you know, we can all meet on to move that ahead. But as I've heard from many developers who care about affordability and nonprofit developers they're really concerned about how hard we make it sometimes. And so, we're trying to make it easier this also cleans up some process pieces that I think are really important and brings in the affordable housing trust fund a little bit more. We'll talk about the incentives in the next paper, but I would like to ask that two of the letters there are two letters we received from non-profit housing developers

week or so, one from Housing Families and one from Metro North Housing Corp. If those could just be included are attached to the paper since they weren't part of the public comment. I think that's really important for the community to see. So, let me echo my colleagues appreciation for the staff and how much work this has taken and this has my full support to be adopted. And hopefully we can get some of those units truly built, thank you.

Thank you, Councilor McDonald. Councilor Condon?

Thank you, Council President. I'd be remiss if I didn't congratulate Ward 1 council here who took the bull by the horns. Oh, sorry. Okay. I'll give up the mic.

Okay. Yeah. Okay, so the first paper is 335-26B to ordain by the Malden City Council that the code of the city of Malden 12.12.300 inclusionary zoning is hereby amended by striking new ordinance in its entirety and inserting the following I just saw Councillor O'Malley's hand.

All right, Councillor O'malley you can have the floor.

Hi thank you so As you all know, I'm in support of affordable housing and I am in support providing incentives for that. but I do want to push back based on my professional opinion that it is not the affordability percentage that is preventing affordable housing and housing for being built in Malden. It is the fact that we intentionally passed moratoriums on multifamily homes We provided in-cap tight limits, increased parking requirements and obviously we're in the middle of a trade war. So I just don't think that it's fair or and so forth.

and Easy Target. So I'm not in support of that, but I am in support about the incentives. And I do think there's value in cleaning up the ordinance but I'm not gonna be voting against this out of principle, but I do wanna highlight something when it comes to principal. Earlier we split off... This paper has been split as you know, and that was done without a vote per our rules. The vote for the National Grid petitions was split without a vote per our rules. And so my request is and was to split off E1, which is the affordability percentage only, which should be allowed per our it was not allowed in ordinance. I have an anticipation it would not be allowed here on the floor.

And I just want to caution the council and the Council President that it's not fair when there is a set of rules for the people that we like, and a different set of roles for those we don't like. That's how I feel, and I just wish that we would be trying to protect minority and dissenting voices better than we have been. Thank you

Thank you, Councilor O'Malley. Do you want to proceed with reading the paper? Well, I read 335. We're all set. We have to take a roll call on that now. That's fine. Did we, I don't think we introduced the amendments. I don�t think we had any motions on the amendments, sorry. Okay, sorry, Councilor Winslow let me put your microphone on, I apologize.

So I guess the first, the amendments are to in section B modify the definition of inclusionary project. and then strike section D, mixed income from that paper. And the separation that was already recognized.

I apologize, Councilor Winslow. We were just trying to affirm whether we usually revote the amendments out of committee or not

Yeah, I thought we had been doing that as a practice. Okay, that's what I thought as well.

and then the full paper.

Yeah, so I make a motion to amend that paper consistent with the committee recommendations.

Okay. Right. And I did have that motion already from Councilor Winslow seconded by Councilor Colón Hayes. So we will take a roll call on the amendments as recommended from the committee report.

Council Colón Hayes? Yes. Council Condon? Yes Council Crowe? Yes McDonald, O'Malley, Sica, Simonelli, Taylor, Winslow. Council President Linehan. Yes.

Okay, we can now entertain a motion on the first paper.

I would just like to formally request that you all be separated.

Can you restate that? I couldn't hear you.

I would just like to formally request that E1 be separated from the paper.

Are you re-asking for the request from the committee?

Correct. Is it F1 or E1? I have it as E1. So I have a point of order, but that's out of order.

Okay and now same to Robert Tools of Order you can only split a paper if both papers make sense when they stand alone And I think that's the problem with this paper is that it doesn't...

Okay. Councilor Winslow has a point of order. Oh, sorry. I shut off your mic instead of putting it on. Counciler Winslaw?

Um, I just have a point-of-order that I believe Councilor O'Malley's request is out of order because per our rules, a paper has to be capable of being divided. If you divide these two papers and one passes or one fails the first paper may not be Implementable. So I just think it, per our rules this is beyond the prerogative of an individual counselor so that's my point of order to ask the chair to make a ruling on that.

