good morning thank you for joining the Boston zoning commission public hearing which is being held virtually to ensure the safety of the public staff members and the Boston zoning Commissioners during the covid-19 pandemic the open public meeting law requires that I notify the public that this meeting is being recorded Please be aware that an audio and visual recording of this meeting is being made at this point I'd um ask Cyrus please introduce the interpreters that are here with us today thanks Jill uh let's start with uh aan okay good morning my name is aan I'm I'm your C inter for today and please allow me to introduce okay thank you thanks a now we'll jump to Jardine good morning everyone M name and I'm your haian C interpreter for this morning's meeting great thank you next will be new hi everyone my name is new I will be your Vietnamese interpreter for the meeting this morning thank you thanks new H zenilda hello good morning this is zilda and I'll be for tonight for this morning's meeting thank you thank you horon please please hello everyone my name is haran I am the mentoring interpreter for this morning's meeting thank you thank you and we'll finish it off with Aurora uh good morning my name is Aurora I will be your Spanish interpreter for this meeting wonderful the interpretation channels should be open now so back to you Joe thank you Cyrus at this time I'd like to take a roll call of the members at the um that are attending this hearing um myself Miss Hatton Mr Nichols presid Mr deela present Miss Miller present Miss morawa present Mr Lu pres Mr ostrich president Mr ooyo present thank you everyone our 9:00 am public hearing this is a public hearing before the Boston zoning commission to consider text Amendment application numbers 522 and 523 squares and streets zoning the hearing was duly advertised on March 28th 2024 in the Boston Herald in a in a Boston zoning commission hearing on proposed petitions the proponent will first present their case and are subject to questioning by members of the commission only we are taking support and opposition at the same time if you're planning to testify please take time now to verify that your computer microphone is active click on the hand icon on your Zoom control panel this will signal staff that you would like to speak when your hand is raised it will be blue if you're calling into the meeting and would like to testify please dial star9 to raise your hand when I call for all testimony staff will announce your name and allow you to talk you must unmute your microphone your webcam will not be active in an effort to accommodate all who would like to speak about this proposal each person will be given up to two minutes to comment commission staff will indicate when 30 seconds remain at that time please conclude your remarks so that the hearing may continue and others may be heard finally the proponents are allowed a period of 5 to 10 minutes for a rebuttal if they so desire will The Plea will the bpda please begin the presentation thank you and uh Cyrus confirming that you all are sharing the screen of the slide presentation yes we we should be waiting for Joan to pull that up right now great thank you um good morning members of the zoning commission I'm here with Abdul razak zakariah Adam Johnson um and Maya catler gold to present amendments to the zoning code that will create new squares and streets districts and Advance comprehensive reform of the code as a team we want to openly acknowledge this is a significant step towards a different approach to zoning than Boston is a custom to over the last seven months the zoning reform team has done a great deal of research analysis and most importantly Community engagement that has Unearthed input and criticism that have meaningfully changed the proposal before you dear today and the future planning to come as a result next slide please squares and streets is a Citywide planning in zoning initiative to expand housing and realize the co- benefits of development in mixed use areas of the city and how those benefits acre to small businesses on the effectiveness of our transportation system and on help magnify the impact of city services and investment these zoning reforms are the first step in this initiative next slide please the text Amendment before you here today would establish squares and streets districts as mixed use zoning options or a set of tools in the toolbox of the zoning code that can support the activities and development in Boston's main streets and neighborhood squares to ensure that these zoning options are mapped into areas in a way that aligns with the Community Development goals the bpda comprehensive planning team working with staff from Transportation Urban Design and other City departments has begun small area planning processes in clear square and Rosendale Square these six to n month small area plan Community processes are where staff in the community will develop recommendations with residents on crosscutting policy and programmatic needs to identify Community benefits that can be realized through future development to coordinate mobility and public space improvements to increase accessibility and connectivity to identify capital and program Investments That City departments can utilize to address neighborhood needs and to identify specific design recommendations to further historic preservation and enhance the uniqueness of the neighbor neighborhood and develop recommendations to expand tree coverage mitigate heat prepare for an electric future and Advance climate resilience these small area plans can be place-based and address a much broader array of tools than just zoning only after the completion of planning will we then bring forward to you as a zoning commission through a full public process making this zoning Real by codifying zoning and new zoning districts into the zoning map and implementing plan recommendations next slide please throughout this P process we've heard significantly about the need for policy change that can accompany new zoning uh and so we would like to highlight three areas where we've had significant public comment and that has been included in the material to you uh where we believe both zoning and policy change are necessary the first one would be anti-displacement uh these zoning districts come to you with scer District Dimensions that focus on legalizing existing non-conforming housing and small businesses to help encourage the preservation of existing house stock in our squares and streets in addition to those zoning changes we need policies that will refine and expand existing tools that various City departments employ to help mitigate direct and indirect displacement of residents small businesses and cultural Enterprises for example in the article 80 examinations of the impact acts of a project how can that tool be better utilized to address concern of displacement in our neighborhoods an affordable housing uh these zoning districts are all subject to the new inclusionary zoning that you as board uh passed into the code as the new article 79 uh we also aligned with City policy for supporting Supportive Housing have made Supportive Housing and allowed use in every squares and streets district and specifically tailored requirements to the needs of affordable housing developments based on their funding requirements an important policy that this zoning can help Leverage is the city and state continue to seek ways to expand and leverage funding and then in small area plans we may be able to take disowning and that policy approach to coordinate disposition of city and BPD own property in alignment with affordability goals and the community planning process finally small businesses um one of the important moves that this zoning does in setting up a new use table is differentiate the size of retail uses to make sure we're protecting space for small businesses one of a policy work that we see is essential is helping expand the capacity of Main Street organizations to support Place Bas work and um services for small business in squares and streets areas an example of how this could magnify impact is that the city's space grants which provided uh grant funding to small businesses to open into vacant retail space across the city over a third of those businesses that received grants in the first round of that program needed zoning variances and so thus had to go through a costly and timeconsuming Zoning process just to um open and operate and so I want to highlight for both you as a commission as well as everyone participating through the process that when we think of a zoning and planning initiative we're thinking about the importance of zoning as a tool and all of the ways that it leverages and pairs with policy to achieve planning outcomes next slide please and as Kathleen explained it's really important for us that we explain to folks that zoning exists as a single tool in the array of tools our city has to support city-wide and Community Development goals so in doing this work we've found it additionally important to make clear to Residents who haven't interacted with zoning before what zoning is and to ground an understanding of zoning and how we experience it to the dayto day um as you all know zoning is a set of laws that are used to guide development by dictating the allowed use shape and density of a building or structure in a given area zoning not only sets standards that form how and what is built throughout the city but also plays a really important role and how a city looks and feels because it's where we can embed our development regulations with rules to support both short and long-term goals next slide zoning in Boston is heavily impacted by our zoning code which we have found to be quite long complex and deeply impactful in how it produces costly barriers to development um as you all know as well Boston zoning code after being enacted in 1964 has received several peac meal amendments in addition of chapters known as the articles that have led to an almost 4,000 page document with inconsistent zoning regulations and inequitable development outcomes that sum from them between different parts of the city we found that that length of the zoning code also serves as a proxy for its complexity where there are more confusing rules for Property Owners to follow and act on even those who aim to make simple changes to their property this leads to a series of bureaucratic hurdles longer periods of time for all scales of development projects confusion around what is actually allowed and increased cost to Property Owners as those factors accumulate those increased costs in the process of development often carry over and lead to increased costs uh for tenants of projects that do get built next slide it's from this understanding that our zoning code is not structured to meet our comprehensive and Citywide goals of today um and as we pursued this opportunity to reform the zoning code we are focused on achieving reforms that align with the goals of resiliency affordability and equity in practice these goals translate to a reformed zoning code that can encourage increased climate resiliency and sustainability in development projects they also translate to zoning that permits levels of density and smart growth near Transit resources that are that not only promote Housing Development but also makes much of our existing housing stock compliant with the zoning code in censoring Equity we are also promoting zoning reform that pairs well as Kathleen mentioned with tools that prevent displacement encourage good design and establish Equitable development standards across our entire city and not just in specific areas our zoning reform work is also guided strongly by our goals to actually make the zoning code more accessible and less daunting this means making it more readable and enhancing its usability amending many regulations to align with modern building accessibility and energy code standards as well as existing built forms to reduce non-conformities and promote feasible projects and establishing regulations overall that are enforcable and that reduce over Reliance on the zoning board of appeals next slide this process the very first step towards the larger zoning reform that the mayor identified as a priority for the bpda and for our planning work the work of zoning reform was expected to receive the very kind of intense interest and public comment that we want to acknowledge has come to both the bpda board and the zoning commission's way as you consider this item our role at the bpda has been to ensure that the city conducts a fair transparent rigorous and responsive process open to all community members to achieve the goals that we all agree on the squares and streets initiative kicked off in September of last year in October bpda staff presented the reasoning by behind this zoning initiative and initial findings and ideas from the very beginning the bpda has worked with the community and stakeholders to extensively reexamine revise and improve what is before you here today next slide please and following up on that our staff utilized multiple methods to gather feedback on the zoning districts from residents local users of the code such as smallscale developers and designers and other City Hall departments including the inspectional services department and the office of Economic Opportunity and inclusion this included several informational meetings for Community groups and focus groups with development and design professionals to inform those groups about the analysis and recommendations being created in this process and to hear their feedback while this amendment was being drafted staff also conducted 35 sessions of hour-long office hours that were held weekly from November 2023 through early March for local residents through these office hours our staff were able to provide a smaller scale form Forum between our sequence of public meetings to answer questions gather feedback and encourage conversations around the role of zoning and planning in reaching Citywide and Community goals in particular staff including myself were excited to hear from residents that their attendance of office hours were some of the few and New Opportunities they had to speak with a resident from another part of the city about zoning development and planning which is indicative of our goals to strengthen and uplift those tools as opportunities for city-wide comprehensive Planning and Zoning reform from December 2024 through February of this year there was a public comment period during which we received over 240 comments and over 35 letter submissions staff would share these comments weekly on our website and through the zoning notices newsletter to share those comments transparently and so further encourage Citywide public conversation on the shared and Divergent ideas of planning and zoning and how they help us reach Community goals each of those public comments and letters received during the public comment period also received an individual response and was posted publicly for all to review next slide it was through approximately 100 of those comments and letters where we heard common themes related to the importance of future planning discomfort with city-wide zoning reform and discomfort around the pace of change many of the many of these themes and concerns as you can see on the screen uh were that were expressed have strongly informed and will continue and inform the planning and engagement work that the bpda staff are undertaking as part of the squares and streets planning processes next slide it was also through approximately 170 comments and letters where themes in support of the text Amendment emerged around uh residents frustration with the status quo as it relates to the impact of zoning a sense of urgency for Change and a strong focus on promoting housing by way of this zoning Amendment next Slide the drafting process for this soning text Amendment began with an analysis period starting in August of 2023 followed by a series of six public meetings to share work in progress and explain the zoning from analysis through Drafting and revision based on community and City Hall feedback it was also during this period that bpda comprehensive planning staff held initial engagement to prepare residents for the upcoming planning processes and to gather initial information around city-wide interests related to squares and streets areas uh a lot of the information that was shared during that process also uh complemented the engagement that we were doing related to the zoning text Amendment the initial uh full release of that zoning text Amendment came within uh December 5th of 2023 followed by the public comment period as mentioned where we shared some of the broader themes next slide and we're sharing this timeline with you here today because we want to continue to highlight the importance of the how we integrated feedback at each step of this process and explained to the community Through public meetings through release of those comments and through response to those comments why we were or were not incorporating a change uh so in the uh extended this comment period given the significance of this amendment to be a two-month public comment period um we've released that individual response to every public comment and letter with many changes incorporated into the draft as we brought forward a draft for adoption we annotated every change that we made in the revised draft Amendment explaining why we were making that change and what feedback prompted it uh during this time the amendment continued to go through legal review and the amendment you see before you today has benefited from three rounds of legal review to ensure it's functioning as an amendment itself and in terms of how it fits in across the code uh overall uh this came before the bpda board in March and is now here before you at the zoning commission and we are excited about how this sets us up to then move into the second phase of planning next slide please we will now walk through the zoning text Amendment which is before you here today and enable squares and Street zoning uh