 And we are good to go. All right, thanks, Rob. Welcome to the Amherst Design Review Board meeting of March 18th, 2024. My name is Erica Zekis and as the chair of the Amherst Design Review Board, I'm calling this meeting to order at 5.01 p.m. The meeting is being recorded and will be made available via the town of Amherst YouTube channel in the minutes are being taken. Pursuant to chapter 20 of the Acts of 2021 and extended again by chapter two of the Acts of 2023, this meeting will be conducted via remote means. Members of the public who wish to access the meeting may do so via Zoom or by telephone. No in-person attendance of members of the public will be permitted, but every effort will be made to ensure that the public can adequately access the proceedings in real time via technological means. A hyperlink to the hearing will be posted on the town's online calendar. Board members, I will take a roll call and when I call your name, let me know that you're here. Lindsay Schnarr. Here. Karen Winter. Here. Pat Auth is not here tonight. Catherine Porter. Here. And I just wanna take a moment to acknowledge that this is Catherine's last meeting as a DRB member. She is cycling off the committee and I just wanna make sure that we don't forget in the flurry of things on the agenda this evening to thank Catherine so much for her service. Catherine, you've been a member since 2016. Is that right? I have no idea. It's all a blur. It's all a blur. Hopefully it's not a good one. At that time, we scrunched into that little room off of the town room upstairs and met there for I guess a couple of years before we branched out. But yeah, it's been great. Thank you for always being here and for being so invested in the town and your participation has been fantastic and much very welcome. And Eric Zika, I'm here. Karen Blum will be our new DRB member as of April 1st. Okay, back to the long read. Board members, if technical issues arise, we may need to pause temporarily to fix the problem and then continue the meeting. If the discussion needs to pause, it will be noted in the minutes. Please use the raised hand function to ask a question or make a comment. I will see your request and I will call on you to speak. After speaking, remember to remute yourself. The general public comment item is reserved for public comment regarding items that are not on tonight's agenda. Please be aware, the board will not respond to comments during the general public comment period. Public comment could also be heard at other times during the meeting when determined appropriate. Please indicate that you wish to make a comment by clicking the raise hand button when public comment is solicited. If you've joined the Zoom meeting using a phone, please indicate that 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 at the discretion of the chair. If a speaker does not comply with the guidelines or exceeds their allotted time, their participation will be discontinued from the meeting. Tonight's agenda includes the following. Item one, general public comment period. And item two, our applications this evening, we've got DRB FY 2024-16, town of Amherst to discuss the North Common site furnishings and lighting. Number 17, trustees of Amherst College, new signage at 45 South Pleasant Street. And then we'll have approval of February meeting minutes and our other business. And that tonight will include a continued discussion of the design review board standards revisions. So we will head into general public comment period. Is there anybody in attendance who wish to speak tonight? Not seeing anybody raising their hand, Erica. And if you're on the phone, if you wish to speak and press star nine, still no. Okay, if we notice that the number of participants increases along the way, maybe we can revisit public comment period between applications tonight. So why don't we move on then to town of Amherst? Who is presenting? Is that Nate? Sure, hi everyone. I'm Nate Maloya, planner with the town. I'll share my screen and if I'm allowed, sure and we can walk through the plans. Okay. And I just, I should take a moment before you head into your review, Nate, just to remind the DRB members. We're talking tonight, not so much about the design of the park, but of the a handful of some smaller pieces, the furnishings, benches, tables and chairs, trash receptacles and amenities like interpretive signage, walkway and street lighting and ballards. So Nate, go ahead, sorry to interrupt you. Oh, sorry. Yeah, this has been a multi-year project and so it's under construction now if you go to the center of town. And so, yeah, let's walk through some of the materials. The, let's see if I can make this a little smaller. Yeah, here we go. So there was a material list provided. So there was a lot happening mostly on the ground plane. So, you know, sidewalks, walkways, there'll be different treatments in different areas. So everything that's in yellow here in front of town hall, the perimeter walks along the common will be concrete. There's a new granite retaining wall outside of town hall here to make a bigger area. The plaza outside of town hall, this is gonna be a raised area right here. And so it'll be open to traffic. And then at times if we need to, this area can be closed down and this becomes a bigger plaza area. This area right here will have the thermal class treatment. So it'll be asphalt then with a, you know, the treatment that we've been using on crosswalks and then the center of the roundabouts. UMass recently used it as well for their crosswalks. So that's a surface treatment. I'll just keep going with the kind of surface and curbing. The walls along here, along the common, the sitting walls here, any curbing along the walkways will be granite. So some of it will be pretty minimal and some will be exposed, say like on spring street next to the church. So these granite sitting walls and the walls here are thicker and wider and they might have an exposed space of 12 to 18 inches whereas the curbing will be thinner and might not have as much be as tall. The interior walkways are asphalt. They're not concrete, they're asphalt. And then these crescent sitting areas with benches will be concrete pavers. And so, you know, these, the central sitting area and then these other two sitting areas will have concrete pavers. And so those are the ground plane materials. I guess I will say that the town's proposing down here a Goshenstone walkway, kind of an informal walk here. Someone could still manage to come up here and then come around the plaza. And so the thinking might be there might be a desire line. It's not, you know, essentially in an accessible walkway they have to step over a curb but there will be some stones here and a granite block as a bench for people to be able to walk across these two paths hopefully without, you know, creating a dirt path. There is a kind of a desire line there. The furnishings and amenities are really similar to what we've used at Kendrick Park and at Roth Park and what we've used around the roundabout for lighting. So the benches will be similar to, let's just go here. I guess I should ask if there's any questions about the materials, about the granite, the stone and the pavers now. If that's okay, then we can go down through the rest. Yeah, I see, keep going, Nate. Okay, so for furnishings we have the benches, tables and chairs and trash receptacles. And those would be similar to at Kendrick. There are metal benches with some, you know, some ornamentation. So, you know, here's the style of bench. You know, I guess we could decide on a color. You know, we, you know, the, I could, I could call it the manufacturer's webpage. There's a number of colors. You know, for the tables and chairs right now we're looking at having a set where there's, you know, a smaller table and four chairs that are attached. This may or may not be the style we choose. Emmy O'Brien is a company that helps work with companies, represents a number of companies and they think they can get this bench to be in a chair and they would have a simple two foot by two foot square table. So the tables and chairs could match. Otherwise, Dumor is the company, the vendor we might use and they don't have an exact match for the style bench. So this is something that, you know, a similar trash receptacle here, it's both trash and recycling. It could be a split receptacle. And then I guess for lighting, there's two types of lighting. There's street lighting on the perimeter and then there's walkway lighting. And the street light will mimic the newer lights by the roundabout near the north side of Kendrick Park where they have the skirts. So they're not the Cobra heads, you know, the ones that have been replaced in other parts of town. And then the interior walkway lighting, I guess what we could look at would be, there's the traditional acorn light here and these can have interior shields. So they're downcast. So these are also at Kendrick Park. The bases would be similar. Excuse me, Nate. I don't think you're showing us what you're talking about. Oh, no. I thought I was showing my screen. Maybe I was sharing a... Yeah, we're still seeing the trash receptacle. So thanks for pointing that out, Chris. Is this now visible? You're good. So the bases and all would be the same. Decorative base with a top. And so in Kendrick Park, there's two light fixtures. Typically we've been using this acorn light with an interior glazing. So it has a full shield. So this is what's there now. The, there had been a kind of a, here's another example of it, kind of a test to use an integrated LED fixture that is, would be on the same post. And here it is from afar and it's a different style head post top fixture as they call it. And so here's more of a detail of it. And so there's no glazing or anything. This is all open with the LED mounted underneath. And there's a finial here. I will say that staff finds that it's not as, the proportions aren't as nice with the pole. And so we wouldn't change the poles. It's just the kind of this post top fixture is what is something that could be considered. And then for street lights, it was what was in the packet. Interpretive signs would mimic the writer's walk sign. So it'd be a simple, simple low sign. We'd have probably have two, could be three in the park. One would be for the fountain. One would also be describing, it's a removal of the parking lot and heat island effect and on-site storm water management. So that's something that's part of the grant of the town has for this project. And I think that's probably it for now. You told us what might be the contents of the interpretive signs, but do you have any images about how they might, how you might describe what they look like? Sure, let me do another show. I don't believe that was in our packet. It wasn't, I did not receive, oh, there it is. Actually, I think Erica, it's in the, I think that documents called town common furnishings and that's like one of the last pages, like page three. Okay. Yeah, so this is