Somerville Planning Board 07-17-2025

Hey, good evening. Everybody. It is 602 PM on the 17th of July 2025. it has been a dog's age since our last planning board meeting. But this is, in fact, the regularly scheduled meeting planning board. I might cap you on on the channel of the planning board with me tonight is our vice chair, Amelia, April of our clerk, John, Habib, our members, Lynn Richards, Michael McNeely and Luc Schuster. We have a quorum. So, to the chapter 2 of the acts of 2025, this meeting of the planning board is being conducted via remote participation. A video recording of the proceedings will be available on the city's websites and meetings and events page or by emailing planning board at some of this meeting is being recorded. So we have a number of items on our agenda. Um. the only case that we have per se has previously been opened um and and heard and discussed so we don't need to open that so i'm just going to stop with meeting minutes we've got may 1st may 15th and june 5th has everybody had a chance to review the may 1st draft meeting minutes does anybody have any suggested revisions yeah luke and jimmy and john luke first thanks mr chair i have a small um

John Pimentel, At it, which is the first vote recorded I think it's, the first one in those minutes on the dormer amendment, it says, there was a unanimous six zero vote and I voted presence, I think it should say five zero with with one person.

agreed.

John Pimentel, deep carry here, I will be sure to make that note and have that have that corrected accordingly.

John Pimentel, john I saw you to.

Yes, Mr. Chair, thank you. Just two small items. One is Mayor Ballantyne's name. There may be a slight misspelling there. So if Steve wouldn't mind correcting the spelling. And then I just, this is just a small point on page one. I guess this would be the third paragraph. The paragraph that starts with the board discuss ways to support greater density in areas without as many hoops to jump through. The part, the section that says without as many hoops to jump through, I'm wondering if we could come up with a different wording, you know, less administrative burdensome or something to that effect. That's just my recommendation there. Thank you. Mr. chair.

I could be in support of that, but I love. But now we can now let's, let's, let's make that a little.

More professional, I can, I can make that change as well. Okay, thank you.

Anybody else for May 1. Seeing none, the chair moves to adopt as amended the. Minutes of May 1 2nd by Amelia Steve can we have a roll call.

I Michael McNeely. Hi, Lynn Richards. Hi, Luc Schuster. Hi. Hi, and Michael.

All right we have minutes up next May 15th. Anybody have any suggested revisions. Seeing none, I'm going to move to adopt the draft meeting minutes of the 15th. 2nd, by Amelia, Steve.

Hi, Michael. Hi. Lynn Richards. Hi, Luc Schuster. Hi, Amelia.

Hi.

And Michael.

June 5 anybody have any suggested revisions. Okay, seeing none, I'm going to move to adopt the draft meeting minutes as the final meeting minutes of the playing board. 2nd, by Amelia roll call. Please.

Hi, Michael McNeely. Hi, then Richards. Hi, Luc Schuster. Hi, Amelia. Hi. And Michael. Hi.

Okay, we have our minutes squared away. Um, the next thing I'm gonna bring up is the only case that we've got is 483 Broadway, which does have 2 separate, um. Applications 2 separate item numbers. So, if we could please have the applicant in their team, be unmuted and shared and whatnot as a reminder for everybody. This case has been open. The presentation has been made discussion by and among the planning board. Um, and and the applicant and staff has been conducted a little while ago. Um, we kept the written. Comment period open until I think it was last week and so. I think all of the discussions the planning board has had. I think mostly has been mostly has been addressed unless there are new things that we think need to. Erased or a continuation of anything that people had concerns about with this particular application. I saw I saw a hand and then things moved around. Uh, yes, if you want to as a reminder, um, introduce yourself and your affiliation or address to the record.

My name is Tavis Babbitt. I'm representing the owner, John Wood. My address is 85 McGurdy Road in East Ham, Massachusetts. And I've been working with John on getting this project approved through the zoning board and now with you guys here. So I just wanted to quickly address some of the concerns that Luke had last time. He mentioned some bike parking spaces and maybe looking at Um, another alternative for the bike path and loading on unloading. So, I didn't know if this was the right time to do that or it would be. All right. Good. Um, so just. To if I could share my screen, I'll show you, um, what I noticed from a previous plan that we submitted. Um. Let's see here. This was the plan.

I just promoted you so you should now be able to share.

