good evening we'd like to welcome you all to the March 4th monthly meeting of the Boston Civic design commission the open meeting law requires that we notify you the public that a recording of this meeting is being made by commission staff and the meeting is now called to
order my name is Linda eastley co-chair of the bcdc I'd love to thank the commissioners for their professional guidance tonight that helps shape our city of Boston into a more beautiful sustainable and Equitable City for all of its
citizens Commissioners tonight we have a very long agenda with four projects one is coming back to us for a recommendation and three are new and then at the end of the meeting we also have an informational presentation about article 80
modernization um so to that end we'll be doing our best to keep time and making sure that we're able to get to all of the business that we have tonight I wanted to start with a roll call and if Commissioners could please say present as I call your name I know
we'll have some Commissioners joining a little later on in the meeting Jonathan Evans present shaa Gilly Smith mcky young Kim present has Kathy
Keras join joined yes and present hi Kathy uh an Marie Lua will be joining in a little bit has David manf Freddy joined Katherine Morris will be joining a little later bill Ron present laa
Solano present Kirk Sykes present and myself Linda eastley present to start off our meeting we have several meeting minutes to approve and I'm going to read the dates off and then
we'll conclude with a motion so December 3rd January 7th and February 4th monthly meeting minutes December 17th January 21 and February 18th design subcommittee
session a and December 17th January 21st and February 18th design subcommittee session B can I get a motion to approve these meeting minutes so move and a second
second second I'll in favor please say I Jonathan Evans I shaa Gilly Smith I mck young Kim hi Kathy Keras
hi Bill Ron hi laara Solano hi Kirk Sykes hi and myself Lind eastley the minutes are approved thank you Christina I think we're ready to move on to a report from a viiew
committee for three new projects which are 434 Jamaica way street 151 kambridge Street and 920 Center Street the last uh project we have both
Commissioners Kim and hen recused we don't have recusals for the other two project actually I believe commissioner Evans will be recused from the 151 Cambridge Street so let's just take them one at a time
apologies um forther regulations of Article 28 of the Boston zoning code planning department staff have repaired the following recommendations for your consideration a proposed project at 434 Jamaica way street Jamaica plane also known as Rogerson bufor house seeking
article 80b entitlement contemplates the demolition of an existing 3,250 ft residential building and the development of approximately 158,000 Square ft of Health Care and residential uses approximately 66 Memory
Care units and 67 affordable senior housing units and 62 parking spaces in a single seven-story building on an approximately 3.2 Acre Site the proponent filed a PNF on December 20th 2024 planning department staff hosted a
public meeting on February 6th 2025 planning Department staff recommend that the commission vote to review the proposed project thank you Christina is there a motion to review motion to review and a second
second all in favor please say I John Jonathan Evans hi shaa Gilly Smith shaa I see I see a thumbs up from Sha I think she's lost her audio Mick young hi Kathy karitas
hi Bill Ron hi Lara salano hi Kirk Sykes hi and myself Linda eastley I we will review next is 151 Cambridge Street a proposed project at 151
Cambridge Street in the West End also known as the West End Library seeking article 80b entitled contemplates the demolition of an existing single story public facility and the development of approximately 19,000 Square ft of a public facility a public um library
branch and 150 thou 57520 square feet of residential uses or 119 affordable units in a single 14-story building on an approximately 0.51 Acre Site the proponent filed a PNF
on January 8th 2025 planning department staff hosted a public meeting on February 12th 2025 planning department staff recommend that the commission vote to review the proposed project thank you is there a motion to review move to review a second second
and please say I if you're in favor shaa Gilly Smith I mck young Kim I Kathy kerus I bill Ron I Lara Solano I Kirk
Sykes hi and myself Linda eastley I we will review and I've made a note that uh commissioner Evans is now recused from that project our last one is 920 Center Street Commissioners Kim and hene are both recused from that
project excellent a proposed project at 920 Center Street Jamaica plane seeking article 80b entitlement contemplates the renovation and conversion of an existing 50,000 ft structure for resident IAL use or 38 units and the development of approximately
171,000 ft of residential use or 85 units and 118 parking spaces in a four-story building on a 3.3 Acre Site the proponent filed a PNF on February 7th 2025 planning department staff hosted a public meeting on March 3rd
2025 planning department staff recommend that the commission vote to review the proposed project thanks Christina is there a motion to review motion to review and a second please second thank you please say I if
you're in favor Jonathan Evans I shaa Gilly Smith I Kathy koritas hi Bill Ron hi Lara salano hi Kirk Sykes Kirk are you able to vote yeah I
said I oh sorry that I miss it problem and myself Linda eastley I we will review um the good news is Commissioners we are now eight minutes ahead of our schedule so we're going to try to clip
along uh we wanted to start our presentations tonight with the Harvard University Austin campus institutional master plan this is back in front of the full commission for a final recommendation um this is the proponent
fourth presentation to us at bcdc and we have Commissioners lubenau Ron and Solano recuse so we'd like to excuse them but have them uh stay on for a recusal vote a little
later we have um three Commissioners that were present at the last subcommittee Commissioners Evan Keras and myself and so just to put a pin in that and we will have you share your comments first after the proponent has
finished with their presentation and following that uh presentation we'll also have an overview from the planning department staff so I think we are ready to pull up that presentation great thank you so much um
I just want to make sure that uh my colleague can actually share the presentation is is that possible Gabriel sorry can you give me a full Ken what's the Gabriel Ramos is trying to
share thank you so much so with that uh I just want to say good evening to the co-chairs and the Commissioners and everyone and speaking on behalf of the Harvard University team uh we are delighted to return to the
full bcdc commission regarding Harvard's aluson campus institutional master plan after having introduced the Imp to this body last spring we've had had two sessions with subcommittee they've been productive meetings and they really have pushed us to develop our thinking
relating to how our future projects and campus systems work together to support a thriving public realm so for tonight we've tried to create a very succinct presentation to share the highlights of that process and with that I will hand
it to Martin zrin of Sasaki who will walk you through our slides thank you thank you so much Alexandra and thank you commission Martin we're you're cutting out just a little bit on us sorry can you hear me better is it better now yes
thank you great tonight oh we've lost you again Martin okay how about now so far so good so far I'll try it again tonight we'll overview the 2025 IM
process we'll walk through the comments that we did hear from the bcdc Commissioners and we'll show you what those impacts were to our planning and thinking for the future of the IM the key we met with bcdc twice
subcommittee meetings in the first meeting in November we reviewed broadly for the massing of some of those 10-year projects as well as longterm projects the overall planning framework and the campus systems which knit everything
together in January we focused more specifically on the Athletics area the sighting and orientation of the tennis and squash packet Center as well as pedestrian circulation and wayfinding we talked through the potential for a thingss at solders Field
Road we also talked about the openings into the business campus for and along West Avenue we wanted to highlight the fact that there are concurrent planning processes underway as most of us know
the imp's area is indicated in number one in the upper leftand corner but we know that there are other processes going on the planning study currently being undertaken by the city of Boston for Beacon parkyard as well as the planning in ERC which falls into both
the PDA boundary of 3.1 and then the ERC district and Greenway planning concurrent with the Imp and coordinated I want to highlight these six projects which are being proposed as part of the
2025 imp 10-year projects three of those projects are being carried over from 2013 those include HBS faculty and administrative office building the Gateway project Harvard Stadium renov and addition and newly proposed projects
include the tents and Squad racket Center and field support building and Crimson catering and interior renovation this gives us a picture of the long-term view Beyond the Horizon of
the 10-year plan it shows a potential buildout for the areas within the Imp and situates those six projects shown in the crimson color and the light pink in what will be their context some of the discussions and comments that were most
productive from bcdc included as indicated in the black Cola boxes here the issue around ferocity of Western Avenue to maintain and ensure that there is a campus feel and an openness into the HBS campus from
across the ERC area we want to make sure that we're aligning those planned institutional projects with future plans of development such as surrounding the Gateway and what will emerge as Barry's Corner we spent a lot of time talking
about pedestrian connectivity in and around the Athletics campus which I'll mention again in just a minute and the intuitive ways in which folks can find their way through the Athletics including the sighting of buildings and newly located Pathways broadly Harvard
is committed to ensuring that our long-term vision for the campus pedestrian Network aligns with future city and DCR Soldiers Field Crossings so some of the diagrams which were greatly enhanced by the
bcdc uh input through the series of meetings there one of these this is the long-term planning block plan which is to say a broad indication of how development should fill out but without indications of specific buildings here
the orange organ organizing axes are consistent with the patterns today found on the campus but the Commissioners really indicated desire to better understand what these organizing axes were and how they help the experience within the Athletics area as well as the
open space along Western Avenue the plan was updated as indicated here to show that greater paracity along Western Avenue we've also importantly extended those organizing axes called it
specifically Harvard way into the athletic area coming from the Harvard Business School to align with many of the existing building entries and to organize new entries being proposed for the tennis squash and Racket Center as
well as minion also there's an important access which is indicated here from the Dylan Fieldhouse closer to the Charles River South to the mity outdoor track picking up on and exension in the future of what will be Stadium Road shown in
that orange arrow another big sort of change that came about via the conversations with bcdc members really understanding the existing network of Pathways and movement for pedestrians particularly through the athletic area we wanted to
study this in depth and really look at those opportunities for Crossings both at North Harvard and uh for for Western Avenue which we'll highlight here so we really did sort of take a look very closely at The Pedestrian networks moving through the Athletics area to try
to bring more coherence again in this long-term planning framework to what is a series of buildings which are often responding to solar angles and orientations and have a series of pre-existing fields we improve the
connectivity and legibility within that pedestrian area we align the pedestrian connectivity with those future crossings by DCR or others and also thought about the way finding opportunities within and around
between Harvard Business School and the athletic areas and those are highlighted in some of the yellow the green dots show us those existing pedestrian Crossings the newer improved specifically over at the ERC that we see and then in the future those new Crossing
opportunities three minutes Martin okay as we come back in time to the 10-year view we see that the planned institutional projects move to the design process as they do Harvard will study the following elements in more
detail as part of the arttic way large project review some of the specific comments again came back to that wayfinding within the Athletics campus and the orientation of the tennis Sash and Racket Center and its relationship um as well as an understanding of
the public F adjacent to some of those projects how it should be configured in the 10-year plan as part of the design process Harvard is committed to public realm improvements adjacent to the planned institutional projects on both North Harvard Street and Western
Avenue as we look a little bit more closely around an area that guarded a lot of tension tension we updated the plan and thought about a few things to help the squashing racket Center more to fit better into its existing context and
also to maintain the relationships within and emerging in the Athletics area number one really indicates why the building needs to be oriented the way it does it has to do with the existing tennis Port orientation that will be preserved which is following NCAA
regulations for the solar orientation of those and then two three and four are areas of study under the Artic ADB large project review that we know will take place when those projects do come along to ensure that the new buildings have a
positive relationship Soldiers Field Road that the entries are aligned now more coherently along harbard way and that they integrate with the existing campus buildings and axes and that improved wayfinding will help everyone
move through this so the very last slide sort of gives us a summary of those uh comments that were made from BC DC and how they were really um incorporated into the plan so for the sighting of the racket Center as I just went through how we reviewed those with the proposed
sighting and identified key features that we know will come up in article 80b we looked at those Open Spaces updated the diagrams to express those along Western Avenue looked at those pedestrian networks and weight finding areas and The Crossings into the future and then really thought through the
overall Urban Design patterns and thought of this as a system particularly as we think both about Athletics and the business school so I appreciate your comments and the discussion to follow thank you Alexander and Martin Commissioners um the planning
staff doesn't have any additional comments and so we can dive right into our comments and just as a reminder Jonathan Kathy and I were at the last subcommittee and so we can start with those comments first and then any other Commissioners and there have been
several of us who have attended the other subcommittee as well are welcome to come in at that point so feel free to raise your Zoom hand and I would be happy to call on you Martin if we could also pull up a maybe one of the illustrative site
plans that would be great perfect thank you Jonathan thanks yeah I can get I can get us going and and I was obviously only at the last most recent subcommittee meeting um I I think the kind of overall framework diagrams make a lot of sense I
I I'm probably a little uh uh uh was hoping to see a more meaningful uh response to Commissioners comments regarding the orientation of the tennis and squash Center I mean I I acknowledge the concern around compliance with regulations for the courts but again I
think you have a pretty strong diagram of the ACT rad and they actual building doesn't actually respond to that I I guess I respect the idea that you'll kind of Kick the Can and talk about that in article 80 uh large project but um and that that does seem to be the one moment where it feels like you have this
diagram and it's not really uh adhering to it you know looking at like the Gateway building it's clearly the form of the building responds to the urban context and your and your sort of diagrams of How It's still working and again that's a spot that we talked about a lot uh as being a moment where it didn't really feel like was coming
together well realized a lot of on that spot um but again I was hoping to see more and how that uh made its way into these kind of framework diagrams um but uh I suppose again it sounds like that's something that we will just review uh when it becomes an actual article 8B
large project application thanks Jonathan Kathy any comments no that was the one what Jonathan just underscored was the one that really um stood out um in our last meeting as being a real
conundrum um and sounds like the parameters within which one needs to work is really the reason why this hasn't U modified much since our last meeting I mean has there been any
modification since the subcommittee meeting there there has been um as a matter of fact and so let's see where we're going to go to um one the you know one of the aspects we'll say is really sort of a a
recognition of the building entries which are currently located along Harvard way and really thinking of that as the you know quote unquote front door to the Athletics area so as you're moving you know from the
Cambridge campus which many many students do a student athletes um are coming across the river or even coming from various cornner the preferred entry point into this as as most of us know um is really through Harvard way which is again that extension you know from the
business school uh in between blet and the mer Center there so the idea of trying to create a compound or an area which organizes those entries is indicated by those orange areas and we've also gone back and taken a look at the landscape uh which is indicated at
number four and number three it was um a very poor condition today it's a traffic circle and sort of overwhelmed by cars and just circulation and we thought by clarifying Harvard way access as well as clarifying the actual
relationship to the Charles River that we would make a more welcoming front door for the tennis and squash racket Center here so th those are some subtle changes that did happen the landscape to acknowledge its you know new front door which is really facing uh back towards
uh the river itself got it yeah and I'm just pulling up your old presentation on the screen I see that that's yeah that's good great Point thank you I would also add that um the current footprint that we're showing was based on some very specific geometries and capacities for
the courts themselves um and so we didn't want to we wanted to be very careful about not changing the footprint that wouldn't accommodate the program so we we did add this you know ensuring that when we really are in design we will be looking at those things
carefully but didn't want to get ahead of that that process it thank you great thanks other commissioner comments uh could could this is commissioner syes could you bring up the
green the diagram with the green lines uh yeah this one fine so uh ly I'm going to apologize in advance because I haven't ATT ended any of the subcommittee meetings but I just had a few questions about the hierarchy of the dominant green lines
and in particular uh the one going over the foot Bridge versus the one going over uh the vehicular and foot bridge and and they're sort of weighted equally and I understand this is a diagram but the question is about flow you know in
terms of proportional allocation of both people and and obviously in one case people and cars but is that within the purview of the Imp and Linda I'm happy to defer if it's not but uh it it kind of goes to the movement across uh
perpendicular to those two lines and how you're thinking about it in my mind so I guess I guess if it's if all all questions are fair I I will ask you um how proportionately pedestrians are allocated on these two green lines that
are parallel to one another and then how they are diffused into the business school campus um you know from either direction and into the ERC and Western I Martin do you want to take that
question on sure I'm happy to answer that that's actually a really um you know very perceptive question and I think what's interesting that this diagram uh predates um this planning effort and it was something which was
originally called the ladder diagram which is really interesting and it was way of thinking about the movement patterns from the Cambridge campus you know across the river into both HBS and then along North Harvard Street and so
while they're represented equally you're absolutely right that the the journey through uh kesy and week's foot within the business school is is less occupied than I think a lot of the students who are coming actually right across the
Anderson bridge and moving along um North Harvard Street so they they do have different emphases here and one pedestrian mostly uh the other vehicular and pedestrian on North Harvard Street so those are are very different sort of
aspects um there is an emerging sort of um movement path which is immediately adjacent to Soldiers Field Road which you can see in the very first Park which is adjacent to the Trav River um and as they move internal through the campus I
think it becomes you know less or less public in a way uh because of the use by many many people it's mostly students by the time you get into the campus itself uh but the idea really with emerging ERC
is to begin to think about enhancing the movement through the campus as it moves moves towards Western Avenue and what we all know and see as the The Treehouse which is right at the intersection um of kresy and Western Avenue to the south of
the plan there um but those should be weighted not so but it's sort of a a remnant of this ladder diagram again for thinking about pedestrian movement from Cambridge to Austin so I guess my comment is and
thank you for the explanation um at some point it would be great in the Imp to understand the proportionality of those two paths and then you know assuming what you just said is correct the vehicular and pedestrian path then takes
on a more significant presence in linking Boston to Cambridge and and the nodes take on a more significant role in the Imp in my mind but that that's my comment I guess uh to both staff and uh
and to you uh as to how how to apply the the proportionality in the way you weight your focus in the Imp so let me stop there and let others talk great thank you Kirk and I know that the latter diagram was um something that we
