site committee will come to order. Tonight, we're taking up uh or we're going to resume the discussion of the economic development plan and how we as a city council want to put our stamp on that. Um if there could be a motion to
take it off the table made and seconded. All those in favor? One, two, three. So, just to recap quickly, uh last week, last week we um kind of went over some of the
highlights of the plan. And our goal really today is to talk a little bit more about some of the possible action points and then I'm going to solicit input uh today if councilors want to do it. Otherwise, over the next couple of
weeks, I will have counselors uh send to Karen their ideas for for the preamble to this economic development plan. If you recall, rather than try and have us comment on a you know, line by line on a
what what what is it, Tim? three 400page report. I thought that if we as a city council could agree on on a vision, uh we could then at least put our stamp onto this plan and let developers and businesses know what it is we are trying
to build economically here in the city. So, it'll be critical to have uh councilors weigh in and I'll do my best uh with the committee to craft a document that sums up uh those thoughts and uh and ideas. With that, Tim, I'm going to turn it
over to you and you can start tonight's presentation. >> Great. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and through you to the body. Uh, just a couple housekeeping items. Uh, at the last meeting, there was a couple questions proposed. I said that I would research and and follow up with you. First, there was a question about a
definition of the downtown, and that is um defined within the report as a fivem minute walk um to to the to the main street corridor. Uh another question that was proposed was was there any uh information on building space land development for higher education?
There's nothing specifically mentioned in the report in terms of uh identifying uh parcels. There's been always broad and abstract talk about one uh building here in the city for possible uh redevelopment for higher education. there was no uh designated parcels by
any means or or buildings, but it what was referenced and and what should be uh referred to over and over again is the lack of what we call middle skilled jobs here in the Commonwealth um and in particular here in Malber, which basically means that there's a a labor
gap uh in in terms of the workforce and and if we don't address that by providing the proper type of higher education, it's only going to exacerbate the problem and lead to uh u businesses not being able to find the right type of labor and and on and so with that being
said that was the only real points highlighted within the in the report addressing higher education. There was one last question addressed and it was relative to a statistic in terms of persons under the age of 35 and I'm still researching that. I will get that
statistic um as soon as I track it down. But nonetheless, I just wanted to make sure that the committee did know that I am working on those issues. Um not to rehash what we discussed uh at the last meeting, but essentially what we did was we provided a comprehensive overview of
the master plan, the the new Malber economy, highlighting all the major points. And what we were thinking this evening would be appropriate is taking the second step, which is actually addressing um key action items that that um this city should consider if you want
to enhance your assessed value and stabilize your residential tax rate. And Mr. Chairman, through you uh what we thought might be best is a PowerPoint presentation to explain that that the chair of MBEDC is going to actually uh outline and I'm going to assist him with that. So with that being said,
>> we would love to have Mr. Berseron join us. >> I'm going to go up quick. >> Uh thank you m Mr. Chairman and um members of the committee. Uh Tim had mentioned the possibility of a PowerPoint so I got all excited.