I got it. Yeah, thank you. So this was the plan that we submitted previously. And what I noticed is that this particular location of where the sidewalk is, is not accurate with what's actually happening next door. So I have adjusted the plans to reflect that just so you can kind of see and I'll show you the the the top of the satellite image so you can see that real quick here. So this is what's actually there. So we see there's a a jog sort of here along the road that moves over in front of Broadway. And so this is the existing bike lane as we have it. And as you can see, every other um parking space has this three foot gap between the bike lane and the parking area which makes sense for door swings and things like that so that was what led us to our originally original design here of keeping you know the the bike lane where it is and just uh leaving that three foot buffer like the rest of the uh the street has along there and keeping it in line and just as a reminder the the loading and unloading is really one day a week on Tuesdays. And so John, the owner mentioned that there's four deliveries typically on Tuesday. And that's why we came up with this plan because it's really just foot traffic that you have to keep an eye out for bikes and things coming in and out. And we did in this particular plan, and all the others actually, we added some bike stations here. And so what those would look like would be This kind of a design here. A single pole that you could put two bikes on. And so I have proposed three there on our design here. So you could actually accommodate up to six bikes at one time. And so this is the original plan that we had. Now I explored a couple of alternatives. The second alternative is to actually switch the parking tight to the sidewalk. And as you can see, that does create some unusual bend in the bike lane. And to me, that seems less safe because the cars have to cross the bike lane to park. And that to me seemed like less of an ideal situation. But it is easier for the unloading and loading of goods. But again, that's one day a week. So is it really worth it to have that crossing the bike lane and have that bend in the bike lane? um to achieve that and the last option i did propose was this one here and these none of these other alternatives have been through mobility but this one here is something that would basically mean backing the truck into strathmore and so there would be no act no Dave Kuntz, entering and exiting the truck from the somerville side or from broadway that would just be from the back and into the building. Dave Kuntz, Along the side, where the entrance would be for the supplies, so there are advantages to this, however, I have having feedback from the neighbors they didn't really want the owner, taking up possible parking for residents on strathmore so this one would obviously. be something contrary to what we had proposed previously. However, it is the most convenient, certainly for deliveries. But again, it's not a very often scenario that we'd be using that spot. So those are the things that we worked on based on our last discussion. So I'm happy to take questions.

Thanks. I see Sarah White is here. Might have some thoughts.

Thank you. Mr. chairman through you. I appreciate the work that Travis has done in the intervening weeks to work on some solutions to questions that were brought up by by member Schuster. However, to Travis's point, I haven't seen these. These haven't been uploaded to citizen serve and they haven't been reviewed by. Mobility the bike lane that is there exists as it is and is under the auspices of the city and it is it was determined by the city to be put there. So I would be, I would not be comfortable. You know, if the board monitor proceed this way, I would feel more comfortable if mobility looked at these options beforehand, including the location of some new proposed. A bike parking mobility had reviewed the plans that were put before you for consideration last time, and they were comfortable with those plans. So if there is something that the planning board does have a question about, I would be happy to bring that back to mobility for them to look at. But seeing this for the first time tonight. Is would would make me a little bit uncomfortable moving forward with these changes in plans until mobility had looked at it.

I appreciate my concern. So, when I share your. Issue with moving, but the existing bike line, it's going to be, I think not. The best idea or 1 that I'm sure we can actually do. I know that we were on a little bit of a time schedule and time consideration for this applicant based on the transfer of their license. And I just want to make sure that if we ask for mobility to review some of these proposed changes, if it's not going to impact the viability of this business to be able to use the license that's in the process of being transferred.

Mr. Chairman, through you, I'm not sure if that's for me or for Mr. Babbitt, but I would not be able to provide you with the answer to that question. But Tavis, do you have some thoughts on that?

Yeah, I do think that we are up against the timeframe on that. And we were actually hoping that last month it would be a decision month. But now that we're here, I mean, I only proposed those as an alternative to see the drawbacks of the alternate options that we had available, not necessarily as a proposed plan per se. I do think that the original plan that we developed that was approved by Mobility is the best layout. And so these were more or less in a contrast to what might be otherwise possible, but not ideal. And so that was really the purpose of these to rule them out in a sense. And so Michael Prast- I think the bike parking is really what we were looking at focusing in on this particular plan, but I did want to present to you all the options that I saw were. Michael Prast- somehow feasible, but not necessarily better in any way or ideal so.

Michael Prast- appreciate that Michael.

Yeah, so first off, I'll take the blame for all this kerfuffle instead of Amber Schuster. So first is really appreciate you going through all the effort to look at the different ways that you could be interacting with the bike lane. And I apologize if I gave the impression that like we need to find a new reroute scenario. I think what I meant to ask was if there's something we could do to discourage unloading to occur outside of the path that you drew, right? Basically, if you have that half You know, length truck, and you pulled it all the way up to the front, instead of leading at the back there's room, you know, for error to just decide to cross an area that perhaps could have more interactions with the bike lanes. But I, I think at the end of the day, I, I generally agree that you shouldn't be signing up the application for this particular concern. So I don't wanna put too much weight on that on the bike parking scenario. um would love to kind of hear a little bit more from from sarah on if we think that by installing more bike parking we would need to go through a formal review process with mobility or if you think this is something that would be uh minor enough that this is something that the applicant could provide and then not just have to go through that review process again because i feel like bike parking is nothing but a good thing generally speaking sure mr chairman i'm sorry we can also condition

