Watertown Special City Council (Monday August 10, 2026)

I'd like to call this meeting to order. This is a meeting of the City Council sitting as the redevelopment authority, and I'm going to ask Councillor Piccirilli to call the roll.

John Gannon, Emily Izzo, Nicole Gardner, Caroline Bayes, Lisa Feltner, Tony Palomba, Mark Sideris

is going to be and how I am going to handle this meeting. I feel it's necessary for me to clearly state what this meeting is to be focused on, both from my fellow counselors and members of the public here and online this evening. Some of you may be disappointed The central question tonight for discussion is only, do we want a parking garage? Before we begin discussing any specifics like what should this garage look like How many floors would we want this garage to be? The question of do we want a garage needs to be answered first. The answer to that question then unlocks other decisions that can or will be made. What also, what that also means is that tonight we're not discussing topics related to housing

We're not discussing topics including portable housing, open space or anything to do with the streetscape. Those are all very important topics but they are for a future meeting. I'm asking my fellow members on the Council and the Redevelopment Authority, as well as members of the community that wish to speak, to focus only on that central question in your remarks tonight. I'm going to try my best to keep us on that topic through this evening. I also want to make clear that tonight's meeting is the beginning of this discussion it will not be the end. This is the first opportunity that the city council, sitting as a redevelopment authority has had the opportunity to talk to the community. No votes will be taken tonight except for a motion to adjourn. That's the only vote we're going to take later So again, no decisions are going to be made.

This meeting is about our council having this initial discussion as well as I've asked the city manager and his staff to make a brief presentation about why there could be a need for a parking garage. I do think it's important as part of the context because we did this for Arsenal Yards, we've done this for other places and I think just for context We've heard many opinions about this proposal since April, we've heard from people who are in favor of it as well as many people who were uniformly opposed. Again, we have not had an opportunity to discuss this as a council and a redevelopment authority which is why we're here today to begin this discussion. Beyond tonight, we're going to host more meetings to continue these discussions and eventually we will make a decision. However again that day is not tonight

So I appreciate everyone's understanding and remaining focused on our central question about whether we want to build a parking garage in Watertown Square and that's where we're going to begin. And I'm gonna ask the city manager to give us a brief presentation on the aspects, by the way this is a demonstration plan that the city council authorized the manager to present. The manager has presented his thoughts, has done open houses. He's did one here at the library in initial discussion. I do think that because we asked him to do that. We wanted to give him another opportunity tonight to tell us why he feels we could use a garage, and then we will... begin the public process, which will be taking public comment. And then I do want to leave enough time for the city council sitting here as a redevelopment authority to make any comments that they would like to make tonight. So Mr. Proekes if you don't mind.

I need the cable folks to allow me again, to be a panelist. I had to restart Zoom in order to share screen and with that, I should be able to do that. I also should be put this up on the screen behind me in just a moment, I believe. We've had a couple of technical glitches today so I'm hoping that this works the best it can. I'm going to end up with myself on the screen for a moment there, but I should work in a moment that will allow me to do this and get to full screen mode and be able to make this work. Sorry, is this better? Yeah. All right. So in a moment I'm hoping that this lets me share for the presentation. Is there any idea what's going on here?

Sorry.

Is it on? Are people at home seeing me, are the people up there or not because I... I might have to exit my full screen for a second. This one here? Okay, sorry one moment here. Choose content? If I choose the entire screen does that work? Yes sir! And then going back here... and what are we doing? We good? Okay, thank you. All right. I'm going to give... A quick ten minute overview with some slides. I shared with the council some additional detail, which probably is more relevant to future conversations than tonight and the handouts, but I want to focus on the key issue about the case for a parking garage.

So this relates a lot to the Watertown Square project, the process. The Watertown square project has included three categories, MBTA zoning which the council has completed Streetscape Design, which is in design work now and this urban revitalization planning that talks about the future of the parking lots at our public spaces. Just to echo the council president's point today's question is should we build a structured parking garage? today's question. for a public-private partnership? Should we work with the specific developer that I mentioned back in April? It is not how big, how will it be set up. Will they include short term? Will it include overnight? What will cost ? Those are questions for another day. I'm also not going to focus because we don't have time on the area plan, the demonstration plan and how it worked with existing landowners and tenants. If you're interested in those topics

There are meetings on these dates, April 4th of 24, September 22nd of 25 and April 6th of 26 that are all available online on the Watertown Square website and the project website that dives very deep into those questions. And I'm not going to spend time on that tonight in the interest of staying focused. So the core question, do we think a structured parking garage should be part of the future of Watertown Square? And to do that I'm going to flip the question over in a different way and ask As I see it, do we want to maintain about four acres of surface parking with our valuable land in the square? because if we want to do something else with this land, take the position that I truly believe we need to build structured parking to do it. and it's a fair question. If you don't want to do something else with the land, we can leave it as surface parking but if you want to something else I don't think we could do it without building a garage

and I also want to say that while this raised itself pretty significantly as part of the area plan in 2024, this is not a new question. It's been in capital planning at least as early as 2008 and a couple folks have said even earlier than that. So it's definitely something that appeared in our capital plans as strategy for a long time. It reappeared in the Watertown Square plan with this note in the drawing that was done, and these were just sort of basic drawings of what we could do in a plan. It said redistribution of existing off-street surface parking spaces to on-street parking and a centralized parking structure. Both street parking and the centralized parking structures was part of that plan. I believe, and the folks I'm working with in the administration believe that garage adds value beyond just parking. It identifies it as a way to unlock more developable space which will support other goals within your plan When we consolidate the parking vertically, it releases land to do other things.

Housing, ground floor retail, there is a community path extension and there is green space in the particular plan that we have to the possibility of doing the garage, I don't think are easy to do without putting the parking in a structure. and it adds off-street capacity. It can exceed existing supply while reducing impervious surface, so by reducing the amount of pavement we have, we have the capacity to be able to do more in the parking garage. Across the parking spaces in the back lots right now of about 350 spaces from the library lot to the CVS lot. A new garage could be somewhere between 250 and 600, depending upon how tall you want to go and what do you want Again, we're not going to get into that level of detail tonight but just to show the range of possibility you can replace some of the spaces to replace all of them and then some with the garage. All that is a possibility. People ask me, well what about getting everybody to walk and be on transit and not replace them? And I'm trying to be realistic here.

There's a lot of folks within a 15 minute walk shed of the Square. And there are others who for many a trip, a business visit or whatever will go into into taking the bus or taking transit to get there. But within a 10 minute drive, we capture a very large population and we have 24 restaurants in 45 businesses today that are within a 10-minute drive of those places, if people can find the ability to do so. And to quote one planner I know, if you create a walkable place, people are going to want to drive there and that is a part of the story, as unfortunate and frustrating as it may be. As much as I don't want to build parking garages City Manager Legacy. It is something I bring to the council because it opens up the ability for walkable places. I want to spend five minutes just focusing on where and how this has worked. The closest example I can use we all know very well is in Arsenal Yards.

