 I think Bruce would be here. No, he's, he's emailed today. Okay. So we're just missing Bruce and Karen and Greta. Greta's in Belgium. Okay. She's not going to be here. Well, welcome to this hearing of the historic district commission. The LTC. We're going to talk about the historic district bylaw. And our purpose, as you know, is to aid property owners in the town of Amherst and the preservation and protection of the distinctive characteristics and architecture of buildings and places significant in the history of our town. Today's hearing is we're not considering any special properties, but we are going to talk about the East village LD. LHD. We're going to talk about parking during project hearings, and we're going to talk about officers. So let's begin with a consideration of the East village LHD. Steve, you had a, you had a thought. I had a thought. I don't know what thought that was. I guess should we make a motion to like. To proceed or not proceed with. The East and hers LHD. Is that how it works? Yeah, I think if. You know, I think what the commission has done is that, you know, two site visits and then, you know, we're kind of discussing if that area is worth pursuing as a local district. And if so, you know, the commission could vote itself, the study committee, or we could recommend that the town appoint a new study committee. So I think that's kind of where we are. You know, is it. You know, is the area worth pursuing? And then who would be the study committee? And then, um, And then just moving forward. With that, I think part of the process or discussion could be, I think Bruce's term ends. At the end of the month. And then I'm not sure he'll. Continue. And so then. You know, the question is, you know, do we. We could start, but then we'd want to get an architect. Or try to find an architect also on the commission for the process. So. But. I guess I should ask Nate. Nate. Am I automatically off at the end of the month? Or am I on until replaced? I think once upon a time, I remember. No. After three years. I, uh, I became concerned that we were. Without my having been reappointed and I wanted to make sure that the. That that we were making decisions. Uh, with somebody who was empowered to do so. Me, meaning me. Oh, and I seem to remember at the time, but I may be. That that that I, I continued. Um, For some months without actually formally being reappointed. So I'm prepared to keep on going until. I'm replaced. Um, unless of course. I am automatically, uh, ineligible at the end of, uh, Whenever the term is. Right. Um, so Bruce and Steve, it looks like your term. Would end. At the end of this month has the town manager's office reached out to you to confirm whether you continue or. Or not. Yes. No, I, well, first of all, I didn't, I was just, I just joined like in November. So I was like. But no, I've been in communication with Paul and Paul. Um, said that he was going to re nominate me. And he said that he was going to re nominate me. So, uh, Is that the way it works? Yeah. I mean, I think for Bruce, you too. I mean, I can reach out to the town manager's office and, and confirm that they will ask you. Um, And it could be that you get reappointed. And then, you know, if. At the same time as you're sitting, we can then try to reach out to. You know, to find architects, if you know, if you find that. You know, you wouldn't want to continue, say on for another six months or a year or whatever it be, but. Um, typically I thought the, I thought, you know, appointments would just. You know, re, you know, they would just write the kind of. Reoccur. And then, um, unless you said otherwise, it would just be reappointed to a kind of a perfunctory process. But I should confirm that. If you would, yes, please. Yeah, the question I had was about the study committee. I'm assuming it would be some members from this group, but also do you appoint members of the public? Or do you invite participation from others? Um, yes and no. I mean, they, they're typically the, the guidelines would add to that. Um, I mean, that's something that you're talking about that. I'm just wondering if you could just say yes or no. And I think that would be from others. Um, yes and no. I mean, they, that typically the, the guidelines would ask for a similar composition to this commission. So you know, an architect, realtor, someone with a historical society or. And then residents. And so it's really the, it's really up to the commission. Now, if you'd like to undertake that. That process. So. You know, some of it would be determining the boundaries, I mean, I don't want to downplay the amount of work that could go into it. But, um, you know, there is a process, but it, you know, I don't. The public's always welcome. It's a public meeting. So even if this commission were to. Vote itself a study committee. We could, you know, part of the agenda. It would be, you know, discussion of the samurts and we would, it would be open to the public. So we could always invite people to come and attend. So the committee. Meetings are open to the public. Is that what you're saying? Yeah. Not our committee, but the study committee. Right. Even if you're right. Okay. Steve. A couple of things. First of all, I reviewed the handbook. And I think the next thing we have to do. Is gauge. The property owner's interest. So we sent out the. I mean, I'm happy to type up. The sample letter. Can we send it out to. At least the national disc owners of the 46. Properties. In the national. District. Nate. Yeah. I mean, I think first I'd want just a motion, you know, some discussion by this commission. If you, if you would want to be the study committee. You know, You know, You know, then we have to go through the process of getting one appointed. And then roughly what are the boundaries? So. First, the commission or the site committee would do a little, you know, as we've been doing some field study and information gathering to determine what are the approximate boundaries. And then notify property owners. So. I'm not sure we're actually at that point yet to notify property owners. Okay. Right. So. So I look at the form B's and there's, there's like nothing on the form B's. I can type up stuff from the national red, the start doing. Template form B's. There seems like there's a property descriptions of like 10 or 12 properties. And actually the significant sections already been done. The thing I was going to ask you is. When is the CPA. The deadline, is that already. For this calendar year that's coming gone. Yeah. So the funding that's available for July one has been, you know, it was voted on. You know, over the winter. So