Um uh so it it and and I think while there are many different aspects of the of the economic development master plan um the the the piece which I tend to kind of just know the best is kind of the zoning related and the land use related piece. So Tim had asked me to
kind of talk to some of those points uh which I thought would just the nice part about those points. So they they are best illustrated by pictures as opposed to I mean we can I can talk about some of the issues involved but the pictures I think really the important thing and this is um 10 minutes no longer than 10
minutes. Next slide. So as you know um and as we've always taken as our premise as far as the economic development master plan the goal of the exercise is to maintain a stable residential tax rate by growing the non-residential tax base. And we realize that the major
engine in doing that is going to be our offices that the the campus is I think the the most valuable piece of property by assessed value in the city. Uh we need more of those. Uh we need them full as it happens. The campus is full right now. I think it's at 97% occupancy and
we need more of them. Uh and and the the way that we tried to find out how to do that uh this past year, next slide, was by going and talking to a bunch of people. You've already heard that report that the mayor went out and and Tim Cummings and I and a number of people went out to a bunch of companies and
talked to companies about what it was. These are all Malro companies now. Uh and asked, you know, so what would it take to keep you growing here? Why would you want to be here? Next slide. Well, they gave us um a whole set of different individual items that needed to be dealt
with and and like they said, well, we really want we really need walking trails. We really need uh in some areas of the city, we need better um um uh connectivity. We need better and faster high-speed internet access. But what the the the theme that kept coming in over
and over again was we need well we need restaurants. We need amenities. We need things that can cause us to be able to attract these young employees. These these are professionals. These are engineers or scientists. Many of them making upwards of 70,000 to 70 to
$100,000 a year. Um, I think when we talked to the Quest people, the Quest had said that their their median income was something like $80,000. These are the substantial pay that but they're trying to draw these employees typically from more urbanized areas. Um, so that
that was a theme that we really took away with from this. So one of the things was that well that they ideally these folks wanted to be living in housing that was pos possibly close to work and I think you've talked about this to some extent. uh but they also wanted to be living in a place which was
vibrant, had an urban feel to it and we're going to talk about that a little bit more. So in terms of of next steps or in terms of um where to go from here, well you folks are already going there. Um the the the HP uh overlay district.
Next slide please. I think is a is a is probably the the greatest kind of u um template that you could use in terms of thinking about rethinking um how our zoning system and how our land use system works because for the first
time it gets us away from this notion that the best system is the one where we have six or seven standard districts across the city and and all rules are the same. And you know, if you you can't fit in those six or seven sets of rules, you're out. So, in for the first time,
you have a an area in which a set of uses are are clustered together uh and in which some of the rules that would typically apply to these individual lots within this zone are are um are changed and are given more flexibility so that
you can have more walkability, so you can have more density, a number of different things. Next slide. And the interesting thing and and one of the things by the way that you did there is that you allowed another um hotel and one of the things that we've come to learn and we'd be glad to give you the analysis on this is that perhaps next to
a casino right the most valuable asset that you can have in the city in terms of tax generation is a hotel right by square foot in terms of the amount generated through the assessed value and the amount generated through the rooms tax. That's the most valuable thing that
we can have. So it was so once again we located another one of those. But in terms of that kind of model of what that overlay district did for you and the and this notion of of dealing with that to try to meet the need of these younger people, these younger employees for a a
kind of vibrant place to live and walk around and shop and go out for a beer and have a bite to eat. The the natural place, next slide, uh is actually downtown. What was interesting and I know you heard it from the developers um who were talking about the overlay
district was that this is the great hidden resource of Malro is that we have this wonderful downtown so close to all these jobs that restaurant is about 3 miles away from the campus right it's a
long bike ride away from a lot of the jobs that actually exist here in Malro now what's interesting so we need and we need more of them we need more of those restaurants Next slide. And we need more of those kinds of buildings. We need more mixeduse buildings where there are
restaurants and other things on the first floor and residential on the upper floors. Now, the problem here is that there is one zone that we have called the business zone. And that business zone, this was done the old style way, was was done as a long long strip zone.
