Planning Board - Planning Board Meeting

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Meeting Title: Planning Board - Planning Board Meeting
City: Cambridge, MA
Date Published: 2025-07-22

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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_07	We have started the webinar and it is being live streamed through Zoom. So we should be able to start now since it's 6.30.
SPEAKER_13	Good evening. Welcome to the July 22nd, 2025 Meeting of the Pembridge Plan Award. My name is Tom Sinerich and I am the Vice Chair and I will be acting as the Chair for this evening's 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 Group. All board members, applicants, and members of the public will state their name before speaking. All votes will be taken by roll call. There will be no public hearings at this meeting and the board may take public comment at our discretion. Members of the public who are joining remotely will be kept on mute until it's time for public comment should the board be in . I will give instructions for public comment at that time. And you can also find instructions on the city's web page for remote planning board meetings. So this meeting is being video and audio recorded. There will also be a transcript of the proceedings. Please note that this meeting may not be seen, or may be seen, excuse me, may be seen and heard over a Zoom webinar, but not being streamed live on the City of Cambridge's online meeting portal or on paper television channel 22. So I'll start by asking staff to take board member attendance and verify that all members are accountable since the case on 1-5-1.
SPEAKER_12	Thank you, Tom. So I'm Jeff Roberts with the Development Department. We'll do this the old-fashioned way for people who are in the room, so you can just say present. H. Theodore Cullen, absent. Mary Lydecker, present. Diego Macias, present. Ashley Tan, present. Carolyn Zern, present. We have an associate member on the Zoom, Dan Anderson. Can you confirm that you're present and is the meeting visible and audible to you?
Dan Anderson	Yes, Jeff, present, visible, and audible.
SPEAKER_12	Thank you, Dan. Joy Jackson? Present. Present. Mary Flynn is absent. And Tom, as you noted, you are present and chair of the meeting. So that means we have one, two, three, four, five. planning board members present, and two associate members.
SPEAKER_13	Great. Thank you, Jeff. The first item is an update from the Community Development Department. And please also introduce any staff present in order to migrate to 2018.
SPEAKER_12	Thank you, Tom. Once again, Jeff Roberts, I'm the Director of Zoning and Development. It's exciting to be back here in a room with everybody. I'll let you know who's joining us. So with I'm not sure if the camera's going to pick up everybody that well, but Drew Cain in the Community Planning and Design Division is here, and Evan Spatrini is to his right. They're going to be talking to us a little bit later about some of the work that's being done. Swati Joseph has done a remarkable job getting this meeting set up for us, given some of the technical hurdles we've had to get through, but we're all just going to go well. um annie shawn is our communications director and i'm i'm not sure if we've seen her at a planning board meeting before but i've been to one but it was not in person so i just want to say hello you see me thinking that it's on my phone and it's good to have you um eric torkelson You do know from the community planning design team in urban design to talk about some of the cases we're going to be starting with. And we also have, I don't know if you can flip on Daniel. Daniel Mesclay, the director of planning and design is joining us remotely.
SPEAKER_00	Hi, great to be here. Good to see you all.
SPEAKER_12	So that's it for staff. Just a quick, today's meeting is an all general business meeting. So trying to keep it a little bit, it's going to be a little bit a looser, more informal discussion, which is why we're hoping that this is a good opportunity to have the in-person session. We have a next meeting on August 5th, and that will be back to public hearings and some more structured business. There'll be a public hearing on a zoning petition that has to do with the short-term rentals ordinance. This is something that our law department and ISD has worked on. They'll be talking about it then. And there's going to be a design review for an affordable housing overlay development proposed at 28 to 30 Wendell Street. So that will all happen August 5th. And then the next meeting we have scheduled is August 19th, There will be a public hearing on a proposed amendment to 88, basically to a special permit at 88 Ames Street, and that's going to be accompanied by some minor amendments to what's known as the Infill Development Contact Plan. It's a little bit complicated, but the gist of it is there are some changes being proposed to the bicycle parking plan for the kind of complex there in that sort of central part of Kendall Square that involves a few different moving parts with different special permits. And at the same time, we expect to have an update on the design of the central plaza and connector roads on another block of that development. So a lot of discussion around that area of Kendall Square on August 19th. So I'll stop there with the schedule. I'll just note that on August 4th is the City Council's summer meeting. So the City Council hasn't met since the end of June. They'll meet again on August 4th. I mentioned before that there are still two zoning petitions pending, one having to do with the 320 Charles Street site and Biomed Realty's proposal, and then one having to do with religious uses. you can keep an eye on that if you're interested in probably what that turns out. I am going to end there, turn back to the chair.
SPEAKER_13	Great. Thank you, Jeff. Are there any questions for Jeff on the update? With that, I'm going to turn to our agenda. The next item on the agenda is a review of zoning, board of zoning appeal cases, which are to be heard on the 31st of July, 2025. This is a matter of general business. And our action is to decide whether or not to make any recommendations to the VCA on these cases. First case under discussion is VCA case 1169571 to install two wall signs on the building facade in excess of committed sign height at 100 feet each side. The dam is part of a PUD project that was subject to review and approval by the planning board. and was granted a special permit in 2021 under planning board three, six, four. Do members have any questions for the project representative or student staff about the review and the materials?
Ashley Tan	We're in the board race, that's Tessa.
SPEAKER_13	Yeah, I have the same question as well. But this is a Since these were these are variances within a special permit that this board granted is the habit of the city of Cambridge to bring variances back on the where we leave that burden for common. In my review of this case, I don't think no other comments, but, you know, it appeared that the signs over there violate the height. One is set back within the canopy. This is not broadly visible from the public way. The other one is very high in a window. And also given the circumstances of this address, which is a shopping mall at the point that the applicant was in an upstreet cottage for its particular time of day. large retail establishment, it seems, to notify the public. This is where this establishment is. It makes some sense. And I found the proposal to be very, very discreet, actually. I was worried about the language of it, but then when I looked at the graphics and regulations, it seemed very discreet and well-suited to the government. I don't know if anybody else had that problem. Eric, would you disagree with that? No, Eric, proceed with me. Yeah, it seems fine. Yeah. It seems reasonable. It's a place to speak. So I would like to send a message to the Senate Board of Appeals that it seems fine. I'm asking them to provide an appropriate fit in the specific conditions of this building given that it's internally focused. So it born suddenly from the dimensional relationship to the sun. So I'd like to vote for it. I just had a vote on that particular language. So I guess we'll do this by the roll call. Just to vote to send that message to the . Just for a motion, and then we'll do the motion second, and then I'll roll call. OK. The motion. Stats as I think that the proposal is well suited to the site. It makes sense given the nature of the particular bill and the peculiar condition that there's been in shopping malls around the city. Which would be the motion to send out a message to those looking to accept it.
Mary Lydecker	Mayor Saffin?
SPEAKER_12	On that motion, Mary Lightacre?
Mary Lydecker	Yes.
SPEAKER_12	Diego, yes, yes, actually can.
SPEAKER_13	Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes The building is part of a project that was subject to review, including my department board, and was granted a special permit in 2022 under Planning Bill 387. Do board members have questions for CPD staff or for this particular freestanding staff? Lots of questions.
SPEAKER_12	I'll This is Jeff. I'll point out that I have to train myself not to introduce myself every time I speak. I'll point out that these cases come because I think inspectional services and the BCA likes to just sort of make sure that the planning board is attentive to these things. It doesn't necessarily mean the planning board has to study them or have a strong opinion if it seems like something that the board thinks the BCA can handle. I think we will routinely send back something that just says the planning board looked at this and had no comments. So if that's the case, then that's fine.
SPEAKER_13	It appears that at least either one board hearing has no comments on this one. So I guess we need a motion from not hearing.
SPEAKER_12	I think someone on the board can just make that, just say that they'll make that motion and then someone can second it. Okay.
SPEAKER_13	We'll go through the format. We'll make a motion that the board endow comments.
Mary Lydecker	I will make a motion that the board has no significant comments and
SPEAKER_09	We believe that Vizier addressed a couple of those issues. Second. Thank you.
SPEAKER_12	We're okay on that motion. Mary Lydecker.
SPEAKER_09	Yes.
SPEAKER_12	Diego Macias. Yes. Ashley Tan.
SPEAKER_05	Yes.
SPEAKER_12	Carolyn Cern. Yes. Thompson-Avon. Yes. All five voting in favor.
SPEAKER_13	The next case under discussion is Vizier case 1170612 to install eight freestanding silos in the greater area that allows on mute, which is the same special permit that we granted under 5.287. Questions? Wonderful motion that Mary previously made. That's the reason we had to do it this way. No comment specific.
SPEAKER_12	On that motion, Mary Lydecker.
SPEAKER_09	Yes.
SPEAKER_12	Diego Macias. Yes. Ashley Tan. Yes. Carolyn Zern. Yes. Bob Mavage. Yes. All five members voting in favor.
SPEAKER_13	Thank you. Good luck to the performance on Thursday. Agenda item number 2.