Nestled along Arsenal Street, one of our urgent retail corridors and I just want to take a moment for those who don't remember or weren't here then, take a look at kind of what life was like in the pre-parking garage world in Arsenal Yards where a substantial portion of the land was surface parking. and by building the structured parking we supported the grocery store, the office and lab, the retail transformation, the hotel a substantial amount of housing. And all that became possible because of the efficiency of land that comes with structuring parking with 1,200 spaces. It supports a robust retail destination that is accessible by transit and walking but also certainly accessible by car with the garage being there. and I think Arsenal Yards is a very interesting success story. You can pick on the edges of it, but in terms of generally saying by structuring parking and opening up opportunities to economic development it's a very real, very local difference. You can look at those pictures on the right of the difference between 2014 and 2022

But it's not just, Watertown is not the only example I have. You can look at Lowell which is a bigger city, commuter rail served, doesn't have heavy rail transit A lot of the historic mill redevelopment in Lowell occurred because, in the 80s and 90s they built a lot of structured parking. When I worked at Lowell in the early 2000's, the way that we were able to have success with transforming upper stories of mill buildings and downtown buildings into artist lofts and mixed-use housing. and Workspace, was basically because we had parking. And we were not tearing down other buildings to build parking. Now Lowell did not have a history of having a lot of surface parking what they had was a lot of urbanism, a lot street scape buildings. And basically by building those garages and I focused on two of them here one that made it possible to redevelop the boot mills complex right along the water one of the most significant mill projects into housing and commercial space.

It was only possible because of the John Street Garage, the outdoor performance space where Lowell does their summer music series works as a regional draw with the ability to have parking. You certainly can take the commuter rail and take the shuttle from the commuta rail, but you also need people parking in order to be able to make it work. the large garage next to the high school, supports the high-school expansion and supports the arena. All of these things on this end of Lowell were only possible by structuring parking. Salem, a little smaller kind of closer to our population. Again commuter rail served definitely has some popular destinations The parking garages, particularly the waterfront and the museum garage provide a lot of support to the downtown. If you look at 1995 before the Peabody Essex Museum expanded, as much residential development. As you can see there's been new residential here, the cultural space of the museum has been a significant success

Waterfront Open Space added on one of the surface parking lots that used to be there. Again, turning that surface lot into open space becomes a lot easier when you have the structured parking to go with it, to serve the regional draws in that space. And Salem has had a lot of success. That Briggs condominium I believe was built on on a surface parking lot, the open space on a service parking lot. The enlarged destination of the museum that can hold larger events much because of that parking. In Portsmouth New Hampshire population is a little smaller than ours definitely a regional anchor Portsmouth has the Hanover parking garage that they built in the 80s, 909 spaces a lot bigger than our biggest numbers. an additional 270 in 1999 which has unlocked the ability to do the music hall, new hotels, restaurants. and a whole bunch of historic preservation of existing buildings that, again you don't have to tear down an historic building to build a parking lot because you have that centralized garage which is helpful for a built up downtown.

Right near the downtown core As you can see, the blue area there was a lot of surface parking and declining industrial facilities in the early 90s. Now that's office retail mixed use construction. There is a hotel project there all of which are easier to do when you have the structured parking. There's Market Square Day, they're due events. They opened this jazz place in 2021 and their commercial area is successful. Again, it's not about a parking garage as a parking garages. It has been about the parking garage building the opportunity for the destination for everyone. Today's case studies are larger communities than Watertown. Well, Portsmouth is actually smaller but they seem to have a larger draw. But I think they provide inspiration for the vibrant walkable place you can do when you support it by central parking. The vision for the Watertown square plan I would say than all of those examples, but I think all of our garage numbers that 250 to 600 spaces is smaller scale as well.

I think we've done a lot of big and interesting things in Watertown with schools, parks and infrastructure. We've spurred a lot private economic development. This is the next logical step for us I welcome the opportunity to answer any questions if you have any of me as the night goes on. I have a lot more backup data to discuss in the future, but this is my best way of framing the why question for you tonight. Thank you Mr. President.

Thank you, Mr. Manager and so just again to review I'm going to open it up to the public We're only focusing on do we want a garage. We're not focusing on anything else. If you do say something, I'm going to rule you out of order and ask you to please step away from the podium When you get up, you need to please identify yourself. And there's a form for you to sign in so we know you are here and we can reach out to you. I don't have my two minute timer, so I'm gonna be a little bit flexible. But please be understanding that I will cut you off if you're going to keep going on and on. and once we take some public comment, right now we have 41 people on Zoom who are participating in this meeting. Once we take a significant number of public comments I'm gonna close the...

I'm going to stop the public comment and give the community, the councilors an opportunity to either make a statement or ask a question because again we have not had an opportunity do that in a formal section in front of our constituents. please come on up to the microphone, identify yourself and there's a sign-in sheet. And we're just, please focus on exactly what we are talking about.

Thank you, Mr. President for not repeating the three by five card game. It was a dog and pony show. The 3x5 card game is used to restrict one's First Amendment rights you write a question on our card, you get a lame propaganda answer with no opportunity for point or counterpoint. We have proven to the city council that the neighborhood rejects this garage The question will be asked over and over again. Why did you vote for the garage that would benefit the profiteers over the demands of the neighborhood? Do not force us to use a garage that we do not want, I ask you, commit individually that you intend to reject this garage. It's time to disclose your thinking on this predatory garage. Defend your position one way or the other.

Could you give me your name please?

Oh sure, Rosarigo. Most people know who the hell I am. But anyway that's beside the point okay? You're welcome. So anyways you know our city manager who we have a lot of respect for does a great job for Watertown He mentioned National Yachts. Now, I have mentioned this in the past. The difference between Arsenal Yards and Watertown Square is the fact that Watertown square approaches on a residential neighborhood, an old residential neighborhood which I live in Arsenal Yards does not. It does not encroach on an old neighborhood and they made something else. George has a great track record of developments, he has visions of grandeur okay? And he was part of the production of a great project called Assembly Mall. Now those of you that may not originally come from this area, Assembly Mall was the old Ford Motor Plant but during World War II they created a lot of vehicles to help us win the war

and it was a historic site. Anyways, again that's a great project. It's something the judge can be proud of but he loses the focus on one thing that does not encroach on a residential neighborhood, which this does. Now as you know I've beaten my gums many times in this issue. I fought this issue years ago when they tried to peddle the garage and we won that time and my anticipation is to win this again against this damn garage because we don't want it. Thank you.

If I may again stress, please identify yourself for the record. You can sign in after you speak and we will get to We're going to take quite a few people in the room first and then we'll go to Zoom. People that have questions on Zoom will also be able to participate. Go ahead, Chuck.

Yeah, Chuck Dickinson, 21 Church Lane, Watertown. So President Sideris I have basically a question, a follow-up question to the city manager is that in the spirit of this? Let's say yes for now. I don't have a big statement to make, but I do have a question that came up as a result of the city manager presentation which for me opened Oh, so that's the deal here. Why a garage? It's going to open up this area for new kinds of development and it gave number of instances from a lot of different communities that I'm familiar with My question is, are there any ideas already that have been formed about what the possible other uses would be?

I'm going to again go back to my opening statement. We have to start with do we want a garage or not, to do those other things.

But it would help me at least to know what those other thing might be.

Restaurants, bars, coffee shops, could be a number of different things. We don't know. We're not talking about that. But all of those are businesses? Right. Okay.

Housing.

Housing? Possibly, yes. Portable housing. Again, we're not going down that path tonight. If you would like to come up and ask a question about do we want a garage? Yes.

I'm an open mind.

Thank you.

Ralph Holmberg, 72 Spruce Street. Every place he mentioned is a tourist trap Salem, Portsmouth. People go there to see stuff. What do they come to Watertown for? There's nothing that we can offer that Salem,

Hello, my name is Marius Collier. I live at 59 Windsor Avenue. opinion, and only my opinion. I only speak for myself is that I believe for the time being that having a parking garage in Watertown Square makes sense for the reasons that were set out. In my opinion, for removing a parking lot in exchange for a parking garage does make sense for reducing on straight parking because then people have an actual place to park their car and are allowed to walk wherever else. I would personally prefer it were to be in a place like Arsenal Yards because there, it is mostly walkable.

but that also comes to the cost that people are still allowed to drive in that area near it. So I'd say it is best, in my opinion I do not speak for anyone else or anything of that nature. In my opinion, for the time being, it would be a good idea to have parking garage and then later when say a larger area is pedestrianized and its use is no longer needed to remove it because then it would have served its purpose. Thank you.

