 Good evening, everyone. Welcome to the Town of Arlington Redevelopment Board meeting on Monday, February 5th. I'd like to call this meeting to order. My name is Rachel Zembery. I'm the chair of the board and if the other members of the board could please introduce themselves. We'll start with Steve. Steve Revolot, good evening. Eugene Benson. Shannon Corman, Houston. Can I allow? And we also have Claire Ricker joining us from the Department of Planning and Community Development, as well as Sarah Suarez. All right, let's go ahead and get started with the first agenda item, which is a review of the meeting minutes. And we will start with the meeting minutes from January 8th, 2024. And I will ask to see if there are any additions or corrections starting with Ken. No, I'm not. Shayna? Gene. I have one very minor correction on the third page. There's a paragraph that starts with about a year ago. People can see that. Yep. The fourth line down, the sentence in the middle starts, the trust funds are supposed to be an apostrophe before the S. All right. That was the only one I caught. Okay. Steve, any other additions or corrections? No additions or corrections. All right. Is there a motion to approve the meeting minutes from January 8th, 2024 as amended? So motion to second. We'll take a vote starting with Steve. Yes. Gene. Yes. Shayna. Yes. Ken. Yes. I'm a yes as well. Those meeting minutes are approved. We'll now move to the meeting minutes from January 22nd, 2024. And again, we'll call for any additions or corrections starting with Ken. None. Shayna? None. Gene? None. Steve? None. Can I have no corrections either? Is there a motion to approve the January 22nd meeting minutes? So motion. As submitted. Thank you. Second. We'll take a vote starting with Steve. Yes. Gene. Yes. Shayna. Yes. Ken. Yes. I'm a yes as well. Those meeting minutes have been approved. All right. Let's move to our second agenda item, which is the master plan implementation committee, and I will turn it over to Claire. Great. Thank you. So as we move into the new master planning process, we're looking to establish a new master plan advisory committee. The master plan implementation committee of roughly 2015 came out of the former master plan advisory committee that was put together in 2012 to sort of guide the process of master planning. We are looking to have a kick-off webinar with me on February 29th at 6 p.m. To solicit volunteers, people who would like to apply to be on a new master plan advisory committee, we're looking to have those applications open probably March 1st through about mid-April. Just looking for some newer, different voices. The master plan implementation committee hasn't met in over a year. They have been notified that the intent is to disband, and it will just take a confirming vote of the ARB to sort of close the leap on that. Great. Any discussion, starting with Ken? None. Shayna? None. Gene? None. Steve? None. Okay. Is there a vote to, let me make sure I have the language correctly, is there a vote to disband the master plan implementation committee in advance of the update to the 2015 Arlington master plan? So motion. Second. We'll take a vote starting with Ken? Yes. Shayna? Yes. Gene? Yes. Steve? Yes. And I'm a yes as well. That concludes agenda item number two. Thank you so much Claire. Great. We'll now move to agenda item number three, which is the board rules and regulations, and Claire posted an update that has to do with the approval of signs. We'll turn it over to you. Great. Thank you. So as part of this continuing discussion of update of the ARB rules and regulations, Gene was kind enough to put together a new wording for rule 18. I think that I have to this board in the past, some of the difficulties necessarily, but some of the gray area with administrative approval and my office's ability to approve administratively certain kinds of signs in certain situations. This language that Gene put together I think is very clear, makes it clear both to the applicant, you know, to the board and to DPCD what our responsibilities are. And so we could open that up for discussion for the board, so desires. Great. Thank you. Gene, why don't we start with you? I just tried to do what we all discussed at the meeting a couple of more than two meetings ago now, I guess. And basically what it says is that it can be administrative approval for any sign that meets the zoning requirements, if there are no zoning or general bylaw requirements on the property, but the department's not required to provide administrative review and they can review and at any time they can send one to us, but it shall refer to us if, in their opinion, the signs so unique in such a prominent or important location are of such an effect on its surroundings that review by the board would be warranted. So I think that's what people talked about when they had the meeting. Great. Thank you. Steve, any comments? None. Sheena? None, this looks good. Kim? Yeah, I have something a little tangent to this and I just want to bring it up to the board to talk about it. Right now, signage falls on their zoning and such that it is enforced by inspection of services. Is there a way us to put the requirements of signage off of zoning and on to, I'm going to write a lot on you and more, Jeanne, on this one here, to put it elsewhere within the, that's, under, not zoning, but what else you can put under, that's