including the changes that it makes across the code uh as you see there are uh four articles where we are making primary additions to the code uh first being changes to article eight which are part of the package of land use modernization article 26 which establishes new districts for squares and streets changes to article two which add new definitions that allow us to introduce more form and Performance Based components to the code and regulating Dimensions uh and changes to article 23 to establish modern parking rules for squares and streets districts the text men before you also includes edits to preserve functionality of the code for both existing and uh making these new districts subject to other provisions of the code such as in the establishment of districts the application of regulations how conditional uses function the organization of the code uh and have modernizing land use regulations into one article uh other Provisions uh that we need to avoid uh duplicate Provisions in article uh 18922 uh making sure that squares and streets districts are subject to sign regulations in article 11 and loading regulations in article 24 as well the article 80 review process and the provisions for urban agriculture we have across the city and again we've legally vetted this to make sure that we're bringing forward to you amendments that don't have unintended legal consequences in the function of our code overall I'm now going to turn it over to Maya to walk through the substance of the land use modernization next slide please okay as Kathleen said we're going to walk through the land use modernization aspect of this amendment next slide please um so starting with some context about zoning land use regulations as you're all aware as Commissioners in Boston zoning code each land use is delegated as allowed conditional or forbidden in each district of the city in a use table conditional means that it requires a conditional use permit from the Zoning Board of appeal based on a set of criteria uh to create the Zoning for squares and streets we wrote a new use table in article 8 which is part of the city's base code uh you can see an example of what this new table looks like on this slide as you can see this table has some uses regulated differently depending on their size um sorry the formatting got messed up it's should Circle uh small and large Grocery Stores um and you can also see that uh this table has some uses regulated differently um depending on whether they're on the ground floor um or upper floors of buildings next slide please um to create this new use table we started by taking an inventory of all the uses that are currently in the neighborhood articles of the code and removing obsolete uses like payones we then wrote a new set of Consolidated uses and definitions by grouping together uses that have similar impacts we included size thresholds and performance standards um for some uses to control impacts in a more targeted way um we also worked with many of our colleagues and other City agencies to ensure that our new definitions are aligned with our regulatory requirements and policy goals and have clear interpretations for all users of the code particularly the inspectional services department next slide please this resulted in 16 pages of new zoning including the new use definitions and use table which has uh the regulations for the squares and streets districts our long-term vision is that this table will have the regulations for every District in the city which will allow us to make more timely amendments and updates to the use regulations because they will exist in only one place in the code next slide please our new use table um we created a category of uses called active uses you can see the uses that are in this category listed on the slide um these uses are things that make something feel like a Main Street there typically op the public and help make an area feel vibrant and welcoming we created this category in the zoning code because it allowed us to create a requirement that buildings in the S3 through S5 districts have ground floors that are occupied primarily by active uses public open space or Civic uses next slide uh and so while we were looking at how to modernize land uses we were also examining the challenges that are caused by our existing zonings outdated dimensional regulations uh the regulations in our current code do not align with our existing built environment uh nor do they anticipate and allow for advancements in uh energy code accessibility or or building codes um all of which limit opportunities for new housing and for mixed use growth um so we set out to create updated dimensional regulations that that do align with building code uh that can create more as of right housing options uh and options that are responsible to uh responsive to sustainability and to public roam goals as well next slide and to do this we took a close look at what residential development has been proposed extensively vetted and approved through the article 80 process uh over the past five years um with the help of Andrew namas a senior planner I want to acknowledge uh who's critical to this who couldn't be here um we took a qualitative and quantitative measurement of over 200 precedents uh and then on top of that we took an even deeper dive into a sub sample of about 40 of those precedents um all to understand what can be built and is being built under modern building code next uh and this analysis demonstrated how building code and project review thresholds are driving building size uh how parcel sizes are driving building shape um and how building types can be categorized by by their use and ultimately how we can best shape building form and lot standards for new mixed grow mixed use districts um and how we can enable more housing and mixed use growth next slide we now like to walk you through the article 26 uh section of the amendment as Kathleen noted earlier this draft Amendment touches a large number of Articles across the code but the largest changes are within the Articles listed here on the screen uh article 26 is a new article which creates the squares and streets districts with corresponding new definitions in article two and District declarations in article three we also remove parking minimums from squares and streets from article 23 and adjust off Street loading requirements Citywide to line up with the recently adopted changes in New Market also under consideration within matapan the changes in the Articles mentioned earlier in the presentation primarily enable these changes to work with the rest of the zoning code next Slide the new article 26 will add six new mixed use districts to the code their use regulations are in article 8 in the modernized land use tables that may was speaking about earlier but additional use and formed details beyond that initial level of detail live almost entirely in this new article next Slide the districts as you can see here increase in intensity and activity with form controls and different land uses at one end of the scale s0 and S1 the uses are primarily residential and lower in scale with some allowances for commercial use when appropriate S2 and S3 districts allow for typologies we commonly see in Main Street districts and corridors today allowing or even requiring ground floor commercial while allowing for multif family development on upper floors and the S4 and S5 districts provide the widest range of allowable uses and a scale of building that can still be appropriate in selected squares and streets study areas to ensure that modern zoning rules still provide a framework even for projects that will undergo more extensive project review next slide underpinning much of this reform is also a shift to a more form-based approach to zoning regulations rather than relying as is currently the case on the belt and suspenders of not only dimensional constraints but also things like floor area ratio each of the districts are designed so that lot standards allowable building form and uses align and increase predictability and appropriateness of the various standards next slide all districts include common dimensional limits to reflect existing Urban Design transportation and mobility and environmental goals these factors that are shared across these districts allow them to not only complement each other as part of broader city-wide planning but also to ensure that residents businesses stakeholders developers and Advocates can better understand apply and work with the zoning code next slide there are also a common set of uses applied across the districts from the s0 district through to the S5 District modified as is appropriate to the scale in all cases the uses are primarily residential with Community uses also allowed as the scale increases some commercial uses are also allowed and eventually required on the ground floor as active uses research labs and pdas are not allowed within squares and streets districts and I'll pass it back to Adam to speak more on each of the forms um and MAA to speak on the uses thanks Abdul um next slide um so like Abdul said we're now going to quickly walk through each of the districts uh and what distinguishes the form and the land use of each of them uh starting with s0 the transition residential district um as the name suggests the S SZ district is primarily a residential district that provides transition from lower activity residential areas up to mixed use and higher activity squares and streets areas um of all of the squares and streets districts s0 has the smallest floor plate requirement uh and lock coverage requirements uh and the largest yard requirement and per permeable area of lot next slide allowed uses in SZ are mostly limited to residential uses and Civic uses like Child Care Centers and schools residential uses are allowed only up to 14 units which is sub article 80 scale in addition there are a few other uses which are conditionally allowed which allows for opportunities for things like corner stores and coffee shops in these transitional residential districts next slide um in an earlier version of this zoning that we presented to the public as zero was more limited in terms of uses through the community engagement process we heard that many wanted to see opportunities for things like small retail in this district and so we made small retail conditionally allowed as well as small service establishments um which can allow for things like hair salons and other types of small businesses in the szo district next Slide the next District the S1 Main Street living district is also principally residential but does introduce more opportunities for some mixed juice activity uh S1 also requires smaller scale side and front yards as well as minim minimum permeable area of lot next slide in terms of uses the small active uses which are conditionally allowed in s0 become allowed in S1 some restricted to the ground floor a few additional uses are allowed or allowed just on the ground floor such as museums clinics and mediumsized offices next slide um a few additional uses are conditionally allowed on the ground floor in S1 including large restaurants and medium retail stores as well as Banks and Standalone ATMs next slide and so moving up to S2 the Main Street mixed use District um this district is distinguished by small to medium scale mixed use buildings uh that are able to fill the width of a lot um in order to help create a continuous and very active Main Street environment um because this District uh does not have extensive yard requirements this District introduces the requirement for an outdoor amenity space um so that things like uh to provide for balconies plazas and roof decks um and this District also sets a maximum for the blank wall of the facade next slide um the allowed uses in S2 are mostly the same as S1 with most residential uses and small active uses allowed there are a few additional active uses allowed including large retail stores next slide in S2 most large active uses are conditionally allowed there are also a few commercial uses conditionally allowed the main difference from S1 being small hotels are conditionally allowed in S2 next Slide the s three active Main Street district is characterized by mediums scale buildings that are required to have active uses on the ground floor um and these buildings are also prohibited from having dwelling units on the ground floor primary facade next slide in S3 most residential uses are allowed most commercial uses are allowed or conditionally allowed and most active uses are allowed with some being restricted to the ground floor next Slide the S4 Active squares mixed use District uh enables medium to large scale mixed use buildings uh this district has the widest range of allowed uses compared to uh the previous districts which we've discussed um like S3 active uses are required on the ground floor uh and this district has a more restrictive lock coverage requirement for very large Parcels next slide as at Adam said S4 has the most flexibility in terms of uses with most residential active and Commercial uses allowed and very few limited to the ground floor next slide and so lastly the S5 placemaker District enables the largest scale mixed juuse buildings of all of the squares and streets districts um allowing the same wide range of uses as S4 uh with that ground floor active use requirement and an even higher outdoor amenity space requirement um this district is only intended for highly active areas that are are close to Transit hubs um and that can support planned for higher density um we received strong feedback supporting the inclusion of this District as a means of providing more zoning options that can enable high density housing growth um as well as Services uh and wherever those might be appropriate next slide um together these districts form a pallet of zoning options that as applied in in this example graphic of of a hypothetical square uh can be used to increase housing opportunities uh provide for a mix of uses uh and with all of that uh create vibrant activity and economic growth in our existing neighborhood centers next slide and so how these districts will eventually be mapped will only be decided on through the small area planning process uh working with the community to select and determine uh which district are the most appropriate for each area next slide um so in bringing these before you we want to acknowledge that during the comment period that we received and the bpda board also received many comments asking to slow down the process of updating zoning to make sure neighborhoods are comfortable with the changes uh now you as a zoning commission have also received many comments looking to substantively amend and change the amendment forward you here today and bring forward different zoning uh we want to reiterate that we've approached this amendment and this process with a couple of key principles to get a simpler more effective and more Equitable code by not restating requirements such as the provisions of other articles of the code or the provisions of city ordinances that exist outside of Zoning for ductive language all of these requirements and their Provisions such as article 37 Green Building all the provisions of article 80 review article 85 demolition delay affirmatively furthering fair housing and all city ordinances outside of zoning already appli to any zoning District in the code and the city including future zoning districts like squares and streets a second principle was to uphold the important policymaking authority of city council and the mayor's office on important issues like budget transfers resources for anti-displacement and tree protection that will require resources and or lawmaking that exist outside of your Authority as a zoning commission and the zoning code to regulate to hold a rigorous Community process at each phase of the Planning and Zoning initiative engagement as we recapped on this updated zoning began in October of last year and the draft zoning has been out for public comment and vening since December including three rounds of rigorous legal review Amendments of this scale and substance require a rigorous public process to implement the mayor's vision of empowering Community planning as what set rules for how we go rather than our current system of project by project negotiation in the development review process the planning process for squar and streets is already underway and the creation of an updated zoning map that makes these districts real as a result of that planning process will be essential as we've walked through in this presentation the proposed zoning will not immediately take effect anywhere they will add these heavily vetted districts as options to the code they will only be made real through future planning Community engagement and the future actions of this commission to amend the zoning map and apply it to specific places and Parcels of the city the bpda team is working towards the development of a code that reflects our built environment that furthers policy priorities and respects and reflects Boston as one city of neighborhoods thank you and we're happy to take any questions thank you Kathleen and team um at this point I would ask if any of the Commissioners have any questions for any of the presenters are you surey see your hand up thank you madam chair um so I was just curious how in depth was the engagement throughout this um planning because I've been hearing like mixed um things so I'm just curious thank you yeah so I think you know as a critical step in in zoning reform uh right uh change is very difficult so that's part of why we really started with this process of sharing findings versus coming out with a proposal um and that's been a a shift right and it's been a shift for folks to also engage with the zoning as a proposal to update zoning not as a proposal to set out specific development rules in a specific geography uh that would immediately apply uh so we began that engagement process in September um as Abdul recapped we had uh six uh inp public meetings they were all noticed and included interpretation like the excellent interpreters