 Do I have to do anything to start the recording? Oh, I think I have to, Lynn, do I push a button to? I want to make sure that we don't. There you go. The knock on the wall. So welcome to, I'm going to call to order the meeting of the Community Resources Committee of the Town Council. So we have three of our five members here. So that's a quorum. And do you want to call the, awesome. So the main order of business today is an overview of the master plan. So we have about a total of an hour and 40 minutes for our meeting. And we have a, we do have some other business items. So however long you think that it would take for the overview. And then we'll have some time. Yeah. Yeah. So actually the order was overview of the master plan, then public comment, then business not anticipated 40 hours in advance, and then approval of the minutes. So I think we'll just go right to the master plan and then do public comment. And please introduce yourselves. I still, you know, it's funny or it's still very soft. Hello. Oh, that's better. I'll start over. Good afternoon. I'm Chris Brestrup. I'm the planning director for the town of Amherst. And I have with me this afternoon Nate Malloy, senior planner who is also in the planning department. We're pleased to be here this afternoon to present to you Amherst's master plan. So we're going to spend about probably 45 minutes going through the master plan, what it says, what we've done so far and what we still need to do. Nate is going to plug in in the middle of the presentation to talk about housing and particularly affordable housing. That's one of his many areas of expertise. So we also have an opportunity to have questions and comments from the council members periodically throughout the presentation. So if you feel like you want to ask a few questions or make a few comments, you may do so then. But I think most of the comments are going to be saved for the end of the presentation. So to start off, the Amherst master plan is planning Amherst together. That was the process by which we planned the master plan. So what is a master plan? A master plan is a community's general long term blueprint for its future. It guides regulatory changes, land use policies, budgeting decisions, and other aspects of the community's decision making process. It helps to direct decision making on the community's long term physical development over a period of decades. And it's a dynamic document. It's the beginning of a process, not the end of the process. So what does the law say about a master plan? A master plan is required by Mass General Law chapter 41, section 81D. And it spells out what needs to be in a master plan. Amherst master plan was adopted by the planning board in February of 2010. The master plan recommends that the master plan be updated at least every five years. Well, we haven't really accomplished that. But here we are in year nine, I think. Amherst home rule charter requires the adoption of a new master plan by the town council every 20 years. And as far as I can tell from talking to colleagues and reading about what other towns and cities do, the best practice is to update it about every five to 10 years. So this master plan was the first in Amherst for nearly 40 years. It was based on extensive public input in the form of community forums, working groups, targeted outreach, and a number of community surveys. And I'm sure a lot of you participated. You can probably find yourselves among the pictures that we're going to show today. The master plan was based on research on the community's existing conditions and anticipated trends for the future. It represents Amherst's best effort to balance competing interests of a diverse population. And the master plan addresses complex and intertwined issues that face the community now and in the future. So I'm going to tell you a little about the history of the master plan. Amherst experienced a lot of growth during the 1960s and early 70s. And the town decided to set up a process by which they could start to plan for some of that development. So they established the Select Committee on Goals. You often hear this referred to as SCOG, which is sort of an unfortunate name, but that's what it is. So in 1971, the SCOG committee was formed. And they worked diligently for a couple of years and came up with a report, a summary of which we have online, and the conceptual plan we have here on this slide. So the SCOG report came up with many objectives and goals for the town. But among them were this conceptual plan for how the town was to be developed. You can see that it's very similar to the way we think of developing in Amherst today. Essentially, focus development in the downtown, which is this rectilinear area in the middle of the plan. And then focus development also in the village centers. And at that time, we thought of there being six village centers. And then after the SCOG committee did its work, we waited a couple of decades when finally we launched into a visioning process. And in 1997 and 98, the Comprehensive Planning Committee was formed. And the Amherst visions process came into being. We hired Walt Kudnachowski, who was the founder of the Conway School of Landscape Design and his partners to do a visioning process for the town. What do we want to be? How do we want to arrange ourselves and develop ourselves? So they issued a report called Amherst Visions. And I believe that's online. And if it's not, you can write to me and I'll send you a copy. The Comprehensive Planning Committee and the Planning Board worked with a UMass landscape architecture and regional planning studio on a project called Village Boundaries and Open Space Preservation Strategies. And that's illustrated here in this colorful plan. And it described places where they thought that development should really be focused. And you can see it's the North Amherst Village Center, the downtown, including the areas around the downtown. And they chose the area around the Pomeran Lane intersection. They didn't really focus so much on Atkins Corner. So that was the student's report. Then in 2004, the Fall Special Town Meeting voted $20,000 to begin the master plan process. They hired a consultant to establish a scope of work and a cost. And then in 2005, knowing a little more about what master plan might cost, the special town meeting in the fall voted an additional $65,000 to get going on a master plan. And an RFP was issued for a consultant. In 2006, planning Amherst together continued and a consultant was chosen. ACP, Visioning and Planning. And they were based in Ohio and New York State, I believe. Annual town meeting voted an additional $135,000 for the master plan. So we had a total of about $200,000 to work on it with our consultant. And the consultant and staff gathered data on existing conditions and trends. And here's another picture of us working diligently. You can see, I think, Jim Wald in the foreground and some other familiar faces. In 2007, planning Amherst together began a series of public idea gatherings, group workshops, community choices, and a community survey. And the first draft of the master plan was submitted to the Comprehensive Planning Committee. Then in 2008 to 2010, the Master Plan Subcommittee of the Planning Board reviewed and edited and revised the draft plan. In 2010, there was a public forum held in January on the draft master plan. And the final version of the master plan was adopted by the planning board in February of 2010. Do you have any questions and comments? So what's in the master plan? Well, the master plan contains several chapters that are required by state law. There's a goals and policies chapter. And that begins the master plan. There's a land use chapter, which is probably the one that we're most familiar with. We work most diligently with that in the planning department. And you may also have referred to that from time to time. Demographics and housing, which is what Nate is going to talk about later. Economic development, natural and cultural resources, open space and recreation, services and facilities, and transportation and circulation. And then at the very end, there's an implementation chapter. So all towns and cities in Massachusetts that do master plans pretty much follow this pattern. How's the master plan organized? Well, in the very beginning of it, it states some key directions for the town that everybody agreed that they went along with. So I'll read through those. One of the key directions is maintaining Amherst's existing community character. I think we're all on board with that. Encourage the vitality in the downtown and village centers. Balance land preservation objectives with more intensive development in appropriate areas. Provide housing that meets the needs of all residents while minimizing impacts on the environment. Provide and expand the economic, excuse me, diversify and expand the economic base. Enhance town-gown relations and cooperation. And promote an ethic of sustainable environmental energy practices in all town activities. On a deeper level, the master plan is organized by section. Each section contains a goal. Under the goal are a series of objectives. And under the objectives, each objective has a series of strategies about how to achieve the objective. So again, for the land use section, which is the one that we work with most frequently. The land use section states as its goal that it wants to have Amherst be a sustainable, attractive town with a viable mixed-use downtown and active village centers that are well-connected with livable and diverse neighborhoods and campuses. And interwoven with protected open space, natural resources, and active farmland. One of the goals, excuse me, one of the objectives under this goal is to create a vital downtown and village centers, areas of mixed-use, including retail, commercial, and residential elements that are walkable, attractive, and efficient. And under this particular objective, one of the strategies is change zoning to allow denser residential occupancy near existing services and public transit. That may sound familiar to some of you who attended the recent presentation on the 40R type of development, which is doing, attempting to do just that dense development near existing services and public transit. So what does the master plan say about each of these topics? I'm going to read some of the objectives. I'm not going to read all of them, but you can delve into that more carefully if you want to read the master plan online. So under land use, the objectives include preferentially direct future development to existing built-up areas. Again, that relates to what we learned about 40Rs. Preserve key undeveloped lands. Protect key farmland and farming in Amherst. Guide new housing growth while minimizing impact on open space and small town rural character. And honor the historic cultural character and beauty of the neighborhoods. Under demographics and housing, among the objectives there were to encourage a greater mix of housing types, sizes, and prices, serving a wider range of income levels. Preserve and expand the number of affordable and moderately priced rental units and housing stock. Encourage the production of housing in an environmentally sound manner. Improve housing and services for people who are homeless. And build and sustain the town's capacity for regulatory oversight of Amherst's housing stock. As I read through these, I'm definitely reminded of some of the issues that we're facing today, but it's good to go back to the master plan and realize that those are things that the town agreed upon that they wanted to tackle, issues they wanted to tackle. Economic development. Under economic development, the master plan said we wanted to support sustainable growth of existing businesses and attract new ones. We wanted to support the relocalization of the Amherst economy and improve regulatory environment to encourage business development. Under natural and cultural resources, I've given you two photographs here of solar installations that we have on the Hampshire College campus. Promote, preserve, promote preservation, appreciation, and sustainable use of our historical and cultural resources and apply the principles of environmental sustainability townwide. In terms of open space and recreation, some of the objectives were to improve the economic viability of the farm community within Amherst and provide a supply of accessible, well-maintained recreational facilities that meet the changing needs of our community. Under services and facilities, some