not in the zone. It's this way the town manager can just hire someone to enforce it and not have inspection of services. This way we can get a little more, because they're really busy. I'm not saying that they're not doing their job. They are. They're doing a great job, but we need to separate and maybe have a little more enforcement involved so that the stuff we talk about follows through and the stuff we don't follow. Because when I go through the town, I see signs all over the place. That's, should not be signs. Stuff that's been there, should not be there for more than a couple of weeks at its temporary. All sorts of stuff. And if we can find someone else to sort of enforce it, maybe, you know, you can hire a part-time person and combine it with someone else, but they don't have the jurisdiction while still in zoning. So I was wondering, maybe we should have the town council and see. Yeah, I mean, you can talk to the town council. My understanding is we could theoretically file a warrant article to take all of the signed requirements out of the zoning bylaw and put them in the general town bylaws. The disadvantage of doing that would be we would then be out of the picture altogether and wouldn't have the ability to do what we do when signs don't meet the standards or we have other concerns about the signs. So that's the major, I think, downside. And then I don't know whether the department could have a role in it if it's no longer in the zoning bylaw, but in the general bylaw. That, I don't know. And you're assuming that the town would do a better job in that course. I don't know. We don't know. I would say, I mean, we talked about this once before. And I think the last time we thought, wouldn't it be great if there was some way that inspectional services had a part-time person assigned to do this? And I think maybe we need a conversation with my Champa or with the town manager about getting enough from the budget. Because that would solve the problem, right? Right. So I think, Claire, I'm going to further this over to you. I think that you and I at one point had talked about potentially a joint position that was shared between the Department of Planning and Community Development and the inspectional services department that would not only perhaps review signage compliance, but also compliance with the things like we're experiencing right now, the special permit conditions and other items. And if that's something that perhaps we could escalate that conversation with Director Champa and perhaps contemplate whether or not that could live in the budget that is planning to go in front of town meeting, I think that that's, I'd have to go back through my notes, but I know that we have spoken about that and what that role could entail a couple of different, and a couple of different meetings, because there are some things that are falling through the cracks because there just isn't a staff to take care of it. And having a, you know, we know how important the signage and the care that is taken to maintenance of a facade that really affects the vitality of a business district. Or any town. Of any town, not just Tarlington. And so making sure that we have somebody who can enforce those, the vacant storefront provisions that we have. I mean, there are quite a few different vehicles we have to ensure that our business districts are kept up and maintained in alignment with the various zoning codes that we have. I agree. I think the conversation about additional positions has not been an easy one to have lately. But it is certainly something that I continue to advocate for and I can bring up again with Mike Champ. I like the idea of a shared position and not just something that he, you know, not just another inspector for him and his backlog, that's something that is dedicated to these two issues. Enforcement of the ARB's special permit conditions, as well as the sign code. I just, I'm happy to bring that back up with the town manager. I think that to a certain extent, I don't know that it would fully pay for the position, but the number of signs that go up without the proper permit fees paid to the town alone, I think would certainly have at least some offset of this type of position. Yeah, I mean, I too think it's a real problem at the moment. They'll also walk around town and say, wow, how'd that sign get there? Or that sign should have been taken down two years ago and it's still there. So I appreciate you bringing that up, Ken. Yeah, just for the one, business is going dark. The owners are responsible to take down their sign. Yes, they are. And that doesn't seem to happen. I agree. So, all right, I know it's a little off topic, but... No, it's certainly under this category. It's something that we can set an attention to following up on. Other than that, I'm fine. Great. Let's see. So for this item, I believe that the discussion we have tonight and that we need to advertise this as a vote to approve at our next meeting. Correct. I wanted to mention something about the other one. Please, go ahead. I think everybody had an opportunity to review. In the reasons that we can reject a site plan review, there's only one reason, and I took it out of the CTPC wording and they claim that that reason has never been upheld by a court. But they recommended that. Something like, if, despite meeting the rules, the project is so awful and can't be fixed, something