we have here today um we hosted 35 office hours which are opportunities for you know individuals to come and have one-on-one or small group grou conversations to answer detailed questions um in you know bringing this forward uh we also uh set up focus groups and as part of the larger planning initiative uh attended any the meetings of any organization that requested to answer questions about both the zoning as well as the planning initiative to come um again so I've heard really mixed reviews on the engagement I've heard there hasn't been any I've heard there's been some um and so I just I just want to make sure that people feel um that they have the opportunity to actually sit down and be engaged with a with something that's going to change the scope of where they're living I also um you you know you stated that you sent out information for people to be included and there was diverse languages included did I hear that correctly correct and so with all of that um do you feel like the data was saturated do you feel like the data that you have um and the sample of people that actually came out do you feel like it was saturated data um do you feel as though um it was a really a robust engagement so people of color were sitting at the table um not just one or two but like a majority of folks were actually there to participate in the discussion and I know our director of planning Amy Chambers is here and may wish to speak to particularly the broader effort of of zoning and planning I will say that we have had more direct engagement on this as a zoning Amendment uh than any zoning that we've worked on uh in my experience at the bpda uh and again we had 250 comment submitted during the public comment period we thought it was really important to give everyone an individual response to that and we did that um I think also you know as Amy May reflect on and as the hard work on article 80 modernization uh is uncovering and studying is that all of our engagement at the bpda uh continues to suffer from being under representative of key groups in our city particularly people of color renters uh and those uh with lower incomes uh and so while we've taken strategies and in the work they are doing to set out the planning initiative here continue to focus on that as key priorities that is a a component and a weakness of our engagement and these regulatory processes uh that you know we continue to work to correct and approach more equitably uh good morning Commissioners good morning commissioner Miller I'm sorry it looked like you were going to say some things you want to go ahead okay um I was just going to piggyback on um Kathleen's comments um I you know I do want to underscore the comments that she's made about kind of the changeing approach um that this particular uh process has reflected um I think that you know to that end certainly there are just added challenges of kind of helping uh uh the general public kind of understand the reasons both for the uh process that we have undergone um and the reasons why we're undergoing such process um I do feel that the team has done a really good job of trying to um make sure that they're communicating the message commun ating the why um you know communicating uh the process kind of in steps instead of delivering um a finished product um which I think you know has been certainly a criticism of our processes in the past um we did publish a um Community engagement report um which was available on our website um we did that intentionally both to be able to speak to the process that we underwent um over the course of the last six months working on the zoning um and in preparation for the planning processes which uh kicked off earlier this year um in that report uh we talked a little bit about both the things that we felt we did successfully and the things that uh were continued areas of opportunity um and we wanted to do that intentionally to be transparent um about uh the ways in which we feel like we can continue to improve upon these processes um to answer your question commissioner Miller do I think that it's been perfect no um but I don't think that I would ever state that any one of our processes is perfect I do think that there has been a real concerted effort to um to be intentional about reaching hard-to-reach populations to be um able to kind of be flexible and pivot um in particular where we're receiving feedback around um you know making the concepts a little bit more digestible um to be intentional around um language access Etc and we've also continued to um communicate uh opportunities to really continue to be a part of the process as it um advances and to be really clear about the fact that even in working towards the development of this zoning um which is both based on community feedback and on data um that as we go into these planning processes we know where we need to be um more intentional about reaching uh populations um and that we know um you know that there's a lot more to come by way of of you know conversation decision making in terms of the the mapping um of the districts themselves thank you Amy but um I never I I don't want my words to be misinterpreted where I where I never said anything was perfect or that I was trying to think that you guys were trying to be per uh that I I hope I didn't use a word it should have been perfect I don't think I did but no you didn't you didn't I I what I what I will say is I I'm a I don't say a lot sometimes but I am very intentional when it comes to community engagement um I do believe that people have the right to be a part of and if we're not reaching then we didn't then we as a a group of people didn't do a good job and and I'm not saying that you guys didn't what I'm saying is I want to be very clear that if you have one person saying I didn't hear and you have another person saying they heard then fine but if you have more than the majority saying I really don't understand this process then how can we move forward and I also think that it's important um where we are changing with the time everything's on internet and and everything's online and whatnot but sometimes access is not the same for everyone and so I am pretty computer savvy but sometimes I even get mixed up on trying to find documents and whatnot so I can use myself phone as an example and I can only imagine someone who's just not that computer savvy to find a documentation it doesn't mean that they should not be engaged or be left out of the conversation and if we're not actually moving away from our desks to go outside and to actually speak to people um then to me we're not we're not really exiling to the importance of Engagement and so I don't want to belabor the point and I don't want to you know make this a back and forth um where I do appreciate any efforts you all of you put forward I just do have a pause because um I just haven't heard it's been robust Community engagement where you can reach out and touch someone yes it may be all over the bpda website it may even be may have been emailed but um there's a there's a a big group of people who feel like they haven't been Hur so again thank you thank you madam chair for allowing me to um take the floor um Madam chair just if I may um and commissioner Miller I definitely appreciate um your your comments Madam chair if I may of course um so I just wanted to um add that we have been very cognizant of the fact that um you know there's a lot of um concern around um continued virtual uh engagement um in particular as we move back into a space where there you know is desire to to congregate Etc um this process I would say um probably since 2020 has been one where we have done a lot of person engagement um the staff many of the staff on this call um went out to uh neighborhood association meetings to different organizations um to uh you know to different um um BHA developments Etc um to make sure that we're having more inperson opportunities um and in addition the staff um the broader staff uh left um surveys Etc in the libraries um and community centers across the city to make sure that there was something tangible that people could kind of hang on to and um to be clear about where people could contact us um whether via phone or via email um so I do just want to name that out loud because I I certainly hear you and that's something that's really kind of front and center in our conversations as we move into um both the planning processes and as we've moved into other um zoning amendments that the staff have been working on um I I just don't want that to to be lost um in the conversation because um you know I I hear that feedback and I think that um we've had a lot of really intentional conversation about you know what our ability to be flexible as a team looks like um and to be able to while we haven't quite mastered the hybrid approach to meetings but to be able to ensure that we're offering um both inperson and virtual options thank you thank you Amy and thank you Aisha other Commissioners um comments or questions on the proposed amendment okay um if there are none um at this time I would ask uh oh sorry Ricardo sure um I I just want to sort of uh acknowledge uh commissioner Miller's uh questions and I think um I think uh both um Amy and Kathleen have addressed them but I think this is something that should sort of always be front of Mind as as and I know it is and it's hard work U but I appreciate commissioner Miller's question and so thank you commissioner Miller for raising that question because it is always a challenge to uh really meet uh people where they are and uh they're they're not they're not going to be the same kinds of people that we are on the call today and it can be very difficult um so just uh I know you're working hard on it please continue to do that work um because uh it's essential that uh everyone that can be given the opportunity that is given the opportunity to speak out about this important process so thank you thanks Ricardo and thanks again Aisha I think those are really uh uh important points and also just pointing out what Kathleen mentioned that there's there are significantly more steps in actually making this real I think were the words you use Kathleen we've got mapping amend and and as these districts and a lot of the a lot of the um elements of this are eventually applied there would be um significant additional public uh discussion hearings and interaction and and I would I would point out that um until all of that occurs and that will reflect public um opinion too we will continue to watch and see um how that Outreach in Amy as you said the the multiple forms of contact really do become more and more robust and um and and show up in our future discussions on how this is actually then make made real um as as Kathleen mentioned any other Commissioners okay at this point then I would ask for public testimony um and um if you could please announce your name affiliation and position for the proposed project uh we will have um testimony at this time for and against and um uh as as I had mentioned before every speaker will be given two minutes and at 30 seconds to go I will uh uh weigh in and just let you know you have 30 seconds so Jeff at this time I'll turn it over to you okay thank you madam chair uh for anyone who would like to testify please start raising your hand now so that we have an idea of how many people are going to testify um we do have several hands Madam chair so I'm just going to take them in order uh Matt Lawler Matt go ahead and unmute yourself great thanks can everyone hear me good morning um so thank you to the commission um for your for you know sort of having this hearing this morning and for considering these amendments thanks to the staff who have pushed this forward for everyone who participated so my name is Matt Lawler I'm a resident of endale I'm also the board president for walk up Rosendale which was founded about 9 years ago as our neighborhood's Pro housing and probike walk and Transit advocacy organization um we've long supported the concepts behind squares and streets and we've supported adoption of these fundamental zoning districts all along their path to this point the reason um why we've uh supported is twofold we need more housing and we need it in places where people living in that housing had the ability to access their daily needs and the broader Transit and bike networks more easily without having to get into a single occupant car and driving alone in other words we have a long-standing housing crisis and a and a gathering climate crisis and squares and streets as a policy that helps us deal with both at the same time so overall we look forward to their adop the adoption of the Amendments today by the commission we urge them to do so uh and then we are we are actively involved in Rosendale and we look forward to working with staff and all of our neighbors on digging deep into the specific issues that we've uh tracking uh through the small Pro small area planning process in our neighborhood that is now unfolding so again thank you for pushing these amendments forward thank you for the effort to um modernize the code for adopting these zoning districts that will be there as floating zones for us to adopt and we look forward to working with our neighbors in Rosendale to get it done in Rosendale hopefully later this year early next thank you thank you Matt next councelor pin go ahead and unmute you so hey good morning everyone good morning Madam chair and to the rest of the Commissioners my name is Enrique a Pepin I Am The District 5 city councelor um that represents rosnell High Park in portion of mapan um I just want to start off by by thanking everyone that's been part of this process to the bpda thank you for for starting this conversation in the neighborhoods specifically in two of my neighborhoods High Park and rosenell um I've been part of many of the conversations with the community and the bpda attending some of your workshops and have been very pleased with the Outreach and just the communications and the conversations that have happened at those meetings um I also just want to take the opportunity to thank all the residents that were part of those conversations um very very engaged residents um in both neighborhoods that I'm I'm proud to say that I I get to represent them in this process um with that you know with with square when I look at squares and Street I see an opportunity here to um to expand our main streets corridors I see an opportunity here to bring more housing to the district to to be able to say that our communities are growing um and I also acknowledge that our zoning language needs to be updated um I believe the city of Boston has the longest zoning code in the entire country um and I think that that creates a lot of obstacles for new projects to come into the into the community which leads to a lot of cost burdens for project leading to housing being more expensive in our city um I do want to emphasize something that just residents and I are concerned about it's the anti-displacement strategies for small businesses specifically um I want to see more of a collaboration between the bpda and the small business department um because a lot of small business is just are still confused about how they're going to be impacted what their plan is going to be for the future and how can we make sure that we do protect the businesses that already exist in our squares um while also bringing in new businesses to to the district I also just want to make sure to highlight that when we speak about housing that is Affordable I want to make sure that we are talking about home ownership opportunities um in in our communities that's something that are might that the residents are asking for um I also want to take this opportunity that to state that recently our office did receive amendments proposed amendments um to this which addresses significant un um issues such as advancing Net Zero carbon construction insur and affordability measures to adjust displacement protect the neighborhood historical cultural and natural resources providing increased flexibility respect to parking commercial uses and housing density options I do believe that the Amendments proposed by by the residents in my district can be done outside of this zoning conversation um I do see that this could be a conversation about what policy we can Implement as a city council or or just as a city we can look at what city ordinances we can establish um working with burle to make sure that there's Net Zero carbon construction across our our developments making sure that we are working with our small business Department to come up with displacement strategies um and just making sure that we are working with with our article 85 commission to preserve historical um infrastructure and with that you know I do want to recognize that there has been a lot of efforts put into this squares and streets has been happening in my district for quite some time now before I was even elected um I would like to at this moment just recommend um recommend approval of this but also um happy to explore the conversation of a potential extens extension of the conversation to to talk about if there are any concerns but that's where I stand at the moment I just want to thank the bpda and the and the and the Commissioners into today's calls and to the residents for for all of your engagement in this process so thank you thank you sir and I think just to point out to attendees um we do uh allow public officials uh a little bit more than the two minutes because of their position so thank You Enrique uh and Jeff I'll turn it back to you for additional uh comments okay thank you madam chair Jesse Kon Jesse go ahead uh yeah thank you uh my name is Jesse Canon benanav uh I live in Jamaica plane I'm the executive director of abundant housing Massachusetts a Statewide Pro housing advocacy organization based right here in Boston uh want to uh stand in support of the text Amendment uh as uh before you today uh in the form that it is before you uh as mayor woo herself has pointed out Boston is on track to exceed our Peak population of 800,000 residents in