the writer's walk sign. So it's a, and I wanna say it's an 11 by 17 panel. It's a little bigger and then it's a fixed to a back and it's on a simple square post that has a footing. So that, that would be similar to this and styled. All right. And then I think for street lights, if I scroll down, it'd be these street lights right here that we, you know, there's one, this is existing and it'd be new, so a few proposed around the perimeter. Comments or questions for Nate regarding the materials, lighting, furnishings or signage. Karen, go ahead. The bench and the chairs, I like them very much, but I know that a family that sits around with three kids and having four chairs is kind of limiting. You can't put something else there. I'm wondering if it's possible to look at or have you thought of just those circular benches where any number of people with their children could sit? So yeah, I think in the Crescent sitting areas, we'd have two benches, there's always sitting walls in the central area, and it's something we could discuss as the towns also discussed, could we have movable chairs, kind of like what's in Boltwood Plaza now, so it's not a fixed number per table. And that's something we asked Emmy O'Brien to look into. So right now what they're looking into is having chairs and tables and not have them be one kind of unit. They would be separate, but you could have roughly four chairs per table and they could be moved. Great, and the other question I had is, I'm sure the asphalt is that always because anything else is cost prohibited because asphalt looks fine for a while, but then it gets to look so shabby after a while. And I wonder if there's any alternative. I mean, little cobblestone, I don't know. Has that ever crossed your mind in conversations to have something besides asphalt for those long walks? Yeah, I think there was a cost factor there, concrete is more expensive. Sometimes it's, it is a maintenance issue to concrete could be maintained. It has to be an accessible walkway. So if there were, it was like oil and stone that would become more of a maintenance, but not an annual or more than annual maintenance routine than asphalt. So yeah, I think it was considered, it just, it wasn't included in the final design. And I think Catherine's hand. Yeah, right. I'm thinking about what Lauren had mentioned about having smaller tables. I think some of that could be accommodated down at the other part, the other part of the common where there are picnic benches now that do hold more people. So maybe that would be a compromise, but I wanted to get back to the chairs that you showed, the chair and table and the bench. I really would like to advocate for them to be more similar in style. I think that makes a more, I don't know, pleasing appearance rather than, cause the bench you showed to me had no and no way related to the tables. So it seems like that's probably gonna be something that you can accommodate. Then the other thing is about the lighting. How many different lights and lamps are we gonna have in that one area? And you have the ones that are in the middle. Are they similar to the downtown lights? It looks like we've got like two or three different styles of lighting in a very small area. I don't see. So I'm just asking that question. I'd like to see more compatibility with all the lights in Amherst that we tend to come up with. Sure, yeah. So I think the street lights downtown would be the last ones I showed with like the skirt. So that was around near the roundabout. So that would be become the street light in Amherst downtown, the Cobra style. And then in terms of the walkway lighting, staff's preference is the first one I showed the glass with the interior shield. I think that would be something we want the DRV to recommend or talk about. The other one, the black one with the integrated LED that was the open fixture. I think Public Works had put that on there as like a trial to see if that would be a newer fixture that could be used. The all glass one can be LED. The newer phase ones kind of phase three are LED and they can be 2700K too. So they're not too blue in color. And so knowing that we would propose to use, so all the lights in downtown, a lot of the walkway lights are using the acorn light. They might not have the interior shield, but as they would get replaced, if this becomes kind of the new style, it would stay that. It wouldn't be the other one. What is the shield doing? Is that casting the light downward? Because I noticed that that one didn't have a cap of solid. Yeah, so here, and this, is this visible? The fixture? That's the open one. Yeah, this is the open one. And so, the integrated LED is right under here. So it really just shines down. And in this fixture, it's hard to see, but the full shield is from where the cursor is above. So all this is painted or has a shield on the inside so that the light will still shine down. It can't go up. Good, okay. Yeah, it won't be visible. The shield isn't necessarily visible from the exterior. It's just applied on the inside. And to the two with the glazing and without have similar lighting levels? And light quality for the pedestrian? Yeah, you know, Guilford had an indicator that there was any difference. I guess some people have said that the ones with all glass can sometimes have a glare the way the light might come through the glazing as opposed to if it were, you know, the other one. But I know that there's been some opinions on either side of the, or either fixture. I haven't heard that it doesn't. The illumination is much dimmed. It's really then dark sky compliant. So there's no uplighting. Do you have any thoughts on the lighting fixtures or other for that matter? I mean, I know this is a hot topic of, you know, ours in terms of trying to create as much consistency as possible. I don't have a solution. I think it's great to hear that there's an intention to try to, you know, create consistency going forward. Um, it would be nice if they were warm in temperature. That's my main interest, personally. The blue lights just are the cool LEDs just really create a different ambiance on the street. My sense is that the, I mean, if the street lights are going to start to be the ones with the bracket, in the acorn with the cap, the black cap that to have the Washington, the new fixture without the glazing as our inside the park lights make some sense. So that you have the black cap with the arm and the black cap without the arm. Um, I'm not sure. It's an interesting thing for me looking at it. I don't know if because it's open, it's there more opportunity for dirt and leaves to get tangled up in there or if it's actually less of a maintenance issue because it doesn't have the glazing. I'm mindful of that from a kind of taking care of it perspective, but my inclination personally would be to go for the one with the cap, the new, so the new test light. Yeah, I mean, we're actually leading away from that one to be honest. I mean, the planning staff had recommended the other one in terms of, you know, we thought the Washington was heavy, bigger on the post. And so we're not changing out any of the posts or any dimensions. And so, you know, the one with the finial seems strange that we don't really have a finial on any of the other fixtures or that kind of ornamentation. It could be removed. Yeah, I will say from the pictures, the posts look exactly the same. So it's kind of hard to tell that part, but. No, no, they are the same posts. And so to me, the Washington is a bigger fixture. To me, it would seem like you'd want a wider or taller post to go with it, but we would just be swapping. You know, if that were the fixture we started it, we would like to use downtown. We, you know, the, as needed would be swapped out. So it might be a, you know, again, a kind of a phased approach to have a, that's the same fixture around downtown. I don't know if there's any comments on that. The two different fixtures, if there's a preference in terms of, you know, the all glass and then with the interior shield or the other one that's open. Which one's the Washington? The Washington one is the black one with the acorn cap that's open. And the Granville is the one with the glass. This is the Granville. Yeah, this is the Granville with, you know, the glass. And then the Washington is, there's only one, the Washington fixture. It's just, like I said, as a trial on Kendrick. I personally think that one has more weathering capacity. I don't know, it's, I was gonna say it shows less, you know, less of what's showing up in that picture. So I don't know if that's actually true, but there's something kind of clean about having the black cap to my eye with the glass. I don't feel strongly, I guess is what I'm recognizing. I feel strongly about this for some reason, I know it feels particularly strong. That's fair, maybe Karen does. I think the one without the glass is somehow more graceful, but I do wonder what is easier to maintain. I mean, I could see leaves and dirt and debris, maybe birds making nests in it, who knows. But from the optical side, I think it's more graceful. Yeah, I would agree. I like this one, but for the same red, I'd have the same reservation. The other one looks old and dumpy. This looks cleaner. Yeah, I think it has a more contemporary look. And Nate, you mentioned that the cleaners were concerned that somehow it was a little top heavy maybe, but I'm not seeing that here. No. Yeah, I honestly am in agreement. I like the openness of it, and I like that kind of like balance of having the black come all the way up for what it's worth. Yeah, it sounds like you've got consensus from the DRB members about we prefer the fixture that's showing on the screen right now in the Washington. And do you like it with the finial on top or no finial? I don't know. It's a deal breaker, the finial or no finial. Yeah, probably do without the finial. I don't have a strong opinion about the finial if I could see either way. Yeah, I could. There's a new, I'm sharing the actual webpage. Is that visible? Yeah. Yeah, so it's interesting. It looks like you could get some glazing underneath. It's hard to see the difference, but the one we have now, you can actually see the LED piece. So you can get a shield for that. So there's like the difference being this, right? So you could see it or hide it. And then here's another image of it on a, it looks like a taller post, but I'm assuming you can meet the, it's 2700K. I think that's the kind of warmest they'll get. I don't think we'll get any warmer than that. Chris, did you want to share a thought? Yeah, Nate and I have talked about this a lot and I was initially favoring the acorn light, the Granville, I guess it is, but I'm noticing and looking at the Washington that it tends to recede into the background more. It's not as noticeable. And so maybe that's an advantage to the Washington that it isn't kind of jumping out at you. So I'm kind of going in that direction now, as opposed to the way I felt, say, yesterday or last week. So just wanted to share that. Thank you. Appreciate that you've been struggling with this. I do think that having a glass or whatever that surface is, a cover over the light fixture, the light bulb itself is a good idea because it can reduce the hotspot when you look at it. So I like that idea. Feelings about the finial, no finial. I think that the street lights today have it. Maybe this is a place to look for consistency. Well, I'm not sure if that's a good idea. Well, really who's going to be looking at the finial? Who's going to be inside the park? If you can get it out the finial, then take out the finial. But I don't think that's a deal breaker whether you have that thing sticking on top or not. Yeah, the street lights, I mean, they don't really, and they have something I guess kind of reminiscent of. They wouldn't have a finial. Yeah, they don't have the little bit there on it. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, they're not the same family. So it's not like the Washington post-top light is the same as this. This is actually like two different pieces from the company that are put together to make this, the light and then the shield. Yeah, it's kind of an inverted shape. Right. The OG. Okay. All right, I want to keep us moving on. Catherine mentioned an interest in the benches and the chairs, group benches and chairs around the table that they should have a similar look, feel, materials, colors, et cetera. That's something that came up for me as well. And I'm wondering if anybody else has thoughts on that. I would also say I'm in agreement with freestanding chairs when possible. Could be a real advantage because then somebody could move a chair to have a group of five on those small locations where the tables and chairs exist. So yeah, so right now we're showing a number of benches in the Crescent areas along the walkway. So I think there's a dozen or so benches. And that would be to have seating for 30 or so people in the central area, 25 or 30. So I mean, are you saying to have tables here as well or really just have more room? No, no, no, no. I think that the benches seem decided, right? They're the same as Kendrick Park. Seems like it makes sense to continue with those. You showed a set of tables that was quite different. Sure. And Oval not putting any words into Catherine's mouth but she was saying that like they should be, or maybe it was Karen, I'm sorry. They should share an aesthetic. Yeah, that's what I said. Yeah, and then there was also an inquiry as to whether the chairs could be freestanding at that dining area. Not attached. And I would second both of those comments. All right. Yeah, I think there's less of a concern now about them leaving the site. I think originally people wanted to have this kind of one, you know, one unit's heavy, it's hard to move, but I don't really think that, you know, someone's going to carry the chairs off. It might move them somewhere else on the park, but I think there had been some concern initially that, you know, they would disappear completely. And, you know, since the pandemic we've had more furniture and furnishings outside around town and that really isn't kind of the, we haven't seen that happen. So. Are there going to be cameras inside the park? We talked about somebody taking the chair. Can we catch that culprit going to be on a camera? We have not talked about any security like that. Okay. I mean, people could take those chairs way off from the tables and it could be a real inconvenience. When you go to sit down, you see the chair clear up by the town hall. I have a little reservation about that, but we're saying that it seems to work. So yeah. Yeah, I mean, the chairs that are at Boltwood, it wouldn't be that sound necessarily, but they're pretty heavy and sturdy. And so it's not very easy to move them far. I mean, I think you could move them around the sitting area or outside a little bit, but it's not, I think it would take two people to carry them on this plan to say in front of town hall, it wouldn't be an easy move. And I'm wondering if you have any observational data on the freestanding chairs behind, or on Boltwood that have they stuck around? They have, yeah, nothing's gone missing. And I think originally we had thought even like using like, I don't want to say folding chairs here, right? But chairs that were could be moved around more easily. And Kendrick, we had used the four tables or four chairs in a table. And I think we can do that. Like I said, I think Emmy O'Brien, the company we use, they're really trying to see if we can mimic the bench in a chair. So same style, same arms, everything, just instead of being a six foot bench, it'd be a whatever it needs to be a two foot chair, and then doing a square, a two foot by two foot square table to match. And so I'm waiting to hear back. They thought it was possible. It's just not something that is advertised. All right. That's the preference. You know, I think I agree. I think when Chris and I met with the town manager the other week, he had the same thought that it was strange to see, you know, different types of furnishings in this space. Agreed. You know, kind of style and design. Right. And Chris, go ahead. Oh, that brings up the issue of the picnic tables that are shown here on the North Common. And I think Nate and I would prefer not to have picnic tables here and to go along with Catherine's idea of having those picnic tables on the Southern part of the Common. They just don't seem to fit as well here. This is kind of like the front, or the living room of the town, right? It's the front room, as they used to say. And it's kind of elegant. And to have, you know, wooden picnic tables here, I just think doesn't really add to the ambiance. So I wondered if the DRB members had any thought about that. We do have picnic tables on the Common now, both the North and the South. Well, not the North now, because it's under construction, but on the South Common we have wooden picnic tables, and they're fine in that kind of informal location. But how do you feel about having picnic tables here, as opposed to on the Southern part? I say no picnic tables. Keep them in the Southern part. I'm glad to hear you say that. I'd like to ensure that there's an excessively, accessible eating or table surface. Is that oval with the tables and chairs? Is that a step up, or is that just a change in surface that I'm seeing there? Yeah, no, this should be all accessible. So what we're seeing here is either, you know, I don't know if it's a, if it's, if there's actually a drain. So this walkway slope this way? Yeah. And then this is so this way. So this might actually be, I don't know if it's proposed to be a drain at all, but there's no step. Okay. And it should be, you know, flush and accessible right off the walkway. Okay, cause it's labeled central raised sitting area with granite wall. And I was, I think it's raised because the, the grade on the other side where the plantings are, it's above grade. So on the east side facing on the south side, it's above grade. Okay. Yeah. It's labeled drainage grade on the, on the plan with contours. So that's, Yeah. So I think that's probably what it is. You're right about that. Okay. Yeah. I mean those picnic tables, I, you know, they're, to me they would, they're, you know, I don't want to say temporary, but they could be relocated, right? So this was just shown as an area where we could have informal seating or picnic tables. Okay. And Lindsay, were you raising your hand to jump in? I was, I, I kind of like the picnic tables, but I can, I can do without like something normal, but I do appreciate the idea of having places where people can, can be. I mean, I have spent many, many, many years. I'm sure all of us have like trying to find a place to sit and eat a lunch in that area. And, you know, I, I, I do get the informal nature of it. So I don't know if, I wonder if there's a way to kind of neutralize it a bit and make it, I don't know. But my actual interest is in the walkways. So are, did you say those were pavers, the curved paths? No, that's, this is, this is just asphalt. This is black top. That's asphalt. Gotcha. I'm trying to remember if like there's a crushed stone that would be an accessible material. I feel like there is. I mean, it can be, it just has to be maintained, right? Yeah. It's loose. Is that an, is that, is that something that's been talked about as an option? Yeah. I mean, the walkways are, you know, this was like four and three quarter percent. And so they're at a pretty, you know, right below the threshold to be, you know, something else, right? So they're pretty steep. And so I think some of the thought would be at four and a half percent. Most of these are, you know, it's a pretty, you know, on the steeper side of a walkway that it will carry water. So having any loose material would be become a maintenance issue if, you know, if you're getting a lot of kind of surface flow on these. Yeah. I think that that's, you know, that's obviously a valid point. I think that there's also advantages to the crushed on over the asphalt. I mean, it's, it's a permeable material. The one, it will slow down traffic like bikes and skateboards and stuff like that to some extent. There's also just a really, you know, there's a sound quality to it that makes walking on it a different type of experience and just kind of a natural aesthetic. So I'm curious to hear other people's thoughts on that or if that's even something that can be considered given the maintenance factor. I'm a huge advocate of crushed on. So you guys can just say no and I'll go on my way. But I do think that that would be a really nice, a nice location for it. Chris, your hand is up. Is that on this particular topic? Yes. I would advise against crushed stone on these walkways for the reason that Nate said, some of them are inching towards 5%, which is really going to cause water to run down them. And, you know, they're going to be runnels formed and the town has very little money to maintain anything. And that's one of the things that was talked about a lot when we were developing the design for this, you know, people were saying, we can't maintain what we have now and now you're creating something more to be maintained. So I think airing on the side of low maintenance is really the way that, you know, I would recommend going because I don't think if we did put in crushed stone paths here that they would be well maintained. That's fair. Yeah, thanks for that insight. And, you know, it's an interesting thing. It's like, okay, we have to keep in mind like the budget for this project and the maintenance for the project, you know, it'd be if we move away from the crushed stone there, it seems like all of the other paving surfaces seem really well thought out to kind of make, identify a place and kind of fit that into that maintenance scheme as well. Karin, go ahead. Sorry, I didn't see your hand. So I particularly have always hated the asphalt look and our driveways