e e
e
e e
of Boston Zoning Board of appeal hearing for February 4 2025 is now in session this hearing is being conducted in accordance with the applicable provisions of the open meeting law including the updated Provisions enacted by the legislature last year the new law allows the board to continue its practice of holding virtual hearings until March 2025 the hearing of the board is being held remotely via the zoom webinar event platform this hearing
is also being live streamed in order to ensure that this hearing of the board is open to the public members of the public May access this hearing through telephone and video conferencing the information for connecting to this hearing is listed on today's hearing agenda which is posted on the Public Notices page of the city's website boston.gov members of the public will enter the virtual hearing as attendees which means you will not see yourself on the screen and you will be muted throughout unless administratively unmuted when to comment board members
applicants and their attorneys or Representatives will participate in the hearing as panelists and they will appear alongside the presentation materials when speaking panelists are strongly encouraged to keep video on while presenting to the board as with our in-person meetings comments and support will be followed by comments and opposition the order of comments is as follows elected officials representatives of elected officials and members of the public the chair May limit the number of people called upon to offer comment and the time for
commenting as time constraints require for that reason the board excuse me the board prefers to hear from members of the public who are most impacted by a project that is those individuals who live closest to the project if you wish to comment on an appeal please click the raise hand button along the bottom of your screen in the zoom webinar platform click it again and your hand should go down when the host sees your hand you will receive a request to unmute yourself select yes and you should be able to talk if you are connected to the hearing by tell
telephone please press star 9 to raise and lower your hand you must press star six to unmute yourself after you receive the request from the post those called upon to comment will be asked to State their name and address first and then can provide their comment in the interest of time and to ensure that you have enough time to do so please raise your hand as soon as Mr snbd reads the address into the record do not raise your hand before the relevant address is called or the meeting host will not know to call on you at the appropriate time uh Mr
dridge morning Madam chair president good morning Mr Valencia good morning Madam chair pres good morning uh Mr langum good morning Madam chair president good morning Miss weell good morning Madam chair president good morning Miss B brazza good morning Madam chair president uh the floor is yours Mr stbridge uh just to note that we are a six member board
today thank you madam chair with that we'll begin with the extension scheduled for 9:30 a.m. I as all the extensions seem to be reasonable I will read them in um one after the other and then we can uh M then Madam chair can direct us toward the appropriate action first we have case bo8 659 702 with the address 86 to 88 North
Washington Street and along with that we have case boa 13376 06 with the address of 520 W Street and those are the two extension cases that we have for today thank you Mr St any questions from the board if not may I have a motion to Grant the extensions as requested make a motion to Grant the
extensions as R second Mr stbridge Mr stbridge yeah Mr Valencia yes Mr Langham yes Miss weo yes Miss B Braza yes chair votes yes the motion carries thank you next we have board final operater
case scheduled for 9:30 a.m. the case is case boa 116 3038 with the address of 44 to 46 Soldiers Field Place if the applicant and or their representative of present will they please explain the case to the board yes um thank you my name is Kevin Longo I'm from the developers office and I'm here to present uh my small project
change um 44 so 46 soers Fiel Place project in Brighton um with me today is also Nia MC we actually have a presentation great thank you um just some quick background on
this project it was board approved back in January of 2021 and then Berkeley us the currently current developer uh acquired the project back in 2023 initially the project approved for 102 units in a small ground floor retail space it's located um off of soders Field Road on soders field place right by F landed next slide
so this is the site location it is nestled right under Leo Birmingham as we just said Boston Landing off to the back um if Dead End Street it's kind of right by when you're driving on serers Field Road there's an off ramp go up it's right there by the AO next slide this is the initial site plan for the site um so the there there are
residential units on Floors 1 through six and you have the lobby and the small retail space um in the front of the building on soers field place so sold field place is kind of the main stre that's as we got to know the site better it it kind of became clear that the retail space is not viable um so we brought the issue to bpda staff and we determined that was
best for the project to convert the retail space into an additional housing unit and then move the location in the building this is approved by the bpda and the changes don't create any new relief required under zoning next we we mainly did this as we said because of the retail Market in the area there's a number of projects that have these small retail spaces nearby um
often times with Superior locations and they've been long vacant um we we floated the site with a number of Brokers that we have relationships with and the the feedback wasn't overly positive so with that context and the ongoing demand for housing in in the region um we determined that as best for both this specific site and the project as a whole just to convert that retail space into a unit um next
slide so the original project approvals got zoning relief for conditional multif family use um in for the prior Slide the the changes now are the elimination of the retail space the addition of the unit and then there's a small layout change just to move that unit further into the building and move the amenity space of to be Pro Y so this is the initial plan and
change it's the retail space is on the front right off the lobby then you have a fitness center and amenity space um back off of it next slide then here's the updated plan we're pulling the fitness center out kind of giving it some more light and um um putting it along the street front along with a small office and another amenity space for the residents and then the studio apartment to the right that you see is the new unit that we are
discussing now so thank you questions from the board okay uh are we ready for a motion make is there a second Mr stbridge yes Mr Mr Valencia yes Mr
langum yes M weell yes Miss B brazza yes chair votes yes the motion carries good luck thank you next we have a groundw Conservation overway District case schedu from 9:30 this is case boa 16854 with the address of 291 on Beacon
Street if the applicant and or their representative are present would they please explain to the board is that um guy pad I sent a request unmute you yeah can you hear me this is Guy grass yep are you on for this case 291 began yes I'm the architect for the project okay go ahead
the um this is just a renovation of a townhouse in the Back Bay and and um um we have a gcod requirement um for approval we have the um we've submitted the uh um approval from Boston Water and sore commission for the for the precharge system design and so it should be um fully compliant with the gcard requirements
any questions from the board is there a motion Madam chair yes sorry Mr selli not a problem Madam chair good morning Madam chair members of the board Christian selli Boston groundw trust and we have both gcard letters from the end thank you so much I'll try that any questions from the board may I have a
motion since um uh since the letter has been received um for gcod pability I would like to put for a motion of approval is there a second second Mr sunbridge yes Mr Valencia yes Mr langum yes ma'am Miss weo yes Miss B brazza yes chair votes yes the motion carries good luck
thank you very much on to the hearing scheduled for 9:30 a.m. as Madam chair one audience earlier uh we are a six member board and with that we will ask if there are any requests for withdrawals or deferrals from the 9:30 a.m. here good morning Madame chair attorney laan Cino for 140 Chelsea Street requesting a defer
so that would be for case boa 167 5304 with the address of 140 Chelsea Street would you go ahead and explain please good morning Madam chair for the record attorney Len scatino from Richard lind's office with the business address of 245 Sumer Street in East Boston requesting a deferral due to the six member board for 140 Chelsea Street Carol line availability please we
could do February 25th March 4th or March 25th February 25th should be five may I have a motion motion to defer to February 25th there a second second Mr stbridge yes Mr Valencia yes Mr langum yes Miss weell yes Miss V brazza yes chair yes the motion carries see you
then thank you any further request for withdrawals on referrals from the 9:30 time frame uh yes uh this is uh Andrew Melton from Melton foray Architects um the project is 3236 acon Street in Boston so that is going to be for that's 11:30 so have come back at that time
we're just asking for 9:30 to for or withdrawals at this time okay thank you hearing no further request for withdrawal to the thrs from the 9305 frame we'll move on to case boa 167 1 987 with the address of 252 to 27 to
trimont Street if the applicant and or the representative of present would they please plan the case to the board yes hi uh thank you madam chair members of the board uh this is David Ingram Attorney at gston stores at one Post Office Square in Boston speaking on behalf of the applicant orange baril media I will give a brief overview of the project and then hear from representatives of orange Barrel in the Box Center so orange Barrel is proposing to install a digital sign on the exterior
facade of the Box Center building located at 50 stward Street uh the the main address for the box center is G5 on street as other than the case but uh this this back portion is lo at that if Street I show on that uh that site plan uh the site is located in the Theater District if you could just scroll back up to the uh that map that um I'm sorry uh so the S is located in the Theater District uh which allows digital Signs by conditional use permit under article 11-7 of the code
uh the BPD board has approved the sign and orange also has a license with the bpda which provides for an annual license fee as well as a revenue sh to the city next slide please so as noted the sign will be installed on the back portion of the boxing your building which currently has a blank fa facade as shown in this photo next slide please uh the science design as shown in this rendering has a uh or was refined over yearlong bpda EX review process and
the front sign phase keep changing content next slide please and the backline phase as shown in this rendering will be a strat display with box and branding in in terms of benefits um the sign will support the boxer through lease payments and promotional content for its events the sign will also display content from Orange Community and in nonprofit Partners across the city and orange barel has engaged in stive community outreach for the sign
including a community meeting held on December 8th and through this Outreach orange bill has received several letters of support for the sign uh those letters listed here as well as traditional letters from the Asian-American civic association as well as the Boston lgbtq plus Museum and these letters have been provided to the board and with that I will pass it to Casey so president and CEO of the Box letter good morning everyone I'm Casey sword president and CEO of the box center work home to the Wang and chuber
theaters and the fol Americana Roots Hall of Fame uh combined our organization has an estimated $80 million annual impact on the local economy uh we're seeking approval for the sign in partnership with orange Barrel which we see as a vital step in securing the future of the center for us the sign is not just about marketing our shows and our mission it's a critical Revenue Source the box center is still recovering from the effects of covid-19 while facing Rising classs maintaining 100-year-old buildings at the same time
we have increased competition from new venues in the city and reduced uh state and federal funding over the last few years at the same time donor priorities are shifting and making fundraising to support the Arts is more challenging than ever uh so with our 100th birthday in 2025 and the uh maintenance of the venues it's very costly uh revenues from performances cover most of our operations but all of the work we do in the community particular our work around Youth Development depend on additional funding so we see this sign is critical
to bridging that funding Gap uh making sure that we can continue to provide worldclass Arts programming preserving these beautiful landmarks and continuing to be a resource for the community and we we hope that your support uh will show your support of the Arts the local economy and these cultural landmarks and thank you for your consideration thank you any questions from the board hi I was hoping uh if we could scroll down I just would like to give a small bit of background on orange Ro media and Who We Are sure um we can
continue down please uh one more slide thank you uh just want to introduce myself I'm Jake D Valley development director for orange brell media in the Northeast I'm a Massachusetts resident living in the Southshore OBM has been in business for 20 years um operating in nearly every Major Market in the country uh our current Boston inventory which you can see here um operating in Fenway theater district and District Hall um in the SE Port um next slide please
um OBM Prides itself on not being an ordinary sign company with an emphasis on our sign design and integrating into the community uh with Partnerships that support Arts culture and small business um as you can see here here's a list of Community Partners we've worked with in Boston particularly I'm a fan of working with Urban College which is depicted here which is often featuring many of her family's uh first graduates college graduates um the sign up B as explained by Casey is unique in its own right that it's being on a legendary Boston cultural Institution that need our
support to uh continue serving the community uh we thank you for your time thank you are there questions from the board hearing none may have public testimony yes Madam chair members of the board Conor Newman with the mayor's office of neighborhood services at this time the mayor's office to defer to the Judgment this board some background information the community process uh and a Butters meeting was held on December 12th which was attended by two constituents uh who had had no questions
uh in that meeting uh the proposal proponents excuse me did meet with relevant Civic associations prior to that of Butter's meeting uh meeting with the CNC on May 20th uh which provided a letter of support they also met with the downtown Boston residents Association on May 31st as well as the CRA on June 5th uh the proposal has received five letters of support or non opposition from organizations including but not limited to St Francis House downtown
Boston Alliance the Asian-American civil civic association uh the Boston lgbtq Museum and the United States Department of Agriculture uh with that we'll refer to the board at this time thank you thank you Sydney hello my name is Sydney I'm from councelor Flynn's office councelor Flynn would like to go on record and support based on a thorough Community process with neighbors and good faith compromises with Civic organizations these include a lighting element on the
sidewalk the sign turned off from 2: am to 7 a.m. utilizing dimming sensors no advertising for tobacco cannabis LW or bigoted content reservation of time for Community organizations local businesses Arts and Cultural activities councelor Flynn respectfully ask that the proponent to continue to work closely with neighbors on any advertising and quality of life concerns thank you thank you okay and U Madam chair we have no
additional raised hands at the moment thank you may I have a motion Madam chair can the can the applicant respond to um what councelor Flynn was mentioning in regards to content and um and whether there would be kind of um visual um pollution you know late in the early mornings that would be really helpful and then that this is a question for Caroline can we regulate that or um
is there a suggestion that the applicant works with BPD to regulate some of those concerns from the neighborhood um you could either do it as a Proviso um if there are certain conditions or you can do for a BPD review or you could even do both if you like okay I just think it's uh would be good to how the applicant respond to some of those concerns from our our Council more than happy to answer um we've been
working with uh many members of the community and including councelor Flynn and we agree to all the provisions that uh were brought up just now um the lights and the sign itself will be turned off from the hours of 2: a.m. to 7:00 a.m. and all of our signs actually uh operate on an ambient light sensor um which works similar to If you're looking at your cell phone where you do not need the brightness so high during the day and then at night or sorry at during the day and then at night it actually turns down because because at night time you
do not need the contrast and the illumination so yes we we will uh we'll work with uh the community and with the counselor's office and we do agree to all the provisions that were just brought up you said 2 to 7 would be shut off correct okay thanks yes any other questions from the board may I have a motion with that I'd like to put forward a motion um of approval with two provis one that the project under goes BPD design revieww
for the signage and the second is that the uh sign would be shut off between 2: and 7: in the morning is there a second second Mr stbridge yes Mr Valencia yes Mr langum yes Miss weo yes Miss B brazza yes shair votes yes the motion carries good luck thank you
next we have case boa 128 3550 with the address of 9 Sussex Street if the applicant Endor the representative presid would they please explain the case in the board yes good morning Madam chairwoman and members of the board I am Robert Nichols uh the developer and owner of this these Lots here uh down in the Mission Hill district and uh we are looking to develop two units it is in a
Rous District um and as you can see we have uh gcod excuse me applicability and uh we've already gone through that process it's uh been all said and approved by Boston Waterman store in the city um we have it undersized Lots um both Lots total about uh 1173 s ft um there smaller Lots 573 and 598 roughly um we are looking to for obviously these violations and get a
variance uh based on what you can see here with a lot is it's a corner lot in a row house district uh we are looking to finish uh the lower level and have three level living levels above grade and uh it's going to be total uh three bedrooms two baths uh in each unit by level living uh we can go up to three stories by right and uh we were able to go through the process if with the community process the abundance process uh and get a letter of support uh from
un nlr united neighbors of L Roxberry um next next slide please so you guys can kind of see where the lot is situated um one of the pieces of feedback we got from the community process is they wanted the sidewalk to be a little bit larger so we did propose in the next version of plans uh to pull in the project a little bit I think by about 18 in in order to provide uh accessibility and uh really uh just be accommodating to the neighborhood as as well as adding trees to the sidewalks on
that side of the the lot um scroll down please keep going so as you can see from the layout there it's a pretty straightforward lower level first floor open concept living um we do have a second means of regress on the rear of the property um enclosed on the second floor and third floor uh it does caner lever over the first story um so we still wanted to at least create as much yard space as we could um and then we can't leave the the
second floor and third floor uh to maximize the living space as well next slide please um again this is the unit two um you scroll down to the last slide I think that's the the next one that's the uh the bedroom layouts on the top floor so three bedrooms uh with two bathrooms up there as well um and that's essentially it I do have uh an updated version of this I don't know
if I can share if the board would like to see it based on the community feedback they wanted us to keep the cornice line um of the project which I think is really important you know just for the character of the neighborhood um so we're going to do that and as I said we cheated in the left side of the lot a little bit um or the where the foundation will start in order to accommodate uh the sidewalk ADA compliance as well as uh adding some trees can you uh respond to the bpd's uh
comments about being in a sea fraud District uh and below below sea level um living space yeah so we're going to make sure obviously the site is has proper drainage um we'll also have a su pump um you know obviously system in there French drain system that way if anything does uh arise you know we can definitely obviously get the water out and uh allow the the lower level to be habitable space um without causing any damage and
