 Yeah, I'm pretty much ready. I think I have the agenda and everything. So I will try. Thanks for being here, Emily. We're recording. So you're all set, Mandy. Thank you, Athena. And thank you, Emily, for taking on CRC. So it is 302 on March 9, 2021. And I see a quorum of the Community Resources Committee present. So we are calling this meeting to order and pursuant to Governor Baker's March 12, 2020 order, suspending certain provisions of the Open Meeting Law, MGL Chapter 30A, Section 18. This meeting of the CRC is being conducted by a remote participation at this time. I'm going to call on everyone to make sure you can hear us and we can hear you. And I'm just going to go through my screen and about the political order right now. So Dorothy. Yes, I can. Evan. President. Steve. Here. And Shalini. I'm here. And Mandy, Joe Haneke is here too. So that is the five members. And we are also welcoming a large portion of our planning department today. So welcome to, we've got Chris Breistrup, Dave Zomek, Rob Mora, Maureen Pollock, Ben Breger, and Nate Malloy here. So welcome to everyone. I'm not going to go through you if we run into problems. I'm not going to go through you if we run into problems. We will fix them as we come up. So the main thing we're going to do today is present and discuss zoning priorities by law revisions. So I turn it over. What, what we'll do is do that. If we decide to do that in small chunks, I might take public comment between the chunks, but I will do public comment after the whole presentation. If I don't take it in the chunks, we'll just have to see how it goes for those that are attending. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. First, Sure. Thanks so much, Mandy. And I have a very small role today. And I'm like you looking forward to the presentations. I've heard bits and pieces of them, but I'm, I'm very excited as you are to, to learn more and hear more about what the planning staff has been doing. I first wanted to thank Chris and Rob for their leadership on moving forward on zoning. This is, this is a huge lift. And we, it's exciting to roll up our sleeves. I think for all of us for the community and get started on this. And again, additional thanks to Nate and Maureen and Ben. For their hard work to get us where we are today. There's still a lot of work to be done, but I, I hear and see a lot of the work that they're doing. And it's very impressive. You're going to get lots of information today. It may be a little overwhelming, but please stay with us. And, you know, this is a great team to move us forward. I kind of encourage you to take it all in and, and at the appropriate times Nate, excuse me, Rob and Chris will work with, with Mandy on when is appropriate time for questions and, and discussion. We expect that there's going to be, as you do, significantly more time needed. So I kind of want to reassure you and anyone from the public who's, who's following this meeting today and future discussion. You know, we, we all knew going in that this was going to be a labor intensive time intensive process. So this is, this is, um, I feel like we've been kicking this off for a while, but it's time to go into the details, but it's going to take a long time to get through each one of these. So, um, there, there may certainly be a need for individual meetings on the various proposals. We're not looking for any decisions today. We're not looking for any decisions that the planning staff expects from you today. So I think that can kind of relieve any pressure to kind of move toward that. It's really a, a, an information sharing day today. More information will be coming to you via email. And of course at subsequent meetings. And you know, we really deep down, I hope this is helpful to you, helpful to the public and helpful to various boards and committees moving forward to learn both what, what needs to be done, what needs to be done. And so we're moving on to some of the challenges with our zoning and we're moving now into how do we address some of those challenges. So I promised I'd do it in one minute. I think I was pretty close. So I think Chris is ready to launch if you are a Mandy. Yes. So Chris, do you need the, you want the zoning amendments presentation that you just sent up? Do you want that up? A little intro. I think Ben is about to bring it up. Okay. If Ben brings it up, that's great. So we're going to talk a little bit more about where we have been and where we're going. So we started talking about these zoning amendments. Well, we probably started last year, but. In any event this year, we started on January 4th, when the town council voted to direct the town manager. To present zoning amendments to the town council. Next slide, please. So the town council presented us with really two phases of zoning amendments. So we're going to talk a little bit more about the planning department. Different things. I think I won't read them out loud because you've all read them before. Phase two is a next slide, please. Another five things plus working on design guidelines or form based zoning. Next slide, please. So. The building commissioner and the planning department took the lists that were given to us. On January 4th. And we went away and thought carefully about what we could do. And then we went to the city council. And the city council, the city council had asked us to come back to them by March 15th with some substantial zoning amendments. So what we ended up with was a work plan. And the phase one of the work plan was to take some of the council list, including BL zoning. The BL zoning district elimination of foot, footnote M. Supplemental dwelling units. And we also had a zoning bylaw. We also had a zoning bylaw. We also had a zoning bylaw. We also had a zoning bylaw. We also had our own list, the planning department list, which included mixed use buildings, definition and standards, inclusionary zoning, requiring more affordable units. Recodification of the zoning bylaw, which we are well along in our way. We also have flood maps and texts to go along with our flood maps. And we're working on the demolition, delay by law. So this was the list that we kind of started out with. And as we've proceeded, we'd realized that we could do some things, but not all things. And so the, the items that are listed in pink here are what we're going to present to you today. We have a pretty good handle on some changes that we'd like to propose to the BL zoning district to allow more housing there. We also have a very good presentation about footnote M. And we're going to make a recommendation about where we might consider eliminating footnote M to provide more infill in the RG zoning district. We have a good presentation about supplemental dwelling units, which we're now calling accessory dwelling units. And that is also an attempt to improve the stock of housing and infill in the neighborhoods. And then we have, so those were the town council list. We haven't gotten to the apartment's definition and standards yet. We're still working on that, but we do have two items from the planning department list that we want to present mixed use buildings, definition and standards. And inclusionary zoning requiring more affordable units. Next slide, please. So this is our schedule. As we said, we started out on January 4th. Then we came to a CRC meeting on February 9th, where we presented our work plan. And we also presented our planning board meetings. And we also presented our planning board meetings. In the interim, we've had planning board meetings, town council meetings, CRC meetings and more planning board meetings. And now we are at the point of March 9th. So about one month after we really kicked this into high gear. And today we are going to present our, I think there are five. Five zoning amendments. Okay. Oh, I wanted to mention the fact that with the permission of the chair. We would like to take the first hour to make our presentations. And then suggest that the second hour be reserved for comments and questions. And that would allow us to get through everything to today. And then we're certainly happy to come back as many times as you would like in the future to discuss these things more. So I would like to introduce Ben Breger to talk to you about accessory dwelling units. Great. Thank you, Chris. Let me pull up the presentation here. And while Ben does that, I will say that is a good plan, Chris. And I know we had talked about that as an option. So yes, we will go through your presentation and then we'll take all the questions. Let's see. Let me just get the right size here. Actual size. That looks good. Okay. Okay. Good. All right. Well, yeah, thank you everyone for this opportunity to present. We've been hard at work developing these zoning proposals. And I'm pleased to discuss tonight or today, the proposal for the accessory dwelling unit. Bylaw. And so this presentation today, I'm just going to walk through, you know, just an overview about what accessory dwelling units are, what their role is in the housing market. And then we're going to talk about some national trends, local trends and trends at a state level for what direction the permitting is moving for these. And then talk about the history of the bylaw and Amherst, how it's developed and then finish with what our proposal is for. The amending the bylaw as it is now. So. I will launch in. So a little bit just briefly about what our accessory dwelling units or small dwelling units or apartments that exist on the same property lot as a single family residence. They have an independent living space with a kitchen, bath and sleeping area. And typically, you know, as you see in this diagram, they can have any number of configurations in their relation to the primary unit. They can be detached, attached above, below on a garage, a converted garage. And these dwelling units, you know, are very common and are often referred to by many names, like a carriage house, a back house, backyard bungalow, granny flat, in-law suite. So you may have heard these terms, but they all generally refer to the same concept, which are these accessory dwelling units. So in general, like accessory dwelling units have been identified as a means of helping to solve the housing shortage. They have a number of benefits in that they're generally help with housing affordability because, you know, as the owner of a single family house, you can then build an accessory dwelling unit, which helps helps you generate rental income to offset your, your mortgage costs and to bring in extra income. The expense to build an ADU is generally less because you already own the land and so you're just paying to build the structure. And then in majority single family neighborhoods, it provides a way to build small scale housing that allows people to move into areas that might have been previously restricted to only people who could afford a single family house. So it's a way to build small housing in nice, predominantly single family neighborhoods. It also allows for a lot of flexibility in, in and allows for multi-generational living. They offer an opportunity for young people and young families to, you know, have choices with for entry level housing. In general, also too, for, you know, any number of configurations, whether it's you want your parents, aging parents to move back with you so you can help care for them. They can live in the accessory dwelling unit, or if you as an, you know, an empty nester want to downsize, you can build an accessory dwelling unit, move to that smaller unit, and then rent out your bigger house. So it just allows for a lot of different flexibility and configuration. And that, that's one of the benefits with them as well. So just briefly about the history, where did this idea come from, you know, before there was zoning, people would build as many homes as they wished on their property. And then, you know, larger homes often had these associated outbuildings such as barns and carriage houses and worker housing. And then in the subsequent years, a lot of these carriage houses were converted into rental homes and generated income for landlords. The same happened to a lot of automobile, automobile garages, which, you know, were either initially built with housing units or have been converted into housing. However, you know, in the post-World War II and into the suburban boom, ADUs were became highly regulated and it was, you know, in a lot of communities, it was pretty strict that you could only build a single family home on a lot and no accessory dwelling unit. And, you know, in recent years, I would say since, you know, maybe the nineties or early 2000s, there's been a resurgence of interest in accessory dwelling units. AARP and the American Planning Association have taken a lead on providing information and model bylaws and codes for municipalities to work on. You know, some states even, California, New Hampshire, and Oregon are passing, you know, state-level legislation that towns or, you know, in this case, county governments need to allow accessory dwelling units either by right or, you know, through a certain permitting process. And then, you know, at the state level, there was a survey done recently in 2018 by the Pioneer Institute in the Boston area. Now I'd say Massachusetts is generally a little bit further behind the rest of the country. In the Boston area, you know, it's kind of a toss-up if communities are allowing ADUs, have no mention of ADUs or allow some temporary ADUs. It's kind of a mixed bag. And as you see here, this stat, only 2.5 permits annually per municipality in the Boston area for an ADU, which is very low. However, I think that's going to change soon. Just last month, maybe two months ago, the governor and legislation passed the Massachusetts Housing Choice Act. And this allows, it's a whole host of different legislation and different new policies. One thing they did do, however, is the state provided a definition for an accessory dwelling unit at 900 square feet or half the floor area of the primary dwelling, whichever is less. And what they now allow is that if a municipality is using the state definition for an accessory dwelling unit, only a simple majority vote of the legislative body is needed for the adoption of this bylaw, which allows ADUs by right or a special permit. So