##VIDEO ID:82jrQvgbLzc## e the meeting of the planning board bough of Somerville for October 9th 2024 will please come to order adequate notice of this meeting as required by the open public meeting act has been provided that on a copy of the notice specifying the date time and location was one posted on the bulletin board outside of burrow Hall two mailed faxed or emailed to The Courier News and three given to the clerk administrator this meeting is a Judicial proceeding any questions or comments must be limited to the issues the board can may lead Ally consider in reaching a decision and the deorum appropriate to a Judicial hearing must be maintained at all times roll call excuse this evening Larry Cleveland here Jason crasa here John manilo uh he'll be swor and surely mayor Gallagher here council person vroom here acting chairperson Warner here please stand for the pledge I pledge to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for all I ask that everybody please remain standing I'd like a moment of silence for the passing of our previous chairman Bernie nado thank you Bernie served on this board for 35 years March 27th 1989 he was appointed to the Somerville board in 98 he was appointed as chairman of the County Board there are way too many things that we could mention and accomplishments of Bernie he is going to be dearly missed and I know every one of us on this board hope to live up to what he has set as a very high bar for Somerville thank [Music] uh minutes so moved second Andrea there was I here for I'm sorry was I here yes I was here the last uh you were here no no um September I was away so Iain you were away You're abstaining Chris hadex yes Larry Cleveland yes Jason crasa yes mayor Gallagher yes council person vom yes acting chairperson Warner yes uh oath of office uh John you're gonna stand up here States the authority of the people I will Faithfully andly [Applause] perform all right we have no pending resolutions I am going to uh move around the agenda of it we're going to take all of our pending business and go after our presentations um so the next up on on our agenda is the presentations we had put out an RFP for a planner for affordable housing to take care of that um for the burrow these presentations are four of the applicants that we uh would like to hear from from the board we will start with uh call yours thank you just a reminder 10 minutes and then we'll have five minutes of Q&A thank you good evening uh is this on there you go now it's on should be good great good thank you uh my name is Dan block with coler's engineering design and I have with me uh Nicholas Dickerson also with coler's engineering and design so we're we're pleased to have been invited to come and speak with you tonight about our proposal to be the affordable housing planner for the burough of Somerville um hopefully everybody's had a chance to read our our proposal um rather than preparing you know slideshow we really felt there would be better use of the time just to come in and have a conversation with the board um about you know what are the implications of the new legislation where do you want to see the burrow go from here what's the vision um so we can we can learn from you and you can get a better understanding of where we U are coming from um so you know just to start off with an introduction myself um I have have a bachelor's degree in urban planning and environmental design from the University of Buffalo I've been in New Jersey um as a planner since 2006 um and right away as I joined major consulting which has now coler's engineering design um we jumped right into affordable housing you know 2006 was uh the beginning of the third round 2008 around that time frame um so I I prepared a number of housing plans under the various versions of the third round rules um continuing into the court litigation um after the 2015 um Court uh case that over over uh turned COA so we've been in and out of courtrooms um representing municipalities all across the state um been in uh Superior Court here in Somerville at the uh at the County Courthouse a number of times so very familiar with the process very familiar with all the co rules the new rules the A4 legislation um and I did do some research on um Somerville so I took a look at the master plan and I I see that Somerville has not participated in any of the prior rounds um in the affordable housing process so there are no uh certified plans there's no um J or anything like that for for Somerville basically my understanding is Somerville has a housing plan as part of the master plan which just relies on the existing housing stock that they the the burrow believes meets the affordable housing requirements and didn't need to go through the whole process so I it seems like the process has worked so far with the number of Redevelopment plans and I I see there's quite a few out there um on the the Burrow's website that has been working for the burrow so I mean in terms of what's the risk what's the benefits of getting into the process and and looking for certification um of the so-called fourth round um if the burrow were to get involved then you'd have to really go back and look at the prior round obligations and how you could meet those or are you looking for adjustments um either a vacant land adjustment or a durational adjustment of those numbers where you don't think that those U numbers can be met because you don't have them to vacant land or um if you don't have the capacity of your Utility Systems so those are types of things that we would like to look at if the buau was interested in getting into that process um I mean obviously the risk is that you could be subject to a um a builder's remedy lawsuit if if somebody came in and said hey you you guys haven't met your obligations we want to build housing um and we want to overturn your zoning so that's that's always a risk seems like so far Somerville has been working it out with the developers and with through these Redevelopment plans so um that's basically my pitch to the board I mean we we have a lot of experience in affordable housing we represent a number of communities um planning boards Township planner zoning boards so we have all the experience and I really just like to understand where Somerville is like to go want to go first sure um C can you talk a little bit about Somerville is is obviously we're we're only about two and a half square miles um yet we have this very uh Dynamic town of uh commercial commercial Corridor uh residential uh po Redevelopment five different Redevelopment areas um have you worked in any other towns from an affordable housing concept that that kind of and nobody's going to mirror some of I I realize that but can you talk a little bit to that um and and some of the challenges uh in that in an older industrial built out Community that's trying to reinvent itself um yes obviously to answer your question no there's no other Somerville right so I mean there are darn right that's right every town in New Jersey is very unique um so to I I have not seen anybody that's exactly like Somerville in this same situation we do represent a number of of municipali ities who have I would say similar characteristics um not quite exactly a Somerville but we we represent a number of bureaus townships um a lot of them have been in the process from the beginning so we're coming up with mechanisms for them to continue to achieve their obligations um I will say I I personally have not represented another Municipality of this size that that has not done any um involvement in the in the co-op process so to me um jumping in I guess this late in the game for the burrow will be I think a challenge um I think all the mechanisms are the same I think you have op opportunities through these Redevelopment areas and potential future Redevelopment areas that we could look for um and I'm sure that the the burough has built without I'm sure there's no vacant land left so there's opportunities to seek the vacant land adjustment um and then you're really just looking for what's the unmet need where can you find these other opportunities to um look for affordable housing units thank you sorry um so so with jumping in and you know us not being involved in Co and being the only ones um can you speak to the capacity you guys have to jump in and meet deadlines that you know be it the state or anybody else comes down with um if you have that ability and to what capacity yeah we we believe we have the capacity um it's basically meetings with the buau uh with the planning board with the council um to come up with these what's the strategy where do you want to go to in in order to meet these obligations that's really come meeting with the buau we have the ability to do that and then coming up with a plan um and you know presenting it before the planning board and the council um we have a pretty good staff in here in New Jersey we we know the affordable housing process we can get through it pretty quickly it's just working with the with the bureau to find out what do you want to do how do you want to meet these obligations and we we'll guide you through the process here are the options these are the things you can do these are the things you cannot do um so I I think we do have the capacity to to help the burrow if that's where they don't want to go um I have a question about your thought about whether we should be just looking at affordable housing in one spot or should we be integrating it into new development my my opinion is that it should be going into new development not just isolated to some vacant land somewhere because then it gets identified as being affordable housing right off the bat that's not necessarily Fair it'd be better in my opinion to integrate it have you worked with other towns that have integrated it into their new developments to say a certain portion has to be set aside for you know uh Anonymous affordable housing yeah so um there's there's different ways to address your your obligation um one of them would be to build in a 100% affordable unit uh building and those kind of get that stigma like you're saying as this is just you know the project this is the affordable building um what we like to see more often is what they call inclusion area where you have a set aside of 20% say one out of five units is going to be deed restricted to be affordable um some municipalities will adopt an ordinance that requires any new development to meet that uh set aside so you know any any new multif family development with five or more dwellings U would have to meet you know that that obligation so you're setting aside at least one for every five or 20% of those units will be uh deed restricted for low and moderate income so some of your existing clients over the last couple of years can you name one or two that have used that model the integration model yeah um hackin toown uh M Hill Hill um mostly our towns that are built out and have done the vacant land adjustment because you can't really predict who's going to redevelop or or build something new it's just a blanket ordinance that over you know anything new that comes in you've got to meet this ordinance um this set aside a requirement Mine Hill and uh pack down those are two that come to mind immediately I know we have others um you know we we do a lot of work in Bergen County um Morris County so we're mostly North Jersey a lot of our towns have done the vacant land studies um and did an adjustment to come up with a realistic development opportunity and then they do this as one of their mechanisms for the unmet need to uh capture any future development and make sure we get those units thank you so um to Jason's Point uh from before uh these these rules are coming like a freight train the uh um you know we're looking at I think numbers are coming out the end of this month uh then supposedly yeah supposedly yeah they they the States created a very aggressive timeline um if they were to hold to that timeline how realistic is it um for the burrow to be able to hold to that timeline which means how realistic is it from a capacity standpoint uh for uh your firm to handle that and and how many folks uh would be assigned to handle Somerville to to process this through because the reality is you probably have a lot a number of other clients at the same time that um are going through that we're all going through the same thing correct so so you've got this game of numbers you got 564 five five about four um and a limited number of planning firms how do who Rises to the top and who doesn't so in in terms of we can we can have no problem getting the work done getting the plans ready for adoption I think the challenge is going to be who's going to cover the meeting um most municipalities have their meetings on Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday of the of you know certain month night of the week uh certain week of the