 And disappear for a moment. With better lighting. Okay, Mr. Marshall. You are co-hosts. We are recording. Amherst media is here. We have a quorum and it's 634. You're good to go. Okay. Thank you, Pam. Welcome to the Amherst planning board meeting of January 4, 2023. My name is Doug Marshall. And as the chair of the Amherst planning board, I am calling this meeting to order at 635 PM. This meeting is being recorded and is available live stream via Amherst media minutes are being taken pursuant to chapter 20 of the acts of 2021 and extended by chapter 22 of the acts of 2022 and extended again by the state legislature on July 16th 2022. This planning board meeting, including public hearings, will be conducted via remote means using the zoom platform. The zoom meeting link is available on the meeting agenda, hosted on the town websites calendar listing for this meeting. Or go to the planning board webpage and click on the most recent agenda, which lists the zoom link at the top of the page. No in-person attendance of the public is permitted. However, every effort will be made to ensure that the public can adequately access the meeting in real time via technological means. In the event we are unable to do so, for reasons of economic hardship or despite best efforts, we will post an audio or video recording transcript or other comprehensive record of proceedings as soon as possible after the meeting on the town of Amherst website. Board members, I will take a roll call. When I call your name, unmute yourself, answer affirmatively, and return to mute. Bruce Colton. I'm here. Thank you, Bruce. Tom Long. Present. Andrew McDougal. Present. I, Doug Marshall and present. Janet McGowan. Here. Johanna Newman. Here. And we have been advised that Karen Winter will be absent this evening. Board members, if technical issues arise, we may need to pause to fix the problem and then continue the meeting. If the discussion needs to pause, it will be noted in the minutes. Please use the raise hand function to ask a question or make a comment. I will see your request and call on you to speak. After speaking, remember to unmute yourself. General, for the public, the general public comment item is reserved for public comment regarding items not on tonight's agenda. Please be aware the board will not respond to comments during general public comment period. Public comment may also be heard at other times during the meeting when deemed appropriate. Please indicate you wish to make a comment by clicking the raise hand button when public comment is solicited. If you have joined the Zoom meeting using a telephone, please indicate you wish to make a comment by pressing star nine on your phone. When called on, please identify yourself by stating your full name and address and put yourself back into mute when finished speaking. Residents can express their views for up to three minutes or at the discretion of the planning board chair. If a speaker does not comply with these guidelines or exceeds their allotted time, their participation may be disconnected from the meeting. Okay, board members. Our first item this evening is the minutes. And we have the December 7th minutes available for review and discussion and hopefully approval. Any board members, do you have comments on the minutes that you wish to make? Okay. Barring any comments. And I see no raised hands. Would anyone like to make a motion to adopt the minutes as drafted by our staff this evening? Hi, Tom. So moved. Thank you, Tom. Anybody want to second that? Johanna. I'll second. Okay. Thank you, Johanna. Board members. Any additional, any comments you want to make? This is another. Second chance. Okay. We'll go right into our roll call vote. Bruce, we'll start with you. I approve. All right. Tom. Approve. Andrew. Abstain. Okay. Janet. Abstain. All right. Johanna. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Janet. Abstain. All right. Johanna. Approve. And I will approve as well. That that vote is four in favor, two abstentions and one absent. Chris, I trust that is it. That's enough of a majority to adopt the minutes. Yes, thank you. Yes. Good. Thank you. Thank you. And I will now move on to the public. We will now go to the. General public comment period. And as I said in the intro, this is the time for you to make comments about items that are not on tonight's agenda. So. If you want to speak about anything. Other than the project on Belcher town road that we will be discussing later. This is the time to do it. Are there any members of the public that would like to make a comment? If you have any comments. Great. Hands raised. I will, as I've done lately on that meetings. Now list that we have. Or mention that we have seven attendees. One is Amherst media. We have Bruce Allen. Connor Burgess from service net. Pat Pat nude. Ryan Nelson. Tom Miranda. And probably Elizabeth beer. I'm going to move on to the next item on our agenda. Item three, which is our continued public hearing. With a site plan review. So the time now is six 41. In accordance with the provisions of mass general law. Chapter 40 a this joint public hearing. Has been duly advertised and noticed thereof has been published. And is being held for the purpose of providing the opportunity. For interested citizens to be hard to be heard regarding. SPR 2023 dash zero two. Service net incorporated. At 1012 and 22 Belcher town road. This hearing is continued from December 7th of 2022. Public hearing to request site plan approval to renovate the existing building. And provide 12 efficiency apartment units. For transitional housing. Excuse me. With office space for associated staff. Site improvements include resurfacing and striping of existing parking. 39 spaces, including two handicapped, accessible spaces. Demo of one building entrance. And then we'll move on to the next item. We'll move on to the next item. We'll move on to two handicapped, accessible spaces. Demo of one building entrance. And the installation of new pedestrian access walkways. And new doors and windows in the building. Located on map 15 C. Parcel 19. And parcel two dash 19. As well as map 15 a. Parcel 43. Both in the calm commercial. We'll move on to the next item. We'll move on to the next item. We'll move on to the next item. Do we have any board member disclosures? I do not see any hands. All right. So as I said, this hearing is continued from December 7th. So welcome back to the team for service net. Mr. Miranda. Do you want to introduce the presentation tonight? Or should we go right to Nelson? To Ryan. You are muted. I just wanted to mention that we did re advertise this project because when we had first advertised it before the December 7th date, we noticed afterwards that the listing of the parcel number was wrong. It was wrong on the application. So we added all three parcels and we re advertised it. And we sent a butter's notices to all the butters within 300 feet of those three parcels. And I would still consider this a continued public hearing, but when we publish the decision, we will make clear that we've that we started it on December 7th, but now we have re advertised it and to a broader audience. And now we're continuing the public hearing. Thank you. Okay. Thank you, Chris. Mr. Miranda, sorry for the interruption. Yes, Mr. Nelson will Mr. Nelson. Okay. Sure. Hello everyone. Ryan Nelson from our Lebec Associates representing service net for this project. I'm going to attempt to share my screen here. So we've taken into account a lot of the feedback from our last meeting. One of that was there was some concern over kind of the clarity of the plan. It was very busy a lot going on. So we've broken down the plan set into another sheet. We've had a second sheet. We've had a second sheet. We've had a second sheet. And it kind of details more of the technicalities up close of grading and the parking and the ramps and landscaping. But let me go back to the first sheet and the overall site. We have added an open space. A lot coverage calculation table to the plan. And we have incorporated the conversion of the portion of the existing parking lot. And then we've also incorporated the conversion of the portion of the parking lot. So if you look at this green hatched area that is currently parking that will be turned into a. Along area for the residents. So that conversion reduces the overall lot coverage for the site. And then we're also incorporating those conservation commission requested mitigation. Along the stream. We also added. Plantings as screening along the southern side of the parking area. To help screen residents against that southerly property, which I believe is a gas station. We had some correspondence with the town. DPW regarding the curb cut. And they were in support of keeping the curb cut as it was, if we could demonstrate the need for it. I sent over earlier today, kind of a turning. Diagram for a bus that showed that. Northbound vehicles would need that with. Of a curb cut in order to safely get into the site without having to make a wide swing into Belcher town road. We have added a proposed dumps dumpster enclosure. That would be located here on the west side of the building. Within the existing parking area. We'll have a fence enclosure and we do have a detail of that included on sheet four of our plan set. Same as before, these striped areas are just to further clarify the no parking areas right now. The striping isn't well defined. So all striping will be more clearly defined as part of this project. As Christine said, there was some confusion over the parcels. So we have a reference as units in the master deed. So we have units one, two and three. So this project is consistent, just dedicating or focusing on unit one. And we've added those demarcation lines from the master deed onto our site plan. So you can see this dark black dashed line. That's the boundary between unit one and unit two. And then over here, this dark black dashed line is you is the boundary between unit one and unit three. So as you can see, that's the reference. So for the calculation and the lot coverage table focuses on just unit one in this case. Let's see what else. What is sheet two. Just provides further detail on the spot grades of the handicap walks. We've added railings to both sides of the individual staircases servicing the units. screening. There's a total of roughly 16 of them listed on the planting table. And then we have added on our detail sheet, even the last page, a typical detail of a railing along the staircase, as well as that dumpster enclosure detail. We've also provided further detail on the proposed windows and siding and gutters for the renovations. I forwarded those over earlier. I'll just peruse through some of these. So the windows and the siding will be white trim. I was told by the doler there'd be no no reconfigurations to the roof, aside from the demo of that building entrance on the eastern side. Mr. Nelson, I noticed these in this image, some of them have divided lights. Some of them have the upper