 All right, Steve, take it away. The chair notes the time is 6.01. I call this meeting of the Amherst Loading Board of Appeals to Order. My name is Steve Judge, and as EVA chair, I want to welcome everyone to this meeting. We'll begin with a roll call of the ZVA members. Steve Judge is present. Mr. Everald Henry. Present. Mr. Phillip White. Present. Ms. Sarah Marshall. Present. Mr. David Sloveter. Present. The quorum is present. Also attending the meeting tonight is Mr. Rob Mora, building commissioner, and Mr. Rob Ocilla, planner for the town. Pursuant to chapter 20 of the Acts of 2021, extended by chapter two of the Acts of 2023, this meeting will be conducted via remote means. Members of the public who wish to observe 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. The Zoning Board of Appeals is a quasi-divisional body that operates under the authority of chapter 40a of the general laws of the Commonwealth for the purpose of promoting the health, safety, convenience, and general welfare of the inhabitants of the town of Amherst. In accordance with revisions of Massachusetts general laws chapter 40a in Article 10, special permit granting authority with the Amherst Zoning By-law, this public meeting has been duly advertised and notice thereof has been posted and mailed to parties at interest. All hearings and meetings are open to the public and are recorded by town staff and may be viewed via the town of Amherst's YouTube channel and the ZVA webpage. The procedure is as follows. The petitioner presents the application to the board during the public hearing after which the board will ask questions for clarification or additional information. After the board has completed its questions, the board will seek public input. The public speaks with the permission of the chair. If a member of the public wishes to speak, they should so indicate by using the raised hand function on their screen or by pressing pound nine on their phone. The chair with the assistance of the staff will call upon people wishing to speak. When you are recognized, provide your name and address for the board for the record. All questions and comments must be addressed to the board. The board will normally hold public hearings where information about a project and input from the public is gathered, followed by public meetings for each. The public meeting portion is where the board deliberates and is generally not an opportunity for public comment. If the board feels it has enough information and time, it will decide upon the applications tonight. Each petition heard by the board is distinct and evaluated on its own merits and the board is not ruled by precedent. Statutorily for a special permit, the board has 90 days from the close of the hearing to file a decision. For a variance, the board has 100 days from the date of filing to file this decision. No decision is final until the written decision is signed by the sitting board members and is filed by the town clerk's office or filed in the town clerk's office. Once the decision is filed with the town clerk, there's a 20 day appeal period for an agreed party to contest the decision with the relevant judicial body in superior court. After the appeal period, the permit must be recorded at the registry of deeds to take effect. Tonight's agenda, consideration of minutes from September 28th, 2023 and October 12th, 2023 public hearings. ZDA FY2024-04, Charles Dana and Rokie Zong request for a special permit under 3.3211 of the zoning bylaw to convert an existing owner occupied duplex structure into a non-owner occupied duplex with two rental units, five bedrooms in total at 62 Taylor Street, map 14B parcel 74 RG general residence zoning district. This is continued from our October 12th, 2023 meeting. ZDA FY2024-05, Jai Fuller Enterprises, Inc. request for a special permit under section 10.33 of the zoning bylaw to modify ZDA FY2018-04 to reflect the change in the property management and incorporate an updated management plan in accordance with conditions three and five at 320 West Street, map 20A parcel 103 RN neighborhood residence zoning district and ZDA FY2024-06, Priscilla White request for a special permit under sections 3.3211 and 9.22 of the zoning bylaw to change the use of an existing family, single family residence with attached ADU into a converted dwelling with two units, five bedrooms total at 318 Lincoln Avenue, map 11C parcel 55 RG general residence zoning district. Following the public hearing and public meetings, there'll be a general public common period on bond matters, not before the board tonight. Other business not anticipated within 48 hours and a motion to adjourn. Are there any disclosures by ZDA members regarding the agenda tonight? Ms. Marshall. Yes, I was not present at the first hearing on the 2024-04 matter on October 12th, but I have watched the recording of that meeting and filed the affidavit. Great, thank you. First order of business tonight is minutes from September 28th. I reviewed those minutes myself. I thought they were accurate and complete. Does anybody have any additions, corrections, comments about the minutes of the September 28th meeting? If not, I would entertain a motion to approve the minutes for September 28th. So I have a motion. So move. Is there a second? Aye. The moved and seconded. Is there any discussion regarding the motion? If not, we'll vote on the motion to approve the minutes and let's keep the panel for the first matter before us as the group to decide the minutes. So if there's no other objections, we'll vote on a roll call vote. Chair votes aye. Mr. Henry. Aye. Mr. White. Diving Ms. Marshall. Aye. Mr. Slobner. Aye. Motion carries for nothing. The minutes are approved. The next order of business is the minutes of October 12th meeting. I've reviewed those as well. I think they're accurate and complete. Are there any suggestions, Ms. Marshall? Yes. There were only four people on the panel. So every time there is a motion, I think the proper way to write is just four dash zero dash zero. The person who's absent is not counted in the vote. Depends on how the board wants that. I mean, if everybody else agrees on Ms. Marshall, we can do it that way. Usually the last point is the abstention, but I don't know if you would count in absence as an abstention as well in the situation. But if not, I could definitely correct that to reflect a zero at the end. Yeah, I don't, I don't, wow. You obviously do care. I don't think it's proper. I'm sorry? I mean, it's something you do care about. You raised it. So, you know, it's an abstention which is different than absent. There were only four votes. There was not somebody who said they were absent. So I think you're probably right. Okay. So, there are several motions recorded. So everywhere occurs. And then just one spelling change, the ZBA FY2024-04, the 62 Taylor Street. And the second bullet, it starts the applicants. The first bullet under that, the applicants are prospective buyers, not perspective. Yeah. Could you specify the page that's on please? Sorry, page four. Page four. Page four, okay. That's a good catch. Thank you. Yeah, that's all. All right. Any other comments, questions? Thanks. If not, any further discussion? We'd entertain a motion to approve the minutes of the September of the October 12th meeting. Do I have a motion? So moved. Do I have a second? Aye. If there's no further discussion, the vote occurs on the motion to approve the minutes. The chair votes aye. Mr. Henry. Aye. Mr. Sloveter. Aye. Ms. Marshall. Aye. Aye. So the minutes as amended are approved. And we proceed to the first special permit application. ZVA FY2024-04, Charles, Dana and Rokie Zong request for a special permit under section 3.3211 of the zoning by-law to convert an existing owner-occupied duplex structure into a non-owner-occupied duplex with two rental units, five bedrooms in total at 62 Taylor Street, map 14D, parcel 74, RG, general resident zoning district, continued from 10, 12, 2023. The panel for this matter includes myself, Mr. Henry, Mr. White, Mr. Marshall, and Mr. Sloveter. Submissions for this since our last meeting include a new management plan updated the second of November. A new complaint response form updated the second of November. A project narrative updated the second of November. Floor plans updated the second of November. Lighting plan and landscape plan also both updated the second of November. The correction in the site visit narrative that had occurred on October 10th and changes to reflect the desire to have six rather than five bedrooms that carries throughout the application. I think that's it, and we have a staff submission as old. Did we have any public comment on this? Rob, we didn't have any submitted, I don't think. No public comments for this specific hearing item. And then I mentioned they updated those documents that you just announced. And that's pretty much it, Mr. Chairman. All right. Do we have the applicants? So actually, I think Ms. Marshall had her hand up. I don't know if you want to. I just wondered whether the diagrams or maps that Mr. Wachillas sent out like this afternoon are included in that. Yeah, you might want to mention that. Yeah, we have maps of the sent to us from the staff on 62th Taylor Street showing owner-occupied buildings, non-unoccupied buildings, single family residents and two family residences within a hundred, within a thousand feet of the subject property. All right. So Mr. Chip Dana, who is joining as a panelist, I believe is speaking on behalf of the petition before you for 62 Taylor Street. Chip, is there anybody else you want me to promote besides yourself to speak on behalf of your project or are you fine with just doing it by yourself? I think for the most part, it's going to be us. I don't know if Angela is here, actually might have something to chime in. Okay. Just give us your names and address for the record, please. I'm Chip Dana. I live at Four Still Corner Road in the Leverett, Massachusetts. Rui Qi Zhuang, same address. Great. Go ahead. You may proceed. Yeah, so again, thank you for taking the time to see us. We're interested in acquiring this property. We've been kind of under contract for what I don't know how many months, since at least August. And one of the issues is trying to work out this permit. As I believe you are aware, the current owner, I guess it was originally an owner occupied and didn't realize the previous permit that allowed for a non-owner occupied status that lapsed. And