SPEAKER_12	The next item on the agenda, is that okay, Mr. Chair? Yes.
SPEAKER_13	The next item on the agenda is an update on planning and zoning recommendations for Cambridge Street and MAPS Ave. The presentation will be led by Drew Kane and Adams Petrini on CUB. Please introduce yourselves and any other members from your team that would be helping with your presentation. Feel free to begin.
SPEAKER_11	Thanks everyone. And it's exciting to be here in person talking about this exciting work. The presentation will be led by myself and Drew here. Drew is gonna kick it off and start with an overview of the planning for Mass Ave and Cambridge Street, and then I'll wrap it up with the zoning recommendations that came out of that, those two plans, and then we'll transition into discussion.
SPEAKER_12	So just let me know. Hey, everybody. It's good to see you. Drew King, the senior city planner here. And I was the project manager for our Cambridge Street and the Mass Ave planning study. So the intention of tonight is really just to kind of provide an introduction to those two projects for you. I think A few years ago, we shared our Cambridge Street with you. That was finished in winter of 2023. We just finished mass app planning study back in April, April, May. But I wanted to provide kind of an overview of the two projects, the TF Evans conversation, but also give you a background on kind of the engagement, the process that we went through. So I'm not going to fit on all the content. We'd be here, it would be a multi-night session if I tried to do that. So I'll spare you that, but I'll try to do a bit of an overview as best I can. And I throw up these creative photos here just to really kind of call out before we dive into what these projects are about, to note the identity and the character of these two places. I mean, they're very much sort of our neighborhood main streets. We think of them as corridors and thoroughfares, but really these are places that serve kind of the everyday needs of the neighborhoods. They're also really representative or fondly historic. you know, historically how these streets have evolved over time in different neighborhoods. So everything from institutional uses to retail, the cultural celebrations happen here. Next slide. And the two planning studies came from Envision Cambridge. And part of what they try to attempt is to meet those Envision Cambridge goals, which is to address housing affordability, to see where sensitive, sustainable growth could happen, support local retail and service providers, improve the public realm, integrate climate resiliency planning and design, and provide opportunities for state multimodal streets. And this is just among other kind of community benefits and interests, but really hoping that these two plans meet those Envision Cambridge goals as much as we can. Next slide. And we know that coming out of Envision Cambridge, there was a very aggressive housing target set to develop over 12,000 housing units by 2030. And we know we're not going to meet that at this point. I think the idea, though, is that these planning studies that we're doing now and things like the recent multi-family zoning will all contribute to the possibility of there being more housing in the city. And so we're basically trying to provide the framework in which additional housing can be built through these planning studies and through our zoning. Next slide. In the Envision Cambridge report, there was a section called Shaping Cambridge, which basically kind of laid out in very diagrammatic fashion, how the different areas of the cities might evolve over time. And so there was sort of the residential neighborhoods. There was a larger transformational areas like Cambridge Crossy and Alewife. We had our institutional areas. And then we had our squares and corridors where we talked about seeing modest and moderate growth over time. And Mass App planning study and our Cambridge Street kind of hone in on those areas specifically. And this kind of speaks to what I mentioned earlier, just about sort of these as being really kind of representative of the character of the neighborhoods. They provide the everyday amenities to serve the needs of neighborhood residents. These streets are regional and citywide destinations. So if you think of destination retail like grocery stores, institutional uses, churches, parks, these are places that really draw residents from around the city, and I would say even beyond. And they're highly walkable too. So that's why they're, you know, additionally so beneficial for the people that live near them. Next slide. These maps just kind of identify the study areas themselves, along with a walk shed overlay, which represents a quarter mile walking distance. And we use this as kind of a capture area just to identify the general population that we're addressing. I mean, obviously These plans represent city-wide issues that we're hoping to kind of bring to light. But when we think about who's actually going to the street on a regular basis, this is kind of the caption area we think of. And you can see over on the left-hand side is Cambridge Street, and that's the study area stretched from Lechmere all the way to Inman Square. The two images on the right-hand side, that top-most image, is of North Mass Ave., basically from Porter Square all the way up to Elwha Parkway. And the one on the bottom is massive salad quarter square and the South down to the Cambridge common. So those were the study years for the North mass out. I'm sorry for the massive planning study. It was about a two mile stretch mass out. So we've had to kind of had to break it into pieces for purposes of the planning study, just to make it a little bit more manageable. That's all. And one thing we did during the course of kind of our analysis and we're mapping, et cetera. was to identify the ground floor uses of these two streets. And in particular, knowing how much the business community and the small businesses contribute to the identity of these two streets, of these primary thoroughfares or corridors, we mapped all the ground floor businesses. And this is of Cambridge Street. So you can see how healthy and resilient the street is just by nature of the fact that it has an incredible mix of business types along the street path. Next slide. And the same could be said for Mass Ave as well. Of course, the North Mass Ave tends to peter out a little bit. Surprisingly, it actually has a fairly low vacancy rate, despite what some people think upon appearance. But it is a little bit more scattered, as you get further and further outside of LA Parkway. And in this case, I think restaurants were the number one business in this direction, North Mass Ave. Next slide. And then south of Porter Square, it was very much restaurants that held the top spot. I use these slides just to remind people that, you know, these streets can, we can't fully rely on restaurants to basically anchor and hold the energy for our streets. They have to be a real mix of business providers to maintain kind of a utility and to be healthy. This map just identified, this is from January of 24, but we used this map to identify where the housing pipeline, housing development pipeline is in the city. Calling out Mass Ave on the sort of, upper left-hand side of your screen, where you see a mix of market rate and affordable development. So not a lot of development, but you see kind of an even mix of affordable projects with market rate projects. And we know some of those affordable projects are moving forward. And so I wanted to provide just kind of a very brief summary, as much as I can, of the community engagement process for these two study areas, or these two funding studies, I should say, and sort of methods that we used for the last one. So we tried to do as much as we can in terms of getting out on the street and holding neighborhood pop-ups, holding focus group conversations, meeting people where they are. So we would have kind of large format open house meetings. You know, Cambridge Street was done during COVID, so we had limited, you know, we were sort of limited in how we were able to engage with people, but being outside was one safe way to do it. We did a mix of kind of outdoor events, focus group conversations. We also did in-person surveying and tabling and project advertising up and down the corridor, whether it's blue bike ads or window displays. And I think this one's going to be a little hard to read on the screen, but we use this diagram to kind of break down the different engagement methods that we use during the course of the process. So when we say something like information sharing here, we're talking about things like mailers and email blasts, blue bike ads, social media, things that can really be put out there digitally or just kind of visible on the street and have less to do sort of face-to-face engagement. We also do what we call design for convenience. So that might be online activities or mappings. We do community gathering, which is sort of the larger public meetings and open houses. And then lastly, what we call focused attention in time. And that's where we have these stakeholder interviews, focus group, working group. For Mass Ave planning study, we had a 14-member working group. So in addition to doing some of the large-scale public meetings, we also had an individual working group for Mass Ave. And we really find the most benefit from our kind of focus group conversations are generally 10 people or less. We did that for both planning studies. And then the stakeholder interviews were very big for both of these planning studies because it involved a lot of business community members. I think we had 30 business interviews for Mass Ave and 20 plus for Cambridge Street. Next slide. This is just a simple timeline of Cambridge Street. Again, I know it's hard to read on the screen. It was about a 14 month process. We kind of started our considered engagement, I would say September, October of 21 and wrapped up in January of 23. and some of these images at the top to show you the type of methods we use for engagement during these processes. Next slide. And as a way to sort of digest all the feedback we were receiving, whether it was in our public meetings, on our surveys, et cetera, we kind of had to break these things down into a series of themes. And this was a way for us to kind of wrap our heads around how we make our recommendations for the planning study. And so we had four basic themes, inviting, local, affordable, accessible, and resilient. And so, bucketing the recommendations into these things kind of provided that organizational framework. They address topics like celebrating cultural diversity, supporting and growing the small business ecosystem, allowing for additional residential density so more housing can be built, and looking for opportunities for improved or new open spaces, whether that's permanent open space or something temporary like a park. That's all. And I'm just going to go through kind of the same idea here. This was with the Mass Ave planning study. This was a longer planning study, basically because of the geography we were dealing with. So this went from fall of 24 through the spring of 20, no, I'm sorry, fall 23 to the spring of 25. So an 18-month process, more or less. And again, similar to Cambridge Street, we thought that kind of bucketing these things into these different themes was really helpful for us to kind of develop a framework and also kind of digest everything we were trying to pull together and make it translatable to kind of a broader audience, basically. And from this process, we came away with these themes of more of a neighborhood and a destination. So that's both through the lens of kind of a small business community and also how do you attract people to the corridor. More inviting had to do with sort of how we make our public realm more accessible to people and also make it greener. Easier to get around had more to do with mobility. Now, granted, we weren't addressing basically what was happening between the curbs that's happening through the DPW partial construction process. We were really looking at more what happened as far as the land use planning is concerned, urban design, streetscape. So for us, easier to get around had a lot to do with more pedestrian mobility and pedestrian safety. And then lastly, what we say is more housing options, which really has to do with kind of the piece that Evan will speak to, which is how do we address the zoning that we have in place now and change it to allow for more housing to be built? And I'll see.