and uh you know really making sure we're managing the the water on site and offsite as well questions from the board hearing none may have public testimony Madam chair and members of the board for the record my name is Jeremy bbery I am the Roxbury Community engagement specialist for the office of Neighborhood Services the applicant has completed the community process which consisted of an abundis meeting held on November 7th where bu has voiced a few
concerns regarding parking construction timelines and noise uh one mention was also of trees uh remaining on the property as when brother did mention a hawk lives in the trees and they were very concerned a few other brothers mentioned trees on the uh general area the sidewalks as well no opposition was voiced oning the meeting with one director about in support uh they then presented to the neighborhood association they did where they were approved no opposition led her or letter of support were received at this time
thank you for your time in the May's office of Neighborhood Services would like to defer to the board for the Judgment thank you is Mr selli with us I am Madam chair good morning members of the board um I would ask the applicant to expand upon his narrative about having some pumps available because they're strictly forbidden in the gcard and the applicability uh of of compliance stipulates that got it yeah I wasn't aware of that um this is my first time going through a gcod process so I
had a civil engineer he's not on the call um but he designed the water drainage for the site to ensure that we'd be compliant with the gcod uh requirements there uh but yeah so we would be allowed to use some pumps the uh then Madam chair I respectfully requested the fural on this and the reason I'm requesting a deferral here is that the no harm letter which stipulates that there'll be no harm to groundwater on site or jent Lots doesn't mention any
of that at all and the purpose of no harm letter is to make sure that we don't have any issues with the watering and jeopardizing buildings that are supported on wood piles that are not only adjacent to his building but also the building itself thank you do you want me to go to the raised hands or yeah yeah okay perfect um second I we have um sorry someone in the p on the side Jeremy are you still ask speak
yes ma'am I did want to uh uh add one more to my testimony I did fil to mention that they did uh go before the Civic group UNR and they did receive one support letter from that Civic group my apologies thank you and Marco you looking to give testimony here uh no I just wanted to voice my opposition okay can you state your name and address uh Mar perona 7 suus Street I'm the building that will be uh this
will be placed up against and uh I'm concerned you know uh there's already not enough parking and we're adding all these bedrooms and I don't see any plans to add any more parking um and the construction that's already occurred in the neighborhood uh seem to coincide with the arrival of uh
rats and I I just am not uh excited about the prospect of uh construction this this is a historic neighborhood with historic buildings and um you know new construction I I feel Will Will just ruin that history thank you thank you and we have no additional raised hands at the moment any other questions from the board m I have a question um if Jeff
Hampton is on from the BPD I just want to understand um you know about their recommendation for denial but then the response the applicant gave you know are those measures are there measures that make the bpda comfortable with approving sort of living space below those um standards I think they're two different issu ues Katie with as it deals with
groundwater replenishment right and then the issue of flooding on the sea fraud District but I think that was the initial response to the chair's question around the bpda BPD recommendations I didn't know if although Mr selli also just mentioned so the response to correct the BPD issue seems to be in conflict with exactly so
I think I think that and Mr simonelli is here to explain it I think there're two different issues the the no harm letter really deals with protecting piles of existing structures in in adj in the adjacent vicinity where the flooding in itself is an issue that deals with just damage and being per Zone per code that it's a violation to to have any habitable space in a flood
zone right that's what I was sort of trying to understand is are yeah I was Mr Hampton available uh yes Madam chair uh thank you uh Jeff Hampton uh city of Boston planning department uh as you have been or you have seen in the past few meetings uh any sort of living space bedrooms anything that is within a SE fraud whether it be in the south end or
last meeting it was in the North End uh we are against having that kind of living space in the basement when it is in a sea fraud and that's why we are recommending denial uh as you saw we're not opposed to the residential use but having those bedrooms in the basement in the sea frod that's not something that we can support um and we think that this uh project could be you know redesigned and done better um without that living space
below uh in the basement rather so that's why you see our recommendation of uh denial without prejudice okay no that helps and it it just seems like there is no mitigation to get around that it's just a across the board policy or recommendation that from our point of view yes okay thank you that's what I was looking thank you any other questions from the board I I do have one comment yes yeah so question for you so this
particular site the rear of the property is at grade does that make a difference in relation to in relation to the flooding or relation to the gcod compliance uh gcod compliance I mean I think is is self-explanatory I guess in relation to the flooding um being that you know we're at grade at the rear you know is that is habitable space allowed at grade cuz it isn't it's below grade at the street level but but at the rear of the property it's
agre so I don't know how that impacts our ability to finish the space uh below there Mr Hampton question no not from the city's point of view no that's splitting hairs and you have living space below grade in a c fraud and we can't support that understood given Mr sell's request may I have a motion I'd like to put forward a motion of um denial without prejudice uh to allow the applicant to redesign without
habitable uh living units in the basement and also to be able to provide to Mrs selli uh the no harm letter as well is there a second second Mr stbridge yes Mr Valencia yes Mr langum yes Miss weell yes Miss bzo yes chair votes yes the motion
carries thank you next we have case boa 167 1334 with the address of 14 win Street if the applicant Andor the representative of present they please explain the case to the board good morning Madam chair Mr secretary members of the board my name is Patrick gallager I'm with gston and
stores with the business address of one Post Office Square in Boston I'm here on behalf of the applicant Community movement Commons Inc uh Community movement Commons is a unique and unprecedented collaboration of six Boston nonprofits who have joined together to develop a space that will give each of them roots and a place in the heart of the communities they serve these six nonprofits are the neighborhood Bird Center sisters Unchained matahari women workers Center Center for economic democracy resist and
movement sustainability commment today I'm here with mashira barel executive director and founder of the neighborhood birth center and president of community movement Commons and David saladik senior principal with the project architect Mass Design Group Community movement commment is proposing to redevelop the property at 14 L of Street in rocksbury as a collaborative Space featuring a birth center in about half the space and in the other half combination of office meeting and other communal areas that
will be shared among the six partner organizations and their constituents we can just go back up to the prior side please um CMC was very deliberate in choosing this property which the organization purchased in 2023 it's just south of Nubian square and in an area identified by the Roxbury strategic master plan as having a need for the types of neighborhood and community services that these organizations provide next slide please as you can see the property is made up
of four separate Parcels totaling about 20,000 Square ft it's located entirely in the 3F 4000 subd District but nearly adjacent to the MFR local service and Dudley square Eda subd districts as you'll see in a couple slides next please the property is currently improved by two residential structures one of which the red house which fronts on win street is structurally UN sound and has previously been ordered to be torn down found by ISD next slide
please David and theare will talk more about the design but high level what we are proposing is a twostory roughly 10,500 ft building with 11 parking spaces a substantial percentage of the property will be usable in landscaped open space next slide please based on the underlying zoning we are seeking variances for clinical use and office use a conditional use permit for Community uses and a variance for front yard setbacks on LR and karge and
next slide please and just lastly before turning it over to Nira um I wanted to highlight and and if we can actually go on to the next slide um wanted to highlight the significant number of community and institutional uses that are in the immediate vicinity of the property as further evidence of why this is an appropriate location for this use um and with that I will hand it over to nare buo thank you
thank you Patrick um and thank you for your attention and time on the board um I want to take a few minutes to tell you about our vision and how we got here first want to orient you to how we hope to use the space and the community benefits the next slide please there'll be three main uses of the building uh as Patrick said the majority of the building just over 50% of the square footage will be the city's first birth center so more about uh that in a minute there will also be about 2,000 squ ft of
shared office space which will support some of the staff of the other organizations who co-own the property and there are about 2700 ft of gathering and shared space next slide um about the community impact the commons expects to create 27 New full-time jobs 56% of which will be accessible to align with the Roxbury hiring plan we added spaces designed for Community use including a multi-purpose room indoor out outdoor meeting spaces a kitchen and a podcast room the truth is
many organizations are struggling with high run and this building gives them a permanent home allowing them to keep doing the work of advancing social justice and organizing uh the birth center at the community movement Commons is about advancing Health Equity and addressing persistent racial inequities and maternal Health outcomes explicit goals on both the city and state levels birth centers are by definition homelike facilities usually two to four bedrooms designed for people who are um pregnant
and laboring and getting full spectrum midw free care they are not hospitals or clinics on the scale of a woodier street or a diit community health center so in our quest to find a homelike space for people to give birth in roxsbury we fell in love with this location because of the neighborhood feel while also having access to public transit and being just a few moments from Boston Medical Center which is our transfer Hospital in the few cases it will require an emergency transfer um I want to to say moment about the reality of birth centers in
the country and in the Commonwealth um most bur centers uh in the country operate in a deficit stru by high rents and construction loans um on top of that insurance reimbursement for mrey is low there have been 12 maternity unit closures in the Commonwealth in the last decade and as of today there's one birth center open in the State uh it's out in western Mass so 2 and a qu hours from here what's unique about this partnership is that the community movement Commons allows this bir Center to to operate financially because of sharing costs and resources with our
partners I've been at this for 10 years and I can tell you with certainty that Boston would not have a viable birth center without the community movement Commons Partners Financial investment and willingness to share the space I want to share the sentiment briefly of an abutter who couldn't be here today Stephanie Crawford of 22 winthrip Street says the community movement Commons will be a light in our community for black maternal Health the maternal Health world needs to be more centered in the community in different way I think 14 wirips would be a beautiful warm place
to give birth in my community next slide please um so we've been involved in talking uh to the community about this project since we learned about the property in August of 2022 this space is not just about the organizations that bought it and for our use but for the community and so we've been very concerted to engage and listen to neighbors as you can see in our submission we have broad support including 60 of others and many residents and organizations that live in the vicinity of the property late in 2023 we brought our
initial design to two uh neighborhood associations to hear their feedback prior to submitting our rejection set to ISD it was clear that some didn't like the lack of green space and how dense that iteration of the building was at four stories in 20,000 Square ft next slide as a result of these Community conversations we paused their submission and dedicated most of 2024 to redesigning the project to integrate that Community feedback and in consultation with neighbors and our Architects at Mass design we pivoted uh
to an entirely different design that keeps with the scale of the neighborhood and is more appropriate for the property you can see here the red outline um shows a footprint of our original design and the blue shows our current design a byproduct of this redesign deserves less volume and less foot in vehicle traffic the new design is half the previous size and preserves half the space for usable green space with that I'll pass it off to our architect at Mass design David salad good morning next next slide please and
thank you to the board uh for having us I'll speak briefly to some of the design aspects of the project in addition to the change of use variants we're seeking a variance for front yard setback depth however we are improving the setback condition relative to the existing buildings in this diagram existing building Footprints are shown in pink and the proposed footprint of our design is shown in Gray um on the North side on karge AV we're increasing the existing setback distance uh of 3 fo4 in to 7
feet for the proposed design and on the south side we are maintaining the setback of approximately 6 and 1/2 ft of the existing Red House on site we believe this is appropriate because it aligns with setbacks of other adjacent buildings on windr Street um some you can see uh just to the right of our site uh next slide please uh in terms of the building height we are well below the allowable limit of 35
ft with an average roof height of about 24 1/2 ft the proposed two-story design is also a reduction in height from the existing three-story White House the outline of which uh you can see in purple on this drawing the design as proposed preserves existing views and access to natural daylight for surrounding neighbors next slide please terms of the look and feel of the project we studied the surrounding context drawing inspiration from surrounding homes to help inform
decisions on materials form and color uh so that the project fits into the existing fabric of Roxberry and also pays homage to the red house which holds nostalgia in the neighborhood the project is intentionally designed to feel like home Gable roofs and shingle siding give an intentional residential feel and Pops of color refer back uh to in honor of the red house uh next slide last slide um taking advantage of the one story change of grade of the site we have two
main entrances to the building one on the ground floor for the birth center from winr Street and the other pictured here um on on the second floor to access shared office and Gathering spaces from kirar jav at both of these entrances birth lanterns will be lit when a new baby is born communicating to to the neighborhood that a new life has entered the world um and with that I will U SE my time and and pass it back to the board thank you very much thank you quick question is is there any
parking on site um yes there is there are 11 parking spaces um accessed off of winr Street um via an existing curb cut thank you and are they just um sort of first come first serve or are they designated for the different uses on site yeah great question there's there's one uh spot that is designated for an ambulance which will always be reserved um in the case of emergency um for spaces are dedicated uh for the four birthing
Suites um for families who are birthing there and the remaining spots um will be shared by the tenants uh there's no parking allowed on wiri street so uh users of this building will not be parking there it's reserved for residential parking thank you questions from the board yes it seems that the initial project I was proposing solar panels so I'm wondering if this new proposal is also POS solar panels or
not um yes we are and some of the diagrams uh We've shown them the roof has been designed for that I'm sorry they're not appearing in the rendering but that's absolutely the intent and has been the um has been designed for those right thank you question I'll start out with a comment um the project would seem to be very worthwhile in this neighborhood in particular uh neighborhood rockburg um the two houses that are on
the property now I believe you said one of them well are they both occupied or not um Mr secretary neither of those homes are occupied today um one of them the red house has been declared structurally unsound um but neither of them are occupied so in this case you wouldn't be displacing any residents that is correct
sir okay um have you looked at any other areas I mean it's it's a hop ski and a jump from Nubian Square itself was that did that come up a place like that come up with consideration yeah we um we did search for property for 2 years before finding this location um we looked we had a radius of a 10min um drive an ambulance ride to Boston Medical Center so that determined the
area that we were searching in and as I mentioned we are really interested in having this feel um residential and homik most birth centers around the country are actually in renovated homes and so um it was not our vision to have the bir Center like in a plaza or in a commercial um building but to have it adjacent in that way and so we were really excited to find this that is adjacent to commercial use um but has a residential feel and we did we did look for 2 years and it was hard to find a space that we
needed and I'm sure you've been told that this is basically um in one of the historical districts all districts in rosbury are historical literally that's my opinion uh but this is a designated historical district um Mr secretary I would just note that while it's a National Registry District um I I don't believe it's a city of Boston historic district so I
would just make that distinction uh it's a it's actually in a neighborhood Design District which uh alludes to um historic districts sure so um those are my questions for now thank you Mr Langham did you have a question yes I did I'm just curious um I just like to really know how is this going to really benefit the community
yeah I'll take that one I think um in multiple ways one um birth centers are proven to improve outcomes and experiences so um in Boston and in roxb in particular there's a um history of racial inequities worst birth outcomes for black and brown folks and so birth centers are demonstrated to improve those outcomes and experiences so it's literally life-saving um state-of-the-art care provided by midwives who are experts in natural physiologic birth so in addition to the
the laboring and birthing at the birth center also full spectrum midwe free care so Family Planning um uh everything through menopausal care um on the second floor the use from our Community Partners um it's the the missions of these each of these organizations is for Community benefit so um advancing Economic Development um supporting young women whose families are incarcerated so a lot of the organizations already have roots and do their organizing in Boston
as say matahari women's worker Circle and then again 2700 excuse me 2700 Square fet are really reserved for Community benefit so we imagine people being able to host their neighborhood association meetings there a s there um to use the space for Community um events and activities just one more question I think I I think I overheard you say will this be like free care or something like that did you say free care um I didn't use those words but it's a good question
um the expectation is that all of the um clinical care of the birth center will be covered by insurance with um more than 50% of our patient population being on Mass health so we're very committed to serving the immediate population okay thank you thank you other questions from the board yes um I have some questions related to just responding to Sierra Tilton's from our disability commission's feedback on the project as it applies to accessibility um it was commented that
the parking space that you have noted on your site plan as five should be the accessible um parking space uh currently you have it all across the across um the parking lot and typically you wanted to have it as Clos as to the front entry of your building um and then the other and I think it's you can accom that um based on what I see and then the
other is was noted that a lot of your seating spaces in the outdoor does not accommodate for someone in a wheelchair so if you can please accommodate um at least one wheelchair space where there's fixed seating or even in the um birth Garden as well that would be really helpful and then given that this is for public um for the public some have public routes to ensure that you have