like that. But there is another reason we should put in. I just want to make sure everybody's comfortable with that. And that reason would be if someone's submitted an incomplete or an accurate application and have not corrected it on request. And that occurred to me after I gave this to everyone. So if everybody's okay with adding that, I will do a very slight amendment and send the edited one to you, Claire. Great. So it includes that. I have no issue with that. Ken? No. Shayna? Yeah. Steve? Sounds good. Okay. Great. But we will vote on that on both of those items at our next meeting. Great. Let's see. Our next agenda item is agenda item number four, a discussion around the design guidelines. And I will hand it back over to Claire. Great. Thank you very much. So, and we have had this sort of outstanding project of the redevelopment board and DPCD for, you know, it seems like years now certainly wants to update commercial design standards as it relates to the town. And I think, you know, probably to this board's interest, Mass Ave and Broadway especially. We did do some research and found a document from the 2015, which has some design standards for the town of Arlington. These are, I think, a good place to start, a good place to begin discussion. There are already sort of going through, you can see some of the height recommendations that other dimensional requirements do not reflect our latest zoning or decisions around MBTA communities. But I think for DPCD's purposes and our office's sort of understanding of this project, we wanted to at least put these back in front of the board or put them in front of the board for the first time if we hadn't seen them to talk about how we might best build on this, but not just create a new design standard whole clock. So this also opened for the board's discussion. Great. Thank you. Steve, why don't we start with you? Okay. There's just in terms of context. So these are dated 2015. This was the year we adopted the current master plan. And it was the year prior to the incorporation of mixed use into the bylaw. So there's actually a number of things in the standards that are part of the bylaw now in terms of recommending ground floor commercial. The height regulations have come out a little bit different. And we have things, standards now for tree planting for facade articulation. It's a whole industrial district. Yes. This was also predates the updating of the industrial district. There's some things in these guidelines that I like, like the sort of hierarchy of transit priorities, pedestrians and bicycles and transit that drop in automobiles. And I think this was a good starting point in 2015, but we're at a point now where a lot of this stuff is in our bylaws and maybe we can build on it a little more. Thank you, Steve. Gene. I pretty much agree with Steve with a couple of things that I'll add. One is that, yeah, there are a couple of places in here at least that don't quite match up with the current zoning bylaw, which you'd expect half to nine or 10 years. But there are also some things in here that don't match up, which I think are okay because there are still things that the developer could do if it chooses to. And I'll just choose one where I disagreed with the board about this, but it's in here as an example. They suggest that there be stepbacks on both the front and side facades. We decided as a board and was adopted by town meeting that only the front facade needed stepbacks, but that doesn't mean it shouldn't be a consideration that there be stepbacks on the sides depending upon context, which is sort of lacking in here. So that's one example. The height ones are another where we've changed the height rules and this doesn't really reflect it. The thing I like about it is it doesn't dictate any particular style, which I think is important. But what I find we could do better on is saying what's just not going to work. This basically said something like use natural materials on the facade and then don't use cheap materials. I think if we could be more explicit about those sorts of things, I think it would be helpful to do that. Much of it I thought was still relevant and good, so I'm not sure we need to start from scratch. I think we just sort of need to update it and think about those sorts of things where the zoning bylaws done a little better. The industrial districts obviously is something that should probably be added into this too. And there are some pretty clear design standards in the zoning bylaw for the industrial district. And I think that's the other part, building on what Steve said. I think it would be nice if the next version actually referenced the parts of the zoning bylaw that deal with these sorts of things. So if it's height, it might indicate what the height rules are, things like that. But overall, I think it's still good for a lot of things. This is my non-professional view. Gina. I, Jean really appreciated the last thing you said, which the sort of marriage of bylaw and design standards, I think, is really helpful and going to be critical here. I think where to the extent that we can come up with something that allows a developer that truly does their due diligence to come before the board with a proposal that we can feel confident and we can feel confident is going to get approved in a timely manner. I think that's really the goal of these design standards. Let's