 Thanks for coming. And so now we're live. The appointed hour is 6 o'clock. Having been reached, I call this meeting of the Amherst Zoning Board of Appeals to order. My name is Steve Judge. As ZBA chair, I want to welcome everyone, including our new members, to this meeting. Pursuant to chapter 20 of the Acts of 2021, this meeting will be conducted via remote means. Members of the public who wish to access the meeting may do so via Zoom or by telephone. No in-person attendance of members of the public will be permitted. But every effort will be made to ensure that the public can adequately access the proceedings in real time via technological means. Additionally, the meetings are recorded and they may be viewed via the town of Amherst's YouTube channel and ZBA webpage. In accordance with provisions of Massachusetts General Law as chapter 48, in Article 10, special permit granting authority of the Amherst Zoning By-law, this public meeting has been duly advertised and notice thereof has been posted and mailed to parties at interest. We'll begin with the roll call of the members of the ZBA. Full members, myself, Steve Judge, I'm here. Ms. Parks? Here. Mr. Maxwell? Here. Mr. Meadows? Not here. Mr. Cochrane? Here. Ms. Winter? Here. Also in attendance tonight is Marine Pollock, a planner with the town and Rob Mora, town's building commissioner. The Zoning Board of Appeals is a quasi-judicial body that operates under the authority of Chapter 40A of the general laws of the Commonwealth for the purpose of promoting the health, safety, convenience, and general welfare of the inhabitants of the town of Amherst. One of the most important provisions of the Amherst Zoning By-law is Section 10.38. Specific findings from this section must be made for all of our decisions. All hearings and meetings are to the public and are recorded by town staff. The procedure is as follows. The petitioner presents the application to the board during the hearing, after which the board will ask questions for clarification or additional information. After the board has completed its questions, the board will seek public input. The public speaks with the permission of the chair. If a member of the public wishes to speak, they should so indicate by using the raised hand function on their screen. The chair with the assistance of the staff will call upon people wishing to speak. When you are recognized, provide your name and address to the board for the record. All questions and comments must be addressed to the board. The board will normally hold public hearings for information about the project and input from the public you've gathered, followed by public meetings for each. The public meeting portion is when the board deliberates and is generally not an opportunity for public comment. If the board feels it has enough information and time, it will decide upon the applications tonight. Each petition heard by the board is distinct and evaluated on its own merits, and the board is not ruled by precedent. Statutorily for a special permit, the board has 90 days from the close of the hearing to file a decision. For a variance, the board has 100 days from the date of filing to file its decision. No decision is final until a written decision is signed by the sitting board members and is filed in the town clerk's office. Once the decision is filed with the town clerk, there is a 20-day appeal period for an agreed party to contest the decision with the relevant judicial body and superior court. After the appeal period, the permit must be recorded at the registry of deeds to take effect. Tonight's agenda is a public meeting on administrative items and introduction of new members. At seven o'clock, we will end the administrative meeting and move to other items on the agenda. ZBA FY 2022-01, Town of Amherst Solar, LLC, to review the submitted written statement about providing public access, public online access to the power and energy reporting of the Amherst Solar Landfill Project for the Town of Amherst staff liaison for the Amherst Energy and Climate Action Committee, pursuant to condition 18 from the approved special permit, ZBA FY 2020-11, located at 740 Belchertown Road, map 18D, parcel 23, Low Density Residential, RLD Zoning District. A public hearing on ZBA FY 2021-22, Christine and Peter Gray Mullen, requesting a special permit to allow an increase of the number of residential units converted dwelling from one to two under sections 3.324 and 10.38 of the zoning bylaw, located at 37 Fairview Way, map 8C, parcel 7, Neighborhood Residence RN Zoning District, and ZBA FY 2021-23, Michael and Adriana Powell, request a special permit to allow a flag lot under section 6.3, 7.7 and 10.38 of the zoning bylaw, located at Pomeroy Lane, map 20C, parcel 154, Outlying Residence RO and Neighborhood Residence RN Zoning District. Following those two items, there'll be general public comment period, and there'll also be other business that is not anticipated if any within the last 48 hours and then adjournment. The first order of business tonight is a public meeting on administrative items. So first I wanna introduce everybody, I wanna welcome everybody to the meeting and thank you all for attending. I also wanna thank everybody for their willingness, especially our new members, their willingness to dedicate the time, effort, energy to this cause and to this committee. It's a lot of work. It can be a lot of work. And if you're gonna be a good board member, it will require a commitment of your time and your effort to do so and to be a good board member. And just the fact that you signed up to do this, it says great things about each of you. And I look forward to working with every one of you on this board. We have a excellent, we're supported very well by the town staff, Maureen and Rob do a great job. Maureen is your first person to stop to when you have questions, the first person to reach out to. She's accessible, knowledgeable and very helpful. Rob is the building commissioner. He is also extremely, he knows more about this than any of us on the call. And we rely upon him to a large extent to answer questions and to give us history and as well as interpretations of the zoning bylaw that may be arcane to most of us but become everyday's work to him. And so it's really important. So between those two people, Maureen first and Rob second, we really get great support. And I want you to feel free to seek out their help and when you need it. And that's especially important when we start talking about the open meeting laws and the ability or the lack of ability for us to talk to each other as board members outside of a board of official meeting. So a lot of your questions, you'll not be able to ask your fellow board meeting members, you're gonna have to go to the staff to ask those questions. Otherwise, it becomes a chance for deliberation outside the meeting, which is not permitted under the open meeting laws. But we'll talk more about that as we get along. So what I'd like to do is first, Mr. Gilbert, we did not, we had a roll call and you weren't able to answer. So I want to mark you as present. Thank you. So what I'd like to do is just first before we get started on the material, just allow each of us to introduce ourselves a little bit to each other. I mean, very, very briefly, just so we know a little bit about each other and where we live and just an introduction. So I'll go first. I'm Steve Judge. I've been on the board for since 2017. I started out as an associate member. I became a full member in 2018 and with the 2019 or 2020, I became chairman of the ZBA. I live downtown on Amity Street, close to the, right close to downtown area. I've enjoyed this group quite a bit. And I think we provide a real service for the town. So that's a little bit about me. Tammy, would you like to say a little bit about your history here? Sure. I'm Tammy Parks. And I think I've been on the board three years and I was an alternate. I don't remember. Has it been longer than that? I don't know. I think that's about right. Okay. I live in Eastern Amherst. If you could go with that. I live on the Pelham Line on Harkness Road. And I just want to add that if you do have questions, talking to Maureen and Rob is really great. And they, and you'll have a lot of questions. And both of them, I've called them a lot. So they're a really good resource. They're both really clear. And it's, I don't know. So it's really great that we have them as a resource. So you should definitely use them. I'm going to tag Dillon in. Hey everyone. So the next field, I live here on North Pleasant Street right across from Kendrick Park. I moved to Amherst about six years ago, seven years ago now, something like that for school. Ended up loving the area. So I just stayed out here and been here ever since. I joined the ZBA back in 2020, a little over a year ago, right at the start of the pandemic. So, you know, this Zoom format is really all I've known for it. So don't worry, you're in good company with me here as well and doing meetings in this fashion. But yeah, it's a good time here on this ZBA. It's not always the most exciting work, but yeah, I think it's important work that we do here and it's at least interesting. So you'll learn a lot. Mr. Gilbert. Hey everyone. Pleasure to meet the digital acquaintance. I know of the pleasure of actually seeing a couple of you in person at some of the recent site visits while it's bumping into Dillon wandering around town in the past. So really happy to be here on the board. I am a registered architect. I've been working with an architect in Massachusetts for about six years. Bouncing in and out of the Western Mass region. I have spent some time in Amherst in the past and have found myself back out here recently in pursuit of my MBA at UMass Amherst Island Word School of Management. Located, it sounds like close to you Steve, actually down the street on Lincoln Avenue. So relatively close to downtown is a well convenient walk up to Amherst coffee and just please again to be here on the board supporting the town of course and supporting all of you in our efforts to make sure that you get relevant development coming through here. Mr. Cochrane, first of all, I wanna make sure I have, I'm pronouncing your last name correctly. Is it Cochrane or Cochrane? Cochrane. Cochrane, okay. Yeah, so I'm Eric. I just, as you can probably tell him a new member of the zoning board and I, you know, very, you know, doing this some very simple policy. I actually got a master's degree in public policy from Portland State University in Oregon. I grew up in Amherst on an open circle where I still live and I have a bit of background and, you know, some global campaigns and a bit of policy work. So really interesting getting to know more about, you know, working on, you know, more about, you know, policy and zoning through this experience here. Great, welcome. Ms. Winter. Yes, I'm also excited to meet you all and to be part of the zoning board. I moved to Amherst from Stuttgart, Germany in 1979 when my husband became faculty here in chemical engineering polymer science. I raised my forge here. I used to teach literature at the college level and then here I taught at the Hartzburg School. I became very active in government just very recently because all the other commitments that have been crazy with having big families and moving back and forth between Germany and here, we've been there a lot. We also have a place in Berlin. All of a sudden there was a gap in, and I felt that this was the time that I should dedicate to this town which has given my family so much and which is so beautiful and which is definitely worth putting an effort in and helping preserve it and keep it vital. And because of COVID, I was able to log into these Zoom meetings of the boards, the planning boards, for example. And that was very, very enlightening. I also was a member of the local historic district and I became a member just as we were dealing with the very contentious and complicated issue of Amherst media and that beautiful lot in front of the women's club and the old boys club. So I was very impressed with the caliber of deliberations that people, the time and effort that people put into their opinions, how open they were. And I decided that this was something that I wanted to do too. So I'm pleased to be here and I'll work hard. I'm not an architect, I'm not a planner. I have been involved in lots of projects in Berlin with my relatives who are big builders and organizers of squares. And so I feel if there's anything that I can contribute where it's not the expertise that you have, it's just the perspective of having lived in many places and seen sort of architecturally planning in other places. So maybe I can add a little fresh insight from that standpoint. So nice to meet you. Thanks. Well, it's good to welcome all of you. I'm glad you're here. Maureen and Rob, do you wanna just describe briefly your position and how you function for the group and then we'll move on to the rest of the agenda for the administrative meeting. Maureen. My name is Maureen Pollack. I am one of the staff planners with the town of Amherst. I got my masters in planning at UMass Amherst with the department of landscape, architecture and regional planning. And I've been working with the town for a little over three years. And my primary role is to serve the zoning board of appeals to provide administrative and technical assistance. And among other boards and projects as needed. Rob, I'll tag you next. Hi everyone, I'm Rob Morris, a building commissioner. I'm in my 10th year for the town of Amherst and work on the second floor of town hall in the conservation development department that includes all the inspection services staff, all the planners, conservation staff and facilities staff. So welcome everybody, look forward to working with you. Great. On the agenda that you received, we have several items which have been outlined. And