accessible kind of routes in the interior of your plan so if the architect can let me know if all these things can be accommodated that would be great sure I'd be happy to respond to those um yes absolutely all of those can be accommodated um uh currently we'd be happy to to relocate the uh the accessible space in the parking lot I will say the only reason
it's located where it is is we were sharing um the required space next to that parking lot with the ambulance parking there was some benefit to collocating those but if the preference is to move it we would be happy to do so um the exterior spaces uh for example the birth Garden are currently accessible from the interior we will um take a look at the community space uh the community Courtyard on the other side of the building to ensure that um that is accessible from the interior of
the building there's there's very steep grade and so accessing it from the sidewalk is challenging but we can certainly make that accessible from the interior of the building um and currently you know interior access for accessibility has been accounted for throughout the building there are elevators and and widths of um you know interior hallways are are already currently planned for accessibility so we'd be happy to accommodate all of those com comments into the design great thank you no
questions Madam chair one more question yes and I know we have a bunch of RA P so I to make sure we get to them please Mr um how much open space will be uh part and part of the project da do you want to take it's a about 10,000 sare ft of yeah I was just checking my numbers it's it's it's about half the site about 10,000 squ feet of space so we're occupying half the site and leaving half of it uh for open
space thank you thank you uh so we'll open it up to public testimony I you know I know rep Tyler wanted to speak so if I could ask her to speak and we do have many raised hands so if uh folks can build on each other's comments after that and not and try not to repeat uh that would help us allow more people to speak thank you am I okay is is representative Tyler on yes I'm
here good morning sh how you doing good thank you thank you so much Hy Jean David Giovani Norm Katie chel Alan David good to see you all thank you so much Jess for uh ushering this meeting I really appreciate you guys taking me out of turn and allowing me to speak um I'll share some quick remarks um about the birthing center which I do think in a birthing center is a great initiative especially for someone who just happened you know to have a baby and get bir over the last month um especially when you have Partners um that I particularly
like um and I do a great work in the city of Boston Partners like the Boston Medical Center um it it's a it you know it could be a positive thing however I do I do think that right now this project should be deferred and that rock spr may not be fitting for this particular project for three reasons um the first I'll definitely say is the partnership I'm concerned a little bit about that and that it may not be complete and that some of the partners may not be fully committed and especially in a time right now where the
landscape has changed as far as funding is concerned and funding definitely is going to be limited over the next couple of years I'm concerned about that so A feasibility and financial feasibility is of concern to me for one um the second reason um is relating to the abuts um and I just like to make sure that we follow the city policy and and and make sure that how we Define the but direct bu is is is how we're how we're doing things here um I did see that there was a list of a a list of supporters um
actually a lengthy list of supporters um however the list was of concern because a lot of those folks weren't director Butters and after having had coffee with a lot of the director Butters in the area recently and just listening to their concerns particularly the women who happen to live next door um they were they were concerned about a lot of the you know the small pieces of the project or bigger pieces of the project and so um I'm concerned as well so I'd like that to be noted um number three is actually the business plan another concern that I have um you know to
Norm's Point um this is a historic dist District No matter how you cut it and um those two buildings that or the two homes that are um you know on the on the three on the four Apostles kind of split across the parcels are historic homes and I just can't see you know tearing down historic buildings particularly now during the middle of a housing crisis um to be able to build something a structure it doesn't matter what it is is and also too like just with office space like a little bit something more
meaningful would mean more to me um as a rep that's concerned about affordable housing and preserving um historic homes um so I'd like that to be considered when you guys make your decision um and last but certainly not least I actually just jotted this down as you know thinking about my personal experience just giving birth within the last year um and I did hear that the team noted how you know it'll be affordable but I just wanted to note that there are other other models like this and work and again talk about funding funding you know opportunities are definitely going
to be changing over the next couple of years particularly as someone who oversees a $3.6 billion budget every year um and some of those some of these efforts cost upwards of $1,500 a night to be able to stay in a birthing center like this um New York has a really good model but they it's it's pretty expensive and you talk about you know closing the wealth Gap and the average you know um the average um wealth inome the income of a black family or family in general here in the city of Austin
particularly in Roxberry I'm not necessarily sure that they'll be able to meet that should prices go up or just being in an uncertain space is just not really acceptable for me and so um I just would like this project to be deferred and so I really I know that this can happen um there have been other projects in the area that you know have they have worked with the local with the director Butters and the local neighborhood group um started off from the rocky space it ended up going really well um but right now this project is just not where it could be so um on that
I wanted to thank you guys so much for having me and I appreciate you being here y keep going please be try to be brief and if you are not a director butter we want to hear from director Butters first um do we hear from on yeah yes after the sorry after the U ele okay relle good morning everyone my name is relle Senseo and I'm here on behalf of state senator Liz Miranda although she couldn't be here today she did have remarks prepared so I'm going to share um an e an except from that briefly um
as many of you know she recently championed and successfully passed a maternal Health Omnibus Bill which prioritizes support for birthing individuals and secures funding for bird centers through a dedicated linee line in our state budget now is the time to bring these policy commitments to Life by ensuring that communities especially historically underserved communities have access to the care they deserve Boston and Roxberry in particular is in dire need of this birth center right now there's only one birth center in the entire state of Massachusetts located on
the western part of the state um this lack of access is unacceptable especially for communities of color where disparities in maternal Health outcomes are Stark and well documented um the establishment of this birth center is a meaningful life-saving investment in our in our fam in our families ensuring that more individuals get to give bird safely with dignity and in a setting that reflects their needs and values um it will provide vital resources for birthing families particularly those
focused on improving black maternal Health Care outcomes um in additionally it'll create more opportunities for um grassroot organizing and sustainable Business Development all Under One Roof um we have a real opportunity here to be on the right side of history and to build a future where every birthing individual has access to the care that they need where and when they need it um thank you for your time and consideration and we look forward to seeing this transformative project of fruition thank you thank you okay we
have about 14 raised hands in the attendees section did you yeah did you was the one that's speaking also yeah I want say you on yes go thank you madam chair and members of the board for the record my name is Jeremy bbery I am the Roxbury Community engagement specialist for the office of Neighborhood Services the applicant has completed the community process which consisted of two ab's meetings held on October 2nd and another on December 12th the first meeting attended with over 120 attendees and the majority of attendees were in
support of the project and a few are BS in opposition stating they do not want the commercial proposal in their neighborhood the second of Brothers meeting was well attended but with majority of attendees heavily opposed heavy opposition was voiced multiple times to a commercial property uh building in their residential neighborhood uh there were other concerns were voiced regarding the size of the project and the scope of the birthing center with office spaces for their supporters uh AB buter stated the proposal is more or less an office space with a birthing
center the opposing abers stated they are not against a birthing center but they are heavily against being a res having a birthing center in their residential neighborhood setting the distance of the commercial area up the street uh would be a more suitable location some voice they would like to see the property remain residential other concerns such as the lack of collaboration cooperation with the neighborhood R voiced and with an added concern or frustration rather stating the first meeting was stacked with supporters from outside of their neighborhood and not enough abutters
were heard because there are not over 120 abuts in their neighborhood and with Noah brothers getting to speak during the first meeting we only heard from everyone who does not live there who are in support while every AB who is actually affected is opposed the proponent then met with a small community group with myself and the neighborhood liaison in attendance where they were able to have more dialogue but again AB is voed only opposition into the location asking why it cannot be located in the commercial area feeling
that they are in that they and their neighborhood are being taken advantage of and a center does not help any ABS but only outside constituents when AB went on the state everyone seems to want to tell us what's good for our neighborhood uh but do not want to hear their opposition next they presented to the Roxbury path forward where again the proposal was met with heavy opposition again regarding the same concerns uh which I won't reiterate here at this time again uh we we have received 26 letters of support and five letters in opposition thank you for your time and
the mayor's office of Neighborhood Services would like to defer to the board for their judgment thanks okay Sophia and then lorine hi my name is Sophia Burks um my residence is 19 win Street which is directly across the street from the site allowing the zoning of these homes to change will impact the whole neighborhood once this door is open others can come purchase a home on win of Street and request to demolish and build another office building building
this commercial space requires the neighborhood to change the zoning use from residential to commercial if approved if given this for this project the ex the exception to the zoning cold will become the rule once this door is open it will be open forever you know the city talks about how housing is vital um and here we have a businesses six businesses nonprofits who want to demolish two homes to build an office building in a residential neighborhood
um ner in her presentation did mention how the um cost of paying high rent has become a burden for some um business owners that same burden has been um put on families as well and taking away the opportunity to build um residential housing even if it is income restricted is here if the um committee decides to move forward with approving this there are plenty of commercial properties available in Roxberry and in Nubian Square we have met with several
developers who are interested in purchasing 14 win of Street in the parcel surrounding if the houses have to be demolished then the land should continue to be used for housing that has been our consistent ongoing never wavering message housing not an office building or a clinic thank you yne hi um please keep your comments brief so we can I will uh my name is Lorraine pay wheeler and I organize the neighborhood association
Roxberry path forward and we have asked our elected representatives uh China thaa and um uh uh the city council atan Fernandez Anderson to defer this hearing and uh a major reason is that they have not completed the community process they have not met with the Roxberry neighborhood Council which um um again
uh Asha Jan who's the Roxberry Rel liaison often goes to those meetings and is aware of that requirement and um I won't repeat um what uh sopia the director butter has said but I do want to point out to you in 2020 at a site that had where a house had burned down um at the corner of Winthrop and Warren Street a developer wanted to build an office building on
this main arterial uh uh Street and the neighbors again because of their deep commitment to housing came to the zba and um said that they would like it to remain a house and um under the same zoning code cuz the zoning code hasn't changed yet the ZB a agreed and um denied uh permits to build a um um an
office building and so we do not know how you can take the same uh zoning code and then deeper into the neighborhood approve this and so the neighborhood has a lot of traffic congestion as it was pointed out we do have four churches we do have two schools and this plan which the
nonprofits that originally built bought the building like City Life fighter although they still own the building or a portion of building or a portion of the building they're saying they're no longer going to move in so we've already seen a change in the nonprofits that will be in the building so we really asked that it would be deferred for more discussion and um we'll hope that you will um agree with the residents that
own homes on winam street thank you thank you Bethany hi good morning everyone my name is Bethany soda um rockberry resident I I live at 47 Clifford Street um I just want to speak to the sustainability of the birth center we've learned from the past other birth centers have closed because they didn't have the support or the structure to sustain themselves you know we with this project it's so
different we're building strong Partnerships with philanthropic organizations across the community to really ensure that this are you part of the applicant um application it would be yes she is not an immediate abutter I would just love to hear from the abutters and then we will give for the applicant to respond thank you can we is everyone's hands raised are they AB Butters um if you're in a butter like if if you say you're address and it's not in a butter we're going to move on for now we just and I
would ask that others put their their comments in the chat so we can keep moving forward as there are a lot of raised hands yeah Maxine hi good morning my name's Max I I'm a few streets away so I'm not an immediate like um like Soph brief keep your comment brief okay great um I actually just wanted to read something I I already posted but I want to thank um re Tyler for her thoughtful
uh comments on what she shared um for asking for deferral because this is residential zone property um I I also want to reiterate that the the Partnerships have also changed and so as we continue to have an unfolding of Partnerships that back out or or renew that makes it un un unsustainable for the residents to have to um continue deal with especially if um this is not successful uh we are not I am not
against a birthing center as we've Al I've also shared in the past with um the proponents it's just that this is not the the right location um I I noticed in their current renderings it appears that the the current driveway has now expanded three times what it is and so that leaves the abutters who need somewhere to park because they do not have a driveway on this very narrow Street um even more challenges to try to
park If This Were to go forward so um with all due respect the the process is not complete because they have not gone through a meeting with the RNC thank you thanks PRI hello my name is PRI Vara I live on 41 win Street and I've been a homeowner here since uh 2021 um I'm strongly opposed to this project uh for various reasons and I agree with
all the points made so far uh I'm partic particularly concerned about the congestion that has been mentioned already um uh the reason for that is this uh this neighborhood and these roads have a lot of one-way roads uh which make it very difficult especially given the uh school which is right next to uh the project in question as well as the four churches and street I'm concerned that with the increase on traffic um I I I live on the corner of winr uh Greenville uh and Cleveland
Street and I get to see a lot of um uh very fast traffic people driving in wrong directions and I'm concerned that with the increase in traffic it'll be an additional J danger to the neighborhood and the people that live here uh especially the school children that go there uh this is especially true for when there are events as mentioned by the commercial building um uh that uh that might cause additional traffic to come into this area thank
you okay M keep call uh I'll hear from maybe three more let's see if others want to put your chat uh response in the your feedback in the comments okay peaches PES I sent a request to unmute you good morning what yes please proceed with uh your
name good morning good morning my name is pet Jackson thank you for allowing me to express why I support the brethon center Roxberry deserve the breth center one that privatize the health the dignity and well-being of our resident for far too long the neighborhood has been underserved in terms of maternal and infant infant care particularly for black and brown family who face higher risk due to systemic Health Healthcare dispar this birth center is not just about providing medical care it's about addressing the longstanding inequalities
and ensuring that families have access to high quality Community Center support they deserve the birth center will be a resource for everyone it will it will be designed to serve individual from all backgrounds and circumstances our goal is to create a space where no one is Left Behind where expected parents feel empowered supported and safe throughout their birthing experiences Roxberry family should not have to travel far or struggle to find curable competent
accessible care that's why we are building a breast center that reflects the values and needs of the entire Community ensuring that every parent and every child has the best possible start it is conveniently located near public transportation and medical facilities the B Center will be a Lifeline for local families reducing barriers to care and strengthening the health of the community this is more than a health care facility it is a
commitment to equity and power and the wellbe of future generation it is a perfect fit to serve Roxberry and thank you car um good morning my name is Carl tiesco I live at 60 winr Street I've been a resident here for 25 years just for a matter of making comments quick I know you've heard a lot of the comments that um the neighbors are opposed to so I don't want to repeat them but being a
very historic neighborhood I would like to see it continue as being a um Neighborhood Housing and not turn into an office Park which seems like they want to take our neighborhood open the door and start turning it into offices that is not acceptable to residents here and my my neighbors who have taken great pride into in their homes and just I'm
going to add one other fact um that has not been brought up yet the house on kage street was built in 1835 it's very historic because when the Roxberry Latin School was across the street where the day and evening Academy is um Dr Joseph Warren was living in that house and he was the physician that per um performed
um surgery by the first surgery under anesthesia and that's why we have the idome at MES General the house was designed by Richard Bond a noted architect the same um architect that designed the house in Fort Hill which was the hamton house that the um neighborhood in Fort Hill was able to designate that as a National Historic
Landmark I would like the council to take this into consideration if Fort Hill can turn a home into a landmark why can't we have a landmark presented in our neighborhood also thank you I'll take one more and let's give the applicant a chance to respond okay um but that was the last of the hands okay so let's turn it back to the
applicant there was a lot of um comments and concerns about process and all that just uh if you could briefly respond that would be great sure um I can't see anyone anymore so I'll go first this is nir and may Dave I'll let you take that last one um I want to just speak to um process we have met the community process as outlined by on um there is a lot of support that was not not um provided in the testimony that Jeremy FY um offered from the city we have the
support of 60 abutters um those are addresses that we collected uh from the city in the 300t radius surrounding the property to the comment about sustainability um City Life V Arana moved out of the property when we made the commitment to downsize so it's not that the partnership is um not strong or fragile it's in fact that when we heard that Community feedback and cut the building in Half they needed the largest footprint and they decided to move to another location we have raised um all