be clear about what we're looking for. And some of that, or a lot of that, could be sussed out of the zoning bylaw. But this will be a really nice tool once updated to move that forward. Kim. I agree with what everybody said so far. I think there's a good starting point. I think we have to upgrade, update this a little and get it more conforming to what we have now. The big thing I want to maybe add to this thing here, I think setups, that's where I says it encourages and discourages. I want to add another section in there and maybe my reverence is not correct, but encourage, discourage, and then bonuses and how the bonuses can be. Here's what the bonuses are. Here's how they can be used. This is the intent of it. And then really go into why we're having these bonuses here. That goes into some trees, the cars to, you know, and then get into a little more of that stuff. So I think we need, this is a good start. I remember seeing this when it first got on the board and I thought we were going to do more of this stuff. And this is what got me into the board. So I think it's a really good start. We're going to, so this is going to have to be done not at a meeting like this, but it's going to be done like that. All of a sudden we have to roll past these and just get into the nitty gritties and do maybe a section at a time or something. So we're going to give this up some sort of committee for that. We're good. There is an appropriation from the town for a consultant for this. I think it was a year or two ago that it was. Because, I mean, these drawings are great. I mean, these asymmetrics and things are a way, a good way of explaining things. Much better than what we've been doing in the past. We're just doing these flat diagrammatic drawings. I think seeing it, it helps a lot. I think it would be interesting to just on that note, Ken, to find out what format we have this in and whether or not some of these drawings need to be updated to the points that folks were making, but it's a good start and it would be a shame to have to start all over. So it would be great to find out if this consultant delivered this in some sort of an editable format. Because there are things, Ken, I'm sorry I interrupted you. Did you have other items? No, it's a two thing. Okay. I think this is just, which we'll call it, a sketch up. It looks like it. Yeah. That's my question is whether or not we own the editable files. We can certainly take a look for that. And if not, I can put it in the chat for the consultant too. Great. We should get a pause for him too. Yes. So I just had a couple of other things to add on. I agree with everything that's been said. I think specifically when it comes to the commercial area, talking, I think this is our opportunity to be more explicit than we are in the bylaws about the, for example, the percentage of first floor space that we would like to see, you know, that what some of the goals are, which we have not been able to, we've been hesitant to put that kind of specificity in the zoning bylaws. But I think as a target for a guideline that might be something worth discussing as to whether or not we'd like to include it. I think that they are in addition to being more explicit about materials that will not be approved. We've certainly seen projects. We've had at times a painful experience getting from a first, a first design to where we think the facade needs to go specific to things like articulation. And particularly around cornice lines and the articulation of the commercial versus residential. If it's mixed use or commercial versus office above. And just what a sign band should or could be, and some of those types of elements, I think that we can be a lot more specific in showing examples of what we would and would not approve. I think this predates the current signage section of the bylaws. I think we did that in 2019 or 2018. And I think that there are, we built into that a lot more creative options for signage. And so I think being able to again indicate through some illustrations that we are looking for some creativity and we certainly would be open to some really vibrant options within the town would be worthwhile. And then the other thing as well as I think we've come a long way with our green building provisions. And so being able to identify, we had one proposal that came in front of us that didn't go forward that had a beautiful kind of living wall and green wall proposal. There are a lot of really thoughtful discussions we've had as a town as to what we'd like to see from integrated beyond solar panels as green building elements. And I think it would be great to push people a little bit and perhaps give them some ideas of what we'd like to see so that we're not starting from below square one. Yeah. At the first time that we've reviewed some of these proposals. Please. A couple of other things. Ken reminded me the word bonus is used once in here in a way that we don't allow with the zoning code. I know. And obviously we can't put bonuses in here that the zoning code doesn't allow. Right. But the zoning by law does allow some bonuses that aren't mentioned in here. So we might want to do that. Yeah. I agree about sort of the environmental climate issues and whether there's a way to highlight some of those in here. So I think would be good. And also to maybe reference the other standards like we have the whole bicycle parking