the funding round for next year, you know, for funding next July would start actually probably in August. So in a few months. You know, they would ask for applications that would be doing September or something, but the money doesn't become available until the following July. So. Okay. Well, I was going to just one say Dorothy Pan suggested to me that. Because it's going to be a lot of research required on this. And she suggested that heading startup. You get a grant and try to get heading startup with a train who does this stuff and serving on the historical commission. So I'm wondering if we should, you know, plan on, I'm happy to fill out a CPA. You know, application in August to try to raise funding. To get her on board with everyone's fine with that. The only thing is the work can't start that until next July. Well, next July. Yeah, we can't reimburse work start, you know, doing this fall. Or over the winter. Are there any other places we could get grants from for this kind of work. Yeah. I think we could just do, I think usually in the spring winter spring. I'm not sure of many others actually. Yeah. Bruce, did you have something you want to say. Yes, I think it's probably appropriate that we create a motion that makes this conversation. Was having, I mean, we're having a discussion on the, on a motion that hasn't yet been proposed. So there seems to be a. So I thought that on Steve, we could help. So I think I'm moving that this, that the commission. Recommend the appointment of a study committee. To investigate the. The committee to move forward with the. The consideration of establishing the. A local historic district in North. In East Amist. And I guess when we were walking around, we were thinking that it would be. Well, let's say, as defined in red. I don't know how to, how to put in words that, that. That limit, but I'll, I'll stop the motion by proposing that it's, that it be defined by the area. It'd be the area defined in red on the. On our. Our plan that we were using. So that, that. So that wording needs to be refined so that it actually means something. But basically move that, I guess, Nate where. Moving that this commission is moving to a point. A study committee. Is that the correct wording? Yeah, that the commission would act as the study committee. Yeah. Okay. Well, where would appoint that study committee and. And it's to consider creating the, an historic district in East Amist. Correct. And as defined by, and then I just need the words that define the area in red. And then we've got a motion and then we can talk about it. Because I think we need to talk about whether we want it to be the red area or the blue area. I mean, red, red or red and blue, right? Yeah, on that point, I'd like to make, can you go, I found a great, I know a little bit was frustrating because we didn't have a good map and I found a great map. Which I think we could refer to in Bruce's motion. Okay. So you pull up page 19 of. Of the national registry, the national registry, not the extension, but the actual original one. Can you use that possible for you to do. Yeah, I was actually going to do the map that looks like this. They can't. It literally has all 46 properties, but it's labeled. And the boundaries are clear. It's really easy to read. It's much easier than the map that you're writing. Page 19 of. Not that. So here's, here's the, the macros maps. And what Bruce is referring to as this red here, that's now orange. So it's, I can zoom in, but. You know, here's the, here's the use dam or school right here. Here's main street. Here's Southeast street. Here's the, if my Konky house over here. You can't find. And this is the, is the farm up in Northeast street included. Or is it because it's a funny. Yeah. They included all the, you know, in some of the outbuilding. So here's head row lane. And here's the farm. Okay. So there are two oranges here then. We have to be. You know, what happened was they only included when they did their national register district, they only went back this far. Yeah. They didn't include all of it. And so. Yeah. I mean, there's a blue line separating. There's a, there are two defined areas in that, that's that area there and then below it. There's the, that, yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's all one. You know, this property is also in another, you know, it's not supposed to be in a next expanded district. So that's why it's. Oh, it comes up twice. Well, so Steve's trying to get the terminology. I'm just saying, Nate, you have this. Materials that you sent us. If you go to the one that's national register of historic places, inventory. And you scroll down is like a fantastic map. Yeah. I don't have that ready right now. Okay. I have the expansion one ready, but not the other one. Well, if this one that Nate pulled up is a. Is a, is a, is a definable. And I see. It may see our IS maps. Yeah. Massachusetts something. Yeah, this is macros. So this is the state inventory database. They put, you know, created an online mapping system. So this is right here. This is. The official map. Well, if you can, if you can put in words, the death, the descriptor, the description of the orange area, then the motion can be completed. Yeah. I mean, I would say just the East Amherst national register district. Okay. East Amherst national register districts. That's the motion. I second. Okay. So. We'll do a voice vote. Hold on. I propose the motion in order to focus the discussion on the motion. So I'm not sure we're ready to. All of the conversation we were having. Was. Kind of implying that there was an intention to proceed. And I thought we should formalize the intention to proceed. So we have formalized the intention, at least so far as emotion has been proposed and seconded, but we want to make sure I think that the motion is. Is, is, is as complete as it should be. So I think that we. We satisfied that the blue area that we looked at or that we didn't look at, but we kind of. Thought about looking at. Are we, are we satisfied that that, that this study committee would, would not be. Would not attend to the, the, the, the, the blue parts. I think when. Oh, do I have to signal. Do I have to signal to my hand? I think that when we were taking a look at, we were out in the landscape, taking a look at this. I think it became clear to us that. The. She had emailed me saying there is spotty internet. So I think, you know. Oh, she seems to have frozen. I wonder if she was going to say that we had decided that. I think it might. A larger district was going to be too much work for us to try to define. And deal with, and that we should stick with