of the funds that we need to build the project um without carrying significant debt and the birth center to the point of um representative Tyler um will be fully funded by Insurance uh fully reimbursed excuse me by Insurance um and will be fully accessible to um families in the Commonwealth on both commercial insurance and on Mass health so there will not be a cost cost paid on paid by families to access Care at the bir Center um I could go on but I'll I'll
defer to to speak on the history thank you yeah I would just like to comment on on some of the the issues around traffic and and volume and this idea that we are eliminating parking and none of these are true we're um we are locating our our Drive where an existing curb cut is we providing off street parking and the reality is that this uh project would be
far less dense than any residential project to be built uh on the site so we believe this is uh far less of an impact on the community than if a developer would to rebuild um residential buildings here and as we've noted earlier in the in the presentation neither of these uh structures are on the historic register however we acknowledge the uh board members comment about the neighbor Hood uh being in a historic so I'll stop there and thank
you are there other questions from the board okay hearing none uh is there a motion mam sh it was um very important to hear all the comments uh on support onos to this project thinking about the
neighborhood and the long-term impact on the community I'm going to make a motion of approval with a provisor that they need a the sign from the Boston land landmarks uh commission is there a second um I will second I think reading the BPD report that you know plan Newan and the Roxberry Strate strategic master plan contemplates these uses and
recommends them for approval I think the variances requested are um you know few um compared to some of the other items we see you know the front yard insufficient it looks to be you know not out of alignment with the REM remainder of the neighborhood the clinic use and the office use and the community center use are all um requ needing variances and you know I think um I'm happy to support
them Mr stbridge I'm going to vote Yes um my concern is still with some of the neighborhood uh feedback that needs to be heard that may be um that may help may not well um I if we get added provis if a provisor could be added that some
amount of community feedback would sometime be be add um but I will vote Yes are are you asking for additional meetings that that additional meetings take place or what what's the yes um that would be my ask at this point or but so I don't know if that um will go along with what's been presented or recommended not well I'll let uh Mr Valencia decide
on that you says you made the motion yes so the provisor is to uh for the proponent to continue working with the community and incorporating Community feedback to improve the project okay I'll continue on then so so Mr Valencia yes Mr langum no Miss weell I'm voting yes but I would like some guidance from the legal department on
that Proviso to add more meetings and whether that is enforcable and what that would look like yeah so um they could just put continued I think how um board member Valencia worded it continued Community um you could do updates um but in terms of like the project itself like what's being approved is what's presented today and stamped by us
um but you could you're still able to add um with continued Community updates um m b brazza i I'm going to go um you know to have representative Tyler on the call um to voice the concern that um that more
kind of community input was just needed um I always find it's a very commendable project but I always find that um if they're if your abutters are still voicing that um there needs to be Outreach whether was to the RN the RoR neighborhood um associations community that there needs to be a little bit more
outrage I think the project can be reviewed with the community within two weeks and come before us to present those kind of conversations in regards to Partners for the project to make sure that it's successful I do agree that the project type is actually pretty appropriate um that whole street is both residential and larger type of use in regards to zoning I'm going to vote
no the chair also votes no the motion does not carry I like to put forward a motion I'd like to put for a motion of defer to ensure that the applicant reaches out to roxb neighbor associations that felt needed needed them at the table again to ensure to representative Tyler that you have the correct Partners to make this a successful Community project um and for
the reasons I'm putting forward a deferral to come back in two weeks I'm not actually sure that's sufficient time have to go back to the community but uh we can certainly yeah if you can talk to the applicant whether two weeks is sufficient time to have meetings with the community I would advocate for that because it is a very commendable project I just want to make sure that it's it's vetted one more
time is there a second second Mr sunbridge yes Mr Valencia yes Mr Langham yes Miss we yes Miss ber brazza yes chair votes yes the motion carries just to clarify on record for the date for the deferral um we could do February
25th or March 25th I will ask the applicant how much time you think you need for additional process Madam chair um if I may we would request a deferral to February 25th but in the event that we're unable to organize a meeting between now and then um then we would pursue a deferral to March if if if the board would agree with that uh we see when we see you then it would
be what's available if you have to defer again so underst okay with that may I have a motion I mean sorry yeah sorry we had a motion you have the dates you have the dates uh so so we're going to go for the 25th of February right okay thank you thank thank you very much next we have case boa
16820 64 with the address of 570 Warren Street if the applicant and representative pres yes Mr yes Mr stri good morning Madam chair members of the board attorney Derek small of a business address at 51 doson Road with me today is the architect triay of Joy Street design uh Madam chair we're here today
seeking relief to combin lots and to install our new handicap ramp um this project was before you um before and we received um approvals for the lot combination um and the the use that was requested at the time we are not changing the site plan um that was approved by this by this board at the last hearing we are confirming the old drawing rings and the site plan to
reflect the new one which represents one lot and the installation of the um handicap ramp um the old plan showed a lift um at the site with regard to accessibility and we are doing a um a handicap ramp at the site at this time again um we are just cleaning up the records um with regard to the lot consolidation which was approved by this board um last time we were here and we
are going to a handicap ramp instead of a lift um with regard to the lot combination the lot combination um the lot size in the area of the lot will be 12,500 squet and we have Tria Laray of Joy Street design on to answer any questions that the uh the board may have with regard to the site plan thank you questions from the
board hearing none may have public testimony Madam chair and members of the board for the record my name is Jeremy bbery I am the Roxbury Community engagement specialist for the office of Neighborhood Services the applicant has compl completed the community process which consisted only of a notification from the office of Neighborhood Services notifying Butters of The Proposal as we did not feel the proposal required a full community process I we receive neither letters of support or opposition or any concern from Ab Brothers at this time thank you for your time with the mayor's office of
Neighborhood Services would like to defer to the board for the Judgment thank you mam chair we also met with project Wright um who have submitted a letter of support for this project as well I see a Stefan Donovan and a Stefan Wilkins one of you can start hi uh yes good morning Madam chair and members of the board my name is Steven dunavan I'm a Housing Development officer with the city of Austin mayor's office of housing uh the mayor's office of housing in partnership with the Neighborhood Housing Trust is in support of this
project and is also providing funding for Commonwealth Land Trust Improvement of the property at 570 Warren Street thank you thank you okay wilin yeah my name is Steve welin from the Cal land trust and we really appreciate your support um being able to continue on with this project thank you I have no additional way at this moment will that may I have a
motion M I think I think BTD uh also made a recommendation if that can be right for the record do you if you have it in front of you can you read it uh yes so um it was um the Boston transportation department stated that we should approve the six bases but with one being accessible yep it's not a problem okay okay great thank you uh
will that may I have a motion I'd like to prefer a motion of approval with the provisor that one be accessible there a second second Mr stbridge yes Mr Valencia yes Mr Lang yes Miss W yes Miss B brazza yes chair votes yes motion carries good you madam chair members of the board have a good day the next five cases um brought to us
conjunction with the mayor's office of housing there are five compan or five companion cases I'll read them all in at the same time and then we can examine them based on that Cas boa 16813 1 with the address of 65 balloon Avenue next we have case boa 168
1304 with the address of 71 belue Avenue next we have case boa 1681 1313 with the address of 85 s SCH next we have case bo8 1681 1 315 with the address of 106 SEL Street
and finally we have case boa 168 1309 with the address of 80 s Street with the applicant Ando the representative please explain in case board sure so U Matt Lawler speaking for the um uh applicants on these uh matters I wanted to just check is it possible to group these into two parts so the two Baloo sites as one set and Seldon sites as a second is that is that
acceptable to the board yes okay great um and then also just wanted to check if there are any recusals for these doesn't appear so okay we were we were perhaps expecting um member barza to do so oh is is one of the is caning explain why I might have not seen it why would ice myself as as yeah can you State for
the rec or why my understanding that there are other matters for the development team not these matters uh on which you are the architect can you say it again I understood that there are matters other matters not these not these five for which you are the architect I'm not an architect for 65 bow what you're not you're not no I know on I'm saying you're not on any of these five you're not the architect for them but I understood that on other projects for this development team youm not before the board today is is a developer
a current client of mine that's how I would recuse myself right that that would be my understanding if they're not then then then you don't then you would not need to recuse yourself I'm sorry I typically recuse myself for projects where I have a invested interest on the project um it might not appear in front of me if on the development team if I have a client of mine currently in my office I would definitely need to recuse
myself so that's why this is public record got in this project do I have is there a client that is part of the development team so that has not made it so obvious in front of me got it I don't know if um Bri morette from the development team wants to speak to that but if you are not current so Marie is part of this development okay then thank you for pointing that I need to recuse myself um uh chair dong I was not aware of this in in front of me
understood so thank you so thank you so much attorney L lard for making that very obvious y thank you all right okay so just to be clear we are now a five member that's right thank you yeah thank you okay thank you and sorry sorry for that that bit of awkwardness there but yeah thank you appreciate that that's fine no it's always better to be in public record and I stand behind that thank you great thank you um okay so we are so we understand we're a five member board so we can't lose any of you but we will do our best to get you um so yeah
so I'm I'm joined this morning um by Marie moriset from the development team as well as um Jonah manat from hierarchy design collaborative who are their project designers I'll speak very briefly for the first two for the Ballo sites and then I'll turn it over to Marie and then Jonah will present the design so as described in the appeal filings and I shown in the plans these appeals relate to vacant parsels of land owned by the city of Boston and located in 65 Ballo and 71 Ballo in mapan for the proposed construction of one three-story multif family residential
structure that will contain three res residential units and three ton parking spaces on each of the two Parcels so it's two Parcels two buildings two three families um with three tandem spaces each of the proposed projects is 100% affordable with a total of one unit affordable to households earning up to 80% of aray media income and two units affordable to households making up to 100% of Ami all units are home ownership units mayor's office of housing designated the proponent as the
developer for the subject properties under the welcome home Boston Phase 2 program which is designed to leverage city-owned vacant properties to provide new affordable home ownership opportunities within the city so at this point I'll turn it over to Marie Mor from the development team to give a bit more context about the projects thanks good morning um everyone can everyone hear me yes ma'am y I'm just sharing my screen real quickly so um this project
is a partnership with U Mass VI which is a local um minority owned general contractor uh as well as with uh the Visionary investors building Equity um myself I am one of the princip um managing partners of vibe and um at the end of uh at the in 2023 we as part of the welcome home Bost uh program but with the city with the mayor's office of housing um we were designated um as a Developers for these
sites which looks to bring more affordability more housing to uh the community um specifically um as uh our Mt mentioned um we're looking at two vacant Lots um with one a butter in the middle that's looking to bring a family siiz um homes uh three bedrooms and two units which through Community meetings we've gotten feedback from the community that they wanted to see um see so uh
we're happy to do that over the past year we have been working very closely with um um the city's design team as well as our own architect which will speak more to design mechanics of of of the building but I just wanted to make sure that I I pointed out um that this project here uh is very much in um in alignment with uh the city's um housing uh production goals as well as the state uh it we're receiving um both subsidy
from the city as well as the state which have supported this project uh and we look forward to bringing the community uh we have um been in discussion with uh the community we've gotten letters of support which Madam chair I hope you have with you today um and we're looking forward to hearing an approval for us to move these two projects forward thank you I think Jonah you should be able to proceed great good morning everyone Madam chair morning members of the board
uh my name is Jonah manard I'm one of the Architects working with the vibe teams on this project uh I think I'll just speak to these two buildings um together because essentially there are twin buildings and there are two there are uh three story buildings with A-frame um a frame shape that uh that are basically infield buildings uh in and we try to either to research or discussion with folks in the neighborhood just trying to replace what was in the building in the on the on the
on the street prior so basically we play we we creating the street wall these are very straightforward buildings I don't know if somebody can scroll up and kind of show the elevations um but uh basically uh we are talking about uh buildings with three story uh three bedrooms on the first and second floor floors and then two bedrooms on the on the Upper Floor and kind of a attic area uh we are providing uh TW tend and parking spaces there a very tight size
it was not possible for us to actually provide three uh uh free uh parking spaces but we are providing enough of a driveway that would allow for three parking spaces kind of uh to not burden the street uh but essentially this is a very straightforward uh Boston type aframe building that that contain um uh uh the family housing units that will kind of kind of support the mayor's goals of
providing more affable housing so um I think somewhere on the slide somebody can just keep scroll up you probably see the elevations if have any anybody has any questions but I'm I'm free to answer any questions anybody may have on the design or anything else thank you very much thank you are there questions from the board yeah I have a I have a small question maybe I misunderstood did did did you guys said you have a a minority contractor already hi yeah that was me so our
contractor was we've com um we've partnered together as developer GC on the project and so when we put out the um the approval this is a joint a joint venture with masse construction and um and Visionary investors building Equity okay thank you thank you any other questions from the board hearing none may have public
testimony Madam chair members of the board Conor Newman with the mayor's office of Neighborhood Services this time the mayor's office is referred to the Judgment of this board uh this went through anoh uh Le Community process uh involving feedback from abutters as well as they were in contact with I believe the uh woodro AB neighborhood association um I guess the Civic expressed some concerns regarding uh the density being proposed but was was pleased about um the affordability aspect of this project uh and it sounds like the applicant continued to work
with that Civic uh with that will defer to the board thank you thank you okay come up Bob you looking to give testimony here uh yes Madam chair members of the board Theo BTD um unless I'm M mistaken and miss something I I saw two parking spaces uh reflected on the plan uh not 3 as um being asked for um I I don't know if I missed something but that's uh what I uh what I saw and
secondly the uh the parking space closest to the street is only 8' 7 in wide and uh we normally require 8 and 1/2 fet and with um only an inch to spare on each side it would be kind of difficult to um to get out of the vehicle so um I don't know how to cure that but I would like to go on record with those two um uh issues the um two
two cars shown on the plan and the the space closest to the street being only 8' 7 in wide thank you okay and then U we have no additional raised hands at the moment thank you thank you with the applicant like to respond to the parking question before we proceed Jared Marie or Jonah do you want to speak to the sure I I could speak to that if you allowed um the I I think
uh um if somebody can put up the the site plan where you saw the 87 but I I I believe uh we we have I think it's just two cars a shown okay but I think the driveway the driveway itself is going to be 10 ft uh wide that's that's that's the driveway that will allow that will allow for the uh for the for the cars to to drive in
and and being able to get out of it as far as the the two cars being shown I think initially we were showing a driveway that was only long enough for two cars but after hearing community meeting feedback we have extended the driveway to allow for three parking cars to be able to park so that may not be reflected at at the time of the submission to uh to the CBA but that is the intention to actually uh extend the driveway in order for it to be to be able to accommodate
three cars tend them thank you I believe all of the updated plans were submitted you know it might just they're all in with the record um so I I don't know if it's just on a different page um or something else but I do know that that was with after Community feedback thank you any questions from the board yeah right there do you see that that's prob a little very good thank you there we go y
so thank you all right any any other questions from the board heing none may have a motion M should I make a motion of approval with uh planning department review special attention to sorry special attention to reviewing the parking situation to improve parking
configuration is there a second second Mr stbridge yes Mr valencio yes Mr langum yes Miss weo yes chair votes yes the motion carries thank you great thank you so we're ready then to proceed to the um to the three sites on Seldon please do um so I guess yeah we can I guess start with start with whichever one was the
first hearing but I think are the plans all at the end or they are they spread throughout sorry in in terms of the presentation just for Jonah's benefit I'm sorry are you asking to open yeah yeah go go ahe and open the first one I suppose I'm guessing that they're all different okay thanks all right so so Jonah there it'll be three sets so once once your done with one go on to the next one but again M Robinson Cole one Boston Place attorney for the applicant once again Marine moriset is
the mass VI representative for the developer and Jonah managot is here for the um for The Architects I'm not sure if Marie you want to say anything in particular about the Seldon sites first yeah no uh the San sites uh so there's three uh Parcels um on on this site um with as with the other one very active on 85 Seldon we direct the bo Butters to a school we've been working with the principal um and that's uh that site I will just mention um that we
