AMPUp Advisory Committee - Dec 16th, 2025

Meeting held via remote participation. Materials were available from https://www.arlingtonma.gov/Home/Components/Calendar/Event/38222/18.

Minutes

The committee approved minutes from their November 18, 2025 meeting.

Stantec Update

(Phil Schaeffing, Stantec) Mr. Schaeffing says we received about 15% more survey responses in the last week, but this hasn't materially changed the results. Stantec will provide a set of draft strategies for the committee to discuss at its next meeting.

To recap, the October forum had 50 in-person and 18 remote attendees, with 116 survey responses. 78% highly or somewhat agree with the draft vision statement. 70% answered "yes" or "maybe" to two-family homes in all neighborhoods. 60% loved the idea of 3--6 stories on Mass Ave.

Mr. Schaeffing outlines the proposed structure of the plan document. The document has to communicate to the general public and also to staff, boards, and committees.

The first four chapters will consist of an intro, a summary of community engagement (to highlight public input and the committee's outreach work), a community vision (the framework for the plan), and Arlington At a Glance (a few pages to highlight key trends).

(Rebecca Gruber, AmpUp) Ms. Gruber likes the idea of a chapter on key trends. She suggests talking about things like proposition 2.5 constraints and school enrollment. She's not sure that "Arlington at a Glance" conveys that. She suggests more clarification about what this section is, and why we're doing a 2025 plan.

(Phil Schaeffing) Mr. Schaeffing thinks that's a good point. There's an educational function to this and we can be more explicit about what's in the section.

(Grant Cook, AmpUp) Mr. Cook says there are people who think the schools are overflowing, but that's not the case for the kindergarten cohort. A number of Arlington's elementary schools have empty classrooms.

(Paul Selker, AmpUp) Mr. Selker says the 2015 plan has an intro with key recommendations, which are a subset of the full recommendations. The rest of the plan doesn't highlight the key recommendations; you have to go back to the first chapter to identify them. He suggests having a clearer presentation for this plan.

(Phil Schaeffing) Mr. Schaeffing moves on to goal and strategies. There will be a separate section for each subject area. These chapters should emphasize how the topic areas are connected and inter-related. Each section will contain goals and strategies to support them. Mr. Schaeffing asks the committee to consider how they'd feel about having the detailed implementation plan in an appendix. Some sections will highlight a few existing conditions. Sustainability and Resilience will be interspersed throughout the chapters.

(Arthur, AmpUp) Mr. Prokosch is curious to see how sustainability and resilience will be treated in the introduction. He'd like the introduction to explain how those elements are woven through the topic areas.

(Eugene Benson, AmpUp) Mr. Benson says he previously asked that equity and diversity be woven throughout the chapters.

(Phil Schaeffing) Mr. Schaeffing thinks that will be represented in the strategies. One question is how explicit we'll want to be about that. Mr. Schaeffing notes that we had a short survey that asked people to identify their most important goal, and very few people chose diversity and equity.

(Eugene Benson) Mr. Benson suggests that the Arlington at a Glance chapter should say things about diversity and equity. For example, the disparity between income and what it costs to buy a house. Mr. Benson would be disappointed if diversity and equity doesn't rise to the same importance as sustainability and resilience. He asks about the extent to which the plan is following public opinion versus trying to lead from the front.

(Rebecca Gruber) Ms. Gruber agrees with Mr. Benson. She thinks it would be useful for the town's DEI director to have a role in crafting how the plan reflects DEI goals. She asks when the town manager will look at this. She'd like there to be expert and responsible input.

(Phil Schaeffing) Mr. Schaeffing says that's part of the review process that will play out over the next few months, so that staff can provide input.

(Claire Ricker, Planning Director) Ms. Ricker agrees that getting town manager input is a good idea.

(Paul Selker) Mr. Selker says that sustainability and equity come with embedded ideas. There's a good argument for incorporating the throughout the plan, perhaps with sidebars to explain how the strategies meet these goals.

(Eugene Benson) Mr. Benson says the missing audience is the Arlington Redevelopment Board, who will have to adopt the plan. He thinks the committee needs to get ARB input soon, on goals, strategies and so on. Mr. Benson would like to give an example for the equity piece. Arlington has a growing South Asian population, but there are no cricket fields in town. He thinks something like that should be woven at a high level.

