 at some point. Rob may not join us. Okay. Okay. Good to know not to wait for him. I just saw an attendee pop in. Oh, Janet can show up. Okay. So are we all ready? Mm-hmm. Donna, are you ready? So, excellent. Thank you, Donna. Therefore, it is 2.02 in the afternoon on May 5th, 2020, and I'm going to call the meeting of the Community Resources Committee to order. Governor Baker's March 12, 2020 order suspended in certain provisions of the open meeting law. MGL Chapter 30A Section 20 allows us to hold this virtual meeting of the Community Resources Committee. The meeting is being broadcast, recorded for future broadcast, and all votes will be by roll call. At this time, I will call upon each committee member by name. At that time, I will confirm that you can hear me and we can hear you. Please remember to mute your mic after saying present. Shalini Balmill. Present. Joe Hanicky is present. Evan Ross. Present. Steve Schreiber. Here. And Sarah Swartz. Here. So committee members, there is no chat room for this meeting. If you have technical issues, please let Athena know or myself know. To make a comment or ask a question, please click the raise hand button. If technical difficulties arise as a result of utilizing remote participation, I will decide how to address the situation. Discussion may be suspended while we address technical issues and the minutes will note if a disconnection occurred. And I think and if necessary, we may pause the meeting until we are reconnected. Let me get my agenda up. At this time, we are going to move to general public comment. Residents are welcome to express their views for up to three minutes. Based at the discretion of myself based on the number of people who wish to speak. The council will not engage in a dialogue or comment on a matter raised during general public comment. To participate in public comment, here is how you do it. If you joined the meeting by Zoom teleconferencing to indicate you wish to make a comment, click the raise hand button. If you joined our meeting by telephone to indicate you wish to make a comment, press star nine on your telephone. During the public comment period, I will recognize members of the public. When called upon, please identify yourself by stating your full name and address. So at this time, is there anyone who would like to make public comment? I am not seeing anyone raise their hand at this time. So we will close public comment with none and move on. Our next item of business is presentation and discussion item 3a. We have one of these. And it is zoning bylaws. We had a referral from the town council to recommend a plan for approaching zoning bylaw revisions. And we are continuing on our quest to figure out how to do that. So at this time, I want to welcome Jim Nash, who is a Northampton City Councilor and Chair of the Committee on Community Resources in Northampton. So almost the same committee as ours, but over in Northampton. We had heard at our last meeting that Northampton had whether we had heard about Northampton's process from Christine Brestrup at one of our last meetings on how zoning bylaws get changed and how they sort of work their way through the system. And we thought it might be good to see if we can bring a City Councilor in to discuss this. So I am thrilled that we have Jim Nash here to talk about how not only the Committee on Community Resources deals with this, but what happens when staff is ready to bring a bylaw change, how it goes about that within his committee, within the Council in general. And then I also hope he'll discuss a little bit about how Northampton dealt with a recent, I don't know how recent it was, Jim, sorry, the large scale revisions of the zoning bylaws in town, I believe it was in Northampton. And then hopefully we'll be able to ask some questions of you, Jim, and get some more information about how our sister city over across the river does things since you guys have had more experience than this than we have. So thank you, Jim. And the floor is yours if you wish to unmute your mic. Okay. Well, hello, Amherst. Nice to be meeting with you guys today. And that, you know, I don't have a presentation planned, but I can give you a general overview of how we go about instituting zoning changes over here in Northampton that typically recommendations for zoning changes will start with our planning department. And then the planning department will work with the planning board to fine tune and deal with the technical side of a zoning change. Then that particular item will be brought to a public hearing. Often what we'll do is we'll have a shared public hearing where members of one of our other subcommittees, the legislative matters committee and the planning board meet together holding a public hearing where both the planning board is hearing public concerns as well as the legislative side. City council is hearing concerns. And that is that's actually kind of where the handoff happens between the planning side, the administrative side of developing the proposed zoning language. And then it transitions over to council. And our side is less technical and it's more based on doing, it's more about doing the outreach to constituents and interested parties around the city. And sometimes we may even hold additional public meetings beyond that. Could be our community resources committee could do some of that as well. But typically on most zoning matters we do a lot of outreach around that one hearing where both legislative matters and the planning board are meeting to make sure people are getting to the table early for that particular meeting. And then what's legislative matters is the committee where we say it's the last bite at the apple for any of any legislation for city council. And they'll give it a recommendation one way or the other to city council, most likely a positive recommendation, sometimes neutral if there's aspects that still need to be further discussed. And then it goes to council and we deliberate and require a two thirds vote of city council to approve. And so that's that's how things move forward. I think that the critical thing for us as counselors is that zoning can be, it's some of the dullest stuff to read in the world, but also it is some of the most contentious legislation that we as legislators have to deal with. And attorney Seawald our city solicitor has said, he said to me, you know, zoning is about somebody winning and somebody losing. And that because of that, that the that when you're you're doing your public process, feelings can be high. And that you also want to make sure that you actually one of my personal things is to make sure that people know about the the zoning change that's about to happen. People don't want surprises. And the the important thing for me is to get people into those discussions early. Because once once something arrives at city council, we can change things, we can vote things up or down. But but by and large, things are pretty cooked by that point. But if you get in at that hearing stage, and and it becomes evident to other members of council, you know what, we need to do a little more outreach and a little more work on this. That that's a really important piece. And that can really bring the temperature down. Recently, we we undertook some changes in zoning language, it had to do with non conforming uses, you know, whatever that means. And that and if I think about it, I can actually think what it means. But that the doing the there was the hearing, but also during that discussion, it became clear that we could adapt things a little bit better on the council side. We actually worked with the planning department to rework some of the language. Councilor Thorpe had a lot to do with that. And so there was some compromise language that made everything a little clearer. And that. So that would be an example of how making sure you do the homework around outreach before it gets to city council. You want to be ideally, in my in my view, when you're at council and you're voting on something, everybody's complimenting each other on all of the work that they've done. And that prior to getting to that point. So so that's kind of that. That's my overview. Mandy and I had talked about on the phone, you know, the the broader scope of how we got to where we are around our any changes we make to our zoning, that that everything goes back to our strategic plan, which we approve this is the sustainable Northampton plan, which we approved. I think it was about 1213 years ago. There was a lot of outreach and that was organized by our our planning department. Lots of outreach to different constituencies around town. Many hundreds of people were involved in that. There was a lot of discussion and it was finally approved by city council. And within that plan was some language about how we needed to take that strategic plan and implement it into our zoning. And the next step that we undertook was to have we we pulled together a zoning revisions committee where the the idea was to take the strategic plan and look at the zoning and actually look how how the two need to go together. What we saw was that we had a vision for a denser more walkable city, but our existing zoning pretty much stood in the way of that and particularly of all places in our downtown neighborhoods, that much of the many of the dimensional requirements for our urban neighborhoods were more in line with what you would find in suburban neighborhoods or on the outer edges of town. So we made a lot of recommendations to to change, you know, we really looked at all the uses, the dimensional requirements. We the zoning revisions committee did a lot of the that groundwork around doing the outreach with with residents in North Hampton. We had we met 50 times and we well over 100 hours that each meeting was two hours long and and that those meetings were open to the public at least five or six of those involved holding public forums at you know any the elementary schools or some of our community centers that and that from that we made recommendations general recommendations for the planning board to follow to institute zoning changes and so that work went back to the planning board which went back through that process I described where planning board to city council and and one of the things that happened in that process was that for the smaller properties your typical property around North Hampton and I'm sure this is true in in Amherst as well it's lots of one to four family homes and that yes there's some bigger complexes there's bigger developments but by and large people were pretty okay with what was recommended by the ZRC and the planning board and that aspect of the new zoning went through where every where we we instituted a moratorium for two years on projects of seven or more units so we could really examine what it was we wanted there and that that but it was it was interesting that the pushback was not around what people could typically do with their homes like you know put a garage in a a put in an apartment above the garage maybe add a a unit to their house people were all fine with people being able to do that by right even and but it's it was the larger projects requiring special permit that had bigger impacts that those are the ones where I we see a lot of pushback and I'm sure you guys see pushback as well and that but in the end by going through this process of coming up with the strategic plan the zoning recommendations many of the zoning items that we deal with the have the issues have already been discussed discussed and the direction we're going in has already been established that we still have contentious stuff that comes up but by and large the by having you know that process of strategic plan to zoning revisions to having that broader vision in place we're able to move some items through fairly quickly and and not not just to be fast but also to