the coming years unfortunately we've consistently failed to build the homes that are current and growing population needs to live here affordably and while some have claimed a building boom here in recent years the truth is that our rate of building homes has paled in comparison to other large and more affordable cities around the country uh uh we live in a paradigm of scarcity that forces our low and middle inome uh Neighbors in the city into direct competition with wealthier residents for limited supply of homes putting home ownership Out Of Reach for so many people and causing severe rent burden for many families across our neighborhoods uh the non-subsidized homes that have been built in Boston in recent years are expensive and Out Of Reach for many residents in large part because of our outdated and unnecessarily complex zoning code and development approval process which add hundreds of thousands of dollarss if not more to the cost of building each new home which is ultimately passed on to Future residents uh of these buildings in the form of luxury rental or home ownership prices abundant housing Massachusetts and our hundreds 30 seconds Jesse just so you know members across the city in Vision Boston as a city of abundance where homes are affordable to all and any Resident can choose to move when they want where they want we stand uh uh unapologetically for increased housing production for residents of all income levels we applaud mayor wo and the bpd's leadership and advancing this conversation about modernizing and streaming our codes and we see the squares and streets zoning uh before you today uh and the entire initiative is a constructive first step towards building a more affordable Boston um and we look forward to this conversation thank you very much thank you Jesse thanks okay Kenan Ryan kenon go ahead hi can you hear me yes good morning uh my name is kenon Ryan I'm a ro I'm a Roxbury resident don't have any affiliation I'm just here on my own behalf uh I want to thank all the planners and City staff who have worked on this thoughtful and difficult planning process I'm in support of the squares and streets zoning reform our current system favors entrenched Property Owners frankly like myself over the greater good of other residents in our least dense neighborhoods the lengthy comp at variance process can lead to low lead low to mid-income housing homeowners from investing in their properties due to the confusing regulations and significant cost burden associated with pursuing of zoning variance in in dense in denser residential projects pursuing a variance at significant cost which ultimately causes developers to seek higher rents from future residents to cover the cost of the process the lengthy variance process also allows community members like myself the opportunity to negotiate down the scale of the project ultimately reducing the potential number of new home opportunities for other bostonians with our ongoing housing a affordability crisis we need as many new units built at the lowest cost to ease our housing prices over time I want to see more Boston residents stay in Boston I don't want to see more friends and Neighbors being priced out because of our low housing stock squares and streets provides an additional Avenue for increasing housing production and Boston and is fundamental to achieving the mayor's goals of building 13,000 new units by 2025 I look forward to seeing how the new zoning distance will be maap across the entire city over time and I welcome the use of the densest districts like S4 and S5 in my own neighborhood I hope s and streets Zone uh squares and Street zones appli to all of Boston's neighborhoods so we can have more opportunities for renters and expanding families to St in Boston I encourage you to vote in favor for adopting squar and Street zoning thanks for your time thank you Jeff uh okay next Jordan I'm going to take you out of order Jordan Fus go ahead good morning can you hear me all right good morning Commissioners my name is Jordan FZ and I'm director of policy and Communications for Boston city council Benjamin Weber of District six so I just wanted to read the U the councilor's comments into the record um our offic has has followed the issue closely and has appreciated the engagement from the bpda team our office has received significant feedback both positive and negative from our constituents We Believe building more housing is absolutely essential to ensuring housing affordability there are real concerns such as displacement and affordability and we are committed to addressing those where it should be legislatively rather than through zoning we are not opposed to a short extension of two weeks to allow us to digest the bpda response to promised amendments but defer to the Judgment of the board thank you so much for your time thank you Jordan okay next Brienne Frank Brienne hi everybody my name is Brienne Frank I'm a resident of Brighton and I'm here on behalf of alternatives for community and environment which is a rockbury based organization um for 30 years Ace has advocated for Neighborhood Health affordability and sustainability and it is because of this advocacy that we cannot support squares and streets in its current form squares and streets has the potential to be a positive force in Boston zoning and development but is currently more likely to cause Mass displacement and stimulate gentrifying forces for squares and streets to work effectively and not perpetuate the harms of urban renewal under a new name there must be meaningful changes to its language first the bpda must make explicit in the zoning code itself what the public engagement process for a squares and streets project will look like the zoning touts a community centered approach in which planning officials will work with Community stakeholders to plan development but there is no language requiring this engagement or ensuring that it is Meaningful the current bpda staff has good intentions but will this be true in 10 or 20 years and even where this engagement does happen there is nothing ensuring that it is Meaningful how much engagement is required how will it be incorporated into development will resident voices outrank developers we don't know secondly the bpda must explicitly enshrine fair housing and anti-displacement language into the zoning code affordability is one of the stated goals of squares and streets but the zoning text does not expand affordable housing or contain measures insulating housing cost from skyrocketing when a neighborhood grows in aesthetic and economic value in the way this zoning intends displacement follows seconds we've been told that squares and streets isn't meant to address these issues and we should trust that other City projects will we've been told that this isn't the time or the place for a fair housing audit that is inexcusable this will lead to displacement and we all know that the current infrastructure does not do enough if squares and streets is to meaningfully serve the communities it intends to it must include language addressing affordable housing and requiring its presence that's why squares and streets should not be accepted by the zoning Commission in this form and should instead go back to the bpda for revision aligned with these concerns thank you okay next is Michael prish sorry if I uh refused your name Michael go ahead thank you Commissioners um uh uh in my neighborhood Codman Square um uh the process the Outreach process has not reached those who are going to be most affected uh there have been a few meetings with uh Community leaders some of whom don't live in the district um and without Community input and collaboration with the community in arranging that input we need to uh be co-designing meetings meetings where residents get to speak as a whole get to speak with each other uh this can't be a survey it needs to be a negotiation that will not be accomplished under the current deadlines this is serious stuff uh the resoning could have uh very fragmenting destabilizing effects it could raise rents for business small businesses as well as residents um uh it could have serious climate impacts and there are no Provisions in the um current proposals for preventing what is already a heat island in Codman Square from uh getting worse we need those to be incorporated in the code as well as uh as the ace representative said um you know we need guarantees of action against displacement actions for affordability for that matter actions to decrease the traffic volume so I would urge 30 seconds Michael you know a delay in ratification or if not uh at least adopting some amendments that have been offered from communities before you approve it thank you thank you Michael he next is Jen carti Jen go ahead hi thank you for having my comment today I apologize for the heness of my voice um my name is Jen carte I'm from I'm representing Dorchester growing together we are a neighborhood based Civic organization founded in 2018 to advocate for building abundant housing at all price points to alleviate our housing crisis and preserve our welcoming and diverse Community I'm speaking here today at the broadest level to appreciate this new toolbox of six squares and streets districts an updated use table which we can deploy to mod modernized zoning the elimination of most permitting by variants in these areas that will come about and create efficiencies and the ability to create new homes for our neighbors faster than we have any ability to do today it will help both nonprofit and market rate developers built not just homes but retail and service business spaces offices and other public amenities squares and Street zoning also promises to bring investments in the areas of public spaces like parks and playgrounds small business and economic Vitality supports from main streets and the economic development office of the city transportation improvements Etc such a comprehensive update is key to Boston's continued stability and growth a super majority of Boston residents are broadly fine with or even solidly hope for growth and change but they do not have the capacity because of work family or other commitments information access sometimes how meetings are advertised or how accessible they are whether the stakes of the meetings are conveyed or incentive they're they're fine with it they want it but they're not passionate to show up in time limited meetings I mentioned this you have 30 seconds Jen thank you I mentioned this to emphasize the hard work that bpda staff I've seen them do since September with the creation of dozens of opportunities pushing out into the community at Transit stops and farmers markets uh into public housing buildings creating of workshops specifically for youth uh to engage with and provide feedback and get residents provide feedback on the zoning updates that will create the s0 to5 districts we urge zoning commission to affirm an adopt them today so we can move forward with the small area plans to actually engage in codon Square Fields Corner Rosendale hide Park to start the as a whole thank you thank you Jen thanks next is Scott baty Scott go ahead Scott are you there maybe we can come back to him Jeff sorry I'm sorry I just have unmute button uh yes I'm Scott batty a 34e resident of High Park serve on multiple boards in my community been uh involved with uh Community input board High Park M uh neighborhood association Rosendale Coalition that formulated the proposed amendments uh that councelor pepen had alluded to earlier um my concern is that I think that the uh streets and squares people have done a uh a Yan's job at reaching out to the community however uh in terms of getting to the people that need to know this information the most um I'm I'm concerned about that we're Community majority minority uh community in High Park um our business owners are largely immigrant first generation American shop owners they're the ones that are going to be most impacted by this proposal and they are not uh they are not the faces that we see coming to these meetings um I've pointed out four different developments in our community for the last two years of which our community had significant voice under existing rules and what I've asked for is if uh squares and streets were in place over these past two years when these developments came out of the ground where the proposed uh uh development versus what was actually approved were quite different because our Community Voices please tell us how this new uh zoning would have impact those four developments and we haven't gotten direct answers to this so while we've had a lot of meetings um I'm on I saw on the proposal on page 10 I was quoting you have 30 seconds Scott yes having meetings are great but if we're not getting the answers and the people in our community that are most going to be impacted potentially in terms of displacement and potential gentrification are not uh getting what they need and I think that we need to uh really look at either delaying or minimally looking at the proposed amendments that this uh that our community has uh put forth thank you for your time today thank you Scott okay Ken Fields go ahead Ken right thanks Jeff uh Madam chair uh Commissioners uh I'm Ken Fields uh I'm a 20 plus year resident of Hyde Park in 2009 to 2011 served as a vice chair of the citizens advisory committee for the rezoning of Hy Park which uh resulted in article 69 of the zoning code I'm also a former executive secretary to the Boston Conservation Commission um I wanted to make a brief comment about the Outreach and then actually get into some of the substantive issues that I have uh with the the proposed zoning uh the outrage there was a bit of a sales pitch at the beginning of this presentation uh that talked about how great the Outreach was and extensive it was um however uh the comment period was over the holidays and uh they had that posting of uh my friend Scott batty that actually said there's no meaningful responses after all the responses no meaningful responses um upon which we can make decisions um and also quote Scott batty once more he says let's proceed with the Speed Of Trust so this Commission should not be a um rubber stamp however I think squares and streets is a good thing I think there's a lot of good stuff coming out of this uh let me get into the substance in he High Park we need more commercial more service and also more housing whether it's affordable or mixed uh level income housing we need to activate our squares they are dying and have 30 seconds Ken okay so uh ground floor active use requirements are not allowed in uh s or not required in S2 uh S2 is probably the upper limits of the height uh that we have in in clear square or you'll get in clear Square I think those S zones need to be divvied up better uh to better reflect what's actually there uh there's limitations in the article on uses on the second floor uh which should be encouraged by commercial as well and I don't know why they're Ken that's uh your time is up thank you okay thank you y he next is Becky Pierce Becky go ahead hi can you hear me yes hello okay my name is Becky Pearson I'm a resident of codn square and I'm here to urge you all on the commission to please delay this vote and not vote it up up and down today because um in its current form it does not um it needs way more time for Community input and it does not um meet its claims of um a stated goals of affordability and equity and but it would rather um if you pass it today the way you have it it will codify the status quo of unaffordable unaffordability and racial inequity I mean I live in Comm Square I've been here for 50 years most of my adult life and um it's a heavily black and brown community and and and a lowincome community and in the past 10 or 15 years I've watched as people have been displaced had to move out had to move out of Boston because of of rising rents the rents have continued to rise it's gotten worse and worse um and you know the rents are so high now that most of the people that can afford to move into the new housing that's here are you know they're from somewhere else and and um so there's a huge displacement going on and it's going to continue because this doesn't change anything about the affordability requirements in new housing to be built you said that you that the Cod will continue to um include theck you have 30 seconds the mayor's okay so I'm just saying this should not be passed until there's a lot more time for Community input as as Aisha Miller pointed out commissioner thank you commissioner Miller uh and be and to there is stuff written into the squares and streets proposal that requires a large number of affordable units affordable at the level of people that live here which is not the city's IDP the city's IDP is you know thank you Becky um your two minutes is over thank you thank you okay lri rad go ahead lri good morning good morning Commissioners uh thank you for allowing me to testify my name is Lori radwin and I coordinate the Rosendale Coalition first I would like the commission to consider the Amendments we proposed second I want to underscore the remarks made by Mr Frank and Mr uh proach and Miss Frank Mr proach and my High Park neighbors article 26 is not ready to be passed we're being told that the community will be engaged in order to identify neighborhood goals and that the community will drive the mapping process the bpda remarks on how important Community feedack has been and I thank commissioner Miller for highlighting this point right now in Rosendale and as discussed with bpda leadership the community that is being heard is composed of over 80% white people and 80% homeowners our black and brown neighbors are barely present in the squares and streets engag process you can see these statistics on the Rosendale uh Square bpda site our personal service businesses such as Barbers manicurist and so on are often owned by latinx and Asian neighbors and they are not present at all in the Rosendale primer um put out by the bpda or any of the survey data it's not time to pass article 26 as is until the mapping process has guarantees of equity and