draft minutes, feb 23 meeting
jlau...@comcast.net
DRAFT MINUTES DAVIS SQUARE TASK FORCE MEETING
February 23, 2009, 7-9 pm
Tufts Administration Building, 167 Holand Street
Brian Brady, revolving chair; Alderman Rebekah Gewirtz, facilitator
(stars * * * used to separate presentation from discussion; the presentational section includes factual materials elicited in response to questions)
1. Development Updates
a) Carli Fence site at Willow and Newberne—Richard DiGirolamo, Attorney; Peter Quinn, architect; Victor Cabral and Ronald Miuse, owners
Att. DiGirolamo noted that this has been a prospective development site for four years, with at least three attempts ranging from10-20 units. The current proposal is for seven residential units in new construction, plus two 500 square-foot studio/work spaces in an existing one-story warehouse building adjoining the Community Path.
Mr. Quinn presented the drawings and architectural plans. They provide for four one-story, two bedroom flats of 1200-1500 square feet plus three multi-level three-bedroom townhouses of 2000+ square feet. The flats look out on a common garden, which in turn looks out onto the Community Path. There will be a gate and frontage onto the Community Path, integrating the development with the Path visually in a layered landscape. The condo development and Path will thus function as mutual visual amenities for each other, while the private-public line will be strictly observed with a locked one-way gate from the development to the Path.
Parking is planned at 21 spaces, 17 in a below-ground garage, four on the surface. The development will stay within the 40-foot height limitation, below the floor-to-area ratio (FAR) requirements, and in excess of the 15-car parking requirements. Entrance to the units will be wheelchair accessible, with an elevator from the garage.
Building material will be wood frame with clapboard exterior and double-hung wood windows. Construction will be staged through Newberne Street with attention to convenient hours and good neighborly relations. No variances are required beyond a special permit. Construction time is estimated at nine months after permitting.
* * *
Ellen Mason of Clifton Street, a near neighbor and landscape designer, praised the architectural design for integration with the Community Path. She noted that previous plans had provoked vigorous opposition by placing above-ground parking directly next to the Path. She congratulated the architect on an overall design that was more ample and neighborhood-friendly than previous plans and did not push the legal requirements to their limits.
b) Cutter and Summer (formerly Enterprise Car Rental) lot—Attorney DiGirolamo provided a brief update on this mixed use—residential, office, commercial-- project, which had received favorable comment on its second presentation to the Task Force, after initial criticisms were taken into account. On March 5 the project is scheduled to go before the Planning Board and on March 18 before the Zoning Board of Appeals. The Historical Commission has approved demolition of residential property adjoining the Enterprise lot. If the project is approved, construction is expected to begin in July or August. Commercial rental on the ground floor is undecided. A restaurant is a possibility.
c) Flatbread/Sacco’s Bowl Haven—45 Day Street. J. P. Sacco, owner; Jay Gould, CEO of Flatbread, prospective tenant with an option to purchase.
Having founded his business in Amesbury MA, Mr. Gould now has seven restaurants, six in New England and one in Hawaii, purveying an all-natural wood-fired pizza called “flatbread” on a recipe licensed from the American Flatbread Company. He distributed a CD with pictures of his establishments. He proposes a co-tenancy for a restaurant that would share not less than 5000 of the 11,000 square-foot space at 45 Day Street with ten bowling lanes scaled-down from the current 15 lanes at the Davis Square Bowladrome. The five remaining lanes will be covered over but not demolished. The restaurant will also occupy the space of existing billiard tables, which will not be replaced.
Flatbread’s opening hours are likely to be from 11:30 a.m. to flexible evening closing times, probably not later than 10:30 p.m. on weekend nights. It envisages a sit-down family-oriented restaurant, without television. In other restaurants it devotes every Tuesday to non-profit fundraisers and reserves a flat contribution from each sale for charitable causes. It ‘gave back’ $150,000 in charitable donations in the past year.