I think that'll allow more communities to, you know, pass new zoning or bylaws that address accessory dwelling units in the state. You know, this is just the table I put together showing comparing Amherst bylaw with other communities, both in the Pioneer Valley and a few, you know, in Eastern Mass, you know, in general Amherst's bylaw is in line with what other communities are doing. As it stands now, I think our maximum square footage at 800 square feet is a little bit smaller than what other communities are doing. And, you know, in general, we have the same three types of accessory dwelling units as other communities do, either fully contained within the house in an attachment to the house or a detached structure. So, you know, I'm happy to go over this in more detail at another time, but just a little bit of research that I put together. I'm going to go through some, some of the background about ADUs and Amherst and how we've treated them in the past and kind of a little bit about the history here and locally. In 2014, the bylaw was adopted pretty much in its, as it stands, it's the bylaw, as you see it now was adopted in 2014. However, going back to 1968, I believe it was the first time town meeting amended the zoning to allow supplemental apartments. However, that was only for, that was only for apartments that were within single family homes and only in the residential outlying district. And it wasn't, you know, I think there were a few minor amendments between 1968 and 2014, but it was in 2014 that the bylaw was adopted to allow, you know, three different types of supplemental apartments within the house attached to the house or detached. And then the 2014 amendment also added these requirements that had to be owner occupied. There's no additional lot area required. No more than three adults. And then the. Square footed dimensional requirements that I was a minimum of 300 square feet and maximum of 800 square feet. The planning board endorsed this seven zero and the town meeting passed it 102 to 48. And then fast forward to 2018, a proposal was put forth to town meeting to increase the square footage for only detached accessory dwelling units from 800 to 1000 or 1100 for ADA accessible units. And while this received unanimous support from the planning board and I believe received a majority of town meeting support, it did not meet the, received the two thirds support to required to pass. So the bylaw was not accepted. And so that's brings us up to today. Just briefly, you know, a few, pretty much all of the plans in Amherst that talk about housing or the master plan, talk about decreasing barriers to producing accessory dwelling units as a great way, an important way to develop housing and Amherst, but the master plan housing production plan and housing market study all mentioned either allowing them by right. Adding design guidelines, reducing parking requirements. And generally just making it easier to develop accessory dwelling units in Amherst. And you know, rightfully so, this is a little bit about the permitting history in Amherst. It's about three to five accessory dwelling units permitted per year. I'm not sure if it was actually zero in 2019 or if we didn't have data for that year, but you know, I think these 2015 through 2018 are generally accurate. So low, low numbers across the board. And because this is, this has certainly given me confusion and I'm sure it does for others just quickly going over the difference between different types of residential uses in Amherst. We have the accessory dwelling unit, the duplex and the converted dwelling. And I think they're, they are often conflated and confused and I'm guilty of that as well. And so just briefly how, what makes them different and similar in accessory dwelling unit does not is the provision of one dwelling unit for only a single family home. When you build that additional unit, you do not need to meet the additional lot area required for that unit. So that makes it easier to develop. However, the accessory dwelling unit can only be, we're proposing to make it a thousand square feet. It cannot be larger than a thousand square feet. Owner occupancy is required either of the accessory dwelling unit or the single family house on the property. And then there's only three adults or we're proposing to change it to unrelated individuals allowed in the accessory dwelling unit to make that, to occupy the ADU. And so, you know, for duplex and converted dwelling, they do require that additional lot area to be built. There's no square footage maximum, you know, they have to meet the lot coverage, building coverage and setbacks, but they can be as big as they need as they want. Owner occupancy is not required. However, you know, they're, they need, they need the rental registration system and for converted dwelling, a rental, a resident manager is required. So that's just a little bit about the similarities and differences between those different residential uses. And then just quickly, I'm going to give you a little tour of accessory dwelling units in Amherst just to give you a flavor of what some of the existing ones look like. This is a 724 square feet converted garage on page street. That's two stories. On Best in Street, a detached structure that's 422 square feet studio apartment at the end of the driveway. A 900 square foot, detached three bedroom accessory dwelling unit. This was meet to, or sorry, built to meet ADA standards, which was why they were able to build to 900 square feet. And then this one, attached accessory dwelling unit. It's not, this is the original house and the rendering for what it would look like. So they expanded outward and built a 425 square foot studio apartment. And then this one just to show that you can have an accessory dwelling unit in the basement of a property and it does not need a parking space to be able to accommodate the unit, but from the outside, it does not change at all. So this is actually a multi-family house, but you wouldn't know it from looking at it on the street. And then lastly, the, the Gris, Gris mill, I believe it's called on milled lane technically has an accessory dwelling unit in this structure here, just to show that again, it's a renovated part of the house that they coordinate off as a separate unit. And then they're able to generate rental income by renting that space off. And so that brings us to 2021 and kind of what we're proposing to do here. So the purpose of our bylaw proposal is recognizing that accessory dwelling units are an important tool to meet the dynamic housing needs of Amherst residents. This bylaw update proposes to increase the maximum square footage to 1,000 square feet, which we think provides an opportunity to build ADUs that have more than one bedroom. We provide additional design guidelines. So specifically what we're proposing to do is to, you know, take the recommendation of the 2018 proposal. And expand on that a little bit to increase the ADU maximum square footage to 1,000 square feet. Which we think provides an opportunity to build ADUs that have more than one bedroom. We propose to streamline the permitting pathway to reduce barriers to ADU development by allowing them by right with more stringent requirements. We propose to relax the parking requirements. Adding design guidelines ensures that ADUs are compatible with the scale and character of the primary structure and the surrounding neighborhood. So that's why we're trying the bylaw structure to make it easier to understand. So specifically, we're changing this is minor, but something we think is important changing from the word supplemental to accessory dwelling unit. So going from supplemental dwelling unit to accessory dwelling unit, it's minor, but it's just, it's something that makes it as consistent with state, federal, and generally industry terminology. So, you know, the abbreviation ADU is pretty commonly thrown around. And in Amherst, we often have to say SDU, but no one really knows what we're talking about. So that's minor, but one thing we'd like to change. So last, secondly, identifying three discrete types of ADUs contained, attached and detached are the terms that we are proposing. And that's moving away from supplemental apartment one and two and then detach supplemental apartment. So just simplifying it that way. Also increasing the maximum square footage for all three types of ADUs to 1000 square feet. And I will say also eliminating the minimum square footage. There are building and health code, you know, considerations when you're building an ADU that would, you know, wouldn't allow, you know, it's minimal that would, that would come into effect when someone's trying to build a very small dwelling unit. And so that we didn't think the zoning bylaw necessarily had to make a stand about what the smallest dwelling unit could be. And that building and health code would ensure that it's a livable space. And the supplemental two apartments, which we're now calling attached ADUs were limited to. Only a 10% increase of the primary structure square footage. And I think Rob can attest to this that, you know, barely anyone, if anyone at all ever took advantage of the supplemental too, because it's only a 10% increase of the primary structure square footage. Which doesn't allow for much of an expand expansion of the house to build a big enough accessory apartment. And so we're proposing to just simplify this definition by saying that the attached ADU is simply an accessory dwelling unit that's attached to the primary structure. For the permitting requirements attached and contained accessory dwelling units were proposing that they should be allowed by right with a host of requirements. And if they, the proposal does not meet those requirements and they would then be allowed by a special permit from the ZBA. And so I will say currently the contained ADUs are allowed by right, but it would be a switch for the attached ADUs to make them by right as opposed to a special permit. Finally, the detached accessory dwelling units, which, you know, that's in a separate structure. We're proposing that they should be allowed by right. If they are less than 50% of the habitable space of the primary structure. And if it's larger than 50% of the habitable space of the primary structure, then it would be allowed by a ZBA special permit. So that is to say, you know, if you had a 1500 square foot house and you wanted to build an accessory dwelling unit larger than 750 square feet, you would need to go for a special permit in the ZBA. However, if you wanted to build less than 750, it would be allowed by right. And that's just so the, you know, the town has more control over the design and the appearance of these structures as they relate to the primary structure. And finally, I will say too, we added design guidelines requiring that the architecture and scale of any accessory dwelling unit is compatible with an accessory to the primary structure. Just so it, you know, the primary, the single family house on the property is still kind of like dominates the street scape and the thing that you see from the, from the street in the accessory dwelling unit is compatible with the primary structure and the neighborhood as well. So those are the specific changes to the bylaw that we're proposing. I've provided the text of our proposed bylaw in the interest of time. I'm not going to kind of walk through that right now. I think we can do that at another time. And yeah, here's just a summary slide that shows what we're proposing, changing the square footage requirements to get rid of the minimum and increase the maximum to a thousand across the board, changing the permitting requirements to make them by right. And then the, you know, special conditions for the detached accessory dwelling units that if they're by right, if they're less than 50% of their primary dwelling. And the, I will say too that the term habitable space is introduced a lot here. It is a defined term in our zoning bylaw. And what it refers to is the square footage of space that is used for living, sleeping, cooking, and it doesn't include unfinished spaces. And here are just a few examples of what accessory dwelling units could look like in the backyard of single family homes. And here's an example, you know, they still have to meet the setback requirements and building coverage, lot coverage requirements. So here's an example on Lincoln Avenue of two 1000 square foot backyard accessory dwelling units, how they could be configured in Orchard Valley, which has a lot of small homes on large lots. They could build accessory dwelling units. And here's one with a house that has a ranch that has 1200 square foot habitable space. So by right they could build a 600 square foot ADU in the backyard. And here's Echo Hill North, some large homes with big backyards they could build 1000 square foot ADU or in this case by right they could build an 800, 900 square foot accessory dwelling unit in the backyard. And I encourage you all to, you know, do some more research. There's plenty of information out there. I recommend looking at AARP, the American Planning Association, and even at the state level, the Pioneer Institute and mass.gov has put out some great work on accessory dwelling units. So yeah, thank you all for your time. I guess we will hold questions and comments till the end of everyone's presentations. But I, yeah, I think that's it for now. And again, I haven't sent, I sent the text of the bylaw change. I think that was emailed out. And I encourage you all to look that over and we can continue this conversation moving forward. So thank you. Thank you, Ben. And yes, for those in the attendance, the text of the ADU bylaw changes as proposed today are in the packet online and all. I see Steve, you want to hand, but we're going to hold questions. Is this something that can't be. We're going to hold it. So I was pointing to order or a point of personal privilege or whatever we call it. Is it possible that we can just talk about this now because we have the things that are coming are completely different than this. It just seems more organic to talk about this. As presented rather than waiting for a discussion about. You know, the two foot notes, it's totally your call, but I don't know what you're talking about. I'm just wondering. I