Thank you, we appreciate your comments and anybody please don't be shy We know that your opinion you're welcome to anything you want to say. We're here to listen tonight

Hi. We're using this mic. Amanda Kersey, 25 Stewart Street. Can you speak up please? Sure. Yes.

Think of it as an ice cream cone. You've got to be really close.

I'm an audio producer. I actually know how to do this.

Yeah, but she's allergic to ice cream.

Ready? Amanda Kersey, 25 Stewart Street. This is actually the first time I've seen or considered this question about the parking garage, Mr. City Manager, based on your presentation I had a couple questions. One around the case studies that you looked at like Portsmouth, Salem what do you know, what can you tell us about the capacity of those garages today over time? To what extent are people using them and based on your conversations with people involved in those decisions at the city level do they still think that the garages have served their intended purposes, or do they have any reservations or regrets about those decisions?

In cases like this, oh I need the microphone. Sorry for all the passing around here but In a circumstance like, I mean I could go on for an hour about Lowell but I will not do that because I'm familiar with it because I used to work there and kind of the benefits in where its gone. but you asked a very involved question that is probably easier for me to take notes and share back with the council and you at a later moment when I'm able to collect some information from the other communities. The short answer from Lowell I will say is that basically, I know it has spurred thousands of units of housing that were buildable because of the garage and that has created a atmosphere, where there's more people there day and evening who live there that are not just the garage serves people coming and going for tourist visits as well. But one of the things it serves there is it serves the housing and it makes that possible

so the combination of those things has been successful and I know the community really depends upon them for that. But to dig into the other locations a little bit, Malden, Portsmouth, Salem, I'd have to do a little more information gathering which I'm happy to do share back with the council and then you can see it.

Thanks. Thank you

Hello, my name is Scott Fraser. I don't mean to be prepared. I just want to say I really don't like the idea of a parking garage. I think even if it's heavily used that parking garage becomes a traffic generator and nobody likes traffic but that parking garage is going to cause people to drive more. I also think Watertown Square should be designed primarily for the people of Watertown, and nobody in Watertown lives more than two miles from the square I think it's very accessible already. We don't need people driving in, I just think would be an eyesore and I just don't want to see a broken garage on Watertown Square. I'd rather see housing. Thank you

My name is Ilana Mainelli. I live at 97 Duff Street, and I feel like it's a bit of a false thing to be separating these issues because they are connected but I understand why we're doing that. So I assume that whatever, you said you don't want to discuss how big and what levels of the garage there would be tonight just whether we'll have one or not. and it's hard for me to say this without addressing that, but I would think whatever we did if we have a garage will be more than the number of spaces we have out there right now. and I can tell you that as somebody who had difficulty finding spaces this winter, I want there to be something however you do it so that there's more spaces. And as far as everybody is two miles from the square, that's great. I love it. I wish we could do less parking and less driving. Wonderful. You know what, I'm getting older.

I'm having more medical problems than I used to have and I used do a lot more walking and taking the T and even riding my bike. I can't do that stuff as much anymore I drive to things down here now all the time and I've lived in Watertown over 30 years. So it's not a question just of people outside of Watertown coming in, some people in Water town need to drive here you know, not necessarily need handicapped spaces and have placards but still can't walk two miles or even maybe one mile or something especially if it's really hot or its really icy. And at those times believe me I've had trouble finding spaces and I've to park lots of blocks away and then have trouble walking to things here. Thank you.

So we're going to put a table in the back that you can sign afterwards. We'll put it on the side, okay. Sorry.

Please. Hello? Hi. Good afternoon, my name is Joseph. He's speaking. You hear me now? Okay. My name is Joseph, we're opening a new business at 55 Main Street right on Watertown Square and my question is whether we need a garage or not, it's not that question. My question is if this is going to be happening? What kind of solution is CERI going to provide during the years of construction so that businesses over there, CVS, Bargino our location and other businesses or other people will be able to park rather than just side of the street or side of anywhere else.

We can't answer that question right now. We're in the very preliminary... Again, as I stated those are going to come if we decide to do a garage then we have to figure out what's the plan for the current businesses? What's the plan for how do you get to CVS while we're doing this? How do we get to a restaurant? So those are in the future, and we will keep you in consideration as we move forward.

Okay. Thank you.

Very good questions. Thank you

Hello, my name is Ben Klass from 54 Catherine Road. In terms of do I want a garage? The problem with the answer is it depends So instead I'm going to ask that before you make a decision, that you collect good data. And the two questions that I have is first of all what is the usage of the current parking and the other question is, I guess my one opinion is parking garages have a lot of benefits as shown. They're ugly. So what is the smallest garage that's worth building? Those two questions I hope that you consider while you are making your decision. Thank you

David Morrison, 33 Green Street, Watertown. For me, I wear several hats. One is Perkins School for the Blind. The other is I'm a member of the First Parish of Watertown which will be celebrating its 400th birthday in a few years. And this proposed garage will be immediately to our south and my question is, I had heard that 2019 was the last time there was a question regarding a survey of parking in what I call the CVS parking lot.

2019 was the last time anybody looked at it. Do we need a garage? As far as I'm concerned, I look at the neighborhood that I live in and work in, and the church I serve, Trescas in the middle of the parking lot, packed every day. And I see the laundromat next door, packed with people. There's also a salon and yes, I'd heard that If the garage is built, the owner of the salon will have three retail spaces but in my mind we'll lose Tresca's which is a Watertown treasure. for people who live here.

And so in my mind, and I had shared a letter with city councilor Nadine Gardner which I'll read just one little part of it. I think the parking garage is unproven, I think it's unnecessary and a non-star, thank you.

I don't know where over there

So my name's Teddy Cocoros, I live at 99 Jensen Road. So while I personally prefer to walk to Watertown Square, I've been a library trustee for about six years now And the number one complaint I always get is not enough parking behind the library and in general, in the area. So just something to consider that it's something people seem to complain about a lot in terms of accessing the library but also all the area businesses and things like that across the street. And though there's been construction, people complain that you can't park here and easily get to some of the other cafes as well. while personally I'm not a big driver, I do hear from the community a lot that it does seem people do like the idea of more possible parking spaces in the general Watertown Square area.

Thank you, I didn't mean to cut in.

All right, thank you. My name is John Ports on Robbins Road in Watertown and I'm also like David a member of First Parish and speaking a little bit on behalf of the congregation there. We did a survey and we had a meeting after church in late spring, and a letter was sent to all of you about that so that kind of covers the whole project but we're focusing on the question of do we need a garage or do we want the garage? I think if we were to ask that question in First Parish, there would be a range of opinions. And there was some people on the survey that said they don't want a garage And I will say, and some said as David did a little bit more analysis of why do we need a garage? Is there the demand for that? I think that was a common question as well. And the other point would be, which is a little bit out of bounds, would be if there is a garage, there was a very strong sentiment that it'd be a little smaller than what was proposed.

I think four or five stories was questioned as kind of massing and too large So anyway, thank you for the opportunity.

Thank you. After Jackie I'm going to go on Zoom for a few people so Jackie please welcome.

I'm hesitantly in favor of a garage because I think it's the best way to make best use of city land to replace at least some of the surface parking and make way for housing especially.