of the objectives were to deliver high quality public safety services that includes police, fire, and emergency ambulance services. Deliver high quality education from preschool through grade 12. Anticipate plan and budget for large projects in response to growing demand on town services, well, we're certainly involved in that right now. And strengthen partnerships with the colleges and university and improve coordination of services and facilities. Transportation and circulation is a big part of the master plan and it called for actively promoting alternative modes of transportation, providing adequate public parking to support existing and desired new development in the downtown and elsewhere, and pursue funding strategies for achieving transportation goals. In terms of implementation, the master plan called for providing sufficient resources to implement the master plan, involving a wide variety of stakeholders in implementation and requiring concurrence with the master plan. And I'd like to say a few sort of offline comments about implementation. Although there was not a formal implementation process, we did implement many, many of the goals and objectives and strategies of the master plan. We did involve a wide variety of stakeholders in the implementation and we've made an effort to have all of our rules and regulations and bylaws go in concurrence with the master plan. Any questions and comments? Yes. Would you go back to the comment about parking downtown? So one of the objectives stated, provide adequate public parking to support existing and desired new development in the downtown and elsewhere. And I have to place this document in its context. When this document was written, none of the major developments that we are currently seeing downtown were on the drawing board. I don't even think they were on the drawing board. So since then, we've experienced Boltwood Place. We've experienced Kendrick Place. We've experienced One East Pleasant Street. We are soon to see a development on Spring Street. So there may be some thought about re-wording, re-imagining what it means to supply public parking and how much developers might need to chime into that subject. So I just wanted to put that in context. Steve. So we were talking a little bit about this at the CRC. So 10 years doesn't seem all that long. So all those buildings you just mentioned all emerged in 10 years, but also in 10 years has emerged Uber and Lyft. I don't believe those are even an idea 10 years ago. So the way that we think about transportation, the way we think about cars has also changed dramatically. Sorry, Linda, do you have a question or a comment? Yeah, this is just to try to help me and hopefully others as well understand. Subsequent to that, there was some bylaw passed by town meeting that dealt with the down parking area. Yes. Chris. So the municipal parking district was actually established in the late 60s. I believe it was established in 1969. And at that time it said that businesses, restaurants, retail stores, et cetera, offices did not need to provide on-site parking. Then in 2008, the area that was affected by the municipal parking district was expanded. It was expanded to go all the way up to Triangle Street, and I think possibly even beyond that, to include all of the BG and BL areas. And it also expanded to include residential uses at that time. But at that time, again, we did not experience any residential development in the downtown. So it was sort of an effort to promote residential development in the downtown, not to require on-site parking. So in other words, we basically said go ahead and build, but you as the commercial builders or the commercial owners, don't have any responsibility for parking. Am I correct in my interpretation of that? Well, I think we said there was no requirement. Not necessarily. There's no responsibility. And so with the master plan, the idea was to have infill development in the town center and village centers. And so typically in zoning, you'd have a pretty strict parking ratio to whether it's square feet or to a residential unit, you might say two parking spaces to every residential unit. So to me, this bowl is addressing the fact that in the downtown and in those centers, we don't want to have those strict parking requirements because if you had a 10 unit building, you'd have to have 20 parking spaces which might take up half of a property. And so I think, so to me, this is saying, well, can the public, can public supply balance that, balance the need for infill and vital downtown vibrant walking centers and not have parking lots, you know, along the street. And so the public public supply could be managed a little differently. Pat. There was a report about the proposed Gateway Corridor that was a commission. And in that report, it talked about development with and that it would need shared parking. Sort of wondering why that recommendation was never taken in and looked at when we started doing the development that we're doing and giving away parking areas. So if I might just step in here. So we were hoping to get sort of an overview of the master plan. That's a perfect question for our next meeting, which is planning and zoning. So planning and zoning, the master plan is the macro. It basically governs the idea, you know, the ideals of the town, the planning, the specifics, particularly the zoning bylaw, which is really your question. Right. It does talk about adequate public parking to support us this year. Yeah. Yeah. I'm just looking at that and wondering why the idea of shared parking didn't happen. I can answer. So the master plan is not a law. The master plan could not require a developer, can't compel the developer to do anything. What compels developers are the land use laws, most famously the zoning bylaw, but also conservation commission and other parts of the bylaw. So sometimes they seem like they're perhaps not in conflict, but this is not the law itself. It's the zoning bylaw, which is the law. Should we go on? Yeah. Along these lines, there's another, in a prior slide that was said, house master plan organized part two. And the bottom one was the change zoning to allow denser residential occupancy near existing services and public transit. And what strikes me is that there's a little bit of an inherent conflict in sections that have been already talked about today. And is that expected in the master plan and how, what processes address those things where there may be two values that are not totally insane? Chris. I think that you'll see that throughout the master plan. This is really a compendium of a lot of different people coming together and saying what they thought Amherst needed and wanted. And so I can think of one example of this conflict where we have in our land use policy map, which I unfortunately don't have an image of that, but in the land use policy map, particularly up in the northeast quadrant, you'll see a big circle that encircles an area that is appropriate for development and overlapping that you'll see another area that is appropriate for preservation. So we never got as far as making the decision about in that particular area. Did we want to develop it all or did we want to preserve it all? And I think that also relates to the issue of density in the downtown and how much is the town responsible to provide parking. I think we're still having that discussion and hopefully we will reach a resolution of that, but it's one of those sort of inherent conflicts that you'll see throughout the master plan. Thank you. Implementation, right? Okay. So what have we accomplished since we adopted the master plan and how have we implemented the master plan's objectives and strategies? So now I'm going to introduce Nate Malloy who will talk about housing and particularly affordable housing. Sure. Want to go over? Yeah. Thanks, Chris. Just quickly about the parking. There is a consultant working on parking now so we can bring that up to them. So that's an issue that can be looked at. Sure. So for housing, the master plan, the demographics and housing chapter, it wasn't just affordable housing. It also talked about housing in general. The goal from the master plan describes a mix of housing that meets the needs of and is affordable to the broadest possible spectrum of the community and that minimizes impact on the environment. And so, like Steve said, it's really a macro vision. And so how do you get there? In terms of affordable housing, it's something that was emphasized in the master plan. So a number of objectives within this chapter emphasize affordable housing. There's a long support of it in town. In terms of affordable housing, it's something that's recognized by the state and the towns maintained what is a standard of 10% for a long time. It requires ongoing efforts and partnerships. So, you know, Chris said this is a dynamic document. So I think even as we move, you know, along in different years, there has to be different types of partnerships and discussions about what is affordable housing and what's needed in a community. And there's preservation of units and then creation of new units. I think that's really important. There's, you know, grants and funding opportunities. And more recently, there's a municipal affordable housing trust. So that's a part of town government that is actively working to further affordable housing. And I'm just going to run through a number of slides that kind of hit the basics. So this one is what is affordable housing? And when we say affordable housing, it's capital A affordable. So it's recognized by the state. It's de-restricted. It's affirmatively marketed. And it is monitored annually and it can be afforded. It can be afforded to people earning less than 80% of the area median income. So it can be rental or ownership. And it is based on income. For instance, a family of four at 80%. You know, it's about $71,000 in household income per year at 50% area median income. It's 44,000 and, you know, it decreases to 30%. And so when someone says, you know, can you afford this? That's usually they can spend no more than 30% of their income on housing. So you could take this number and prorate it over 12 months and come up with a figure. What the chart shows is that, you know, in the green and blue, most of the renters in Amherst are cost burden, meaning they spend more than 30% and in the blue, more than 50% of their income on housing. So, you know, the market demands are showing that a lot of renting and renters can't afford the units in town. How do we get affordable housing? So, you know, the master plan describes how we can get it. We've actually done a great job of adding units and preserving units. So, rolling green was an example where we knew there'd be, the deed restrictions were expiring. So the town worked with, you know, the owners and saw the new person, new entity to preserve those units and it worked out really well. It can be developer driven. So Beacon communities was interested in Amherst. They were here and, you know, they proposed a new development in North Amherst. Habitat for humanity, for instance, is always looking to develop, you know, one or two properties in town and so they're always looking. And then there's the regulatory environment. So the town has inclusionary zoning and that triggers a development to provide affordable units and presidential apartments and the mixed use development on university drives, an example of that. The town has a number of rules. The town typically is not a developer of housing, but we do have the zoning by-law and rules and regulations to help provide it. We can facilitate it by speaking with different entities, the state developers or consultants. The town has an important role in terms of funding and permitting. So those are two really powerful things. And that goes back to zoning. And then there's also municipal land if that's available. So that's something that, you know, recently the council looked at with the East Street School. And what is the need for housing? So the master plan is a, you know, provides a number of goals and objectives. And then, you know, for each section of the master plan there's different plans that address each topic. So there's the housing plan and the housing market study that really drill down in terms of what is the need for housing in town. And I think, Andy, to your point about how do we resolve the conflicts within the master plan? So under, you know, open space and recreation, there's an open space and recreation plan. There's a transportation plan. I