hearing voice thank you very much thank you Lori okay Madam chair and this is a cell phone ending in 445 go ahead if you could please state your name that would be helpful thank you good morning Madam chair and Commissioners my name is Craig Martin I'm with h High Park neighborhood association um and I and I also like other callers have I'm asking for a postponement not an opposition not to support a postponement of of this vote today um I will argue that the squares and streets the Outreach has not been effective I'm not saying this is deliberate I'm just saying it has not been effective um I'll argue that squares and streets it comes across as squares the clear squares we know it it's essentially one main commercial thoroughfare I don't believe at all that the residents and the neighbor neighborhoods and a third of a mile around there which this squares and streets includes I don't believe that they are aware that there's a zoning change for their streets I believe that when they see a signed squares they're just thinking okay that's just a commercial district and and they're not they're not paying attention to it I was involved the resoning of H High Park a dozen years ago and that took two years but it was very effective two years and we had hundreds of High Park residents attending and participating those we have not had that Onis squ in streets I've been to every every meeting um and I would argue that the the citizens just aren't aware that they're being personally affected that this street is perhaps going to be rezoned again they're only thinking of the commercial thoroughfare so I'm asking that you please postpone this and we can let's keep trying and I thank you for your time for allowing this time today thank you Craig thank you and that's it Madam chair okay thank you Jeff thank you um at this point um I would close the public testimony and ask the bpda if they would like um to respond uh to the comments we heard um I know you all as a commission are very aware of this but want to make sure we reiterate for everyone um that the zoning code works together as a whole and the important Provisions that you all as a commission have advanced including article 79 including AR zoning article 85 demolition delay article 37 Green Building um every component of article 80 review including affirmatively further fair housing and all of those Provisions um every uh overlay that the city has that's applied across the zoning map um are always in effect Citywide and are an important part of how the code works together as a whole uh and we have deliberately thought of article 26 in these districts as fitting into a city-wide zoning framework that is subject to all of those Provisions uh so they all apply in squares and streets districts and squares and streets districts um have all of those things by becoming part of the zoning code uh the second thing I'd highlight is I know that uh we uh stressed in the presentation is we're looking to bring these into the code AS options so that we can do that deep intense work of drawing the zoning map with the community uh so by taking action here today we are not resoning any property in the city of Boston and CH thus not changing the zoning rules of any property or any community in the city of Boston uh we will come before you with future actions and we're very eager to get into that planning process uh which has the ability to be deeply place-based to talk about real properties and locations and squares uh and businesses and what the appropriate Zoning for them with it is on the ground with community members um and happy to take any further questions that you all have as a commission arising out of public testimony thank you Kathleen um do any of the Commissioners have questions for any for Kathleen or any of the staff of hers Aisha thank you madam chair so Kathleen how do you address uh the four people that said the black community wasn't as engaged and someone specifically gave data details 80% of the people that showed up were white uh how do you address that I think it's going to be right as we're taking this action and as we look at re bringing forward a uh map Amendment we could commit to bringing you data participation of meetings uh as folks self- select um and um we also think that the opportunity to engage on like directly like on the ground not just in person on the ground but talking about uh the actual sort of businesses and properties uh will make that conversation more concrete and and change that and I can tell you that in the work that we've done in plan matapan uh including using these zoning districts and planning for using these zoning districts in matapan that has not been the case right we've had a because it's concrete right because it is working with community members in matapan and because we mailed each business owner and property owner in the area to be affected and flyed in location that was not the racial makeup of participants in the process so that by taking the process out of the sort of space of making theoretical zoning amendments and making it real on the ground we were able to design a process that got us much much better and improved engagement um I think perhaps just to add to that um since we've um as many of you heard Commissioners um started working in uh neighbor neighborhoods in hide Park and Rosendale specifically and we've really just begun um having uh conversation and kind of initial meetings in Fields Corner and Codman Square um the staff have been um incredibly mindful of the kind of alternate ways that we need to approach engagement in order to ensure that uh we have a more robust process and a more representative process um the folks who are showing up to community meetings um are folks who have time to show up to community meetings and we appreciate the um you know the folks who are able to be at those meetings and certainly the feedback that comes out of those meetings but we know that we need to um be reaching out in different ways in order to engage um additional populations additional demographics and so our staff have been having um several smaller sorts of engagements whe meetings or just popping up in spaces um have been you know going to ESL classes have been going to BHA properties have been going to community centers have been trying to take as many references as possible from uh residents around the other sorts of spaces that they should be in um and that is perhaps not visible in the context of the broader public meetings um but we're keeping that um data as well so that to Kathleen's point we can come back to you and really be able to communicate around the additional work that is being done um we certainly you know the data that was mentioned um earlier is data from the kind of initial few months um that engagement report that i' I'd mentioned and part of the reason again that we published that was to be transparent about where our gaps are so that we could raise the bar for ourselves around what it is that we need to do moving forward and so that we can be clear about um what it is that we need to do moving forward to ensure that there continues to be um more and more Outreach more and more communication more and more engagement um we wouldn't have you know published that information just to do nothing with it um and we recognize that you know uh Outreach is an an engagement real engagement is an ongoing process so that data is a representative of certainly a point in time um and we've really taken that and tried to continue to utilize it um as a starting point um so that we you know can really uh more meaningfully ensure success in the process thank you Amy AA or any other Commissioners additional comments questions okay I I so I want to say that um I think um I'll tell you where my feelings are I I I I think the engagement issue uh I'm Latino my parents owned a small business so you know I and were felt like they had problems with you know the you know the B BR back it was so many years ago so I'm I'm sensitive to you know the the comments about inclusion and the comments of you know uh representation but I don't think this is where we solve that problem unfortunately that is not the the task that we have at hand that is there's there's embedded racism in our communities there's there's all kinds of stuff but we're a zoning commission we we can't solve those problems we can we can say you've got to do better and I think I think the current staff that we have at bpda really is focused on doing better but but I think it's it is a tall order and I'm I'm reminded of I think the perfect is the enemy of the good I think what we have here is good it's not perfect but it is good and so I think that it is important that we actually as a commission move forward in terms of the good because what we have right now isn't good and so I think it's really incumbent upon us to just really think about the good and the good that I think that is embedded in the team at bpda to kind of move this forward so that that's my opinion so that's I would be voting in favor of this thank you Ricardo and we'll go into our business session in a in a bit but um thank you Ricardo uh Drew you're on mute to uh thank you Joe come here um this is uh this is not the this particular vote uh this particular uh um um question in front of us this is not the the place to that we actually make decisions about um particular neighborhoods um on the ground this is just setting us providing a set of to uh tools that we will then then proceed to the next uh stage we have one of the most the lengthiest most complicated zoning codes in the country uh all of that makes it very difficult for small developers and frankly minority Developers to be able to really uh function because it's it's really the larger developers that can deal with the complexity of this many of the uh recommendations that I saw in the uh proposed amendment are really dealt with in other places in article 80 and in so many other places this is just if we don't make these changes we're just complicating things making it very difficult to develop new housing we need housing of All Sorts that to my mind that's one of the biggest issues we have I'm I'm in support of of moving forward with this thank you drew if there are no more questions for Kathleen Amy or her team then I would um Michael did you have a question if we have any more questions from them I would ask for them because I'd like what we can do at this point then is to uh close the public hearing and go into our business session all right why don't we do that we'll close the public hearing and go into our business session thank you bpda staff for answering our questions and I would ask um of the Commissioners if you have any discussion or other comments you'd like to share uh and uh if you if anyone is willing to make a motion um to adopt this uh proposed amendment I have one more comment and I'm just going to say this I understand what the zoning commission is I understand what what we're here here for I I didn't need a lesson on that but what I will say again is if people don't have the right to come forward and state how they feel then we should not have had any public comment so therefore um please don't ever say to me and I because I felt like that comment was directed towards me I understand what we're here for I get it Miller wait commissioner Miller I wasn't that wasn't directed at you I'm sorry if that I I apologize if that was your interpretation I what I what I meant to say was that the issues related to race uh in Boston are incredible I'm very well aware about race in so as as am I as am I clearly trust me I don't L on it as am I but but I want to say we hear you and I agree with you and I think it's important to have a conversation and I think all voices need to be heard so I I don't disagree with you at all whatsoever I'm actually in supportive of what the things you say so just want to be clear on that um Michael uh which one oh um well we'll go alphabetically how about Michael deila first all right it's about time I came in front of Michael the other Michael but um so look I I I I appreciate all the passion uh and and and the responsive and the comments that are being made and the opportunities for comments although um you know as as was said nothing is perfect I suppose but I think there is a lot of Um passion around this issue and I do want to commend the bpda for their uh for their work on this both the um uh the work behind the scenes to develop the streets and squares uh uh zoning as well as the process that they took and I think there's a lot of hard work done by a lot by a lot of people which I would at least commend on that even even if I might not perfect that that all that said um I think at least from my time on the zoning commission this is the single most important uh zoning change that we have the opportunity to make in front of us and and fundamentally I think a lot of the potential negatives or questions or comments that were raised about the negatives I think are far worse if we do not take action on this than if we do so in other words the status qu is leading to far worse outcomes than what will be achieved by changing and implementing streets and square zoning and the rest of the zoning reform process that's intended to take place from there we have to add housing we have to be able to add it in a predictable way we have to be able to add it in a way that creates the a spectrum of housing types as well as a spectrum of opportunity for small businesses and various um you know opportunities for the for for for people across all income ranges in all parts of of of the city um to to to live here and we have a we have we're lucky we have a very vibrant and attractive city that is causing people to want to live here in Boston we have to be able to provide housing across various price points which this very much this H this streets and squares initiative is very much intended to do and I expect it to be able to do in a far superior way than what is the status quo under our increased increasingly or excessively complex zoning code now that I frankly I think disenfranchises more people than uh than what will be in the future under streets and squares uh process and and Zoning um regime as well as all the other stuff that will come Beyond it and all the other more opportunities for even more Community input going forward so with that said uh I am certainly very much in favor of the um streets and squares initiative here and I'm I'm happy to make a mo here as well to approve the streets and squares initiative if I can find the find the I don't have the uh sorry don't have the exact initiative right in front of me at the moment if while you're looking Michael why don't I let Michael Nichols um just make comments and then we can absolutely take your um absolutely I just did find it but absolutely go ahead sure I'm I'm happy to weigh in just briefly on both sort of process and content and to go in reverse order I I think the content is spoton I think this is Direction the city needs to be going I think we need to be building density um you know housing and otherwise in areas where um where it is appropriate areas where there are non-conforming uses that um would become uh you know an accepted you know zoned appropriate use um by virtue of having the zoning code catch up to where the city already is today and consider the future and also allow for the growth that I think is such a broadly held goal within the City by process I I I Echo just about every one of my my fellow Commissioners who've spoken to date I'm not sure there's probably ever been a bpda process or B process in history that is as equally representative and and um and demonstrates and and ease of access and participation in communities throughout the city you know sort Equitable to their numbers in in nearly any demographic way I'm particularly appreciative of some of the changes the bpda has made on community engagement to um to higher on community engagement folks to seek to identify where the cracks exist in feedback and try and help address those the article 80 review process is one that uh I particularly appreciate we did not just rely upon listening to the typical um neighborhood association well-connected typically you know more fluent white um home-owning voices within our community but are making strides to broaden the feedback loop um and and I ask that that continues to be the case and that in future you know zoning hearings on matters like this we continue to hear the information we heard today about the engagement process and who's being reached and I I do think we can continue to make more and better efforts in those areas but I think the language being used today by the BPA staff of today is markedly different in this area than what we heard five and 10 years ago um and I hope that that progress continues and so um by by virtue of both process and especially content of today's hearing I'm in favor of the squares and streets uh Amendment as proposed give back to M with a motion if you found you found if not I'm happy to make a motion I would just also note that we had um a couple elected officials here that were supportive um and also I think mentioned you know the need for continued uh uh Improvement in Outreach but also that uh there were going to be future um opportunities for this to uh to to improve the engagement but also that there um a lot of this can be done outside of zoning um and I think that that was an important thing to hear from an elected official that that there's a commitment to augment the zoning with um additional legislative action to support some of these initiatives as well I mean we can I it doesn't mean we should not try to do as much as we can with z but we as was said by Mike we have a limited you know we have a we have a mandate and and and this I think is also a very good building block for uh those mandates to continue to be built so thank you for letting me weigh in folks uh at this point um if there's no more comment uh I would ask if there's a motion uh for this um I did find it so I can make a motion to approve text Amendment application numbers five 