Thank you. I have a couple on Zoom and then I'll get to you, okay? So first, Kathy Breen. You are allowed to speak, Kathy.

Hello! Can you hear me?

Yes.

All right, thank you so much for the opportunity to speak. I'm Kathy Breen. I live at 186 Boylston Street, Watertown. So I do have a few responses to some previous comments and also some of my own. First of all... I do want a damn garage. Two miles isn't accessible to me, and I live here. I'm also part of that older generation To those who want to force me, and I say force me out of my car and to take a bus or bike or walk, I say stop it. I am not going to do that. I won't patronize businesses in the square if you force me to do it. And let me just say about small businesses, they are not profiteers I think we want small businesses in Watertown Square, businesses like traffic. And by the way residents aren't the only stakeholders here right? Businesses are also legitimate stakeholders in this question

My point of view is that I have seen parking garages revitalize downtown areas in other places where I have lived. I think it makes a lot of sense to provide free and low-cost parking, not only for people who will patronize businesses but people who come and visit the river and also visit people who live in apartment buildings and homes around the square. I've seen this work I have seen more examples than tourist areas. I know that George cited tourist areas, but I've seen it work in other areas as well and I personally would visit the square more often for discretionary purposes like restaurants if there was better parking. Thanks very much.

Thank you.

Angie Kanellis, you are allowed to speak. Angie?

Good evening. Thank you so much for the opportunity. First, I'd like to commend Mr. Rosarico for his steadfast commitment to saying no to the garage I'm looking at the Watertown tab and press from Friday, December 1st 2006. And the caption is should town park a garage in Watertown Square? and Mr. Russarico is quoted as saying, unfortunately the council only sees Watertown Square as a business district. We see Watertown square as a neighborhood and I commend him He has been steadfast in his comments. I can go back to parking studies going back to 1973, the most recent parking study as was just mentioned

was on September 17th, 2019. And I'm reading from an email from then senior transportation planner Laura Weiner who said the town council voted unanimously to endorse the recommendations in the Watertown parking management plan and instructed the administration to develop an implementation plan. This is a report on implementation steps to date and plans for future implementation measures. I haven't seen any of this. And going back to comments about Arsenal Yard, I once parked in the Red Garage. During my tenure as a counselor, I was invited to the opening ceremonies for Roach Brothers Supermarket. I was forced into the Red garage first and last time.

if in fact I need to patronize something in that particular area, I will go to the Home Depot parking surface parking area and walk over. Garages are not for me. I would not support a garage in the massing that was suggested at four to five levels. When the original parking deck was suggested in 2006-2007, the study came back that it was not recommended because there would actually be no net gain versus the surface parking. That's why a garage of four to five stories would actually be required to gain any surface, to gain

as time allows, I will be submitting my own analysis which I customarily do analyzing the figures from previous reports that there has been no action on and we have spent countless thousands of dollars on parking studies. And here we are now looking at a four or five story parking garage, in my opinion doesn't work in Watertown Square there are other avenues to pursue. And I think we should be doing it and going back to the studies that we've actually paid for, thank you.

Sarah, you are allowed to speak. Sarah?

Hi this is Dan Grossman I'm on Sarah's computer at 25 Hawthorne Street I heartily agree with the presentation that the city manager gave. I am not a proponent of driving, I am a proponent of bicycling and walking. A lot of the people though who have commented so far about why they don't want a garage seem to be talking about how a garage will bring more cars to the area. but today all we're talking about is whether to have a garage not how big the garage will be. The garage if you're only talking about that, the garage could have the same amount of spaces that are already there. But the difference would be

economizing on the square footage or acreage of land taken up by cars. You're stacking up the parking lot into a vertical structure rather than having them spread out. Now, I understand that garages are not known to be beautiful On the other hand, I don't think a parking lot is beautiful. I would never say and I don t know anybody who would say that the current CVS parking lot and I'm sure that parking lots there are ways to make parking lots look nicer or not so nice, and that could be something that would be discussed at a later stage. So given that a garage is just a parking lot cut up into pieces and stacked one section

at a time on top of the others, I would say let's have the cars parked there and then have all of the rest of the space be used for other things. Thank you very much.

Nick Caranto, and then we'll come back to the room. Nick you are allowed to speak.

Hello can you hear me? Great, thanks for letting me speak here. I just wanted to talk in favor of considering a garage in Watertown Square and my work in helping organize the Charles River Food Co-op One of the components of that is we need parking. And if we're going to put a community-owned grocery... somewhere in Watertown Square, which as a resident of Watertown I'm at 121 Lexington Street. I would love for it to be close we need to have parking there has to be spaces for people to park that's what How we would raise money is based on like how much business can the store do and that's based on how many people can park and bring their groceries to their car. So something to think about, this is like literally something that we've had to do is figure out where people will park if we have the business in the square. So that's all I have to say. Thank you for your time and thank you for considering.

Back to the room. Please speak right into the microphone.

Hi, my name is Antoine Boe. I am with Grey's Laundromat. I'm the proprietor owner along We are one of the businesses that is directly affected by the redevelopment plan. that while others might have different effects, we all literally have to be demolished for understanding this current plan of the award. of the Garage. We are not, so currently along with ourselves we also make contact with some other businesses including Steve Treska of Tresca Eating Place and Doji of Cruella Key Clinic that while we have

while not speaking on behalf of them, we are all in contact and working with other businesses to try to make sure that our interest is represented and kept in mind. That said though, we're here because personally our business continuation and survival is an open question right now. and that right now while we're not explicitly against the parking garage, it is important while we are aware that the plan does have kept a note that they make sure there is, that the values in the plan to make sure that it's a relocation plan and and I've been told that we're taken care of.

There is no specifics yet, so that is a major part if the garage should be performed or not, built or not that we specifically ask to make sure not just that it follows through the values of the plan, including that everything is compensated and and to the point that we get able not just be harmed but also avoid harm, but also continue our business. that have to be figured out before the approval of the garage, else we could be asking for our own demise.

So speaking as great as long-term met, and informally but not specifically at the moment other businesses of the area to make sure that wherever you go through, that makes sure they keep us in mind and make sure not just follow the relocation plans that is listed in the redevelopment. but to be generous as possible because that is the safest approach for us, not just our survival but also continuity after this all said and done. it's like part of this whole plan you're asking for the support of these small businesses and if you are literally getting bulldozed out that is not exactly that's good for the small business. Thank you very much.

Hello, my name is Max Wolf. I work with the Charles River Regional Chamber. We represent businesses here in Watertown and other communities I think someone said that in 2006 the city rejected a parky garage. I think we're not in 2006 anymore and I think the city has chosen that the square is going to grow in a lot of different ways. I think, you know, a lot the businesses here support that and I think we specifically support a parking garage because of the effect it will have on businesses in this square and the ability to attract more businesses. It will support the current businesses there, attracting customers from places that would not consider going there already. But also business begets business and the more we turn Watertown Square into an economic hub, the more it's gonna help the businesses that are there right now and the neighborhood as a whole. I would like to note that we are concerned about displacement as the laundromat just spoke about and in general construction.

There's a right way to do this and a wrong way to this, and I hope that if the parking garage is chosen our businesses can stay open, their customers can have places to park and that they won't be negatively affected for too long. Thank you.

Max, can you sign the form please? Thank you.

Hi, my name is Lois Cass. I was at one of these meetings before. The problem I have right now is the fact that you talk about this parking garage then if you ask any specific questions I get told well there is no parking garage so we don't have any specifications about why do we really need this parking garage. We have 12 hour spots in the surface lot, so what kind of parking are we trying to create? Is it more commuter parking Is it parking for businesses? You don't really know because you can't get any kind of an answer about it, even tonight. You can only ask about the parking garage but you don't get really any answers about the parking garage. So will the parking have an elevator? for some people who are mobility challenged, these are the things you really have to know before you decide whether you want a parking garage or you don't want a park garage. So I feel like

you have to start answering questions before you can have somebody make a final decision on whether we really need the parking garage. Thank you.