looked a lot at during the ERC um review and just how the ERC was connecting back to HBS and how that was then connecting back onto the Cambridge campus sha thanks very much Linda and thanks
very much um Martin and Alexandra for for the presentation I was on the first subcommittee not not on the second and I I definitely appreciate the organization along Harvard way of of the the entries and the front doors um but that actually
brings me back to one of my initial concerns from a couple of subcommittees is really the back doors feel very much backdoor and and by that I'm referring to the extremely long facade along soldiers road which even though it's
primarily vehicular of the campus not of the buildings even though it's vehicular it's a significant experience of many um driving around or being along um along the Charles you know biking running and
and I I think well I understand that the um the S the build will be coming back for article 80 I think an approach to what that edge is is really more of a a imp master plan strategy and maybe you
have addressed it in in O in the subcommittee prior to this but um but but that's that remains a concern of mine it does feel I'm not exp understanding it to be the same as a typical campus it's not at all like the business school campus I'm not talking
about more paracity than what you're um describing already but really an approach of of sort of care and intentionality that doesn't feel like it's you know the the scrappy backyard and if you feel you feel very excluded
and and again I'm not talking about opening it physically but is there a way to make it feel more intentional and um and Civic yeah it's a great comment Sha you want us to respond to that that's a you know excellent comment Sandra you
want any no we take I think we take that comment very um very sincerely and um we haven't you know I don't think we we have made not made any specific plans but we do um you know take good care to
maintain and be a good Steward of the campus overall and that includes all areas of the campus so I think this is something that we would um you know take back to our Athletics campus and and you know take a good look at how we can consider that area and consider those
points um it isn't something that we have addressed specifically in the Imp through any um you know particular interventions but I think part of um our overall stewardship of the campus is is
that uh you know is ensuring that it's it's all being well maintained okay I mean and this is just something to take to take forward with you thank thank you thanks shaa I don't see any other commissioner
hands up I'll just add a a few things and then we'll can uh take some public comment uh I share a lot of the Commissioners um concerns about I think what are called building four and five which is different from um items for on
this slide and understand that there orientation challenges with tennis although there's a little bit more flexibility you know to actually go the other direction of North and so I think those are the pieces that we would like to suggest that you continue working
with planning staff on I think Shaun's comment about really the the area um between Soldiers Field Road and the facades for the Dixon Center and
Fieldhouse Etc is a really important one I think we've all experienced that kind of front yard that feels like leftover space and I think there are a lot of significant kind of service needs to those buildings and so we understand the complexity of making that both of kind
of visually successful as well as operationally successful but I think that would be something else um I'd like to see you continue to work with planning staff on and then one thing we didn't touch on today but that has come up up in both of the subcommittees is
just a renewed interest in having a pedestrian Crossing along Soldiers Field Road um kind of to the West here of this diagram and I know there are ongoing conversations that you've talked about with DC and so I just love for that um
suggestion to be part of the part of the record here Christina do we have any public comment at this time you'd like to invite any members of the public and attendance who may wish to contribute public testimony to raise your digital
hand and staff will call on you if you're calling in by phone press star n on your dial pad to activate the raise hand function and star six to mute and unmute yourself please state your name and any relevant project affiliation information and please keep your
comments to two minutes I'm just scrolling up and down the list of attendees here and I see no hands raised so Commissioners at this time will consider the comment period closed thank you
Christina all right Commissioners um we are now at the point where we need to make a recommendation and the recommendation can as as you all know have some caveats and so would anyone like to make a first pass at that
recommendation uh motion to approve obviously pending further coordination with article lated large project large projects for uh individual developments there all right thank you Jonathan anyone else want to add anything to that
or to second I would like to add to continue looking at the the edge of soldiers Road not just on against the new buildings but the whole the whole Frontage of soldiers Road thanks shaa any other items that
anyone would like to add and then I can have Christina read back that motion to us all right Christina I think we have a compound motion and you on mute there you
go I was going to say the standard language is to recommend that the bpda board approve the proposed project upon successful completion of the article 80 review process um in this case subject additionally to um further design review attention given to the edges along
Soldiers Field Road and then further resolution of issues um that are subject to article 80 large project review thank you Christina do we have a second good second all right all in favor U please
say I Jonathan Evans I shaa Gilly Smith hi mcky young Kim hi Kathy karitas hi um I think that David manf Freddy has
joined us yes and I thank you and Kirk Sykes I and myself Linda eastley I you are approved thank you so much thank you so much great to work
with your team all right we are now going to shift to um the three new projects that are before us tonight and Christina if you could invite Commissioners lubenau Ron and salano back for the presentation I
think we had Quorum for this last vote well I am inviting Commissioners back I think we can flip this over to Ted who will be giving us um some planning context and then I believe Seth and then to the proponent great and I think we're gonna
do it a little bit differently in terms of the order if um that works for you Christina so 434 Jamaica way street this is our first presentation this is also an affordable housing project Commissioners um we don't have any
Commissioners recused from this project Ted's going to kick us off with the overview and then we'll have the proponent present and then have Urban Design staff um wrap us up and commissioner eastley I'm actually going to take the first slide and hand it then
over to Ted um this is Seth Risman of the planning department um the uh project is uh essentially what is uh expected to be phase one of a proposed two-phase Redevelopment of a 3.3 Acre Site and phase one has been submitted to
uh the planning department for review it should be noted that phase two has not been submitted for review and is not under consideration before the commission at this time um phase one which is filed proposes the demolition of a small residential structure which is not a part of the existing Rogerson
facility and the development of approximately 158,000 Square ft of affordable units including 66 Memory Care units and 67 affordable senior housing units phase two not yet filed uh contemplates the demolition of some or
all of the existing facility the development of additional affordable housing the creation of open space between the two phases and no phase building uh no building closer to the Jamaica way than it is today and phase two is presented here as reference as as
we asked the proponent to show some possible scenarios of future thinking uh so that we could evaluate phase one in light of potential future scenarios Ted thanks Seth next slide please uh I'll cover a little bit about
the zoning before then handing it back to Seth uh so this site is located in the Jamaica plane neighborhood zoning District in a multif family residential subdistrict and I'll talk a little bit about uh the dimens for that subdistrict on the next slide
but first while the map is at this neighborhood scale I wanted to cover the two overlays for reference uh the first is the green belt protection overlay District which is very relevant uh to the front setback of this building uh that's the light green stripe that
traces the Jamaica way on this map uh and the Jamaica Way Green Belt overlay is one of 12 Green Belt roadways and their adjacent areas that are Del delineated on the Jamaica plane neighborhood District zoning map and for everyone's reference in the zoning code
it's stated that the purpose of this overlay is to quote enhance and protect the natural natural Scenic resources of the city preserve and enhance air quality and protect vegetation in open space along these Green Belt Ro roadways so essentially that's the the front yard
area in the setback off of the Jamaica way that this uh zoning picks out and then uh the whole site is in the neighborhood design overlay district and these are established to quote protect the historic character and scale and quality of The Pedestrian environment in
areas of Jamaica plane with a concentration of historic buildings next slide please and uh now as we look at the site just jumping back to uh what the the zoning dimensional limits are for multif family residential uh in the zoning code
the maximum height is 35 feet and three stories maximum f is one uh front yard setback is 15 feet side yard is 10 feet and rear yard is 20 feet and moving on I'll hand it back to Seth to discuss the physical
context and uh please go back to one side you'll see in this image that the site is boarded uh to the North and the South by uh one and two family uh residential districts and to the east by and South to the multif family
residential districts and buildings uh the one and two family units are predominantly two to two and a half stories and the multif family buildings range between three stories that you see on the south side of Buford Street there and eight stories uh with what's labeled as the Forbes building and you may
remember Commissioners that uh last year uh you approved the Forbes building as a renovation of an existing affordable uh housing project just to the right of the Forbes building I believe is Center Street uh to help locate you and with that we would like to invite the
proponent to present thank you Seth and uh Ted it's so great to have you on board look forward to having you as part of our team here so we have the Rogerson deela Schaefer and warner lson team that will be presenting
this project and then we'll have a few overview slides from Urban Design staff great good evening and thank you to the co-chairs thank you to the Commissioners we're grateful and excited for the opportunity to present this project tonight my name is is Emily Regan with the Rogerson Community team
before I hand off to our Architects at D Schaefer I'll give a very brief overview of the project Rogerson communities is a nonprofit organization they've been providing Forward Thinking housing and Care for Seniors since they're founding in 1860 they were the early founders of Supportive Housing Services for Seniors
today Rogerson has grown to serve over 2,000 families across 30 facilities in Massachusetts and this project is part of the organization strategy for growth for the next generation of Care for Seniors the ultimate goal of this development is to care for as many seniors as possible
Advance rogerson's Mission and create the resources necessary to continue their tradition of excellence in senior care into the future the property is an important piece of rogerson's portfolio Rogerson owns the land which is not true of most of the other sites where they operate we will be replacing the
existing Memory Care programming while also adding much needed affordable housing and maintaining open space and other amenities for all and the design prioritizes state of the the art healthy and highly sustainable living and care options for seniors next Slide the
development program for this site has two components we will be replacing the existing 66 Memory Care beds and the 24 openings for social day programming above the memory care floors we will add 67 new one-bedroom apartments for
seniors at or below 60% Ami the project includes an underground parking garage as well as maintained surface parking to keep all visitors staff on site and as Seth mentioned Phase 2 is not part of the proposal submitted it's a future project that will need to be
reviewed and approved through a separate article 80 process finally there are a few constraints that drove the design Rogerson house is currently home to 66 individuals receiving memory care and provides daycare for up to 24 people each weekday these residents and their
families rely on Rogerson and cannot be displaced during construction as you can see this leaves just oneir of the total site available the only point of access to the site is from bfort Road and the memory care facility requires secured outdoor space so with that I will turn
it over to Philipe to walk through the design thank you Emily can everybody hear me yes wonderful um uh quick overview I think we talked about the site but this is good to uh notice that the site highlighted in red
is in an area of the city that is rich in amenities and transportation it is few minutes walk to the greenway and in fact bord road is one of the shortest Dimensions between Center Street and the greenway and could present an opportunity for better Comm connection
between uh Center Street and green and and and the greenway uh many of us who have not visited Roger house probably no Rister house through this facade along the greenway however uh the site is deep and
it hides a fairly uh low twostory but large footprint building as has been uh brought up previously these are images of Buford Road which is the only access to the site currently part of the site is that parking lot on the right hand
side um that it constitute the larger uh overall site uh that we are talking about today again to point that there are some larger and denser developments that are surrounding uh the the site currently this this this is a slid just
to show why we are doing a replacement building the current building of the of the client Rogerson is built more than 30 years ago and it does not uh allow for an easy renovation and expansion to follow their mission it is a spaces are
compromised the bedrooms are semi-private the ceilings are low and as Emily said it's a fully occupied community that makes intensive Renovations very challenging for this specific population who have memory impairments so the project will take
place overall in few phases uh the image on the left hand side is the current existing site with a large Courtyard which is essential to the running of a Memory Care Facility in the city uh phase one will happen in this large footprint
uh on on the image on the top right then comes in the demolition phase which will potentially remove the existing buildings from the site before phase two comes back and completes the whole the whole image or the whole plan for the
site putting back a large Courtyard that is essential again for the running of such program uh this building is fairly unusual stacking affordable housing and Memory Care together but that is essential to the client's mission to
create this inclusive community that brings together people of different abilities and and and incomes so the first three floor will occupy the memory care units and the upper four floors will be one-bedrooms of independent living for seniors all affordable uh
those of us who have visited memory Memory Care Facilities uh security and also uh a continuous loop of Circ population within the facility is an important element of caring for those individuals throughout the
day um and overview of how the massing came to become of the new building which is Phase One um a building that started with an nail shape that engages the street has a view towards the pond then some adjustments to the massing to allow
for natural light to come in through the first three floors of the memory care allowing for Terraces and secure outdoor spaces for all three floors uh one two and three and then how the massing of that building got again massage to reflect
the tow houses or the three-story brick buildings across from us and create a datum for Buford Road and overall with the how the vision for the site will be complete later on with the phase to creating a cohesive campus
putting back the outdoor spaces uh that are essential to the community and to the use of memory care this is a in a precedent images and feels of what could be this outdoor space and Landscapes throughout the site
places where uh residents and family member could partake into activities such as planting uh small spaces for recollection but also plantings that are of nostalgia and Remembrance for those who are losing their memory on daily
basis uh walking path walking Loop all all in this secure environment that that really um um includes everybody uh in overall site plan as the project with phase two when will the the whole site
will be complete I would like to bring attention to the commission about the the enhancements along bford Road the widening of the sidewalk the the street Furniture the trees the the the trees along the street but also at the same time a drop off that is off bord road
for the vehicles and the pickup and uh uh additional parking to maintain staff and visitors off bford road there are two large green spaces that will end up on site the courtyard that is between both building but also a full renovation
of the lawn in front along the greenway with Possibly play structures accessible Pathways and enhanced connections between Center Street and Jamaica way in terms of of a first floor we have worked with the owner to make sure that
that first floor is really engaging with the street putting forward public facing amenity such as the social Day program a multi-purpose room the lounge and the entrance for the entire building so that no matter who you are and who you're coming to visit you come in through one front door again reinforcing the
inclusive nature of that development two minutes for all right and as you go forward um these are the floor plans and then um the residential floor plans of the top three floors the
below great garage and a quick view of the facades as they relate to the forest building uh from um a height perspective but also from a rhythm and penetration and the the the elevation that is across elevation uh shows that three-story datm
uh that not only diverts the wind but also reflects the the the buildings across the street from building uh the three-dimensional perspective as a conceptual image of how this building will sit on the site again showing a multiplicity of materials that are
contextual and residential and then highlighting here how the building is intended to be uh built in Mass Timber and a panelized exterior wall system to not only to create this wellness and atmosphere inside the building minimize
the carbon footprint of this development but also to speed up the construction and minimize noise and and and dirt uh on on the immediate context I think that's our last slide A View From bford Road looking towards the
greenway uh for the project as a conclusion this project is really unique uh and it's really going to create an urban and connecting campus for older adults it will it presents an opportunity for integrated housing and Aging Care as well as intergenerational
interactions for the neighborhood and the the residents on site it's also Wellness focused through its structure its outdoor spaces and its thermal comfort and well-being for the residents who will live in it and visit the uh with that uhur it back to the
commission thank you and I think we just have a couple um sides from staff Lizzy so I'll unshare and then you guys can share thank you so relatively quickly uh phase one is design and cited to not impact existing
operations um and though existing mature trees will be removed for the phase one project the commitment in phase two to retain the front yard and set back from the Jamaica way and its mature trees is critical uh to the planning department the phase one building establishes a
street wall along view Fort Road uh but the massing uh we really want the proponent to look at the massing the materiality planting at the base of the building Street trees and streetscape design and furnishing uh which need to be further developed to integrate this add additional density
into the existing fabric uh we also want to make sure we understand what portion of the site will be executed with phase one and really asking whether the visitor parking or some of the visitor parking can be reduced in Phase One to increase permanent open space on the
site next slide please in respect to the massing um we're really looking and asking whether the proposed three-story podium along bufort and sorry bofer and Associated step back above are successful in defining a street wall in creating a
successful overall mass and composition and we'd uh look forward to working with the opponent on considering the overall composition with uh the context specifically its relationship to the Forbes building and the buildings across the street and future Phase 2 uh thank
you Commissioners thank you s and if the proponent could reshare their presentation yes if you could put up a maybe a site plan showing phase one and the relationship to phase two that would be really helpful and before um Kirk and
Jonathan jump in here with comments I just wanted to to add that Emily and Philipe what we'll be um sharing now in terms of our comments are are not things that you need to respond to today but things that we'd like to see as we continue to work with your team in the
future so with that uh Kirk sure um thank you for the presentation um I'm I'm very familiar with the site as I I live about four blocks away and and my father was cared for by Rogerson so uh
I'm familiar with the program and some of the constraints you deal with with memory care as well um so the comments I think uh let me start with saying this is an iconic site uh it has such importance on this side of the Jamaica
way and while we have an abundance of green space on the other side uh it it's not lost on how important your front lawn onto the Jamaica way is and to some degrees the facade uh that's there today and I'm not we don't need to address it
today but at some point understanding what phase two might look like and how it may either respect the facade replace the facade or uh do something different which it appears to be doing uh would be good to understand so going to the
building you're proposing today a couple of comments um the buildings on the left of bufor Road are also iconic they're quite unique in the Bayfront uh continuity of material
