 Okay, Janet should be coming over to be a panelist. Let me try it again because she didn't. There she is. Okay. And Amherst media is here. There's Andrew. That's pretty spooky background for you, Andrew. Yeah. I had the light. There's a light behind that's in like to stop it. So it's just, if I turn it on, that's all you guys would see. Okay. Yeah. I think that's probably better with less light. So are we good to go? Yes. Amherst media is here. You are a co-host. We are recording. We should be good to go. Okay. Here we go. Welcome to the Amherst planning board meeting of November 3rd, 2021. My name is Doug Marshall. I am the chair of the Amherst planning board. I am calling this meeting to order. That's 6 36 PM. This meeting is being recorded and is available live stream via Amherst media and minutes are being taken. Pursuant to chapter 20 of the acts of 2021. This planning board meeting, including public hearings will be conducted via remote means using the zoom platform. The zoom meeting link is available on the meeting agenda posted on the agenda. You can either go to the planning board page, or go to the calendar listing for this meeting, or go to the planning board web page and click on the most recent agenda, which lists the zoom link at the top of the page. No in-person attendance of the public is permitted. However, every effort will be made to ensure that public can adequately access the meeting in real time via technological means. As a result of the public's participation in the meeting, whether it's through leadership or despite best efforts, we will post an audio or video recording, transcript or other comprehensive record record of proceedings as soon as possible after the meeting on the town of Amherst website. Board members, I will take a roll call. When I call your name, unmute yourself, answer affirmatively, and then place yourselves back on mute. Maria Chow. Jack is absent at the moment. Tom Long. Present. Andrew McDougal. Present. Janet McGowan. Here. And Johanna Newman. I've been told we'll be joining us later in the evening. And Doug Marshall chair is present. Board members, if technical issues arise, we may need to pause temporarily to fix the problem and then continue the meeting. If the discussion needs to pause, it will be noted in the minutes. Please use the raised hand function to ask a question or make a comment. I will see your raised hand and call on you to speak. After speaking, remember to remute yourself. The general public comment period is reserved for public comment regarding items that are not on tonight's agenda. Please be aware the board will not respond to comments during general public comment period. Public comment may also be heard at other times during the meeting when determined to be appropriate. Please indicate you wish to make a comment by clicking the raised hand button when public comment is solicited. If you have joined the zoom meeting using a telephone, please indicate you wish to make a comment by pressing star nine on your phone. When called on, please identify yourself by stating your full name and address and put yourself back into mute when finished speaking. Residents can express their views for up to three minutes or at the discretion of the planning board chair. If a speaker does not comply with these guidelines or exceeds their allotted time, their participation will be disconnected from the meeting. All right. The first item on the agenda is approval of minutes. So, Chris, do you want to say anything about the minutes or shall we just go through them one at a time? Chris, Ron, mute. So you can go through them one at a time, but I wanted to mention the fact that Janet sent some corrections to the July 21st minutes and they were very helpful. And so when you get that far, then we can look at those. All right. In that case, let's see. We'll start with the May 5th minutes. Did anybody have any comments on the May 5th minutes? Raise your hand. Andrew. Thanks, Doug. Only very minor, which is just my last name was spelled incorrectly a couple of times in there. MAC. Okay. All right. I don't see any other comments. So why don't we go ahead and have a motion to approve? I see Janet raise her physical hand. Thank you. I moved to approve the May 5th, 2021 minutes. All right. And Andrew, I see your hand. I will second. Very good. Let's go through. Through the board. Maria. Tom. Andrew. I. And Janet. I also. And I'm approved as well. So it's unanimous. Five zero. The next minutes are from May 19th. Are there any comments on the May 19th minutes? Not seeing any. Could I have a motion to approve? I moved to approve the. May 19th, 2021 minutes. All right, Janet, I'll let you make that motion. And Tom, you raise your hand. I'll second. Thank you. All right. For against the May 19th movement, it's approval. Maria. Tom. Approve. Andrew. And Janet. And I'm an approve as well. Again, it's unanimous of the five of us who are here. The next minutes are June 30th. Any comments on the June 30th minutes. I see no hands. Any motion to approve. Tom. Tom's raised his hand. Don't move. Prove the minutes. Second. Second. Thank you, Janet. No discussion. For against approval of the June. 30th minutes, Maria. Approve. Tom. Andrew. Hi. Janet. Hi. And I'm, I as well. Now we come to the July 21st minutes. Chris, do you want to. Or you want to describe the edits that Janet sent. Or. So there are just. Really a few on page three. I've marked them with track changes. And I sent a copy to Pam today. So hopefully she's got that up. Yeah. So there was a mistake on page three where. Percentages. Percentages. And then on page five. I'm not sure why not go from 70%. To 60% building coverage. And we miss. We mistyped that. So now it's corrected to 70%. To 60%. And then on page five. There was a mistake with regard to the vote. The numbers were correct. Four to two to zero. And then on page five. The number one. Was not correct. So we've changed. This was a vote on. Closing the public hearing on apartments, I believe. And so we've corrected the. Vote of the individuals. And I've also added the word day. To the preceding paragraph where Mandy, Joe, he made a comment. So 90 day clock. All right. Any other, any discussion of this, Andrew. I see your hand. Yeah, I was going to make a motion, but to prove, but did we skip over June 30th? Do we get that? I don't have comments on it, but I was just as I was scrolling through. I'm not sure whether. I think. Yeah. Okay. We just did that. I miss her. Yeah, I think we got. I think we've done all, we've done three so far. And we're on the fourth one, which is July 21st. Perfect. I will make a motion to approve the amended minutes. Great. Thank you. Anybody want a second? Why don't I second this one? Beat you to it, Tom. All right. So. To approve the July 21st minutes. Maria. I was absent. So I was staying, I guess. Okay. Tom. Andrew. Hi. And Janet. Janet, you are muted. Hi. Thank you. And I'm an eye as well. And finally, we have the October 20th minutes. Okay. Great. I assume there haven't been any edits to this since you sent them out. No, it's nope. Okay. Any discussion of these minutes. Not seeing any motion to approve anybody. Motion. Motion to approve the October 20, 2021 minutes. Thank you, Janet. I'll let somebody else second this time. Andrew. Thank you. All right. To approve the October 20th minutes. Maria. Tom. Andrew. Hi. Janet. And I'm an eye as well. Thank you all. All right. Let's see. All right. Next we have public comment period. So are there any parts of the public who would like to make. Comment this evening on something other than. The article seven zoning bylaw proposal. And the article three. Zoning bylaw proposal. Thank you, Pam. Chris. So I'm not a member of the public. I just wanted to clarify who's taking minutes tonight. I just wanted to clarify that she is doing that. Yes. Okay. Great. Thank you very much. That's all. Great. Thank you. Thanks, Maria. All right. So I don't see any hands raised among the public for the public comment period. And we'll move right on. To art to number three on the agenda, which is old business. So we'll start with our item a the zoning bylaw article seven parking and access regulations. We hope to have it conclude our discussion and vote on a recommendation of this proposal to town council this evening. So the revised proposal for this article is to see if the town will vote to amend article seven parking acts parking and access regulations by amending section seven point zero, zero, zero to clarify the parking requirements for all dwellings, including apartments. And then we'll move on to the next slide. And we'll move on to provide criteria for the permit granting authority to determine if an alternative ratio should be provided. All right. So I'm not going to read the original proposal. It is listed in the agenda. But why don't we go ahead and Chris or Nate or. Rob or Marine. Who will be presenting this. We have Maureen presenting tonight. Thank you. Let me pull up my screen here. Okay. So, yes. So my name is Maureen Pollack. I'm one of the staff planners with the planning department. And I'm going to walk you through the proposed a zoning bylaw amendment for parking space, uh, requirements for residential uses. Maureen, can you get a little closer to your microphone? Sorry. I've been having a microphone issues this week. I've been having a microphone issues this week. Is that better? It's better when you're really close. Yeah. And Maureen, Maureen, Maureen, Maureen, before you say that, I know I forgot to list the time that we started this particular item and it's now six 50. So we probably started. Maybe a minute ago. Thank you. Go right ahead, Maureen. Okay. So thanks everyone. Thank you. Okay. So, uh, this, uh, this slide shows the presentation outline. I'll walk you through the problem statement. Um, for this zoning proposal, um, proposal strategies. I'll provide an overview of parking space standards. Um, conventional parking standards and, uh, flexible parking standards. Um, So, um, that is the existing parking space requirements and walk you through the proposed, uh, um, Um, zoning amendment. Language. So, okay. So, um, to, but first as a refresher, um, let's, um, review what is the existing parking requirements. In the zoning viola. The minimum, there's a minimum requirement of two parking spaces for each dwelling unit is required. And under section 7.91, the zoning board of appeals and the planning board may not request a modification of the parking space requirement. If one or more of the following conditions are says factory met. And so there's someone the 1st condition is a peak parking needs generated by onsite uses occurring at different times. The planning department feels that while this is a good condition, it is incomplete. In the context of residential uses, and this is really geared towards multiple uses on one single property and not geared towards an apartment building or a single family home. Or, or the like. So it's really geared towards mixed use building or maybe a different multiple buildings on a property that has multiple different uses on it. One condition is a significant number of employees tenants patrons or other parking users of the site are common to and shared by more than one one use on on the site. Similar to the first condition I mentioned, this is really geared towards multiple uses on a property and not geared towards one residential use such as a single family home or apartment building, a converted dwelling. And then the third item is ZBA planning board approved parking management plan is implemented with the occupancy of the buildings. And the plan can include the following implementation measures, such as I won't read it up read it all but you know car sharing and bike facilities and the like. And we feel that this is while a great. A great thing to make as a condition of a permit it is incomplete in that. Well, you know, the town would like to encourage car pooling and bike share programs and providing bike racks at properties and stuff like that. Sort of a tough sell for a reason why to request a modification of the parking space requirement as as a possible school condition of the meeting that criteria under section 7.91. And in a later slide, I'll walk you through what is a parking management plan and what does that entail and introduce a new concept which is called transportation demand management. TDM programs. And how they, what are the differences between the two. And I just wanted to so there's been lots of acronyms probably thrown around for several months we probably should have showed this slide. Before but we just wanted to recap what are the differences of the various decision making authorities here in Amherst and throughout the Commonwealth. A special permit granting of board is the authority is the planning board as they review and make a decision on a site plan review application. A special permit granting authority is through the planning board or the zoning board of appeals as they review and make a decision on a special permit application. And I would note that this slides I got updated. Slightly I forgot to include these three bullets. So in the meeting packet. This has, I added this but I didn't. It's such a minor detail I didn't email it over but so the permit granting authority there. There could be various different boards or the building commissioner. So the planning board is permanent granting authority as they review a site plan review application, the planning board and the zoning board of appeal is the permanent granting authority as they review a special permit application and the building Commissioner is the permanent granting authority as they review a building permit application. So the next slide goes through the problem statements that the planning department has identified with the parking requirements under the existing zoning bylaw. So the existing parking space requirements rely on conventional parking standards, which is looking at, which is minimum parking standards based on publications like the Institute of Transportation Engineers parking generation handbook. That handbook recommends ratios that are generic and broad that are applied throughout the whole nation and are not specific to community or region. Often these standards do not account for factors relative to the site, neighborhood and community scale. Additionally, these minimum ratios are often close to if not the maximum ratio, which accounts for the worst case scenario. And so the reason to have a minimum parking requirement