understand that, but I would like to abide by what the planning department has planned. And then we'll see where we are. And we might be able to release some people. As we go, depending on what we want to concentrate on talking about. So thank you for mentioning that Steve, but we're going to go on with the next presentations. Next presentation is by Maureen Pollock. And she's going to be talking about footnote M. And she's going to be talking about footnote M under some circumstances. You are muted Maureen. Thank you. Hi everyone. My name is Maureen Pollock. Thank you so much for having us today. And so yes, I'll be talking about footnote M, which is part of the dimensional regulations of our zoning bylaw. One second. Sorry. And so the town council has asked the planning department. To review the zoning bylaw. And I'm going to be talking about the possibility of removing footnote M as a way to increase the amount of infill. For more residential units in and around downtown Amherst, more specifically in the general residence zoning districts. So this is just a cut and paste from table three, the dimensional regulations of the zoning bylaw. This table shows what the basic, basic minimum a lot of area is, you know, a lot of the different zoning districts, but what's highlighted in blue shows what's required in the RG district. So the basic minimum lot area is 12,000 square feet. And the additional lot area is 2,500 square feet. And you can see there's a footnote M associated with that 2,500. Square square feet number. So footnote M, which requires that the additional lot area and per family for apartments and townhouses is 4,000 square feet. Opposed to what you see here, which is 2,500 for other uses. So this, the 4,000 is only related to apartments and townhouses. I provide a couple of examples, which shows you the calculation for a four unit building with footnote M and without, I won't go through that now, but you can go through that at your leisure to just sort of understand that, that, that calculation. This is the slide just shows a bridge definition for apartments and townhouses. Apartments is a residential use consisting of one or more buildings, each building containing no fewer than three, no more than 24 units. And a townhouse is a residential use consisting of one or more buildings containing no fewer than three, no more than 10 attached dwelling units. So this is, this map shows the general residence zoning district, which is highlighted in yellow. It's surrounding the downtown. This and where my mouse is sort of hovering that's, that's town hall and that's in a different zoning district, but the, what's in yellow is the RG. You have UMass, UMass Amherst to the Northwest. You have Amherst college to the self. You have residential neighborhoods as part of the RN district to the West. You have along college street to the, I guess the Southeast. You have a commercial district with, there's like Cumberland farms. There's, there's Spirit House, those sorts of businesses. And to the Northeast is the RN zoning district, just to give you a frame of reference. So the purpose of the RG district is to provide residential neighborhoods of medium to higher density in areas, both near the town center and between the university and the town center. Such areas are convenient to the, to the surfaces, facilities, institutions, and or employment opportunities provided in the town center or by the university. So I, as a way to help deter, to help the town determine whether the removal of footnote M makes sense. We conducted a study of, of the RG parcels. And to help sort of flesh out whether it makes sense or not. And so the parcels shown in blue are parcels that are a part of this study. It's 343 parcels are included. There's parcels that are equal to our greater to 17,000 square feet. And the reason for that is because with the removal of footnote footnote M, you can have three units on, on that, on that size parcel. And so for parcels that are less than 17,000 square feet, they could only accommodate single family homes or two family homes. So those are not applicable for our study because we're interested in three units or more. And you can see that there's, there are two local historic districts that are part of the RG zone, which are outlined in, in a darker gray. This is the Lincoln Sunset local historic district. And along to the east of North Pleasant street is the Emily Dickinson local historic district. So what's excluded in the study? So parcels that are less than 17,000 square feet, because they couldn't accommodate three or more units on a part, on a property. We also excluded split zone parcels. We excluded town of Amherst properties, properties that have churches, conservation properties, and educational buildings owned by Amherst college. The study excludes a variety of factors such as parking requirements, dimensional requirements, such as a lot covered setbacks, building floor and height requirements, building in lot coverages. We're not, we're excluding factors also related to combining parcels or demolishing existing structures. So a quick snapshot of, of the, of the, all the parcels that are part of the study of the 143 parcels. The average size lot is 31,660 square feet or 0.76 acres. And I believe these slides were provided to you at a few meetings ago. So I'll just quickly just remind this, remind you all. So this slide just shows you what, what the requirement is for the lot, lot area requirement for units using the existing foot, no, which is represented with the columns on the left side of your screen. This shows you if, you know, if you want to propose three units on a property, you would need 20,000 square feet or points for six acres. The, the table on the right side of your screen shows you the lot area requirements for units without foot, no, so as you can see, if you would like to have three units on a property that would get reduced to 17,000 square feet. So when you just sort of glance down, you can see that the lot area requirement is reduced with the increase of, of units allowed. And the slide continues to show more of unit counts from 14 units to 24 units. And this is just another way to show that same information, but show it in a table. You can see that the blue, the blue lines represent units. It shows the, the lot area requirement with foot, no, and the RNG red shows a lot area requirement without foot, no, no, and this, I guess, horizontal axis shows the unit number. So you can see that there are gradual decreases of lot area requirements for the first for properties that would have three units, four units, five units, six units, arguably up to one acre. And I didn't actually explain that. So these lines here, this represents and half an acre. This next second line up represents one acre. This blue line, the third line up represents 1.5 acres. The fourth line up represents two acres. So you can see that between 20,000 square feet and in one acre or 43,560 square feet, you can see sort of this gradual decline of lot area recruitment, lot area requirement for, for unit, unit counts with the elimination of foot, no, you can begin to see around that mark that you can actually see a more substantial increase of the amount of units that could be allowed for a lot sizes that are beyond one acre. And that's something to just keep note of. And so this map shows our study area, the purple parcels represent parcels that we don't know at this time what the existing uses are or how many units are on those properties. The, the parcels that have colors on them. And you can refer to this, to this legend on the right side of your screen, represents what is there now. And the way that we were able to determine this is through our rental permit registration and by manually looking each of these properties up. And so this, predominantly the, the properties that are within our parcel of the 172 properties I was able to determine the land use, the current land use are single family homes. There's 67 properties that have single family homes. There's 22 properties that are two family homes. There's 12 properties that have three, three units on them. And, and then it kind of just drops off. And so those are the dominant use types in this, in the study area. And I also would like to point out that this is looking at with footnote. And so this is great. Hold on a second. So with footnote, I'm sorry. Yeah. Oh, sorry, sorry. Yes with, if that were to remain. So these parcels are only looking at lot sizes that are 20,000 square feet. Or, or more. And so, so the, so what it's, it's so, of all these properties, 467 more units may be provided with footnote. As, as part of this is this study here, if we're to remain, keep footnote in existence. And, and just to point out the numbers that are over each parcel represent the net change of the number of units allowed with, with the existing use. So for instance. So these properties here along Lincoln Ave. They're primarily single family homes. So where you can hopefully see my mouse hovering over, you could theoretically add six more units. In addition of the existing single family home there. So that means you could have a total of seven units. So now we'll go to the next, sorry. Okay. So then next screen shows in that change if footnote footnote was removed. Now we're looking at parcels that are 17,000 square feet or larger. So now you actually, if you look on the right side of your screen, you can see that there's, this is expanding our scope here. So there are existing, there's single family homes that there are 96 properties of single family homes, 34 properties that have two family homes, 16 properties with three units on them. And it sort of just drops off off of that after that rather. And so there is about 948 more units that could be provided if footnote was removed. So you can see from 467 to 948 that's, that's a substantial increase of the amount of units that could be provided in our study area. So we took a look at two focuses there, focus areas, one along Lincoln Ave and the other along gray and high street. And again, we looked at the net changes and we actually provided a couple of build out scenarios. So this is taking the map from earlier and just sort of zooming in. And we're along Lincoln Ave between faring and Amity street. And this map shows that 97 more units may be provided with footnote and this next slide shows that 191 more units may be provided if footnote was removed. And we've provided an example along Lincoln Ave. This parcel has a single family home. The lot size is 50,000 square feet or about 1.16 acres. Nine additional units could be allowed with, with footnote M 15 additional units could be allowed with footnote M removed. And so our first example shows if footnote M were to remain. They could have a total of 10, 10 units there. They would have 20 parking spaces, which meets the requirement for parking to parking spaces per dwelling. The law coverage, they would meet the law coverage requirement and the building coverage requirement. In this next example, same, same property, but now we're looking at it if footnote footnote M was removed. And so our second scenario shows 16 units, 32 parking spaces, which meets the requirement. They meet the building coverage, but they don't, they're just over the law coverage requirement, which I'm sure that with creative sort of thinking, perhaps that could meet the law coverage if, if, if the developer tinkered with it. But more importantly than that. The existing footnote M allows 10 units again, without footnote M, if that was removed, you could have 16 units. And so you begin to ask yourself, does the town want to have more than 10 units on, on properties along Lincoln Ave. Is 16 units on this property desirable or wanted? Is this incremental increases of infill, or is this sort of more, more infill than perhaps some, some members of the public would want. And so we now turn to the next focus area of Gray street and high. This map shows if footnote M was, was to remain the net increase would, would allow 49 more units to be provided. And if footnote M was removed, 100 units could be provided. And, and just like the other focus area and then the, and the whole study as a whole, you know, these neighborhoods are predominantly single family homes and two family homes and a couple, you know, three family homes. And so we provided an example along high street. There is a single family home, there's a single family home with a supplemental apartment. The lot size is 29,000 square feet or about 0.67 acres. If footnote M were to remain, they could add three more units. If footnote M were to be removed, they could add five more for five more units. And that would be based on the lot size and the existing unit count. And between last week and this week, staff has been talking about another sort of layer or, or talking about a threshold or a maximum about the notion. If the town wants to consider removing footnote M, do we want to encourage small, incremental increases of infill, or is it kind of like build as, you know, as much as you can, as long as you meet the lot coverage or the lot area of requirements and, and in lot coverage and parking requirements and all that. So our thinking was to actually say, up to four units on a property, you could, you could, you wouldn't have to meet the footnote M requirement. And on that property, if there is more additional land to provide another unit or more units, you would then have to provide 4,000 square feet per unit after the fourth unit. And I provide a sort of basic calculation here of what, what I'm saying here. So 12,000 square feet for the basic lot area for this example. 