materiality and consistency and they're quiet you know they kind of go away in as much is a four story brick building go away in in a neighborhood of 2 and a half story wood frame building I'm not sure yet that that's where your
building is in terms of quiet and going away and and I'd love to see how you might explore not bifurcating facade into uh two different materialities Chas Etc as it appears you may be doing on
Buford Road uh so that's one uh I think understanding better the treatment on Buford Road and how there may be some continuity to that icon IC front lawn on the Jamaica way for residents uh would be great to understand a little better in the
landscape strategy um because I think that's part of your give back in addition to your relief at the street Edge and then maybe a little better understand of your stepping treatment uh perpendicular to bford uh that allows
the light into uh the building but also presents a a lower massing to the closer residential buildings that are are lower themselves so th those are my immediate comments uh I think it's it can be a great project and look forward to the
evolution of it thank you thank you Kirk Jonathan yeah thanks Kirk um I G to Echo Kirk's said and I think this is an really exciting project and appreciate the investment here I think um I'm really taken by the sort of
the diagram and your explanation of the idea of C circular loops and memory and how that becomes kind of a a driver of the formal response so I appreciate that I like how they sort of light into the corridors things like that I think that's making a lot of sense and a lot a lot of uh thought and care there I am
concerned a little bit about the light in the courtyards just kind of curious how how well those will function and um just relative to Sol orientation so you know in subcommittee understanding more uh have that courtyard within phase one as well as the new Courtyard Jama between phase one and two are going to
actually feel given the massing of these buildings um and and again I appreciate the uh uh intentionality with the massing um but again to what extent is that uh responding to creating a nice sort of pleasant Courtyard um and just
kind of coming back to that point about the loops I mean I I wonder to what extent is there is there a loop that connects phase one and phase two and then how does that circulation need to perhaps be privileged or privatized from public circulation as a whole so just understanding how movement Works throughout the whole site will be
something to consider um but again I I appreciate the thoughtfulness of this um I I guess I'd agree with Kirk that um I want to understand a little bit more the logic behind how the materials are applied on the facade um I I again I
sort of understood the the evolution of bassing and then it was just sort of like bam here's the rendering and I I guess I want to understand kind of what the rules of the game are why materials are use a certain way um so that would be something to explain subc commmittee and and
again agreeing with Kirk on the sort of comment about the context I I don't necessarily see the Forbes building in it of itself as like the only contextual driver to sort of derive a for a facade logic from so I think yes that's a similar height building and scale but that doesn't necessarily mean that we
have to just you should lock into that in terms of your your expression so a lot to a lot of exciting things here in the project and exciting to see how uh how we can better understand and kind of work through some of the facade design uh in subcommittee
thanks Jonathan David I think that um Kirk's uh intimate familiarity with this site in many ways um um gives him um uh great perspective
here and I appreciate that he said everything um that I'm going to say better because of because of of his his familiarity and an Insight here I two things I I I won't
repeat everything because I thought he said it so well I um I I I think there's a lot of there's a lot of good thinking here I understand the constraints of the new construction
to the existing building and how it has to fit so that it can remain operational but I do I do share the same concerns Jonathan has about that um about the the courtyard and how it will really feel
and uh I think Jonathan said something very very interesting which is um how how will it connect to the Future you it I'm not sure that that has what what that can be but it could be many different things almost Closter
likee that could be very exciting I don't understand the the the kind of horizontal bifurcation of the map passing I understood it maybe in narrative and then in in um in in the
renderings uh it seemed quite foreign and uh and maybe just um trying too hard um and and becoming a little bit arbitrary and then lastly I know we're not here to talk about phase two and
there there is no proposal for fa phase two but it would seem really um a shame to lose the Rogerson um building house home uh as as some part of this long-term composition
and I don't know this is the the time to address that but but boy I'd like to hear a little bit more about your long-term thinking on that subject thank you thank you David an Marie uh thank you for that presentation
my comments um have to do a little bit with just thinking about this holistically as a a campus plan that as you plan for the future both with this immediate proposal and phase two how do people you know um commissioner Evans
referred to sort of movement on the campus but how do you define the entry uh whether it's vehicular or pedestrian how do the changes you're making help to both create a a sense of campus but also relate to the surrounding communities
I'd like to understand that a little bit better including how you might think about the surface parking and and it's not clear to me you know how surface parking and structured parking uh work um as part of that I I am concerned
about how the proposed design fits within the neighborhood um this is a community with a neighborhood design overlay that very much um stresses the importance of the historic character of the of the neighborhood so when you come
to design subcommittee I'd really like to see some analysis of that um not just in terms of building Heights and materials but one thing I don't think we talk a lot about in this commission is also kind of Rhythm proportion you know
what are the how do the openings in the new design relate to openings in the in the neighborhood so I I'd like to understand your analysis of that first of all broadly um within the neighborhood in general and then specifically in respect to the adjoining
you you know the site is so it makes for an interesting design problem because it has uh you know immediates different context and then um finally I think you know bow for I I'd really like to think about you know how that becomes a public
realm that right now it's not clear to me you know how this project contributes to that uh impacts that and would' like to see some drawings and Analysis that uh better art articulate that because I do share um commissioner sy's concerns
about you know how you relate to um the bow front buildings um on the other side so a lot to think about thank you thank you an Marie shaa can we go back to the plan for a second um I think I think it's a very
exciting exciting project um from a landscape perspective what I'm really and I think there are some interesting images about the landscape um okay so yeah so so this is this is helpful so I would just like to
understand these spaces more when when we come to it the sort of section if there's any um if there's any grade changes grading implications one thing I'm a little bit worried about it's a little bit clearer than in the other plan here is it seems like a lot of the
vehicle um PA edges are coming right up to the street it's it's it it's more there's more space on this plan than the other but understanding how those edges as we're we're buffering the um buffering the adjacent property the Forbes property and as well just
understanding the all the materiality I I think that this is a better plan to be looking at I am concerned about pushing into the property extending the parking lot into the Park area at the front and so along with my other colleagues I I I
would like to see if there could be a reduction in the parking so that we're not losing that um that extra chunk which is kind of about where the area of the roundabout is and and so so that's really what i'
like to focus on more is materiality understanding the security um and where that secure secure boundary is I I I think it's probably been thought about but it's hard for me to tell here and then and then of course a a concept of
what the phasing is doing thank you sha Kathy yes thank you and thank you for a great presentation um I have a deep appreciation for what Rogerson does as a organization and institution and I
really appreciate what you're trying to create here um there are a lot of things that that um my colleagues have talked about already here but I think there's a one thing I guess I'd like to make clear and perhaps somebody from the planning
department can um Can clarify this we are focused on phase one at the moment for review phase two is coming along will we someday when that hopefully happens see this again or will that be
seen as a small project um because I'd like to comment a little bit on on um the idea of of um removing the existing building um and maybe Alternatives there but um I
guess I want to just understand what we will see again um in the future um can you address that sure and Kathy unfortunately I don't have a solid answer for you I think it's as phase two has not been fully described yet we do
not know it's permitting pathway um so we're sort of straddling a fine line here where you know I think we're it's a to receive comments on what the future of this campus uh could be like um to
help guide that future effort um though we're not technically you know um reviewing that got you got you well I'll just leave it at um that I think it would be a shame to lose the existing brick building facing the Jamaica way I
think it's a presence that um is almost iconic now for um the community um and so while I appreciate the um the remaining of open space um on along the Jamaica way I think that um that should
be looked at in the future and perhaps alternative scenarios brought forward that um maintain that building and adapt it perhaps um and uh consider extensions or or an expansion of it um in other
ways so I'll leave that at that um but the proposal that we are really focused on I I would like to see more in committee on uh the elevations from almost every um Direction
um um out from where the public would be passing um the and and from a little bit of a distance too um I I understand that behind the the Forbes building uh one might not um see that height of this but
I really wonder about not just bord street but the backyards and the next Road um to the um to the north uh I pres Northeast um and I I think that that is where the distinction of the the height
will be much more noticeable in the proximity to the boundary the property boundary um I generally in looking at this feel that that there's um quite a bit of of um of height along bord that
needs to be managed um and your your initial presentation might be a little um overwhelming to uh that that portion of the street and especially the the the residences and the buildings across the
way you're not that far from um some two family um and single family houses going further and deeper into bord um I'm also really I'd like to I'm seeing some hint of shadowing here and and what you are looking at with this
building but what are the implications for um this for particularly bofer but um the surrounding area um and and what might the height of the building that you are proposing um and the spread of this
building mean to the the surrounding areas um and I'd like to understand a little bit more about the public what is public here when we're talking about the open space there's certainly the perception of open space um when anybody's passing along um the Jamaica
way I don't recognize the front yard on the Jamaica way is being a very active public space um but is any of this that we're seeing restricted from the public for obvious reasons and what is
available to the public um in exchange for this shift in in uh density um with the one that you are the project and the building you're proposing but also the prospective um
residential structure I think it would be helpful to understand where the public benefit is as opposed to the um management of the the public um uh public realm um out outside the bounds
of the property um so yes I would like to understand better the the impacts of this new height and new density um on the adjacencies and also on the perception of this campus by the
surrounding population in the neighborhood thank you thank my uh oh Laura go ahead my raised hand function doesn't work so if you can Laura you la goes first so we'll do we'll do Laura and then Mick young and
um we'll try to keep the comments a little bit Compact and then jump right into the public comment if we could um so I agree with so much of um what my colleagues have talked about one thing I'm I'm not clear about is how the
parking Works um could you go in what what phase it's introduced in so maybe going back to the phasing diagrams there you go so that is essentially in the earliest of phases okay um if you
could go back to the the site plan please there have been so many important comments so I'm not going to repeat any of them but I keep staring at the entrance and the way that that parking area connects to Buford as well as the
um the street that is uh perpendicular to that and I'd like to understand more about how that entryway works and how the circulation works it's just really taking up a lot of space and um I don't
you know I'd love to know whether or not like do emergency vehicles have to go there what you know what's the circulation that needs to happen right there at the at the front door which feels uh pretty squeezed to me the other is um we didn't talk about servicing um
I'd love to understand that and then the last thing I'll say is I think it's all this project is a lot about context and I'd like to understand much more clearly what's going on on every single edge of
this um in including you know maybe sections that show distances and relationships and I'll just double underline something that that sea said which is to look at the topography so
that we can understand um exactly what's going on what are the relationships and what are either the opportunities or the limitations of it but but otherwise I think um the rest of the comments have
done a great job of capturing a lot of my questions thank you Laura mck young thanks um I find this project really exciting I think um the only thing that I want to add to all the great comments is uh
Philipe I think it would be very helpful if you started off with the guiding principles that drive the project you have a very unique population here you know it's it's a population that's defined by kind of um it's like a
degeneration of cognitive function right there's a it's a campus that has a very unique set of needs and at least for myself I'd like to have a better understanding of like how all of the standard design um uh guidelines that we
use um particularly wayf finding and orientation all that stuff from inside to outside how that um how that uh this population what their needs are and how that can shape this design so that it
could be quite unique right for this I remember there some very particular things about storytelling to know the orientation and and I vaguely remember something about like not strong contrast
between light and shade you know there's all these things that I think would be really helpful I think my fellow Commissioners have brought some of these up as general design considerations and probably with knowledge of this but I think it'd be great if you just started off with this is a very unique population their needs are very unique
unque and here's how it's shaped this design um that's my only recommendation thank you all those elements are embedded in here but uh we we'll bring them up we'll explain them better next time thank you thank you mck young Christina I
think we're ready to go to public comment at this time we'd like to invite any members of the public and attendance who may wish to contribute public testimony to raise your digital hand and staff will call on you if you're calling in by phone press star n on your dial pad to activate the raised hand function
and star six to mute and unmute yourself please state your name and any relevant project affiliation information and please keep your comments to two minutes John I see your hand is raised and we've promoted you are you able to unmute yourself John is it um
couples are you able to hi go ahead um my name is John couples I'm a resident of Jamaica plane I've lived here since 1970 I've been involved in housing issues uh since uh 1973 when I founded one of the founders of urban age I've
been affiliated with Rogers communities since 1980 I was involved in the first iteration of this campus uh um we're in the midst of a housing crisis for um for elders and um uh this this speaks to
that as well as continuing our program of um memory care for people of with cognitive decline um Jin Becca plane is a is one of the epicenters of the housing crises for elders and particularly for low-income
Elders so this is part part and parcel of rogerson's mission of providing housing and care so it's critical to the whole housing crisis that we're facing uh that is uh Across the Nation and certainly in
Massachusetts uh and um this this site has been on our in rogerson's purview since 19 the 1950s when the original building was built that's visible now from the Jamaica way so uh this is a
critical portion of our uh Mission I think that concludes my report thank you John Jen uh CTI we're going to promote you to co-host are you able to unmute yourself yes thank you um thank you to the commission for your uh taking up these
public comments um as I understand though the commission reviews the athetics of propos projects and ensures that they have a positive impact on the public realm and I just wanted to focus on why uh I think under that rubric this project should have your full support as it works through this process and works
with you on those Design Elements um first of all Rogerson is a well-known provider uh in our community and uh some people on this call have already spoken to it but they are have a demonstrated history of the capacity to to run a
campus like this and to pull off a construction a multiphase construction project like this so some of the concerns that we have with um newer entries into the fields uh don't seem to be at issue in this case um it seems to be a thoughtful design situated in the
area rich with amenities especially the pwns side view and the park access but also for the long-term uh affordable housing whether they're enjoying day programs or um or or not yet participating in the memory care element
the fact that it's walkable to the JP Center South Main Street small business district and events is also an amenity and enrichment for their lives um there's been cared to maintain the Supportive Housing for the existing Memory Care patients but still creating
a vision of an integrated Community with people of different abilities living uh together and then finally echoing on what John said before me uh we are experiencing a tremendous housing shortage and these income restricted apartments um will be a huge Boon for
the opportunity of our local Elders to downsize who might not otherwise be able to on fixed incomes or with limited assets um my own mother-in-law being one of those people who uh is looking for this kind of facility and there are very very few we we're trying to find the
right place for her and there are very very few beds of this kind available so thank you for your time and I um hope to see this project move forward to fruition thank you so much Chen um next we have a number 617 ending in
162 caller are you able to unmute yourself it's star six on your dial pad looks like we may have lost lost a caller uh Chris Von you're our next guest uh Lizzie if you could promote Chris to
co-host okay thank you uh yes vaugh I am a Jamaica plane resident um and I would also like to voice my full support for this project I think John and Jen were far more articulate than I could ever be but I think the the mission of Rogerson
house is just so important um I think a lot of thought and care has gone into this design uh I'm very comfortable with the size and design as presented um and so I I hope you would support this proposal moving forward thank you
thank you Chris Carolyn Rey give us one second while we promote You Caroline are you able to unmute yourself yep there I am uh thanks very much uh I really hope the project goes through Rogerson house has a very good
reputation I live in Jamaica plane um I live near a Rogerson project in eglon square that's uh it seems like it's managed very well they've taken good care of the property so I think the project is really important to have go through but I really appreciate all the
comments of the commission tonight because I think all those uh Design Elements considering all those Design Elements really make a building more appealing and I know there's um it's important to get that right for the people that live around there so I
appreciate those comments and I hope uh I I think the design will get better by taking a look at those thank you thank you so much uh next caller will be uh Jeffrey Campbell Jeffrey are you able to unmute
yourself uh yes can you hear me we can go ahead Jeffrey great um my name is Jeff Campbell I'm a resident of Jamaica plane in fact I live in one of the bowfront uh Brownstones across the street from the proposed building I have
to um oppose this building uh the Commissioners have touched on U many of the elements that are um in question uh namely the size the building materials the location of the proximity to other
buildings um but I I really would just like to talk and since those have already been covered I won't duplicate them but I would just like to you know ask you to consider the impact that this will have on our neighborhood um the size of this
building is going to darken bfort Road uh it'll be a just an empty dead corridor where you won't even be able to grow Street trees it'll darken um uh lockstead Road in the afternoon they'll they'll lose all their afternoon
sunlight this this building is way too big for this neighborhood um you you talked about the density the the neighborhood can't can't take this density it's a one it's a one-way Road it's a one lane road um
that's very narrow and can't support the traffic that has now and the increased density is going to really have a huge impact on the rest of the neighborhood um I've worked in healthcare for 42 years and I completely
understand the need for memory care and I understand the need for affordable housing um but this building is is outsized and and would have a devastating effect on our plastic Boston Neighborhood um so I I would just ask
the Commissioners to please consider the impact this building is going to have on the rest of the neighborhood thank you very much thank you for your comments um Megan Stokes we've promoted you to co-host are you able to unmute