Jamie?

Hey Mark. Hi, Jamie Gordon 84 Fitchburg Street I am also a member of First Parish which is a direct abutter to the demonstration project I do have one question for the city manager that will clarify my comments With the streetscape design, how many additional street spots are proposed to be added? Do you know?

I don't have enough detail to know that answer yet.

Okay, but will there be additional street spaces added?

That is the plan yes.

So my comments relate to when you ask, should there be a parking garage or not? You really have to understand will the parking garage be utilized in the location that you're proposing. So for example, I typically walk to the square. But when I park, I usually park in a library lot and I have watched people circle that lot to avoid parking the CVS lot which is across the street. So that's just one example. And the other is that you would definitely be increasing it, it sounds like. That's a question to answer. Are you intending to increase the parking spaces or are you intending to keep them the same as the surface parking? Because that does affect what type of garage you build. And I'm guessing it would be, what's been proposed four or five stories and you really need to analyze, will people park in that garage? Or will they choose to utilize the street spaces or like the library lot

as I've also watched people circle the Arsenal Yard surface lots and never use the red and purple garages. I actually don't mind parking in a garage, so I always get a spot and then just where the case studies, I have one anecdote that might be useful which is I've been in Salem a lot, and I use the Witch City Garage a lot. So I was an intern at PEMM in 2014, in the fall of 2014. And PEMMM uses that garage for staff because it's never full except in October. And in the last 12 years, my husband is from the North Shore we visit Salem frequently. We always know we can find a spot in the Witch City Mall garage because it is never full. Those are my comments.

Good evening Mr. President, City Councilors, City Manager thanks for the opportunity to speak my name is Doug Orifice I'm a resident at 111 Common Street I'm also the co-president and co-founder of the Watertown Business Coalition For the city councilors, we sent you all a letter which I will not bore you all with because it was about four pages long on Google Docs so I'll try and hit the highlights here. In order to address the question to garage or to not garage we really had to go back a step and we had three points of support for the plan in general, and then three big questions. So our three points is number one as WBC as a body We have a board. We have 195 members which include our nonprofits, small businesses, large businesses, city agencies taking everything into consideration who we represent and the fact that our board all either lives here in Watertown works here in water town were part of the community we have a tagline called community is our business.

Number one, we support the Watertown Square area plan. You all have put out a lot of work into this and I appreciate the open communication and presentation of everything and if this all works, if it all goes well we will have more open space. We'll have more walkability. We might have more revitalization which folks want. We may have small businesses in town and in my capacity I get a lot of questions like Doug why don't we have a bookstore here? Why don't have an ice cream place? Why do we have this business or that business? If somebody's gonna take a chance on Watertown Square, the puzzle pieces have to be there. So we do support the puzzle piece in general with the Watertown Square area plan. Secondly, if that comes to fruition we absolutely need a central parking plant to garage or not to garage, I don't know. But we absolutely need a central parking plan if we're going to have 50% more housing, 50% businesses, I dunno if those are the numbers we might need 50% more parking spots.

So, we do need a central parking plan and then number three is this is kind of a general operational opportunity to do something and try and get it right. Right now, it's a strong economy. We know we have a strong position here in Watertown. We have this Watertown Square area planned. I think to do nothing would be a shame so we do have to figure something out So those are our three areas of support as an organization. Our three questions, I might have to refer to my long boring letter here First of all, it's been referenced tonight parking data. I have no idea how much the future Watertown Square needs in terms of parking. My only guess is more. If it's a success, we will have more businesses, we'll have more residents, more housing. We'll have of demand for people to be here. the other thing too is with the Watertown Square area plan part of all of this is for 50 years we've kind of given away our square to regional traffic.

This is our chance to take are downtown back for ourselves as a community and also share Watertown Square with everybody else. I'll try to wrap this up. in terms of if there is a garage done, there does need to be a comprehensive temporary parking plan for businesses that are disrupted. For employees that work here at City Hall, for those who need to use various services in town so that needs to be mapped out and then a lesson that we've learned from the Mount Opera Street project, this would be number three is we do need strong communication from the city. to all the stakeholders, whether that's their potential partners, contractors, businesses that are gonna be displaced. The community at large so just keep in mind we need very strong communication and meetings like this are a wonderful example of the fact that we're talking about this as a community is a win. So thank you very much.

Thank you. I'm going to go to one person on Zoom and then come back. Sam Garwin, you're allowed to speak.

Hi, everyone. Thank you so much for the opportunity. I am at 139 Summer Street in Watertown. So immediately neighborhood immediately adjacent to the square I'm also the President of the Board of Directors for the Charles River Food Co-op. So, I come to you also wearing two hats as in my role on the Charles River Food Cooperative, I would like to echo some of the folks who have already spoken and say that I think that although historically Watertown has not been a destination, we can be and have nice things. a couple of years, but I would love to be able to walk to more amazing independent small businesses. Hopefully a food co-op and I think that as the prior speaker just said having a parking plan, a centralized parking plan is absolutely key to making that happen.

I also think that as we consider the redevelopment of The Square, we can't forget about the neighborhoods that are immediately adjacent to The Square and I personally have done advocacy around the redesign of Summer Street for significant safety issues that exist, including lack of crosswalks. the unintentional rerouting of 18-wheelers onto our residential streets. So I do think it's both and, I know the question today is about a parking garage, I'm in favor of a parking echo what other speakers have said about the difficulty in making such an isolated decision when such a decision has impacts on nearby residential neighborhoods that are significant. So thank you for the opportunity and for holding this meeting. It's really great to have public participation.

Linda Scott, 55 Olcott Street. Jamie talked about Salem and I'm going to talk about Portsmouth one of my favorite places on earth. I lived there for five years when i was a child I go back often, it brings good memories to me. I've only had to park in the parking garage once and it was creepy and you almost need a map to find it. It's not front and center, it's not on Main Street, it is not where you can see it. You have to go back a few streets so it's a different animal than the one we're talking about here. Some of you would be shocked to know I've been in that parking lot with petitions and so you meet a lot of people. And the first question is, do you live in Watertown? And it's not insignificant group of people do not. And they explained to me that water towns in between home and work and they find that CVS a perfect place to pull in, get their prescriptions there halfway between home and work. And they find it very convenient.

You're going to lose that business when they're parking garage. They're not going to be going into a parking garage so find another convenient place. and then we have hundreds of apartments being built so aren't they going to be walking to these businesses? Isn't that the point after all? Thank you very much.

