Planning Board - Planning Board Meeting

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Meeting Title: Planning Board - Planning Board Meeting
City: Cambridge, MA
Date Published: 2025-08-05

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AI Disclaimer: Summaries and transcripts above were created by various AI tools. By their nature, these tools will produce mistakes and inaccuraies. Links to the official meeting recordings are provided for verification. If you find an error, please report it to somervillecivicpulse at gmail dot com.

Time & Speaker	Transcript
SPEAKER_32	if I can.
Mary Flynn	Good evening, everyone. Welcome to the August 5th, 2025 meeting of the Cambridge Planning Board. My name is Mary Flynn and I am the chair. Pursuant to chapter two of the Acts of 2025, adopted by the Massachusetts General Court and approved by the governor, the city is authorized to use remote participation at meetings of the Cambridge Planning Board. All board members, applicants, and members of the public will state their name before speaking. All votes will be taken by roll call. Members of the public will be kept on mute until it is time for public comment. I will give instructions for public comment at that time. And you can also find instructions on the city's webpage for remote planning board meetings. This meeting is being video and audio recorded. There will be a transcript of the proceedings. Please note that this meeting is not being streamed live on the City of Cambridge online meeting portal and cable television channel 22. I'll start by asking staff to take board member attendance and verify that all members are audible.
SPEAKER_13	Thank you, Mary. Jeff Roberts, Community Development. H. Theodore Cohen, are you present and is the meeting visible and audible to you? Present, visible, audible. Thank you, Ted. Mary Lydecker, are you present and is the meeting visible and audible to you?
Mary Lydecker	Present, visible, and audible.
SPEAKER_13	Thank you, Mary. Diego Macias, are you present and is the meeting visible and audible to you? Present, visible, and audible. Thank you, Diego. Tom Sieniewicz, are you present and is the meeting visible and audible to you?
Tom Sieniewicz	Present, visible, and audible.
SPEAKER_13	Thank you, Tom. Ashley Tan, are you present? Is the meeting visible and audible to you?
Joy Jackson	Present, visible, and audible.
SPEAKER_13	Thank you, Ashley. Carolyn Zern, are you present? Is the meeting visible and audible to you?
Carolyn Zern	Present, visible, and audible.
SPEAKER_13	Thank you, Carolyn. Associate members, Dan Anderson, are you present? Is the meeting visible and audible to you? Jeff, I can see and hear you. Thank you, Dan. Joy Jackson, are you present? Is the meeting visible and audible to you?
Joy Jackson	Present, visible, and audible.
SPEAKER_13	Thank you, Joy. And Mary Flynn, can you confirm the meeting is visible and audible to you?
Mary Flynn	Yes, it is both visible and audible.
SPEAKER_13	Thank you, Mary. So that makes it a full house. We have seven planning board members present and two associate members. Excellent.
Mary Flynn	Very good. Well, the first update, the first item tonight is an update from the Community Development Department. And for that, we're going to go right back to Jeff. And Jeff, if you would also introduce any other staff who are here with you this evening, please.
SPEAKER_13	Thank you, Mary. I'm Jeff Robertson, the Director of Zoning and Development here at the City Community Development Department. And I'll try to introduce everyone. We do have a lot of people here and everyone who's all staff who's present. Just flip on your camera so that I can make sure I get everybody. On my team, we have Evans Petrini, the senior manager for zoning and development. I believe that's it from my team for today. Swathi is on vacation, so we're used to seeing her. We have from the community planning and design team, Brian Gregory. with urban design. We have from the city's law department, Elliot Veloso. We have, we'll be talking about the, and I'm sorry, Sydney Wright also from the law department. And they'll be talking to the first public hearing. We have Peter McLaughlin, the director, I'm sorry, the commissioner of inspectional services. We'll fix his name on the Zoom. And also James D'Angelo from the inspectional services department. And we also have from our housing department, Cassie Arnault, and we have Christine Yu. They work in affordable housing development, and they're here related to the second item. I think I got everybody. Just checking. Okay, I think I got everybody, but there's a lot to talk about tonight. We have a public hearing to start off with. Just to briefly go over tonight's piece, we'll talk about this public hearing in a second. But just a note, following this, we'll have a general business item, which is a design review of an affordable housing project. development at 28 to 30 wendell street it'll be the first of two designer view sessions uh at the planning board advisory sessions um and so uh people who are tuned in for that um just hang in there through the the we'll do the first public hearing first and then we'll get to that second Looking at the calendar coming up, we have a planning board meeting next week. There's a public hearing as well as a minor amendment related to the moving of, or the kind of reallocation of some bicycle parking along Ames Street. This is as part of the mixed use development, Kendall Square area. We'll get more details about that next week. I'm sorry, two weeks. And along with that, there will be a design update on the center plaza and east-west connector roads. This is something the planning board has been seeing periodically as the design has evolved. I think the planning board's asked for it to kind of come back as it develops into more detail. So there'll be two kind of main items related to that development in Kendall Square. That is actually, that's what we've got for upcoming meetings. I do expect we'll have more meetings later on, probably not until September after that August 19th meeting. So the last update I wanted to do is a city council recap. So the last night, for those of you that like to stay up late, you might have tuned into the city council's summer meeting, which is the one regular meeting that they do in between the end of June and the beginning of September. There were two zoning items that came up, which I talked to the board about before. The city council adopted both of them. They adopted the Marisol at all zoning petition, which is about dimensional standards for religious uses. The planning board sent a report with no positive or negative recommendation. The city council adopted that with some relatively minor tweaks, including, and this was also kind of supported by the planning board's discussion, we're continuing to require the neighbor notification process for religious uses similar to residential uses and to continue to maintain the same open space requirements. So that was adopted and the Biomed Realty Zoning Petition related to development at 320 Charles Street was also adopted. with a letter of commitment outlining a package of public benefits associated with that. So for that one, the next step we anticipate, because it involves a planning board special permit, then the next step for that zoning will be a development proposal coming for review by the planning board. We haven't spoken with them yet about when that'll happen, but that'll be coming back to the board at some point in the future. Dan Helfrich, There are so those two were adopted those were two of the pending zoning petitions, but we also still have the petition will be hearing about tonight and a new zoning petition was. Dan Helfrich, referred at last night's city council meeting so we'll be hearing more about that as it that makes its way back to the planning board i'll end my update there unless there any questions.
Mary Flynn	Caroline Miller, Yes, Ted go ahead.
Ted Cohen	Just to clarify, Jeff, you first started saying next week was the meeting, but I think it's in two weeks.
SPEAKER_13	Yes, that's just to make sure that's clear. August 19th will be the next planning board meeting. So we won't have a meeting next week. The following meeting will be two weeks from now.
Mary Flynn	Okay. Any other questions from board members? No. Okay. Then we will move on to our first item on the agenda, which is a public hearing on a zoning petition by the City Council to amend section 4.60 to redefine short-term rental, add definitions for operator occupied short-term rental, owner adjacent short-term rental, and booking agent. Add conditions of authorized uses to comply with the state building code, fire code, sanitary code, and all other state and local habitability requirements. Add requirements to provide booking information and other documentation to the city upon request. And add enforcement mechanisms for violation of the ordinance or state regulations. We're going to begin with city staff presenting the petition. Then we will take public comment and then the planning board will have an opportunity to discuss the petition and decide whether or not to send a recommendation to the city council. So I'm going to turn it back to Jeff and then he will proceed to introduce other staff who are gonna be involved tonight.
SPEAKER_13	Thank you. Jeff Roberts again. And I'll just briefly say this, reiterate, this is a city council zoning petition, but it's one that was developed by the Inspectional Services Department in collaboration with the city's law department. So with that, it's been entirely in their hands. So I'm just going to leave it to, I guess, Elliot or Peter. I'm not sure who's going to, or Sidney or... whoever's gonna kick it off can present the petition.
SPEAKER_03	I guess I can briefly start. Good evening, everyone. Again, I'm Eli Veloso. I'm the Deputy City Solicitor for the Law Department. We have a PowerPoint presentation that we can present to the Planning Board relative to proposed zoning amendments to Section 4.60, Short-Term Rental. And I believe James will be going through the PowerPoint. So we can start from there.
SPEAKER_06	Is the PowerPoint ready?
Mary Flynn	Jeff, who's doing that tonight in place of Swathi?
SPEAKER_13	I don't believe I have the PowerPoint. So if either the ISD or law department has it, you should be able to share.
SPEAKER_14	I can pull it up if you just give us a second.
Mary Flynn	Thank you.
SPEAKER_18	Sidney, I have it up. Can you see my screen?
Mary Flynn	We can see the presentation now.
SPEAKER_18	Is that you, Sidney, or me?
SPEAKER_14	I think that's me.
SPEAKER_18	Okay, go ahead. I'm sorry.
SPEAKER_14	Maybe not, though. Yeah, I think that's me.
SPEAKER_18	Okay, go ahead. Thank you.
SPEAKER_06	Okay, so if you want to move to the next slide. So this is just like a general overview of short-term rentals in the city. So the city uses Granicus Host Compliance. We've partnered with them through a contract to help us monitor all the short-term rental activity in the city. So as a brief snapshot, so as of July 14th, there were roughly 635 short-term rentals in the city, of which we only have 175 registered short-term rentals. So there's roughly 460 unregistered units. One of the difficulties that we have is that on booking websites like Airbnb or Vrbo, these platforms don't list the address until after you book it. So it's kind of difficult to find exactly where these places are. So host compliance helps identify them for us. But even with that, they've only identified about 66% of all listings. Um, and we also use host compliance to send out violation letters when we've identified a unit that doesn't have a certificate of registration through the city. And to date we've sent roughly 480 violation letters, and this includes properties. I've also become compliant either by getting a certificate of registration or removing that listing or changing it. So it no longer meets the definition of a short-term rental. Uh, and then just in general, there are seasonal variances. In short term rentals when they advertise and we usually see the highest number in the summer months or with graduation season. So another brief breakdown of the of the registered units in the city. But 63% of them are operator occupied meaning people are renting out the their own unit that they live in. Whether it's individual bedrooms or they're renting as a whole when they're away from the property and 37% are owner adjacent. I'd say the vast majority of these properties are between single and two-family houses, roughly about 100 or so of the 175 are in that category. And the vast majority, up to 98% of people that have registered through the city say they use Airbnb, with the second company most popular being Vrbo with about 14% of registrations. So the next following slides are just going to briefly break down the ordinance language that's changed. So one of the things that we wanted to change was the definition of a short-term rental from any duration of a stay of less than 30 nights to anything of less than 28 nights. One of the reasons behind this is because we wanted to make it clear with the surrounding cities and towns to match what they have so it's not as confusing for people when they're trying to see what what's required so a couple other cities like summer home in boston have 28 days so we just wanted to make it simpler and then there's also some people that use intermediaries to post on these booking websites and sometimes there's issues where they set a minimum stay to a month and it goes down to 28 days so think in most cases they're trying to stay within the spirit of the ordinance but sometimes there's a little technological problem that comes through on that and that's why i think 28 days would at least get rid of some of those as well for the definitions that are changing we wanted to change the definition of an operator occupied short-term rental currently you can rent up to three bedrooms individually under this type of registration but If you are away from the property for more than seven consecutive days, you have to rent out the property as a whole to one party. We did want to switch it so at any point that you are not at the property, you have to rent that as a whole so there aren't strangers living amongst each other without an operator present. If they do want to rent out individual bedrooms, the operator would have to be there at the time of the rental. The next changes are that we wanted to make sure that, kind of like what I said, that the operator must be present when renting up to the individual bedrooms. And we did change, sorry, can you go back? And then we just wanted to make sure that all short-term rentals comply with not only the building code, but also the sanitary code, the fire code, and any other state and local requirements for occupancy. One of the restrictions to the current ordinance is that we can only request transaction records for owner adjacent units, which again was only about 37% of the ones that we had, and we weren't allowed to ask for any transaction records for Operator Occupy, which is the vast majority. So we do think that by adding this, we'll be able to get more information and kind of make sure that people are following the requirements of the ordinance. We also added language that says we can any booking agent or person that accepts a fee for a short-term rental that's not eligible can be fined $300 per day and each day of the violation should be a separate violation and then inspectional services can seek an injunction from a court prohibiting the offering of the short-term rental. Additionally We want, ISD would like the ability to provoke or prohibit any registration that has any building zoning, sanitary or fire code violations. Currently, there's nothing in the ordinance that would give us the ability to revoke something once it's been issued or to prohibit anything. So, yeah. We don't think that any of these Additional changes should add any restrictions to people who operate short-term rentals. The main reason behind this was to give ISD more ability to enforce the ordinance and clarify the language. In doing so, we looked at several other cities and towns around Boston, such as Somerville, Boston, Springfield, and Quincy. And we also looked at other places around the country like New York City, East Providence, Rhode Island, and Key West, Florida. I think overall that these changes kind of reflect good parts of all these city ordinances and she'll help us enforce the safe uses of short-term rentals while also providing us the ability to revoke, suspend, or prevent registration for safety violations. I think that's it.