yourself I am thanks um I'm Megan I live in the pondside condo building as well um and I am thrilled that this building is getting made the designs look beautiful I agree that there is just such a shortage of housing particularly
for Elder folks and um with all respect to the last uh speaker there is barely any traffic on bort can certainly handle a little bit more and I think the weighing a little bit of Darkness against housing for tons more people I
think people need housing so I'm in full support as a direct neighbor of this project thank you thank you Megan Peter Marino are you able to unmute
yourself hi uh yes I am my name is Peter Marino and I live at 16 bordt Road directly across the street from the proposed project um I would just want to Echo some of the things that people have said already in terms of the design um
I'm really focused on the height of this building uh the zoning in this neighborhood's 35 ft this building proposes to be 81 ft uh tall uh most everyone that lives on the end of bfort
Road will have the sky blocked out from their view um I'm not talking about direct light but actually be able to look out their window and see Blue Sky uh that will be blocked out by the building um also again it is a one um it
is a one-way Street it's a small Street we do have a lot of traffic um coming and going on the street from Amazon delivery cars to ambulances for Rogerson um a lot of the residents would like to see a separate entrance for this
uh project I know it cuts through the green belt um Zone uh but it would be a big help to um the residents that live on the street already and um I would just love for Roger to actually listen
to the comments from the direct of butters on lockstead and bordt Road and Jamaica Way Court who will be very impacted on this project and work with us to um alter these plans and not be so
enormous on the space thank you thank you so much Peter uh bill I see you're next are you able to unmute yourself hi my name is Bill peros and I've live in the pondside Condominiums directly across the street from the proposed
building um I've lived here for 29 years I'm technically on Lakeville Road bford Road connects to Lakeville Road is a u-shape back to Center Street both roads are one way around the block I'm fundamentally in support a
rogerson's um proposal I think it's important we do need the housing I get it they've been good neighbors with us we're good neighbors to them but it's interesting because the seven story building that's principally right on the
sidewalk on bord road would make a sight line that goes to the second and third floor back of our building that face our own Courtyard I had a a drawing from figure 14 uh
4-14 from the PNF that shows the direct sight line of the seventh floor will actually look into the back windows of the units that are on Lakeville Road if you're unfamiliar with our building it's a U-shaped building on bford and Lakeville and we have a small courtyard
behind our building so I'm on the third floor and people would look right into my windows um and I wouldn't see anything but a seven story building outside the windows so I really think that the height of this is of concern
now the argument has been that um Forbes house is eight stories but it is set back significantly from bford road so I think uh a redesign of the height of the building um um has to be considered thank you very
much thank you so much Bill uh David I believe you're next David are you able to unmute yourself can can you hear me now we can well thank you for uh allowing our comments
um I I agree with uh what an Marie had made a comment earlier about the historic nature of this neighborhood the the pondside area of Jamaica plane is is a very special place um the the emerald necklace is a very special place and
this project in its scale and even its character it really is out of character with the historic nature of the pond site district and this is going to be this is a massive building and it at the
end of the day it's a big box and it you know it's it it would look fine in Kendall Square but in in this historic district it's going to be a permanent blight not only for the Neighbors on bfort and lockstead but for everybody who's walking along the Jamaica way in
the pond they're 100 years from now they're going to be looking at this these giant boxes is completely out of character with the historic nature of this very special part of the city all you have to do is walk three or four
blocks either direction and you will see the the thoughtful detailed historic architecture this completely does not fit Kathy you mentioned the the Ed the word overwhelming that is exactly how the abutters of bordt Road feel this is
going to be overwhelming to the people who have called this home for decades it's a sstory building 57 fet away from the butters who have lived here for a long time mck mck young you mentioned the design for light and how you were
you were impressed with how they they designed the building to to um meet the needs of of the of the seniors light's very important what about the light of the bord street bord road residents the there was no analysis of light there was
no analysis of the Skydome obstruction which is required by article 80 and this wasn't been done lastly very quickly the process has been flawed you're going to hear again and again from the Rogerson team that they're engaging the neighbors from our perspective they have not been listening to our concerns this has not
been an engaging process and for a a a project this massive you need to listen to the reasonable concerns of the abuts thank you for your time thank you David Commissioners at this time we see no additional hands raised so we're going
to close the public testimony period and I'll turn it back to you uh commissioner eastley thank you Christina and thank you we had you know about a 10 or so um really helpful comments from the community so we appreciate your voice um
Commissioners we've now seen the presentation um grateful for your comments as well and now need to make a motion uh would anyone like to make a motion to send a subcommittee yeah motion to send a subcommittee second
second thank you all in favor please say I Jonathan Evans I shna Gilly Smith I mck young Kim hi Kathy kerus hi anarie
lubenau hi David manf Freddy hi B Ron Bill do we have you back with us laara Solano hi Kirk Sykes hi and myself Linda eastley uh Linda I'm back
oh there you are Bill thank you all right uh so uh thank you for the presentation today and we look forward to working together in subcommittee thank you Commissioners next is 151 Cambridge Street which is also the West End
library site this also is the first presentation to bcdc it's both an affordable housing project and on public land and commissioner Evans is recused from this project Jonathan will have you come back
for the last one and um I think we're ready for planning staff overview Ted are you um presenting that part yes I'll be kicking off this one thank you very much uh so just a quick overview of The Proposal
this is the result of an RFP that was issued by the city as part of its housing with public assets program to uh look for opportunities to uh develop income restricted housing over public facilities uh this is the site of a one-story Public Library branch the West
End branch and the proposal seeks to develop a new 19,000 square foot library with uh 119 units of housing in the building uh that will comprise 14 stories next slide please now um the zoning map uh the the
bcdc of course doesn't Grant zoning relief that's the board of appeal but uh this uh zoning map is a little bit of a mix of different abutting contexts and I'll explain that a little bit more in the next slide as well but just to note this is in the Cambridge Street North
protection area and there are a few other regulatory letter layers which is a land disposition agreement with the city because this is a West End urban renewal site uh the tree ordinance also applies because of some trees on site
and then uh on the next slide I'll talk a little bit about the historic context uh if you could Advance uh so uh on this slide um uh you can see in the image on the left a tableau that brings together a few different planning contexts that
demonstrate how hard it is to write zoning that covers what you'd really want to see in this built enir enironment at the bottom of the image is the four and five story uh Beacon Hill brick tenement typology that used to historically extend across to the north side of uh Cambridge Street before of
course the Boston Redevelopment Authority gave us what we see in this image uh on the left side is Charles River Plaza uh that is uh 650,000 SQ foot facility that has uh Mass General Medical Offices and research facilities
as well as retail uh the um Library is the hexagonal building in the middle that is one story uh and then um to the right is the Otis house which is uh the last vestig vestigal piece of Bowen Square uh which is a context that
predates this all uh and this building was built in 1795 uh so all that's to say that uh in the image on the right you'll see uh just an example of how uh the zoning maximums could play out in a massing study that staff here did uh with a
maximum height of 65 feet and F5 uh but uh given all these uh colliding and clashing uh planning contexts uh it's really hard to encode what we'd actually want to see in the built environment in the zoning on this site uh so zooming out uh Seth is going
to Now cover a little bit about the RFP that gave us this site and I think Diana might be covering that thanks Di yeah thanks Tad um so one of the things that we really do want to call out for all the commission tonight is that um within
the RFP text as Ted mentioned um there was explicit language about um how many of the existing or planned buildings for this area um are as tall or even taller um than uh what is being proposed so we wanted to zoom you out a bit and give
you a little bit of that context what you're seeing here some of the development that's currently under construction for uh the Mass General sites um and really understand the evolution of Cambridge Street um which is really uh you know uh evolving um and
changing in terms of character descending from you know Heights of up upwards of 280 ft uh down to that uh smaller scale context so although our zoning uh is um the 65 ft as uh Ted
highlighted here uh within the writing of the r RP we did um explicitly call out that it would be expected right that the selected developer would seek a variance um through the zba uh to allow for building Heights that exceed that 65t height limit given that existing
already built uh context so with that um I'm going to go ahead and kick it back to Christina and the proponent great and the proponent uh just a heads up we'll give put time 10 minutes here on the clock for you great I will go ahead and share my
screen good evening Commissioners my name is Megan altendorf design director at Mass Design Group and I will be presenting the West End Library development tonight I'm joined by our development Partners POA and C Capital as well as tat the
architect of record and G2 collaborative the Landscape Architects for this project here's some quick stats on the program this 165 ft 14-story building will be a community Beacon grounded by a twostory public library with 12
residential stories above creating 119 new units of affordable housing the project is located at a key intersection of Beacon Hill and the West End offering an opportunity for the project to meld and reflect these two
contrasting Urban characters here are some images of the project site and its existing condition to its West and North are the large towers and institutional buildings that are Hallmarks of the post urban renewal neighborhood to the east and south
across Cambridge Street in Beacon Hill are buildings that are tied to Boston's historical iconography including Charles bullfinch's famed Harrison great Otis house next door in the Old West Church two doors down which once served as the
home of the Westend Library the Weston's landscape was transformed radically after urban renewal disrupting a once vibrant culturally diverse Community the neighborhood had been rich in Social and Civic institutions fostering connection
and belonging Joe McDonald a third generation westender shared how past Community ties have faded despite the area's resources inspired by Erin Eric kleinberg's palaces for the people we see this project as a chance to restore
the social infrastructure that once made the West End a hub of connection now fast forward to the future West End the Project's massing and design is driven by the character of the existing neighborhood fabric adjacent buildings
reflect different areas of the West End allowing the projects massing to engage with their scales dams and materials creating a design rooted in its context we have an EST we have established an appropriate height and scale for the building keeping within the ranges of
density already existing in the West End we've also pushed the bulk of the building North maximizing the public realm and minimizing Shadow impacts on adjacent structures to illustrate these massing moves the following sequence demonstrates how the project is
developed to integrate into the Western neighborhood first we set back the building Mass 22 feet from the property line establishing a large public realm along Cambridge Street then we've set back the tower at
level in an effort to maintain the scale of the Urban Street wall that exists along Cambridge Street while com complimenting the proportions of the Otis house and Old West Church in an effort to revive the
streetcape activity of the old west end we shaped a large public Plaza adjacent to the Otis house by sliding the twostory volume of the library West we've also created a private open space space for the library aligned with
Joy Street forming an alleys sized Park referencing the former location of Chamber Street prior to urban renewal next the two-story Library volume slides North expanding the open space along Cambridge Street and
features generous window walls along its Frontage connecting the library space visually to the neighborhood the upper Tower is then shared strategic ically to the West at the residential elevator lobbies moving the mass of the tower away from the Otis
house and providing more Breathing Room between the two buildings lastly the per perimeter walls of the rear Tower Mass are extended up to create a continuous screening element to hide rooftop equipment further breaking down the bulk of the
Tower and again here's a view of the final massing rotated now from the southwest now I will shift to the open space plan here's a view of the ground floor plan North is Page left the public publicly accessible open space is orange AB
budding the Otis house property we've been in conversations with historic New England and view this space as a shared Vision which they plan to expand on with their own Redevelopment of the Otis House Museum the residential entry is adjacent
to this open space and set back from the street the library entry is located in the more prominent location on Cambridge Street and we've created a generous front porch for the library depicted in light blue and to the West we see the
small outdoor space dedicated to the library now I will pass to G2 to speak more to the landscape design thank you Megan um as Megan mentioned the library addresses the street with a front porch like gesture as the sidewalk grade fall
WS east to west the library entry rises from the sidewalk grade to reveal broad steps on the western side nearest the library doors along with the steps benches create a casual pausing spot to receive pedestrian traffic from along Cambridge Street as well as from the
crosswalk four new Street trees continue the basic Cadence of Street trees along Cambridge Street and will ultimately create canopy over both the sidewalk and the library entry area next slide please some of the wood seating ele will have arms and back rests while in other
places the seating will be tiered to provide multi-use playful moments in the space this open space is designed to create an embracing Edge to the possible future development at the otus house the metal edged Planters deflect in plan alignment to allow for social Eddy space
and planted space while deemphasizing but still allowing for the north south vehicular maintenance Lane the plaza also provides opportunities to integrate historic markers or other storytelling moments to reference the rich history of the West End next
slide here you can see the plint of the library reinforced by the metal Planters at the building face and the stair that emerges to the West as the grade Falls East to West and on the right side is the plaza space between the library and the Otis house next
slide and in this view your back is to the Otis house and you see the plaza with its movable furniture and seating opportunities you can see the visual connections through to the library straight ahead and the residential Lobby to the right thanks Chi I'll go ahead and wrap
up uh with our presentation with an overview of the facade design while the building massing intentionally responds to its Urban fabric we've developed a facade language to organize these forms into a cohesive whole we've worked to achieve Harmony across the massing with
a brick framework to tie the build together this organizing frame also references the proportions of the Otis house the design celebrates the community programming throughout the building so Community spaces are treated as subtle exceptions from the organizing
architectural Lang language of the rest of the building seen here in red investment in high quality materials gives the facade richness form and depth on this slide we see some examples of the propos facade materials in examples
of the Cambridge Street context throughout history we aimed to honor the Weston's history without replicating historic details creating a modern building that Bridges past and present through layered facade materials the brick frame organizes the massing while
textured infill panels reference historic shutters and lap siding for Community spaces a specialty panel emphasizes connection while the library features a rougher brick text T symbolizing Urban renewal's impact and
distinguishing it as a lasting Civic institution we emphasize this concept of historic layering through the facade with layers of brick representing different eras of the West End the library facade contrasts the residential brick detailing reading as a more
monolithic yet transparent form reflecting its role as a welcoming Civic anchor literally and figuratively supporting the housing above and I will end here with three key views of the project thank you so much for your time and
attention thank you Megan and Gigi for a great uh presentation Diana do we have any Urban Design slides we do we can pull those up um so we first want to start off with the site plan um I think there are a
couple of um elements we really want to draw your attention to as Commissioners uh the first is really understanding how the Otis house property um and uh the West End library and housing project here really work together from an open
space standpoint and how will uh those sharer spaces um really engage and are we being thoughtful about the design interventions there to ensure that this reads as a unified composition um and also operates that way uh we also want to investigate um how decreasing
pavement especially uh pavement um that is coming uh closest to um the sidewalk uh can enhance uh The Pedestrian experience and so um there's currently a lot of paid paths and uh really want to look at opportunities to enhance Greenery uh in this part of the
neighborhood uh we also want to ensure that as we're thinking about um the sidewalk itself how how do we understand um how these key transition points where the property line ends are are being thought of um specifically on the Odus
side um as well as uh on on the West Side here and imagining how the these um different sidewalk Transitions and uh varying wids um inform your experience uh of the site and then finally we also want to think about uh whether there are
low vision uh navigation possibilities um that could uh help us sort of remove the stair adjacent to the prow um and really create a much more welcoming and accessible uh condition uh to the entrance of the site and if we go to the
next slide um we do have a couple of comments to share as well as it relates to the massing and articulation this is certainly a handsome composition uh we want to continue to sort of emphasize the distinctiveness of the library uh while integrating it into
the overall composition and I think specifically I'm going to jump down to uh element number four here really understanding how this distinctive uh composition relates to the core um and whether or not uh we want to be more intentional about integrating it into
the overall massing approach uh or more or more purposefully uh contrasting it um to that composition uh we also want to focus a bit on um how to call out that this is a library um libraries across the city are
I just think about the library at the njp right that has this sort of uh canopy and Awning that really draw your attention as that you know Civic space and Is there further refinement or articulation uh there uh and then finally I think the team has really developed a thoughtful material
approach but we want to continue to work on the coloration of the predominant frame and the info uh panel material um and make sure we're striking the right balance from a contextual standpoint thank you Diana that's great information and we're going to move to
the commissioner comments now if we could pull up a site plan for the Commissioners to reference that would be great I don't know Megan or Gigi if you could do that please great I see it coming up and the
Commissioners will be sharing comments that will guide the work that will continue to do with you so we are not asking you to answer or address any of these um comments tonight but we will go ahead and start with um Katherine and just a note to the
Commissioners uh we had a lot of robust public uh comment in our last project and are expecting more for the projects that are coming so I just ask you to keep your comments Compact and um that way we'll be able to
get all of the voices in today Katherine thank you um thank you for the presentation um I just wanted to understand that the current footprint or square footage of the library does that remain the same or does it shrink I'm
trying to understand in in context to the overall project sure I can I can answer that uh so right now I believe the library square footage is about 5,000 square feet and folks from the city correct me if I'm wrong uh the new library that's
proposed will be 19,000 square feet okay so it's getting significantly larger appreciate that I do want to just double down on something that um Dan pointed out is that there's not enough of Distinction and signaling that this is a
library it kind of Blends in and people can miss it and so for residents that are entering um uh at another entrance or for people looking for this building it do that that that base the Library part