know that we've done the work the the homework to know that what we're voting for matches what people want so all right I guess they didn't have a presentation but there you go thank you Jim I am going to open it up to our committee members and others Christine and Dave too if anyone has questions or wants to ask anything of Jim let's start with Sarah oops sorry so many buttons um so you talked a lot about outreach and that's something that I think that we're still sort of struggling with trying to figure out outreach to our constituents because one of the things that we hear a great deal is that people just didn't know about a hearing or so I'm just wondering what kinds of things that you do for outreach because I feel like we do a lot of pretty mainstream things but people are asking for more so I just didn't know if what you did for outreach all right my unmiked oh yeah so um well my rule of thumb Sarah is that I'd rather have somebody angry at me at their front door as I'm talking to them rather than at the podium in city council and that um that that you know my rule of thumb is that the better discussions happen early on and that um and that it's really about for my constituents it's letting them know what's going on and I think by and large city council my colleagues are good at doing that particular outreach um there are you know there are notification requirements for hearings that have to do with you know it it could be a special permit it could be a zoning map change um but I always I find you know I'd like to see those things augmented I'm actually in discussions with Attorney Seawall now we're having a back and forth about maybe ways that we can improve some of that notification through our ordinance uh but that um but the onus really falls I it falls on counselors to really have worked their networks so that everybody knows or the important players know um about any any items that are coming so and there's two things here there's you know what I'm talking about generally right now is a project or a map change that's particular to a few properties um and then there's you know there's broader stuff that um could have to do with uses throughout a residential zone or a commercial zone um and the types of outreach are going to be different for both of those things and that um uh it's really important to figure out which um which which particular thing you're dealing with there whether it's going to be you know something for your downtown district or for a particular residential zone or is it just there's a particular development going on proposed development to go in so um did I answer your question probably in a rambly sort of way yeah so I I always feel that ultimately the onus comes back to um us as um as representatives of people to make sure that they know um do you have a follow-up Sarah because you have your hand raised again I do yeah so I do have a follow-up so um you know we're this is the first time that that we've done this whole town counselor thing so what I think that I'm hearing you say is that so say there was going to be a development or a new business opening and it happened to be in my district so what I'm hearing you say is that as a town counselor because you know most likely I mean I got elected because I I know I know a lot of people in my district I know people who you might think are big players and I also know a lot of neighbors so what I think that you're saying is is that if something is happening in my district I would actually just start um maybe networking with people having all the basic facts and actually doing some knocking on doors or calling someone up and saying you know um I have some information can we have a phone call can we um can I have a few minutes of your time and just explain basic facts and spread basic facts to try to bring some information personally as me as a counselor on a personal level to people which I guess for me in being an Amherst then I wonder how much of that seems okay with open meeting law so um I like the idea of and we do have district meetings but I'm just wondering if that's what you're saying like we uh if something's happening in our district we have a personal touch to try to reach out to people and then we kind of bring everything all together to the rest of the community um well I think in terms of your constituents if they're affected directly by it that um uh that you're going to have the most difficult vote okay because that you know your your other colleagues can go well you know I you know I have this certain philosophy or you know I have this certain vision for our city but you are going to be in the position of I you know somebody saying you know what I don't like this I think it's too big I think it's too ugly I think that they're going to make too much noise there's going to be lots of smells coming from that place and that um and that you um it's it's a difficult it can be a difficult vote vote for you and that um but by going out and doing your homework and and letting you know also being clear about what it is you're you can weigh in on and what you can't because there there's often a lot of limitations as to um what it is that the um uh what is that um I'm trying to think of an example it'll come to me in a minute but that oftentimes what we're doing is it where you know people want to people all right people say well the it's a business and um let's say it's a a fish store and it's going to smell and the thing is there's nothing there's probably nothing in your city ordinance banning a business that might put off some smells um maybe if it's a uh some sort of farming or something like that that um that you can't vote something down because somebody's worried that it might smell or it might bring in in some cars um that you know everything brings in some cars that but you you if you have restrictions on the number of visits for a particular um like in some of our um our neighborhood zoning or that we have um restrictions on the amount of trips that a home business can have which I think is 25 trips per day which is a lot so you could be a music teacher or a therapist and um so I guess this is all to say also really defining what it is that you as that uh representative where your power actually lies to what you can vote on and being really clear with your constituents and um and also being true to what um who you are and what your vision is for the city when you make that vote um because you might make you can't there's votes like that you can't make everybody happy so thank you um christine here's my button okay so I had a couple of questions um and I'll ask them all together and then Jim can answer whichever once he wants to so one of my questions is what's the difference between your CRC and your legislative matters committee and how do they work on zoning so that's my first question second question is um how does outreach work um who does the outreach it sounds like you're saying that town the city counselors do some of the outreach um I imagine that the planning department does some of the outreach and what tactics do you use and techniques um I understand that some of them are public meetings but you've also described going door to door to do some outreach and I guess the third question has to do with um understanding what Sarah was asking Sarah seemed to be asking about particular projects that would be coming along that counselors may or may not um like or uh support or whatever um and so that was interesting to me in in light of the fact that we're talking about zoning so zoning usually comes first although sometimes projects come first and you have to change the zoning to allow the project so um so when you are going around um doing your outreach are you usually talking about proposed zoning amendments or do you sometimes also talk about particular projects that are being proposed in town and express support or opposition to those that was a lot of questions um so so recently we had a uh a map change for a to rezone a property so it could operate as a um as a nightclub in in Northampton um that um and it had it oh but there were also a number of other properties properties that were part of that change because otherwise it would be spot zoning and also if it lined up and it lined up with um our strategic plan the sustainable Northampton plan to actually make these changes um so that is a case of where um the business actually uh the property selling and the business uh thriving required this this zoning change uh so yeah so sometimes there's this uh there's this backwards way of doing things i'm i'm usually not really comfortable uh in those situations that um i i think it allows me as a as a counselor to do more pushback because we're being asked to do things that are you know typically the the way things should go is you have the zoning and there's a map and the uses are laid out and then and then a project comes along and it's you know it requires a special permit to be approved and that's how it should work it shouldn't be this well we have an opportunity you know it happens though and we need to be nimble enough at times to respond to it and um but at the same time being uh clear about that um as and i did this while deliberating that we we are doing things a little out of order and with the idea that we're trying to bring things into order um so um i don't know christine did that answer sarah's question the sarah would be the judge of that but um yeah so sometimes it's what but ideally things are laid out ahead of time and that we're doing thought things in a thoughtful way that um that the the zoning is outlining how things are going to develop and actually when things are done that way things go very smoothly i mean the the amount of pushback that i've heard around smaller projects within my ward over the last decade i haven't been counselor for the last decade but i've been fairly well connected that for you know single family homes two family homes the the pushback's been almost nothing for larger projects they had you know reusing a church putting in 15 condos you know that those things will get discussion going so um let's see outreach so all right i'm going to hop through your your list here so my approach to outreach is to get people involved as early as possible so if the planning board is so i want to be attuned to what the planning board is working on in particular if it affects my constituents because i want to tell them to go to the planning board and hear what it is they're talking about so that they're prepped ahead of time also i i want um uh neighbors of a particular project to know it is going on and how they can be involved and possibly if they want to get organized in some way that they can do that and and they're doing it not just to push back but to be informed and be part of the process and and i and i'm always really clear about why i want people to support and be you know to be organized and um and be involved in discussion it's it's to make the process work not to stop things and um so um so the outreach is yes there's there's things we can do is counsel to create forums for outreach but it's also letting constituents know where they can hop in along the way um let's see tactics and techniques um well so uh for for me as a counselor i have i have a fairly decent email list there's also a lot of different social media type blogs going on in my ward um there is um there we have a neighborhood association which i i go to monthly meetings and i report out to them on any of the things that i'm doing and also just like hey i've heard that this is coming down the pike um that um and also during counsel you know before and after or at the start of counsel meeting we do any announcements so if i know if something's going on i'll announce that people in my ward should be you know should make an effort to go to this planning board meeting to go