think each subsequent plan is incorporated into the master plan. And those plans really try to get down to the detail of some of the specifics in terms of how we balance things that may be in conflict. In terms of housing, there's a large need in terms of a range of household sizes, income levels, and types of units, whether it's single-family homes to apartments or townhouses. And the chart showing, you know, housing production over the years, there was a big drop in the late 80s, 90s and 2000s. And how is affordable housing funded? Again, the town has local funds. So there's CPA, Community Preservation Act funds are really important. And those can be used for pre-development funding, you know, for studies, for things to help get a project underway. And then they can also be used to help fund construction or, you know, use as a match to help things move along. There's the local tax incentive. So that's, you know, the town can offer this as, you know, deferred tax payments for affordable housing development. And that's a powerful tool because it's not, you know, you're not going to, you know, it's foregone revenue that it can be used by a developer for affordable units and that can be very important to balance the budget. There is the trust, and they can act as a funder or financier. And then there's block grant funds. So over the years, the town has used CPA funds and block grant funds to preserve and rehabilitate a number of units with the housing authority and then, you know, other affordable units in town. And then there's state and federal housing agencies and private sources. So this quote says that, you know, it takes a lot of different sources to fund affordable housing. So I think most developments will probably have, you know, six to 12 sources of funding and it can take a few years to get all that together. So it's not as if they have usually, you know, one source. There might be one major funder, but then there's a lot of other funders involved. Current projects, just to give a perspective, there's the North Square at the Mill District. So this was, you know, a developer-driven project that's mixed use, mixed income. It's 130 units, 26 affordable units. It was a comprehensive permit that went to the zoning board of appeals. They, you know, applied for and received a local tax incentive and the town was, you know, very supportive in that area. And they also then, you know, have a bunch of other sources of funding. And, you know, they are now going through the building process. And what's, you know, this is both mixed income in terms of there's market rate housing, but also within the range of affordability. So, you know, it might hit some 30 percent units and 50 percent. And then there's workforce housing. So not capital A affordable, but housing that may be affordable to people earning, you know, 120 percent of area median income. So they're not, you know, it's not on our subsidized housing inventory, but it's something the community needs. And then University Drive was a project that the zoning by-law captured. So it triggered inclusionary zoning. And so there's 36 total units and four will be affordable. There's no public funding involved. So it's a private development. And the developer will, you know, go through the process of getting those units online. And then there's the housing trust. The housing trust is a few years old and they're becoming more active. It is a part of local government. So it's a, you know, it's a board within town. They have statutory powers from the state and local regulation. So the trust has a, you know, a number of powers and authorities that they can use. They're really trying to set housing priorities for the town to establish what are some goals that everyone can work towards. They're really working with community engagement and advocacy around affordable housing and they can be a funding agent and a facilitator. And so this image of East Street School is something that the trust has worked on. You know, they took a project and they're still trying to move it forward for affordable housing. And I'll turn it over to Chris unless there's any questions right now about housing. What area median income is determined for us by the Springfield metropolitan area? So we're in the Springfield metro area in HUD. You know, a federal agency determines that. So they, you know, based on the, you know, so Springfield metro areas includes Amherst all the way down to Springfield, Holyoke, Ludlow. And then HUD determines what that is. So they have a formula and say the median income for a one-person household, a two-person, and they publish it every year around this time. So it's something, you know, the town doesn't calculate it. It's something that's provided for us at the federal level. Right. So obviously there's huge differences between those communities. Right. And especially the population centers seem to be in areas that have lower housing costs and lower incomes. Right. I'm curious how that affects affordable housing in Amherst when it feels like 30% AMI for a resident in Springfield is not the same as 30% AMI for a resident trying to live in Amherst, which has significantly higher housing costs. Does that present challenges? It does. So I think, you know, to that point the, you know, if someone were to say I'll keep a unit affordable at 80% AMI, then most of the, for instance, if it's a rental development, most of the people who apply can't afford the 80% level. So, you know, to be affordable in Amherst, we're probably down closer to 60, 65% of area median income. So, you know, I agree. So, you know, it probably happens throughout the country where the income calculation is based in, you know, that covers a larger area and then there's pockets where, you know, it doesn't make sense in terms of affordability. So, you know, at 80% AMI, for instance, all the voucher holders with the housing authority, they can't even qualify for those units per month. And so, you know, the housing authority has, you know, it can be difficult to have a voucher holder find housing in Amherst because of that. Okay. So, again, we're talking about what have we accomplished since we wrote the master plan and in terms of land use, we've drafted zoning bylaw amendments for mixed use buildings, dimensional modifications, height and setback and land area. So, let's see. In this top slide we're showing the project that Barry Roberts is developing on University Drive which was benefited from some of those amendments. We've drafted a zoning bylaw for business use of homes. The building commissioner became aware of some of the difficulties with our former home occupation section of our bylaw and realized that it didn't really work well for the types that we all have in their homes today. So, we redrafted that bylaw and had it approved by the town meeting. We amended the supplemental dwelling units bylaw to allow different types of supplemental dwelling units including small detached dwelling units that might sit in someone's back yard up to 800 or 900 square feet if they're handicapped accessible and that would allow for someone to have an inlaw property or it would also allow them to potentially rent out a unit. We've directed development to the downtown and village centers as you've seen there's been development in the downtown and also in North Amherst Village Center since the time of this master plan. We've supported the University Drive re-zoning which resulted in this building here previously. University Drive was in the office park zone and wouldn't have offices down there so it made sense to allow residential buildings to be built and town meeting agreed with that. And we provided research and support for the town decision makers in passing the recreational marijuana zoning bylaw. So that's what you're seeing here someone doling out marijuana. Which I guess we have a medical marijuana facility here in town on Meadow Street and we're about to have a recreational facility also on Meadow Street. And a number of other such facilities are in line to open. In terms of infrastructure improvements so what I tried to do here is give a broad view of all the different things that the town has accomplished since the master plan was adopted. Not just things that the planning department or people on the second floor have done. So in terms of infrastructure improvements we've rebuilt and we designed and built a roundabout downtown which helps traffic to flow much better than it did before and designed and currently are building the main street sidewalk project which you may have run into when you were on your way here today. We're also reconstructing the middle street bridge so a lot of infrastructure improvements are happening. In terms of economic development we hired an economic development director and that's been used to town but also to give people in terms of the permitting process a little bit better understanding of what some of the businesses have to deal with when they come through permitting and also to just help shepherd people through the permitting process. We began to draft an economic development plan. We partnered with the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission on the retail portion of the economic development plan and we have a lot of public forums on that and you may have participated in some of those and we are collaborating continuing to collaborate with the bid and the chamber on maintaining the vibrancy of downtown Amherst. In terms of transportation we prepared an Amherst transportation plan which was adopted by the planning board in 2015 and that dealt with it. We've worked with the Mass Department of Transportation on improvements to Route 9 from University Drive to South Pleasant Street and you'll probably see those coming along in FY21 I believe. We adopted a complete streets policy which means that every time we redesign a street that we're looking at how all the different modes of transportation can use that street. It doesn't necessarily mean that at least it comes to the surface as a question to be asked and answered and so I think that was a very important step. We established the downtown parking working group and we changed parking regulations. Nate Malloy was the staff liaison to the downtown parking working group and worked with them for a couple of years and now the economic development director Jeff Kravitz is in charge of that. He's a consultant on phase 2 of our parking plan which is an ongoing process to try to figure out how many parking spaces do we have in our downtown, who owns them and how can we use them better. We prepared a bicycle and pedestrian network plan which is what this picture here is all about. People gathering in the bank center to talk about where do they want sidewalks, where do they want bicycle stores, where do they want sidewalks, where do they want sidewalks, and where do they want to walk? We established five bike share stations around town which connect with five stations at UMass, which in turn connect with stations in East Hampton, Holyoke, south Hadley, north Hampton, Springfield, I think that's it. But we are very proud of that and you can see the example of that outside the front door improvements. In terms of natural and cultural resources, we've done quite a bit. We've worked with the Amherst bid to establish the cultural district, which is what this map shows, what our Amherst cultural district is, and that's marked out with signs, and there's a plan that's available, I believe it's on our website as well as the bid's website. We've established two local historic districts, one the Emily Dickinson local historic district and the other one is the Lincoln Sunset local historic district, and that really helps to shape the kinds of development that happen in our historic neighborhoods. We've used CPAC funds to preserve historic buildings, including the Jewish Community Center in Amherst, which was having trouble with its steeple, and they recently rebuilt the steeple and included the acorn on top as part of their project to preserve their property. We established the Village Visitor Center. The town didn't do that, the bid did it, but it's part of our overall process to help make the town a better place and to follow through on some of the objectives and strategies in the master plan. We've worked with the Kestrel Land Trust to protect agricultural lands and wildlife habitats, and they've been a really good partner to us. We passed the half a percent for art for municipal projects, and that was a big effort that the Public Art