that historically is to have parking spaces on the property and to prevent spillover onto adjacent properties. So that's the historic, you know, purpose of it. You know, over the decades, the Institute of Transportation Engineers has increased that or has a higher ratio to prevent spillover and doing that, that is why you have seen throughout communities. You know, across the nation with oversized parking lots, you know, shopping center mall, etc, etc. And so that is sort of this sort of conflict of conventional parking stamp standards is that they are these generic numbers that don't account for local factors. I will in a later slide introduce to you another parking standard, which is known as flexible parking standards. And that's one way to improve upon conventional parking standards. And allows the permanent granting authority and the applicant, the ability to consider more flexible and efficient parking standards, based on the principles of flexible parking standards. The second bullet is section 7.00 only imposes minimum parking space requirements for land uses under the zoning bylaw. And there is no maximum number provided. And that is can be problematic in that, again, it's, it's saying that there is no maximum amount that you could have on a property. You know, I think that most, you know, the planning board and the ZBA probably would say, you know, nine out of 10 applications as though the applicant is just requesting the minimum and they don't really go, you know, ask for more. But it is a problem when it or it could pose a problem. If that big parking lots is not desirable in a permanent granting authority wants to have use their discretion under, you know, you know, their discretion in, you know, modifying or seeking alternative ratio. And focusing on parking requirements. And so those first two bill bullets are really applicable to all parking space requirements for all land uses under the zoning bylaw. The next one through four bullets here is focusing on parking requirements for residential uses. And so the criteria for considering those modification requests, as I outlined in the previous slide are incomplete and confusing for the planning board, the zoning board of appeals and applicants. You know, specifically, those criterias that I listed off in the previous slide are really applicable for properties that have multiple uses on them and they're not applicable for a single residential use such as an apartment building a single family home or a duplex. Number two is parking space modification requests for land uses that are allowed by right can only be done by special permit. So for example, a single family home under our zoning bylaw is a by right use, meaning they don't need to get a special special permit or a site plan review. They just need to get a building permit through the inspection services. Now if they wanted to modify, modify request a modification of their parking spaces that that applicant or homeowner would actually technically need to request a special permit through the zoning board of appeals. And so that is problematic and creating, you know, additional hoops for by right uses. Number three, parking space requirements by land use are listed at the beginning of article seven, the section for modification requests is listed separately at the end of article seven, which has been missed by potential applicants. I have, I hear this sometimes on the phone when I talk to applicants and homeowners that they're unaware of that they have to, you know, go to, you know, 10 pages over to find that that section for request. Number four, waiver modification requests are often seen as deterrence from from for an applicant and are unpredictable like a variance request for potential applicants. Next slide gets into the, the proposal strategies. Number one is to incorporate flexible parking standards. And lastly, I would say is to establish a minimum and maximum parking ratio as a safeguard to prevent excessively large parking lots from being built, managing storm water, increasing densities where appropriate, and meeting transportation demand management down. So establishing the minimum maximum and giving the discretion to the permit granting authority to consider alternative ratios. And, and those considerations would be based on specific specific factors using principles of flexible parking standards. And again, we'll get into that in a few slides. Number two, require a parking management plan for all residential uses, which aligns how the applicant will manage and enforce the parking. We'll get into that later of what that all means and number three provide. Let's see here provide specific criteria for required for evaluate evaluating a proposed alternative ratio so both the permit granting authority and the applicant know what needs to be submitted, and what is due for the permit granting authorities determination of what is adequate, what is an adequate amount of parking for that project at that property based on specific factors. Number four, on a project by project basis require applicants to submit contingency based measures that can be deployed if needed in the future, we'll get into what that means later on. Number five, make the permit process less arduous for applicants requesting alternative parking ratio for a by right use such as ADU accessory dwelling unit or a single family home. Number six, specify parking space requirements including alternative ratio requests for residential uses under the same section, instead of later on in the by law which currently requires additional waiver modification request. Okay, so now I'm going to give a very broad overview of two types of parking standards. The first one will talk about conventional parking standards, and the next one will is flexible parking standards. The conventional parking standards are parking are requirements that are generally based on the Institute of Transportation, ITE for short parking generation generation handbook. The handbook provides a ratio of parking of number of parking spaces required per square foot per dwelling unit or other measure of intensity by land use type. The handbook does not usually taken into account geographic demographic and economic factors that can impact demand, such as whether a site is urban or suburban. So it doesn't take an account, the local conditions that's unique to that site neighborhood or community. The handbook was always intended to be used in conjunction with information about local conditions. So generic standards may not account for the local needs. So I'm going to now give you an overview of based on my research of parking publications. From state documents from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, smart growth, smart growth model bylaw regional planning agencies and planning consultants have all the publications that I've been reading over the, over the, you know, the last few months is has this theme that gets to flexible parking standards. And so I'll walk you through what what are sort of principles of these standards. So to help improve the generic parking standards. Conventional parking has always sort of, you know, demonstrated through the decades is to consider alternative parking ratios based on specific criteria, require a parking management plan, anticipate future parking demands and explore other strategies. So consider alternative parking space ratios on a project by project basis, which takes into account specific geographic demographic and or economic factors that affect parking demand. I don't read this all out. I'll, but you know, factors could include analysis of traffic impact reports, analysis of parking sites, looking at, you know, what is the availability of parking within 800 feet of that project site, you know, be on street or off street parking, public or private park parking. And demographic examples factors could be senior housing and economic factors could be and demographic factors could be affordable housing projects. You know, what was the first, the, the affordable housing, you know, project project factors, sorry, could be that the tenants living at that affordable housing, building, you know, have a really low, you know, am I. And, you know, they're transitional housing from homelessness to, you know, a studio apartment. And, you know, there, there could be an argument that they probably couldn't afford a car and so therefore why, why is there this need for that amount of parking spaces. In your housing, you know, there could be, you know, sort of this argument of, you know, perhaps, you know, people in their, you know, older years don't drive or have cars. This proposal is not going to take in does not take an account demographic and economic factors, because we feel that look, locational geographical factors sort of are a better indicator of what what is going on in that neighborhood and can support sort of demographic or economic factors as well. Number two, provide a parking management plan to address how parking will be managed in the course. So what could that include include a parking map, which shows the location the number of the parking spaces on the property or on adjacent properties applicable so it would show, you know, you know, parking 12345 is shown in the driveway would be laid out and numbered. If there's ADA parking spaces that would be labeled things of that nature and the written narrative would explain how the parking spaces will be designated. Is it first come for serve, are there parking decals or signs, and I'll explain how the parking will be managed and enforced by the applicant homeowner or the or the property management company for the tenants and visitors. And, you know, if someone is if there's only four parking spaces in the in on the property but there always seems to be 10 cars parked there. Well, the parking management plan will explain, you know, what are the roles and responsibilities of that owner to enforce that are they going to notify the tenants by email are they going to tow within 24 hours. These are great mechanisms for inspection services to enforce these matters. If they become project problematic. Number three, consider contingency based measures that can be deployed if needed in the future, you know, parking demands will are not static parking demands will change over time. Planners, you know, a good tool for planners to look at and encourage is contingency based measures that can account for the changing parking demand, perhaps the land use changes, perhaps the number of tenants uses. The number of tenants change the demographics change or the economic factors change there could be a variety of reasons why a parking demand changes over time, either more parking is needed or perhaps less parking is needed. So, contingency based measures conclude transportation demand management program. And this this actually sort of is is what is articulated in the existing 7.91, the condition number three. And I think that is what that is trying to get to this, the transportation demand management, which gets into how do you get the owner, the developer to impose and encourage the reduction of parking demand for their tenants and visitors of the development for the future by supporting carpooling, offering subsidies for transit, providing, you know, bike facilities and providing shelter service for offsite parking facilities. I'm sure that there's other options but this is gives you a snapshot of what that's trying to get at. And then we spoke about this in previous meetings is shadow parking. So, so if, if a developer is, you know, requesting a reduction of parking, but the permigranting authorities is saying, Oh, well let's have this contingency measure will grant you the reduction. But let's have you put what let's have you show on your approved site plan, where additional parking could be provided in the future, if that parking demand changes. And it doesn't need to be built now but in the future if we the permigranting authority authority believe that the parking demand changes, we're going to require you to convert that, you know, that grassy strip to a fully functional amount of parking spaces. And number four, explore other tools and techniques based on flexible parking standards fee and lieu of parking spaces is alternative to requiring on site parking facilities by allowing reductions the minimum parking required requirements in exchange for a development payment into a municipal parking or traffic mitigation fund the crude money from the municipal parking fund helps finance town known centrally located off site parking facilities. Other strategies is reviewing the municipal parking districts. There, there are many communities that have municipal parking districts in their downtown. And, you know, obviously here in Amherst, but there are there are many and I've discovered there are many and exploring what works what doesn't work and exploring the existing parking permit system. What's working what's not turning to the, you know, the recent, you know, parking plans that were created a couple years ago looking at those recommendations and seeing, hey, you know, what needs to be implemented or, or stopped or changed. And also, reviewing changes to parking space requirements for non residential uses. This proposal is focusing on residential uses, but that would be a good strategy to explore the non residential uses. Just to, we already went through the slide earlier but I just wanted to show it again. This slide shows the existing parking language which again, there's a minimum requirement of two parking spaces for each dwelling unit for all residential uses and sections 7.91 allows to park in the zoning board of appeals to consider a parking reduction for one or more of the conditions listed here. And again the planning department feels that, well, these are the first two are very important and are you know, a good criteria to consider a parking reduction. It is limiting. And the third bullet is is is a good start, but again it's incomplete. And so now I'll go turn over to those to the draft language. I have it in the marked up version and I do have it in the cleaned up version I don't know if there's a preference but but. So, nothing's changed since the last time we have met. So, to the draft language. So, you know, currently, you know, there is a municipal parking district. We just wanted to remind folks to say that you know that the educational districts in the municipal parking districts do not have parking requirements. And that, and we just wanted