I'm going to before I make a ruling, I'm gonna restate. I was just getting my committee report, my notes from committee because I want to be able to restate the motions that were made in committee because we did take up the same issue last week and revisit it again under Councilor Winslow's purview as the ordinance chair earlier in committee tonight. So, the motions made earlier tonight and last week which we revisited like I just said tonight there was a motion by Councilor O'Malley to split this paper. It was the ruling of the chair that splitting the paper would essentially disable the paper, and Caroline you just had said it a better way than that. That's not the right word.

According to Robert's Rules of Order, a paper can only be... And yes we normally don't need a formalized vote but a paper needs to be able to stand alone when it's split. Both pieces that are split need to be stand-alone and make sense Okay. And so this is the debate that we've been having over splitting this paper, usually we don't take formal votes but in this case We did bring it to a formal vote because it just didn't seem like it met the criteria.

Right, so under Robert's Rules of Order and under our own rules, any councilor may move to split a paper. It does not require a second. We do not need to put it to We entertain Councilor O'Malley's motion. It was the ruling of our chair as well as our parliamentarian that separating this paper would render both halves essentially moot, neither half could stand alone There was a question of the ruling of the chair that failed for lack of a second. There was then opposition to that not being called to a vote, so we did take a vote At that point, as the council president and a member of the ordinance committee I spoke and offered Councilor O'Malley the opportunity to give a minority opinion report at the full council. O'Malley, and feel free to recap what I'm saying. I will give you the opportunity to respond.

That option was declined at which point O'Malley moved to amend the paper to sustain the 15% inclusionary standard. That also failed for lack of a second, at which point Councilor O'Malley stated that they would like to have their motion properly voted so that was then seconded. We did vote it and it failed at that point. Subsequent to that, a motion was made to report the paper out favorably which did succeed. So that's how we've got to this point It's going to be my ruling as chair that we will not be splitting the paper and we do need to take a vote on it. I am gonna give Councilor O'Malley an opportunity to respond because I do not want to appear to be quashing their ability to speak to the paper as many times as they would like to.

Thank you, the only correction I would make is that there was a motion to doubt the ruling of the chair. That was seconded, and so that did go up for vote. But aside from that your recollection is correct. The only other thing I'd point out is that the paper has already been split. And so if part of it passes, and if one of the papers passes in the other half doesn't it already would not function. So to say that splitting it one more time is any more of a detriment to the impact, is not true because the route that you're leading me down, which I will not take is to vote against I'm not going to be voting against that. So it just doesn't make sense, like what you're basically asking is for me

which would make the other half of it not function. It's just not a reasonable explanation, but thanks for hearing my objection.

Okay, thank you, Councilor O'Malley. I do see a couple other lights. I'm gonna go to Councilor Sica first.

Thank you, Madam President. I might be on the minority up here but I am really struggling to support this paper. I absolutely recognize the need for affordable housing in Malden, I think all of us up here can agree on that We have residents, families, young adults. They're all struggling to find affordable housing and I certainly want to be a part of finding solutions for those people but I also have believe that we have to be careful on how we can get there. We appoint and employ professionals to guide us on matters just like this, that doesn't mean we have to agree with them every time, but when both our building commissioner and our city planner raise concerns about a zoning change I think we owe it to our residents to listen. I think were rushing this

just because we have the authority to do something doesn't mean it's always the right thing to do. And until I'm confident that the concerns of the building commissioner and the city planner have been addressed, unfortunately cannot support this paper. So I just wanted to go on the record and state that. Thank you.

Okay, thank you, Councilor Sica.

Yeah, I just want to point out about the reason why we split the paper originally was that we were basically told by under state law that we had to do that. So there was a very compelling reason why It was basically necessary that the legal department stated When you pass incentives related to zoning, they cannot be tied in with things that are not incentive. So it was their legal recommendation that we split the paper so It wasn't just a prerogative of an individual counselor It was basically mandated by state law. So thank you, Greg.

Yes. Thank you, Councilor Winslow and from the chair. You took the words out of my mouth. I was going to make that further clarification because I do think it's important for the public to understand, and also just these are two separate notions that are very much intertwined because we're trying to present a package of things that together constitute incentives that developers can utilize with the overarching goal that we're bringing in development and then we're promoting affordable housing. So, we do need to take two separate sets of votes but again as you stated there is a state law that is the reason behind that Seeing no other lights, I am gonna ask that we call the roll on the paper at this time if our Clerk is ready.