actually uh to provide some accessibility in the in the rear as opposed to the front we did present it to the accessibility board our request was granted which you'll you should see um that in the records I think that's the only thing I wanted to add on this site but otherwise uh with the same objective to provide a family size uh units affordable rate we're looking at the 80% 100% Ami levels um and um we're excited to bring uh these these units to
the community and I'll just real quick that um 80 sell in is six units right yeah six unit yep and then 85 and 106 are three each same same level affordability for each sorry j oh no I just I just want to try small mix up the 106 is the six unit uh unit 80 is the three sorry my no it's okay yeah this is the six unit un right
106 okay if it's okay for me I can just jump into the design the side we're looking at right now is a six unit building um what we try to do Madam chair and members of the board is we try to be very conservative in our approach we try to bring buildings that that fit the street and we next to it we have a very similar building so we're trying to replicate that in terms of scale and and and and and and look so this will be a six unit building where the uh we on the uh kind of divided in half basically two
three families divided by a party wall on the on the first floor we'll have a two bedroom Ada unit and on the upper floors we'll have three bedrooms units very contextual for the neighborhood uh and and we are also providing three parking six parking spaces for the six units thank you you want to do you want to pull up the other two plans briefly and go through them or or yeah I can yeah somebody can just bring bring in 85 or 80 I can speak to those as well very
quickly okay this is ad8 Selden which is a uh another infield building again again another conservative approach we're proposing a flat roof three family uh building that is what is very similar to the street we are providing three parking spaces with the first floor being Ada accessible and three bedrooms on each floor and then we can talk about 85 next this
is this this is basically the look of the building it's very typical of 3 de you see in the city of Boston to 85 yeah we can move on to 85 yep thanks very good 85 is this is a is a is a building that very similar to what you have seen on on the balloon sites uh the only issue with 85 is we had a very steep grade I mean almost very I would
say impossible to actually provide Ada access to the front of the building and we did go to the maab uh to to to to make our case and we were granted a variance but we have made sure that we and while were not able to make the front door accessible we've made the rear door accessible so the person driving it to the to the to the to to the parking in the back could still access the building in the wheelchair if needed and and and that unit itself is is made accessible so uh we have made those arrangements to at least amarate the
issue with the grading and uh and again it's a it's a it's an AFR building with a two bedroom on the first floor um sorry three bedrooms on the first floor three bedrooms on the second floor and then two bedrooms uh in the Attic area third floor so very contextual to the neighborhood I'm open to any questions mam shair in the middle of the board thank you uh are there questions from the
board uh Mr Hampton are you available I don't know Jean's comment is that uh there are no plans attached for 85 seld so I don't I just want to confirm that you've seen them is Mr H thank you madam shair yep I'm here sorry a little delay uh yes we uh we have copies of the plant here we're in support of this I think uh on our recommendation I think we have approval with design review thank
you we'll open it up uh is any questions from the board hearing none can I have public testimony yes Madam chair members of the board Conor Newman with the mayor's office of neighborhood services at this time the mayor's offic defer to the judge of this board uh as in the uh project before before uh this went through anoh Le Community process uh involving uh but notices going out to
neighbors uh and soliciting feedback on the design and uh what would be the the merits of the project uh they did connect with uh the local civic association we understand uh and have worked to adapt the project uh with that we'll defer to the board thank you thank you okay we have no morning madad good morning Madam chair members of the board this Del Becka from councelor Brian morell's office I would just like to go on um not all of these
um Parcels are in our district but most of them are I believe 85 not but um we would like to go on record and support of the projects thank you thank you Diana I see your hand raised you looking to get testimony here yes thank you madam chair members of the board good morning this is Diana brancher from councelor Pen's office we the council would like to go on record that he is in support of 85 Seldon which we thought was in our district it actually isn't but we are in support of that regardless
because we do believe that these plans came from very thoughtful review design and through Community engagement thank you we have no additional RS with that may I have a motion make a motion of approval with Planet Department review is there a second second Mr sunbridge yes Mr Valencia yes Mr langum
yes is weo yes chair votes yes the motion carries good luck uh due to the time we'll take a 4 minute break and come back at 11:30 thank you thank you everyone thank you
e
e e
Mr Valia pres Mr langum present Miss weo present Miss B brazza presid floor is yours Mr stbridge thank you madam chair uh we'll
start off by reminding people that we are six member board today and next we'll ask if there are any request for withdrawals or deferral from the 11:30 time frame yes hi this is Andrew Melton Melton freay for 36 Aon Street Boston I'd like to uh
defer I thought I um that be that would be regards to case boa 1599 33 with the address of 36 Aon Street you go and head and explain for yes we have an upcoming um second Butters meeting uh next week so we
thought it would be uh judicious to uh to wait until after that meeting okay Caroline we could do February 25th or March 25th um let's try uh February 25th please okay that may I have a motion I make a motion to to defer to March I'm I'm sorry I make a motion to defer to February the 25th there a
second second Mr srid yeah Mr Valencia yes Mr langum yes Miss weo yes Miss V brazo yes chair votes yes the motion carries to you then thank you further request for withdrawal or deferral or
defer hearing none move on then to Red discussion schedule for 11:30 a.m. and we have case bo8 16719 22 with the address at 303 th Street I believe we have attorney small with us yes we do good morning Madame chair members of the board attorney Derek small have a
business address of 51 doson road today we're here seeking relief to change the occupancy of the building to include the restaurant with takeout and outdoor seating in the rear the restaurant already exists um Santa Fe burrito Grill and we were here last time when they got the um approval for the restaurant but they did not have the take out use so that's in the outdoor seating that's what we're here to do today um the zoning subd District here is the new EBR
3 under the we applied for this prior to the new zoning taking effect in East Boston under the new EBR 3 this is an allowed use but because um we we pre the um New zoning um we were cited for extension of non-conforming use um the again the the violation um now is allowed under the new EBR 3 in East Boston um the hours of operation for the restaurant are from 11:00 a.m.
to 10 p.m. and we have um proposing seating outdoor seating in the rear on the patio for about 15 to 20 patrons I can stop there and answer any questions that the board may have thank you are there questions from the board hearing none may have public testimony yes Madam chair members of the board Conor Newman with the marriage office of Neighborhood Services this time the marriage office defer to the Judgment of this board some back information in the community process an abage meeting was held on June 12th uh
where there were three constituents and attendance uh primary feedback from meeting was the owner of the restaurant is receptive to the neighbors and uh is committed to working well with them uh there was some concerns regarding uh noise U potential noise on the patio from a rear butter uh but as mentioned the applicant pledged to work with that neighbor and address those concerns they met several times with the Jeff Point neighborhood association um over uh the past fall uh we're unaware of any further concerns at this time and with
that would like to defer to the board thank you we have no raised hands at the moment with that may I have a motion motion there a second second Mr stbridge yes Mr Valencia yes Mr Lang yes Miss weo yes Miss B brazza yes chair votes yes the motion carries
thank you madam chair members of the board have a good day next we have case boa 15755 84 with the address of 81 Lexington Street if the applicant and or the representative president would they please explain the case to the board good morning Madam chair members of the board my name is uh James Christopher of 686 Architects with the business address of 10 fors Road and brry here today on
behalf of the owner Alison male uh for 81 Lexington Street um The Proposal before you today is to uh raise the existing structure and erect a new three and 1 half story 7unit Residential Building uh this project was filed well before um Plan East Boston however through the process and delays um we um the the original building was not designed in accordance with Plan East Boston uh as we went
through the community process we went and revised the building we originally had a much larger building with more units um and we tried to make the project adhere to um the intent of Plan East Boston next slide please okay let's see my plans on file um so basically the The Proposal is for uh a 3 and 1 half story Residential Building um the um the relief that we are seeking is for the number of units
uh the use itself is uh six uh is required and we're proposing seven um the maximum Building height is required to be three stories in this District we are proposing three and a half um and then the maximum maximum building width is allowed to be 50 ft and we have 68 uh fet of of width in our building and then for uh um the requirement for parking would be seven spaces one to one uh due to the site constraints we have an L-shaped lot which is rather narrow um
uh we were not able to accommodate any parking as we went through the community process we did uh revise the building to get it as close to compliant as we could including meeting all of the setbacks um in Plan East Boston uh as well as um the floor uh lot coverage and uh maximum floor plate sizes however we are over on the proposed unit count the half of a story and the uh 68 ft of of of width of
the building um the in the current climate we I I sat very closely with my with my client the owner Alison Mel's own this property for a long time and has been working on the development for over 5 years um in that time her husband was deployed she was married and I mean had children and so we've been working to develop the project um we met with the cuk association we heard their concerns about the aesthetic design of the building um and we tried to bring a project that was more in line with the
intent to plan East Boston uh but that was also economically feasible with the current uh time constraints interest rates and construction costs being what they are um after meeting with several contractors to price what we thought was a proposed building we we opted to go with the um the seven unit and seek the relief on the half story and the additional unit um and with the parking and the site con straints there was just no way to really accommodate that m b Braza have you seen have you
reviewed the plans the plans that um I reviewed were submitted in December um has there been any updates it wasn't on this last batch but I do have one for last set of plans that I submitted was to ISD for the re-review uh in early November um and I've been trying to um track that down with inspectional services but I've had no luck and Mr
Hampton can you comment uh yes thank you madam chair members of board Jeff Hampton uh City Boston planning department uh we haven't seen plans that units uh as you saw in our recommendation everything's based on the eight that's that is in the description on the agenda and I would say again for the record that those plans were submitted uh in November and I've reached out to ISD several times to
the plans examiner to try to establish the the status including this morning and yesterday and receive no response um so M Mr Hampton I the drawings that I have in front of me says that it was reviewed by the zba on 22724 and I feel like we've been we've been through this already by the CBA it the plans that I have says 2724 from last year
and um we got those plans and I have it I have it uploaded in my portal from 92324 and 12324 um so for some reason we're we're not getting the most updated plans if if that's what Mr Christopher is saying yeah I mean I understand what Mr Christopher is saying but whether or not ISD has completed their review on something and then been sent to us I I I
I don't know I can't speak for them um I know they're extremely busy but I you know even just in our first you know sentence is that we haven't been provided with new updated plans that show the seven okay so it sounds to me like we cannot uh make an intellig the decision today because we don't have accurate plans so according to Mr Clark uh from ISD the plans examiner has not
reviewed the newest set of plans submitted in December so I don't know if we don't have new plans uh but Mr Christopher I'll ask you to work directly with ISD to fix that um I have attempted since November I will continue yeah maybe um Stephanie is there a way that you can help the applicant because I think they've been in front of us twice already with this issue that's correct um iall so Stephanie is there a
way that you can help Mr Christopher get in touch with their plan examiner to make sure we have the right files hi this is Stephanie from the zba um the plans were submitted to the plans examiner to review we just have not received them back from the plans examiner they were submitted in November okay so uh I guess in light of this information if we could request the
brief administrative deferral um to get these plans into the appropriate hands and and progress this project thank you uh is there a motion yes I would like to make a motion deferral um for this applicant but also encourage Stephanie to reach out and help Mr Christopher since he's been at it since November thank you is there a second second Mr s yes Mr Valencia yes Mr langum yes Miss
weell yes Miss B brazza yes chair votes yes the motion carries uh Caroline you a date for Mr Christopher we could do February 25th or March 25th I think uh February 25th should be sufficient all right we'll see you then thank you very much moving on then to case boa
1611 1821 with the address of two Brook Street if the applicant Andor the representative present will they please explain is Mr bza on do you see any raised hand
Jessica okay I'm going to suggest we move on and circle back if um they if this applicant shows up we will do that Madam chair so that takes us to case
boa 162 2743 with the address of 8 to 8A hson Street if the applicant Andor their representative president will they please explain to the board yes thank you Mr stbridge Madam chair members of the board attorney Ryan Spitz with Adams and Mory business address of 16 688 Street first floor South Boston uh joining me today is the project architect Bonnie tan um Madam chair
would you like to address the gcard first sure both letters of no harm and compliance were submitted to Boston Water and Sewer I'm not quite sure if Christian simonelli is here that he can attest to that yes Ryan thank you madam chair uh members of the group good morning Christian suell Boston ground trust and we have both G card letters from the applicant excellent thank you great thank you Christian the in front of us today is to combine two vacant parcels and erect a new six-story building with a restaurant
on the first and second floor and eight residential units on Floors 3 to six all will consist of a two-bedroom two bath this site is located within Chinatown in the core commercial area between neand Street and Beach Street it also abuts the Rose Kennedy Greenway to its rear and is one parcel away from Soo Park in the Chinatown Gate the Chinatown and tus Medical Center NBTA orange line stops are within 1 qu of a mile in a half a mile assault station given this
proximity to transit in the very similar condition of surrounding buildings with no off street parking we feel is appropriate to not include parking for the residential units first and second floor restaurants with res with residential units on the upper floors are consistent within this neighborhood the ongoing Chinatown resoning efforts has identified this site with the proposed Community commercial area where there is a high concentration on Chinese Cultural shops and restaurants while allowing these types of businesses to
operate on the upper floors of the buildings also another goal of the Chinatown rezoning is to allow more Housing Development which is highlighted with the adopted plan downtown 2023 there are several related variances we are seeking relief for today takeout restaurants are conditional on the first and second floors within this subd District of the historic Chinatown protection area the site is also located within the greenway overlay District per article 49a which is also a conditional use for
uses with priority Greenway frontages located on the ground level further we would like to mention the refusal letter incorrectly states that the violation is forbidden given the prominence of the restaurants that include takeout in this area and that the neighborhood is considered walkable takeout is an appropriate use lastly the project was cited for insufficient parking as the code requires point three of a parking space per a new unit of housing as previously mentioned this proposal is aligned with many other mixed uses in the neighborhood which also do not offer
parking considering the close proximity of public transit at this point Madame chair I'm going to pause and turn it over you for any questions or comments thank you any questions from the board hearing none may have public testimony yes Madam chair members of the board Conor Newman with the mayor's office of Neighborhood Services this time the mayor is off to defer to to the Judgment of this board some background information in the community process on had hosted a Butter's meeting uh where no opposition was expressed uh the appan went on to meet with both the Chinatown
neighborhood Council and the Chinatown residents Association um these Civic associations uh did not weigh in providing neither opposition nor support uh we're unaware of any further concerns with that will defer to the board thank you thank you any other R stands Jessica
sorry hi can you hear me okay go ahead okay hi my name is Sydney I'm from counselor Flynn's office please note that coun Flynn had previously asked for a deferral so that the Family Association and proponent could work out internal discussions on the project as well as working with residents on quality of life issues councelor Flynn would like to relay feedback from the Chinatown residents Association on being mindful of continued use of the park and sunlight
affordability and ground Flo use in particular counselor FN would also like to emphasize concerns from C and the Neighbors when it comes to Airbnb and compliance with the city's short-term rental ordinance he respectfully asked that the proponent continue working with the neighbors on these quality of life concerns thank you you and we have no additional raise hands thank you uh any other questions from the board Madame chair I see that the
project is on the uh gcod um area meaning that it needs partly review by the Boston Water and Sewer wondering if there was a no harm he already he already spoke to that and Su already uhor I that that's okay uh any other questions may I have a motion I'd like to put for motion of
approval and that the plans be reviewed by the department Parks and Recreation is there a second second Mr stbridge yes Mr Valencia yes Mr langum yes Miss weell yes Miss B yes chair votes yes the motion carries great thank
you on to case boa 154 2657 with the address of 548 East 3rd Street if the applicant and or the representative are present would they please explain the case to the board I am Mr secretary good morning madam chair members of the board this is Mike Ross attorney of the law fir of Prince Bell at one international Place uh this matter was before the board December 3rd and was denied without
prejudice on account of the building's massing and parking uh the latest plan which um I think will be pulled up here uh reduces the massing as well as the parking it further complies with the directive of the Boston planning memo and is in line with uh recent nearby approvals M Ambassador you can stay on the survey page that you were just on um
right here yeah go up just a little bit more if you don't mind please thank you uh the main difference between this plan uh is increasing the rear yard setback by doubling it uh now this shallow lot has a 10.2 rear yard setback um and that then creates a more than doubling of the open space uh along with additional um balconies uh to uh go from
212 Square ft to 474 Square ft next slide please on this cover page here the massing you can see um it's worth pointing out that how they differ from previously the first floor has been reduced from 947 ft to 693 squ ft the second and third floors have been reduced from
976 ft to 92 ft and the fourth floor has been reduced from 827 squ ft to 594 squ ft so the total floor area has been reduced by 635 Square ft which results in a f going from 2 2.9 to 2.4 uh the next Pages A1 and A2 uh show the floor plans for the floors first