so we're trying to rectify that and get it back in a cool move. So our interest in this property is that we moved to the area here about a year ago and are looking forward to spending a long time here. And as a result of that, we invested in our property in Chicago and are looking to invest here, primarily because we wanna be close to our property that we're looking after. And so we've looked at this property because we live about 10 minutes away. We both work about 10 minutes away and are looking to be good stewards. Both of us, I have a background in architecture. My wife Rosie is an architect here in town. And so we look at the property and wanna make sure everything in it is safe and kept in good order. We do plan to make some improvements to the property, primarily structural things that are not required, but are just things that would make us feel a little bit better about it in terms of settling and stuff. The, what else? Yeah, this is like, same as our only investment property in the area. So we're just looking to try and be good stewards and in maintaining this property in its best condition. As it was mentioned, we updated a lot of plans in accordance to the panel comment, the board's comments in the last meeting. And we can either walk through those or answer your questions correctly that you might have. I think it's most valuable to walk through your plans and then we can ask questions all at one time. Sure. You are able to screen share if you have any documents you want to present to the board. Okay. Give me one second here. This one gives me, sorry. Let me know if you can see the plans. Yep. It doesn't move us. Okay. So this here is the basement floor plan. So we updated the floor plans. You'll notice here that they do say the sizes and dimensions are approximate. We contemplating going out there and doing exact measurements, but with the time constraints wasn't going to be feasible. So we've used kind of one of those practices that the realtors use to generate the floor plans. And this should be accurate within a couple of inches. So we're looking at really highly accurate, but not something I would actually build from or use to make modifications. So what you're looking at here is the basement floor plan. So this is a fieldstone foundation and unfinished space in the two squares. And it represents the two boilers that are downstairs that are good working condition. The here's we move to the first floor plan. The primary entrance for the first floor unit is off of the deck that's on the side of the house, which takes you into the kitchen. Off of the kitchen, you can travel to your left into the main living room, family space. And off of that are the two bedrooms that are associated with this unit. You can also access the common stair labeled here as the foyer. It's the original foyer of the house, but now access primarily a second means of egress for both units. That is used sometimes, but it is kind of like sort of a more of a second entrance, right? If you go back to the kitchen, you can go out of the kitchen into the small hall. I believe this used to be maybe a rear stair. I'm not sure exactly. It's kind of a little bit of a funny space. And we believe it as a bonus room, it's mostly a storage space. And then off of that is the bathroom for this unit. If you go back outside, you can see in the rear of the house, there is an unfinished storage space as well. And that's where you access the basement space. That's how you access down to the basement. If we travel now to the second floor, this unit is primarily accessed off of a deck on the other side of the property, accessed from the rear of the property. That also takes you up into the kitchen off of this kitchen. Directly you have the bathroom to your left and then one of the bedrooms on this floor. And you come kind of similar to the other unit, you enter into a main living space that has the two other bedrooms on this floor, as well as access to this common hall or second means of egress for the unit. And traveling back to the kitchen, there is a doorway that leads up a stair to this loft space, which based on everything we understand is the legal definitions of a bedroom. And that's why we want to count this as a bedroom. It originally was, I believe. At one point it was counted as a bedroom, there's also a property card. I believe you can see this. Can you see the property card currently? That identifies it as a six bedroom house. But going back here, it's unclear why exactly there's a note that says that it's not to be used as a bedroom. Like I said, it meets the requirements of the bedroom. So this is the reason why we're saying it's a six bedroom as opposed to a five bedroom house, as was mentioned in the previous zoning board meeting. Let me ask one question before you move on to something else. Yep. So I think when we were last here, you were gonna get clarification from the town if it was, quote unquote, bedroom okay, was that done? So we did inquire about this and nobody said that we needed to follow up with that on our end. As I said, from our standpoint, our understanding that meets the requirements of the bedroom. It has the full window here. It has the appropriate amount of head space, living space. And just to chime in and Rob Moore, feel free to jump into it at some point. So at the last meeting, we kind of established that it meets building code standards in terms of being a bedroom. So it's technically connected to the second floor. So the second and third floor are the same unit. And since the second floor has two points of egress, the third story doesn't need a second point of egress. And therefore it can be considered a legal bedroom if it was treated as such. So Rob Moore does have his hand up and he can definitely chime in if he wants to. Mr. Moore. Yeah, I agree with everything that's been said. I would just suggest that if the board were to grant this permit a condition that would allow us to confirm that no additional work is needed to make that a sleeping room. Although all the things that have been said, sound great, we do wanna conduct an inspection. We haven't been asked to look at that in detail. You know, smoke detector, carbon monoxide detector, window size and ceiling height, those are the basic requirements. But we just wanna make sure those are all in place or make sure that they get put in place before it's used. What's the ceiling height requirement, Rob, for a bedroom? It's seven foot zero up there, seven feet high. And then there's very, there's specific requirements for the opening size of the window. And then to make sure that there's a carbon monoxide detector and a smoke detector up there that's interconnected with the rest of the house is very important. Yeah. And Mr. Dana, what is the height of your ceiling? You know? It's about eight foot here in the middle, but it does have more of a cathedral ceiling. So this dash line represents where it becomes a five foot ceiling and would be considered livable space. And so the average should be above the seven foot or the space. Mr. Chair, Ms. Marshall does have her hand up. Ms. Marshall. Yeah, I assume this is otherwise the attic space of the house. So is it heated? Hope it's heated. Yes. Thank you. Is it finished? Yes. And so there's insulation underneath the drywall or whatever the finish material is that you know of. Yes, yeah. Yeah, we believe so. The last we were there was August. So it's been quite a while, but we were actually surprised that without a window air conditioning unit that it was actually relatively cool was the ventilation, the skylights open up. So it allows for ventilation that seems like a nice space. Okay. All right. Nebaj, I would show you a picture of it, but the pictures have tenants' belongings. And so I didn't feel comfortable sharing that without their permission. So it's used currently for storage? It's used for some living space. I don't know if it's currently, how it's currently being used since we haven't been there since August, but they had the chair and other belongings in there. Which is permissible, but. It wasn't a sleeping room at the time. It was at one time the first. But not when you observed it because it wasn't allowed into the previous special permit. Right, and as was mentioned in the last meeting, the current owners have requested that the tenants not use that as a bedroom. Okay. All right. You can continue with your presentation. Sure. I'm going to the parking plan here next. I hope you can see this all right. I'm gonna zoom in a little bit. So the primary house located here shares a driveway with the neighboring property. I believe it's 70 Taylor Street. It's a gravel driveway and it is primarily on 62 Taylor Street. A portion of it is on the neighbor's property and then provides the access to where they park, which I would say is typically where I've observed them park is partially on 62 Taylor Street. And that gravel driveway on 62 Taylor Street extends back to the rear of the property where there should be, or you can fit three cars. It was noted before it's a bit tight. We did consider looking at this in different configurations that might allow for either more comfortable parking or even four parking spaces, or that would require paving most of the backyard, which we're not big fans of. This does seem to be working properly in its current configuration. We also did have a great conversation with the neighbor at 70 Taylor Street. She actually strongly feels that this should remain a gravel driveway. She's lived there for 50 years and said that she hasn't had issues with it. The one issue they had was when a water pipe burst in 62 Taylor Street and washed out a little portion of it, which they've obviously since repaired. So essentially we're looking at leaving it in existing conditions. Part of our maintenance plan for the parking is that we're gonna limit the not amount of guest parking that can occur on Taylor Street to have the numbers right off the top of my head, but it's an management plan here. I just wanna make sure I get the verbiage correctly. So we're gonna allow for two guests to park on the street in accordance with the regulations of the town for up to three hours and not to exceed twice a week. And then additional guest parking is to be referred to the metered parking either on Main Street, which would be kind of in front of the Emily Dickinson house or another public parking place in town center. So we're trying to minimize the impact