Portland Planning Board backs removal of 100-foot entertainment buffer

[10:38] Unidentified Chair/Presiding Officer: Right. Welcome, everybody. This is the hybrid planning board meeting for August 11th, 2026. This meeting is being held both via Zoom and in person. Before we begin, I'd like to address housekeeping issues regarding public comment. Any written comments received prior to this meeting were made available to these board members for their review. In order to provide public comment during the meeting, it must be provided verbally today. Members of the public attending the meeting remotely via computer or phone. Do not have speaking privileges enabled when you join the meeting. In order to provide public comment, members of the public must indicate their interest in speaking at the appropriate time. If participating in the meeting with a computer, you'll use the raise hand function to indicate your interest. This is turned on and off with the hand icon located at the bottom of your Zoom screen. Please ensure that you are logged into the meeting under your real name, not an alias or username, so that we can call on you properly. If listening to this meeting on a standard telephone or cell phone at the correct time, you can indicate interest by pressing star 9. In either case, after you're called on, please wait until the moderator asks you to unmute yourself once unmuted. Please state your name and address. You will then have three minutes to provide your comment. At the end of the period, your microphone will be muted again. Again, if you experience any problems during the meeting, you can email planning at portlandmaine.gov. Staff will try to monitor the email and respond as appropriate. With that, Andrew, can we have a roll? Yes, Mr. Chair. Senator, will you let me? Yeah. Austin Smith? Here. David Selkapsen? Nicholas Messina? Here. Eric Den? Here. Kelsey Robertson? Here. And Joseph Zamboni? Here. [12:20] Unidentified Chair/Presiding Officer: Here. So I guess communications we can do first. So we did have a recent workshop and public hearing notes are included in our minutes. Any edits to those? Not seeing any. Okay. Okay, so we will start today with the new business, the text amendment to Chapter 14 Land Use Code Section 6.8.14, Entertainment Businesses in B3 and WCZ Zones. City of Portland is the applicant. Planning Board will hold a public hearing today to consider whether the proposed text amendment to chapter 14 of the city code, land use code section 6.8.14, entertainment businesses in the b3 and wcc zones, the proposed text amount over appeal section 6.8.14 eliminating the 100 foot separation requirement between businesses holding an entertainment license and permitting amplified music, and with that I'll pass it on to the city great [13:40] Amanda (Director of Mission and Community Impact, Developers Collaborative): Good evening chair of the many members of the board. Tonight we are addressing a public hearing for a proposed tax amendment section 6 8 14 of the land use code. This amendment is brought forward by the city of Portland. The proposed amendment would remove section 6 8 14 of the land use code which requires a hundred foot separation between businesses with entertainment and record licenses that also have amplified entertainment and would be free at downtown business zone in the waterfront central Hill. For the purpose of this review the planning board is evaluating proposed tax amendment for consistency with the comprehensive plan to make a recommendation to the city council. As a reminder of some background, this policy was initially adopted in 2007. HEDC considered an amendment to 6814 in June of this year where it was referred to the planning board. The board held an initial workshop in July of this year. During the workshop, the board had no clarifying questions and demonstrated general support for this amendment. At the workshop, there was also one public comment in support of the amendment. There are 98 total active entertainment licenses is the citywide of which 41 are within the B3 and WCZ zone. The proposed amendment will remove section 6A14 of the land use code. Removing the section would remove separation requirements for businesses with an entertainment license in the B3 and WCZ zones, allowing them to be located within 100 feet of the house. For the purpose of this review, the planning board is evaluating the proposed text amendment for compatibility with the goals and strategies as outlined in the comprehensive plan to provide a recommendation to the city council. This proposed text amendment, the proposed amendment advances several goals and strategies with the Comprehensive Plan by creating opportunities for business growth, convection, and job creation within downtown. The proposed amendment is also consistent with the purpose of the B3 Zone, which exists to maintain and enhance the role of downtown as the business and commercial center of the region. Removing this separation requirement reinforces downtown as the business and commercial hub [15:25] Unidentified Staff Member: by promoting business clustering. [15:26] Amanda (Director of Mission and Community Impact, Developers Collaborative): The regulatory framework has also changed since this 100-foot buffer was initially adopted. Licensing requirements, noise ordinances, and policing operational standards address many of the impacts the separation requirement was intended to mitigate, including those related to noise and public safety. We've also conferred with the police department, who is in support of this amendment, noting more efficient resource deployment with concentration of nightlife activity. No public comment has been received since the initial workshop. The one comment received for the workshop has been included in the packet materials, which express support for the amendments. Thank you. I'm happy to answer the questions the board may help. Thank you, Taylor. Appreciate your [16:04] Unidentified Chair/Presiding Officer: work. So for folks in the room and online, this is brought by the city, so we don't have a city in an applicant. City is the applicant. I'll ask the board if they have any procedural questions for the city. Otherwise, we'll just go right in. Not seeing anything, so we can move into public comment. If you're in the room now would be the time that you'll come up to the podium, share your name, where you live, and you have three minutes for your comment. After we get room, we will go online, not all at once, so we will go online. If you're online, you would use the raise hand feature down at the bottom of your screen. If you are on a telephone, you press star 9. Give you a couple seconds, and then we will help. I think [17:06] Isaac (Google): you should be all set on you. Hi guys, it's Isaac with Google. I [17:10] Nathaniel Ferguson: gave public comment at the last meeting, so I don't need to give that same public comment again, as you've been able to read it. I just want to thank you for the work that you do and just reiterate how important this is, I think, to growth of business and population of young people in the city of Portland, and how much it will contribute to employing artists in my community and in the community of Portland. Thank [17:35] Unidentified Chair/Presiding Officer: you. Appreciate your comment. Anybody else online? Going once, going twice, so I'll close public comment, and now board can ask questions, provide comments to the city. We did have a robust discussion [17:57] Unidentified Staff Member: at our workshop, so there's not a lot. Just move right to a motion. I [18:07] Ben Wick: Don't think I can ever remember a text amendment or amendment that was less controversial. [18:12] Unidentified Board Member: Easy. Good. All right. I will make a motion then for a planning board decision that on the basis of material provided in the staff report dated August 5th, 2026, as well as public testimony and other information provided during the planning board's workshop on July 28th, 2026, the planning board finds that the proposed text amendment to remove the 100-foot separation requirement for businesses holding an entertainment license within the waterfront central wcz and b3 downtown business zones as shown attachment a is consistent with the city of portland's comprehensive plan for the city of portland and therefore the planning board recommends adoption of the text amendment to [18:54] Unidentified Chair/Presiding Officer: the city council motion is there a second motion a second further discussion Not seeing any. Andrew, can you do a roll? Lily Ulenhink? Yes. Austin Smith? Yes. David Selkapsen? Nicholas Messina? Yes. Eric Din? Yes. Leslie Robertson? Yes. Joseph Zamboni? Yes. [19:18] Ben Wick: So, thank you, Taylor. [19:21] Unidentified Chair/Presiding Officer: Board approves the text amendment to Chapter 14. Are we ahead of schedule? Do I want to take a five-minute? Just because we've got six minutes. Okay, we're going to take a five-minute break just because we scheduled this for 4 45 and we don't have people that's if they're planning on. Yeah. It looks like it's homemade yes it's not in it's not medical but it just happens to be that word it's an alphabetic order except for the chair yes yeah there's no method to our madness time that does go off memory it's amazing how much that is Okay, we are back. It is 446. And so we normally do workshops first and then hearings today we're doing hearing first and then a workshop so that's just not usually what we do for folks who are watching folks in the room you haven't been here before we'll follow the same format we'll hear from applicants as so we are on 41 ashmont street 509 forest llc is the applicant playing board is holding a workshop to consider an application for the construction of two multi-unit affordable apartment buildings to the b1 zone the proposed development will include a four-story 30-unit building and a five-story 33-unit building for a total of 63 affordable dwelling units along with and parking spaces we'll go first to the city good [28:33] Unidentified Staff Member: Evening, chairs and members of the board. Tonight we are hosting a workshop for the proposed development at 41 Hashbound Street. The applicant of this project is Developers Collaborative. The subject property is located within the B1 neighborhood business zone. The applicant is proposing to construct two multi-unit apartment buildings. This application is being referred to the planning board for compliance with the City of Portland's Land Use Code Site Plan Standard 13.6.4, the Design Manual Standard for the Beesburn Neighborhood Business Zone and the Multi-Family Design Standard. The subject property is located on Ashbourne Street and is currently used as a paid parking lot. To the north of the property are the Clairmont Court Condominiums. To the south, the property abuts single-family homes with multi-unit residential to the west and a parking lot and office building to the east. The property is also served by public transportation with Greater Portland Metro Route 2 operating within 500 feet of the site. The site is currently used as a paid parking lot containing 45 leased parking spaces with most of the spaces leased to off-site buildings along Forest Avenue. There is also an existing tree line along the west of the property line which will be removed for the construction of the proposed building. Here is a zoning context map. The subject property is in the B1 zone and is surrounded by RL3 to the north, west and south and B2B zone to the east. The proposed major site application would facilitate the development of two multi-unit affordable residential buildings. Building 1 is a four-story building with 30 studio units to be developed under the Home for Good Programme. Building 2 is a 5-storey building with 33 one-bedroom units to be developed under the Low Income Housing Tax Credit Programme. Entrances to both buildings are provided from Ashford Street. The site would be accessed by a 20-feet wide driveway located between the two proposed buildings. The applicant also proposes to reconstruct the existing sidewalk along the Ashford Street frontage, providing direct pedestrian connection to the proposed buildings. Some key features of the proposed development include a covered 40 capacity bike storage area, a smoking area, an enclosed solid waste area, and a snow storage area located towards the rear of the project site. The project proposes 10 parking spaces located at the rear of the site, including one ADA-compliant parking space. The applicant also has noted that the