to point that out. And then later in this paragraph, we wanted to propose that that that the parking spaces shall provide a minimum and a maximum. There should be one, one number the same ratio of two parking spaces per dwelling unit. And to only give the discretion to the permanent granting authority to determine if, if an applicant wants to go less than two spaces or more than two spaces per dwelling unit, it would be at this whole discretion of the permanent as a evaluate that specific criteria, and which is listed here. So bullet one is a bedroom count so you know if apartment building for instance has, you know, 10 to bedroom units. And then they have five studio apartments. There's a studio apartments need two spaces per studio, or where there be a compelling argument for one car for per studio or, or less. So that would be speaking to sort of that economic and demographic sort of factors of, of how many people would be living in a studio apartment. Is it just one person, or is it, or people. And so that would be a conversation as part of, of, of that review. Traffic impact is identified in traffic reports, parking utilization is documented through surveys of public or private on and or off street parking within within 800 feet proposed use peak parking needs generated by on site uses program mix proximity to downtown public transit, public parking, including on an off street parking availability to alternative modes of transportation, tenant lease restrictions relative parking and shared and lease parking as, as regulated in the zoning bylaw. In addition, the amount of parking spaces provided for each dwelling unit shell satisfy the provisions under section 10.38 in 11.24. And one thing I think I didn't capture is that one second. I'm sorry. The permit granting authority shall approve a parking management plan, and that would be for all parking for all resident uses regardless if they're asking for alternative ratio. The planning department and inspection services believe that this is very important to help the developer to manage their parking and enforce it, and if needed for in the enforcement team to refer to refer to. Under section 7.9. The only changes is to say that, you know, the parking that that parking modification requests would remain for non residential uses under 7.91 at the moment. And that a request for alternative parking ratio would be captured under the beginning of 7.00 and you know when the planning department explores parking for non residential uses. So if you would want to, I think eventually sort of remove this section here entirely and put it with the parking space requirements at the beginning, which is would be under section 7.0. But again, we're solely just looking at residential uses. So, I think that's all I have and I'm happy to answer. So if I understand you right the bylaw that that you're proposing has not changed from the last time we discussed it and your present the bulk of your presentation the intent is to give us a little more background on why this is a good thing to do. Correct. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All right, are there any, is there any board discussion of this proposal Andrew. Thanks Doug. Thanks for the presentation marine I thought actually the PowerPoint for whatever reason connected with me a little bit better this time so I thought it was well done and I'm wondering. Does any of the language in that PowerPoint belong in here, like the concepts around shadow parking, for example. So just a couple of thoughts since like you've done a nice job illustrating the background for it to we just use that common vocabulary. And then on a couple of these areas as well from the PowerPoint you mentioned you know that that the plan could include such items some of those I think like they absolutely should include. Right. And, and at least there's I think like two or three of them that really hit on one of my concerns from the last time you presented which is really do we have like a do we feel like we have a really good understanding of how many parking spaces there are in town period. And I think the notion of having a map is would be wonderful. Right. Just, you know, somebody were to suggest that hey I can put three spots on the three parking spaces in this piece of property, like, show us that you can by putting in some to the plan form. So to me like, again, you've said that could be included. I think, I think some of it absolutely should. And then hopefully that's something that the granting authorities will take into account. I know we've got, you know, reference to that terms of management plans and so forth. But overall, I think, I think this is looking really good. So thank you. All right. Thanks, Andrew. Janet. You are muted. Yes, thank you for the presentation marine. I, there's a lot more like meet on the bones in terms of, you know, current thinking about parking I wish we had had a lot of this information before the amendment came to us and we could have shaped to shape it better. I have some very specific questions about the PowerPoint. And the first one was, I didn't understand why you felt like the provisions that already exist in the bylaw about peak parking were incomplete because they seem really clear to me and pretty comprehensive so how are they incomplete. Marie. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, so I think the, um, I think that those two conditions are great in their own right. And, and which are translated into the proposal as well. So they do carry over to the proposal. We're not trying to. But they're already in the bylaw. So is, is there some deficiency in the bylaw because they talk about peak parking at different times. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Working so I don't know why those are incomplete. So they're incomplete in that they're only applicable if there's multiple uses on the property. So if you have a mixed use building as you know has residential and presumably retail and commercial, those are different uses. And so peak parking needs are generated. You'd be exploring and investigating well what are the peak parking needs on the site. And then for the restaurant versus the residential use, you would have and and if they're at different times, meaning they don't conflict at those peak parking hours or that then the board would say, oh, okay, you're making a stronger argument for your parking reduction. If there's a use that only has an apartment building, there wouldn't be multiple uses and therefore there wouldn't be a different parking, different parking needs generated at different times are all the same time. Do you see that subtle, do you see the difference of. So like for instance so let's just play out a scenario mixed use building that has apartments and a breakfast restaurant. And then I'm sorry, maybe I'm making my questions not clear. We've already done that where we have mixed use buildings and we're saying okay during the day the retail is open cars will be coming in and out. People will, you know, will be parking mostly at night because you know at least half the people will drive out to their, their bit, you know, whatever they're doing. So that's in the bylaw. So, how would a peak parking analysis of an apartment building differ. Do you think some people will be like working all night and not parking at night like, I mean I see the bylaw that already has this language I'm not sure why I'm just asking why is it incomplete because we've done that we do look at. Yeah. So let's look at a different bullet here numbers. See parking sites provided data to support requests to reduce or increase parking. So let's say there's an apartment there's an apartment building proposal, they would like less parking. And they're saying, there is available parking up and down the streets, with 800 feet of this property. No one is parking on the street. And there is a always vacant parking lot that's right across the street. And it's, and they would be providing a parking study. To prove or disprove whether there could be parking provided on adjacent properties. And that would help their argument or that would that would be their pitch to you the planning board of saying yeah, we would like this parking reduction because there's a municipal parking lot across the street is always they and we have demonstrated having parking sites we've gone out at you know, 812 and, and at six o'clock and at midnight for the last four nights and we, you know, and they made a study of what is the parking on that municipal parking lot across the street. And they would be looking at all the parking within 800 feet of the property to explore, you know what what is, what is the existing conditions. And that was marine marine I, I'm not sure you're really answering Janet's question about what's incomplete. Because that's shared. I mean that's, you're looking at a lot across the street that's shared parking and that would come in front of the ZBA or the planning board and we've done that I mean I actually encourage that. So I see that already in the bylaw. I mean I think you're adding on street parking which is sort of a separate issue but we already have peak parking we already have shared parking. So I didn't understand, and we already have management plans I'm not quite sure why the bylaw is incomplete in those respects. Well to some degree. You know whether we agree with the PowerPoint presentation. Yes, we're going to be really looking at the bylaw. And I, I understand that there may be questions about Marines presentation and parts of the PowerPoint but I think we should focus on the bylaw itself because that's really where we're headed this evening. Well that's actually what I'm saying is if you look at the bylaw, all this is already there. And I think I think the, the big thing was that they moved some of those criteria that were at the end of section seven forward so that they were noticed earlier by by everybody who might want to be reading about parking and and not quite such a perceived as such an obstacle. So, Chris, do you want to say something. I just wanted to reiterate Maureen's point which is that section 7.91 deals with multiple uses on a site. We want a bylaw that can deal with multiple uses as well as singular uses and we think that this proposed bylaw deals better with that situation. I think that 7.91 is very limiting in the fact that it only really deals with multiple uses on a property. And I think we list a few extra things in here that aren't listed in 7.91 so I think that it's more complete in that way. Okay. So I have some other things to go into. So the other question I have is, I have never heard the building commissioner referred to as the permit granting authority. And I remember in town meeting the bylaw the zoning bylaw was being revised to stop saying ZBA planning department but to say permit granting authority as a comprehensive to cover both because if you know this kind of awkward but I'm, I'm a little surprised to see that the building commissioner would be included in as in that and I looked in the definition sections and it's not there. So, I don't know if that's common use but I don't think it's Amherst use and I think we should think carefully about that. I also think if the building commissioner needs some help. Some flexibility in terms of modifying parking requirements we can just do that quickly with a sentence in this bylaw that lets him do that or her do that for single family homes and ad use and so I don't think we have to kind of change the definition of the use of the terms permit granting authority so I was startled by that and I'd like us not to jump into that because I don't, I've never heard it used to cover the building commissioner. The other thing is is that a parking modification can be done by the ZBA or the planning board without a special permit it's just in the, it can be the modification can be made. Inside the proceeding so if, if the ZBA is looking at a special permit, somebody wants a waiver they asked for it, the ZBA considers it may be granted. If the planning board is doing site plan review, somebody wants a parking waiver, you don't need to get a special permit, you know, to do the two weeks notification because it's, it's very clear in section 7.9 that that doesn't have to happen so there aren't any sentiments to getting that waiver. And as we know from all the permits that we've issued people ask for waivers all the time. If, if, if people reading this bylaw don't understand that you can get a waiver because it's five page later. It's very easy just to put in, in section in the beginning is, you know waivers can be, you know, obtained under section 7.9, just to give an early heads up. I think that would help the structure, the kind of thin down the confusing structure of this amendment which is talking really essentially about waiving, what is very a clear requirement, and putting it in the beginning and then there's waivers at the end and you're saying this section doesn't apply here and that I think it's just kind of messy, but I do think there's some simple ways to alert people that you can get a waiver. There is no need for a special permit for waiver. And if the building commissioner needs special authority to apply the waiver standard that can be done explicitly what I don't think we should do it under permit granting authority. So those are a bunch of big things. So, Janet is that most of your comments. Not yet but I'm happy to see it to other people for talk to. Yeah, I think we should share the time a little bit. Yes. So I wanted to explain the permit granting authority I agree that it should be in the definition section of the zoning bylaw but it isn't yet. But the building commissioner has been given more authority to grant permits than he was in the past. And some of it has to do with family homes, some of it has to do with ADUs that we just approved and some of it has to do with administrative approval of minor changes so little by little what we're trying to do is make it easier for people to build residential units and not have them have to come to a board or a planning board or a zoning board of appeals and be able to carve out certain uses that the building commissioner can approve because we have certain criteria that are clear and we allow him to grant the permit based on these criteria so in those instances, he is needing to think about whether the two spaces per dwelling unit is appropriate or not and he doesn't have the ability to hold a public hearing to a board