Commission got through town meetings, so we're very proud of that and we're hoping to see some results from that. We purchased the Epstein property in South Amherst, which is a wonderful property in the Atkins Corner District, where there's a beautiful big pond there and a mid-century modern house that is potentially going to be used as offices for the Kestrel Land Trust, so we think that that was a really good purchase for the town. We also used CPAC grant money to preserve the North Amherst Community Farm, Farmhouse. In terms of open space and recreation, we've done a lot there as well. We've completed the Community Field Master Plan with Weston and Samson, and if you have questions about that, Nate can answer those. This is an image of the area that we're talking about near the high school and the middle school. We have wonderful fields there, but they haven't really been very well maintained. We updated and submitted the open space and recreation plan. Again, Nate was involved with that, along with Beth Wilson from the Conservation Department, and that needs to be updated every five years, and our plan was accepted by the state. We've purchased land for conservation and preservation. If you look back through the town meeting more, you can see several instances where the town has purchased land for those purposes. We also purchased APRs, Agricultural Preservation Restrictions, with the help of the state. The state usually comes forward with the bulk of the money for those, but that's why we see such wonderful swaths of open space on Southeast Street and Northeast Street. We also designed and funded the modernization of Graf Park. I hate to blow Nate's horn again, but Nate was involved with the whole design and conceptualization of what to do with Graf Park. You'll see the construction of that coming along. In terms of services and facilities, we've worked with the DPW and Fire Department to plan for new facilities, worked with the school department to plan for a new elementary school. We prepared an issue to sewer extension master plan, contributed community development block grant funds for a new survival center, which has been very successful. And we adopted a net zero energy policy for municipal buildings. What are we still working on as a community? Well, there are lots of things that we're still working on, but among them are adequately addressing homelessness and the need for more affordable housing. Repairing aging infrastructure, roads, bridges, and sidewalks. We know that that's a big priority. Constructing enough new sidewalks and bicycle lanes to serve the people of Amherst and our visitors. Creating a comprehensive plan to address the four new large capital projects that we have before us. Updating the zoning bylaw. That's a continuing process, and there are several portions of it that we think need attention, so we're hoping to be able to address those in the coming year. Working with the colleges and university on shared community goals. There's a lot going on on the university campus with new buildings being built, and we also understand that Hampshire College is having its own challenges now, and so we want to work with the colleges and university to help them do what they want to do, but also have them help us. And also working with the community resource committee and the town council to update and approve the master plan at the point where they feel that that is useful and needed. So what's next? Where do we go from here? Well, as I said, there's a lot to be done, but if we do want to update the master plan, the town council, town manager, and the planning board would decide when to update the master plan. The town council would authorize expenditures to review and update the master plan. The town council and the planning board would consider hiring a consultant to help up the town with the public process and the drafting of the update. The planning board and the public would review the master plan, and the planning board is charged with drafting the update and amendments to the master plan and submitting it to town council for final adoption. So I think that's all I have to say right now. Do you have any questions, comments? So just right here. So ultimately the planning board by state law approves master plans, but our charter says that the town council adopts master plans. So you're talking about updates here. So does that same state law approve? So I think state law applies to brand new roundup master plans, but would that apply also to an update to the master plan that the planning board has to approve it then in a case of our charter, we have to adopt it? That's been my understanding, but I can certainly consult our town attorney on that. The charter is very clear that the town council at some point does need to adopt the master plan. It also is very clear that on at least one time a year, we need to hold a public forum on the master plan. And so this is not that public forum just to be clear, but this is the first time that those of us sitting here from the council have sat and really in a concentrated look looked at the master plan with our town staff. So just to clarify, this is kind of a beginning. Mandy, Joe, you may have more to say about the charter requirement. And I'll just start a little bit about the charter. The charter, if the master plan original adopt original plan and then any amendments there to need approved by the planning board and then adopted by the town council. So whether or not state law matter requires amendments to it, the charter does require any amendments be approved by the planning board and then adopted by the town council. Thank you. Anyone? George? I have a few. This question actually may be for you, Steve. I'm interested in kind of the burrowing down a bit and that may be the next meeting that you're planning to have zoning 101, whatever planning. But I'm just just a question that I have for Christine and Nate and for your committee perhaps. But how do you go from the master plan broad vision to more specific visioning processes? And I'm thinking very specifically in my district, for instance, you describe the mass DOT project, which is a plan for that route nine corridor. And it seems that, you know, how could a visioning process take place for just, you know, obviously some things are going to happen to it at the point of infrastructure. But it's also borders on Amherst College. And there's some things happening there that are going to affect that neighborhood. How do you or can you have a visioning process for a specific area? Also University Drive, you mentioned. And that's another area in my district, all politics are local. How do you have a kind of visioning process for that that incorporates the community, particularly the neighbors, and a sense of, well, what are we thinking about is going to happen to this? So there's the big picture and then there's the smaller picture. And obviously I'm thinking right now about the smaller picture. And I'm wondering where that fits into this overall. And maybe the answer is come to the next meeting and talk about planning and zoning in more detail. Actually, I'm dying for the answer to this from. Sorry. I'm dying for the answer to this from, but so Amherst is complicated. Every community is complicated. But because you have, you know, federal, state in town, and I'm probably missing. We don't really, we don't have functioning counties, but they all have goals and visions that may affect a particular community. So here in the town of Amherst, we have two master plans. We have one zip code 01002. We have a whole another one for almost not quite half the town, but a substantial part of the town, which is 01003, which is UMass. So those two master plans meet along some of the roads you're talking about, but they're, they have completely different processes for, you know, for their construction, but they both affect each other. So like the mass DOT, there's, you know, we may have a master and I actually don't know who, how this works, but we may have a master plan that says route nine shall be a pedestrian way. But I would assume that state law would override. So there are a lot of different things happening in town. And it's challenging to kind of get them all together. What we do have is we have an idea for future, a future look at certain parts of town. And in the past, those parts have been the North Amherst Village Center, the South Amherst Village Center around Atkins Corner, East Amherst, where the Florence Savings Bank is, and probably Cushman Village. And recently we've been thinking, oh, we really should take a look at University Drive as well. Now, Mr. Ryan is pointing out that there are two projects that are being proposed for the route nine corridor that have kind of snuck under the radar, I suppose, to some degree, maybe not the Valley CDC project, but certainly the Mass DOT project has been kind of flying under the radar. It has been presented to the Transportation Advisory Committee actually a few times. And recently we held a public forum. I think it was maybe two weeks ago. Not that many people came to it. But it's been a process that's lasted for, I don't know, two or three years and started out really big and like an airplane landing strip and slowly has been whittled down to be something else. That hasn't really been part of a town process because it's a state highway. So the state comes in and they say, here's what we want to do. And then the town reacts to it. So at this point, incorporating that into a planning process for that part of town is going to be challenging. I think I'm encouraging everybody to keep on top of what's being proposed. But we're probably going to be in the position of reacting to what the state is proposing. In terms of Valley CDC's proposal for that part of town, that's really a process that kind of overrides to some degree any planning that the town might do. That part of town has been zoned residential. But the proposal is that it use a comprehensive planning process in order to be approved. So that's a process that kind of comes in and sets itself down on top of the zoning process. So it's a little bit challenging to think about now starting a planning process for that part of town. We certainly could. But I don't know if it would capture those two projects. But I think the important lesson to learn out of this is that we need to constantly be thinking about all of our different village centers. And maybe that's going to be developing as a village center and looking at them. And in some cases, we're going to need help from consultants to look at them. In other cases, we can hold a few public forums, give people information and try to come to some agreement ourselves about those things. But as I said, there are many different areas of town that are kind of crying for attention. And so we have a lot of work ahead of us. But we're up to it, right, Nate? Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, extrapolating that to in terms of any project, you know, the, I think there is, like I said, there's individual plans for each topic. So there's a transportation plan. And so my hope would be that the committees, boards and committees in public input that help shape that plan will have enough guidelines to, you know, to help a project move along, whether or not it's in a, you know, it might not be specific to a street or something, but it has enough guidelines in the document to help. So we know that if this is a major corridor, you know, the transportation plan will talk about having bike lanes, wide enough sidewalks, traffic calming, and so that those, you know, those things can be applied to different projects throughout town. I also think there's a lot of, you know, great boards and committees in town. So, you know, I think part of it is how do you stay on top of there's so much happening is that, you know, different boards for respective areas can be, you know, a source for public input. So I think, you know, the Transportation Advisory Committee would be one for Route 9 or, you know, the Planning Board or Housing Truster. So, I mean, I think how can we envision what's going to happen in terms of a product in one area? But I think if it comes about, I'm hoping the plans have enough information to guide us and then the boards and committees will address it, you know, for each project. So, you know, there's permitting that happens with different land uses. And so then the Planning Board or Zoning Board is appropriate to bring the concerns there. I'm not sure if that's answered your question. Well, we have a question from Dorothy Pam. I'd like to hear a little bit more about this comprehensive planning process. I think this is of great interest in many parts of town that are zone residential. Who controls it? Can it just come in and say, well, you are zone residential, but we think you're going to be something else? To me, it's a little sounds a little bit like eminent domain. Do you mean the 40B comprehensive permit process or the? I mean, the one that she referred to. Yeah. So I think this only comes about in certain instances. We have experienced very few of them in Amherst. We're over 10% in terms of the number of affordable units that we have based on the number of housing units we have in general. So we're not, we're not a target for companies that want to do this. Just to mention the ones that we've had are Olympia Oaks in North Amherst, which is up on Olympia Drive, 42 units. The Beacon Communities Project in North Amherst and Butternut Farm on Longmenow Drive. So those are the three comprehensive plans. Oh, and I think Mill Valley Estates might have been a comprehensive plan when that was established way back. So maybe we have four of them. But those are different from comprehensive planning. What those are are specific instances where someone wants to build something that's not allowed by zoning. And then the town has an opportunity to say, yes, we think this is a good idea or no, we don't think this is a good idea. And so we're starting that process now with regard to this project on North Hampton Road. We haven't really gotten too far into it yet. And the town still has an opportunity to have a discussion about it. So if I may, would this be friendly 40b versus unfriendly? I wouldn't really use that term. I think the, you know, so the 40b, you know, state statute to try to encourage towns to have more affordable housing. And although Chris said it, you know, over rules, local zoning, we still have our local zoning to, to guide the development. So the zoning board, you know, the developers request waivers from certain land use regulations. And the way it's streamlined is that the zoning board hears all aspects of the case, you know, so they were, they asked for comments from the planning board, from fire, police, but it's really just funneled through one permitting board at the time. So instead of having an applicant go to all these different boards, everything is issued under one permit, the comprehensive permit. So it's not as if they can say no to everything, you know, our local regulations are still there and they have to request how it can be waived in the zoning board than ways the need for affordable housing locally and regionally to the, to the site in the specific project. So is the, are the waivers, you know, balancing the need for housing? And so it's kind of project, you know, by project it's looked at. I'm, I'm daring to change the subject away from affordable housing. The master plan covered, as you said, a whole lot of different areas, land use and conservation and open space recreation, transportation, you know, all of these, I look at some of them and I say some of them are in conflict with each other. You know, the need for housing in our town, both workforce and affordable, and I just said I was moving myself away from housing. But, you know, conflicts with a desire to preserve conservation land and open space and farming and APR. And so I'm curious where the plan for, say, open space ends and where the plan for housing starts in that is there at any point in time a plan that says we have enough open space. We've a conserved enough land and it's now time to start not conserving the land to keep it from being buildable to it being buildable and how those two that seemingly conflict everything you conserve you can't build on. But we need housing where those two intersect and how that decision gets made of in terms of buying a piece of land, you know, to conserve it to take it off the sort of potential building roles. Yeah, Chris. So sometimes those two goals are not in conflict. I can think of one development that happened recently that the planning board approved. Paul Cole is developing eight lots down in South Amherst, right south of Atkins Farm Market on the east side of the road. So that was an 11 acre parcel. He's developing a little bit less than half of it and they're gonna be single family homes. You can see some of them being built now and the town received about seven acres of land donated by Mr. Cole to the town for open space. So that was a combined project where we did achieve adding homes for people who want them and preserving open space and that open space is contiguous with other open space on the Mount Holyoke range so that was a really good project for that in that regard. I think you'll note from listening to us talking about the master plan that we're we've all all along said since 1971 that we want to focus development in the downtown and the village centers and we have a very small downtown and the village center is very in size but that's what we've been trying to do is focus development there for people who want to live here and try not to have sprawl throughout the outer portions of Amherst we have preserved a lot of land but you'll see that there really aren't a lot of new subdivisions being built in fact I am aware of a couple of subdivisions where people aren't really turning over the properties that quickly so they've been approved since the 80s and people are still not you know they're still not built out so I don't I don't feel right now that there's a lot of pressure to develop the outlying areas of town obviously there's pressure to develop in the village center yeah so let me go with developing in village centers then I think you put a chart up that was 2,000 housing units and then 600 and so we are really behind in developing housing units how does that and the zoning that may need required change for infill comport with keeping the town feeling like a small town and how do you then comport those two together because if you need to build thousands of housing units to bring the price down to make it livable and affordable in town and you're limiting it to village centers you know the economist and me says you got to go up and I'm not sure this town's ready to go up too high so how do you then balance those two it they all seem to fit together and I'm not sure how we figure out how to balance them we're going to get a good answer to that then we're going to go back to counselor Pam well so in my estimate we've done a pretty good job so far we're allowing five-story buildings in our downtown but we don't allow five-story buildings anywhere else we're allowing residential development along university drive which we weren't really allowing previously we have a new development that's being proposed for the emmer's motel site which is right near Domino's and that's going to have 88 units of of housing with 11 units of affordable housing so developers are very clever about finding these places that can be developed that are close to close to services and that their clients will want to live in so little by little we're adding to our housing stock and I think we're doing a pretty good job so yeah just to bring that I think some of it is though there may there may be things that seem to be in conflict so if you have you know really people are talking about open space preservation and then there's people talking about housing but you know I think then the devil's in the details so then we have zoning regulations or other regulations and so the bigger picture maybe that I don't know if they're always I think they can be more mutually beneficial nothing than as antagonistic but you know how can we make them work together so then that's up to staff and the boards and committee so you know the housing trust is advocating for you know trying to get affordable housing everywhere and it's not saying that we can't have open space either but maybe those two can be a combined project and so I think it's just having you know the communication and creativity when those things come up and so then it's getting down to those really fine details about how does the local regulations try to balance those two things or you know the differing aspects and I like the idea of things working together but we've clearly missed an opportunity in the infill development in the downtown where there were no affordable units included and we talk about affordable housing particularly at the lower end in Northampton and their downtown in the village center where people can walk out there's many things to do and there's access to public transportation and yet we built the we someone I did not build those big buildings and they're not really family homes and they're not meeting the affordable housing thing so I just think that we need to remember that we have to really keep the target on if you're going to require affordable housing put it in the right places and if you're going to do a lot of infill downtown which is a complicated structure a complicated idea it where it borders on residential neighborhoods which you know I really do think we have to protect the residential neighborhoods that opportunity was missed now it may be that that could be dealt with in some better way in the future in the downtown I don't know just so it's interesting I wonder what the so I grew up in an actual small town which was much smaller than Amherst so Amherst is actually a big complicated place its census population is almost 40,000 which rivals you know Northampton so it's actually only by some definitions it might be considered a town but small town and I saw that in the introduction to the master plan so I wonder what the next step is right so we're are we a small city are we a medium size because we have changed form of government so we're still called the town of Amherst but but it's small town seems to be a little bit misleading that we're a medium town yay or a big town but but small town is yeah we all bump into each other all the time and we all know what each other is doing all the time so we're something different than that yeah go ahead so I also think that there are a number of opportunities for developing that are haven't been really looked at yet and there are places in the north end of downtown between the two new buildings that we have there that may be redeveloped that's really not going to affect the neighborhoods the neighborhoods are pretty well protected by their zoning and also by this local historic district that was recently established over in the Lincoln Sunset area there's very little that can be done over there that's not approved by the local historic district and they're fairly strict in their requirements so I don't feel that there's a threat to the neighborhoods over there I think that we need to take a look at some of the other areas that surround our downtown what we call the BL or limited business districts and those are the north side of triangle street the west side of Kendrick Park as you go go south not even including Kendrick Park but the area south of Halleck Street and then there's an area along South Prospect Street and those areas are really underdeveloped but they don't have to be developed to the extent that downtown is developed so look at those areas see what kind of height would we be willing to live with what kind of form we'd be willing to live with how many units and that's that's a real opportunity for us to look at there are also probably spaces on University Drive particularly the west side of University Drive that are all one story kind of minimally useful retail places I pardon me if anybody owns one of those places but it's really a place that's not being used to its fullest extent so there are several of those places around town we also have a development that's being proposed over in East Amherst right and back of Florence savings banks someone's proposing to build 62 apartment units there so people are finding these places to build more housing some of them are coming along with affordable housing some of them aren't so sometimes we have to propose projects that are completely affordable housing but in my opinion it seems to be kind of working pretty well the way it is and we are providing more house in the last 10 years we've provided I don't even know if Nate has I think it's 500 units in the last five years is that right me right so I by building permit you know there's been over 500 units permitted in the last five years yeah