parking is primarily for Home for Good building staff, guests and visitors. The first floor will include amenities such as office spaces, meeting rooms, a community room, laundry facilities and a mail room. Building 1 will include 30 studio units while building 2 will include 33 one bedroom units for a total of 63 dwelling units. These are the allocations for the proposed project. Building 1 is a 4-storey building with a height of 42 feet 11 inches and building 2 is a 5-storey building with a height of 54 feet 9 inches. The applicant is requesting a waiver to reduce the required parking area width from 24 feet to 20 feet. The applicant held a neighborhood meeting on July 6th of 2026. A total of 61 members of the public attended the in-person meeting. The city has received 53 written comments regarding this application. Concerns raised include parking, traffic study and street congestion, emergency access, project size and density, building height and scale, construction impacts, lack of open space, pedestrian safety, snow storage and site operations. The purpose of today's meeting is to introduce the proposed project to the Planning Board and get their input, and to provide an overview of the site plan review process to the public. For the next step, following today's workshop, staff will continue reviewing the application and provide comments with the applicant team. A second Planning Board workshop will be held following this workshop and will focus on a detailed review of the site plan and outstanding items. items. Once the application is determined to have sufficient information for the board's consideration and vote, a public hearing will be scheduled. Thank you. With this, I'll pass to the applicant team for the presentation. [33:07] Unidentified Chair/Presiding Officer: Thank you for presenting. Mr. [33:15] Steve Bushy (LJB Inc.): Chairman, I'm Steve Bushy with LJB Inc. For a moment here, I'll try to get my [33:20] Unidentified Staff Member: I'm allowed to share. [33:30] Steve Bushy (LJB Inc.): So thank you to the planning folks, because you've done a lot of my heavy lifting here. So it's going to be some repetitive slides. I have a little over 20 or so slides to go through, but for first your introductions again, I'm Steve Bushy, Amanda brought from Developers Collaborative, and Alyssa Piken from Catholic Charities have made here to present this project. We understand that probably be a public comment, so I will go relatively quickly. I think is really captured much of the site plan aspects here, but bear with me, like just a view. So these slides were presented at our neighborhood meetings, so they are repetitive for some members of the public here who came to our neighborhood meetings. We've actually had two neighborhood meetings, one at the United Way and then another one at the Temple FL on Deering Ave in the middle of July. Both turnouts were fairly good, and we hope we're in the form of the close. But some of the things we were trying to represent here relative to when this project, how it's come about, placemaking and purpose. Purpose, this property at 41 Ashburn is actually part of the common deed to property at 509 through 537 Forest Avenue, and Developers Collaborative recently in the last couple of years developed some housing in 509 Forest Avenue, for which we came before the plane were at that time, can't remember exactly how many units, 38 units in that building, and so that is a market-grade housing. And the idea being that Ashmont Street will build the continuation of different types of housing, and in this case, affordable housing, has been put forth. And Amanda can speak to specifically the two programs here that are being pursued in the two buildings. But affordable senior housing in the Light Tech building, which is that building number two with 33 units, and then supportive housing which is building what we're trying is building one on the left side as we're looking at that site plan would have 30 units. We think that between all of these properties you bring in 101 units of housing is fairly substantial, you know, these were properties that at least the Forest Avenue property has a long history. I think it was automobile dealership 100 years Ago or 80 years ago and converting it into the housing function that it now has, at least part of that building at 509 is turned out to be, I think, pretty successful. So you can see how they're, the two properties are relatively close together on Forest Avenue, the larger pieces here, 501 through 529, and Ashwater Street 41, just to the west of the United Way parking lot, United Way building. I'll show you other maps here as well, but first let's just talk about the two billing projects, if you would like to take that. [36:55] Amanda (Director of Mission and Community Impact, Developers Collaborative): So hi everyone, I'm Amanda from Developers Collaborative. My official title is Director of Mission and Community Impact, but I'm essentially the project manager for these projects being presented to you tonight. I just want to say that I'm excited to have this initial opportunity to introduce the project and talk about it and continue the conversation with the neighborhood, which has been so fruitful in terms of getting some perspective about existing neighborhood conditions, how this project will fit in, and also how we can help advocate for the neighborhood in terms of getting hopefully something that might be needed there. So what you have before you tonight, Nehi, I wish I could take you everywhere with me because we did such a great job doing our job for us in terms of presenting the overview, but we do have a three unit women in supportive housing project, which is the four story project. That project is funded through Main Housing's Home for Good program, which essentially provides a housing program modeled after the existing programs at Houston Commons and Logan Place here in Portland, operated by Abesta Housing and Humboldt Street. And so with this project, it will be services will be provided by Catholic Charities, and then the 33 unit is just kind of a traditional affordable 55 plus senior housing, low-income housing tax credit project, like you folks might be used to seeing maybe on a more regular basis. An example of that type of housing here in Portland that we've developed successfully is the Mother House on Stevens Avenue, which has 88 units of housing for folks 55 plus, 66 of those units funded through long-term housing tax credits, and these, all of these units will be affordable to folks at or below 60% of area median income. For both properties, our management arm at TC DC Management will be providing professional on-site management services to both properties. [39:09] Steve Bushy (LJB Inc.): So the zoning you just saw, so RN to our north and west, the B2B community business is the parking lot in the United Way building over towards Forest Avenue and RN3 to the south of us on the outside of Ashland Street. Here's our property survey that Owen Haskell had done, 0.45 acres. I know it was listed as 45 parking spaces. They show 49 here roughly on the site, but I haven't seen that number of vehicles certainly used here. But the site has been a parking lot for quite a period of time, as best as I can tell. It has a driveway entrance here over on the west or left side. There's a tall hedge of trees that are right along the boundary. The rest of the site is nearly all pavement. There's a couple of catch basins that provide drainage collection that then ties out into Ashmont Street. It does have, as Nina had pointed out, a utility line that crosses over the site, and we'll have to deal with that in terms of relocating it. It provides power service to Thinmark on Minners, just to the north side of us. Here's another scale here of imagery, aerial imagery, just to give you a sense of where the neighborhood is. Again, the same image I think that we saw previously from Asmon Street looking into the property, and that utility pole there is a hundred long arm frontage in our driveway. That driveway would be closed up to make way for the buildings on the interior of the site. The hydrant here is within the proposed driveway location, so that would need to be relocated as well, and talk to the fire department about moving it further east to the site. So here are the original renderings, and I'm going to show you another image here in a moment, but the average grade and height limitations, I think it's important to point out that we're taking advantage of the affordable housing height allowance that allows you to increase the height by 10 feet. So on the left-hand side is building number one being up against the R and three zone. Normally in the B1 have a 35 foot height limit, and we're increasing that asking for the increase to 45 feet because we're an affordable building and similarly the same is being asked on the right side although at 55 feet i think we're allowed 55 feet already within the zone correct so two renderings that's the original that was made part of our application submission and i 'm presenting this new rendering here tonight that staff and the board have yet to officially see but i wanted to present it that it's it's really showing that we're trying to take Into consideration a lot of comment that has been set forth about building architecture and so forth. And if there are some questions here in the course of the meeting, Jenny Stanley of the Vivid Architectures also with us, obviously, and she can perhaps address those. But I think the important piece here is that we're trying to listen, take that into account, count. So I think the direction that architecture is going here is a little time important to note yet, identify the fact there's a 20 foot wide driveway in between the buildings. So we have setbacks to either side of the building that we have to maintain. The buildings are pretty much right up to the front of the front property line, which is consistent with what the zone is asking for, basically at a zero five foot. So you have to put the building that close, but we do have a 20 foot, the ability to put a 20 foot wide, and my experience has been in the city, generally speaking, fire department city has been receptive to that, but we know that there's a ways to go to that discussion, and I hope to continue that. A little bit of landscaping, the renderings are representing a sidewalk improvement, entire reconstruction of the sidewalk along the Ashmore Street frontage, with again some landscape enhancement, that site plan that you saw here previously as well. Again, the 20 foot with the parking in the back of the building, 10 spaces, and we're still talking a little bit about the positioning of such things as, for example, the smoking area here and smoking areas is a program piece as part of the Home for Good project. So it's a main state requirement to have that bike, covered bike area for bike storage, recognizing that given where we are within the city, the bicycle ownership will probably be a primary means of transportation besides transit for many of the tenants here. So providing them safe and secure bicycle storage will be an important component. Exactly where we position these, we've talked about the idea of maybe the smoking area moving over into this corner. And for context, there's a parking lot over in our northwest corner, and that parking lot benefits the Sahara Club, which is just to our west as well. There's a multi-unit building here directly above the property in that parking lot, and then the kind of medium units are to the north, and then there's a parking lot obviously here to the east side. Just plans representing we have plenty of utility capacity, Ashlawn Street benefits from water, sewer, drainage, utilities. We will have three-phase power because both these buildings will have an elevator given their height. But we do have three-phase power coming down Ashlawn Street. The last three-phase pull is some 100 feet or so to the west of our site. Will have an extension and we're talking right now with cmp about the possibility of putting that underground that we saw on our frontage so see how that all works out but as I said earlier the existing power line that goes through the property that will have to be rerouted around the site [45:38] Justin Manceus: Or the likely underground here's [45:44] Steve Bushy (LJB Inc.): Just another plan the grading plan the importance of this being stormwater management the site's nearly all pavement now and we're in fact surprisingly a little bit we are reducing the impervious area slightly by a