to any on-street parking that may occur. Mr. Chair, I have a quick question regarding parking, if that's okay, let me ask it. So I guess one thing I was, when I was doing the initial review of the plans beforehand, it was hard to determine whether or not the closest parking space was greater than eight feet away from the building. Can you confirm that that's the case? Just because the zoning requires that it has to be at least eight feet away from the closest building structure, which in this case would be the house. I would say it's, it's, it's definitely, you know, these spaces that are shown are nine foot by 18. Yeah. And drawn to scale. So this is, if you imagine them in one of these spaces, it's nine feet wide and look at to the corner of it. It's right in that corner. It's nine feet wide and look at to the corner of it. It's right in that neighborhood. Okay. Thank you. And they could probably be pushed a little bit further towards the property line. One more note that I would like to add is that the, you know, there's some mention outside of the meeting about the potential for headlights shining on neighboring properties. And we attempted to show here is that there's nothing directly behind this house and behind this parking areas. In fact, if we were to zoom out further, you don't see anything for a very long distance until I think it's somebody's, it's like an old coach house or something. And there's no windows on facing this direction. However, we are proposing to add some vegetation along here that has evergreen leaves to, you know, minimize headlight disruption, even if you're in the house. This is Christ. Over here. You might not want to see those headlights shining in your backyard. It might be distracting. So we're proposing adding some vegetation, which we'll discuss in the landscape plan. Are there any questions about this part of it? Or should we move on? Mr. Soder has a question. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So. Ultimately you're proposing that there would be six bedrooms. In this, correct? Right. So if in future years. The six bedrooms included six vehicles. How would you. How would the tenants of this property accommodate. Six cars or even five cars. Yeah, I guess we're not saying that it does. We're saying that it accommodates three and that's what we would. Allow for. And, and so. The additional two or three cars. Would need to be parked on Taylor street. Or. I suppose somewhere in town where parking spaces could be secured. Yeah. We're only saying that you can have guest parking on Taylor street. Tenants if they wish to have a vehicle could have a vehicle somewhere else. Okay. But there's no provision to enforce that or is there. That's what we plan to enforce. I don't know. We can incorporate that into the lease. I mean, do you think it's practical to expect. That a tenant could be. Told that they can rent in the property, but they can't have a car. I don't even know if that's illegal. I mean, how would you, how would you. Limit three cars to this property other than saying there's only three parking spaces. Yeah, something that we haven't had to deal with here. It's actually something we're very familiar with in Chicago. But. We're, we would assign probably two spaces to the upper unit and one space to the lower unit. I'm not aware of for a six bedroom. If. The town has a requirement on the required number of parking spaces. If it does, we can consider a four. Car configuration that essentially would turn those, those spaces. That would be too close to the, That would be too close to the, This is a shed that's attached to the house. I don't know if that counts. It's not living space. Still structure. The structure. So I believe we can only fit the three spaces here. Regardless. Actually, what we said was three spaces here and then it'll be there, but that would still be closer than. So. Sorry. I just want to mention here that there's slope. In the portion directly adjacent to the house that kind of prevents. Parking in that area as well. Right. Okay. Thank you. Are you going to have a parking management plan? We have stickers. So you know who is. Allowed to park there and that, I know you, I think in your. In your lease, do you. Mention that if you're, that the cars can be towed. If they're not. Anyway. I'm not sure that we have that included currently, but we can make sure that's included. I'm not sure about. Enforcing the stickers or getting especially. Stickers for, for this. Or some way license it through license plate or some way. Yeah. Questions. How would you know you drive past three cars there? I didn't know that that's three cars that are supposed to be there. Well, we can record the model and make the vehicle along with a license plate as part of the lease requirement. Which is what we did with our. Our previous property in Chicago. Okay. And then the last. One quick question on long as we're asking questions on. On parking. So the. Limitations on. Off street parking by guests to. Three hours twice a week. Is that. Is that a town restriction? Or is that one that you intend to. That's what we just, we are. Saying that we don't want to be contributing to excess traffic. Parking. On Taylor street. We know they can get full. Oftentimes there are available parking spots there, at least when we've driven by. But. We just don't want guests parking to be. Analyzing the available parking to residents in the neighborhood. And if those are not guests, but they are residents who park on the street. You don't have a restriction on them. They're, they can park there. It's not. Your lease. They have the three parking spaces to utilize. So. But you have. But you might have more than three parking spaces. And so I was just wondering how do you envision. They could park in front of that on Taylor street. Those. In addition to the three cars that are in the back, if there are other. Additional cars associated with the building that could park on Taylor street. We're not saying that we're saying that they would have to find some place else. Oh, so you would. So both guests and residents beyond the three that are permitted on the property. Somehow would. And you intend to enforce that or how would that be enforced? We would enforce that. And we live and work close by. Okay. Any other questions? On parking before you move on, Mr. Orchilly, your hand raised. Yeah, I was going to suggest. There are parking permits. I don't know if, if it's this close to Taylor street where you can get residential parking permits, the street park. In some areas, I know we have them for town center. I don't know how far away this is, but that's something that people could consider as an option. Also. We could incorporate. Having an effective management plan, Mr. Chair, into the conditions. If you want me to note that for later. If the board feels comfortable considering that as something that should be required. Yeah, we can discuss that when we discuss conditions. Okay. I just wanted to say this is not too far from the high school. And I know a lot of high school students park on the surrounding streets during the school day. So. That's, that's part of the demand. I don't think it's all residential parking on the street. Did you look up previously on the town's website of this at a parking permit? And I did not see any parking permit requirement for Taylor street. You can continue. All right. I'll jump over to the lighting plan. So a couple of things that we've. Plan to leave the lighting primarily as it is, as it seems sufficient and it's all downward facing light fixtures. There are a few notes I would like to make that. The front landscaping is largely overgrown. I have a background in landscape or the culture and these plants probably should have never been planted there. And so in the landscape plan, we have a notation to, to prune these back and potentially remove them. If we do remove it, we'll go through the permit process. If it's required with the town, but to open it up and allow some of the lighting from this front porch light to illuminate the front steps in a portion of the front drive, which the side of the porch will allow for light to go down this towards the driveway. We're going to put this light on an astrometric timer so that it will turn on at a certain time. The reason why we don't want it to be on too late is there is a bedroom right next to it. And this, as I mentioned, is being primarily a secondary egress. That's a primary function as a secondary access point. We don't expect a lot of people approaching this. At nighttime. Most people that are living in the unit are going to be using the entrances at the rear of the property. Those are with the exception of this next fixture by the right port by the porch. Our motion detectors. This one up here, which is right on the left side of the porch. So we're going to go through the, um, this is a motion detector. This one up here, which is right on the, uh, under the porch and shines towards the parking area and towards down the driveway. Um, this is on a motion detector. And we'll be always on the other light right by the door is also can be on an astrometric timer. Um, that can be overridden by the light switch when you're There's a little existing LED solar fixture that's right over the door to the outdoor storage shed that will come on again as motion activated. That's not considered to be a primary lighting feature. It's just something that exists currently and may help with probably also the existing trash receptacle storage but we have a different plan for that. Moving to the rear corner, there is a rather high mounted flood light, again, motion activated. So as you pull into the parking area, that'll come on and provide adequate lighting to the rear walkway for the upper unit. As you get to the stairs, there's another motion activated downward facing flood lights for the lighting of the stairs and the rear deck by the door. Yeah, again, those will always be on and able to light up when somebody comes home. None of these appear to be facing any of the neighboring properties. They're very much directed downwards. I'm just gonna quickly jump back to this so you can see this house is relatively close but I don't have photometrics. I can't prove this but I do not anticipate that the light from the fixture here is shining on this house in any direct manner. Does anybody have any questions regarding the lighting plan? I will jump onto the landscape plan. So as I mentioned previously, there's