2,500 per lot for the two, for the two additional units that would be reliant, that would be allowed with footnote M removed. And then you would add, you would add those two, you would add this number and this number of 5,000 square feet. And then you would add, because they would be able to provide two more units after that, if footnote M, with footnote M, and that would equal 8,000 square feet. So if you add 8,000, 5,000 and 12,000, you would need a lot area of 20,000 square feet, which this lot size has almost 30,000 square feet. So they definitely could have five, five units on this property. And so this scenario shows five dwelling units. It provides 10 parking spaces, two in the garage, which is the existing condition, two parking spaces outside of the garage, which is currently also happening. And then the remaining parking spaces, the remaining parking spaces, the remaining units, one and two to be located in the existing house. Unit three, four and five would be located in the new constructed building. And the remaining of the parking spaces would be in the back. And with this scenario, we had, we wanted to be generous with the, with the unit sizes as we are trying to encourage more housing and families. So the unit sizes in the new construction are about 2,500 square feet each and the unit sizes in units one and two, or about 800 square feet. And this does meet the building and lock coverage and the parking requirements. And we provided a 3D model for this to show this development and context of the surrounding neighborhood. And it shows the, the, the front view of the, of the development would have porch and mimic the existing home on the property. You would imagine there would be shrubbery and trees and what have you, but this gives you a sense of the massing. And this is the back, back yard, which you can, you can see the parking and you can see it in relation to the existing home and the existing garage to the left of your screen. You can see there's, there's an ample space for, for recreation as well as stormwater management. And this is just another back view of showing the back yard and context of the neighborhood. And so the data summary and data analysis summary shows that with footnote M, if it were to remain, you could add 467 unit additional units within our study area. If footnote M was to be removed, you could provide about 948 additional units. If footnote M, without footnote M for up to the first five units. And this was our thinking last week and now we're sort of tinkering with it. So footnote, without footnote M for up to the first five units on the lot. And then that would be, you know, 12,000 square feet for the basic basic minimum lot area plus 2500 times four for the four units. And then 4,000 square feet for each additional unit. You could provide about 711 additional units. Now, if we wanted to have a cap at four units. That didn't need to meet the footnote M requirement, then that number would be lower at adding and then also applying 4,000 square feet for units, you know, beyond, beyond four units would be 668 more units could be provided. And so this is the draft language for footnote M, which shown in black is what's the existing language of footnote M and what it is shown in red is what's being proposed. So footnote M would remain for five or more dwelling units. On a property and and let's see here in five or more dwelling units total on any given property and and that 4,000 square feet for each unit would be applied for the first four units. So, so whatever is less than four units, you would apply the 2500 square feet. And if there is enough land area to add additional units, then the 4,000 square feet would come in and they would need to, to provide that. And we wanted to also touch upon footnote A, which allows a modification of the, of the additional of the, of the additional lot area per family and which is what is currently, which is currently part of the table three, there is a footnote A that allows a modification for, for the, the additional lot area per family. And here in red it says that in the RG zoning district, the additional lot area requirement shall be, shall only be modified for uses with all residential units that are owner occupied by deed restriction. And so if homeowners or developers, you know, want to ask for a modification of the additional lot area for the additional lot area requirement. We're proposing that that each of those units on that, on that given property would have to be owner occupied by deed restriction. And so next steps for consideration, consider further footnote M study for lots along the main corridors such as main street, Amity street, north and east pleasant streets in larger parcels. Also consider use, new use classifications to the zoning bylaw, such as three unit residential uses, AKA a triplex or a four unit residential use, such as a quadplex. And thank you. And I was going to say questions, but I guess we'll wait. Thank you, Maureen. We are going to hold questions because we're really trying to get through all the presentations today. I know we're about an hour in. So I know it always takes a little longer than we hope, but thank you for that Maureen. Could you send either that presentation to Chris to forward it to me so I can get it in the packet and get it out to everyone or just send it directly to me either way works. Sure. Thank you. Chris, who's up next. Now we have Nate Malloy and Nate is going to cover three of our zoning amendments. The first one is going to be the BL zoning district and whether we should modify its relationship to footnote B. The second one will be the definition and standards for mixed use buildings. And the third will be our suggestions for, for altering or amending the inclusionary zoning bylaw. So Nate is going to be up next. Thanks Chris. I'm actually going to go in reverse order just so. I think. I can't say anyone's easier, but at least the inclusionary zoning and mixed use building standards. Can relate to the BL changes just so. You know, I think, I don't know. Maybe this order will work. I don't know. We had proposed it the other way, but I just think in terms of time. And. So can everyone see the screen if that, how that works. Does this look good or. It does, but we get to see your next slide notes section. I know that's funny. I don't know why that's. I don't know whether you're in presentation mode or not. Let me try this one. It still is. I don't know if it works. I just don't know. I'm not sure if this is a PDF. You can avoid that. I had PDF saved too. All right. Hold on one minute. I'll stop share. And I'm just going to do a new share. So for. Can everyone see the word document now? Yes. Yes. So article 15 inclusionary zoning. You know, it's to capture. Developments that. I would provide affordable units. and even more means the, you know, we have capital affordable, which is deed restricted and it's on the state's subsidized housing inventory. So it's deed restricted, it needs to be affirmatively marketed and then monitored annually. And accessory dwelling units are not typically capital affordable. And the way the inclusionary zoning works now, it's only if you have 10 or more units does their affordable kick in. So you know, for many of more means examples, if you have fewer than 10, 10 new units, you wouldn't trigger inclusionary zoning. So I just want to make that distinction that the inclusionary zoning we have in the zoning bylaw is capital affordable because we've defined affordability in our bylaw as meeting 80% of the area median income and having to be on the subsidized housing inventory. The limitations right now with the inclusionary zoning, I'm just going to scroll down, is that it applies to developments that need a special permit for the use. So you know, if something is by writer by site plan review, it doesn't trigger it at all or something that needs a special permit for certain dimensional modifications, building coverage greater than the maximum lot coverage, additional height or additional floor. So if a development is proposed in the BG like a mixed use building, a mixed use building is by site plan review, so that doesn't trigger inclusionary zoning. If the developer may change some of these dimensional modifications and that may trigger inclusionary zoning, but because, you know, the BG allows a greater lot coverage and floor height, you know, most developers wouldn't, you know, they can shape their project to not trigger any of these dimensional modifications. And so what we've seen in recent development downtown, in other parts of town, they don't trigger the inclusionary zoning bylaw because they don't have a special permit for the use or they don't need a special permit for dimensional modifications. So the changes being proposed in the inclusionary zoning, everything shown in red is to apply to all residential developments, including townhouses, apartments, you know, regardless of their use. So basically we're going to strike that out. So it's any development that creates 10 or more units. There will be exceptions, just because there's so many different residential uses defined in the zoning bylaw. So, you know, a 40B project, for instance, a conventional subdivision, institutional uses mainly, you know, higher education that have residence halls associated with them, those types of uses would be exempt from inclusionary zoning. So the thought would be now that anything over proposing over 10 units would be captured by inclusionary zoning. And it's new units on the property. So it was always that it was always 10 new units on a property. And the percentages, the requirements wouldn't change. So we're saying for 10 to 14 units, you would be required to have one dwelling unit at 15 to 20 units net increase, you'd have two affordable units and over 21 units net new units, you'd have 12% of the total unit count. And, you know, what we've experienced with some of the more new developments that might only be providing three or four affordable units, it is a lot of work to administer and, you know, market a few affordable units. It takes a lot of staff time and developer time. And so many communities don't require inclusionary zoning for 10 units or less. You know, they don't say if it's four units, you have to provide one. That becomes a big percentage of the units. And so, you know, the proposed changes we have here, you know, there may be, there are some other questions in terms of what it might look like, but that's the fundamentals of changing inclusionary zoning is to, you know, reduce the threshold triggers. And so that it captures more types of development in town. And you know, this was proposed. It's been, there's been amendments proposed in 2016 and 18 to town meeting. They weren't adopted somewhere, some of the citizen petitions weren't adopted. And so what this current bylaw was changed, what it does allow, and we're not changing anything else in the bylaw, I just wouldn't want to make mention to it, is if someone can provide four or more units on a property, half the units could be located off the property or they could make a payment in lieu of. So it would be three times the median family income. And so, you know, there could be difficulty in providing affordable units in a project. Ideally, you'd get the units built in the project, but there may be somewhere, you know, developer has the ability to have units within the same zoning district or within 500 feet, so it's offsite or they make a payment. And, you know, the housing trust could leverage the payment to then create that many units or more. And so these provisions are currently in the bylaw, they haven't been used. But that's a recent change in the last few years that was added to the bylaw. And so communities are offering to have some of these, I don't want to call them a relief valve with some way to, you know, to provide affordable units or to, you know, get funding, you know, some money to, you know, to leverage that. So I'm going to stop my share there and do a new, a new and see if this, can everyone see this one again, the inclusionary zoning bylaw. Yep. Yeah. So I'll just, I've made it a PDF. Thanks Maureen. Right. So, you know, I said it only applies to 10 or more units that require a special permit. And then, you know, the thresholds exempt certain buildings, you know, mixed use buildings in particular in the BG and village centers and when the purpose is maintaining, you know, and increasing the supply of affordable housing. So we're really trying to broaden the applicability of inclusionary zoning to meet its purpose and the strategies, like I said, eliminate the threshold of the special permit, define what uses are captured. So that way it's not in question right now, you know, people might argue well, what is 10, what is net new units, what does it look like? So really trying to be clear on that and then having exemptions again. So we're just clear. And then the things that are being retained within the bylaw, I went over. So I can, you know, I'm not sure if you've received this text or not, but I think two considerations I'd have that staff has discussed is that in Amherst, 80% of area median income, which is considered affordable by state and federal definitions, is actually too expensive for Section 8 voucher holders to live in. So because Amherst has such a demand for rental units and housing, the cost of housing is so high that a Section 8 program can't afford 80% AMI. So it's actually ineligible for a Section 8 voucher holder. The units, if they're actually kept at 80% AMI, they're actually too expensive for someone with a mobile voucher to get into. And so, you know, it's usually the case that those two programs, the cost of living are aligned. It's usually not the case that 80% is more than what a voucher can afford. But because Amherst is in a pocket of such high demand for housing, you know, there's kind of an anomaly here. And so, you know, I'm not proposing right now to change the definition of affordability in the bylaw. But, you know, we encourage developers to reduce their affordable units. And some have, you know, they'll voluntarily say, okay, we'll put it at 70% AMI so voucher holders can move in. It actually makes it easier to rent then. You know, it's a whole, a huge pool of applicants. But some developers have not, you know, they'll keep it right at the 80%. And then, you know, essentially anyone with in the Section 8 program can't even apply to those units. The other one is our bylaw mentions local preference in the bylaw. And it only says for people who live or work in Amherst, but there are other categories of local preference. And so, you know, it wasn't addressed here, but the idea would be do we expand or capture every category of local preference in the bylaw? Or are we just silent on that? Because it's really at the discretion of the permit granting authority. So we could reference it and then not try to stipulate what categories of local preference we include