what had already been done. Nate, I sent you that map. Yeah, I actually just got a screenshot of myself and is available. Yeah. I'm inclined to agree, but. But I know less about this than some of you. Elizabeth, did you want to say something now? Yeah, she's disappeared. You might phone in next. I thought she had maybe phoned in, but. I'm sharing the screen right now. Here's the map. You know, this is the district that I've shown in red just in a different. On a different map. That's, yeah, that's quite good. And when I look at the actual. They have an explanation of why they chose those borders in their. You know, in the inventory, which I think make a lot of sense. It says. Which I wait for Elizabeth to get back on. I guess we can always wait a minute, but then we guys, she, you know, the links become available. She wanted to. Yeah, watch it here and there. Yeah, no, what it says is the. The bounds of the East village of start district were drawn to include a concentration of residences and institutional buildings associated with the industrial villages. Hey, Dave, prior to the Civil War. And it basically is a long explanation, which I think. Very cogent, which is why they chose these 46 properties. Which includes 12 intrusion. So. We do have a rationale for it. Okay. The. The. The properties of the color, the colored brown, but are. Inside the, the district among the top. Or upon the left hand top side there. They're, they look like apartment blocks. In from. It does include 12 intrusion. Yes. Yeah. So those are included, how they. Yeah. So they would be contributing. They're considered non-contributing. So the NC and red. Yeah, which if we zoom in, there's, as Steve was talking about, there is. A number of properties that are considered. You know, non-contributing. Okay. And the, and the rationale for including them is. I guess that's a question. Yeah. I mean, I think it's to protect them from doing something else to the property. Oh. Like if they could pull it down and put something else there. Okay. So they're, they're not contributing, but they, we want them to stay non-contributing rather than becoming negative contributors. There must, there might be some sort of geographical. I mean, if you look at the bottom here. There's other NC's and you can see why they are. I think it's just that area you're talking about. There's a property. There's usually some explanation for it. With either streets or, or geographic. You know, Yeah. Definitely try to find that out. Interesting. It looks like the school. There's a non-contributing. Consider the non-contributing building. Is that possible? Yes. Is that because it's more. No, no, no, not the Fort River. Right here. The East River, the, this guy here. Yeah, they may have done that because there was a fire in the 30s and the roof was changed. And so the original, you know, what it looks like now is not. Related to the significance that Steve referenced. Yeah. You know, I'm sorry, I should raise my hand each time. I think it's a nodding. It's not contributing because of a different era. I mean, most all these other properties are the late 1700s to like the 1850s. And I think the school was built in like the early 1900s. Yes. I didn't choose specifically say that these were pre-civil war. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I got it. Thank you. Yeah. I mean, you know, sorry, just to jump in like quickly, you know, the, when we're looking at this image, you know, further down the main street, you know, to, uh, if it's like to your right, but down here where the cursor is, there's a few more properties to the. The Amethyst Brook, right? And so, you know, it could be that this is all, this is a natural boundary or that we include a few more properties. And so that's kind of the, and to me, those are the discussion points. I feel like, you know, also going north a bit, is that a good logical break here? Or is it worth, you know, how much further do you go? It becomes slightly different character, right? It's, um, you know, agricultural, there's different, you know, and so. You know, this could be a starting point. I would, I still think there should be some discussion in the, um, in the preliminary study report that we'd submit to mass historic, we'd try to justify the boundaries. And it could be that we rely on the national register nomination, but that's pretty old. And we could say that we researched it again, and we still think those boundaries are, you know, are legitimate because of these factors. And that's why we didn't expand them. So I do think there has to be some consideration for what, you know, you know, do we expand in any direction? And so, Well, we didn't go looking at the, let's say, Salem Street, for example, there are two properties on the corner of Main Street. I kind of remember them. I think one of them is that extraordinary building with the, this 694 is that extraordinary building that, a very lovely old building that's had a full dormer put on either side, which basically just raised the whole building through the roof, so that the roof has really been just a bunch of eaves at this point. So if we, but I, we didn't look at the buildings further up Salem Street and so forth, but I imagine that the people that have set this up in the first place would have done that, but maybe we should make sure that there's, that the building, the buildings in the side streets are, are not, are not of equivalent date. Or has that already been done, do you think, Nate? If it was done and it wasn't documented in the nomination, then we'd have to just kind of, we'd have to do it again. You know, we didn't think there is, I'm going to go back to the Makris map. So in the proposed East Amherst expansion, which is now orange, you know, the PVPC did look at Salem's place, you know, the Salem Street and more of Spalding and some other ones down Main Street. So that work has been done. So I think we just have to, you know, look at the expansion report and see if it's similar to the original nomination here. Yeah, I looked at, I have it right in front of me. And if we were to do that and find that all of, that the houses substantially in blue were post civil war, that sounds like it would be, I mean, we could, of course, as we are thinking of doing in, in the Dickinson Lincoln area, expanding the, the district, I guess one can always just think to expand the district. But I'm kind of inclined to tackle the, the, the, the pre civil war concentration, which seems to be the orange. And then I guess the study committee would, would, would confirm the relevance of the area and make sure there were no anomalies. And