what I'd like to do is go through these each, talk a little bit about them. I think these are kind of hit the high points. I would encourage both Maureen and Rob, if I miss speak or you feel a need to add something to what I'm talking about, don't hesitate to raise your hand and interject. And I'd like to hold questions for these as we go through them. I think it's, ask the questions each time as we go through this, but don't wait to the end in this case. Typically we like to wait till the end and we do presentations but in this case, we're just, we're talking amongst ourselves. And I think if you have questions in terms of our administrative and procedural efforts it's most important to ask them right now. So feel free to interrupt as you see fit. The first thing is meeting the quorum generally. I think it's really important for us as a board to remember that we are the face of the town and probably the most important face of the town to people that appear before the board. And, they have to deal with parking, they have to deal with schools, they deal with all sorts of aspects that are the town that affect their lives. But when they're coming to the before the board of the zoning board of appeals they're talking about their property or they're talking about their neighborhoods or they're talking about their community. And it's really important that we do a good job of number one listening to them both as property owners, the butters and members of the community and that we provide an example of professionalism, the quorum and deliberation and adherence to the bylaw that is required of us. And it gives the impression and I think it's an act of hopefully the accurate impression that we're taking our job seriously that we're taking it professionally that we treat each other as board members, civilly and politely and that we treat the public in the same way. And at times that might be a challenge for board members especially in Zoom days where we're not seeing each other face to face in a room, we're seeing each other on a screen which does tend to insulate people a bit from the normal inhibitions of discussion but it's really important. And I think the most important thing is to give the impression to the town and to the town residents that we know this is an important job and that we're taking it seriously and that we will give their opinions, their requests, their applications do in full consideration. And so I think that's the first and most important thing. I think the second thing is to work with each other and to follow up with the procedures of the meetings so that they're structured, understandable and we'll go through those procedures. But I think that's also very important that we have a deliberative process that we're used to that we can kind of rely upon and that as a group that we can operate under. So those I think are the core things that I'd like to encourage each of you to remember as board members. The second point is that we are not a legislative body. I worked in a legislative body for years but that is not what we are. We are really a quasi-judicial body. We interpret the bylaws and there is discretion that we have. That's why we are here is to exercise the discretion within the bylaw that the bylaw gives us but we take the bylaws, we apply those bylaws and the discretion that's provided in the bylaws for us to make a decision is how we function. That's our purpose. It's not our purpose to set new housing policy or zoning policy for the town. We may have strong feelings about this about a certain policy. We may have strong feelings about what we would like to see happen but we have to roll back on the zoning bylaw and have that be our guide through how we interpret this. Each of us and you will have instances where it just doesn't feel right to decide what to adhere to the bylaw. Your gut will be, will just feel differently but you have to come back and make that decision based upon the bylaw and based upon the extent of discretion that we have to interpret that bylaw. So that's the other thing I think that's important. That was hard for me at first because I really didn't realize that when I first joined the board but I've come to realize that that is the most that is a very important thing. The second, the third thing is meeting preparation. This is really complicated stuff and it's not for most of, for me and I think for most of you you're not familiar with the 120 pages of the zoning bylaw. You're not familiar with all the terms in zoning. It's a lot of new things for most of us and you're not gonna be an expert right away. It's gonna take a long time to understand the zoning bylaw, all the issues that come up. You're gonna rely upon Rob and Maureen for help on this. You're gonna rely upon the evidence that's provided at meetings and you're gonna use your judgment at that point in time but that's all gonna work best if you are able to prepare for the meeting. And that means that you need to take the information that you get from Maureen, hopefully a week ahead of time which is our goal to get that information to you a week ahead of time so that you can read through the application, read through the draft application reports are really great. They go through each of the zoning bylaw questions that we have to deal with. They explain, they give you the zoning bylaw, they give you a discussion about it and in most cases they give you a staff recommendation that we need to either accept or reject or create our own but it gives you a background for the issues that you have to deal with in each of the applications. That's the first thing is to take the time to read those through and sometimes that's a lot of work. Sometimes those are very long, complicated things to do but it requires some preparation for the meeting. The other thing is to attend the site visits and the site visits are where you get to actually look at the property, you can physically view it, you walk around the property, some cases you go into the property and using the application that you've received, the application and the drawings or the plots, you look around and you're able to ask questions of the owner of the property and then that gives you a real world feel for the application and how it affects the ground, the lot it's on, the neighborhood, et cetera. Those site visits are of time for just that, just for looking and becoming familiar with the project and the application. It is not a time for the applicant to make their case for their request. It is not the time for them to advocate for themselves. That has to be done in the meeting where the public can view that. So we try to limit it right just to questions and issues that we need to clarify what we're seeing. So we understand what's on the ground. It is not a time to debate or to deliberate the application. Each of the questions that we ask at the site visit, we try to ask at the board meeting so that all the information that we get at a site visit is made available to the public and the public is informed at the questions we ask. The goal here is to the extent feasible to have the public have the same amount of information that we have. And so they can, when we make our decision so that they can operate with the same information that we have. So that's about meeting preparation. I would say that makes sense. I'd say the other thing to do is if you have questions on when you're going through the project application report, you should run through those sections where they talk about section 10.38 or section 9.22. If you have a question about it, write down on that project app that draft project application report. So when we're going through it, you can raise a question of either the staff or of your fellow members at the appropriate time. So that's a good hint. This is really, I just really want to advise you that I think the draft project application reports are a great guide for you. You're going in preparation for this meeting. Another thing that I think is important is note taking during the meeting. I like to run these meetings so that everybody can have an opportunity to make their case fully without interruption, for the most part. The applicant can speak, they can provide their full presentation and then we ask questions after that. And so I encourage you to write down questions in a notebook and a piece of papers, however you find on your iPad for those of you younger who do those kinds of things, those of us of a certain age still use a pencil and a paper and write down your questions so you can refer to them when your time to ask questions comes up. Sometimes there'll be something you want it that just needs for clarification that may be the time you raise your hand and we'll call upon you but try to keep that to a minimum, interrupting the applicant or interrupting a public commenter is probably not a good thing. Just let them make their case and then have time to ask questions afterwards. That generally works best and no taking will remind you what to ask about. So I use just a notebook like this and I write down questions. I also write down possible conditions that I think are important. We'll talk about conditions a little later but if you're hearing the discussion of a specific application, you may think, well, I think it makes sense to make sure that the lighting is dark-star compliant. I'm not sure if that's one of the conditions that's there. I guess you might make a note of that so that you can ask that at the appropriate time. Conflict of interest and open meeting laws are two things that are really important. Dylan, were you gonna ask a question? No, okay. Two other things that are very important, the conflict of interest and the Massachusetts open meeting law. Conflict of interest, I think each of you have been required and I think have done the conflict of interest training which is like a 30 minute online tutorial. You have to do that every, I think every two years, you have to renew that. And it's a good renewal. You should refresh your memory. You should do it. You could do it more often if you want. The goal here is that if you have a interest in the decision, in the application, whether it's your property is nearby, whether you're in a butter, whether you're an owner, it's a family member, the other things, you wanna avoid an apparent or real conflict of interest. Real conflict of interest is obvious. I mean, that we don't wanna have a conflict of interest on the board. You don't wanna be in that position and nobody does. You don't wanna have a conflict of interest. But the apparent conflict of interest also is important for the credibility of the board. So if it appears that you're, you can say I don't really care about that property that's 301 feet away from my property. But if you think that if there's an apparent conflict of interest, talk to Marine, talk to Rob, ask about it. You can also approach the Massachusetts State Ethics, if the Ethics Department, they have, you can get that information from Marine and Rob. I have done it in the past when I had a question about whether I had a conflict of interest or not. And they can give you an advisory opinion on whether you do indeed have a conflict. Maureen and Rob, do you wanna add anything to the conflict of interest requirement? Yeah, so especially the new members, you should have just taken the training and submitted a certificate. So hopefully everything's nice, fresh in your mind. But just to recap about conflict of interest. So a specific potential conflict of interest is having a financial interest of a board member or immediate family member, such as parents, spouse, siblings, or children. And a financial interest between the board member and an employee organization in which a member is a trustee, officer, director, or a large shareholder or a prospective employer. So like if there's an applicant that perhaps you did business with in the last, you know, in the last few years or maybe several years ago, you would wanna, you know, check in with us about that. That's just one example. And then get the illegal opinion from, yeah, it's the Mass Ethics Commission. They have a legal division and they can provide us information on that of whether there is a true conflict of interest. And then, you know, and then another sort of tip is that, about this is that a part of these public hearing processes for such as a special permit or a variance requires a butter notice to be mailed to a butters that own properties within 300 feet of that, where that proposed project is going. And so that, we ask that if you live within 300 feet of an application that is before the ZBA, that we ask that, you know, that you recuse yourself as that may be an appearance of a conflict or maybe it is a true conflict, but even just the appearance of a conflict, we ask that ZBA members submit a public disclosure. There is a form for that. And so you could just simply email me that and we would submit that to the town manager of the town clerk and then we would make mention of that at the public hearing. And then you would just sit out on that panel for that case before the board. I just wanted to mention those two things or a couple of things. One last thing on the disclosures. I will at times make a disc... We always ask for disclosures before we begin the deliberation on a specific application. You can make a disclosure and that's a time to say at top. The property manager for this application used to cut my lawn 10 years ago or five years ago. So I've done business with him but I don't think that there's any case where that relationship affects my ability to act independently and judge independently on this. So if there's a commonly known thing that relationship between you and somebody involved and it's going to be a clear and not cause a real conflict, it's helpful just to disclose it to the public. And it doesn't mean that you have to just to remove yourself from the panel. Any