few thousand feet which is fine we'll also be though putting in a collection system and storage system city standards nowadays basically say you've got to provide storage for in this case will be our roof runoff that we collect because the roofs will be predominant here now going From entirely pavement to some amount of more than 50 percent rooftop and then pavement in the back for the department but with that storage system it will be all be underneath the parking lot and that discharges back into the city's collection system and that meets the city's objectives of trying to reduce stormwater runoff floats in their collection systems here's a floor plan, also previously presented here, a couple stairwells and elevator shafts, more or less on the orange building on the Left, the pinkish colors of the community spaces would be three units on that ground level floor for this building, and then over here on the right inside the LIHTC building, again, more community space and shared space besides the hallways. There would be doorways out of these stairwells for access, and then the parking in the rear. I've only provided the first floor plans here. We needed to, in such, for me to go to the floors above briefly. I want to touch upon traffic, and there's been some discussion about that. We didn't provide a whole heck of a lot with respect to traffic and traffic numbers within our original application materials. The reality is based on this project, affordable housing, and the fact that we only have 10 parking spaces here and the Home for Good population of tenants, traffic will be very low. But what I wanted to provide here, or I guess just a sense of scale, two categories under the so-called Institute of Transportation Engineers category of housing, affordable housing or senior housing, and if you just take the 63 units instead of ours, all affordable housing under that category of, you know, what the traffic engineers typically provide trip generation on a weekday, 374 trips, or in those a.m. or p.m. hours anywhere from, you know, 29, 30 trips, that's ins and outs, in the total of a.m. Morning hour or p.m. afternoon hour if you went to the senior housing categories, depending on what hour you're looking at and so forth. You can also see the relatively low traffic volumes. I say low when compared to what the traditional traffic study, traffic movement permit, which in the city of Portland, the city would administer that in a much larger project, generating over 100 trips in that peak hour, AM or PM, 50 in, 50 out, for example. Example, that would trigger traffic movement permit, considerably more study and analysis. Our volumes here for those peak hours are considerably lower than that. In fact, I'm suggesting that because of, again, the population, the Home for Good project, very hard to categorize under ITE because of the population of people who are living there. They're not generally going to have cars per se, say. Senior housing, we know, is very low. I'm sure we go to many projects here in the city and count senior housing projects and say, excuse me, any traffic associated with us. But I wanted to provide that and then balance it with the fact that, yes, bikes will be a primary mode of transportation for the population here, as well as the pedestrian movement. It's going to be very important, and we know that the neighborhood as well as staff has suggested, you know, access to getting back and forth to Forest Avenue. So there are bus stops right in front of the United Way for inbound traffic, and then on the opposite side of Forest Avenue for outbound on the Metro route to bus service. And having the ability for people to go back and forth on good sidewalks to from the site to Forest Avenue would be really important. There are sidewalks on our side of the site, the north side of the site, right from our property to Forest Avenue. There's one missing piece of sidewalk on the opposite side, and then it picks up and goes on towards what I'll call that corner of Forest and Ashmore on the Great Lost Bear side of it. Parking plan. We know that there's been concern about parking. We know that the city's standards relative to residential housing don't necessarily require parking. So it is a balance, and we're going to be prepared to provide more information on an overall neighborhood parking review and analysis. We've done a certain amount of study there and thus far found out that there's a fair amount of street parking there. And how that gets used is more counts need to be done, I think, on our side. But thus far, early results show that, all right, there may be some periods, and we've heard that, for example, when the Sahara Club has an event played on a weekend Saturday when they have high participation, the streets fill up with a fair number of vehicles. [51:38] Amanda (Director of Mission and Community Impact, Developers Collaborative): vehicle so to look at that yep the one thing I want to add to is that in talking to other existing programs in Portland utilizing the same type of program as home for good the average number of cars for folks in those programs is one or less for the entire project and so we know that there really is almost no parking impact from the home for good program and so in talking to our management team, I think in marketing the senior projects, you know, certainly the lack of off-street parking available at the project will be part of the marketing plan in terms of bringing new folks in and making sure that we just are anticipating that given our experience and the nature of this project that a lot of folks may not have a car particularly with such close proximity to the bus stop [52:42] Steve Bushy (LJB Inc.): Here's a graphic that does maybe give some sense of a setup here relative to the neighborhood, if you talking to the north and west, Steering Avenue, Coil Street to our north, Forest App to the east, and the Noise Street. And some of the graphics and colors here just kind of give you some sense of single families in the brown, multi-families in the blue, commercial, kind of in this pinkish color, and so forth. And we're also showing in green along the streets or in red. Green representative of where there is on-street parking currently signed and allowed, and red where it is not. Kind of important to recognize during all red along the sides, there's bike lanes on both sides of Deering, yes. So it must be a priority bicycle corridor within the city here. Some of the other streets, though, generally speaking, have one side. I know Ashmore Street has been a high point of discussion relative to its width and its availability for emergency vehicle passage and so forth. It is a relatively narrow street, curb to curb, roughly 24 feet with some area of on site or on street parking allowed. Out so you know we have to talk those things through relative to fire department access and so forth and see how that all plays out but i wanted to represent this graphic just so that there was some sense this would be something that we'll be providing in the subsequent parking analysis and study so hopefully this sort of thing gives some degree of context and overview [54:20] Amanda (Director of Mission and Community Impact, Developers Collaborative): Do the bigger picture here you can speak for this as well but in the neighborhood meeting there were some really great feedback and some creative ideas about some potential solutions within the streets surrounding the project to help alleviate some of the parking challenges [54:38] Steve Bushy (LJB Inc.): I'll add here just looking at this larger scale map of sorts, Cottage and Linden Street are kind of two very important streets as the neighborhood is concerned. I'm sure you will hear more about that. What I did find out today was that the city, I believe, is paving Cottage this week. There had been some discussion about sidewalks and the like. The best of my understanding from the Department of Public Works, they're paving, but no sidewalk work taking place. And then Linden Street doesn't have anything on the PPW's schedule for paving or sidewalk pieces. So you may hear more about that, I'm guessing, from the neighborhood, but at least I found out what's going on relative to the city side of things looking at those streets. Landscaping and buffering, admittedly, there's not a lot. We're trying to provide some, but there's not a lot of space here along our edges. This question we signed by some plantings and then some plantings along the front of the building and then over to this side although we have been told about various things as to access and so forth that we'll have to look at relative to emergency services and so forth and how the landscaping works. But certainly we want to make sure that we can buffer things. The smoking area is a is a big topic, I believe, and how that gets screened and buffered and so forth from the neighbors. I think we still have a little bit to do and discuss with everybody. Then lighting, right now our lighting is really just showing building mounted lights both at all of our doorway entry locations and then on the bike area. We don't have any full-mounted lights that would be provided here. I think that we have enough coverage with basically lighting, as you can see here, eight foot tall mounted, 12 foot, 12 foot. So not a lot of lighting per se in terms of big glare or otherwise, but again, these are taller buildings and I'm sure there will be points of discussion made by the neighbors about the height, what that all will look like. But we've tried to certainly provide enough security and safety lighting, but not anymore [57:07] Amanda (Director of Mission and Community Impact, Developers Collaborative): speak to Every most of this the points that I that I didn't cover. You know what? We talked about both of these buildings will be capped at sixty percent of the area median income just to give you a sense of Where those incomes fall currently. For an individual it would be under fifty thousand four hundred and forty dollars a year and for a couple whole $66,780 a year. And again, we're talking about the 55 plus specifically when we're thinking about couples. For both properties, all of the applicants will be screened by the management company. And currently the rent limit for the senior project would be $1565 a month. And that would be including homes. On the Home for Good project, we talked We talked about services being provided by Catholic Charities Mean, and Alyssa is here and available to answer any additional questions that folks might have about that. But essentially, there will be 24-7 supportive staff on-site, at least two staff there at all times, with additional supports available throughout the day and coming in from service providers other than Catholic Charities, too, in terms of some additional supports that will be available on-site. And one of the things when we were looking at the first floor plan for this building is that we've tried to include a lot in the way of community space and provider space so that there's not only room for programming and providers from Catholic Charities team, but also for outside providers to have a space to come in and help serve folks living there. Everyone living in the Home for Good building will have a project-based voucher provided by the Estate Housing Authority, which helps with rental subsidy and ensures that they're only paying 30 percent of their income towards rent. As they become stable in housing and as their income might increase, the amount of rent that they pay will increase, you know, in line with whatever 30% of their income is as that might change. The services funding is funded through what was a few years ago now, LU2, which was the housing first funding. And that is funded through the main real estate transfer tax so the funds initially are flowing through dhhs to main housing to provide capital dollars to build these home for good projects across the state but eventually as those are built the excess money is flowing into dhhs for services and so all of these services will be fully supported kind of until the end of time as legislation is currently written for the services component, again, funded through the Newmore List Day Transfer Tax. So DHHS will have a contract with Catholic Charities, Maine, as the service provider. And for this project, Home for Good, it is permanent housing. So we just want to be clear that this is not a shelter. This is not temporary housing. This is not a recovery house. It's a housing intervention first with supportive services attached. So it's a