22 and 523 squares and Street zoning and miscellaneous amendments articles 2-4 68 11 13 18-19 22-24 26 80 and 89 second thank you there's a motion and a second thank you um at this point I would ask I would like to take a roll call um Mr Nichols yes Mr dellaa yep yes Miss Miller no Miss morawa yes Mr Le yes Mr ostrich yes uh Mr ayal yes and myself yes uh the motion carries 7 to one thank you um at this point I would like to continue our hearing and go to our 9:15 meeting um thank you for joining the Boston zoning commission public hearing which is being held virtually to ensure the safety of the public staff members and the Boston zoning Commissioners during the covid-19 pandemic the open public meeting Law requires that I notify the public that the this meeting is being recorded Please be aware that an audio and visual recording of this meeting is being made at this point I'll take a roll call of members uh present for this meeting myself Miss Hatton Mr Nichols present Mr Dilla present Mr Le present Miss Miller pres thank you Miss morawa pres uh Mr ayal I think uh Nelson had to drop off Mr ostrich present all right and I think that was everyone so at this point we'll go into the 9:15 hearing this is a public hearing before the Boston zoning commission to consider map Amendment application number 778 and a petition for approval of the develop vment plan for plan Development Area number 15266 Cambridge Street Charles toown the hearing was duly advertised on March 28 2024 in the Boston Herald in a Boston zoning commission hearing on proposed petitions the proponent will first present their case and are subject to the questioning by members of the commission only we are taking support and opposition at the same time if you are planning to testify please take time now to verify that your computer microphone is active click the hand icon on your Zoom control planel this will signal staff that you would like to speak when your hand is raised it will be blue if you calling into the meeting and would like to testify please di star n to raise your hand when I call for Testimony staff will announce your name and allow you to talk you must unmute your microphone your webcam will not be active in an effort to accommodate all who would like to speak about this proposal each person will be given up to two minutes to comment commission's staff will indicate when 30 seconds remain at that time please conclude your remarks so that the hearing may continue and others may be heard finally the proponents are allowed a period of 5 to 10 minutes for response rebuttal if they so desire will the bpda please begin the presentation thank you and good morning Commissioners uh my name is Sarah peek and I'm a senior project manager in the development review Department here at the bpda we are here before you this morning to discuss the proposed development plan for plan Development Area number 152 66 Cambridge Street and the associated 66 Cambridge Street project the 66 Cambridge Street PDA development plan is located on a 4 Acre Site at 66 Cambridge in the charl toown neighborhood of Boston the development plan envisions the construction of two new buildings containing approximately 82,000 ft² of gross floor area including 10,000 ft of retail restaurant space with the remaining building areas office and research laboratory space the project also includes up to to 487 off Street vehicle parking spaces and approximately 41,000 ft of open space the development team filed their project notification form on July 27th 2022 followed by a draft project impact report on September 20th 2023 the development team then filed a draft plan Development Area development plan on December 5th 2023 the bpda hosted three public meetings and three iag meetings between August 2022 and January 2024 to review the project and the associated PDA development plan these meetings were advertised in the local neighborhood newspapers posted to the bpda calendar and an email notification was sent to All subscribers of the bpda Charlestown neighborhood updates the proposed project received approval from the Boston Civic design Commission on March 5th 2024 and BPD board approval on March 14th at this point I would like to hand it off to my colleague Ted from the planning department to present the planning context for the project followed by a presentation from the development team thank you all thanks Sarah uh good morning Commissioners my name is Ted schwarzburg I'm the assistant deputy director for zoning compliance at the bpda and I'm going to present three slides on how planning staff reviewed this proposal next slide please next slide after that please uh as you know after a four-year planning process the bpda board adopt plan Charlestown in September 20 2023 and shortly thereafter the zoning commission this group adopted map and text zoning amendments to codify land use height and density recommendations from the plan into new Zoning for Charlestown due to the opportunity provided by the relatively large size of many of the parcels in the area the zoning update facilitates the use of plan development areas to encourage coordinated development that advances planning goals this proposal is within the new Charles toown neighborhood mixed use mu three subdistrict next slide please this proposal was extensively shaped by plan Charles Town as shown in the images on the screen which are copied from the plan document the neighborhood plan envisions a strategic deployment of Greater Heights in the part of Charles Town located between Rutherford Avenue and the i93 corridor while preserving the existing residential fabric on the other side of Rutherford Avenue next slide please The Proposal is consistent with allowed uses and dimensions require dimensional requirements for pdas per the PDA 6 sub District although the proposal's parking ratio exceeds the plan documents recommendations the proponent has committed to reducing parking supplies public multimodal multimodal transportation infrastructure improvements envisioned in the neighborhood plan are built and provide alternative mo mobility options as discussed the project is not only only consistent with the key planning goals but also the community priorities for new development in this part of Charles Charlestown highlighted in the plan including ground floor retail new open space adding to a proposed network of open space in Charlestown called the green Loop and contributing to a Transit shuttle thank you and I'll now turn it over to the proponents to present their project in more detail thank you Ted thank you Sarah thanks Ted and Sarah I appreciate everybody being here Commissioners bpda staff everyone on the call um it's been a very robust threee plus process on this project and like Ted said we've worked closely with the plan Charlestown team and uh very grateful to be here and I appreciate everyone's time uh next slide please my name is Danny guoli I'm with the Fallon company and I'm joined today um by Ed Owens president of the Owens companies this project is a partnership between the Fallon compan and the Owens companies and Ed and his family have owned this site for many years so before diving into the design and a little bit more about the project I wanted to first pass it to Ed uh to speak a little bit about the history of the site thanks Danny thank you Commissioners happy to be here today um some brief background on the site uh as Danny had mentioned my family has owned this site for over 35 years now it's an old industrial site uh it was once home to to Boston public school buses for over two decades today the site is vacant unutilized and we've been at this process since 2019 working with the community and stakeholders and we're happy to share our vision for the future so with that I'll turn back to Danny thanks Ed so I'll just give a brief overview of the site context and um what we're proposing and then I've also we've also got John Sullivan president of s GA our lead architect on the project he's on the call as well and he'll dive into the specifics on the design so a little bit more about the site uh for us you know seeing where this site is placed within this developing area west of Rutherford AV the real opportunity here for us was connectivity particularly if you look at this opportunity to connect Sullivan Square station the Lost Village to hood Park um right now this is not an area that's navigable by fo so that was an important piece for us and then the relationship to the highway that's i93 on the back side of the site the site has a significant um portion that abuts 93 so navigating that was also uh very important in terms of how we approach this this project next slide please so these are some of some shots of existing site conditions you can see in the top left um very much an impervious site underutilized and then and as you look at some of these closer shots you can see that right now it's not navigable by foot there's a significant grade change if you're looking uh North you're looking from D street from that bottom left image looking from where Hood park is north towards Cambridge Street towards the MBTA station there's about a 16 foot grade change and you can also see there's an ominous kind of uh looming uh Rail and and Highway infrastructure over the site so so uh navigating that was was important and kind of buffering against that and and making sure the open space faced the community and making sure back of house was against the highway was was a big part of how we came up with our design and then of course navigating this grade change with a pedestrian connection uh we thought was was a critical a critical benefit to the community next slide please so in terms of the proposed projects Sarah hit on them at the beginning um but the statistics are here on the screen it's about an 82,000 foot project with about 10,000 squ feet of retail uh the remainder of the buildings geared towards life science users uh two levels of below grade parking and an acre of publicly accessible open space and we're really proud of the open space in particular um it very much creates a a great Terminus of hood Park which are those buildings on the left part of the page uh those are future phases of hood Park and Hood green is in the foreground so we really tried to relate to that and create a special open space along D Street that then takes you through the site all the way to the Sullivan Square NBTA station and the lost Village so with that uh I will turn it over to John Sullivan at sgaa to talk more about the design next slide please thank you Danny and thank you Commissioners I'd like to start with the the proposed site plan um which Danny just kind of described a little bit um and some of the important site planning drivers that organ ized the proposed project um by you know by way of orientation to the left of this page you see the hood Park master plan and Stack Street which is kind of the main thoroughfare in that plan and to the right of this page you see the Sullivan Square t station two really important drivers for this project were you know number one was from a pedestrian and cyclist standpoint how do you connect the Sullivan Square T Station to to hood Park and our project is organized in such a way where the buildings are massed to allow a really vibrant and well organized public realm to um curate a really active experience you know along along that spine that you kind of see below uh below the 66 Cambridge North building uh both buildings are also organized in a way to to provide a buffer against the the elevated Highway which is really important for the site the public realm favors the inside of the site the buildings that are you know independently standing but are are connected by a shared Podium uh you know buffer the buffer the neighborhood from from the elevated Highway uh which helps with noise visibility air quality and some other important important aspects and then and then lastly as it relates to the public real and you'll see some more images you can you can see the amount of green that that comes off the page here we're we're we're really proud of the of the open space it's adjacent to active retail and other active uses um onsite and offsite D Street and in its current condition is very um challenging from a pedestrian standpoint it's not walkable it's not inviting and we've extended some of those improvements to include D stre to really knit this neighborhood together next slide please here you see the buildings uh looking from the East um you can see there's a variation in height between the North building which is in the foreground in the south building which is in the background um and and we're very excited by the architecture itself it's it's ordered yet very Dynamic and sculptural um very expressive of these as being forward-looking you know R&D buildings um there's a varied roofscape which is very important for this type of building that you know we think provides a nice addition to the skyline um and then we paid very careful attention to the base of these buildings to for a lot of transparency and porous conditions to really activate that that public realm and you can see in this image two things one is the the grade change that you know we're navigating across the bottom of uh you know be between Sullivan Square and and D Street or Cambridge Street and D Street which is considerable um and then the relationship to the elevated Highway Beyond next slide please and and here you can see that relationship more directly with the elevated Highway the on-ramp which uh or the offramp which abuts our site um and then at the bottom of the page you can see that Podium and how the back of house uses are really oriented towards this side of the site so that we can provide that critical buffer next slide please here you can see the you know the buildings expressed thre dimensionally again we're very excited about the forms about the varied roofscape um about the language on the on the facade and and really about how these buildings meet the ground um to support that you know that vibrant connector that you know we feel is really needed um in in this neighborhood you can see uh Hood Park to the left D Street in the foreground which again this is the proposed condition um which is a great improvement over you know what exists today and then you know then you can see at the base of the building all of the vibrant um planting Hardscape landscape elements and program elements that um you know shape that that public realm expression next slide please so this gives you a sense of what that experience is like for pedestrians um very very rich in terms of planting in terms of outdoor areas for for seating for Gathering um a lot of the all of the retail is is organized along the edges as well as some of the other active Gathering spaces within the building so there's meant to be a very you know Vis Visual and physical kind of porous relationship between the the indoor and the Outdoor Experience um and again you can just see the the attention to detail that's been paid along the the ground plane to really provide a nice um connection between the the train station and Hood Park the lower right hand image you can see that that is an entry Gateway it's important to you know you probably have to squint to seat a little bit but important to notice Hood stack you know be beyond that was a an important visual marker that you know we're aiming to preserve and then there's an important program element in this corner of the building as well which is a biomedical training center for for folks that you know is expressive of the buildings use but a nice connection to the community as well next slide please and then this this shows you you know kind of the overall vision of the of the building in its context you know next next to hood Park and it's and its full buildout which which you can see on this image um we're very excited Again by the forms by its ability to connect you know critical nodes with it within the neighborhood um with its ability to buffer the highway but also make a you know a very unique um expression to to be integrated into the skyline of of Boston so with that I will turn it back to to Danny thank you thanks John next slide please so this list some of the community benefits obviously we think there's a lot more um and very excited to to deliver a project that that truly benefits the community and um again very appreciative of everyone on the call today and grateful for you know what we think was a tremendous three years of feedback and engagement um from community members and City agencies and and uh you know across the board it's been a robust process and um we're grateful and uh look forward to your questions and um looking forward to bringing this project to fruition thank you thank you Danny um do any of the Commissioners have any questions for the presenting team I think you can take the presentation down maybe then thank you thanks any questions um from the Commissioners okay I don't see any so um Jeff at this point um could we go to public testimony and I would ask that as people are um are uh announc that you could just please state your name your affiliation and your position for or against the proposed project thank thank you okay we do have a few raised hands uh first I see councilor Murphy's office Joe go ahead I'll mute yourself thank you Jeff uh can you hear me Commissioners yes we can we can so my name is Joe McAn I work for a city counselor at large Erin Murphy and we would like to go on record and support of this proposal today and um we appreciate the proposal a lot of hard work over the years we appreciate the commission and their thoughtful consideration but we'd like to go on record and support today thank you thank you uh next is Brian Callahan Brian go ahead yes good morning ladies and gentlemen um my name is Brian Callahan a lifelong resident of Charlestown I uh was on the uh iag uh over the the last three or four years on this project is and also live in the Lost Village which is a neighborhood of Charlestown adjacent to Sullivan Square I would like to congratulate Ed Owens and his team for meeting with us uh