Mary Flynn	Okay. Did anybody from the team Lila department. Anyone else want to add anything before we go to public comment?
SPEAKER_03	No, I don't think we have anything to add at this time. So if you wish to go to public comment, we can do public comment. And then we can shift back to the plan.
Mary Flynn	Yeah, perfect. Okay, so as we've discussed, this is a public hearing. Any members of the public who wish to speak should now click the button that says raise hand. If you're calling in by phone, you can raise your hand by pressing star nine. As of 5 p.m. yesterday, the board had received no comments on this petition. Written communications received after 5 p.m. yesterday will be entered into the record. So let's just see if we have, there are many, let's see, many participants on the line, but I think most of them are here for the second hearing. All right, I am not seeing any hands. Jeff, can you just confirm that that's correct?
SPEAKER_13	I don't see any hands either. This is Jeff. I'll just repeat the instructions in case somebody missed it. This is the public hearing on the short-term rentals ordinance amendments. And if you would like to comment on that, this is a public hearing and this is the public comment portion. So you should press the button on your Zoom that says raise hand if you would like to speak on this hearing. And if you're connected by phone, you can press star nine on your phone and it'll do the same thing. And you just, you only need to press it once and then we'll see that you're waiting to speak. I'll give it just a few seconds.
SPEAKER_00	Sure.
SPEAKER_13	So I'm still not seeing any hand. So I'll turn it back over to the chair at this point.
Mary Flynn	All right. Very good. So we're going to move on from public comment portion to board discussion. Additional written comments may be submitted for the record. To begin with, do board members have questions for either petitioners, law department staff, or CDD? Tom, let's start with you.
Tom Sieniewicz	Thank you, Madam Chair. Just simply, I want to go back to first principles. I understand that modifications here will allow for enforcement of the ordinance as it stands. But I want to understand, what's the problem we're trying to solve here? We've all, I think, heard stories from around the world the overuse of these sorts of rentals have destroyed cities, right? Reykjavik is famous for being a very, very difficult city to live in because everything is Airbnb. Do we have that kind of problem? Can somebody just quickly say what's going on in Cambridge? Why do we need all these enforcement powers?
SPEAKER_18	Sure. Peter McLaughlin, Inspectional Services. To answer the question, I think it has a lot to do with safety. When someone has a short-term rental that's not registered, that means that we don't go in to make sure there's adequate egress, there's emergency situations that could come into play where they don't have smoke detectors or carbon monoxide detectors. That's one of the main reasons. And the other one is for the community that surrounds the short-term rental. If someone is renting out their unit and they're having parties and there's bad behavior, there's people out in the street being loud, Right now, we don't have any mechanism to take the short-term rental away. And with the small changes we have, if people violate certain rules and regulations, we have the ability to take away their short-term rental to save that community, to save that area. So yeah, that's one of the main reasons is safety and the community to make sure that people aren't being disturbed. They're not party houses. They're, you know, for people who want to see their son or daughter graduate and they, you know, and it's not, you know, rent out a whole unit for a house party. So that's what we're trying to, and not that we're having a lot of those problems, but we do have problems that we cannot enforce because of the way the ordinance was written.
SPEAKER_06	Thank you.
Mary Flynn	James, if you want to add something, go ahead.
SPEAKER_06	Yeah, if I could just add on to that. The provision, too, to be able to find the booking agent themselves, like the booking platform, I think would help because we've, in discussions, talked about how we disincentivize them from posting unregistered units in the first place. I know there's some legal challenges with it, and I defer to the law department on that, but I think the ability to issue fines to those booking agents hopefully dissuades them from posting unauthorized listings. And it kind of echoes, again, the reason why is for the integrity of the neighborhood, but also for safety concerns when we can't get into a unit to see what's going on in there.
Mary Flynn	Great. Thank you. Dan, what is your question?
Dan Anderson	Yeah, thanks, Madam Chair. And I guess as a follow-up to Peter, it sounds, you know, certainly I have no objection to into this. It's just similar to Tom's questioning. It seems like a fairly few number of units and things like noise disturbances are typically Cambridge Public Police, not, I don't know that we've got building inspectors going out on, you know, response calls. But the question is really, is it an issue that we're needing to address in zoning because there's not state level? Because we're not asking for people to register their rental unit for long-term stay. And the same issues arise in terms of, hey, are there smoke detectors? Is it up to code? Does it meet sanitary? Obviously, those things Things come about if the tenant sees that they're in a slum condition, landlord's not taking care of it, heating, that kind of thing. The owner of such a property should ultimately be responsible. So I'm just getting a little bit of clarity, again, scope and issue of the problem and how much, again, No real objection to obviously maintaining health and safety, just trying to, again, wrap my head around what the issue is.
SPEAKER_18	Sure, Tom. I'm sorry, Dan. It's just a question that you're right. There's not a lot of it going on, but if you live in a neighborhood where it is going on, where you have people renting out multiple units and there's parties going on a lot, And yeah, the police do show up and they have, say for example, they show up three, four, five times. The police can't take away their short-term rental, right? And then we can't take it away no matter how bad the behavior is, because we don't have a mechanism to do it. When it comes to enforcement, I would defer to the law department. because we do write violations and we do try to do the best we can, but it's complicated. And I think the law department would be better to answer that portion of it.
Mary Flynn	Makes sense, thank you. Elliot, do you or any members of your team wanna talk a little bit about enforcement issues?
SPEAKER_03	I think briefly, just to add, I think as was noted in the presentation, there is sort of an issue relative to the registration portion of the issue where, as you see, there is a disconnect between the number of short-term rental units that are presented by these booking websites compared to the number that at least per city records are actually registered. So I think part of the goal behind the proposed zoning amendments is to allow for more options and more mechanisms to be in place to enable that enforcement to encourage that registration so as to, again, ensure that whatever units are being presented by these booking agents as short-term rentals There can be an assurance that they are registered with the city, that they are compliant with building zoning, building fire codes and other state safety codes. And that to the extent that there are violations, the city has additional options relative to ensure enforcement and compliance. Cindy, I don't know if there's anything else you want to add to that.
Mary Flynn	No, okay. Good. Thank you. We'll move on then.
Ashley Tan	Ashley? Thank you. I think my question is along the same veins, but my first intuition was that why is this not regulated by, say, the License Commission, who also regulates lodging houses, dorms, inns, which are very kind of more in a similar category. And so I was just wondering, in your research of other cities,
SPEAKER_03	are the other cities also regulating these using zoning or is it licensed commission or some other commission yeah thank you um who would like to take that um i'll defer to cindy relative to how other municipalities sort of approach this issue but i think we can certainly say from the city's perspective short-term rentals are regulated under our zoning ordinance. So because of that, this is the process that we have to follow in order to make amendments to that. So I think at least in terms of the city's perspective, the reason we are taking this approach is because short-term rental ordinances are governed under our zoning ordinance. And I believe it is similar, at least with other communities in the Commonwealth, but I know I defer to Cindy who's reached out to some of these other communities.
Mary Flynn	Cindy, did you want to add?
SPEAKER_14	Thank you. Happy to answer that. This is a common construction and method that other municipalities are using to enforce the code violations through the Inspectional Services Department. This is what Quincy does. This is what Boston does. And inspectional services is the appropriate department for it, as both the Commissioner and James alluded to, because inspectional services can go in, they can evaluate a property, see whether or not there are any code violations, there are any building hazards. and things along those lines. So I would say the way that we've construed our ordinance is similar in nature to what surrounding municipalities are doing and is appropriate given the concerns that may arise from any given listing or property.
Mary Flynn	All right. Thank you. Peter, I see you have your hands up. Did you want to add something?
SPEAKER_18	Yeah, just really quick. It is mandated by the state building code that short-term rentals are in the state building code as a periodic inspection that has to be inspected every five years. So it falls under the, in the state, you know, every city and town has to or by where, so that's, it landed with the building code. So that's why ISD has it because of the life safety issues. So yeah, so it's something that's required by building code.
Mary Flynn	Great, thank you for adding to that. We have a question from Joy.
Joy Jackson	Yeah, just have a kind of a clarifying question or process. So is it not the case that it's like a prerequisite to submit some sort of indication of registration before listing on the website? Just trying to get a sense of like how that discrepancy kind of has come to be?
SPEAKER_18	Sure. I believe James could answer that better than anyone. Go ahead, James.
SPEAKER_06	Yeah, when people put these advertisements on booking websites, there's no cross-verification between the advertisement and our records to make sure that something is verified. I think Airbnb might ask them to post a registration number, but it's not verified in any way. And there's just been kind of difficulties on what we can require these platforms to do in general when it comes to somebody advertising on their website. And then I don't know if the law department wants to talk more specifically on like the limitations of it or what we can or can't ask them to do.
SPEAKER_03	I think just to add to that, I think that's sort of one of the motivations relative to the proposed amendments that are being suggested that requires record keeping and requires these short-term rental units to provide additional information to the city upon request. So the idea is that this enables the city to gather information just to ensure verification, to ensure compliance, and to ensure that what they are presenting relative to these websites is actually accurate in terms of our own records and our own registration.
Mary Flynn	Is there anything being proposed that's sort of unique to Cambridge? I mean, it sounds as though you referenced changes that others, you know, that we're making that other cities and towns already implement. So are we basically just, you know, ensuring that we're kind of consistent or is there anything new in this that's different from what anybody else is doing?
SPEAKER_18	I don't, I do not believe there's anything new. What we took in, like Sydney said, we looked at other communities and we try to take what was working as we talked to them, what rules and regulations that they had in their ordinance that was helping them. And I think we did, we added, but we didn't, none of the changes are, See you at Cambridge is the only city doing it.
Mary Flynn	Okay, great. Thank you for that.
SPEAKER_03	Yeah, and to add to that, and Sydney could also speak to this, there was a close analysis as to what other communities were doing just to ensure that we were not doing something that, say, would be novel or something that would be contrary to the law and thus could potentially be challenged, and if challenged, subject to perhaps lawsuits and overturning of the ordinance. So I think that the goal was to ensure that there were additional enforcement tools and mechanisms available to ensure compliance with the ordinance, but not going so far as to be contrary to the law or potentially make it subject to legal challenge by Airbnb or some of these other short-term vendors as they have challenged other laws in other states and things like that.
Mary Flynn	Okay, great, thank you. We have another question from Dan.
Dan Anderson	PB, Jorge Boone & Yeah, just as a follow up on. And this is probably just the query on the legal side. But if you know, heaven forbid, something happened to somebody in a registered unit that had been inspected, would it open the city up to some form of liability.
SPEAKER_19	That's absurd.
SPEAKER_03	I think... Hey, I'm not an attorney.
Dan Anderson	I'm just asking questions.
SPEAKER_03	Yeah, I think every, as they say, every case is different relative. I think I would submit that in the event that there was an injury at a short-term rental place, the nature of that injury would relate to those that were opening it up to that rental and the persons that were injured and potentially the platform itself relative to that. I think that again, the purpose of code enforcement is to ensure that the property is in a safe and habitable condition in keeping with state law. We have as a municipality, a duty relative to our codes to ensure those standards are kept, but that in turn doesn't, I would submit, subject us to any heightened sense of liability relative to HAB-Jacques Juilland, You know, a homeowner's responsibility to ensure that their properties is safe and habitable and entry there. So, so I would submit that it is unlikely that HAB-Jacques Juilland, That the city would be potentially implicated in any injury that occurs on a premises, just because we are ensuring proper code enforcement and compliance with our laws.
Mary Flynn	HAB-Juliette Boone, Great. All right. Any other questions for the team before we move on to discussion. Okay, seeing none. So our decisions this evening are to either make a recommendation that the petition be adopted, or we can recommend it not be adopted, or we could also just send comments to the city council for their consideration. We also have the option to continue the hearing, but it seems as though, given the questions and the limited scope of this, that that won't be necessary. So let me just open it up for discussion and your thoughts. Ted.
Ted Cohen	Well, it seems to me this is pretty straightforward and clear-cut. Then I would strongly recommend that we make recommendations to the city council that they adopt this. It's not new. The city council in its wisdom adopted a registration requirement several years ago. The numbers that are coming from the law department and ISD showing the number of people who are not registering. And this is simply to make clear what has to be registered, when it has to be registered, and includes an enforcement mechanism so that the city can really see that what it is requiring is being followed. uh i also in in addition to the comments that they've already made about the why of registration i remember when it was first discussed uh one of the main issues was that neighbors not just being concerned about parties but concerned about people coming and go coming and going at all times without them having any knowledge of what was going on in the house or the dwelling unit and with registration at least the neighbors will know that this is a registered use and that people do come and go and that there's an enforcement mechanism if it's being abused So it seems to me this is just to clarify after the experience of the past couple of years what needs to be done to make sure that the registration requirement is complied with and has a mechanism to enforce it if there's a problem.