light only divided into six units. Some of them have both upper and lower lights divided. Maybe it's shown on the architectural elevations that received that arrived this afternoon. But how are you articulating the windows? That's a good question. I would have to clarify with the the builder on that. Our architect for the project, he's currently out, he had immediate death in his family, so he's unable to join us tonight. So I'm unsure of the answer to that. Okay, sorry to interrupt. Go ahead. No problem. And it has been noted on updated architectural elevations, the siding and what windows will be replaced. And the the decking, the ramps and the deck around the entrance will be pressure treated lumber based on information the builder had given me. So here is the updated architectural plan. This shows the existing main entrance that will be utilized. And then there was a there currently is a second entrance over here to the east that will be demoed. And this is what it will look like with the new doorways to those individual dwelling units. And there's the backside of the building. So that would be the north side facing unit three of the property. And then this would be looking from Belcher Town Road, looking at the side of the building. There's the bulkhead. There's the main entrance porch overhang area. And am I right that the dumpster would be right up against that west elevation? Correct. Yes, it'd be just north of the bulkhead area. Yep. And then here we have our interior first floor first floor plan. The ramp would be located over here. This is the existing porch at the front entrance. It'd be a new modified sidewalk running along the front side of the building with individual staircases to each unit shown here. Just give me one second. Check my notes. I think that covers all of these site changes that were made. I'm happy to answer any questions that the board may still have on any operational questions perhaps service that can provide. All right, thank you, Mr. Nelson. Chris, I just wanted to start with one question for you. Is it appropriate for a site like this that's been divided into three condo units to do the calculations for lot coverage and such based on only the one unit? Normally, we would have the whole site shown and the calculations would be done for the whole site since the building isn't changing. And the lot coverage is actually being reduced. We felt that it wasn't necessary to have the whole site shown for that reason. If there had been an upward, you know, increase in building or a lot coverage, I think that it would have been necessary to show the whole site. But given the fact that lot coverage is being reduced and building coverage isn't changing, we felt that this was adequate. Okay, thank you. All right, board members. A lot of this material or it looks like a lot of material came in this afternoon. I don't know about you, but I really didn't have a chance to look at it before our meeting. I guess we will need to decide whether we want to vote on this project tonight or whether we want to take some time and digest the information that came in pretty recently. Andrew. Thanks, Doug. And thanks for the presentation, Ryan. Yeah, I would agree, Doug. I'm just getting caught up on this stuff as well. But that said, I did have a question about the planting plan. And you mentioned those 16 new arborvites. I guess I'm wondering, had you, what is that seeing that you sort of carve out and leave this space sort of unaccounted for if you can see that on my screen? I'm wondering if you would consider maybe, you know, revising the hedgewall or the arborviting wall a little bit to claim some of that space for your users, for your residents. If not, I'm just curious, what's your plan for that triangular swath on the other side of the arborvites? All right, Mr. Nelson. For us right now, that whole area is just grassed. Based on the feedback last meeting, we kind of, one of the reasons why we converted this existing parking over here to grass was for the residents thinking that they would use this area instead. Okay, I mean, it's, it's, yeah, just I was not the last meeting, so I'm trying to get caught up on some of that as well. Okay, yep. I guess just to, it might be worth pushing that tree line back also, just for general snow removal and so forth, it would provide some area for you to push push snow up against it need be. And then I was curious also, then the is this, is that green space driven by concom by, by planning board or, because when I visited the site, one of the things that I thought might be interesting is would be to actually, would actually be to green up and I don't know if you guys can follow them doing here, but would be to free up some parking spaces. So there'd actually be green space right outside of your front door. If concom said, look, we want to have this protected given it's proximity to water, it'll be fine. But if this was just, you know, a method of giving up five or six parking spaces, I'd be curious to know whether, you know, anyone on the board would also be interested in seeing some of that shift to provide green space in front of the residents entrances. Yeah, that was a combination of kind of both reviewing parties concom and planning board. So the last planning board meeting there was a suggestion to convert some of the unnecessary excess pavement into a green space to reduce a lot coverage. And conservation was looking for mitigation near the stream area. So that's why we cited it immediately adjacent to the head wall of that stream. We have reduced parking by quite a few number of spaces. So we'd be hesitant to remove any further additional spaces, you know, in case the building, you know, things change over the years if service night everyone to sell the building, where it was changed in use, we don't want to be deficient in parking. Okay. And then if I can ask you one final one, Doug, if you don't mind, is just it just for those Arbor varieties is what's what's the kind of maintenance plan for those they can, you know, get to be extremely large and, you know, an imposing element in the landscape? Just wondering is the plan to keep those trim to a certain height? Is it? How do you how do you propose managing that? So the idea of planting them is for screening. So a barrier is the is the goal, whether how high they get open to any limitations the planning board might set. Otherwise I guess it would be up to a personal preference with service net and their grounds crew. Okay. Andrew, I go back out and take a look to to provide any more feedback on that. Is that an appropriate species? Would you want to consider something that was smaller at full height? I think it's effect. I mean, it's a very effective screening mechanism. Were you asking I'm sorry, were you asking me? Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. It's a very effective screening plant. I, you know, I know there are various there are various varieties of arborvitae which have, you know, different heights. I think, you know, if this I think arborvitae could work. But personally, I think we'd want to try to maintain or limit the height on it. And additionally, if you're going to do that, that sort of opens up to, to, you know, putting some other type of buffer plant in front of it to, to eliminate the sort of imposed in green wall. Okay. Mr. Miranda, I see your hand up and since you're the applicant, I'll let you go next. Okay. I am. You are. I can hear you. Okay. Very good. So I just wanted to bring to everyone's attention. Last time, there was discussion about the guardrail at the Northwest corner of the property. And that that guardrail is entirely on the exclusive use area of unit three. So that is not on unit one. And so we don't have any control over that guardrail if that, because that was a question, I believe that some members had last time. And so just commenting on the Andrews suggestion with regard to moving the arborvities more along the perimeter of the property, that certainly seems feasible. I think that the height of the arborviety depends on the species, as someone mentioned. And it also is, I think, is a matter of, of personal preference as to how high they should be allowed to grow. So I just throw that out. And I'm not it's certainly not an expert in these, but my understanding is that there are arborviety that do have a limit of of 30 to 35 feet, which, in my mind is you've dropped out, Tom. I'm not sure what happened you, we just lost, we just lost the audio when you were talking about 30 to 35 feet. My back. Yep. Yes. Okay. Yes, it seems to be cutting out on my end also the end. So I think it's a matter of personal preference. Aesthetic wise, I think that the 30 to 35 feet for the size of this property, and what's in the immediate environs of the property, to me, would be an appropriate height for that type of a screening. So would you be okay with us setting a limit to the height of that planting, putting it in the management plan or something like that or a condition? I'll defer to Connor on that. But it seems that you can buy, there are species that are that are staying to grow to that particular height. Right. I can add to that the species we've picked as an emerald green arborviety, and they have a max height of around 15 feet. Oh, okay. 15 you said, right? Correct. Okay. So Tom or Andrew, that doesn't seem very tall. 15 is great. I know they can in the wild be 40, 50 feet. So yeah, 15 seems appropriate. And also that's, you know, that's the southern exposure. And, you know, let make sure we get nice light into the development as well. Okay. All right. Thank you. Bruce, you're next. Thank you. I want to support everything that Andrew said and the conversation that concluded with the 15 feet high. I certainly want the, I would like those trees to stay at that height, because otherwise they're going to be shading the limited amount of green space that's that is behind them. So I think 15 is a good height. I applaud ServiceNet for creating that green space at the eastern end here. I guess it will serve the function of very, very, very effectively of being a place where snow can accumulate, because it's right at the end of the bush. So that's another good reason for it there. I'm sure that's part of the plan, but it's, it's, it's, it's a, it's a, it's a, I think it's a very constructive addition. I support both of Andrew's suggestions. The, the, the idea of pulling the trees back to creating that triangle that's more accessible to the property rather than walling it off. I think that's an excellent suggestion of Andrews. I would encourage the applicant to, to, to do as Andrew suggests. I also think that the suggestion, which has already been refuted by the applicant, and this is their right, of course. But I think the half dozen parking spaces that Andrew suggested right outside the entry, right outside the units that could be added to the green space would be a really constructive addition. I understand that they may future, they may be a desire to