because it's contradictory to state, to state legislation. So those are, you know, two questions that, you know, I would still look into for inclusionary zoning. I'm actually going to jump now to mixed use building standards. So that's the inclusionary zoning piece. So it was just, you know, we were trying to broaden it. It's applicability. It's, you know, there's been a number of citizen petitions over the years that have kind of asked for that and for the clarity of what, you know, what does inclusionary zoning apply to. So in terms of mixed use building standards, right now there aren't many in terms of how uses are regulated and oriented in the mixed use building. So, you know, the purpose of mixed use buildings of these standards would be to continue to allow them in the village centers to reinforce the streetscape, enhance the pedestrian experience and have some design guidelines. So, you know, this wouldn't be design guidelines that are applicable everywhere. It would only be to mixed use buildings. And the current issues being addressed right now are that, you know, when it right now when someone does a mixed use building, they could have a small office space on the first floor and then have the rest of it be residential units. They could have, you know, 500 square foot space on the first floor. The rest of it could be parking and then the upper floor is a residential and that's a mixed use building. We don't regulate what uses face the street or the public ways. So right now, you know, you could have something that isn't a retail or commercial use face the street. We don't have design guidelines that try to deal with the exterior of the building, especially if the first floor or second floor is our non-residential uses. You know, a building can be pushed right up to the street. So right now, you know, with the setbacks, front setbacks can be waived. So we see in one of these pleasant, it's pretty close to the sidewalk. And so in these proposed mixed use building standards, you know, I'm suggesting to have product open space in front of a building. So you're actually, you know, you have to have some required open space with a mixed use building that is between the building and the street and then encourage shared parking behind the building. And so the town allows shared parking, but it's interesting. Some bylaws that I've read now, they just, they stated a little bit more plainly. Like if you want parking behind a building, let's just say it. And, you know, the permit granting authority that has the ability to reference the bylaw and say, okay, why, why can't we have the parking behind the building? So sections of the mixed use building standards bylaw, what we're proposing here is a definition of a mixed use building would contain resident residential or non-residential uses and two or more dwelling units. And so some communities are doing this that, you know, if you have a non-residential use in one dwelling unit, it's not a mixed use building. And this could be for like a live work building or something. And so, you know, again, that's a point of consideration. Do we want to have define how many dwelling units would trigger a mixed use building in addition to a non-residential use? Again, this product open space. So I'm saying that, you know, we're proposing that 20% of the building footprint, including overhanging upper floors would be required product open space in the front of the building. And it would be, you know, in the form of plazas, walkways, sitting areas. And in the bylaw, we would ask that a significant amount of the product open space would be in the form of plazas or courtyards to accommodate the retail and non-residential uses on the first floor. And then, you know, giving the permit granting the authority, the ability to kind of work with a developer to shape the design of this program open space. And again, defining parking as its own use in terms of mixed use buildings. And this is important later on here and the standards and conditions. So the bylaw would have definitions, a purpose, definitions and then standards and conditions. And so we require a management plan be submitted for all mixed use buildings. You know, one important one is for first floor uses, setting a maximum that only 50%. Up to 50% of the first floor could be residential or parking. And then again, you know, right now we don't have any requirement for the first floor. So again, that's saying that if up to 50% is residential, then the corollary is that 50% has to be non-residential, which will be defined as the commercial and retail uses allowed in the bylaw in the zoning districts. And so we're not prescribing what type of commercial uses. And so, you know, the thought now is some communities in Eastern Mass, they actually said what types of retail uses they wanted in a mixed use building in a bylaw that they maybe passed so many years ago. Now they're having to change their zoning because they actually can't fill those spaces. And so in a mixed use building right now, we would just consider it non-residential or residential. And, you know, it's really then the market that brings in the non-residential uses. You know, we're not going to say that they have to put in a coffee shop because they may not be able to fill that space with a coffee shop or, you know, certain retail. So we're really just saying residential, non-residential and parking. But saying that, you know, half the first floor has to be a business or commercial use, retail use is something we don't do now. And, you know, just describing that the upper floors could be a mix of residential and non-residential uses. And so that's something that, you know, we don't clarify. Another one is orientation of first floor uses. And so we're saying that only the non-residential uses would face the street or public walkways. And so, again, it's something that isn't in the bylaw. We're proposing having a bedroom count in center districts. So in like the, where mixed use buildings are allowed in the general business zoning district or village center zoning districts, that they would have to have the residential units would have to have a mix of bedroom sizes, you know, from one to four bedrooms. You know, it could be from studio to four bedrooms. But right now we're, you know, we're proposing one to four bedrooms. And that is to have, you know, to provide a variety of housing. And again, that's not something that is at all in the bylaw. And parking within buildings. So if someone wants parking in a building, it can only be on the first floor and it can't be visible from the street, except for drive aisles or an entry to the parking. So, you know, you can't have parking that is along the street. And then apply the design review standards to these buildings and actually require that the applicant go to the design review board. So even if it is a site plan review or a special permit, they would have to still go to the design review board to have to have that project reviewed. And then the other piece within the standards and conditions are design guidelines. And so, you know, this would be for exterior facades and site design. And so as I was researching this, you know, there was a mixed use building standards proposed in the 2016 annual Springtown meeting. And it had, you know, most of what we have here on the screen, they required a management plan, the orientation of uses, they tried to define uses on the first floor. It didn't have anything about open space and it had very minimal design guidelines. And it was referred back to the planning board. It didn't, you know, it wasn't approved by town meeting, but it had many of these standards and conditions for mixed use building. So it is something that has been studied and proposed. In terms of design guidelines, what we're proposing here is also similar to the limited business overlay that you will go into next. But for facades and entries, the idea would be to, you know, require that 50 to 75 percent of the facade along the street has to be at the setback line. And so that way you're reinforcing the streetscape. Blank facades greater than 12 feet would be prohibited. So you can't have a section of a mixed use building that is just a blank wall. Facades over 40 feet in length would need a change in plane. And we're saying a minimum of six inches. So that way they would need some vertical relief. The whole facade of the building could be stepped back or they could, as the images in the in the bottom show here, they could have, you know, relief work within the material. So there's a break in the change of plane. So it's not just one flat plane. Primary doors for the commercial uses on the first floor would have to face the street. The question when consideration is do the residential doors, if there's one residential door, does it face the primary street? Or is it, you know, in the back and rear of the building? For mixed use buildings requiring that a minimum of 70 percent glazing on the first floor broken up into sections that are pedestrian scale. But the bottom 42 inches of a facade would be non-glazing material. And so, you know, for instance, on Kendrick Place, with a data center there, you know, the glazing goes, you know, low to the bottom and you can you can see in to, you know, the lower portions of the space. And so, you know, we're proposing that there would be, you know, it wouldn't be opaque glass, but it would be a different type of material there to, you know, just to have that bottom shelf of, you know, where it's not visible into the space. Glazing above the first floor would be reduced in scale to and in proportion to the first floor to give it a more residential feel, encourage awnings and canopies between floors. And then one would be facades over 100 feet in length would need to be stepped back at least five feet, every 80 feet. And so this provision is in the in the instance that someone combines properties and they want to create a larger building, you know, if so, if the building itself is over 100 feet, at least every 80 feet, they need to step back the facade five feet. And so this provision would allow for, you know, would prohibit, you know, a blank wall that would, you know, could go on for the length of two properties. Additionally, for site design guidelines, you know, just kind of stating that parking shouldn't face the street and that parking lots should be consolidated between lots and access should be on the back of properties to minimize curb cuts. And it's something that the permit granting authority, the planning board would probably encourage. But to say it in the bylaw, it gives them just a little bit more leverage to say, OK, can we work with the developer or an applicant to configure parking? The big one is product open space. So 20 percent of a building footprint would have to be required in front of the building. And so on this bottom image, there's, you know, benches that were placed in front of Antonio's and the sidewalk there is about 20 feet. And so, you know, if, you know, in the transportation plan, recommended at least a 15, 12 to 15 foot wide sidewalk in downtown. And they recommended even wider, really, to have space for pedestrians and then sitting areas and in tree plantings. And so, you know, right now the curb line and the property line don't necessarily parallel each other. And sometimes there's pinch points. So you if you have a minimal setback in zoning, someone could put a building so close to the street that there really isn't much space in front of the building for outdoor amenities. And so with product open space, you know, we're saying that you have to a developer would have to provide this and include, you know, spaces for sitting and only, you know, 20 percent of the open space could be landscaping. So they couldn't just make it a space that is unusable. And then again, you know, for utilities and mechanical, we'd ask that they be set back on the roof and screened from view and they'd be located on the sides or rear of buildings. And so again, it's just something that isn't stated as clearly in the bylaw. And so this would just be, you know, reiterating what what the permit granting authority probably does anyways, but just, you know, recommending that these types of things don't interrupt the public view or the sidewalks. And so that's the mixed use building standards. And, you know, it's so this is that was, you know, that's a summary of the bylaw, you know, it doesn't prescribe materials. It doesn't prescribe style. And like I said, it doesn't get down to the level of details of defining what the retail uses are on the first floor. And so, you know, really, it's allowing an applicant to to propose a building with different uses that would meet these design guidelines, whether it's the site design or the building, you know, the building standards. And so, you know, the comments we've heard is, you know, the loss of smaller businesses in downtown and, you know, the town, we, you know, the bid in the town and the chamber can attract businesses, but we we're not going to regulate those in zoning. We can't we can't require certain uses in a mixed use building or require, you know, a specific, you know, a restaurant in a building. We allow those to be developed, you know, so in the in the in the village centers in the downtown, those uses are allowed. And so, you know, that's what we can do. So we can encourage those by being a by right use or other things. But, you know, we're not going to get to the level of detail of prescribing, you know, those particular uses in a mixed use building. So I'll end there with with that presentation. Thank you. I believe one more left, which is the be no overlay. We do. And let me just I'm going to export. In minutes or less. Oh, for sure. Let me just make that a PDF just so it's easier to share. No, because we're we're going on, I know it's our meeting at five. So all right. So be a overlay. Can everyone see this screen? Yes. All right. So the the focus right now are on two limited business zones in downtown, one along Triangle Street and one along North Pleasant Street. And the issue being study was the lack of or the barriers to residential development in the BL zone, mainly because of dimensional requirements, the additional lot area per family that Marine talked about. And the RG zoning