Mary Flynn	Thank you, Ted. Very nicely summarized. Tom, what are your thoughts?
Tom Sieniewicz	I don't have much to add other than a plea to give Commissioner McLaughlin the tools that he needs to enforce the ordinance and also Mr. D'Angelo. So I appreciate the thoughtfulness that they've put into this. So a very strong endorsement to the city council to act on this quickly.
Mary Flynn	Okay. Do any board members have other thoughts or disagree with any of the petitions provisions? Ashley.
Ashley Tan	Thank you. I was going to say the same thing as Tom. At first, I was a little concerned given how much detail extra granular there was in the zoning code, but if ISD is willing to take this on and it makes sense. I think my original thought about licensing commission was just thinking about lodging houses because those also need a certificate of occupancy from building, but I don't know when at some point was decided that all the extra granular details be regulated by another board so it doesn't seem like we're at that point yet but if that ever becomes a concern or if you know ISD does not have all the resources then just wanted to point out there is other ways to make sure we can keep an eye out on short-term rentals great thank you for adding that okay anything else from the board
Mary Flynn	No, okay. I would say then that we're all in agreement that we want to make a recommendation, a strong recommendation to adopt the petition to provide inspectional services with the tools that the department needs to enforce the short-term rental provisions and program. So could I have a recommendation And then to adopt the petition as quickly as possible.
Ted Cohen	This is Tom. So moved.
Mary Flynn	Thank you. Tom, is there a second, please?
Ted Cohen	Ted, second.
Mary Flynn	All right. Very good. And this vote will be by full board members. And Jeff, would you give us a roll call vote, please?
SPEAKER_13	On that motion, Ted Cohen. Yes. Mary Leydecker.
Mary Lydecker	Yes.
SPEAKER_13	Diego Macias? Yes. Thompson Avich?
Tom Sieniewicz	Yes.
SPEAKER_13	Ashley Tan?
SPEAKER_21	Yes.
SPEAKER_13	Carolyn Zern?
SPEAKER_21	Yes.
SPEAKER_13	Mary Flynn? Yes. It's all seven members voting in favor. Great.
Mary Flynn	Thank you. Thank you to all the city staff, law department and ISD. And I hope that this really does, well, that first that it does pass the city council and that it provides you the tools you need. Thanks for the great background and your good work. Appreciate it.
SPEAKER_18	Thank you very much. Appreciate it.
Mary Flynn	All right. Sure. Thank you. All right. We're going to move on to our next agenda item. And this is an advisory design consultation of case AHO-8. an affordable housing overlay project proposed by HRI 30 Wendell LLC to construct a new eight-story building to create 95 affordable rental units and amenities and 77 long-term and eight short-term bicycle parking spaces with a gross floor area of 110,803 square feet at 28 to 30 Wendell Street. We're gonna begin with CDD staff explaining why this is before us. Then we're gonna have a presentation from the developer, followed by public comment, and then the board will ask questions and discuss the proposed design. So with that, I'm gonna turn to Evan, who's going to provide the summary.
SPEAKER_09	Thanks, Mary. So this is the first of two required planning board advisory consultation sessions for this AHO project. This is the same advisory review process the board is used to for these kinds of projects, these AHO projects. But the multifamily zoning petitions that were passed in February have repositioned this process to apply to all residential developments, at least 50,000 square feet, not just AHO projects. But it's the same process before. AHL projects that are less than 50,000 square feet no longer need to go through a two session review process, but projects that exceed the height normally allowed under base zoning are required to go through one planning board advisory consultation session. But for this case, it's the process as the board is used to. And just as a reminder, the AHO creates an alternative set of development standards that apply as of right for housing developments in which all units are made permanently affordable. The purpose of this design review is not for the planning board to grant or deny a permit, but to provide advisory comments on the design and its overall conformance with the city's urban design objectives and guidelines, which we've provided and summarized in memos from CDD and DPW. The planning board will issue an initial report on the proposal and the applicant will return to the planning board for a second design review session with an updated design that is responsive to questions and comments received prior to and up through tonight's hearing. With that, I will turn it back to the chair.
Mary Flynn	Thank you, Evan. Our presenter this evening is Eleni Mukrakis. Eleni, you will have up to 30 minutes for your presentation. Please be as concise as possible. And if you would start by introducing your project team, please begin.
SPEAKER_25	Thank you, Chair. Good evening, everyone. My name is Eleni Mukrakis. I'm a project manager at HRI. I'm joined by Sarah Barkan and Kate Gilmore on my team. as well as Gabby Aitchison from Icon Architecture. And Gabby will pull up the presentation. Okay. Can everyone see that, hear me okay?
Mary Flynn	Yes, we can. Thank you.
SPEAKER_25	Okay, great. So good evening, members of the board, city staff, and folks joining from the public. Again, my name is Eleni Makrakis and I will be presenting HRI's 2830 Wendell project this evening alongside Gabby Aitchison from Icon Architecture. I believe most of you are familiar with HRI and Icon, but as a quick refresher, HRI is a nonprofit developer here in Cambridge. We own about 1500 rental apartments in the city and pride ourselves on an iterative and forward-looking design process with resident comfort and sustainability top of mind. Icon is a women-owned architecture firm in Boston and a leader in sustainable design, specifically in the affordable housing world. Gabby Aitchison is our lead architect on this project and will be presenting the building design after I speak about our project goals, community process, and ground floor program. Whenever we start designing a building, we think about our core goals. For 2030 Wendell, these are affordability, streetscape activation, and sustainability. Affordability is always the top priority for HRI, and this is in line with city and state goals of creating new affordable rental homes in great neighborhoods. This building is no different and will be 100% affordable under the affordable housing overlay. We will also be exploring various subsidy programs to include deeper affordability for our lowest income residents. The second goal streetscape activation is something that we've been thinking about since the start. The baldwin neighborhood is a very walkable neighborhood and we want to make sure that we are designing spaces along wendell street that are engaging and that expand the sidewalk space. Street scape activation extends to building design and with that we have the goal of creating a welcoming facade through material and color selection and ground floor features gabby will go into this in more detail later in the presentation. Our third project goal sustainability 2030 wendell will be an all electric enterprise green Community certified passive house building. So just a quick project overview, as I mentioned, this will be a fully income restricted affordable rental community for individuals and families, we are intending for this to be an intergenerational community of 95 apartments. 40 homes will be age restricted one bedroom apartments for for older adults and 55 will be family homes, with a high percentage of two and three bedroom homes. The building will primarily consist of spaces for residents. However, we will also have a community hub that will be available for resident and neighborhood use. I will discuss this in more detail in a few slides. Over the past year, we have had many touch points, both with this community and with city staff to ensure that we are designing this building holistically. Overall, we had over 15 meetings with city staff from housing, urban design, transportation, zoning, sustainability, The Department of Public Works and the fire department, we will continue incorporating feedback to refine our design and program. Starting in the spring of 2024 we hosted several on site in person meetings and smaller group meetings with neighbors. We also launched a website for folks to find more project specific information, as well as provide a platform for comments and questions. In fall of 2024 and spring of 2025, we also presented to the Baldwin Neighborhood Council and the Porter Square Neighborhood Association. In addition to the smaller scale meetings, we hosted three AHO hybrid community meetings. At our final meeting in March, we introduced an open house format, which allowed us to more fully engage with community members and provided the opportunity for all attendees to provide feedback. We heard a variety of comments about cornice design, facade patterning, window grouping, plantings, and community programming. We were also able to bring in physical material samples and attendees voted on their preferred brick, siding material, and stone look material. Over the past year, we have heard many questions about how the building will operate and how HRI will make sure that things are running smoothly, both on a systems level and for residents of 2831. On the next few slides, I will talk through the ground floor design which includes spaces for operations, residential, and community programming. The ground floor includes the majority of the building's operational spaces. It includes parking for building site staff and visiting staff, like a visiting nurse, a management office staffed by a professional management company. This will include a full-time property manager who will be onsite to work with residents on lease-up, income certifications, and respond to apartment-specific questions. Along with the management office, we will have an onsite maintenance office and full time maintenance superintendent to make sure that building systems are working efficiently. Residents are comfortable in their homes and that open spaces are kept tidy and neat. Together, the management and maintenance staff will ensure consistency and building operations. A large bike room will have 77 indoor spots and includes a separate entrance from the side of the building. In addition to the operational side of things, we want to make sure that the residents of 2830 Wendell have a variety of community spaces. As you walk into the lobby of the building, you will see a large community room that overlooks the back courtyard. This space will be used for anything from a vaccine clinic to a holiday party to a community meeting. Around the corner, but also along the back courtyard, is the sunroom. This will serve as more of a lounge space we envision our older adult residents using this to read enjoy the sun and gather in small groups throughout the day. And lastly, across the hall from the Community room will be to quiet rooms for individual or small group study meetings this type of space has been very popular in our other buildings, so we want to make sure to include it here. Our Community engagement staff will have access to two spaces a meeting room at the front of the building next to the residential entrance. and a larger resident services room that can be used for group meetings or activities. We anticipate having a full-time community engagement coordinator and a part-time services coordinator for our older adult residents. We are proposing a community hub space that will be available for use for the larger community. We have heard from neighbors and the larger Baldwin community that there is a desire for a space that can accommodate a variety of activities, such as additional afterschool space, dance classes, cooking classes, wellness trainings, financial education, crafting groups, computer classes, in-person neighborhood gatherings, and more. The hub will have a separate and unique entrance from Wendell Street. There will be a classroom-sized space and a smaller meeting room. The hub will also include separate bathrooms and storage space. One other community space that isn't pictured here but will be talked about a little bit later on will be the outdoor Little Free Library to continue the tradition of having a lending library on site. Gabby will show you on the site design when she speaks a little bit later. I will now turn it over to Gabby to take us through the building design.