Um, this, this application to, to ensure that, you know, it's not going to be finally permitted until and unless mobility has an opportunity to review. And if they have a, they have an issue that it won't meet the condition. Because because generally, as you know, they did sign off on the previous iteration and I think what you just said is more is more is better. I would be surprised if they. disagreed with that sentiment um if they they did i i don't want to preclude this applicant from being able to move forward for something that i think is is a little bit a little bit minor yeah i'm there too oh no mr chairman through you um you said it better than i did so i i think i think you're probably i think you're probably all set okay Anybody else want to ask anything discuss anything before we move forward with. These fine people. Okay. Okay, seeing none, we have. 2 votes 1 is for the site plan approval. So, following public testimony review of the submitted materials and deliberation of the required considerations outlined by the ordinance, I move to approve with the conditions we discussed the site plan approval to develop a commercial building in the mid rise for district with the recommended conditions from the staff memo data May 27th, 2025. 2nd, by Amelia Steve, can you call.

John. Hi. Lynn Richards, I Luke shuster. Hi, Amelia. Hi. And Michael.

Hi, this is for the use special permit following public testimony review of the submitted materials and deliberation of the considerations and findings outlined by the ordinance. I moved to approve with the conditions described in the staff now dated May 27, 2025, the request to establish an alcohol sales use in the zoning district. Seconded by Amelia, Steve, please.

Hi, Michael. Hi. Then Richards. Hi, Luke. Hi. Hi. Hi.

Good luck. Thank you all very much for your time. I appreciate it. Thank you. Good rest of your night. You too.

okay next on the agenda is the assembly square neighborhood plan we have had substantive presentations substantive discussion i think we may have some revisions that staff is going to uh go over with us before we move forward

This is Steve Carey. I just promoted Sarah Lewis to panel, so she should be joining shortly.

Why did she have to be promoted? She should have walked in as running the show, man.

Good evening, all, and thank you once again for your continued support. So, Steve, do I have permission to share screen?

I'm sure I do.