And it starts at the north row border and it ends at the Sudbury border. and it runs right along route 20 now and it assumes and all of the rules in the business zone are exactly the same. So the rules as to this building are the same as the rules that are applied on
Route 20 West or on Route 20 East. And as a result of that, this building is completely in non-compliance with the existing zoning. Um it doesn't meet the setback requirement, the height requirement, the green space requirement, the parking requirement,
and the use isn't allowed. We do not allow to buildings to have people upstairs and businesses downstairs. I think I think once again, just as an aside, you all remember kind of the most famous case in Malbor, which was several years ago, the guy that wanted to bring
to come in with the ice cream store at the corner of Mechanic and Lincoln. It's now a church, right? And put an ice cream store downstairs and live upstairs. Not only does did that violate the ordinance, but he couldn't even get a variance to do that because
technically that's a use that would require a use variance and we don't allow use variances. So what we need to do is to think in in the same terms that we did that you did regarding that overlay district and think of downtown especially and and when I say downtown I
say I mean that area along Main Street probably going up French Hill you know to along Lincoln Street as that older area and say to yourselves how can we make that kind of what it was um basically by by changing some of those
zoning rules. Next slide. So, so that you could have >> real quick, sorry to interrupt. I just want to talk about that really quick. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Uh, during the, uh, the zoning overlay, some of the presentations that MAPC did, uh, you know, when when we asked them, you know, what other types of things have you guys done? A lot of the things for the
councils that weren't there that they showed us, you know, they didn't come here and say, oh, we've done these, you know, x amount of acre developments that you guys are proposing. A lot of the ones that they suggested that they've been working with are things like this, a little I don't even you know 12
apartment units on top of a uh restaurant or shop, strip mall, something like that. So MAPC, whether you agree with it or not, I I I think I will. MAPC is under the impression that this is sort of the new way of zoning and this is sort of a forward way of thinking when it comes to zoning is that
whether it's, you know, some shops, a strip mall, a restaurant, whatever, and then two or three stories above some residential. So that's what they showed us. And a lot of in their presentation, a lot of ones that they've already worked with. Some were a little bit bigger than this, some were a little bit smaller, but a lot of them, you know, they they didn't come with us with these
huge ones like we did on Forest Street. They were more so these smaller ones in that. And so that'll be something that obviously I'm the chair of Urban, that'll be something that may or may not come forward. But for any of us that plan on sticking around for the next four, five, however many years, uh there probably are going to be a push to start
to move forward with things like this. >> Council, that's exactly it. That's exactly it. And what's so interesting about looking around downtown Aubro is that you see what I would say is both the remnants of the past but really in therefore the foreshadowing of the future in terms of what the possibility is. The only thing
I would add regarding this building is that one of the things that we learned from the economic development report uh and from many of these players is that the kind of residential unit you want up there is a one or a two-bedroom unit. You know, we're not looking for units for large families. Doesn't make any
sense. There's no there's no extra land. There's no place to play, right? What we're looking for is places for these young people who typically don't are are living just together without children or if they have children have very very young ones, right? Uh typically they don't they're both working so there's no
one to take care of anybody at home. Um so I think that's kind of what we're looking for. But we want money we want money in the pockets of those people so they can go downstairs and go to Wellies. >> Council Clansancy. >> Thank you. Um, of course I grew up in the day and age of Main Street. I lived
on Devon Street. >> I was going to show your house here, council as the next street, >> next street up. But I I recall that in the entire main street was uh residential above and businesses below. Something changed. I don't know what when it was or or who designed it that
way, but I find that you know the only problem that you would have today with the residential portion is the parking situation. You know, because we are in we don't have the bus system that we we had back when I was a kid. And my feeling is is that I'd like
to see it go back to what it was because it was more an investment in the downtown. I I look across the street and I take a look at Peter Dora's Pizza on the main. What he has done with that building >> that's coming, >> you know, and I'm telling you, you know, what he has done is a credit to the main
street. We we we must do things like this, you know. We got to go back to some of the old ways because they weren't wrong, you know. And what we have to do is that we have to energize the uh the the downtown district with people to that live there because they
spend money there. They they need to have money. There needs to be money in people's pockets. The the best the best the best user of Wellies is the person who's walking to Wells, right? We don't even have to find a parking space cuz he lives upstairs. Now he's walking down to
Wells. Maybe we're going to take care of his friends who are coming to visit cuz they're all going to Wells. >> I thought you were talking about yourself there. I do not have a picture of my house in this >> because you know I recall I recall that the families there were entire families lived up upstairs and there were whole
generations that lived in entire building you know and if we can encourage that to come back to the main street. >> Well I guess council that's I guess that's perhaps where I would say I think in terms of what we're trying to do here that may be a mistake. I think that the goal in those days those families were
living upstairs because there was a different sense of you know what kids needed in terms of recreation and parks and play and stuff. So it may very well be that what we're really trying to do here although this is really your decision right is to be looking for families not for whole multi-generations and a whole bunch of kids and you know
now we got the bus stopping in front of wellies in order to pick up the kids that are going to the school but rather the set of players who are >> I want to say transit who are working who are working at at the campus who are working at all these places but I think that that's one of the great challenges
of this year for for us at MEDC I think is going to be to try to do to try to look at places that MAPC had brought up to look at other examples both here in Massachusetts and I think in New England because I think there are some great examples to figure out the package that you folks could accept.