SPEAKER_17	Thanks, Eleni. As the architect for this project, I will share the current building design as well as the site design. The exterior design for 28 to 30 Wendell has evolved over the course of multiple community meetings and, as Eleni mentioned, an ongoing dialogue with the city. The four images that we show here are snapshots that display the milestones in that process. In June of 2024 was the first community meeting. We presented the design shown here with a nine-story main mess and seven stories on either side. With this design, we established our core project goals based on several conversations with city housing and urban design staff. And we integrated into that into the basis of design, which has been consistent through each design iteration. That includes breaking down the massing of the building into distinct zones, the use of brick to relate to the context, and grouping of windows to add visual interest. In November of 2024, we presented the design shown here at our second community meeting. The most dramatic change is the updated height of the building. It was reduced from nine stories to eight, at the main body and six stories on either side. This is the final height for the project. This design also had a slight increase in the amount of brick, a simplification of the front entry trellis, and we explored a more traditional base middle top design. We used warmer colors and explored groupings of windows. There was a much positive feedback from the community on the use of brick. So in March of 2025, at the third community meeting, there was a pivot in the strategy of how we were distributing the brick across the facade. In this case, we used it just at the bookends for the full height of the six stories, which is a significant increase in the overall use of brick and helps it to relate to the six-story masonry buildings in the neighborhood. We enhanced the brick through additional detailing to reinforce the datums and soften the edges. This is a more subtle base middle top strategy, further articulated with the central portion, which has window groupings and accent colors. We started to focus more on the ground floor exterior. We updated the entry to be flush with the building and created a welcoming canopy in lieu of a trellis. After our March community meeting and open house, we also met with housing and urban design city staff to continue to push the design forward. And we worked to integrate the city and the community comments into the current design, which is shown here, August 2024 first planning board meeting. And this iteration, the body is more regular. We removed horizontal bands and we started to test out cornice designs, given the feedback that we received at the community meeting. There was an overwhelming majority vote for the desired brick color, and so we utilized that and the color palette was further refined. So we take a closer look at the current design with this enlarged elevation and axon. This version has a refined rhythm that is set by the vertical sections of siding and the varying widths of the windows. You can start to see the soldier coursing at the first and second floor, which relate to the low-rise buildings on the street. And the cornice at the top of the brick reinforces the six-story datum and more particularly relates to the six-story brick building that's further west on Wendell Street. The next couple of slides will show elevations on each face of the building and how the design transitions from Wendell Street to the sides and rear. You can see on the front elevation to the side, the bookends of full brick transition at the corners. They wrap the corners. And as you transition from the sides to the rear, we have five-story bays that wrap to the rear and also into the courtyard. The bays break up the massing of the building while maintaining the interior square footage that is needed for our gracious dwelling units. To take a closer look at the materials shown in the elevations previous, we have a variety of colors and textures all that are outlined here, and the goal is really to have complementary colors that also create contrast and add some depth to the facade. As I noted, the brick was really a favorite among the community, as well as the city and development team, and there was also a favorite for the stone look siding that is at the base of the building and wraps all the way around. While those were clear favorites, we are open to exploring color and texture options for the other sidings that we are presenting here. The ground floor of the building has many textures, including that stone look. We're also integrating storefronts, canopies, and that brick patterning. Energy efficiency goals are incorporated into this exterior design, and we have a high level of continuous insulation for this building. One advantage of having so much continuous insulation is that the windows can recede into the facade, so that creates shadow lines and helps to add further depth to the building. We're utilizing a dark bronze frame color to bring in warmth and relate to the storefront frame. You can see in these images, there's part of the window that has a thicker frame, and that's the operable portion of the window. We ensure that there's at least one operable window in each of the residential spaces. We're looking to group the windows thoughtfully. So at the brick, you can see we have a stacked bond brick between two windows to help them, to unite them and make them appear larger, as well as the stone lintel above them. At the siding, that translates to a transparent middle between the two windows and further relates the two sections of the building. The brick detailing that's shown on the previous slide as well as shown in this image here are possible because we're utilizing full brick instead of thin brick. So we have the stacked bond between two windows to group those, as well as in some storefront areas. We also have the stacked bond adjacent to one window to help that appear larger. You can see at level one and two the soldier coursing, as well as the detailing at the corners that are a modern interpretation of coining. There's two distinct entries along Wendell Street. One for the hub that Eleni mentioned, as well as the main entrance to the residence. They're distinct but complementary in both form and material, with the residential entry purposefully reading as the main entrance, and these are set at the same scale, so you can see how much larger the main entry is. They're further distinguished by the landscaping and site design, and both are looking to integrate signage, lighting, material, which we are continuing to refine. The most important images that we can share with you today are that of a pedestrian and how they would experience the building as you walk through the neighborhood. So starting from the furthest away, this is at the corner of Oxford and Wendell Street looking south. You can see how the brick bookends relate to the brick building that's across the street and the inspiration for the cornice there. If we walk further down Wendell Street, still facing south towards Mass Ave, You can start to see some of those details that I mentioned in the previous slides and how that those shadows bring depth to the facade. If we walk closer to the building in front of the hub space, you can see there's a high level of transparency on the ground floor, which is meant to make that spaces feel inviting. There's a variation in setbacks along Wendell Street to help create different moments for pedestrian experiences. And we were careful to provide wider sidewalks at the entry points, which are further complemented by the landscape design. We keep walking down Wendell Street, but in this case, facing north, we are directly adjacent to that little lending library that Eleni mentioned. You can see here the brick detailing where we're protruding some of the bricks for a playful design adjacent to the library. We're looking to explore the options that full brick gives us. And you can also see in this image, the entry canopy and the signage and how it delineates that main entry. Shifting to the rear, This facade presents a unique and different experience, and we're looking at a lighter color palette towards the top of the building. So a lot of these spaces were seen in the renderings previously, but to take the whole full site in at once, this is the site plan where Project North is True North. So with the building shape and orientation that allows for a primary outdoor gathering space and seating at the south-facing courtyard, The fact that it's facing south means it has excellent access to daylight and that the majority of the building shadows land in the street. The outdoor spaces on the north side, which you saw in the renderings, activate that streetscape with seating, bike racks, and the free little library. And those are listening through different plantings, hardscape, and furniture. The plantings are also used strategically to create separation. At the front, we use it between the seating areas and the sidewalk and at the rear between our parcel and the parking to the south. We take a closer look at the areas, outdoor areas along Wendell Street starting on the west side at the Little Free Library. There's a playful concrete seating on permanent, sorry, permeable accessible surface where a pedestrian could stop and do a book swap. Further down Wendell towards the center is the residential entry area. We have a bench under the canopy and then a area of sculptural seating and movable furniture in a more organic form. And those plants separate that from the sidewalk. There are six bike parking spaces in between the little library and the residential entry. The last space shown here is outside the hub area. We have seat wall steps that define the plaza. This is a more geometric space to make it more distinct. And in this area, there are four bike parking spaces. Focusing on the rear, the courtyard allows for a range of activities with spaces defined by a trellis, furniture, and nature place seating. There is accessible permeable surface throughout. The seating intended across the site has a variety of materials, size, shape, color, and that's allowing for a range of uses, both communal and private. We're aiming to provide comfortable armchairs for older residents and also looking to engage pedestrians. The entirety of the hardscape, aside from the drive lane, will be permeable, and there's a variety of scale, colors, patterns available. We're exploring as well options for shade in the courtyard, such as the trellis that's shown here that can help further define that space. The plantings proposed for the site are a combination of trees, shrubs, and low plantings. All of these are native and all of them are drought and shade tolerant. Highlighting what our next steps are, we will continue to refine the design of 31DL and review options for the front canopies as well as the cornice. In terms of the cornice, looking at how that integrates with structural and the feedback that we had from the community meeting as well as the city. For the canopy, looking to incorporate signage and lighting and materials, as we further iterate. We've collected samples of each siding that we've shown here in this presentation and we've shared that with the community as well as development team members and city staff and are happy to explore variations. We were also able to review those both in sunlight and shade and see how they would work on each facade. We have started the 2020, the Article 22 submission and we have submitted for pre-certification under FEAS for passive house design. And we're going to continue to coordinate with our engineers. We look forward to the city's design feedback and have enjoyed the iterative process. Thank you.
Mary Flynn	Thank you. So does that wrap up your presentation?
SPEAKER_17	It does.
Mary Flynn	Yes. Thank you very much. Okay. Then we're gonna move to public comment. According to the zoning, we do take public comment at these design review sessions. Let me see. I would like to remind speakers that the board's action is not to approve or deny an application, but to provide advisory comments on the design that was presented this evening. Any members of the public who wish to speak should now click the button that says raise hand. If you are calling in by phone, you can raise your hand by pressing star nine. As of 5 p.m. yesterday, the board had received written comments from Rachel Plummer, Sarah Block, Maria Fontelio, Ethan Frank, Itamar Turner Trowering, Ben Wergaft, John Frank, Peter Nonberg, Theodora Liv, Brian McNebo, Kathleen Higgins, David Harris, Matt Begedodo, and Joel Bard. Written communications received after 5 p.m. yesterday will be entered into the record. So, let me just see. All right, it looks as though we have a few... people who wish to speak. There are a lot of participants on the Zoom meeting from the public. So I would ask anybody who's planning on speaking to raise your hand now so that we can make a determination on the length of time speakers will be permitted. Okay. At the moment, we have 10 speakers. Is anyone else planning on speaking this evening? If so, could you please raise your hand now? Okay, it looks like we have 13 speakers. So I think I'm going to drop the time to two and a half minutes. Because I just want to be sure that there's plenty of time for planning board discussion. So with that, I'm going to ask staff to unmute speakers one at a time. Please begin by stating your name and address and staff will confirm that we can hear you. After that, you'll have up to two and a half minutes to speak before I ask you to wrap up. So Jeff, I'm gonna turn it over to you to unmute speakers.
SPEAKER_13	Thank you. This is Jeff Roberts again. I'll start that right away. Just to note, I'm going to read the next speaker and then the following speaker so that the following speaker will be ready to know that they're up next. And so we'll proceed. The first speaker is Kathy Higgins, who is followed by Sean Hart. So you can unmute yourself to begin with your name and say your name and address to start. Thanks.
SPEAKER_10	My name is Kathy Higgins. Can you hear me?
SPEAKER_13	Yes.
SPEAKER_10	Okay. I live at 345 Norfolk Street, Cambridge. I'm just very excited that HRI has transferred this empty lot into such a vibrant, attractive design for the 95 affordable homes. I strongly support the proposed eight-story building. as a furthering of the city's goals for affordable housing. I attended two out of the three of the community meetings in person, and although there was opposition from neighbors, I was heartened to hear the many voices of those who expressed a great deal of support for the plan for affordable housing at this location. One commenter that I recall vividly framed the need by sharing the plight of workers she saw at nearby Lesley College who at times had to sleep in their cars as they couldn't drive to their homes far away and back in time to start their next shifts. Another person who spoke was saddened that the height was reduced by HRI from nine to eight stories, as that meant 15 less families would have the opportunity to have safe, affordable housing. to try and ease the fears of those abutters who do not like the scale of this building. Many people added that they live next to or near a large affordable housing buildings and it was fine. The neighborhood would welcome them and the diverse range of neighbors that would have homes there would be welcome addition to their area. HRI has been very receptive to community feedback, incorporating it in the design, the amenities for the site, and many addition of setbacks and more. It has been pointed out that the Baldwin neighborhood has less affordable housing than many neighborhoods in Cambridge, so this development is long overdue. Lastly, the need for this type of housing is so great. As HRI pointed out, their last affordable housing lottery for a 98-unit building was resulted in over 2,700 applications. Thank you for your review of this wonderful building. Thank you.
SPEAKER_13	Thank you. The next speaker, I apologize, I might have misspoke. The next speaker is Teresa Cardosi, who's followed by Benjamin Wergaft. And I apologize if I've mispronounced anyone's name. And if I'm saying the wrong name that came up on the Zoom, please correct me by saying your name when you start. Thank you. Theresa Cardosi is next.
SPEAKER_31	Hi. Can you hear me?
SPEAKER_13	Yes.
SPEAKER_31	Okay. So my name is Theresa Cardosi. I live at 7 Woodrow Wilson Court. I just want to say this is a great project and it's gone through a lot of changes because of community input. And mostly I want to emphasize the extent that HRI took community input into consideration. The project was originally going to be all family size homes, but it was redesigned because of feedback to make it a combination of homes for elderly 62 and over and for families. So as it is now, there are 95 homes. Total, originally it was gonna be 110 homes. So right now it's 40 homes for 62 and over. They're all one bedroom and no studio. So that's great. And 55 homes for families, 25 are two bedrooms and 26 are three bedrooms. And as Kathleen said also, the large bedroom homes are really in great need and elderly on fixed incomes are also really in need. I think combining the two generations is a good idea too. It's kind of like extended families of grandmothers and grandfathers. Anyway, another change that was made is they reduced the height from nine stories and the smaller part of seven stories to eight stories and six stories. And unfortunately, because of the change, there were 15 lost homes. So that was eight one-bedroom elderly people that don't have the home. Three two-bedroom families don't have the home. And four three-bedrooms, those people don't have a home. And this is a huge loss, and it shows the commitment that HRI had to the community and their wishes by doing that. No setback is required at HRI, but they have setbacks. And they decided on the setbacks before the first AHO meeting. It was at a walkthrough way back in April 2024. And the people were interested. They wanted setbacks. HRI redesigned before they even had the meetings to do that. And that's another just example of how much they're taking into consideration community input. Thanks for your time.
SPEAKER_13	Thank you. The next speaker is Benjamin Wergaft, who's followed by Theodore Live.
SPEAKER_01	Thank you so much. Can everybody hear me? This is Ben Wergaft speaking.
Diego Macias	Yes.
SPEAKER_01	Thank you so much to the planning board for your time and attention. Thank you to HRI for your presentation. To reintroduce myself, my name is Ben Wergaft. I grew up here at 35 Wendell Street. We are a Butters to HRI's project. And I'm here to register my deep disquiet about this project and its scale. Even given the stated reduction from nine to eight floors, the building relates, as was said in the presentation, to the buildings around it by dwarfing them. It's simply a colossus that completely changes the character of the street, with implications not only for those on the street already, but for those who will live in the building. It is, I believe, a nowhere, a building that could, as one commentator put it by correspondence, be a local branch headquarters of a Verizon. It is a kind of a non-place, superimposed upon a place with a deep and historic character. A brick facade does not do this. However, my deeper objection is is to the way HRI has handled neighborhood feedback, changing the format of their town hall meetings, to suppress the kind of resistance they were receiving from the neighborhood to their project, from their second to their third meeting. I am requesting and have done so by correspondence as well, sharing a petition that we've circulated. I'm asking the planning board to look very closely at this project and recommend amendment on the issues of height, mass, and scale. Thanks so much.
SPEAKER_13	Thank you. Sorry, I had to unmute myself. The next speaker is Theodore Live, who's followed by Sean Hart.
SPEAKER_33	Hello, can you hear me?
SPEAKER_13	Yes.
SPEAKER_33	Great. My name is Theodore Live. I'm at 17 Wendell Street. And I believe that the impression that HRI gives of support from the neighborhood is misplaced. As far as I can tell, nearly everybody in the neighborhood feels the building is completely out of proportion to where it's located. I mean, it seems to be a fine building on its own, but it's just the wrong location. It's not like Finch, which is out on Concord Avenue in an appropriate location. It's issues like setback have not been dealt with sufficiently. All the surrounding buildings, which are two and a half story Victorian, have setbacks of about 20 feet. And this structure would be virtually up to the sidewalk. The one case where HR reported having overwhelming support was for the choice of brick, which is a fairly minimal issue from the neighborhood's point of view. It's the scale of the building, the shape of it, that just seems completely inappropriate to the area. And I think I'll end my comments there.
SPEAKER_13	Thank you. The next speaker is Sean Hart, who's followed by Matt Begadano.
SPEAKER_28	Hey, can you hear me?
SPEAKER_13	Yes.