second third and fourth uh beginning with that slide A1 uh on the left uh which is the first floor plan that was originally the parking area if you recall from the last plan uh is now being converted to living space uh it's a 69 93t bedroom um with uh one bath uh and provides outdoor ground floor area in
the rear the second floor plan in the middle uh shows a 92t two bedroom one bath with a 100t deck off the rear and the third floor and fourth are now a three-bedroom two bath duplex uh with two rows of decks including the upper deck which if you go to the next Slide m Ambassador which completely removes the corner massing in the middle
there you see um for for that for the structure uh there's also a 9ot setback from the building front you can see in the middle there not including the bay itself and then also on the section on the right what you can see is that each each floor has been reduced in height to result in a shorter building overall the next slide uh slide A3 page
seven right here is the front and side elevation so the front elevation no longer has the curb cut and parking garage um so that the width of the building is at just over 20 ft no longer feels tight and constrained like the previous plan and some of the comments we received from the board and then the right side elevation shows that corner deck removing that massing from a key part of the building and then you can
see that the overall height of the building as shown in that elevation is now 36 feet 10 in as compared to 40 feet of the plan we showed you last late last year next slide please P A4 um so this shows the rear and other side elevation with the rear of the building providing the additional outdoor space for each of the
units through the balconies as well as through the increased rear yard uh man if you just go back to page four I can um there's a zoning chart there I can quickly man chair go through the uh zoning chart very quickly the um excuse me the uh roof structure restriction remains article 6829 as does the lot size 1279 and a 2000 and as does the additional lot size per unit uh the F
site has been reduced from uh as I mentioned 2.9 to 2.4 the open space as I mentioned has been increased from 212 to 474 uh the front yard has now been a zero lot line at the front of the property from uh three and then the sidey yard remained uh as is at 05 as I mentioned the rear yard increased from 5
to 10 and as I mentioned the parking is now zero we did have two parking spaces previously just the final thing I'd mention is that this case is remarkably similar to uh 526 East thir Street which is a case that appeared last week before the board it's on the same side of our street it's on the same block as our street it is a smaller lot than our lot uh with a larger building than what we're proposing today uh that lot was approved with a 2.9 F versus our 2.4 uh
with substantially Less open space only 84 square feet per dwelling compared to this proposal which has 158 square foot per dwelling and it also has parking The Proposal that you see today is similar but a lesser version in pretty much every other category than what was approved last week and also supported by Boston planning I'll pause right there uh Madam chair see if there's any comments thank you just a a quick question as far as the plans uh maybe
that's it's a Jeff question too the recommendation notes that there have been no new plans since March March of 2024 but it sounds like you mentioned some changes since then correct yeah these the these are total new plans from from just last December that we shared with you uh and new survey on thank you on Q Mr Hampton yes uh thank you madam chair members of the board Jeff Hampton uh city of Boston
planning department uh I know that the uh recommendation that you have in front of you says denial without prejudice and that was based on plans dated April 12th of 2022 uh I'd like to commend the appellant uh in taking our uh criticism and recommendations uh based on those plans submitting new plans and although it doesn't say it on the record if the board does uh look favorably upon this uh I would like to suggest that we add
design review for any approval uh the appellant did some good work and addressing some of the major concerns that we had with them so I commend them for that thank you thank you that's upful uh questions from the board here none may have follow testimony Madam chair members of the board sigy Johnson with the office of Neighborhood Services uh this proponent underwent the community process for this proposal with an earlier version of
their uh plans um an abutters meeting was held on January 4th of 2024 of last year uh concerns were raised over the building height and other zoning violations associated with the proposal uh then presented to the Gate of Heaven neighborhood association however the proposal that was presented to them was one with two parking spaces uh so that's different The Proposal that's being presented to the board today uh so we're unsure of their position on the proposal that's being presented here today um our office received two letters of support
from of utters and two letters of opposition and with that background we defer to the Judgment of the board thank you thank you Sydney hi Sydney from councelor Flynn's office councelor Flynn sent a letter to the board this morning and would like to go on record and support again based on good Community process and feedback from Neighbors AB Butters and the Gate of Heaven neighborhood association councelor Flynn appreciates the proponent working in good faith on quality of life issues with neighbors and Civic groups throughout this process
including attention to South Boston's existing parking crisis over severe iterations of this project councelor Flynn respectfully requests that the proponent continue to work closely with neighbors on inequality of Life concerns during the construction phase thank you see no additional bre stand the moment any other questions from we just had a hand come up do you want me to take it I'm sorry sure okay yeah nichas are you looking to give testimony
here uh yes I am okay go ahead yes I am I just think it's a terrific project I live in South Boston I've been living in South for 20 years and um I think the additional uh the 8600 ft of of ground floor community space for parents and senors is absolutely terrific the park with all the trees and 35 Plus affordable housing and make sure that you know that the people can actually afford to live in this wonderful neighborhood the cafe again and and the
community space both of these things really help Foster Community along with the shared work space and I also notice that uh the building is set back and um so that should um appease you know those who were worried about height and so I give a strong approval for this project thank you thanks Donna Brown will you looking to give testimony here as well hi this is Donna Brown I'm speaking on behalf of myself as well as another I
a member I'm a member of the iig um David Gart we're are you referring are you sorry are you talking about 295 West First Street yes we are not on that case yet we are on 54 East Third Street okay sorry thank you have no additional raise hands Madam chair okay any other questions from the board may I have a motion mam chair I'll move for approval I think the applicant has done a lot of
work on this in response to our comments and the bpd's comments so I will um put forward a motion of approval with design review is there a second second Mr stbridge yes Mr Valencia yes Mr langum yes ma'am Miss we yes Miss B brazo yes chair votes yes motion carries come thank you very much
have a great day next we have case boa 164 9361 with the address of 58 backer Street if the um and I if the applicant and whe the representative presid um would they please explain uh good morning Madam chair members of the board uh my name is James Christoper of 686 Architects with the
business address of 10 Forbes Road uh I'm joined today by the project attorney Matthew echle uh I'm going to turn it over to Matt for a brief introduction good afternoon uh Madam chair members of the board as mentioned attorney Matt eckel from Fletcher Tilton on behalf of the applicant uh what we're proposing this morning is to combine uh two lots and erect a new residential building with a total of six units and four parking spaces we also have a bike
storage room included uh which Mr Christopher can detail in in Greater detail as we go through the plans um all told we're proposing approximately 5700 Square ft of of gross uh square footage on a lot of just over 3,000 square ft this zoning district is an MFR District uh we're proposing to have two bedroom units uh with rear decks to provide some open space we are not proposing any roof decks on this project on the first floor we're proposing a lobby as well as the
bike storage that I mentioned and then the four interior parking spaces and then we're proposing two units uh per floors 2 through 4 uh all approximately 925 Square ft um that I'll turn it back over to Mr Christopher briefly if he wants to walk through the floor plans in Greater detail thanks mat if you could just go to the a drawings those are the proposed FL plans ah perfect um so the the the building is accessed by an existing curb
cut will house four parking spaces at grade as Matt mentioned a bike storage room uh a lift uh and a mail impa mail boxes at the uh residential level a grade with a partial basement uh at the front right of the building for mechanical and sprinkler space uh the we had a good Community process on this project the only concern was one of our earlier iterations showed a uh an incorrect side yard setback on the left side uh we met and spoke with that AB
butter directly um and clarified that this is a 3-ft side yard setback if we go down to the next slide uh we illustrate here on this slide his major concern was that none of our Windows lined it up excuse me lined up with the abing building windows uh so we just made sure of that condition here um the the units are all typical they repeat there's no corridors there's a front and a rear steer well um with uh rear decks no roof deck uh and the rear yard setback uh is um that was one of
the points that we brought up it goes from the it's required to be 20 ft it goes from uh 131 at the main face of the building down to 3 ft at the rear of that steel well uh however with the narrow lot exception uh the rear yard set back here would be 15 ft so we're just shy of that um with with that I'll turn it over to any questions thank you are there question Madam just briefly for the record we did submit 12 letters of support uh from director butters on Baxter as well as
from the adjacent West 7th Street so the board should have those on file as well sorry to interrupt thank you are there questions from the board hearing none looking at what's your what's your side setback I'm looking at that care three feet on both sides three feet on both sides okay thank you thank you any other questions from the board hearing none may have public testimony Madam chair and board members sigy Johnson with the office of
Neighborhood Services this petitioner completed the on community process our office hosted in a Butters meeting on the 25th of September at which concerns were raised relating to the configuration of the curb cut the sidey yard setback and the possible loss of a mature tree in the rear of the property there were two abuts in support of The Proposal as presented our offices received 12 form letters of support and two letters of opposition all of which have been forwarded to the board the Cityside neighborhood association and the St Vincent's lower end neighborhood association are both in non- opposition
to The Proposal with that background we defer to the Judgment of the board thank you Sydney hi Sydney from councelor Flynn's office councelor Flynn would like to go on record and support based on a good Community process and good faith compromises including no roof deck he respectfully asked that the proponent continue to work closely with Neighbors on any quality of life issues thank you councelor Murphy's office hello and good afternoon thank you madam Ambassador for elevating me to a panelists uh Madam Ambassador Madam
chair members of the board Uh Kevin oan from councel Aaron Murphy's office Council Murphy is in support for the reasons uh stated previously thank you very much for your time and consideration thanks and we have no additional raised hands at the moment any other questions from the board may I have a motion make a motion of approval with
planning department review is there second second Mr stbridge yes Mr Valencia yes Mr Langham yes Miss vow yes Mr better brao yes chair votes yes the motion carries thank you madam chair members of the board next we have case
boa 16569 the of 165d Street I believe this Mr CHR Atty Christopher also it is thank you very much Mr uh uh secretary uh Madam chair members of the board again my name my name is James Christopher of 686 Architects with the business address of 10 fores Road I'm here today on behalf of Tony Patel the petitioner and owner of 165d Street um
The Proposal is to construct a two-story addition to the existing one-story masonry building um next slide please next slide um did this project was before the board uh jez I think it was a month ago or so um and the board asked for clarification of the rear yard setbacks which I've done on this set um the the the the violations as they exist as far as dimensional are uh pre-existing non-conformities there's no change to
the building footprint the side yards uh are um 2.7 ft on the left and 1.3 ft on the right it's required to be three they will remain that after the project um the uh front yard setback is the it's like 6 in back now and it will remain there uh when we complete um the proposed rear yard is um 3 ft um from the edge of the decks if you go down to the uh keep next slide
please keep going it's easy it's better Illustrated on the architecturals keep going to the a drawings please ah there you go uh so if you zoom in there um the the footprint of the building Remains the Same we will construct there will be a can lever of about 4T on the second level and then about 6 feet of deck so the question that was asked last time is what is the distance from the edge of the deck to the rear yard setback it's about 3 feet and then the decks are 6 feet uh with a
uh a 4ot can lver and that's Illustrated again if you if you go down to our uh elevations in section you can see uh the the illustration of the deck and the setback right there um we held a community uh process for this project um there weren't too many concerns there was some concerns about
the existing equipment on the building which the uh current owner uh Tony has uh um sent repair me to deal with I believe that that issue has been resolved I've not heard anything else about it um but those were the concerns that were presented when I presented this uh last month so I'm happy to answer any questions I can thank you are there questions from the board hearing none may have public testimony Madame chair and members of the board sigy Johnson with the office
of Neighborhood Services this petitioner completed the on community process our office hosted in a Butters meeting on August 28th of 2024 at which two a Butters spoke in support the only concern raised related to noise from uh ventilation equipment on the top of the property the Cityside neighborhood association is the active Civic group in this area which is in non opposition to The Proposal with that background we defer to the Judgment of the board thank you okay and another raise hand here
second Syne hi Sydney from councel Flynn's office here councelor Flynn would like to go on record and support he asked that the proponent continue to work closely with neighbors on any quality of life issues during the construction phase thank you thanks we have no additional raise stand okay with that may I have a
motion is there a motion like Katie go ahead oh um I was in put forward a motion of approval with design review with attention to the rear yard um setback okay is there a second second Mr stbridge yes Mr Valencia yes Mr langum yes M weo yes m b brazza
yes CH yes the motion carries good luck thank you be time next we have case boa 166 9854 with the address of 29 5 West First Street uh this is an article 80 case with the opponent and the and representative please explain the case
to the board yes sir uh good afternoon Mr secretary Madame chair members of the board attorney Joe Hanley mcder quilty Miller and Hanley at 28 State Street in Boston I am here with the uh owner proponent Jon Street investment uh Partners Matt Frasier is their principal and is with us today uh also here with our development team uh which includes PCA Architects uh David shalinsky and uh of course through the article 80 process for this development uh we also have
been working closely with um our landscape architect from verden and uh my uh teammate rer henh Hower from artico who's also on uh with respect to the community programming aspects of this exciting new project um madam B I just take you through these first slides obviously I hit the first one if you can go there you go to right here sorry back up to the site there we go so um 295
West 2 Street uh West 1 street I'm sorry you can see in uh inside the hash uh the orange hash and the yellow hash and obviously colored uh within orange it is in the uh at a edge location uh between the edge of the industrial section of the uh South Boston uh Dorchester flats and the South uh uh the South Boston
residential neighborhood to the South as we go further up and I'm sorry can you can you see this presentation yeah I lost it yeah sorry who's presenting we we can see it you can oh okay there we go sorry so so very quickly um within a walk shed of the uh
mbta's uh Broadway train station also in close proximity the BCC uh as well as Reserve channel uh as I was saying we were at an edged location just at the transition of the local industrial area of the flats and into the St Vincent lower end section of South Boston Proper and U these these aspects are very much drive the design and the responsive massing and setbacks that you'll see to follow next slide
please so just quickly to walk you around the neighborhood uh on the uh bottom left you'll see uh the site itself uh it's got unique characteristics it's a very large site um it's currently a non-conforming industrial use it's a crane yard and on the upper left you'll see the view uh looking down uh East Street and in the right foreground that large building is The Foundry building it's about 67 ft in height and offers some metaphoric context for us along with other
structures uh to the right is uh the view looking uh down Second Street and uh as we make our way down further up Second Street and finally on the right hand corner bottom that is the view of this industrial site from the local industrial area on the north side of first stre next slide please so um we have uh in support of the variance and as has been processed
through uh 18 months of article 80 and public review uh we think this site is ideal uh for the introduction of much-needed housing but not just housing for housing sake but also the opportunity to um address some of the environmental um challenges that have been placed on South Boston by this type of site and also create new public realm pedestrian safety open space and public programming
so uh we have a large non-conforming industrial site it's about an acre and a half uh again at this transitional location uh what's interesting here for zoning as well is that it fronts on three streets so we have only one direct abutter uh to uh the left of us uh who we are pleased to have their support and have him on today as well uh the existing site conditions almost entirely impervious uh there are massive curb cut openings throughout uh there's an
existing distress single story building and it's mostly asphalt and has a level of environmental soils contamination that it's being remediated as part of the project next SL slide please so just quick and you'll hear this a little bit from Dave in the next slides uh we are proposing is uh to introduce a building that is between four and six stories in height uh and would offer 236 total residential units again at a
very large site of 1.5 Acres mix of studio studio pluses one bedroom one plus stands two bedrooms and three bedroom units uh 25 parking spaces and as far as the project benefits go we are very PR that we were able to get to 15% affordable in these challenging Economic Times uh again this is a project that started almost two years ago so it predates the current IDP uh but we're
able to deliver 35 units of income restricted housing which will have a huge impact uh on the housing needs for the city we're also able to deliver almost 800 linear feet of new complete Street sidewalks in an area that uh currently lacks that and what you'll see in the presentation uh I'm almost 9,000 ft of community space in the ground floor and almost 6,000 ft of public open space which we call the yard on second uh converting this industrial site uh
also as part of the article 80 process we listen very carefully about the need to inove pedestrian safety uh on the streets at the intersection of e second and first and we will be doing raised crosswalks at both of those intersections which will also uh comp ment this vast new open space that the project is providing next slide take you very quickly uh through the zoning so uh I mentioned that it's an industrial
non-conforming use just inside the edge of the MFR uh zone so the use is allowed um we do need relief for uh additional lot area for for additional units uh at uh 1,000 per unit at a 64,000 ft site the F proposed is 3.5 in two we would suggest that that is also contextually consistent and offset as is the height uh by certain responsive massing uh and
other design and open space measures so the required Building height is 40 uh our maximum is at 6911 uh but get as you'll see on Second Street we are four stories and then there's a portion where our open space is where there's no structure at all so it does vary and it is responsive and appropriate considering the fact that we have three uh streets surrounding the site uh also the minimum front yard as I indicated we have three front yards uh