SPEAKER_13	That's true.
SPEAKER_11	Yeah. Um, so, so from these two studies, we started to get a pretty clear picture of. From a built environment perspective, you know, what makes a good main street and that sort of guided our, uh, zoning recommendations. So in a good main street, it's, uh, there are buildings that are, uh, primarily mixed use with community oriented, active uses on the ground floor and housing above. commercial only buildings are allowed, but at a much lower density than those mixed use residential buildings. And when we talk about active uses, Drew mentioned this, you know, these are the uses that really encourage foot traffic. Active uses can be things you would expect like retail and restaurants, but We're also thinking of a more expansive definition of active uses, including, you know, cultural spaces and some hypotheses like a dentist's office or something like that. From an urban design perspective, we started to zero in on this. sort of one to one ratio of street wall height to roadway width. This is sort of jumping ahead to the proposal, but you can see from the diagram here, Mass Ave is about 100 feet wide. So the proposed street wall height in the zoning is about that. It's about 100 feet, which translates to just about eight stories. However, we recognize additional height can be accommodated if the upper stories are set back further from the street and heights decrease towards the neighborhoods. And this lets us allow for taller buildings, more housing without being too overbearing of students. Good main streets often have front setbacks that are used to extend the public realm, including widening sidewalks or spillover space for ground floor uses like outdoor dining. Side setbacks are kept at a minimum to encourage a more continuous street wall, which is a key part of making the street feel more active. And rear setbacks are used to transition from the main street to the neighborhoods. We think good main streets have some pocket parks and some plazas scattered throughout. Residential buildings may have some private open spaces like balconies and roof decks above the ground story. And finally, what makes a good main street Main streets have buildings that are designed to contribute to the activity of the street so first floors are taller to accommodate active uses like shops and restaurants. facades have a good window to wall ratio, avoiding large blank walls larger buildings have multiple entrances along the street to maintain activity and facades are varied. with projecting and recessing elements like bay windows to create some visual interest. So those have been our sort of guiding principles. We're constantly thinking back to the plan and the lessons learned from the plan when we're thinking about how do we implement these goals through Zona. The key zoning recommendations are allow taller heights for housing while maintaining existing non-residential density limits. Encourage active ground floor uses through residential height bonuses. Implement building and site design standards that support an active streetscape. Allow greater development potential in Porter Square and a few other key areas in exchange for community benefits. and keeping the current development review thresholds the same. I'm going to dig into all of these a little bit more. We're going to start with some recommendations that apply to both Mass Ave and Cambridge Street, and then we'll look at each quarter in a little more detail. So when we want to prioritize, when we want our zoning to prioritize one use over another, we simply allow that use more permissively. So here we wanna prioritize housing over commercial uses. So we're going to allow greater heights for housing, and we're gonna tie even more residential height to the provision of active uses on the ground floor. HAB-Jacques Juilland, I mentioned this before, but we, we want our definition of active uses to be fairly broad, including neighborhood serving and destination activities will just consistent with what we see in these quarters, although he so we just wanted to enhance that. HAB-Jacques Juilland, Sorry about that. HAB-Jacques Juilland, And just to touch upon and you all are. TAB, are well aware but. TAB, sort of important to keep in mind, touching upon the limits of zoning, you know we can allow for a range of uses, but ultimately the market will dictate what what actually gets built. And we know that the market will not likely support retail everywhere. So we think it is really important to allow for a range of uses that sort of fit that goal of activating the street without being so restrictive that we end up with vacant spaces. PB, Peter Vitale & So, as I said, you know, we want the zoning to encourage housing and active ground floor uses, but we are okay with the occasional commercial only building. PB, Peter Vitale & So we're proposing to keep those regulated at the prevailing height and density on a massive and Cambridge street so we're we're proposing to maintain an fa are both. of FAR of one, excuse me, on both corridors, which is consistent with the FAR limits today. And that also allowing for a height of 35 to 45 feet with bits with existing like buildings on these corridors. We're also proposing to align, this is a little, HAB-Jacques Juilland- In the sort of zone in detail, but we are through this proposal going to align residential or non residential setback requirements right now there's. HAB-Jacques Juilland- Some some areas have different setback requirements for residential non residential uses, which creates some awkward outcomes so that's that's a key piece of this proposal. HAB-Jacques Juilland- And yeah. Moving on from there. And just as a reminder, since the multifamily zoning petitions were adopted, the baseline height for residential uses on both of these corridors is now six stories and 75 feet. And some parts of Mass Ave actually go up to seven. So this proposal is intended to go beyond that to further incentivize housing production. And as we talked about a couple times, you know, good design is a key part of what makes a good main street. We now have our citywide urban design guidelines that will encourage good design, but this zoning proposal will include some minimum standards. including things like facade transparency, ground floor heights, things like that. We're currently going through that exercise with our urban design team now to really dig into what the specifics of those standards will be. And just to go quickly back to that first slide on key zoning recommendations, we had TALKED ABOUT KEEPING THE CURRENT DEVELOPMENT REVIEW THRESHOLDS THE SAME. A LOT OF THESE CHANGED WITH THE MULTI-FAMILY HOUSING PETITION THAT WAS ADOPTED BACK IN FEBRUARY. SO THE REVIEW THRESHOLDS NOW HAB-Jacques Juilland, The the first three here are all as of right projects, but have some sort of advisory review so smaller projects are reviewed at the staff level there's a public advisory consultation that kicks in at 2000 square feet for both residential and non residential uses. Planning Board advisory consultation is for for residential projects between 50 and 75,000 square feet. And then a project review special permit is needed for residential projects greater than 75,000 square feet in a lower threshold for non residential projects at 20,000 square feet. Okay, so Now we'll look at the different corridors. To implement our planning goals and priorities, we think it's best to create all new zoning districts that are tailored to the needs of these main streets. On Mass Ave, we're proposing one unified district along the length of the corridor with a special PUD district in Porter Square. We'll talk about it a little bit more. The proposed zoning includes a base set of standards for residential development with bonus height allowed if projects meet additional use and design standards. And some of this has changed a little bit. I should have mentioned this at the outset, but we made this presentation to a joint committee meeting the housing and neighborhood long-term planning committees of the city council about a month ago and received some feedback on how to tweak the proposal that we've been working on. So we haven't updated the slide since then, but I'll sort of mention a couple of things as we go through that were changed because of council feedback at that time. So on Mass Ave, the base set of standards allows residential buildings up to eight stories. As I mentioned before, eight stories roughly meets that one-to-one street wall height to roadway width ratio. There are no upper story setbacks, step backs, excuse me, on the side of the building facing the corridor. But there would be a 10-foot step back about six stories adjacent to the surrounding neighborhood, which matches the existing residential height limits now that the multifamily zone petitions have passed. buildings would be set back 55 feet from the center line of the street. And we are measuring from the street center line instead of the property line to maintain a consistent facade to facade width kind of across the street. HAB-Terry Palmos- front setbacks created by that you know. HAB-Terry Palmos- 55 foot from the Center line can be used to expand the sidewalk or allowed ground floor uses to spill out as we, we talked about before, there are no side yard. HAB-Terry Palmos- No side setback requirements to encourage that continuous street wall. And under the base scenario, we aren't proposing open space requirements, which is consistent with our existing business district requirements. So again, to incentivize those active ground floor uses, we would allow for additional height. If a project provides those uses, We had initially shown going from 8 to 11 stories. We got feedback from the Council to consider going up to 12 stories on Mass Ave. So that's sort of the direction that we're going in now. However, there would be some additional design standards, including a 10 foot step back for floors above eight stories and a 15% open space requirement. Again, this is maintaining that one-to-one ratio while accommodating some additional housing density. And then in Porter Square, we would have a PUD district. This would offer relaxed dimensional regulations in exchange for public benefits. Housing in this area would be allowed up to 18 stories in certain areas in exchange for significant public open space, shared parking for the district, and maintains Porter Square as a retail destination. TAB, And these I should say these public benefits came out of conversations with the Community during the the massive planning study and we're vetted with our working group as well, so we're we're working through you know the the details of of this. TAB, As well now. HAB-Jacques Juilland, Okay, moving moving on to Cambridge street again we're we're proposing one unified zone district from leach mirror, all the way to square. HAB-Jacques Juilland, And similar to massive we've identified one key sub district at Webster avenue or street that we think can support some additional. HAB-Jacques Juilland, But first I wanted to quickly. touch on how these recommendations have changed since our Cambridge Street plan was completed in 2023. For those of you who were on the board then, you may have seen that presentation. So the plan had initially recommended six-story buildings with a step back about five stories. But since the multifamily zoning petitions were passed, earlier this year that brought the residential height limit up to six stories, but no step backs, so we looked at our new kind of baseline of six stories, along with some concepts that came out of the massive planning study to put together the current proposal that I'll get to you. So the base standards on Cambridge Street would be similar to what they are now. The residential height limit is six stories. Cambridge Street is much narrower than Mass Ave. So this height meets that sort of one-to-one principle. The setback in open space requirements are also similar to Mass Ave. The that center line set down 37 feet instead of 55 again so much narrow street, but it's still kind of accomplishes that same goal of maintaining our consistent facade to facade book and also expanding the sidewalk area. HAB-Jacques Juilland, Again, this, this is sort of the same concept as mass out if you provide an active ground floor use you get an additional two residential stories. HAB-Jacques Juilland, On Cambridge street the upper story step backs would apply to the seventh and eighth floors maintaining that one to one ratio and this height would also trigger a 15% open space requirement. And then here's the the Webster Windsor sub district, and this was an area that was identified in the our Cambridge street plan as an area that could support additional height based on the proximity to the Union Square T station. and development in Boynton Yards just over the line in Somerville. So here residential uses would be allowed up to 12 stories. Those upper story step backs would remain at six and there would be a 15% open space requirement as well. We received some feedback from council to consider other areas along the corridor that could also support some additional height. So that's another piece that we're working on now as well. Okay, finally, I wanna talk a little bit about how these zoning changes can contribute towards our housing goals set in Envision Cambridge. This might look a little bit familiar from that process. We've updated our projections since the multifamily zoning, we'll create these proposals for Mass Ave and Cambridge Street. This model uses the same methodology that we used back in during the multifamily process. So with this, we estimate by 2030, the zoning change could produce almost 1,000 more units of housing on these two streets than the current zoning. But even with that change, we're not really expecting to reach Envision's 12,500 unit target by 2030. HAB-Jacques Juilland, And by 2040 we can see roughly 2800 more units under this proposal than existing zoning. HAB-Jacques Juilland, And again, this, you know, may not reach our ultimate housing goals. And I'll just finally close with some next steps. So since we met with council in June, we've been working to refine the zoning proposal and draft the petitions. The goal is to bring the final petitions to council when they return from their summer break in September. We would have public hearings throughout the fall and the council could move to adopt the zone by the end of the year. And these are just some links to the project website, so I will stop there.