SPEAKER_28	Cool. Yeah, so I'm not going to speak for long. I just wanted to register my really strong support for this project. I think it's really clear from the presentation and from the various rounds of feedback that developers here have received that they're really trying to make this work and got to keep our eye on the prize here. There's so many families, so many people that are going to get housed here that otherwise could not. As other speakers have said, it's unfortunate that they lowered the height by a floor, but I understand that was a decision that was made. But really, this was the idea behind the upzoning. These kinds of projects were what the city, what we all wanted to promote. And so this is us now getting that. And so really, I want to applaud the developers here and just really want to emphasize that I support this project and that we all should. Thank you.
SPEAKER_13	Thank you. The next speaker is Matt Begadano, who's followed by Zannie Alter.
SPEAKER_20	Hi. Good evening. Thank you for holding this meeting. Some of you may know me. Certainly, I work in the affordable housing business. I was the vice president of CWC Builders for nearly 40 years and built affordable housing quite a bit in Cambridge, including for HRI. I did the rehab of Jefferson Park in the 80s, amongst others. And I won't speak. I'm obviously a member of the neighborhood as well. I live in the neighborhood a few blocks up on Oxford Street. I won't speak to the massing of the building. People have already talked about that. I see problems with this in terms of cost. I don't know what they're figuring for cost right now, but I can tell you I can guarantee it's going to come in quite a bit higher than what's been shown thus far. And there will be a time when reality will have to be met in terms of dealing with the cost of this building. I don't know who's going to pay for the overrun now, if the city will kick in money. I have no idea. There was, we had a previous meeting where I suggested that they take a look at mass timber, particularly cross-laminated timber. I don't have time to go into what that is. I'm working on a transit-oriented project in Dorchester, 150 feet from the Shawmut T-stop. It happens to be a four-story building. We were able to take literally in a four-story building five feet off the building using that particular type of construction type. It's not cheap, but it's well worth looking into. There's other issues with infrastructure, parking. I believe it's unrealistic to feel that there will only be, there will be no parking for, and people won't have cars in the building. They will, they'll park in the street. It's hard to park in the neighborhood. There's also electrical service will have to be upgraded. Sewer, sewer is problematic in the neighborhood. There's all kinds of issues to be dealt with going forward. I do suspect that this building will be scaled back because of cost. That's my suspicion. Thank you.
SPEAKER_13	Thanks. And could you repeat your name and address for the record?
SPEAKER_20	Yeah, it's Matt Bagadano, and I live at 118 Oxford Street.
SPEAKER_13	Thank you. So the next speaker is Gabe Malseptic, who's followed by Susan Stockard.
SPEAKER_27	Hi there. Can you hear me? Yes. Hi, this is Gabe Malseptic. I live at 31 Wendell Street. Appreciate the time tonight and the presentation. I know you're busy. I'm one of the abutters, and I'm delighted that we have affordable housing coming into the neighborhood. Halfway down the block, we have a new Cambridge Housing Authority couple of units that are enabling folks to stabilize and get back on their feet, which is great. And I know it's a vital linchpin for people's lives. And so I think the spirit of the proposal is great, but in its current form factor at 90 feet, it's pretty monolithic, as others have said. This neighborhood's three to six stories about, and most up and down the block. And so as is, it's just going to dominate the area. Someone mentioned there's no consideration for parking except for their own staff. The developers, very slick. They're very sophisticated. Their community engagement process is very selective. They enthusiastically raise up and coach people who agree with their designs, but give last minute sort of half-baked responses to any kind of dissent, which is frustrating. And so even in tonight's renderings, you can see there was some tactful use of angles and distance from the building because it's otherwise very obvious that this thing looms large. I'm concerned about the amount of density without parking in an area that is a vital route for first responders and school buses between Oxford Street and Mass Ave. And it's also sounds like it'll be a bit of a depot for their commercial and service operations for some of their other buildings as well. Um, we've been pretty, uh, excited about proposing a more reasonable six story scale. Um, and so, you know, as far as, you know, the whole concept of NIMBYism, no, we're saying yes, but just something a little more reasonable that fits into the neighborhood so that we can truly integrate and have a fresh crop of neighbors in the area. So I'll yield the rest of my time and thank you for it.
SPEAKER_13	Thank you. The next speaker is Susan Stockard, who is followed by Justin Safe.
SPEAKER_23	This is Jim Stockard. My wife has been kind enough to let me speak in this slot. We live at 141 Oxford Street, a few blocks from this development. I'm very enthusiastic about this development, largely because I want to think of it as families and elderly residents who will have a chance to live in our neighborhood in an appropriate place for them. We've heard a few numbers tonight about the need for affordable homes in Cambridge. The idea that every time a new development opens, there are 10 times as many applicants as there are apartments. And it is really important to me that we welcome people of all kinds. I love the multi-generational nature of this building. The fact that we'll have some older residents as well as some families with children. We have a wonderful school in this neighborhood and some of the kids will be able to go to that school and their parents will be able to walk them to school. We have a number of services in this neighborhood which will be helpful for the elderly residents. And I want us to think about families and not about units. And I think there's plenty of room for these families. And I want us to compare the need of those families to be in a safe, permanent, warm place that they can afford in many cases near to some other critical resource they need. and make that the highest of our priorities in Cambridge and let the height of the building, the amount of setback from the street fall into place behind that important goal. So I hope the planning board will give a favorable response to what I think has been a thoughtful and careful process by HRI. and one which is worthy of the citizens of our neighborhood and the citizens of our city. Thank you all for your service on the planning board.
SPEAKER_13	Thank you. The next speaker is Justin Saif, who's followed by James, I'm sorry. Justin Saif, who's followed by James Zoll.
SPEAKER_29	Justin Safe 259 Harley Street. I want to express my strong support for the proposed affordable housing building at 28 Wendell Street. I think the latest design looks great and will fit into the neighborhood well. I think it relates well to other buildings nearby, some of the Leslie buildings, as well as other buildings in the vicinity. It is, of course, on the first block off Mass Ave, one of the concepts that the city has been exploring as it looks to meet the numbers for both affordable housing and all housing. in order to bring down rents, but also meet our envisioned goals, is thickening corridors. So it was part of that concept. would be to allow the first block off of major corridors to be taller. And obviously this comports with the requirements of the affordable housing overlay, which were necessary in order to make it possible to build affordable housing. And even with that reform to zoning, it's still basically a miracle that any affordable housing ever gets built. given the challenges to finance it. Turning this lot into affordable housing will greatly improve the neighborhood and study after study shows that reducing parking spots reduces carbon producing traffic and it's going to be an environmentally friendly, green, sustainable, resilient building consistent with Cambridge's high climate sustainability and resiliency goals. The location, you know, as was said, is very near a school. That will be great for the many families who will come to call this place home. And there's many other local neighborhood amenities that, you know, will benefit from having this. additional patrons and also the foot traffic. And I want to thank you all for your consideration.
SPEAKER_13	Thank you. The next speaker is James Zoll, who's followed by Louis Wergaft.
SPEAKER_19	James Zoll, Thank you. This is James Zoll, 203 Pemberton Street. I hope the concert that my neighbors are having next door isn't coming through, but if case it is, I apologize. James Zoll, I am pleased and pleasantly surprised by the result that HRI and Icahn Architects managed to come up with in spite of a very long and intense community engagement process. I think this is a great building. I think it adds to the character of the neighborhood, which is largely residential, as is this. I am impressed by the efforts involved in in designing something that would be appropriate for seniors as well as families with children. I attended two out of the three community meetings and I've attended many meetings on the AHO over many years and I hold my breath each time the AHO process brings forth another, bears fruit in another way. This one survived. I'd like to thank the city. for passing the AHO and enabling this kind of building to happen. I also regret that the process involves so many community meetings, which, despite HRI's best efforts, tend to bring out the worst in people. I also regret the loss of 15 homes when the need in the city is measured by far more digits than that. All in all, it's a great job. I'm happy that it came through unscathed, more than unscathed. It, I think, is going to, in time, be a great addition to the neighborhood. Thank you.
SPEAKER_13	Thank you. The next speaker is Louis Wergaft, who's followed by Zannie Alter. You can begin by unmuting yourself and giving your name and address, please.
SPEAKER_35	Okay, I think so. Can you hear me at this point? Yes. Okay, my name is Lou Wergeft at 35 Wendell Street in Cambridge. As one of the abutters, the shadow that would be cast by this building will fall more heavily. on us and particularly on the garden that my wife has been cultivating for the last 25 years or so. But the concern about this project is not just with the abutters, but with a large number of community members who have signed our petition. There are over 300 signatures on it as has been submitted to the to the planning board. And I want to first say that as a community, we welcome affordable housing. And our opposition has been entirely to the scale and the scope of the building that HRI would like to construct. It's completely out of scale with the existing surrounding buildings and it does not fit in. I'd also like to address the appearance that there's been a really cooperative relationship between HRI and the community in planning this building. It's true that HRI has been responsive to issues of relatively small scale, but they have completely ignored the growing feeling in the neighborhood itself that this is an inappropriate building. That feeling reached its crescendo in the second November meeting of the board, and HRI cunningly eliminated open public comment on the project in the third building. So there's a lot of unhappiness, appropriate unhappiness about the scale of this building. And I'll have to conclude, I guess, with that.
SPEAKER_13	Thank you. The next speaker is Zannie Alter, who is followed by Joel Bard.
SPEAKER_15	Hi, everyone. My name is Zannie Alter. I live at 35 Pemberton Street. And I would like to speak to my real appreciation and gratitude for this project. I've been really impressed over the past few months with how HRI has both listened to the community and adapted their project to follow what the community has specified, even though others on this call don't feel that way. I work with young people from the city of Cambridge who go to college at Bunker Hill Community College. I've lived in the city my entire life. And it is so important to have more spaces where students who graduate, low-income students who graduate from CRLS, can continue to live with their families. And I'm really looking forward to having more spaces in Cambridge like that, especially in the Baldwin neighborhood, in this mid-Cambridge area where we need more affordable housing. And this design, I think, is really important. beautiful and seeing the 3D mock-ups I thought was really exciting. And I'm so happy to have a partner like HRI building this with the city and really hope that the planning board gives it strong recommendation to the city council or to the city, however this process works exactly, to support the work that HRI has done. And I actually thought that the third meeting was a really wonderful way to integrate voices of folks who came to see the work that the folks who have been working on this project have done and give interactive feedback instead of just having so many voices shout over each other. And so I was really appreciative of that. And I will just thank everyone for all of their hard work on this and commend everyone who is helping to create more spaces for low income folks to live and stay living in Cambridge. Thank you.
SPEAKER_13	Thank you, and I feel like I may have taken you out of order, so I apologize for that. The next speaker is Joel Bard, who's followed by Rachel Plummer.
SPEAKER_32	I thank you. Yes, it's Joel Bart. I live at 51 Wendell Street. And Sandy, it's a pleasure to speak after you even though we don't agree on this project. So I do live on Wendell Street, I'm fortunate to live across Oxford Street, so I won't be affected directly by the shadows of some of the neighbors you've heard from will be. But I should say at the outset, that the neighborhood has always welcomed affordable housing, social services, housing, housing for the formerly unhoused, which we welcomed within the last year. And there's lots of Section 8 housing in the neighborhood. Yes, we are smaller scale, but there are a lot of affordable housing units around the neighborhood. The concern really is scale. And I have to say to the architects, I'm really disappointed in the presentation. I believe there were three slides of the front of the building. Not one of them showed any of the buildings that represent the scale of the neighborhood in the background was always the one brick building a fabulous roughly 100 year old building at the corner of oxford and wendell it's about five stories high a lot of units there and it's it's perfect for the neighborhood good location good scale good design but uh i think your slideshow needs to be more honest it needs to show the proposed building in the context of the the wood framed older structures And the issue obviously of scale is less of a concern for neighbors who live four or five blocks away and elsewhere in the city, of course. And I should add as well that the neighborhood is warm and we will absolutely welcome all new residents. The issue again is really the scale of the building. So planning board members, I hope you'll look very closely at the context, the scale. Clearly, that's something that you're very good about, and we certainly are going to look forward to and appreciate your thoughtful review and comments. Thank you.
SPEAKER_13	Thank you. The next speaker is Rachel Plummer, who's followed, it says by Justin Safe. We're only, just as a note, we're only, everyone will only speak once. I'm just, I'll check to see if that's another speaker under the same account. I'm sorry, Rachel Plummer, you can go ahead.
SPEAKER_21	Thank you. Hi, everyone. My name is Rachel Plummer. I'm a resident at 10 Wendell Street, just down the street for where this proposed development will be going. And I'm here to express my wholehearted support for the development as it's proposed. I really appreciated the process that HRI undertook for this development over the course of many months. Despite extreme tensions within the neighborhood, I think that the most recent community meeting reflected a need to make more space for more voices to be heard. I frequently give public comment at meetings like this at city council. And I was frightened to give public comment in the first and the second community meeting. I was heckled at one of them. And so I think that voices of people who support this project were not uplifted or heard among neighbors who were viciously opposed to the project. And I think that this may be uncomfortable for the neighborhood, for me included. It'll make parking more difficult. It'll be a larger structure in our neighborhood. And I think that being a little bit uncomfortable is necessary in situations like this where housing needs are so dire. Thank you.