>> So let's remember as as we do this we have our economic development hats on. So we're trying to figure out the types of developments that are going to be attractive to the employees back in the big parks to Rathon even to the small businesses that are up and coming. And
so, you know, we have to build to their needs. If you recall back when we were, you know, just approving the the big development that we did, many of us were very uncomfortable. You want to build apartments back there,
>> it took a long time for us to get comfortable. Now, if we start talking about different things downtown, we're going to have more restaurants. That means more liquor licenses. Could be no. there's some some things that may go along with this that we're gonna have to kind of work through and and realize
that it's not all straightforward. Council Orum, >> excuse. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Excuse me. I guess I'm choking on that thought process, but uh as Arthur knows too, when we went through the development overview of what happens downtown, uh
one of the ideas too is what's behind us as well and all the neighborhoods around us. Ed knows the neighborhoods very well. Uh, we have to keep that smart growth concept in mind. I think the new generations, and I'm a little bit past their mind thought, uh, their mind
process, but with it, I think they're looking for bike uh, trails. They're looking to make sure they can ride down to the main street. Where's the nearest bike rack? You know, they're looking to walk. They want a walkable community or maybe a pocket park with a community garden as mentioned when it was
mixeduse. When we start looking at these, we have to make sure it's just not the restaurants. We have to make sure it's that outside recreation that they thrive for because they're in a unit and they want to get out. And just for an example, too, a good part of this
is keeping the main street generating new business. I was fortunate to use Marbor's main street this past Saturday night. I went out looking for Sub for my children, Submarine Sandwich as we call them, and uh the House of Pizza was open. And I said, I said, "You know,
I've been looking for a place that was open. I'm glad you're open tonight." He said, "Oh, I live right upstairs. It makes it easy." So, again, there's some benefits to all this, but the main thought process, too, is walkable bicycle racks, bicycle trails, you know, make maybe a side of the road for
bicycles only, things like that. As we move along, what are we going to do behind us? Maybe the old post office. Author and you and I talked about that a while back. Maybe that could be a great place for a park. Who knows? But just as it all molds together, I think it will be a great process for the city. And I
think council that the point is well taken. But I think that especially the notion that if we do this right, that we can connect this, this is a very short distance to thousands of jobs by bike, right? This is less than three miles by
bike, right? Right. I remember cuz I timed it just to see to I mean it's less than it's just over 2 miles from the campus to friendship, right? So we could have a whole set of players who are living down here who certainly have a car cuz they don't want to get uh last
weekend you didn't want to be walking to right no bikes, right? But but I think that for a lot of days can use their bike. I mean this could fundamentally change, you know, the way that this thing could look. But I think the main thing is for us all to be working together on this on getting this real vision of what we want it to look like.