district also applies in the BL, having a 4000 additional square feet. You know, there was a thought about footnote B, you know, there's some footnotes in the dimensional standards about waving footnote B. But what that would do is allow almost too many units without having any any way to control that. So, you know, a complete elimination of certain footnotes to the dimensional standards would allow, you know, you know, almost too much development in these limited business zones. So the thought is to create an overlay zoning district in these two areas that would encourage redevelopment of, you know, that would include residential units. We'd incorporate design guidelines that really mimic the mixed use building standards we just went over. So the design guidelines and the mixed use building standards, you know, to in terms of excavating the presentation, they're basically the same in the overlays. You know, the streetscape standards and then add affordability. And the idea here is the inclusionary zoning bylaw would then, you know, may be triggered for more of these developments. And so the purpose of the BL zoning district is really to act as a transitional area between, you know, higher density, commercial retail core and then the residential neighborhoods. However, because of the additional lot area per family required in the BL zoning districts, we aren't seeing a lot of residential development because of, you know, this additional lot area of 4,000 square feet. So anytime you if someone wants to do a 20 unit building, they'll need, you know, over almost two over two acres of land. And there's just the properties just aren't that big to support residential development. And so to achieve the goals of allowing more residential development, we're looking at implementing an overlay zone in the BL district along North Pleasant Street and Triangle Street, allow apartments to be permitted by site plan review, not special permit in the overlay and then adopt the mixed use building standards and the inclusionary zoning. We've received a few comments on the overlay. It's been presented to the planning board twice now. And so, you know, there's some concern about balancing new development with the historic character of the town, the older buildings, you know, the ability to retain and attract small businesses, the capacity of parking, you know, how can we make neighborhoods? You know, how do we maybe regulate and better regulate even the design of the buildings and the scale and massing of buildings? So the design standards are important. And, you know, there's been discussion about even having more kind of rigorous design standards. And then, you know, the affordable housing component. Quickly, the elements of downtown planning, we're really hoping that, you know, by creating this BL overlay, we're activating streets. We're creating a better pedestrian experience with open spaces, you know, adding the ability, the opportunity to have a different and more housing, so a different variety of housing types and commercial and retail areas, having built out along the frontage of a property, so we have the streetscape. It becomes walkable, you know, you could have more pedestrians, activities, more transportation choice and then, you know, adaptability and climate resiliency. So hopefully these buildings, you know, with with, you know, with more units in one building, if you're building envelopes to maintain and just, you know, so these are all the ideas we're trying to to use within this overlay. Existing conditions. So we're looking at really 18 properties on about 10 acres. They're mostly one to two story buildings. It's a mix of architectural types. Here's some images shown on the left. That's mostly retail commercial uses. The parking is behind the buildings. There's limited public open space in some areas along the street and there's lots of paving and impervious surfaces. And so the images on the ground here show the current figure ground. So everything in black is paving or building or, you know, impervious surface. And so the zoning right now really, you know, limits building coverage to 35 percent of a lot, but you can you can cover basically 85 percent of it with an impervious surface. And so it's really almost encouraging low buildings and parking. And that's kind of what we've been seeing. You know, there's some of the single family uses are not allowed. Mixed buildings are allowed by site plan review and apartments and other residential uses are by special permit. So this was just to give a summary of kind of what, you know, what the zoning zoning allows. So this overlay here is shown here. It's 100 feet back from the street line, the property line along the streets on Triangle Street, East Pleasant and North Pleasant. And so, you know, that that gives plenty of depth for development. Outside the hundred feet in these areas, the height of the BL zone would be dropped from three floors to two floors. And that way it helps with, you know, trying to pull and encourage development within this overlay. One important piece of the overlay is that setting a front yard setback of 10 feet on North Pleasant Street and within the overlay here. There's no additional lot area required or no lot area required. There's no building or lock coverage requirements. So essentially, this becomes an area that is incentivized for redevelopment and with the, you know, if you're not requiring the additional lot area of 4,000 square feet per dwelling unit, the idea is hopefully you can attract you know, development here when an applicant is ready. And we're changing the heights of the floors. So a 15 foot first floor height for commercial retail than 12 feet on the upper floors. And we're saying that there's a minimum of two floors and a maximum of three floors. And these dimensional standards right here would not be waived. And so currently in the BL, certain dimensional standards can be modified through footnotes and special permits. And so in the overlay, we're proposing to have these standards and not have them be waived. And so the front yard setback is really to, you know, to get this public open space, this project open space in front of the building. Triangle Street would have its own dimensional standards. Triangle and East Pleasant. So East Pleasant Street over here has a larger area that's outside the property. So we're saying a minimum front yard setback of five feet. But Triangle Street would actually have a 20 foot setback and that's shown by the dotted line here. And the reason for that is that the property line is actually very close to the street and some places actually is across the parking, the parallel parking that exists now. And so if we had a, you know, if right now in the BL, you could actually have a building that comes up so close to the property line, you'd actually have no sidewalk and it would create a very narrow right of way. And so with this 20 foot setback, you're, you know, you're providing space to have sidewalks and and it minimizes the kind of canyon effect between, you know, development in the BG and then in the BL. And again, the, you know, the side and rear yard setbacks are the same as on North Pleasant Street. The design standards are very similar to the mixed use building standards. Again, requiring a percentage built out along the frontage. So you get buildings that are along the minimum setback line. And that way, you know, you're pulling buildings close to the street. You know, again, a change in plane every 40 feet. Glazing needs to be reduced. And so these are all kind of the same standards in a mixed use building. The product open space is again the same 20 percent of a building footprint, including overhanging upper floors. And, you know, the idea with that, you know, 50 percent or a significant amount of it has to be designed as a courtyard or plaza. And we'd be, you know, stating that the permit granting authority would really work with the developer and applicant to help the product open space be designed to accommodate the uses. And so, you know, right now there isn't any requirement for this in the zoning. And this is this is completely new, this this product open space. And so other communities have done this where they say, OK, we need to have an activated street front. How do we do it? And so they actually have this type of requirement of open space in front of a building. The parking standards are the same for mixed use buildings, you know, really limit curb cuts off the sidewalk through the sidewalk, put them behind buildings, consolidate them, the parking lots and then hide mechanical. And what does this do? So here's a concept on North Pleasant Street. You know, it could be a mixed use building. The first floor is here. The street is down here. So you have larger retail uses up front. You can see there's some facade articulation. You know, it's 50 percent of the front edge is here. And then it steps back. It's still, you know, so it's it meets all these architectural requirements. The upper floors are, you know, eight units per floor, about 750 square feet of unit. So this is a mixed use building with 26 units. Sorry, with 16 units. Another example is a bigger building. It's as if, you know, an applicant has combined lots. And so again, we have those requirements that you have to have every 40 feet. You need to have some articulation. If a building is over 100 feet at 80 feet, you need to step back. And so you have this, you have a little bit more articulation of what the facade would look like. So again, this could be a three story mixed use building with, you know, five to 10 commercial spaces, 16 units on the upper two floors, 16 units of floor, you know, and here it's about 600 square feet of unit. And so you have a three story building. On Triangle Street, the lots are much bigger. And so again, we're we're showing, you know, how the buildings would be stepped back to meet the product open space and the setback requirements. And then what the upper floors would look like in terms of unit configuration. I'm just going to show quickly. We do have a sketch up model of this and, you know, what's can everyone see this model here? And so, you know, these are the buildings that were in the example. And just quickly, the here's the hundred feet line. So you can do a two story addition in the back. The B.L. standard still applies so someone could put parking and we'd require landscaping and buffers from the adjoining properties. And so what this is doing is it's really pulling the buildings back from the street. So here's one he's pleasant. It's really not a lot of space between the building and the street. With these standards, we were saying you'd have to have, you know, this public open space in the front. And so really you are requiring, you know, you're making a developer. Put that in. And then there'd be some requirement for facade articulation. So, you know, the glazing on the first floor, the upper floors having some step backs and punch outs. And, you know, one member of the planning board said you still could build ugly with these design standards. And so they're not meant to be a comprehensive form based code or something, but what they really are doing is asking for some facade articulation and some differentiation between if it's a mixed use building, the first floor and second floors and again, this public open space. So in this scenario, you know, we're seeing, again, more facade articulation. You know, some relief here, it's step back. So 50% meets that minimum, you know, along that minimum front setback line and then, you know, more public open space. If we zoom to Triangle Street, much bigger buildings, you know, again, we're capping them at three floors. So, you know, there has been some discussion about whether or not they could go up to four floors, but we've kept it to three floors. Just, you know, we've increased the height of each floor. So the 12 feet on the upper floors and 15 feet. But really what the hope here is is to create a, you know, not bring the building so close to the street and have, you know, some people say a canyon effect. But with this required public open space, you know, you could have courtyards or plazas here. You'd have to have some step backs and some facade articulation. And, you know, there's so many different ways a developer could propose a building here. But this is showing one example, you know, of what it could look like. The housing production plan looked at this property, this BL zone on Triangle Street and envisioned three-story townhouses with a mixed-use building on the corner. And so, again, there's different, you know, kind of buildout scenarios that could happen. But staff is, you know, exploring, you know, the model here just to see what, you know, what design standards can do, what can they look like. And so, you know, again, here's the difference if you allow full glazing on a mixed-use building without any requirement for opaque material on the bottom. And here's what it could look like if you have the 42 inches. And so, you know, we've been using this to help advance ideas. And I think with that, I'll stop my presentations. Thank you for that, Nathan. I believe we are done all of the presentations, right, Chris? Correct. So I want to appreciate all of the presentations. I want to also appreciate our committee for being very patient with those presentations because I had thought it would be a little bit shorter. And so I know that that were limits how much discussion we can have today. But as Dave said at the very beginning, this is a long process. This was not going to be we discussed today and we're done. And so, you know, we have about 20 minutes left in the meeting. We still have to get to public comment, too. So I'm going to, I think we're going to try and keep our comments to really high level comments at this point and so that we can get to public comment at some point, too. And then I will come up with a plan for when we really delve into each one of these five plans. So I will start with Steve. Yes, so thank you very much. So I guess really a comment for us. I think it's too much. I think we're taking on too much. I think we could spend all day, all week, all month talking about the ADUs. So I'm really concerned that we're getting so much information that is could profoundly