SPEAKER_13	Thank you. I've seen some hands go up and down. The next speaker is Esther Haining. There are no other hands raised. So if you were intending to speak and you didn't speak already, you can push the raise hand button or star nine. If you're connected by phone, you only need to press it once. If you just press it once, the hand will stay up and You'll be in the queue and we'll know that you want to speak. So while this last speaker is speaking, just if you haven't spoken yet and you want to speak, now is the time to push that button. I'd ask you to do that. So we'll go to Esther Hainig next.
SPEAKER_30	Hi, my name is Esther Hainig. I live at 136 Pine Street, number two. And I'm very, very happy to be able to express my strong support for the 2830 Wendell Street project. As a longtime resident of the port, I know the joys of having a diverse neighborhood. I'm very pleased that the Baldwin neighborhood residents will be able to also enjoy intergenerational neighbors from varying economic backgrounds. I applaud the addition of 95 new new badly needed affordable homes, given the incredibly pressing need that we've already heard about many times for affordable housing. And having served on the board of CNAHS for many years, I know and deeply respect the array of very critical resident services that HR staff provides. I also want to commend HRI for what I consider to be a very well-designed building. Not only is it aesthetically pleasing, but it also picks up on the architecture of nearby buildings. I also like the recessed height at street level and the very attractive streetscape being presented. I hope that all of you planning board members will share my deep enthusiasm for this project. Thank you for your consideration.
SPEAKER_13	Thank you. And we have one more speaker, Lucy Angles. You can unmute yourself and begin with your name and address, please.
SPEAKER_12	Hello, my name is Lucy Angles. I live at 47 Wendell Street. I am here to express my strong support of the project. While I do understand and appreciate my neighbor's concerns about scale, It will have a strong impact on the neighborhood. However, as someone who has grown up in Cambridge and who is hoping to be able to continue to live in Cambridge following my graduation for college, This project is very, very important. And it does matter that it is in the Baldwin neighborhood. I love our neighborhood. I am so glad I have had the opportunity to live here. And I think it is very important that more families have the opportunity to live in this neighborhood. And so while this project is not without flaws, um it is going to make a big impact on the neighborhood and change a lot of people's lives and i hope they would as it did for my life and my family and that is why i am very strongly in support of this project thank you so uh that is the list of speakers i'll turn it back over to the chair
Mary Flynn	Okay, thank you, Jeff. And thank you to everyone who spoke or wrote into the board. And as was mentioned earlier, you can still submit written comments after the meeting. So we're now going to move from public comment to board discussion. Do board members have any questions? We can start with questions and then move to discussion.
Diego Macias	would like to begin Diego hi I have a question for the proponents the applicants and I kind of thinking about the slide where you showed the community meetings and the development of the design I'm wondering if at any point there was consideration to go narrower and step Diego Bufquin- Like towards the Center a little bit in the massing sense to step higher and then narrower to sort of blend into the neighborhood context, a little bit more um I think I think that's just my only question that ever came up.
Mary Flynn	TAB, Thanks Diego and who on the project team get um. Melanie, did you want to?
SPEAKER_25	Yeah, I can. It's an interesting question. So you mean, instead of having a building that's across the site, have it more in the center and higher up?
Diego Macias	Yeah. So sort of like there was a multifamily design guidelines and there was this diagram that I really loved, which was like you have the neighboring context and then the massing of the building sort of steps up so that it sort of blends into the neighborhood context more. So, yeah, I would step up, say, like four or five, six stories and then go to like eight stories in the center or 12 stories. However, however tall it needs to be, like satisfy the unit requirement that you have right now, for example.
SPEAKER_25	Yeah, it's definitely an interesting idea because we have large family units that definitely restricts us in how we design our floor plates. We like to stack our floor plates, you know, very efficiently. It also, you know, the higher, the taller the building, the shadows would cast in different ways. Right now we're actually casting pretty minimal shadows across the street, mostly in the winter. But it really does come down to how we design the floor plate, the elevators, and then the added cost to go higher than eight stories when you kind of get into that even higher high rise. Gabby, if you have anything to add, you can chime in.
SPEAKER_17	No, I just think that with the changing landscape of the AHO provisions, we were also further limited when we started schematic design on how high we could go.
SPEAKER_13	Thank you.
Ashley Tan	Ashley. Thank you. I had a question about the if there are any, you know, transportation demand measures, just given that I was looking at a map and according to Google, I don't know how accurate it is, but it looks like the site is about 0.6 or 0.7 miles away from the closest train stop, which is, you know, kind of a walk. And so given there is an elderly population, I was just wondering, you know, what types of transportation might be planned. And particularly, for example, if there is, You know, say, for example, like a paratransit van, like the ride or door to door that needs to park. Does that park in building or does that park on the side of the sidewalk? What are the plans for that? Thank you.
SPEAKER_25	Yeah, great questions. In terms of transportation, connecting to other public transit, there are a couple bus lines on Mass Ave that connect to Harvard and to Porter Square. So I would imagine that if someone doesn't want to walk to the red line, they'd be able to hop on the bus there. We do have a robust bike room that will be for all residents. In terms of people who need to visit the site or need to pick someone up, they'd be able to pull into the small garage that we have or even the driveway so that they could pick someone up, just like any kind of ride would do on a residential street. But we are working closely with city staff on transportation demand management, and we would look to offer some kind of move-in Charlie card, you know, fully kind of funded passes for folks to start using, and then also connect folks to various low-income programs that there are out there with the city. We have a really robust resident services program with HRI, and we have, we'll have an on-site person who'll be able to connect folks to support. So we're not expecting residents to just move in and not have any kind of connection to resources. They would have someone who would help them figure out those resources. And as we get to know our residents and do our surveys that we do right when people move in, we'd be able to better, you know, figure out what they might need.
Mary Flynn	Great. Thank you. Ted, let's go to you next.
Ted Cohen	Yeah, I'm just wondering if there's anyone present today on the proponents who have samples of the materials that you're proposing for the building that we can see. and uh another question is relating to materials is also uh plans for the garage door which is unfortunately you know smack dab and right next to the entry or next to the library and right on the street gabby do you want to take the garage door and i'll get the samples prepared
SPEAKER_17	Sure. Yes. To be clear, Ted, did you want to see the samples live here or were you asking to see them, to set up a meeting to see them in person?
Ted Cohen	Well, I'd love to see them in person at some time, but I was hoping you might have them today that we could see them. Yeah. Yeah, Eleni has them in her office. I think there's an awful lot of gray on the building, but you've indicated that you were open to further discussions about the color scheme. And so I was wondering, rather than looking at a drawing, whether you actually had them present.
SPEAKER_17	Yeah, Elenia will gather them. I can speak to the garage door. So the garage door location is at the current curb cut on the site. So it's pretty limited in width and the building is set back from the property line by eight feet on that side. So there's a little bit of space for someone to pull in. And then we're working with HRI on how that access would work with the garage door itself. It's an overhead door that we're working to have security, but a kind of a remote switch for whoever would need it so that they could pull in.
Ted Cohen	Well, I'm also, thank you for that information, but I'm also interested in the aesthetics of the garage door. Got it. What it's going to look like right on Wendell Street.
SPEAKER_17	Sure. We are still specifying the exact door to be used, but we're definitely open to comment on how you might want to see that. Right now it's just a paint color that kind of matches the adjacent brick.
SPEAKER_25	um so it's not meant to be prominent but um you know still working through that design as well thank you okay i have some samples but i will warn you that i'm not under uh outdoor light lighting so i think if we did want to schedule time to see them in person that's probably the best way to see um okay so this was the brick um so it does have some variation You can see that when I change it, it really changes in color. So I recommend us to schedule a time to meet in person. So that's the brick. This is the main color, which actually reads greener in person. So in the sunlight and even in shadow outside, it reads very green.
Ted Cohen	That's the granite for the first floor.
SPEAKER_17	No, that's the main body above.
Ted Cohen	That's the main body above. Is that what's listed as willow gray, I think.
SPEAKER_25	Yep. Yep. Willow gray. And then you asked about the base. So this is the base. It has a lot of textures. You can see And it feels it has kind of a grainy texture. And then these are the various accent colors. And yeah. But i'd be happy to schedule time we actually did do this with the urban design team we we had a time where we. met up in person and view these outside and shade and in sunlight, which I thought was very helpful, so if members of the board would like to schedule a time with with us i'd be happy to do that.
Ted Cohen	Well, thank you. Thank you for showing them. And I'll talk to staff and see if whether that's a possibility or feasible.
SPEAKER_25	I think we also may have some photos from when we had them all outside, and I can share that.
Ted Cohen	Thank you. Madam Chair, that's my questions right now.
Mary Flynn	Thank you, Ted. Appreciate it. Dan, let's go to you.
Dan Anderson	Thank you, Madam Chair. Just a couple of questions about height and massing and setbacks. When this project was a nine-story building, was the differentiation more of a five-story and then four-story above? I'm just thinking about the five currently six-story brick bookends, so to speak, and whether they've been consistently at that height. And then you just had another sixth floor, sorry, ninth floor above of the piece set back. Just in terms of the studies, I appreciated seeing several of the sequences of the change in design. So that's one question just in terms of the proportioning. And the other is in terms of the setbacks. When I first looked at this, I was kind of hoping that there was a bigger forecourt and obviously you've got south facing and some landscape in the back, but was there Have there been conversations about increasing the front yard setback and decreasing the rear yard setback? I know that particularly for the scale of this, it feels proportionally taller the closer it is to the sidewalk. So just two questions at the moment for proportionate at height and setbacks.
SPEAKER_25	Gabby, do you want to pull up the presentation with those, the evolution of the design? That'd be helpful.
SPEAKER_17	Yeah, so you can see here your question around whether the bookends were always six stories. They were always two stories below the top. So when we reduced from nine to eight stories, the bookends went from seven to six stories.
Dan Anderson	So no discussion of keeping the bookends shorter and going taller just with the more setback portion.
SPEAKER_17	We had looked at offsetting doing a 5, 7, 8 variation. We also have some limitations with the structural system and having two stories at the top that stacked and then all the floors below that that were the same lended itself better to the unit layouts.
SPEAKER_25	And just to clarify in the June iteration, the bookends, those are seven stories, full seven stories. So there wasn't a step back in the bookend itself.
Dan Anderson	Got it. Just a change of material.
SPEAKER_17	Yeah, sorry. Thank you for clarifying that, Eleni. Yes, this was just a change of material.
Dan Anderson	Okay. And in terms of the setbacks?
SPEAKER_17	So the forecourt is 19 feet, which is aligning with the other mansions and properties along Wendell Street that are in, like, the 20-foot setback range. The rear stood at 15 feet as part of the previous HO stipulation, and it allows for us to have a usable space back there for the residents, as well as... some back of house elements.
SPEAKER_25	So one thing that's probably not, I don't think was clear on the site design is that the condensers, that's right, Gabby, right? The condensers are in that, right next to the building in the setback, so they won't be visible to anyone on the street. And that was very intentional. We didn't, we wanted them to be out of the way. We wanted them to stay safe so that they don't get messed with, but also so that they're not kind of disrupting anyone's experience of the street.
SPEAKER_17	Yeah. So there'll be about 10 like suitcase size condensers for the hot water system back there, completely shielded by the fencing there as well as the plantings.
Mary Flynn	So can you just point out exactly where that is?
SPEAKER_00	Yeah, it's my cursor right here.
Mary Flynn	Right there. Okay.
Dan Anderson	Thank you. Okay. And so the rear yard setback was stipulated as a given from the beginning.
Mary Flynn	Yeah.
Dan Anderson	Thank you.
Mary Flynn	Okay. Carolyn. You have to unmute yourself.
Carolyn Zern	Thank you very much. And thank you, Madam Chair. Sure. No worries. We've all done it more than once. I appreciate that. I appreciate the proponents' dedication to the... affordable housing for both the families and for seniors and the commitment to passive house and the smaller window to wall ratio that that requires. And I really like the soldier course and that kind of visual interest that comes with that. I would encourage you maybe to play around a little bit more with window sills and lintels on those first and second story windows, just to kind of emphasize the windows as much as possible. I had a question about... The Trent next to the garage door, which has come up the transformer and the fire command and if they. need to be on wendell street or if that space can be activated, maybe with the quiet rooms or some other kind of interactive space. I don't know if if the utilities requiring that the transformer be in that location, but hopefully it's not and. I'm curious about how the roof, it seems like there's a fair amount of unused roof space, given that the condensers are on the ground floor. So curious about if there's any thought on kind of some additional sustainability efforts or anything else on the roof. And a quick question for city staff, if I can throw this in there. Just for my own education, I suppose, is that Cambridge Fire Department, do they review all large-scale development projects, both for kind of ability to kind of put out fires in the back of the building and things like traffic, any traffic concerns that might come up? So a whole slew of questions, apologies for throwing them all out there.