have them as future parking spaces, but any new owner would be able to spend a fairly small amount of money to reclaim them as parking. So I don't think it's really a problem for the future. And I, I, I, I can't understand why you wouldn't say we've got an immediate need for these for our use. And then keeping, imagining that you're keeping them for some unidentified potential possible future benefits seems to me. I don't understand that. So I would encourage you to think seriously of taking Andrews suggestion. I would support that. I just wanted to say that. A couple, a couple of other things, if I may, the hatching that's particularly up in the western lot there. There's, there's defined parking areas, and then there's this hatching. I thought at first it was going to be grass green space or sort. But I'm not sure that that's the case. It says, but I don't, what is that surface? That is currently pavement. That would continue to be pavement as that's what we're proposing. Would there be curb stops at the end of the parking spaces, particularly the ones that are angled up into the right? We weren't showing them. There is a guardrail along that side, but we could add curb stops. Yes. Well, just in terms of management of parking, I would, you know, there's nothing to keep people from driving all over that striped area. Is it actually going to be painted striped or is that just a graphic convenience on the plan? It would be painted striped. Okay, it's just that those stripes are not parallel to the striping that delineates the parking areas. So, so I understand that you would paint the striping between the parking spaces, but I'm talking about the hatching in the area of the property that is not designated for parking. But I guess I understand is still going to be paved. It's, it's, it just seems a bit odd. I don't understand that there's striping that this finds where the parking is. Is it going to be like yellow hatching that you have on the highway where you're not supposed to drive? It could be. I'm not sure of the color, but we can certainly utilize striping or curb stops, whatever the board prefers. Okay. Hey, Bruce, you know how usually when you've got two handicapped parking spaces, one's a fan unit. Yep. And there's a six foot gap between them, where no one can park. Usually there's striping in that zone. Yeah. But it's at a 45 degree angle. Yeah. From the orientation of the parking. So if we, so let's assume that that's what's intended here. And although it's not clearly shown on the drawings, and it's also not noted on the drawing, it could be. But I would say, let's assume, or let's not assume, let's condition or let's expect that what Doug just said is the way these non parking paved areas are treated. Does that seem reasonable? That's a question for the applicant. Yes, Mr. Nelson. We, are you saying to convert those to non paved areas? No, well, I don't think Bruce has said that yet. Although I think many of us would prefer that. I think Bruce, I don't want to put words in your mouth, but I think, are you troubled by the rather odd angled relationship between the striping shown and the parking space orientation? Yes, it doesn't, the drawing doesn't communicate to me. Anything that I understand that would happen there. But I think the way Doug described it, that that would be diagonally striped as it was, as if it were the, the, the sit down space between accessible parking. That would be fine. So that would, that would be Ryan to basically reorient the direction of the stripes so that they are 45 degrees off of the, of the lines between spaces. Okay. Yeah, that's an easy fix. Sure. Unless you'd prefer to dig it up and plant grass there, which is, I think we all would say would be preferred, but we understand that you're reluctant to, I think I understand that you're reluctant to do that. Finally, the, the, I have a question related to what I see, or what I, I seems to be an inconsistency between the site plan, and the, and, and the architectural plan. So if you could zoom out a little on the current plan, I'm not sure who's in control of this. Now I'm looking at the three doorways at the, at the western units, the three units that are at the western end. And it seems that we have a concrete, well, there's the ramp. Yes, there's there's a ramp that where your hand is, and then it turns around, and that's a horizontal slab against the building. And we have the doors. That's what's this, that's what this plan communicates. But then if you go to the, the plan, the architectural plan. Go down to the plan, Ryan. Yeah. Now you've got three separate landings. It looks different. Yes. So that was a revision. We had requested from architect. I'm not sure what got lost in translation, but I do know he has been sick and then also out with, you know, the death in his family. So we were unable to get that, that area revised. But what it should show is a horizontal, you know, landing that runs along all three of those units. And that would be on the backside of the ramp. So we do I therefore correctly understand that the site plan is the accurate correct. And so we, we will therefore, as we look at these drawings, we will understand that this area of the architectural plan should reflect the site plan should reflect what is shown on the site plan. Correct. Yes. Okay. I think I'm done. Oh, I guess there's one other observation that I have. And that is that it appears in the conversation last time. The waste management strategy was to have the there was a enclosure on the north side of the building. And you were going to provide access to that through the building. Now I see there is an exterior dumpster enclosure, which is a whole lot smaller than what is on the other side. Do we correctly understand that the dumpster enclosure on the north side of the building is something that you will not have any use for that there's going to be no access to that dumpster enclosure from inside the building. Basically, people are going to from the apartments or from the single room occupancies, they're going to come out their front doors and walk around and then put their trash in the dumpster and that is the full and total trash management facility for the whole of your service net facility. Is that correct? That's correct. Yes. The service net facility will be using this dumpster enclosure. Yes. And not there's all the other one and not the existing one over here. Correct. Okay. I'm done. Okay. Thank you, Bruce. Janet. Whoops. Hi, thank you. I think this plan looks much stronger than the one we first saw in December. It's first shown and I like the addition of the green space and I live in this area and I just think this is kind of an ugly area and some places like the Florence Bank is really trying some beautiful plantings and then there's a new building coming that will have nice planting. So I appreciate the addition of the green space and the arborvide. I agree with what's been said about the triangle like to just to have it plain grass would be sort of a loss to me. I don't know if you want to move the arborvide but even if you put some river birches in or some winterberry or some plantings that would just make it a prettier area to drive by and to live by. Possibly because I'm a gardener I was very attentive to the green space and the idea of this is a place that people are living and so I had some questions. I think it's great that there's an addition a seating area for people to go to especially by a river which will sound good. When I went and visited the building yesterday I noticed that there's there's some green like small plots by each door and I wondered is there a plan for some plantings there? It could just be herbs or some you know daffodils or something like something to kind of says oh you're home and you know is there any like for each of the doors would they have some small plot of green space with some plantings that either they could plant or already have plants in them and then when I went behind the building there is some like sort of a murky area. It looks like a long strip along the area. I don't know if people can get access to that and there are some plantings too. So I feel like that might be some lost green space that was some prettier plantings could be nice to look out the back window at or you know nice for the people across the way to look at. So I just wonder if there's any landscaping plan for the the pieces dirt and ground adjacent to the front and the back parts of this building. For the areas I think you're talking right immediately adjacent to the building near those individual walkways. Yeah. Yeah I'd have to defer to service net as to what they prefer in those areas. Because I think that would really help create a good feeling of the people inside the building and for anybody around it kind of the Northampton road property was really conscious about their landscaping and you know creating a you know it's a kind of a bleak you know the you know it's a bleak area of housing and I thought any effort even if it is sort of small efforts I think would go a long way for people who live there and also for people who live around there. So that was one idea or two ideas. I didn't understand the bus like I think I look briefly at some drawings this afternoon I didn't see all the rest of the documents. Why would a bus like a commercial like I mean the size of the bus seems sort of huge like it seemed like you were showing the way a regular municipal bus would turn around there versus you know a van or something. So are you expecting long buses to be pulling in there or what is the need for that? So as I've been told that the residents here most of them typically don't have their own transportation. I don't know what size of vehicle would be you know picking them up but we just chose a standard bus from the American Society of Highway Transportation of those guidelines just as an illustration not saying that's exactly what will be entering the site but just provide an illustration of something of that similar size why we needed that curb width to stay the same. So you're expecting like you went you want to pull in large enough for sort of a 60 person bus I think is that what you're saying? Okay so that was just not clear to me. Tom is that how ServiceNet operates? Is it a really is it a full-size intercity bus that serves these this type of population or is it a smaller bus kind of like a shuttle? Can you hear me? Yes we can. Okay it's my understanding that it's more of the akin to a 15 passenger van as opposed to a full city bus and that there were concerns from my perspective separate from from Ryan's is that we do have we will have our waste removal that will have to come in there and it did seem that it would be appropriate I think and Ryan you're going to have to correct me I think it's currently 35 feet in width is and that's great 34 it didn't seem reasonable to reduce it significantly if you're going to have the potential for vehicles to come in and some going to the right some