I mean I you know I think to your question I think you know them as Chris said earlier the master plan is a dynamic document so you know my thought is that if there's things that the community sees we're not sure about then it's a chance to pause and reflect and you know do we change local regulations you know what is the process for moving forward so the master plan is this bigger you know 10-year document and so you know again hopefully it has the the goals and the overall vision we'd like and then how do we implement that you know gets borne out by the planning board or zoning board staff and the community from time to time you know and I think some of it is though again as a guide lot as a guiding document even zoning it's not you know we're not requiring things of a developer or property owners and so you know there's the private market and a lot of things that are outside of our control so for me the question is you know how to land use regulations how prescriptive are they but also allow flexibility to achieve what we want in the master plan you know to balance all these different objectives so I think you know having you know these questions are great and it's a chance to reflect and see you know are there things we can amend or change so I was going to suggest that we go to public comment is that okay with that please the so we're going to go to public comment so yeah thank you so much so we typically limit public comment to three minutes is there anyone that would like to speak during public comment I see one hand I see two hands so please come forward and use the mic introduce yourself tell us where you typically you would tell us your name your address and then we'll give you three minutes and we don't typically engage in conversation so okay yeah go I'm Steve George I live on Dana Street my wife Katie when we heard about the open meeting that was held in the last week of April about the low income housing on 132 Northampton Road we weren't concerned it seemed like a good idea generally but when we heard the details we were very concerned as were many other residents and we did attend that meeting and as we learned more we remain very concerned about the details if it was a few apartments you know the in the roughly in the existing structure or a little expanded apartments that might have families as well as single people that would be wonderful for the for the town in the neighborhood but what's contemplated here is 28 single occupants of whom Valley CDC says 20 will be mailed some will have social services needs in a building that has very little common spaces no one would build a college dorm with so little space outside the rooms the rooms are 15 by 16 feet that includes a small bathroom and a kitchen area these are very very small units 28 of them in this residential area what will these people do okay well counselor Pam has already said that this is not close to the town center the idea that they will go in the middle of winter down to big y and carry groceries back is not realistic only seven parking spaces are are planned so 21 people will be without cars this is a concerning development and I'll give you one specific thing that's going to happen to our neighborhood and we've checked it out this property borders Amherst college playing fields the Pratt field and the Gooding field and those fields are now kept open to the neighborhood pretty much all time I'm not sure in the middle of the night but certainly from early morning until dark people can go in there and we do we go there to access the bike path to get to the college just for general recreation and the college has said in an email reply to a letter that we said that they are contemplating closing that access to the public even before or if the thing is built as it presently is planned and definitely if there's even a single problematic interaction with residents and those residents are going to naturally where are they going to go no recreation space on site no essentially no common spaces they're going to want to go there that place is going to be closed off that is really a serious loss to our neighborhood so I would suggest you know you guys maybe there are outside forces and you can't just say no and we don't want to say no but do you need to fund it right now and we can't you wait until these some of these issues have been resolved if this was smaller if there was more common space or recreational facilities on site that would go a long way to alleviating these these issues so I think that the the fact of the project is not a huge question but the actual details are very problematic so we hope you would consider waiting until some of these resolve before adding even more town money thank you and so I'm not planning to comment but I am asking if you would go back to the town clerk and write down your name and address thank you can my name is Kate Troste and I live at 99 Dana street and I want to say I was on town meeting for 11 years and I think I stepped down in 2014 and I'm very pleased with the counselor discussion here today I feel as though this is a we're at the beginning of an opportunity to really make some coordinated decisions for our town and as you've said it's a very complicated place I went I found out from in a butter we could go on Wednesday about this valley CDC 132 Northampton road proposed development and I believe before that George Ryan did send a newsletter sometime a month or so perhaps before saying something was going to happen there I had known that this property was owned by the Keady family and I knew people that lived there I was surprised I saw that it sold but I went to this meeting and I was very surprised as was the previous speaker about the details of what was proposed so the footprint of the finished building will be it will go from 1,277 square feet to 6,720 square feet instead of it being an addition to the existing building the existing building will be it will be mostly an addition and the proposal is for a four-story building and this is on a 0.88 acre site so I wanted to make note of that and so to me the size of the structure will be out of scale with the surroundings and for those of you who don't know our neighborhood that well our neighborhood the way I see it is Dana Street Orchard Street, Blue Hills Sunset, South Sunset then there's another street south of the fields somebody knows what that is Blake or Hazel yeah and it really is a beautiful downtown neighborhood which I cherish really and I chose to live there because I could walk to town it was there's a number of beautiful homes and this came sort of out of nowhere like it landed landing all of a sudden and it deserves careful attention I understand the housing the low-income housing proposal has been out there for several years I've been doing some due diligence but this specific site has only been owned by the Valley CDC I believe since January and as far as we know no specific traffic studies have been done this the uses of the Amherst College field surrounding this site have not been taken into account the scale of this relative to the surroundings hasn't been fully developed the whether the parking is going to be sufficient whether emergency vehicles can get in and out there's just so many details and this sounds funny but I even care about Amherst College because this is going to be pretty much right on top of their football area and I think the we could be creating a lot of seeing a lot of problems down the road created I wanted to say that so we have around yeah and one last thing about zoning and all that the colleges create a lot of parking issues and these need to be taken in consideration with all the parking studies that we do our our road Dana Street is impacted tremendously but the improvements that have made to the Gooding Pratt field people park on it all all the time we become like a parking lot for the Amherst College fields and I notice UMass students park on Lincoln Ave or that's another part of our neighborhood they park there and I don't know how much how much oversight is given to some of these things when these when these institutions make their improvements but they need to be because they have a big impact on the neighborhood so I'm hoping that we can work out a project if it's going to go forward that will fit into our neighborhood and not disturb and force people to feel like they need to move which people are talking about if this of this skill happened thank you very much thanks and we have another public commenter yes my name is Ann Yee and I live at 29 Dana Place right off of Dana Street and what I wanted to follow up on is what Kate was talking about is about the size of the unit given the impact of traffic given the impact of um we're in a discussion we had emergency vehicles not being able to get in and get out effectively um I I had heard there were 14 parking spots maybe there's seven I don't know what it is 14 and um that for 28 units there is no there is no bus stop right outside they'd have to cross over to Amity and I think it's very real to get to to the issue of getting down the hill and back up the hill in the winter um albeit if you if the sidewalks are increased in size maybe they'll be shoveled more effectively but I think that's still a little bit of a barrier um and then if you have people with disabilities uh that's even more of a barrier uh secondly I had a question um in listening to the presentation earlier I was I was noting how many units were affordable housing units in the totality of units provided at different locations I I pulled out my little handy calculator because I don't do this in my head um and the one that was quoted near mill district was 26 units that were to be affordable out of 130 that's 20 percent on university drive it was four units out of the 36 total that would be 11 percent the one near dominoes I missed the name was going to ask for heights okay was going to be 11 units out of 88 total units that's 12.5 percent the one we're looking at is 100 percent affordable housing out of 20 so it's 28 out of 28 I wanted to know why that was chosen to be that way and that's up and beyond the question of 28 being a very large number for that site and for the capacity of the road right there and getting in right there is also it's very interesting um we've only lived at Dana Place for half a year and I've I thought wow we're lucky we don't live on Lincoln because everybody the the traffic backs up just just east of Dana you know that we don't have to get stuck in that traffic and that's exactly where that that driveway is going in so the traffic really backs up right into there and it's it's chock-a-block full straight into downtown thank you I see another hand for public comment my name is John Ornick um and I am the chair of the Amherst Municipal Affordable Housing Trust and I have followed the development of this project since Valley CDC first conceived of it probably more than two years ago obviously it wasn't cited in this particular place at that time but it's been in process for quite a while um I understand the concerns that the neighbors have raised um but I think they're not necessarily something that town council should be dealing with we have a zoning board of appeals as was described before many of the issues that they have been raised are under the purview of the zoning board of appeals that's not to say that the town council couldn't say okay we're going to look at traffic we're going to look at other things I also have read the document that was shared with town council members and I think what it represents is a great fear of who is going to be in residence at this facility and it's an overblown fear these people do not represent any greater threat to public safety than people who already live in these neighborhoods we know that even on our ordinary neighborhoods people have drug abuse problems criminal problems other things these are people who for whom housing will actually be a deterrent will provide a way to deal with problems they've had in the past and also most importantly provide an affordable place to live people become homeless because they can't afford things why they can't afford things well if you look at the work of Elizabeth Warren we know that families go into bankruptcy or individuals because they lose a job because they have a major medical problem and certainly some of the people and I think it's roughly 10 individuals that they expect would be homeless will have that kind of a background that means that doesn't mean they can't live safely