SPEAKER_13	Great. Thank you, Adam. Thank you, Ruth, for Summarizing some incredible work. And leads us to the next one. This is a planning study, which is, as you just stated, support detailed zoning proposals, which will come out in the fall. So discussions might be focusing generally on our impressions about the planning study as it has been presented tonight. hopefully to give you some input and feedback that might shape the ultimate proposal. So that's it. We're up to tonight as a board to give feedback from what we're going to be doing in advance this year. So it's here in front of me. So first, as a tradition, are there questions on the presentation materials tonight? It's just one question. Um, I have a question.
SPEAKER_12	Two questions. When reading the documents, I thought I read something about incentives for providing like a community space for buildings. Is that the same as having an active ground floor?
SPEAKER_11	It could be. I think the, so what we were talking about, um, Community spaces could be considered in that kind of broad view of active ground floor uses, I think, during the plan we had some conversations about. There were several conversations or or yeah about what what are the kinds of things that get you from eight to 11 stories or 12 stories, the things that we want to incentivize that active ground floor uses. PB, Harmon Zuckerman, To be retail, you know, could be community space, it could be something like that. PB, Harmon Zuckerman, And we also, I think, at one point, maybe we did talk about community space being one of those. PB, Harmon Zuckerman, Things that are also get you from from eight to 11 in this PB, Harmon Zuckerman, I think we haven't singled out um, community space as, you know, uh, something we would incentivize outside of the, the general wrench of, of active ground services. So that was maybe a rambling answer, but.
SPEAKER_12	That's yeah, that's, that's good. Um, and then my other question was, there was, uh, another part of it where, I mean, I, I like fancy and I like hype. Um, so curious, like how strong the community. objection was to growing above 12 stories. I think that was one of the comments on there, that people didn't want to go higher than 12, which I believe right now, of course, where's maybe concession for that. Because I really appreciated the community involvement that you all did. I thought that was one of my favorite parts of reading the community feedback. And one of the comments was that it was like a community feedback, and it was an architect developer feedback. And sort of the community wanted that sweet spot between 11 and 12 roughly. I can answer that. And you're speaking to the Mass Ave. Yeah. No, we found that, you know, when we were kind of surveying people, I think the example you're pointing to, we were sort of laying out different sort of, you know, ranges of density that people would support or not or feel comfortable with or not. And for the Mass Ave corridor to the length of the corridor, it was sort of up to 12 stories. And I think Porter Square became the exception just because it is such an obvious redevelopment area. So people were more accepting, in my experience, in my conversations with additional height of quarters. So that 12 stories really had to do more with the length of the corridor and less specifically on Porter Square, which is sort of like, you know, we recognize that's a commuter rail line and that's a subway line right now. It doesn't really speak to supporting those two pieces very well. And so the Community, in exchange for kind of the benefits will be provided for that I feel more supportive of additional out there, but that was specific reporter, whereas the rest of the border, they were more comfortable with our heads that we think that's why we have that each 11 stories.
SPEAKER_13	Thank you. I see that was trying to stand up on on by. Okay.
Dan Anderson	Thank you, Mr. Sieniewicz. So I'm sorry I couldn't join you. I am just back from vacation and didn't read my email. So I'm joining you guys virtually today, but really great work and appreciation to staff. Just a couple of questions, one along the line of the conversation that we're just having and the other at street width. But was there any consideration just given the shortfall of housing production numbers of looking at other locations particularly along north mass ave that could be um more conducive to slightly higher like so it's a pretty long stretch like so i'm just thinking urbanistically there could be opportunities not just in porter square but say at the intersection of ringe or the intersection uh where the pocket park is and the uh and the bike trail crosses was there any kind of calculation or analysis of what additional height in let's say, a 200-foot radius of those locations might yield. And then quickly, my other question was really on street widths and whether the current changes in Mass Ave are going to increase the change curb locations. Because as I looked at this, I saw a preferred or a minimum width of 13 feet of frontage sidewalk area. But it seems like almost everywhere has 12 feet. And I'm kind of reading a two-foot frontage zone, a seven-foot pedestrian zone, and a three-foot planting zone to curb, which still gets me to 12.
SPEAKER_12	So. Yeah, I can maybe go in backwards to answer your second question first. With the partial construction project that DPW is working on, they won't be moving the curb to the exception of certain intersections. And they're also eliminating the center median. So that project doesn't look at reconstructing the sidewalks at all. So we noticed that along a majority of Mass Ave, the sidewalk width was about 12 feet. And if you want to speak to the zoning where there's that kind of current five foot offset.
SPEAKER_11	Yeah, the current zoning has a five foot setback on Mass Ave. So we sort of translated, you know, we... HAB-Jacques Juilland, As I showed kind of move from a five foot from the property line set back to 55 feet from the street Center line, but both of those are really intended to try to expand the sidewalk. HAB-Jacques Juilland, out into into the properties, because we know that the sidewalk or the curbs aren't changing. So to get that ideal sidewalk width that we want, we're sort of trying to use front yard setback space as sidewalks, which were possible.
SPEAKER_12	And we were also looking down at the recent citywide design guidelines that were published, which recommended a 13 to 19 foot wide sidewalk for commercial corridors. So we're hoping to fall within that range with the sidewalk width for Mass Island. And then your prior question, which had to do, do we look at any sort of scenarios of different height regimes and different parts of Mass Ave outside Porter Squares? No, we actually stuck with that eight to 11 stories for the remainder of the corridor outside Porter Square. And we had back and forth conversations about that, but that's sort of where we landed with it. I don't know if there's anything to explain beyond, because there are some natural points where you could see, like, maybe it's the linear part, crossing, or maybe it's like you said, a fringe, or I'm not sure where else. But we didn't necessarily look to sort of different pockets for additional height. But in that, I just, there's something I wanted to add, which is the prior conversation about Porter Square. I mean, there were differing opinions on that. So I didn't want to say universally everyone agreed on this. Like, that's just not how a community process often unfolds. And so we did hear differing opinions on on specifically on the quarter square area.
Dan Anderson	Great, thank you.
Ashley Tan	The question. So first it is like orient myself I feel like every few months or three years City Council different you know priority and I know for a while, there was the central square plans, I you know time to see how that fit in is that something is that something we're going to see. HAB-Masyn Moyer- In this process as a matter. HAB-Masyn Moyer- The other one was it so for the Cambridge street plan, I know it's at the Webster and deserve some that's a subject, but not a PUD and I said it was our reason for that smaller area in my mind, I think. HAB-Masyn Moyer- He has higher standards are possible, but I was just curious. HAB-Masyn Moyer- And then. The other one was also on Cambridge Street. I know last time this presentation came through years ago, you know, one of the things raised was that, and just the great thing about the plan is that it really alleviates and tries to make sidewalks more accessible because right now a lot of it is so narrow. So I think the center line idea step back to the center line. It's a great idea. And I'm just wondering, what is the current? I know the proposal is for 37 feet, but what is it currently at? And like, what happens when there are buildings that do meet that? And how does, like I say, going to create an even street law?