month there's going to be some overlap so you know a lot of our municipalities we've already told you may need to do a special meeting just so that we can be there um luckily Nick and I both are free most Wednesdays which I believe is when uh sumerville meets so Wednesdays I think we're pretty good um if if if and when those public hearings come up we'll be able to attend um so I think from a workload we have the capacity and in terms of who's going to represent I think we one of us will be there um my comments are my question really is you know you asked for wanting to hear what we're looking for um I think most of us here youve heard some of the C questions you know we're looking for somebody who understands Somerville I'm going to go back to the mayor's original comment we are a very unique municipality we take ve a lot of pride in where we are and where we're going um and that is we are coming upon a very unique time for Somerville and integrating new affordable housing and or integration uh inclusion housing is another unique aspect that has to be added on top of that so understanding where we're coming from is really that we we're not looking for cookie cutter we're not looking for cookie cutter answers nothing in Somerville has been done with a cookie cutter so no matter what planner that is we're looking for somebody who can understand that and understand us and work with us on that is that something you know with all the you know to back to the point with all the municipalities that you do cover um we don't want somebody else's plan we don't want an answer that somebody you've given somebody else because they're we somewhat similar and that's where some of that extra time um I hate using the term handholding because I don't think we need our Hands Held but um you know walking us through of what the perfect pieces do you feel that your firm has that to be able to accommodate some of what our needs truly are and just quickly we're at one minute left okay yeah I absolutely appre appreciate that like I said every every municipality is unique and individual um we're not looking to come in here with you know a rubber stamp and just throw a plan together we we understand that there's different options and we want to work with the municipality to choose the best options I mean we're still limited to the scope of what's in those regulations so um the the extent to which we can be creative it's there but we still have to comply with the regulations so I think that's where we really want to work with you to to present you with those options and make sure you're complying and achieving the vision that the bureau is looking for okay thank you thank you we appreciate your time very much thank you very much thank you Clark who has up next clar Clark Kon H Clark Kon hints good evening good evening evening thank you for inviting us to uh affordable housing planner speed dating we appreciate this let's see if we can make this uh instructive for for both of us all right Michael Sullivan I'm a principal with uh Clark Kon hints we're in Trent New Jersey um I'm a planner and a landscape architect I've been a planner for 32 years um our firm is uh architecture planning and Landscape architecture R Tren and the firm's been around for about 40 to 45 years depending on what Constitution is um and we are specialists in Municipal planning Redevelopment planning and particularly affordable housing planning um that was the Genesis of the starting of the firm back uh in the 70s to 80s um we have nine planners seven are licensed um and when it comes to affordable housing I like to refer to us as the Seal Team Six um and I can give you some stories if we have time I'm joined tonight uh with uh two of our core team so elae Klum uh affordable housing expert and planner with h with our firm and James clli uh planner who would uh serve on the core team I call this the core team this these are the folks who would be myself James and Elaine would be the people assigned to Somerville um and uh but that doesn't mean that we would be the only ones you would have access to uh my partner Mary Beth lonan has 40 years in affordable housing she's one of the most widely recognized and respected Court experts and affordable housing planners in the state um and you would also have access to her knowledge base and my partner Brian SLA who also has an extensive amount of affordable housing both of those folks are appointed as court adjudicators and Myriad cases and um their work in that realm really informs our work as we do plans for our towns all right um in terms of the new law we have made it a mission of ours internally we meet every week uh to two weeks uh and we've been going through the law since it passed to understand it to point out where there may be issues where there's interpretive issues if you read the law there's ways to interpret it in different ways um and ultimately uh we don't know who's going to interpret it but somebody will but working on this so we've been growing the knowledge base in our firm since it came out in uh in March um and we continue to do that um I'm going to let Elaine talk a little bit about the big points of the of the new law um and uh then we can work back into some questions and answers great thanks um is can everybody hear me if I have okay awesome great thanks I'm Ela Klum I've been a planner with Clark kton hin for 5 years um almost 90% of my work probably is affordable housing work I have helped write Municipal housing plans for towns of various sizes and I work closely with the two court adjudicators in the office on court compliance issues for the towns for which we've been assigned as their Court adjudicator um and if anybody is old enough I'm looking around the room if anybody's old enough to remember the somerset messenger Gazette if you ever placed a garage ad or a legal ad you probably dealt with somebody from my department um because I worked here in Somerville 30 years ago for the messenger Gazette okay um I want to just go over the new law very briefly and then I'm going to hand it back to Michael and James to talk a little bit more about sort of implementation if Somerville does choose to participate in the process going forward I think the biggest point about the new law is you will need to address prior obligations it says that right in the law um even if you've never been part of the process before if you go into the process now you will need to do that so we took a look at what your prior obligation numbers might have been um it's possible that it could have been somewhere approaching 300 units since 1986 forward there's a good chance you probably already have some of those units in existence so the first thing we would do would be to work with you to identify what you already have on the ground you've got a senior project for example we think that might be too old for original credit but if they renewed their HUD contract you may be able to count that for Renewal credit um there are ways to reduce the obligation if you say oh my goodness we certainly can't generate 300 new units we don't have that much land there is a process called a vacant land adjustment this is a plan we did for the city of Lambertville um a vacant land adjustment basically says we look at every vacant parcel in the burrow and determine whether or not it could generate affordable units and we add set up all the units it could generate and that becomes your realistic obligation which would be lower than this total obligation um so we'd work with you to find existing units I think you probably have at least two group home special needs facilities for adults with developmental disabilities they count by the bedroom so there's you know a certain number of bedrooms there we have a memo that we're going to leave behind uh that summarizes everything I'm talking about and it lists all the opportunities you might have to get affordable how housing credit for things you already have on the ground um so that would be to address the prior round then we would look forward to the fourth round we hear that DCA is on schedule to release their numbers in a couple of weeks uh we're also running some numbers just to keep them honest um but the dates that you need to worry about should you choose to go ahead is by the end of January 2025 you will need to pass a binding resolution stipulating to some obligation whether it's dca's number or another number and if you don't use dca's number you're going to have to defend how you got to the number you that you're stipulating to then challenges can occur and be resolved by June 30th you will have to have a housing plan written and adopted um and that's what we are good at we can get we can write up a housing plan pretty quickly as soon as we assemble the whatever the units are that you're going to claim toward credit um but those are the big dates October for the numbers January for you to agree to them June 30th for you to get the plan in there are a couple of new things that have to go into the plan that didn't have to go into previous plans um there are some new and different ways to get credit for units that you might have this is all spelled out in the memo um the way you can claim bonuses is entirely different for the fourth round they're no longer available just for rental units but they're available for a bunch of other different types of units that you would probably be eligible for and then there are some reporting deadlines that the new law uh spells out so that's just an overview of what you would have to comply with if you move forward trying to to get involved in the process for the fourth round so I'm going to kick it back to these two now to talk about how we might move forward toward implementation so so in terms of process I heard in the last talk you were thinking about process how do you how do you get to this and you're you know every Town's different right we work for a range of Municipal size siiz municipalities Lambertville City it's tight but it's small haddenfield Princeton um Princeton came to us in a very similar situation this is after they had a settlement in 2020 and they needed a housing plan and fair share plan done in what three months oh it was it was and it was a court deadline and they were part of the the litigation um we mobilized and we got it done it was it was it was impressive but we work for a variety of scales of places and different kinds of places some are suburban and they don't think too much about place you you guys really are cultivating your place here and your stewards of it um and then we work for places like Princeton and Bon um where it's much denser and everything's real important how things fit together and the character of things and keeping your um your culture and your and your fabric of your place import intact and the way we do that is that we we we help to create affordable housing committees with our towns we meet with you know attorney we have an attorney planner if the engineers needed with the engineers there and then a couple of the deciders from like the planning board or governing bodies on that and we meet regularly and we develop based on your planning policies and your land use policies a real approach to this a strategy but that strategy reflects your vision for the character of the place right how does it fit um and we do try to uh integrate hous to the greatest extent possible so it's not isolated and put off to the side we really want it to be woven in the fabric of community or community and that's what we we do so we don't come at this and say here's the plan here it's not just about the numbers for us we're very creative in the way we think about these things as I said we're Urban designers we're Community designers we're Architects we're Landscape Architects and we come at this from trying to make lemonade out of what might you might bite into as a lemon a lot of of towns consider this a real burden um and so we're able to bring from a creative standpoint we can tap our Architects you know we design multif family um projects we design parking decks one minute before a question just any okay so the bottom line is we have a strategy and a process whereby we extract from you how you want to do this and we work with you collectively and then we're working to make sure it fits within the mechanisms permitted by law to make sure you're compl Cent and I do want to say that James clli lives in Summerville is one of the biggest cheerleaders for what's going on here and uh just ask him so I hope I I didn't take too much time thank you questions sure go ahead Brian um similar question to the one uh asked previously and you know again Somerville we we're we're we're tight we're two and a half square miles but we have this Dynamic of of urban residential um recreational P downtown Corridor um residential it it it's this mix that's on top of each other um have you worked in towns that are similar in