would. So this would give him guidance as to how to determine whether two spaces per dwelling unit was really needed. And so I agree with Janet that we need to list permit granting authority in the definition section but I think we're, you know, moving towards granting the building commissioner more authority to approve certain things and therefore he needs the authority to be able to consider whether the parking requirements are reasonable or not. Thank you, please, please, Janet. Are we going to come back to this issue just. Yeah, I'll come back to you after we have other people talk. Maria. So, yeah, thanks for this morning I might have missed the last meeting this was brought up so this is a lot of information for me and I think this is definitely a step in the right direction I've never like you know, hours and hours, debating the two parking unit, two parking spaces per unit for every project. And this will really not only make it go more effectively, not just efficient but effectively, but also will give people who are trying to do to, you know, help them understand what the criteria are to make adjustments to ratios, because before they were just coming blindly and they had to come back, you know, repeated times. I remember a couple of specific projects where we this the planning board had to do that where they just didn't know what to bring and we would ask them each time they come back month after month. And this is great that just lays it all out there like if you want to change the parking counts. This is how to do it. And I think that's very necessary because if we are serious about being a sustainable green community. I think that we need to take another look at this two unit per two space per unit black and white thing we have in the zoning bylaw which is antiquated and. Yeah, I agree. I should mean that was the one piece that was incomplete in my mind in that it needed to be like you said marine and your presentation, it needs to be weighed parcel by parcel neighborhood by neighborhood and then look at the streets and look at the context. There are so many different factors and to just lay this one requirement across the board. Just like you said, you know, it's just, it's a generic rule that is not in the right direction if we want to provide alternative modes of transportation and potential ways for our community to, you know, think about how we live and how we use our resources so I think this is great. Now I also appreciate the removing of waivers because I being in the building industry, I know how hard it is when a person sees the word waiver and they realize okay that adds two months to our process and you know time is money and so yeah I think all these are in the sort of incremental steps in the right direction whether or not the language is there I I'm not a bylaw language expert but I feel like the next version where you just had it all black and not all the stripes and yellow stuff everywhere. It made sense to me I don't know I maybe I'm used to reading bylaws but it seems pretty clear what it's asking for and, and what it asks people to bring if they want to change things so I think this is a great step in the right direction, and I hope that we can, this is something that's been a long time coming, I've really wanted this number to change. So thank you for all this and thank you for all that research you've been collecting from like, you know, the sort of standards and what other studies have proposed and so, yeah for now I think let's keep it simple not pile up too much more like like let the people coming to town, bring their ideas and their alternative strategies but you know you've sort of set a sort of baseline and sort of some ideas but for now I think this is a great start I think that we should definitely push it forward, however we need to. Alright, thanks Maria. Janet. So the building commissioner I think we just need to be explicit in here and give him the authority to apply the waiver language if someone asked for a waiver for an ADU or home. So it's hard to picture a home with less than two parking spaces, or an ADU because you always think like likely one person will have a car and then they'll have a guest, you know, or maybe two cars when you have an AD of 1000 square feet. So just be really upfront. And, you know, when we're talking PGA we mean ZBA and planning board, when we're talking building commissioner will be explicit. But if we change the bylaw to say PGA includes the building commissioner then you have to look at 100 pages and see what the impact of that is because it could just reverberate in strange and terrible ways. And so, you know, I think that's this. It sounds like a very technical issue but I think it could have very big consequences. I do think I, you know, I think that we need to take a pause and get some information. And so I don't see that there's I mean is there a problem with the two spaces requirement for parking like do we have, you know, we have 20 apartment complexes and we have a multitude of smaller apartment buildings. We have many many homes. Is there too much parking at different complexes or, you know, all the six unit apartments along Main Street, you know, is, is there too much, you know, paved space but no one's using it I actually, I think that most of the parking spaces that I see along Main Street use most of the apartment complexes are some of them don't but I just think in a way, you know, we have this two parking space requirement. We have a one parking space requirement for you know, rooming houses, you know, based on bedroom count, you have to pick a number. And then I think if we want to waive that. I think all this kind of these different factors need to be going to the waiver section. So it can be, you know, applied consistently to the different types of parking situations people are instead of repeating it or management plans a lot of duplicative language is very unclear. I also think that listing the factors isn't enough that we need information so you know a studio apartment at Aspen Heights allows up to three different occupants. What if the what if the apartment building is filled with four bedroom units. What if it's right downtown what if it's nowhere near shopping. What if it's a multitude of bedroom counts and stuff. And so, as a planning board, I don't really, I mean, how do we assess the factors like what information. We're just speculating we're like well this has a lot of two bedroom units we think it's two cars. There's no shopping nearby, which is actually not a factor right or it's near downtown but you can't shop downtown there's very few doctors and you know I think we're just going to sit around and engage in speculation. And so I think we need information to say is bedroom count, going to tell you something is square footage going to tell you something is proximity to downtown going to tell you something. Well, let me say we know the municipal parking district has about an average of one car per residential unit. And so, you know, and you know but we need that information as the boards to understand how to evaluate the criteria. Otherwise we're just sitting around guessing, and we'll have really inconsistent results. We have I think four or five projects that have less than two spaces per residential unit, three of them haven't been built to have and have just started to go. Aspen Heights has less than one, two spaces per residential unit. It also has a 12 hour shuttle to UMass and to shopping center so if you live there, you can just jump on the shuttle so we can find out how is that working for people are people living there, but still have cars somewhere else you know and so I think there's a lack of, you know, evidence for us to make decisions. And I think that's just a huge mission. I'm not promoting to two parking spaces per car but I do think that it seems to be working well. So the waiver has let four or five different developers get adjustments and we don't we guess that and we don't know if that's working well so let's figure that out before we, you know, pick factors and we should you know we should pick age and economic people lower income people are less able to afford cars they may need cars they're less likely to own it. We know that. So a low income housing project would probably need less car have less cars not need less cars. Next next point please I mean you want more data I get I get that. Yeah, so, so basically. So the factors that bother me are to one of them is if you allow the people who own properties to not let people have cars by lease condition. That's not addressing the need for the residents need for parking which I've talked about before, but it also is going to create what we the spell over effect of putting cars onto the streets. Other parking lots and things and so if it's share parking that's fantastic. And if it's on street parking I think that we have to think very deeply about this, because the TSO has a series of standards that developed about when is on street parking okay when is it safe for pedestrians and vehicles. If you had on street parking in front of my house on both sides of the street cars would barely be able to go down the street. Certainly the fire truck couldn't. If we start counting spaces on Southeast Street or Main Street, and you know everybody can park there there's no restriction on it. It's going to have a huge impact and so I think that's something the TSO is interested in looking at. So I think this is a big factor that if we starts counting on street parking without working our way through the town council processed and the town council is part of the public way. I think there's one more big issue. I'll hold it there. Okay, thank you, Maria. Those are all really good points. I think that's exactly what this bylaw is asking the potential developer or homeowner property owner to do it which is provide exactly what you're saying, provide the parking management plan, whether it's on street or off street provide so local data I mean I think the factors that marine listed are literally the things you're asking for so rather than getting that data we're asking people to bring that data, if they want to provide a certain number of parking spots so I think you bring out is exactly right we wanted to have that data but to have that in the bylaw doesn't make sense that makes more sense for people per parcel to say alright we are right next to the village center we have XYZ number of bus stops or we're going to provide shuttle services part of our parking management plan. So I think what all these points are bringing up are exactly the things that will be shown based on this parking zoning amendment so I guess I'm not too clear. You know it's not even chicken egg to me and the way this is literally saying here are the ways you can show us and then all the questions you're asking are exactly what a potential developer would bring to the table to say you know we only need one parking space per unit or we actually need three parking spaces per unit you know I don't know but that's for them to tell us and I think that this is what this bylaw saying. Am I incorrect enough. Yeah that it seems like it'll be honest will be on the developer to convince us why to parking spaces per unit is not needed up or down. Sure thanks Doug I just had a point of clarification in regard to the building commissioner question. When I look through the the memorandum I don't see any statement in there about adding the building commissioner line to this document so is that is that in here, am I missing that. I was suggesting it. Right, but it. But we're not talking about that today right that's not in this document. Right. You're saying that and it's not, it's not in there anywhere. It's not included in the permit granting authority anywhere else. So we're not really talking about it today. Marine. Do we need to be talking about the definitions of these terms in this conversation today. That's a good question. I don't know if Chris Breastrop or Rob more would want to weigh in. Perhaps, if it's deemed necessary, a definition could be provided within this within 7.00000. Let's see what Chris has to say, Chris. So I was just going to say that. Well, two things. One is, we would have to advertise the change to article 12 to add a definition for the permit granting authority. So that's something that we probably should do but it's not part of this current proposal. And the other thing I wanted to say is that I wanted to suggest that Doug could ask Rob more if he has any comments because he's, you know, been deeply helping us to come forth with this zoning amendment and he has a unique perspective and he's worked in multiple towns and so he may be helpful in helping to sort things out. Okay, Chris. Rob, do you want to say anything about this. Sure. So, you know, as as pointed out the permit granting authority is not a defined term in our bylaw so, you know, I'm reading this provision looking at it and it's not a particular use that requires a permit from a board. You know, I would act, you know, in and be able to make adjustments or modifications being the person that would be granting the permit now certainly we can define it differently. I would say permit granting authority or building commissioner if you know there isn't a land use permit it just gets more lengthy, you know, but we don't have that defined term in our bylaw. In most cases throughout the bylaw it says special permit granting authority or permit granting board. It's it's more rare for it to just say permit granting authority so it doesn't come with a defined meaning. And that said, the zoning act 40a does define permit granting authority and it's generally known as the board of appeals or the zoning administrator. So, you know, I would think if there was a conflict with the term legal review would would bring that up for us and ask us to either change the term or add in and building commissioner again if the situation is appropriate to do so. So you're comfortable with the way this bylaw is written right now with the term permit granting authority in it as and being undefined. Is that correct. It is because I don't, although I don't disagree with correcting the definition and getting that straightened out. That's a big job right now because our bylaw, as I said, uses permit granting boards special permit granting authority, permit granting authority and so on so there's there's, you know, too many cases throughout the bylaw where adjustments will need to be made and that is within the scope