if there were, then we, they would come back and we would talk more about it. Okay. Steve. Oh, I just have it. First of all, Elizabeth's back. So if you can see that other map that was, I'm just looking at, I have the inventory of the extension properties. And there are probably five or six that are pre civil war. Pellum Road 1850 bunch on Pellum Road 1830 1840 1847 on Pellum Road. North East street. This one 1840. Balding. But actually the ones on. Yeah. The other ones on main street are of a different era. My 1890 and above. More current. Elizabeth. Yeah. I'm sorry, everybody. I told me that are building back here by lightning and it's the internet's coming and going here. Is it possible for the committee, the commission, the study commission to make that final determination? It seems like. There may be some things that are in blue that want to be considered for this, but not all of them. So could that committee make that. Determination after, you know, after careful thought. Yeah. I mean the motion. You know, it could be amended to say, you know, starting with. Current National Register District for East. And it's, you know, and then it's really right. The study committee. Could add a property or two or, you know, just make. Yeah. Small modifications if necessary. Yeah. Cause I think. Oh, yeah. You may, it may not be in the period of some of the others, but it forms a cohesive center for the 20th century. I think. Be included. Maybe not. Right. I mean, the local historic district isn't necessarily. Trying to bring back the period of significant. So it could be two that later homes are modeled after. You know, earlier one. So if they're the same architectural style, it may be. From a local historic district standpoint worth. Including those. So yes, I would therefore modify my motion. And Steve, if you agree. As Nate mentioned, which triggered by what Elizabeth said, which is that he studied completely the area bounded by the. By the, by the. The macros map or whatever. And. And that the committee would. Look at the adjacent areas. In blue with a view to. Adding appropriate. I'm not recommending expanding the area. With, with, and consider any. And consider the case for the expanding the area. And specifically. Who's taking minutes. You said you made it. You're doing. You're making sense. I'm trying to say. If you could amend the, the, the motion that gives the study commission. The charge is the study committee to. Also look at the. The surrounding. District defined in blue. For adding appropriately. Adding any appropriate properties. And, and explaining and making a case for doing so. You good with that state? Oh, yes, I am. Okay. Does anybody else have anything to say about. This before we go, move to a vote. I guess I'm just wondering the timeline in the funding and things like that. Is that part of this discussion or that's like part of. Step two. I was thinking that was step two, but what do you think. Well, you know, if the committee wants to move this forward now. You know, waiting for CPA funding or a grant from mass historic, you know, is basically we'd be sitting for another year. The CPA does have the capacity to release funds for. Specific. Short-term or emergency purposes. I seem to recall from my. Time. As we just fit that category. No. Well, it could, but I think they've already obligated all the funding available for FY 23 and 24. So they really don't have any. Any funding. That would that could be. Allocated now. There might be some administrative funds. We could look into that. I could look into that, but. Typically, they, you know, they allocate all the funding for each fiscal year and don't leave a reserve. So. So then we would appoint the committee. And that committee can start on its own with its own resources. And move as far as it can on its own resources. At the same time as it's putting together an application for the CPA. Or making a case to the CPA and waiting and then continuing to. Do the, do whatever work it can. But I do recall that. Sadly, the CPA is quite strident about not reimbursing. I wonder if there's a possibility of getting. Student help from the university. Is that something that do we, do we have contacts here that might. Consider that. Yeah. I mean, I think we'd have to, you know, we could reach out now to see if it could be a fall semester project. Yeah. I mean, we, you know, the town doesn't have any funding. So sometimes the difficulties we don't have funding to say, have it be an internship or to find, to be, to have it be a research project would have to be something that would align with a class project. Yeah. It's not going to have to be a project. It's going to have to be directed. Someone has to tell them how to do it. And sometimes that takes longer than doing it. That's my experience. Well, I mean, what I was going to do, I mean, I've done this before. What I did last time was I, I have a, I had everything on drop. I've already taken pictures of like 40 of the things that I put it on a drop off to count. And last time we did this for the Lincoln sunset, And then everyone could like work on different parts of the Form Bs. But because of open meeting law, I mean, it was so useful because we had three or four people working on Form Bs according to their expertise in the committee. But now I would love to have that back because we could start doing it. I mean, I, what I, what I could do like starting tomorrow is I can look at the National Registry and this is what I did before. And type it up on Form Bs and put the pictures up and, you know, it had like 10 of the properties have very specific, very detailed physical descriptions which are great. And there are some historical stuff in the natural natural registry and I would already type that up and then other people with certain, you know, expertise like Elizabeth, for example, could go into the same forms and just fill out, you know, what they can add to it. And until we get a Dropbox or some sort of system where we can all access it, you know, we can't do that. And in terms of students, I can immediately contact Max, we had three, we had a number of student interns before, and I can just email Max Page and, you know, he'll recruit somebody. There's no race on this, but we don't finish it in a year that's like, you know, that's fine too. We just want to do it right. So, Nate, do we have access to Dropbox through the town or do we need to set up a separate account for that? Yeah, no, I think the town clerk's office had recommended not using something like that because there could be a violation of open meeting law in terms of having discussions or information