these shrubs in the front that are a bit overgrown for the space and so we're planning to prune those or potentially remove this middle one. There are two larger existing trees that we plan to keep. This is an oak that is planted too close. We are gonna do some pruning to this tree as well to limit up the kind of currently impede some traffic on the driveway and is on the house. So we're gonna do a little bit of work to get that pulled back. There are existing plantings that we intend to keep or enhance that are around the foundation of the property all the way back to the back porch. The walkways are currently just steppers but seem to be adequate for the deserings walking from the parking spaces. There was a note about this Arborvite hedge over here and this was actually one other thing about the parking that had been floated that this might be considered a place to expand parking. I didn't mention this before but this was actually planted as a requirement of the previous permit for the non owner occupied status. And we looked at potentially what would happen if we did remove it and there's about a four foot elevation change here. And so that would require building a retaining wall which I think gets to be a bit excessive. And I believe this was put in to shield the parking from the neighbor here at 70 Taylor Street. We'll talk about snow removal a little bit later in terms of the plan, the management plan for it, but we're going to use the same company that's been doing this for, I don't know how long but a long time again, this was mentioned by the person who lives at 70 Taylor Street who likes the work that they've done. And so we're going to go ahead and talk about that and so we believe that they stockpile their snow here in the long and back of the property. I know this is tricky when it gets to the parking there's a little bit of an issue with how do you stockpile snow? I just know that he's been able to do this. And so I have not talked to this person yet as we're prospective owners but we plan to keep their same management plan for how they've managed snow on the driveway that seems to be pleasing the tenants and the neighboring property that Sheriff's Drive with. Currently these garbage bins are stored just around the corner for more work showing right here at the back of the property outside of the outdoor storage area. It is slightly visible in this location from the street. There's kind of a little area between, you can see where my cursor is from around here where you can actually see all the way back to this location. And we're just going to have the tenants move those right around the corner so they'll be completely screened from the road. There are any questions regarding the landscape plan? I have one, I'm just unclear. You talked about the elevation change in the Northeast. Which way does it go? I mean, I don't know which part's higher than what other part? Sure, the parking spaces are higher than the neighbor's driveway. Oh, okay. Okay, that's what we have in terms of the updated plans. The complaint response plan has primarily been updated to reflect our current information. Should have been that way before, but that was our mistake. The management plan have been updated. I've gone through a lot of this already. Mr. Dan, if you do purchase this, you'll have to redo this complaint response form to be where you'll become the property owner. You just have to move your, it won't be a lot of work, but. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. We understand. Yep. Regarding the updated management plans, I've gone through a lot of this already in terms of the trash. We're going to be using the same company that's currently doing the trash removal which comes once a week. We're updating the location where it will be stored. The parking we've discussed already, lighting, we've gone through signage. There is no signage currently. It was mentioned maybe to try and identify parking places, or I believe that's going to impede snow removal or snow storage. And I don't know that it's going to do a lot if we feel that signage is needed for that. That's something we can consider. Landscape maintenance, we've largely covered. There's no slight furnishings. We will be doing some of the maintenance along with the current property management company. And I have a background in landscape water culture, so I actually want to make sure the roots are pulled properly. One question I have is I was there today to look at the property, because I didn't participate in a site visit. I couldn't identify the house. And maybe there is a number on the front, but it's hard to see. One thing I, for safety reasons, fire or everything else, I think you need a better house number. Yeah. You know, if that needs to be done, you can put that in your signage. Yeah, there is a timer, but it is hard to see because it's over on white. I could see it on the picture, but I didn't see it in person. So yeah, that's a good point. We can update that to be a black text. So it'll show up against the white background. And also, as I mentioned, we're going to be pruning these shrubs back, so it'll make it a lot more visible. We can see it. But I believe that's everything. If there's more questions, we're happy to answer. So I have a couple of questions, and I'll open it up to board members. What's your anticipated use of the basement? Is there a ceiling height? Is it a finished basement? What's the floor situation? What is it? No, it's unfinished. It's unfinished. The ceiling height is only about five foot eight or so. The portion of it is dirt floor. A portion of it, I believe, has been poured concrete, not in great shape. So we plan to, that's where we're going to do a little bit of work to stabilize the foundation. Are there any mechanicals down there? The boilers are down there? Boilers, okay. But you're not planning, that's not going to be used for storage, and will the tenants have access to it? Okay, no. And then on your lease, I looked at your lease. I didn't see any kind of, or a sample lease. I didn't see anything on restrictions, either on guests and the duration of stay, or the total number of people that can be on the property. Typically that is something that we include in conditions if it's not part of the lease. So you're going to have to give some thought to what condition was you're comfortable with in terms of limitations on visitors and the length of time, numbers of visitors and length of time, and number of total people at any one time on the property. That's something we're happy to entertain. We're not familiar with that. It wasn't something that we were required to do in Chicago, but we understand why that's important. It's an important consideration in Amherst. Those are my fundamental questions. Do other members of the board have questions? All right, Mr. Sloveter. Unmute myself. I'm sorry I neglected to unmute myself. Wait one moment. I just want to get, sorry to hold you up. Yes, well, this is more in the form of a comment than a question. I have a few concerns about how this property will function largely parking, but my biggest problem is with the proposed change in this application. While the application is straightforward with no modifications of any significance to the building or property itself, the simplicity of the application does not make an insignificant change that is good for the neighborhood. You're trying to change this to a non-owner occupied status. And that's my concern. I consider that to be a major change. The result will be simply an investment property in a residential neighborhood. So we have seen in so many cases in Amherst that a non-owner occupied property is much more likely to become the location of problems since it will almost certainly be a student rental. The fact that there are now three quiet girls with one car in one of the units is no assurance at all that the future of this property will be similar. And once the change is approved, it will be permanent. These girls will graduate and the rental can go to anyone. The six bedrooms in this property could easily have six cars, which means three of the cars would have to park somewhere other than on the property and likely on the street. A limitation such as one occupant per bedroom is no assurance either. A common practice in Amherst is to add people to reduce the cost per person of the lease and the enforcement in Amherst is essentially non-existent in these cases. So such a rule is meaningless. The absence of an owner on the property reduces enforcement even further. There are already multi-unit properties on the street and adding another non-owner occupied multi-unit property. We'll continue to tip the balance in the neighborhood even farther away from families. Taylor Street is a residential street that would be greatly affected by more student housing. It will continue the ongoing townwide change to more student housing and fewer families. It will not increase the housing stock in town or provide more middle income housing opportunity but will switch a family residence to student housing. The current owner lived in this property with her family and rented the other unit. Keeping the current setup would allow another young family to invest in the property and live in Amherst, building equity while having an income from the other unit. It is exactly the scenario that so many people in Amherst's complain is not available. It is not appropriate, I don't believe, to be influenced by the very nice woman who we met at the site visit who seemed honest and direct. Any more than it's appropriate to be influenced if she had been unpleasant. This is not about an individual. It is about the wellbeing of the town in my mind. That is who we are charged with protecting. I don't believe that this application, given the bleak history of non-owner occupied properties is good for the town of Amherst. Thank you. So, Ms. Marshall. Well, I have a question about one of the possible conditions and I don't know whether to raise that now or during the meeting. You can raise it now if you seek the, especially if you want to. Okay, all right. The third condition it proposed is that all rooms are to be used in accordance with the floor plans. There shall be no more than one individual in each bedroom. That would seem to me to make it impossible for a family to rent one of the units. I mean, you might have a married couple in one bedroom. You might have a kid in another bedroom. So, I mean, rentals