Good evening, Joan Gumbleton, Thelmouth Road. I guess first, I would say that basically there are a lot of concerns about safety in these garages. Many senior citizens feel uncomfortable parking in them and others prefer the surface parking. And again, like Linda said you can go in to CVS quickly come back out. You're not circling in a garage Plus a lot of people are concerned that their cars get damaged in these garages. They're usually narrow spaces, the cars get dinged and of course no one's going to leave a note and tell you that that's what they did. basically we all agree there's too much traffic in Watertown right now and the garage is only going to encourage more people to come here maybe some will come for the businesses but probably some will also come here park go elsewhere for a few hours and just take up space.

if we do create the garage, it's going to create more traffic going in on Spring Street, on Church Street and for the Summer Street people. And the Summer street people have already expressed they have concerns. They can't get out of their streets now when they're trying to head up to Mount Auburn Street. He had more traffic, it's more of a problem for them. and as far as the businesses, if they go in at the bottom of a garage, the rents are gonna be too high for small business. So it's probably not going to be exactly what we want to go in there. and the other issue I wanted to bring in was about the economic constraints. You know, we're vying for a lot of different projects in this city and to me, this wouldn't be a priority. I'd rather see Fire Station, New Senior Center or whatever so I think if we don't follow this path, we can pursue other things that are more needed

and we don't want to put the cart before the horse again. and the last comment I'd like to say is, we're talking about state and Watertown goals for reducing the use of vehicles in our state and city by the year 2050. And before that in 2030 there's some other goals but our Watertown Comprehensive Plan, the last one set 2050 goals and it states quote by 2050 non-vehicular transportation options are accessible affordable and connected throughout Watertown and personal vehicular travel miles are reduced by 50%. And it also says, by 2050 100% of all vehicles in Watertown are electric. I personally don't think these realistic goals are popular goals for the state or the city. But if by chance this happens, will we need a big garage on prime real estate in our downtown center?

Let's ask that question and revisit this project, and decide whether a parking garage is really needed for us. and the issue on the other cities that Mr. Perwekes mentioned, you know again they are you know, tourist areas and we don't have much to offer in Watertown. We haven't preserved many historic sites in the square and the entertainment is already at the Arsenal Yards. We don't need it in Water Town Square. Thank you very much.

Hi, everybody. Do I speak into both mics here? Just the big one. The one on the left? This one, okay. My name is Marcy Merninghan and I live at 134 Fayette Street and I have to say that the song by Joni Mitchell, they paved paradise and put up a parking lot has been going through my mind a lot. Let's give it up for Joanie. Except the thing is, I think what she meant by that is a parking lot is, and all of the green dirt or green possibilities that it covers up. So there are Riddles throughout this question of to have or not have, to be or not to be a parking garage in

the demonstration project area. My personal sort of answer to that is yes, we do need a garage or we should have a garage however as a proud patron of Gray's Laundromat, and one who has been in pretty considerable conversation with both Antoine and Manish about that. These are the hardest working guys I know there should be conditions around that. So let's step back a bit, what I've heard tonight is a massive amount of mistrust and a massive amount of speaking from experience in terms of predatory capitalism and development gone wild, so on and so forth. and I'm still thinking of Joni Mitchell's sort of lyric there. And I get that, and I share that but I also believe that because this is a demonstration project

because the city council, my goodness is the development authority in this. That is pretty unusual and because there have been other examples of Watertown paving the way You see what I did there? That was accidental. That was accidental. There is a unique opportunity here to build a garage that has conditions attached that are aimed at flourishing and vitality and respect for economic activity. without sort of repeating mistakes that are often made in the past or without the kind of tricks and traps that often accompany questions like these.

It's not a philosophical question, it's a practical question but in answering it the idea of a demonstration project could literally help reestablish trust as well as do something that acknowledges the good folk like those at Grey's Anatomy and at Tresca's, and preserves the best of that. I hear people laughing, I don't quite know what all that means. Oh, Grey's Anatomy. I'm sorry. See, I'm thinking ahead of myself. It is Grey's Anatomy though. This is a version of Grey's anatomy because we are looking at the anatomy of Grey building. Focus please, focus. Let's do something new in the tradition of Watertown that reestablishes public trust and also gets a new garage built

as well as unlocks the green potential that has been paved over.

After this, we're going to go back on Zoom for a couple.

I'm Jeannie Johnston at 12 Green Street. I observe all the objections people have had, and I'm sure that you can turn those around into doing the garage job thoughtful and doing the job right. But an additional need for a parking garage is the fact that many people have cars and trucks so huge you cannot see over them, you cannot around them. and you can't park them in your parking space.

So we folks at Trees for Watertown investigate when People request a tree to be removed. At least half of them are to make a new driveway to accommodate second and third and fourth cars where there's no room to put them on the small lots that we have here in Watertown. and we folks at Trees for Watertown say you don't cut trees to pave over yards, to have too many cars.

Sometimes it's a family where the grown children all insist on having their own car and a tiny house is splitting at the seams.

We'd like to focus on the parking garage, not people's driveways please.

Okay fair enough thank you but It's room to park those extra cars. And in the winter, when you have to get the cars off the street that's another argument in favor of the parking garage. Thank you.

Marsha Ciro, you are allowed to speak, Marsha?

Okay, can you hear me? Yes. Can you hear I'd like to see another solution to surface parking that has many more trees, and I'd liked to see green. I think we're gonna need more parking if the housing is built that is proposed and in order for that build out to be successful, we'll probably need more businesses. And hopefully we can attract more small business and not cheap chains But my question is, why do we always go straight for the giant centralized garage? No one likes them the way they look or no one likes to park in that. Is there a way to be more creative with the idea of a garage? Maybe consider two much smaller garages or multiple level parking structures near businesses that are located in different locations.

the person who said that she's seen people driving around the library parking lot looking for a space and they don't want to park behind CVS That's something that's kind of interesting because will people who want to go to the library park at CVS? I don't think they do. So having the parking as close to the business as possible is really important and Watertown is a small, very small scale place right now and I think what people are afraid of is we're proposing to go big scale or bigger scale. And I think that we need to keep in mind a way to design this new build out, in a way that somehow hits between what Watertown the small scale that Watertown is today and the bigger scale that we have to go to in order to build all this extra housing. We need the housing, I understand that

and having Watertown Square be a better place to go to, more walkable is really great idea. But is there a way to be more creative about it besides going for this big giant gray box of a central garage. Thank you very much.

Steve Miller, you're allowed to speak, Steve.

Well, actually this is Kathy. Again, one more time and you unmuted me so I'll just take this 30 seconds.

Kathy, you've already had a chance to speak. Kathy I'm sorry, there's other people that haven't spoken You have to wait. Steve, you're allowed to speak.

Hi, can you hear me? I'd just like to speak in favor of A parking garage makes a lot of sense for retail in the central business district because centralizing shoppers engenders the critical mass needed to drive synergy and cross-shopping. When we think of this, think of West Hartford Center in Connecticut where it can bring a lot of local and regional restaurateurs and retailers. This could appeal to restaurants who want to add another location from Portland, Maine or Newport, Rhode Island potentially. And let's not forget that it will support the Fair in the Square which is one of my favorite fairs in this whole country. I've lived in Watertown my entire life and I love that fair every day, every year it happens. This could generate also a lot of tax revenue for the city over time. So thank you.

Speak, Dennis. Dennis? Please unmute yourself. Last call, Dennis.

Okay can you hear me?

Yes.

Thank you. First of all just up front I'm against the parking garage just think about it they're going to build all this housing behind the garage those people are going to be parking in the garage so you're not going to have all these dream spaces to alleviate the on-surface parking you're taking away. That's number one. Number two, how many people have enjoyed the parking garages in Belmont Center and Lexington Center? None of them because they don't need them. They don't have them. So it's not the garages or lack of garages, but how I guess the centers are formulated and run in Watertown is very similar to those. with businesses and parking in behind them.

And I will say that I congratulate you on this work, and being on a redevelopment authority, which I served. And there's three members in Watertown that served on the Watertown Redevelopment Authority. And thank you for allowing me this short time to speak.

Thank you. So at this point, I'm going to pause and ask city council who... I'm gonna pause at this and ask the City Council, whoever. If somebody wants to make a statement or a comment then we can go back again to public comment so I want to open it up to my colleagues on the council if anybody would like to make any comment or question Oh, I can pass this one too.

We can pass that one if you want. Okay.