over the last five or six years to talk about uh this site which is a very challenging site uh and we are very excited to support Ed in the fing group the thing that excites us the most is Cambridge Street is probably one of the most plighted streets in the city and Ed and his team have come up with a wonderful pedestrian walkway that will connect our area of Charlestown to Sullivan Square train station off of Cambridge Street where there will be trees and a walkway to the hood Office Park and further into charstone so we congratulate uh the efforts that they put into the community and we're looking forward to this happening so thank you very much thank you uh Miriam Ortiz Miriam go ahead good morning can you hear me yes okay um hello Madam chair and Commissioners my name is Miriam Ortiz and I live in High Park I am speaking on behalf of Justice Star Corporation to express her strong support for the 6 to6 Cambridge Street um project we are a Community Development Corporation and running a very successful tuition free biomedical careers program uh we are currently actively recruiting Boston residents for our next cohort this fall 85% of our uh graduates secure jobs in the life science with an average salary gain of about $20,000 we have partnered with Fallon to operate an additional cohort of 18 students at this new state-of-the-art training facility in the past limitations have restricted us to running just one 18 person cohort and this Transit oriented project will allow us to change that uh we have seen Fallon's commitment to advancing Economic Opportunity for community members especially in Charlestown and uh we're excited that the training space is Central is accessible and a prominent part of the project we're really looking forward to working with the Fallon Company the alen company the bpda and the Project's neighbors to realize the potential thank you okay Cesar SoDo go ahead right I'll go to the next one madame chair uh Joey Nicholas hello um thank you everybody uh my name is Joey Nicholas and I'm the executive director of Street Ivy Street Ivy is a local nonprofit that focuses on Career Development for the Youth of our community uh throughout the year we run education-based programs for youth to learn business entrepreneurship and career Readiness um the Fon company has been a key supporter of our nonprofit together we actually run a uh real estate entrepreneurship program each summer for local youth I just want to express my full support of this initiative uh this new development will be a key opportunity for our youth to learn uh from behind the scenes life cycle that goes into bringing a project like this to life uh Danny and the rest of the found team have shown me their deep commitment to have positive impact on the community and I am fully Behind these efforts thank you thank you Joey and elain Donovan Elaine go ahead good morning Madame chair members of the commission my name is elain denovan I'm with Council kaleta's Office and the council would like to go in support at this time thank you so much thank you elain that's all I have Madam chair thank you Jeff all right at this point um I would close out the public hearing and ask uh if any of the uh Commissioners uh want and go into our business session um to either discuss the proposed motion or move it forward with a motion in a second I just want to go on record saying Street to Ivy program is a really really good program it's very intentional about including black and brown people in real estate where um we don't have um a lot of that in the in that uh scholarship so thank you Fallon group I'll make a motion to approve ma Amendment application number 778 development plan for plan Development Area number 152 um 66 gamber Street Charlestown map 2E Charlestown neighborhood District I hear a motion is there a second second Aisha thank you Aisha is there any discussion on the motion or the second okay at this point I'll take a roll call uh vote Mr Nichols yes Mr deela yes Miss Miller yes Miss morawa yes Mr Le Drew you're unmute yes thank you drew um Mr osich yes and myself yes the motion carries 70 mute okay thank you thank you good luck guys okay um we'll move on to our our 9:30 hearing um thank you for joining the Boston zoning commission public hearing which is being held virtually to ensure the safety of the public staff members and the Boston zoning Commissioners during the covid-19 pandemic the open public meeting law requires I notify the public that this meeting is being recorded Please be aware that an audio and visual recording of this meeting is being made at this point I'd like to take a roll call vote of members present at the beginning of the meeting Mr Nichols presid uh Mr de present Miss Miller present Miss morawa present Mr L present Mr ostrich present and myself Miss Hatton present I don't think um Nelson has come back on so there are seven of us and at this point I would um would note that this is a public hearing before the Boston zoning commission to consider map Amendment app a number 777 and a petition for approval of the master plan for plan Development Area number 153 425 Medford Street Charlestown the hearing was duly advertised on March 28th 2024 in the Boston Herald in a Boston zoning commission hearing on proposed petitions the proponent will first present their case and are subject to the questioning by members of the commission only we are taking support and opposition at the same time if you're planning to testify please take time now to verify that your computer microphone is is active click the hand icon on your Zoom control panel this will signal staff that you would like to speak when your hand is raised it will be blue if you're calling into the meeting and would like to testify please dial star9 to raise your hand when I call for all testimony staff will announce your name and allow you to talk you must unmute your microphone as your webcam will not be active in an effort to accommodate all who would like to speak about this proposal each person will be given up to two minutes to comment commission staff will indicate when 30 seconds remain at that time please conclude your remarks so that the hearing may continue and others may be heard finally the proponents are allowed a period of 5 to 10 minutes for rebuttal if they so desire will the bpda please begin the presentation thank you again and good morning Commissioners uh once again my name is Sarah peek and I'm a senior project manager in the development review Department we are here before you this morning to discuss the proposed master plan for plan Development Area number 153 425 Bedford Street I do want to note that this PDA master plan was presented as PDA number 144 at the bpda board but that has since been corrected to the current number which is 153 uh the 425 Medford Street PDA master plan is located on an approximately 24.6 Acre Site located at 425 Medford Street as well as portions of 465 Medford Street and 52 529 Medford Street in the Charlestown neighborhood of Boston the mass master plan contemplates the construction of six new buildings containing approximately 1.79 million square ft in total of mixed use development this includes approximately 510,000 gross square feet of residential uses 989,50 gross square feet of research laboratory and office space 210,000 gross squ feet of Hotel space 65,00 gross squ feet of retail and restaurant space um a 6,500 gross s foot Community Center space and up to 889 vehicle parking spaces located in a below grade garage the master plan also includes the creation of a 2400t long resiliency component along the Waterfront by The Mystic River with publicly accessible Landscaping throughout this resiliency component will be delivered in the first phase of the development of the master plan the development team filed their PDA master plan on November 5th 2021 the bpda hosted three public meetings and four iig meetings between February 2022 and January 2024 these meetings were advertised in the local newspapers posted to the bpda calendar and an email notification was sent to All subscribers of the bpda Charlestown neighborhood updates the proposed project received approval from the Boston Civic design Commission on August 1st 2023 and bpda board approval on March 14th 2024 at this point I would like to hand it off to my colleague Ted Wartburg from the planning department to present the planning context for the project followed by a presentation from the development team thank you all thank you Sarah thank you Sarah again my name is Ted schwarzburg I'm assistant deputy director for zoning compliance at the bpda uh and I will present three more slides on the planning context for this proposal next slide please and next slide uh as I mentioned earlier uh in Fall of 2023 the bpda board adopted plan Charlestown and shortly afterwards this commission codified that plan into zoning uh I'm excited that uh we now have two projects quickly following uh from that planning uh the proposed pro project is subject to the regulations of the Charlestown Maritime economy Reserve subdistrict in addition the proposed project is within the coastal flood resilience overlay District next slide please The Proposal significantly advances the recommendations of the clal resilience solutions for East Boston and charl toown final report which analyzed and recommended strategy for protecting the neighborhoods from sea level rise and coastal flooding as shown in the images uh on this slide which are taken from that report based on modeling and Analysis the highest flood highest priority flood Point entry into Charles Town uh is at Sullivan Square where floodwater would inundate not only the flatly site and Ryan playground but also a large proportion of charlestown's interior neighborhood as well as our neighbors in Charles in in Cambridge and summer as shown in the image on the right to address this threat the clal resilience plan recommended recommended integrating Coastal flood protection with open space improvements to provide effective adaptable solutions that provide additional public open space benefit the proposed project before you today was designed to provide the Brazilian infrastructure contemplated in this report with a new system of elevated parks and Pathways along the Waterfront next slide please plan development areas are allowed on this site given that they provide certain public benefits and in turn PD established dimensional requirements of the projects the proposed project was highly shaped by the plan Charlestown process delivering planning for resilient and publicly accessible Mystic River Waterfront intended to connect Ryan playground new pedestrian and bike connections through existing lots and more the proposal's density is consistent with the plan's recommendations and although the Project's parking ratio exceeds the plan recommendations the proponent has committed to reducing parking Supply as public multimodal infrastructure improvements envisioned in the plan are built and it has committed to provide alternative Mobility options thank you and I'll now turn it over to the proponent team to present their proposal thank you thank you Ted thanks Ted uh good morning members of the commission and Madam chair my name is John Roach and I am the CEO of of the flatly company the longtime owner of the property known properties known as shraf City Center in Charlestown the subject of this proposed new zoning overlay District the Flatley family has been an active member of the Charlestown Community since 1985 and both Dan Flatley and I have children and grandchildren living in Charlestown today we have worked very hard over the last 2 and 1/2 years to bring our vision for the Redevelopment of 425 medfi Street of the community and I'm proud that our proposal includes a resiliency component with parks and recreational amenities designed to protect well beyond our own properties inclusive of hundred of hundreds of Acres of lower Charlestown that are today at a serious risk of climate change flood damage we are also excited that our talented team of designers have inte gred a community path in 13 acres of new open public space which will for the first time in 90 years welcome the public back to what was once Dewey Beach in the Waterfront along the Mystic River we thank you the bpda staff electives and the community for helping us get to this point I will now hand over the mic to Jamie uh to briefly walk you through the proposed project yeah thank you John uh thank you madam chair and Commissioners uh Jamie Von clemer architect with con pson Fox Architects for the project so this just start with one summary view looking down what we call omstead way we're looking from the south to the north towards the water in the distance and since we are adjacent to do Park to the South designed originally by Frederick La omstead is a great great responsibility and opportunity to make landscape a very important part of this offer next please uh just without going into detail the timeline here uh illustrates the very many meetings that the team has had with local neighborhood groups with Boston uh government groups and others to morph and evolve the plan this is about four and a half years of work on the timeline moving from a bigger aggregated set of buildings in on the left to more of a permeable plan where walkways and Pathways lead through the site to connect Charlestown to the Mystic uh River and then on the right hand side finally a further adjustment to create a more Supple variety of spaces that would be very very user friendly for the community as well as those who are working and living in the complex next please so overall we all understand just want to underscore how strategically advantageous this site is uh the resiliency will be talked about by sanjuka our landscape architect from uh field operations but also we can think of this as a con as a way to connect to the water from charl town uh and we'll go into a little bit more detail about that in a moment next please existing condition of the Old Sugar Factory uh parking lots uh presents us with what in effect is a little bit more of a barrier or a Gap a non-connecting gap between Charlestown and the water next please and to underscore the six major uh goals of these strategies of design I'll go from upper left to lower right the Waterfront uh is such Big Boon to uh Charlestown it could be it's really not capitalized on at this point so that's um five acres of space next over Public Access those arrows designating walkways and view corridors from Dy Park and from the hill higher up in Charlestown towards the water uh next over is east west open space along what were o railway tracks now Preserve preserved in more archaeological form but it's a 1 acre Park uh of 120 ft wide which can be used by the community very close to Doty Park the bottom left we are minimizing the impact of vehicular movement through the site by siphoning off cars as they come in to go below before they need to cross the site uh that's been subject of a lot of study in the middle bottom the uh integrating of of engineering wise means of resiliency of water protection uh along the the park to the north um again sun will go into more detail on that and finally on the bottom right uh is uh in those little patches of red we're indicating retail food and beverage and Community uses that will make the ground floor the street level of this collection of buildings and spaces into a very uh friendly usable uh pedestrian worthy environment next please so the big red arrows kind of repeat again this theme of connecting from lower right to upper left from the water uh from the the the Charlestown Community towards the water and of course back again in a variety of different widths of walkway so there's a hierarchy a different set of purposes to each one then uh the green arrows showing East West connectivity along the Waterfront Park on the upper left and then along the area that skirts Medford Street that I mentioned is a linear Park as well next please so I won't go into each one of these to keep things short but there are many many areas of of smaller Focus within all of this open space and that gives us we think a rich variety of experiences some for exercise and fitness others just for appreciation of plants others for more uh pedestrian walking activities and uh some others yet to articulate a heart in the middle of this cluster uh so uh sanjuka will go through a little bit more detail all of these but a lot of Art and skill going into and great hope for the project going into each one of these open space area designs next please 13 acres by the way and so uh now to hand it over to sunuk I'll just leave you with this view looking hovering as if we were in a drone above the water looking back towards Charlestown and uh buildings on the right hand side residential buildings on the leftand side office SL laboratory buildings framing uh this hestad way uh sanjuka thanks Jamie um I'm sanjuka um with field operations with the Landscape Architects uh for the project uh as Jimmy was mentioning uh there's really a constellation of public amenities that we are planning uh in this development uh they are they really fall into three major categories the first one being the uh five almost 5 acre Waterfront Park that you're seeing uh on this slide um it it incorporates a variety of edge conditions ability to access water uh be on the waterfront play on the waterfront go to the beach on the waterfront again um and along with it next slide please uh one of the key elements that Jamie touched on is its uh role as as an integrated flood resilience infrastructure uh that will um uh reduce flood risk not only for the site but a significant amount of the neighborhood um uh that that it fronts uh you can kind of see the existing side condition and the proposed mitigation that would as it would skirt the shoreline um uh on the side next uh we are proposing um a sort of landscape version of of the of of of flood Mitigation Of flood protection that that you can kind of see as the red line it's a hidden burm that uh that really um uh runs along the entirety of the Waterfront uh parallel to it the