change huge parts of Amherst, that I guess I'm concerned that that information is coming in such a big bucket right now that we may make decisions without fully debating and discussing what those implications are. I mean, we've seen a ton of emails about the BL and about the footnote M. And it's just that's really what a concern that I have. But there may, if you want to speak high level, I think the two most critical words that I believe is owner occupancy. And I think that the owner occupancy thread has to run through everything that we've discussed today. So it's interesting that the ADUs require owner occupancy, right? So that's a definition of it. But to me, it's astonishing that right across the street. So the high street example is right out my window right here. It's astonishing to me that that neighbor is required to be in order to have an accessory unit of 1,000 square feet, they have to occupy the property. But that neighbor right there could dull, I forget. I lost track, five apartment units and not owner occupy unless they wanted a waiver of some kind in which case they would have to owner occupy. But I really do agree with those that have written in that we've reached some sort of a stability. So in our G we've reached some kind of a stability with the rental registration and things like that of allowing supplemental units, allowing converted dwellings, you know, things like that. That unless there is a change in the demographics of Amherst, you know, where the, we know what's going to happen if we build apartment buildings. So we know that where the biggest demand is coming from. And if we're not going to be sure, unless we have some kind of deed restrictions that these are workforce housing or whatever, they're going to fill up with a particular demographic that can pay by the bedroom. So I would be much, you know, if I can't speak it for myself I'd be much more amenable to where we started that in order to have an ADU you have to be owner occupied in order to divide your RG lot into apartments that are more than you also have to be owner occupied. So I don't know why we would have that as a deed restriction for only if you're now trying to waive the lesson requirements. I would think that to even begin the discussion of this would have to be owner occupied. And then also the BL district. So I think that same thread is there. So we're hearing a ton of concerns about the newest project in that area where the cousin's market is, that's BG, not BL but it's going to really affect the discussion about this. If we could figure out a way to allow the BL overlay for owner occupancy, condos basically or whatever the form of ownership is. So then I think that the discussion could change. So there's also a lot of discussion about who has the wealth. So in other words, if the ELLCs are the ones that are doing all the developing and are always the renters, then we're not allowing the residents of Amherst who are looking for starter homes or starter condos or whatever it is to kind of build up wealth to kind of invest in this community. So then you're either a renter or you own a house somewhere and over there. But I think like for me, the condo market is sort of the market that's really missing in here, especially starter condos. There are a lot of people that want to live downtown. So right now the whole market is dominated by a particular billing type. I yield my time. Thank you. Steve, you got up to about three minutes. So next up is Shalini. Yes, again, thank you so much for putting all this together. It really helps me see the different things and I agree with Steve, there's a lot going on here. So for me, the big picture thing is I'm looking at using three factors as a lens to see what kind of changes we need. One is the economic aspect for the town in terms of how do we increase a property taxes base and how do we revitalize the economic vitality downtown and village centers? That's the first criteria. The second is sustainability. How do we create smart streets where people can walk and using less vehicle making all of that? And then the third is affordability, diversity, equity, right? And when we just talking big picture here, so I'm trying to see how to phrase and given those three criteria, could we look at this long list and see which of these zoning changes impact all of those the most? And what I also heard Steve talk about was the starter homes, for example, and the missing lot. I have a lot of questions about that because I looked up this community developing website called simple-life.com and they build cottage communities that make starter homes affordable for people. So as they're paying the lease, they're also buying into the rights of ownership. And so can we use our invite developers who can build those kind of starter homes in areas? And also that's, I mean, a different discussion, but I just thought I'd throw it in. But what I'm also seeing through a lot of the discussion today was for example, that there are a lot of ideas here and it would be helpful again to check in with our assumptions by doing some kind of a community engagement process because when we look at the only two and a half permits for municipality in Boston for ADU and it's like what's preventing people from building ADU? So if that was one of the questions in our surveys where we would, and you already have certain ways of streamlining the permitting, is it? So if we ask people what is stopping you from building an ADU is it the permitting process is too confusing? Is it the cost of it? Is it, you know, like you don't want to be whatever, what are the pros and cons and what would one? And the idea behind that is then we know how to design the strategy. Is it educating people? Is it supporting them in the permitting process? Is it, so I think that's just one example but I saw that stream of assumptions that we could be verifying by doing some kind of a community engagement process. And now that we have that amazing website, Engage Amherst and of course we'll design it scientifically. We're not asking people, do you want this or that? But it's more about really what are the needs, what's stopping them from going there and designing a really good survey but also using our district meetings across the board where all district counselors were given the same questions. We could be using those as a way to find out, hey, what's stopping you from building an ADU? Did you know you could build? So maybe people don't even know that they can build it. So once we find out, then that would help us design our strategies. I'll stop at that for now. Thank you, Felony. Evan. Thanks, so I'll echo everyone thanking the planning department and all the staff who are here for all of the work you put into it. So I have two pages of comments and questions. So I'm trying to just pick out the ones I wanna hit. So I'll just hit on one thing for each, for I think each. As far as ADUs go, I'm thrilled with what you all came up with. As far as I'm concerned, you could put a notice in the paper tomorrow for the planning board hearing and we could get moving on that one. It seems like it's pretty far along and I'd like to see us move it forward. The only part of it that gave me pause was I don't understand why, when it comes to the number of unrelated people, why we are creating a different standard for ADUs than we are for any housing type. It's four unrelated for everything and then three for ADUs and that doesn't make sense to me. But other than that, that one looks good. The BL, I've been pretty resistant to the idea of fixing the BLV and overlay district. I'm coming around to it. I think you've done a really great job thinking through it. But the one thing that really stood out to me, and this is maybe more specific than Mandy was looking for when I was saying it anyway, is the idea of out of 102 floors and a max of 25 feet, it's not something I think I could vote for because that would actually put the height of buildings in the BL lower than the height in any other district except for flood prone conservancy. It actually puts the height outside of that 100 feet and the floor cap lower than we have in the RLD or the RO. And so I don't understand why two floors and 25 feet seems reasonable when it's lower than our lowest density residential districts. It seems like at least it should be in line with what we have in the RG, which is the adjacent district, perhaps the RVC or the RN, but certainly not that low. But I do really like the thought you've put into the pedestrian experience in the streetscape and looking at things like minimizing curb cuts, putting parking in the back, making parking not visible. I think that that's great. And there's only one other thing I wanted to say. Oh, I would wonder, one of the things that always struck me about Amherst is the lack of buildings that have rooftop space. We don't have rooftop space here. I don't know if there's a particular reason for that, but I was wondering if the required open space could be on the roof or had to be ground level open space, or if that's not even something that's possible. And I'll probably just leave my comments at that for now. I have a lot more specifics about each one, but I don't want to get into it. We will definitely get into specifics over the next couple of meetings. Dorothy, you had your hand up, but I think did I lower my accident? No, I had to, can you hear me? Yes. Okay, I had to change computers because my computer is hosting somebody's 90th birthday party, which is starting in a few minutes. So I had to switch computers. I'm sorry, I'm now on my town computer. Yes, just like Evan, I do have pages of comments and I have them tabbed and color tabbed. No time to do that today. I do want to compliment the planning department. I don't agree with, certainly I do not agree with all of the things you've done, but I see the work. I see the changes. I see efforts to be responsive to comments that have come in. And I think that we need to take time. I do agree with Steve way, way I can't imagine how you did all this work and we know how much work we have to do. So my thought is concentrate on the mixed use, which you've been talking about what we're needing to do. Concentrate on the mixed used zoning requirements that you've presented, which have many, many good points in them and let us try to get that passed because we have a new project coming and in pre-meeting conversation with Mandy Joe, my question was it's too late for the new building coming in and she thought, I should ask you this for clarification. Is it indeed that if somebody has in fact filed for their building that they can use the existing zoning at the time they have filed, but if there is changed zoning, they have at least the option of doing that. So that's my first question. Is that correct? Chris, could you respond to that for someone? I think I should let Rob respond to that because that's got some nuances associated with it. Rob? Okay, so the new zoning proposed zoning amendment from the date it's advertised for a public hearing does take effect. So in order to be, I guess, immune from that or frozen with the existing bylaw, the proposed project would have had to either received a special permit by that date or a building permit if they receive just a special permit, then they have one additional year from that point to receive a building permit and start work and not have the zoning change affect them. If they simply have just a site plan review or in process and the bylaw amendment is advertised and then subsequently adopted, that zoning change applies to that project. That answer was beautifully said and my brain was galloping along and I don't have it all. So the question is, is there a chance that we would have this revised mixed use building zoning law in place where it might apply to the new proposed project? I believe Dorothy's referring to the 11 to 13 East Pleasant Street project for reference. So we don't have a complete application for that project yet. We believe it's going to require a special permit. If the special permit is granted before the advertisement of the public hearing, then the change would not affect that project. So it's really hard to predict what'll happen over the next couple of months either with the project application or with adopting zoning. But since there's still more property over there, I think it's just my suggestion that we work on the mix zone in terms of the town process. We worked on the mixed use project zoning suggestions first, whether they make it for this project or the one that's coming next. Because I think there's gonna be less controversy over those proposals, at least that's my thought. Then a few other quick questions. And again, this is going to Steve's owner occupancy which we have found to be the key in preserving the RG which has been under great stress at various times until the rental registration came in, until the local history district. But I know that a two fam, well, I know I believe that the two families in our local history district need to be owner occupied. Yet duplexes don't. So I'm saying, what's the difference between a duplex and a two family? So that is a question that I have. And the ADUs, you can have only one in your backyard which I think is great. One house in your backyard. But under footnote, removing footnote M or even with footnote M, you can have five or six non-owner occupied in your backyard. So I'm just seeing a lot of confusion and dissonance and I think we have to kind of clarify these things. And I just wanna say my usual thing every time you build something in an RG, in somebody's yard, what you are taking away are trees and grass. And that's the reason that we're living here in the RG is for trees and grass. And remember those trees help moderate the climate. When I looked at your models for downtown, lot of brick, a lot of impervious surfaces, even though I do like your new ideas of including more setback, you're gonna need the trees of the RG to help moderate the climate in the summer. So I don't think you really want to go as deeply into the RG as the proposal is now. But obviously it's good to clarify what can be done, but you also have to think about what should be done. That's it. Thank you, Dorothy. We are almost at five o'clock. I have three other hands up. I'm going to