questions about that? Cool, all right. The next is the open meeting law. This is complicated but essentially the fundamentals are pretty straightforward. The fundamental is that all of our decisions and our deliberations with each other as board members have to be conducted in public. That means that when I walk down the street and I happen to run into Mr. Maxfield at Amherst Coffee and Maureen, and not Maureen, but and Karen at Maxfield at Amherst Coffee, we can't start discussing what a great meeting we're gonna have or that application that's gonna be coming up in the next couple of days. We just don't talk about it. We can talk about the weather. We can be neighbors and every other respect but we can't have those discussions outside this public meeting. More than you can discuss it all you want with the staff that is just fine, but you can't call upon each other to discuss a specific application. And so we try to avoid those cases where we as board members are all together in a room. We have to make sure that if that's case, whether it's the Sunday brunch on Lincoln Avenue or whatever it is that we're not engaged in that discussion. And I find that that's hard because if you are involved in this board, you're gonna be, that sometimes there's gonna be controversial issues and your neighbors and friends are gonna wanna know what you're thinking about this. And they're gonna say that they're building this X is taking place and I really think it's awful. What do you think about it? And I think the best way to respond to that is, you know, I'm on that board and I may or may not, I can't talk to you about that. And if I do talk to you about that, I have to accuse myself from further deliberation and I don't think you want that. So what you really wanna do is be precise, be direct and avoid that conversation with your friends and neighbors about an application that's either currently before the board or that you know is gonna be before the board. And I think that it is important and other people don't understand that. The general public doesn't, they don't deal with this because they're not part of these boards. You just have to explain it to them that you just are not able to engage in that conversation about those topics. If you have real questions about the open meeting law, a lot of the requirements about the open meeting law will be on my shoulders and the staff's shoulders. So that we have with that everything is noticed that things are followed by procedure. That's part of what we have to do. But if you have more questions about the open meeting law, there's two options. One, you can call town staff. We could also have a session and administrative meeting where it's described. We could have a town lawyers or somebody come and talk to us about it if we want to. But I think for the most part, following the rule that you don't have a discussion or a deliberation amongst each other on a topic before the board will solve most of the problem with the open meeting law. Rob and Maureen, is there anything that you would want to add to that? Okay, good. Are there any questions then about meeting the quorum? And again, I just want to stress that I think the most important thing is giving the appearance and indeed the action of being a professional, sincere, dedicated and hardworking board is what's important to people who are there with their life savings before our board and asking us for a special permit or making a decision that affects their lives. That's important. Okay. I think that's also, I just want to run through typically what we do in a meeting so that you're familiar with it. For those of you on the board, Mr. Maxfield and Ms. Park, you've been through this so you're familiar, but for those of you that have not been through these hearings, I think it's helpful to run through the process we used. I laid it out a little bit in the introduction and we'll do that every week. That's more for the public's benefit than it is for yours. I want to make sure the public knows how we're going to operate. So one of the things we do is we have an introduction, we have a call to roll, we start the meetings, we list the agenda, we list what's going to be discussed tonight and who's going to be on each panel. And then we ask for disclosures. If there is any disclosure, you provided us to give your disclosure. We review the site visit, that typically you will be me to review the site visit. I will try, I've attempted to have written down written down most of the questions that I think are need to be revealed to the disclose in the public meeting. But if anything is forgotten, if I forget something, I'll ask you to add to it and to make sure that we have the description of the site visit is correct. We'll also review all the submissions. I'll list all the submissions, the submissions done by town staff, the submissions from the applicant, the submissions from the public, if there's any comment letters, et cetera, et cetera. So that everything is known to people who are watching us by Zoom who may not have all the papers in front of them. But again, the purpose of all this seeming long and also kind of bureaucratic, almost recitation that we have to go through is to provide the same information to the public that we're operating office. So that's why it takes a while to go through all these things. After that is all done, the applicant presents his or her application, five, 10 minutes, more if it's a really complicated, large project but provide a presentation of what they wanna do and they run through their requests for waivers, for exemptions from the need, their need for a special permit that is done by the applicant. I think that's the place where we wanna listen to them, let them have their full presentation and then ask questions. I'll ask the first and then I'll just go by seniority down the road to ask questions. And so when you're called upon, if you have made notes, if you do have questions of the applicants, that's the place to ask them, the first place to ask them. After the questions from the board, we open up to public comments and the public has a chance to ask questions. They ask questions of, they direct their comments to the board. They don't direct their comments to the applicant, they don't direct them to us individually, they direct it to the board and especially to the chair. And those comments are typically three to five, limited three to five minutes. If we have a large number of people, we'll limit it to three minutes. If there's not many people that wish to comment, we'll be a little more flexible. But the goal is to allow as much public comment as possible. We're still having enough time to do our business in the night if we can. After public comments, the applicants get to respond to that public comment and they respond again to the board, not to the public person that made the comment. All the discussion is through the board itself. If we need to, the board can ask some more questions after that for clarification. Then we go to the next part, we close the hearing and what I do is I keep the hearing, the public hearing open and we move to the public meeting. The public hearing is where the public talks can ask questions and where the applicants can make their presentation. The public meeting is where the board deliberates and considers the conditions and considers the findings we have to make from the zoning bylaw to approve or disapprove the application. So after the application has been discussed, the public has spoken and we have spoken, I will move, I will seek a motion to keep the public hearing open in case we need additional information and move to the public meeting portion where we deliberate and we will talk about the, we talk about the project and then we start to go through the things that we have to do to make a decision. First thing I like to do is go through conditions. So draft conditions in the application and the project application report, we'll look at those. We may discover other conditions that we think are important during the course of the meeting and we can talk about those at that time and vote on them if we need to on a condition. So we may discover that there is a need through the public comment that there's a need for a buffer, vegetating buffer between the two properties. And we may want to, that was not involved. It was not known before we didn't see it in the site visit. It wasn't in the project application report. Seems like that's the majority opinion on the board. That would be the time to bring that up. So the conditions are gone through. And I think it's important to know what the conditions are before we can make our decisions on the bylaw findings. So we said, here are these things that have to be done in order to, if the application is approved, these conditions constrain the applicant or makes requirements of the applicant for certain things. And then there's bylaw findings that we have to make. The most important of these are section 10.38. Section 10.38 really gives us the outline for our authority for when we can approve a special permit. Those are all listed in the application report. Those will run through those many times. A specific part of 10.38 may not apply to the property. It may not be on a floodplain. It may not need to have sufficient space for delivery vans and other kinds of things. There may not be applicable, but many of them are. Mostly it deals with the effect it has on the neighborhood and the effect it has on the community. And that's what 10.38 requires us to do. So we'll go through each of those. In the past, I have read each of the 10.38 requirements in the zoning bylaw. I attempt now to summarize what that zoning, what that 10.38 says that we deal with the core of the issue without having to spend a half hour reading through the, for each time reading through the actual verbiage of 10.38, but to give the essence of it. There's also other sections that we're gonna have to make findings on, sometimes a section 9.22, which gives us some broad authority. Perhaps it's the parking section, section seven, perhaps it's other sections, but those will all be laid out in the project application report. We will go through those. You will be aware of them. You can raise questions, but what we will do is assume that those, I will make a statement about whether they, we think we meet those findings. If that's not an objection, we move to the next one. And if we have to debate whether we meet that finding or not, we'll do that before we move to the next condition that we have to make a finding on. So once we make those, then we have a vote. We vote on the conditions and the findings. And then we have an opportunity to, we have a final vote on whether to approve the special permit request or not. Before we do that, we'll have one more time to discuss it. There'll be a motion before you to approve the application. That means four votes from the board. It's not a simple majority. It's a super majority to approve a special permit application. And before that vote, there's an opportunity to discuss it. And then we will move to a vote on the application. And if we have five members, that means we need four votes. If we only have four members, we can do business, but we need to have a unanimous vote of the board. So that's the process for the meeting. When it's done with the application of the special permit applications, we have to have an open segment of time for public comment on anything that we weren't dealing with that night. And then we can move to adjournment. After we do all that, there's still some more process to do. And that is the process of the paperwork. So when we end the meeting, say the special permit application has been approved, we've got to go back and make sure that all the things that we agreed upon are contained in the decision. That's the job of Maureen. And she takes notes from the meeting. She reduced the meetings to make sure that the conditions are stated as we've deliberated them and approved them at the meeting. The same thing with the findings. She comes up with a application report and a decision that we all have to sign. You will be given a, Maureen will let you know that it is done. You can probably review it. You certainly can review it on your computer at home or you can go into town meeting, a town hall and get a hard copy. But you will review that and then let her know if there's any changes or any questions that you have. Once those changes or suggestions are looked at, there will be a final version that will be then available. At this point, we still have to sign those physically. We'll sign the decision. And once that decision is signed then there's a process gone through for it to make it official and to put it into the, and to register it. But she will ask you to come to town hall to sign those papers. It takes just a minute, but it's important to do it as soon as you can because that delays the whole process. There's so many days from when the decisions are signed for it to be registered and for it to go into effect. So the applicant has been waiting for that to happen. So keep your eye out for those. Review the special permit application, review the decision. And then when the time comes, make an effort to go into town and sign it. I know we're looking at the possibility of electronic signatures someday that'll happen, but right now we're still using pen and paper to assign those decisions. Maureen, is there anything on the process that you would like to ask of the members or that you wanna discuss? No, I think you covered it. Yeah, so after when I do type up the decision for if it's a special permit decision or a variance decision or a few other types of decisions that the board may take up, which is a rarity, but there's one called a 40B comprehensive permit which is regarding affordable housing projects that all housing is affordable and that's called a 40B, so it's a whole other process. And