SPEAKER_13	Yeah.
SPEAKER_11	On your first question about HAB-Jacques Juilland, For the order, I think. HAB-Jacques Juilland, We so we had we're we're moving central square along. HAB-Jacques Juilland, Earlier in the year, I think it was right after the the multifamily housing was passed the Council asked us to reprioritize our our zoning efforts, so they they asked us to put Cambridge treated and mass out front and to. spend a little bit more time on Central Square. So I think what we're looking at right now is this will take us probably to the end of the year and then Central Square will pick back up in the new year. What was the second question? I'm sorry. Webster Windsor. The Webster Windsor sub-district. Well, it is, I think, a smaller area. So it's less... HAB-Jacques Juilland, You know, I think conducive for for PV, perhaps, but actually I wasn't I wasn't around for a lot of those conversations. So I don't know if there was something HAB-Jacques Juilland, There wasn't, you know, HAB-Jacques Juilland, Yeah, no, we had not.
SPEAKER_12	We hadn't thought about it as a PV during the plan itself that area. HAB-Jacques Juilland, I think I can talk about that. I mean, is this sort of off of the plan a little bit of talking more about just kind of like PV theory like we're communities make a lot of sense. is when you're trying to achieve some kind of special outcome that involves, you know, trying to be more flexible about what kind of development plan takes shape within an area. So like Porter Square, or kind of potentially lends Porter Square to a PUD approach that you have some larger sites that will maybe likely get redeveloped all at once. You do have that at kind of Webster and Windsor too. I think what makes Florida Square a little bit different is that there's a lot of different kind of needs and kind of desires that will need to be balanced within that. And so the fact that it's a major regional retail destination, it's a major transit destination, there's this kind of desire to have some additional open space within the area. Once you're, like, once you have all these different components that you want to try to put together, a PUD process gives you the ability to sort of think through how all those different pieces fit together. I think Webster and Windsor, I mean, it's maybe interesting to think about. I think that's sort of being looked at more as, well, this is a site because it sort of transitioned between square. It could be, you know, greater density for housing, but you know, you could look at it from a point of view, but are there other things you want to try to accomplish, you know, at that corner? And, you know, that could be a thought process, but that wasn't really something that I think emerged from La Plata. And then your last question about the Cambridge Street and the center line. Actually, it was Jeff's brilliant idea to look at it through the center line issue, but what we found was the majority of Cambridge Street, it's about 60 to 66 feet wide right-of-way, And as you know, most of the sidewalks are fairly narrow. It's like eight feet wide at best. So we knew we wanted to have something, let's say like a 12 foot minimum sidewalk for healthy tree growth, for the ability to people pass one another freely. So we were trying to find ways to word it such that that could be achieved. And it was Jeff's idea to kind of measure from the same line. And I think to your point about, you know, will that create kind of a jagged street wall? I don't think that personally it'll be that impactful. I mean, four feet is pretty nominal. And for me, I would rather have an additional four feet for a healthier streetscape and then necessarily sacrifice that four feet and have a very tight sidewalk. So that was sort of the logic behind that. Eric, I don't know if you have any thoughts on that.
SPEAKER_13	Yeah, pretty much. Yeah, for sure. There's often a lot of inefficiency of integrity. So here's another problem. the stocks are going up. But I can think of some instances, either to where there are slight step backs. It seems just fine. So given the population increase that we're anticipating density increase happening, it really makes sense to be in this case sidewalks.
SPEAKER_04	It sounds like a lot of the feedback in addition to Haight was about neighborhood serving retail and activating pedestrian experience. Can you talk a little bit about how you're thinking about that? We talked about market will dictate a lot of retail uses and A lot of what happens in this in these developments and But how the city is thinking about kind of encouraging neighborhood scale retail.
SPEAKER_12	And speak to through zoning lines. I was part of the story here to addition answer any additional economic development question.
SPEAKER_11	That's, I mean, that's part of my answer is that we are working, you know, with our And while I'll start by saying it is it's a tricky balance because we know that these are really important uses to make streets feel active and successful, but the market isn't always supporting these kinds of uses on the ground. So we are having some conversations with our Economic Opportunity and Development Division at CBD to try to make sure what we are kind of requiring or incentivizing are kind of feasible both from a like physical space perspective and from a use perspective. So making sure we have the kind of broad range of uses that will allow for some flexibility and the space itself we don't want to be too restrictive. I think maybe you were thinking about this, but some, our current zoning on Mass Ave has some maximum square footage requirements on retail space. And we're actually finding that has been, you know, the idea behind that was to encourage small scale retail, small businesses, those sorts of things. But we're finding that it actually needs a lot more difficulty to to lease those spaces. So we're trying to figure out, do we relax those sort of standards and focus on other standards that make these spaces attractive for a tenant, but also kind of accomplish that with active. So it's an ongoing conversation that I think we're really trying to dig into. How do we do this successfully? Yeah, still discussing.
SPEAKER_12	Ideally, too, for those spaces to be subdividable. So it's partly a matter of sort of a development typology. And I think that's where the Economic Opportunity and Development Division would like to see things fall. The buildings have that flexibility to kind of be smaller, bigger retail spaces. There's something else I was going to say that now escapes me. But that's another point of feedback. Oh, I remember now. One of the things, sorry, one of the things that was a recommendation in our Cambridge Street plan was when it comes to sort of smaller scale local retailers and affordability issues was this idea of kind of a master lease scenario. So where there might be someone that folds a long-term lease to a retail storefront is then split up for smaller retailers to occupy at a steady rate or below market rate. So Cambridge Street Development Authority is looking at this sort of idea. So that's another way we're trying to balance how do we keep smaller scale retailers there in relatively affordable spaces as that becomes increasingly challenging for small businesses.
Mary Lydecker	A couple of questions. So one is maybe kind of a combination of an observation and then question. So it seems like these sorts of studies, in some ways, they're really setting up conditions to encourage developers and develop that philosophy, right? And it pairs with what we know makes, say, great main streets or great public spaces. And there's a lot of information in those studies that kind of tees up opportunities for public investment improvements that can encourage that, right? Like, so the diagrams that show, say, on Mass Ave, where the street tree, you know, because in addition to parks and parklets, it's really a continuous shade canopy that, you know, feels like it's enhancing the pedestrian sidewalk experience with complete streets and people on bikes. I'm kind of wondering this question of how does this pair with cities work on both the inside the curve, but basically curve to a phase of building to create that public ground that encourages, hey, do a development here. We have a great public ground. It's kind of like that reverse of using the great public ground to catalyze the development as much as, you know, with some. So it's maybe this question, maybe I should know more about this, is like, how does this pair with the city initiatives to enhance the street space of both?
SPEAKER_09	Okay.
SPEAKER_12	I don't know if Eric, I was going to offer you to speak to sort of urban design and streetscape.
SPEAKER_11	Eric, can you speak up?
SPEAKER_13	It was super tough to hear you earlier. Oh, yeah. Well, you just laid out a great set of issues. I think the study does talk a lot about the design of the streetscape through its furniture with the streetscape, you know, the things that make opportunities for gathering and great extensive shelter on sidewalk. So yeah, that's, that's in there. And part of this process is that I like your idea of it being the asset.
Mary Lydecker	Yeah. And maybe this is more just urging as this, you know, like we all planning studies, there's so much great work exactly to the point you're describing our recommendations. how does the city leverage controlling that identity and creation of that versus leaving it to developers to piecemeal create it? And so maybe that's exactly it. This is less kind of a question. It's like, there's so much good information here envisioning. It's maybe that encouragement to make sure the city leads that identity creation versus leaving it to piecemeal.
SPEAKER_12	I think there's a couple of things that kind of come to that confluence of what you're talking about. And one to me is sort of the ground level experience, the storefront experience that we sort of speak to in design guidelines and through zoning, but then at sort of the streetscape level with respect to the sidewalk, the citywide design guidelines that were just put out, you know, provide a really good reference, not just for developers, but for our city departments that are doing this work to recognize, oh, this is what we've worked on as far as kind of creating, you know, ideal conditions for the different street type volunteers in our city. And I think DPW making sure that the work that we're doing, the work that they're doing often are aligning and, you know, concert with one another. Because it will be, you know, interesting to me to see, okay, we do this partial reconstruction work and we're building new buildings here, but then there's that kind of gap with the street sweep. And how do we ensure that that basically scene is fixed between the two? Because we're paying attention to this new development or paying attention to the area between the roadbed, but how do we like, guarantee we can have sort of that, you know, that zipper.
Mary Lydecker	Yeah, and it's just making sure, you know, there are now multiple studies, like the Red Horse Master, and making sure that the city, longevity-wise, keeps track of what it needs.
SPEAKER_12	I think that long-term capital improvement planning, the DPW, does so well. I mean, you know, I think it's a matter of Well, how are these things time and how is their work and identifying where street reconstruction needs to happen time with where we anticipate there might be development is sometimes those are not synchronized both temporarily or spatially. But yeah, just another thought as to like I think there's I think they're the best standards and ideas there, but it's a matter of making sure they all go.