try and limit each of you to no more than two minutes so we can move on to public comment afterwards. So Steve. Yeah, so I'm just gonna focus on the ADUs because I was thinking that was the low hanging fruit, not quite ready for advertisement in my opinion. But one of the questions I have is that all the descriptions of it were backyard, back, back, back. But in fact, one of the examples you showed was in a front yard, the Longtown Road one. So once you put these in the front yard, everything changes, right? So in other words, the look and feel of a particular neighborhood. And so we've always assumed that ADUs go in fully developed sort of the urban part of town, but actually some of them are being built in the 1960s, 1970s subdivisions where the houses tend to be set back. But I think that really needs to be considered because I'm not ready to say that that's a by right use to put a 1,000 square foot thing in somebody's front yard. Well, you know what? Am I at my two minutes? I'm just gonna leave you at that time. Although the other thing I was gonna mention is converted dwelling. So we saw that side of converted dwelling, duplex and ADUs. That's completely confusing. And I wish my one hope for my time in the council is we can get that clarified. But actually converted dwellings can result in an ADU. Converted dwellings can result in a duplex. Converted dwellings can result in an apartment building. So, and the other thing is we say that the lot size requirements apply to converted dwellings and you know, et cetera, all of that can be waived with section 9.22, which is basically the special permit granting the authorities ability to say that we decided to waive all of the above because we're not conforming lots. But so I'll keep it at that. I think we're getting a little far field from the five things we saw tonight. Evan. Yeah, one other thing I forgot to mention that I wanted to, Dorothy reminded me when she said she feels like the mixed use building definition should be one of our first priorities is I would be hesitant to move forward with the mixed use building definition separate from the apartment definition, which I know you're still working on. We know that the 24 unit cap on apartments can be an unreasonable burden. And we know of at least one developer who got around that by doing exactly what we're trying to prevent with the new mixed use definition by putting an office space on the ground floor and then saying now it's a mixed use so I don't have to worry about that cap. So if we fix the mixed use, but we don't fix the apartment building, we actually could create a problem. So to me, those need to go in town. Excellent. Thank you, Evan, Shalini. Yeah, what I'm hearing is I think we've heard from the staff a lot of detailed work here. We've heard from the community and amongst us, I think we need to step back and decide what's the order of priority. Like what is the criteria we're using because I'm hearing someone talk about ADUs being the low hanging and someone else talking about the mixed use and what is the criteria we're using in CRC to decide what the priority is going to be and having that clarity, I think will be very helpful even for the staff. Thank you, Shalini. I again want to thank the staff. I encourage you to stay for the public comment we're going to have now. I know we're slightly over time, but we're going to have public comment. We're going to skip minutes today if people hadn't guessed that already. But at this time, if you'd like to make public comment, please raise your hand. I do not believe anyone is on the phone. So just hit the raised hand button that should be at the bottom of your screen. We're going to, because we're over time, try and keep public comment to two and a half minutes instead of three minutes. I'm taking a compromise. And so with that, let me see if I can bring, I'm working on getting my timer up here to do the timing here. I'm going to bring in John Page. Let me get you. You should be able to unmute now. All right. Can you hear me? Yep. Yeah, John. John Page here speaking on behalf of the Amherst Area Chamber of Commerce, as an organization whose mission it is to promote economic vitality and growth, we're encouraged by the hard work of town staff, the council, the planning board, and specifically CRC's deep dive into zoning and planning reforms. While we will wait until we can analyze concrete proposals and including some which were introduced today before we weigh in on supporting zoning amendments, we're glad to see design guidelines, including the activation of public spaces, changes to the limited business or BL zoning district, mixed use building standards and housing production strategies. The chamber is glad to see forward movement on progressive zoning reforms, which reduce barriers to economic development, including housing production, and providing greater clarity and consistency, something our builders, developers, financiers really need to reduce the risk of building or opening a business in Amherst. We look forward to these ongoing conversations, but are glad to see action and leadership that is frankly overdue and is really needed in this extraordinary time. So for that, thank you. Thank you. John. Let me see. Next up is Ira Brick. Thank you so much. Can you hear me? Yes, we can. Okay. So first, I also wanna add my compliments to the planning department. Very informative presentations and I appreciate how much you're considering the public input that you've been getting. And I just wanna repeat something that I had heard from somebody on the planning board, which is that so much is already possible in the RG and it doesn't seem to be happening. And is that a problem of there's not really a need to do it or there's not an understanding from homeowners there that they can do it? And I wonder if education is the first step, telling people what they're already allowed to do rather than removing footnote M, which might encourage more combining of properties by developers. And I know every time I say developers, I just, I wanna make it clear. I am not anti-development and some of my best friends are developers. So I do think that you're gonna see a lot more ADUs added and a lot more just duplexes added instead of apartment buildings if footnote M is removed. I guess that's my complete comment. So thank you so much. Thank you, Ira for those comments. Next up is Susanna Fabing. Sorry about that. I just muted you Susanna, please unmute again. How's that? That was my fault, sorry about that. That's all right. I also would like to thank the planners for the presentation and the hard work. And I just have a question of clarification to Nate about the BL district on North Pleasant Street. We believe that only two developers own all of the properties in that strip. And my question is, is there any limit to the number of lots they could unify if they chose to work together? Could that be one long building in each block? Thank you, Susanna, for that question. Nate, if you could, or if normally we don't allow answers, but because things are so confusing right now, I don't know whether Rob or Nate is the better person to answer that. Whoever might be that's on the call, you can unmute and try and answer that question. I know it can be very hard to when there's nothing in proposed. Yeah, I'm not, this is Nate, I'm not aware of anything that would restrict combining the properties. So there is some topography back there. There may be some constraints, but in terms of combining or changing lot lines, there's not really anything that would prevent that. Great, thank you. Thank you, next up is Linda Slakey. Please unmute and identify yourself. Yes, my name is Linda Slakey. I live at 18 Nutting Avenue and I want to thank both the town staff, but also the members of the council. I've been greatly reassured by your articulation of values that we really need to address. And I just want to take a very brief interval to thank you for that and to reinforce the importance of balancing the town's need for income and raising the tax base against our repeatedly articulated concern for affordability for starter homes for the ability of young families to build wealth. I'll tell you just briefly that a young person coming into town with the job that I came into town with could not do what I could do. And that's been true for a long time. And I think as we think about what's possible, I really urge you all to think as creatively as possible, even going down the road of whether the town might want to subsidize certain kinds of development in the interests of in all the parts of the town, both the outlying districts, but also in the center, creating economic diversity, of course also racial and ethnic diversity, but the whole spectrum of incomes in vibrant neighborhoods. Thank you. Thank you, Linda. At this time, I don't see any other hands. So we're going to close public comment. I want to just conclude a few announcements, agenda previews, all of that, I guess, together with the presentation today, because I didn't speak much myself, but the work we saw today, I know it went over what we had hoped for, but I completely understand why, because it represents an enormous amount of work and research and just delving into all sorts of things to get to where you got to today and be able to present it all to us. I appreciate the work of everyone that is on this call today, which as I said, represents nearly the entire planning department and our building inspector. It has been fantastic work for now. We have a lot of work still to go, especially a lot of conversation to go. I also want to, I know there are a few planning board members on this call today. I can see that some of them are watching and I want to thank the planning board for spending the last month meeting weekly to discuss a lot of this and really delve into, I know you delved into a lot, but I know you particularly with the planning department really delved into what the presence of that footnote and what the absence of that footnote does. And that could be seen in Maureen's presentation today and really thinking about what those consequences might be. So I want to thank the planning board all of its work in the past month. And I hope that I know the chairs on here that he will relay that thanks to the rest of the planning board at their upcoming meeting because it is really appreciated from myself but the whole committee. And we're going to look forward to working with you as we move forward with all of this. So given that I think next steps are going to be next agenda is in about two weeks. We are going to finish the housing comprehensive. The plan right now is to finish the presentation by Nate and Dave on staff feedback on the housing policy. I will talk to them both though to see whether we still want to go forward with that given today's presentation. I will be probably reaching out to each one of the CRC members as well as Dave and Chris and Rob to determine where we might focus our first really in-depth discussion. I know we can't put all five on every agenda that we saw today that would not be productive. And so I will take the comments I've heard today about ADUs and mixed use and some other things and talk to go forward and figure out what we're going to focus on at the next meeting and then going forward with that. But I'll probably reach out to each counselor to see, I've heard a little bit but to see where some focuses might be desired there too. At that, we will be adopting minutes. We will make sure we do minutes next time because we are at now we will have four as of the next meeting. So we're gonna do it. But that's the plan right now. I see Evan's hand up. So Evan, questions? Just quickly a reminder, I know this was mentioned to get before but not all of the documents and presentations that we saw today were in the packet. So if we could just make sure to get them all into the packet, because I know I wanna go back and look through some of them individually. Thank you for that. I did make a note of which ones we saw that were not in the packet. So I will definitely reach back out to Chris and Dave to make sure that they make it into the online packet as well as what the counselors access so that we can delve right into any of that and everything. But thank you for the reminder on that. Dorothy, you have another question? May I just? Yes. Before Dorothy, let's hear from Chris first. Yeah, Chris. How about if Nate and Maureen and Ben send their presentations to Mandy Jo and copy me? That would be the best is then I don't have to figure out what they haven't sent yet. So just send it all to Mandy Jo and I will send my intro to Mandy Jo and then we can make sure they get posted. So for notes, I believe it was the footnote M PowerPoint and if there's any text document outside of the footnote M PowerPoint that the IZ and mixed use PowerPoint and the IZ text I think is the only things we were missing at this point. I do have it, did not make it into the packet beforehand but Chris had sent the introduction presentation and so I will get that back into the packet too. I just didn't see it in time. And then there was the BL, I called it the sketch model. I have no idea whether any of that can be turned into a PDF of some sort or at least a vague PDF where you were 3D the Triangle Street and Pleasant Street, but if we could maybe get a PDF of that too. And then I'll touch base with anyone else if I think there's anything else missing, but those were the ones I noted, Dorothy. Just to say, I really appreciate it when you put the time it was put in. You know, 11 minutes ago, a day ago, because that's the only way I know, did I have it, did I print it, whatever. And, you know, you think you have a package, it's got the covers the same, some of the pictures the same, but no, there's changes. Every time they come before us, there are changes and I can see the reflecting and responding to conversations and that people have had. So that's really great. So thank you very much in putting the date time on it. Thank you. Thank you, Dorothy. Any other comments, questions, announcements or anything I didn't anticipate before we adjourn? Seeing none, I am going to, first of all, thank you, Emily for staying 15 minutes over and we are going to adjourn the meeting at 5.15 p.m. Thank you all for coming.