are available to families, but this condition would seem to make it impossible. So, that's a concern of mine. Would your concern be alleviated if it said no more than one unrelated? Yes. Then we make it so that related couple could share a room. Yes. And then you still have the limitation on the total number of unrelated people in the property, which would be four in that unit, which would be four because that's town law, right? So you could have a family, what I'm saying is you could have a married couple and a family of five or six if they're related, but you can only have four college students. Are there other comments? I did some work as well on this looking at the neighborhood guy because Mr. Slover's concerns resonate with me and I'm trying to work through how I feel about this as well. There are a lot of two family residents within, Rob, you wanna pull up that, the Taylor Street maps that you've had. Yeah, sure. Let me just go ahead and do that real quick. So we have, sorry, Steve, go ahead. Yep. I wait to shrink that to 100% so all four maps are shown. Yeah, excuse me, one second. Okay, there you go. There we go. It's really hard to see on this. So it's difficult. So what I did is I tried to superimpose owner-occupied buildings with two family residences to see what was going on in the neighborhood. And as you can see from the owner occupants seem to be the majority of the parcels in the neighborhood. That's a really heavily owner-occupied neighborhood. It also does have the concentration of two family residences in and around the subject property. They're kind of in that circle of subject property with a few outliers. So I overlaid the owner occupants, owner-occupied buildings with the two family residences. And I found there were 16 owner-occupied residents and 33 owner-occupied two family residences out of the 33 two family residences within the district. So about half of the, it's one of those neighborhoods that's right on the border, the tipping point here between owner-occupied and non-owner-occupied duplexes with a large number of owner-occupied single family homes. Not as much right in that core neighborhood within 300 or 400 feet around the subject property but certainly within the 1,000 feet. And it gives me pause about what to think about this, what this would do. Even though the history of this building is that it is supposed to be owner-occupied, it was without permission non-owner-occupied for many years. And one could make the argument that the character of the building isn't changing and therefore the neighborhood isn't being affected. But that's benefiting from, that would benefit from the lack of compliance, although inadvertent, the lack of compliance with the zoning requirement that there'd be a special permit granted for the continued non-owner occupancy of that duplex. So there's a lot of complications with this. And this one's a difficult one for me to look at and say that this is going to be beneficial and at the same time, and I don't want to give deference to a non-conforming use of, not in a technical zoning term but a non-conforming use of the property over the last several years. So that's why I'm, that's some of the concerns and I'd like to hear from other board members, but that's some of the concerns that I have. And I would give, I'd like to give Mr. Dana a chance to respond to my concerns and how that would meet that. Being new to town, this is a real, it's a real concern of the neighbors, it's a real concern of everybody in town and especially a concern to try to foster the ability of middle-income people to be able to use a duplex as a way to have a house and have some afford it and build some equity over time. Something we're really focused on in the town. And we certainly appreciate that. Two comments that I wanted to make. One was that just to remind everybody that this was a non-owner-occupied status in 2017. And that's why the current owners kind of, it wasn't intentional. They thought they had non-owner-occupied status and didn't realize that they had to renew that permit once they purchased it. And so that's why we've gone this far with this property is because it was kind of, I can't say it's a small error. It is an error, but it did have that non-owner-occupied status previously. The second thing I'd like to mention is that we looked at many properties in Amherst and around and we also are not very happy with how many of the properties are being maintained. We passed on lots of properties because they were in such poor condition. We fully appreciate, I know there's an amendment or a proposal to increase the permit fee and have more inspections. And we are big advocates for that. And we are very much looking forward to maintaining this property, getting it even in better condition than it is currently. So while we understand your concern with the non-owner-occupied status in the town, all I can say is that that's not us, but... We hope that being Tim is away and like working and studying very closely can somewhat alleviate your concern about being and having an absent owner. And that's now who we are and we will be very close to the property. And we have every intention to do our best. And so I hope that it will be a similar concern about the status though. Thank you. All right. But if I have made... Yes, absolutely. I'm not sure if Ms. Marshall had her hand up first. You spoke and then she raised. So you can go. So while I understand the concerns about the neighborhood, I think to simply say that any renter who gets this property is going to be a college student that's patently not true, because it is very possible that it could be rented to a young family who is looking to have a home that cannot afford to buy one. So there's no guarantee here that this is going to be rented by college students. And even if it was rented by college students, the fact of the matter is we live in a college town and they're a big part of our population. And while there's a concern about party and noise and disruption to the neighbors, that is not necessarily true of every college student, this property is away from UMass. And more often than not, that kind of behavior is centered near campus, near bars, near locales. But these are quiet neighborhoods. They're genuine students who are looking for that kind of neighborhood. To deny this application also says to people that Amherst is not a welcoming town. And I don't think that's the message that we should be sending. I also think that through no fault of their own, the applicants find themselves in a situation. I mean, they're being very, they're due, they're due diligence in saying, okay, unless we get this special permit granted, we're not going to buy the property. And that makes sense. But we're also disenfranchised in the seller here again, who quite frankly, too, on the record has lived in this property for quite some time and has done right by the neighborhood. I don't remember seeing anything in the record of any complaints. And I appreciate that we want to preserve and maintain a certain level of owner occupancy in Amherst. And to the applicant's point, they're not landlords living cities or towns away. There are neighbors. And so if there are issues, it's something that can be addressed. So rather than denying this permit, and I don't know if there's any precedent for this, it could be conditional or see what happens. If there are complaints, arguably, come back before the board, having the prospective buyers here, I think Rob wants to stop me. Yeah. Well, I think you should continue. I mean, unless the board maybe we should continue. I'll say afterwards. It's no big deal. I mean, if they're, I mean, to understand the concerns, I think the prospective buyers here are hearing these concerns upfront, knowing that there will be expectations, there'll be requirements. And if these things are not maintained, then the town can take whatever proper recourses that is available to the town for them. But to simply say that the fabric of the neighborhood is going to change and by granting this permit, we don't know that 100%. And again, if the goal here is to allow people who cannot afford to buy homes, live in a warm, friendly neighborhood, I mean, it is very, very possible that this could be the case with this property. I understand that right now, that's not what it is because the owners have moved out. But there's nothing that says that a nice family isn't looking for just this house and just this street to live on. Mr. White, show it quickly, but then Ms. Marshall has a hand up. Yeah, I'll be quick. So I kind of wanted to comment on what Mr. Henry just said and proposed this as something we could discuss in public meeting, but the board could require as a condition a review period. So if you're concerned about, you know, complaints generating from the property, increase in traffic from the property, issues with the neighbors, any sort of parking issues, you could require they come back within a certain amount of time to be reviewed by you as the board to discuss how it's going and whether any complaints have arose, just a general idea to throw out there if the board's concerned about those things. Thank you, Mr. Marshall. Someone call me? Yeah, I did. Okay, well, I think I'm going to put my hand down and wait for the public meeting because what I want to offer, I don't think is anything the applicant can respond to. So I'll wait. All right, Mr. Sloveter. Okay, I'd like to just respond quickly to a couple of things that Mr. Henry said. There is, I agree, no guarantee that students would end up being the renters in this property, but there's no guarantee of anything. There's no guarantee. Once we approve a change in the status, there's no guarantee that the prospective owners will own the house beyond a certain point. We're talking about making a major change in a neighborhood that is at the tipping point. And there is a lot of discussion in a lot of neighborhoods about the tipping point where it goes from families and single homes to students. History shows all over Amherst that rental properties are rented by students who are able to pay $1,000 a bedroom to rent properties. So it's not an unwelcoming attitude that will keep a family from renting a place. It's that a young family can't afford $3,000 a month to compete with student renters in order to rent a three bedroom apartment. So I think it's the economics of the situation that determine who ends up renting. And none of this