Mary Lydecker	Maybe that's just the closing is like it felt to me like implementation wise the sidewalk is the most risky of getting lost and ready and the street. And then my second question is, Alewife-Brook Parkway, is that not considered kind of a corridor? And I say this because I'm driving there recently. I see a lot of stuff up in like Medford going up taller next to it. Was that considered to be a corridor city?
SPEAKER_12	You make a really interesting point. We've talked about this not too long ago in our division that we do have other corridors in the city, namely Alewife-Brook Parkway and Nunn Drive, which we control. So there's that, but that's not to say we don't have a presence on both of those parkways, right? I mean, like our city, you can't tell the difference between who owns what. It feels like a city street. It could be a city street. I don't know. So why aren't we planning for those corridors? I mean, we understand we don't have control over what happens necessarily within DCR property, but planning for the edge conditions is something for us to maybe be thinking about and our waterfront too. But we didn't look at Alecburg Parkway, you know, at that end. We kind of just stopped. Once we got to the argument in line, it's a really good question, something we were thinking about today.
SPEAKER_13	I don't know if you... Yeah, no, you pretty much said that. As we, over the next few years, we'll start to think about other, these major corridors of our employees or whatever they are, just sort of flesh out, add to the ones that were laid out in the division. So yeah, we mentioned two important ones. And that included some of these before a lot of coordination with the school. Yeah. And it's just that I know dad's going to sign up, but Joy, I wanted to give you a chance to speak with you about some thoughts or questions.
Ashley Tan	Yeah. And I guess it kind of One of my questions kind of circles back to the retail discussion a little bit, because I think I read in the Cambridge plan that there is some effort to explore incentivizing particular ground floor uses. But then you came to this issue of the form of the building itself causing some constraints. So is the idea that you're going to try to incentivize particular uses or particular ways of, I guess, subdividing the building or things like that? I guess, given all those constraints about predicting .
SPEAKER_11	Yeah, I think the, and stop me if I misunderstood the question, but, PB, Harmon Zuckerman, I think you know in in the zoning there's incentivizing the uses and that in the zone, it will be kind of a list of uses that that we want to. PB, Harmon Zuckerman, incentivize the best sort of what gets you from that a massive it's the eight stories to to 12 stories yeah um you do. PB, Harmon Zuckerman, And then sort of separate but related to that would be these kind of design standards for those those users, which will sort of touch on PB, Harmon Zuckerman, You know how are their standards in the zoning for those spaces that will make them kind of the most successful it's it's PB, Harmon Zuckerman, You know, I think a lot of it is avoiding certain things like being too restrictive on on the floor plates but We're also thinking about, you know, if you, if you have a, a, a building, um, you don't necessarily need that entire first floor to be, uh, like a, a supermarket or that's a bad example, but cause that actually would be a big floor plate, but you don't need it all to be like a convenience store to, uh, make the street active. So how deep does it need to go? and how much of the like linear frontage of the facade does it need to be? So those, yeah, those are all still questions that we're trying to look through. But I think, I guess the uses would be like part of the incentive list and then there's like standards, like this is sort of your requirement. If you have that active ground floor space, this is sort of what it looks like.
SPEAKER_13	The minimum standards at least. Dan, do you have a further question and then we'll move to comment?
Dan Anderson	Yeah, thank you. So this is Dan. I just was noticing in the Cambridge Street piece, and this goes a little bit to the incentives, but that there was a suggestion that you would be going to a FAR limitation, 3.5 FAR. I didn't see any conversation of that in Mass Ave. And it sort of runs, I mean, it's consistent with the language of the zoning ordinance now that says that there wouldn't be except in specific districts. So I guess one question is, what was it about Cambridge Street that suggested an FAR limitation? And... i guess generally at that at those ground level pieces we we want that street level activation um you know strictly having um you know residential down to the sidewalk isn't isn't the most active use um so um you know are those are those then similarly for mass ab exempted um PB, Harmon Zuckerman, If you're looking at an FA our limitation. I'm just trying to tease out what the thought process was between these two and a why why be thinking about a GFA limitation and be how how might exempting those amenities spaces also basically proved to be, you know, a, you know, an incentive of itself.
SPEAKER_11	PB, Harmon Zuckerman, I think, I think maybe TAB, What you're referring to is coming from the our Cambridge street study, which was finished about two and a half years ago, so it was it was before we. TAB, We you know multifamily as and sort of removed fa are as a limit for for residential uses we've actually in our updated proposal taken that fa are for residential uses out. So in the current proposal, there's a 1.0 FAR for non-residential uses, which is consistent with what it is now. But there wouldn't be an FAR limit on residential use.
Dan Anderson	Yeah, thank you. So that's what I was looking at. So outdated information. Thank you.
SPEAKER_13	Rob? I have a couple of questions. One a detailed question, and maybe one more general question. I'm curious. I noticed that we've got, we're going to keep for the non residential uses on Cambridge Street are in height of restriction of 35 feet in most cases. And yet other portions and very gas out to Cambridge Street. We want active first floor buildings up will transform over time. Do you imagine a 15 foot first floor That would leave you 20 feet for two more stories of residential, presumably, or maybe not residential, in this case, business. I'm wondering whether 35 feet's the right number. That's coming from a three-story residential framework, right? And this is a different building type with a large first floor, hopefully, emerging that could use some, or even if it's whatever it is, office. To give a little more space for the potential of the top floor. The question that's the sentence. Three stories and In the spirit of the news kind of gentleman few stories. Limited to three stories, but don't say it for Right.
SPEAKER_11	So, so what we are proposing is But non residential uses and go up to 35 feet. But residential uses can be above that up to you know, eight stories so that that 35 feet doesn't it shouldn't take away. You know you could I think we. imagine that in most cases, you're gonna have a mixed use building that's ground floor, residential, and that's sort of it. And then, you know, if it's on Mass Ave, it's got 11 stories of residential, it's something that's sort of like you're maxed out. I think that maintaining the 35 foot height limit and FAR limits on non-residential spaces is, sort of thinking about if someone wanted to build just a commercial building, we would, one, want to limit it to be consistent with what exists now, because we think that's okay, but we really want to be incentivizing residential uses. So that's sort of the logic behind keeping that in the city.
SPEAKER_13	The other question actually building on Killa's comments about active first floor and presuming through his own proposal that are very tight definitions of what we want, that are not glazing, what is considered active, what is considered non-active. For instance, in a commercial building, the amenity space for the employee is considered active. Is a bank or an ATM considered inactive? Those sorts of definitions. And it's just a question about whether we need to get into that granularity to try to define what is so important about this thing of both.
SPEAKER_11	Yeah, I think we're starting to get into that level of granularity. You know, we're trying to work hard with our economic opportunity development division as sort of the experts in this. But you're right, you know, there can be, we can get really granular and say, you know, this aspect of a use isn't, you know, really meeting that active requirement. It's not really contributing to the activity of the street. So it's definitely we want to think hard about and you know always we're trying to balance that with um you know are we are we making the requirements too too onerous and and we're not going to be able to you know fill those spaces but it is a you know that it's that sort of i think the the thing that i've been personally aggressive the the most is how to make that how to make that piece work
SPEAKER_13	Any further questions? I think at this point I want to look at general comments, how people are feeling about this, and ideas about additions or subtractions from either of the quos versus any other start. I might throw out something in the article, just to get a conversation with them. No problem. Chip Harris, the Board of Chair, please. We start the whole premise of the two studies by describing Cambridge Street and Mass Ave as main streets for our city. And through the envision process, I think that whole notion was vetted and endorsed strongly by most that participated. And I think you probably found the same, at least judging from the materials I reviewed, the same sentiment in the outreach, the extensive outreach But what is here can be rightfully asked, but what makes it Main Street? And I went back to what is a Main Street? I think about it in its grandest sense is really our city's identity in a way. You think about the great Main Streets in the world or even in America alone. And they're the most imageable parts of urban form that define what a place is and what its character is and what its values are. And because these particular corridors rise to that level of importance within our community. I was thinking, well, why are we staying with the standard review and special permit processes? If these streets and these corridors are that valuable, and I believe they are, maybe it warrants more scrutiny relative to the last question I had about what's an active storefront. It's a very hard thing to define, but if you ran the projects through a special permanent process you're planning for, that could be discussed with the fathers, with the neighbors, with the community, and that could be defined and that could be understood. I think even the value of these two historic streets and their importance in our community, I think it's something that we should discuss. We think that there should be more special permits, specials for special permits are going to be lower or be required across every address. I don't know. I don't, I don't know. That's the radical idea that I was coming up with, which runs contrary to the current, current, current in, in, in, in planning, thinking in our city. So I don't know. Anybody else that got rattled?