in this neighborhood or anywhere else my sense is that the neighbors are throwing up as many different objections as they can think of hoping something will stick and I think if we turn away from this they'll probably no place in Amherst where we can develop affordable housing we will have set a precedent that neighbors can come with whatever objections they have and ask our elected representatives to turn down whatever the project is that's being proposed I think that to reject this project would set a very bad precedent there may be some modifications that are appropriate to ask Valley CDC to make but in general to simply say we're not going to fund it we're going to set it aside right now and forever would be a very big mistake thank you Hi my name is Tim Adderidge and I live at 143 North Hampton Road which is an abutting property to the proposed 132 North Hampton Road VCDC redevelopment and in deference to the previous speaker I disagree with him on several levels perhaps if I lived on Amity Street or if I lived on Lincoln Avenue or maybe even on the end of Blue Hills Road towards Amity Street I wouldn't be so concerned but this you've heard the term before NIMBY you know not in my backyard well this is not in my front yard because this literally is in my front yard and with the advent of the DOT reconstruction of North Hampton Road I'm going to lose about 10 feet of my front yard and that's a different story but specifically about this proposed 132 North Hampton Road development is that I cannot see how it is going to enhance the character of our neighborhood which in the master plan it said one of the ideas is to maintain the character of neighborhoods in community I don't see this maintaining the character of this particular neighborhood and as far as the comments about approaching town counselors about sweeping away something like this I would not suggest that at all I would suggest that people who have a vested interest in seeing this property not developed have an opportunity to let their feelings be known Thank you but I see no more hands up so so we don't respond to public comment but we've certainly heard everyone that spoke today so I'm going to suggest that we keep moving along our agenda so the next order is business not anticipated 48 hours in advance so I'm not go well yeah yeah so I'm not sure exactly how so we do have with two things were referred to us at the last council meeting which was less than 48 hours and I'm not sure this is the right place but a two things that were referred to us were the speed limit the proposal to look at speed limits in Amherst and the other one is to look at the Airbnb or short-term rental policy so I'd like to add that yes let me just be very clear the speed limit one doesn't is not time sensitive however the Airbnb tax is time sensitive yeah so if you would yeah so I propose that we add that to our next I'd like to add that to our next agenda in addition to the planning and zoning discussion Ms. Andy yeah as chair of the finance committee was referred to two committees because it really has financial implications and it is implications for community resources and just so that you're aware the finance committee does have this on the agenda for Tuesday of next week the Airbnb Airbnb yes okay are there any other agenda items that we should be considering for future CRC meetings so our plan then would be to do planning and zoning next week along with the Airbnb discussion and then I forget what after that my short term my long-term memory takes me to next week don't lose sight of the fact that at some point you need to communicate back to me the more detailed aspects of the goals of the council continue discussion of the goals right and activities that go with that or to communicate that you need an extension and time on the activities thank you and so actually there's John Page just walked in and he was a prompt I'll recognize you in a second so John Page just walked in he was a prompt for there's a discussion on economic the economic development panel that was planned for a couple of weeks ago has been rescheduled for May 29th more or less around the time of our council meeting so one suggestion is that on May 29th that we go to that panel instead of meeting so on Wednesday May 29th have that be our meeting participation and or not participation but attending yes that will not be an official meeting of the council it will be a panel if council would like to attend they may we will not be convening it as a council meeting maybe I miss in and I will Mr. Andy it's going to explain actually what yeah no I I think that you've got the point that the conflict in time is with the meeting of this committee yeah the council's all so I guess we could simply cancel this meeting on May 29th then if those who can can attend that meeting was that kind of what you were thinking thinking at least that the committee should consider that about 48 hour notice because we didn't have 48 hour notice but if we didn't if we attending that economic development forum which is very much within the charge of this committee is an important opportunity then as a committee we need to resolve the conflict in time between the when the panel is scheduled and this committee is scheduled to meet that day I'm sorry Kate can you come up to the use a mic I found out about this meeting on the town council calendar and the agenda for today is different than the agenda that you've had so I just wanted you to know that it had call to order planning and zoning overview CPAC project review public comment business unanticipated so I just wanted you to know that I mean worked out that people came and we were able to speak but you might just want to make sure that it's up to date okay so I had sent a corrected agenda or the so what happened is we cancelled our meeting no we changed the changed our meeting last week so agenda items got moved and I sent the revised agenda up the chain last Friday so the error was made somewhere along the way my apologies so this was a this you copy this today the calendar or it's what it is what is on the town website when did you print this out this morning interesting they didn't update it I'm sorry that happened on what's gonna be it's coming out April 24th well I wasn't there that was the meeting that you we did we did discuss it April 24th please use your mics yeah we did discuss it April 24th and we voted on it since then it's thought that we need to look at the 500,000 bond issue again I think we're going to discuss it again at a CRC meeting I'm not sure let me Dave has his hand up also I'll take a look at the the posting issue with Angela upstairs I did want to remind you that I think Steve you had said on the 24th or excuse me the 22nd that would be kind of a flex meeting we'll develop the agenda based on today's discussion the zoning discussion next week so we should have plenty of time to look at the town council goals and objectives on the 22nd and I'll go back we'll go back to your your comment in a second but we also want to meet with the zoning subcommittee is that what you Mr. Stutzman do you want to speak to that thank you Mr. Chair I'm Greg Stutzman chair of the planning board and chair of the zoning subcommittee please speak into the mic yes the mic is on I believe I'm speaking into it so I just wanted to share an invitation if it's already been shared I apologize for the duplication of efforts but after your zoning forum next week the zoning subcommittee will be meeting at five o'clock the zoning subcommittee had discussed posting that meeting of ours as a joint meeting of the zoning subcommittee and the CRC so any members would be welcome to attend and that date is that date is next Wednesday this coming at five p.m okay so the in this so that would be the proposal is that we meet at five to seven on the for our next meeting does that work for this this is the proposal that you meet from five to seven with them or David I'm looking at you or is it that we meet in addition I think it's with in addition to oh in addition so the mega meeting okay and a half hour to go shower and then come that's right two thirty to four thirty for your meeting and then the zoning subcommittee meets from five to six thirty and you're invited to their meeting okay that's perfect okay and then to the planning board after that for the life doesn't get any better than that so back to the question that counselor Pam has raised and and K Trost has raised how do we want to proceed on this question well the finance committee was going to I had I went to New York for a funeral like that's what I raced back today so I missed the finance committee yesterday was this brought up at the finance committee the question of the bond issue no because it's noticed for it's subsequent meeting it's it is on the meeting for May 23rd that we will at finance be taking up the CPAC proposals that is also listed as a committee of the whole meeting the full council is welcome to come and participate as full counselors so I will fully acknowledge that the CRC was formed mid April and I think our very first meeting this was on the agenda I missed that meeting and you know I did read the draft minutes but I missed the meeting I missed the discussion I know that this is a really I mean we all know that this is a very important issue for for those of you that are here today for others in the community for those who may be living you know in these units that you know they also have an interest you know in this project and so I think we as a council need to figure out the best way of hearing the concerns both sides I mean the opportunities and concerns both sides so one thing we could do is simply let the finance committee do its work that's the next step for for your you know for your input it will go to the full council for discussion when we talk about the budget and that's another opportunity for the community to talk about your concerns at this phase I mean I think that the one thing we recognize is that when things are referred to different committees because different committees have charges both of which may be relevant to the ultimate decision being made we just a few minutes ago touched on the question of whether there should be a 3% additional fee for rentals at Airbnb's which is now permitted by state law on a local option basis it was referred to two committees because the two committees have relevance to the ultimate decision but have different charges and so I would expect that the the discussion that would happen at the finance committee for that one will be different from the discussion that will happen here when the finance committee takes up community preservation act proposals it will be looking at it from financial budgetary concerns sort of on the all levels but it will be focusing solely as financial questions that may relate to that particular proposal a number of issues were raised today and in other correspondence that I have been a party to or seen that is obvious concerns to the neighbors because they express them today and they may have been things we would have talked about had it been raised earlier when it was brought up at an earlier meeting but it is a different set of topics from what the finance committee is likely to be talking about who are relative to the community preservation act proposals here's what I suggest and we have our president here so if this were a town meeting year you know what would happen is at this the C community preservation would have made its recommendations those recommendations would have gone to the select board and then they would have gone to town meeting and so there would have been a discussion with the 240 what was it number 256 town meeting including ex officio yeah they're on the floor so having that discussion here at this brand new committee of five doesn't seem like the right you know at this point it seems like the discussion should really be happening at the town it's a very important issue and I think it should be happening at the town council level so so really what I'm suggesting is that rather scheduling a meeting here with with the five members of this committee and then we report to the full council we should just allow enough time at a full council meeting to have just budget enough time to have the discussion there so there's couple things that are on the floor at the same time first of all if community resources committee which is already voted to recommend for the CPAC wants to reconsider that is their decision okay I'm personally not a