going to the left and coming out and that it just the configuration itself that seemed to lend itself to keeping it at the current width and we didn't from just a gut feeling it didn't seem appropriate to reduce that width for the size of the parking area that we have there that that's what I have to say but to answer your question directly no we are not and I'll defer to Connor but my understanding we do not use full-size city buses for I mean we only have we only have 12 residents here so full-size city buses would not be the type of bus that would go in there okay thank you yeah I don't I don't remember too much comment last time about from this board about reducing the width of the curb cut on Belcher town road you know I do remember the conversation about whether the parking spaces could be reduced in number and you've obviously addressed that go ahead Janet so I guess just to sum before I'd like to see a plan like a plan for plantings by the doorways and maybe in the back if it's going to be a change I had questions about I don't know did people discuss like the apartments themselves I had questions about what was the what are the what's the square footage of each unit and also is there an an emergency escape route like a way to get out of the building other than the front door is is there or the back window is there a back doorway are there windows that people can go in case of a fire you know Janet I know that I don't I don't remember seeing any rear door and we can certainly ask Ryan is there is the window that's on the back of these units able to be opened as an escape I know there is windows at the rear of these units I'd have to defer the architect on the width and whether or not that's considered an egress I'm sure it could be made large enough to I'm not right not familiar enough to building code to give you guys a definitive statement on that and then Janet is that essential to our site plan analysis I guess I'll just put that out there I don't know I just I just wondered how people would get out in case of a fire they couldn't get out the front door okay uh Chris so um Nate and I met with Rob Mora this afternoon the building commissioner and we asked that question and Rob Mora said that there is not a requirement to have a secondary egress from these units because they're so small so he said that the front entrance is all that's required for egress all right thanks for filling us in about that Janet have you are muted I see I'm not the other the other thing I think I just missed from missing the meeting or something but could you just describe this program in the plan like who's going to come in um is this permanent housing is this transitional housing who are the who are the people being selected is your screening process just I didn't understand like you know when I looked up transitional housing on the web it's like there's seven different kinds and so I just wanted to know like what's the plan for this place and how it's going to be managed and then also who are the people in the office and what services are they providing all right Janet I see both Connor and Tom you've got your hands up so one of you can answer that as questions Connor go ahead sure um so the the intent of this is truly transitional housing um what we're looking at here is when someone is coming into services for service that sometimes they don't have permanent housing so we're looking for a temporary solution to house those individuals why they work with our housing specialist um it's really going to depend on the needs of the individual on the services that are going to be rendered at the property um some individuals have different needs um they said most of it will be around housing and and getting individuals to and from appointments um and really the individual would be working with would be anything from our sheltering services um all the way through the different um funding sources that we have the dmh dds um we do a lot of outreach and residential outreach services Connor can you also address the size of the units oh sure the size of the units I was told by the builder today were between 275 and 300 square feet all right Janet did you have any more questions and it's just individual it's not families or couples and so your so people are either coming or losing their housing and need a temporary place to stay or maybe coming off the street looking for a place to stay until they get into something more permanent is that what you're saying sure so um really where this came from is the housing market is really difficult for the individuals that we serve right now yeah it could be in a permanent residence right now the landlord could increase the rent they can no longer afford the rent we have to find them another permanent permanent place to stay um and we're really having difficulty finding them temporary housing to place them while we go and find these permanent houses so that's really where the Genesis this project came from really finding a place to transition these individuals into permanent housing all right Janet are we you set for now thank you okay um well let's see I don't see any oh Johanna there you go thank you first of all again I just I really appreciate this project and the intention of the applicant um it's much needed and I think um it's going to take a corner of town that I live close to as well and just breathe new life into it so I'm excited about this um I had I had a couple of sets of questions the first one was just clarification that the hatched area the intention is to have that be snow storage in the winter time is that that's what I read on the site plan but I want to just verify that because some of my fellow board members have said oh the snook the grass will be where the snow gets kept but when I look at this plan it looks like the intention is for the snow to be stored on the hatched area can you confirm that or maybe I should ask all my questions and then we can Ryan do you want to answer that sure so the black hatched areas are striped for no parking that's just to define people from parking in random places that would block the flow of traffic um snow can be stored at these striped areas at the end of the western lot and then also on the grassed areas over here so that's the intent for snow storage perfect got it um and then on the west end what is the intention of the pullout at the top of the lot there so I see you know this right here yeah that that's so cars at the end row of the parking space have room to turn the back into the vehicle so they can actually leave the parking lot got it so those are no parking it would be like signed no parking so that people can use that as a turnaround uh yes okay great thank you um okay my second question set of questions just kind of runs in the continued conversation of the vegetation plan um so one question is just um confirming that all the speed you know all the vegetation used is going to be native vegetation my second question is whether there's any thought about just being intentional about creating a rain garden around the stream so that it can absorb as much runoff as possible um and then whether there was any possibility to add shade trees in addition to the arbor bitee um so those are my questions around the vegetation plan and then I'll I'll just ask my other question just had to do with energy use and energy generation on site and whether there's been any consideration of putting rooftop solar um and then I wanted to just ask I couldn't remember what the heating source for the units was whether there's a heat pump unit out back or you know what that system is I feel like we looked at the utility area in the last public meeting but we haven't discussed it tonight and I don't see that in the drawings anymore so those are my questions about the vegetation just the the thoughtfulness of the vegetation plan whether there's the potential for shade trees and those questions about energy sure so we do have deciduous shrubs and trees proposed around the stream bank and that was mitigation for the conservation side of things currently there's some large trees in that area but their roots are posing a hazard for this head wall which daylights several different culverts there's a very large 60 inch culvert that conveys stormwater drainage from the city or sorry the town through the parking lot so I would I would be hesitant to install any sort of rain garden in this area for a couple reasons one there's many large subsurface pipes that it could be in conflict with and then two is we don't want to be infiltrating all that water above the head wall and compromising and adding hydraulic pressure to the head wall we are upgrading the catch basin within the parking lot to have a deep sun-putted catch basin to give further water quality before discharging to that stream as for planting a shade trees along this this buffer I'll have to defer to service net I know that you know more landscaping is an additional cost I guess that's their their discretion of what they prefer all right Johanna are you all set you are muted thank you yeah I guess I just wonder whether there might be another opportunity to work with the town around shade trees along the road it just seems like we gotta we gotta scratch them out where we can so I'm interested in exploring that opportunity but that's it thank you Ryan I don't think you reminded us about the heating source and as I recall they were mini splits and so it would be an electrical electrically operated or powered heating system is that right as far as I've been told yes that's correct and the mini split exterior units they were on the south side or the north side of the building I'd have to confirm with them with the builder I would think on the north side if possible that would be less visible but I don't have a definite answer for that right Chris do you remember if those units were need to be shown in order to calculate a lot coverage I think they should be shown I thought they were shown on the set of drawings we had at the last meeting I think there was discussion about where they would be but I'm not sure that they were not okay all right and then sorry I know the rooftop solar was the last question you didn't get I just wonder it's yeah Ryan has there has there been any investigation of the of the structural capacity of the roof structure to support solar panels and to my knowledge none of that no analysis of that has been done and you know I'm sure Tom or Connor can speak to it that's also an additional cost that I mean how many panels are we looking for what is our type of electrical output are we trying to provide there's a lot of variables to that okay Tom I see your hand anything you want to comment on here yeah yes it's my understanding the mini splits are going to be on the north side of the building they will be installed in the walls they will not be exterior on on the on the ground and as far as the ability to install solar and this is a major undertaking by service net at this point and