permanent apartment for somebody coming out of chronic homelessness who needs services in order to be successful in their housing in the long term. And there will be an extensive eligibility process before moving folks in. That will be kind of a joint process between VC management as the property manager and Catholic Charities as a service provider, with the service provision side obviously looking at compatibility with the program. Folks will be coming through coordinated entry to be screened for suitability for the program. There are certain things that would disqualify someone, as an example being a registered sex offender would disqualify somebody from living in this housing. And then Alyssa, I don't know if you want to just share a little bit of information about Catholic Charities. Thank you for having me this evening. My name is Alyssa Gilberti, and I am the lead point of contact for Catholic Charities in regards to this project. Catholic Charities is a nationally accredited statewide organization. We have a deep bench of programs across the state. Up north, we are responsible for providing food for all of the food pantries across Bristol County. We have a very deep bench of programming concentrated in the Portland and greater Portland area as well. And we have a dental clinic. We have child development centers. We have homemaker services. We also have a broad span of behavioral health programming, both in central Maine and southern Maine, of which the behavioral health programming in the southern part of the state, located right on Cumberland Ave in Portland, will be very closely linked with the Home for Good program. We do expect individuals coming in from chronic homelessness to have a history of some kind of mental illness, or there might be other trauma-related issues that have resulted in that chronic homelessness, and we're looking to work with individuals to first get them housed and then to help them stay stable and maintain that housing and help with ongoing improvement in their functioning in their day-to-day life. We will have people on site, as Amanda said, 24-7, at least two people. That is a requirement. Sometimes there probably will be more individuals on site for staff. We are looking to partner with primary care to be embedded within, so that will be something that many of these individuals that will become residents have not had in a long time. And having it embedded and then also bringing in the services of Catholic Charities will improve access for these individuals to get the services that they want and need. [1:03:41] Steve Bushy (LJB Inc.): So this workshop and we believe there'll be another workshop certainly and then hopefully we can go through that get through the process here of consideration by the board for you know approvals ultimately as applications for a site plan of rules targeting still 2027 we'll see how the next few months goes for a partial start I would expect probably a 14 to 16 month construction window but we know that neighborhood concern and comment has really evolved around building both buildings at one time to try to shorten that construction window rather than having two distinct phase projects and this otherwise extending a very long construction period so those things I guess we can talk about we'll be thinking about as we've listened to a public comment and as Amanda had said you know maintaining open lines communication has been kind of a prime focus since we first started the process here in July and setting up the neighborhood meeting certainly hearing we had a few bumps along the road there in terms of those communications and appreciate the neighborhoods being frank with us and try to make sure that we're communicating as we go through this process. [Justin Manceus: So we're here.] That's pretty much the end of our presentation and I can leave these up or probably have to turn them off. [1:05:19] Unidentified Chair/Presiding Officer: Well, thank you. A presentation and what I think we can do is if there's any procedural preliminary questions go to public comment so we'll move into public comment and we'll start in the room so for folks heard me with the previous hearing you'll have three minutes Yes. We'll let you know when you are running out of time. We'll do in the room on first, and then we'll go to folks online. Come right off the podium. I'll see who you are, where you live. You're speaking to the board, so if you have questions that you want to be asked of the city or the applicants, ask them to the chair. We will get back along, but it's not a conversation between the city and the applicant. So, first person is welcome to stand up, and if you're online, as soon as we get through the folks in the room, we'll get you. [1:06:31] Kirsten Van Soest: I'm happy to do that. We're very friendly. Procedural question, if there are folks in the overflow room, are they accommodated? Yes, they'll come. They will be out. Yeah. Good afternoon. My name is Kirsten Van Soest, and I live at 45 Longfellow Street, which is on the 500 foot to the distance of this development. I am here, I appreciate the two meetings we had with the neighborhood and the developer. We gathered a lot of information that I've done deep dive research the code and housing first and everything I, because I only have three minutes, I would say I'm here because I have to lose the density and the scale of the two buildings on the lot. We certainly as Portland residents we chose to live here, we live here, we support the ambition of creating housing, but we also in one building we think would have done does a great job of advancing those goals, but we feel like cramming 63 units onto less than a half an acre of land put sacrifices a lot of other intentions and needs for this lot. We talked about how the driveway is limited. The buffering is limited. There is no outdoor space except for a smoking shack, something that is quite standard. And you guys have approved it as part of other Housing First developments in town. And we think that's really important for at least the residents who are in the Housing First and other residents as well. And so I think I would encourage you, as you go through the review, to pay a lot of attention to the safety concerns that the neighbors have had. that I read in the public comments out there, be mindful of the design manual requirements for outdoor space as well as any requirements that main housing might have for these types of buildings that they're funding. And I would also just encourage you as you look at waiver requests or anything like that to be mindful that site constraints in this instance are by design there, they didn't exist, they don't exist on the current property, they wouldn't exist if the design didn't have so many units in two buildings. So I would encourage you to think about site constraints in the element of sort of the geography and the existing land as you go forward. I also sort of feel want to acknowledge that it meets a lot of the sort of check boxes and the numerical requirements, but to be mindful of the accumulation of things that it doesn't meet and the impact on residents, both future residents of the buildings as well as the neighborhood. That I love. [1:09:18] Unidentified Chair/Presiding Officer: Thanks. Thank you for being here. And just keep clapping to a minimum because when you're listening on zoom, it actually I think that you know, clapping. Yeah. [1:09:46] Kirsten Van Soest: Hi, my name is Audrey Rolf. I live at 29 Longfellow Street, which is a block from where these buildings. [Unidentified Chair/Presiding Officer: Well, some say] They will be built, but hopefully not. I'm also opposing it. These buildings, and if you read my letter and looked at the photos that I attached, will loom over our neighborhood. Our neighborhood exists of single family and, for the most part, two family buildings. And even the businesses on Forest Avenue are one and two story. So these buildings are going to really stick out like a sore thumb. They just do not blend. We did talk about this in the neighborhood meetings. And the developer came up, well, actually the architect came up with the second option that you saw in the two high rises of putting a bit of trim architectural trim instead of just having absolutely right angle buildings a little bit of trim around the edge but you know that doesn't really do it these are very tall buildings most of the houses in our neighborhood were built in the 20s 30s and some, as late as the 60s, the 60s ones tend to be grants. So I understand that with the plan you approved on Forest Avenue, that was a lot of land, Outer Forest Avenue, and many fewer units. This is smack dab in the middle of the neighborhood. Yes, there's business on the other side. But if you look at these buildings really like go down there and look at them you'll see if you can imagine how tall they are they don't blend in with the business and they don't blend in with the neighborhood so I'm asking you to be sensitive to that especially from my heart as a art and design teacher in the city of Portland for almost 40 years and I thank you for listening and for taking this into consideration. [1:12:09] Unidentified Staff Member: We really, appreciate it. Thank you for being here. Hey [1:12:21] Lester Olatka: There. My name is Lester Olatka and I live on the high street. 19, I've been there for 13 years with my family. These are all my neighbors in the neighborhood. I've already said your letter, so I'm not gonna reiterate everything that I have said in that. But I have some really significant concerns that I have and I share with my neighbors. One of them being that the developers never actually reached out to the neighborhood in the preliminary case when they even started studying, when they got permission to build. Nobody reached out to the neighborhood and the neighborhood association to ask us what we would think about this, which I think is just telling you something about their attitude to the neighborhood. We are just kind of a second sort, if even that. And I find that really problematic. The other thing is that we have raised some things with the developers already, and it's been said now in this meeting that we listen to the neighborhood, we take these into concern, the concerns that we have been very serious. I don't believe that's true at all, because if they had done that, they would set up meetings with us and they would actually listen to our concerns. In this entire project, we have not been listened to at all. And I find that highly problematic. I'm not going to say what these people have already said about it, but I will say traffic is not my major concern about all of this. My major concern are the impact of the people in the buildings on the neighborhood. And every time we raise that as an issue, we have been assured that there's going to be no negative impact. They can't assure us of that because the buildings are not there yet. And yet they're saying that to you, they are saying that to us repeatedly and I also find that really problematic. That's all, thank you very much for your time. Thank you for being here. Hello everybody. [1:14:30] Justin Manceus: Thanks so much for taking all these comments. My name is Justin Manceus. I live at 45 Longfellow Street. We've lived on that corner of Longfellow Street and Linden Street within the 500 foot radius of the project. I actually said our house is about 250 feet away. Both my wife and I have submitted statements to the agenda packet, and I won't repeat in detail what those statements say here, but I urge the board members to read them and consider their positions. I would emphasize to the board members that our comments come from a position of support for housing density, a support for affordable housing, and a support for housing-first programming,, provided the facilities are run well and conceived so that future residents succeed in recovering from homelessness and building community. I also believe any new development should be compatible with the surrounding neighborhood, and that any new development in or adjacent to the RN3 neighborhood should reflect context sensitivity as written in the Portland Land Use Code. As adjacent residents who have invested in the neighborhood for over 20 years, we deserved to be taken as active stakeholders in the development of a building that will affect our lives for years to come. At first blush, it should be easy to approve this project as it is. We're all well-meaning, and it is easy to do the right thing and act on our collective affordable housing convictions. And