of what we're looking at today so I wouldn't I wouldn't hold this proposal up for something like that and leaving it an undefined term would give the flexibility that is needed for us to enforce this this bylaw. I guess I guess I'm puzzled why, Maureen, you, you brought this subject up today. You know this bylaw is unchanged from the last time we met. We, we didn't touch on that subject earlier. It sounds like you've kind of introduced a topic and it's created uncertainty about what we've got. And maybe unnecessarily. So, Maureen, what, why, why was this brought up. We just wanted to clarify, you know, the distinction between the various decision authorities. And, you know, it so it was to clarify it but it you know as Rob had indicated if our town attorney feels that there is a conflict with 40 a I would assume that the town attorney would make suggested to this language, you know, Rob had suggested maybe the town attorney if he felt that there was a need for change could say you know, permit granting board and building commissioner. So I think there are certainly ways to deal with this if needed. Under 40 a. Okay, thank you. Chris. I would consider adding the words or building commissioner after. In other words change the wording here permit granting board or building commissioner. Well, if that's the way you intend to use those terms I mean it seems like that would remove this kind of omission that we've that you've brought up. And I wonder if Rob has an understanding of that and whether that would work. Has the town attorney reviewed this bylaw proposal. He's seen it. And I don't think he's come forth with a written written document about it but he has seen it. Okay, Rob. I just suggest that we, we not just simply insert or building commissioner in that section because what we don't want to do is give the building commissioner authority to wave in cases where it should be the permit granting board. So, if there's a problem with the light using the term permit granting authority. We need to, we need to build out that a little further and say building commissioner, you know, something like when a land is permanent is not required whatever the proper language would be to do that. So it is, I don't think it's just a simple insert building commissioner in that, in that section. But, but you are comfortable with the language as written right now. Yeah, I'm comfortable with the language I would of course have to interpret it. And like I said, reading that in a case where there isn't a special permit or a site plan review needed. I would insert myself as the permit granting authority and make the decision in that case but otherwise it would be directed to the permit granting board for the review and approval. Okay. Janet. So I think so I think we could add on the building commissioner to the waiver sections. And that will take care that will cover single family homes and ad use and give the building commissioner authority to apply the different criteria, I think that I've been saying this really from the get go is that structurally. You know, like these ideas of a more built out management plan like I love that idea of being much more clear about the different components of it because section 7.912 is, you know, it's kind of it's a little short and you know there's a lot of things that people that owners can do to provide alternative transportation. I would just pull all this flexible language and the criteria and I would just put it into the waiver section I bulk out the management section. It's very clear that the waiver section applies to all the other parts, and you wouldn't have this duplicative. I mean this this is, there's always duplicate there's references to management plans and different parts and waivers and peak parking areas. So again and again it's really confusing. And I think if you just put it into the waiver section gave a very early heads up that a waiver is possible under 7.9. I think a lot, you know, I, you know, we deal with waivers all the time. And so I don't think we're going to scare anybody off by having a really clear kind of bulked up list of factors, I would add factors, like age and economic stuff. So I still think the boards just don't know what wait to give it be without it. Thank you. Rob. Thanks yeah I just want to give you I know Marine address this in detail I want to give you one reason one example why I'd like to see these provisions put up front to buy a lot and not buy waiver. And this is a real common occurrence for us in code enforcement. Let's say a single family home to bedroom rental property has four people living in it, possibly four cars associated with it, one or two parking spaces. That investor comes to us which can do by right come to us and ask us to finish the attic finish the basement add two additional bedrooms. Now we have a four bedroom home. Now we have more cars on the site, and we have a single parking space or possibly two parking spaces. Those cars end up out in the street those cars are not provided for on site, putting this language in the bylaw upfront gives as criteria to be applied with under certain conditions gives us the ability to do something in an enforcement situation that we can't do now. Now that's just one reason one example marine mentioned several of them but that's one, one very important reason why I'd like to see that moved out of a waiver provision where it's not enforceable as criteria for these by right situations. Thanks Rob. I follow up on that because the language that you're taking out of it. It says, in section 7.0, except as maybe required blah blah blah parking spaces shall be provided in at least the following minimum amounts so that gives. It's clear that you can require more. And that language you're taking out, which doesn't make sense to me because that gives it gives everybody an early heads up that the permit right might require a lot more than two spaces. And if you need power to do that for a permit. Let's just give it to you upfront. If you do it for single family houses. You know, I just think that we should just stick with the structure that's here and bulk it up and, you know, fix it in in the context of it not keep on adding more and more and duplicative language so. Okay, sorry. Thank you. So, Rob, do you want to say anything else. The current structure the minimum requirement parking space requirement is two and that is satisfied if there are two, and there's no request for waiver. Therefore I don't have the ability right now to require any additional parking spaces if two are provided for the dwelling unit. Right. Okay. All right, so. Thank you all. Is there any public comment on this bylaw. Mr Brick, please state your name and your address. Are you able to bring Ira over. Okay, Ira, you're unmuted. I'm Ira Brick 255 Strong Street. I just want to add some thoughts to this some common sense that has been stated already that if a house is rented by four people for students with cars let's say since that's the maximum legal response is not adequate. And if they have four cars, which we do live in the age where people bring cars to school, we're not in the age where we've eliminated cars. Where do those other two cars go there's an obvious problem there. And from what I have heard the UMass lots are full streets all around the university are full during the day, clogging those streets. I think that we need to deal with the true cost of bringing a car to town if somebody is in the student rental business and there's four students there, and there's two spots that person that landlord should make a contribution to the municipal system, figuring out what really costs to support more public parking spots and as it is now the controversial idea of a parking lot behind CVS if that's just going to get eaten up with cars that there's not adequate parking at houses. There's not going to be any parking for the people who want to use downtown as a downtown with commercial businesses and so on. And you know they say that if you can measure it you can manage it and I think a lot of what we're talking about here is it not being measured and so it's not going to be able to be measured and I think that we need to keep the thumb screws realistically tight here if somebody can't provide parking I live in a in a four bedroom house I've mentioned several times that before the people that we bought this house from a family. There was 21 college students in this house and they were probably cars all over the place just like my neighbor three doors down has six cars on the driveway and on the front lawn and everywhere. So this is another situation where we would like to make it amenable for somebody who's in the student rental business, but it creates a problem for everybody. If there's an overage of cars and they're clearly are so I would just like to add to what people are saying that sometimes two spots are not needed. Every rental house is in town with is just two students and each with a car it's much more likely that there are numerous students with numerous cars and I don't think that you are considering that and what you're talking about now. So, thanks so much. Thank you, Ira. Okay, I don't see any other hands from the public. We've, we've certainly talked about this. This particular bylaw proposal for probably four or five hours at this point is how it feels over over three meetings maybe. Yes, I'm wondering, would anybody be willing to make a motion for this for this proposal so that we can close in on having a vote one way or the other on it. I see Tom. Yeah, I'll move to approve this to be forwarded to town, to the town council. Okay. All right. Thank you, Tom. Maria. We need to close it first, as well as what he got what Tom said. If so, yes. Close the hearing. Yeah. Yeah, public hearing was closed on July 21 and you're reading. Okay, I missed that one. All right. Then I second. Tom's motion. Okay. Thank you, Maria. I guess I'll just offer that I think I said this probably back on July 21 that I don't view this as a real substantive change to the parking regulations in town. I think this is more of a better articulation of the process and an improvement of whether way we present our process to outsiders who may want to be doing work in town. So, you know, I appreciate Janet's interest in having an elegant organization of the material. I think in earlier meetings, I shared some of those concerns, but I have been swayed by the arguments of the staff that what we're what they've proposed is actually helpful to them. And it's helpful to people who are working with this bylaw as they try to develop properties in town. So I think I think it's pretty clear that this is still a work in progress. You know, we opened and closed a hearing in one night on a almost a very different version and we've seen version after version. I think I agree with with Andrew that we should put the shadow parking in. That's not here. The parking management plan should be fleshed out more. I think I think this is going to make it very confusing structurally, and, you know, like, there's constant, you know, management plans and waivers and, you know, shared parking popping up over and over again. It's not going to take forever to make it elegant. It just takes just just sort of sitting through it. Including really key factors and we're not without studies, we're never going to be able to the boards will never be able to make consistent intelligent decisions. So I think that's a separate issue we need some real data to base decisions on that just ideas that we think of on a night. But I don't think this is ready to send to town council I think it's, I think it's kind of messy. It doesn't have to be beautiful, but it has to be logical and clear to people and I think some of these changes make things less and less clear. Especially the alert at the beginning that you might be required to put in more than two spaces I don't know why that language would be taken out because it's, it's your heads up. There's also a whole section saying, you know, section 10. Some, you know, four or five and 11 do apply. Well of course they apply they're in a bylaw, but it's not going to elucidate to anybody that the planning board of the ZBA can actually can put more parking and require more parking it's like very. So it just there's a lot of things in there I just find very unclear that we could just eliminate and make it clear let's make it clear when the building commissioner can can add stuff. And let's just do it right and present a good package to the town council I don't feel good about this. I don't think it's, it's going to help. So I just don't think it's ready and I think the discussion tonight shows that it's not ready. And I'm sorry that we're all going through this as a group of 10 all the time. But that's the you know path that we've chosen. I just don't think it's ready. Thanks. Thanks, Janet. Yeah, just, I just wanted to follow up on some of the comments will will some of the requests we've made be added to the language before it gets forwarded. I think the motion is that we would approve the language as is but will there be some more tweaks. We can, you know, certainly I'll certainly talk to planning staff to see if personally I would love to make a parking management plan forum. Well, exactly what they need to submit, including the map. And we could explore looking at other the suggested comments in the PowerPoint. What is it, the shadow parking and also the, the, the, the transportation, the transportation demands program, which gets into how does the developer encourage, you know, reduction of cars and reduction of trip generation on the property such as carpooling or providing a shuttle bus. So we could look at adding that to the list of criteria for the permit granting authorities discretion. No, I think. I'm sorry, Andrew. Okay, I was going to just say I thought like you did a fantastic job of summarizing the journey I've taken as well. And I think that I think this does clarify I think though a couple of those minor tweaks. I think also the one Janet mentioned about the heads up about additional parking. Maybe, maybe this is like a really quick couple of changes to just tighten up some of those potential areas where there might still be ambiguity but it is. I think to Doug's point to Doug's summation it really is a much cleaner representation of what it means to do business here. So I don't know where that leaves this relative to the motion. We have the motion, you know, as it has originally made on on the bylaw as proposed