I do, okay, there we go. All right, hopefully you can see the presentation. All right, excellent. So we had heard a number of comments from you over sort of a few meetings. So those had basically been consolidated into, if I can figure out how to advance, there we go. Amy Nunez, into a couple of different categories and so in a sort of the connectivity, the program infrastructure and sustainability were sort of the general broad brushes so i'd like to go through and talk about the connectivity and program first and that goes into some detail. Cora Bennett , With questions about connections to other neighborhoods some of the shadows and. Cora Bennett , As well as the housing types and some of the economic economic development flexibility. I'm going to start with the connections. One of the questions was regarding an elevated bike path. I've confirmed with mobility that that is a path in the bike network plan that is shown along Foss Park and the intention is to continue that along Fellsway. that will be a sidewalk level so it's not elevated as in bridge but a sidewalk level bike path and and that is shown on the the proposed bike network path uh plan um on that that diagram Cora Bennett , The other connection that was of concern and and it was very hard to actually pull things out and diagram this for you, so what you see mostly on this illustration is the connections that are intended across fells way to engage the 10 hills neighborhood. Cora Bennett , So what you see more most. Cora Bennett , visibly on on this illustration is the actual the green the bike path connections. but those always have sidewalks and crosswalks adjacent to them. Now, the one thing that I will need to caution as we think about this is, of course, Fellsway is a state highway, so it is not fully under the city's control, but they do work with us very, very closely. The other piece, you'll notice the middle intersection. Hopefully you can see my pointer. That is the realignment of how Middlesex is intended to come into Fellsway. Whether that will be a lighted intersection is yet to be determined. So how safe a crossing point there will be. is still sort of that's in the future, but this is our intent. And as I said, MassDOT usually does work with us on a lot of these issues. Also from Ten Hills, there was a question asked about shadows. So the diagrams that you see here are from the 20 to TAB, 20 to 30 coming straight proposal that was recently approved as the master plan. And these show the shadows from that tallest building. And that building was permitted as a maximum height of 290 feet. So when you have a building that tall, and it is the tallest one that will be closest to 10 hills. And so apparently that will cast a shadow of about a thousand feet. Cora Bennett , i'm on December 21 and so that's the the longest length, it will it will be, as you can see here. So it doesn't affect, it's sort of like the first couple of blocks of the neighborhood are affected at different degrees during the year. So the sort of the Northern Eastern most area won't be affected at all. But that was sort of the easiest way to show that. Marguerite McLaughlin, All right, and I apologize i'm getting over a silly head cold, so I keep clear my throat i'm sure it's quite annoying so I apologize for that. Marguerite McLaughlin, um we'd also talked a lot about a parking model for the area we don't have one at the moment. Marguerite McLaughlin, However. As we did the fiscal analysis, there was a lot of assumptions that had to be made about the program. And that sort of gets to the distribution of commercial to residential. And so we can probably use some of this basis tied in with what you see to the upper right is the tracking chart that has been submitted with each Cora Bennett , block of the frit project so combining these two things that has the existing. data with the potential projection of what the development could be, we may be able to develop a parking model. I have not dug into this in detail with mobility at this point in time, but it is one of the elements that we'll be looking at as we move forward. before any of the new sites come up for, before you for redevelopment. One of the interesting facts as I was doing research on this is the original PUD actually approved 10,000 parking spaces. of which only a little over half of those have been actually constructed. So even with the original approval and the end of the PUD, we're at least moving in the better direction of, and keep in mind that was also approved way before an Orange Line station came online. So there's been a lot of influence and a lot of changes The housing did some quick math. So the fiscal analysis showed a number of 2,900 potential new units in the plan as illustrated. And so from that number, without going into the units that are already in federal realty moving forward, Jessica Garner, that will have to meet the twenty percent requirement, and one of the questions about the unit sizes was also brought up, and you know we're imagining that the zoning here when it gets redone is going to be commensurate with the rest of the city. So that would be approximately 116 of those units. And that's just in the new unit potential that would have three or more bedrooms. And as I said, that makes it parallel with the rest of the city. Amy Nunez, The obviously with the other programs that were in the fiscal analysis. Amy Nunez, The housing unit count would go up with the other oh the residential emphasis scheme and that could be up to about 5700 new units. Amy Nunez, So in sort of those those numbers would be the. The original approval, I did not get a breakdown of the existing. Affordable units in the existing PUD, but they that was approved for eighteen hundred and forty five residents or units, and those have all been constructed or permitted. So the last one to be permitted in the residential building was Block nine, the 375 Herald Cullen Way. um the regarding the economics and the program flexibility i wanted to to show you the what we had looked at and that these are diagrams from the fiscal analysis so you can see the um The illustrative, what's called the city plan in the fiscal analysis is the intended, and that's about 60% commercial and 40% residential on the Marketplace and Assembly South. The predominantly residential program that I mentioned that could get us up to 5700 new units is obviously replaces some of that commercial with residential uses, and that flips it to be about 60% residential and 40% commercial. So as we get through and look at the new zoning, Marguerite McLaughlin, What those. Marguerite McLaughlin, Either percentages or how we outline that detail in the zoning is going to be less. Marguerite McLaughlin, specified than what we show in the neighborhood plan because it's intended as a vision and we want that flexibility, so that if. the market demands that a particular block flip one way or the other we can look at that what we will look at in the zoning is how we then divide sub areas when in this site if necessary to make sure that we can get that proportional balance and keep you know sort of the Amy Nunez, 1824 our Community and not be a you know sort of too much of an office park to make sure that we can still have a have a complete neighborhood. There were a lot of citations and references throughout the document, some of which that you had highlighted, such as the lead version. And so we went through that with a fine tooth comb and did update some of the formatting issues and some of the And the demographics, what was interesting is, as it was pointed out, that some of the demographics might have changed. So I worked with economic development to understand what these numbers were. And whereas we had the information from pre-COVID when this project had originally started, and then there was only a 3% work from home, now, Post-COVID, that number is up to about 29% of remote work. And I thought that was quite a, you know, sort of, we all know anecdotally that that has changed, but seeing those numbers sort of stunned me a little bit that it was that big a jump. Then the next piece is the infrastructure and sustainability aspects that you talked about. I did talk to, clarified with engineering, the DEP regulations concern. So as you can see, the little box that said it's not allowed. Cora Bennett , That that text box has been removed, it is infiltration is allowed, however, it is extremely limited due to the previous use of the site. As an industrial use and sort of largely automotive so it's more about limiting and carefully monitoring what infiltration does actually happen on the site. Along with that, we talked about the question about sea level rise was brought up. There is a assembly obviously is prime with its location on the river for being a victim of sea level rise. Cora Bennett , You can find the current data on the the somerville climate change vulnerability vulnerability assessment. Cora Bennett , Oh se I talked to them and they are going to be changing their sustainable. Cora Bennett , Their sustainable and resilient questionnaire that all applicants have to fill out to make sure that they are aware and bring closer attention to. um the importance of of this this issue in especially in in this area so that's not necessarily part of the neighborhood plan but it's something that they will be working on um looking forward I actually fell down a rabbit hole a little bit on this one and started reading all about the Amelia Earhart Dam and what sea level rise might do to the dam as well. And we also you had suggested talking about micro grids. So I went back and looked at looked at the document to make sure it's closely coordinated with the the updated climate forward that has come out since we've been working on this neighborhood plan. There is a lot of mention there's direct reference in the climate forward. So I've made sure that we've got references to these different areas, different possibilities. um within the within the neighborhood plan itself so while we don't go into specifics in the neighborhood plan it is referenced and brought up a number of times and there's a lot of referencing to climate forward to make sure that they the plan it does tie back to that um and then the uh the i think the final piece we have was we talked about district energy um so there was a what an added um the added a paragraph about district energy specifically um into the the neighborhood plan The other piece that I wanted to point out is that OSC has been working with consultant bureau happened. To study the potential of geothermal in different areas of the city, as well as you know sort of the district energy concepts and as part of that work, they of course are looking at what it takes to upgrade the city's. And that's available also on the OSE, on the Sustainaville website. So there's a lot out there that's going on sort of simultaneously, but we have been adding to obviously to the neighborhood plan. as we go along. So with that, I believe that was all of your questions. If there are more, I am gladly here to answer them.