to this particular meeting that counsel is holding um so that they can get more information and be part of the process um as far as broader you know let's say it could be a um something bigger like changing use within a zone or you know revisiting you know the strategic plan that you're going to the newspaper for you're going to the radio station um and um yeah you're looking for ways to be in the press and in the news to get people involved so it really has to do with how big or small that um discussion needs to be and okay legislative matters and community resources um so we have um we have a number of different committees we so legislative matters used to be called ordinance and um what ordinance was and legislative matters is it's that last committee before things go to council where they were the languages looked at and um whether the um legislation is let me just say this i its goal is to really look at the language and before it goes to council so that everything is in order so what we're voting on in council is something that's been seen by the uh the city attorney and has been vetted by some of my colleagues um so it's ready for us to you know we're not doing any wholesale changes to the language when it gets to council um so that's the goal of legislative matters in my mind um we have the community resources committee that committee is the idea is for us to be looking at so for example our next community resource committee is going to feature uh people who are working on the COVID-19 crisis different organizations so um we've lined up the united way um i am also going to be reaching out to um um am i blanking on this oh because i'm not prepared all right but we're going to bring in a bunch of community organizations and it's not to interrogate them it's to give them the platform and say what is it that you're doing what is it you need the community to do to support you and we've also set it up so that it's going to be a zoom meeting and it's going to be live and broadcast on uh local tv so that our focus is what's going on in the community we also have a city services committee that looks at what the city does in terms of its um uh the services it provides um so that could be uh having the health department come in and speak or having uh dpw come in and speak about roadway projects it's very city focus um we let's see what else am i missing there um we have a transportation parking commission um but i think that describes him right there i think i'm missing a committee so it's okay let's go to steve you have a question hi thanks so much very informative so maybe this is a mess maybe this is just a discussion for us so the some of the things we're talking about are projects so projects are normally not the purview of you know our town council um normally our purview are the the bylaws that enable projects to happen right so and actually we're just this is from experience on our plane board that where things sometimes go astray is when zoning changes are made thinking that a particular project that this will enable a particular project and that doesn't happen the land is swapped or sold or whatever and another project which had not been envisioned takes that place so that that's so one of the things so we're obligated by you know state law to notify for projects that are going for special permit and i think by for a site plan review or at least that's a local bylaw but we're not obligated to to notify for zoning changes so what you were saying about how one notifies for zoning changes is incredibly helpful so there are some zoning changes that affect everyone say we're going to change all the frontages in Amherst or you know something like that and then there are others that may be specific to a particular district because that district only has that kind of a zone like um what's the word like business parks you know something like that where we only have a couple of those but i think it's you know what you said about trying to get the notice out even when we don't have to get the notice out and especially when many or all might be affected by something but i think another premise i want to challenge a little bit is the idea that there's winners and losers winners and losers in zoning and so a lot of zoning changes are presented that way that you get your tall building or whatever will get nothing from that other than maybe an increase in taxes you know something like that but i think that figuring out a way to change the message to everyone wins on this because we have a more diverse town or we have a you know something i think is you know also critical for the messaging but getting your perspective i think has been incredibly you know helpful on this well i just because attorney sebald said it i i don't necessarily agree with them on it but i do think that um that it does that sense of winners and losers does come up in those discussions and people you know people get i the most heated stuff i've seen has to do with construction projects and zoning and um so um uh let me think uh i'm trying to think back and so you were more commenting than questioning or we sometimes do that i think so yeah more more more of a conversation but i yeah does the city of northampton i'll make it into a question i'll like jeopardy i'll turn it into a question okay thanks it's helpful does does northampton get involved in the individual projects or does your city council get them so that's a good point um so that as counselors that i i'm i'm asked by constituents to go to planning board meetings and so to speak out for or against or if you want to go to planning board meetings or if you want to go to for or against or and um and in that role i'm i i make it clear as i'm up at the podium i know that i have no vote on this particular matter i am here speaking for this project that's before you today and that um and i'm speaking for you know these 10 to 20 people in the room right here and um and that um and that i tend to be more aware of what the zoning laws are so i can speak to the specifics better to help frame things for my constituents and it kind of prompts them as to when they get up there to speak you know it's like yeah i don't you know the setbacks that's the part that was bugging me and that um that it becomes a way to you know kind of bridge what my constituents are saying and what the planning board is thinking because they're sitting there and they're all just going you know well we're just we just have to follow the regulations you know it doesn't matter whether they think the building's ugly or not but if somebody you know hold it but you have you have some leeway in terms of putting some buffer in within the setback could you you know ask them to put up a fence or put in some trees and the planning board can go oh yeah we can do that you know and that um so yeah so when a planning board meeting i weren't we're not voting up or down on anything but but i have been asked numerous times over the last few years to speak in representation of constituents and meetings and so thank you jim i'm gonna i got a question and it goes back more to the process when you were describing the process it sounded to me like the hearing that's required that the planning board and generally your legislative matters committee holds together is more towards the beginning of the process maybe when the language isn't fully set it's been vetted a little bit but maybe it's not been vetted for months you know it's it's been there it's been talked about in maybe a planning board meeting or a council for a little bit but not to death and then the hearing is held and then maybe there's is there a lot more modifications afterwards so i guess my question is is the hearing more towards the beginning of the process or the end of the process in northampton um it depends on i it tends to be more towards the big beginning but um it does depend on what the what what the item is up for discussion so um so we have something before us on council this week i haven't seen the agenda yet but i'm pretty sure it's going to be there it has to do with with um uh for um utilities related to keeping the city going um that if they have a piece of property to put like in a um uh some sort of electrical type facility or something you know like a what are you where they have the um the big capacitors and all of that kind of stuff that um they don't need uh to have frontage or meet certain setback requirements and um that that went through fairly quickly and that um so um that's going to move forward fast but then when things are so what's something that took a little more time well there was that that language around um non-conforming uses that um also was there was a lawsuit brought forward by some constituents that had to do with a particular you know there was a project they didn't like it they found zoning language they found a glitch in our zoning language you ground the the um the project and the approval process to the halt to a to a halt um so the language needed to be changed um yeah so there was lots of discussion around that before it got to the hearing stage and um so it really depends on what the particular issue is um so sometimes it goes fast sometimes it that um and sometimes that technical discussion um uh happens early on because I think what you're getting to has to do with um if it's if it's a big idea and it's not formulated well and it ends up in some sort of language and then it gets handed off to the legislature and then you have to figure out you know well this doesn't quite match up the other thing is you can always send stuff back you know that um but um but in our view when things work right they come from the planning department planning board the language works it's technically correct um that they've already worked often the city solicitor is also working with the planning department to put the language together before it gets to that hearing so um thank you uh christine you raised your hand oh i'm not muted okay so i just wanted to clarify the role of the counselor in um North Hampton sounds like um one of the things counselors do is inform the public about what's coming up whether it's a zoning change or a project but another thing that counselors might do um is to either support or oppose a particular issue that might come up um be it a zoning issue or uh or a project is that is that second part correct that is so um it's not it's some counselors do not do that i make a point i will be involved in discussions at planning board um some counselors completely avoid it um and some just go to listen uh some go to speak and support or against projects um i you know when i'm speaking before the planning board it's more to help to define what my constituents are asking for rather than to say personally i'm for against a particular project um so okay thank you i'm shallony sorry about that okay um i guess i'm still not clear what is the role of the crc if at all in the zoning changes and uh another question i had was that uh how often do you allow zoning changes in a year is it certain times in a year or as they come up and am i gonna ask a third one i should wait no you can ask you'll probably have to ask again because i won't remember them but keep going okay and my third question is you know as we're considering the process there's that struggle between um and i understand the importance of telling people being thoughtful including everyone and then also to be effective efficient and so with the changes that you brought in after northampton changed their processes what specifically helped northampton be more effective and efficient in the changes processes um okay so let me start with that one i think what by doing the the work between the strategic plan and the zoning revisions committee that we're able to take where you're able to pre discuss so much of what the matters that are related to