And by the way, one other thing I'm going to mention here which I think is crucial more important. We want to get the uses right, but I think to to me the uses the uses as of right should be a lot of times as of right. The key though is design. We do not need I mean we've got
some really ugly buildings downtown, right? Most of them built on the sites that where we tore down stuff, right? Most of them most of the new buildings, right, are less than terrific, right? So, I think we we want to look for that kind of use. We want to look for multi-use. Next slide. We want to look
for a variety of uses downtown. Now, they're not going to be retail uses. You know, we don't want big retail uses downtown. Why? Because they need a bunch of cars and a bunch of parking. And, you know, that's it's not going to work. We need a it's a different kind of downtown. Next slide. We need we need a lot of locals like that who shrubble
their own sidewalks. That's the famous Yazaway team right there actually taking care of rocks on on Sunday morning. Next slide. Um so there so there's Peter's building, right? So the question is you know once again if you had to pick which is the better building, right? Peters or
the one next to it. Um and and and above that building is kind of what's missing because what ended up happening over the last couple of decades is all we had with these one-story buildings with nobody at home upstairs, right? Which meant that everything had to close down after after closing hours. Everything
was just closed. So, we need to be kind of looking for those opportunities. Next slide. Um we've done a great job at the restoration of some of these buildings. Just terrific. But the question is what can we do? Next slide. The question is now this bu we got lucky here right this
building there was no design review required here this could have been just a ugly you know square building right fortunately you had some some folks that really wanted to be leaders in terms of the design of the downtown and so you have a great building so we even have I think in many ways some that the some of
the rules you could kind of imagine for how we want to design are right there right we want it to look like that you know with brick and a lot of those kinds of field next slide um then there's that wonderful area that you were just pointing out, one of our great unutilized resources, that wonderful street, which I can't still can't figure
out the name. Is that Weed Street? Is that all Weed Street on both sides of of going all the way down? Right. So, what's interesting about that, it's always been thought of as everybody's back kind of the backyard, right? But if if that if there were entertainment there, if there were restaurants and
other things there, it could it could go on it could go on pretty late because there are very few people that live on that strip and it's insulated from the the existing neighborhoods by a significant amount, right? So, we could really design for that. Next slide. Um,
we need to look at a couple of the buildings, you know, in in in this great plan. This needs to be figured out. Certainly, we've talked about a lot of different things. You know, you know, we we we've talked about this as a v as a uh as a um a possible school. We've
talked about this as a as um as a high as a high-tech incubator. There are a number of possibilities, but the question is given what our goals here are, what is the best use of that building as it fits into those goals? Not kind of negatively like kind of like what do we do next with the Walker
building? Next slide. And key is figuring out the parking. We all know that a lot of these things founder on the parking. So, we need to analyze what kinds of needs, the kinds of uses we're talking about are going to generate. And we have to make sure we have the parking
form. We have to answer the great question that I've been asking and hearing various answers to for the last 20 years. 20 years since Hogan was here. Can you put another deck on that building? I don't know. I don't know. I keep wondering that. Right. And if you
can't, what would it take to to be able to in to be able to increase that parking? How do we figure out the right number of spaces for this whole area? Next slide. Um, and how do we maintain the cultural treasures that are there? Those churches
need to be used. They may in the future be used as churches or not, but they need to be used and they need to be maintained. There needs to be a way to assure that that that the Baptist church, that icon of downtown is maintained. Same thing with the
congregational church and the IC. Those are very and the bell. The bell, these are crucial pieces of our downtown. Next, um we've got some examples of things that have been very very successful. Now, remember that building has nothing but one and twobedroom apartments,
right? which you folks many of you folks here were were kind of brave enough to try because it was a big deal and I think it's been a big success. So I think we do have some great models for here but but when we're thinking about this we need to think about next slide once again in terms of design criteria
we want to walk in knowing the kinds of uses we want but we also want to know we don't want to dictate exactly what the facade looks like but we want enough examples from other places that we can buy into them and give people some models of what we want done here. Next slide.