standard and that you know the guidelines on how people can do bicycle parking. I don't think they need to necessarily be incorporated in here but they should be referenced in here. So you know in addition to referencing the parts of the zoning by law we do have those that I think should at least be referenced for bicycle parking. Native species etc. Right. Right. Things like that. Yeah. Great. Steve. Yeah. Just we do have sort of in a similar vein there is a set of design guidelines for a single or two family owners. And during my time on the zoning board of appeals I'm speaking for myself and not the ZBA as a whole I felt like you know we got you know they were beneficial to have in terms of at least showing you know sort of the direction we were you know we as a town were hoping to see things go. I think that I think an update would be useful. Great. Thank you Steve. I think that this also begs the question these are commercial I think that they're set out as commercial design guidelines specifically where do or where could some of the design guidelines for multifamily housing live should those you know this talks about the commercial corridor specifically should those be part of the residential design guidelines for those that don't have a mixed use component or do we rename these and would these live here I mean I think that that's they need to live somewhere and I and I think that that's a discussion we should have about most appropriate place for those to live as well. Any other yeah and the thing is we don't have design guidelines for residential other than the one and two family correct so this would be an opportunity to deal with both mixed use with residential which I think you could say this does deal with although if you look at a lot of the examples there residential even though this is a commercial guideline but also to think about wrapping larger multifamily residential also. Any other thoughts might even be commercial corridor guidelines right more than commercial and mixed use and multifamily yeah I think that that's a great point and I think that in the document it does reference the commercial corridor at one point and so perhaps renaming it would be enough to be able to incorporate a wider range of building technology. Great clear do you have any thoughts on timing just looking at the upcoming projects that the department might have on its plate it would be great to kind of talk about whether this looks like a first half of the year second half of the year to start. Sure the timeline on this I think we want to get started on it writing our RFP as soon as possible certainly you know with with some consideration for town meeting and you know all of the work required around that but I do think that you know putting in our RFP together which is where we are right now is something we could you know we can certainly get done in the next month or two right to try to get it out perhaps for very early summer late spring after right after town meeting. Fabulous any other thoughts. Alright thank you so much I'm excited to jump into this I know we've been talking about it for some time. Alright let's move to agenda item number five which is 882 do 892 Massachusetts Avenue we did receive an update from the developer and I will turn it over to Claire to discuss. Great thank you yes I've been in contact with the developer almost every day about this project and he did ultimately send along pictures of the paint that they intend to use on the storefront pieces and the paint that they are using currently on the exterior of the project and that the board had requested a spec and we ended up with you know pictures of the cans of paint that they are going to use. I did have a conversation with the developer earlier this week about the louvers you know I will be frank here he's really wanted for this board and for me to tell him exactly what it is we would like him to do although I think it's pretty clear in the meeting minutes and there's any meetings that we've attended that we've had that they've attended exactly what it is that we're looking for them to do. So I will continue to push to get some sort of sample of the louvers and the replacement louver and I will ask for a written description of the spec of the paint. I think you know there did also receive some correspondence about this project as it relates to the affordable units. I can say that you know this regulatory agreement has gone back and forth between the state and the town at least once there was a misplaced signature on the document at least one time it was sent back to EOHLC to the state on January 25th and we'll wait for the state to turn it around. The next steps there is they will send it to the developer, the developer will execute and then file the restriction. So those are the steps at least that are remaining on the affordable units and where we are I think with the design issues that we have out there. Great, thank you. Any questions starting with Ken? No. Great, Shayna? No. Good job. Yes, thank you for following up. Jean. Yeah, there should be a dentist in the building because it's like pulling teeth. Steve. Nothing here. Yeah, I agree. I appreciate you following up on both of those two items that we still don't have resolution on the spec and the overalternates. And I also have from the same developer he also reached out to me about 435MASAB which is the project on