then there's another type of, one last other type of application that the board occasionally takes up, which is someone is given a, let's say a building permit and they, or maybe they're denied a building permit and they don't like that decision. They have the right to appeal that decision to the zoning board of appeals. So in all those cases, the board would take up, you know, review the application and make a determination either to approve or deny the application before you and then I type up the decision, you would review it. And as Steve said, if you have any, you know, edits to provide, we will provide that. And then you come in and sign it. And once it's signed by all the members, then I file it with the town clerk and that starts the 20 day appeal period. So that decision gets mailed to the applicant and the butters that I had mentioned earlier that have properties within 300 feet of that subject property are notified again by regular mail that a decision has been reached and filed with the town clerk. And that if they so choose and would like to appeal the decision, they have 20 days to do so by, you know, hiring a lawyer or making a, you know, appealing a superior court in notifying the town clerk. And so once that 20 day appeal period is ended, then the applicant files records, rather, records their decision with the Hampshire County Registry of Deeds. And that's when they can go ahead and do whatever steps that they need, such as submit their building permit application so they can start the construction of their project, for instance. So I just wanted to mention that. So I think we've pretty much run through the whole procedures and kind of the constraints or the areas in which how we will operate and the parameters of the law within which we have to operate and the bylaw within which we have to operate. I guess I'd just say two other things and I want to open it up because we've got 10 minutes before the, for any questions because we've got 10 minutes before the meeting is going to move to the special application. First, we typically have the full members are the first call for sitting on the board. But tonight is a good example where one of the full members is not able to attend. And so we have associate members who are serving on the panels. So there may be, for associate members, it may be a long time between times when you're actually sitting on a panel. I'd encourage you to watch a few of the meetings in the meantime. I'll get on Zoom and watch the meetings. I think that'd be very helpful. But know that you will be asked to be on panels just because people will have conflicts, people will have to miss meetings for a host of reasons, they either have to travel or for whatever reason. So associate members, you will be called upon. It may be a while, but then it could be, as we see tonight, it could be right away. So just because you haven't heard from us in the last couple of weeks or a couple of months doesn't mean that we haven't been, you're not still on call. And so get on the Zoom and watch a few of the meetings. And that would be helpful, I think to you and make you more comfortable being part of the ZVA. Other than that, I really wanna thank all of you for volunteering to do this and for spending the time that you will be spending for the betterment of the town. And now just let me open it up a little bit for questions for anybody if they have any or comments. But I think that's a good thing. I'm not sure. I hope that's a good thing. We've got, one thing I would say is that one of the things that I think would be helpful and we've talked about this but we just haven't gotten it done is there going to be things that Mr. Gilbert, you are probably very familiar with that those of us aren't. There'll be architectural plans, site plans, other things that we just, we don't know what those squiggles mean on that piece of paper that we're looking at. And it's hard to make a decision on something when you don't understand where a drain field is or how, or is that a, is that the side setback markings or what is it? You know, it's just hard to know those things. I think it'd be really helpful to have an administrative meeting on how you read site plans and what they're like. And I think that would be a helpful thing. So we're talking about doing that sometime this fall, having a meeting and if people would be interested in doing that just raise your hand. I think that is something that people want to do. Yep, good. So Maureen, well, that's something we should, we should plan and we can get some, somebody to kind of help walk through, walk us through that. It's especially important when we have big projects but it's even important on small little projects so we know what we're making a decision about. All right, we've got six minutes before we start the meeting. And because we do want to start the meeting right on time and not before the meeting start we have to wait till seven o'clock. This is open time for the discussion amongst us for anything we want. Technically, I don't know if we need to wait till seven because Steve and I, we had to continue the public hearings from, can't remember the date. Yes, from August, September 9th. Yes, thank you. Because we had a quorum issue I believe we continued it to our six o'clock meeting. And so we would just pick up these application applications once we were done with our administrative items. So we didn't indicate a specific time to the public hearings or public meeting. So we could just, You know, except I screwed that up Maureen. I think you're right. But I, in the opening I said you started seven. So if anybody from the public was waiting around they would comment on those two applications. Well, we could take up the public, if you are interested, the public meeting for the town of Amherst solar requests. That's simple. Yeah, we could do that. All right. So unless there's any questions and I don't see any or any comments, we'll do that. We'll pick up the first item. Okay. Public meeting on ZBA FY 2022-01 town of Amherst solar, LCC to review the limited written statement, this excuse me to review the submitted written statement about providing public online access to the power and energy reporting of the Amherst solar landfill project to the town of Amherst staff liaison for the Amherst energy and climate action committee pursuant to condition 18 from the approved special permit ZBA FY 2020-11 located at 740 Belcher town road, map 18D parcel 23, low density RLD zoning district. When the ZBA approved the special permit for the solar farm on the landfill site, we required the applicant to assess the feasibility of providing public online access to power and energy reporting. Of that project and report it back to the board at a public meeting. This letter that we've received, which was submitted on the date here, but it was submitted to Stephanie Sicarello. This letter indicates they have found public access to be feasible and they will be providing that access to the Amherst energy and climate action committee. I don't think this requires any action by the board. It is just they're complying with the condition that we imposed on the special permit and they seem to have met that condition and they have informed us of that. So that's, there's no, it's just the function of completing and living with the conditions that were applied to that special permit. Now it's one minute to seven and we will begin the agenda for the rest of the public hearing. We will now move to the public hearing portion of tonight's meeting. ZBA members sitting for the next two agenda items are myself, Ms. Parks, Mr. Maxfield, Mr. Gilbert and Ms. Winter. First on the agenda is ZBA 2021-22. Christina and Peter Gray Mullen request a special permit to allow an increase of the number of residential units converted dwellings from one to two under sections 3.324 and 10.38 of the zoning bylaw located at 37 Fairview Way, map eight C parcel seven neighborhood residents are in zoning districts. Are there any disclosures members? Ms. Parks. I would just like to mention that I worked in the same department as Peter Gray Mullen at the University of Massachusetts from 2011 to 2016. I don't believe this will prevent me from hearing this proposal in a fair and impartial way. Thank you for any other disclosures. We had a site visit on September 8th. At that site visit, we reviewed, we walked the property, we met with the applicants, we reviewed the structure, the proposed converted dwelling, it's a relationship to the property setback line, reviewed the parking area, the trash and the screening of the trash receptacle. We looked for the lights and examined or viewed the lights. We walked around the back of the property as well. We, some of us went inside the property to see the structure is, it's locked and a kitchen. And we viewed the neighborhood. I looked at the end of the driveway, looked up and down in the neighborhood. I don't think there was much else that in terms of questions, there was questions about parking, there was questions about the access to the loft and the ladder to the loft. There was questions about the lights. And I don't think there was much else to report from the site visit. For those of you who are on the site visit, do you have anything to add, Ms. Parks? I remember that we had some discussion about a concern about the neighbor's tree being kind of not looking great and really close to the property. Yeah, that's correct. The following submissions have been made to the board. For 25 of them, I'm not going to read all of them, but I will summarize it. There's a special permit application, a ZBA application, supplemental information dated March 30th, management plan and additional information on the management plan, a lease template, a locus plan, a property map, a plan of landing amours prepared by Peter Gray Mullen, prepared by Randall E. Izer, dated July 30th, property survey excerpt, site plan, dated August 6th, topography map dated March 30th, 2020, a parking plan dated March 30th, 2021, studio elevation, studio exterior photos, there are five of those, studio interior photos, there are four of those, studio building elevations, prepared by Peter Gray Mullen, professional design engineer, dated March 30th, there are four of those, studio floor plan, studio interior section, prepared by Peter Gray Mullen, dated March 30th, 2020, exterior heat pump specification sheet. There are four photographs of 37 Fairview Way, the existing house. There are butters plans with photographs, there's a house interior photographs, floor plan for existing house, for first floor, second floor, third floor, basement floor plan, site lighting plan, exterior light fixture, and a landscape plan prepared by Peter Gray Mullen, professional designer, professional engineer, dated March 30th, 2020. Those are the submissions. There were no public submissions that I know of, Maureen, have any come in since the site visit? No? No, there have been zero public comments submitted. Okay. That concludes all the information that we have. Who's present for the applicant who wishes to present? Hello, my name is Christine Gray Mullen, and this is my husband Peter Gray Mullen, and we are the owners of 37 Fairview Way. We're here tonight to ask for you to consider our request to convert through the converted dwelling to change what was previously a garage that we've been treating as a studio for the last 14 years. We believe that this was built approximately 90 years ago. There's a photo of it in 1932. And since we have moved here, it was a garage, but we lightly renovated it to be what we call the studio. It was like a family room and slash dance studio for our girls. We changed our windows, upgraded the heating, put a floor in. And then a few years ago, we decided that we wanted to make it more of a proper dwelling and we built it, we pulled building permits and we built it to code, which would include the more environmentally sustainable, higher insulation and heating system and better windows, et cetera. And it's a pleasant studio space now and we're coming to you to ask for it to be converted to a permanent dwelling on our property. As you look at, I think there was a map we included in our extensive application that shows our butters, the actual butters that touch our property are both as two student living houses, actually three student living houses and actually UMass. That's one of our butters, the actual campus. And then across the street, there are two single family homes with owners living in them. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, thank you. So when we were at the property, one of the questions that we've had and one of the questions that there's in the application report, the draft application report regards parking. In the application, in one place, you talk about having two parking spaces, in one place you talk about having one parking space for the new project. I noticed that there are restrictions on street parking on Fairview, is that right? Can you park, is there parking allowed during the day on your street? It is Monday through Friday, eight to five, there's no parking. But weekends and after five, till the morning, there is parking. Okay. And right now the plan has four spaces for the owners of the main house and one space for the tenant. Is that correct? That's what we put on the map. You can fit seven cars in our driveway if needed. But right now, what you're planning and what's in the lease I think is one parking spot for the tenant. We have seven spots and instead of the two, we are requesting to just have one because it's a building that's only, the footprint's only 365 square feet. So I don't know how, we don't see more than one car being needed for that. But if, of course, if they wanted another spot, that could be negotiated because we have plenty, there's another six spots. So I guess I didn't see that on the seven spots on the drawing, but you have enough room for seven spots on the property. So, and that would without violating the impervious service, impervious service, surface limitations of your lot. Is that correct? Correct, we're all set. Okay. I think Maureen just mentioned that. Okay. So the question I would have then is that you would, so you are open to allowing, to negotiating if need be for additional parking with the tenant, if need be. If a tenant was there, ideally if we were not, if we were to run into right now, it would be really a space for one. I suppose a couple could possibly live there. And that would be the only scenario I could see where two cars would be needed, but we would still at that point would prefer them. Just we're essentially on campus. So we would prefer one car. Oh, I understand all that. I'm just thinking that these restrictions will flow to the next owner as well. And they may have a different feeling. And so we're just, I'm interested in knowing what you're thinking about and what would happen to the property should it be sold at some point in the future. So right now it would be limited to one. Okay. So you would need, what you'd ask us is, are you asking for a waiver from that? My husband just reminded me of something. I was like, I think they're trying to say we should change the two. So with our background, you don't know us, but we would encourage the one car, if not no cars. And as we move into autonomous vehicles in the future, we really feel that one will be more than enough for this zoning area. I mean, the primary owner is certainly walking with any, I should say expected tenant that it might be a UMass student, university student, of course, we have the PVTA line on North Pleasant, which is 50 feet away from the nearest bus stop. So I hope people are gonna be more sustainable in the future. And then one of the requirements of section seven is marking the parking. How do you, we didn't ask that question. What's your anticipation of how you mark the parking areas? Are you just gonna have rocks? Tell them you've parked right now. But I expect some kind of, you would have some kind of way to delineate the parking spaces. I'm not talking taping, I'm not talking assigned but some way to delineate parking spaces to make it obvious to the tenant, right? I'm not sure what you're suggesting. Well, right now section seven requires delineation of some way to identify parking spaces. And I suspect, I don't think there's a need for you to tape or to paint your front lawn or your driveway with parking spaces, but some way just to indicate where the parking spaces are, whether it's through shrubbery, okay? So if there's a condition that says- We couldn't put shrubbery. How about in the lease, we would, I mean, we would draw a picture after- Yeah, we'll draw a picture. We'll draw a picture. So we don't have to waive the requirements of section seven. And we can address that. We'll draw a picture, I guess. Yeah, delineate that. We can put suggestion. Okay, that was, oh, I have one more question and then I'll open it up to everybody else. Is there a, since right now you're not planning on running it out. In the future, that may be the case. There is not a, I did not see a complaint response plan in the management plan. Did you submit one? And would, because if property changed or if you decide to lease it to rent it out, we would, there should be a complaint response plan so that if the neighbors or somebody complains about the tenant, there's some place to go. You're the first ones. And it's typically somebody else as well. Is there, have you, did you submit a complaint response plan and I didn't, I just missed it or did you not submit one? I don't remember being asked for that. No, as an owner of occupied property, we didn't, I mean, we didn't read it that we would have some type of management plan or noise as you call the complaint form. Is that required for owner occupied? I'm thinking about what would happen in the future if it would be sold to a non owner occupied. I know we'd need it, but is that required for a owner occupied structure for Auburn Maureen? Yeah, yeah. So typically the ZBA has required that all rental properties that, you know, go through the zoning board of appeals would submit a management plan and a complaint response plan and upon change of ownership, naturally, naturally those, that information would change with a new owner you would assume. So they're typically as a condition that says that upon change of ownership, but the new owner needs to submit an updated management plan and complaint response plans. I will say that I think I missed mentioning to the Gray Mullins about submitting a complaint response plan. It's really quick and easy. And so I'm sure the Gray Mullins would be agreeable to submit it after this meeting. So sorry about that to the Gray Mullins. I think I, that slipped my mind. It's a, for your information, it's a pretty simple form. It just lists your, that if somebody has a complaint about noise or about whatever it's from your tenants, go to the town and find out who to complain to. In this case, I'm sure it would be you. So, but the importance of this is that if the property is transferred in the future that, and it's not an owner occupant or somebody else, that there's a complaint response form for the neighbors. So what I think what I would like, what I would propose is that we make that a condition that one is when a complaint response form is provided before this is finalized. And that's pretty simple. For now, I'm going to start with you. So if it's a not an owner occupied place, which I don't know, don't you have to like become part of the town rental? There's a town rental, there is indeed, there's a town rental registration process. And wouldn't that be part of it then that you could would fill it out then? But one of the requirements for that we typically require is a complaint response form for rental property. And that's for the benefit of the neighborhood in case there is disturbances from the rental property. And so that it's on file. And it is not a hardship to fill out the form. To fill out the form, it just provides a name of contact if there's a problem. Now, in your case, I suspect that problem would be resolved because they're your neighbors, they know who you are. This just puts that number on the form and files the town. And then if the property is transferred in the future, that has to be reviewed by the ZVA, the management plan and the response plan. Not the existence of the converted dwelling. That is not subject to renewal, just the management plan which you have submitted and the complaint response plan. So this only triggers if it's a non-occupied, non-owner occupied double rental. So that would mean both houses are rentals and then you, owners would be, yeah. But let me ask Rob for that. But the fact is that this form is routinely required for all owner occupied and rental occupied. And normally the is on the requirements of the application. Rob, can you help? Sure. Yeah, so I think it has consistently been part of the requirements of the zoning board and appeals to collect the complaint response plan in part to support and help make their 10.3 findings that they'll get to later for this application. But I will just make note that it is not a requirement of a rental permit. So when a rental permit is completed, we do get emergency contact information is one of the questions asked in the application process but it's not a complaint response plan as the zoning board of appeals has designed it over the years to be, to serve a purpose when supporting the special permit applications. Part of the ZBA process. Yes, it's part of the special permit application process. And where is that listed as a requirement? I think it's listed in the requirement of the application. But we will find that and get that to you. Yeah, and just to clarify. So the form is to provide three contacts if in case there was a complaint either by the tenants or by neighbors. And so for the instance of your majority of the time you the owners that are gonna live remain living there, usually 90% of the times you'll get the complaint of A, B and C or whatever the issue is. But there will be times that maybe you guys are traveling or you're under the weather or whatever the scenario is there would be two other additional contacts listed of so for the neighbor or the tenant that wants to reach out to an additional person that they know who to contact. So it is applicable for both owner occupied rentals and non-owner occupied rentals. I don't see that in the application. It's not, I think that's for just gonna check. Where else would it be listed? I believe it is listed in the ZBA rules and regulations. Yeah. Okay. So what I would suggest is that. I'm not sure what. So can we list each other separately? So I believe the ZBA has traditionally wanted three separate individuals, perhaps not husband and wife. But so if you have a family member that lives locally, if you have friends that live locally, if you know anyone locally that you would feel comfortable to say if I have a complaint when I am on vacation overseas somewhere and my tenant has a complaint or my neighbor has a complaint that I can turn to you to be that middle person to take that inquiry. So perhaps. And you've put this on other converted dwellings. We put it on all residential rental, rental, residential rental. Yeah. Thank you. Sorry. So that require approval of the special permit through the zoning board of appeals. So converted dwellings is for instance, supplemental dwelling units is another duplexes, converted dwellings, apartment buildings. So we're not picking on you as an applicant or picking on converted dwellings as a particular use. It's applied to all special permits that have a rental dwelling unit. To them. I guess just a surprise. So you can see how extensive the application submittal is. It would just be great to know everything. Yep. But one of the things that we do require is a complaint response form. So Maureen can give you that. It's simple to fill out and it would be, it will probably be, I would suspect this will be a condition of the approval of the application. Is to file that before, you know, within a certain amount of time. That's all the questions. If it's a rental. It's, if it's to approve the special permit application to have a rental property, if you have a rental property, if you have that application, you have a complaint response form and that complaint response form will just list you, a neighbor and somebody else that they can contact in the case you're not in case there is a problem in the rental unit. So that's the, and it's done for every application. I guess just my question is if we sold the house and the new owners are moving in and they weren't renting it, did they have to fill out? Well, then we'll deal with that. We would deal with that then, but at that point it's not a rental house. At that point, they don't need to have a management plan. They would not be, they wouldn't need the rental property and they couldn't rent it until they've had a management plan. They had a special permit and they had a complaint response form amongst other things. But that is, that's a hypothetical that I don't want to go into right now, Ms. Mullen. But I just want to do is say, we have always required a complaint response form. There wasn't one in this package. It's a simple form that protects you and the neighbors and the tenants, if there are tenants. And we would advise you that we probably require that it's condition of the application. Well, thank you. That was clear. It's just good for us to know what we're bringing onto as a lot, you know, as a something on our property. If we were to sell the house, you know, what they're required. But my understanding is if someone buys the house and it's just their work studio or whatever, they don't have to do a management plan and this contact plan. If you sell the house, the management plan and the complaint response form are specifically looked at. And if they do not wish to have it, they can say, we don't want to have a management plan. We don't want to rent it. I don't believe, and I know that we won't need to approve those things for which there is no need. If you know what I mean, if there's no need for it. Thank you. Yep, yep, okay. Are there other questions from members of the board? Ms. Parks. I just wanted to clarify about the parking space. You were saying that it needs to be delineated in a manner that is sufficient to visibly identify the space. And what was the answer to that? I believe we're just, we're going to draw a map of the driveway for the tenant. We can attach that to the lease so they know where to park. Does that, Robin Maureen, does that work? A map? So delineating the spaces is usually just the boundary between the gravel or pavement and some other surface. That's usually the delineation. If we're talking about marking spaces, that applies for, I believe, five or more parking spaces. And typically we wouldn't require for this type of an application. So I think delineation is dealt with by the material, the changes of material on the ground. Okay, well, not the material on the ground, but if they give a map. So if they give a map to the tenant and say this is where you're parking, does there need to be anything in the actual parking space or can it just be that? A map? Maybe the applicant can describe how the surface of the parking area is going to be constructed, but that's how it's delineated. So, and if there's a map or a sketch that's included as part of the lease or description of the premises for the tenant, that's perfectly fine as well. We had the driveway recently finished. So it's new asphalt, so we wouldn't want to paint it. And there's an area that's clearly gravel versus paved asphalt surface. So that, again, that application could make reference to a paved or a gravel space depending