that's not publicly available. So, I'll look into it. I mean, what I had done was with the e-amorous information I put it through, you know, available on the town's website through the local historic district commission webpage. And so, you know, it could be something like that. It does become tricky when you have working documents and how to post them and keep them from, you know, having it be something that looks like a conversation. So, you know, the last time that Ben Breger, you know, before me had asked for this commission, they had recommended not using Dropbox but using just putting it on the town's website or putting it somewhere where all the information is public. So that way, you know, there's no, there could be, you know, no risk of violating open meeting law. I think that's an easy way to create access to that town website because it seems a little complicated and disorganized at the moment. Yeah, we could set up, I'm just thinking. Yeah, I think we can set up some folders and a directory. And we could probably organize documents a little better. We can check with town council again about Dropbox. We're not like we're deliberating, we're just doing research and you can make it accessible to anyone who wants to look at it, although I doubt anyone will. Yes, and if it was simply a repository and it didn't have any documents in it that were being edited if it was a place where we collected information and put it in. You could perhaps, if Steve was operating it, if we were operating as simply as a repository. I didn't see how that, well, that wouldn't violate the open meeting law, but I can see that some people might think that different people had a different idea of what the word repository meant and that that would be the risk. But if we would all sign a document that the acknowledge that we understood had a common understanding of what that word repository meant, and that we would commit to using it such and no more. Then I think a lot of what Steve's trying to do could be achieved. Plus, I was just going to try to go quickly through my email. I don't see anything but yeah I think, I mean they had provided something in writing to Ben, recommending not to so I guess it's just a matter of, you know, what, how do we, how can we manage it. Yes, I think folks are just, it's easy to say no basically, and we want to get to yes, and getting to yes might take a bit of effort but if we are committed to demonstrating an understanding. Hopefully, and the purposes are clear. Then the blanket no, hopefully with can be adjusted. Yeah, I think it was just a repository and we're not having conversation outside of these meetings about what's in that repository I don't see how can be considered a violation of the open meeting law. Well just the, you know, I think the concern is right that there could be some communication there that isn't available to the public. That never happened when we were doing that before it would literally be like I would do transcribing and then Marianne or. And, you know, somebody else would go on and put the history, you know, Suzanne faving would go on and do quick cut and paste their research onto the same form and then somebody else will do physical descriptions of properties, which I'm not going to do that quick to do, because I'm not an architect or historians, and then, you know, together we would complete like, you know, we did 100, we did 200, you know, you were there and eight, we did 200 properties that way. Right. Yeah, I'll follow up with the clerk's office and just see I guess I was trying to find an email right now and I don't not seeing it. So, Elizabeth did you want to say something. I was just, I was just going to ask how do you work on a joint project. If you can't do that, you know, how do you have something together. I can type it up and, you know, so I don't know it just it seems like whether it's Google Drive or Dropbox or something that it's not deliberation it's it's work and we're working collaborating on one form. Yeah, I mean I'm not I don't disagree I just think though that you know the same the state law regulations haven't caught up with the way technology is being used so I'm not you know typically we'd say email me or information I spend the time synthesizing and then I email it back out and it's just it becomes pretty laborious on everyone's part so. Yes, I'm sorry. It's Google Drive also verboten. So I think I can ask like what you know how to do this right so whether I think the concern is that, whether it's Google or Dropbox you need an account to access it so it's not necessarily available to the public. That's all whereas if we posted it on the town's website through a folder directory. Anyone can download it and access it. Yeah, I can ask the clerk and I can try to get some clarification on that. Okay, because last time it was fine we didn't have any this is a new thing. You people. Yeah, but you know I think some of it is the sense then it's been a few years I think the clerk has either different interpretation or has received new information or guidance say from the state so it's not. We can't rely on you know, I agree I thought last time it worked pretty well. All right, well I think let's set that aside for the moment and talk about whether we would like to proceed with this motion to recommend that a study committee begin to consider the establishment of a local historic district in East Amherst as defined by the MACRAS map. I'm ready to vote. Is everybody is everybody ready to vote. Yep. Okay, Bruce. Hi. I think we have a full. Yes. Steve. Yes. Karen. Yes. Elizabeth. She's lost her connection again. And I'm in favor of it well I think we have a majority in favor and actually agreed I had said before the meeting that she would favor this basic idea so I think we have a full majority in favor. The point is to think about what we can do without moving forward to do the full, all of the research but we need to, don't we need to start by asking the property owners if they would support such a thing. Point of order that we need to appoint the committee. I think that I think well I think the. I thought the motion really was that this commission is acting as the study committee and is looking into it. Oh, well, okay. That wasn't what I said, but that was because I understood that we had to appoint a committee. So maybe I miss on, you know, because you said we would study the area around East Amherst and you know possible new properties. So defining who is doing that work. Well, I thought the, I thought we, I thought the commission appointed the study committee that's what I thought I heard your state as being