they really really just need to get their the units in place and then explore the the feasibility of solar in the future which would certainly would be a great benefit for them because it would in essence take care of much if not all of the electrical needs on the premises but solar it's premature at this time for us to focus on the solar room we have so many other things to deal with with regard to this building all right thanks Tom Connor I see your hand too I just wanted to mention the solar service that does work with a very generous private foundation that offsets the costs on solar and generally after we purchase they'll come out and they'll do all those assessments and we'll do the cost analysis on whether it's beneficial to install solar and unfortunately at this time we have not done that yet all right great okay Janet you're next I was just going to offer that with the new federal plan there's a lot of more money for solar in terms of you know paybacks and also nonprofits can can get the benefits of you know you don't have to have a tax base to get the benefits the other thing is the town has trees and so they're always offering us trees so if you need you know if you're going to be putting some trees in I think I would check in with the tree board and I'm sure people the tree committee would come out and dig for you from when I've seen so I just think that there's plenty of trees floating around Amherst and money for that and stuff like that so I just wanted to offer that thank you all right thank you Janet Andrew thanks Doug um you all just uh comment maybe think of something as well relative to the snow removal in the northwest is um by no means an expert on this so a question that anybody can answer but if I guess I'm not exactly clear where the snow would be piled just with this being a guardrail um and if snow is piled there might it just all you essentially melt into the neighboring property into their driveway I don't I just don't know enough about how this would happen where where would the snow actually go here um I didn't notice a space but um just just curious if if someone could expound upon what happens if there's a really heavy snowfall where does the snow melt uh sure so you know obviously snow will be stored in these areas to the extent it it can fit without impeding the parking spaces um and then you know a lot of in today's age a lot of skid steers and whatnot are used to move snow around the site um we have a very large area over here that I'm sure can accommodate any remaining snow on the front on the uh from the parking lot um and I just want to keep in mind with everyone all that this is this is all existing we're not creating any new parking areas we're reducing the amount of parking so um this would theoretically be an improvement over what's currently there now all right Andrew thank you all right Bruce um I thought the same question that Andrew had but my answer before I asked it was that um there's so much parking here that I assumed that it may be that the uh owner would choose not to clear the whole lot through the winter um I mean unless you really needed those uh those half dozen parking lots at the at the top end or even the top four um it just filled the whole end of that lot with snow my my guess is that that's what will happen because it's uh it's this just doesn't seem to be a facility that is going to have constant need of all of this parking and losing forward to snow storage at that western northwestern end would seem to be automatically what's going to happen here I'm just guessing that I would be surprised if I'm if I see anything different in the years to come yeah Bruce that's a good point that that may uh very well may happen depending on their their needs at the site all right and is the drainage such that snow melting at that end of the lot is going to uh shed onto the belcher town road or where what's the slope in this area sure so there is a curb running along this uh this parking area is pitched towards a catch basin at a low point right here uh the rim of this catch basin is about 177 and we have a 178 contour running across here and a 179 contour up here so this is all pitched towards that catch basin and all of this area here is also pitched towards this catch basin so the parking lot since lower than belcher town road so all the storm water melt will stay on site okay good all right Bruce I see your hand is that a legacy okay uh ryan I'm going to go ahead and ask the question that we get we kind of got close to earlier uh if you shift up back to the northwest end of the parking lot um those three striped areas that are you know uh yeah around the kind of north side and the west end uh would it be a burden would it be an until intolerable burden to convert those to uh you know a grass grassy area with a asphalt curves and and just soften that end up and and maybe if that was curved and raised your neighbor wouldn't really need the guardrail there to separate his property from yours that's a good point I'd have to I don't want to speak for service net um be up to their preference I suppose yeah well I you know I think uh Bruce's comment earlier about the orientation of the striping uh Andrew's comment about the snow melting um you know I think it really would soften up this area if we had a little more grass at that end I agree yeah I wouldn't I wouldn't see any uh engineering restraint as to why that couldn't happen um all right um let's see I guess at this point I I don't see any more hands from the board uh I see one hand from the public uh actually before that Chris I see your hand so when Nate and I met with Rob Mora this afternoon we did come up with some questions of our own and I'd like to ask them now if that would be okay sure um as as Bruce mentioned before there's some lack of coordination between the architectural drawings and the um site drawings with regard to paving materials in particular treks is shown in some places and concrete is treks is shown on the um one set of plans and concrete is shown on the other set of plans for stair landings and ramps and I think that needs to be cleared up on the drawings um there's also a little bit of a difference in terms of railings where where railings are being used and whether they're necessary and there's the difference between the architectural plans and the site plans and that needs to be dealt with and what I got from the building commissioner is that you really need railings on both sides of stairways and ramps unless the architect or the site engineer can show the building commissioner that those aren't necessary in other words if you can make a reference to some place in the building code where those wouldn't be necessary on both sides um you really need to have them on both sides the configuration of the stairs coming out of those units is different on the site plan versus the architectural plan they're offset on the site plan so that a door swing would open and then someone would have a large area to to stand on whereas on the site plan there really isn't that kind of offset so again those drawings need to be coordinated um we were we suggest showing an elevation view of the ramp so that we can see what the ramp looks like with the railing running alongside of it you do have a detail of the ramp but um or excuse me of the railing but uh we need to see what the what the slope of the ramp is going to be like um we didn't see any location for bike racks and um our people if they're not going to have cars might they have bikes and might they need to park their bikes and where would bike racks be logically located we thought perhaps at the west end of the site um bike racks could be located we also thought about EV charging stations and I know EV cars are very expensive and perhaps people who live here might not be able to afford an EV car at this time but perhaps people who work here might be able to afford such a car and want to be able to charge it so is there um an opportunity to think about locating conduit to a particular location so that um an EV charging station could be installed in the future um another thing we talked about was the fact that there's no sight lighting shown on this plan um there is sight lighting shown on the wall by each of the unit entrances it's a wall sconce but is there a need for um lighting of the parking lot and um I know there's ambient ambient lighting coming from Belcher Town Road but what is the extent of that ambient lighting and is it necessary to have some lighting in the parking lot so we were going to suggest um that there might be and that the planning board might want a photometric plan um showing the lighting of this area um we also had a question about just like Janet did the area between the stairs that goes into each of the units what is that going to be Janet suggested plantings it could also be some kind of stone mulch or something but it seems like it's an area that needs to be addressed you know how are you going to treat those areas and then the last thing we thought of was the location of the HVAC units but you're saying now that they're going to be mounted on the north wall and they won't be on the ground so I think that question has been answered but those were some of the things that we thought about and we did come up with if you choose to vote for this project tonight we have some conditions that might address those issues so I just wanted to make sure that those work brought up thank you thank you Chris neat sure thanks yeah I was just gonna add a few things the um you know because what right now what happened is um if this were approved the building inspectors as this is going through construction drawings there'd probably be enough inconsistencies between the site plans and what might be submitted for construction drawings that they would want to kick it back right because they wouldn't be able to know what's happening with the landings or the ramps or everything that's been mentioned and so just a few more things I think would would be useful to show on the plan so that dumpster location enclosure on the north side of the building you know it seems like I'm not sure maybe this condo unit doesn't have access to it but to show it on the plans because right now it looks as if it would be removed and not connected to the building so that's something to show I do think HVAC and mechanicals need to be shown on plans architectural plans uh as well as you know where will all the roof vents and dryer vents and other things be shown so you know we were going to suggest a condition that that be on the back of the roof or at least on the roof and not near you know on the soffit or near the front entries right so we would we would prefer not to have any bathroom vents or anything you know above windows or near windows or the front entries of units um I think it's important to show what trees are being removed and are all the trees near the head wall and the property line that property line being removed there are some pretty