Thank you very much for the really thoughtful and kind of in-depth explanation. At some point, not tonight, I'm going to want to talk to you about how to read that climate chart that you showed us, just because I have an idea of what I'm looking at, but I'm just kind of curious as to what it all means and where we go. So, no, I very much appreciate you taking the time over the last couple of weeks to read the presentation, to go through a lot of the questions and thoughts that we had. Does anybody have to be, have anything that we'd like to raise between ourselves or with Sarah while we've got a, yeah, Amelia.

Just a thank you. I know that I was sort of pounding on the updates to some of the sections, including the demographics. And I really appreciate that. I think it did uncover some interesting updated trends. So I really appreciate you taking the time to look into that, which I know is probably a more paperwork intensive ask.

I have I have a question that you probably can't answer. Are we. Considering as a city is 1 of the renderings that you had 1 of the 1 of the graphics that you had about some of those demographic changes and how the layout of the remainder of the build could go is to make it 60% residential and 40% commercial with a new school. Is that something that the city's looking at? Because. We do have a need for upgraded school facilities.

Thank you Mr. chair for putting me on the spot.

No, no, I'm sorry withdrawn.

no the um that is actually of the the we we did run that scenario in the fiscal analysis because what happens is if you increase the residential um obviously the need for a new school does apply but whether that would occur in assembly or not is unknown. So from the fiscal analysis perspective, we made the assumption just to be cautious and sort of run the worst case scenario. So by the time you take that land off the tax rolls as potential new development, and the expense it would be to build a school, that is the scenario that we call the one that breaks the city. What that means is it doesn't actually break the city. It means that the new development alone cannot cover that Cora Bennett , Additional cost and that loss of revenue from none no development on those particular parcels that would need to be the school.

I gotcha I gotcha. Cora Bennett , I mean get a. In a perfect universe, if we truly wanted to make assembly a full blown and comprehensive neighborhood, it would have the grocery store, the residential area, the green and open space, the fire station and a school. So, I, I liked the idea, but if the, if the numbers aren't going to work, that's that's also good to know.

Yeah, I mean that's one of the things where we're talking about schools, you know sort of it's it's hard to look at one neighborhood area, because it's going to have such a, you know, it's going to be a citywide draw and whether and you know whether that's, like I said, whether that's the right location. That would be in a sort of up to people beyond me.

No, I appreciate that. I thought that was just a very interesting idea because. That is something that that I was thinking about it at various points as we were building out assembly square and trying to make it a. A comprehensive new neighborhood, so I appreciate the. The response I do.

What's.

Nobody else. Oh, my. Okay. Are we at the point now? So, Sarah, and I guess Steve, I think the appropriate step that we take next is to adopt the plan. Is that is that appropriate? Is that right? Yes. Okay. Okay. With no other comments or questions. From members of the planning board, I want to thank you and everyone at BBC for putting together such a. Wonderful neighborhood plan. This is something obviously that we've been waiting for and hoping for for a while. I'm glad we're at this point, but we can move forward. So, with that in mind, I move to adopt the assembly square neighborhood plan. Seconded by Amelia, Steve, can I have a roll call please?

John. All right. Hi, Lynn Richards. Hi, Luc Schuster. Hi. Amelia and Michael.

Awesome. Thank you.

Thank you all very much.

Last item that we have, and of course, I lost it. is a modification to the rules of policy and procedure to allow um city staff to do a couple more things as um de minimis minor amendments so oh hey dad yeah so we've got dan bartman here um yeah dan if you want to take it away okay and you're muted