it should also be easy because Developers Collaborative will assure the planning board that the project meets all zoning ordinances to the inch. That remains to be seen. It is also the planning board's responsibility to assess the project from more than just measurements and setbacks. The planning board should review this project also from the perspective of RN3, of the RN3 neighborhood in which it sits and will be surrounded on all three sides, and from that perspective, this project is not sweet. The project has conceived to not reflect contact sensitivity because it is simply too big for its land parcel with maximum, with its maximum number of units and minimum ordinance compliance and an affordable housing height bonus to boot. 30 seconds. Thank you. Well, this project is so compact it offers no outdoor gathering space at all to the residents who will live there, and amenity I'm sure the planning board agrees is a cornerstone of successful community. I'm going to maybe make some repetitive comments, but I'll just close and reiterate that our written statements in detail are there. And I'll say that a good project is far more than a good intent. I just urge you to take into consideration the impact it's going to have on the RN perspective. I'll just ditch the surrounding three sides and the families in London. I appreciate it. Thank you for being here. [1:17:51] Unidentified Chair/Presiding Officer: Welcome, comrade. If you are online, [1:18:02] Unidentified Staff Member: Matt's going to be bringing people from upstairs to the overflow room. [1:18:05] Unidentified Chair/Presiding Officer: If you are online, we're still doing in-person and we will go online after. We are just going to the additional room to wake. We don't know how many. [1:18:32] Unidentified Staff Member: He said around seven to ten people. [1:18:44] Ben Wick: Hi, my name is Ben Wick. [1:18:45] Unidentified Resident (Partner of Alex): I am a resident of 287 Beringette. I've lived in Portland for 17 years now. Alex and I live in a two-unit and have already moved sites. And thinking about this proposal, I've thought a lot about what has, what motivated us to move to this neighborhood six years ago, seven years ago. We're a single-car family. [1:19:10] Unidentified Staff Member: We bike, we walk. [1:19:11] Unidentified Resident (Partner of Alex): About the value of safety and the use of transportation and the different transportation options that we have here. And we really like where we live and we like the community and all of our neighbors. I would like to offer my qualified support for this project. I think a lot of the concerns that have been raised are legitimate and I look forward to seeing how the planning board of the developers others address those but I also recognize that there's a really significant need for affordable housing throughout the state and in Portland and also specifically housing for those dealing with homelessness and I hope to see that basically I think a lot of the reasons that the neighborhood is appealing for us to live here are probably also reasons why Populations are 55 plus and folks transitioning out of homelessness and affordable housing also makes sense to locate to facilitate those types of projects in this general area. So I don't want the perfect to be the enemy of the good and how difficult these projects can be to build. And yet I also recognize that there is still probably some potential improvement. So just encouraging everyone to keep all of that in mind as they're evaluating this proposed project and hoping that there's some way that you can find a balance us to find a way to increase the housing because before in a way that works best possible for everyone involved. Thank you very much. Thank you. We have a, how many people? We [1:21:22] Unidentified Chair/Presiding Officer: Have a line. So there's about five folks outside. If you're currently in the Roman city, I'm going to ask those five people to come up and talk, but you know, we will get through those five people and then we'll go online so if you are sitting you haven't spoken yet do stand up at the appropriate time and speak because otherwise we'll move past you and you won't have [1:21:44] Kirsten Van Soest: An opportunity. Sorry, thank you. Thank you. I'm just one more time, my name is Wendy Cherubini. I live at 99 Federal Street and I'm a member of the Urbanist Coalition of Fortland. I support the proposed project at 41 National Street that is transit oriented and reasonably dense. The two buildings are not a huge change from surrounding buildings, but are a small increment higher, reflecting the move towards gently increasing density city-wide that we all agreed was needed when we passed weekly. This project will help fill two important housing needs in the city. Homes for Good will be a housing first project for homeless individuals, and the other project will be a light tech project, affordable housing for older seniors. It is in a major transit corridor with easy metro access to the Route 2 bus. I live two blocks from a similar project for older adults that is also home to some recently homeless people. Parking is not an issue. This is a city. People can walk a block or two to their cars, and many residents will likely not have vehicles. I think management concerns can be real, and they can also be addressed with the developer using experience gained from other Housing First projects serving similar populations around the city. City of Portland has a lot of experience with that, and we should learn from those projects. The project is within walking distance of Longfellow Park, which would be great for new neighbors living at 41 National. Some comments have noted the uneven, unsafe, and in some sections, non-existent sidewalks in the area. [1:23:17] Unidentified Staff Member: This is a serious problem. [1:23:19] Kirsten Van Soest: I hope the city will commit to making the sidewalks in this neighborhood accessible. I know the planning board has no say over that, but hopefully they can ask the city that as we build more housing around the city, meeting recode will make it pedestrian accessible and safe for people to get around on foot. 41 Ashmont Street will take what is now a surface parking lot and create homes. It will not develop a field, farm, or forest. We must address climate change here in the city. To do it, we have to build up. Our zoning code with its reasonable height limits recognizes reality, And I'm happy to see this project coming before you. We cannot continue to say we support housing, but not here, not this height, not this dense, and still meet our critical housing needs. As has been said many times, cities are not snow globes. They are not encased in amber. They must grow and evolve to be healthy. The proposed project at 41 Ashmont can be a part of that healthy evolution. And I urge the board to approve this project. [1:24:25] Unidentified Chair/Presiding Officer: Thanks for being here. Hi. [1:24:36] Kirsten Van Soest: Thank you for taking the moment. My name is Billy Sage. I'm an affordable Exeter. I'm from the Oklahoma neighborhood. I'm speaking in support of this project today. I am a renter resident in the neighborhood, as a teacher in the school district, and in the middle of our housing crisis, I'm glad that there is a bold project that is designed to get people into homes that they, if we are saying I support affordable housing but, and then we caveat it, those are comments that would not be out of place in communities such as Cumberland and Keith Elizabeth suburbs, not cities in Portland, name's largest and Maine's largest city and a center of necessary services. I am glad that we are committed to remediating housing insecurity. And that looks like supporting projects in your neighborhood. I support this project in my neighborhood. It is a great place to live and I would be glad to welcome new residents to it. This project complies with the zoning and Portland's comprehensive plan and is a professionally managed dignified station to product homelessness. I'm glad that the affordable hype bonus, affordable housing pay bonus allows us to house even more people on a lot that is currently only housing cars. Thank [1:26:08] Unidentified Staff Member: you for it. Thanks for being here. Come on up. Hello. [1:26:17] Nathaniel Ferguson: Thank you for taking public comment. My name is, My name is Nathaniel Ferguson. I live at 44 Exeter Street. I'm a resident of the Oakdale neighborhood and a member of the Urban Disclosure Team of Portland. I'm here to speak in support of this project. I think it's very important that we have housing for people who are currently unhoused, for people who have difficulty getting housed. And I think that the idea that we should apply a higher standard to certain projects based on who might live there is deeply contestable. This is what we say that we want in our city's policy documents. If you look at the comprehensive plan, if you look at our zoning code, it says we want affordable development. We want to encourage development that is accessible to people who need it the most. And I think we have a real problem with homelessness and people who are unable to afford housing. And I think it's important that we have homes for people rather than parking spaces for cars. So I urge the planning board to consider this project like you consider any other project. Make sure that it complies with the standards that we set out in the law and approve it if necessary. All of the questions about who might live there, will they be properly managed or not, land use decisions before the planning board, but they are better served through other mechanisms. And I hope that those will be addressed in due time. So, yeah, I'll keep it short because I know there's a lot of people who want to speak. But thank you for considering this project and please approve it. Thanks for being here. [1:28:03] Kirsten Van Soest: Hello. Thank you. My name is Jolene and I live directly across the street from the proposed project. And I appreciate you giving me the opportunity to speak. I did not know that we were going to be able to speak tonight, so I didn't prepare anything. But I just wanted to talk to the, being directly across the street from this project point of view, that I think that collectively we all felt sort of taken aback and surprised by the size of the project. I think that we are all in favor of the project if it was reduced. And I understand the people who spoke before me are interpreting that as if you're in support of affordable housing but not here, that's not the case, I don't believe. I believe we are fine with that, turning a ugly parking lot into housing, but it's too big for that space. And I would also encourage anyone on the planning board to join us at any time when there is a traffic jam on Ashmont Street, because you can either, if parking is not an issue, driving is an issue. It is an issue. The Sierra Club does not have events on the weekend. They have continuous meetings every single day, three or four meetings. There are many, times of the day where you cannot drive by each other on Ashmont Street. You have to wait for another car to pass. People park in front of trucks. The parking is out of control. So regardless of whether or not there will be any cars in this project, it is going to impact that community, Linden Street and Cottage Street, that entire block. So I just invite you to come and experience it as it is, including anyone, of course, in the development, and I know you have, but that we need to be part of this conversation so that we can help you do this project but not necessarily at this scale. Thank you. Thanks for being here, folks. [1:30:06] Unidentified Chair/Presiding Officer: Great. Keep coming up, my [1:30:18] Ben Wick: name is Jim Costello. I live on Claim on Court in the Congos and I had to come down because of the absurdities of which I was listening to. We have people from Exeter Street and from Federal Street saying this is a perfect thing. It is not a perfect thing. This is a beautiful quiet neighborhood that I happen to absolutely love. The neighbors are nice. You can just walk anywhere. Everyone's friendly. And I just cannot imagine that you would, me,, of all people, standing here fighting homelessness, which is so dear to me. This is just the absolute wrong neighborhood. And I can't stress that enough. And everyone out there is just furious listening to Exodus Street and Federal Street praising this. I'm sorry. I'm going home to my nice, quiet neighborhood. Thank you. Thanks for being