Motion to enroll.

Okay, a motion by Councilor Winslow to enroll, do I have a second? Seconded by Councilor McDonald. Clerk, will you please call the roll?

Council Colón Hayes. Yes. Council Condon. Yes Council Crowe. Yes McDonald, O'Malley, Sica, Taylor, Winslow, President Linehan. That paper has been enrolled.

Okay, that paper has been enrolled. Next order of business?

Paper 335A-26 be it ordained by the Malden City Council that the Code of the City of Malden 12 .12, .300 exclusionary zoning is hereby amended by including a new subsection that shall be titled F incentives. That's inclusionary zoning not exclusionary. kind of the opposite of what we're trying to do here tonight. Sorry, I'm very much in elections mode. It's okay, we appreciate you so much. My job here tonight...

Okay, Councilor Winslow for the paper.

So the committee after again good discussions voted to vote favorably for this separated paper with some amendments. These incentives would include some height bonuses, but we made clear that the bonuses... The recommendation is to amend so that the bonuses are clear will not apply in Resident A districts. So where you can do multifamily housing outside of Resident A, there'll be some height incentives but those height incentives kind of can't be double counted or or otherwise to really get extra units in resident aid districts. There was some discussion of having some location bonuses, but after discussions and that was the

The committee said that it would be best just to strike that because we couldn't really come to a fair compromise. And then, just tonight, and we had a further discussion about parking adjustments The initial paper proposed that there'd be, for any project subject to inclusionary zoning, that there would be one parking space per unit. and then for affordable projects, it'd be 0.7 parking spaces per unit. Councilor Crowe proposed an amendment that that be adjusted to a 1.1 parking space and a market unit in .7 parking space per unit for affordable units. After discussion, the committee voted favorably

So that is the committee report that we recommended out, that favorably with those amendments. Thank you.

Okay, thank you, Councilor Winslow. Do I have any questions on the split paper? Now, Council Member Conway. Oh, right. Councilor Condon, it's your moment.

I was ahead of myself. I'd like to recognize Councilor Crowe.

I thought you might.

For outstanding ability to work out a compromise to move this paper forward, thank you.

I would definitely second that. Thank you for mentioning that. Okay, Councilor McDonald?

I just wanna express my support for these incentives and say here again, you know, my preference would be to go further but I am grateful that we have come to a place where the committee can move forward with the paper and hopefully the full council here. and I just wanted to highlight a couple of things for folks following this. I think it's really important that we have changed, that this paper changes the parking requirements from being only applying to the affordable units to all units in the building even with, of course those updates from committee that's still a significant change because as was pointed out in committee, that helps units with multiple bedrooms get built. Those are like family size units because right now the requirement for parking spaces is based by bedroom, which means the more you try to build a two or three-bedroom apartment or unit that could house a family

then it just exponentially increases your parking costs, regardless of the need. So I think those are some really important changes that I just wanna make sure that the community knows and again this is part you know, we really looked at these incentives while the paper was split for these legal reasons. We looked at the incentives about where you can save money on parking, where you get additional units. We've made it easier to build additional units so that that you can get basically more bang for your buck as a developer, again to make the financing work. To make sure that the incentives are good enough that affordable units truly get built. So I'm very excited to be able to support this paper. And I would just point out, I know there was some back and forth about the language and where this lives in the zoning. And my perspective after listening to all of that is that there's no perfect solution. Waiting is also not a good solution and can impact folks who badly need housing.

But I think it is all indicative of the fact that our overall zoning badly needs to be updated, and many of us view this as a and so forth. So I think it's a kind of a Band-Aid approach until it can be better integrated into a holistic consideration of our residential zoning, there's a way to move forward that doesn't wait for all of that to happen. I do recognize that that's not ideal. So, I think that's true about the parking requirements as well and the ways we can control parking through other ways and many more. Thank you.

Thank you, Councilor McDonald.

Thank you, Madam President. Again I am probably on the minority here and I'm gonna beat a dead horse because I talk about it all the time but the parking in my ward is out of control If you drive up near Altitude, formerly Granada Highlands it is affordable housing up there and it is a disaster. I had to implement permit parking on Kennedy Skyline Winchester, Glenmere, Truman all because the people that are living in altitude they're only I don't know if they're allowing one spot. I was having that conversation with Councilor Crowe today if they're not on the lease, they don't get a parking spot but there's also a limit as to how many parking spots they can get in that particular complex and they are all pushed out onto Kennedy Central all those streets I just mentioned.