scope to summer somerville's I don't want to say it's their challenges but it's it's it's our character and you spoke to the character a little bit before yeah well you know one of the greatest Joys we have is when we work in places that have character like this you know um and Princeton is a very similar example I think right it may not have as uh as much large um retail development or other things like that or the stadium um but uh it's got neighborhoods small scale neighborhoods that butt right up against the the downtown of Nassau Street it's got historic districts it's got the university on one side and when we work with them we we really try to integrate um affordable housing in a in a thoughtful way uh there are historic over uh overlays within the downtown along Nassau Street that require historic standards but also require the integration of housing units so it's at a scale that's not um recognizing its adjacency to those neighborhoods it's managing that scale and building it up and finding the appropriate site context if you will and making sure that the relationships between the buildings that are developed or whatever elements they are fit together with not just the the existing lots and uses but also with the infrastructure the the paths the parks right the all all the amenities that a community has that brings it together that's the way we approach it thank you um so with all the plans you've done you know looking back at um what you had submitted earlier have you had any challenges by courts and how have your plans held up to any challenges that they may you know different bureaus towns may have faced I don't have any um I I haven't done any plans that have been uh Challen well people can challenge plans they can challenge parts of it but they have not been upheld by the courts or in the last round haven't received a judgments uh in favor of of the uh no I mean the bottom line is you know we're stickers for making sure that it complies with the law and if we find something that may be kind of Towing the line then we've worked to negotiate with whether it's fair share housing center a court adjudicator or the court itself to work through those things to make sure that we we fit within the the Spectrum and it's conforming um try to keep you safe C can you talk a little bit to that um I don't want everybody's okay with me jumping in um a lot of government is obviously relationships um what kind of relationships do you have in Trenton uh are you speaking about the you know Justa well yeah in general I mean one of the reasons that uh DCA is the over Archer but right we have we have very good relationships uh with DCA and the folks who are actually uh working on this uh in terms of bringing out the numbers and the program so you can speak a little bit about that yeah let me ask that a little more specifically DCA has absorbed a former than you DC AB a lot of the former Co-op staff they're in local planning Services M well mentioned Mary bethan in our office she worked for Co-Op for many years so still has that connection we have a lot of connections with that local planning Services office to work with them on affordable housing issues any other questions go ahead Larry go back to my question that I had for the previous applicant um do you have sence that you have we existing housing with affordable housing or new development so it's not just isolated new development yes it's it's prevalent in our practice to do that did they do that in Princeton yes in Princeton yes and in fact uh you know we the over the historic overlays that I just talked about those are existing buildings and so you know there's a there's a historic component uh to retain but there's also addition of units and it's a it's not 100% affordable um in the context of Redevelopment often if we have adaptive reuse um it's done in that way so it's prevalent throughout our U our practice Yeah and and we encourage it we would build a set aside for example into a Redevelopment plan there are typically in a vacant land adjustment town for example like Lambertville where they said they can't meet their entire obligation but they can be part of it they adopt a mandatory set aside the entire municipality that basically says if any new development comes along with five or more units one of them must be 20% must be affordable so I would agree with Michael that the inclusionary model is prevalent I will say one word in defense of 100% affordable is that often those are financed by low-income housing tax credits which has been an extraordinarily effective way to get affordable housing into a community does look like affordable housing it looks like Market housing but it's entirely financed through tax credits not entirely but as largely finan tax credits they requ it to be a separate lot separ thank you thank you thank you very much for your time and attention thank you for your time you can leave that just so you have an idea's eligible for AFF housing have cop thank you thank you good night thank you very much uh higher GRL is up next just so you know here I I am when the laptop got closed shut it off this one we didn't get so if you're G to be speaking first before going to power point or or you going right to the power point start with power okay hello good evening John bar with high Associates and Susan GRL with higher gr and Associates we're go through our PowerPoint but it's great to be here and it's great to see everything that you've done down here it's amazing both John and I are from Bridgewater okay and so we're kind of this is our local territory where it used to be at least so it's nice to see everything that you've done and the success with it so thank you sotru fir what we do planning Consultants of course vast majority of our work is working with planning and zoning boards working on MP focus a lot onel experience touch on the earlier part of that if she likes but no both have been working on affordable housing now in the most recent iterations of the process detail the last 10 years so we have experienced with full gamut of the planning process determining the obligation municipality that gives us an opport toze a lot of the gis techology based skills that our fir can offer we also all the different aspects of process zoning negotiating developers third round of process ofing housing element so our understanding of the is there's theoric up to this point thir understanding is has a lot of formal plan CBL find a lot of work recently we sit and also okay so um so everybody's going through this municipalities are going through oh my gosh what's going to happen now we all know that the numbers are going to come out who knows what the numbers are going to be um but we're all all municipalities are going to have uh AA about it no doubt um you know I consider it to be like uh doing your tax returns you have to know the regulations and you have to be creative about how you're going to address it and so that's kind of how I look at it and when my my my uh partner and I taught at ruter at the graduate school for 15 years and when we got to affordable housing we would tell the students which one of them just left um uh is uh your head's going to explode because it's so complicated and Regulatory and such but the most important piece in our opinion for you as a developed municipality is to um utilize a vacant land adjustment because you're you're developed mostly and you're not only developed but the property that you have that's not developed most of it is environmentally constrained and you sure don't want to have problems with that as well so um we all know that uh there's a need for affordable housing it's just a matter of how you're going to Prov provide for it so we like to really look at every municipality differently we only um by the way we only work with municipalities on affordable housing we are not Court Masters we decided that was not something we wanted to do um and we don't work for developers as it relates to affordable housing where they may be contesting or coming into municipalities um we understand where they're coming from but we don't work for them so uh just to let that um and we have obviously the first piece is looking at the numbers that's that are going to come out do they make sense um is there a way of contesting them and you already have a a relatively large obligation before we get into to the fourth round now we know that you have Housing Authority properties and units there and you may have other opportunities with um credits without controls uh there are all kinds of creative ways there as well um but then there are so once you look and make sure that you know what your number is it would seem to us that that the approach that would best be for the buau would be to take a vacant landage adjustment and we have been involved in many municipalities that have uh taken vacant land adjustments one of the pieces to that is to make sure that um we have the technology the gis expertise in our office to do the calculations that have to be uh confirmed in court to make sure that those numbers are correct when you look and determine how much vacant land you have and where it is and how that's calculated um that's very important and that you get to uh what's called a realistic development potential to determine exactly what your obligation is for based upon the fact that you just don't have any places to put affordable housing you've been highly successful with your Redevelopment projects statuto um you now have this to deal with the next challenge as such um rehabilitation program is another piece that you have I know that you have um probably a a number of of units or of housing units that could use Rehabilitation that's really a good thing in a way um it helps the residents that are here um but there are a number of ways of addressing affordable housing we have probably used all of them uh and again it depends on which municipality we're dealing with and what your issues are and what you feel most comfortable with and that's what we like about the challenge and the creativity again using the IRS uh example um be creative think what the options are in how you address your affordable housing obligation which is constitutional so you know can't get around that so real long and the short of the process uh to move forward assum weine january1 municipality that deadline to establish oblation by resolution job there's going to be numbers that come out at the state level DCA suppos to release in the nextal weeks come we've a lot of our want Toom methodology that we think ISO and see if we come up with something different purpose of that would be to evaluate some local perspective on things that may not be with a brush and also to if there is a difference make sure that there's methodology defens and assuming we have an obligation we have address it element process you have one minute left before question and with those different mechanisms to account for how we're going to handle the obligation and then all that leads into eventually amendments plans and we just have a final slide that says why we believe we're very um well suited for this position you just want to start C me again I want to roll with you so you know you you've heard some of the questions before um and and they're kind of repetitive to some degree um do you have a a municipality similar to Somerville in size Andor makeup if it's not size um where you use those vacant land adjustments and and you know is there is there an experience there that you can share um there are several where we've used vacant lands adjustments um uh there's some size comparison demographics I'm not quite sure but um the uh we just finished um actually I was just in court on it uh West Cap May little town but but very much uh very much of a uh we had a vacant land adjustment lot of environmental constraints as well um and we had to determine what how we were going to address a realistic development potential of 10 units but um so we ended up we ended up uh actually an accessory apartment program and a um and Habitat for Humanity uh as well there was also a group home um that also helped with that that that's one of them we've we've done a number of other ones as well but that's one that comes to mind because it's right I was down there there was an objector the um so using you know try trying to get into using vacant land adjustments Etc um and your experience with GIS um how do you feel your timelines would match up in your ability to get I mean GIS mapping typically from my understanding isn't anything ever quick to get that completed um with these timelines if we're looking at getting information and then building out GIS before we can even discuss what the plan is because that's going to dictate where our number would lie what kind of timelines and resources do you have to get that done in those timelines we have um several St gal amount of time the