the process. But if it's the motion, if everybody believed the motion said that the commission is the study committee, then that's fine by me. Is that is that is that what we. That was my understanding and that if we need additional help, which I think we probably will, we'll try to seek it out as we go. Steve, are you good with that. Is that your understanding. I look this up today and there's two different ways to do it. One is to like go before the town council request the formation of the study committee. And that's, you know, when I did it before. I recruited everyone. And I went to the town to the select board with the study committee intact already, you know, it's like the different elements, the architect member that has to be a member of the historical society. And I went there with a ready made thing but then when I look at the handful today. And how we, if there's already an existing local store district commission, which there was before, you know, we could just act as the committee if we want. I mean, they have to clarify that. I'm not quite sure. Yeah, as far as the motion that we voted on was your understanding that we were that we that we, the commission was the study committee. I just thought we were just deciding to pursue it in that, you know, pursuing. Not necessarily forming a study committee of ourselves if we can do that, that certainly saves some time, but I just thought we were voting to like continue to pursue a study. Whatever local district and he stands. Yeah, okay, I know right so yeah Bruce's motion is really that it's worth pursuing the study of it not. Yeah. But if we can be the study committee make we have to go from the formal process, or we disappoint ourselves with study committee. There's been another motion and vote and we relay that to the town manager. I don't, I don't see that right the guidelines and the way the I read it to is that if there's already existing commission. Unless you want otherwise you, you are the study, you know, you become the study committee, but I think it would be good to have a vote and a motion to vote and then a, you know, just correspondence with the town manager. So moved that we appoint ourselves the commission as the study committee. Second. Is there discussion of this motion. Further discussion. Okay, let's move to vote then Nicole. Sure. Steve. Yes. Bruce. Yes. Karen. Yes. And I'm in favor and we lost Elizabeth. So, what's next Nate what do we have to do next for that or do you want to move on to the next item on the agenda. Yeah, I mean we could continue the discussion to about the boundaries or maybe next meeting. You know, we have the information online. We could decide are there a few additional properties or, you know, even if individually just drive down the streets to see if there's one or two properties that architecturally are similar. And then once you kind of have a basic boundary. I think Steve's right the next step would be to get all the inventory forms and that in the current. You know, we have a template. And then also notify property owners. So, you know, PVPC had done some work updating inventory forms, but not. Not all of it. So it's going to take, you know, essentially taking the template form and transcribing information into the new ones for every property with a new picture and new map. You know, I already have a huge dropbox file with a blank template and with 46 photographs and tons of like, you know, it's all in the dropbox account, you know, ready for the to go. How do I get it every right. Yeah, the, you know, some of the properties that Steve mentioned have very little information about them and so some of it would then be once the forms have been updated, determining, you know, how many properties need to have a little bit more research done on them, or have an architectural description on them. You know, some just say, you know, it's like a one liner and others might have a paragraph so it's really inconsistent in terms of how much research was done on each property. And I think I went to like five of them on that person knows like nothing to just a number of picture, no description. So, a lot of going to be a lot of work. Right, and I think some of that was to become a national register district you had to individually nominate the properties but they're doing it for the district and so they relied on the district nomination, and not each individual form so much and so that's slightly different now. But yeah, I think, you know, we could wait till next meeting and then come back and have, you know, some discussion about what we think is the right boundary to start with. Okay, let's move then to the next item on the agenda which was a discussion of including parking lots in project reviews and this was something Steve had asked to discuss. And I, I called the mask, you know, when we were dealing with 96 or 98 parent street, you know, it wasn't clear whether our purview included parking lots. So I called the Massachusetts Historical Commission, and they said that it varies from town to town. And it turns out that we, the town that just used the boilerplate language that the Massachusetts Historical Commission had. So the question is, should we try to exempt explicitly parking lots, unexempt I mean parking lots, you know what I'm saying, right now parking lots are exempt, we want to unexempt them. And then when I had a brief conversation with Nate, he said that he talked a lot more, and he wasn't sure whether that was really necessary so that's just what I wanted to see if Nate could elaborate on that and discuss it. Steve's right it's interesting the, the bylaw, or the state statute and then their guidelines, you know lists like 12 exemptions and one is parking lots but it's not necessary. I mean, the way the state statute is written you can include them under your review but the state tells communities, you know in their template to exclude them. You know, you have to kind of read the really fine print to determine that you could include that. And so, you know, what I what I've said before is that the commission can regulate parking and so much as the placement of buildings can shape apart you know, if someone wants to put a parking lot in a location that then the location of the building and amassing the building isn't appropriate, then really the commission's discussion as well move the building forward and then it's really the, you know, the parking has to become secondary to say the building, as opposed to you know, the developer having the building where the parking wherever they want it and then, you know, but if parking was not, you know, was not exempt. The