Thanks for having me, Mr. Chair, and through you to the rest of the board. It's good to be here. Steve will handle the specifics related to the actual text that we have in front of you tonight. We sent us an update before the meeting. But I'm kind of here to instigate future conversation and interaction as another project unfolds over the next couple months in the budget that was approved for our department for this fiscal year. We do have two projects that Emily will be starting. um in this this quarter um whether or not they take a couple months is probably likely but those are to review the zoning ordinance for potential update as it relates to the permits that are required in the ordinance the procedural steps to acquire one of those permits and then also the dimensional standards in the code We adopted the zoning ordinance in December of 2019, and it's now been about five years of permitting, which is a perfect opportunity to take a step back and look how things have gone and make an assessment of if that's how we want to keep moving things forward. The reason I'm here bringing that up tonight is that minor site plan approval is one of the tools that the City Council provided to the boards um to address items that are uh inconsequential development activity that is that is inconsequential and not deserving of all of the um requirements of full site plan approval or a full special permit or a variance um it uh as as it was uh you know devised in the ordinance when it was adopted in 20 2019. um the the methodology that they took was to require site plan approval for everything that is is considered development and development is either new construction or whatever falls within the word modification so real quickly i wanted to at least read the definition of modification which covers the alteration expansion reconstruction extension or structural change to the exterior of an existing structure or interior construction that changes the number of dwelling units or the ground story commercial spaces within an existing structure and that pretty much covers almost everything there are some existing items related to building modification of a building that are already in the your rules that allow minor site plan approval for instance the modification of a single storefront um is included in that the inclusion of a building component related to ground floor commercial spaces that's not a storefront is also included in those the uh addition of screening around rooftop mechanicals or only uh adding rooftop mechanicals that is all considered minor site plan approval and is handled administratively um every time we encounter one of these uh unique situations it provides us an opportunity to take a step back and ask about how the requirement that everything uh go through site plan approval uh is working or not and i think this is one of those opportunities we we continue to get small stuff that happens to trigger this very broad definition um so one one of the items that we have in front of you tonight is just a slight alteration of the text related to the change in the number of ground story commercial spaces uh we're proposing to add text uh that would address um that the increase in the number of commercials ground story commercial spaces could be minor site plan approval um and that's because uh the reason that this text was added to the definition of modification in the first place was concern that buildings with multiple commercial spaces could reduce that down to less not really the increase in the number of commercial spaces um so it that that was added with the amendment that that altered the small business overlay district to require multiple ground story commercial spaces when the building was of a certain width, and that was to get more than one. So this language would Christopher McConkey- create a situation where, if you're providing more than one and it's compliant that you don't have to go through the whole. Christopher McConkey- permitting process, mainly because that's interior work not exterior. Christopher McConkey- and achieving the goal of the small business overlay district, even if it's not in that overlay district so increasing the number of commercial spaces is looked at as a beneficial thing. for everybody involved. The text that we had revised before was related to an existing Somerville business trying to expand into an existing commercial space that was next door. So we did refine that text a little bit, the one right above. Steve also brought a plan set for a project that has all of us questioning the fact that it triggers the definition of a modification. and that's that's a project that adds a small sun room to the back of a building that is in the mr district so why i came tonight was to instigate conversation amongst the board for emily's project as it unfolds over the next coming weeks and months for you all to discuss as part of the input of that project whether or not we should potentially make a matrix of what requires site plan approval, what type of development activity requires site plan approval, the extent of changes to an existing building versus the version that we have now. And the reason I'm suggesting that is many zoning ordinances have a table that tells you that different permitting is required for different amounts of development activity and that small things don't need all of the steps involved we chose not to do that in the very beginning when we adopted the zoning overhaul because it was a complete regulatory change and we wanted to make sure that we provided review of everything while we learned um the types of activity that might not require full site plan approval so it like i said every one of these situations that arises kind of makes us ask the question maybe we should change the zoning ordinance rather than just continuing to expand the list of minor site plan approvals the value of changing the zoning is that that is the most transparent place where all of the regulations exist and the most um forthcoming in telling people what what permits are required and what and what or not your rules and regulations are a secondary document and you are empowered by the zoning ordinance and the city council to to make things minor site plan approval but it's the second document that frequently goes unnoticed by the public and so if we are if we find ourselves continuing to add items to this list to me that's a signal that maybe we actually should rework on a zoning amendment to provide further guidance on what what development activity requires site plan approval and what what should be allowed through in some manner but that that threshold should be spelled out in the zoning so that it is clear and apparent to everybody up front um so i i'm not here to uh not have you change your rules related to these two issues we do think anything increasing the number of commercial spaces is a benefit rather than a detriment and doesn't doesn't need all of the steps involved but also that this plan set really shows an example of one of some some amount of development activity that is also probably not deserving of having to go through the full process because it its impact is so small. And I just want to, as a quick reminder, all of this is compliant with the zoning ordinance. So anything we're even talking about adding to the list of minor site plan approval would still have to be compliant. That wouldn't change even if we said site plan approval is not required. That's a process for issuing a permit. You could effectively decide some amount of development activity would be de facto by right and not require site plan approval in the MR zoning districts. So that, like I said, I'm here to try and instigate conversation amongst your board, and I do anticipate Emily coming to you all on a somewhat regular schedule to get feedback as her project unfolds. But I wanted to lay the groundwork for that engagement. She's out of the office until next week, and so we had this meeting and an opportunity to discuss this item. So I came tonight to share that all with you.