is personal. I believe that the applicants are completely sincere. I believe that the seller is sincere. This has nothing to do with that in my mind. It has to do with the nature of the town, the nature of that street, and what is most likely to happen if this becomes non-owner occupied six bedrooms. I've seen it in too many properties where six bedrooms are six cars and distance from UMass. The parties that take place on Southeast Street are nowhere within walking distance and they are loud. So it's not a matter of unwelcoming. It's a matter of the character of neighborhoods. Thanks. All right, any other comments from the board? Any questions? What we're gonna do is go to public comment. You'll have a chance to respond to public comments and then after that we'll go to the public meeting portion. Now's the time for public comment. Members of the public wish to comment on this application. Please raise your hand or if you're on the phones press pound nine, keep your comments for around three minutes and when you sign on, give us your name and address for the record. I'll try to moderate the time on my, on my phone. So who do we have, Rob? I think we have one hand up, I see. Yep, so we have Margo Welch, believe is an attorney for the owner. So I will give speaking privileges. Good evening, can you hear me okay? I'm Margo Welch, I'm an attorney in Northampton. I've worked with the sellers for a number of years as they have bought this property in an earlier one. I just wanted to respond, I think on two elements. One was that, and I believe Angela the owner is on the meeting. So if it's helpful for her to make these direct statements and that's fine, but as I anticipated that there might be conversation about parking. So I just was gonna relay what the seller's experience has been with the parking. And that is that they've owned the property for six years and there has been no problem whatsoever with the use of those three spots for the two units that their experience has been. They've had a lot of young professionals renting. They've actually had a family, at least one family that rented in one of the units. And there hasn't been a problem with those three spaces being shared by what I think the board feels is an imbalance. But many of the people, part of the attraction of this property is that it's within walking distance. So you get a tenant who wants to be in a spot like this where so many things are accessible. And I don't think adding the one more bedroom is gonna be any tremendous tipping point either because monitoring three parking spaces is not that onerous. I would submit that you have a lovely couple in front of you who have done a wonderful job of putting together highly professional plans and have shown you how they're gonna use the property and steward it. And the property also has an experience where the prior owner to the current owners used it and had a valid permit, special permit to use it as a non-owner occupied two family for, I don't know, seven to 10 years. So the property has had a significant history of being used as a non-owner occupied premise. And I think the other thing that Mr. Slavender is not being aware of is that this special permit is only good for the applicants. Once these individuals no longer own the property, if there is gonna be continued use as a non-owner occupied, the new owner is gonna have to take out a permit and the board then has an opportunity to assess the situation, if not then earlier by the conditions of your permit. So I know Angela is here, if you, I guess what she could participate in the public meeting part of it if that is needed, but I just wanted to weigh in and offer that information and that anecdotal information. Thank you. Any other public comments? Let's see, any other hands raised? I do wanna add one thing though, Mr. Chair. Ms. Welch is correct. So for the duplexes and I believe that's Rob, is it the RG district, the property's located or is it in the RN? The RG. So RG requires that any, I believe it's non-owner occupied duplex, no matter what if ownership were to change the permit becomes null and void. So the new owner would have to apply for a new special permit anyways. So that's why the previous owners were unaware that the permit had expired when they bought it in 2017 because I believe nobody ever reached out to them about it or they never reached out to the town to ask about that. I don't know what the situation was, but that's pretty much what happened. All right. If there are no other public comments, that's an opportunity for Mr. Dana to respond if you need, if you wish to before we go to public meeting. Yeah, I think the only additional comment I'd like to make is that when we were speaking with the neighbor, she'd been pleased with the tenants that lived there saying that they had been quiet in a bit of a mix of graduate students and families. Actually in the lower unit has the history of running to families, particularly visiting lecturers to the universities nearby that need a place to stay. So it does have a history of families and has a history of being a quiet, complain-free property, which is our plan for maintaining this property. Great. Any other comments from board members while we're in the public hearing? If not, we'll move to the public meeting. So I would entertain, this is where we move to the public meeting portion while keeping the, without objection, we'll move to the public meeting portion without, while keeping the public hearing open in case we need to gather additional information. Especially if your hand raises that an objection or is that because you want to speak, all right. I reserved my comment, actually. You did. You just fastened it wrong. So a general comment and a more specific one, start with the specific one about this application. Because it was a non-owner occupied property for 10 years or so, unless anyone has, Rob, disagrees with that. It seems to me that the baseline is, that's what it has been until recently. And so unless there's a good reason to say no, we don't want that anymore, I'm fine with restoring it to that status. But as to the more general concern that Mr. Sloveter raised about converting owner occupied to non-owner occupied properties in town, I guess I wish we had some, some principles by which to evaluate these because every decision feels a little arbitrary. I mean, some people, you could say, oh, well, there are no such properties here. If we allow it, we're gonna start a trend. On the other hand, some parts of town already have many such properties. So one could argue that non-owner occupied duplexes should be distributed all over town and not confined or prioritized to one specific area. And also sort of related to Mr. Henry's point, I don't like the approach of basing policy on stereotypes about classes of people, about kinds of people and assumptions about how they will behave and what they will do to the neighborhood. I think our country has very, very sorry history of zoning with such concerns in mind. So those are my comments at this point. Other comments from board members. Many of us have spoken already on our impression about this and our initial impression of thoughts about the application. And it seems to me that if I'm reading this board correctly, that we, which needs four votes to approve this special permit, that I don't see if I read Mr. Sloveter correctly, that there's four votes. And I'm kind of on the fence. Am I reading you correctly, Mr. Sloveter? Yes, you are. Is there anything that in terms of conditions, parking, who they would rent to, I mean, in terms of family preference for families or anything that would change your mind? Could that be rectified in some way? Or is the non-owner occupancy in that neighborhood is just going to be a stopper for you? Non-owner occupancy is from everything I've observed. I've lived in Amherst for 13 years. I've seen various areas go down in quality because of conversions of single family homes to non-owner occupancy. The problems with non-owner occupancy properties are uniformly greater than owner occupied. I don't know what conditions. It's not, I'm not determined to do anything. I just don't, can't even imagine what conditions could be put on who you would rent to that would not violate about 100 different issues in the civil, in the civil rights codes. You can't rent to somebody who's over a certain age, under a certain age, you have to have kids, you can't have kids. I can't imagine how that could be defined. So in a more, in a kinder world, I would love to be able to believe, I do believe the applicants and what they're saying, but in a kinder world where you could just have confidence that situations would be handled properly, that's something else. Once the rules are changed, I can't imagine how we could put, what conditions we could put on anything that would give me confidence that a non-owner occupied, I don't know why I have such a problems with that phrase, why that a non-owner occupied property would be as effectively compliant with the rules as an owner occupied property. They're in my neighborhood a lot. So I've observed them directly. And no, the answer is I feel it is an enormous factor in home conversions in Amherst and not for the better. So if you can come up with something that makes sense, I'm open to it, but I can't see it. So, Mr. Henry, go ahead. So I would agree that you can have good conditions when it comes to class because that'd be not legal. I think big part of the concern here is now this is six bedroom property and three parking spaces. So I think conditions around those kinds of things may deter what I'm hoping is part of the concern is that you have too many cars or now the streets residents or owners cannot find parking on the street or loud noise complaints and things like that. So as you heard from Ms. Marshall, it isn't a quiet neighborhood and that's arguably part of the appeal where people can walk to things. So maybe think around those kinds of terms as to say, okay, even though going back to Mr. Mochilla that the permit can be conditional and can be reviewed. So maybe we start there and if your concerns are not met then after review period, then we can come back and say, okay, we have these temporary conditions in place and this is what happened. Therefore, you stand by your initial position that this was not the right thing to do. In such a case, you can add additional conditions. I think you'd be hard, the board would be hard pressed