here. [1:31:16] Unidentified Chair/Presiding Officer: Folks who are here in person, we might be getting to the end. Don't lose your opportunity if you want to speak. I'll go online once we get through everybody who's here in person. And then I close the public portion. We will have another workshop on this, which is another opportunity to speak. But once I close the public portion today, it's closed. [1:31:43] Justin Manceus: So I'm just giving it to the push. [1:31:48] Kirsten Van Soest: I just feel like I should speak even though I didn't prepare anything because I live also right on the corner of Cottage and Ashmole. And I'm aware of all of these issues that I, just to say, I did write a letter to folks on behalf of myself and my husband. But it's not, I reiterate what Jolie, my neighbor, my next-door neighbor just said, is that it's a funny, [1:32:10] Unidentified Staff Member: it pushes a lot of buttons. [1:32:11] Kirsten Van Soest: It's funny, it's hard to we speak about, yeah, the homeless thing in issue in Portland is really huge. We want to do something about it, and then you don't want to be seen as these not in my backyard people. I do believe I'm a diplomat by nature. I believe that we could make this work, it's just not of the right scale and it for what we're looking for here. I believe it can be done, I believe dialogue can happen, but it's really important to do that because it's not right as it's designed now. What we want to do, definitely, you don't want to get rid of the parking lot and do something. We've got to do it differently, and I would like to, the optimist that I am, would like to believe that we can do that, but it's going to require a lot more work. And again, I'm not the city planners. I'm not the people that know about codes and all this stuff, But I have a heart that kind of believes that we could do this But it's gonna require a lot of listening and a lot of really hard work that I would like to I would like to believe That we collectively can do that [1:33:21] Justin Manceus: Right up. Hello. [1:33:25] Unidentified Staff Member: My name is Lucy Kramer Kennedy. I live at 176 coil, which is about 700 feet from the site I was listening online and come join. I'm sort of disappointed by what my neighbors have to say. I have affordable rent at my house, my rent's eight hundred dollars and it's it's great that I can live there, it's a wonderful neighborhood, I and my neighbors are awesome and I would love to have more neighbors who I can have community with and yeah I'm supportive of that and the advancement of density in our neighborhood which was initially built this and so it's good to keep the team going. As far as like other things go I kind of agree about the aesthetic stuff, like we have a lot of really beautiful like Rococo's that are used trim and I think that would be nice if we could get a bit more architecture that reflects the character of the neighborhood. There's a bus stop on Forest that's kind of not in great shape and I think this could be a good opportunity to enhance that. The circulation in Ashmont, I'm a transportation planner, so I have that perspective happening. The circulation in Ashmont's not great, but I think, like, there's a lot of park in the area. I did a survey with the Friends of Woodford Corner, and there's, like, 500 oven spots within a five-minute walk of the intersection of Forest and Woodford, so, like, I don't know. I'm not concerned about that at all. Retaving Lyndon would be great. It's rough. Yeah, that's what I have to say. Thank you. Thanks, Monique. [1:35:16] Unidentified Chair/Presiding Officer: I'm not seeing anyone standing in the back of [Jack Freeland: the room. Last] chance for people in the room. So folks who are online, if you are on a telephone, you will press star nine. That will tell us that you want to speak. If you are on Zoom,, you go down to the bottom of the screen and you can usually raise hand by pressing the react key. And we have a moderator in the room who's going to tell you when you're ready to speak and we'll also let you know when you have 30 seconds left. [1:35:54] Isaac (Google): Dan and Jeff, you should be all set to unmute. [1:36:03] Daniel Bergeron: Hello, my name is Daniel Bergeron and I'm here with my partner, Jeff Gregory. And I had submitted comments. comments. I'm not sure if they have been received by the planning committee. So I thought I'd at least give you an idea of what I'm thinking and what we're thinking. Because we live at 40 Ashmont. If anyone can say they live directly across from this development, it is us. They're located at the corner of Linden and Ashmont. We're very cognizant of the activity in the area. When purchasing our home, we found that this was zoned for residential and commercial mix. With that understanding, the associated parking lots, the lot in question, as well as the one owned by a Stanborn building, and the commercial traffic, including American Red Cross but services transport, pardon me, were all part of the mixed-use understanding. This proposal, however, raises several resident concerns. One, as you've heard, just about every neighborhood in Portland has experienced shortage or issues with parking. It is shocking that a parking plan is not required for any development, to be it commercial, private or grant funded. To not consider and address this issue would be a non-starter for any development or should be, especially one with such high density. It was mentioned at one of the public meetings and developers were told of the high volume of parking and traffic at Sahara clubs meetings. Fortunately, the club was able to make arrangements with the owners of Sanborn building. Nonetheless, the neighborhood is currently maxed out and violations of parking rules are now a recurring issue. Traffic safety has evolved over time. I mean, traffic has evolved over time. In 1981, we saw much less traffic and over time, the street has become critical to American Red Cross operations. It allows for mobile donation RVs, as well as the fleet needed to provide blood products to Southern Maine hospitals. The Great Lost Bear and other businesses have also increased in volume over time. At least weekly, we see a semi from Cisco rolling down the street after unloading. Then it's 30 seconds. Pardon me, 30 seconds. Okay, let me get to it. Talking about the project itself first, I need to address the dual project funding. I think two grants combined to provide two valuable services. Although both programs are important, I don't think the combination is prudent. It puts two different populations with vastly different needs at odds on a 0.45 acre lot with an inadequate 10 parking spaces. [1:39:18] Unidentified Chair/Presiding Officer: Can you wrap up your statement? Sure. We do have your letter. [1:39:25] Daniel Bergeron: Okay. All right. Then that's plenty. Thank you very much. I just wanted to make sure that you had received it. Thank you. [1:39:34] Unidentified Chair/Presiding Officer: I appreciate you being here. [1:39:37] Isaac (Google): Megan, you should be all set to unmute. Megan, you should be all set to unmute. [1:39:54] Unidentified Chair/Presiding Officer: I can see that you're unmuted, Megan. If you're talking, we cannot hear you. Let me go to the next one. We'll come back to you after this one, Megan. [1:40:17] Isaac (Google): Ateem, you should be all set to unmute. Hi, can you hear me? [1:40:21] Ateem Boykin: We can. Okay, I want to say good evening. My name is Ateem Boykin. I live in the West End. And I'm a candidate for city council at large, and I'm speaking tonight as a resident. With some mixed feelings, I support this project. 63 homes, housing first for people coming out of homelessness, and affordable housing for adults. Last year, Portland approved 1,420 units, and only 187 were completed. This is 63 real ones. I want to say something to the neighbors first who have spoken out tonight. You live there. I don't. Whatever gets built, you're the ones who live alongside it, and that isn't a small thing to ask of anyone. What I've heard tonight about Longfellow, Linden, and Cottage is real, and most of it predates this project. More than one person tonight said they were never contacted, and one neighbor got three days' notice of a meeting. That's fixable, and it's worth fixing before this moves further rather than after. I'd rather see a good project come back having genuinely worked with these neighbors, then see it carry a grievance into the ground it's built on. But I'd point the board and the city toward one thing in particular. Several neighbors described the sidewalks here as uneven, unsafe, and in some stretches non-existent. One resident had documented 30 years of that with photographs and a specific connectivity plan for Linden and Cottage Streets. Now, look at who's moving in, though. Older adults and people transitioning out of homelessness. Ten parking spaces by design because this is a transit corridor and many residents won't have cars. But we know that Forest Ave is not necessarily the best street. That means walking isn't optional here. It's a plan. A speaker tonight was right that sidewalks aren't this board's authority. True. but they are the cities through the capital improvement program and the people in this building will be walking on them so my ask is this approve the housing and let the record from tonight go forward to the council the pedestrian infrastructure around this project needs to be finished there is already a plan on the table for it now we can approve 63 homes and still fail the people in them if they can't safely reach the bus thank you for [1:42:51] Unidentified Chair/Presiding Officer: being here, Megan. We'll go back to you. Oh, there's two Megan. She might be calling that too. Hi. [1:43:14] Megan Roberts: There, this is, this is Megan Roberts. Can you hear me? Yes, I can. Sorry. No, so sorry about that. My name is Megan Roberts. I live at 15 Cottage Street, just a couple doors down from the proposed development, I don't know, maybe 300 feet away, very nearby. I've submitted public comment in a longer letter, so just want that noted. I think a lot of other neighbors here have spoken to more specific reasons, so I don't want to be repetitive. I just would like it noted that I am an immediate neighbor and I do oppose the project at this scale. Of course we know more housing is needed. I think that, you know, living in this neighborhood, we have primarily single family homes. We have the lovely, you know, townhouses at Claremont Court that are like multi-family. That's great. I love, I'm not opposed to density, but I think that we really need to have an honest conversation with the developer and with the city about what contextual sensitivity really means. And does it mean a five-story building basically just plopped in the middle of a neighborhood with no other even remotely close to five-story buildings? I don't really believe that is context sensitivity, and I think that the density is just, is just off and does not fit the neighborhood, just hands down doesn't fit. And I also just had more of a technical question that I wanted to present to the board specifically surrounding the subdivision of this lot. My understanding is that the developers collaborative intends to ultimately split the ownership of the lot, so it's 41 Ashmont Street currently, just one lot, one project that is being discussed here, but ultimately it will be, my understanding is, two separate lots with two separate owners. And I don't think this has been mentioned so far. So I just want to understand how the planning board understands that question, understands that, how should we understand ownership of shared resources between these two buildings, including the driveway, the backspace, like how does the subdivision impact the overall kind of review process here? Are we looking at these as two separate buildings that each individually need to meet the requirements of the code and of the context sensitivity of the technical and design manuals that have been mentioned? Or are we really just looking at this as one project, even though we know full and well that the intent is for it to be two separate buildings with two separate owners and all of the complexity that can come with that? So just want that feedback to be noted and would really love to hear the planning board's thoughts on those questions around the subdivision in particular. Thank you. Thank you. [1:46:27] Amy Oberlin: Amy, you should be all set to unmute. Hi, can you hear me? I can hear you. All right, great. Hi, my name is Amy Oberlin. I live on the east