Mary Flynn	No, that's fine. Why don't we start first with the proponent on the transformer HAB-Masyn Moyer- ish suggestion and then also that unused roof space your thoughts on that were previous discussions that have been held, if you could just inform us on that.
SPEAKER_17	HAB-Masyn Moyer- yeah so the transformer has to be in a three hour vault and be accessible for any maintenance with the street we're not finalized with ever source, as you can guess it's a process, but that's through our discussions with them on the location. And the fire command Center similarly we had tried to put further into the building and the fire department had requested a door directly to the exterior, so that they don't coincide with people egressing from the front. And so that that was per their request.
Carolyn Zern	Can you clarify how that it's not obvious to me from looking at the plans, how, how that is that spandrel glass that you have on those spaces? What do you have at the ground floor on those spaces?
SPEAKER_17	For the transformer and the fire command center specifically, there's no openings other than the doors there. That's where the little library is and the like recessed brick detailing there. Okay.
Carolyn Zern	And have you talked through the roof?
SPEAKER_17	Oh, yeah. So we're planning for PV solar on the roof. HRI has engaged with a couple of solar consultants to figure out the capacity there.
Mary Flynn	Great. And Jeff, I don't know if you can shed light on where the fire department fits in on the review. I mean, obviously they've been involved because we're talking about their suggestions for where that command center should be located, but I can, I can also say that HRI, because, you know, we've been working in the city for so long.
SPEAKER_25	We always engage the fire department very early on because we want to make sure that they're comfortable with the building. And that of course, we're also designing a building that they agree is, you know, um safe and and to code um just like we use our code consultants to do the same thing with our architect um so we've already spoken with them once we met with them i think back in early march um and we would likely meet with them again um in the fall as we advance the designs thank you and the answer to your question is yes the fire department has review of all building permits okay so they they
Mary Flynn	They can comment earlier, but they definitely have review at the end. Okay. Yes. Thank you. Tom, let's go to you.
Tom Sieniewicz	Thank you, Madam chair. I have three comments, three questions, not comments. So you've been at this a long time. And in fact, such a long time, the zoning code has changed to the middle of it. And in fact, I can't tell you how much I appreciate the fact that even though, as of right, you could go much higher, you chose not to. And quite the reverse, actually. Your presentation tonight and the materials you submitted in support of the application revealed a process by which you lowered the building. And if you could just quickly summarize why you think this is the correct height to land at, given those circumstances. That's question one. Question two is, do you have a model and a model in context? In the olden days, when we used to meet in person, that was part of what was required was a physical model. And I think a lot of the questions that arose in public comment tonight around the height and massing could be judged and discussed more precisely with a model. But maybe in this format, You must have a digital model that's in context that we might be able to, at the next hearing, have a chance to assess some of those comments. That's question two. And question three is, I don't know if it's for staff or for you, but I'd like to hear from the proponent, the timing of this particular hearing. Obviously, the design is well-advanced, and so comments that the planning board might make are coming up against decisions that have been cemented over time. You know, as many of you know, I'm an architect and the process by which we do designs goes through phases. The earlier phases, it's easier to make adjustments. They're not as devastating in terms of the work or the financial implications that they are when you're further along the question around into some of where the utilities might be or, the details of where the fire department may enter or exit the building are things that can be discussed and manipulated earlier in the design, but are really, really difficult, if not impossible, at this point in the design. So I was wondering, how did we choose to review the design at this point of its evolution, which is fairly far along? So those are my three questions.
SPEAKER_25	HAB-Masyn Moyer- Can I can start and then gabby and Kate can jump in in terms of the size of the building, I believe that was your first question. HAB-Masyn Moyer- So, as you noted, we did start with nine stories, which was what was permitted under the age when we started this process we lowered it to eight. HAB-Masyn Moyer- But for a variety of reasons we feel that that's the right height, you know we have a mandate to. create affordable units from the city. It's our own mission as a nonprofit. We care deeply about low-income residents of this city. And this is a great, these two parcels give us the opportunity to build a significant number of units in a really great neighborhood that's highly accessible and does not have a lot of affordable housing to start with. So that was a really unique opportunity. There are, you know, costs that come into play, financial modeling that we do to make sure that the project is feasible. Land in Cambridge is expensive. And so even though we bought it from Leslie, you know, they had financial commitments on their end. And so we paid what we did. And in order to make it a calculation of, you know, per unit cost, we had to Anna Voelker, Decide what that kind of limit was in terms of the number of total apartments that we could do we did also change the unit mix we usually do fail all family housing in our projects and we decided to do this intergenerational. Anna Voelker, piece which we felt was the right move after some conversations we had in the neighborhood it also meant that we have 40 apartments for older adults, which also reduces the. Amanda Solliday- Demand on cars in the neighborhood which we've seen in the rest of our developments across the city so there's a lot of a lot of factors at play. Amanda Solliday- But we felt that this was really the the sweet spot So yes, nine stories would have been more more apartments, but we did hear that push back from the neighborhood and we wanted to honor that, but we do feel that eight is really where we need to land.
SPEAKER_34	Yes, I agree with everything Eleni said, and the only thing I'd add is directly related to the slide that you see in front of you, which due to the scale that we're able to achieve here, we have the on-site management office that is specific for this building and our on-site maintenance office. which are two, we believe, critical components to having a successful community. So we think holistically whenever we're working on a project and we, as a team, but also in close coordination and through a series of conversations, big and small, feel confident in what we've put forth as our massing.
Tom Sieniewicz	Thank you. Do you have a model?
SPEAKER_34	Like a physical model?
Tom Sieniewicz	Yeah, either physical. Well, in this format, probably digital works better. But if we could get together, I would appreciate a physical model. I don't know about others.
SPEAKER_17	Yes, we are fortunate enough to work in Cambridge, which has their own city model digitally, which is extremely accurate. And so we use that, obviously, as the basis and built up around that and added our own layers and landscaping. And we can definitely share more of that. to show how it lands in the context.
Tom Sieniewicz	And then lastly, my process question, how do you time? What advice were you given to say this is the right moment to get the cranky planning board's input?
SPEAKER_25	You know, great question. I think it's really hard to have the right timing for every group involved. So, you know, this is... You might feel that the project is... at a point where it's in its development, it's too hard to make decisions, but, you know, we wanted to make sure the community was involved in a lot of those design decisions as well as the city staff. And so I think there is a little bit of push and pull there. We wanted to present something to the planning board that we felt really confident with and that we felt proud of. We didn't want to come to you with an unfinished, you know, design. And that's why we wanted to show you the iterative process that we went through explaining why we made those changes over time. So, you know, I think there is still there is still space for for changes, you know we've we're still working on the cornices on the on the materials, I think, as you've seen between March and now most of those changes were material changes. And they make a big difference in what the design how the design is seen so. You might feel differently in terms of kind of the wiggle room of design, but we did want to come to you with something that we felt very proud of and that we felt comfortable presenting to you.
Tom Sieniewicz	Thank you.
Mary Flynn	Okay, so I think we've gotten through everyone's questions. I do just want to reiterate the need for seeing, you know, the 3D, I mean, you know, the digital model, whatever. It would be very, very helpful because I think, you know, what is lacking is a sense of a broader context on the street. And I know that one of the... One of the members of the public did notice that there was, note that there was a 3D mock-up that had been presented that was very, very helpful in the public discussion. So I think it would be very useful for the planning board as well. So with that, board members' comments on the proposed designed recommendations for changes, adjustments, things you like, things you don't like, who we'd like to be in.
SPEAKER_00	Mary.
Mary Lydecker	Thank you. So first, I want to say the public input was really helpful on this one. I want to commend the applicant on clearly engaging with the community, listening, and having a dialogue. Obviously, there are different points of view. And we understand that's the nature of any project. But I appreciate how much effort you all put into that. And thank you also to the public for sharing those thoughts. I'm going to uncharacteristically start with some architecture thoughts. I'm a landscape architect, so it usually goes the other way. So I think one thing is, I think relative to what Tom just described, but also I think some of the questions that Diego had about massing up or Dan had about pushing it back, I would just reiterate that if there had been a chance to be at all part of those kind of more massing projects, I would just maybe urge the city to think about how these are sequenced so that we can weigh into it because those were really interesting. But I think to Tom's point, I also recognize when a project is at a certain stage where it's past that. Now, my second comment is over the course of the design, it feels like you've ended up with a bit more of like a solid facade with two bookends. I feel like I've lost the base of the building. And one suggestion to think about is if you're using this full depth brick, as you described, and you're able to do kind of an interesting design. texture detail with it, kind of what you did at the little library, for example. It feels like that's a kind of minor insertion of it that could actually bear to have like more of a consistent patterning or texture all the way across that base. But whatever you do, it almost just struck me that because it was so one note at this one moment, it called out that that base really wasn't articulated as well as it could. So maybe just re-looking at that base and the facade onto Wendell Street, particularly also relative to some other of my colleagues' comments about the garage door and the fire command. So just knowing that that's going to be a tough area, making sure that the base feels articulated. Interested in The corners that that kind of corner brick detailing not sure about it yeah so i'll leave that to other colleagues or are you to keep thinking about. And then, now I own the last one, relative to some of ted's comments is especially the rear of the building reads is really Gray in tone. So to Ted's point, I don't know if in light it would feel different, but it did feel like it was lending itself towards lots of grays. And because I had lost the base of the building a bit, it felt very strong. So I think continuing to explore those material options and color options, especially with the city with an eye to that. Okay, now switching over to the landscape. So in contrast to Tom's comment, I would almost say the landscape feels to me like it's not that far along in design, and there is a lot of opportunity to improve and enhance it. It looks... So, okay, one of the challenges of this project, right, is it's stitching into a community, right? And it's challenging, right, because of the scale contrast. And it feels very piecemeal, the way the landscape... is designed around the building. And some areas, for example, the low walkable planting feel like maybe they're oriented towards you have some doors or maintenance, but they don't feel, they feel like they're going to be a weed. alley in the longer term. The back of the building in particular, it looks like this recreation space in one drawing, it looks like maybe it's artificial turf and another it's granular stabilized pavement, but there's no planting in this little kind of area between the sunroom and the room for residents. So I just feel like vegetation within that little area will also be important, whether that's planters that are engaged to the building or, you know, just something in there. And along the backside of the fence line, there's especially this strolling path and seating, this right opposite maintenance doors. It just doesn't feel like a very appealing place to be. And so I would encourage the applicants to really dig in again, how the landscape works all the way. around the building. And then the last piece on that, my last comment is the fence is going to be important in this project, obviously to make your neighbors feel comfortable and that you're doing everything to buffer them if they desire that. It looks like you have a solid wood fence. I would be interested to see more details or approach to the fence so that it doesn't read that reads appropriate to the scale of the building, the nature of the building. So just encouraging you to look at that fence selection and detailing to make sure that you're creating that beautiful edge condition for the residents, but also for the neighbors. So those are my comments. Thank you.
Mary Flynn	Thank you, Mary. Appreciate it. Tom, let's go to you next.
Tom Sieniewicz	Thank you. And I'll see if I can organize my thoughts here. So the Wendell Street first floor window system was referred to as a storefront in the presentation. And that made me think or reinforce this notion that I have when I was looking at the drawings that it looked commercial. And I really would question whether store is the right character to have on the first floor of Wendell Street in the middle of the block. I know there are institutional buildings around, but I think there's another way to think about those thresholds and that wall so that light doesn't spill out inadvertently on a late fall night so that it looks like a commercial front when I think that's not really the character of Wendell Street. I would say this was picked up by the staff in their memo around urban design. And you've alluded to some flexibility in terms of how you detail the cornice. And I think it makes a huge difference in terms of the way that you understand the height of the building, what your impression is of the building. And it was made extremely apparent when you compare the north and the south elevations. The south elevation has a two-story expression and a lighter color. And in fact, some of the precedent photographs and the materials submitted in support of the application were looking at these beautiful buildings on Mass Ave, the one that has marathon sports in it on the first floor, where the top floor or floors are considered a kind of an attic space. And I'm not saying that you lower the ceiling and make it hot and store things up there, but it just in terms of it being a wider top, you think about the top being maybe one story or two stories. It's expressed as two stories on the back of the building. there's a way to, rather than put that course at the very height, the very top of the building, to drop it down and you can dramatically change the impression of the height and bulk of the building, which is the central issue in the community as far as I, one of the central issues in the community that I heard. And so that architectural adjustment, those details, I'm sure you've got a very skilled architectural team here can play with that and figure out how you can affect that reading One of the other comments tonight was about character. Rather kind of devastating and searing comments, I thought, maybe unfair. But this coupled with the library, which you called in the presentation, the library was called something that was playful. And it may be playful, but that's not the way I think about it because it's actually very serious. It's something that recognizes a community asset that's been here near the site for a long time that's very real. It's not playful. It's actually sincere and real. And I think about all the other things in the community that are placemaking and real and full of character over on Sacramento Street that funny hand-painted sign about high energy metaphysics. It makes me laugh out loud every time I drive by there. Or the Maude Morgan Art Center that has a big part in not only displaying art, but promoting art amongst the community, which is amazing. That's just a block away. And then I think about what used to occupy the site, which was, well, I don't want to talk about it in the past tense. It's still very much alive, Lesley University, but that's an institution with a remarkable history, right? Which started out as an institution that supported early childcare, kind of invented early childcare as a discipline. It has a history of supporting people with developmental disabilities to mainstream them into life. Really fantastic thing. If there was some way that... the design could recognize that history or, um, even the fact that that school wrote back to the arts, uh, was one of the first places to invent art therapy to help people, uh, who are suffering. So, um, there's ways in which there's real history around this place, um, that I think through some details in the building could begin to make this building have some recognition of where it's from and where it's sitting. Lastly, well, the real brick, I think that's fantastic. It's wonderful. I critique often these buildings at how thin and unsubstantial they are. And I really look forward to the way that you'll avail yourself of that opportunity to use that material. You were talking about the window details and the reentered corners and stuff. I think this sort of substantial and carefully thought out detail will make a huge difference in terms of the presence of this building on the street. So I look forward to the evolution of those details and also seeing the model. Although, as Mary alluded to, it might be a hearing too late to be looking at massing. So thank you.