(Phil Schaeffing) Mr. Schaeffing says the implementation section will largely serve as a reference for town staff and boards. The section will try to name relevant groups and set timeframes for each item. It will also talk about the need to periodically revisit the plan to monitor progress.

There will be an executive summary as a companion document, for people who are interested in the plan but don't want to read the whole thing.

Mr. Schaeffing asks the committee to think about including local success stories and case studies. These could be presented as 1/4 to 1/2 page highlights of things the town has done. For example, the Housing Corporation of Arlington's net-zero ADU and the accessible playground renovations.

We can highlight areas with change potential when framing draft strategies. Mr. Schaeffing lists some of the areas discussed at our last meeting. River St. provides a gateway to the West Medford train station. Summer St. has commercial nodes, but was left out of the MBTA Communities zoning. Pleasant St is a gateway street and Park Ave provides access to the heights and route two.

(Eugene Benson) Mr. Benson says the idea of 15-minute neighborhoods is important in town. Mass Ave and Broadway are commercial areas and they have bus service. Those are areas where we can foster the 15-minute concept. Mr. Benson has also been interested in the way more people are working at home.

(Steve Revilak, AmpUp) Mr. Revilak thinks the map of the business and MBTA Multifamily districts really shows how much of Arlington has no fifteen minute neighborhoods at all. Outside of the corridors, Arlington has two large residential areas that are amenity desserts. Mr. Revilak says that much of Mass Ave was yellow-lined in the 1930s, and that's where our businesses and multi-family districts are.

(Phil Schaeffing) Mr. Schaeffing asks if there are other streets that should be considered for future development.

(Eugene Benson) Mr. Benson says it's not realistic to have new business districts in these areas over the next ten years. He thinks the plan should focus on the next ten years.

(Phil Schaeffing) Mr. Schaeffing understands that economics will be part of the implementation plan. It's a matter of what the town can do versus what's up to individual property owners.

(Rebecca Gruber) Ms. Gruber says there is community push-back about the same areas always being the focus for new development. She thinks the plan should say what areas were considered, and perhaps why some of them were discarded. She hopes we can get more creative than the same old same old.

(Phil Schaeffing) Mr. Schaeffing says there's a balance between things we know we can do versus things that are more of a stretch.

(Lillian Hartman, AmpUp) Ms. Hartman says that Gray St, Mystic St, and Lowell St have established single-family residential neighborhoods and she wouldn't want to see them changed. She suggests Frontage Road as a candidate for redevelopment. It should get a bike lane and perhaps condos. The highway makes it too noisy for single-family homes and people only move there because they can't find something else.

(Phil Schaeffing) Mr. Schaeffing thinks it's worth exploring some of these options. Stantec's next steps will be to finish the draft strategies and have them reviewed by town staff. The committee will start to review them at our next meeting.

(Rebecca Gruber) Ms. Gruber would like to talk about the draft mobility strategies. She asks if it would make sense to send these to folks who came to the mobility focus group.

(Claire Ricker) Ms. Ricker says she can distribute them to the chairs of the Transportation and Bicycle Advisory committees.

(Phil Schaeffing) Mr. Schaeffing says there will be a chance for public review, after the staff and committee reviews.

(Rebecca Gruber) Ms. Gruber says she'd like the experts to have an opportunity to review the drafts.

(Phil Schaeffing) Mr. Schaeffing says he'll think about this in terms of sequencing and scheduling.

(Rebecca Gruber) Ms. Gruber notes that the overnight parking ban is something of a third rail.

(Grant Cook) Mr. Cook says the parking ban doesn't have to be all or nothing. Right now, the overnight parking ban is like a tax that takes away from ground floor uses.

(Steve Revilak) Mr. Revilak thinks we also need to revisit the town's parking minimums and development standards for parking. They're often a barrier at permit hearings.

(Eugene Benson) Mr. Benson says that builders generally want one parking space per unit for condos, but people building rentals are more willing to take a parking reduction. He says it will be interesting to see how this plays out as more projects are done with parking reductions.

New Business

(Claire Ricker) Ms. Ricker thinks the committee should meet at least twice in January to discuss the draft strategies. We'll meet during our regularly scheduled time on the fourth Thursday. She'll send out a poll for the additional date. Ms. Ricker says she was planning to update the ARB during their meeting on January 26th.

(Angelique Bradford, AmpUp) Ms. Bradford would like to make sure that we're not losing people due to meeting time conflicts.

Adjourn

Meeting adjourned at 19:50.