too, both of our driveways are oil and stone. So there's an oil base with crushed stone and it's held up really well. And the person that put it in pioneers stone said it will just get harder over the years. It doesn't work if you're going to plow but if you're gonna snow blow, it's fine. And it looks so much more appealing than asphalt. I wonder if you thought of that. It is initially, I think probably not that much more expensive. I don't know, but it's been years now and it hasn't caused maintenance problems. Yeah, I think I would, I like to look the field the sound, the quality of a crushed stone as well. And maybe one thing we could do would be to ask the town to consider what the maintenance implications are and whether the water running down at 4.75% slope would be cause degradation at a rate that they couldn't manage. I mean, I think that it's, I'm hearing from the board and I know that I agree that we'd like to see a different surface on asphalt. Yeah. If the town needs to take care for it, then we can't really ask for that. We had considered like oil and stone and that actually goes over an asphalt base. So typically we would actually have at least the sub one course of asphalt and then you put oil and stone down it, you know, it probably was budgetary reasons that it was removed, could have been maintenance, you know, even in terms of having like a looser stone, you know, that's something that we wouldn't probably recommend for maintenance and for water. So even, you know, at Hickory Ridge where we're proposing some trails in some areas we're gonna have, you know, some blacktop or something just for accessibility reasons as well because the maintenance of it could be a lot. So I think that given the slope and the possible use here we wouldn't have anything, you know, too loose. I think the oil and stone would be kind of the next best alternative to asphalt if that's, I'm not sure that's in the budget. Catherine and then Karen. Yeah. Okay. Well, I agree with the look of something other than asphalt but I'm gonna support the planning board on this. I think we have to be real lists and again, the maintenance of it and it's gonna have to be plowed. We can't think somebody's gonna come in with a snow blower and make a miracle sidewalk. Plus just the access for maybe somebody in a walker or a wheelchair that, and this is supposed to be an area where we can accommodate people who need some support. So as much as I like the look of what everybody's saying I think we have to get real. Plus we're pretty advanced in the whole scheme of this park and now to try to revamp some of the materials maybe asking a little too much. Thanks Catherine. Karen, go ahead. I think this a walkway will probably, is it going to be plowed Nate? And I must say that our driveway as it gets older and harder it's not, the surface is fine for wheelchairs and walkers. It's not very loose. It's not like a loose crushed stone at all. It just has the look of stone but the function is, so the thing that I would agree if it's not in the budget, it's not in the budget but this is really the center of our town. It's the town common and for many years the whole aesthetics is gonna, it's our center. So I wonder Nate, if it's not possible it's not possible but whether one could get an estimate and see what the difference is and then be sure that the maintenance is something that's easy and that it doesn't cause trouble. I think that's a reasonable middle ground is that as the DRB we can make a recommendation that the town do the pricing and maintenance research and then identify whether it's something that they can basically upgrade from the asphalt pathways. Yeah, I think that's something we can look at. I mean, I don't know if it's something that can be done after the fact too or if you have to count for some kind of differential in the stone height to make it flush but. And there's a curb on some of the edges and not on others and it would require curbing on all edges and of course that would change them cost considerably, but. Yeah, I don't think you need curbing on that. You just have to be, it's just kind of when you install it you just have to be aware of that. Yeah. Okay, so we've talked about lighting and we've talked about the pathway surfaces. We've talked about chairs and tables. I had one comment about the signage. You showed us the post with the interpretive sign on the top and I would just ask, I think that the post be painted the same color as the benches so that we have like all the same green metal for the incidentals and then the black for the lighting and the color palette is very simple and neutral. Yeah, I think the color for the benches will be, you know, we're looking at something similar to this or gray. Yeah, it's a, I don't think colleagues, yeah, whatever they, it's like a kind of a gray, it doesn't read that well here. I think they call it Sudend, don't they? Or Carlsbad, I forgot what we. Yeah, something like that. It's kind of a sand colored. Yeah. We weren't thinking of the green for this comment. Red is kind of greenish gray to me and I haven't actually been outdoors for the last three months so I don't know because it's black. But yeah, so like if they were all the same color then maybe the post of the signage could be in that same family. Yeah, so the Dumor is the company and so here's their color palette. So I think, you know, we're somewhere in here. I think maybe it was Sudan was the color of the bench. Dan's better. Thank you. Are there any other comments for Nate this evening about Kendrick Park or sorry, North Common, not Kendrick Park. Yeah, I'm just taking one more swipe around. Are you saying that that bench is that we've been looking at is the bench or are you gonna try to find a bench that seems more compatible with the table? That bench. No, so that's the bench. And the idea is to actually make that bench into a chair for the central sitting area. So then the chair is similar to the bench. Well, okay, I think that bench is not very attractive but maybe it's the angle. I think if you look at the bench straight forward but at that side view, I was hoping that would be changed to match the chairs but you're saying you're gonna get the chairs to match the bench. Because we approve that bench in other locations in Amherst. Oh, okay, okay, that bench looks better. I think maybe the color of the bench. This is the bench. All right, okay, I'll drop that. It must have been the color that threw me off. Okay, all right. Yeah, I think the color and the angle. I think it was kind of grainy, I think it was produced. Yeah, it's the angle, I think it's the angle. Okay, all right, back on. Sometimes photos don't do justice for safe furnishings, Catherine. I know, I know, okay, all right. It's only the bench can speak. All right, so I'm gonna try to summarize the key points, Rob, correct me if I missed anything. So with regards to the light fixtures, we like the open fixture all black with a cap, no finial. And we do like a screen over the, I anyways, wait in on this, a screen over the LED light. We would like the table and chairs to mimic the bench style. We would like the table and chairs to mimic the bench style. Would generally prefer freestanding chairs rather than fixed. We prefer crushed stone or oil and stone for the inner park walkways and would appreciate it if the town would research the cost and maintenance implications of a material change in that design feature. We didn't have consensus on the picnic tables, but I think if you have grant money to buy them, you should. And then relocate them if you, they don't feel like they fit here. Did I miss anything? The color of the interpretive signs, so there's a consistent color. Match the other furnishings, like the trash can, the chair, and the benches. Yes. And then I saw, just looking through my notes, saw something about more circular benches. I don't know if that was Karin who brought that up, but I mean, did we explore that further or was it kind of an abandoned idea that we just, we're just gonna have the benches that were sort of the freestanding or the ones that are more fixed to the natural site features? I just wanna kind of clarify with that. I guess what the reason was behind that suggestion that was brought up. That was the first comment of the night. Karin, do you remember, do you wanna clarify there? No, I just was worried about having the fixed four chairs there as not giving enough possibility. And I know that you can have fixed, just benches that are not chairs where you can scoot many people on. So I was, that, my idea was just the four benches seem a little bit inflexible. So you, so I guess that could be incorporated into the freestanding benches suggestion then. Right. Okay. All right, thank you for clarifying that. So I would just- There are so many fixed benches throughout the park if there are a dozen benches like this, that one oval with the tables and chairs, maybe the place to focus on tables and individual chairs, but if they're movable then you could cluster them together in different ways. Yeah. Rather than introducing benches there as well. Also the seating, the walls are seating walls. So I just wanted to mention that. Yeah. Katherine? So I sort of thought what you were referring to, Karin, was having tables with benches instead of chairs that I'm, so three kids could scoot on one side. This is not the freestanding benches, but replace the chairs with tables that had- Yes, yeah, exactly. Exactly, yeah. Yeah, not talking about other benches, other places. Right. Yeah, that's my understanding. I mean, my thought is if we had five tables here, maybe we have four chairs that are movable at each table, but maybe we have some extra chairs in places that can be pulled up differently to different tables or however, right? So we have like some extra chairs. So we can accommodate different size groups. Probably not as easy as having a table with benches. You know, if you bring a bunch of little kids, you could squish a lot of kids on one side and somebody on the other side, rather than having chairs have benches or have a table with some benches. Not those benches. No. I mean, if this were the options, right? There you go, yeah. What we have at Kendrick Park is this one, you know, not this color though, right? Right, yeah. What they offer would be, you know, I mean, you could do standard picnic tables. Here's one with, you know, a set of four. It's really hard to get more chairs. Okay. Well, I think you gotta work with- I'm hearing benches. I'm thinking more like, I don't really see it here. I guess this one has like five or six, but- Yeah, something more like that. Or that you don't seem to have a table with- With the finch circular bench, that's what- Yeah, circular bench. I've seen those and they don't seem to be any of those options. You know- Yeah, I know what you're talking about too. I was hoping they would have a model here. Yeah, you don't have it. So, okay, all right. Okay. I do, I also just, I have two little kids