commission could, you know, it's two things one is could feel more comfortable, you know, saying we want the building here, or it could just say that it doesn't want parking in front of a building because cars are parked there it obscures the view. And so it does give the commission a little bit more ability to, you know, look at a site plan and move parking. And then finally, yeah, you know, my thing would be, you know, is there, does that mean anytime someone changes a part of parking lot or a driveway, does it need to go to a public hearing so, you know, that's typically the way it would work right if they're adding cars or moving to a public hearing. So, sometimes we've done in our rules and regs some further exclusions right that we found were, for instance, like putting in plumbing vent stacks where there's already some located or right in a track equipment if it's already where that equipment is located on a property. So it could be that we include parking under review and maybe there's, you know, some standards of criteria we could put in so that things don't have to always come to a hearing right like if parking is behind the building, then it doesn't need to or, you know, whatever it is right that that way someone, you know, we can kind of get at what we want, want it to be kind of standard we're using. If I recall from the conversation of the other presentation of the property. It was also about how large and how much like that you know that so obviously if they're putting in multi units they need a certain amount of parking but then from our perspective. It was twice as much parking as building or something, you know, kind of green space and green spaces also exempt so it was like we were getting caught in what we can't comment on the green space we can't comment on the parking space we're only limited to the buildings and they were kind of putting in how much they needed of each as exemptions I mean maybe I was misinterpreting kind of what was going on but it kind of felt like it was easy to kind of say you can't comment on how much parking space there is or anything like that like I know they need a certain amount whenever there's multi families like you have to have a certain amount of space for residents and units and things like that but I think it was, I guess, not just the location of where that parking is but how much. Yes, I was say something very similar when, when I said, I think my stated basis for moving that this was not appropriate or that that project was was not appropriate was all to do with scale. I think that we the guidelines or the bylaw I'm not sure exactly where in the structure but it's it talks about fitness in terms of scale and other things and it seemed to me that that the parking more than even the buildings were violated the sense of appropriateness of scale. And that was the way I was thinking of the parking through the wording of the bylaw is was that is that legitimate. Do you think, Nate. I think now it isn't. There were under review it would be right so the way I will look at it now is parking is exempt, but if a building is located or designed in a way. Because of parking and the commission finds that the building's location on a property or it's massing or something isn't appropriate. And the commission can say move the building forward and that's really the developer or applicants response to move the parking right to adjust for what the commission wants in terms of the building. Yeah, but I would say that that's that's not I mean, given the example that we were shown. It demonstrates to me that parking should be an element of consideration. Yeah, and I think right and so it could be that. I think that in other local historic districts, or other communities you know they, the way they regulate parking whether it's rezoning or other regulations is different than the way Amherst does or they just don't have the demand, kind of the, say the student rental demand, where there needs to be that much parking and so Amherst and Amherst case parking, you know, is justifiably regulated could be regulated by local historic district so I'm okay with that I think we just I would have to. You know then amend the bylaw, and the way the bylaw works is every local historic district is under the same bylaw sometimes a community might have an appendix that regulates each district differently say with design standards or something but if we you know we don't do that so it could be that we would say parking is now regulated and we change some language and then it applies to all districts, you know if that were enacted. I would love to do that. I think we've been shown it seems like we we've been once warned. Do we have a motion to amend the bylaws to. Well the first thing before we go there and make you. Can you do that can you draw the amendment because I don't think any of us are or even or point us out where in the bylaw, we should try to do it and. Yeah, I think I can work with staff. Yeah, I mean I could do that I could come up with a proposed amendment. Okay I'd love to have the honor of proposing amendment which is unexample parking. From the purview of the LHBC. And I think given that I think the basis for this if there's a necessary preamble Nate that that makes the argument as to why, you know, kind of a defensible statement. It would be that the that with the zoning boards. Recent determinations of multiple primary or compatible primary uses. It has enlarged the development potential of many of the sites in the district, beyond that which was anticipated when the bylaw was enacted, because many of these properties are very big. And that we thought. I mean, I years as an architect and so forth that never occurred to me that you could load up these sites in the way that we've now recently been advised that that we might. So, I think, knowing that that piece of new information changes how we should changes everything and it certainly changes, I believe that we should be considering parking lots as an element of appropriate as an element in consideration of appropriateness. I think we're hearing everybody is in favor of you researching the language for an amendment to the bylaw. Yeah. Great, thank you. Great, thank you. So, we also are supposed to have a discussion of chair vice chair and Clark. Should we be waiting to do that until we know the status of Bruce and Steve. It's not imminent. I was just thinking, you know, I mean, I think Nancy, you were voted not too long ago, but typically we'd asked boards and committees, you know, once a year to, you know, to do this and that mean, it could be that the commission is comfortable