end and I'm a member of the Urbanist Coalition of Portland. I'd I'd like to echo what my fellow Urbanist Coalition members said earlier in person. I support this project. I think that it is really important, not only for the specific populations that it's going to be serving, but just to add to housing generally in the city of Portland. I mean, we have a state-level study that says that we are 80,000 housing units short. And the most you know the most climate effective solution to that problem is to build a lot of those units in the city of Portland and in order to do that we need to build more densely and we need taller buildings and I think that this building is extremely reasonable it's only four or five stories tall it's right next to the forest corridor which is going to this has also been up zone even further so it will be contextual as buildings get developed and it's what we need and we need much more Of it in the city and so I support it and I would be really disappointed to see it scaled down to any amount thank you very much thank you that is the last [1:47:51] Unidentified Chair/Presiding Officer: Hand up I see online we [1:47:55] Isaac (Google): Have another Tim you should be all set on you Tim [1:48:04] Unidentified Chair/Presiding Officer: You should be all set to unmute. I see a Tim D with your hand up says that you are muted so you will need to unmute yourself to speak. You should get a pop-up message Tim that says unmute yourself. It doesn't seem to be working. It says on our end that you're still muted. You can also use the Zoom call-in number using a cell phone. While you do that I will ask anybody else who's online to raise your hand you wish to speak and for folks here in person in the building this will be your last opportunity to speak of course we're going to have another workshop on this it'll be our last chance to be speaking Jack we should be upset to unmute so Tim this is your opportunity to call in if it's not working we'll go to Jack and then we'll come back to you yeah hi my name is Jack [1:49:44] Jack Freeland: Jack can you can you get a little bit closer to your microphone yeah sorry can you hear me now [1:49:53] Unidentified Chair/Presiding Officer: We can hear you but it's very low hang on one second how's that 's great thank you [1:50:02] Jack Freeland: Good, okay, thank you again. Jack Freeland, live on Derring Avenue, and I just want to say that I support this type of housing but not at this scale here. My concern is that the plan has pushed the edge every standard at once. The five things the code requires aren't in the record yet, transportation demand management plan and obvious traffic counting and a tree buffer that meets the written standard and a fire determination for Ashmont, excuse me, and a turning analysis. So I've written you a very long document and lots of details and I'm appreciated if you read and if those questions are passed along to the developer and analyzed by you. Thank [1:50:50] Unidentified Chair/Presiding Officer: you Jack being here and yes I can confirm we have access to your letter. Board members have access to it. Thank you. It's green here Tim, I think it worked. Yes I can hear you. [1:51:07] Tim Diamidi: Oh that's great. Hey my name is Tim Diamidi, I own 41 Coil Street, we bought it a few years ago go to not just as an investment property, but also as a second home for our in-laws. So, yeah, we're very fortunate. But I love that. I love this neighborhood. We've lived in Dartmouth Street maybe 15 years ago. And, you know, now that I'm renovating this other place and come down to Forest Ave., I'm just genuinely a little, well, I'm a lot disappointed. I've got a six-year-old, and I just don't feel like Forest Ave is going in the direction that I'd like it to go. You know, there's a ton of dispensaries now, and I'm just wondering, was there an assessment done that said, yeah, this is the right location for permanent supportive housing? And I don't think there was. I think it's just kind of like it's available and that's why it's there. But for this type of population, I'm not sure if it's the right spot for them necessarily, especially if there's no place to be outside and no place, there's zero buffering. So like a lot of other people on the call, I think it could work with half, with just one building. I think that's how it would work successfully. And yeah, I do think the architecture in Portland, geez, everything that goes up has metal siding, is green. It's it's really tough to see stuff just clash because it's efficient and well I don't want to say sustainable but it's just cheaper to build with cheaper materials. So I'm just wondering like is this the right place for it. Wasn't there an assessment and then and secondly, yeah, I would call for a real traffic study with figuring out if emergency access vehicles can get in and out, if plowing is going to be an issue, you know, there will be additional parking needs, especially for people that need services and those people that come in and out. So I am opposed to this. I just do think it is too big and it will clash. And I don't know if it's necessarily the right place for people, that might be coming from, places of recovery and, have some mental health issues. So, thank you very much for the opportunity. [1:54:15] Unidentified Chair/Presiding Officer: Thanks Tim. That is the last hand on the line. I haven't seen any more folks in the room. So I will close the public portion for this evening. That is obviously not the last opportunity that folks will be able to have to talk to the planning board about this. But that will be it for this evening. I'm going to take a couple minute break just because I want people to be able to stand up. So let's, it says 614 on my computer. Let's take a five in a break. We'll come back at 619 and open it up for board members. Thanks, everybody. So the public portion is over if you are online. And now I didn't normally we write down some of the questions we get a lot of questions. I also received was taking some questions. But open it up to board members that want to ask questions [2:00:20] Unidentified Resident (Partner of Alex): so there [2:00:25] Ben Wick: was that one question about subdivision that ultimately there would be two lots [2:00:31] Unidentified Chair/Presiding Officer: yeah we should address that yeah we can so because they're doing they're proposing two lots and a lot there's a lot of splits a lot of splits are done through just recording what the from Riverwood County Registry to be. There's no review process in terms of just the lot split. Secondly, under the state subdivision law, projects, multifamily projects, with three or more units or concerned multifamily are exempt on individual lots. [2:01:02] Steve Bushy (LJB Inc.): So they can be reviewed under one application, [2:01:04] Unidentified Resident (Partner of Alex): but as long as they're on separate lots, [2:01:06] Unidentified Chair/Presiding Officer: They're exempt from subdivision review because we locally have major site plan review, which a lot of the standards overlap those review standards as dictated by the subdivision law. And so this project doesn't have to comply because it's subject to major site plan. And again, both multi-family buildings are located on separate lots. They will have to have those lots formally recorded prior to the issuance of a building. Actually, it might be actually prior to applying for a building permit. That's something that we've recorded with corporation council and the permitting inspections, but they won't be able to move for at least with building. [2:01:44] Amanda (Director of Mission and Community Impact, Developers Collaborative): That answer that question. Okay, sorry. Right, however, I guess my other question is, assuming that they're splitting or not splitting, there are no different requirements for us to review. It is exactly the same as it if they were one ownership forever or two owners forever. It does not matter in terms of our review, correct? Thank you. And I'll [2:02:16] Unidentified Chair/Presiding Officer: add to that, the land use code is pretty explicit that shared access between J Sponsors occur. Yes, it seems like a lot of the concerns are about proximity to residential neighborhoods, and I think it's interesting that the B1 zone for this property is pretty unique to the whole stretch of Forest Ave. It's like the only B1 property that is not on an arterial, kind of stretching from the residential neighborhood. Is there any historical context for that thing at all? [2:02:58] Unidentified Staff Member: So that property has been zoned B1 for quite some time. So that was not a change that happened. And so the B-1, there are other instances of the B-1 being zoned in places where it's a transition from a more intensive commercial use. So obviously, of course, there's B2B, and then it steps down and transitions towards the residential district. So that piece is not uncommon, but that's the exact history of why that site is on B-1. [2:03:30] Unidentified Chair/Presiding Officer: I think the other thing as far as proximity residential goes that's worth clarifying is, so you have the density bonus or the height bonus for affordable housing, and there was a question in the public comment about whether the limitations given a proximity to the RN3 zone would apply, like whether the height bonus would apply, that like that proximity to the to the rn3 zone, does that have a comment on that? So these [2:04:02] Unidentified Staff Member: Zones actually allow the maximum rate of 55 feet and 35 feet within 20 feet of RN3 and sorry RN1 zone. And as this is a hundred percent affordable, they are eligible for 10 feet goals. That makes them like building one would be maximum 45 feet and for building two it would be 65 feet and they [2:04:25] Unidentified Chair/Presiding Officer: are meeting the willingness to do it. And just further and then Amy for confirm as I understand that it says height, it doesn't say but setbacks or step backs are excluded, it says height in general which is why that 20 foot distance or the RN3 is allowed to go up to 10 feet. Yeah [2:04:45] Unidentified Board Member: There's just a height so it like you know maximum heights can be included so we interpret that as any relative height in the you know what a step back or a couple of questions for you is there shared programming like I saw that there was one mail room between the two buildings so is there going to be any shared programming between the two buildings or are they separate programs it's separate so there won't be access like the residents of building one will not have access to building two okay And to clarify you're planning on removing the vegetation on the western edge of the property that creates the current buffer and then replanting to meet the buffer requirements vegetation requirements and we'll get more details on what that looks like in the future and that's because of construction needs that you have to remove [2:05:48] Unidentified Chair/Presiding Officer: Of the current mature trees right we'll be within five feet of the property line so it's going to [2:05:55] Unidentified Board Member: be very tight those trees will be damaged okay the board has heard me talk about this before I don't I personally have an issue a lot of times with the river the waiver reduction of the street width so like that access road I just we do it on a lot of projects and I don't understand why we have to keep doing a waiver. And I just have concerns with people adhering to no parking signs. People don't adhere to no parking signs necessarily. And then there's emergency access issues. So that's, and that's the only way to get to the back of the building. Also reducing that width reduces the light that can get into the units that are alongside that access way. And so I know it'll only be another, like, four feet or so of width, but that would probably be more light that would get into those units of letting the access driveway. So just throwing that out there that I'll be looking at that reduction waiver. I do appreciate you listening to the public and adjusting the looks of the exterior of the building to more match the neighborhood architecture and to blend in more as to look like one of a multi-unit housing house rather than like a just a big apartment building. And I do also appreciate the clarification on the smoking area because that's like why let's do the green space instead. I don't know if there's room for the bike storage to be inside indoor programming instead because then maybe that's potentially