Mary Flynn	Dan, what are your comments?
Dan Anderson	Thank you, Madam Chair. A couple of comments and some requests. I certainly very much appreciate and echo both Mary and Tom's comments. I think I'll try and organize my thoughts a little bit as well, but I'd almost like to see more landscape in the rear and less in the front. I almost want to suggest hardscape. The views... particularly looking back down Wendell towards Oxford, make that sidewalk look extraordinarily narrow, and I think accentuates the height rather than allow you to be kind of feeling like there's a little bit of breathing room. But that may be just my interpretation. I want to back up a little bit and just sort of say that it's a really challenging piece to be responding to and looking to public comments and responsibility for managing scale and mass and heights. And clearly, we're in new territory with buildings of this scale into residential neighborhoods. And I think great if we can have a little bit earlier input, but our job is to sort of celebrate the ability to get more affordable housing, to have more neighbors, but then also to make sure that these buildings fit as best they can. So I think please take these comments for what they're worth. I would like to see, much as Tom mentioned, a little bit more care rather than storefront and perhaps a little bit of different distribution. I think the storefront material and larger glazing feels more appropriate to the taller portion and less so to the sort of hub and brick portion. I'd almost want to see different character to those. Programmatically, I'm assuming the hub is a community meeting room. I would rather see it more engaged internally than being a separate outdoor space. I think there's an opportunity for really engaging both the residents and the community. internally rather than having those be separable. I know that there's an interior connector, but I think it might be more effective if it was accessed internally and you had the opportunity to engage with the residents. In that light, I would I don't know if it's too late here, but it doesn't change the massing. But I don't know if it was a consideration to perhaps move the offices and switch it with the hub and have that hub and lobby and vestibule all part of a larger, more social gathering space. If there's an opportunity to shift around some interior programs. program this late in the game, I think that that might be very beneficial, might lend itself to more of that open gloom. I also am skeptical about the vestibule location and the entry. It feels really jammed up against the brick there. As I looked at the renderings, it helps to have that entry canopy extend out. But proportionally, I think that it would make architecturally more sense if it was shifted one bay over towards the east and looked at some potential reconfiguration of that lobby space. Courtyard at the rear, I know that you're working with unit sizes, but even for a south-facing courtyard, it feels tight. And I think that given that you can't really shift that much, I don't know if you considered actually having the common room and perhaps sunrooms opening out directly, whether they're sliding glass or other doors that could open and activate that space a little bit more, perhaps be more, you know, three season, four season in good weather. Obviously great to have those spaces have some sunlight in the winter. And so just looking for ways for this building maybe to breathe and engage with the outside a little bit more. And in particular, maybe engage the neighborhood a little bit more. If there was that forecourt was a little less planted and more forecourt and permeable to the outside rather than backing up against offices. I'd love to see that. And I guess then the request would be not only a model, but I'm assuming you guys have done a sun shadow study. I'd love to see the daylight and shadow impact on the neighborhood. And I do feel like this drawing set and presentation really didn't show context very well, either through the renderings or even site plan. So I have a hard time sort of understanding this in the context and in scale and in impact to the other buildings. When this comes back. That's my strong request is that we have a much more robust sense about the environmental and scale impacts of the of this building. Hope you take my comments as they're intended, which is I'm hoping we can make this continue to make this better. You guys are doing a great job. It's going to be great to have Affordable housing for elderly and families. So thank you.
Mary Flynn	Thanks, Dan. Ashley, let's hear from you next.
Ashley Tan	Thank you. First of all, I really appreciate that there is senior housing proposed for this site as well as larger family size units. I think that's very important for especially this neighborhood. I loved the idea of a sunroom and the different community rooms, given how cold our winters get, how extreme our weather is becoming these days. And similar to what Dan was suggesting earlier, one of the thoughts I... Looking at the plans itself, it felt that the... uh open space facing south seems you know cramp or very deep and so you know if there is a way to um flow into the sun room or even that resident room on the side or even the common area i think that'd be great just to like open up more space give it more uh flexibility or also just make it more fun and the place that people do want to spend time in I think that would be great. And what was I going to say? For better or for worse, looking at the earlier iterations of the building, there were some, you know, I think it was like variation in color or texture, which I think Mary alluded to earlier. You know, just like that variation that creates the sense of more depth and more decreases the building bulk a bit. I think that is great, something to think about if there's a way to incorporate just a little more texture, changes to break down what is now a more monotonous building into more parts. And I like Eric's comment. I think it was one of the first few comments in the urban design memo about it was like thinking about the cornice line on the A4. So that the it doesn't emphasize how high the building is, which clearly is a concern of the community. And so otherwise excited to see, you know, this building proceed. And I think it'll be a great addition to the neighborhood. Great, thank you, Ashley.
Mary Flynn	Any other thoughts from planning board members? Ted.
Ted Cohen	Thank you, Chair. I really like the building. I am especially pleased that we're getting, you know, 95 units of affordable housing in this location. replacing two very undistinguished building and a pretty awful tennis court. And, you know, the need for the housing is so drastic. that the city has adopted the AHO and the multifamily and we all have to go up higher because that's the only way we're going to get more housing. And I was very pleased to see this proposal. And I'm even more pleased at my colleagues comments about it because there are things that I had not thought about, but I think would be great improvements to it. I do like the brick. I think that really helps break down the size of it. I do like the cornice lines too, and especially when you compare it to some of the earlier iterations that did not have the cornices, they just looked like, you know, just square or rectangular buildings. But, you know, what my colleagues have suggested and what urban design people have suggested that maybe there are different ways to use the cornices. I don't know that I personally see the cornices as trying to mitigate the height. It is a building of eight stories, and it's always going to be a building of eight stories. You know, we're just going to have to get used to things being taller in this city to reach the goals we'd really like. I am concerned about how gray it looks in the drawings. A little surprised when you showed the the actual material, I thought it had a bluish tint in the drawings and you're indicating it has a greenish tint. So I hope that you give a lot more thought to the color scheme. And I hope you can do something more with the garage door. I mean, it's right there on the front of the building. And I understand that it's there because that's where the current curb cut is. And there probably is no other way of having an access into the building other than right off of Wendell Street. But just having a gray garage door is not going to add anything to the appearance of the building. um there are other alternatives or you know some sort of decor on the building to to make it to make on the garage door to make it uh more uh appealing i think that would be a good thing to do um other than that you know i i applaud my colleagues comments and hope that you take them all to heart it can you know you know, do something with all of them. Thank you.
Mary Flynn	Thank you, Ted. Let's see. Before we go back to you, Dan, I just want to check and see. We haven't heard from Joy, and that's fine. But if you'd like to say something, I'll get you in before Dan. But if you don't want to, that's fine, too. Or you can let me know. And Diego, yeah, let me go to Diego.
Diego Macias	I'll be short. I like the design, like the intergenerational components of the building that that was added. I think that's a really successful call for affordable housing and just a community. I actually just like the design the way it is. I like some of the little quirks that you had, like the little library and the brick that was alternating next to it to give some three-dimensionality. I like the bookends with the brick being full height i think it matches the neighboring break building but it also sort of breaks up as you go taller and towards the middle of the building um i agree with the you know rest of the planning board members i think i think they brought up some really good points I guess the one thing I'll say is the bike storage, maybe three feet in between the posts seems a little small for someone who has a cargo bike like myself. So maybe just think about having a little bit of wider spots for that. But yeah, I think it looks good. I look forward to the next review. Personally, I like 3D models. So if you do provide a digital model that I could orbit around, I think that would be awesome. But thank you.
Mary Flynn	Great. Thanks. Yeah, let me just throw in a few of my comments and then we'll go to Dan. I agree with a lot of what's been said tonight. I think people have had great, great ideas. I particularly like the idea of opening up the rooms in the back of the building to be able to go out into that courtyard. I think that's going to make a very, very big difference. I do think there's something about the building that just seems really flat to me. And it just... I'd like, actually I liked the March, 2025 version better. And maybe it's because the coloring was different or the way the material was applied. I'm not really sure. Cause I haven't looked at it enough, but right now I feel as though, you know, not only does it have like this office feel to it, but it just feels dull. And it doesn't feel residential to me. I mean, I know apartment buildings, it's hard sometimes to make them feel like they're unique and special. But to me, this feels much more like a Leslie dormitory or something. So I don't know. I mean, I think Tom's right in that you need to kind of honor the sense of place in Leslie. HAB-Masyn Moyer- I agree with his comments about that, but I don't think I don't think we need for it to look as dorm like as it as it does, in my opinion, now take it with a grain of salt, because i'm not an architect so i'm just telling you what I see is as an observer. But I mean, in general, having 95 units of housing is going to make a big difference. And I do like the mix of the family units and the elderly units or the senior housing. I think that's actually a benefit to the neighborhood because I think it will help with the parking situation. I think had it all been family, you would have had many more cars. Let me think. And I do think it is important for us to see it more in context because I agree with what some of the speakers have said and what some of the planning board members have alluded to as well, that what was presented showed a very narrow view of the site and didn't really give us the sense of looking a little further down the street. The building probably fits in better with the Oxford Street end of Wendell than it does with the middle of Wendell going up towards Mass Ave. So I think that's kind of one of the views we really need to take a look at. Again, as other people have said, it's kind of late in the process. I realize we don't have the ability to make major changes at this point, but I think that's really unfortunate. So I think going forward, I would recommend to staff that they encourage proponents to come in a little bit earlier than where we are today. I guess that's it for me. Okay, so I think we've covered a lot. There are some comments. I know, Brian, you're here representing the urban design team. Do you want to say anything about the comments in your memo or add anything to the discussion tonight?
SPEAKER_08	I don't believe so, but thank you. Hopefully they're pretty clear. And actually, I think I've learned a lot too. It's always really beneficial for us as staff to have the insights of the planning board to add to our review. So I really appreciate that. But nothing directly to add. Thank you.
Mary Flynn	Okay. Thanks. um okay um so any other final comments from board members um if not um we need to take a motion to conclude uh the design con this design consultation session and uh submit an initial report with our comments to the developer this motion again is for full board members so uh would someone like to make That motion.
Ted Cohen	Sorry. Ted so moved.
Mary Flynn	Ted, okay. Is there a second?
Tom Sieniewicz	Tom, second.
Mary Flynn	Thank you. Jeff, could we have a roll call vote, please?
SPEAKER_13	Yes. On that motion, Ted Cohen? Yes. Mary Lydecker?
Mary Lydecker	Yes.
SPEAKER_13	Diego Macias? Yes. Thompson Avich? Yes. Ashley Tan?
Joy Jackson	Yes.
SPEAKER_13	Carolyn Zern.
Joy Jackson	Yes.
SPEAKER_13	Mary Flynn.
Joy Jackson	Yes.
SPEAKER_13	It's all seven members voting in favor.
Mary Flynn	Great. So thank you to the project team for all of your work and your presentation tonight. Also thanks to all of the members of the public who joined in and gave us good comments for us to consider. concludes the business on tonight's agenda. So if there are any other additional comments from staff or planning board members, now is the time. No? All right.
SPEAKER_13	This is a lot easier with Swati. So I'm thankful she'll be back at the next meeting.
Mary Flynn	Yes. I can understand that. Logistics on Zoom are a little difficult. But you did great, Jeff. Thank you. um so all right that concludes our meeting then um the meeting is adjourned see you in two weeks good night good night everybody thank you everyone