luy thing is being in county is that there are a lot of county level data sets available that's not the case everywhere some some counties where it's that certainly does help in terms of little Baseline a lot of the environmental dat goes into analis stel those resources are are available to us we have many of dat already Larry you have anything um no I think Mary asked similar question I was ask anybody have anything else so can you talk a little bit about the group homes um and and your experience with how they count towards affordable housing sure sure 90 seconds before I have to interrupt you again uh oh um group homes it can be a variety of types of group homes but it's a by bedroom um and so every bedroom that's in a group home is uh is CED as a unit um it's also often times group home residents are low or very low income residents so that also is something that helps that helps I mean there's so many regulations about low income low moderate the the family group uh senior um that that groups group homes tends to be a a very good tool in my opinion um if you have any other I don't know whether I'm 90 seconds or more he'll let you know you got 45 seconds I got 45 seconds wow um yeah I mean group homes I don't know what else any other question do they have to be deed restricted yes they do they do have to be deed restricted but most of the time they are because a lot of times they use State funding for that and those require deed restrictions so it's it's already in the packet um one of the things that we find this kind of goes off a little bit but um some of the group homes are veterans housing or some of the other types of housing we find that in order to really have it integrated into the community there's a social services component to that and a lot of the funding on the state level is now recognizing that and they are required to provide for a social Services plan okay um particularly like veterans housing which is so important and yet they need the support more than just the housing so those are the kind of and group homes the same way thank you okay thank you very much thank you thank you for your time sure thank you thank you okay next up is colon Associates good evening good evening good evening um I guess I'll start with I think you all know me I've been around for almost 20 years so uh there's a package up there I think it's important to know what the bureau's done and what the status is the uh package is the housing elements from 0809 and 19 there was an analysis done the planning board in ' 08 and N did exhaustive look at the COA regulations for round three and you'll see that the round one and two was the the obligation was 153 and round three we were cranking out the numbers and uh going that direction it's probably somewhere in the 200s 250 230 but we never finished it because of the hurdle being uh affordability controls otherwise known as deed restrictions uh there the bureau has a federal program now called the housing Choice voucher program that has right now current 191 families participating it's been around since 76 1976 it also has a senior C and building which absolutely is affordable housing um that's back in the late 70s that's 151 units so if you start adding up the senior citizen building the uh housing Choice program the group homes which there's about five or six the Agy house and some other transitional housing you're around 400 units so if the obligation comes out and I I agree with most of what the other Consultants have said it's uh it's accurate with the exception that I think there's some leeway in the uh fourth round on some of these on the uh the deed restrictions I don't know of the group homes there's some flexibility there I think in my opinion regarding uh the senior citizen because uh there's more flexibility in transitional housing so in the past in round three absolutely the burough we had an an absolute uh Lively discussion with COA and the COA said no we don't get uh credit the burrow does not get credit because of the lack of uh deed restrictions essentially so that is the status of that I also provided New Jersey APA had a great great fourth round it's in your package of the differences from round three round four and the difference in uh the differences between the two and the mechanisms are in place the tools to meet the affordability and you'll see the accessory dwelling units is 10% maximum very low low income which is 30% of the around the Region Three which Burrows in is uh 133% so you can go through obviously I'm not going to go through the whole package but man it's great it's just great information I attended it and it's uh it's it really sums up well what needs to be done and um right now technically we're in round three round three extends up until June 30th of 2025 then you as we're all talking here then round four begins and the plan is to try to get this up to start should the board the burough and the planning board want to do participate to go into round four with a fair housing plan so I know the Redevelopment plans very well written most of them and I'm familiar with all the not all but many of the uh the affordable nature the group homes the halfway houses the transition houses that the burough has which is very unique uh given how proactive the burough was so you have the housing element in 2008 in your package which goes over and says in those days using the same analysis that the ver the burrow was affordable for low and moderate income using free market and that was the obstacle in ' 0809 for participating is the burrow uh received no credit but if you looked at the rental incomes of the housing that it was affordable using the criteria then if you look at the housing element from 19 and 20 in 19 and 20 the master plan was done over uh you have a copy of that housing element uh that is some 19 was last revisions in 20 and it basically says the buau is Affordable for moderate income not very low income because the rents have gone up so much so you see the problem it's not it's the rental numbers that have gone up in the last decade that the free market argument is slowly going away because of the rental rates so the the the reasons that to do this has always been the Builder remedy lawsuit and exclusionary zoning if you participate and your plan is certified you you're immune or you have that basis for not having a build's remedy so the burrow does not participate there's always the the uh the issue of a builder's remedy lawsuit that could be filed it could be filed either way but you're not participating so that is the summary of where we are uh the data here there's we actually when as far in the burough when as far the planning board to fill out the forms and it's just good data it tells you it's good to show you what the what the affordable is requirement for round one in round two it was 153 and you can see some of the math that was done for round for the round three excuse me one round one and two it's 153 it's round three that we weren't done the analysis and that's the growth share and then the other element involved in it but we I have a lot of data on this because the board spent a lot of time on in 0809 in the discussions the census data and um without going into the weeds uh that's which's in your package and including the Burrows in the round three which was mentioned prior and you can see the regional income limits but the data I'm showing you is the data we looked at 10 years ago from 2010 obviously those numbers are gone up but they're used determined what's a moderate income family what's a low and what's a very low and these numbers or when you you plug in the calculations this this is what's used for determining what's affordable for the burrow so in a nutshell you have a lot of data that's given you from basically round one all the way up to where we left it plus the housing elements in your package so I have the data I I I don't need GIS I think I have the whole town in aiel because I've done so much design and uh projects in the burrow I think I have the whole town uh in Ariel I have the Redevelopment plans and I have all the data because I did the housing elements so the data is little look the last data package um when the landfill Redevelopment plan was done there was the data package done on the housing element we used that housing element into the data in 2019 now that's a little dated now there's data coming out that's in the it's in the round four Rags that you'll see it's coming out yes absolutely DCA is coming out with the obligations maybe in a couple of weeks the burrow is on a timeline to accept them the clock is ticking the burrow should go with this to get the plans going with the goal being this has to be in place at least the structure I don't know about the the nuts and bolts but the structure has to be in place by the end of July of 2025 should the B burrow and the planning board want to participate so I that you have really good information that's that I that I have that the planning board's done in the past is recently is 2019 to where the status is on affordable housing within the burrow you ready for us to move the questions absolutely you GNA fight so so I I think you you may have answered this but you know the the obviously with this thing coming down like a freight train um the ability to can you can you speak to the ability to mobilize quickly uh in terms of uh you know old data new data requirements coming down the bike and talk a little bit to that um and and and your ability to manage that I have all the old data I agree that should the buau participate it has to address round one two and three's obligation with the exception of rehab rehab is not counting but there's going to be a number there I from my experience with the buau the buau has been very good of changing policies for example the traffic light on East Divi uh Division Street in uh Main Street the do wanted to take traffic away because Division Street was made pedestrian well that policy took about six months but it was changed and the lights there so I think the bureau has been very creative of finding solutions to these things and I think if the bur we can get some credit for all the proactive uh affordable housing group homes transitional housing that's been done within the burrow it'll make a huge dent on what the obligation is and I agree with the the vacant land adjustment and but in my opinion it's going to be a much lower number if the burrow is successful of getting some of these credits without the affordable um the deed restrictions so the answer the question on whether I can do the work because it's just me right yeah I have most of it in house I'm missing the new data that's coming out but I you have the Reg regulations I have the regulations I think I have a track record showing I can knock out the regulations and get it done uh why because I don't work for any more M municipalities I just work for Somerville so it is my focus so I don't have there's no excuses not to get it done if that answers your question there yes thank you may let's keep it going right in line um so obviously as you just said that you know sorry feel a little loud there um Somerville is your only customers so you can dedicate your entire Focus to us uh which is very nice um can you talk about talk to the fact that do you have any other experience with creating affordable housing plans that have to stand up in quarter you know for other municipalities are working with other Engineers planners and other towns that had to create these um I haven't done them from any other communi I did them in 0708 and 19 we looked at them I've looked at plans but the answer to your question no it's just Somerville and uh we it's really Grassroots being that it came out of looking at the Redevelopment zones and the question came up in 0708 exclusionary uh uh is the town affordable should we should the burrow should the Redevelopment plans have affordable housing so ever and that's where it came out of starting in 0708 on looking at affordability so the answer your question I've I've been solely focused in 20 years in Somerville solely so I have not I I have affordable housing plans from other municipalities absolutely we actually looked at them uh back 10 years ago so I have them I have not done them from other towns that's not what I've done I'm solely focused on Somerville for 20 years anyone else you seem to follow me it's kind of it's my job it's what I do natural progression going right down the line so Mike you've already said that you have the ability to ramp up to get us to the January the first deadlines October dead the November deadline and the the January you have full confidence you can do that and not detract from other things that you're doing for the B yes this is just what you're going to be doing yes I can absolutely do it you've been doing all along I I have 70 80% of it already in house I just don't I'm