The Flatbread business formula is flexible with regard to physical arrangements, fixed with regard to menu. In addition to varieties of its pizza product it offers a fixed selection of one salad and two desserts. The restaurant it plans for Sacco’s will have 150 seats and a clay, wood-burning oven. It will seek a full liquor license, or failing that, a wine and beer license. It will not go ahead without alcohol, which provides 20% of its business. It values the historic character of the Sacco building and seeks no significant architectural changes. Mr. Gould said he was indifferent to signage, as his restaurants typically draw business from word-of-mouth rather than signs or marketing.
J. P. Sacco, whose family has owned the building since 1939, said that the renovations for the restaurant would bring the entire building up to code in handicapped access and bathroom facilities. The reduced bowling space would, he assured, still be managed to accommodate existing community bowling leagues.
* * *
In comment, a cautionary note was sounded by Andrew Zamore of Chandler Street and DARBI who noted that the original Bertucci’s on Elm Street had featured wood-fired pizza in combination with bocci courts, but when Bertucci’s became a chain it withdrew from this formula for business reasons.
Monica Lamboy, Director of the Office of Strategic Planning and Community Development (OSPCD), invited Mr. Gould to discuss with her office ways of expediting the permitting process.
d) Powderhouse Convenience Store—Attorney Richard DiGirolamo, proprietor Houman Baiany, landlord Charles Kostopoulos.
Mr. Baiany has several Dunkin’ Donuts franchises, including two in Somerville, employing 30 people. He plans a convenience store to replace the one at the Powderhouse Rotary, with 25% of the square footage devoted to take-out Dunkin’ Donuts food and coffee. The remainder of the store will be devoted to a full range of convenience store goods. The elevated stage that served as a keno parlor in the previous store will be eliminated, assuring full handicapped access and eliminating the keno parlor entirely. There will be no seating in the store.
Though the area is zoned as residence B, prohibiting commercial use, the convenience store use is longstanding. It is the corner and keystone in a grandfathered row of stores all with the same landlord, Charles Kostopoulos. Mr. Kostopoulos stated that he had owned the building for 35 years: his original tenant for the corner space was Goodell’s Pharmacy, which included an old fashioned soda fountain counter; this was followed by a Richdale Farms, which had included take-out coffee and non-packaged foods.
Monica Lamboy reported that on the basis of this history Inspectional Services has determined that there is no change of use, so that Mr. Baiany can proceed “by right.” The matter did not require any further legal opinion.
Proposed hours are from 5 a.m. to 11 p.m. seven days a week.
Ward 6 Alderman Gewirtz is working with Mr. Baiany on attractive signage and storefront. Since the store sits opposite an historic park, the Alderman wants to be sure that the exterior signage is not garish or back-lit.
* * *
Rob Gregory, owner of Redbones and resident of Chester Street, spoke in support of Mr. Barany’s record as a small businessman in Davis Square. Mr. Baiany had been responsive to complaints about trash collection, deliveries and litter. His Dunkin’ Donuts establishment and Redbones were unusual in collecting litter beyond the boundaries of their own property. Mr. Baiany had been supportive of numerous community and charitable activities, some of which Mr. Gregory enumerated.
Alderman-at-large Jack Connolly also reported that during his tenure as ward alderman Mr. Baiany had acted in good faith to correct littering and trash collection problems associated with his Davis Square franchise. He confirmed Mr. Baiany’s generosity in community causes.
Ward 7 Alderman Bob Trane raised a procedural issue on the ‘by right’ usage. He was concerned that a broadening of the “stale pot of coffee” offered by the previous store into a Dunkin’ Donuts franchise would set a dangerous precedent for unwarranted expansions of by right coverage. He also raised the question of whether the new take-out would “crush” the much smaller Broken Yolk store just two doors down. The coffee takeout business associated with the Powderhouse bus stop might provide its margin of survival in hard times. He reported that Café Soleil, a small food establishment in Teele Square with a loyal clientele like that of Broken Yolk, had just gone under.