on the needs of the tenant. I think that it seems to me that if it's delineated with a drawing in the lease, and that that would suffice for the requirement. Tammy, does that, Ms. Parks, does that answer your question? You're muted there. Sorry, yes, thank you. Okay, good. All right. Are there any other questions from board members? Okay. Is there any public comments? We have two people from, we have Mr. Marshall with his hand up. Mr. Marshall. Hi Marshall, can you state your name and your address? Yes, this is Doug Marshall. I live at 64 Eames Avenue. And I'm calling in as a member of the public. I am on the planning board, but that's not my purpose for this evening. I guess I had a general comment and then a couple of specific comments. I think the conversation we've just had suggests that, you know, not for tonight, but the town might wanna think about traditional, about treating owner occupied residences with either converted dwelling or an eight supplemental dwelling in a somewhat different way than the typical residential rental unit in the town. I know as a property owner who has a large enough lot to put an ADU or converted or an ADU on it, I would be very careful about bringing on the burden of being part of the sort of bureaucracy of oversight of the town. And, you know, I think the application was really extensive. And I think we should just be careful about how much we're burdening owners who may not be professional rental people with a sort of over, with a heavy handed process. And so that's my general comment and that might be a future consideration. I know the town is looking at trying to encourage more of these types of things. And if people are finding it to be kind of a burden, maybe we need to look for ways to make it easier. And then the second, the second more specific comment I had was I see on the conditions that you would require that all the grass was kept at four inches of height or less, I know in terms of my own lawn, that's pretty unusual for me to be always less than four inches. So particularly in this age where we want to be more sustainable and we don't want to be running our two cycle combustion engines very often, I would, you know, and just as a homeowner right now, the town doesn't have a bylaw that says all lawns have to be four inches or less. So, you know, this is just one example of the kind of thing that I, you know, as a homeowner I'm not sure I want to take that on. So that's my comment for tonight. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Marshall. Are there other public comments? If not, Ms. Gray Mullen and Mr. McGrane Mullen, you have the opportunity to respond to the public comment if you wish. Only to agree that it is an extremely intense process with an immense amount of documentation, drawings and plans that are required. My husband, I are civil engineers and my husband's professional who does this. So that helped us and it was still very difficult. So I do agree with the public comment. It would be nice if the town could, you know, encouraging housing shortage and smaller homes if they could look at maybe simplifying some of these areas for others to be able to do it too. Thank you. Any other questions from the board, comments from the board? What I would like to do now is to keep the public meeting, public hearing open and move to the public meeting portion of the consideration of this application. That involves really it's a chance for the board to discuss and to review the findings we have to make. But this requires a vote. So I would entertain a motion to move the public meeting to a public meeting on this matter while keeping the public hearing open in case we need to gather additional information in the consideration of the conditions and the findings we have to make. Do I have such a motion? Is there a second? Mr. Maxwell moves. Is there a second? Second. Ms. Park seconds. Is there a discussion on the motion to move to public hearing, public meeting, excuse me. If not, this is a roll call vote. The chair votes aye. Ms. Parks. Aye. Mr. Maxfield. Aye. Mr. Gilbert. Aye. Ms. Winter. Ms. Winter. Aye. Five votes, the motion carries. The public meeting is a time for the board to discuss their conditions and review possible conditions and make certain findings. I think it's most helpful to look at the conditions first and that way we know if we can make the, we have a better sense if we can make the findings required under the Zoning By-law. So the first condition that the staff proposed is that this structure be in compliance with all the submitted 25 submitted plans as a very complete application and extensive application that they filed. And that's a standard thing so that it's built and maintained to the submitted drawings. The rooms are to be used as they are labeled in the plans. Here's the approved management plan and complaints response plan shall be followed by the property owner and any changes to this plan should return to the zoning board of appeals at a public meeting. That's not a public hearing at the public meeting where it's just approved, reviewed and potentially approved. I think on this one, Maureen, we just wanna say that there is, well, there should be a condition that just says that we have a complaint that a complaint response plan is filed by the applicant. All exterior lighting shall be designed to be shielded or downcast in dark sky compliant as per the ZDA rules and regulations. Right now it says a condition that no more than four unrelated individuals shall occupy each unit. So four seems to be too many for the supplemental, the converted unit and four seems to be too few for your family home. So I guess what I would ask you is limitation on the four unrelated individuals there's not four related individuals. So I think that if we had a limit of, what's the limit you'd want on the converted dwelling for a number of people living in that? I see by your lease, I think it's two. Is that correct? So living in the converted unit, yes. Yes. Related, there's no limit on the number of relations that you can have in your family house. That's not what we're talking about here, but that's for unrelated individuals. We have two kids, so if we have to get rid of one it will be upsetting, but... Yeah, but that wouldn't, we're not gonna be that imposing on people who wish a special permit. So I think if that would state that no more than two people in the converted unit and four is typically that what every dwelling unit in town is is four unrelated individuals per dwelling. So that's not imposing anything new on you guys. Six, any dwelling unit on the property being rented shall be registered and permitted in accordance to the resident property bylaw. The street numbers should be clearly marked. Parking shall occur on improved services only, which you, and that has been shown on the drawings. All parking areas shall be clearly delineated and shall be provided with a permanent dust-free surface and adequate drainage. We've discussed that. I think we don't need number 10. Let's remove that. Individual parking spaces shall be parked or otherwise delineated. Maximum number of overnight visitors per unit. Again, it's one thing for the converted dwelling and something else for your family home. So currently I think the maximum number of overnight visitors you list in your lease is you limit that in your lease itself. Do you not? Yes, we do. And what do you limit it in your lease to? I don't even remember. I think it was two, but can you help me with that? Maybe two guests, I think. Two guests, yeah. I just want to make sure that... Yep. So it seems to me that what we should be doing is limiting the number of guests in the... Yeah, it's number 21. In the mental house, but not in your family home. Right? Yeah, it was in the lease number 21. Tenant is limited to overnight guests for a maximum of four people in the apartment for no more than seven consecutive days. So that instead of per unit, Maureen, let's move that to the converted dwelling. Sure. If that makes sense? Yes. All right. And then the maximum number of people in the premises, anytime, give me a number for the number of people that you would have for your... If you're gonna have a graduation party for a son-in-law or a grandchild or something else, that you'd have a... What's the maximum number of people that would be on the property at any time? 25? 50. What is it? 50, okay. All right, so we change that condition to 50. And on the change of ownership, it should be required to the zoning board of appeals at a public meeting for the management plan and the complaints response form. The property shall be free of litter and debris. The last point was raised by a public commenter. The board have any feelings about height of grass and a condition for that? Is that something that we've... I know we've done this with non-owner occupants in the past and it's been a problem with some non-owner occupant rental homes. Any comments from the board? Mr. Maxwell? Yeah, I don't feel a condition like that is typically necessary on a owner occupied property. I think again, if we're dealing with non-owner occupied, I think it's different. But I know we've dealt with similar ones like this before with owner occupied. I've even liked putting in the stipulation on overnight guests and things like that also including you will not exceed this number without express written permission from the owners giving the fact that certain things might come up that they may want that. But personally, at least with the grass we'll just stick to that one. I don't think that's a necessary condition in this owner occupied. Any other comments on that? All right, I agree. I think for now that's a condition that does not need to be there. So those are the conditions. Are there any objections to those conditions or are there any additional conditions that members of the board wish to discuss and suggest? If not, given those conditions as part of the application we have to make findings under several sections of the bylaw in order to approve this application. The first one is section 12.09 defines a converted dwelling. And a converted dwelling essentially is an existing residential or non-residential space that was constructed prior to 1964. And they're going to convert it into a residential facility. It doesn't necessarily have it was not necessarily a residential facility. The town records show that this structure was built before 1964 and that their house itself was built in 1929. It meets the age requirement for a converted dwelling. Also section 3.3 lists several standards for converted dwellings. This building is a pre-existing non-conforming building meaning that there are lots of requirements of the build that would not allow it to be built today as it currently stands. But we do not require that a building be torn down in order to have a rental unit or a converted dwelling. We don't have it. It's a pre-existing and these are in effect grandfathered. So there are several different dimensional requirements that this does not meet with. In order for us to approve the converted dwelling we have to meet standard eight under the converted dwelling section. And that allows the board to consider granting the modification to the dimensional requirements of table three to a one time for one time for only one parcel in order to allow a conversion under section 3.321 which would add one additional unit only if it finds the modifications would be in accordance with the provisions of section 9.22. So the converted dwelling section requires us to look to section 9.22 the zoning bylaws to see if this can be approved. Section 9.22 says that the special permit authority that's us may allow a non-conforming use of the building. That's what this is. Structure or land to be changed to a specified use not substantially different in character or its effect on the neighborhood or on the property in the vicinity. So we have to find that it's not substantially different in character or in effect on the neighborhood or property in the vicinity. It's residential, the existing house is residential, there's residential houses all around in the neighborhood. Set authority may also authorize under a special permit a non-conforming use of a building structure or land to be expended or a non-conforming building to be structurally altered and largely reconstructed. Providing that the authority find that's us find such an alteration enlargement or reconstruction shall not be substantially more detrimental to the neighborhood than the existing non-conforming use or non-conforming building. So we have to find that this would not be adverse to the neighborhood to move from the studio that exists to a potential studio rental. In my mind, it is not adverse to the neighborhood and would meet that requirement. That's key requirement that we have to decide we have to find and I'd like to know if any members disagree with that finding. If not moving on, so undersec, we make the finding that we approve this under section 3.3241 which is because we found made the finding under section 9.22. The rest of the standards under section 3.3241 are either not applicable or the applicant has met them. They provide no demolition being done, the applicant submitted a management plan, along with its proposal, the applicant has provided a landscape plan and there's sufficient open space. Article seven is parking and access regulations. You have asked for an effect, a waiver from the parking regulation and you would, well, the waiver's in the right term but you want one parking space as opposed to two and which would normally be required under the zoning bylaws. It seems to me with the size of the unit, we can provide a one parking space should meet the requirements and make the waiver or the exception under the parking plan. And Maureen, can we work that through in the findings? Sure, yep. Is there any objection from any board member on that? All right. So