lacking the number from from DCA whether the burrow accepts the number and the new Census Data the new data to come up with the numbers the everything else I have vacant land I know it Redevelopment plans I know it group homes I know it one minute so I I have it all so what am I missing just new data that's the only thing I don't have and and implementation and direction from the burrow whether it's going to you know the other way of doing this is do work force housing and not participate and do something else assuming the burrow wants to go this direction just need what are we doing what's the burrow doing follow question you have your own ideas about what can be done are you willing to present them as time goes forward to guide us in a particular direction yeah oh absolutely the buau has just been great of changing policy on the state level there's been a lot of things done the last 20 years to change policy because it didn't make a lot of sense very good and I expect that The Bu is going to participate in this that the policy comes out the buau gets no cred credit for 400 units because of lack of deed deed restrictions I I'm confident if the buau wanted to that policy or those rules would be relaxed or changed this is my experience in 20 years okay that is your time thank you so much thank you Mike appreciate the time exent they gave me one job is keep track of time I'm good you're good you did awesome pressure off that's it you weren't counting you were using the phone one two three no he was doing it in his head at the same okay I sorry I got to find my agenda yes uh why don't we take a two-minute break the cameras will be on still just be advised and the microphone set oh sorry I just cut you off I meant to hit the other one first and then I hit I just want them e e e e e e e e e e okay uh we have up the amended preliminary Andi uh final site plan for Somerville urban renewal phase three thank you madam chair I'm not used to speaking while I sit it's been a long time since I had to do that and by the way I never reversed any of those planners they're all great so we're here to amend the previously approved uh plans here in order to um add a hotel use uh additional restaurant use were cutting down on some of the retail um there was a nice report done by cha um Mr brunsky that indicates uh we have no change in the footprint um here uh was done to to do this we'll go into some detail through Mr allenbach but what I was questioning was how do you turn you know 22 foot ceilings into 11 that's how you get these extra stories without making the building any bigger so that's why I'm a lawyer not an engineer I couldn't figure out how that was going to be done but with the chair's permission uh I would ask you to swear at or in Mr alach so we can get underway hand I do I just ask M kazinski for you or Mr sluka who ever responsibility is just to confirm for the record that our notices were adequate J B jurisdiction they were corre thank you thank you all right Mr albeck um can you give the uh board a little more detail in the general overview that I started to explain uh yeah thank you very much um members of the board um so really um as an overview and I'll go into details you know a lot of things have transp oh I'm sorry sorry thank you um what's really changed here over the past few years and the Dynamics really since covid is is what's happening in what we call the retail world and when we originally came in specifically for building one the building that's currently being finished under the construction uh the building was predominantly retail with a small restaurant component uh fast forward uh five years or six years and what our leasing people is telling us is that retail is really slowed down and that what's become of the retail world is now what we call personal service uh and then you have food and entertainment so you have the restaurants and so we had a c cap on the original application and approval for building one and it just wasn't enough for the kind of restaurants that we're looking to put in there in the food uses so leasing office came to me and said we need to change this and go back and get it flipped so to speak so change the predominantly retail and small restaurant to predominantly restaurant with small retail that gives us a lot of flexibility uh when you're talking into these Food Services and you know when you have a 30,000 foot footprint and you start entertaining an 8 ,000 foot restaurant or 6,000 foot restaurant you've already blown yourself out of the water with your prior approval and then forget about all the little uh restaurants uh type of eateries that we want to put in there so that's what started the process so you know as indicated by the board professionals letters the footprints on all three buildings that we're here to talk about tonight is unchanged you know there's still a fivestory building buildings one and two still have retail on the first floor with four floors of residential above it um the building five which is the last building to be built uh in the development is still slated as what I called Always was a fivestory building still is a fivestory building still 75 foot height which is permitted by the Redevelopment plan what's different about building five is when we came in originally we had retail on the first floor and then we had a two-story gym but the gym itself because of being a gym occupied two floors each so the gym floor and the second floor was actually the second and third floor and so forth on the fourth and fifth floor what we've done now is when you divide it up you're able to put in those lower ceiling and now you could do we're proposing tonight which is the food court on the first floor a spa a high-end Spa on a second and third floor and then the hotel use on the fourth and fifth floor so it's the same exact Building height same exact Building look for some of the board members uh that were here when we came in it was important to the board um and the board's professionals when we did the building even when it was the gym it had the look of a fivestory building so even though the gym was occupying two floors per floor it still looked it had five rows of windows so it still looked like a residential building to match what was next door in buildings one and two so as it relates to building one the only change is what we say we'll call the flip-flop from the restaurant uh to the retail um so we increased the restaurant by 17,46 to square feet decreased the retail by 21721 square feet that's really the only change in building one building two it's smaller changes we increased the restaurant by 30 490 sare ft and we decreased the I'm sorry increased the retail by 1475 now somebody may say wellit a second how'd you pick up square footage the leasing office that's in building two will now be moving over to building one so the leasing office that's adjacent to Wolf gangs and everything is was there always there temporarily even though it's been 10 years and now will be moving over into its final location which is located in building one so that's why there's additional square footage being picked up in building two residentials unchanged 153 units in building one 108 units in building two unchanged everything from the second floor up is unchanged now we go to building five building five obviously is the building yet to be built um what we are proposing to this board tonight is to convert what was previously a retail to a food court use on the first floor we've uh had success on some of our other developments with this food court concept where you have uh a variety of food uses come in to an open concept um what I'll I'll compare to almost like a cafeteria type of situation where you walk in or if you go into an enclosed mall and they have the food uses we're all seating where you have your opportunity to select whoever you want to um whever you want to eat and then you have the opportunity to sit out there the idea is to have an open um system where there could possibly be garage doors or Nano doors that kind of open up during the nice weather spill out into the outdoor seating area uh and that's really what we're proposing on the first floor if the board may recall the first floor is smaller than the upper floors the first floor itself the footprint is only about 12,000 ft where the upper floors are 20,000 foot each there's an overhang on the western side or towards the deck now you get up to the second and third floor that's going to be what we're going to call this this high-end Spa um that'll be open obviously to the public um a high-end Spa will occupy the second and third floor they have a variety of services they provide uh we do not have a tenant uh for that yet because obviously we need to get the board's approval to move forward but we have had interest from um some Spa users to take that and occupy that what I'll call 40,000 sare ft of the second third floor um the last part of the puzzle so to speak is something that we're excited about is to bring what we call a boutique hotel or a smaller type hotel which will occupy the fourth and fifth floor I know when we go through CH letters there was some discrepancies between what was on the architecturals and what was on the site plans uh I will tell you that you know it's a work in progress if you will the building itself because it's so deep you know it's 100 by 200 feet it's not conducive for residential or hotels because what do you do in the middle you know everybody needs a window if it's residential or hotel you have to have an outside window so what do you do you can't have you know 50 foot deep units so we're struggling with the number so when the architect first looked at it he came up with the 40 number we think we can get them up to 60 by you know being creative to put some amenities in the middle so we're seeking for an approval for up to 60 rooms what we'd be seeking from this board tonight uh and if it ends up being 55 or 54 because that's what we could fit then um I'm hoping that would be done either administratively because it's less uh if we have to come back we have to come back but that's the intention with the hotel um the rooftop amenity which is something that has been um designed on this site for a long time is a pool and Lounge area for the residents as well as uh approximately I think it's around 2,000 square ft um yeah 2,000 foot Bar Lounge area that that again to be determined whether it's open to the general public whether it's a membership uh we haven't gotten that far into the design of the the pool deck but the pool itself is intended to be just for the residents only so the pool deck and the pool itself will be just for the residents of our two buildings U but again there's a small if you look at the floor plans which we'll go through in a few minutes you see there's a small bar area with a seating area next to it it's about 2,000 feet that's something that may be open to the public um but to be determined at a later date for the record I point out that those numbers that Mr Rach went through how much up how much down they're in Mr berinsky Page two the tables are all there and lays it all out very neatly and very concisely and I had the same question about how you had a reduction with without making the building bigger so um so if it's appropriate um if you look at the architecturals which is on the the plan here to conceptual this is the first floor which really shows what the food court um would occupy there's obviously a Lobby that would be utilized for the hotel use there's what we refer to as back a house you know for the various uses um there's utility rooms um there's a small residential Lobby off of what we call the alleyway between building one and building five U and then you have in light blue facing uh South Davenport would be the the food court area itself oops sorry and then when you get up to uh the Upper Floor as you see again it's a a rough layout conceptual plan for the um the spa and it shows various rooms and and obviously that will be more detailed once we get a little closer to should we receive approval get closer to a lease with a tenant and then if you look at the um the hotel use um on the Le hand side here again you see what I'm talking about where the rooms can only be so deep uh and so you have this core in the middle that's open up then what do you do with that area so we're trying to get creative and that's why we talked about uh up to 60 rooms uh for that hotel use itself um this screen that's in front of you too which is I believe page four of the set this is the rooftop um area and as you can see if you can follow my mouse this area over here is what's labeled as the bar lounge area um and then outside here is the seating area for that bar area uh again you have the bathrooms you have the elevators the lobby and everything and then you have the pool deck itself which is the the the pool itself and