to say that the current owner has to either live there or divest themselves of that property. I mean, I don't know if the remedy from a conditional, what I'm saying is I'm not sure that there's a remedy that can be imposed via conditions if you had a, if you went back and said, geez, we made the wrong mistake. You can add additional conditions, but you can't, you can't get, I don't know that you can get to the place where you require owner occupancy and you've been added. See, you can't revoke a permit, you can't revoke a special permit. I think that'd be really hard. Mr. Moher, can you elucidate that better than I can or am I wrong? No, you're right, Mr. Judge, you really can't do that. You can't get, you don't get a second chance to review the permit down the line. The review period is helpful, useful. I think you should seriously consider that in these types of applications. We have used it multiple times in the past and it really is an opportunity for the board to ensure that the management plan is affected in addressing the conditions that it put on the permit. So it really, the most important thing to do with these permits is to get the set of conditions in there now, initially. And then the review period can make sure that the management plan and the management actions of the owner are satisfying those conditions. If not, you can ask them to make changes. And that's really the point, make changes to their management of the property. A change to the condition could only be if it's agreed upon by the owner at that point. And it oftentimes, those reviews are not done in a public hearing setting anyway. They're done in a meeting setting, where the permit isn't up for amendment. It's just simply being reviewed and updated to the board and staff is providing our experience of what's happened over that review period. And if the results of the review period are unsatisfactory for whatever reason and the owners at that time don't wish to comply with additional restrictions or change behavior, all you can do is enforce existing regulations. You can't force a new condition on them at that point. Right, so enforcement capability would be there. There's penalties that can be imposed for non-compliance with conditions of the permit. That's pretty straightforward. Court action, if it ever arose to that level, could result in revocation of a special permit, but it would have to be in a court order to have that happen. It would be something we can just do ourselves. And then of course, the rental registration program will have effect on this, especially if changes are made to the program to enhance it. There'd be the right to rent the property could be lost or suspended or revoked through review of that, the conditions of that bylaw. Got it. Well, normally I like to try to get consensus amongst our members. And I think that I'd like, what I'd like to do is explore the opportunity for withdrawal and resubmittal. If that's, I want to just describe that, not making a case one way or the other right now, but I want to describe what can be done. If tonight the vote is, there's not four votes for approving this application with the conditions, it's denied. And then you can't, and it can be denied with prejudice or without prejudice, or you know, it can be denied. And you can't come back within for two years to with essentially the same proposal. If you withdraw the proposal without prejudice, you can come back with the proposal, arguably modified in some way to respond to concerns you heard from the board. Or if it's denied or if you withdraw with prejudice, I think it's another two years before you can come back with essentially the same proposal. Is that correct, Rob? Yeah. So if you're not going to get four votes tonight, the possibility, you can ask for a withdrawal and you can ask to come back at a later date and you would have a panel assigned randomly as it was assigned to you this time that would take it up, but it would be somewhat, it wouldn't be this, it doesn't have to be, it can be the same proposal. I think, am I right? If you withdraw without prejudice, it can be the same proposal. Yes, it can be the same proposal in that case. So I'd like to give you guys a chance to talk, because I don't think this came up. I don't think you were anticipating this. And so what I'd like to do is take five minutes to use the bathroom, take a break, give you a chance to talk off camera with all of it, with between yourselves, and we'll come back after five minutes and we can have a further discussion and we can get some more input from you and from the board members, quite frankly, as to what, how we should proceed. So let's do that. Let's take a five minute break, it's 7.30, it's a good time to take a break anyway. And I think that gives you a shot at having a conversation, all right? Okay, we'll be back at 7.40. I guess that I would, one of the things that I would say that I would encourage other board members to look at is the number of the, if you overimpose the owner occupancy status of the building with the two family residents in the area, everything in that area of the, that surrounds the subject property. Most all of the, not everything, most all of the duplexes are owner occupied. You have more non-owner occupied farther out from this particular house. And it does speak to me that there's a concern, I have a concern about the owner occupancy status in this neighborhood where so many of the buildings are currently owner occupied single families or owner occupied two family residences. It's a concern that I really do have. And it gives me great pause about this, but I guess I wanted to hear from other board members than give Mr. Dana and I got your first name wrong. If you would help me with your name, I mispronounced it in the beginning. Help me with your name. I go by Rosie as well, so. Rosie, all right. A chance to speak after that, but I'd like to give other board members a chance to speak first and then hear from what you guys have to say. So Mr. Henry. So if I remember correctly from the last meeting that we had with this application, there was only one person who voiced opposition. I mean, looking at this map, there are a number of houses on here that are both owner occupied and not owner occupied. There was only one person that came to that meeting and now there isn't even any of this meeting voiced in opposition for this. So I think we should consider that as well. The other thing to think about, I think there's, if they withdraw the application and come back, the chance of getting a completely separate board is not high. I believe we're a seven majority, seven board member. Well, we have, but currently we have seven. Yes. We currently have seven. The CRC is looking at the point is taking applications not to fill the full member position as well as if there is an associate member also. So my point is if they, so because of that, there would be some overlap somewhere, but if the position is filled, then in fairness, my suggestion would be that the four of us that are here do not sit on the next board at all. And if the decision is still the same or the posture is still the same, then it's telling to say, a completely different panel essentially voted the same way. We wouldn't have enough people to form a quorum and make a decision. I know, if the position is filled and it's beyond seven, but I don't know how that will take. Yeah, I don't either. And I don't know that I would condition the next panel based on serving in the first one. I would give regular members the first shot at this and then associate members that the regular member couldn't be part of it. And that's how I would typically, how we typically fill these panels is that full members get first shot if they are scheduled from it. I think that's probably the way we should keep it unless there's a disqualifying reason by that's disclosed by the full member or the associate member, Ms. Marshall. So the zoning bylaw allows this kind of conversion if conditions are met. So I'm curious to hear from those of you who object. Is there any conversion scenario that you would support anywhere in town? Or I mean, is it a matter of, I don't know, that this is appropriate in some neighborhoods but not other neighborhoods? I'm just curious. Mr. Sloveter. Well, since I seem to have become the poster child for this attitude, I'm going to defend it by telling you that every time a discussion comes up where somebody mentions some neighborhoods and not other neighborhoods, it is divisive and it is not productive. This is not about it's appropriate in someone else's neighborhood but not appropriate in mine. This is not in my immediate neighborhood. This is not about a specific neighborhood. It is not about the economic level of the neighborhood. This is about, in my mind, simply the transition of family homes to student housing. And we have seen the damage a couple of years ago, one of our neighbors did a whole survey on police complaints. I don't have the data with me, so I don't have it. I can get it, I can get in touch with Ralph and get the information. The number of police calls, the number of all sorts of violations associated with non-owner occupied student housing was clearly greater than when there was an owner on site. The owner had a vested interest in making sure that things were complied with. So it's not about neighborhoods, it's about supervision. College students behave a certain way. I don't accept that just because they're away from home, they get to do whatever they want. I see the effects of it on my street. I see the effects of it every Sunday morning and the number of red cups I have to pick up out of my hedges and beer cans. This is not anti-student. It's not anything other than maintaining the characteristics of a town that is welcoming to families, which it's becoming unwelcoming to families because families can't afford anything. Families can't afford $1,000 a bedroom. So this is not, there's nothing personal in any of this. I think the two applicants here strike me as lovely people. I'd like to have dinner with them, but that's not what they're not applying to come to my house for dinner. They're applying to convert something that has been owner occupied to become student housing. And I have no confidence that the three quiet girls with one car are going to be followed by three more quiet girls with one car. Who knows? Nobody puts an ad in the paper to get eight raucous drunks into their house, but it seems