idea is that it it is great in a manner to allow for Access and different types of Waterfront experiences so while it is it still lifts um uh a majority of the site above uh it also allows um U the the users of the park to be near the water something that we trying to balance by integrating it uh into the landscape so you still don't lose the ability to actually be near the water and be next to the water uh we are uh allowing Lots we are hoping to to design many types of spaces that encourage habitat uh that that recall the the history of this site as a beach uh sort of Dewey Beach 2.0 if you seen the sort of the middle left of the page uh a large harble lawn and play spaces and uh workout spaces that would really encourage A diversity of uses uh on the site next please thank you uh here you see an image of uh Shoreline um uh strategy that we are uh looking at uh as in the Mystic nature trail that connects Ryan playground um in terms of elevation we are also connecting to Ryan playground um uh and then new um they are doing their own resiliency strategy and upgrades on the park uh so that's one key Gap in the resiliency strategy that's going to be filled uh with this project uh we are hoping to use the shoreline conditions to actually deploy a set of intertitle and subtitle strategies that will enhance um enhance the Ecology of the shoreline next uh this is U Jamie showed an image of this space uh before it's it's uh it's what we call hestad way it's on AIS with d Park which was as you all know uh an hestad um designed Park uh and we really borrowed our landscape design Edom to a great extent from that language to uh to to give it that sense of continuity uh and that idea of Meandering to the Waterfront uh the hestad uh walk hestad way is really a parklike extension it's not so much a street it's really seen as uh places for social um uh interaction for for for seating and for a really shaded Meander uh to the water next next please thank you it's on a s this is actually the beachway oh sorry I think I might be getting a slight delay um if you could go back to Mystic way sorry okay Mystic way is up okay um Mystic way is this is a view down the the parallel Street to madway this is a uh this is again yet another uh Garden Street that that heads to um the Poo space which is another passageway down to uh the Waterfront uh which Jamie will speak of uh next next next slide please you're on beachway now great um and beachway is another is is a pathway that takes you to the Dewey Beach uh this is really seen as a trail access that takes uh that allows you for allows continuous bike access that takes you all the way to the community path and also connects to the Waterfront at the Dewey Beach location next hey showing railroad ramble uh this is the the the zone that is parallel to Metford Street um and what John earlier was referring to as the community path um we there are existing railroad tracks and beautiful existing trees here that that this design is um is seeking to retain and blend the community path into it as an as an experience that welcomes the community into the site next yeah Mystic Square uh this is Mystic Square which Jimmy correctly described earlier as the heart of this development it's really seen as this pedestrian first space uh which allows uh The Limited number of vehicles that will allow come the site to drop to drop off uh um and and leave the site but also really Embraces a design that all allows for pedestrian Crossing and pedestrian safety next and I think I believe this is where I'm handing off to Jamie yeah thank you and that by the way in the last one was a hotel coming at that Center in any case uh that's right so that's the hotel to the right now going to the next image uh this is again to stress the uh design of the traffic and the parking to show that the center part of this plan is for pedestrians not Cars the cars are siphoned off by ramps at the edges of the in and the out and then in red we can see the service access drive this is taken actually through flatly property that's a benefit to everybody so that the trucks are going down underground to loading base rather than uh being in the middle or on the site so next please the ground plane I think I mentioned the potential for the the insistence on active retail at the ground that is thought to be by the way in great part local retail local providers of crafts of food Etc and in darker red that L-shaped community space so that is 65,000 square foot to be um I I guess uh you know managed programmed Etc by the community so more to come on that but a strategic location where it's in the pathway and convenient from where most people will flow through the site next please and then um this magenta color piece of of interior space within uh that larger laboratory building we're calling a poo because of it's a public pass through space the thought is that it should be enclosed from weather at some times of year but that there'd be large operable door window uh elements that could open it up to breezes but idea is to get as much as possible full community and um passer use of a very attractive space next please and then although in this uh um article 80a phase we are not in really in heavy facade design in the architecture we will move ahead um into that phase but already it was important in our discuss with bpda and bcdc to promise that the what we all want which is a a quality of architecture that gives us some kind of harmonious memory of the past of the greater buildings the more well-loved buildings of Charlestown and the surrounding industrial buildings in the area and even beyond that in the region uh so that we expect there will be brick of different colors so that there's some variety metal that has some depth and detail and uh if you see the little cartoon on the lower left those kind of in the middle of the left uh a sense of the different buildings that that dot along the hill of charl toown they are also a variety of colors and textures so we'll emulate that in devising the architecture for this set of buildings next please so just running down the statistics which are very important to us 13 acres of open space one and a half acres along that stretch of Medford Street the linear East West area for dog run and walking one plus acres for the hestad way connector from doy side to the water uh 400 new trees in just this area alone in the Waterfront uh 5 acre Park uh four different connective passageways between South and North to get to that Park and the resiliency which is a huge uh important measure for the world today uh thinking about where the sea level rise will take us to 2070 and half a mile of accessible Shoreline so the art as s showed of creating protection without making barriers is is a tricky thing to do but we think it's it's really a clever solution that field operations has come up with uh next please so I think that takes us to the final set of issues of of the community space which I talked about before of 6 and half th000 square feet of community retail at an affordable rate so this is encouraging local vendors to participate 10,000 square feet Community paths discussed and in the economy uh 15 million uh dollarss of affordable housing exactions 20% of the residential units will be affordable the construction jobs during the project Works will be a thousand but more important we think two and a half th000 permanent jobs made possible by the project and so that takes us to the end of this short summary and thank you for your for listening thank you so that concludes the presentation that's correct thank you at this point I would ask uh if any of the Commissioners have any questions of the presenters uh just a quick quick question if I may uh maybe two quick questions one is can you just summarize and maybe I I couldn't do the math what is the what is the breakdown of of the expected uses of the site Hotel uh commercial office housing overall and then second sort of question was just I was curious on a few more details on that um service access you uh detailed for for a minute uh in the presentation right yeah thank you for question I just summarize first the areas uh that o overall we have about of the research laboratory uh we have about a million one a million two square gross square feet um uh a little less than that actually U let's say million one uh of Hotel uh 200,000 Square gross square feet and then of residential uh 550,000 square feet and then your question about the about the service should we go back to that image uh was this about the above grade below grade uh placement yeah I was just trying to understand the access you know where the service sort of off of Medford Street and how that access the site departs yeah the trucks would come in and it's another view if we go to the plan closer to the shrafts building and then and you see it there's a red an image with a red arrow which should come up in a minute I'll say you're there when were there yep right here and you see they would enter in from the bottom left off of uh our curb cut down Bunker Hill Street near the shrap Center and then uh enter basically which is the edge of parking lot and driveways and then wind their way clockwise past 465 Medford and then go underground right where you see that number one and the arrow ends and then from there they go under the site into the basement system with uh different truck docks and elevators that connect to get to the various residential office and hotel uses and they go out back along that same red Arc great thank you are there any other questions for the presenters if you could take the presentation down that would be great thank you I don't see any other questions so at this point um we'll have a business session after so at this point why don't we um go ask for public testimony and if I could um please remind uh anyone calling in to make comments to please announce your name affiliation and your position on the proposed project a second here Madam chair I don't see any raised hands right now give it a couple of seconds give it a minute or so yeah I I have no raised hands Madam chair okay thank you Jeff so at this point um I don't think there's a need for rebuttal at all and I would ask uh I would declare that the public hearing is closed and that we will go into a business session to consider the proposed uh proposed map application and um ask for any discussion or motions to adopt the um item um I would just say look I think I think this is It's a wellth thought out uh project overall a lot lot of interesting elements unique uh public benefits as well as a I think wellth thought out uh project uh overall and on a site that is obviously vastly underutilized right now so I'd be in support of uh approving this project uh so but uh but well thought out well planned and I'm looking forward to seeing the the individual components come down the come down the pike into the process um I I just want to add I I really appreciated the thoughtfulness of the uh landscape architecture presentation so I commend the landscape architecture team on a very thoughtful presentation and I think really adds a lot to uh this project hopefully it'll all take place so fingers crossed thank you I support the project as well thank you thank you I'd Echo those comments and then I'm happy to make a motion in support of map Amendment application number 777 development plan for p number 153 425 midford Street Charlestown map 2B 2C Harbor Park District Charlestown Waterfront second thank you we have a motion in a second thank you um at this point is there any further discussion on the item okay seeing hearing none I'll take a roll call vote um Mr Nichols yes Mr deila yes Miss Miller yes Miss morawa yes Mr Lu yes Mr ostrich yes myself yes so I had that uh the motion carries seven to nothing good luck and as as was said by one of the other Commissioners uh we hope this this happens it's a very extraordinary project thank you thank you thank very much at this at this point we're going to stay in our business session um for an informational update on the sixth amendment to PDA number 37 credential Center Redevelopment briefing and um I will turn it over to the B bpda this just just as a note this is a business session that we're in uh the public is welcome to uh to listen in though so um thank you great thank you Commissioners my name is Quinn valuch and I'm I'm a senior project manager in the development review department at the bpda I'm here this morning to provide you with an update on amendment number six to the development plan for PDA number 37 that the commission uh approved in February of this year following the approval of the amendment it came to our attention that during staff review and the editing of the amendment a few key elements of the text were lost because of this some of the language as written does not maintain the intent of the amendment as it was described to the public bpda board or this commission during presentations we've made a few minor changes the document to bring the text of the amendment back in line with the intent of the amendment you all have been provided with a Le Red Line showing these changes and an updated clean version of the document mallerie Tumi the deputy General Council of the bpda is here to provide some additional context on those changes and all parties to the PDA are present at the meeting should you have any questions for them thanks Quinn and thank you Commissioners um as Quinn has said our minor text revisions just realign the amendment with its intent as filed reviewed and presented as initially drafted when filed the Sixth Amendment added dormatory use within the PDA specific to the South Tower only which is the hotel site as described in the PDA however through the editing process the reference to the South Tower was inadvertently removed making the final version unintentionally over Brad this updated sixth amendment clarifies that PDA number 37 as amended established portions within the PDA area based on ownership the hotel Hotel Site was separated out under the First Amendment requiring that any future Amendment applicable to the Hotel Site would only have effect on the Hotel Site the language added back into this updated sixth amendment makes abundantly clear that the dormatory use added under the institutional uses to the PDA use exhibit is only allowed within the hotel development plan as established under the First Amendment to the PDA I'm happy to answer any questions so mallerie from a process perspective then are you you are looking for us to acknowledge this through a roll call vote I imagine we are yes and we have the language um and so would the would would in effect the um the motion you're looking for be to for us to accept the updated Sixth Amendment to the PDA number 37 credential Center Redevelopment briefing is that the correct yes yes that's that's exactly right thank you for clarifying okay at this point though I just wanted to clarify that for everyone's information but if if anyone has questions for Gwyn or mallerie um on this I think it clearly was just uh the intention for our discussion and our um our vote was to limit this dormatory to the South Tower and this is clarifying language that just um explicitly notes that but if anyone has any other questions of them please please feel free okay I guess the question there's no dispute of that from many of the parties involved or nope there uh no dispute and I believe we might even have some of uh the parties on if they wanted to answer any questions but um no everyone agreed and um both parties redlined um further clarification changes and it sounded like this was always the intention mallerie and it just got kind of that's right and and even as presented so I think through uh the bpda approved approval process uh the Zone commission process uh it was um very clear in the presentation that this was specific to the Hotel Site within the PDA area in the South Tower yeah that's right but is the intention to have us vote today because I'll note that the agenda says it's an informational item so it' be it' be odd to be voting on an informational item presented that way on the agenda we would prefer to have it voted to to make the uh approval official um with new text um I feel like that's the appropriate way to do it um I think the precedent is that we we had done this once before Jeff noted on BC um it's it's really it um it was noticed on the agenda but it it's not changing any of the contents and and we as a zoning commission can take action on very minor Scribner or clarifying type items is my understanding mallerie that's right that's exactly how we see this again this was always intended to be as written now um and through the editing process um against there were minor deletions that made a big difference unfortunately um and so we're just clarifying that now and and approving language um as we always intended it to be approved in fact it's more restrictive than the that's right the text we had where the presentation was representative of the restrictive language that's in here in this revised language so that's right thank you so Madam chair I'm comfortable with that but I think going forward if if a vote is intended it probably isn't in the best interest of of the commission to list something as an informational matter right signal that a vote is expected that that's well said I I don't I I agree Michael yeah and so at this point if if um are there any other comments or questions though um I obviously want everyone to have uh a good understanding is um is there um a motion for us to accept this updated sixth amendment to PDA number 37 Prudential Center Redevelopment briefing uh Prudential Center Redevelopment that we voted on in a prior meeting so moved thank you s a second second thank you okay um at this point then I'll just uh do a roll call vote U Mr Nichols yes Mr deila yes Miss Miller yes Miss morawa yes Mr Le yes Mr ostrich yes and myself yes so the um the amendment carries seven to nothing at this point um this is the end of our hearing today and I would um thank everyone for their um contributions and their time thank you thank you thank you