then you have obviously the chairs and the menis around it um that go with the residential portion of it but this 2,000 square feet area here is what I talked about potentially being open um to the public or membership or however we decide to move forward with that and then the last thing is the uh building architecturals um uh again seeing that you have the the retail component on the on the lower level and then you have this is looking from the deck to the back of the building so you see this is the the bridge if you will that connects building five and building one that's yet to be built so it when this building is built uh there will be a connection via a bridge from building two over to building one the bridge that was just recently installed and then ultimately overed into building five for residents if they were going to use um that go to the spa go to the pool they can walk through the entire building without going outside so this is the view from what we call the back of the house sorry um from the deck and then this is the front view that you'd see off of of South dowy again you have the this the storefronts here and then you have Windows above that represent the two floors of the medical medical spot the the day spa and then the two floors of the hotel above that and then you have the rooftop amenities here where you have like outdoor type Cabanas for the residents to sit underneath uh for shade you have the where I talked about before with the bar area Lounge area here and then you have some covered area trellises areas that's over closer towards veterans and then this is the view um from inside the alley if you will if you're looking from building one this is the the connection to bridge connection on the second floor that get you from building one over to building five Madam Sheriff it's appropriate um like to go through the cha letter please yes um referring to a CH a letter dated September 25th 2024 uh as Mr Wilson indicated on page two There's a summary of the changes um which is where a lot of my numbers that I referred to earlier came from um I believe I covered um most of the testimony or most of the responses in this by via testimony um so number three I believe I covered with outlining exactly what's transpiring three buildings number four uh is the discrepancies well we agree to comply with that building number five is the building height which I confirmed it's the same height of 75 feet which is previously approved number six is the hotel discrepancy between the rooms which I believe I clarified that uh seven I spoke about the pool and the rooftop and the operations and the 200 sqare foot Bar Lounge area um number eight need a little bit Direction um maybe from the board or the board's professionals um question came up about the emergency generator and the question I had asked was I know there's a requirement for the residential buildings and we do have one in building two and there will be one in building one uh whether or not it was required for a commercial use and I know you have the hotel and somebody may look and say well it's a hotel it's kind of a quasi residential uh obviously uh I'm just not sure if it's required by code uh we do have um the appropriate Emergency Services based in building one via the generator which is obviously the emergency lights the elevators we do have areas in leasing office and the main lobby for residents to charge their phones and everything that's appropriate with your the mandates of the emergency access plan uh but it was on clear billion five the hotel residents will obviously have access to get there's a bridge have access to get into building one in invent of emergency I'm just not sure um if it's required by code um and we haven't made that decision yet I'm not saying we're not doing it I just don't know obviously if it's required by code we would do it if it's not required um we we'd have to discuss ownership and discuss and see if it's something that we would do we would look to the to the board and counsel uh and Consultants to tell us the way I read the ordinance this is not a residential use but as Mr labach indicated it's sort of quy because there will be people even if it's short term overnight so if your interpretation of the code is it's required we obviously will comply if it's not we think it's safe anyway but we will be guided by um your Collective judgment I I think it's um falling into a gray area as you're saying but with residents I mean I know there are Hotel residents there are residents and there are people in there um I you know I would interpret it that it would still be required at least for the hotel portion yeah I I would I would also say that just because people are there as Hotel guests by definition they're not anywhere near their home whereas the people in building one and two are in their home so if we're having a situation where it's a shelter in place issue in building one and two the people who are in three they have nowhere to go we want them to be able to shelter in place for real they have nowhere to go so a generator and just Basics is not g to it'll be better yeah this is not a serious push back no no I'm just saying that I'm just it's the word residents in law Miss kazinski could probably tell you her view that has a special meaning it it doesn't mean hotel but we understand the concern and as I said I think both of us said from the GetGo if the board thinks that that's a requirement we'll absolutely do it and I think that's why I'm saying it's a gray area because you know this is a unique we haven't had a hotel before so I don't think think um the I think the intent was to ensure that all of our let quote unquote residents um either temporary or permanent are have a way to be able to be sheltered in place with no other um you know nothing coming in to have to do that it's already there that and I believe it is included in in our Redevelopment plans I don't know if it's in this one because this was one of the earlier ones earlier but it it it may and that's something we'd have to take a look at I don't have it with me sir take look at it if the board imposes it as a condition obviously we're going to do it yeah um thank you very much um number nine I am confirming there's no additional signage or lighting um other than what was previously approved uh I will tell you that you know once we secure a hotel operator we'll probably be coming back for some kind of signage on the building I just don't know what that signage would be but obviously probably something up on the upper levels um size and you know materials and everything to be determined once we secure a tenant there's not an intention to put signs out by the food court areas with the rollup doors or the swing doors yeah what I indicate was we previously got approved facade signs that meet the the ordinance and that's what we would just continue to propose facade signs that are they're entitled to by ordinance nothing above and beyond so I don't need any variances but they will get sign difference is that now there's five different doors five different businesses that's five different signs so there has to be a little bit of well if if you recall last time it was five separate retailers too because it wasn't one just it wasn't just one big box it was five 20 or 25 foot stores so we received um approvals for five tenants when it was retail and we're doing the same thing now again in your ordinance is your ordinance is clear and it gives that flexibility if you do have multiple tenants it talks about the size of each individual sign but it recognizes when you have a multi-tenant building that you you're going to have multiple signs and there's a number that you can't exceed for overall sign in there there's height requirements there's all that stuff we're going to comply with that which we don't need any relief from this board and if we do need relief we'll be back the only thing you may have to comply with is the Architectural Review Board correct you may have to come for the Aesthetics correct yeah um number 10 is a will comply as well as 11 that's just additional Water and Sewer permits that we'll need because of the uh increased with the restaurants um number 12 um I'm going to defer to our traffic engineer because I think he just wants to put a little bit of testimony on the record for that and that'll should address everything under paragraph 12 other agency approvals again we'll comply as necessary I had a secondary question related to the uh construction code the other buildings that you have there were like concrete on the ground floor with wood above but a pool 75 ft off the ground is probably going to need Steel in order to support that is that crazy or no that that's what the code would be the only reason the other buildings were that was because it was residential right this this is a commercial gr so it would be um steel Concrete Construction thank you you're welcome Madam chair that would present that would be Mr W's testimony subject to questions of the board and the public anybody have any questions um I know you said you're G to touch back on the parking that's always fun so that's why I'm giving it to somebody else get that um in item six you you know you had mentioned get Studio units and one bedroom units and two bedroom units those are just simply a a one-bedroom hotel room it's not permanent residence or a TW bedroom unit it's not a permanent resident this is a hotel room correct yeah these are this is at a cha letter those are intended to be the hotel rooms just not actual unit not actual Apartments okay correct clarifies that thank you so I guess my only question um is the approval of up to 60 when if cuz on the drawings it's only 40 right now so I guess my only concern would be is I know you're to get creative and get some more in there but how that's going to look and what that's going to change the dynamic of if there are one bedrooms two bedrooms Studios um and what that ends up being and how they end up looking as in how creative you're getting with that I guess that would be my only concern on that one is if we're just approving it based on no drawings and seeing the counts and how they're going to be um the only thing I could recommend is I know that there's a subcommittee that was available on I know if that's still in place um you know for changes like that that we came in and if there's obviously changes that the subcommittee felt were warranted going back to the board because it changed the Aesthetics of the outside of the building or if it was something where uh it changed the overall dynamics of the bedroom mix I mean when we talk about the bedrooms and and the hotel units itself you know if even getting creative you're not going to get any more twos you know you're not going to get large you know three-bedroom type or you know um larger units it's going to end up going down to more ones and Studios just to get that number up because you have to build them around the perimeter of the building um but again I I understand the concern um but not knowing that answer I I didn't want to get locked into 40 if I can if the architect can't get creative and gets 45 and not have to come back to the board for a full-blown amended site plan application because we're only talking about the the floor plan of the individual units so nothing from the outside would change it would all be the same um but you might have more one-bedroom units less Suites kinds of things um so your outside of your building would be the same your windows would all be in the same places everything would be internal um whether or not my view that that's an administrative type change would carry the day with your committee we'd have to wait and see but um I don't want to be in a situation where someone says that we're doing something un toured by coming back and we want to be upfront with you and say look we don't know if we can fit 60 in but we don't we're not asking for any more than that and our traffic person will testify that everything's fine and dandy with 60 and give you the basis for his opinion so if we we only approved for 40 because you can't see the floor plans then you know it's sort of like we come hat in hand well please can we have more we'd like to resolve that today if we could um because it really the only thing we're changing would be a floor plan of an individual unit so instead of it being you know 15 by 15 maybe it's 12 by 12 but from the board's perspective um you know there's not a density issue under the Redevelopment plan so we would really ask for it the the the 40 the 60 to 40 spread is really architecturally driven it's not Market driven is that that's correct okay all right is that something that we could defer to the ARB then as well have for the AR no yeah I know there was a subcommittee I think that came after yeah I I was never we have we haven't used it in a bit but we have still it still