at the beginning of the meeting this evening. We could certainly alter the motion. If somebody wants to make a motion, a second motion to do that Chris. If you are going to vote on this tonight you need to be really specific about what you are proposing to add, you would be specific and say that you approve or recommend this bylaw with the following specific additions, otherwise I think we're going to have to do some work on the bylaw and come back to you and the next time we could come back to you would be. On November 17, the CRC is holding a public hearing on this on November 9, but I feel uncomfortable, you know, having you, so either you vote the current bylaw as proposed, up or down, or you make specific suggestions about what it is you want to do when you can vote on that, or we talk about this again on the 17th. Okay. Well, I'm just pulling up the slide about the transportation demand management program which gets into how the developer we reduce the parking demand and, you know, with carpooling and bike facilities shuttle services. And the other item is shadow parking, and we did touch upon about, you know, having a more specific parking management form. Corinna, am I correct that that these two subjects could be something that we could that the permit granting of, you know, the planning board could introduce to the conversation when a particular project came to us. Absolutely. So you actually because they're just because they're not on the list right now there's nothing to keep us from talking about that. Correct. In fact, they're on your back pocket. So you could, as you review special permits and site plan reviews. Currently, you could certainly make these conditions of special permit or site plan review now. All right. So, you know those adding those to this bylaw is not an essential act this evening. Correct. So, it looks like Janet was next. So if the whole purpose of these additions and revisions is to make it really clear to applicants upfront what they need to show us and what they put a management plan could look like or the demand management program looks like, where do you go into the bylaw. I think that one of my criticisms of section 7.9 the waiver section is it says this some of this stuff but it doesn't really make it clear that the goal is to make sure your tenants have enough parking or a way to get somewhere and I think you could put shadow parking, you can put the demand management you could put the management plan and specify it more. And so when someone reads this they're like oh I know what I have to do. Not hoping that when they come in front of the planning board but like oh by the way here's the list so I think I think these things should go in and I've seen them in other bylaws like I did some of the bylaw has a lot of very specific demand management strategies. It's exclusive, but it gives somebody a heads up and what we're really talking about so I would just wait two weeks, you know, put this together make it more clear. Not hand somebody a piece of paper when they're coming to a hearing but to basically have it in the bylaw like this is what we're thinking we want to make sure that residents and tenants can get around. And of course take out the on street parking, because I think it's a can of worms but I do think we should take two weeks just to put this in I don't know what the hurry is, or, but I do think if we're trying to be clear and create clarity let's do it in the bylaw. Thank you, Janet, Andrew. I think if it is to be clear it should be in there I'm wondering, can the, can the, can the motion be phrased in such a manner where we, we can provide enough direction I don't know where those would go within the actual language, but the items that we just mentioned I think do belong in there. And also if you know the link vocabulary and you're using more in in your presentation is industry standard. I think that you know should be integrated as much as possible as well to demonstrate that we're a town that's trying to stick with, you know, some norms in place. So, it wouldn't be enough to amend the, the motion, the motion just to say and I don't have unfortunately I don't have all my regular notes with me. I just want to say like that, that it will be amended to insert language around shadow parking around. I apologize I don't have in front of me but those like two or three items can we just put that in there and then that's enough for you to say, we'll make the right language will drop them where it needs to go. We're, or do we have to get like super explicit. Chris, could you answer that. I think you have to get more specific. So if you really want to include those things I think you need to let us work on and tell us specifically what you want you want shadow parking you want transportation demand management and what's the third thing. Parking management plan. Parking management plan. So, we did mention the language in the draft language but we can take a finger with that a bit. So those three things and bring it back to you on the 17th do you think you'll be able to vote at that time. Well, I mean we could vote. I think there's probably from what I've heard majority vote to that this is ready to go. So I think the question is, do those people want to entertain a motion to edit this and bring it back in two weeks or not. Andrew. I guess I'm feeling like if we can provide if we can list those three things off and put that in motion that I don't think that I need to see it again. I would, I would trust that the language could be incorporated. So from my perspective it does still seem like something that we could wrap up tonight. Well it seems like Chris is saying, you know we either need to really be very specific about exactly where we want it, or they need to go back and think about it and bring it back. So I don't think we have the option, at least the staff doesn't really want us to approve it with just a less than specific set of directions. That accurate Chris. Yeah, that's accurate I mean again we could ask Rob what he thinks but I'm uncomfortable. Having you vote on something that is, you know just a phrase because we need to figure out where these phrases going to go in the bylaw and, you know we have so many discussions about specific language that if we venture to create language but you haven't yet and yet we're saying that you recommended it. That doesn't sound like a good, good plan to me, but again maybe Rob has some words of wisdom to add Rob. Yeah, so maybe just slightly different opinion than Chris on this one. I think we have the transportation demand management program, the shadow parking language. Pretty well understood so I feel comfortable that marine can insert that into the proposed language and you know we can, we can have, you know, meet the intent of what you're asking for. If you were to make a motion to recommend with the additional those additional items we're going to make sure it's put in the right place and it functions properly. Okay, thank you. I guess one concern that I've got is this this bulleted list of considerations is never going to be complete. There is no way for us to identify every single possible consideration and put that in this bylaw. So, I think what we have in this bylaw as written is a perfectly good, you know, adequate set of reasonable considerations and if there are, you know, there's going to be more. It doesn't matter what we how many we put in, we're never going to cover them all. So, you know, why, why do we want to start down this road and, you know, because in two weeks, somebody will think of another thing that we should add and we'll be back in another two weeks. So I'm, I am not in favor of going down this road. Maria, you look like you're next. Exactly what I was going to say. What marine showed were examples, not the answers. There were samples and I totally agree I thought, oh, I can come up with 20 more options for different ways to show ways that I need or don't need parking so I agree like usually during this process people come to the planning department, talk with Chris talk marine talk with Rob more and they will give them feedback like oh here are some other ways you could figure out alternate parking solutions. They will share this information it's not like something that the board springs on them at the last minute I mean there's a lot of conversation that happens in the process. Well before it's brought in front of the ZBA or the planning board. So I think that those all those conversations all that stuff, the staff has that they can share it with the potential developers and property owners that come to them. I think exactly right we can make this 10 pages long if we wanted to I, I love the ideas but I don't think we're supposed to spell them all out in detail here. It seems like a mistake so that's my two cents. Okay. Janet. I appreciate, I'm appreciating the work that marine did on the, you know, the current thinking and the, the, the factors of, you know, age. We know that undergraduates seem to have a remarkable number of cars. You know, perhaps student status would be another one, and also economic situation. And so those are pretty generally understood factors so they could be added in. I have it. So I do think we should look at this in two weeks I would never agree to approve language I haven't actually read. So I have a question like what would you bring to the CRC on Tuesday. If this was voted now with additions but they're not specified with that be hard for you to do or that just be. It is a confusing process. Thank you, Janet. Chris, I think we would do our best to put language together that reflects what you're what you wanted us to add. I understand that you wanted us to add reference to transportation demand management and shadow parking. Was there anything else that you wanted us to add. So that seems to be the bulk of it. So if it's those two things and Rob thinks we can fit them in in a logical place with logical wording, then I'm comfortable with your making this motion amending your motion to include those two things and bringing that to the CRC. Okay, Tom. In my motion to include those two items where the planning department sees fit within this bulleted list. Okay, thank you, Tom. Andrew. I'll second that. All right. All right, so why don't we go ahead. And let's see. And I see two public comment people. Pam, can we set the clock for two minutes for each of them. And can we recognize Ronnie Parker first. Okay, we can as long as other people don't share their screen, otherwise you won't be able to see mine. Okay. So for the next two minutes, Ronnie, Ronnie, you are recognized to speak. Please give your name and your address. Okay, now I have the authority to unmute. I'm Ronnie Parker, I just came today to see how the planning board works on topics that I haven't been part of in the past. Thank you that you have a responsibility representing us to take the two weeks to get things clear. Yes, there are a million possibilities in any set of rules. But if you know of three or four that are important, and that will clarify things, please take the time to do so for the rest of us I'm not a developer I'm not a renter. Overall, it's really helpful to have good logical structure in the rules that were intended to follow. So you have, I don't know if you voted yet even but in any event, do take the time two weeks doesn't really matter overall why the rush. Let's all be clear and you as members of the planning board have an obligation to us to read and be clear about what you're putting forward to the town council. Thank you. Thank you, Ronnie. Next is Dorothy Pam. Hi Dorothy. Hi, I have a couple of comments I looked for the documents so that I could read something ahead of time and there were no documents provided on the agenda, or for the public. I'll go back to this off and on tonight, I will just say I felt a severe air of unreality. It is Byzantine, and it is, I don't think it's connected to the real world. We live in New England winter is coming people have cars people need cars. I think a builder has responsibility to provide parking. And if a renter is told, oh, we have a special parking management plan, and we expect you to go find use buses or share parking, even though you don't go to the same place at the same time. A renter will say, okay, okay, and they'll pretend, and then they'll just go figure out how to find some on street parking. I just don't think this is real or how things go. I mean my school does a survey every semester about do you do car sharing do you do this and that. I know a number of people who teach at HCC. I've never met anybody who has to go there at the same time, and come home the same time I do. So you can have a paid office of car sharing. It doesn't mean it's a real thing that happens to real people. And we are in New England. So I just think you should have requirement for parking I like your discussion of shadow parking. I saw you working on that with the previous property. I think that's a really good idea. I think the idea that you're going to find a way to not provide parking for somebody here and there, because they're going to ride their bike or something is ridiculous. People are using their cars more than ever students are coming to school with cars, because COVID has brought out that kind of a 9 11 mentality, when people say I got to have a getaway car I need to have my car, and they have them. So, I, I don't really like the new direction this is going because I don't think it's real and people will say is this how you do business in Amherst. I can't even figure it out. Because it's not clear what it says and who is speaking to. So with that's my thoughts, thank you. Thank you very much, Dorothy. Next is Pam Rooney. Name and address. Hi, Pam. Hi, Pam. Pam Rooney, 42 cottage street. Thanks very much to Maureen for the very in depth background information. I, I think that would have been absolutely a marvelous starting point for this conversation back before July 21. We are just a really good basis on which to start building the conversation. So thank you for that it's, it's way it's way late in the in the process, but I'm glad at least it got brought to the table. I would strongly advocate that you change your motion and and send this. I'm going to give myself another couple of weeks to get the wording correct. I think it is important that we start with the premise that that we require at least two cars per unit. And that there will then be some modification of that up or down and make that very clear based