we've made the findings under section 7, section 9.22 and the section 3 converted dwellings. Now is the findings under section 10.38 which is the ones we normally have to spend most. Ms. Parks. I just have a quick question. Under the sufficient open space per dwelling, where is that space on the map? Well, where's the, I think it's 2000 converted dwelling shall provide a minimum of 2000 square foot usable open space. I'm reading standard 12. Standard 12. And the zoning district that this property is located is in the neighborhood residence. So if you read standard 12. So it's 1000 square feet of usable open space for dwellings at right Maureen. I just lost my place. Hold on one second. Yeah. So, yeah, converted dwellings. Let's see here. Converter dwellings in the neighborhood residence district shall provide a minimum of 1000 square feet of usable open space per dwelling. So, when you do look at the aerial of the property, it is very well vegetated throughout the whole property in the back and in the front. And so, I don't know if they're gray mullins. I want to speak to the size of that, but it does appear to meet that minimum threshold of 1000 square feet. Well, you've got 16,000 square foot lot. You've got coverage at what percentage? Right now, currently building coverage is less than 40. It's less than 40% because it wouldn't, I think, where's the chart here? Yeah, so the lot coverage requirement in the RN is 30%. That's the maximum amount of lot coverage, meaning that 70% of the property would have to be pervious. And so, according to their surveyed plan that was surveyed by Randy Eiser, a licensed surveyor, they're at 26.5%. So, they are below that maximum amount of lot in the RN zoning district. There's got to be, there's certainly more than 2000 square feet of green space. I guess what I was reading was for the use of the occupants. And so, I didn't know whether there was supposed to be open space for the dwelling unit or is it just the general, the yard is for, is it, do you need to have open space specifically for a dwelling unit or no? That's a question I haven't dealt with. I'm gonna talk to, I'm gonna ask Rob about that. Yeah, I think the provision just requires you to provide the open space per dwelling unit. So, there's two units, there's 1000 square feet per dwelling, 2000 square feet of open space. It looks like there's 10 or 11,000 square feet of property that's available for that open space. And I think as noted in Maureen's application report is that it needs that criteria. So, by rough measure, there wasn't any question in that. I just didn't know if you needed to say, this is your recreation space, but if you don't need to do that, fine. They do not. Okay. And I just wanted to pull up aerial view of the Grave Mellons property at 37 Fairview Way. So, you can see it's very vegetated. And on the site visit on, I believe, September the 8th, we did observe that there is a gracious backyard to recreate and this front yard as well. But I'm assuming that that's not open to a renter. I guess I'm just thinking if I were renting, if I were renting that space and I want to go outside, it's not necessary for the owners to have a designated space. It's just, that's something that you work out. As long as your space available, it's not necessary to say what space is for that unit. It's just a question for the time. Yeah, Rob, I guess my assumption would be no. I don't think you have to designate the space that's available for the occupants, but they are providing space of at least 1,000 square feet that would be available to the occupants somewhere on the property. So, typically the board just would see that there's the space available, open space on the site. And if they don't see any restriction in the lease that prevents an occupant from using the yard, I think we're probably satisfying the requirement at that point. Okay. All right, any other questions on the section three, section seven and section nine findings? All right, I'd like to move to section 10.38, which is a core find as we have to make most frequently. 10.38 zero and 10.38 one deals with suitability of location, meaning that it's in our neighborhood and that it's compatible with existing units. I think we can clearly find that the application is compatible with the existing neighborhood. 10.382, 383, 385 and 387, generally deals with nuisance either through light, water, flood, noise, odor, dust, vibrations or visibly offensive structures. It deals with inconvenience or hazards to the butters. It prohibits detrimental unoffensive units on the site, uses on the site, excuse me, and provides convenient and safe particular pedestrian movement within the site. We have an existing detached dwelling here with two exterior wall mounted sconce light fixtures that are dark sky compliant. We have a slider for safety and security. In addition, that they're all exterior lighting will be required to be downcast and comply with our rules. But does not, there's no nuisance created by this noise, flood, odor, dust or vibration. I think it meets the requirements of 10.38, 235 and seven. 10.384, adequate and appropriate facility to provide a proper operation of use. There's utilities to be found and they're adequate for their operation and their proposed use. 10.386 deals with parking. We will amend that. Well, it says one parking space. So we've dealt with that here and clarified and you're not proposing any signage. So I think we've met the requirement at 10.386. 10.387 combines, we've already dealt with that. Safety of traffic, 10.388 is not applicable. That deals with off street loading and unloading. 10.389 deals with disposal for sewage and refuse. The building already exists. There's sewage and water. There's waste and recycling and the management plan lists that and it's already being done on the property. And the board, we did look at the fencing and the screening of the trash receptacles and found those at the site visit. 10.390, it's not, it deals with floods and it's not in a designated flood known, 10.3 zone, 10.391 deals with unique and important and national historic features. This is not applicable either. 10.392 deals with appropriate landscaping and screening of adjacent residences. Those are the trash recycling bins are shielded from adjacent properties. 10.393 and they're sufficient. Also on 10.392, they're sufficient vegetation around the property to screen satisfactorily screen from the neighbors. 10.393, minimizing intrusion of lighting. We've discussed that already, but we think that I think we've meant to conditions that is not intruding light will not intrude on a neighboring property, especially with the downcast lighting. 10.394, impact on steep slopes, not applicable. 10.395, does it not, does it, this is the key one, does it create this harmony with respect to terrain and use and scale and architecture, existing building. The structure already exists. So the special application report does not make, does not have to look at the existing building, but we have to make a finding that it does not create this harmony with respect to the terrain and use. And indeed, it's already there. So it does not create this harmony. 10.396, screening for storage areas that we discussed that's already been looked at. 10.397, proposal provides adequate recreational facilities, open spaces. It meets the requirements under the active of 2,000 square feet. 10.398 is in harmony with the general purpose and intent of a bylaw and the master plan. The proposed two unit residential units is in harmony with the master plan, section 4.8.1, which encourages greater mix of housing types to be found throughout the community. The board has made a determination unless there are objections from the board that I'd like to state that the board has made the determination to meet sections 3.3211, 10.387.9 and 9.22. Are there any board members that disagree with those findings? If so, this is a time to raise your voice. If not, I think we are prepared to move to, if there's any further discussion on this, I think we're prepared to move to entertain a motion to approve the special permit application with conditions and as per our findings. Do I have such a motion? Moved. Mr. Maxfield moves, do I have a second? Move. Mr. Gilbert seconds, is there a discussion on the motion to approve the application with conditions? If not, the vote occurs and this is a roll call vote and we need four out of five votes to approve the application. The chair votes aye. Ms. Parks. Sorry, aye. Mr. Maxfield. Aye. Mr. Gilbert. Aye. Ms. Winter. All right, congratulations. You have your special permit. The conditions will be, you'll see the conditions laid out in the report and I encourage you to work with the town staff to get the complaint response form and to understand that. And that'll be the only additional change that we see here. So thank you very much. Congratulations, good luck. Thanks to all of you. Thank you. Thank you for all your work on the board. Thank you. The next item on the agenda is ZBA FY2021-23. Michael and Adriana Powell request a special permit to allow a flag lot under section 6.3, 7.7 and 10.38 of the zoning by-law located the property identified as Pomeroy Lane, map 20C, parcel 154, outlying residents RO and neighborhood residents, zoning districts. Are there any disclosures? If not, the site visit was conducted on the eighth. We walked the length of the proposed driveway of the flag lot from the front to the back through a mosquito infested proposed driveway if I remember. And we observed the property line, we observed the trees, some of which needed to come down. We have walked with the property owner back to where the structure would be sited and it's planned to be built. As I said, we identified several trees that need to be removed for the driveway. We've confirmed the driveway grade to be less than, to be approximately 2.5%, which is less than the required, I think it's 4% that needs to be, it needs to be less than for the driveway, 4% grade. And we went over briefly the plans for the sketches for the residents that was going to be sited there. And that was the site visit. Does anybody else wanna add anything other than it's a good time, it's a good thing to take off the next time we go to that. Walk that space or at least have more breeze on that day. Anybody else? I think that's pretty much it. Let me just go through the submissions. We have a special application permit submitted by the applicant, a project summary, a site plan prepared by Brian Walts, dated June 6th, Powell Barn drawings prepared by Michael Powell Builder and License Construction Supervisor, dated July 25th, and that has a first, second floor plan in North-South view, as well as a cross-section view in elevations. And the Powell home drawings prepared by Michael Powell Builder and License Construction Supervisor, dated July 25th, 2020, which has East and West side views, South rear side views, first floor and second floor plans. There's a staff submissions of a project application report, common from the town engineer, dated September 7th, Jason's fields. And there are none listed, no public comments listed, Maureen, has there been any public comments submitted on this application? No, there hasn't. Okay, that is all the submissions. Mr. Paul, do you wish to address, are you representing yourself? Yes, yes, thank you. Good evening. Please identify yourself for the record. I'm Michael Powell, and this is my wife, Adriana Powell. And we're interested in building a home for our growing family in the back flag lot here. And we currently reside at 149 Pomeroy Lane, and we are requesting approval to proceed with our plans to build a single family home on the rear flag lot. The five bedroom home is being built, as I said, to suit our needs, where we've outgrown our current residents in the front there. And we'd like to build a larger home in the back. And more details, it's gonna be set back about 400 feet. It's protected by surrounding privacy, vegetative buffer. The clearing is indicated there on the site plan that, so we will have to remove some trees to provide the drive that will get us back there to also accommodate the fire requirements. The fire department requires the wide driveway. So we indicated that there, that we'll conform to that. The home design is as drawn in the accompanying plans, it'll be attractive sort of a New England farmhouse style with the front porch and side porch, traditional colonial dimensions, clabbered siding, we're thinking painting it white or cream or beige light color tones. We will conform to the lighting requirement down facing. We have a two car garage for parking as well as the extensive 20 foot wide driveway will accommodate additional parking as well. We indicated that our waste barrels will be picked up by USA recycling and stored in the garage. All the landscaping is no removal. We'll be managed by the homeowner. We have a stormwater management grading plan. We'll have along the driveway line, a grass line, swale will absorb the stormwater back into the water table. And disperse the excess runoff towards the storm drain away from the neighboring properties. The grading has been designed to disperse the water into the swale. And we will have to remove some trees in the process of the driveway. But we like to be selective about that and only remove what we really have to. So that's on our list. And I think that's about it. Thank you. Just describe for me again, how you're dealing with the water runoff from the new site building location. Just go over that again. I wasn't looking at the box and you were discussing it. Yes, as along the left side indicated by this sort of like an orange hash marked line, there'll be a grass line swale to handle any excessive waste or excessive water runoff. Storm drainage, stormwater. That's what, how deep or high is that swale? It's, I would say it's not, I would say a foot deep, maybe it's nothing