exists well we would certainly encourage the board to give us the approval of up to 60 subject to the Architectural Review sub committee we call the uh fi field change field change committee thank you I know it wasn't there but we can still defer to where it would be sure hey we've been here a while you know us we're not looking to pull a fast one and we've done it before and the committee said this is a little bit above you got to go back to the board and we did right yeah so we understand that and respect that yeah I just wanted to be reflected somehow in the resolution that is an open issue that we did discuss we didn't just spring it on anybody yeah thank you that's car's job normally I know my way and normally I'd be dead set against you about this kind of stuff but not in this case if this is an architectural issue and it's not changing the outside of the building and you're just trying to put 10 pounds of stuff in a five pound bag okay as long as it's not too small with the units and do they all have bad DRS yes as opposed as opposed to what no I mean European style bathroom down the hall kind right there are 12 foot rooms there are smaller hotels that have a sh I have a hotel that I run at my house with a 12ft bedroom you two of them no I mean I mean to your point Mr Cleveland you know you know there's going to be a fine line that we have to walk with with the tenant I mean they going to get to the point where I can't just sit there and say I'm going to make all 200 foot rooms because that's what I could squeeze in there and then I can't lease the thing as a hotel or the tent it will be driven by the marketplace you know whether it's Marriott or hayatt or whoever they're not going to come in be a tenant if they don't think these are usable so we'll be doing this in Consulting as we go along with these National providers in order to determine what works best thank you anything else for yes I have a question and my concern is more um have to do with The Pedestrian safety on the ground and the roof deck um I'm not sure if you can speak a little bit about um any any safety measures that are in place you know we have you know Chase lounges patio furniture um we're going to have possibly a bar lounge area up there as well and you know not only you know possibly somebody throwing something overboard but you know wind and you know what is the operations as far as will a patio furniture go in at night or will it stay out um so yeah great question so the the Cabanas themselves are anchored to the deck itself to prevent that because obviously you can't control wind and um you know the chairs themselves they're heavy metal chairs um so again barring a storm they don't need to go inside at night time but obviously um we have a situation uh on another place we have where during any climate weather they have to pack them up and put them you know and tie them down whatever they have to do um there is a small glass fence if you will around the perimeter um on the wall itself to protect people from leaning over you know the roof itself now to your point I can't stop somebody from throwing anything off the roof that's why we have staff there um but we are taking measures to make sure that you know because we have obviously there's pedestrian access around all four sides of the building uh to make sure that the building is safe and once we get into the architectural portions of it uh and further on with construction documents obvious those will be all reflected in there and congratulations on coming on to the board thank you thank you and one more question I'm not sure if it's for you or if you're going to punt it to uh your traffic engineer uh more about um deliveries and operations when um so it's a change of use now you're going to restaurants I'm assuming you're going to have uh different delivery vehicles um I do see you do have a loading area um just want to see how that's going to work operation wise yeah again so based on even when it was just retail before versus the food use uh we have the loading area that's located on the southern side of the building um and just like a lot of our other tenants the the deliveries are dictated in the lead as to what they can I can't we're not allowing somebody to come in with a WB 67 because they can't navigate through the site so when we initiate the leases with any ATT tenants in town center that's except for shoppr obviously but uh you know that's something that we have to put in there as to what can adequately get into the site and function and maneuver throughout the site you're welcome anyone else do you want to bring up the you go next witness not public we'll do public afterward Mr SE yes I do Matt can you give the board a summary of your credentials connection with traffic engineering yes uh my name is Matthew seckler that's s c kle r I'm with Stonefield engineering design address is 92 Park EV Rutherford New Jersey a licensed professional engineer in the state of New Jersey also recognized professional traffic oper engineer by The Institute of Transportation Engineers been accepted before over 150 boards in the state as a traffic engineer testified here before I believe I have yes I'd ask the board to accept Mr Seer as a licensed traffic engineer we accept licens and good standing yes yes all right so Matt uh there's a couple things that Mr brinsky pointed out and things that were raised by the board give the board the benefit of your expertise and opinion in conjunction with how these changes will or won't affect the traffic patterns yep absolutely and and again uh in terms of the vast majority of the parking that is related to the site is kind of out there today the pieces that were kind of adding the changing some retail to some restaurants the hotel use itself these are pretty low parking generators compared to what you already have out there today and having been to the site before the parking garage was built I have definitely noticed that since the garage is built things have loosened up in the in the surface lots and the parking garage also is not at its capacity so when as we you know bring on or change the uses and go forward we do expect th those parking spaces to continue to be um available and there'll be S uh sufficient parking in the peak conditions to come up with that conclusion We performed what's called a shared parking analysis essentially as everyone's aware if you kind of watch a parking lot throughout the day there are different varying Peaks throughout the day you see residential basically park there at night during the weekdays um during the uh you know weekends you'll see a lot of people let's say coming to the shop right in the middle of the day but when the retail the restaurants Peak they tend to peek a little more at night so you kind of have a fluctuation of parking so you don't have every use maximizing the parking lot the exact same time you don't have shop right you know at at midnight the same time as at its peak at the same time the residential is at its peak same time as a restaurant that doesn't happen basically they kind of all fluctuate throughout the day and our shared parking analysis looks at hour by hour weekday and weekend when would those peak times be when they're all kind of reaching their near maximum now Mr brinsky raised a question about which edition of the it manual you use can you clarify that yeah when we did begin this uh uh the analysis of this site we were using the fifth edition of the it trip parking generation manual that's the source that provides us this data of you know the varying levels of parking and throughout the day uh as was mentioned in the review letter the sixth edition is out now uh we did rerun the numbers since uh we've gotten this review letter there is some slight changes on the weekdays the parking demand that we saw at the peak would actually go down 38 cars on the weekend would go up about seven cars so there's a slight variation if we use the new addition but overall based on our analysis we expect there to be even with this development a little more than about 130 140 empty parking spaces even at the worst time period in the day or in the week which we determined was Saturday at noon so Saturday at noon which would be when the most people would be parked in the site for the restaurants for the retail for the residential for the hotel there's still about 120 to 140 empty parking spaces somewhere on the site they may not be right in front of your favorite restaurant but they're going to be on the site somewhere how does that square with his comment number three that possibly a different use category should have been used for those calculations yeah so that that is the uh fifth edition uh publication which we utilized did not have that what they call kind of like a smaller shopping plaza as opposed to uh shopping Center when we we reran it using the newest edition that sixth edition we did utilize that new uh land use code which was that shopping plaza between 40,000 square feet and 100,000 square feet that that was a new data set that was included within the new so that affect your opinion at all no again our site can support even utilizing those new numbers again our our data for Saturday will be off about by seven total parking spaces and again that's there's more than seven empty spaces based on our analysis um there was also a question about the generic food court um we have we can't confirm if there'll be breakfast but it's possible that you know maybe one or two of the little tenants that are providing spaces maybe a bagel or a muffin or a coffee place but with most kind of food court food Hall type operations you wouldn't expect all of them to be open at breakfast you really would see the maximum either be kind of like a uh lunchtime dinner time type of operation so again um while we are not ruling out the breakfast time period That's not when this parking lot is at its peak again it tends to be at its peak either um at at um middle of the day on Saturday or at 6 pm on a weekday if you kind of left work there was also a question about uh the 10 parallel parking spaces uh kind of located where the uh Hotel uh front door would be we those would be parking spaces but we likely would indicate them to be kind of shortterm whether it's 10-minute drop off pickup type of operations that's what those 10 spaces would be we wouldn't want people to be parked there continuously but it seems like a great spot to if you want to wheel some Luggage in or someone's waiting to be picked up that's a good spot and convenient rate to the west of the uh building five and for the for the record if the board thought some kind of a sign with a particular identification to that effect was appropriate um we would not oppose that at all other than that I do want to confirm our analysis was taking into account the 60 hotel rooms so again if it ends up 60 we we've accounted for that our analysis if it's less it only you know continually just knock off the amount of cars that would be at its peak in the lot right and you and you are uh you're consistent with paragraph F which concludes as you do that there's a decrease in PE peak hour generation correct yes with these changes yes that that covers Mr briny's comments and questions and clarification requests um and our traffic testimony of course we're available for questions from the board or the public gentlemen just said that you would the 10 spaces that are around the front that you use for a drop wall pick up you would designate that as a drop off pickup area no longer than 10 minutes like you see in most hotels that you go to exactly now for your hotel guest are you going to have designated spaces for them where it says this these spaces are for the hotel or they're going to have to randomly find spaces at this point they would have to randomly find spaces but it's possible depending on the tenant that there could be areas that are you know kind of designated whether in the garage or not but at this point we would have them look for their parking spaces on their own within the lot and there and there would be valet so you do have the ability to have the uh you know leave your car at the front and have a valet individual park it so you know while it wouldn't be individual people hunting for parking it would be the valet person person good question now I I have a question about the the math calculations without having a single person living in building one the new building there's not a single tenant in there yet there's not a single tenant on the ground floor how are we calculating just based on what building two had just on square footage but if you have a more intense use in the newer building never mind the hotel or the other amenities that's gonna that's going to skew the numbers these numbers have always seemed to be vague or tight or mathematical gymnastics on how many times we're using or counting the same spot sometimes