an area that instead of having that outdoor covered bikes bridge that you could find some outdoor green area to have especially abutting the neighbors and just support your commitment to the deeper look on parking study and comprehensive traffic programming would be interested in seeing more of that and it's definitely I'll be honest to push the city a little bit on this sidewalk and the ashmont street issues with circulation so i think [2:08:14] Unidentified Staff Member: that's all i have can [2:08:19] Unidentified Chair/Presiding Officer: city talk about transportation and what we will know moving forward [2:08:25] Unidentified Staff Member: well now i think no parking required for section 8.52 and i don't know applicant will be required to provide a trend generation and basis on the findings we will [2:08:38] Unidentified Chair/Presiding Officer: be asking them for the traffic study if it necessitates it and based on other sort of review conversations that we have between our peers in dpw [2:08:52] Unidentified Staff Member: i'll just ask you i mean so one of the standard one of the standards that the city will review for is impacts on the ceramic street system. So as with any project, we'll be looking at, you know, ingress, egress into the development site, how on street pipe, like how, you know, on street parking permissions are impacted by virtue of the development going in. it so i think we'll be doing a holistic review of the entire neighborhood regardless of whether you know a trip generation report indicates that we need a traffic study or not but obviously the degree to which we'll be looking at that is based upon [2:09:28] Unidentified Chair/Presiding Officer: anticipating capital refraction so thank you yeah i mean i just fire truck and ambulance violence might be present this space in more than a normal space so I also want to just note that right Portland Center for assisted living is around the corner so that might provide an idea [2:09:52] Unidentified Staff Member: of how often that did well [2:09:58] Isaac (Google): Let's be getting a staff design memo of the design standards. Yeah, so there were a lot of public comments on contact sensitivity and scale relative to the neighborhood. Does the city want to describe what exactly you'll be looking for kind of when you do that review and how that applies? [2:10:28] Unidentified Staff Member: Typically we'll look at like surrounding context within about a two block radius of the development site, so we'll look for you know kind of significant hues from you know with respect to architectural style, building massing, articulation, window placement, things like that. Obviously we want to emphasize this is a this is a building that is in the v1 zone, it's subject to the b1 zone dimensional standard, so it allows for example a larger building envelope than you see part three. That being said, you know we certainly want to make sure that the end product is something that is compatible, that does take hues from the surrounding context, and there's a set of design standards that we'll be looking at that are listed that will provide a full mmo. Great. [2:11:17] Isaac (Google): Thank you. There were a lot of public comments on late noticing, so I guess for the neighborhood meeting, so I guess what was required and what [2:11:26] Unidentified Staff Member: happened? So the Mr. Chair, if I can respond to that, the notices were issued by our office [2:11:35] Steve Bushy (LJB Inc.): and they were right on the cutoff of the 10-day noticing period and they were brought to the post office. As it turned out, I don't think they were postmarked until probably the next day or maybe even later, and most of those residents as I understand it probably received it within just a few days of the meeting date. And so we heard that, so we ended up rescheduling and sending out a new notice for a subsequent meeting that was held on July 6th. That first meeting was going to be before that or so we canceled that meeting and then did the proper notice same for the 10 days, recognizing that it's still tough. We did get them all postmarked on that 10-day period. When people get them to the post office like probably less than 10 days, but they were postmarked for that, but we ended up having the second meeting just because we wanted to be as open as we could to get that out there. But certainly it was on me on the first go around and that did cause some consternation. Certainly thank you for that. I apologize. [2:12:44] Unidentified Chair/Presiding Officer: And a quick follow-up, there was some notes in public comment about kind of seeing an expedited review. Can you comment on that or you know where that's coming? I'm not sure. [2:12:54] Steve Bushy (LJB Inc.): Expedited, per se, what we were forthcoming with in our initial application was some timing pieces that we were trying to achieve in that time frame of June, which principally related to the upcoming main city housing funding round, where you have to make your applications in September in that application and the scoring process. And so you theoretically try to get your application and your permit approvals in hand, because it's a scoring piece. If you have your approvals, you have to have those in 30 days in advance to that submission, because it's a time period for having that lapse for appeals and so forth, routinely. So that's the process we've been trying to be forthcoming to. Hey, this is what we're trying to do, which many applicants, you're certainly important for those projects that are trying to get the main state housing financing advancing, many of which have come before this born. It's always this really pushing cold, it's our time, and I've been doing this for a number of years and been successful, thankfully, with DC on a lot of projects that, yeah, June, July, we're really thinking trying to get approvals because of the one-time application process to get in September, and you know, everybody's trying to meet that, you know, a little deadline. So that was, you know, the urgency that's now kind of blown by the wayside, because, you know, what we want to do and make this project successful. So [2:14:25] Unidentified Resident (Partner of Alex): I guess another [2:14:31] Unidentified Chair/Presiding Officer: question to the applicant: snow storage looks a little small and hard to access. Can you comment on that? Yeah, I mean, we do have a lot of building [2:14:40] Steve Bushy (LJB Inc.): coverage here, but there will be some snow that will have to be removed in between the buildings in the backyard area. It's, it's small, as is common with all of these urban site settings, you have to hire somebody to come and remove snow. So that's something to have to deal with. [2:15:01] Ben Wick: I'll back up what Kelsey said. I have the same concern about that 20-foot drive aisle. Specifically, that it'll be shared between pedestrians and cars too. Ideally, you would have one side with the sidewalk curved, but that's not the case here. Steve, I was wondering too, there were 44 parking spaces is on that lot, what happens to those cars, who uses this currently, and will they be displaced and [2:15:29] Amanda (Director of Mission and Community Impact, Developers Collaborative): spread elsewhere? Yeah, so we currently have a commercial tenant who is using those spaces. And they're aware of the development and have a plan for vehicles there. [2:15:52] Ben Wick: There was a question from the public on the length of the affordability period. They were concerned that it would be turned into Airbnb or short-term rentals. And could you explain the length of the affordability restrictions? [2:16:08] Unidentified Chair/Presiding Officer: Restrictions, yeah, so I think it's actually more from the applicant as they're going to be using Main Housing programming and they have to comply with those requirements. This project is exempt from the city's affordable housing requirements because they're going beyond what we require, so [2:16:23] Amanda (Director of Mission and Community Impact, Developers Collaborative): I'll have the applicant speak for that, so mean housing for both of these projects, which are both funded through wellness and house attacks credit, home for good projects has additional [2:16:35] Unidentified Chair/Presiding Officer: EFFECTIVITY THROUGH THE WHOLE PROGRAM. [2:16:37] Amanda (Director of Mission and Community Impact, Developers Collaborative): BOTH WILL HAVE AN EXTENDED USE AGREEMENT WITH MAIN STATE HOUSING THAT IS REPORTED IN THEIR REGISTRY AND WILL BE A PROTECTIVE COVENANT ENSURING AFFORDABILITY FOR A PERIOD OF 45 YEARS. [2:16:52] Ben Wick: THANK YOU. AND MY LAST COMMENT WILL BE EDITORIAL IN NATURE AND THAT'S ON THE DESIGN. I ACTUALLY FAVORED THE ORIGINAL DESIGN and I would encourage you to, I understand drawing from the context that this is an absolutely different type of building, it's a five-story basically institutional building, and to take sort of residential elements such as asphalt shingles or painted wood siding and put it to this building would be, I think, rather silly, you know, it's a five-story building, it's brick that needs to be painted, it could be a well-designed brick building of quality that doesn't have to absolutely reflect the character of a single family home, so and they can both be compatible and it can be done, yeah [2:17:46] Unidentified Chair/Presiding Officer: I agree with that and I think it pulls more from the buildings on Force than it would from the neighborhood and that's appropriate question of curiosity, 24 7 staffing. Can you tell me a little bit about that? And, you know, is there, is it just bodies in the building or is it staffed with certain disciplines? [2:18:11] Amanda (Director of Mission and Community Impact, Developers Collaborative): So we would have staff that have education in working with individuals that have mental health needs or trauma backgrounds. So they would be available to the residents at all times to be a weak staff, they would serve to do no different rules as far as there can be monitoring amongst the building, there's any outside, there's an issue side, so they would always be there, and then during the day you do anticipate probably will have additional staff, maybe some clinical staff on site, social workers, and then there will be the presence of partnering organizations that yes [2:18:59] Unidentified Chair/Presiding Officer: Great, thank you. Yeah, so the staffing is via the main housing contract. It's a contract with Office of Behavioral Health, okay. And so how long does that last? [2:19:15] Amanda (Director of Mission and Community Impact, Developers Collaborative): as long as we're interested in continuing to renew it is a built-in part of home for good so there has to be the service provider element to it i have the charities applied a couple of years ago and was pre-approved as one of the vendors in the project and so we're moving forward [2:19:36] Unidentified Chair/Presiding Officer: So it's not really a residential license, it's a behavioral health license. It actually isn't a [2:19:42] Amanda (Director of Mission and Community Impact, Developers Collaborative): license. They'll have a contract, but it's not licensed as an organization. We have licensed programs, and it's those programs that will leverage to provide supports. I [2:20:01] Unidentified Chair/Presiding Officer: have a bit of feedback for the applicant. I do mean for the constructive. I think a lot of the feedback from the public has been concerns about traffic, parking, etc. And so when you talk about the need for or lack of need for the TDM, I think what I heard was bikes would be the primary mode. But I don't really believe that with 33 of the 63 units being senior housing. So there are other parts of your argument that I agree with, but, you know, I lost it there. Yeah, it might be helpful to hear how many aging residents have a vehicle. [2:20:43] Unidentified Staff Member: Close to the other building. I [2:20:50] Unidentified Chair/Presiding Officer: hear the questions dwindling. So we don't have a motion to adjourn. This isn't a hearing. [2:20:57] Unidentified Staff Member: During just a workshop today. [2:20:58] Unidentified Chair/Presiding Officer: So let's put it off the board. If you have any final questions, comments, requests, before they come back again. Citi, do you have anything for us? I [Unidentified Board Member: can, great.] So we'll see you again in the future workshop. Thanks for being here. Thanks for your presentation. Thank you, Ian. And I believe that's the end of our business today.