and so I can say, like it's not so much even just like, how many you can get in, but being able to like sit right next to your kid. I think that they have them at that ice cream place that has the maple, maple farm. They have the circular tables with the like circular bench and it really does help to be able to kind of like nest up and have that flexibility. I think the flexibility is the key in getting it. Currently ice cream place. Yeah, exactly. The maple wood ice cream place, I think has this fixed tables with circular and it's great. I think just from the comments provided, seems the focus on the tables and chairs, just finding a style that's more flexible is the most important thing. Am I correct on that? Like it's like flexible as in like, you're not limited to how many people can sit there. Like if you have little kids, you could definitely double up, you know, or have people sit on more one chair. I mean, or sorry, multiple people on the same chair, I guess is what I'm trying to say. So, freestanding. Freestanding, yes. Benches combined with chairs or all benches. I did. We'll have to, you'll have to find something and... I mean, is it like this necessarily? Well, those are all fixed, but... Well, I mean... Yeah, it's more like that. You see that? Yeah, that's the idea. Yeah, exactly, exactly. Fixed, like that one right there, the green one. Yeah, that's exactly what I think we're thinking about. Those are kind of like fixed benches. They are. But it does provide that flexibility and that openness to where more people can sit. Yeah, yeah. It's less limiting. That's not having things under off, but it provides some of that. Yes, exactly, those. Like you have the option to sit facing out or facing in if you want to. Like if I went to a bench like that, I'd probably be facing out eating my ice cream or doing whatever. Yeah, this is a cleaner look than the last one that we saw. I think that, yeah. I mean, I guess it's interesting. Usually we'd have chairs with backs just if that's needed and arms. Well, if there's a package, if there's a designer that provides a package where you could provide a bench and a couple of chairs or a bench and a chair, depending on the table size, then that would provide the flexibility for somebody who needs arms on the chair to help them with mobility, that kind of thing. It can be that population of people also needs to be accommodated. So the variety, I think, is the key. And I'm hearing from everybody that there's... Exactly, yeah. So you could have maybe two or three tables as you first identified with movable chairs, and then you could have maybe one table with the benches around. So you could, I don't know how you'd fit it, but I mean, that might be a compromise too. Not everything has to be the same, but we'd be answering everybody's concerns. For a wheelchair, the benches don't work, but for a bunch of kids, the benches work. So, yeah, right. Yeah, I mean, the company has curved benches. And so, if it's something like... They could be similar to the bench style that we have or the... So it could be something like that that's curved around a table that's visible. They could do something that matches. Sure, yeah, I think I'll work with the RAP and see what they come up with, what they can do. Thanks for your patience as we kind of walk through all of these things, Nate. It's nice to think it's important to hear the range of perspectives. Okay, anything else? I do have one question of the board. So are you guys gonna vote to approve of recommendations tonight, or do you wanna see updated rendering? So what's the feel? I know it's a tough question. That's why I wanted to ask. Yeah, it is, it's tough. I don't know what nobody wants to hold up the process, but we asked you to kind of return to the research well for a couple of big ones. So, Chris? We're in a bit of a time crunch because of the grants that we're working under. So it would probably be difficult for us to return in a month, although I'll look to Nate and to tell me whether that's realistic or not. Yeah, probably not. But yeah, I mean, I have to figure out the lead time on the furnishing. Some of it would be if we have consensus on a number of things, it'd be great to get those ordered, right? So if it's lighting or certain things, and if the benches are all set, it's really then just kind of that central sitting area, then we can figure out what are some options. But if everything else seems good, then that would be helpful just so we could start getting in order together. Do you think we should come back, Nate, with alternatives in a month? I think it's much. That's getting really close. I think I'm gonna make a pitch to the DRB members that we have made our intentions clear with regards to both the features of the seating and its aesthetics, right? They should coordinate with the benches, the fixed benches throughout the park. So if you could find a range of benches and freestanding chairs that work with the aesthetic and color of the other benches around the park that we're willing to approve. The lighting, I think we're good to go on. And then the other one was the kind of the big one was that if there's a change in the surface of the walkways. And that's something for, it's not a, I think it's a decision that we don't have enough information tonight to weigh in on maintenance and cost, our purview. So we're asking you to go back, have that conversation. If you can, you know that that's what we would prefer. And if you can't, you go forward with asphalt. Rob. I guess as the DRB staff leads, and I can also act as a set of eyes and just look at what Nate and Chris, I haven't really been much involved with this at all. So I could be the set of eyes that look at what they're ordering and just see if it complies with a lot of the recommendations that are being brought up. And then I guess if it's okay with Nate and Chris and the rest of the board members, I could also share with members individually to not violate open meeting law what these styles look like just so you're in the loop after the fact. And I guess for the bigger decisions like the maintenance of the oil and stone versus the asphalt, I mean that's probably gonna be a lot more difficult to do but I'm sure you'll understand one way or another, wherever decisions made, that's probably the most cost effective. Yes. Yeah, I mean, I think if we get information, we can share it and then through straw poll, if it needs to be brought back, we can do that. But we understand the time constraint, Nate and Chris. Yeah, and I think we wanna provide you enough information tonight to go forward without having to circle back to the board. Karen, I saw your hand up earlier, was that to make a motion by any chance? Yeah, I make a motion to approve so that they don't have to come back because they've heard clearly our recommendations and our preferences. But as I totally agree that if this is cost prohibitive to follow the oil and stone, then go ahead and do the asphalt. It's just our strong recommendation, our wish and our plea that this is a really central, the kernel of our, the aesthetic kernel of our town that we really try to get this as right as possible but I wouldn't hold it up and I agree with everything that you've said, Erika. So if you want, I can make an emotion that we just accept this. And move with the recommendations. The recommendations to follow if possible, follow the direction of going with oil and stone for the pathways. If it's not cost prohibitive, that would be our preference and as far as the benches are that you also try to have flexibility and think of all the people that you have to accommodate, but we trust you to do this in the way that you've proposed will be fine. Yeah, very hard to make this proposal. Is that what you're talking about? Good job. Rob will edit that. I heard it back in from Lindsay. So all those in favor of the motion from Karen to approve with recommendations, et cetera. Raise your hands, say aye. Aye. Okay, that's everyone. unanimous. Great. Thank you for coming tonight and hearing us out. Yeah, thanks. Thank you. And please feel free to stick around. And please feel free to stick around. We'll be able to use the comment, it'll be done. It's gonna be fantastic. It's gonna be fantastic. But it kept going all winter long this year. Yeah, the contractors wanted to, you know, it was a little messy, was that like a month ago, but they were willing actually to work in the winter. Thank you both. Feel free to stick around. Thanks for showing up tonight. And okay, so we'll keep moving along. We'll hear from Erich College. So I have two individuals in attendance who I am giving panelists privileges to. They should be joining us shortly. Fantastic. Good afternoon. My name is Ralph Johnson. I'm going to switch my camera. There we go. That's much better. Glad you're here. Thank you for coming. Thank you very much for having me. Rob, thank you for granting me the permission to be able to change my view. I am excited to be with you all here tonight. And we want to thank the design review board for reviewing our application for what we called the Amherst College Store, which will be located at 45 South Pleasant Street for the former AJ Hastings location. I'm privileged to serve as the executive director of campus operations here at the college. And I'm joined by our designer Janine Ludwig from the Follett Higher Education Group. Follett will actually be running this retail, this store for us. So I'd like to give you a very quick and brief overview of the application and then turn things over to Janine to walk through our proposed design for you. Do you have the ability? I'm sorry to interrupt. Do you have the ability to screen share or would you like me to do that on your behalf? It's something I usually offer for presenters. Thank you so much. If you would give Janine the ability to screen share, that would be perfect. Janine, you should have that, I think. Yeah, you should. Thank you so much for that. Now, the space that we're talking about everyone, if you just picture the former AJ Hastings space, we're hoping to open the Amherst College Store early in May. And the store is going to be selling Amherst College bread and merchandise, as well as a very small selection of convenience and technology items. We're hoping it's also a place for students to pick up their course materials, not trade books, but textbooks. We're hoping they can pick their course materials up there through an initiative that we are hoping to provide all course materials, free of charge, well, all course materials to our students of the first day of class, a challenge that has plagued some of our students here over the years. We're, again, partnering with Follett in this initiative, and they are the ones that are leading the fit out of the store. Because this store is in the town Common Design Review District, we want to point out that this application is really building upon and expanding upon the recent application by South Pleasant Street, LLC, which