zoning that um that it that it actually makes the zoning discussions move along more quickly because you can you know we discussed this before it aligns with what the strategic plan is this also matches up what we've been doing for a number of years and here's the vision this is the direction we're going in if you can hit when you you're given all of those things um you're not just looking at you know why are we changing the frontage you know where'd that come from well it came from all of this work prior and here's the direction we're going in and um that um when mandy and i were talking about this about a week and a half ago it sounded like it that might be a place that amherst might want to consider is having some sort of zoning revisions committee or some other body to kind of look at what what's the strategic plan for the city and what make recommendations on the zoning um general parameters that maybe you guys can vote on and that it it just helps streamline things for as as stuff comes down the pike um so i i think that's one of the things we did and by the way a lot of those were hard discussions you know um you know people you know it it did you know what it does is it um by having the the zoning revisions discussions um we were able to get on the table some of the more visionary things that we we didn't agree about and and mandy you were talking about that that sometimes it feels like there's two different visions of amherst going on and they start butting heads and that by having that discussion to say you know hold it here's what our vision is for this particular zone and then another vision you know like how does it all fit together and having that that discussion clear it it just helps when you know oh for this particular urban zone we're going to change things to these uses and it lines up with what we've been talking about it it makes the whole process work a lot better um so um all right so that was question number two then there was something about oh so the crc what what our role is so um so our role is really to be have worthy conduit between city council and the broader community and the services that are out there it could be with the business community around uh downtown issues um a few years ago the uh the community resources committee um began you know talking about uh pan handling also discussed wages for downtown um employees um those are some issues that it took on they um the crc had also what was it there was a zoning issue i'm i can't remember what it was a few years ago but the crc the the the community resources committee was charged with doing the outreach for city council um so um so we're kind of the body that if city council needs like a broader outreach to the city that's our that's our role as well all right there was one other question in there get ahead of ma it was about frequency of zoning changes oh yeah yeah yeah all right so um frequency you know um uh i guess the way the way it seems to happen is um our planning department is always you know it seems like twice a year they come up with a package of things that they send our way and um uh that um and that there's once something's presented i think it's 60 days that you know once something's a you know a zoning change is officially presented it needs to go through the entire process in 60 days where there's a hearing where it's um discussed and council you know uh addresses it and then it's voted on and so there's there's a clock that goes on with it and uh typically the the best time to introduce such things um would be um you know january february which the non-conforming uses that came up in in that time frame and the other is you know september october um you don't want people away on vacation you want to avoid all of none i i none of this should happen during the summer um because typically we meet less and that people are away and um you don't want people to have a feeling that something was done behind their backs so maybe they had answered the question but for the planning department and um and it's jeff no david and and you're connected with the planning department in hammers so christine is our planning director and david zomek is our assistant town manager oh got it all right all right conservation so christine that lines up with your your approach right that may i speak mandy yes we haven't really done any zoning amendments except for um at the very beginning when uh the town council took its seat um we needed to update our zoning bylaw to bring it into conformance with our charter so we had a repeal and replace process and that was um during the summer of 2019 but since then we really haven't um done any zoning at all we have a lot of things that are kind of waiting in the wings and when you know we get the message from uh town council that the time is right we're going to we would like to bring them but we're now currently in discussion about exactly what does that mean exactly who comes up with the idea and how does it that um how does it get to town council and then when it once it gets to town council what does town council do with it and currently the thought is that it would go to our version of crc and then they would make a recommendation or they would hold the joint public hearing with the planning board and both bodies would make a recommendation to town council but we haven't really fully gelled that process yet and that's kind of what we're working through now so thank you yeah i just wanted to make sure that i understood um what jamie was saying is that the crc it sounds like the main role is that connection the bridge and outreach between the larger community and the council and it doesn't necessarily deal with the zoning changes am i correct right it's it can be any number of items that have to do with the community and the other thing is that you recommended certain times where the zoning changes uh it makes sense that everyone can be involved but it's not uh that you have fixed times that in january or only in february but those are just comments based recommendations yes um yeah let's see um yeah i i think i think as a rule that city counselors in in northampton would have a really difficult time voting on a zoning change during the summer um that that it just when people aren't around you know it's the same thing with the budget we don't want to be voting on our budget over the summer that the summer is going to be about you know keeping the city open and keeping the finances running that uh the the deeper discussions need to happen in you know fall winter and spring when people can uh participate um and that um and that the you know as as a planning one of the things i've seen our planning department do is when they come up with packages you know that there's that the items are somehow related that there's a theme of you know that um uh you know it could be that we're trying so when we anticipate in the fall has to do with uh bring starting to institute foreign-based zoning um codes to overlay on top of some of our downtown business our central business zone and that because what so right now we have a central bar central business architecture committee which kind of oversees how our downtown looks but we want our downtown to expand a bit and head down like conne street pleasant street and king street and where that is happening uh where we want that to happen rather than have this um this committee that's overlooking the you know whether or not the um uh the windows meet the standards of downtown that will will give them something that's that's a little more flexible in terms of foreign-based uh zoning do you guys know what that is it's basically where you're proving the the the type of structure and not so much what goes on inside it and you can add in some details of what you want to see but largely it's to say here's here's what it's going to the space it's going to fill and how it's going to relate to the street and um but allowing um a lot of latitude for the developer in terms of how the the building's going to look um so um so that's something that there's a theme that we're going to be looking at in the fall um there's also sometimes there's there's there's stuff that just kind of piecemeal that you know here's this this item that came up and it it needs to be fixed we're we do we deal with stuff like that too um but I think they do best when there's some sort of over arching theme going on thank you um we're grabbing some hands so let's let's do them and then I think we're going to try and move on slightly from this to discussing what our process might look like so Dave and then Sarah well first I I just want to thank Jim for for being with us today this has been hugely helpful and maybe Mandy um maybe I could save my comments uh for a few minutes I really wanted to talk about our process a little bit and in particular I wanted to talk about the role of the zoning subcommittee and um there has been mention of a of perhaps I know I think it was your last meeting or the meeting before Lynn and others mentioned the possibility of another committee to oversee zoning and so I can hold these questions until we get into our process a little bit if that's yeah let's let's do that let's finish up Sarah do you have a question for Jim yeah so let's have that and then we'll we'll if Jim wants to stay he can but we'll move on to our own discussion so this will probably also I think Dave will probably cover this in talking about our process but as a town counselor I think this is one thing I'm hearing and I just want to check and make sure I'm hearing it right is that in Northampton you if there's going to be a zoning change that that um people who are affected by it are notified by the town I guess is one of my questions and I'm wondering if if that is sort of tying into what I think you're saying is is that early in the process you let people who are going to be directly affected know what the zoning change is and then also give them an idea of you know we're changing the zoning because I don't do if it's tied to a project or saying we're trying to make downtown more accessible and what I'm thinking you're saying is is that giving people this heads up and then tying the zoning change to and a larger idea of how it fits into I'm going to call it a master plan because that's what it is for us is a way to start bringing sort of people together and explaining things to actually ease the process instead of making it more difficult later um yes um that um yeah you said a lot there Sarah so um that um yeah so um I'm trying to think in terms of the questions there so in terms of or so the city um is required so in certain case so for a map change the city right now per our ordinance requires that um anybody whose property is going to be um uh affected by a map change that we mail a notice to them uh letting them know that it's happened we have to post um that a public hearing is going to happen in the newspaper we need to let everybody know about the public hearing um strangely we don't let a butters know and so um that's that's actually something that i'm looking into right now to uh change our ordinance um and that I think that it's important that anybody who's uh it it's important for the property owner to know that his property's changing but the person who lives next door needs to know as well and in many ways I think that they're probably more impacted than the person who's having the zone change because the person who's having the zone change it typically it's like they're on a main street and now you know oh they're going to get to build another floor too higher and they can add in more parking and for them it's like hey that sounds great I bought this as a commercial property next door behind is where you have the residential properties where now it's like what do you mean they can build just 10 feet from my property line and you know and oh and