does not it's nothing distinctive about it so I just challenge you all to think about what that could be um as it is part of the community thank you Katherine sha so sorry thank you the thank you
thank you for the presentation I'm actually not going to comment on on the landscape because I think I agree with all of Diana's points I think they were excellent um I just want a point of clarification is this architectural team
designning the library I thought there may be another architectural team designing the library and then I would like to understand how that review process is going to go ahead maybe make so I can sure I can I can answer uh the first question we are
not designing the Li Library interior we're designing the Corin shell so BPL will have their own design architect for the interior Library space but you are designing the exterior correct okay okay and sha this question and this is a
similar model model to the Chinatown Branch with this which the same commission you you all Commissioners reviewed as well so it's corn shell delivery and then the BPL has a really robust architectural uh team that will focus on the interior fit out and the design and programming that
space thank you thanks shaa Kathy yes thank you um great presentation and and really really interesting project I'll I'll Echo the um previous point about calling out the library more distinctively I think that
um isn't coming across at least in the presentation and maybe in committee there's more we'll we'll learn on that um I would like to to understand um as the design goes the projection at the front of the building on the um what
third or fourth floor um and above um uh that that feels to me like it it may be competing a bit with the um historic buildings nearby um it it doesn't seem to um and plus I'm not sure that I um I
understand uh its composition in relation to the rest of the building and I I'd like to just understand that better and I think it um might be um a matter of what's going on on the inside but as the the the rest of the building
is is very um contextual and and seems to be also almost it fits in beautifully this seems to make it um this feels to me like a jolt in the in the facade and I um would
like to understand it better um particularly in relation to the adjacencies um and then I I'd also um like to understand a little bit more about the line with um the Otis house
next door and where the the um the where the flow may be across um property boundaries and and how that will be how that will work and how it will be managed um where are where is loading um where's drop off and literally how will
this space be managed um will it be as as Library patrons go um and and the management of um 24-hour access along this Edge um what
will be the the treatment of of um people after dark um things like that given that this is um private above and public on at the ground level I think it would just be um important to understand that in Rel relation to the
design um and uh and accessibility um again 24 hours or at least 18 but that's it thank you Kathy and Marie uh thank you very exciting project
I'd like to just add to the the comments um this is a very uh this is a a very important transitional site and mediates the transition between several different contexts and it's not clear to me that you you described the manipulation of
the massing but I'd like to understand how the the design of the facade itself uh begins to respond to those different contexts and then I think I'm really intrigued by the relationship of the new structure to the otus house and can't
help but wonder if there's an opportunity to really increase the focus on that space that public space that links the two and think about you know one thing that's not clear to me although I see some indications on this plan is you know where are the entrances
you know and thinking about where are the sorts of places that just knowing that street I would want to hang out and or I would want to spend time and quite frankly I would be more attracted to the smaller scale otus house than um a front porch along Cambridge Street with a
heavy overhang so I just encourage you to to think about the comments about you know how do you you know what constitutes Civic you know how do you signal uh that there's a building entrance and then how do we really knit or how do you knit this structure both
the library and then the tower above you know into the surrounding landscape and I think there's an opportunity for some some more subtlety than is there at the moment thank you thank you enar
Bill yes um thank you for intriguing presentation uh there's a lot to like about this building um uh I am not personally troubled by the height because uh certainly on the edge of a
neighborhood that is full of tall buildings um and um I think the materiality is is uh is quite beautiful as a matter of fact uh uh I also with the exception of third floor and fifth
floor which we'll talk about in a minute I think the understatement of the window patterns on the lower level two levels and above the sixth floor um uh if if maintained uh they're they're
elegantly designed so the one issue and I I fear it is potentially overwhelming the building is the issue of the projection of floors three four and five
so U Kathy erased that uh in with certain words anarie just did um someone maybe it was an Marie used the word heavy heavy overhang of floors 3 four and five and I think that is getting us
very it's getting in the way of what could be a very elegant building uh the that overhang is extending 10 to 15 feet to the right and it's extending 10 to 10 to 12 feet probably towards the street
and we're sitting next to a building that is so beautiful in its Simplicity and proportion and the I would argue the the third fourth and fifth floor is bringing um a complexity to the building
being presented that is really unnecessary and gets in the way of a really beautiful building so I would love to think that the Architects might go back and look at that single question
in what otherwise looks like a potentially beautiful building thanks for your comments Bill Kirk yeah I I think uh Bill and and others have done a great job talking about um some very thoughtful design
architectural design work uh and and massing ideas so I'm going to focus on the Plaza a little bit and I agree with Diana that uh you know introduction of additional Green Space in this Oasis I mean it really is uh one of the few
places that could be a really beautiful uh rest bit along Cambridge Street so you know looking forward to the design in particular I I'd love you to FOC focus a bit on the uh the lighting strategies both ballards
building lighting and and then also the opportunity to maybe give BPL more Daylight whether it's a pylon sign or something else that might stand out uh G given that you have this Plaza and you have uh long views to the site so the
one the one building coming I will make is I really appreciated the last slide you presented which included The View use uh from the City Hall Plaza side of Cambridge Street towards the building because uh given its prominence above
the smaller building next to it uh these other elevations are going to get um they're going to be important and um so the few in the lower leftand corner and even the one on the upper left uh I
think are as important as the one on the right and how the building presents itself uh in the longer views uh and could be quite important so uh I think this can turn out to be a great project I look forward to seeing what you do next thank
you thank you Kirk Laura we're missing your audio Laura I think you're just on mute we're still uh I think you're still on mute at least on my screen how about that there great thank you could we go
back to the the site plan and it really clear terrific presentation and I appreciate that at this early stage in the project or early to us um I want to understand more about
how pedestrian circulation works and what the overlay of servicing is so a diagram that shows the difference between those um would be great um as well as understanding what the Otis
house property I understand that we don't um you don't control that but that's such a stark um line there I'd like to understand if that's their loading area and how that
works um so add that to the diagram and I would also like to know how you see the Courtyard area the alleyway um which I like very much how
you see it being used right you have um both residents and um Library uh patrons using it and I I I guess I'd like a day in the life of the plaza um from you
know a weekday to a weekend um and I I would love to see some sections or a way to really get a sense of the scale of this and particularly um a section that goes
through to the Otis house property so that we can understand what the distance is there um let me see oh and it and um in doing that diagram of the circulation
it would be good to see where the overhang actually is in plan um I know that you've peeled it back so that we could see this plan um but I think it would be important to understand um how much of the plaza it
actually covers and last have you done sun shade diagrams yes they're in the PNF okay it might be good to to pull those out um next time uh just so that we can understand them do you also have wind
studies or are you not that far yes Al yes they're also in the p&f okay um might be great to talk about those next time just to see what's what um otherwise I think uh the other
Commissioners made some great points and we'll leave it at that just a final I just want to piggyback on what Laura has just talked about because I think it's right on um just to piggyback one more request which is within that kind of day in the life
um it would be helpful to see kind of programming diagrams of the scale of activity so you have a reading room outside how many chairs and because this could be a really vibrant um outdoor space and I'd love to see an
experimentation during subcommittee right now a lot of the planting is sort of um surrounding the foundation of the building and um just wondering if there's a way in which some of the planting could be freed from the building and you could actually see the
building sort of meet the ground um but I I just want to say that I think this is a really um interesting building and I really support it I think it's um it's going to be a unique uh building that sort of bridges between history and
future so I really think it's great thank you Mick young thanks for jumping in since we can't see your sorry raised hand you gotta do it I gota do it I'll add just a few comments I really liked
uh what Bill said I would encourage in subcommittee that you come with some of the maybe earlier massing studies that you did that potentially looked at not having that overhang I think there's so many handsome things about this building and that's the piece that um feels most
troublesome to me and then the other thing I'll add you know this there's a lot of Paving on this site in an area of the city that has a lot of Paving and I think coupled with the otus house property and I know they may have some
plans of their own but it feels like um this could be a completely different place if we thought about it more as kind of a soft skate park um that also allowed some of the service requirements to occur and so I wonder when you come
to subcommittee if you could kind of flip that Paradigm for us and be thinking about how this might um have more green space and less Hardscape and also what that experience might be as you're coming along the sidewalk since she'll be looking up at
this plaset in some of that Frontage Christina I think we are ready for any public comment at this time we'd like to invite any members of the the public and attendance who may wish to contribute public testimony to raise your digital
hand and staff will call on you if you're calling in by phone press star n on your dial pad to activate the raiseed hand function and star six to mute and unmute yourself please state your name and any relevant project affiliation information and please keep your comments to two
minutes Sarah we have promoted you are you able to unmute yourself thank you so much hi my name is Sarah my pronoun are she her hers and and I'm the executive pastor of the Union combined Parish of which Old West Church is a part and where I've served for over a decade at
this point I'm a little concerned when old west is mentioned but we have not been reached out to for any of the uh conversations in which maybe these maybe we're not talking to the community just yet and maybe this is just staying within the BPL and
within uh you know residents but it is odd to be see old west and Otis house mentioned um when these maybe Community groups maybe Otis house has been reached out to but uh I know for a fact that old west has not um and so as one of the
only two remaining historical sites in um the West End and as a group that has like actively sought to be a community center um and has spent the last decade transforming our front yard from grass to a vibrant Food Forest I'm deeply
concerned that some of this the height uh is going to cover the fact that we will not be able to have as long of a growing season um and it's also I am concerned I would like to see how construction is going to uh how we're
going to assess that to impact both otus house and Old West um what are the mitigations that are going to be provided to make sure that maybe the foundations nothing is impacted for these two historic buildings as a nonprofit um it's very difficult for us
to uh ensure that this historic gym it remains in tiptop shape um and so there is going to be a high inundation of construction in that area um continuing from Mass General this property of course and then looking at of course the
hurle building um in the future and so I would love to know how um obviously in the future this plans to uh deal with the flow of traffic and also the care of the existing buildings thank you thank you
Sarah Janette are you able to unmute yourself hi uh thank you my I'm Janette Herman I live in the neighborhood um I think it's a really exciting project that we're being presented with here um I have some significant concerns about
the impact of the proposed truck Act access across that Public Access open space on the east side of the building um and I think maybe if you guys can see the the um the site plan you'll you'll understand it better uh the the the PNF
specifies that trucks will be able to pull in on a 12- foot Lane that goes across that public open space I think that's probably why it's all paved um but the the worst from my perspective is that they will then need to back out on
to brid Street to leave that will carry them across a busy sidewalk across a bike lane and into very heavy traffic it'll be within 70 feet of a crosswalk and near a blue bike Hub it's it's a really busy spot um
Whole Foods is adjacent to the site so a lot of traffic is turning across both lanes of all all the lanes of Cambridge Street here the bike lane is interrupted in front of this site because there's a there's a bump out out um there's there
are lots of emergency vehicles that add to the confusion ambulances traveling the street on their way to M General a couple blocks away and there's a fire station across the street um the vision zero database lists 12 bike incidents
eight motor vehicle incidents five pedestrian incidents in the past 10 years in this immediate area between Stanford and uh Blossom Street I hope that the Commissioners will ask the proponents to to address
the experience in the public realm particularly with respect to the sidewalks and the bike Lanes this feels like a very very dangerous place to have the the trash and moving trucks um backing across all that all that public
space um I have other concerns about the public realm um I don't think that that courtyard is really much of a courtyard um it's got Planters in it it it's uh it's an area that um the neighbor the the neighbors have asked a lot of PL a
lot of Institutions to close their open green spaces because of the behaviors um that have been um problematic for the residents of buildings along Cambridge Street I'm sorry I'm so sorry to
interrupt you um if you have longer comments though we invite testimony written testimony to um bcdc boston.gov and I can put that in the chat here I've got it thank you okay thank you so much Janette um Commissioners I see no
additional hands raised at this time so with that I turn this back over to you commissioner Easley thank you and thank you Sarah and Janette for your comments uh Commissioners um we need a
motion I move that we uh send it to design subcommittee yeah I second that thank you Bill and MCD and all in favor please say I
shaa I Nick Young Kim hi Kathy karitas hi anarie hi David David man Freddy still with us doesn't look like it all right um
Katherine Morris hi Bill Ron hi Laura Solano hi Kirk hi myself Linda eastley I look forward to seeing you all in subcommittee thank you thank you thank
you next up is our last project but not our last agenda item for the night which is 920 Center Street and um mck and David are David hen are both recused from this
project and this is the first presentation to bcdc of this project and Ted I think we are ready for planning staff overview great thank you uh so kicking
off this one uh 920 Center Street uh proposes uh a reuse of an existing Convent uh existing former Convent uh that is a 50,000 square foot structure that would contain 38 residential units and then
behind it uh would and attached would be a new building that would be 171,000 square feet contain 85 units in a four-story building uh important to note overall this uh site is 3.3 Acres uh
next slide please so setting this rather large site in its context um uh open space planning is quite important in this context uh this is also on the Green Belt protection overlay District which I mentioned uh
earlier in our um review of the project on the Jamaica way uh likewise this is on one of uh the green belt protection overlay districts in Jamaica plane uh for the Arborway uh and I'll remind folks that the that overlay is designed
designed to protect open space along the edges of these Parkways and that's the front of this site uh additionally uh the uh Department of Conservation and Recreation is undergoing a redesign process for this intersection anyone who's familiar with it right now uh this
is uh a pretty large traffic circle or rotary uh and um the proposed design uh build in a larger open space buffer on the states land uh that I'm sure the proponent will talk about in their proposal but right now uh the sidewalk
and the road just beyond it AB buts uh the property that's outlined in red and there'll be an open space buffer between the road and this property on the state's land in the future uh once this project is realized next slide please uh as proposed the project needs
only uh one item of zoning relief and that's for the re yard setback um and this uh district is a conservation protection subdistrict and as is noted in the zoning these districts are established to promote the most desirable use of land and sighting of
development and areas with special natural or Scenic features in accordance with a well-considered site plan and to protect the and enhance the natural and Scenic resources of Jamaica plane so uh the site design is going to be particularly important for the Landscape
Architects among us to pay attention to and the zoning code uh calls out the site plan specifically uh as proposed uh the project is uh putting forward an 18t rear yard setback uh against the rear
yard on the other side of that property line is the Arboretum so this is an important neighbor uh but also uh through uh the zoning it allows staff in the article 80 process to Grant um to
effectively Grant zoning relief uh it allows uh the rear setback to be set by bpda staff through the review process and the while zoning requires 50 feet uh for non-article 80 projects in this instance an 18 foot setback would be
appropriate uh as part of the goal of the overall zoning uh for CPS districts uh and then also keeping in mind that green belt overlay that protects the open space on the front of the site that also informed the staff review that uh thinks this setback is appropriate so to
delve a little bit more into detail on this design I'll hand it over to Diana thank you thank you Ted um so one of the key um elements of this project is as you have heard with many other housing projects here um we certainly want to
incentivize residential uh development um across the city uh while ensuring that we're minimizing those impacts to site and and some of the uh budding uh neighbors here uh one of the key pieces we want to call out is the existing Monastery building
um this is a building that we've been working with our colleagues uh in landmarks um to really understand um the historical importance of of this building in the context of the site uh composition and ensuring that we're uh
taking best practices to preserve the existing Monastery uh we have also really worked uh closely uh to with the team to enhance um the historic relationship of the monastery to the Arborway um um and
specifically um thinking about um how to enhance that front yard uh and make it more publicly accessible um if you drive by today it's um a little turnaround uh uh with lots of pavement and there's certainly a lot of opportunity to enhance that space um in addition to
that um there's a significant amount of mature canopy on this site and as Ted noted uh in the zoning it is a priority of the CPS zones uh and we want to work uh with the proponents here to preserve as as much of that canopy as as is
possible um we've also uh want to make sure um that we are being sensitive to minimizing both um visual uh view shed impacts um and Shadow impacts uh to the Arboretum uh specifically looking at um the articulation of the massing and its
overall composition uh to ensure that uh this project is a good neighbor uh to the arboro great Diana anything anything else that you wanted to share at this point uh no I think we'll go ahead and let the proponent uh uh complete their
presentation and then uh we'll share a couple of our uh design comments um at the end thank you so I think we're ready um for the proponent team 16 penny hen and mcky young Kim are the team and then
um have Diana share some of those Urban Design comments and then we'll dive into commissioner comments hi my name is uh Paul Bala and I'm with the proponent 16 peny I'd like to thank the commission and Boston planning for inviting us here this
evening to um present our project to you I know it's getting late so we will move through this as quickly as possible uh as Ted mentioned the site is the former home to the poor Clair sisters a uh CL thir order of nuns that purpose-built
and occupied this site for almost 90 years while it no longer met their needs um they've been sensitive about its repurpose and these considerations have guided the proposed Redevelopment uh and influen the goals that we've set for this project uh first and foremost among
those is to create new housing um this includes 123 total units with 38 of those um dedicated to seniors in the existing Monastery building um and uh while the structure is not
historically significant um we have um it it it occupies a prominent position along Center Street um and over the years has uh become a local Landmark as the JP Community has uh grown around it