big mature trees and so my understanding is every tree around there is being removed and so you know to a point that was raised about shade trees I think it'd be great to know what's really happening to have a you know you know actually an actual landscape plan like have it you know be show what's what's being removed what's not um some clarity on the parking lot so you know will the grades of the existing parking lot tie into the front steps and the ramp nicely or how is that you know going to work because um you know the application says it's going to be milled and overlaid the plan say maybe shimmed and touched up and so we want to know is the whole parking lot actually going to is all the existing paving right a huge area going to be all milled and overlaid so the whole thing is going to be all resurfaced at once or is it just going to be going to patch work um I just have a few more things I do think the a photometric plan should be you know we'll probably again ask that to be a condition to come back we need to know if there's enough site lighting um we had I had emailed after the last meeting that the mass works application the town submitted and we have plans to improve route nine we're pushing the sidewalk to the property line and then that leaves very little room between the sidewalk and then the parking area on the western end of the property and so there's an existing curb there with the parking lot but it looks like maybe two or three feet and so you know I I think it'd be great to have some um a little bit more confirmation about what is the actual space in between property line and the and the the berm there the the curbing to the parking and what what happens there if it is such a narrow space um and then also that's an existing curb and is that going to be replaced during paving so is that staying or being removed um and then Aaron you know for the conservation commission they typically do not allow snow storage in the buffer area and so I just you know I don't know if you'll be able to push snow right off to the proposed new green space they often will not allow snow storage in a buffer area I just want to make sure that Aaron is also comfortable with the new sub pump discharge area um because that could change you know some some sighting um uh are you saying that the concom did not approve this plan they have not yet all right so I think Aaron has uh communicated with the applicant and maybe Ryan I think you know um so I think some I think some of this is probably okay but I know often a standard condition is no snow you know storage in the in a um in a buffer area and depending on I don't know if it's like grandfather or how it works you know a discharge can still remain in the in a buffer area as well so I don't know those details or regulations as well but I just um you know and I think you're proposing a chain link fence on top of the head wall and right now at one point there was a vinyl fence and now there's a failing fence and so just to you know be great to have some kind of detail or some a little bit more um to know what's happening there is it you know is it the head wall is being rebuilt possibly and then the stumps are going to remain and then there'll be a chain link fence and so you know it sounds like a lot but I feel like some of it could just be either annotations on a plan or the consistency between both architectural and site plans would really help um you know Rob Moore the building commissioner was saying that you know like I said for instance his staff would come and look at this if this were submitted and they would probably put a pause on it because you know all you know there's a lot of inconsistencies or not a lot of clarity on some of those aspects thanks Nate Chris or Nate do you know when the concom is scheduled to approve this typically we don't we don't feel the need to vote until concom has approved something the concom is going to take this up on the 11th I think the last time they had a meeting they didn't have quorum so they couldn't deal with anything but they're going to take it up on the 11th my conversations with Erin Jacques the wetland administrator had been that she was more or less okay with what is being shown on the plans but the company planning board might want to wait until the concom actually votes so that's up to you well I mean I'm troubled by this to say the inconsistencies between drawings I feel like the kind of level of development of the drawings has been a little lower than we're accustomed to and make it difficult to understand what's really going on so if that could be improved I think continuation would be a good idea Nate your hand is up okay thank you Janet um I was going to suggest that we continue because you know given that the architect has been ill holidays architect has been ill and now has a death in the family and you know it seems like we have a lot of little details that need to be remedied and if we're going to try to address what we'd like to see in conditions and we're kind of drafting here this meeting will go on forever and I don't think it's going to be helpful I think it'd be faster if we just continue to another meeting saw the finals you know made some tweaks and went into a vote I also really don't want to vote before the concom so all right sounds like you might be ready to make a motion at some point uh bruce oh I was going to say exactly what Janet said uh uh clearly uh Rob and uh the planning staff who've had the opportunity that we haven't which is to look more closely at this drawings I saw a couple of things and then Nate and Chris listed the whole lot of things there are little things so and the need for additional drawings and so I I absolutely agree with Janet uh I agree also with with you about the concom let's let them make their decision and the only reason I kept my hand up was because the one thing I'd like to add to this is um if and I would move move to continue the hearing but I would like that the applicant um provide us with the amended documentation um let's say midweek uh or before the end of the week prior to our meeting so that we have a day or two to look at this um otherwise we're in the same kind of position you're having to rush through this and not really know what's whether whether what we've asked for has happened so I'd move that we continue the meeting and I'd ask that the applicant provide the additional documentation at the end of the business week prior to our meeting I guess we have to continue to a date uh and time certain don't we yeah my guess you could manage that if you wouldn't probably January 18th would be the next meeting uh Chris uh is there a time we ought to use 635 or I think 635 would be fine but I would want to have a nod from Pam that that's okay because Pam is my conscience and keeps me on the street and narrow um does is that a good for the architect or on service net is that too fast let's see Pam uh why don't you go ahead and answer Chris's question about the time so Chris we do potentially have a solar presentation being provided on January 18th I don't have a time for that so I don't know if you would want to use 635 or if you thought Martha Hanner might want to be first well normally we put the public hearings first and we have other things afterwards so I think we should probably make the public hearing first first okay all right um uh Connor or Mr. Miranda uh is a continuation to the 18th would that work with your consultant's schedules I can't say for certain that it would but I would like to have it continue to the 18th and if our consultant is not able to do that uh give a letter to the board saying asking you to continue it to the following meeting but we do have um we do have commitments to the seller on this and so we really are doing our best to move this forward as quickly as possible our architect is Tim Nyart who's been working on this has been uh very cooperative with us and I just can't answer for him because uh his mother recently I think within the past couple of days has passed and he has some family commitments surrounding that if so if that works I would like to continue it to the 18th and if we're not able to get our paperwork to you in time we would notify you and just ask that you open and close the hearing and continue it to your next available date all right um all right so we have a emotion on and we'll give you an answer we'll give Christine an answer on that uh the Thursday before uh your next meeting so that way you'll she'll have a heads up on that and be able to advise you accordingly all right and do you think you I think you probably ought to also check and make sure you think you can deliver the sort of improved or revised drawings in a little more time before our next meeting yeah so we'll all be by that Thursday yes okay I think that I think that that's uh that may have been what Bruce asked for I know someone asked for right it's reasonable reasonable time during that week right and I guess uh are you willing to entertain some of the comments you've heard this evening about maybe uh articulating some of the landscape a little bit differently in terms of the uh relocation to the Arbivite I would say yes uh I have to defer to just historically my experience with uh the type of uh individuals that are going to be in this uh in this location they'll be coming and going and I don't know how really how practical it is to have um landscaping uh to be maintained near each of the unit entryways it uh I think I it's not as if you're going to have people there for extended period of time that would take an ownership interest in this and uh it's to me it doesn't seem practical I think a better description of what the area will be uh is is probably more appropriate and we can discuss that and propose uh propose uh keeping it impervious excuse me pervious material so there's we were not going to have any more impervious area uh through the air but I I have to defer to counter but it my sense is that to provide landscaping near the building is is just not practical based upon the um the clientele that's going to be there all right uh Tom you haven't had a chance to speak this evening I was going to second Bruce's motion to continue okay all right thank you Tom so we have a motion on the floor uh by the way uh let's see one point I started to offer public comments and the hand the person who was had their hand raised has no longer in the meeting however I I think I should at this point offer the two other members of the public who are here uh do either of you wish to make any comments on this project this evening okay I'm not seeing any hands for that so board members we can go back to our motion on the floor to continue the hearing to January 18th and I believe we did agree on 635 as being uh a workable time for us to incorporate into the motion um if there's no further comments from the board we can go ahead into our vote okay why don't we go ahead and do that continue to January 18th Bruce um approve all right Tom hi