they're going to put in a parking lot and or they're allowed to do that now and that I think that in terms of notification that's something that we need to change that um because uh that that's the most important in fact around the zoning discussion between the butters and and and where that new zone is changing um that's the time to show up because once it's established there's nothing they could do oh yeah they put in a permit for the parking lot and here comes the lights and um you're you know your backyard's going to be full of light all night long well when did that happen oh well we didn't send you a notice because your property wasn't directly affected and I I think that you know that I'm and I know a number of other counselors are interested in um entertaining such a change because we sidetracked into that discussion last fall when we were talking about things but um so in terms of that so uh last fall we had a zoning change for a few properties on bridge street and since we didn't have in we don't have in place that thing for the butters I went around and I talked to everybody I was not you know people across the street behind you know anybody who touched you know where they shared that property uh you know a property line I I knocked on their door and and let them know what was going on so they could be part of the process um so did that answer the question I you know I I think this are we as a city a city can do more and and I think that um that and I think that notifying people directly even the butters needs to be part of the process so because it makes our job easier other I spend an entire weekend knocking on doors just to make sure people weren't surprised so thank you um Shalini is this a question for Jim okay so you may ask it and then we're gonna we're gonna transition our discussion after Shalini all right so many questions thank you so much Jim for being here but feel free to call after you know yes that's true okay so I'm thinking about the origins of the change and you started the process with the planning department does it ever happen that the zoning changes come from the town council or a committee of the council or a town employee staff um so I'm trying to think so um for example this thing I'm discussing right now about letting a butters know that's going to originate from council um I don't know in along the way the mayor may happen and say that's a great idea I'm going to institute it and we're going to make it happen and then it doesn't go to council because it's already been implemented uh that uh that um but typically the big ideas come from the planning department that our role is um as counselors is to make sure that people are part of the process and and have their voices heard and also to vet things to like you know you know as people bring things up you know did you really think about this you know having you know the planning department says you know yes we did think about that here's the implications if we did it the other way um that um that I oftentimes I think of our role as counselors is we can't go into the weeds the way the planning department can but our job is to give things the smell test to really poke around ask hard questions good questions and make sure we get good answers that to to get a sense that yeah they really thought this through and um so but we can't go I in in the end counselors can't go as deeply as as um planning department folks oh and you mentioned other departments coming up with things you know sometimes like you know the building department and the planning department are connected and sometimes they'll come up with things like you know the building inspector said it's much easier if we do this and it things tend to come through the planning department but they could be influenced by the way the city goes about about its business so okay thank you um so now I I know I might be breaking up because my internet's stable but um thank you so much Jim for joining us you may stay on the call if you want um we're going to transition away from talking to Jim and questions for Jim to our own process and you know what we've been discussing the last couple meetings um bringing in what we heard from Jim and how Mark Hampton does it um and and all of that talking about what some of the things that Dave just previewed so I'm going to start with Dave Dave could I say something real quick oh sure I just I want to thank you for inviting me today and and uh being part of this discussion um I I think it's great that our two great cities can reach out and work together and that um I also want to say that I you know that throughout this I'm thinking oh my gosh you know I have eight other colleagues I have um many former colleagues that um I humbly know more than me and that um I have been part of many of these discussions but there you know there there are other people who um over in in Northampton fellow counselors who are very well versed in all of this and so thank you so thanks so um you know what I I think I'll hang around but I'm going to take a quick break and so if you want to you know pull me into and ask another question while you guys are talking feel free to um get to finish my snack and but go ahead thank you thank you Dave yes still here you said you had some stuff you wanted to bring up so now it's the time sure well I think it's part of this discussion and and again I would defer to Chris on or um Steve on the history of of how the planning board has worked through zoning and you know we've we've had a lot of meetings since you all were elected about this topic um but I think and again I don't really I don't have a horse in the race as to how we do it my only concerns are about really efficiency transparency of some of the things that you talked about here outreach making sure we're inclusive in our process um and so you know as I've been thinking about this lately some some things have you know and I've had various conversations with Mandy with Lynn with Paul with Chris uh with and and taking things in from some of the meetings we've had going back many many months um a couple of things have kind of um I guess themes have come out one is although six months ago I might have thought we should create another committee on zoning and and include residents and and stakeholders in in in town um lately and and I think specifically more specifically since the COVID-19 situation I've kind of moved away from that and said I'm not sure that's really going to give us the efficiency and the and the movement and the forward motion that we need um and hearing Jim talk about Northampton's process and talking a little bit with four or five people including Rob Mora and Christine and Christine Gray Mullen and Mandy um I'm more inclined to to see if if the CRC can play a larger role working with the planning board on on moving um a zoning forward so that's kind of my one theme my second theme is is just a little bit of concern about the workload for the planning board um you know despite COVID-19 there's still a lot of things coming before the planning board um they're they're very busy um they're with Christine's help they're working on the master plan the zoning subcommittee is is a very small group um and I just have concerns whether they have the bandwidth and I think some of them have expressed this this isn't a unique thought of mine I've heard them say this in meetings you know do we have the bandwidth to be the the glue here to move zoning forward so I think those are kind of the two themes for me one is I've moved away from the whole idea of maybe we should create a separate committee or group task force to work on zoning um maybe the CRC is the better place for that to be and then two is you know is there a role now that we have you all as the town council is there a role for the zoning subcommittee or should it just be the planning board should be every planning board member should be as involved as the next in zoning working with the CRC to move that to move zoning forward to the the full council so those are my two discussion starters thank you Dave um does anyone have any responses to that any thoughts I know we've had we've gone through a couple of thoughts as we've transitioned this committee and membership about zoning process so I see shalini's hand up so shalini um what I think uh from nor canton process whereas that it started with the planning department and then the planning board provided some feedback on the technical side and then it was it went to the town council and which was about then engaging the community at large and so forth so I'm still not clear about the planning board's role and how they can and the other thing is since we're talking about the planning board I think one of the things we were discussing is before we finalize you know finalize up process we want to hear different perspectives and what's already been done and so it would be great to hear from the planning board what are their thoughts and what have we thought about what are what is their capacity what are their challenges and then also to hear from of course the planning department Chris is there and like what is her experience been and what does she uh or what does the planning department feel would be the moving forward and based on what we've learned from the past so those are my comments Steve um yeah I think my comment is it's it's interesting that it's been two years since there's been a zoning change in in amherst so and a lot of that is that the are trying to get our feet on the ground and we've reorganized our own committees but I still am a proponent let's try something because I know that there are you know some important issues in the holding pen that you know honestly are some of them are relatively benign but still important but I I think I get worried that we overthink this so but and we've done a lot of things we went to from town meeting to select board to town council that's a big part of it we went to a smaller planning board the planning board membership change so these are all factors but I'm you know I let's do something is my mantra thanks Steve um Sarah or Evan any thoughts Evan yeah sure um so first I want to say I know this idea of a new committee for zoning has been sort of tossed around um a bit I've always been a little skeptical of that so I'm I was happy to hear Dave's comment and part of the reason for that is one this town loves nothing more than to create committees uh just yesterday we were talking about creating the new wage theft advisory committee um and GOL never did go through with this action of trying to Marie condo our committees to try to reduce it um so so if we can avoid another yet another committee to me that's a good thing and the reason for that is I really look at um if we say we're going to have a zoning committee that's going to come forth and bring forward zoning recommendations um what that that says to the counselors where that says to the planning board is don't worry about zoning we have a committee that's going to bring forward some stuff and we're not going to really take any action until a committee brings stuff forward when as Steve said there's stuff that we can do pretty soon that should be seen as low hanging fruit the other aspect of it is um every time someone says that um talks about the committee I hear this idea of yeah and and so you know six months or something like that and I think back to a downtown parking working group how long was that committee supposed to be in existence for well I don't remember what the original timeline was um but it ended up being years and years and years um and I can only imagine that a zoning committee would be the same thing um and even now still we haven't even actually implemented any of the recommendations from the downtown parking working group even though we got their report in the fall and so um I'm really skeptical