the DRB reviewed on January 29th. That previous application showed a proposed exterior renovation of the Hastings building, as well as a proposed new apartment building in the back of that building. In our application here today, we're providing you information on the exterior signage for the store, the window decals, and the replacement of the awning fabric. So we're really talking about that facade that faces south. And with that, Janine will be able to tell you more about our proposed design. We thank you for your time and consideration and look forward to your feedback. Janine. Hello, thank you very much. We are proposing to add, remove the existing sign, which will be a similar material as to what we're putting in. We're putting on a cut out of a Cintra material. It will be applied to, there is a black glass currently in the space, or on the space. And then we will also be using a laser cut vinyl with the mastodon logo. And then again, laser cut signage in the window as well. And did you want to show your images or should I do that? Oh, I'm sorry. I thought it was showing that I'm sharing, right? Oh. Let me see if I could change the options. Sorry about that. So is it showing your specific document, Janine, or is it showing your screen? Janine, are you frozen? I think Janine is frozen. Well, I can screen share. We have, oh no, it's going, it's going. Here we go. There we go. Perfect. Do you see now? Okay. Yeah. Sorry about that. Okay. Maybe a moment to take a look and see if there's any comments. All right. Thank you for images. We all have them in our packets, but it's always nice to have it on the screen. So we can do it if we need to. I will open the floor to members of the board. Lindsay, I see your hand. Hello. Thank you for the presentation. This is an exciting rebirth of Hastings and I think it looks really clean and inviting. Is this, this isn't there already, right? It's just really realistic rendering with the glass reflection and everything. Yes. We put it on the, an actual image, so. Yeah, okay. Right. I mean, I've driven by it and I think I would have noticed it, but. So a couple of things catch my eye. I mean, it's very, very clean, which I appreciate. I feel like, and I don't have an issue with the black glass material. I do feel like the text, the font is, it's just, it's feeling off to me for some reason. And I think it's, I think it's because it feels more like a, something that you, you know, a font that I would expect to see on like a document versus a sign. I think it's something about the, kind of the uppercase lowercase, but also just the kind of like old type font. And I, and also the size of it and the size of the letters. So the combination of the font type and the, and the size feels, just feels odd to me. It feels kind of like it needs, the the above is really simple and clean. And honestly, I'd prefer it to be more in line with something like that. So I'm curious, have you done any explorations on different font types? This is actually the Amherst College is from, directly from the college's workmark. And then the addition of the, the word store has been added to that. So it's using the Amherst fonts and then the, was, you know, created as part of the name that was agreed on by the school. And so actually the artwork was created by Joanna Mahoney from Amherst. So I would just be curious if there was any flexibility with, I recognize the font as, you know, being part of Amherst College is, you know, it's their branding and I recognize that. And maybe there's no other option that they would consider, but I do think that, and I'd be curious here what the board thinks, but I do think it'd be worth exploring some other type faces if they are willing to be flexible on that. Yes, as far as that goes, I mean, for Follett, we do not use any of our branding and we use directly from the schools that we work with. So that would be more on their end of what they would accept. We would definitely be willing to take that back. And I'm sorry that I'm having video problem now, but we would definitely be willing to take that back to our communications team to review and see what is possible there. And Lindsay, from listening to your feedback, it seemed like you liked the font that was there for the word the, something similar to that? I think it's simply that it's in all caps and it's a sans serif and so it's clean and easy to read, but I don't think that it needs to necessarily be that particular font. It's simply the contrast of the two and I lean toward the simplicity and the kind of the style of the font and the word that. Let's hear from some other board members on this particular topic. Karin, would you like to weigh in about the- Yes, yes, I would like to weigh in because Lindsay put that into words which instinctively came up to me too. I just, it does look like I'm looking at, you know, a document. It's clean, it's attractive, but I would also appreciate your playing with others. I mean, it still has to blend in with the other signs in the town. And yeah, I agree with everything that Lindsay has said. Catherine Poff? Yeah. I'm more or less okay with this. You know, I was driving by just the other day and I know that AJ, the Hastings sign that's been there for so long was sort of a historical reminder of the store. And I thought in the back of my head, wouldn't it be great if they left it called Hastings but underneath the Amherst College Store? But I see that's not going to happen but I did prompt me to think if there's going to be any acknowledgement about this historical store. There is the building just above the windows that we see on the image here. Oh, okay. The building was named the Hastings. Yeah, okay. Yeah. So that's there. We also plan to have, when you walk into the store memorializing plaque. Okay. Okay, all right. Yeah, that was my question. Thank you. I so rarely disagree with Lindsay and Karen but I actually, I do think that both from a branding and consistency perspective that keeping the Amherst College wordmark makes some sense. I'm not opposed to it on the sign but if our request is simply that you explore that Amherst College explore other options, I'm open to that. My sense is that it's just a scooch too large and I would like to see the size of the white lettering come down a little bit. It just feels like it's yelling at us from across the block in a way that it won't need to, the white on the black is so pronounced. I think it could come down a bit but if we're asking you to explore other font design choices then that may be a move point. So, Ralph, I think I heard you say that that kind of going back to the designers for options here would be something that you could do. We will review that action you have given us expeditiously the question that we have which of course we abide by the council of this DRB would there be a way for us to expedite an approved sign before the next DRB meeting? It's really hard for us to go back and forth without staying in accommodating open meeting law. We could all vote on something individually but it's not an ideal scenario. We understand the reason why. We'll come back in a month. Yeah. No, thank you, Erica. The motive behind my request is once we do have an approved sign, the lead time on the sign will probably be six to eight weeks and an approved sign today means we've gotten approved sign when we open but making sure that we fit in with the existing design and feel of the town of course is paramount and our partnership with the town is paramount. So we want to make sure that we are in compliance with the wishes of the DRB and we would have to be prepared to move with the temporary signage on the inside of the windows when we open and that's just all of me. But we've got to get this right. Yeah. Yeah, we've done some simpler choices by straw vote outside of a formal meeting in the past but I think that if we're looking at font options it's going to be a more complex conversation and I'd prefer to do that as a group. Karen? I think I came out maybe a little bit too strong in the font. I think I agree that if the size were smaller that's for me is the biggest stumbling part that fact that it somehow it has this unique font which is in keeping with what Amherst College does but it's also that that font is so big. So I could go along with it or if it were smaller if it had to be expedited. Okay, thank you for that. Chris? Hi, I just wanted to mention that Amherst College recently developed a whole wayfinding sign system and I think this is the font that they use in their wayfinding sign system. I'm not sure if Ralph would know that or not but I'm just mentioning that because there's some sort of consistency there if they are using this font in the signs that they're putting up around town maybe it makes sense to not alter this font. Just a suggestion. Thank you. I am not able to answer that question but I can definitely get the answer. Thank you. All right, we didn't talk about the purple mammoth. I love it. If it's great or the signage, the vinyl signage on the window itself does anybody have comments on that? I just want to make sure that we touch on all the bits. Well, I love the mammoth. I'm not sure the Amherst College store sign is necessary since right above it, it says Amherst College store but if there's a reason for it, it's fine but I definitely like the big purple mammoth. Lindsay, go ahead. I'm also in favor of the mammoth. I really like the use of the storefront panel sizes of the glazing to create the proportions for the decal and the lettering. I think probably it does, like when you're walking along this sidewalk there, you probably don't see the sign above as easily so I think it does make sense to have signage on the storefront as well and I concur, just piggybacking on the previous discussion that if that font were to reduce in size, I think it would really be workable. Okay. All right. So then it sounds like- Just to clarify, are we talking about the proportion to the the or just the entire sign altogether? I'll say what I, I'll clarify what I meant when I spoke and then let others weigh in. I think that the relationship of the white letters on the black rectangle background is what I was referring to. So I'd like to see the size of Amherst College store come down by about four inches or so and be centered in the black so that we see more black around the white letters. The relationship of the the to the word Amherst I think is proportional and good. I agree with all that. Okay. I agree with all that. I agree. Okay, great. Rob. Just a comment about the elephant. I like how the elephant is coming, is more off center and looks like it's running in from the side towards the main entrance. And I think stylistically, that's really appealing. And I just want to appraise the design team for incorporating that. Thank you. Awesome. Mameth's on the run. Yeah. So then if I could ask for any, oh, I'm sorry, Ralph, go ahead. Sure, thank you. I hear that we have general agreement to reduce the words Amherst College store by about four inches. Did I also hear that we're okay with the exact font style? I'm not sure if there was agreement on that or not. Yeah. I thought it came around to if the height of those letters comes down a little bit, but it's not quite as big that it will be better. Thank you. All right. May I request a motion to approve with the recommendation to reduce the size of the words Amherst College store on the black background? I'm just too, sorry, go ahead, Catherine. I still move. In a second, Lindsay. Is there any further discussion? Okay. In that case, all those who are in favor of the recommendation who approve with or the motion to approve with recommendations, please say aye. Aye. Make it clear. Aye. Catherine, I saw your hand as well. Okay, that's approval. unanimous. Thank you very much. Excited to see the store opening up, reactivate the Hastings block. Thank you very much. Thanks for coming tonight. Thank you. Best of luck. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Okay, team, we are getting there. The next item on tonight's agenda is to approve meeting minutes. So let's move on to that, if I can find them. I will share my screen for you all. I'm not even gonna ask, I'm just gonna do it this time. I do apologize. The minutes are a little bit longer than usual. So just be forewarned. We did, we had a lot to cover. Okay, so we started this meeting off with William, Ravius, Ravus, real quick. We had a lot of difficulty replacing signs and the primary, the recommendation centered on the monument sign in front of the building. And it seemed that a big concern was having the detail. So they want, you guys wanted the two post style as opposed to that ugly monolithic rectangle at the bottom. And there's two details that were gonna be lowered by six inches on those two posts. And I think those are the recommendations we gave. And they did submit the updated renderings to us after the meeting. And the signs do conform with what was recommended. Excellent. Excellent. Okay, so does that feel, are your words captured? That's the important thing here. And let me know when to scroll. And then we went to Uptown Tap and Grill. Can you just change the word inversing to inverting? Just an S, T. Yeah, I can do that. Thank you. Yeah, otherwise looks good to me. 10-1 Tea House, 10-10-1, where the comments were really about making sure that that larger sign was matching the width of the window and centered above the window because it wasn't the case in the rendering. And he also had ordered the sign too before the meeting. So I think the other idea was if he couldn't get the exact size, exactly just to center it when he places it on there. Yeah. Looks good. Yeah. And then we talked about Takaria and Del Pueblo and these signs had already been installed. But we had a couple of recommendations. It seems that the QR code was the part that the board focused the most on because everybody seemed content with the decal they already had, but the cactus and stuff like that. And I thought the suggestions for the QR code made sense and I did incorporate that into the recommendations. Yep. Thank you. We didn't talk about the North Common that was bumped to tonight. We talked about the meeting minutes. And then we began a discussion of the design review criteria. And that's where this sort of wraps up. If there's a motion to approve with changes or anybody has recommendations. Well, I guess I'll ask for recommendations for changes first besides Lindsay's. Typo. Nothing. All right, so a motion to approve. I move. 26 minutes. I move that we approve the, what date was that? February 26th, 2024. 26th, 2020, 24 minutes. With change. Okay. A second. Second. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. So moved. Thank you. Okay. So then the last bit then is to return to the discussion of the design review standards. Rob was kind enough to do the heavy initial lifting here in comparing the occurring minutes and then making a proposal that helps to consolidate a little bit. And I'm, I think this conversation will go well. If we could just kind of again, think of this. We're not going to approve anything tonight when we want to think of it as a beginning dialogue. And of course want to make sure that we hear patrons because you're going to be tuning in as a citizen for, because you're going to miss us. I'm sure. I want to make sure that we hear caverns being back tonight as well and just see if we're on the right path, right? As Rob has proposed, shared with us a draft of some proposed changes if we're on the right path or not. And I think tonight we can kind of get the flavor, get the board's initial feedback on that and then see where the conversation goes. So Erica, do you want me to give some quick background on my reasoning for? That would be my exact next step and screen clear as you see fit, Rob. Sure, let me just do that real quick. All right. I know it's getting late and I'll be as brief as possible, but we'll just click that up. All right, so this is my proposed changes to the designer view standards. Found the zoning bylaw section 3.2041. And basically I looked at a lot of what was previously there. So as you can see on the left here, this is the current standards. And a lot of what's mentioned here is stuff that is pretty redundant as we identified historically. So what I did is I took a lot of what already exists here and just tried combining and condensing in a way that seemed appropriate, especially to items that relate to each other. For example, height and proportions. It seems to focus on the same parts of a structure and building than say scale would. Because when you look at scale versus height and proportions, a lot of the time scale might go above and beyond just the building. It might look at other features in the area, like the scale of the building compared to the rest of the site, et cetera. And then shape, landscape, and then you have this larger category, architectural and site details. And I felt that it was important to add different sub bullet points here. So this wouldn't be just the building, it would also be like any other features that you'd see on the site. The lighting, any sort of pedestrian furniture, walkways, vehicle corridors, gathering spaces. So just, it kind of goes beyond just the architecture. It also includes any sort of, I guess we'd see as landscape features or site features. And I included color textures, materiality, because that was brought up in the past as an area to focus on too. But I also included this category called aesthetic at the ends. And I thought that could be something that could be worth considering for any sort of like historic building or structure as opposed to a new building. And that could be like an optional category that the board could consider any sort of review of an existing building at least. And then obviously signs is left untouched at the end because this one in its current form kind of makes a lot of sense. And I don't see any reason to alter it. And I did kind of make this right here in terms of material, choice, size, color, method of illumination as a sub point of this. So this is kind of what I'm proposing as a good jumping off point. And hopefully this can lead to further discussion down the road. And Erica, I know the other part of what you wanted to discuss also involves the Datsun and Flinker projects. I do have Chris here who can talk a lot about that because she's worked more closely with them than I have. So just as an option after this, if you want to move on to that, we definitely could. Oh, we actually muted. Thanks. And I think that's a really important point. So thank you first for doing the work that you did in presenting it to us for conversation tonight. And I think that what it might actually be great to hear from Chris before we start talking just because the intersection of this and what Datsun and Flinker are going to be developing, it might be helpful to know where those points of intersection are, if they're going to be rewriting this language anyways, like how do we make sure that our priorities are heard in the process? If they're going to be parallel documents, they should have similar intentions and scope. So do you want me to speak? So we're just starting the design guidelines project. It has dual source of funding. So we're actually working on two separate things. One is the design of the private properties in the downtown and giving guidelines to the private developers who are developing those properties. And then the other part of it is the streetscape design. So that is everything in the public realm, all the sidewalks and the roadways and the lighting and the places where people would gather in the public realm. As I said, just beginning this project, we're beginning it with stakeholder meetings and I think those are going to be scheduled for next week and some of you I think are going to be invited, if not all of you. I don't know, certainly Erica is going to be invited and Karen and if others are interested, you could send me an email and say that you're interested in being put on the list that the door is open wide. Obviously we don't want 100 people, but we certainly want all the people who are interested in participating. And the idea for those stakeholder meetings is to find out from citizens residents of Amherst, what they think about the public realm and the private realm in the downtown area and how it could be improved and shaped. Dodson and Flinker is going to be doing graphics similar to what they did for Northampton in the Florence area. They did a set of design guidelines for Florence and I think they did that for the downtown. So if you look at Northampton's zoning bylaw, you can see some of those images. They also rewrote a lot of the zoning bylaw for Northampton and for Florence. They may not end up doing exactly the same thing for us, but that gives you a sort of an idea of what they might do for us. And it's all going to evolve out of what the town wants to do. And I think you have a copy of their proposal that was included in your packet. This project is a long project. It's gonna take about 18 months to complete. So there's a lot of time for public input. There's a lot of time for input from boards and committees and it's going to be kind of slowly moving along, but I hope that you will all participate and actively participate in it. I think that's all I have to say right now. Thanks, Chris, I appreciate that. All right, I'll move on to hearing from everybody who'd like to weigh in and Lindsay's hand is up. Thank you. Kick us off. I would love to be involved, Chris, if that's an option. It's exciting. I have two little ones that are waiting for me in the bathtub to wash their hair. So I have to sign off, but I think this looks great. And I really appreciate you doing this Rob. It's a really great step forward. I would like to just add one comment and then if it's okay, I can jump off. The shape I think could include language, which is a word that we use a lot