um also as uh Diana mentioned the um front of the monastery is currently not very accessible um and one of our goals is to improve the access ability improve the Landscapes and add additional
structure uh infrastructure um and uh to help us bring this Vision to reality we've assembled uh what we believe to be an excellent design team we have uh David Hassen and his office working on the architecture along with Mick young T
Kim's team on the landscape architecture and with that uh we'll have uh Matthew Mankey from David's office and Brian Cho from mck young King's office bring you through the design for this project good evening members of the
commission my name is Matthew Mankey and I'm with Hass Architects Dive Right In 920 Center Street is uniquely positioned within Jamaica plane ajacent to the Arnold armorum and within close proximity to Jamaica Pond and Franklin Park these connections to Boston's
Emerald necklace strongly inform our site planning and massing strategies ensuring that the project both respects and enhances its natural setting the site is also surrounded by a mix of residential uses including single family homes and multi-unit Wellings making it
an ideal location for a thoughtfully integrated Housing Development uh just to show you a bit of our initial uh Mass scene development our design has evolved over multiple iterations prior priori prior
prioritizing scale transparency and contextual Sensi it initially conceived as a five-story bar building we've refined the massing in response to site conditions and stakeholder input very early on WE introduced a central Courtyard to break up the massing and
enhance natural light penetration between the two buildings further refinements led to a more porous scheme ining the landscape into the site and offering visual permeability through strategic view corridors ultimately we decided it was important to reduce the height from five to four floors
maintaining the key dimensions of the courtyards while preserving the monastery and brick existing brick site wall current massing building upon our previous massing studies we have arrived at a four-story strategy that aims to integrate more seamlessly with existing
Monastery while maximizing openness and connectivity to natural beauty of the site and its surroundings the key refinements include massing reduced from five stories to four as seen by the dash line of previous schemes and then the lower four story scheme wrapping the
side we were uh ke another key refinement was retaining three strategic view slot corridors that penetrate the building to enhance visual permeability and strength in the relationship with the landscape also preserving the monastery
and its existing site wall obviously and establishing the rear Courtyards proportion to maintain its historic character forther carving and M Ming setbacks to maximize opportunity for private and common outdoor spaces on the upper floors of the building again for further
context the site section area views from the existing context here show an overall site section cut through the center of the courtyard and starting from the base of Moss Hill on the left side of the page across Center Street through the monastery the courtyard the
new building and existing brick wall at the rear of the property and then extending downhill into the arrum the areal views shown at the bottom show the existing site surrounding context as seen from Google Earth quick view of our ground floor which shows the senior housing units
with the monastery colored in Orange units in the new bass tber building to the rear colored in green and then amenity space dispersed between the two buildings colored in blue building elevations the revised four-story scheme is carefully scaled to integrate within the surroundings as
seen this was the previous scheme as you can see this is the existing tree canopy which was generated with a lar scan to get accurate Heights and then the current scheme dropping that floor down wrapping this side of the building around the monastery to gain that Mass
on the north side of the property the west elevation illustrates the reduced height and the articulation of building forms to align with the site's historical character the east south and north elevations illustrate the careful modulation of the maing by
stepping the new construction forwards and backwards and maintaining a rhythmic balance of solid and void the building aims to reinforce the scale and texture of the surrounding residential neighborhood while offering contemporary yet sensitive architectural
expression these adjustments reinforce our commitment to contextually sensitive development that enhances both livability and public experience materiality material pallet draws inspiration from the existing Monastery utilizing custom profile terracotta
panels create warmth and depth handmade long format bricks to establish a Timeless tactile quality warm bronze-toned metal panels to complement an enrich surrounding architecture these choices will combine
to result in a contemporary yet respectful response to the site's historic fabric resident Courtyard view the resident Courtyard is designed as a quiet contemplative space offering privacy and comfort especially for seniors to look into and occupy sun and
shade shift throughout the day creating a dynamic and tranquil Retreat the new brick two-story volume on the left side of the page align lines in the monastery's arcade on the right side of the page opening up to the sky enhancing the sense of
Serenity last view pickup drop off Plaza a generous open and comfortable drop off that links the two buildings emphasizes the merging of architecture and Landscape careful calibration of new architecture materials to the existing Monastery include brick residentially
scaled Windows an entrance canopy Etc elements like balconies and new Dormers offer a finer grain to the design that provides variety and a sense of collection of buildings with that I will hand it off to Brian show from the landscape design
teames Brian great um as we dive into the landscape design our goal has always been to support the health and well-being of the residents and Nestle the building into a verdant Garden that leans into the biodiversity of the plants and pollinator friendly
practices uh this site has is historically Rich um a big component of the existing site uh is the wall that defines the limit of the cloistered Courtyard up until last year this area has been uh continuously used by the
nuns of the monastery and um has not been seen by the public um as part of the historic connection to the site we're retaining that wall and letting the N it be a natural boundary between the purely residential areas of the site and the
more public facing areas uh next slide uh just zooming into the front of the site um it shows how we're retaining that historic turnaround in the front of the monastery um but integrating it into the
site uh as flexible program space the main driveway uh is on the left hand side on the south side of the site where vehicles uh will go to the drop off and the garage entrance the frontage Zone um in its existing condition is mostly lawn
with a few significant trees the design transforms this area into a more resident focused uh Garden plantings with softer materials uh for the public realm improvements we're including a new sidewalk that links to the Arborway
Murray Circle improvements to the north of the site as well as blue bike stations and a bus stop Improvement uh next slide uh pedestrian circulation uh shows our main pedestrian access connects a to the historic Monastery uh
to make the site and historic building accessible we're grading the site uh down uh to a lower floor to um than the existing condition you can see the uh elevation compared to the Courtyard elevation the site itself has a lot of
undulating grades uh that slope to the West and the to the north making accessibility a careful consideration for the site design that's 10 minutes Brian okay thanks um this is just planting and then I'll just show you the two renderings that we have if you go to
the next slide uh this just shows um the old and the new um buildings coming together with the landscape Bridging the space and then the last slide is the garden from anage to the
monastery and the driveway that crosses through the historic wall I think we're very aware of the site's historic context and importance as a landmark to the community and we want to ensure that the development of the landscape creates a space that feels new and natural while
honoring the substance of the site context and with that I think we're looking forward to working with the commission to answer any questions that you might have thanks thank you Paul Matthew and Brian I think Diana is going to share Urban
Design absolutely so we want to leave you with a couple of thoughts here as you uh engage in your deliberation um the first is that we want to continue to sort of enhance the physical and visual barrier between the Arboretum uh we had heard um specific
feedback from the Arboretum around the closeness of the building itself and its impact to view sheds uh so really looking to work with the team to address um that uh particular particular Edge and whether there are opportunities to expand uh the buffer zone uh to create
more of a separation there uh we also want to make sure that um the massing and of the building and the planted Zone um allows for the best outcome from a vegetation standpoint so again uh increasing those buffer zones could also
uh enable for more of that rich vegetation to mature over time uh we also want to uh continue to consider the entry uh experience um specifically how can the changes in pavement material or
width um enhance or create a portal uh transformation um is there an opportunity um to create a moment here similar to how that Flex entry Plaza Zone um is uh functioning both as a drop
off and also as this uh community space uh and we similarly think that there could be opportunities uh on that uh pickup Edge um and with that uh I think if we go to the next slide I can share a little bit on the
architecture uh we want to be uh really mindful of the materiality and the relationship between the old and the new uh we do think that the material palette that the team has shared is certainly akin to um many of the existing materials on site um and want to figure
out um how the interventions um that are happening to the monastery relate uh to the new more contemporary Mass behind it and specifically how the Technics of the materiality build uh a more explicit
relationship or logic between the existing building um and uh the new addition behind uh so there's you know a lot of cues and fenestration in that existing Mony that could potentially carry over um into uh the building U
massing behind and with that I think that concludes our comments thanks Diana appreciate it uh can we have the proponent bring up a site plan to get us started on our commissioner
comments and I wanted to compliment the team on a really thorough and clear presentation as well Kirk you want to start us off yeah thank you uh thanks for the presentation
uh very beautiful site um that that's hiding in plain sight uh it's one of those places uh that's that's down the street but I'm not really sure I fully understand it so when you come to um
committee I think it would be really helpful to see some longer views because my sense is given the setbacks and some all the vegetation that's here um this is a very private site but I I
guess I don't know that yet from the presentations there were a lot of close-end shots and then there were some I don't think that the um elevations um did Justice to uh the context and the screening that actually
happens around it so that that would really help me uh understand the building and its set the other uh comment has to do with the elements on top of the very simple uh new massing that you've introduced there are some
green metal it appears um masses that I don't fully think I understand how they fit in or uh how they're integrated or or recall of elements of the existing Monastery building so th those might
have been uh some concerns but I I would say of the vignettes that you showed of the more pastoral places and contemplative places between uh the buildings Etc uh it it does look quite exciting um and peaceful so those are my
comments Thank You Thank you Kirk Kathy yes thank you um and and thank you for the very lovely presentation I appreciate um how you've seen this site
and the challenges that it presents um when trying to um address the the opportunity to create additional housing and and to that end I want to thank you for um seeing the efficacy of maintaining the historic Monastery
building which I'll underscore by today's standards would be considered historic it may not have a inventory form and all the things that that you may be searching down to substantiate that but um today if we were surveying this neighborhood we
would say that that that is an important building for many social and Architectural uh reasons um but I think the the thing I'm more concerned about um is the relationship of this site to the Arboretum and particularly at the far
back and uh with certainly within the wall that exists and and I appreciate that you're keeping that as as well um but I I do think um when in committee I'd like to see as Kirk just said the
longer views that give us some understanding of the views from the Arboretum and I would ask specifically to see it to see perspectives on this um from the Gate of the Arborway gate um
and the hell building um just so that we understand what the um the that short um connection or that that sorry the the portion of the back um new building as as close as it gets
to that wall what the um what that actually means um in terms of height um and possibly um Shadow and and related impacts possibly on the trees that I see there are those new are those being
replaced and what's happening just over the wall um you know the Arboretum is a wonderful public park but it's also a scientific institution and I think it's important for us to understand if there are impacts also on that um that
important space um to um Kirk's question about materials I too would like to understand that better um it feels to me like it's relating more to the mon the tops of the building um that are a sort of a green copper color um are relating
more to the monastery bu building and again I'd like to see those materials as they relate to the um again the Arboretum side um of the building um uh the only small matter I would call
out is a little bit of explanation and understanding of the newly created entrance to the monastery building just to understand what that um uh how you are approaching that um and how you see it Rel relating to uh the overall site I
think that um is a somewhat abrupt change and I'd love to understand it better but thank you thank you Cathy an Marie uh thank you for the presentation there's a lot to like about this and it
there's a there's a a an understated and an Elegance to the design uh that I quite like about the project one thing i' really like to explore discuss and discuss in subcommittee is the approach
to um this this building or this project what's exciting about it is negotiating the space between kind of the formality of the city the orthagonal city the orthagonal historic structure and the Pastoral landscape or park and I was
struck by um one of the comments or I've been part of the presentation about undulating braids I sort of think about undulating landscape and it feels um the current proposal feels a little rigid and formal and and a bit corporate to me
and I would really love to see I was actually quite excited by in the massing studies the angled bar proposal and would just encourage you to think about ways to um loosen up a little bit and
perhaps you let the historic Monastery building you know it it you will preserve it but let it be more formal but then let the newer buildings and the landscape open up a little bit to relate to the park behind um and also I'd also
in in subcommittee like to this would be an opportunity to maybe look at precedents you know thinking about this this is becoming a campus and what does that mean within the landscape thank you thank you anarie
Katherine uh thank you I agree with um all the Commissioners tonight and their comments I have two one is I actually would like to see um more of the Shadow studies and what this looks like midafternoon to evening what concerns me
a lot is the courtyard that'll be shared uh essentially between both buildings and I'm not clear about what that looks like from when it's really sunny and there's other elements like what are the other factors to consider given the relationship between both
buildings thank you thanks Katherine Bill yes uh uh I I have one comment let me uh as a predicate for just thank anarie for her comments a moment ago but
uh uh I agree that with everyone that there's a lot to like about this project uh the one um the one thing I just really want to compliment the team the architectural team here for and it
sounds like it's easy but it's not for getting the massing of the new building down to something very similar to the massing of the uh original build the original building and I just know that
doing that is not easy and it takes an incredible amount of careful organizing of floor plans exterior space and all that and to think here's a um housing uh development with significant
affordability aspects and they've been able to get the massing of the building uh to be something so similar to the original and I just want to compliment them and I hope we don't push them into something that starts forcing them to
add a floor or two to the new building which would change the whole nature of this plan so I Bravo to what we see thanks Bill
shaa thank you thank thanks very much for a very clear and very beautiful presentation I have a bunch of scattered thoughts first of all my compliments to the project the the one area and this may sort of go counter to what Bill said
but more in the direction of of anarie that I have I have a lot of um a lot of discomfort with is how close the pinch point is to the wall with the angle um so I not only I would I first of all I'd
like to understand that better in terms of section and perspective really looking at that but it does given that this is adjacent to the Arboretum with sort of big robust trees and we just have a little bit of landscape space along along that edge I'm wondering if
there is some minor manipulation of massing that could free up that corner that edge a little bit um the the uh a few other things I think it is a very complex and lovely project in
section um so I think we'd like to understand that section A a little bit better throughout the whole project I think understanding the depth of this project is actually going to take us a little bit of time because it's clearly a very complex project from from a topography perspective I
um the other thing I would like to understand from a context perspective is the character of that street Edge not just on your property but on the adjacent properties just so to understand what what is the context is
there something you're reflecting and is there something that you're trying to to set up um because it does feel like you're keeping the project very very private and is that you know I'd like to understand if that's an intention an
intentional um strategy and um and how that works with with the adjacent properties I don't know the site I know you know I've driven by the site a lot but I've never really looked at the site closely um yeah so really understanding what
that what is that that public realm characteristic because right now it looks like you'll be going along this you know huge big thick green buffer and then all of a sudden there's just a blip of blue bikes and then it's a big big thick green buffer again um and that might be the right approach or not I
just I just want to understand that that better and I think most of my other comments have been um talked about by someone else already thanks sha laara um I wanted to talk uh well first to clarify question and thank you for
the presentation which was um very clear and uh certainly wants uh it leaves me wanting more which is good um the red line is that a wall did
I miss that is that a wall it is a wall yeah an existing wall or proposed it is an existing wall um that was part of The Cloister of the monastery so that area has always been um part of the the
monastery okay um given that you're in the context of you know not only the the Jamaica way but also Olstead you know olmstead's hands are all over this part of Boston and I would like to
understand by zooming back sort of what the relationship is to the Arboretum um I don't know if Homestead had anything to do with the monastery I'd be curious if you guys had found anything
um associated with that but I would agree with amarie that the the the paths are I don't know I I don't know how to form an opinion about the paths in a way because you know when I think about the
Arboretum there are these uh a lot of um really graceful p PA s that kind of NE negotiate the topography really beautifully and you had mentioned um that there were some undulations in the
in the toppo and I'd love to see how the proposed uh paths are kind of locked in and supporting uh back and forth between the topography and the circulation um but again that that far
out view to see exactly how the Arboretum kind of um goes in in with this piece um have you looked at any preceden for this in terms of you know in the context that it is like
um you know what kind of historical research have you done like was there a garden here um that was with the monastery and are there traces of it left in this design um I'm sorry the there there were
Gardens back there that um the these sisters basically had uh vegetable gardens um they they grew a lot of their own food um and um you know other than that it was it was landscaped
um and there there there are you know we we've we preserved as much as possible back there um okay and you're talking about on the Arboretum side not the um not the road side is that correct where the building
is yes correct okay within the walls right what happened in the front um or the roadway um side of the the monastery it was it was a more formal
landscape uh mostly lawn and uh larger trees um pretty low maintenance um um I think because of the um the the context of the the monastery um not having you
know an enormous maintenance budget um so it was uh it has been relatively um unland scaped in a way and I I can't remember who asked but you know what are are there existing trees
that you're able to save um and you know Landscapes are kind of funny because they have these sharp edges right called the property line but the landscape really has no property line I mean the landscape the Big L landscape and so I'm
I'm curious how your edges are going to um combined with the edges of the Arboretum um and whether or not they'll feel seamless or there will be a threshold if you will between them um
and if so sort of what's you know how what is that going to look like and what's it going to feel like so i' I'd love to hear some more detail about um the thinking with the planting that's