member of this committee that's your decision the there are other times when the full budget or this particular the CPAC recommendations will come before the council or a part of the council the first is at a hearing which will be on the 21st at 6 30 in the evening at the bank center the second time the CPAC will come before the council our port of the council is at the finance committee which is on the 23rd at 2 o'clock we tend to go to 5 o'clock and particularly at this time of the year and in that case we will be having the CPAC people actually come and present their proposals and there will be public comment and then once the finance committee completes its review of the budget and within the 30 days that it was referred to us it will then go to the back to the town council and the first time the town council will take up consideration of the full budget which includes CPAC is on June 3rd at our 6 30 Monday night meeting in this room Andy I just take a question for the president there's a statutory requirement and a charter requirement that there's a date specific for completion of the adoption of the budget but the budget is actually the consolidated operating budget that does not include the Community Preservation Act decisions Community Preservation Act is actually a separate process and therefore I think that it's a decision that we as a council leave to you as president as to the appropriate time but it does not have to necessarily be coupled to the deadline of the budget adoption you're absolutely correct the the June 30th 30th deadline is for the operating budget of the town so that we can continue to do our work and the CPAC however can actually be done any time during the year it's just that it is always tended to come up in the spring because it's always tended to be at the spring annual town meeting so this is we may at some point decide to delay all are part of CPAC at this point that recommendation nor that decision has been made but I take your thoughts into consideration thank you you look like you're about to say something yeah this is a open yeah this is full council if you are as a group satisfied with your recommendation on the CPAC proposal there's no reason for you to revisit it but realize that at the council meeting when we discuss it as I will with the finance committee report I and others will have questions I assume for you and I hope that you'll be able to answer them so you want to I think think about how that discussion went and the depth that it took and whether if you're satisfied with it fine but if you're not and I realize you've got a lot on your plate and it's not right if you're not you might I would urge you to consider revisiting it one more time but that's obviously up to you but I know as a counselor when things come back from committees I rely on that a great deal and if all I get is you know we voted approval and that's about all I hear I'm disappointed so I'm hoping that what you do give to us will come with some kind of description and some kind of rationale for the approval I'm not saying you have to do that but that's what I would expect then perhaps I would suggest that the community resources committee reconsidered that vote after the meeting of the finance committee which considers it that feels odd to me yeah look do you want to no I'm fine all I said was that feels odd to me but I haven't got articulated right now what's bothering me about it the issue of the 500,000 bond issue has to be gone into in more detail so we haven't said this in a while in a council meeting that we're flying the plane while we build it but to some extent CRC had to right and so George and I both serve on outreach communications and appointments and we have spent the last five months coming up with a process for dealing with appointments but in January we had to deal with board of license commissioners and those were sent to us and we said we haven't had time to discuss how we vet things and how you evaluate things and so we sent it to the council and so George just said you know as a counselor he would he would always want to know why and in that case if you had asked us why we would have said we weren't ready and it had to get done right and so I think that you were in the unfortunate situation where we threw something at you that you were really weren't ready for but the reality is we don't know how long it will take and so this council to date has been marked by these one-offs of we'll probably do this differently in the future but for now this is what we had to do based on what we have I think that your committee has a lot of work to do to figure out how you actually what your role is when you review that's going to take time and so I think that for me as a counselor not to conflict with my esteemed colleague I would be fine if you just said we voted it because they were recommended by CPAC and CPAC does a lot of legwork to vet these proposals and we trust their recommendation because we haven't yet had the opportunity to figure out how we vet proposals to me that would be a perfectly adequate circumstance with the understanding that next year when CPAC proposals come to you I probably would want to know more about it but to some extent you're a very young committee and it took OKA months before we could actually offer rationale and so I don't want to feel like you're on the hot seat while you're still trying to figure out who you are and there's also the technical detail that a motion to reconsider requires that everyone who is here I was reading Robert's rules would have to still be here everybody who voted in the with the majority would have to be here to vote to reconsider someone who voted in the majority has to bring it forward for reconsideration and everyone who was according to the and a committee everyone that was here voting would also have to be here for this vote and Sarah's not here so I think that I think that what council Ross said is exactly what I was thinking is that this was the first thing put on us I mean this is reading through the minutes I wasn't there in we voted with the the recommendation of the CPA committee whether or not we should have abstained on that vote who knows but I think that it's it's making larger than life what the we're only advisory to the whole town council so we could have another hearing you guys could all come out and you know say and new you know new people will join or you know whatever and we'll still report to the full council and the full council still want to hear you know from all of you so I think in the interest of you know weirdly we set up the committees to be more efficient but I think in the this particular circumstance which there are so many people here that want to speak to that I think it's more efficient for us to recommend that you come and speak well to the finance committee but then to the full council yeah I want to make a small clarification because I feel like well I appreciate what you said and agree we are young at what we're doing come closer like I said that nature do I feel that after some personally looking at different research I've looked at plans I've gone to visit things and I'm not saying one way or another how I would vote but those visits and the reviewing plans and seeing the common space and garden spaces that are part of the project gave me information that I felt like was also supporting a decision making process so I think that has to be we didn't just do it because we felt like it but because there were good reasons as well thank you thank you did you have you heard unless you are have anything further to say on whether you're going to take this up I just have one other thing I'd like to communicate to the public go ahead okay at the other thing I want you to know is that in addition to CPAC recommendations coming before the council that can be acted on at any time we can also accept all reject all accept some reject some accept some defer some so there's a serious opportunity in the future as the council takes this fully on and after the finance committee has reviewed this to look at that I just wanted the public and those of you who've taken your time to come here today to understand that it's not an all or nothing one way or the other and it's not all done by June 30th okay Kate did you have your hand up one more time or no was that am I misremembering I feel like this proposal has significant such significance that it shouldn't be rushed and I feel a tremendous feeling of rushed and I appreciate that that this particular location has only been known to some since January but most of us about two weeks I think it deserves careful attention to all the details because the implications will be permanent that's all thank you so we're after our time do we want to try to deal with a minute I think we should yeah so there's no one up no yeah so we have minutes from April 24th and yeah you can we have the minutes yes we have the minutes from April 24th and April I don't even have the dates who has their agenda open I'm just going to ask unless there's any other council broad business there's three of us here that are not part of the committee and do I have a motion from among all of us to adjourn the committee of the whole you don't want to see pats moved and Steve has seconded oh wait I want you guys to stay here for the minutes are those in favor of adjourning the committee of the whole again is it was it unanimous thanks yeah so we have the minutes of April 11th you've been sent the minutes of April 11th and April 24th and we just we have a handout of a draft minutes of the meeting of May first so do we want to take them one at a time or do you want to consider the ones that were emailed to you first the April 11th and April 20th we're going to consider them together yeah yeah is that a motion I move that we accept the minutes from both so there's a motion and a second to approve the accept the minutes of April 11th and April 24th there was a second right there wasn't a second is there a second there's a second so all in favor raise your hand yeah passes three zero passes three zero three zero two do we want to thank you so much for the minutes of May first and I couldn't open these so I couldn't send them out to you ahead of time should we when I you'll see a place in the minutes which says motion four to one not clear here doesn't seem like much of a motion in other words from my notes I was pretty unclear what we what went on there so I'm asking you to and I did these about four days ago I'm asking you to read them very carefully and then to make additions or corrections as required and to run it by you because I really wasn't sure what that motion was it my notes just contradicted themselves so we'll send these to you and then consider these at the next meeting is that so I think that we made a motion about committees in general minutes that the chair gets them a big people get them the chair is the one that says okay this is fine so if people have corrections or comments they should give them to the chair isn't that didn't we have that motion that kind of way of doing business Lynn because we found that when we did round Robin them that nobody ever said oh yes they're finalized several committees have decided that the one person on the committee will in fact approve the minutes what I cannot honestly recall is whether this committee has decided that all right so I'm gonna make a motion it is shaking his head no but you may want to do that for the future yes could I make a motion that this committee that people read the draft minutes and channel their additions and corrections to the chair and that the chair make the final decision of accepting them otherwise we'll have pile up of minutes oh so we don't have to go back to the whole well in the interest of efficiency I mean we're just moving along so fast here yeah yeah so okay you have a motion you need a second and I was a motion there was a second is there a second okay all in favor any discussion all in favor raise your hand four zero one no yeah four zero one who's taking the minutes that's a really good question I will Dave took them right I I have scribbled notes from the time I came in but that's about so I'll put together the minutes thank you so much okay oh Margaret question I did give you sent out a quick little thing you know that Paul said those who who wants a printed budget and I had emailed back I do how do I get it I have a whole bunch of printed all copies for you thank you um is there a motion to adjourn so by by uh acclamation