Ashley Tan	I would have to respectfully disagree. I'm thinking about, thinking about, um is that area wow why am i blanking on it formerly north point what is it called yeah region crossing i think in the last few years right there was a ice cream parlor that tried to open and had to come and essentially because our app um none of those active views or if there was um retell use was so narrow he was fine They have to come. And I don't think they eventually opened. I don't know if it was because their lease didn't work out or, you know, a couple of processes too onerous. But then there was also a daycare that had to come through. There was another act that we started. And I like the idea. I do think it might be useful for some small businesses a little too. Plus you have to hire a lawyer, go through the planning board.
SPEAKER_13	Well, I think my prejudice is thinking more of the form of the building. Does it or does it not support the roofs? I don't want to make it unnecessarily nice, but I also kind of balance it out with what's in the city. I appreciate it.
Ashley Tan	More about the form and what that's about.
SPEAKER_13	Yeah, and in it, some, to some degree, gets around what is a very complicated problem to find exactly what is that. Because there's some judgment about that. And that's what this board's all about.
SPEAKER_12	If I interject something, just to kind of point out, it may have been lost in the slide a little bit, because I think we kind of described it kind of briefly as well, we're keeping the same standards, but it actually is different. When you're in an area like Mass Ave, and it's not currently the case for Cambridge Street, but this would be kind of a new thing for Cambridge Street. We have this concept, it's a bit of a mouthful, probably could use a little bit of branding help, but all areas of special planning concern. And those are areas where it's not necessarily a new special permit trigger, but it basically says that, things that happen in this area, even if they're smaller, still deserve attention. So right, so citywide, there's kind of this threshold of like 25,000 square feet. We kind of, we have through our version of like site plan review that kicks in, which is administrative, and then it kind of escalates up to the planning board. But in these areas of special planning concern, it goes all the way down to 2000 square feet. You have to have public review required, And even less than that, a lot of proposals have to come to staff for review. So that 2,000 square feet and up, I think because of the fact that the multifamily zoning has kind of upped the threshold for residential, and although the planning board still does review things at advisory level at 50,000 square feet, there's still a lot of room there in that 2,000 to 50,000 that would require, it would require just sort of a public meeting, but it might be worth thinking about like what is that sort of, it's an advisory process, right? But what does that advisory review process look like? Is there more involvement from the planning board that might be useful for those kinds of cases? So there is still, I think there is still room to think about What review is appropriate, given that we have identified these areas of concern?
SPEAKER_13	What could be more important for an area of special planning concerns than our mainstream? I guess that's where I start. But maybe the broad brush that I'm initially describing is we've all read abundance. Maybe it's too much of a reach, and maybe we need to Look at the court of you guys understand the quarter inch by inch, whether we can designate areas that be considered along the streets of things. There is a special problem concern. This one to this block. So it's not going to work on the Bible, but That's the I don't know. See, Dan said I stand up.
Dan Anderson	Yeah, two things. One, I'd like to weigh in more in support of Tom's proposition that there might be a special permit. It just seems to me that the guidelines for what constitutes an appropriate give to the city and public realm to go to additional height, when it also is with setback and you're dealing with building volume, I would think that rather than having to write detailed guidelines of exactly what constitutes an appropriate use, that a planning board special permit would be the appropriate place to have public comment and feedback. So I would be more fully in support of that. The other is really just, I think, a comment and query as well in terms of when we think about the life of the public realm, the life of streets, it's not just during regular operating hours. There's a nighttime presence. I think about major civic spaces have a daytime and a nighttime use. So contributions to nighttime activity, to transportation alternatives. You know, MBTA is always consistently an issue in terms of late night ridership, but definitely something that I would encourage staff to be thinking about, whether there are, you know, restaurants are a good example, bars, social spaces, things that contribute to that 24-hour life. I think those are the, I would think the Mass Ave corridor in particular would be a place to to consider that. It does complement our squares. So to a degree, we don't want to take away from that, but, you know, wayfinding, lighting opportunities, we've got some great, you know, holiday lighting things that happen, but I think there's a lot of things that resonate with some of the planning contributions of that kind of creativity that lighting could go a long way towards enlivening that experience.
SPEAKER_13	Maybe.
Mary Lydecker	Maybe I might just, because I think this is starting to get at what I'm kind of thinking about, is like Cambridge has its big parks, right? Danahy, Fresh Pond, you know, the Commons. The Mass Ave in particular is the most significant public-run space. Why could it be treated like a park, essentially, right? Like, you're not leaving it to design guidelines. You were designing it, right? And I think that's kind of what I'm getting at is it should reflect identity. It should also reflect equity, right? Like, these are the threads through the city. And if one neighborhood has, you know, an amazing streetscape and another one doesn't, that is an open space equity issue. I think I'm kind of wondering within like the broader cities, public parks and open space, the corridor, like, that's it, right? This is, that's it, right? It should be treated like a park. And so I think that's kind of my, it's more of an existential city question about like, how do we get that to be treated with the same RFPs you'd do for Danneby for Sighting Bird? See what I mean? And the same, you can see it at Cambridge Street, like what happened at the intersection has, you know, it was already an awesome street, right? But it totally transforms and catalyzes the, you know, the civic light. And so I think that's kind of my urging is rethink what the street is. It's not what you see.
SPEAKER_13	I think that's amazing what you're saying. And, you know, I was really worried that we were getting lost the most important thing is getting lost in this simple schism between traffic and parking and urban design. And the most important thing was just lost at a margin. Nevermind those people who are very concerned about loading and parking and all of this stuff, which makes a pedestrian environment, if you get it right, if you get it wrong, it hurts the business and hurts the pedestrian environment. That all needs to be designed and in concert with Yeah, I mean, a strong concept for the space, which is our public realm, but also the built, maybe secondarily, the built, I believe is the best saying, but you're right.
Mary Lydecker	I mean, it's just- I mean, I'm a big proponent of the investment in public realm that pays back, right? It stimulates economic investment in the private market. So it's that kind of, and obviously the city does this, but I think it's like Mass Adam just kind of, at wanting these studies, because there's so much in it, like the heights and everything, seeing the projections of housing after all of our multifamily, that's where the density belongs. It's on the fourth versus the square. So relative to that, maybe that's just a different comment. It's like, that looks appropriate to me, right? And so maybe now it's this ambition of like, well, how do you take the planning into implementation for the street as a public space?
SPEAKER_13	I was always told to walk on the sunny side of the street, and I know that's a metaphor to be optimistic, and I choose to be optimistic, but I find myself these days walking on the shady side of the street, because of climate change, frankly, right? And so this is doubly important, not only visually, but in terms of the So I think I guess I'm just a little confused.
SPEAKER_12	I like the zoning changes. I kind of agree with what P2 was saying, I think. I love the idea of designing the public realm and Mass Ave being sort of the Main Street and Cambridge Street as well. But the changes that work here, I agree with them. I love, I think that's well thought out, the community involvement. And, you know, just the documents, they're long documents. A lot of it is about how well thought out it is, and I really appreciated that. Um, so on that, like, I, I do recommend that to go forward the way it is, but are there like other changes to that that we're kind of discussing? That's my confusion, I guess. Like, are we trying to suggest to involve, to put more design to the public realm for this?
Mary Lydecker	I would say that I don't really think that's what the zoning. Is I think that, um, uh, and that's what I was going to have. I don't have actually, I think that the zoning recommendations are made things seem appropriate. It sounds like council has asked for a little bit of additional study on some height that seems appropriate to keep looking at that. Um, I would say my comments are more about, um, what was that? Right. It's kind of, um,
SPEAKER_09	asking for something slightly different, but using a stimulus catalyst to say, are we messing up things? Like we have the streets, we have the zoning. How do we think about the side? Yeah.