And it's a nightmare, I have a house on Claremont Street that has 11 registered cars at it, 11. You cannot tell me there's two cars registered to every house in this city. I don't believe it. In front of my own house, poor Ernie probably wants to kill me because I'm calling him constantly over my own issues, but I have New Hampshire, Maine, New York, New Jersey. We're not even taking those into considerations. And as much as I would love to see residential Parking here. I don't know if it's ever gonna happen while we're sitting up here, unfortunately. We've tried to tackle it so many times. I'm just not hopeful. So again, I am the minority but because of the parking. And I just, the whole 10 to 15...

The 15 to 10 to make it a four, that number, I can't do it so unfortunately I am against this paper and if it's okay and Council President. I just got news that a friend of mine had passed, so I'm leaving. So thank you.

Thank you for letting us know. Councillor Winslow?

Yeah no, really think this particularly incentives part is important. In Ward 6, there are quite a few people in the neighborhood that take advantage of our great bus services including that's one of the things that attracted me to the neighborhood. Yes, there is always tension in a city about parking Sometimes I think sometimes the highest quality cities have the biggest parking problems because people like living in walkable neighborhoods, but there's never going to be enough spaces to park all the cars in a walkable neighborhood. It's kind of counterintuitive. but I also think in terms of working for affordable housing, They were talking about some people's car payments are now over $1,000 a month. I mean my mortgage payment when we bought in Malden was just a little bit over that so

having people have to, you know, people are having to make tough choices. Fortunately in Malden and you can make the choice to live a car-free or less car life and that is something that I feel that adding, this is like minimums. Let the market decide how many people they can figure that out and people can make the choices about where to live and how to get to work. Let's focus on City, improving transportation. Having a moderate amount of parking required but not over-parking and work for alternatives for people to be safely getting around the city so I think this is a great step forward I'd definitely like to see a lot get the housing going, use our streets efficiently to move people. And I think this is a step forward. Thank you, Craig.

Thank You, Councilor Winslow. I'm all set. Okay. Well, I will say from the chair, I think this has certainly been a long road between you know I want to really commend the staff and really all the council members. I know we've had most of these meetings, not just ordinance but really the entire council for many of these discussions. I think it's really elevated a lot of what's so intertwined about affordable housing and livability in the city, and parking policy. And as Councilor McDonald and so many of us have set up here there's a lot more, there's longer to-do lists that emerge from talking about this paper. We're certainly not done here tonight. I think we achieved a lot of what we set out to do. We made some great headway but we definitely have some things that we need to work on as well.

I'm proud to be supporting this, I think we're getting a lot done here but I also think that we learned a lot about what we might do next and I think that had some great collaboration but I also think I would echo what others have said. I'd like to go further in what we do next and I'm so sorry, Councilor O'Malley, I just looked up and saw your hand up. So I am going to give my time to you because I don't need to be going on and on from the chair when we have a councilor waiting to speak. So I will give you back the floor before I keep going.

Oh no, please finish.

No, I was gonna move the question. So I wanna make sure everybody has time to speak.

I was going to be asked to be added as a co-sponsor and I think that of this particular paper, which are the incentives. And I think this is really what we need to be doing We need to be incentivizing and not reducing affordability percentages. So while I voted in favor of the last paper, I do think that more incentives are the way to go rather than reducing affordability percentages. Thank you.

Thank You Councilor O'Malley and I do see Councillor Winslow

Yeah, if everybody's done discussion I just wanted to make the motion to amend the paper. But as we discussed in the committee there was some language that city planner and legal office wanted to add So I just want to mention this. To start Section F, the amendment language and I know the Clerk and Councilor Linehan have got this by email but I just wanna read this so A further amendment beyond what was recommended to committee is to strike the introductory sentence of section 1212. 300F in the paper and have it read to facilitate the objectives of this section, a development subject to this section shall comply with all applicable requirements of this ordinance. , except for requirements regarding density, height and number of parking spaces. And only as stated in the following incentive provisions."

So that's just a clarification that our city planner and legal office came to There was a little bit of question on that. So I would make a motion that we first vote to amend the paper as recommended by committee and with this additional amendment. Thank you, Greg.

Okay, on a motion by Councilor Winslow, seconded by Counciler Crowe on those amendments as just stated. We'll call the roll.