it just seems that way maybe I'm just not understanding but if there's a finite amount of spaces and we and you haven't even counted the apartments like you haven't really seen it in operation to say this is going to work so the benefit from the apartment standpoint is the apartments do have parking spaces within the garage so what you know I'd say general public is experienced they're experiencing you know the the peak the Peak parking near the shop rer or the back of the restaurants or near the wine store the residents that have not moved in they're moving into the they're parking in the garage so they're not taking up any of the spaces that are kind of out there in the parking lot so that's you know somewhat out of sight out of mind and that is again I think a benefit you know to this project and I agree when you drive by the site before that garage was built and you said hey look we're going to add in all this residential and we're going to add in all this you know additional retail and the hotel no way it would work but again having the parking garage every every unit is getting a parking space in that garage all those tenants basically move over there and then the empty spaces you see today that's where the you know the retail spaces the new retail spaces that come online they'll start occupying those one of the other benefits is the kind of shared experience on this site on this site is the fact that you're going to have a lot more people be able to utilize one parking space but go to multiple places again you'll be able to food shop have an additional restaurant to go to maybe going to the spa so again it's not three people three cars going to each spot it could be one car going to three different places and I think that's what makes it the town Center is that you could park once and go to multiple places I have a followup question for Ron the property across the street that we've been talking about for about six or seven years of the old Asian market next to Manion the old Bodega the old shoe maker the old Yokohama and then at 166 into it is there still an intent to park across the street so it's unclear about 166 because we haven't gotten that far yet uh if you may recall when we receiv received the approval for 154 we were required to deed restrict 30 I think it's 30 spaces in the deck for 154 that's unchanged that'll still be there so that it's those spaces and they're part of math analysis correct okay thank you you're welcome and and just for the record I would point out it's not just Matt that's saying there's less traffic your consultant indicates use the word overall slight but decrease so the the Amendments we're proposing not probably appreciably to be honest but it lessens the impact not makes it not make it worse but that's also now today postco five years down the road it might be a different world it might be worse or it might be certainly true Mr Cleveland but when you use those it standards that everybody uses it takes into account all those things so so you know it look is it a mathematical scientific fact no understand anybody tells you it is you know we would never hire but we get it and luckily again I'm not saying Hey listen we have 1,38 spaces and we're at 1,30 and we got eight spaces to play with we've got like 10 to 12% extra so again some fluctuation get a a great successful business you know you got some room to grow if you have a unsuccessful business you got plenty of parking thank you thank you very much any uh go ahead John yeah so I kind of have a followup question so I'm not too familiar with the deck itself um so there is designated spaces for the residents and how many spaces are there in that deck or on the lot itself I believe it's 261 residential parking spaces in the deck the remainder is the public spaces okay and that's Mr that's gated so the residents only can get in through a key fob or something like that okay that that to my follow of question and then so you know we're using a shared parking analysis assuming that all the parking lot spaces can be shared when you have you know 261 that technically are not available to the public yeah when we reran uh the analysis utilizing the latest and they don't use the shared parking though yes yeah when we utilized the when we reran it utilizing the latest uh version we also limited the ability for any know those spaces to be shared and again our numbers were consistent with again about 120 to 140 depending on what hour it was on Saturday um that there'll be available spaces but counting that yeah 261 spaces off limits to the general public okay yeah I think that's very consistent I I came up with about 700 spaces on Peak nonresidential looks like you would' have about 700 left y okay anyone else any questions for either professional all right I'm going to open it up to the public for questions as it relates to this application can you come up state your name and your address for the record please questions and comments you you're gonna have to hit the on button on that microphone I don't think believe it's on r hi Jeff Carlson uh 41 vaner Avenue question um just two things that uh some is a destination place people are coming here to see us so you're going to have to Rooftop Bar and you said to to be determined if it's going to be for the public and I say yes it should be for the public and also that food court area is there any way a possibility that it could be a food court but plus maybe an event place because we don't have a big place like that so are there possibilities for that that's it um again as far as the Rooftop Bar you know ownership is still considering that there's there's there's liabilities involved there's a lot of other things that are above my P rate to answer that that's why we're still looking at that as far as an event space again that's something I could take up with ownership and see if that's something they'd be open to um understanding that there is a need uh in the Barrow and it's certain we could work work with the mayor and Counsel on that if it's appropriate anybody else have any questions comments okay hearing none we'll close public comment can you do a rundown of where we're at please [Music] app obviously all prior conditions that are not amended by this amended approval would remain not Maxum comp comy the emergency generator referen item will be provided for building so that's clear a sign or signage will be insted parking spots in front of the hotel entrance and this is up to the you leave to professionals want 10 Park drop off pick upet you know type of signage do you want there and then one other thing I thought just for the board's com rooftop and certained I haveu where oper deal that C so I I'll move it based on um those comments um as far as the signage I think that for the 10-minute parking or whatever is can be dealt with later I don't yeah go I do have a question that just generated go what are you guys going to do with like um air conditioning units and rooftop heating air conditioning is all going to be internal to each room and each office space that's yeah sorry uh yeah that's the tricky part about building five because typically the residential units or the hotel rooms would have uh IND individual uh units in each room but then what ends up happening is you you have the common areas that you have to and that's where you end up throwing condensers on the roof um we're going to have to find a home for those and I I don't know that as we speak they obviously will not be in plain sight wherever they are they'll be hidden either through a parapet or if they're on the ground they'll be landscaped and we'll work with on the board's professionals to make sure that it's just not condensers out in the middle of nowhere but we have to that's a challenge when you have a rooftop amenity yeah thank you you're Madam chair point of information if I might sure a clarification from carara um that the idea of the safety plan obviously is a good idea the question is when one is submitted who reviews it right I was going to ask that the board professionals unless they have an issue that we can't agree upon which I don't expect I all right that was my concerned that if it's agreeable to both sides we don't have to come back if there's a dis I would just throw in there that the bur's Emergency Management coordinator should also be a part of that please OEM all right OEM thank you madam chair I know we have a motion on the table I don't think it's been seconded there was no second um I I will do that in a second just a point of clarification they we are uh voting on preliminary and final site plan because this is an amendment to an existing final site plan and and it's not a new correct okay I just want I just wanted to to make sure of that so I will second the motion that Mr crasa made with all of the uh comments that stated previously and I just will perfect just a couple of quick comments on this um one uh you know the idea that we're that you're changing uses I think that's smart it's good business um you're adapting to what the market is demanding right now and that's one of the challenges that I think downtowns have in their zoning regulations that they can't adapt quick enough and it becomes a burden so I think uh you coming in and understanding where the market is driving uh creates a uh a good opportunity for you to capitalize on what the market is demanding right now second I think the hotel is a great use um you see hotels popping up in and around Somerset County and the interesting thing is they all come to downtown Somerville to eat or to shop so so now you're actually bringing those folks from outside Somerville you're bringing them in um as as visitors as guests that have a very low impact on the burrow uh but have a very I should a low impact on infrastructure but a high impact on uh uh on Revenue uh for for our store owners and our uh uh stores downtown so I think that's a great use um that's it that's all I got anybody else before we vote okay Andrea Adair yes Chris addex yes couldn't find the button charm Larry Cleveland yes Jason ker yes John manilo yes mayor Gallagher yes council person vroom yes acting chairperson Warner yes thank you gentlemen thank you thank you okay in lie of time I think we are going to hold pending business for the next meeting okay so that's going to be the fencing ordinance and the ARB procedures um I have no other oh I should yeah I have no other comments for myself as the chairperson I'm going to open up the meeting to the public for comments hearing none we will close the public session um so we are going to be moving into executive session thank you uh while we are in executive we be taking no action do we need to come back to close out or can we close out now close out right now okay real quick I I would two things one I would be much more comfortable if we actually came back okay uh that's that's a standard practice that we use at Council and it is a standard practice that we've had or at least I've my experience with the planning board is that we come back uh because it allows a clo a closure closure of a of a session public closure of a session so we will be returning from exective session is to just discuss the presentations that we saw it was no no action no action just discussion and then council president vroom uh had brought up a subject to me which I agreed with wholeheartedly and he just wants to uh talk a little bit about that uh with with what we've been doing with our approvals of some of the new properties in the Redevelopment Zone we have been challenged with how to handle uh EVs and where they can charge and and thinking about not wanting them inside decks not wanting them close uh to you know those residences so I was wondering if the board would like to take up the concept of creating an ordinance for the buau and how we handle that going forward so it's not a plan by plan basis it's something along the lines of to memorialize what we've already been doing which is we don't want them in we don't want charging stations in the decks and we don't certainly don't want them underground in the decks um and that we want them set back from you know from these multif family residences I think it's a great idea definitely yeah you know so we can get that on oh yeah yes so so maybe we put that on the agenda for a discussion point at at the next meeting or the meeting meeting and we'll look at we'll just make sure on what's on for the next agenda so we'll look at it it may be the next one or the one after because I do want to be able to have good discussion on it and not be rushed on that too uh I'll make a motion to go into executive session second Andrea yes Chris addex yes Larry Cleveland yes Jason crasa yes John manilo yes mayor Gallagher yes council person vom yes acting chairperson Warner yes I'll be cutting off the stream now because there be further action that's correct okay thank you thank you