significant, but it's just a shallow recessed area that will allow the water to be reabsorbed into the soil. Yeah. And of course, it will, will that be going downhill to? It's higher. Yeah. As a grade of the driveway, it follows the similar down to 2.2% grade towards the street. And there is a storm drain located in the general vicinity of the bottom of the driveway. All right. Does anybody have questions for, or anybody on the board have questions for the polls? Is there any public comment? Anybody from the public who wishes to comment on this application? That's the night. No one, no one from the audience, no one's there. All right. Anything else you want to say as an applicant before we go to a public meeting? All right. Unless a board member has questions or a comment, I would entertain a motion that we move to the public hearing, excuse me, move to the public meeting where we can discuss this while keeping the public hearing open in case we need to ask additional questions or get additional information from the applicants. Do I have a motion? So moved. Is there a second? Second. Any discussion? All votes have to be by roll call. I vote aye. Ms. Parks. Aye. Mr. Maxfield. Aye. Mr. Gilbert. Aye. Ms. Winter. Great. So we're now in the public meeting section where we discuss the conditions and findings that we have to make as well as the project. Is there any general discussion on the project and the application for many members of the board? If not, it seems to me that this is an application that we should try to approve. And if we can make the findings, which it seems to me we can make. The first finding deals with, first I'd like to go look at conditions that have been proposed by the staff. Possible conditions of approval. The first is the standard that the project shall be built in accordance to the plans that are submitted to the town. I think that it's always the case that we need to have that condition. Number two, all exterior lighting shall be designed so as to be shielded or downcast and to avoid light trespass on the adjacent properties. Dark high sky compliance recommend, in compliance with our dark sky compliance recommendations of the ZVA rules and regulations. The street address needs to be posted for the dwelling units with reflected numbering and sufficient for inspection services. So that's something that you would need to do that you don't currently have. Unimpeded access shall be provided across either access strip or an easement at least 20 feet wide. That is, and Maureen, what was Mr. Skeels, or was it the fire department that said it was sufficient or did they have a comment on the driveway? The fire department does not have any comments to provide. And the applicant does provide 20 foot wide access as indicated in their site plan. And the fire department did not talk about a need for a turnaround or something into the flag lot in the back. The applicant provides a turnaround at the end of the driveway. Okay, so they've seen it and they've approved it, okay? Correct, yes. Before the issuance of any building permits, the applicant shall obtain sewer, water, driveway, and trench permits from the Amherst Public Department of Public Works. That's the other condition that we have. Those all seem to make sense to me. Are there any other conditions that people wish to consider or propose? So, if not, let's move to the findings we need to make. Findings are, first of all, the flag lot shall be at least double the minimum lot area normally required for that district, except in cluster subdivision. So majority of the properties in the RO zoning district, minimum lot, 30,000 square feet. The zoning area is opposed configuration is, or without an access strip is more than double the minimum lot area normally required for the RO zoning district to which the house is located. So in the minimum lot area, it meets the compliance, it's 81,000 square feet for the lots. Section 6.33, each lot shall have an access strip, a minimum street frontage of 40 feet, a minimum width of 40 feet at any point between the street and the principal building and a maximum length of 400 feet after which distance the access strip shall end and the building area of the lot shall begin. For any flag lot, we have to find that will not have substantial detrimental impact on the declared intent and purposes of any overlay district, not create an undo safety hazard, not create a substantial adverse environmental impact, not remove or destroy or obstruct prominent natural features, not remove, destroy or irrevocably alter significant historical and other cultural resources. The property provides the access strip with a street frontage, the access strip is not in excess of 400 feet. And I think it meets the requirements of 3.0, 3.2, 3.3, 3.4 by not destroying, removing or providing adverse environmental impact or undo safety hazards. The widths of that portion of the lot where the principal building is to be constructed, shall be known as the building area, shall be an area equal or exceeding the distance normally required for street frontage. The building area is 200 feet wide and that meets the street frontage requirements for the RO zoning district. The portion of the flag lot within which the principal building is to be located shall be considered a building area, the building of the flag lot should be capable of containing a circle whose diameter is equal to or greater than the minimum standard street frontage required. As shown on the submitted plan, my earphones just stopped. There we go. Can you hear me? Okay. The flag lot has frontage circle 200 feet and meets requirements for the RO zoning district. There should be no more than three flag lots adjacent to each other. There's just this one flag lot and the lot shall meet the requirements of section 0.7.7, which we're getting to. Flag lots unimpeded access shall provide either access strip and easement of at least 20 feet wide that's provided. The driveway, the access strip easement shall have adequate drainage and not exceed a 5% grade. We've met that or the application has met that. The town engineer has reviewed this application has no property problems with the property and the applicant states the property summary will maintain the existing drainage easement currently in place for 161 Pomeroy Lane. 7.703 is not applicable, 7.704. Driveways shall meet the requirements of 7.71. The common driveway is not proposed. That's therefore 7.710 is not applicable. 7.711 will not be shared with any other property. Again, that's not applicable. 7.712 common driveways, so not less than 16 feet in width. This is a 20 foot wide gravel driveway and a turnaround is proposed at the end of the driveway. 7.712 is met, 7.713 driveway lengths, 400 feet. A common driveway is not proposed. Again, it's not applicable. 7.713, it meets the length of the individual driveway is 492 feet, it meets the proposal which is limited to 1,200 feet. 7.7132, longer driveway may be allowed on the planning board in accordance with seven. We don't need to have a longer driveway, 7.7133. Individual driveway originating is straight should not be limited. This is not applicable, 7.714. Does not exceed the grade, it is 2.2, 7.716. Center line should not be less than 60 degrees. It's straight, 717 meets the curb radii, 7.718. The proposal meets the requirements dealing with the common driveway for fire or other emergency vehicles, 7.719. Street addresses shall be posted. That's in the conditions. 7.720 and green refining access over a common driver and all that can look. It's not proposed, not applicable, 7.721. Engineer plans, proposed grading is there. 7.722, the driveway does not exceed the maximum length allowed. It meets all the dimensional requirements. So now, and it meets all the driveway requirements. Are there any questions regarding the findings we make under 10.7 and under 6? Not I'd like to go to 10.38. 10.38 specific findings deal with, the first is it's suitably located. It's allowed by special permit in the existing single family home and suitably located in the neighborhood. 10.382, 383, 385 and 387. All deals generally deal with nuisance of noise, pollution, light, noise, order dust and safety of pedestrian traffic. The trees surrounding the lot and the downcast lighting prevent this from being a nuisance to its neighbors. 10.384 adequate and appropriate facilities were provided for proper operation and use. You will need to obtain a sewer driveway and transfer midst all public works before you begin doing any work. So you'll meet the requirements of 10.384 before you'd be able to start any work. 10.386, your performance, you don't have a parking space, but there's more than enough room for parking spaces on the property. 10.387, the proposal provides convenient and safe vehicular traffic. This does not generate excessive traffic in the neighborhood by the addition of the one single family home. 10.388 ensures adequate space for off-street loading is not applicable. 10.389, the proposal provides adequate methods of disposal for sewage. You're proposing to connect to town sewage if I'm correct? That's correct. You meet 10.389, 10.390, the proposal ensures protection from floods. It's not in flood zone. 10.391 is not applicable. That deals with natural historic features. 392 is, you know, adequate vegetation. I can certify to everybody that there's lots of vegetation that exists on that land right now. 10.393, and it's adequate to screen it from all the neighbors. 10.393, the proposal provides protection of vegetation property by again minimizing light, noise, and you'll have to comply with the dark sky compliant recommendations of the ZVA regulations. So you will meet that 10.394, the proposal avoids impact on steep slopes. We have no issues with the great the town engineer is reviewed and has no issues with grading and drainage methods. 10.395 does not, the proposal does not create this harmony with respect to terrain use scale and architecture structure of the building. The, first of all, it's separated from other homes and it's not generally viewed by the neighbors. Secondly, we, the drawings seem to be to comport with housing styles and matters that are ubiquitous across our community. So I don't think it, there's any question that you meet the requirements to section 10.395, 10.396, the proposal provides for screening from storage areas. This is not in dumpsters, et cetera, loading docks. This is not applicable, 10.397 has enough recreation for those in open space. You have a large lot that would be adequate 10.398, the proposals in harmony with the general purpose and intent of this bylaw and the goal of the master plan. The flag lot is compatible with the master plan as the property is located within outlying areas of the town. The board needs to determine whether the proposal needs section 6.3, 7.7 and 10.38 under the zoning bylaws. I think unless there's objection from any member of the board, you have met the requirements. It's necessary under section 6.3, 7.7 and 10.38 of the zoning bylaw. Are there any other conditions, questions or concerns raised about the findings or the conditions? I think it's appropriate to have a motion to approve the application with conditions at this point. Is there, do I have a motion? So moved. Ms. Parks was first this time. Mr. Maxfield, was that you for a second? All right. It's been moved and seconded discussion on the motion to approve the special permit application with conditions as stated previously. There's no discussions. The vote occurs on the motion to approve the special permit application. This is a roll call vote. The chair votes aye. Ms. Parks. Aye. Mr. Maxfield. Aye. Mr. Gilbert. Aye. Ms. Winter. Motion carries. Congratulations. Good luck. Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you so much. Thanks, Maureen. Thank you all. Thank you all. All right. That completes our scheduled business for the day. We do have two other things on the agenda which are available. One is the, this is the time when any member of the public can raise an issue to discuss before the board on a matter that is not before the board tonight. I see no hands up. I see no members of the public except for us that have stayed with us for these two and a half hours. So I don't think there's any additional comments. This is also the time where anybody can raise an issue that's not on the agenda. And Ms. Parks, that's where you can raise an issue. I was just going to be, before we're done I just noticed in the last application that in flaglots there's a missing number. And so I went back to the zoning bylaw and there's a missing number there. So under 6.3 flaglots, under 6.33 there's 0.10123 skipping four and then to five. Not that it matters, just a little typo there. I just wondered if we were missing something vital, but no, just a note. A good catch, but I don't think a good catch and something we'll fix for the future. Any other comments? Well, I appreciate this is for our new members. This is the first one under your belt. This was a, we always try to get this done by nine o'clock. And if we can't get it done by nine or shortly thereafter, we will continue the meeting to the next day unless there's a desire of the board to stay and continue to endure through this meeting. But the goal is always to have a limit of three hours. And if we can do that, we try our very best. And so tonight we were able to get it done before that. So I think, I think all of you for letting us get this done as expeditiously as possible. That's it from me. Anything else from anybody else? If not, I'd entertain a motion to adjourn. Is there a motion? Yes, motion to adjourn. Ms. Parks moves. Mr. Maxfield, we came in second again. Mr. Maxfield seconds. The motion to adjourn is not debatable. It is a roll call, though. Chair votes aye. Ms. Parks. Aye. Mr. Maxfield. Aye. Mr. Gilbert. Aye. Ms. Winter, we are adjourned. Thank you all. Thank you. Good night, everyone. Good night.