Andrew hi Janet hi Johanna hi and I'm an I as well it's unanimous six favors and six votes in favor and one absent all right so the time now is 758 we're almost exactly at our customary time for a break um why don't we all turn off our cameras and mute ourselves and come back at 805 thank you and thank you to the service net team all right time is 805 and if you're back at your desk or wherever you join us from please turn on your cameras one more member return Doug would you mind if I asked a question at this time I don't mind Chris not in the least I just wanted to ask Andrew uh I've kind of lost track of things over the last couple of months um but I I know that you were not here on December 7th and um if you have watched the video of the December 7th meeting you'd be eligible to vote so um on this case so I would encourage you to watch the video for December 7th and you can vote Jen had already sent me an email that she watched the video and so she is eligible to vote that's just a reminder and I know I'll both I would forget if I didn't mention it now thank you okay Johanna are you there okay great sorry to call you out there I just got back all right okay so the time is 807 and we'll continue with our uh agenda uh item four is old business topics not reasonably anticipated 48 hours in advance do we have any Chris or Pam yeah I'm seeing you both shake your heads no okay what about new business equally unanticipated okay uh item six uh form a anr subdivision applications anything we do have one okay we did need that in your packet because we weren't sure that we'd be able to show it to you tonight because the town engineer hadn't reviewed it but Pam made magic happen and the town engineer did get a chance to review this um this is a property that um was owned by Gordon Fletcher Howell and I don't know if many of you will remember him but he was a person who had been a vietnam war veteran and he came back and he was traumatized by his time in the war and he made an effort to reach out to other veterans and help them with their traumas that were similar but he also became a landscape designer and a landscape contractor and he had this moralist property out on leverett road that was just beautiful and someone bought it and carved it up into a lot of pieces hoping to sell each piece to build a house on but now someone else has bought it and wants to combine all the pieces and I'm really happy about that so I probably shouldn't have prejudiced you in that way but what what we're trying to do here what the applicant is trying to do is take these six parcels and combine them back into one parcel that they had been they had all been contiguous when Gordon Fletcher Howell owned this property so um in my opinion there's no subdivision control examination needed here and so what you would be asked to do is to authorize Doug to sign this plan this ANR plan acknowledging that no subdivision control process is required and this is is this all right this is the ANR plan Pam this is the ANR plan all right six lots anybody have any questions or comments Janet um I am happy to to vote give the nod to this but to have a question Chris um was this divided up several times because I thought that six lots dividing to six lots would trigger the subdivision control and you need to have like an access road and all that good stuff or was this just chopped up in pieces it does it does it is a terrible looking situation right now it's good to rectify it well if if it had a road in it it would probably require subdivision approval but it had three flaglots it was divided a few different times and some of that is shown on the map that Pam just showed us preceding the the GIS map shows that the turquoise lines are the latest lines that exist but the underlying dotted lines are a precursor to the turquoise lines but the plan shows that there were three flaglots in a row on the north side of the site one flag lot on the south side and you're allowed to have as many as three flaglots in a row and then two frontage lots so there there were essentially four flaglots here and two frontage lots and now they're combining it into one but there would not have been a requirement to have subdivision because you're allowed to have the three flaglots contiguous with each other no more than three and then you could of course have the last one down below and you're allowed to have frontage lots you know sort of any old time in Massachusetts so this would not have required a subdivision road which is what triggers the subdivision control law okay thanks Bruce thanks Janet Bruce I hope you could indulge me a moment here because I want to ask a question about the the configuration that we are now giving we'll give Doug approval to sign away but the this the curiosity that I have this bears remarkable similarity to the Pine Street co-housing configuration that I I invented about 30 plus years ago and and at the time made Bob Mitchell cry because it was so difficult and there were all sorts of arguments about that and ultimately I think the following after we were approved Joan Josie's when she was chair of the planning board initiated a move to limit the length of flag poles in order to prevent anybody doing what we did again because all that I guess people generally thought that we we did a nice thing they were horrified that we were able to do it and the the the mechanism to restrict doing what we did again was to limit the length of the pole so the question I have Chris is this pole that's on the north side here this very long pole is that is that's still that's that doesn't exceed whatever the new pole limit that was enacted in the mid 90s that's that this was this was this was acceptable is my question yes it is acceptable there's a section in well there's article seven which talks about the limitation on the length of an individual driveway and I think it's 1200 feet but we know that article seven also has a paragraph at the end that says that any part of article seven can be waived or modified for reasons of what are they reasons of safety aesthetics or site design so that although there is that limitation it is possible to get around it you also have there's also something else in here about if you exceed the length of a driveway if the driveway is longer than 1200 feet that you can get permission from the planning board to allow it to be longer than 1200 feet in any event what I wanted to say is that if any of these lots that are flag lots were to be developed they would have to go through a process with the zoning board of appeals to permit them to be developed as a flag lot so these lots even though they are configured as flag lots haven't gone through the process with the zoning board of appeals yet and then you know the subject of driveway length and all of that would have come into question or conversation so is that a good answer to your question it it basically it says what I thought had been prohibited by the town and no longer seems to have been prohibited or I misunderstood what was done so this is helpful to me just generally when I'm when people are talking about where I live that's thank you very much I'm sorry to have taken it was helpful to me okay Bruce all right I don't see any other hands raised I guess what we usually do with these A&Rs is ask rather than doing a formal roll call vote we ask if there's a consensus or whether anyone objects to my going ahead and signing this so do we have anyone who would not support that seeing a lot of heads shaking no so I think we're okay Chris if I can interpret the the tenor of the room okay so that was our A&R for this evening Pam I assume we don't have another one no that was the only one and I'm not aware of any new ZVA applications to discuss tonight but okay may all right so we that takes care of item seven on our agenda just as a time check I see 16 is the time then the next item was our upcoming SPP, PR and SUB applications Chris anything you want to give us a preview of I do want to go back to ZVA applications because there was one that came in that sneaked by Pam and I reviewed it today with somebody else in the department and it is a property up on I think it's Old Town Road and North Pleasant Street property that has a duplex on it now and the owners of the property want to add a duplex to that property so it wouldn't end up with two duplexes on it and so there would be four units and a total of eight bedrooms and that has just been brought to us we haven't gone over the application with the building inspector building commissioner yet but I suspect that he will steam it to be complete because it looks complete to me and then that would be filed and this zoning board of appeals would be reviewing it soon probably in February and what what zone is that in my guess is it's our end but I'm not sure I don't remember all right and that kind of thing is allowed with special permit it is yeah okay Janet I'm sorry can you see the location again and how big is the lot I don't know I don't remember how big the lot is but it's at the corner of Old Town Road and North Pleasant Street so it's in the neighborhood that's just north of the university it's the neighborhood that has a valley I think it's called oh no I better not say but it's it's just north of the university the former planning board chair lives in that neighborhood Christine Gray Mullen so if you know where she lives it's up in there okay has that been done before it has been there has to be a declaration by the board that the use is complimentary okay section in the beginning of of the use table with the beginning of the introduction to the use table that says you can't have more than one principal use on the site unless the board declares it to be a complimentary use so okay so board members is that something we would like to have a presentation on or can can we just leave it to ZBA to take care of that Bruce I see your hand yes this was a question it seems to me that this is at least similar if not the same perhaps similar to the to the property to the to the zoning to the last time we asked to look at a ZBA application actually also on North Pleasant Street but in that case it was up in the North Amherst Center and it was Michael Holden's property it has a duplex and they were building a second principal use which was a another dwelling a single family dwelling in this case so Chris it's is it is it exactly similar to that or is the fact that they're we're talking about two duplexes instead of one duplexness and a single family does that make a difference well in the case of Michael Holden he was going to live on the site he was going to live in the single family house and rent out the duplex in the case of this added duplex nothing is going to be owner occupied it's all going to be non owner occupied duplexes so that's different yes except that the zoning board did not condition owner occupancy on Michael Holden's application when they reviewed and proved it although the planning board did recommend I know the board