architecturally just or vernacular, like something that references something that's more about the kind of the quality and character of the building beyond kind of certain geometric components. And so if we could discuss how that might be introduced into this outline, I feel like it might fit best in the number three shape category, but it also might fit elsewhere. So I'm just adding that to the mix. I will definitely look through this in a little more detail when I'm not being pulled away. Okay, I guess if you gave me like a one word, or not one word, but like a phrase or like I guess like some sort of term of what that is, Lindsay, that'd be really helpful because I don't fully understand if I'm not an architect. I don't fully know what you're, we dig it up. I kind of do at the same time. I still know I can't put my finger on it. I would say the language could be like local vernacular or just vernacular, probably summarizes it, but Erica can elaborate. Is it okay with you guys if I sign off? Yeah, you'll miss out on the rest of the conversation, but we won't be making any decisions tonight, so. I apologize, appreciate it as long as I can hold on. All right. Thank you. Lindsay. Bye. See you, Lizzie. Bye, Lindsay. Yeah, so vernacular. And I guess Erica as an architect, what do you think? Could you be, could you describe it a little more just so I can understand? Sure, I mean I think it comes down, there's a little bit another, it intersects with building use and typology, right? So the vernacular of New England residential buildings is they tend to have pitched roofs. They tend to be in a certain scale and have a relationship of windows to solid surfaces, right? That we come to, we come to recognize, right? So that's what vernacular is. It's the style, but it's also, it's regional, right? And so it's kind of leaning into that word compatible, right? Elements should be compatible with the architectural style and character of a building site and that of its surrounding. So it's providing one more thing for us to lean on with regards to compatibility. So I guess translating that. So I know what vernacular is from like a literary standpoint and like language standpoint. So like, for example, in medieval Europe, Latin was the language spoken by the clergy in the upper class, but the, I guess you call them peasants or common folk would speak vernacular and that developed into a lot of different languages you see today like Italian, French, Spanish, et cetera. So that's, I kind of see the connection of how that could relate to style choices in terms of shape of a building because that's commonly what you'd see in the area in the region. So is that what you're getting at? Yeah, I mean, it's not about matching anything exactly. It's fitting within that palette of things. And so language is a good word to use as a corollary because it's complex, right? There's a lot that impacts how we understand the language when it's spoken and a lot of different ways that those different individual letters and words can come together to make phrases and therefore meaning, right? So, it is interesting. I think that we are into all architects on this board and so we have to be mindful of the language that we're using and if vernacular is a word that doesn't carry outside of the architects, then we should be mindful of that. I think taking the word vernacular and maybe expanding upon it and then including that as a description for shape would probably be the most helpful because I think that would capture what Lindsay was trying to get at with expanding just beyond like the shape of the building itself, but we need to include the overall character of the local community, local stylistic choices, stuff like that. Yeah, yeah. Okay, that's a good note. Karen and Catherine, your thoughts on where we are at the moment, are we headed in the right direction? So you can get me. Yeah, I think we're long overdue to revamp these standards. I think we have to be careful that we don't do a lot of work that's going to sort of be pushed aside because we have this big consultant issue coming up and somewhere, and I'd have to study more, I think there, from my perspective and maybe what I know from people I talk to all the time about Amherst is how do we capture and assure we have the essence of what the downtown look is, the flavor of Amherst, why people were enchanted by coming into Amherst. I don't think we've done a good job of keeping that look. I mean, you're talking about vernacular and windows and if that language had been incorporated earlier, we wouldn't probably have some of the buildings we have now. So yeah, there's a lot to be put into this and I really thank Rob for taking this on because it's really important and I hope we're not too late before Amherst loses its essence. I don't know what the word is. I don't know whether it's vernacular but the feel of Amherst when people come into town, what, yeah, that's it. Right, right, and we're not limiting building height beyond what, like above and beyond what the building code, right, it says that- Well, it's not just height, it's- Yeah, right, it's all, yes, it's all those things. And I want to point out that like we can influence Dodson and Flinker, right? We are part of the community of Amherst and so hopefully it's not something that would just be disregarded, rather it would be what they look to, to shape their own recommendations and so they could incorporate what we generate. And I think that that may be the place, that may be the perspective to lean into here. Chris, I think- Sorry, go ahead. Oh, I just wanted to say that I like the way Erica leads the board through the criteria that are in the bylaw. And I think as you work to reword these criteria, it would help to keep that in mind, that kind of you need like a snapshot view of what is scale and maybe that means putting a few bullet points below the word scale rather than having this long run on sentence here so that you can quickly look at it and Erica can lead you through the conversation. So just, I guess my advice would be to remember how you use this list of criteria and then maybe that will tell you how you should organize it on the page. Thank you. That's good advice. Karen, do you have any thoughts to share? I think, yeah, I don't know, don't have any. I think I have to really study this in detail. I'm kind of new to all this. I like the way it's been leading. I'm so glad we're getting a little bit more specific because it helps newcomers like me, but Catherine's right. We are in a unique position to really help this design team get more of a feel of what we would like not to be lost while they are helping us develop because we do have to be developing. So, yeah, I think I really have to take this page and study it in detail. I'm kind of fading, I'm actually not even in Amherst. I'm in Bermuda on vacation sort of. Wonderful time. Thank you. We'll get you back to that shortly. Okay, so the one thing that I want to pitch kind of as we're doing our homework is to be something that I've found challenging with going through the design standards in the past has been A, the redundancy, but maybe the reason that I feel that there's a great deal of redundancy is that we're often merging the building massing in its site and the building facade and its internal design features under one category like proportions. And I feel that it would be helpful to separate the terms and similar with that in mind so that we might consider a building's height and its shape and its scale of kind of primary massing vis-a-vis the lot and its neighbors. And then there could be a separate category of things that are about the design of the building's facade. And I really actually want to appreciate you, Rob, for addressing the pedestrian, right? Thinking about the ground floor and hearing us there. So there's a lot of decisions about like once we've said, okay, the scale of the building is appropriate for the neighborhood and a lot and so on. Now we can talk about the design of the facade and the features of the entry and exit points and things like that. So I guess one question I have. Erica, you're making it seem like the shift should be focused on, I guess, the categories of massing that you were talking about, but then would you also recommend having an option for looking at the site as well as a separate category? No, I think it's in there. I think it's in there, Rob. It's like building height addresses site, but it also within that, we're talking about the relationship and the width of the doors and the windows, right? That feeling there's building height and then there's the height of doors and windows that would go in a different category. And then scale that item number two is largely about the building relative to its landscape. So maybe, what if we, I guess, kept the same general categories, but maybe broke them up into little pieces? Would that make more sense? I think it would. Because right now it seems like scale is so broad that it could mean anything, like scale of the door knob to the door, scale of the building to the actual site. I mean... Exactly. Yeah, and what happened... I see what you mean. We started talking about the building height and proportions and then all of a sudden we're talking, we've gone from building height to talking about the windows, but then the windows come up again later, right? Okay, yeah. And so we just, I think, want to have the, maybe the conversation goes from the large scale to the detail. Yeah, and that's why number five, I kind of thought it'd be a good idea to break it up like that because you could focus on each individual thing as you're going through site or architectural details and site details. Or at least opens all those things up, creates an indication for them. Yeah. And I want to think about the word aesthetic. Yeah. Whether we want to talk about style here or another word that doesn't feel quite so broad. So let's agree to each spend some time with this. Catherine, you won't be at our next meeting as a design review board member, but we welcome your insights as a deeply experienced participant and member of the town. So you can share those by email if you have any additional things to add or et cetera. So we'll do our homework and keep this on the agenda for the next meeting and see if we can move it forward with some of the things that we're going to do. We'll move it forward with some more specific recommendations. Awesome. All right, I'll stop sharing my screen. All right, thanks. Yep. So with that, I think we could adjourn. I move that we adjourned. So moved. Catherine, we'll miss you. I'll hang around. We'll miss you. Come back. I have to, actually, I'll probably say more now that I'm not on the board, but I did this. That's the way it goes. I'll be one of the pictures of Monars now calling in. We'll take it. We'll take it. Karen, happy vacation. Hope you enjoy your time. You too. Kristin, Rob, thanks for your time tonight. Good night, everybody. Absolutely. Night. Have a good night.