Back-and-forth discussion followed about cars stopping to pick up donuts and coffee in an already complex traffic and parking situation in Powderhouse Circle. Hala Jadallah of Hall Avenue reported that there was already a problem with cars parking in the restricted bus stop space, and saw this as increasing with a Dunkin’ Donuts takeout. .Mr. Baiany promised to report illegal parking in the bus stop and to be sensitive to traffic and parking issues generally.
Paul Silva of Highland Avenue viewed the signage concerns as secondary to the problem of loitering and drunkenness in the park. He saw the new store, as depicted in drawings circulated at the meeting, as a dramatic improvement over what had been there before.
e) Davis Square Hotel—Monica Lamboy, OSPCD Director, reported that the Mayor has approved a formal RFP (request for proposals) from the prospective developers viewed as qualified in the previous RFQ (request for qualifications) round. A reappraisal of the three City-owned parking lots that could be sold off—Herbert Street, Buena Vista, Grove—has been commissioned. It will include reference to the Aldermanic resolution restricting the sale to permitted hotel use and associated parking garage and parking replacement.
* * *
Marie Dwyer of Chester Place expressed strong opposition to a Herbert Street hotel. She followed the weekly crime reports which listed arrests for drugs, prostitution, stabbings and disorderly conduct at two existing Somerville hotels. She saw no reason to expect differently in Davis Square.
Lee Auspitz of Chapel Street, who served on the technical review committee for the hotel RFQ, repeated his concern that the previous appraisal by Hunneman had under-priced the City property at Herbert by artificially excluding hotel and related special permit and design review use entailed in the Board of Aldermen’s vote.
Barry Rafkind of Ossipee Road and SomervilleVoices.org asked why the OSPCD had asked the Board of Aldermen to designate the two citizen and two Aldermanic representatives on the hotel review committee as “special employees.” Ms. Lamboy reported that the formal inclusion of citizen and Aldermanic representatives on the committee was an innovation introduced by Alderman Gewirtz and initially seemed to require some special designation but that this had been withdrawn on legal advice.
2. Crime-related issues
a) Somdog.org —Michelle Biscoe, Marshall Wallace of Preston Road and the Somerville Dog Owners Group
Ms. Biscoe presented a proposal made to the Somerville Dog Owners Group by Sara Rosenfeld of Francesca Avenue, in which dog owners would be encouraged to report to police suspicious night-time activity. The idea was occasioned by a report of tardy police response to a 2 a.m. Davis Square business break-in. It would entail a briefing of Davis Square area dog owners by Joe McCain, the community police officer, on the uses of the 911, 311 and 625-1212 numbers and other measures. In effect, dog owners could serve as a walking crime watch. Mr. Wallace underlined that it was important to assure follow-through and community support before meeting with the police.
* * *
Erin Lane of Francesca Avenue stated that though she was not a dog owner, she would be interested in meeting with all groups on community policing measures. She was concerned about rising incidents of crime in the neighborhood.
Further discussion addressed implementation issues. Brian Brady of Winslow Avenue and Larry Yu of Herbert Street saw the bulk of the problems occurring in the very late hours when few dogs were being walked, while Jack Connolly and Hala Jadallah thought that any measure to increase ‘eyes and ears’ on the streets, even in earlier evening hours, would conserve on limited police patrolling resources. Ms. Jadallah said that recent incidents made her cautious about being alone on the streets at night. Ald. Connolly expects the new police sub-station at Teele Square to shorten response times. Barry Rafkind suggested public posting of police numbers and the use of dedicated ‘blue phones’ as needed.
b) Francesca Crime Watch
As part of the preceding discussion, Alderman Gewirtz reported having met with a Crime Watch group on Francesca Avenue formed on the model of the Chandler Street group.
c) Shooting on Elm Street, 2 a.m. weekend policing— Amrik Pabla, proprietor, Diva Restaurant and Lounge; Ben Sawyer, bartender, and Desmond Rushe, manager, The Burren.