so we are uh compliant um on Second Street which is a very important value for us especially as we intersect with the established residential neighborhood and we need uh di Minimus relief uh with respect to uh the other sides and again many of those sides also have including uh East Street at the corner no building whatsoever so we would suggest it's mitigated uh by that and finally the the um sidey yard which I think um is
similar in that sense required at 3 and we're a little bit uh over one and a half the next slide please I would like to hand it off to Dave shalinsky to take you through the plants thank you uh good afternoon everyone um just to orient people West First street is at the top of the page uh East Street is to the right hand side um around the perimeter of the site you'll see uh that we're uh establishing a new sort of
pedestrian um friendly uh sidewalk experience um across the bottom of the page along uh West Second Street one of the great things about the site despite it being a crane yard is that there are very mature uh Street trees they're shown in dark green um we are going to augment that with uh 15 New Street trees and then in the yard we have another uh eight trees
that we're establishing uh I'll give you some views of that in a moment uh all the parking for the site is accessed off First Street and is interior to the project surrounded I think you can see in the kind of light purple by community space and community Cafe bike rooms and the active lobbies uh as Joe pointed out uh connecting into the neighborhood we have raised crosswalks uh along East Street uh at
West First and at the inter intersection with West Second uh currently East Street is a bit of a cut through uh the neighbors uh concerned about that and these raised cross trucks will serve as uh uh traffic uh mitigation and make it more pedestrian friendly and easier uh to reach this uh uh small uh outdoor space that we're creating next slide
please uh I'm going to walk around the site uh in uh this is a view looking to the east on West Second Street uh I think you can uh gather that we've picked up on some of the vernacular of of Bays uh on the sort of traditional buildings uh and despite the fact that the building is modern looking we picked up on some of the character with lap siding and window sizes uh and I think
you can see the four stories that AB West Second Street uh try to fit in with the cornes of the buildings uh around us and then The Foundry in the distance next slide uh and then this is a view standing at the corner of E and West Second looking back towards the West uh this is the yard I'll show you a little bit uh more detail picture of it but you can see that the building starts at four stories on the left and then moves up
five and then eventually uh six along West First Street uh next slide please uh again is a view looking South on East Street uh Foundry on the left uh our building on the right the new Street trees we have two lobbies one that's along West First and one that's along West 2 uh and again um the more uh uh sort of
formal side of the building along West First Street which is obviously an emerging new neighborhood um uh we're carrying that bay uh character uh but it a slightly different vocabulary uh next next slide please uh and then this is looking uh the other way up West First Street uh shows the condominium building the gray
one uh at the corner of d uh our immediate AB Butters an approved project um at 270 West Second uh and then our building uh in the distance uh again uh picking on some of the street vocabulary uh uh adjacent to us next slide please uh so getting back to the yard uh met with uh members of the neighborhood um this part of uh South Boston has a
real issue with lack of trees uh and heat island and um you know we talked about character of what this open space could be and should be and it was very clear that having something that provided uh shade and passive Recreation uh is the most welcome uh and the notion of bringing some kind of a small uh coffee shop or Cafe that could spill out
into that space uh and serve the immediate neighborhood would be welcome uh and I think you can see that we have these cable uh landscape features uh as well as loose tables and chairs that will be part of the cafe next slide uh very quickly just the plans uh we work very closely with the BPD to make sure that it feels inviting and an extension of the sidewalk and the
neighborhood um the building the Community Cafe you can see there is uh almost 60 ft back from the curb along West Second Street uh and hopefully will'll provide a you know a welcoming respit um to the whole neighborhood next slide please uh just very quickly imagery of the uh intended Community uses obviously these things will evolve and the building will be populated over time but
there's a real effort to bring uh Community uses um to our ground floor uh at the entire perimeter next slide uh and uh we work very closely uh with the Urban Design Group uh I think these illustrate what we tried to do with the various four five and six story elements of the building so that as pedestrians along uh West Second uh uh despite the
fact that we have six stories along uh West 1 Street uh it's really not visible uh as a pedestrian along uh West Second next slide please uh very quickly give you some idea of the material of a combination of um lap siding fiber cement panels uh and um composite metal Bays uh next
slide uh and again this is just a view uh looking at our uh First Street facade with our immediate neighbor to the right 295 uh West Second uh the one thing I will say uh is our amenity spaces are uh for our residents are within the building uh you'll notice on the bottom uh image here that we have two Courtyards uh so that uh we have private outdoor space for the residents um and
no roof decks which you know can be uh somewhat Troublesome at times all our uh uh interior amenity space is controlled within the building itself next slide I'm going to hand it back to Joe thanks David uh Madam chair just briefly I won't go through this but um I want to on behalf of my client thank uh the neighborhood uh the community groups and the elected officials and of course the bpda for helping to guide this project
over 18 months uh we started in May of 2023 uh inviting The Neighbors in to listen obviously it's a very big site uh but we think that the opportunities uh for the community are also uh significant and so we have worked very hard through that process um thank the iag for their participation and one thing I'll note which I just think is important is obviously this project should it uh have the approval of this board is subject to further dpda design
review and one of the things that we've done Madam chair after our approval by the bpda in September was to return uh to the community for an in-person meeting and see if we could uh improve and further address some of the input that we heard with respect to the ground floor which wouldn't change the zoning but if you go to the next slide I'll have David just uh quickly summarize that and then we'll conclude David so um big picture uh the request
was because we have um a package delivery uh to you know residents uh at a building like this uh the request was to move our uh primary Lobby let's call it which has our mail and our package room to move it to West First Street so that pickup and drop off which you see noted there would
occur along West First Street not along West Second Street and not adjacent to uh the yard uh so from a big picture standpoint that was a change in the orientation of which one is the primary versus more secondary uh Lobby the cafe stays the same on the yard the community uh uses along West First Street remain unchanged uh and the Bike Room is
Consolidated uh into one location thank you David and thank you madam chair questions from the board I'm yes um thank you for that uh presentation I'm trying to understand your I think it's like 1 fo5 inch gap between the two buildings to structure and I think if am I seeing the Gap um
kind of rendered on the a301 under view from West First Street and D Street I guess my then as I look at the floors then I see that there's kind of an open Green Space in between so I I want to understand a little bit what's behind that one 1 and A2 inch Gap what what's going on there
yeah so our our building um above uh this is just the ground floor uh plan the ground uh the at the upper level the building sets back adjacent to our neighbor at uh 295 so their building is set back from the property line above and our building is set back to create a a a courtyard between uh the two buildings that's a little over 25 ft wide the cour the courty is is to
provide light and air coming into the studio apartments correct it says outdoor amenity am I assuming that there's going to be outdoor balconies from those studio uh there we don't have balconies uh in that area in fact uh that area adjacent and matching uh the building adjacent to us is where we have uh worked out um a dog walking area on the roof of the garage uh so that again uh
working with the neighborhood who have a real issue with dogs overusing the local parks that's where we're going to uh have an internal uh dog walking area and then in terms of the 1 and a half inch gap between the two structure um what what is that explain why wouldn't you ABD the the the to adjacent to the building
versus having that huge gap all through um you know at the moment that's really a construction a construct constructability issue that building has yet to be uh built uh and really we uh as much as anything else we're just looking to provide some kind of coordination to allow uh for that building to be built at a later time so that's for later investigation okay that sounds good thank you so much for the explanation thank you any other
questions from the board here and then I'll take public testimony yes Madam chair members of the board Conor Newman with the mayor's office of Neighborhood Services this time the mayor's off like to defer to the judge from this board some background information the community process uh proponent completed the bp8 community process and also independently hosted two in-person meetings with the community uh first in September 11th and the 2 on November 19th 2024 during which time concerns relating to the project
were discussed with residents uh in response to community discussions the proponent agreed to the relocation of the main building entry uh deliveries and receiving entrance uh a potential move of the blue bike's location was evaluated and found to be unfeasible the proponent has also agreed uh to resident parking uh restrictions at this location uh preventing uh the future tenants from obtaining on street parking permits uh our office received 31 uh letters uh in opposition including
one from the friends of North Broadway uh 27 notes uh 20 27 letters in support uh there was also a petition uh of Opposition signed by 50 abutters uh the opposition mainly focused around concern related to the height uh the greater density being proposed uh in an area that does not have um extensive public transit uh as well as uh concerns related to potential increase in traffic
on the first stre quarter uh those letters in support are mainly focused on the 8,000 ft² ground floor community space uh the affordable housing units that were being proposed and the addition of New Street trees to the streetcape some who originally opposed this development have sent decideed to support based on the sincerity of the opponent to explain rationale behind uh various design decisions and the care uh regarding the potential impact on the community uh that information will'll
defer to the board at this time thank you okay we have a few raised hands here one second go to the panelist uh Council Murphy's office and Council friend's office another one of you can go ahead hello and good afternoon Madame Ambassador Madame chair members of the board my name is Kevin oan and I'm from councelor Aaron Murphy's office councel Murphy is in support um based on the continued work that this project has
done to engage with the community even going so far as to hone this project based on the community's input also for the support of the director butter and as you've heard attorney hle mentioned the multiple uh benefits that this project has uh structurally uh furthering the goals of IDP but also for the multiple uh public amenities this project provides such as you know on Street packing spaces a newly accessible um sidewalk with street tree canopies uh
a publicly accessible open space in ground community space so for all those reasons Council Murphy is in support thank you very much for your time and consideration I hope everyone has a great day thank you thank you counc hi my name is Sydney I'm from councelor Flynn's office please note that councelor friend previously sent an opposition letter to the bpda board due to concerns from Neighbors and abutters around the president of the height on
the residential side of First Street the density and exacerbating South Boston's existing parking crisis with 236 units and 125 parking spots at that time he expressed his concern that this project was not ready for the board and was seeking additional good faith compromises between community and the proponent it is our St understanding that since the time the proponent has done a number of meetings and site visits to work with relevant Civic organizations and Neighbors on a number of issues including moving the
lobby to First Street scaling back the height and fifth and sixth stories to First Street creating additional multi-bedroom units the developer also agreed to move the blue bike station from West Second to West 1 and BTD in the city should work on that issue while councelor Flynn is pleased pleased to see these compromises he continues to have philosophical disagreements with the planning department and Boston transportation department specifically when it comes to South Boston's parking crisis and the need for parking to include sufficient parking to not
negatively impact nearby residents quality of life thank you thank you okay have good afternoon thank you madam chair members of the board my name is St Harvey and I'm a senior project manager at the city of Boston planning department and thank you for your time today on September uh 22nd 2023 the Boston Planning Development agency now the planning department received a letter of intent from the proponent on
December 21st 2020 uh 2023 uh we received the project notification form from the proposal pursuance to section 80 B- 5.3 of the code I hosted impact Advisory Group iig meetings for the proposal on January 16th 2024 and June 24th 2024 I also hosted public meetings for the proposal on January 31st 2024 and July 9th 2024 the project was approved by the planning department on September 12th 2024 if approved and
built this proposal would add 36 affordable units to the city's affordable housing stock I can confirm that the team met with the planning depart the planning department review team after meeting with the community the updates that the project uh has made are acceptable and can be conceived through the planing Department's design review process thank you sorry
Bob uh yes mam chair members of the board Bob Deo Boston transportation department um the mayor's Vision zero uh program requires that uh 25% of the spaces on under article 80 uh have the uh charging stations in place the remaining 75 have to has to have the uh infrastructure in place for future installation of the charging station and from what I can see there's 42 spaces on
stackers and you can put a charging station on the upper part of a stacker so that leaves um 51 spaces that I'd like to request that the um uh the proponent have the infrastructure ready for future installation of a charging station thank you perfect few raised hands um I will start with Philip and then go to Donna try to get to as many people as we can
but if you would prefer to leave your comments in the chat you can do that as well Phil yes hello um I'm Phil balone the owner of the directly adjacent site at 270 West 2 Street and I'm here today to offer my full support for the project and required zoning relief we've owned our property which spans the block from West 2 to West 1st for 72 years so my own memory of this part of South Boston and indeed the entire area that we now
call the seap port is deeply entrenched we share a vision with Jon Street to help make West First a premier new residential Corridor that exists in full harmony with the neighborhood while also creating the new housing units that our city so badly needs I've closely followed the evolution of uh the project plans from their Inception and they have my full support they've done an outstanding job incorporating a sixth floor into the
original design of the building reflecting a sensitivity to Neighborhood concerns but also including the added density that's absolutely essential to mounting a financially sustainable project it's exciting to see these important new residential developments come to life I hope this project will gain the board's full approval we look forward to working closely with them and with the neighborhood when construction begins on the site thank you so
much sorry Donna go ahead Donna you look me testimony hi my name is Donna Brown I'm a member of the iig and a South Boston resident and I'm speaking also on behalf of David Garten a fellow member of the iag and we're both in support of this project it's the proposed project will take a really underutilized industrial site that has been a challenge for the neighborhood
for generations and turn it into much needed affordable housing community space additional trees improvements to the sidewalks and um as well as open space at the corner of East Street and West Second Street so we feel that it'll be a real asset to the neighborhood and we're both in support of this project thank you thank you okay and mat and then Natasha um hello uh my name is Matt Jones um I'm also a member of the article 80 I for this project and I'm
also a direct a butter I live um half a block away down the street um as um as both a director butter and a member of the IG I was been intimately involved in the article 80 process from the beginning um I am very impressed with the proponent um efforts in to listen to the community and to respond to that and make changes to the project I was uh frankly somebody
who early on the project was uh not happy with some aspects of it and was opposed to it but it's been really extraordinary working with the proponents and their team um to have a direct dialogue with them to understand our concerns and to respond to them um so for that reason and um I'm happily in support and encourage the the board to uh Grant the relief that they're seeking I'd also like to thank uh Lydia palaski from the mayor's office um and mark bonal from the bbda to for also
facilitating that dialogue and listening to our concerns thank you thank you thanks all right Natasha and then John hi there um so I am also in a butter of the uh the project itself I live in a three family directly across the street um and so I care you know quite deeply about what what does uh come into this spot here um I have personally been heavily involved in the process since the first public meeting um and I also you know as Matt noted was one of the
individuals who previously signed that opposition letter many months ago when the project first became open to public feedback um since then my attitude towards the project has changed a bit um mostly after seeing the latest round of changes that the developers have made uh to the proposal just in favor of the community some of those ass uh came directly from me uh and were representative of a few of us um in the community here um especially moving the lobby in the package room from West Second Street um West Second Street is
uh mostly two and three story uh condo buildings and it's a narrow one-way Street um this is it would have been a huge Community disruption for us um to have it you know in the original proposal so the fact that they've changed that for us is great um you know obviously I you know I don't think the project is going to to be 100% what everyone was expecting I think in terms of the height for example um but I do think that they've scaled that back and have tried their best to um meet us halfway I would say uh with some of
those requests so um I am also uh in support of the project thank you all right and we'll go to John uh thank you I um also am a direct butter and um live on the corner of West Second and East Street um I also was one of the ones that was involved in the early article 80 um signing getting neighbors involved because I was very much against this project um I will say
that as we went through the process uh both um councilman Flynn and Murphy's office have been very helpful in working with us as well as the mayor's office and their liaison to build a community where we can communicate with the developer directly um after the last four months months going back and forth the developer heard us they did as much as they could to change what we wanted to have changed like uh those have said it has not been a 100% of what we want but it never is and I feel like we were
hurt as neighbors I think that this will be a really welcome addition to the neighborhood for me looking at a cran yard is not ideal so seeing a lively building you know with with residents that actually communicate and walk around the neighborhood on the streets uh a lot of the things that they've done with the tree and the traffic coming and things just make it a real neighborhood cuz right now it's a dead end uh between where we are and the seaport and this will act as a bridge and I think it's a testimony to uh the developers that took