Councilor Piccirilli? Okay, I will start.

So other than a few people are adamantly against any form of barrage, I think the common thread for people who were in in favor of a garage or potentially in favor garage people who were sort of against the garage. I think the common thread through many comments has been we don't have enough information to even make a decision and I think that's a fair statement. And I would venture to guess the nine of us sitting behind this table also don't have enough information to make a decision. I know, I don't want to speak for anyone else. During the Watertown Square Plan, we heard loud and clear from many participants that they wanted to see in the Water Town Square Plan more green space, more grass, more trees. And we envision doing a park at the eastern end of the municipal parking lot.

We also heard from small business community that shops and restaurants need municipal parking because most storefront businesses in the square don't have parking lots and they need a place for their customers to park. So we have these two things that are in sort of tension and I think the question is if we want to add green space and take away parking spaces, we need to replicate those parking spaces somewhere else. And a garage like it or not is pretty much the only solution that we have. So, we'd spoken going back to the whole Watertown Square plan when this was first proposed by the manager. And I just want to be clear that the manager did not come up with this himself. Back in November, 22nd, 2022.

The city council budget policy guideline to the manager was to provide funding for study of Watertown Square that will incorporate goals of the updated comprehensive plan and include intersection design, development and zoning changes, small business script strategies, and better use of city-owned lands parking lots in the former police station. So we asked the manager to do that, and he came up with a plan. At the time it was proposed during the Watertown Square Plan which we voted on in July of 2024 there was a lot of concern about what was being proposed for the municipal parking lot with the garage and what that was going to look like. And we were very clear that the city council was going to make that decision and we would defer that to another day. That was just a placeholder, so here we are two years later as it were

and it is not before us to decide what to do. So that's our job, is to decide So the real question is, and I think everybody understands that this city council is really committed to a transparent public process. If you look at what we've done with park redesign If you look at what we've done with school design, pretty much every single project that we have done, every single capital project the City Council has voted to move forward on We've gone through a very robust public process. We started out with an idea, we listened to the public We take what seems to be some very contradictory opinions, either for it or we're against it. And we work through it and go through the details. And this is a very complicated project. Some people think this is just a parking lot but in fact

The project team identified some really significant underground infrastructure with the Cambridge Aqueduct, two buried streams and the underground electric feeds to the substation that really limit what we can do on this site. So it's not just a parking lot that was just paved over. There is a lot of stuff underneath, so I think we need to go through that public process and begin doing more work in determining what the answers to those are. And I don't really know what the answer's going to be. Is it gonna be a five-story garage? probably not. Is there going to be a smaller garage? Probably yes, what is it gonna look like I have no idea but there are places that have nice looking garages and my favorite every time we go to the Museum of Fine Arts is the three-story brick parking garage across the street from it which

You can drive by and not even know it was there because it looks like a bunch of three-story brick buildings that would turn into a parking garage, which in fact they were. So it is possible to do nice parking garages. But in terms of what it's going to look like, how big is it going to be? How much parking do we really need? We haven't begun the process of studying that and I think what we need to do is agree to move forward with that process and see where it brings us, what the journey's going to be. Mr. Driscoll used to always say the devil's in the details well this one is going to have a lot of details that we're gonna have to work through and we're going to make the trade-offs I'm willing to start on that journey, make that process dig into the details but if you want to say so in that point ask the question do we need a parking garage not I think we want to achieve the goals we've laid out the Watertown Square plan and we need to have some sort of structured parking. What that's going to look like, how big is it gonna be?

I don't know so but i'm willing to start on that journey thank you

Anyone else want to make any comment or question?

I prefer to wait until other folks have spoken from the public.

Is there anyone else that wanted to make a comment at this time? No. Okay, so back to the public. Step right up.

Hi, good evening. My name is Nicole Vellucci I am a commercial property owner at 48 Summer Street I am a commercial property owner at 48 Summer Street. Our building is one of the buildings in jeopardy of being torn down for this project. I have to say that I am not in favor of this garage, for several reasons. One, I would say that the town has overextended itself in projects. Merely you can look right now at Mount Auburn Street what's taking place Three blocks of businesses are losing parking. They are extending sidewalks double the size of what they are now to plant a tree I think that it will create more traffic for the area considering that the street is one lane

each way with bike paths, which is fine. But now you have to consider the 250 units that are going to be placed and now you're gonna add a garage. I think that the city doesn't really focus on the residents and the businesses. take an example, if you have an elderly person for example last week when an elderly was trying to go to the post office. The project that has been started on Mount Auburn Street for the past two weeks where there is no pavement, there's merely rocks and sidewalk that is too high, an elderly woman fell cut her face open. So now you want these elderly people to park in this garage where they have to carry their groceries and their medicines. and how are they gonna do that? So maybe instead of extending sidewalks two feet to put a tree, and taking away the parking

you should create sidewalks on Main Street for elderly people that can go to these businesses, simply pull up and go in. As opposed to making them walk all this distance The other thing that the traffic is going to create now, is the 250 residential units. Now you're gonna add all this parking garage and on top of it, when you get 18 railroad deliveries where are they gonna go to service these businesses? Like on Mount Auburn Street where the businesses for three blocks can no longer receive deliveries without blocking Mount Aubern Street where the fire trucks can't get by, the ambulance can't buy. In three funeral homes I'd like to see what happens then so I'm basically saying no and as I'd like to think that our opinions matter, this is clearly a formality because as you said, you're already planning to build this garage. And what we all said about Mount Auburn Street project didn't matter either. Thank you.

Could you please come up and give us your name and contact info on the sheet? Thank you.

Hi, my name is Lynn Bradley. I live at 21 Church Lane. I've been a resident for 53 years. I love Watertown. This is my hometown now. I'm also a member of the First Parish Church, and when I imagine a five-story parking lot overshadowing on the south side where the sun comes in to our memorial garden, it just it makes me so sad because I think that the proposal of five story parking garages Way, way, way oversized. Vinny I was happy to hear you say that if this does go through there might even be smaller

there are 18 trees in the parking lot, in the CVS parking lot. Those would all be cut down by the way those nice little sycamore trees So maybe the CVS parking lot isn't all that attractive, but it's... It's easy to park there. You can run into the bank, to the CVS, have dinner at Barcino's The other Part of the proposal is to have a large housing unit that the other buildings would be torn down to make that and that also impacts the church too because That's what we would see when we're sitting in our sanctuary.

We would see a gigantic building right outside of our windows. We say we have all these wonderful things. We have the river, but I love the river and I know everybody does but if that's what we're bringing people in for, then there's more people going around the river. There is something else I wanted to say. Hold on, I have to think of it. Oh, when I want to go shopping, I would never go to Arsenal Yards ever.

It's like a big circus and it's not, I just wouldn't go there. I'd go to Home Depot and I like parking in the parking lot there because it's flat, I can see where I'm going, I could see the sky I would never go in those parking lots and therefore, I don't go to Arsenal Yards. My clinic is right next door and it doesn't need a parking garage. people park in the flat. So thank you for having this forum and thank you letting me speak.

Elodia Thomas, 67 Marion Road. I'm against this garage. Sorry Vinnie. Our street philosopher Russ Sirico hit it the other couple of weeks ago. We have a big shopping center that is Arsenal Yards. We now have the other shopping center across the street that's going to be redeveloped there will be more shopping there people will park they will go there I don't know if we're getting the housing that we had worked so hard on to get in there Why don't we do something really unique in Watertown Square? When Mike Dottoli was on the council, we advocated for incubator spaces for small businesses. What small businesses can move into this community right now given the rental rates? Look at the building that's across the street from City Hall, empty for retail. What will happen with 104106, The Beast on Pleasant Street? Will that fill up? I don't know. But we need to be much more creative about this. We can make that parking lot more attractive.