of the idea I think the committee idea goes against any aspect of efficiency or effectiveness um and so I'm with Steve on this that we have people who who know what the low hanging fruit changes are let's at least get our feet wet and so I'm really skeptical I think that there's definitely a need for a larger zoning overhaul I think if we go from nothing for two years to a large zoning overhaul that's going to be a big a big ask of a especially of a council that has yet to actually have to deal with the zoning change so to me it seems like this is a good time for us to start moving forward on some low hanging fruit zoning changes one of which is actually on our agenda today although it doesn't really affect zoning necessarily um and so I guess that's just my initial thoughts is steering away from any type of committee um and and making clear that we're ready to move forward with stuff and whether we adopt this sort of three time a year process I'm you know I've made my opinions on that clue but I'm fine trying it out but I'm fine trying it out with the understanding that we'll actually try it out like soon Sarah do you have any comments right now yeah I guess I would say that I agree with Steve and with Evan I think that what this council is maybe finding out is that well committees are fantastic and they often get a lot of work done and we we need them I think that we're also working I think we're working well together to make changes and sometimes it does make things less effective and I think that we're sort of seeing even in the committees that we have a lot of these meetings are being called as a committee of the whole because really council as a whole you know would like to to say something to know something and then I think that we're we're moving towards action so I I don't think I would like to see a separate committee I think that um you know if CRC that starts to deal with it I think that's great and I think as far as implementing things I really like the idea from Northampton um saying that you know letting people know what zoning changes are happening and you know what what projects it could be and I see it not as like stirring up opposition in the very opposite way I see it as very early on like if as individual counselors and as CRC if we can explain to people early on you know what's going on and field their questions and we can also sort of be ambassadors of something it just seems like it would that is something it would be more effective where we could quickly let people know about things and um when people know more you know we could we could move things further quicker Shalini yeah I I definitely like that idea a lot Sarah about role as district counselors and counselors to reach out and keep the constituents informed so that's definitely I was like ding yeah how come we never thought of that that was a great insight from Northampton thank you um I'm also thinking it seems like we're putting everything in the same bucket and what Steve and Evan are alluding to is that there are these smaller things that would there is a low hanging fruit and we should address those as a separate thing and then there are the larger zoning changes and for that maybe for that something like that to implement what's in the master plan what are the zoning changes that are needed based on our master plan for that do we need a separate committee like Northampton had the zoning revisions committee do we need something like that for the bigger changes but I probably need to see those two things as two separate things one we can act on right away and one we need to get the bigger picture of what is our vision and how can we bring the change based on our vision in the master plan so before I recognize Dave I'm going to put my two cents in and try and summarize things um what I'm hearing from everyone is what I think I'm hearing is sort of a general idea of this prior CRC committee though before the change in membership had adopted a flow chart um of how zoning changes might happen and and in trying at one point it was going to be on a council agenda and I actually pulled it because I wasn't sure it was complete that's where we started this new conversation with potentially times of years and and you know buckets or or whatever um and then we got into all of this but what I'm actually feel like I'm hearing from everyone is that flow chart might be enough for now and maybe that flow chart is what we can send to the council for this is how zoning change process might work for now in terms of the logistical technical changes um it had a box at the bottom that talked about discussions and all of the sort of nitty gritty of wording might happen before it formally comes to council and all of that and so so I'm hearing that this new membership makeup might be ready to say yes let's just ship that off to the council with the prior vote we could even probably re-vote that as this committee um as as a new membership and to get that process sort of adopted by the council that process has been through a planning board discussion multiple times and and my understanding is they've generally agreed with that flow chart along with that we don't know what happens before that formal 60 day window takes place um the the clock timing starts but what I'm also hearing and something that I think I agree with is there's a need for someone saying here's the priorities on what we would like staff to work on zoning change wise and that's what I think I'm gathering from the comments that the rest of the committee made just now is we want to work on something we might need a larger zoning change thing but there's stuff we want to get done and maybe we as a committee can be that that group that says here's what we want to see coming to the council um what we we can be the group that connects the master plan to the zoning changes what are the most important and maybe creating that prioritized list to help the planning board and the planning staff decide and prioritize what they're going to focus on language wise now and in the near future and sort of create that um if I'm hearing all of that wrong please let me know but that's sort of what I think I'm gathering now and then maybe for a later conversation while potentially it sounds like we might want staff to be working on these larger changes of zoning um I think I heard that from a few counselors just now we're not sure how that process might look but maybe the internal staff working on it can start um and whether those technical discussions happen in CRC or planning board or something maybe we're not ready for that decision yet but maybe we can go on so now I got a lot of hands so I'm going to get through the hands um starting with Dave so thanks I do yeah let me hold I do want to talk about where things are going to originate but I wanted to make four quick points one is um you know COVID-19 is and will be a game changer for our downtown you you just heard the presentation from Gabrielle and um Claudia last night so there's no greater urgency I think than has been created by COVID-19 for us to you know try to make changes that make our downtown and our village centers more competitive um easier and for for businesses to to repopulate those spaces to build anew on land to to uh to uh to bring our downtown and our village centers back to whatever the new the new normal will be so that's number one COVID is a motivator a huge motivator um I think right now we have a great staff I mean we have Chris we have Rob Mora we have Nate Malloy we have a number of people in key positions um and then we have great boards and committees the planning board is raring to go um we have you all you all your first term ends in the fall of 21 correct so I often refer to this kind of as the dream team and with all this knowledge all this well intentioned um uh energy we all have I think it's a great time to get some things moving um and I don't think that's always true but again we have somebody in Chris and Rob who have done some of this work before in other communities Chris has been with the department for over 15 years it's a great time to to move on some of these things um when I wonder and Mandy to your last point and and we're open to whatever the the the CRC would like to do but I wonder if Rob Rob and Chris have been working on things behind the scenes they they have some things that they would like to talk to you about I wonder if if we give some general guidance to Christine and Rob and then have them present as uh Jim mentioned in Northampton some packages here's here's a group one this is low hanging fruit let's get those in the process here's group two you know and and some of that is already outlined in some of the zoning priorities that we've seen in past lists developed by the zoning subcommittee of the planning board so either I wonder if it's easier to react to something they give you than it is to say oh I think we should work on the signed bylaw well is the signed bylaw really important to get downtown and the village centers going after COVID-19 I don't know I think I would I would defer to Christine and Rob to inform us on that so anyway and then lastly you know out of respect for the planning board in the zoning subcommittee it is really critical I think that we hear from them that they are on board with this relationship between the CRC and the planning board and again I I kind of put it out there we don't we don't have Christine Gray Mullen with us but is there going to be a role for the zoning subcommittee I think we do need to address that um and not leave it hanging because then we want to be clear when are the roles moving forward so I'll stop there but those are kind of my four quick points thank you um Evan and then Shalini and then Christine rest up yeah so I forget why I originally raised my hand um but listening to Dave talk I think that he hinted on something that I've been struggling with um because I've been wanting us to do something on zoning for for a while now those of there are many of you here who have heard me complain about this um and I know personally what I would like to see done I have shared that in some cases publicly in some cases privately with with other individuals I have written zoning bylaw amendments that are just sitting on my desktop and the reason I haven't moved forward is I still haven't figured out what the relationships and roles are and I don't think that that we have and so uh I've been told Christine and Rob have been working on something I know the zoning subcommittee has been working on things so I don't want to try to step on their toes and short circuit the process by saying and here's my amendment and then find out that zoning by zoning subcommittee has been working on something similar for months right so there's a there's I think I don't necessarily know what our role is as counselors in this and we heard from Jim sort of how he proceeds the roles of counselors in Northampton which I think was really informative to hear I don't necessarily know that that needs to be how we have to perceive our roles um and we can do things differently um but I think that that's going to be an important conversation to have because um I think that where things originate can be varied but it's it's useful for us to know um what things are happening and so we can work together so we're not stepping on toes um but I also think you know Dave's and you know is in more make more sense for us to be reactive um to what planning staff comes forward with or to try to be more proactive and I don't know the answer to that because I think to some extent um Chris and and Nate and and everyone in planning has so much more expertise and knowledge than I do on this and so I wanted to defer to that expertise at the same time to some extent they're going to bring forward stuff that they think is in the best interest of the town but