the time to actually hear us and work with us and not just say yes and then move on to something else and not do or at least you know come to an agreement where we could um I hope other developments look at this as a way because the city makes it really hard to get things done uh as a resident when you're hearing something something's happening in your neighborhood that's going to be really large and it's scary at first um I wish the city had better ways to communicate with us so that we didn't have to wait until after we opposed it you know built this Army against it to start communicating with
the developers I've spoken to many people in my building as well and they've asked me to convey the same thing uh they very much ask for the support of this committee today to go forward with this um it was done in the right way and I look forward to seeing how it how it comes out at the very end so thank you thanks say please add new information and keep it brief uh hello I am the principal at Masari Studios an artist Collective that
has called Midway artist Studios home for the last five years uh our studio business has supported this project since last year and we recognize the importance of this work at large to support the community the community's immediate needs uh like housing and parking um also elevating the community directly through your for housing the 8,000 square ft of community mixed use space new Cafe and open space for and integrating the mature trees we really think this would make quite a difference and really cultivate uh the neighborhood
that is there and this project has the full support from the sari Studios thank you thank you keep going as about the additional stand uh I I'll take one more and if others can just put your comments in the chat thanks Christine hi this is Christine Valen cour I'm the president of the fourpoint Arts community and also a South Boston resident I'm in full support of this project thank you very much to the
developers and everyone who listen to the community I'm especially excited about the Comm the 8,600 square fet of community space and also the open space the beautiful open space that you're planning around it I'd love to see a piece of sculpt um by a Massachusetts artist in your garden there but um uh another time uh but I just want to thank you and uh support this project thank you very much
thank you thank you any other questions from the board I don't know if there was anything you wanted to respond to uh as the applicant briefly uh thank you madam chair I only to say uh deep gratitude for um the neighbors who uh participated in comment today but also uh worked with us through this process and to the bpda I think what you've heard and and certainly what
my client is committed to is making sure that this is a um respectful and healthy and contributing development uh as we move forward and we appreciate all of the input and guidance and uh support throughout this process thank you m is there a motion Madam chair I I can prefer a motion of approval with the provis as
listed at the on the BPD uh board memorandum and also I would like to ask that BPD takes a look at the design Corner uh of the building that can be viewed from first in D Street that is right next to the existing an existing um building it appears from the renderings that there are some kind of window conflicts if the BPD can just take a look at that design of the corner
thank you thank you is there a second second Mr stbridge yes Mr valencio yes Mr langum yes Miss weell yes Miss better razza yes chair votes yes the motion carries good luck thank you uh I'm going to ask for a 15minute
break recording stopped
e
e e
pres M chair Mr Valencia present Mr langum present M present m B brazo present floor is yours Mr stbridge reminder we are a six member board thank you madam chair uh moving ahead to those who have a copy of page
seven of the agenda um we uh case at the top of the page have been deferred and we go to case boa 167 1229 with the address of 35 sedan Street if the applicant Andor the representative of President will they please explain to the board thank you Mr stbridge thank you madam chair members
of the board attorney Jeff Drago with Drago and Tuscano with the business address of 11 Beacon Street uh here on behalf of the applicant Josh Bloomberg uh and I also have the architect Beth McDougall here to answer any questions uh straightforward project at 35 Sudan Street uh in the Dorchester section of Boston uh the proposal as written is to change the occupancy from a three existing three family dwelling to a four
family dwelling by converting uh a basement unit into a residential unit on the site this uh particular subdistrict is a if we could pull up the presentation uh Madam thank you that's just uh the me go one back one slide please um that's just a front picture of the existing structure which is typical up and down uh this particular section of the street uh it's a 3F 2000 District
um uh just by way of background my client had purchased the build uh there is an elevated uh uh basement area um it it the slope as you go back really changes uh the elevation and the uh building uh the basement was already kind of built up there was an existing bathroom down there um there was a bedroom area but he never used it obviously wanted to go through the process uh to legalize it um the you
could start going to the plans thank you mad Ambassador the um proposal is to have a two-bedroom two bath uh with living dining in kitchen area small office area at 843 square fet of feet this particular basement area has 8 foot or would have 8 foot Florida sailing height two full means of egress uh main entrance on the side of the building and then one in the rear as well excuse me no work to be
done on the other units those are all existing three bedroom units uh on the site as well we did submit eight letters of direct butter support uh as part of our proposal uh um we uh had the no issues from Neighbors we had a butter meeting uh we were asked by our direct neighbor to the left to because we're adding a side entrance to put some screening and buffering some landscape design some fencing uh along the walkway
on the left side of the property um we uh uh as was mentioned no other work to be done on the property you can see the gray change uh really in these elevation slides uh as well there will be a icated sprinkler room basement would be fully sprinklered uh per code um and right now that as I had mentioned that's already laid out uh as a unit and the just to point out uh the bpda did recommend support uh and really uh heightened that
uh this type of project using this Adu by keeping the existing building um is really uh streamlined in their new housing uh zoning initiative and in the future with likely they're pushing to not even have zoning relief needed for these kind of Adu units um with that I can pause uh answer any questions or the team can answer any questions that the board may have thank you are there any questions from the
board hearing none man public testimony yes Madam chair members of the board Conor Newman with the mayor's office of Neighborhood Services this time the mayor is OB to defer to the Judgment of this board some background information on the community process um and a Butters meeting was held on October 28th um there were no concerns raised in that meeting later on we did receive a letter in opposition from an abutter uh expressing concerns that the additional unit would increase competition for uh parking on the street
as well as expressing they felt that the the current property was not well maintained uh the applicant went on to meet with the Columbia sain Hill civic association uh which voted on January 6 of The Association voted to oppose the proposal uh with four members in support and 20 opposed of that information will defer to the board at this time thank you hello Madam chair members of the board Liam remas from Council Fitz's office I say our officers has heard um a lot of concern from the community and
opposition's proposal du to the community concerns our offic like go on record and opposition to this project thank you we have no raise hands at the moment okay any other questions from the board may I just resp SW Madam shair if I could great thank you um just to point out I know that it was mentioned about parking we are within less than a 10-minute walk from uh the redline T Station um and uh we did submit from
direct of butters on Sudan 40 20 36 uh and 25 Sudan Street all letters of support we did submit to the board um and as was mentioned there was not one concern from director the butters at the actual meetings both at the Civic as well as um at the the butter meeting thank you with that may I have a
motion I'm say I make a motion of approval is there a second second Mr stbridge yeah Mr Valencia yes Mr langum yes Miss weo yes better Braza yes chair votes yes the motion carries good luck thank you very much next next we have case boa 163
6283 with the address of nine Hill Cross Road if the applicant Endo their representative presid will they please explain good afternoon Madam chair and members of the board my name is lorine the applicant for nine Hillcraft um I last presented uh to the board in December the matter was deferred because we had a missing plot plan we have since submitted that um that is not the current
one should be at the end of the presentation if this is the current one current presentation that we submitted um but we also want to acknowledge that the new P plan was submitted late um the construction project for Nill Crossroad in Jamaica plane involves alterations to the existing third floor transforming an unfinished storage area into a dma ultimately creating a bedroom
suite full bathroom three closets measuring 574 Square ft um the existing square footage is 2,739 and the proposed would make it 3,313 Square ft uh this will be a red dma so not really changing the front of the house um the height will be 2 and 1/2 ft below the ridge line um the home maintains single family while expanding space for a growing
family we just go back up these to the a a01 z work I think it's right at the
top yes so can I ask Mr Hampton in the meantime if you you have updated plans since you noted a a deferral request yeah uh thank you madam chair members of the board Jeff hampon City of Boston planning department we still haven't received an updated uh plot plan that shows uh this property on its plot uh the one that we reviewed prior to this
was a different piece of property Al together so uh our recommendation stands for deferral we just haven't received anything new but right other than other than the plot plan um uh Mr Hampton would say it's a pretty straightforward proposal I would agree with you and and we and we could put forward a motion of approval with with the provisor that a site plot plan by a stamp surveyor uh by a surveyor land
surveyor be submitted to BPD and ISD uh I can agree to that sure okay great well that are there questions from the board heing none may have public testimony Madam chair and members of the board for the record my name is Jeremy bbery I'm the Jamaica plane Community engagement specialist for the office of Neighborhood Services the applicant has completed the community process which consisted of an abuts meeting held on
August 28th uh very lightly attended with only one inquiry that was addressed at the meeting our next proposal was presented to the Jamaica Hills Association and the jamaa plane neighborhood Council where the proposal will receiv received unanimous approval thank you for your time and the the office the mayor's office of Neighborhood Services would like to divert to the board for the judment thank you hearing no other have no additional R stance okay may I have a motion given that the applicant has received U
majority community support and that the violations are are minor in regards to an F being triggered and also uh the the stories which we have already seen in front of us is is pretty minimum I'm going to put forward a motion of approval with a provis that the applicant submits a plot plan by a licensed surveyor uh stamped to ISD and to BPD prior to approval is there a
second second Mr srid yes Mr Valencia yes Mr langum yes Miss weo yes Miss B brazza yes chair votes yes the motion carries thank you mam chair members of the board next we have case boa 164
3116 with the address of 13 Winship Street if the applicant Endor the and and L the representative of President would they please explain to the board uh yes sir thank you Mr stbridge um Madam chair members of the board thank you for your uh long time and attention today um so before you uh we have updated plans and this is our second time uh before you requesting an
extension not that we haven't been prepared to proceed but it's taken ISD a long time to get through a second iteration of plans that we have submitted to them back in September um we presented before the biaa in August uh the baia requested three important things all of which we were able to accommodate which we'll walk through um we re updated plans after our September meeting with the Bia confirming that they were happy with those updated plans resubmitted the updated survey in front of you the
updated architectural plans to ISD in September and we were not able to get them through ISD and into your possession before our scheduled December thir extended meeting which punted us to today um the three important things requested be by the baia in August number one rear yard parking okay uh number two we previously had an internal stairwell a second means of egress external to the building in the form of
an exterior Deck with uh stairs they wanted a second means of internal egress so we removed the external stairs adopted that into the plans you'll see in front of you for secondary means of egress uh and then also they were concerned about kind of shortening and um making the footprint of the building less so by removing the roughly you know 9 ft of decking and stairs off the rear we're able to reduce the prospective massing of the building to accommodate their three requests um to the immediate
left of our parcel is a large public parking lot so importantly a we don't have any abutters to our left we only have cars number two we would never be able to get access to the rear of our lot across the parking lot for an Ingress and egress to the rear yard the owner is also the owner of nine windship to our immediate right in controlling the parcels to the immediate right he's able to then access the rear of the parcel through largely existing uh
Paving to provide parking to the rear of the building um we specifically let Bia in the neighborhood know that you know we did not necessarily think that the bpda would love the additional off street parking but but that was a demand of the neighborhood which given the owners access and ownership of the parcel to the right were able to accommodate so we're in a delicate position of accommodating the requests of abutters and the neighborhood and the Bia uh and also Brighton main streets um
with the risk of potentially offending the bpda um so that is kind of the fabric of those three changes starting from August to where we are today we have baia support we have the support of uh Kelly mcgraph and her now replacement I think chair director of the uh Boston main streets um as a relates to the physical structure you can see we have a very very narrow lot tapering from about 20 ft in the front to 21 ft in the rear
that also means that even short of demolition of a building we don't really have the ability to have a 10-ft wide uh driveway to access the rear with the structure above it so our only real way of accommodating the demanded rear uh yard Park was to access across nine windship to the immediate right um The Proposal is to take the existing structure addon an addition rendering it a two family of three stories with a single floor first floor unit and then a
combined second and third floor two bed sorry second unit on this on the second and third floor uh if you want to progress down through the drawings you can see the addition the existing structure okay our cited violation a very very tiny existing footprint to proposed addition the building unfortunately given the very narrow lot kind of has to be very long and linear to realize internal square footage um but the end results of the footprint are what you see on the plans immediately in
front of you uh right now um so again just to reiterate we come to you with the support of the baia and hopefully they're still on the call to speak on on behalf of them Annabella uh and I've also been in Communications with Kelly McGrath of the uh bright Bri main streets who's also voiced their concern and support primary concern of of the uh Brighton main streets is the current condition of the property that my client absorbed um the sellers had this property in their possession for nearly about a hundred years uh there's
a lot of existing rat tunnels so a very aggressive uh rodent mitigation plan is being sought by uh at least Brighton main streets and and the abutters which the owner is actively working on number one they clean up the lot number two and we're very happy to work with the city to make sure that we you know have a active um and comprehensive rodom control plan in place when it comes to the actual demolition uh so with that I'm I'm happy to turn it over to the board for questions thank you questions from the
board you're you're confirming that you that the applicant does own seven and nine um I think it's called with windship windship yes ma'am windship correct correct CU I I just looked it up in the Z in the City Assessor but it had a different ownership but I'm sure that's probably the same applicant I just wanted confirmation confirmed yeah okay great legal control yes okay no further
questions other questions from the board public testimony Madam chair and board members good afternoon sigi Johnson with the office of Neighborhood Services this petition commissioner completed the on community process uh our office hosted in a Butters meeting on the 23rd of July at which one concern was Rel raised relating to rodent activity on the parcel office received no other comments from abutters petitioner additionally presented to the Brighton Alon Improvement Association
which offered their support with a number of provisors particularly important to that group was the commitment to parking that was uh presented by Mr Smith or represented to you by Mr Smith um in his presentation uh we received no other letters no other comments with that background we defer to the Judgment of the board thank you thank you all right and we have no additional race stand at the moment okay uh with that may I have a
motion I'm sure I do see one more raised hand I'm not sure Annabella just raised her hand can I take her uh yes okay Annabella Madam chair of members of board Annabella GES from the Brighton Austin Improvement Association we'd like to go support uh we're very happy with the work on the road and cleaning out the distressed property um we are very um much concerned about the parking in Street district with boss from the bike lanes and the bus lanes so we uh did
specifically ask that the parking be included for that reason um and we'd like to be on record in support thank you thanks no additional raise hands okay with that may I have a motion Madam chair are you open to for a question okay um I I mean I was just um I would like to know bpd's um position on having kind of a
driveway on a different property I know in the past there's been some concerns that if the owner ever decid to sell um you know that driveway doesn't necessarily belong to to you know to the unit that is associated with in terms of the sale so I just wanted to understand you know because we heard from Boston transportation department by Bob in regards to that it does work ownership
needs to be confirmed but from a zoning point of view what's bpd's position in regards to access from a different property even though they own it are you still with us Mr Hampton and if it's not Mr Hampton I'm just putting it up for discussion with my colleagues if they see that I can if it helps the Board I can
speak for personal perspective I have another client right now undergoing the same thing with trying to build to the rear of another structure and they control control two Parcels ISD has asked for a proposed easement which I have drafted which they would want to see recorded with the registry to memorialize that future access yes uh it has not been recorded yet pending approval of the bpda to actually proceed but it has been drafted by me and provided to the applicant for presentation to uh ISD for confirmation of that being the intended legal access
to run with the land in perpetuity right so you I imagine the same be required here put together yep easement so I have not drafted that easement yet but upon request I will certainly do so okay any other that's my understanding of how that issue is addressed as confirmed by ISD in the process yep I okay so I think I can perfor a motion um i' like to IID like to recommend a
motion of approval um with a Proviso that an eement will be drafted to provide kind of leg legal access through the other property um for the for the driveway is there a second second Mr yes Mr Valencia
yes Mr langum yes Miss weo yes is better brazza yes chair votes yes the motion carries good luck thank you um I may I confirm I did not hear bpda design review as being an additional Proviso but given the scope I think um given the scope BPD uh design review would be appropriate so they can also review your site plan access is that confirmed across the
board too any concerns from the board okay confirmed thank you thank you for picking thank you for picking that up usually you want less provisos but you I imag I didn't want to have the problem I don't know that he wanted it I think he wanted to confirm it have a good day everyone I'm sorry yes one ear two Brooks Brook Street Brooks is that
gentleman back or applicant is anyone present for two Brook Street going any ra hands going twice I'll leave I'll I'll leave it to um I'm I'll suggest a motion to deny without prejudice make the motion motion
to thank you thank you Mr stbridge yes Mr Valencia yes Mr L yes ma'am thank you Miss W yes m better brazo yes chair votes yes the motion carries and with that I will see you all next time have a good day thank
you for