Um, so we want design guidelines that are clear. We need we need a reviewing body that's going to make it that's going to be streamlined so that folks can can can basically say they know they can do their uses as of right as long as the design is right. I think that's the key. So often we've get trapped doing a
lot of permitting overuse as opposed to dealing with design. Next slide. And those same concepts need to are being applied now on Route 20 East. the project that that we have been working with the counselors and with some of the major stakeholders that buildings are
noted there for the last several um for the last several months. Now, once again, when you're trying to remember the zoning of Route 20E, so that that whole corridor is exactly the same where those big boxes are and where the, you know, the gas station is and everything in the apartments is the exact same as
the current zoning on Main Street. That makes no sense. We need a a zone that specifically deals with that area. And I think there are some ideas that are coming from the from the the group that we hired in order to work work with the stakeholders on that. Next slide. Um
something that's going to turn that from Route 20 East and that's how what it's always been called since for as long as I can remember. It's just Route 20 East. What is that? It's kind of like a no man's land to the Wayside District to some place that is branded that has a sense of place to it and someplace that
isn't. Next slide. That isn't defined by the road by a big giant road which is basically there my opinion as a mistake. It's a mistake. It's it's a vestage from when Mass Department of Transportation
thought that Route 20 was going to be this big connector between Worcester and Boston. It was going to be like the other Route 9 and it was going to be all four lanes. Well, guess what? It's not going to be four lanes in Sudbury ever, right? or in North Bro ever. We just
have this piece where and and as one of the major stakeholders who whose company owns a couple of the malls there said, he does it himself. He comes to the he gets to the Sudbury border driving down Route 20 and he speeds up, right? Cuz it's the only piece of Route 20 where you can really speed up and he just
cranks through this area and blows down to past Farm Road. until we resolve that um in my own feeling is you can't resolve a lot of other things but I think you can resolve that the if the political will is there even though it's a department of transportation road to
resolve that and make that a road which is a prominade um from which people want to stop and go slow and have the ability to cross right and live and shop and go to restaurants there right that can be a very viable location once you get deal
once you dealt the road. Next slide. That's it. So, thematically, I guess what I'm just suggesting to you, a especially regarding the downtown, many of the suggestions that came out of the economic development report for how to
do it were the ones that came out of our trips to the companies regarding this is really necessary that we can do a wonderful thing there. And I think you already have the tool uh in in terms of looking at this as a separate district. Similarly with Route 20, what came out
of the development report was that there were two possibilities. One, a limited amount of new retail. Uh and two, some housing opportunities. One of the things that we can learn, we learned on the west side, we should replicate on the east side. That is if you're going to be putting housing down
there, put it close to Rathon, right? Rathon is your great gem down there. Employs almost 2,000 people, has room for another thousand, right? We need those Rathon to be feeling like that's where they want their growth to be is right there and that could help us
>> and we need to listen. We need we have learned so much through the MEDC by listening to these businesses to the companies considering coming into to our city. Rathon keeps telling us there's nothing for our people to do down there. So let's give them something to do. So
we have councelor Land >> and and that being the case, Mr. Chairman, I I think what you just mentioned, Rathon, I'm not even sure where half of those any of those 2,000 people live and shop. But backing up a little bit, uh Quest right now, they're
in uh Kendall Square, Cambridge. If you're familiar with Cambridge, you have Central Square, Kendall Square, and Harvard Square. Be interesting to see those 600 people that are moving out here. if someone could get down and
interview them or get the feel of what do they do in their lunch hour, what do they do after work, you know, and and this ties into, you know, Council Clancy and myself are on a transportation committee, you know, and it's going to
be interesting when they do come out, uh, you know, and they're out there at the, uh, HP building, you know, you know, should we run a shuffle a shuttle between 11 and true to get them downtown, uh, get them to the cobbler,
get them to the cleaners, you know, all kinds of crazy stuff like that. Somehow we got to get a feel of these 600 Quest people that are moving in because they're only taking 25% of that HB building. We're going to have others, too. So, we have to get the feeling. The
other interesting thing I I heard at a social event a couple weeks ago that some of those Quest people that live in that work in Cambridge are going to be very tempted to jump ship and maybe go to work for Mass General or something because they can't envision, you know,
moving from greater Cambridge to Greater Mro. Well, I experienced that 52 years ago when I moved from Watertown out here. It's quite an adjustment. So I guess to Tim or some of your people, can
we get the feel of what those Quest people how they live down there? Because that's just might give you a flavor about some of the other people that we're going to entice, including those out at uh uh HP in in all the other uh
companies coming in here. just to give you a flavor of what do these people expect when they come to Malro. And I'd like to think that we're ready for them to have accommodations, have restaurants, and have some type of transportation system. >> Thank you, Miss Jim. And through you to
to to the counselor. Uh we've already started those initial discussions through the HR with Quest. Um and and they actually mentioned it when they were before you a couple months back that um it was going to be a culture shock for some of their employees to
come to Malber because and the example they cited and and we've heard the feedback on this is they're used to going outside their door and being able to get the the the access to the coffee or to the lunch or or whatever the case may be. So very much it is in the
culture of Quest and in the mindset of their employees that they will have this amenity retail within a rock's throw and they are uh not an anomaly. They they are actually the the what is to be expected for future commercial growth.