Mr. Pabla said he sincerely regretted the Saturday night incident outside the Diva Lounge involving a shooting and car hijacking. He denied a news report that the victim of the shooting [who had then allegedly hijacked a car in an attempt to run down his assailant] was the DJ at his restaurant. On the advice of Chief Holloway the Diva had subsequently retained a police detail for Friday and Saturday nights, in addition to two bouncers.
Mr. Sawyer, the bartender at the Burren, described his operating procedure for assuring orderly 2 a.m. closings: the restaurant ended food service at midnight, closed its doors to new customers at 1 a.m., had a last call for drinks at 1:30, and had three bouncers to see patrons out the door and into taxis by 2 a.m.. Mr. Rushe, the manager, stated that The Burren had had no untoward incidents in two years of 2 a.m. closings.
* * *
Alderman-at-large Connolly, a College Avenue business owner and Winslow Avenue resident, engaged in a colloquy with Mr. Pabla to inquire whether some specific attraction had brought rowdy people from out of town on that particular night.
Ron Newman of Day Street described himself as a consistent advocate of late hour closings in the Square for all businesses, but stated that the recent incident gave him pause. He was especially concerned at reports that one of those involved had been a temporary DJ at the Diva Lounge.
Further discussion centered on neighborhood spillover effects of bar closings and policing remedies:
Describing himself as a late-night drinker normally biased in favor of the 2 a.m. closing, Larry Yu reported an increasing number of altercations from 2-2:30 a.m. that disturbed the peace on Herbert Street, where he lived. The increase had been significant during the past year. Mr. Yu said the situation demanded regular police presence at weekend closing times, not temporary police details at the discretion of the bar owners.
Doris Schartel of Park Avenue, who described herself as a patron of the Burren and Orleans, found the late night spillover effects intolerable. She and her husband had bought a home close to Davis Square five and a half years ago to ‘live green’ with public transport and urban amenities. But late night bar patrons regularly awaken her at 2-2:30 a.m. on weekends; a private restaurant trash collection as early as 5 a.m. compounds the poor sleeping environment.
Thalia Tringo of Chandler Street, an organizer of DARBI, observed that the neighborhood effects involved parking and noise well beyond the curbside boundaries of the bars. Typically, patrons of the bars stood in front of their cars on residential streets talking loudly and waking the neighbors. The problem was both a parking and a policing issue. She had two proposals: 1) that each and every business should pay for police details as a condition of receiving a 2 a.m. weekend closing permit from the Licensing Commission; 2) that neighborhood-specific parking permit zones be established for the streets closely bordering Davis Square, as was done in certain areas of Boston near business districts. [Currently, any Somerville residential parking permit is valid city-wide.]
Dudley Hartung and Ellen Mason of Clifton Street reported that the problem of weekend disturbance extended to their area and also along the Community Path. Ms. Mason said that though it was impossible to link the nuisance to patrons of specific bars, the overall problem had increased noticeably with the number of late closings. The nuisance would only grow with warmer weather, she said. Mr. Hartung expressed “anger” that his tax dollars were used to open the neighborhoods to out-of-city parking, traffic and noise at late hours but not to adequate policing of the problem.
Joe Grafton of Ibbetson Street and Somerville Local First noted that other communities had dealt with similar problems with a regular, dedicated short-term police presence in affected neighborhoods at closing hours. He cited Central Square, Cambridge, as a specific example.
Monica Lamboy observed that problems of this kind were better addressed with collective action than with isolated individual actions [by bar owners].
Lee Auspitz of Chapel Street reported a business community view, expressed to him from an advocate of 2 a.m. closings, that the Davis Square bar owners should be expected as a matter of good business policy to act voluntarily and collectively to remedy any neighborhood spillover effects. Mr. Auspitz saw the Burren as having a special responsibility for having “blazed the trail” to extended hours in Davis Square. Its drinks-only policy between midnight and 2 a.m. targeted a region-wide patronage and put others under competitive pressure to follow suit. The density of drinking establishments was unique to Davis Square in Somerville and was having predictable results as the number of 2 a.m. licenses multiplied. (Mr. Auspitz noted that professional sound engineers assign a multiple of 9 to the annoyance factor of the same noise—e.g. slamming of a car door-- when it occurs during sleeping hours. He reported that the City of Lynn had rolled back its 2 a.m. closing to 1 a.m. when 45% of all police incidents were shown to occur during the final hour.)