I appreciate that just to clarify for tonight, though. The proposed amendment to the rules and regs is to the interior space and layout of commercial units and not. What you would just present not presenting, but showing us related to a proposed sunroom.

Justin Cappos, Right we've we've limited the language changes to your rules for tonight to just the related to the number of commercial spaces and really are sharing that plan set related to the sunroom to get get everybody talking together because it's an example of something that is small like that.

I look forward to having that discussion when the time comes. But I like the idea of you know every so often kind of reviewing and revisiting. what we've drafted how is it working is it working the way we intended other things that we didn't intend that are occurring and maybe we can avoid having a joint hearing every you know 30 seconds to try to correct it ad hoc because i don't know about you guys that drives me nuts um but for the proposal that's in front of us tonight i think this seems to make sense um that is all internal outside of maybe the addition of a door and signage and it doesn't impact the way that the street moves or the neighborhood or the neighbors are impacted. Although I do have a question, Dan, because in certain circumstances when we do have parking requirements based on commercial space and the amount of commercial space, what would happen, would it be impacted if one larger space that was subject to X number of parking spaces would be now divided up into two or three? What happens, what doesn't happen such that that would also impact some other

requirements that the commercial space would have to meet not any longer if you remember this past year we had the city council pass an amendment that repealed minimum parking requirements and that that part of that amendment also removed things from the code that were related to providing leniency for small businesses because they were like less than 5 000 square feet that that doesn't exist anymore because there's only parking maximums within transit areas. And those are that's still related to the amount of square footage, but a maximum. So you'd never run into a situation where you subdivided your space and now caused a parking minimum problem because they don't exist anymore.

Yeah, I guess I'm using parking as a as an example. But if there are other circumstances that would impact having multiple Storefronts as opposed to just 1, that was the 1 that kind of jumped out based on some concerns that happened for a project a few years ago. But. But you, are you confident that this won't impact. Other aspects of of the ordinance and other requirements. That would require some sort of a special permit or what?

That's correct. To my knowledge, yes. We mostly scrutinize when things get bigger and value when they're smaller. They tend to be more local businesses when there's a smaller storefront anyway. And so when either we have special permits for when a commercial use is larger than 10,000 square feet, and then also some scrutiny of formula businesses, but they all tend to be larger, not smaller. That makes sense.

Lynn, hi.

Thank you, Dan um I wanted to comment on your second part of your kind of presentation, so not the first part on these rules, but the second part about kind of. The zoning code was passed in 2019, and now is an opportunity to kind of step back and to see how it's going for the rest of the board. If you recall, Steve sent around a message a couple of weeks ago saying, Hey, does anyone want to talk to this tough graduate student? And so I raised my hand because I love talking to students and she told me this. The statistic that Luke has kind of hinted at a couple different times, but she has tracked the city of Somerville applicants from the time they put in an application to when they have final approval and they can go and do their project and the average amount of time is 562 days. Which is which is which is really pretty shocking. When if you're in the developer shoes every time you know time is money so we're increasing the amount of cost for doing the development and all of this is to say, Dan. From my perspective, I welcome and encourage this kind of looking at the. the zoning code to see where it might be streamlined. Like when do you really need the planning board or any of the boards to weigh in on some substantive decision? So I think you guys are heading in the right direction and I look forward to helping Emily and any of the other staff in any way necessary. Because if we can get that time down,

a little bit um that would be fantastic uh through the chair i totally agree with everything you you just said there it's it takes a very long time to get a permit when one is required and that increases the cost to to build housing or start a new business and there um multiple departments are working together to try and figure out ways of streamlining our permitting while still getting the results we're looking for so that it is easier to build housing and easier to start a business in somerville

Yeah, Luke has raised this a couple of different times. Look, the city is calling us with probably, um, uh, Luke has raised this a couple of different times in, in, in, in meetings where he's like, wait, it's taken this long. Wait, that can't be right. Etc. Etc. When applicants who are, who are not complaining, it's just kind of a, as an aside. Um, and so I think as we understand more of, um. the process that the applicants are going through. Like Michael tonight was terrific. He's like, listen, we know they're on a time crunch. et cetera, how can we kind of move this forward in a way that absolutely doesn't shirk what we're trying to do, our activities at all, but rather, you know, strikes that balance. So you and I talked about this a couple of weeks ago in Providence. So as it comes up, I just wanted to say officially, I think that's a really good idea.

Thank you.

I will just say I've worked in government for quite a while on 562 days. I would kill for that type of turn around. It's the stuff we do. But now, thank you very much. I think that's a valuable point too. Um, what else. Um, so what we look yeah.

Thanks Mr. just just. So, you have a sense of other voices. Yes, I appreciate what what Lynn said what you said is the chair. So I generally supportive of the amendment before us today and appreciate having this longer conversation too.