proposed um and then you didn't talk about the roof Gardens um which I know you know are part and parcel of the building but maybe next time I'd like to hear um a little more about those and see visually how they
are um connected to the site or not um so I know we weren't getting into that detail but that would be great so I think I think that's it Olstead Olstead
Olstead than you Laura Jonathan I think you're our last hand up all right I'll bring it home um so um great comments and um I'm I'm struck by something ad said um and I guess I'm eager to see your response on what it
could mean to kind of quote unquote loosen up a bit I mean I guess for me that comes down to like honing in on your attitude for like this uh intersection between old and new um and I guess this is and I'll say I I really
appreciate the design I think it's a great project um and I think there's kind of a balance between being differential paying homage being kind of quiet and calm but I I I do wonder how do you then still assert what you're doing and have your voice for this
product inde dependent of that uh your your sort of historic neighbor so so I think how do we not just be calm but not too differential right so I think that's something that I curious to sort of see what that looks like to me loosening and how you der
means to loosen op I again I I I am excited to see what that could look like in terms of how it um yeah without breaking the the sort of language you've developed but maybe there's you know maybe it's more a little more terracotta a little less brick I I don't know just
something that kind of better creates um more of a a distinction perhaps between between old and new but overall exciting proposal thanks Jonathan I think of the like seven or eight
things I jotted down during the presentation everyone has addressed except um for one which would be my request additional request is just to have a little bit more information about the entry points and circulation to the
proposed building and what those interfaces are with the landscape how do you get in and out of the building and what do you experience as you are coming in and out of the building particularly with that Resident Courtyard um and and that interaction with the open space
would be really terrific um a lot of really good comments from the Commissioners thank you all and Christina I think we are ready to see if there's any public comment at this time we'd like to invite any members of the public and attendance
who may wish to contribute public testimony to raise your digital hand and staff will call on you if you're calling in by phone press star9 on your dial pad to activate AC at the raise hand function and star six to mute and unmute yourself please state your name and any relevant project affiliation information
and please keep your comments to two minutes Marie are you able to unmute yourself yes I am um thank you for giving uh the neighbors the opportunity to comment on this project um I I would like to make two comments the first one
is that um from uh and I have reviewed extensively uh the project provided by the uh by the team uh it looks like the impact on on the trees uh of the
aboretum is going to be significant uh because of the proximity of the building um to to the limit of the aboretum and and the size of the building um and um so I I would like to comment also that
we need housing in in Jamaica plane and and my impression is that by by wanting to keep the monastery uh you are making your life more difficult uh I I have heard that
the nuns had specifically requested that the monastery uh should not be used for a non-religious um activity used um and and it this has never been mentioned in in the
discussion um and and I think if if the monastery was not maintain then there would be an option to move the building uh towards closer towards uh Center Street which would lessen substantially the impact on the arborium
and and I you know as you can hear I come from Europe I'm very much attached to antique buildings but for me there is an imbalance between between um the efforts that are put into preserving the monastery versus uh maintaining the
Integrity of the aborm uh which has you know not only historical status that has been in place for many decades while the monastery does not have this status I'm almost done and and but the aborm is
also uh a modern treasure and and a tool for scientific exploration um so I think you know the balance between me limiting the impact of theorum uh versus preserving the monastery for me is is really skewed in
in this uh in this project thank you Helen uh Ryan Murphy are you able to unmute yourself yes hi guys I'm Ryan Murphy I live in Jamaica plane right near this site um I drive by this site quite a bit and I I do happen to like
the existing Monastery building so I'm quite pleased that the developer put the effort into keeping the monastery as the main focal point when you're driving past the site um I think the dichotomy between the old building and the new is
actually quite interesting um they made efforts to to tie the architecture together but um it's a nice Clash of of new design and the original design um I think one thing I would like to see to the better understand the project is
just the existing Landscaping versus what's proposed um but I'm sure we'll we'll we'll get to that as this develops um but just as a general comment I'm I'm very in favor of this project because of the need for more housing not only in my
local community but in the entire city of Boston so um hats off to the Developers for for dealing with a difficult site and for um executing it so beautifully thank you thank you
Ryan next up we have uh Richard Richard are you able to unmute yourself yes can you hear me yes go ahead first I'm calling him from Amsterdam where it's 2 am so if I sound
sleepy forgive me I I have a rather well I'm I hold the real estate professorship at Harvard design school and uh where I also teach Urban planting and I I am a big fan of the arbor
inum briefly I I think the current design is frankly disastrous for the Arboretum uh you're on essentially a four story Hill overlooking one of the historic buildings at the arum the honey well and it it the current plan really
creates a very overbearing eight story structure uh from the road as you enter the Arboretum it'll be in total shadow a significant amount of the time and I think U well we're all in favor of more housing um but I think
this project as it is is badly conceived at the very least I think from the arbor it should be no more than two stories in the back uh that would eliminate uh the big problem of how overbearing it is I um I would recommend they go back to the
drawing boards I think there is a design solution that would have almost as many units it would keep the the low uh buildings close to the wall and you could have an even eight-story building or something it wouldn't
perhaps have the balance that some of the Architects prefer but uh uh something close to the circle um so I really think there's an awful lot of work that needs to be done here before it would be acceptable thank you Richard
Larry Z we have you next hi yes I'm Larry I'm a student uh Mass TCH studying sustainability and I just wanted to say that I really appreciate the uh choice of material uh for this project uh particularly
regarding the usage of mass Timber as a primary building material um I think it goes without saying that we find ourselves in a rapidly warming world and uh as a result it's imperative that we consider not only operation carbon but also embodied carbon uh for to have any
hopes of realizing a decarbonized future um so I just wanted to take a moment to appreciate and applaud uh the development and design team of this project and their commitment to uh a more sustainable future forward uh even at uh what's likely a pretty significant
cost premium so thank you thank you Larry Sam are you able to unmute yourself yes thank you my name is Sam jaxis I've been looking for affordable housing for the last couple years specifically in the Jamaica
uh Plains area and there's really not a lot of affordable housing and I want to say that I strongly support this pro project and commend the developers The Architects the Landscape Architects for coming together and making this such a beautiful area I also want to say I hope
that we as a community don't become biased in the way that we look at things and I understand that the developers already made concessions to the Arboretum and and continues to do so and I think for the project to be sustainable both financially and for the community and for uh the environment
they are doing amazing job so thank you and uh kudos to them thank you so much uh I see William Ned fredman you able to unmute yourself yes I I am um I'm Ned fredman and I'm
the director of the Arnold arbored and a professor of biology at Harvard University and I want to first of all thank John and his team for interacting with us over time and for sharing data and data files uh with us so that we can get an understanding of impacts on a
research collection studying climate change on a conservation collection that is uh incredibly important to genetic diversity of of species that are threatened with Extinction and of course to the intact whole cloth of Frederick Law Olstead is one of his greatest
designs every view shed in this space was intentionally designed to lift the the soul we have two concerns and we remain focused on those concerns how will the proposed development affect public views and the general Integrity of the Arnold arum's Olstead designed
historic landscape we are confident that there will be significant compromise and how will the proposed development affect the health of the trees that we spend lots of time and effort going around the world to collect to study um we are Harvard's Museum of trees last year
there were 81 different research projects in the living Collections and basically over almost 3,000 of our 16,000 accessions are plants that are of conservation value you've heard of seed banks we actually plant our rare genetics and grow it the approach uh
gets as close as 18 ft um most of the trees if you look at what I saw in the presentation on the back prod property line on the AR Monastery side will have to be removed uh there will also be a two story sub parking deck which will
compromise all the roots uh that are around there and there will likely be very little left um we are also studying shadows and I will tell you uh we think initially that we were talking about removing light from trees from this
project some three to four hours uh in the summer uh and this will be something that will actually affect plant health so I just want to let the commission know and the subcommittee uh We've we've actually uh signed an agreement with Atela 10 which we think is a very fine
firm to help us understand uh the effects of Shadows on our plant Health as well as to develop renderings of what it would look like and I think it's important that when we look at renderings of viewsheds not just from the road from afar and not just in the summer but in the winter it's important
to be in the collections and what you will see when you look at that cloud of White Pines is that that cloud of White Pines only has a canopy at the very top of each tree they're limbs for about 40 fet up so if you were to walk in the collection and I encourage all of you to
walk in the Magnolia collections you will be staring at a solid wall uh 18 feet off the property line Sorry N I don't mean to interrupt you um if you have longer comments we invite you to submit them in writing
and I'm happy to drop a link in the chat to the address for that but thank you for your comments this evening and for staying up so late to join us uh Rosetta are you able to unmute yourself Rosetta uh
elen you've been promoted to co-host are you able to unmute yourself I see you put in the chat no do you want to try one more time oh it just worked thank I think the co-host piece worked thank you it's really nice to um see uh good
colleagues and hear incredible comments about design I believe deeply in design I'm a landscape architect I think there is a design solution here uh absolutely that does everyone uh Service uh mostly
the public I think the it's I I don't want to ere echo or or sort of uh underline and underscore all the great comments that have been made um but I think as designers one of our great challenges is parameters one of the
parameters is 50 feet I think going from 18 to 50 is a big jump I think Shauna pointed that out I appreciate it there is a middle ground where we can uh both provide housing and also not do damage
to public space because ultim Ely all of the Green Space you're seeing in the plans is private space and so I I just I think we all know that green space is not all created equal I think when you shade out the Magnolia collection and
replace it with new Magnolias it's just not a onetoone relationship uh I don't want to repeat how how graceful Ned was about what a living collection is um but this the the relationship between the proposed
massing and the existing Magnolia collection is very very tenuous um and so uh with my my last seconds or minutes I would just uh implore the committee to think about what it means to go from 18 to 50
overnight I would also implore the committee to really look carefully um at the hydrology which hasn't been mentioned when you put a massive parking uh displacement unit if we could call it that the water will change there is a
major slope the Landscape Architects please put topography in your plans otherwise they're basically diagrams there's a big slope uh and you're you're stopping water which means it's it's going to rush in flashier times into the
collections and so at the very least if we can look at a soils report and a hydrology analysis it would be helpful um so thanks for your patience and also so thanks for the respect and the time thank you very much
Rosetta Keel are you able to unmute yourself yes I am thank you um I'm an architect I I I spend a lot of time working on the construction Ecology of buildings carbon cycles of buildings uh there's many aspects of this uh design
to appreciate uh but there are some major liabilities uh that do relate to the public realm but also relate to some of the aspects that they refer to as sustainability in the presentation um it's admirable to try to pursue passive
house certification and mass Timber construction uh but those are completely dwarfed uh by the cost the carbon cost and other environmental cost hydrological cost of putting a two-story concrete bathtub on this site so close to the Arboretum Edge uh that 50ft
setback needs to be uh observed um it's there for a reason uh these are important Landscapes not just from a park point of view but they are scientific uh research sites uh with a lot of embedded knowledge going back 150
years um it's very flippant to just build right up you know 15 18 feet away from that edge there's a lot of issues that come along with that pressure along that back Edge so there's many other Site Solutions Housing typology massing
Solutions that avoid those problems that still add housing to the city and avoid some of the major traffic concerns that were brought up last night by the community so I would encourage the commission to seek a documentation that uh tonight's presentation to the commission really focused on just the
buildings themselves you need to see this building in context related to the Arboretum in sections thinking about hydrology thinking about a whole set of viewed issues um so I I I hope you have time and energy to work with this team
and see the project more completely thank you very much thank you for your comments okay Commissioners at this time I see no additional hands raised so I'm going to close the public
testimony portion of this evening thank you Christina and um thank you for all of the public comments I think we all as a commission learned a lot I appreciate the way that you articulated those and a thank you to the
Commissioners who also contributed some um really thoughtful comments about how to move the project forward and with that Commissioners we need a motion for next steps motion to send the project to committee Thank you Kirk do we have a
second second great and all those in favor please say I Jonathan Evans hi shaa Gilly Smith shaa do we still have you might have lost shaa uh Kathy
karitas yes anarie lanau yes Katherine Morris yes Bill Ron yes Lara Solano yes Kirk Sykes yes and myself Linda eastley
yes and looks like shaa said she she's back okay thanks shaa all right we'll see you all in subcommittee looking forward to it and our final agenda item tonight is the informational presentation and this
is about the article 80 modernization and also bcdc reform and we appreciate our guests who have been patient with the evening um Kyros will be joining neore and Kevin
and um Diana and Christina also already on the call will be participating as well and so I'll go ahead and turn over the time to you all good evening everyone this is Cyro speaking um I'm delighted to uh have the
opportunity to have our staff come in in front of you to formally present to you some of the um article 80 modernization work that we have been working on and in particularly uh to share with you the uh
recommendations that we are uh considering for bcdc changes so I'm going to turn it over to Napo who has been leading this effort to give you a presentation and I will um be uh on the rest of this
meeting to answer any particular questions um at a policy level so thank you Napo thank you kyos good evening Commissioners appreciate you all taking the time after this very long meeting to hear us out um we were last before you I
think in the fall um to give you an update on the article 80 action plan and the emerging recommendations at the time and the goal today is to sort of catch you up on where we've been since September and focus really the bul of our time um with Christina and Diana's help on taking you through how some of
those early ideas that we shared with you in September may now more specifically apply to bcdc before we jump into the slides here I just want to give k zes a shout out he's on our steering committee for the project and has provided Val invaluable guidance um throughout the last 18 months as we've
come up with a lot of the work so um I think you know at some point in the discussion would love to kind of hear from you too about how the work is shaping and and some sort of um bad ground on how we arrived at where we are today sure let's go to the next
slide I'll keep my portion of this very very brief in the interest of um turning it over to Christina to share more specifically about bcdc but just as a reminder the reason we're doing this and the reason we've been hard at work on this project for the last 18 months is because article 80 is nearly 30 years
old it was put in place at a time when the development landscape in Boston looked very different um our policy thinking has evolved significantly since then and as a result of it the onerous process that developers now have to go through um does not feel
proportionate to the um input that we that we seek to provide for them it leads to a lot of unpredictability um average review times across projects are very very unpredictable where no two projects have the same experience going through our process and on the community engagement side the people that
participate traditionally in our processes are not really representative of Boston at large and so our goal through this work is also to make sure that we are being as inclusive in in reaching out to populations that are impacted by development and thinking critically about the methods we use to
do that next um as I said we released our action plan in September 2024 that kicked off a 90-day comment period to ensure that we were sharing these recommendations very broadly with stakeholders in the development Community um Civic groups
with elected officials with sort of other Professionals in the industry um and we did that using again a lot of different engagement methods that we're trying to sort of recommend here as well um we got a lot of really rich and detailed feedback related to our three
big categories of changes um that have to do with effect effective engagement consistent standards and creating a coordinated review process which will be the focus of today's conversation next um a little kind of flavor sample of who we heard from I'm not expecting
you all to read the names on the right but this is just to give you an idea of really um the the set of stakeholders that have been engaged throughout the process and all sort of weighed in with very detailed and thoughtful qualitative feedback about recommendations in the action plan they included about a 100
different comment letters um with that very specific feedback as well as um 307 responses to a survey that we had shared more widely through the planning Department's channels it was very heartening for us to hear that you know 83% of our survey respondents thought that we are generally headed in
the right direction and that was very um strong validation for the work that we've been doing with kyos and um the city teams and the steering committee's leadership next I want to give you a quick idea of sort of where the feedback is landing
within our different categories of recommendations um and actions we have heard a lot of Engagement a lot of broad support for our engagement recommendations especially to expand the methods of Engagement that we use right it's we learned through our engagement in the first round that who we hear from
is really sort of determined by how we reach out to them and so as we think about how to do engagement differently within article 80 going forward we're going to be using a lot of those Lessons Learned um and and bringing in sort of more in-person modern tech based methods as well as sort of tactical engagement
methods of meeting people where they are um that was an idea that had a lot of broad support we had proposed um an idea related to community advisory teams this is sort of a new version of iigs which are impact advisory teams that are sort of groups of citizens that are appointed
by um elected officials to advise the planning department on mitigation and Community benefits cats have an expanded scope from what iag's do today and there was a lot of support for expanding that specific scope and have them really review things more sort of from a
planning um lens to ensure that their feedback is translated across multiple projects um definitions are not really sort of enforced for Community benefits and mitigation and that has been the cause and sort of the root cause of a lot of the unpredictability within the process
today so we heard broad support related to sort of streamlining and standardizing those definitions as well as connecting the items that are sort of delivered as benefits and mitigation from specific projects back with priorities that are identified in planning um and then finally you know we
bcdc sort of recognizing this commission's role in moving develop projects forward we had a set of specific feedback that came out through recommendations within the action plan to do with sort of your role right and how we can realign it with where um these reforms are taking us in the