on the factors listed. So that we're, we're, we all really, really, really want to reduce the number of cars in town. But, but it's okay if we require more parking to begin with to keep them off the streets to keep them out of the neighboring neighborhoods and keep them on a property. So that's a starting point as cars reduce, they can turn those more and more frequently than into shadow parking and turn it back into grass. But I think we have an obligation to neighborhoods to require at least two car cars per dwelling unit, and then let them prove you wrong. Thank you. Thank you, Pam. Please say your name and your address. Jennifer Tau 259 Lincoln Avenue. And I'm also echoing Dorothy I think the in it seems like with what where this is going and the wording and the thrust is that you're providing incentives for developers to find alternatives to providing parking. I think the bottom line assumption should be that the developer property owner does provide parking, and there may be instances where it's reasonable to find or to accept the developers, you know, providing documentation that there are alternatives. The bottom line is students who are mostly the rent meant often the renters in town, bring cars, every student bring brings their own car in most all cases. I sent a number of photographs at the beginning a couple of months ago to the planning board just walking within a few blocks of where I live in the neighborhood adjacent to you mass. And for every house and these are houses that are within one, two, three, four blocks of campus there. They're usually four students in the house because that's the maximum you're allowed. And there are four cars in the driveway to every house. So the property owners should absolutely have to provide parking and sometimes there may be alternatives. And that's really the exception if we're dealing in reality. And, you know, we students may be driving more electric cars hybrids, but they'll still need to park. And I think there's sometimes the assumption that if you're near a transit line or if you're close to campus, then they don't need parking spots because they don't need a car. So on Clear Avenue, which is literally almost on the UMass campus, the entire street is student rentals, and it looks like a parking lot. So I think there has to be an assumption that there will be cars and there are, it's the exception when there can be alternatives to outside parking. Thank you. Okay, thank you, Jennifer. That looks like the last of the public comment. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. I just wanted to clarify the proposal maintains a minimum of two parking spaces per dwelling unit. So, yeah, so, so in fact, the proposal is pretty consistent with what a couple of the cut of the public commenters. Said we ought to be doing. Correct. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Okay. All right. So we have a motion. You know, we can vote it up, we can vote it down. So, Tom, do you have your hand up? Just a quick point of clarification. Do we need to vote on my amendment to that? Well, I'm just trying to figure out my understanding. We had an original motion. And then you requested to amend it. And both of those acts of yours were seconded by Andrew. So I Chris, Chris, continue to nod your head if you agree with me. That we really only have one motion on the table at the moment. So we only need to have one vote. All right. Thanks. Thanks, Tom. Andrew are I rather Janet. How about two minutes for your final comment before we vote? Actually, I don't have a comment. Can you read the motion? Does the motion include a management plan. Transportation demand management and shadow parking. Could you just read that motion? I believe it only included includes the last two of those. Okay. Parking management plan is already part of the bylaw. Okay. So it's not going to make that more, more specific. Okay. Okay. And it sounded like Rob was comfortable with us simply asking for those two terms to be added. And I think Chris sounded like she's willing to go along with that. If Rob will give her a hand. So with that. Thank you. Thank you. Either to recommend this with the two. Requested additions to town council. Maria. Tom. Hi. Andrew. Hi. Janet. Oh, no, not yet. And I'm an eye. All right. So. That is the item number three a, I believe on our agenda. The time is 835. Why don't we take a five minute break? So we'll come back at 840. Please turn off your video and mute yourself. Doug, I've been out of town all day. May I ask how. How did the election went for Sarah yesterday? Sarah was, was defeated. Oh. So. Yeah, but I would, I think we ought to try to keep the. Politics out of this meeting. Yep. Thank you. It's cold here in Yellowstone. I put on my vest. All right. The time is 841. And let's see if we got. A quorum back. I think Andrew was back. Tom is back. Janet's back. We don't yet, we have Nate. Nate has joined us. We don't yet have Rob and Maureen. Chris, do we need Rob and Maureen in order to proceed? You need Rob and. There they are. Maureen and there she is. Yeah. So we have everybody back. The time is 841. And we'll move on to the next item. Another item of old business. This is regarding zoning bylaw. Article three use regulations section 3.325. Mixed use buildings and article 12 definitions. Discussion of the bylaw. I think that we have previously approved for a recommendation to town council, but I believe it has come back to us in slightly modified form from CRC. And we talked about this, these modifications in a, in a last meeting. So Chris, do you want to say anything again about this tonight? I would like to point out that there were certain things that we didn't want to talk about. But I think that maybe Nate could bring up an email that I sent him earlier this evening. That would help. Yeah, I have that. I have that email up. Should I just read those items or. Yes. That would be very good. Yep. Okay. So. So Chris, this is in an email you sent to all of us. Last Wednesday, October 27th. This is what went to the planning committee. So I would like to focus on the following aspects of this revised mixed use building amendment. One definition of common space. To reduction from 40% to 30% for non residential space. And parentheses, common space will no longer be included in the calculation for non residential space. And parentheses will be smaller than 40% and parentheses. Three distribution of non residential space among floors in a single building. Four distribution of non residential space among mixed use buildings on a second on a single property. Five use of the word predominantly. And Chris added the note. Nate and Chris spoke with the town attorney. And he suggested the use of the word predominantly. So that is the subs. That's what Chris sent us. So we can pick up our conversation where we were last time. Unless Chris, anybody. From the staff wants to. Do any sort of presentation again tonight. I think Nate might want to present a few things. So if you would. Thanks everyone. I'm Nate Malaya planning with the town. The mixed use by-law hasn't changed since the last time we spoke. I think. You know, the CRC met since then and they discussed it. They didn't make a recommendation yet. They were. Also considering the 30% and the points that Chris referenced. You know, they're the by-law that I mentioned. In the packet. I'll just share my screen. Is that, that's, that's visible. I take it. Yes. Great. The, you know, what this is really showing is the changes in yellow are what we highlighted last time from the previous version in August. So, you know, the first paragraph is the 70%. Including common error. And then we'll go back to the, you know, the first paragraph is the 70% including common areas shared by multiple uses and then the 30%. And it wasn't, you know, clearly explained that the highlighted section in blue was what the community resource committee recommended. Back at the end of August. At the permit granting authority may allow, you know, non-residential uses to be distributed on any floor. In any building or in, you know, non-residential uses to be distributed on any floor. So that means on a multiple building development on the same property. As long as the first floor is predominantly non-residential uses. And the town attorney added the sections in gray, you know, the portion of the first or ground floor. Be occupied predominantly by these non-residential uses. So the town attorney had looked at this and thought with those additions that clarified. And so it's, you know, it's, you know, it's not required. It can be distributed amongst, you know, you know, on different floors in a building. So long as the first floor is mostly, you know, the street facing portion is predominantly non-residential. And so it still satisfies the intent of the bylaw that we are activating the street, but allows flexibility to have this required 30% be distributed. On different floors. You know, we were running into a problem where the shared spaces, you know, hallways, elevators, lobbies. It was difficult to calculate how that is considered non-residential or residential. And so here we're saying that, you know, incidental spaces, which is allowed as part of non-residential, shall not include common areas shared by multiple uses or other spaces not contiguous with the non-residential use. Unless the space is included in the description of the space. And so that's part of the least to the non-residential tenant. And what this means is that, you know, a storage area that's down the, down a hallway. Unless it's part of the least agreement to the non-residential tenant, it cannot be included in the 30% calculation. And so, you know, staff feels that this is a clarification. And it helps us determine how to, you know, code the floor areas, you know, whether it's non-residential, and so really only the, you know, non-residential accounts towards the 30%. And 70% is residential parking or common areas. And there are examples in the packet. They're the same ones that were shared last time that showed. I'll just go to one of them quickly. You know, here's one from, you know, this is from Boston, international building. And this is how, you know, the Boston, you know, how they actually looked at this too. There's retail or non-residential and pink, common space in blue and then residential and yellow. And so, you know, this, it actually works with our by-law so that only the 30% can be this within this pink area. In this example, it's 40, 45 to 50%. This is just, you know, not showing what our by-law, you know, our by-laws are 30%. It's a minimum. Someone could choose to do more than that. So this, you know, it's just an illustrative example, but this is how they actually coded it for their mixed use interpretation as well. And it makes it easy to determine what is the non-residential space, as opposed to saying, you know, is 70% of this blue included in the non-residential, or is it part of the residential? And so the by-law now clarifies that. So I don't, you know, I don't have any more unless we want to have discussion. Okay. Is there any board discussion about this? I think there must have been something left to be said since we continued this from an earlier meeting. Not seeing any. Do we have any public comment on this? Oh, one. One commenter from the board, Janet. So. I think we need as much business and retail and commercial activity as we can in our village centers in downtown. And I think Adam Smith said. Economic activity begets economic activity, which has helped me understand the world economy. So the more stuff there is to do and buy and shop or, you know, services to visit, the more people will. And so. I think that, you know, we ordered at 40%. We were at the lowest amount of first floor retail, professional or commercial space. Of the towns and cities studied. And for, for no reason at all that I can, I've heard that we were at 40%. Not a 50 or 60%. And now it's shrunk even more and spread out into the building. So I think we just lost. We just lost a lot with this weakening. It just, we're sort of shrinking and weakening. Our downtown and village center economies. I do like the exclusion of common space. I still think the incidental space is a little confusing. And I'm not sure. It's, it needs to be there. Also predominantly is a vague term and then different boards will interpret it differently. So that leads to inconsistent results. And it's not really providing a lot of clarity to applicants. And then I also think that if CRC didn't want to see apartments downtown, if we're at 30% non-residential and spreading it out through the building, other than a veneer on the front, we're kind of almost there. And so I just think we should strengthen the, the concept of mixed use. I would, you know, no one wants to go to 60%. We, you know, that was five years ago. I would suggest 50% just to, to keep it strong. And allow the incidental space, you know, we'll just assume that's part of the non-residential use. And so I, that's my pitch. Okay. Thank you, Janet. Andrew. And I was just going to say, I think what made me comfortable with this, the 30% on surface does sound like it's too low, but knowing that it's, it's designed to be at the front of the building. And I think this is more a question of frontage than area. Makes me feel comfortable. Also, I think by pulling out the common area, I think you eliminate the possibility of, you know, someone claiming a lot of common area as, as helping meet their obligation. And then also we had discussed the importance of, of having accessible housing on the ground floor. And I think that this was this, that had resonated with me as part of this proposal as well, is that it does have, it provides greater ability to provide accessible housing on the ground floor in a situation where you may not be able to provide an elevator. All right. Nothing new there, but just thanks for the time. Thank you, Maria. I agree with Andrew. Yeah. The frontage is the critical value to maintain. The percentage I would worry going higher would actually prevent entire projects from happening. So we don't want that. We want to provide something that's realistic. There is, you'll hear different things from different groups. I think one of our minutes, I remember writing the minutes saying Gabriel Gould thought that 30 was reasonable 40 wasn't, and you know, the world of retail is changing. Doesn't mean that this is set in stone and we can't come back to it. I think every planning staff that's presented an amendment has said, you know, we can come back. We can come back. And revise these as needed. So, um, knowing that they have that kind of open mind to, you know, all this work we're doing, I feel comfortable testing it as is with the 30, um, maintaining that. Yeah. Predominantly the first floor street side is non residential. I'm very comfortable with that. I want more projects to be built and not prevented from being built. So, um, I'd like to see something move forward. Okay. All right. Thank you. Um, Janet. Hey, this, I was a little bit confused by this, this really dark, um, blue band, that language is still in there. And I wonder if we can just put it on the screen for, um, for the people in the audience. Like the revision. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Is that, is that visible now? Except that the permit granting authority. Yeah. That's in there, Janet. So that, that whole section in whatever color. That's not struck out. Okay. Nothing's been removed since last time. So this is all, you know, that was recommended by the CRC. And they're still, you know, they haven't removed it yet. And we think it allows that flexibility while maintaining the, the resolution. So, um, I think that's what I would recommend. If you're looking at the first or ground floor as a non-residential use. Did they recommend this or are they still talking about it? No, they recommended it. Okay. And then those changes in yellow. We've made. So, you know, they're picking it up again. Similar to the planning board, you know, looking at, um, You know, we redefine the common space and this percentage change. Um, I don't know if you've heard about this distribution among floors, but really that's something they've already recommended. Oh, cause I, I, I went to the meeting and I thought Steve Schreiber and Dorothy Pam were had a lot of questions, but I didn't realize they had officially voted on it. Okay. All right. Uh, any other board member comments. Okay. We have one. One public commenter. Uh, Pam, could you bring Dorothy Pam over? Hi, Dorothy. Hi, Dorothy Pam to tonight. Amity street. Uh, I guess I was surprised to see the picture with 40% still. Um, for me, um, That's confusing and misleading. I thought we were going to see if you're talking 30%, we see a picture of what 30% looked like. Um, I would say if you adopt this version of mixed use that people should please retire the word vibrant. I'm sick of it anyway, but I don't think it's a good idea. Um, I don't think it's a good idea. I think they use it when they talk about the streetscape and the different activities that would make people want to go there and walk into a store or go in and have an experience. Because it's really, um, You know, an apartment building with maybe a little something on the first floor, maybe something on another floor. Who knows? But, um, It's, um, You can kill retail by saying retail is dead. Um, It's a good idea to have a building that's, um, If the rents are too high, we're not going to get the kind of stores and experiences that we want. Um, and this has been brought up a number of times, but it's never been seriously considered. That if there's something that the town is doing to make it helpful or possible for a builder to build a mixed use building that, um, There might be some way in which to encourage that builder to be afforded by people, new buildings, interesting things. Because we've right now it's pretty, pretty dull. There are very few things to go to that one wants to check into downtown. And I think the secret really is the, the, how high the rent is. And that we should have more small places that people can afford. That's it. Thank you very much, Dorothy. Next public comment is from Pam Rooney. Hi Pam. Pam Rooney, 42 cottage street. Uh, we say that we want mixed use buildings in the, in the BG and not apartment buildings. You all had quite a conversation about that. Um, and I am saying if that's really how you feel, then please make this no more than 60% residential on the ground floor rather than 70. Uh, I, we're just, we're just not creating any opportunities. For any kind of flexibility and we all talk about flexibility. And here's a prime example where if you really, I can't imagine Amherst books with only 30% of that floor area being books or, or even Hastings, which is a relatively small store being Hastings. And we don't know, we don't know if it's, um, if it's going to be retail per se or some sort of community space that is developed, but by Gala, you really can't make it with, with such a small percentage of non residential. So please do the right thing and make it no more than 60% residential in your recommendation to the town council. That's where you were a month ago. Keep it that way. And, and, um, I'll leave it at that. Thank you, Pam. Uh, the next public comment is, uh, just went away. So, okay. Um, Kitty Axelson, Barry, please state your name and your address. Hi. Um, Kitty Axelson, Barry, 89 Stoney Hill Road. Um, you know, we were, one of you was talking a little bit earlier about how, um, we should be green and we should, I don't know if social justice was mentioned, but all about like how we should conserve energy and pay attention to climate change and be a forward thinking community. But I think that destroying retail are certainly not supporting it at all. Um, is, is the opposite of that. I think that, you know, if people can only buy from large big box stores over in Hadley, or they can only buy through the internet and support Jeff Bezos, that's not very socially conscious. And I don't think it encourages the, um, um, the, the environment very much. So I would like us to support small local businesses. And I agree about providing rent that reasonable. The other thing is that, um, I don't understand how like putting a therapy office, you know, social worker's office on like the fourth, the third floor of a nearby building in the same building complex. Contributes it all to the purpose of activating the streetscape. I just don't understand how, how we could possibly allow that as counting. Now you were talking before is like, well, this doesn't prevent somebody from like doing more than 40% or more than this or that. Well, people, um, developers are not prevented from renting to, um, you know, a dermatology business or, or a social, you know, I was using this a therapy business. Um, they're not prevented from renting to them, but we're talking about like activating the streetscape. And so I think we should stick to that. I really do. That's all. Thank you very much. Uh, Chris. Hi, um, yeah, I just wanted to remind people that zoning doesn't, um, regulate the rents that are charged by the developers. Um, and so, so zoning really can't do anything about rents on the ground floor. That's up to the developer to decide that. And if the town wanted to set aside a fund to, um, you know, help developers to charge less for their ground floor space, maybe that would be a direction that we could go in, but that wouldn't be zoning. So tonight we're talking about zoning. I just wanted to remind people about that. Thanks. All right. Thank you, Chris. Janet. So, uh, I doubt I'll sway anybody. Maybe I'm just saying it for my, the minutes, but, um, I've spoken to several, um, downtown businesses and I've asked them, you know, as Amherst unfriendly to businesses and they've said no. And I, and they've said the promise that rents are really high. And they go up. And, you know, they're still doing good business, but the rent is going up and their business isn't really increasing. And so I think we should do everything we can to get foot traffic, more people coming to the village centers and downtown. And if the theory is that if you build more rental units, rents will come down. If you build more commercial and retail and professional spaces, those, those rent should come down too. And instead we've lost 15, you know, businesses downtown when business, you know, when the archipelago built one East Pleasant street, they did add something to Kendrick place, but I think is we're going to have a shrinking amount of first floor space, rents will stay high. And we're not helping small businesses, which actually are the, you know, kind of backbone of our economy. And so I think, you know, I guess the developers are worried about who are seeing very interested in downtown and we have a lot of activity. Probably the envy of a lot of area towns in this area, but we should think about the small businesses, like where can they go? You know, what happened to those people? Some of the businesses moved to the village centers. A lot of them shut. You know, if there was more space for them, the rents would be lower. There'd be more activity. They'd make more money. More people would come downtown. More people would want to live downtown. So I don't think we should pit. You know, the, or look at the needs of the developers all the time, but think about the small business owners. Okay. So you are advocating for a higher percentage of. Non residential use. Yeah. I think 30% is just, it's, you know, 40% was the lowest and now we're at 30%. I just don't get it. Okay. Thank you. So I'm not seeing any more comments. No more hands. Okay. Why don't we go ahead and get a motion for this proposal as written, and then we can talk about whether there are any amendments we would want to make to it. Does anybody want to move this proposal. To recommend it to town council. Andrew. Thanks, Andrew. Anybody want to second it. Well, I will. Okay, Tom, you can, you can second it. I'll second. All right. Any discussion about this or any requests to amend it. Okay. Not seeing any. I guess we'll go right in into a vote. So this is a motion to recommend this. The revised proposal as written as received from CRC. To town council. We'll do a roll call. Maria. Tom. Andrew. Hi. And Janet. No. And I am an I approve. Okay. So I believe we've previously closed the hearing on this. As well. So we're. Finished with that article for this evening. Next item on the agenda, old business topics, not reasonably anticipated 48 hours prior to the meeting. Chris, do we have any. You don't have any. Okay. Thank you. Is there any new business? No, not yet. Okay. While you're running out of time to come up, come up with some. Form A, A and R subdivision. No, not tonight. No, no from both. Okay. ZBA applications. Anything you want us to know about? Not anything new. Okay. Yes, we have. I don't know if I told you about this last time, but Emmer's college submitted an application for three signs that escaped their previous application. So you're going to be hearing that. And then there's also a mixed use building on main street that is going to be coming to you for changes to their site. Mostly having to do with associated parking. You'll also be seeing a new zoning amendment, which we may have told you about article 14, which is going to be the request is to extend the timeframe for article 14. And that's the temporary zoning to allow outdoor dining and other things to occur during the COVID-19 situation. And the extension would be to. I think it would be to December of 2023. So those are the things that I know about right now. Okay. All right. Item eight on the agenda is planning board committee and liaison reports. Jack is not here. So I guess we won't have a report on the PVPC. Community preservation act Andrew. Okay. Good. We met last week and got our first five presentations covering often the community housing projects. We have a meeting. Which I believe is going to store preservation. And then we have another meeting next week, which we'll cover often on recreation. So this is each applicant's opportunity to, to present their case to the committee and field questions that we have. Okay. So long. Will the presentations continue? Will you be done in December or. The presentations will be wrapped up next week. So each, each. Participant gets about 15 minutes. So. Okay. Great. I have no report on the agricultural commission. Chris, I think it might be worth asking. Dave Zomek if we should keep this on the agenda. Or whether we should just. Consider that commission to be defunct for a while. Oh, that's connect. Tom design review board. Sure. We are meeting yesterday where we reviewed the new band shell. That is coming to the common. And I was very well received. I think it's been a long time. There are minimal comments about, you know, it's in its early phase and it'll probably come to several boards over the next few weeks. So. I think they just wanted to slide it past us. As design review first and see if we had any comments to pass on. But mainly it was, it was well received. And there are just a few comments around maintenance and. I don't know what, but yeah, it was a beautiful project. And I'm sure we'll see it here in a few weeks. Okay. Thank you. Chris, anything on CRC. Oh, okay. Thank you. Janet, why don't you unmute. I think I might have spaced this, but does it come to us or the ZBA? Will that come to us? Yes, Chris. So it won't code go to either board. I think it's going to go to either board. So it is in the town right of way. Being on the common. And so it's out of the jurisdiction of either the ZBA or the planning board. And I believe that Nate has talked to. Kp law about that and has received word that it doesn't need to go to either board. So it's going to go to the designer of your board. The disability access advisory committee. And I think that's it. And the town council, of course, because the town council has jurisdiction over the, over the right of way. Okay. All right. Nothing else on CRC, right? Well, we're meeting with CRC on. Next Tuesday. And they're continuing their public hearing on. They're holding a public hearing on parking and access regulations. They're continuing the public hearing on. Mixed use buildings. And I think also the rezoning of the parcel behind CVS. So they're going to be busy next week, but I don't think I have anything to report about previous. CRC meeting. So other than what you've heard from Nate. Okay. All right. I have, I have no report as the chair. I have no report, but I'm glad that the. Elections were over and they seem to be. Done well. And I hope people are satisfied with the results. So. Looking forward to working with the new people. Great. Okay. The time is nine 12. There's nothing else we can adjourn. Thanks, Doug. All right. Thank you all. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks, staff. All right. Chris, could you stay on for a minute after the recording? Yeah. Yeah, I just wanted to.