SPEAKER_12	And I can add just to kind of reinforce a little bit of what Drew was saying before. You know, this is something that I struggle with a lot myself. Like as a zoning director, a lot of times with these comprehensive plans, you know, they come back around to zoning recommendations and say, well, you know, can't do everything through zoning here. We've got to like think about other different, other approaches and other, tools and mechanisms we can use. And as Drew was saying, you know, sometimes these, sometimes things don't happen. It's not like we have a plan and then everything just, you know, merges linearly from that one plan, you know, but these plans, because they do take a comprehensive view, they do help to inform these more specific initiatives and programs that, you know, that come together. Like when you were making your comments, one of the things that came to mind was, you know, outdoor dining. And that was something that has really taken a long time to evolve and, COVID really like prompted a lot of focused thinking about it. And that sort of emerged, you know, not necessarily as a plan that like led directly to it, but as a, you know, as an initiative that then started people thinking about like, okay, well, you know, if you want to do art dining, how do we do it? And, you know, people start to look then to the planning to say, well, how do we, how do we think this area is going to work, you know, now in the future? And then how do we try to shape a program around that, you know, more comprehensive thinking. And, you know, we see similar things, I think, with trees and with the city's planning programs. You know, it's not always as kind of big impact or, you know, it doesn't have the kind of, I don't know, glamour to it. It is a little bit more just like, okay, we got to, we have a program, we have a budget, we have a list of locations. They're all over the city. We need to try to figure out where we're going to do these plantings. And the planning, Doug, can help to focus some attention on like, oh, this is an area that's really been identified as a need. You know, draw a little bit more attention to this as part of this larger city-wide program. And of course the, you know, the infrastructure, you know, changes are a big deal, like how the roadways being changed and reallocated. That's a big part of that too. And I, you know, I've been here for a long time and I've seen how these things kind of evolve in waves and iterations that help to kind of move things in a more positive direction. I would love to see things happen all as one transformative sweep. But I think the reality is it tends to move a little bit more sporadically in inches and bits and pieces. But when you have a plan in place, it helps to move it all in the right direction. The intention for Lambers Street Mass Ave Any long term planning study we do is to make sure we're getting it in the hands of people that are making decisions and have money. Because, you know, like, I feel like we should very much be intent on distributing this to every city department and checking in with them every six months to a year to say, because we vet all this, all the implementation recommendations, etc. We're vetted across departments that were involved in this planning process. So whether it's DOT or You know, whether it's DQW or Office of Sustainability. And so we have enough people lying in and say, yeah, these align the things that we're thinking too, and we can support this. I think it's important for us as the planning department, as community development department to like really make sure we're checking in to see if this aligns with the work that you're doing. Because otherwise it's just going to fall to the wayside. And so to Tom's point about shade, we did a citywide shade study recently. We applied some of it to this work in North Mass Ave. We're sharing that with the urban forestry division, making sure like, you know, this needs to be a focus when you're doing the reconstruction of Mass Ave for the CSO project. Like, how are we making sure that this work is all talking to each other? And I think that's the value in these longer term planning projects. I think sometimes people question the value of longer term planning, not you, but I'm saying in general, like, why are we doing this planning? And I think it's really to kind of set the course for how we want to see things evolve in the next 15 to 20 years.
SPEAKER_13	I think we're calling for a vision as well. Yes. Yeah. It's just the detail of what's the overall vision for the public realm.
SPEAKER_12	It's not just us making these decisions at all. It comes from this 18-month community planning process where we're hearing what people would also like to see. And so it's this combination of HAB-Jacques Juilland, Community input city priorities, you know staff experience, etc. It's like a big stew. HAB-Jacques Juilland, And it tastes delicious. HAB-Jacques Juilland, But, um, HAB-Jacques Juilland, Right. Anyway, I don't want to go on too long, but I just think it's a really complicated, but could be really unifying kind of perspective.
SPEAKER_13	HAB-Jacques Juilland, Okay, um, HAB-Jacques Juilland, The signal that there are a number of here and maybe some fun. Right. I'm sure it's not required that we take public comment. There's going to be this lengthy process. There's many, many opportunities that have been put. What's the feeling of the building? I know we're eager and going up. I'm moved by that. And I'm inclined to take comments. OK, we're going to take comments. So just quickly, We're going to be a little bit of work here. It's not a public hearing, but we're going to take public comment. And any members of the public who wish to speak, if you're online, you can click the button that says raise hand. If you're calling by phone, you can press stall nine. As of 5 p.m. yesterday, the board received written communications from Tyler Walker and from Ethan Frank. Written communications since that time have been entered into the record. And I'll now ask staff to... HAB-Jacques Juilland, On you can finish speakers, if there are any money indicating online. I also want to respect the individual who's taking the time to come down for tonight. HAB-Jacques Juilland, Perhaps to HAB-Jacques Juilland, Come up first. HAB-Jacques Juilland, Three minutes to speak before we asked me to go to the right. HAB-Jacques Juilland, And stuff.
SPEAKER_12	HAB-Jacques Juilland, So yeah, just to just to kind of reiterate and and lay everything down a little bit more we're doing, we'll do things a little bit you know, a little bit less formally tonight, but we do have people participating in Zoom, so we want to give everybody a chance. We'll start with anybody in the room that would like to speak. Please push the raise hand button or star nine if you're on Zoom, and we'll go to the Zoom after. We don't have the usual kind of countdown screen that we have, but Swati's just going to Keep track and kind of signal to the chair and you can get maybe a gentle reminder if you're going too far beyond the three minutes, but I hope we can sort of keep it mandatory. So over here, as we always do, start by giving your name and address.
SPEAKER_03	I'm Ruth Riles. I'm president of the Florida Square Namers Association and I was on the board of the Mass Asset Study. And it just strikes me, and I don't know why I haven't thought about this much before, But the very north end of Mass Avenue, we're sort of glowing an opportunity to have it be more special, to actually have it very planted, but also it's a long, long way from Porter Square up there. And I love to see that we've got a lot more like a shopping center or Joe's or something that made it a little more commercial and useful that northern best ad population, which is pretty, you know, we're not putting many stores on a lot of that. And I would say even extra highly.
SPEAKER_13	Thank you.
SPEAKER_12	Any anyone else? No, no. So we'll go, so we have one hand raised for now. If you do want us to be, please raise your hand and do it in the next minute or two so we don't miss you. But Heather Hoffman is the speaker with the hand raised now. So you can begin.
SPEAKER_06	Hello, Heather Hoffman, 213 Hurley Street. I was most struck by the notion that there should be a one-to-one, you know, height versus width of the public way ratio for main streets. And it made me wonder why on earth main streets should be less I guess, overwhelmed by buildings than what we are sentencing all of us who live on even fairly wide residential streets like Hurley Street. That's a 40-foot way. And that counts in the sidewalks because the public way goes all the way to the lot lines. And yet we're supposed to have 74 foot buildings. That's nigh on two to one. And then we say, okay, but that's wonderful urban development, you know, urban planning, urban design to have one to one. But now let's see if we can overwhelm it because there's something we want more. And so when I listened to this, I, I really, am hard pressed to see any sense that we're actually talking about good urban design. And that mostly, the idea is we're talking about how much we can cram into places. And the other thing that I don't get is the idea that we should have green spaces. As I'm sure you all know, I am a huge believer in green spaces, street trees, flowers, all of those wonderful things that remind us that we are actually part of nature. Humans are creatures of the savanna. We need that stuff for our own mental health. And yet, everything you're talking about is about shading everything out, building giant buildings that will cast shadows so much that green stuff won't grow. And I am, I absolutely believe that every last person who's listening to me, who's in a decision making position or an advisory position is smart enough to figure all of these things out. And so And, and also probably agrees with me that they're all good things. Since those were the principles that you talked about. So what I would like to hear some discussion of is why these principles can be jettisoned so quickly, like two sentences later, as though they aren't really principles. Thank you.
SPEAKER_13	We don't have our
SPEAKER_12	our graphic tonight but we could summarize that we're past the three minutes all set um okay thank you the next speaker is ellen walker
SPEAKER_02	Thank you. Can you hear me? Yes. I have a question that I hope maybe you can discuss and get an answer for. I see one story commercial with housing above. What I'd like to know about is one about the developer who wants to do three stories of innovation lab space. and five stories of housing above it, and really thinks that that's something he can make the numbers work for. I know a developer who thinks that. What provision are you making for this kind of development? I don't see it, but maybe it's in there, and I don't understand where it is in there. Thank you.
SPEAKER_12	Can you give your name and address again, just to make sure it's on the record?
SPEAKER_02	Helen Walker, 43 Linnien Street.
SPEAKER_12	Thank you. So that's the list of speakers from the Zoom. So I'll go back to the chair.
SPEAKER_13	Thank you. I don't know whether there's an answer to that very succinct last question. Sure. I mean, I can take a stab at part of it.
SPEAKER_12	Okay. I mean, understanding one with floor-to-floor heights for lab or commercial office would generally be around 13 feet minimum, in which case you would get two stories of a commercial use like that. I think also the development footprints or the floor plate of commercial office lab and residential don't really align all that well. So the development of feasibility of that building prototype is pretty low. Now speaking to the blend of uses, you might be able to.
SPEAKER_11	Well, I'll say this is exactly why we kept the FAR. So it's sort of, you know, instead of being a little, you know, draconian saying we won't allow any lab use or some of those uses that we don't really want to incentivize. We've used the density limit to prevent the kind of building that I think was being described. So it wouldn't, if you, you know, Like, like Drew said to do three stories of of lab in a 35 foot height limit or 45 on on NASA have with a 1.0 FAA are be a pretty small footprint. That probably wouldn't be feasible. Even if it was, you know, part of a larger building just Okay.
SPEAKER_13	Thank you. I think we're getting a lot of feedback tonight. I don't know if there are other things that I encourage the Board, as we went through questions here, to send them out. It appears that you've exhausted this topic pretty well. And I hope we've been helpful to know anything at this point. We should know what additional remarks sometimes entertain a motion to move the discussion. Thanks, . Second. Second. So we send you a new roll call vote.
SPEAKER_12	So I'll still do the roll call vote. Mary Lydecker.
SPEAKER_05	Yes.
SPEAKER_12	Diego Macias. Yes. Ashley Tan. Yes. Carolyn Cern. Yes. Thompson Avon. Yes. So that's all. Five members voting in favor. Thank you.
SPEAKER_13	We're adjourned. Thank you.