Councilor Colón Hayes, Council Condon, Council Crowe, Council LeWong, Council McDonald, Council O'Malley Taylor, Councilor Winslow, Council President Linehan. The paper has been amended.

Okay. Okay. On a motion by Councillor Winslow, seconded by Councillor Crowe to enroll as amended we will call the roll.

Council of Colón Hayes? Yes. Council Condon? Yes Council Crowe?

Yes

McDonald, O'Malley, Taylor, Winslow, Linehan. That paper has been enrolled. Congratulations everyone.

Next order of business.

Paper 447-26, Committee Report. The Standing Committee on Finance to whom was referred Papers 427 and 428 Series of 2026 having considered the same, make the following report.

Okay on a motion by Councillor McDonald seconded by Councillor Luong to receive the committee report we will call the roll.

Council Colón Hayes? Yes. Council Condon? Crowe, Wang, McDonald, O'Malley, Taylor, Winslow, Linehan. Okay so the committee report is being received?

Okay the committee McDonald for the paper. Or do you want to read the paper first?

Would you like me to read both at the same time or just one at a time? Please do one at the time. Paper 427-26, order that the sum of $157,000 be and the same is hereby transferred from salary reserve to the following accounts.

So this paper is the appropriation that accompanies the change to the Assistant Department Director's salary schedule that we just enrolled in this meeting. This one is split across and a dozen different departments, because this is kind of a diffuse bargaining unit and has members in a lot of departments cause it's the assistant director. So this took a little while to assemble usually we get these at the same time and the next paper are all retroactive agreements. They are all to bring up to June 1 of this, or excuse me, to June 30 of this year and in this case for the prior two fiscal years, that contract and those employees. As part of our plan to close the budget gap given, I think especially the failure of the Proposition 2 1⁄2 override vote in March.

The city has been bargaining with all of its unions for zero contract increases for this fiscal year, the one we're in right now. That also meant that a lot of the contract negotiations got frozen basically last year at the point at which we started to override we started talking about the override campaign. So, we're now in a process of kind of closing out those negotiations that had been open around this time last year and what we're doing with those is trying to bring those up so that all of our city staff have the same opportunity basically to negotiate for those races and bringing folks up current to June 30th of this year. So, this again is entirely retroactive. It took a little while because some folks aren't in their positions anymore and some of the additional incentives in the contract had to be we had to make sure that they were correctly applied.

But it was unanimously referred out of committee with no amendments.

Okay, thank you Councilor McDonald Seeing no lights or hands, do I have a motion to adopt?

So moved to adopt the order.

Okay on a motion by Councilor McDonald seconded by Councillor Crowe we'll call the roll.

Colón Hayes, Condon, Crowe, Linehan, McDonald, O'Malley, Taylor, Winslow, Council President Linehan. Yes. That paper has been adopted. Okay, that paper is adopted. Paper 428-26 order that the sum of $220,000 be and is B and the same is hereby transferred from salary reserve to police salaries. Okay, Councilor McDonald?

This was an even quicker discussion. Again, this is a retroactive increase that brings the patrol union which is the bulk of the police department current as of June 30 with just 3% cost-of-living adjustment that gets applied across all of the benefits that are included in this, in the collective bargaining agreement. So this was unanimously recommended favorably out of committee with no amendments.

Any questions? Okay, seeing none do I have a motion? Motion. Motion by Councilor Winslow seconded by Councillor Colón Hayes we will call the roll.

Councilor Colón-Hayes Condon, Crowe, Linehan, McDonald, O'Malley.

Yes.

Council Taylor, Council Winslow, Council President Linehan? Yes. That paper has been adopted.

Okay, that paper's been adopted next order of business is the agenda. Okay. The docket is clear. Does anybody want personal privilege? See, Councilor Winslow.

All right. So this Saturday from 12 to three at Trafton Park we are having the the Ward six Halloween celebration. So come out. We have games and other things and entertainment and you can get some prizes in candy from that. So come out, it's a fun day. It looks like the weather is gonna be great. I also ask that everybody remember this Saturday evening is of course Halloween people will be out you know, after dark and kids will be out there in the streets so please drive safe. And especially being a Saturday night people might be out their little later so please be alert and drive safely Be responsible driving and then we have people can be voting right now at well this week at City Hall the next till Friday Thursday early voting is happening and then everybody can vote at their local precinct.