You do me too. So, with no scanning the scanning the faces and. Anybody's putting up a Simpson's hand. With no further discussion on this particular item, um, as a reminder, it's only the. Red line changes that are on the shared screen right now. Um. The chair moves to adopt the. Proposed changes to the rules and regs of the planning board 2nd, and by Amelia. Do you can we have a roll call?

Hi, Michael. Hi, Lynn Richards.

Hi.

Luc Schuster. Hi, Amelia.

Hi.

And Michael.

Hi. Okay. Those are all the items that we had on our agenda tonight.

Michael, can I can I can I take a couple of minutes and put something towards to the board? Do you mind?

Yeah, I think it depends on what it is in case it would have needed to be put on our agenda. Just making sure.

Oh, well, I had, I wanted to understand better the coming, being new on the board. I wanted to understand better the Summer Novo project, which is going to be coming to us at some point in time in the future. I don't know when, in six months, in a year or something, but it's a really big project. And everyone in Somerville seems to have a lot of opinions on it. And I checked with Dan to make sure that I could, you know, understand, like talk to talk to people involved in it before it comes up. Good Dan's nodding his head. I found it incredibly illustrative. I got a it was about two hour tour, understood different parts of it. And I said to the person taking me around, it's like, this would be great if every planning board member kind of walked through the project and understood it. And the person said, yes, absolutely. I'm happy to do it. I was like, well, there's open meeting laws. So you could only do like one or two at a time. I find that when we go through our process, somebody presents And then it's a public meeting, you hear from the public, and then two weeks later, we can chime in. So for me, I was able to kind of understand the big picture and ask no less than four dozen questions. Anywho, I found it really helpful and wanted to make that offer to other planning board folks. I'm happy to put you in touch with different folks if you wanted to get a tour of the The proposed summer Nova project, and you could see what's happening now and it was just incredibly helpful to walk the project.

Yeah, I share that. I try, I don't always get to it, but especially for more comprehensive. Projects and developments and districts and things I like to try to. Take a look around, take a walk around, take a drive through, take a walk through and see really what it is that we're trying to. Trying to do and trying to accomplish my concern with raising some of this stuff now specifically is is open meeting. Right? So we don't have this on our agenda. We do have a core of the planning board. This is some sort of a development that may or may not come before us in a specific fashion. So, I, I'm going to, I'm going to hold off on any further discussion. Um, but we can generally speak to yes, if we have a nice project that's going forward. Take a look, you know, we all live here.

That's that's that was all I wanted to say.

Dan, did you want to just anything.

Justin Delacruz, Uh, through you, Mr. Chair. Yeah, two things is, we could also provide the board a next steps kind of overview presentation, because there is a bunch of next steps that are definitely going to unfold, and eventually a master plan is going to come in front of you, and then eventually site plan approval of applications for their buildings and civic spaces. Justin Delacruz, The in the like you all just highlighted in the meantime, as community members you're able to engage especially individually with anybody that's a developer in the city and learn more about what's going on. The key thing is to not have a quorum of you together doing anything like that, especially for something that is about to become a permit application in the future. um so uh operating independently on your own is probably the best bet for that type of thing um but you can also request formal presentations from people at your hearings and then you would avoid any kind of open meeting law problems also um so independent actions outside of a meeting and then and then things on the agenda would probably be best yeah that is

All of, you know, we definitely have asked staff and applicants for updates on plans and projects and things like that. That have taken a while that are going to be significant. They're going to cause a lot of community engagement and just to have an idea what. We are kind of facing down over the coming weeks and months. So. To the extent that somebody is. available in the next couple of weeks, Dan, to kind of give us that rundown. I would welcome that one because I don't know of any other big developments like that that are kind of in the works. That's the one that's going on now. It's not Assembly Square. It's not Pointon Yard. It's not Winter Hill. So it's kind of a Scott Luxenberg- spot onto its own that we haven't done in a little bit so.

Jamie Heron- Mr sure yeah. Jamie Heron- There was a point where, for the winter hill star market development staff had developed like I can't chart of anticipated touch points that tied into the developers conceptual facing for the project. And I don't wanna suggest that we need something that's that detailed, but I do wonder whether either staff or the applicant might be able to put together some kind of timeline suggesting in what order we should expect to see things and what the various approval steps we'll have are, because I think especially with the development of the scale with this many moving pieces, something like that, that was a very useful tool at the time. So not to create busy work for anyone, but especially if that's something the developer could be prepared to present. Um, I think that might be useful folks.

Anybody else before we think about moving along to a couple of weeks from now. I'm seeing no further items of discussion with nothing else on our agenda at 711. Peter Haslund, em chain moves to adjourn seconded by amelia Steve can I have a roll call, please johanna be all right, Michael mcneely.

Peter Haslund, Then richards. Peter Haslund, hi Luke shuster. Peter Haslund, hi amelia. Peter Haslund, hi i'm Michael.

Peter Haslund, I see you all in August.

Peter Haslund, Everybody.

Peter Haslund, yeah.