we're also here to be representing sort of what we think are um you know our priorities which as because we got elected also reflect the priorities of our constituents and so to some extent we want to be deferred to their expertise and what they say needs to be done but I also think we should be signaling to them what we want to see happening because um I don't want Chris or Nate or anyone on the zoning subcommittee working on a zoning bylaw change for months that's going to be dead on arrival in the council because it says that we should you know uh not allow any more people to live in downtown we're going to be like well that's that's that's not at all what we want as a council right and so I think it's tricky to figure out this relationship which is why these conversations are important um where things originally and also what we do but I think to to to sum this up I see our role to some extent as the CRC as representing um what types of things we would like to see done and we might not necessarily come forward and say we need this zoning thing changed but we do know that we want to see you know greater density in the in the you know residential village center or something like that um and then they can say oh well here's how to achieve that I don't know if that made sense yes that did so yeah so many things but I think the first thing that comes to mind is to echo Evan we are as counselors hearing from different constituents we're hearing from town staff and so we do have a particular vision looking at you know things from the bigger perspective of all stakeholders and so I think we do play a role in at least recommending or acting on things related to zoning changes the second thing um the thing is I was curious about I probably need to look at the chart again but the idea of like from beginning to end how long is that process there in our current chart because I was thinking if we can make that tighter and and have it move faster especially for the things that are low hanging fruit so I don't know what the time period is from beginning to end I heard in our time didn't I heard the 60 days was what it takes or maybe I heard that wrong I don't know but is there a way of um yeah okay so it's 60 days but when I look at the chart it seems like and I add up all of the days it's definitely more than 60 days so how can we make that process especially for the low hanging fruit and the third thing what I'm hearing um and having hearing and especially Dave highlighted that is especially given with the the covid and what's happening we really need to identify things that really need to happen quickly and how can council facilitate that and also engage the constituents so everyone's on board oh last thing also very important is the planning board and our relationship with them and is could we have a meeting with them I see that Chris Malin are attending this meeting right now but probably as an individual capacity but do we need to engage with the planning board in a more formal and have kind of a discussion with them about this thank you I will make a note of that to answer your question on timing there's some state law requirements you can always go quicker you're not supposed to go slower um and it is from the time of formal referral from the council to the planning board at a formal proposal 65 days to the public hearing um for the planning board public hearing um I'm not sure there's a determination or a set time between planning board public hearing and town council public hearing we're we've aimed to hold those together there is a timeline from town council public hearing of no more than 90 days between that public hearing and a vote on the amendment so if you hold joint hearings you've got a time of approximately 150 days no more than approximately 150 days from the time it is introduced and introduced at council essentially um and voted on at council so that's 150 days obviously it can go quicker um it by state law is not supposed to go slower um and Christine has her hand up and then I want to actually move on we will bring this back at a next meeting for a very brief discussion and hopefully a resolution so Christine say Christine me Christine yes you Christine sorry Christine Breston have to uh just um really reiterate that Christine Gray Mullen is here she did join as an attendee I think Janet McGowan is also here as an attendee um but I wanted to say that the zoning subcommittee is really a child of the planning board it's a subcommittee of the planning board so the planning board may find it helpful um to keep the zoning subcommittee engaged um and I think that's really probably a decision that um the planning board would be the the proper body to make um they may find that you know it's easier for them to work on zoning if a smaller group gets together and does that work and then brings it to the planning board and then the planning board as a whole meets with this CRC or you know whatever so the anyway I just wanted to say that it really is in in the body of the planning board that the that the zoning subcommittee lives um the zoning subcommittee and the planning board have developed a list of priorities on a chart that I've shared with you a couple of times it's kind of a rainbow colored chart and it's had things moved around over the years but I think that's pretty expressive um aside from the fact that we're now in this COVID-19 uh emergency um but the chart is pretty expressive of what the planning board has thought of as priorities that the town really needs to work on but they're also very interested in hearing what town council and CRC think of as priorities and there hasn't been as much there's been a lot of back and forth about the process there hasn't been much back and forth yet about substance so I think the planning board would welcome hearing from CRC or the town council about what town council thinks are priorities and in terms of things that Evan has come up with gosh I would love to see if Evan has some good ideas that might be presented to the zoning subcommittee and the planning board and might um you know even be a better idea than anything they've come up with so far so I wouldn't hold off on sharing your ideas um I think that's that's really exciting that you have these ideas um so yeah so that's kind of what I think I think we just need to talk more and we need to start doing something I would love to start with we had a list of three things last June that we wanted to start with and we just never for various reasons got it going one of them I think is on your agenda to talk about today which is voting requirements for site plan review by the planning board that might be a small item that you could pick off and do um you know just kind of to get the zoning process rolling get a feel for how it works and then everybody's going to feel more comfortable um moving on to other things but I'm really excited about having having this conversation and getting an understanding of what um CRC and town council thinks are important issues thank you so we are actually going to move on to that item I recognize we have technically 15 minutes left in our agenda I think two to four yep um and so I'm gonna get going and I want to say thanks for having me and um you guys sound like you're having really great discussions well thank you Jim thank you all right take good care so our next item is a zoning bylaw section 11.25 proposed amendment and I just need to introduce this a little bit before we have a discussion on it um I I need to be clear about a couple of things um the first one is this has not been in front of the planning board yet it was supposed to be in front of the planning board in mid-march um but those meetings as we all know got cancelled because of a pandemic and it has not made it back to the planning board um but I I felt we could bring this forward despite it having not been in front of the planning board and despite the fact that the language that is on the very first page of this packet item is not necessarily the final language because it has not been discussed anywhere um it is one of if you read through the packet a couple of different proposals but I thought it could come to us for a basic discussion about maybe where we as a CRC are on what that voting requirement we might want to see particularly because this is something that in some sense relates directly to the change in government because the planning board switched from nine members to seven members at the change of government this number had five it was based on nine members and when we redid all of our zoning with the revise and replace this is a section that for whatever reason got overlooked in potentially needing to be changed um or never did get changed and so um I thought this is something that kind of relates to that um and now in some sense falls within our charge so one of the things I'd like to concentrate on is not necessarily the specific language of the amendment because that's not something I want us drafting I think that's something that the planning department can draft with consultation with our attorneys um but what I'd like us more to look at is the very last page of the packet which is titled for discussion only the decision voting requirements for site plan review and figure out maybe which one of them we as a committee would potentially recommend the the planning department and planning board consider more highly or something um but also but I see Evan's hand up so we'll we'll take Evan but I'd also like Christine if there's any questions if Christine can talk mainly about sort of what a site plan review is and it's different between difference between that and a special permit and things like that so we'll start with Evan so I obviously have opinions on this that I can save I raised my hand actually just to interject about um having served on by law review committee um because you mentioned this was something that was either overlooked or not so this was actually something that was discussed by the by law review committee um so when by law review committee was looking at how to bring different bylaws into conformity with our charter we tried very carefully to thread the needle between things that were strictly bringing into conformity versus things that could be seen as more substantive this was discussed and and for my recollection this is probably about a year ago they were sort of broad agreement on the by law review committee that this number should be changed in response but it felt a little it didn't feel exactly like bringing into conformity it felt like it was too substantive to be covered by that and so this was something that was discussed when we were looking at this um but so there was sort of agreement that even though we felt like it was a good idea to change the number it might not necessarily have been our place thank you for that background Evan so Christine could you just give us a little background you're the one that prepared this packet for the planning board and all and then we will move to Steve okay so I did prepare the packet but I did not prepare this chart Christine Gray Mullen prepared the chart and she actually has done a fair amount of research about what other cities and towns in massachusetts do about this but to give you a rundown on the difference between a special permit and a site plan review a special permit is something that's codified in chapter 40a of mass general laws it's a it's a chance for either the zoning board of appeals or the planning board to allow a use or something else that isn't clearly compatible with what surrounds it in other words it really is something that may require more scrutiny and may require some conditions to make it fit in better so it really has to do with the use but it also encompasses other things as well whereas with a site plan review the use is considered to be allowed so wherever