Come next Tuesday, I'm glad to report in Ward 6 we were able Make the ADA maintenance at Club 24. So Ward 6-2, you can roll right in there and safely. Thank you very much. Great.

Thank You, Councillor Winslow. Councillor Taylor? Thank you. So I just wanted to say thank you to everybody who came out for the Haunted Woods on Saturday. We had over 300 guests come through the haunted woods and probably about 65 volunteers, which was Pretty amazing. So thank you to everybody who spent the entire day setting up, weeks before planning and came in costume. We had a really good time and I got great feedback. I appreciate everyone and for everyone who donated gift cards but I especially want to say thank you to all the firefighters in the various cities and towns that came out on Friday to help with the Porter Street Fire, and the entire community for coming together to help these folks and there will be updates posted as soon as we can get everything together. And then hopefully I'll see you all on Bainbridge Street on Saturday night for trick or treating.

Thank you, Councilor Taylor. Councilor Crowe?

Thank you Madam President. I just want to say thank you to everybody that participated either by putting in trunks my colleagues and everybody else or for just coming on down Sunday was, just Mother Nature really shined upon us. And we had someone trying to do sort of a count and there's about 800 kids not just the adults, I think the line was never gonna end. I was getting really nervous but you know it actually they moved it through and everybody I think it was just a great day so I want to thank everybody for for their participation.

Wonderful, wow 800 kids that's a lot of candy. Councilor Condon?

Thank you, Madam President. I'd like to recognize GMAC for their sponsorship about what to clean up with the help of Karen Buck from Malden River. She does so much work, but... they're all gonna pitch in together this the 31st, which would be Saturday.

Do you know what time that's going to be?

Yes from 11 to 1 and they're also going to feed the people that participated.

Well you just reminded me, oh Councilor McDonald did you have something? I'll let you go.

it was just very brief. It was just to remind everyone that Sunday is the change out of daylight savings time, we fall back I am somebody Hates Daylight Savings Time. Actually, I like Daylight Saving Time. I don't like daylight standard time. and I feel unreasonably passionate about that as does our US Senator who lives here, Ed Markey. But nonetheless it is happening so don't forget to set your clocks back an hour on Sunday.

Wait which one do you like?

I like daylight savings. Like, I like what we're in now. I don't want it to switch to the standard time which is what happens

When it gets dark or later.

If I say I don't like daylight saving time, it just implies I want it to be like it is going to be a week from now all the time, which is not the case. I want It to be right now. Thank you. Sorry to get you going on. Like stay cool, time zone. That's the vibe I'm going for right now Counselor O'Malley?

Thank you. I just want to give a shout out to Malden resident Megan Lewis-Michelson, who is a finalist to be Logan Airport's new voice and so you have just under 24 hours to vote for her or someone else to be the new voice of Logan Airport.

I'm just going to play Megan's... International airport, go to Boston-Logan international airport

So if you want to vote for Megan, feel free to check that out. Google the new voice of Logan Airport. It could be someone from Malden. Thank you.

I mean, I know we're all biased, but it really should be a Malden person, I feel. All roads lead back to Malden Well, I was just going to conclude us by realizing that because we have the election in a week which is a great reminder. I know somebody already mentioned early voting but we will not be having a meeting next week. We will be coming back on the 10th That means that this is my only opportunity to remind folks that we're going to be having a community meeting on Saturday the 7th for the citywide comprehensive plan, which November 7 in my mind is a long ways away. But we won't be back here before that to remind everyone. if you've been looking for a way to get involved in the city's comprehensive plan, which is kind of a 10-year look at the vision of what we all want for the community looking ahead. There's going to be a drop-in workshop. You can come to the Senior and Teen Center anytime between 10 AM and 1 PM on Saturday, November 7th. There is going to activities for kids Snacks.

And if you have five minutes, half an hour, however much long folks have it's welcome to open to all just come in and there will be stations set up where you can tell folks that are helping the city with the plan, what you think of the future of the city and what you'd like to see. And please come by it's supposed to be a really fun time. So with that I will be looking for a motion to adjourn On a motion by Councillor McDonald, seconded by Councillor Taylor, we will call the roll.

Councilor Colón Hayes? Yes. Council Condon? Yes Council Crowe? Yes Councillor Wong? Yes

Yes.

Council Taylor? Council Winslow? Yes. Okay, we are adjourned at 8.53.

O'Neill.