and we don't need to I just wanted to put it on the agenda so I've been asking every board and committee just to have that discussion in the next few months, and you know you can just reaffirm the current status or you know so that's all it's just a matter of typically the town manager's office or the town clerk, the town clerk's office will ask if boards and committees have done that on an annual basis so Any thoughts from the committee. I'm comfortable waiting I think we have a chair, and that's the key. And we have a vice chair, Steve is serving as our vice chair, but we don't have a clerk. What is the role of the clerk. Yeah, I mean, typically the clerk would say be could be taking minutes to be helping with, you know, administration of the of the of the public body, we have staff for that. And then they're, you know, they're kind of like third in line to chair a meeting if the chair and vice chair are not present. However, I feel like if you get down to the level of the clerk you probably also have issues with quorum. Yeah, so I, you know, it's, it's, I don't know, I think it's kind of like an outdated, you know, position, or that some boards and committees have. Okay. All right, then it sounds to me like we have run through the various things on our agenda and we could move to adjournment unless there are other things that people would like to discuss is there any new business or old business that figure out where our next meeting. Right. If we not typically waited for Nate to advise on the inflow of applications. Yeah, I mean, interesting, you mentioned Fearing Street, you know, they've contacted the town to have a meeting again. So I think they'd like to either submit an application soon or, you know, have another meeting. There are a few projects that are still, you know, it's funny, you know, there's probably a half a dozen applications that could go to a hearing. And usually what happens is, for instance, they're, they're kind of minor for installation of say a mini split system. And when we tell the contractor that if you locate the, you know, outdoor equipment that's either out of view or next to say like the electrical box near where the existing utility boxes, then it's excluded from review that sometimes they change their plans to do that. And so recently we've got to, you know, there's been a number of applications received for, you know, a few for mini splits for solar on a few things and we're still working with the contractors and oftentimes it ends up being that they don't need to go to review because they move things around or, you know, they can make small modifications but So I think we could try to schedule one for like mid mid July or whenever we think is good, you know, it could be that there's an application or two received and then that meeting, if we give ourselves enough time it could become a public hearing as well. You know, say for instance something is submitted this week or next week, we could post we could post a legal ad and still have that meeting be also a public hearing for a project. Okay. So I was going to ask Nate. In that example you gave me where contractors are moving there or applicants are moving their equipment around to places where it dodges the bullet so to speak. What happens if they then still run their line sets, you know which are the refrigerant lines which they then cover in these white basically PVC insulated coatings. And is the commissioner, if they run that kind of thing across the face of the, the front of the house. I assume that would trigger an appearance here. Would that be true or not. In our bylaw we say that, you know, the condenser unit has to be, you know, no more than like five feet off the ground, you know, the top of it can be has to be less than five feet screen from view and then there can be no more than 15 linear feet of line visible. And so, typically when we talk to a contractor that's what we communicate so. Okay, a recent one it looked like they're, it looked like possibly they're going to run off the side of the building you know, two stories, they're just going to run the lines up and I said, well, if you can keep the lines inside or run them in the basement and go up the back of that you know go somewhere where they're not visible. And, you know, the project is excluded from review because the unit itself wasn't visible. And so, you know, in the end they just they say we'll run the lines. You know they amend their say electrical permit or whatever permit and say they'll run the lines in the back of the house and so then it just isn't right. You know, we kind of good. Thank you. Thank you for interceding on our behalf. We have a new permitting software so I mean I think today I just got four new notifications of projects that need review. And so, you know, it was things like this we're talking about here someone wants to put in a fence and then I say well here's you know, one was a mini split one was solar and one is some electrical work that may affect the exterior so you know it's. We do look at almost every application that comes in building or electrical or plumbing. And usually we try to get ahead of it. I mean to me the best option is to have them do it so it's not visible or it doesn't need a hearing. So we should then set up a meeting for July and I guess the third or the fourth week of July are people around then. I think I am. Karen is not. I don't know. Are you around. Yeah, I'm around. Nicole. If I just say, if I say Monday July 17. Does that work for for most of us. Works for me. It depends on when my son leaves but it's probably is fine for me the Tuesday the 18th. Nicole Monday's bed for you. Good. It was a pottery class that my daughter won't be taking over the summer. Okay. I mean I suggested that because if for instance, we need to have a hearing we need a two week notice we need to like almost like a three week lead time. And that way, if, if that's the case, it gives us, you know, a week and a half to receive application so then that that, you know, the 17th or 18th or that week and also serve as a hearing. It's a better for me because I'm become very active in habitat. I'm being active and have it had for years but but now I'm a build team project leader for a project in North Hampton and and that will put me likely active on Tuesdays Wednesdays and Thursdays and Mondays always going to be a better day for me. All right, so let's set up Monday the 17th then is that three o'clock. Yeah. Okay. Any other business. Do we have a move to adjourn. They moved. I will, I will second by clicking the red button. Right. Thanks everyone. Thank you everyone. Thank you. Bye bye.