future um and Christina will share a little bit more about that as we get into the second half of the slide deck um there were uh if you go back one slide Lizzy there were a few ideas that were lacking consensus right where we heard from folks that you know these are
great ideas but the devil's in the details and so kind of people were holding back their support for the items on the right and this is just giving you an example of um the different types of feedback we heard on the action plan and so as we take the next step here we're really focusing on building out and
starting to implement and pilot some of the ideas on the left here where we do have broad support while continuing to study some of these more complex ideas and recommendations on the right and continuing to do that with the community and the sort of Industry brought along um to make sure that when when we do
develop details for some of these ideas we land in the right place next um I want to share some specific context from earlier in the project too from our um first round of surveys P research as well as analysis of existing conditions that has to do with
bcdc that will give you an idea of where our specific recommendations emerge from um overall we heard from sort of develop velers when we um initiated our very sort of detailed long form survey that only about half of them sort of
understand exactly how the bcdc process works and understand how to address bcc's concerns um this is something that we asked the development Community well before sort of Diana and Seth and Christina implemented a lot of their um existing operational improvements and
I'm sure if we asked this question again we'd hear the the answer would probably be very different but it is important to sort of recognize and reflect the feedback that we heard at that moment in time because that is um a key sort of indicator of of where folks want us to kind of focus the reform
effort um in addition to that we looked at you know across the board how Pier cities do this differently and a couple of things that stood out to us from Fort Worth as well as Seattle were that both of these cities do have professionals sort of outside um of staff that
review projects for specific spe ific design impacts and especially Urban Design impacts but they do that um within sort of very specific design standards and guidelines that probably vary from District to District in both of these cities um and that staff have a
bigger role in sort of enforcing the guidelines and the recommendations of the commission throughout the life cycle of these projects and then on the right here under existing conditions analysis you just see a couple of sort of specific pull quotes that we've heard from interviews that we conducted with um
folks in the development industry within that first round of Engagement next so what all of this leads us to really is as we think about sort of taking in this feedback and and defining our work plan and focus for the rest of this year we're breaking up our effort
into thinking about early actions right which which is building off of those areas where we do have high consensus um and focusing our our implementation efforts on managing ourselves better right really streamlining the planning Department's internal operations and processes to
ensure predictability thinking about how our boards and commission sort of can help us move the needle in that direction um starting with you know talking to you all tonight and then finally looking at sort of where within the existing zoning code
we have opportunities to align practices in the code with um the way we do business today um and then on the right are some long-term actions that again we need to study further right where we don't have consensus built yet and so we will come back to you at a future
meeting sort of several months out from now to talk about those ideas more publicly but I think today's Focus really is on sort of those specific actions on the left here that are building off of these high consensus um recommendations and Christina is going
to talk about how each of these buckets applies to bcdc so I'll turn it over to her next thanks Diana do you want to kick us off or do you want to um back clean up at the end I'll do it at the end okay great next slide Lizzy and apologies to the
commission if the lights turn off I'm just GNA run out into the hallway turn them back on I can I know you can see them flashing okay so a a quick overview I'm G to talk about what we're going to talk about and then we're going to talk about it um we have six discret recommendations to talk to you all about
this evening two of them uh would require a um sort of limited text change to Article 28 that's the zoning article that enshrines uh bcdc most of the recommendations we're bringing to you here tonight fall into that bucket that napor described as kind
of operational or procedural reforms ways that we can build off of the work that we've done in the last year to um sort of streamline and um in some ways expedite the review of the commission um so we're going to jump into these six
quick recommendations next slide uh the first recommendation is to improve the consistency of reviewers so you know that today Commissioners are assigned to subcommittee meetings based on commissioner availability and the kind of needed expertise in that particular subcommittee meeting on any
given project um that means that sometimes a proponent might have a completely different slate of Commissioners reviewing them from one subcommittee meeting to the next um so we are very interested in exploring um a kind of dedicated sort of cohort a
permanent assignment of subcommittees um that will follow a project through its life cycle each cohort would have the same sort of number of Commissioners on it um and then we would have a third pool of Commissioners that we're going to call like a float pool here um that
get assigned to one of the two cohorts sort of as needed uh the other change embodied in this recommendation is that we would formalize what today kind of happens culturally where we ask Commissioners who spoke at the last subcommittee meeting to speak first when
referring a project back to final recommendation um we would sort of formalize that by issuing a report from subcommittee when that project returns to full commission this is the way I think that uh the landmarks commission sort of has operationalize this um the
we heard that the um you know balancing of course who is assigned to each cohort really matters and making sure that we um review those cohort assignments on a kind of predictable schedule would be important to making sure that people are getting a varied experience um and that
there's um you know no real differentiation and the performance of the two cohorts next recommendation uh we also want to reform the way that the commission takes in public testimony so uh today um folks can join the commission at when the
project is being introduced when a project is at subcommittee when a project is at um receiving final recommendation um they can also submit written testimony to bcdc boston.gov and we've heard some um sort of challenges in two directions both um from the
public who you know may submit a comment letter let's say I'm a member of the iag I submit a comment letter to not bcdc boston.gov I submit that comment letter to a project manager or my city counselor it's not making its way to the
commission even if the comment is gerine to the scope of the commission's review um and that also means that um Commissioners aren't always seeing the full sort of complement of testimony of public testimony that the planning department might be receiving unless it's being attention directly to you so
this is really a two-step recommendation one is we want to make sure that we're developing a shared online repository for Community feedback so so that all public comments received are posted in the same place and are always publicly accessible regardless of the phase of
review of the project um and we also want to um reform when we are taking in live testimony we've heard that it's very valuable to get the kind of live testimony that we were getting tonight when a project is being introduced for the very first time to help the Commissioners understand the kind of
dynamic context of a project uh but we also know that sometimes members of the public mistake the commission for a public hearing especially when the commission is um issuing its final recommendations which sometimes can uh politicize The Forum in a way that um was unintended um by
having had public testimony to begin with uh next recommendations we want to initiate the commission's review earlier in the review process so today uh projects are entered into the commission review um
following a PNF sometimes that's immediately after a PNF has been filed sometimes times that's um closer to the next filing phase so after PNF but before a dpir but that time distance can represent a really big sort of evolution
in the timeline of a project so we want to make sure that we're bringing projects as close to concept um which today um we refer to as a PNF filing but really just having had at least one public meeting and one meeting with
staff to evaluate a sort of single concept that's in front of the planning department so that way proponents are taking in the commission's feedback and staff feedback and that we're able to synthesize the two simultaneously rather than having them sequentially this means also that the commission's review
earlier on in the in the phase of the project would be uh more impactful because we know obviously that proponents are sort of more resistant to making changes to a project um when it's being introduced later in the Project's review cycle um next slide please
we want to make sure that we are um affirming The commission's Advisory role so today culturally what happens is that projects will linger in review until the commission reaches a kind of um culture of consensus to recommend that the bpda
board approve uh we want to do two things to address this culture one is we want to change to whom the commission is issuing the recommendation uh today this is to uh the mayor and the uh B board but we know
that often the nature of the recommendations that the commission is issuing are actually directives to planning department staff who are um responsible for carrying out design review between the bcc's review and when
the B board issues an eventual approval so um that means then issuing the recommendations to the chief of planning that's chyros in this case and the deputy chief of Urban Design that's Diana the two people who are sort of um stewarding that design review process
the other thing we want to do is to focus on a training session sometime this spring that's focused on recommendation procedure this requires no change in the zoning oh gosh uh today today um uh the zoning Article 28
imagines that there is a recommendation of approval uh but that there's also um a recommendation for needed modification that the commission could issue um and we really want to focus on this um needed modification uh recommendation um in the case of an
approval it's not really that the commission is approving it's actually more that um planning department staff should continue review but that as proposed the project achieves the primary objectives of the commission's review in the alternative in a needed modification that means significant
changes to the project should be considered and that the commission should clearly articulate what those changes are planning Department staff should report to the commission which of those recommendations were adopted and which were not pursued uh please give me one second I'm going to try to turn on a lamp
here okay thanks to whoever made it into the hallway next slide okay um introducing formal meeting limits so during the commission review the sort of duration of the review can be um somewhat unpredictable even variation between the what we found
in the um fiveyear analysis of the commission's operations is that the average length of the meeting varies between three and six but um that differentiation in sort of time can mean a lot especially as a project is getting closer to anticipated board action so we
want to um test out having formal meeting limits that are aligned with the phases of review so um for large projects that's projects pursuing article ADB entitlement or a single large building um this means potentially three meetings an initial review which
today we call an introduction that would occur as early as possible after that first public meeting an interim review which um would be subcommittee which would be aligned with kind of concept development and then a final review that's when the project is referred back
to full commission for um final um recommendations that would be aligned with a kind of schematic level of of development right before board action aligned with an EP andf or dpir filing for much larger projects pursuing uh master plan entitlement that's article
80c or um 0d for um institutional Master plans um we want to explore a five meeting limit um except for um the sort of very large of the these Master plans I'm thinking about like the suff Downes
um or maybe the gilletts of the world that are um much larger than a typical master plan might even be where we work with um you know our chairs and um Diana and napor to create a kind of custom road map for these outlier projects to give the proponent teams um some much
needed um predictability these um caps on the total number of meeting limits relies fundamentally on the previous recommendation that the commission sort of gets comfortable with the idea of
issuing a the sort of needed modific a recommendation right it would be very uncomfortable if at the end of three meetings if you didn't support the the actually support the proposed project that you would be kind of in a culture of um recommendation of approval so we think that this needed modification and
these meeting limits really do kind of work hand inand in that way and the last recommendation next slide Lizzy would be to increase the threshold for review so um as we all know development Trends have pushed up average building sizes
and overtime um 100,000 square feet just basically ain't what it used to be um and so we are recommending because the sort of total a project size averages have increased the total number of projects that the commission has been
asked to review annually has increased as well and without asking for more time from the Commissioners meetings like tonight notwithstanding where the meeting is going four hours long uh we need to find a way to sort of create time in space for the you know most
impactful most civically important projects Among Us for which size is but one uh one sort of indicator so we are recommending to increase the size trigger this is the compulsory trigger from 100,000 squ fet to 200,000 square
feet while retaining a discretionary trigger because size is a poor proxy for um civically significant this discretionary trigger stands in for that um it's for projects of special significance that could still be used to send projects that are below the 200,000
Square ft to the commission making this change um we used the fiveyear data set that we shared with you in the fall of the 107 projects that um we analyzed 35 of those or about onethird were under this 200,000 foot
trigger meaning that we would reduce the commissions review pipeline by approximately a third um and having kind of an outsized impact on affordable projects so of the 12 affordable projects nine of them or 75% of them were under the 200,000 foot trigger um a
CO a question we got frequently next slide Lizzy was what are the features of a project of special significance and so we dug that out of the text um and right now um Article 28 seems to think it's almost anything these are the five features that describe a projects of
special significance so it's in visual proximity of an architectural District within 5 100 ft is visual proximity or a visually prominent significant open space or located in an area of special historic interest or situated in such a way to have significant impact or on the
visual quality of the surrounding area or a site over an acre um so I think this is something that we want to spend more time thinking and talking about um because uh this sounds the way it's written that a project of special significance could be almost anything um
and we don't we don't really think that that's true either so um this is something that we definitely want to come back to um with more discussion we were also asked next slide Lizzy um it's hard to think about projects when I say reduce projects by onethird it's really
hard to uh mindmap that to projects you would remember in the last five years so we inventory just the projects you reviewed in the last six months um so hopefully these addresses look very familiar to you this is the 19 projects that were either um introduced or
received final recommendation in the last 6 months not necessarily starting and completing just whether or not it started or completed um and so the bright red line here you're seeing is the break between 100,000 and 200,000
square feet and so actually two of the projects that fell below that trigger um 22 Dry Dock and white Stadium we would have for ourselves considered these projects of special significance and brought them to the commission anyways
22 dry do was just an NPC but it was adding a pedestrian bridge so even though the GSF was very low we felt that this was an important um feature and worthy of the commission's time and of course white Stadium needs no further description of why that that was
important for this the commission to review however um 10 Malcolm XX Boulevard which was a residential infill project and 50 heral Street which is um 100% affordable project in the South End would have fallen below the trigger and made not have risen to the project of
special significance designation this represents a 10% decrease in the commission's review pipeline in the last six months which shows us actually that the commission for the most part was reviewing XXL projects in the last six months which I think we all knew to be
true anyways I don't know how many times I had to say sorry we're reviewing another imp this year um but just wanted to share this with you so that you could get a sense of what what that would do to the pipe L um and I think with that U Diana I'll
pass it over to you Lizzie I think we have just one summary slide here at the end perfect absolutely so thank you so much Christina napor and Kyros for coming tonight and and sharing this work with the commission I think our goal here is to hear from everyone in terms
of you know how these uh changes and reforms help to uh make uh the review process more predictable and consistent and also to ensure sure that we're valuing and exercising the time and uh effort that you all put into
Commissioners to best use so we're really excited about these proposals we think that um they are really thoughtful um and would really like to work together with the commission um and the article Ed modernization team both npora and and Kevin to U move forward uh with
implementing uh these changes our goal is to hear from you all today to have a public comment period we're going to be talking to the BSA the bsla and other stakeholders to understand how these recommendations um are understood in the public and um their impacts to the
broader design community and our goal is to come back to you in April um and share some of that feedback and any adjustments right to what we presented tonight um that would become the Baseline for the changes that would become a part of our uh updates to
Article 28 um and uh start the work towards uh operational changes that we hope to codify within bylaws and this uh training session we really look forward to hosting so with that I just want to um hand it back to Linda and thank you all uh for your time this
afternoon thank you all I mean it's you've carried us along the way and so we've seen this now a couple of times and each time I see it I'm just so impressed with um all the work you all have done and how data Rich it's been
all of the different charts Christina that you've created around this and you to neor has been incredible um Diana a question for you because of the late hour we have lost some of our commissioners tonight and I'm wondering
if in combination with Commissioners that want to share their thoughts now we also could have another venue for Commissioners to reach out either with things they're noodling on post discussion or giving the others an
opportunity absolutely I think we would be more than happy to have informational briefings on this um as uh Christina has mentioned before we're also happy to accept anything written whether it's a letter you want to submit in response to this um we're really here to work with
the commission to identify um how these reforms um help us do a better job um in this space and and achieve the goals around predictability and transparency so Linda I think we we welcome both those one-on-one sessions and um any
sort of re written commentary in the form of a comment letter um that we can integrate to our process Linda I I could give just a one minute uh sort of snapshot of wearing both my hats as article 80 uh and
bcdc um I think I what I summarized this too is that um clearer Outreach clearer information and clearer expectations you know result in better execution for the community for the
commission and for sponsors and that that's kind of the the big swing thought here um I've been a huge fan for getting the commission's input on the template of what information sponsors should be
bringing to us early so that we can feel comfortable streamlining the uh the process which which we could do if we could be very clear to folks about what we wanted to see and the last project was a great example of that um so so the
staff has been very supportive of that I think the other thing is consistency in reviewers is something we do already uh you know we give the floor to those who' invested the time to come to the meetings and and you know others can
contribute but you know clearly there's context if you've been to three meetings and you're versus seeing it for the first time I think the c role uh the key there is the C is is sort of the the tacal uh it's got to be willing the
person has to be willing to reach out into the community and call us thoughts and explain projects and be an extension of the project and I think you know it's no no thought that uh there's this sort of super iag that will streamline things
all by themselves unless they are a consensus Builder um so anyway I think uh you know all the thoughts are kind of self- explor explanatory but um I I think they're all ones that we can inform to
make the process better faster clearer and more representative of of a city that is now quite diverse quite Broad in multiple communities so that that I'm happy to talk to anyone about you know the last two years of this um but I
would say staff has done an amazing job of trying to build consensus amongst a diverse set of uh folks but also uh hear what hear what's being said and then translated into actionable steps so um
that thank you for giving me a minute just to share uh quite a bit of time invested in this Kirk I think we can um collectively share our thanks to you it was great to have