Uh but we've just started those conversations and we'll continue those conversations to make sure that data is accurate. But you know, councelor, what's really nice about that, and I think we do have a responsibility to do that, and we have this great opportunity because we have so many employees moving here over the next 18 months. We got
about three or 4 thousand employees between TJX and Boston Scientific and Quest. But what's interesting about that is private sectors are no dummy e dummies either. So if we get this zoning right, right, if we get this right, I think the market's going to take care of this. It's going to take care of itself.
you know, you're going to find folks who want to come here, who want to be doing the kinds of things we want to be doing, cuz they're going to know there's a market. We just have to get the zoning right because right now they can't. They just can't. Right. >> Thank you. So, in the interest of time,
we're going to kind of roll through here fairly quickly. So, Mr. Cummings, if you wanted to touch on some of the uh some of the action items at least uh briefly, we can go through that and then I'll just uh very quickly go through the uh
the draft preamble and then we'll call it a night. >> Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And and by no means as this uh letter of support uh outlines, are you wed to any one particular strategy, technique, or program by adopting the master plan?
What it does is it basically outlines a consensus of a reality of where you want to go and helps build hopefully the consensus to to move forward by adopting one of many different types of strategies. Whether that's adopting more mixeduse village zoning um whether it's
recodifying your your land use uh zoning regulations uh to improve consistency. Um, another is to allow for greater height um or commercial mixeduse districts. Um, and allow for greater concentration of
uses. Um, remove or adjust setback requirements and targeted areas. Uh, setting clear criteria for 90-day approval for permitting. Um, executing a strategic marketing campaign.
um actively pursuing brownfield redevelopment, which would help alleviate private development risk and put land back on the tax roles. Um lower the commercial tax rate to be more competitive. Um and then continuing to
access all the economic development tools that are available to you uh at the state level, whether that is through um uh finance-based incentives or whatnot. Those are some of the uh uh strategies or or programmings that could be made
available to you uh when you implement this economic development master plan. And I think that um you know it's going to take its time to go through some of these various things. But what I'd like to see is we as a council adopt a vision
in conjunction with the mayor and having the MEEDC help us to do these things so that rather than having u a particular developer come to us peace meal for this parcel and that parcel. Um, I think it would be good if we can come up with
these overlay districts and essentially design them. It's going to be a few years ahead of time so that we know what we want there and we can put in whatever conditions we need to to to encourage that development. It's not an easy thing
for us all to agree on everything that we want to do, especially when we consider that gee, if we we do some things in certain areas, somebody's going to complain. It's always that way. We may put in conditions and and be successful here
downtown and uh-oh, somebody bought this building and those people in that building aren't going to be there anymore. Some businesses may move. Some some people may be dislocated. um as this conversion takes place. So we
have to understand that there there's always some of that and there's always some resistance to change. So we have to try and be as sensitive as we can but we need to figure out how we're going to build more value. We have to have over
what what was it $1.3 billion >> 1.4 >> 1.4 4 billion dollars we have to create and that's going to take a lot downtown, a lot on the east side, more on the west side. If we're going to do this, we have to do projects that all tie back, not
all, but many of which tie back to our, you know, economic engine back in the business park. And we're going to have to say no to projects that really don't fit in because we do have limited land. We're not at buildout, but we have to make sure as we go through and do
things, we encourage the developments that are basically on our script that we've agreed to and that we keep doing things to encourage uh money to flow in and developers to flow in um in the way that we want it to to happen. So, it's
going to take a little work, but I think certainly we're we're on the right track. So, I'm just going to read very briefly. This is a a very rough draft, so I apologize. should have been thought out more, but at least to get something on paper. And the thought was to put
this in the beginning of the economic development plan so that we can put our stamp as a city council uh on on the um the plan. And so we'll be looking as a committee for input from everybody on
the council so that we can amend it and make it uh something that we can generally agree on. We, the city council of Marorrow, Massachusetts, hereby endorse the stated objective of this economic development master plan, which is to improve