put that condition on yeah yeah I'm not I'm not putting my hand up to say I think we should look at it but I'm I'm not averse to it if others are interested okay thanks Bruce Janet so I'm just curious about the how big it is so I know that in the RN you can build multiple units depending on the size of the lot and so you know if it's two acres or I'm just wondering if it's meeting that requirement or it's going to exceed what's allowable but I don't know if we have enough information right now well don't you think the ZBA would look at that pretty carefully no I'm not I'm not questioning them I'm just saying if it if it's much if it's an extra if only three units are allowed given the acreage and they want for you know that's kind of a a march and sort of a changing of the neighborhoods that would be more interesting to me I see Chris so the way the building commissioner has been interpreting the bylaw is that you would have a certain amount of property for the first dwelling unit and then for each additional dwelling unit you would only need the required lot acreage lot size for each additional dwelling unit so I think is say it's in the RN district I'm just guessing that it is you need 20 000 square feet for the first unit and then for the next three units you need 6 000 square feet for each additional unit so that means that you don't need two times 20 plus six for each additional unit according to the way the building commissioner interprets the bylaw all right thank you Chris so I haven't heard anyone say they really want to see this so and sounds I'm not seeing any strong reaction from Bruce or Janet because you've talked most about this Nate I see your hand yeah I mean I have it up on the map but just when you guys were looking at I can share a screen when you were talking about the lot area it's just enough for three units or maybe four three additional units right so the primary and then three additional so if this if my screen is visible it's this property right here on the corner and it has a a large lot so it's almost nine tenths of an acre so I guess it has just enough for a primary unit and then three units and the you know it's a historic house but that doesn't necessarily mean anything and this is the view this is the house we'll get rid of the glare you know here's the house right here so it's right across from you know Mark's meadow entrance or what was and then the parking lot so you know it's been a two family for a while and a non-owned or occupied two family for a while all right thanks me yeah all right we'd have to have a survey but they squeak in by a hundred hundred square feet Chris you know how to do that all right Bruce I I just when they put his hand up I put his map up it seemed to me that this is something that the zoning board are going to be able to handle quite nicely it's it's knowing where it is driving past it frequently and it's I'm confident that the zoning board don't need our help okay they don't need a recommendation from us that they may or not may not follow okay so I guess that'll that'll that takes care of the ZBA applications Chris I can't think of any planning board applications they are out there in the wings but I can't think of any okay all right time check it's 825 the next item upcoming SPP SPR and SUB applications anything you want to mention no all right all right planning board committee and liaison reports Bruce any progress with PVPC no I was did you rattle Buckleman's I did and he he positively you know responded but I haven't seen anything come from since then he didn't like me I don't know why I've been a nice guy but anyway too bad okay Andrew anything on seat back yeah so since I was last on that we had a couple of meetings that did our voting on the proposals and put together a proposal for town council it's taking the 15 projects which you may remember there's like eight million dollars worth of ask so far exceeding you know what we have and what we've normally seen call that down to 11 don't quote me on the numbers but like 11 projects a couple of minor differences being one project which is Zion church in North Amherst they weren't sort of fully prepared for their presentation and what we've done is set aside some money in cash reserves to be able to address that and give them some time to come back to us big ones Crocker farm elementary school playgrounds that we pull that off the list that was going to be about 450,000 for for those improvements I say we actually the apps can pull that out consideration and then the Fort River fields project that was a three million dollar ask and we instead agreed to bond 700,000 of that and that that would be contingent upon the school override passing but end of the day lots of haircuts couple big projects have some major some major changes but we're able to get through and and do so with some cash reserves to spare so I would say just kudos I know Sonia is retiring she she and Sean did a fantastic job getting us something to work with so I'm really happy with how that that played out and Andrew am I right you your committee makes a recommendation to town council and they have to approve or vote to adopt that have they done so not that I'm aware of but yeah we met sort of right before the holidays I don't know when town councils most recently met okay so but you've made your recommendations good yes okay Tom DRB can I ask a quick question Hanna I see your hand I was just curious and Andrew it's fine if you don't know the answer to this but do you know whether town council has do they just vote up or down on your proposal or do they have line item veto of it's it's it's an upper down yeah so they they they can't yeah essentially it would be up or down so what we would we put forward they can't make recommend a different recommendations with the money okay all right Tom now the report this week all right Janet for solar bylaw we have a meeting on Friday and we're going to be getting a talk on battery safety by Chris Baskham who's I feel like he might be the assistant fire chief of our fabulous fire department and the battery safety issue is really ever-changing and kind of concerning and hopefully getting better and then we're also talking about a solar bylaw survey being prepared by a consultant that will go out to the town to figure out what the town folk think about positives and negatives and where they'd like to site solar what they would like to be protected and things like that so that's all kind of in draft and so at some point I'd be happy to send that to the planning board members if they want to see that what that survey will look like and make comments on it that'd be I could do that does it feel like your group is on track to complete your work in May I think was your original deadline I don't think so frankly I think everybody's sort of agreeing that it's going to go longer so and how does that tie in with the charge from town council is is council okay with that or I'm not really in tied into sort of town council stuff but I think that Chris might be better able to answer this I know that we're looking to the planning department to provide drafts and I know that we've lost some people but I think we haven't talked about it that much but things are going slower and I think that May is optimistic but we should still aim for it I suppose right Chris I think we'll still aim for it but in fact the town manager is the person who appointed this board this working group so he would be the one I believe who would be able to extend their time okay good okay great and Chris anything on CRC so the CRC is still working on the rental registration bylaw the new rental registration bylaw which is much more robust than the existing one will require more inspections and more fees and more of everything so but they they have not completed their work on that but you'll probably be becoming familiar with it at some point the other thing see what else they they are putting forth a well actually I shouldn't say they are two counselors and I think I mentioned this last time they're putting forth a proposal to change the bylaw having to do with duplexes they're adding a definition for triplexes and they're changing or they're they're hoping to change the way townhouses and apartments are permitted throughout town so they're hoping to make it more possible for people to build these multi-unit buildings and they're going to be presenting that to the town council fairly soon I think if not by the end of January then sometime in February then it will be referred to the planning board and the CRC for public hearings and Chris remind me with a bylaw proposal that originates with town council orders do we have the latitude to edit and adjust it as we hold our hearings and deliberate or are we does it is it simply up or down we adopt we recommend it or not no I think you can make recommendations to change it um doesn't mean that they'll take your recommendations but you can make recommendations if I can get a hold of the latest version of it I can probably send it to you and in advance so you can at least become familiar with it I'm not sure that I have the latest version but I'll try to find that okay uh Janet I do see your hand so Chris is that just changes in the permitting pathway or is it increasing the density per per acre like we just we just saw we could put four units on an acre in RN would it be changes that way or is it just the permit pathway for a triplex or townhouse it's the permitting pathway and the description of the type of um dwelling unit that it creates yep but no changes in the dimensional requirements as far as I know all right I guess is that all from CRC yes okay um I guess the next item it's 834 report of the chair I don't really have much of a report although I would like to say that I am hoping in the coming months that we can have some conversation about uh areas of town that we might be able to up zone and allow denser housing then now exists you know I have some ideas about that and and would like to bring them to you and so I hope people would be willing to have that on the final on one of our agendas in the upcoming months that's really all I had to say um the port of staff Chris anything I just wanted to say that we are in the process of reaching out to people to get them to apply for the two planner positions that we have open and that I really appreciate Pam and Nate who are the the planning department along with me currently and we're doing a lot of work and um hoping that we can manage to keep all the balls in the air so uh anyway we we will be interviewing soon we have I think we have seven applicants if I'm not mistaken so that's all I have to report all right great uh anyone have anything else you want to add before we adjourn all right time is 835 this has been a relatively fast meeting maybe we can start off on a good in a good place this year all right thank you for your time bye everyone say bye bye goodbye good night good night good night happy new year thank you Pam