you have site plan review in our zoning chart it means that in that particular zoning district a long time ago the people of amherst decided that that use was typical in this particular zoning district and therefore should be allowed however with regard to the number of trees that it should have or where a sidewalk should be or where the building should go or the orientation of the building number of lights um access perhaps having it near uh or have a bus stop nearby or any any number of things that relate to the site it was felt that um you know a site plan review would be uh what is really needed because the use is allowed but we want to help it fit into the neighborhood better by adjusting the site um the site uh aspects so um a long time ago oh back in the 80s 70s i didn't even know how far back it went there was something called plan approval and that was a creature of it wasn't state law it was something that was allowed by amherst zoning bylaw that allowed the planning director and the building commissioner to get together and review a plan and determine whether it fit in with the zoning bylaw it wasn't something that required a special permit it just required somebody to make sure that it um comported with the zoning requirements and then um a couple of years later or decades later i'm not really sure how much um people decided that well that's not really fair to the public to have the planning director and a building commissioner make this decision it might be um something that's being proposed that is going to affect the public so amherst decided well let's have a site plan review process where we could have a public hearing we could invite the public in and then have more careful scrutiny of whatever is being proposed not vis-a-vis the use but vis-a-vis how the site is um is arranged so we instituted that sometime in the 80s i think it was 1988 but we instituted in a way in a way that it mirrored the special permit process so we borrowed from state law with regard to notifications notification of a butters legal ads etc and we mirrored our site plan review on special permit um that's when we had nine members of the planning board and the um idea was to have two-thirds of the planning board vote in favor of whatever was being proposed by site plan review just the same as it was for a special permit and then we realized that other cities and towns were only requiring a majority to vote for um for site plan review approval so amherst said well let's uh move in that direction let's require a majority of a nine member board which would be five but um actually keep the two-thirds so if you had all members of the planning board present you would require a two-thirds vote which would be six but if you only had eight of the members present you could require a five a five member majority so that was that was instituted in 1998 um now again that was with a nine member planning board now we have a seven member planning board so um should we still keep to acquiring that five members vote in favor shouldn't we go to a um well a two-thirds of seven i believe i'm not sure how much that is that's four point something but anyway shouldn't we go to a majority like um other cities and towns in massachusetts they've gone from using two-thirds for site plan review to using a majority and most cities and towns do that so a majority of seven would be four instead of five so that's what we're looking at right now and as i said christine gray mullen has examined all the different parameters and permanent permutations of this and that's what is displayed in the chart and perhaps if you'd like her to go into detail about explaining that she could do that so i will not have her do that because she is not expecting any of that today um so we're we're going to sort of stay away from that for now but i do want to steve still has his hand up so steve yeah so um when i was on the planning board we also discussed this issue because the charter had passed so we knew that we're going to be reducing our numbers to seven and we had gone to the point of making a proposal and then we uh you know never followed through on that but evan i think explained well what my understanding of what the bylaw revisions committee was doing is to not enter anything that seemed to be controversial so the fact that there are two numbers here an absolute number and a percentage number makes it means that whoever the writers were had some sort of an intent that we need to you know figure out what that is so just to add on to what chris was saying is that site plan review is basically by right so it's sort of by right but versus special permit which is discretionary so those are huge differences so by right with input is a very different animal than something's discretionary so discretionary the answer can be no in a site plan review really the answer can't be no it but it can be well it can't be no um i'm not explaining it very that very well but there has to be an extraordinary reasons to to um vote no on a you know a site plan review that i i don't have all my thoughts together on that so my my sense you know i i feel strongly about the the percentage and not strongly about the absolute so the way that it's written now it's actually can be harder to get a site plan review passed than it can to get a special permit passed so the other thing is that site special permit is defined by master law site plan review is a construct of each town so even the towns that are use the term site plan review use it in different ways every single zoning bylaw is different and every single use of the the concept of site plan review is also slightly different um we are almost out of time for our meeting i'm going to take christine and then i'm going to summarize where we are with this oh steve and i have to go i'm sorry i have to go to okay we got another so i have to go over to another screen we'll hear from christine we'll summarize and then we will move on okay and finish this meeting as soon as we can as close to four o'clock as we can so christine i think i'm going to lower my hand okay um so so what i would like out of the committee today is you know i i didn't expect any voting despite it being on action items or anything um is we were just talking about how do we get things moving so is it possible for us to sort of signal somehow to planning board that this is something despite covid and pandemic that we would like them to be discussing um what are people's thoughts on that is that something we should be pushing forward do we want to discuss this again at another meeting where we get into what our thoughts are on the percentages versus the wording which i'm not as concerned about thoughts quickly evan yeah so quickly um and to me this dovetails really nicely with the presentation we got from the bit in the chamber last night um about ways we can make our town more appealing to businesses um i think saying to them uh these are things that you can build here by right but we're going to have hold the voting threshold to the same as if it was by special permit seems ludicrous and sends uh not a great message and so i i definitely think this is something they should take on because i think this is it a low-hanging fruit first step towards what we seem to agree on last night when we heard from the bit in the chamber um and i think that a simple majority i don't i i don't even think we need the absolute number i think a simple majority is is the way to go sarah and shallonate any thoughts sarah i'm not sure yet i see the i so i'm coming from a district that's suspicious of everything right so i i'm suspicious if you change the numbers but i also see the if this is by right then like evan said we're just making things harder for business so i'm sort of undecided but i'm leaning towards having it be majority instead of a specific number and would you let me just ask directly should should if i went to or if christine breastrup who's here came back to the planning board they have a meeting tomorrow night i don't know what she's going to talk you know she's going to report on our meeting today but if she were uh are we sort of at a consensus that this is something we'd like to see the planning board take up sooner rather than later i would say absolutely yes and i see shallony nodding i heard from evan yes i so so i think we can report either through myself or through christine breastrup that this is something we'd love to see start showing back up on the planning board agendas for discussion and all um and and as i said we haven't really had the discussion as to numbers we can do that maybe i can talk to the planning board chairs to whether they want us to have that discussion before they do or simultaneously or not um or wait till they've had their discussion and have language before it comes to us but i'll figure that out later so thank you for all of that information i we will make sure we convey that and i'm going to skip the crc meeting times that is as long as we agree that next our next meeting is going to be where are we um may 19th um we can vote on the actual document later um we're going to skip the minutes for tonight today because we are out of time we'll we'll get to them next time does anyone have any announcements i am not seeing any hands next meeting agenda preview um is going to be a crazy agenda we're going to put time limits on stuff so that we can get through everything um we have already been in contact with the presenters of the the sponsors of the wild animal act by law we're going to have an initial presentation just to get that in and sort of a discussion for um just about what it is and all of that i have received some already requested amendments to it i have not looked at them yet from another group um i will put them in the packet for next week but i do not intend to have a full discussion on that bylaw because we are quite busy on other things and it is not frankly something that i see as chair needing to go quickly um and so while we're going to start that we're going to try and move it forward maybe a little bit of a discussion at a time at multiple meetings um to see but i will at least put the the public comments i've received into the packet next week so people know what they are um i figure we'll have a discussion from the bid and or on the bid and chamber zoning stuff that they presented on monday night um i think it goes well with the discussion we've been having here we will bring back the zoning process to try and find something with that um i'll talk with dav and shalini as vice chair probably the planning board chair to see whether we should have a joint meeting of the planning board and crc at some point to get through that but i'm hoping to be able to by next meeting sort of finish up that so it's not taking so much time and we can actually get towards moving stuff along does anyone else have any other suggestions on agenda for next time dave real quick i know we're out of time i would just i i think we're all anxious to get going on the zoning discussion so anything we can do to work with christine gray mullen and and you um to move that along i think staff are anxious to begin working with you with the planning board so hi you know i can't think of too many things that are more urgent in town right now um anything we can do to help the business community to help uh help our our the business community and and the village centers come out of um the covid 19 really devastation that you heard last night it's it's got to be a very high priority for all of us so let's get moving on it we're ready anything else from any of the members are there any items not anticipated by the chair they're not by me by anyone else not cnn and so at 404 p.m i will adjourn the meeting thank you all so much for being patient with us we will have means next week to make sure we get through everything thank you