the corner of Medford and MASAB. He wanted to make sure that the board was satisfied that there were no discrepancies between the rendering that you've seen that was what the commercial permit was issued on and the construction documents, the elevations in the exteriors. So staff right now we are comparing the rendered rendering with the construction elevations to make sure that there are no discrepancies and if there are, we will be back to discuss with the board at your next meeting. Great, thank you very much for showing that. Is that the Papagenal Sick? Yes. I go by that much and I'll go by addresses. There's signs still there. Her earlier. Great. And so currently reviewing the massage that were approved versus the construction elevations. All right. Any other questions or comments on 882 to 892MASAB Avenue? All right. We'll close agenda item number five and move to open forum which is agenda item number six. So anyone joining us this evening? Please come forward. Please. And that way the microphone will be able to pick you up. If you could just introduce yourself first, last name and address. We're now 11, it's 20 orchard place. Thank you guys for following up on 882. I've also been following this particularly because of the affordability snap for those. So today I took a look at 190 and 455, the most current elevations are rather site plans each and of the units designated as affordable at 190, none of them meet the department of housing and community development requirement for minimum square footage. The one bedrooms are all under 700 feet and the two bedrooms that I think they're just a couple of two bedrooms are all under 900 square feet. So they are currently not compliant. And of the two designated affordable units at 455, only one is compliant. So given the issues with 882 and I'm wondering in the horrible circumstances that the state does not approve this, there are already tenants in those affordable units. What would happen to them? Would they have to move? So to to forestall this, I would like to know what kinds of steps the board might take to get these units in these next two projects into compliance. Whether that is a redrawing of the plans, which I'm assuming would probably be the least desirable way to do this or whether it's a redesignation of which units are affordable. I'm going to turn this over to Claire who's been working really closely with Jim Feeney and ISD. And ISD obviously being really the ones who are charged with making sure that the units are important. Thank you for pointing that out. I didn't realize that there was a unit in 455 that was ID for affordable that is non-compliant. It's clear to the town manager and to me that we will not be receiving kind of labor based on unit size from the OHLC perhaps ever again after what happened at 833. And so now is the time, this is why I've been in such close communication with the developer about unit size, about which units are designated affordable. Regulatory agreement has not been set in stone yet. It's another thing that I'm happy to bring up with the developer the next time I speak with him to make sure that and I'm with you. I've seen the minimum unit sizes as well. There's no room for any kind of there's no wiggle room there. I mean it has to be the correct square footage. I think the town is absolutely committed to that and you know on my end and my office's end we are going to work hand in hand with this particular developer to make sure that you know this sort of issue with 883 doesn't occur on the next two projects. And just to follow up, if this, if the state does not prove this, what will happen to the tenants at 882? That I don't have an answer to. I don't know. I do have every indication that the state will approve this. That some of the you know at least the long lead time on this agreement has been due to a mix of the signatures but there's no indication from the state that they won't you know sign off on the agreement and then submit it to the developer. If indeed they do not sign off then I unfortunately I don't have an answer to that question. Yeah it's just it's concerning. It doesn't seem like, I mean the state's not in the business of evicting people from their homes. I mean there we would have to maybe go through some of the process or something. First of all I think professionally I don't think this would necessarily result in evictions. Second you know I just don't know right. Okay and can I also just make one comment on a previous topic. I'm totally supportive of the revision of the commercial or corridor design guidelines whichever they end up being designated and just sort of a point that if they do end up being designated the corridor guidelines that they not then exclude any multifamily projects that are not on in each corridor because I'm assuming we will have some of those and it would be a shame for them not to be subject to those guidelines so but totally supportive. Thank you very much. And with that we will close open forum and move to agenda item number seven which is new business. And I will turn it over to Claire and see if there's any item under new business. Great. Thank you. Ken? Nope. Shayna? Nope. Gene? Nothing. Steve? Nothing. Alright. With that is there a motion to adjourn? So motion. Second. Take a vote starting with Ken? Yes. Shayna? Yes. Gene? Yes. Steve? Yes. And I may as well. This meeting is adjourned. Thank you.