Ward 6 Alderman Gewirtz reported that she had met with the police after the Elm Street incident and would follow up on proposals for a dedicated police presence during the critical weekend hours. She noted that three of the four 2 a.m. liquor licenses were concentrated geographically on a single block of Elm Street, facilitating policing at the source.
4. HUD Draft Plan—though time did not permit a discussion, Mr. Auspitz wished to note the absence of Davis Square from a plan providing the bulk of funding for the OSPCD. While recognizing that Ward 6 was no longer a distressed area directly eligible for HUD Community Development Block Grants, he noted that its residents had continued to be supportive of homeless, addiction, mental health, medical, half-way house, social security, affordable housing, advocacy, family counseling, youth, elderly, religious and other non-profit facilities building a diverse community. The City had been an active partner in this effort through its involvement in the Davis Square Task Force. He welcomed Brad Rawson, an OSPCD staff member assigned to attend the meeting, as evidence of continuity in the City’s own long-standing commitment to a diverse Davis Square.
5. Structure of the Davis Square Task Force (this report is added to the minutes, as time did not permit it to be presented at the meeting).
At the previous DSTF meeting a volunteer subcommittee was organized by Alderman Gewirtz to address the future structure of the group. The subcommittee consisting of Rebekah Gewirtz, Brian Brady, Brandon Wilson, Ron Newman, Lee Auspitz and (on occasion) Marie Dwyer, held three meetings, the third of which was with Monica Lamboy. It proposes:
-- a voluntary organizing committee to set the agenda and select a rotating chair for each bi-monthly meeting; Rebekah Gewirtz will be the facilitator for each meeting, and the chair will be responsible for reviewing the minutes.
--items for the agenda may be contributed by any Davis Square business, prospective business or resident through a member of the organizing committee or directly at a short organizational meeting not less than five calendar days prior to the scheduled meeting.
-- in addition to its usual business, a portion of each meeting during 2009 will be devoted to an exploration of some future or vision for Davis Square (e.g. business and development future, social services future, green future)
-- as in the past, there will be no officers, dues, legal structure, or voted policies. The Task Force will continue to serve as a forum, with shifting presentations and participation open to all
-- Ron Newman has created the DSTF Google Group:
http://groups.google.com/group/DavisSquareTaskForce, which. will now be used to send out meeting announcements and minutes. Anyone can join the group, but—as it is not intended as a discussion group—incoming emails are restricted.
-- regular postage mailing will be continued by the City for those who do not have email access
-- the City is invited to resume its three decades of responsibility for the minutes
6. Next Meeting (under the format proposed above)
Date: Monday, April 27, 2009
Time: 7-9
Place: TAB Building
Special Theme: Business future of Davis Square
Rotating Chair: Rob Gregory (confirmed)
Invited to speak on the theme: Stephen Mackey, Chamber of Commerce (confirmed)
Joe Grafton, Somerville Local First (confirmed)
To be named, by DARBI
To be named, by OSPCD
Other?
Agenda meeting: Wednesday, April 22, at Au Bon Pain, 5:15-5:45
To propose an agenda item, drop in on the meeting on April 22, or contact any one of the following:
Rebekah Gewirtz 617-718-0792
Brandon Wilson 617- 625-6600 x2532
Lee Auspitz 617-628-6228
Brad Rawson 617-625-6600 x2518
Ron Newman 617-628-8895
Brian Brady 617-623-3349
Any additions, corrections or extension/deletion of remarks for these draft minutes should be sent to jlau...@comcast.net before the April 21 agenda-setting meeting, so that a final version can go out with the agenda.