I've lived here for 50 some odd years, never had a problem parking there until the big snowstorms which then everybody has a problem so welcome to the club. but this is not imaginative. And I do want to agree with Marcy Merningham if she's still here, trust is a huge issue at this point We have a phenomenal planner sitting in the room. The emperor of planning is with us, but he's hired as a city manager and he needs to start listening to the people in this community a little bit more. Nobody is listening, and that's the phone calls I get day in and day out. Do you really care about your constituents? just because you're elected does not mean that you're smarter than everybody else in the room. It means they had the ability to run or the financial ability to, or the leisure to run. Let's be honest about that. This is becoming a very divisive issue in this community, and we don't need any more division.

Our town has done a phenomenal job on very innovative schools, and hopefully we're going to get this middle school done, and have a lot to be proud of. We have things about a senior center, perhaps with housing over it. Can we do something very unique in Watertown Square that we still have the parking but have small shops or something? I don't know about you, but everybody on my street, I see Amazon 10 times a day Food Delivery Services, so where all this retail is going to come from I don't know. This is all pie in the sky and then let's get to my biggest pet peeve. I keep coming to the council asking where do the employees that work in our town park? How many people commute to Watertown? We act like everybody that lives here is going to go to dinner here, eat here and work here. That's preposterous! I've worked in five or six different towns. I needed a car. People are still gonna need cars. Oh, one more example. There was a lovely little park we tried to get the community path to go through.

A person came to me when it's on the CPC had a great idea right behind remember when we bought the little meth house? That was a perfect space. Person came with an idea, turn it into a park have a water station, have some benches people can go out and eat lunch they can water their dog, have a pump for bicycles It's a nice little pit stop as you travel through the person, I said it's a city property now you have to go to the city talk to XYZ. The person came back to me, the person won't do it they're paving it over for our parking lot. Okay what? For the firefighters? Their survey was done about parking all over town with all the empty spaces. Could we not set up a jitney service to get around to some of these spaces? This is just a bad thing right now. We have no data at all, except everybody should have a parking garage. It is pissing people off! I'm sorry. You need to start listening. You really do.

Thank you. I have one more. Cathy Breen, you are allowed to speak again. Cathy?

Hello, thanks very much Mark. I just want to say a couple of things yes Kathy Breen 186 Watertown excuse me Boylston Street first of all i do trust our city manager I do trust our City Council. I don't have a lack of trust. I think we are discussing this all transparently I also think it's untrue to say that people don't like to park in parking garages. I park in garage fairly frequently, so please speak for yourself when you make these statements. Let me offer one more point about green space. We do have some green space nearby in the Delta and also at the river So a square of green space in the CVS parking lot may not be the right place for that green space. It doesn't seem to add value in that location.

So again, I urge the City Council to consider all the stakeholders, residents, businesses, other people who want to come and patronize businesses If you think about it, there are lots of stakeholders in this decision. Thanks very much.

Angie Kanellis, and that's going to be the last Zoom person. And we'll have Russ and we'll wrap it up. We've got a lot to unpack here.

Thank you so much Angie Kunalis, 55 Keenan Street. I'll start by saying kudos Elodia thank you for so eloquently stating the position of so many of us. Elodia can sometimes say what I can really not say. But, I will never lose my faith but my trust? I lost that a long time ago especially in the city known as the town of Watertown and that's what I believe in, the city known as The Town of. We will not be a major community. We won't be a Boston. We'll not be Cambridge. We are Watertown. There is something unique about Watertown Yes, something needs to be done about the parking but it needs to done constructively and a garage that will be four or five stories to actually increase the parking as its surface does not meet the needs of Watertown. Absolutely not.

The parking deck that was originally proposed could not be done because of all the infrastructure, and that was alluded to. There are lots of issues in the municipal parking lot area. Will I go into a parking garage? Absolutely not, I will bypass the community and go elsewhere as I indicated once and once was enough at the Arsenal Yards in their red garage. That's it, I won't even go to Arsenal Park if there is a function going on where I actually have to access the blue garage not going to happen but I think we need to look at this constructively. There have been many studies that have been done and they're not ancient history either. Yes, we need increase the parking How it's done, that's what we need to look at.

But in my opinion a parking garage per se in the existing area of the municipal parking lot is not the way to go. And I was a public doormat for 16 years, and I know exactly what goes on. Exactly. Trust? No. I lost it long time ago. Thank you.

First of all, the need for a parking garage in Watertown Square at this time is an absolute lie. We don't need a parking lot. The only time the parking lot may be filled, maybe when the fair on the square's on or something like that. Other than that, the parking lots are never totally full. Calm down. All right, Mike. Let's take the temperature down. You don't have to get upset Now always remember one thing, okay? You know the people that are going to get really screwed is those of us who live on Pompeia Street, Summer Street, Church Street. We're gonna have all the overflow traffic to deal with! It's got to be less safe for the kids in the neighborhoods and everything else. That's what this is going to do, okay? And there's no need for this parking garage whatsoever. And I'll tell you, the propaganda listening tonight has worked on some people thinking that this garage is going to solve the problem for parking in Watertown Square. The problem of Watertown, not at Watertown square but Watertown is a nightmare. It's only getting worse.

Growing up as a kid here, you're lucky if your family had one car. Never mind four cars. Also, all these streets were built for horses and buggies and stuff. They weren't built for all this traffic and these big trailer trucks and everything else, okay? So there's no question it's a problem but you put in these 3,400 units that you want to put in Watertown Square. Oh now you can justify a garage because we need it. But the other fallacy is this okay? If you think those of us who live in the neighborhoods now anywhere in Water Town is gonna get used to that garage, forget about it. All the developments going on, they gotta occupy those parking spaces first because remember when they get home from work, they can park in the parking and then later on we maybe need to park there okay there's got to be no spots. So this is not going to improve the life of people in Watertown whatsoever, okay? And honestly it gets me that people don't have the vision of what this is gonna look like after its done, okay.

and I say this, and I don't mean it to be insulting to anyone but dammit if you want to live in a congested city move and go somewhere else! Don't make a congesting city out of Watertown.

Thank you. Okay, I'm going to wrap this up at this point. One more comment and then I'll turn to anybody on the council that would like to speak if they want to.

Thank you so much. I didn't know I would speak again, but David Morrison 33 Green Street Watertown Square. I want to see the city revitalized Watertown Square, and help if I can. My concern is that the proposal is not to wait. This proposal is now to wait, respectfully.

Thank you. I also want to state that we have two emails that will be put into the record. And did anybody else on the city council want to make a comment or statement or question at this point? If not, First of all, thank you for coming tonight. We really appreciate it. Thank you for everybody that was on Zoom. We have a lot to unpack. There's a lot of questions, additional questions that came up tonight that we need to talk about I am committing that we will be meeting again on this issue. We will be discussing it, you know, the right thing for our constituents, for this community. For the business community, for the housing advocates, for everybody that has a stake here there's a lot of stakeholders here and I think we need to take a step back

figure out what we can do for next steps to gather some more information, to see you know the business coalition does very succinct and said we don't know what we need. So I think we need to just will let this simmer for a couple of days. There's some more vacations coming up, we'll do a debrief and we're gonna have another meeting. I want it to be a conversation that we can continue to have respectfully and I know Russ doesn't wanna garage but that's okay. So again, I'd like to get a motion to adjourn.

So moved.

Is there a second? Second. Any discussion? All those in favor? Aye.

Opposed? Thank you all.