economic opportunities for Marbor residents and businesses and stabilize the Marbor residential tax rate over the long term by increasing commercial values. Furthermore, the city council will use all available means to support the effort this effort by creating the
conditions that will allow our city to successfully promote local business expansion, attract new highquality companies while retaining our current businesses, and to encourage supporting synergistic development. City leader leaders have long understood that it is
essential to gradually lower commercial tax rates in order for our city to remain a competitive and sought-after business location well into the future. But I've understandably wanted to avoid causing injury to our residential taxpayers by shifting excess excessive
tax burdens onto them. Intelligent growth and development is the only long-term solution and that will not happen without a con concerted, focused and sustained effort within our city. The city council of Marorrow stands ready to take the necessary action to
turn the great potential of this already successful city into a reality. We recognize that hard decisions will be required of this body to achieve our goals and that all significant change and progress gives rise to some level of resistance. We must think strategically
and make our evaluations based on whether each economic decision will support our overall economic plan. We must encourage, support, and perhaps even create those projects that will tie back to our objectives and reject those incompatible. This economic development study
commissioned by the city of Malro and executed by the Marorrow Economic Development Corporation is an in-depth analysis of our economic situation which has allowed us to better understand our strengths and weaknesses by order offering databased assessments of the challenges and opportunities for
reaching our economic objectives. Furthermore, this plan suggests various action steps which we as city leaders must evaluate based upon our shared vision for this city. By agreeing upon a strategic vision and then adopting bold and creative action
plans, we will be able to lay the groundwork necessary to achieving our long-term goals while fashioning a more vibrant and enjoyable city in which to work, play, stay, and live through economic uh through extensive outreach by the Marro Economic Development
Corporation. We know that it is absolutely essential to do everything possible to help our businesses large and small to recruit and retain their most valuable resource, their employees. This necessity can never be overstated.
We now know that we must offer the types of housing that appeal to young professionals. We need to have a multitude of recreation recreational opportunities for them, including the ability to walk or bike to work. We must encourage the establishment of more afterwork and weekend dining and
entertainment options that appeal to these very same people. We need to establish mixeduse zones that will accommodate these critical building blocks of our future. And as a city, we want all of our public entities clearly focused on supporting this initiative,
including the mayor, city council, planning board, board of health, conservation commission, board of assessors, site plan review committee, community development authority, licensing board, the zoning board of appeals, and of course, our various city departments. Marbor is blessed with an
envious location for attracting businesses which if augmented by focused and thoughtful leadership, the harmonious support of all elements of our city structure will lead to a very bright future for the residents and businesses of our fair city.
So, as I say, it was a first crack at it and um and we as a committee certainly want input from everyone. if you wanted to to point anything out tonight. Otherwise, you can uh send emails to Karen and we will try and incorporate incorporate those into a document and
then at our next meeting uh we can kind of punch through it and hopefully put something together. >> Anything to add uh gentlemen, >> Mr. Chairman, >> counselors, anything else to add? >> Um councelor Orum >> after the committee. I can wait. I don't
know if someone from the committee has >> I would just ask in the um second to last paragraph uh that we get some input from the planning board and the others noted especially the planning board and the site plan review committee um based on the fact that they deal with these on
a regular basis to make sure there's that interaction between the MEEDC planning board and the tech review site plan review as well as the council. But you you have us here, but I'd like to see what the other groups I mentioned what their input would be before this
preamble is approved. >> I will have uh Karen forward it to them for their input. >> Anything? >> Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and through to the counselor. I attend every uh site plan review meeting, so I will definitely add this to an agenda item to be addressed.
>> Excellent. Good suggestion. If there's nothing else, uh, I would entertain a motion to table made and seconded. All those in favor? Is there a motion to adjurnn? Made and seconded. All those in favor, we are adjourned at 7:18.
Thank you.