that a lot of them manage to do that. So I'm not against any individual. I am looking out for the neighborhoods in this town that I think could use some help in continuing to be a place where it's suitable to raise children. And if you wanna work at the university, you don't have to live in Greenfield because that's the only place you can afford. If I can speak to this, if I can speak to this, I'd say that the question before the board is in your judgment as members of the board, can this application fit the findings we have to make under 9.22 and I would say under 10.38, the first section of 10.38. Under 9.22, the board has to find that we're authorized to act under the provisions of this section under special permit allowing a non-confirming use of a building structure or land to be changed to a specified use, not substantially different in character or in its effect on the neighborhood or the property in the vicinity. That's one thing. The second thing, and you can argue that we're changing the use because that's been effectively used that way even though it wasn't permitted. So we'll go to the next one. Go to the 10.38. And the first part of 10.38 talks about the proposal is suitably located in the neighborhood in which it is proposed and or the total town as deemed appropriate by the special permit granting authority. The proposal is compatible with existing uses and other uses permitted by right. So it's suitably located. And that's your judgment. That's our judgment to make as members of this board is whether we think we can make those findings. And the question it seems for all of us is, is this a situation where one more non-owner occupied rental property duplex is going to start causing a change in the neighborhood that's not suitable versus a place where there's a lot of different non-owner occupied place that doesn't change the character of the neighborhood. That's the kind of thing you have to deal with. And that's what I think we have to struggle with is our decision here is can we make that finding? And if you can't make that finding, then you can't vote for this. If you can make that finding, then you can go through the findings and you can make that finding. So I think that's the way to look at it, Ms. Marshall. I don't think it's so much this neighborhood or that neighborhood, but what does this do to that neighborhood? And the specific, this specific application. So that's where I think that's the way, the only way I can answer your question. And I think the map that was presented shows that we can make the finding pursuant to 10.38. Well, I think that's your view, Mr. Henry, that's true. I mean, you can look at it that way. I think you can also look at it and overlay which ones of those two family residences are now owner occupied. And most of the ones that are around that property are owner occupied. You have to do, you have to overlay one over the other. And I did that just because I was curious because I drove around the neighborhood. I wanted to see how many had three or four mailboxes, how many had four or five utility gas meters or electric meters out, try to get a judge for what the neighborhood is. But this helps me look at it to the extent that this is good information. And when I went to the site visit and the street that this property is on seems as if it's exactly what that street is. Now, it's multifamily dwelling, whether or not they're all owner occupied, not owner occupied, but they have multiple mailboxes, multiple meters. That is the character of the street. Now, in fairness, we don't know if they all have owners living in them, but I would suggest when a house has four meters was just knocked, yeah. Well, I think on that street, when I looked at the map of the three, four, five, two family residences on that immediate block and the next block over, one, two, three, four, one, two, three. And counting this one are and three are not it's split right now as the owner occupied duplexes on that block and then the other two properties are owner occupied properties on that block. So it's, you know, this is that, it looks to me like this in that area. You got the tipping point. It's different if you're looking at other areas. So, you know, this is where you have to make your judgment and each individual board member is gonna make their judgment. And what I would don't want to do is run through, I'll take all the time and effort to go through this. If it's not gonna be approved and we have an opportunity for another, for them to withdraw and come back with a different proposal or to decide what they want to do if they're not gonna get this special permit now is what I'd like to go to. But I don't want to cut off the bait. I think that these are all exactly the kind of questions that we have to deal with as a board. This is what's, these are the tough questions that we have. And we're gonna have more than this application before us in the future that deal with these questions. And so this is a good discussion to have. Mr. Vayner, do you have after the five minute break and the benefit of being older and having to have five minute breaks every now and then that give you any, give you an opportunity to think through what you wish to do and what do you want to say to us at this point? If anything, do you want to go forward? What do you want to do? Yeah, we did briefly speak with the seller's attorney as well and we do feel that it's best to withdraw. I don't recall which version of withdraw was the one that allowed- Without prejudice, I'm sure. Yeah, I think that's the way. So just to make sure I understand that means that the seller has the ability to apply or we have the ability to apply again in some modification of this, correct? That's correct. Yeah, so I believe that's the, that is the course of action that we would like to take. Rob, I just want to make sure that we're, they're clear with what their options are. If they do that, can he, I think he stated it correctly. Do you confirm that? That, that's correct. If the board grants withdrawal without prejudice, then an application can be filed again in the future. All right, so we have two decisions to make. First, precludes a second. The applicant is asked for the ability to withdraw this without prejudice. That takes a majority of the vote of the board. It takes four votes, I think Rob, right? It takes four votes because it's on a special permit. It takes four votes to do that. And if we proceed to, if that doesn't pass, then we proceed to the conditions and to the eventual decision on this special permit, you need four votes to approve it. And otherwise it's denied. So I guess the motion before us, I would entertain a motion before us to permit the withdrawal, to agree to the withdrawal without prejudice and allow the applicant to resubmit at some later point. And I'd look for a motion to share that. You know, Mr. Henry, let's get the motions out and then we can, we can have a discussion. But I first wanted about that motion, but first want to have the motion out there. Is there, is there such a motion? Is Marshall moves it? Is there a second? All right. Okay. So the motion is made and seconded. Mr. Henry, go ahead. Here's time for discussion on that motion to withdraw. I would waive any kind of argument. I think we've had significant debate on this. So I think at this point, we should just afford them the opportunity to put the up or down vote. On the motion to withdraw. Yes. Okay. All right. Any other discussion? If not the motion, the vote occurs on the motion to permit withdrawal without prejudice of application special permit. CBA, I just want to get the right one here. I'm deciding 2024-04. Here votes aye. Mr. Henry. And her votes aye. Mr. Sloveter. Aye. Ms. Marshall. Aye. The motion carries. The motion, the special permit application was withdrawn and thank you for your time. Mr. Dana and in your consideration and we move on to the next item on the agenda. Next item on the agenda is had a longer script than that. The next item on the agenda is FY2024-05. Die folder properties and request a special permit under section 10.33 of the zoning bylaws to modify ZBA FY2018-04 to reflect a change in property management and incorporate an updated management plan in accordance with conditions three and five at 320 West Street, map 28 parcel 103 RN residential neighborhood residents, zoning district. On this panel and for the next, this panel and the next subject, we have myself, Mr. Henry, Mr. White, Mr. Sloveter, Ms. Marshall, Ms. Panelists. So welcome back, Mr. White. There was no site visit for this matter. Submissions include the following. ZBA FY2024-05 application form, management plan, additional information for apartments and a complaint response form, an example lease agreement and a management agreement. Staff submissions include the 2018-04 decision document and the FY2018 parking plan. Is there any, who's going to speak for the petitioner? So, J.A. Fuller is in the audience and I'll promote them to panelists so they can present their application to the board. Yep. And just a reminder for the board, this is for an existing special permit, they're just changing their management and they require a modification to the existing permit in order to do so. Ms. Fuller. Hi, sorry, I just popped off. That's okay, it's sometimes hard to get this started. Can you give us your name and address for the record? It's J.A. Fuller and I'm living at 189 Long Plain Road in Leverett. Good, all right, you may proceed. Yeah, so this is very straightforward. I took over management of 320 West Street and the plans have not changed other than the landscape maintenance company is grassroots landscaping now, is reflected in our application. I think that we put in a motion sensor light recently but otherwise I think it's all the same. Pretty straightforward, there's no other changes than the changes of the landscape company, the management company. And that I took over management. Yeah. Both you and the landscape company, there's changes, the changes. The only thing I would ask is a question about the landscaping and maybe this was done beforehand and since you changed the landscaping company, it's probably appropriate to ask, but there was some in the earlier special permit, there was trees that had to be planted and rotodendrons and planters that had to be placed along the driveway. And looking, it wasn't a site visit so I went to Google Maps like we all do and I was trying to find the planters and the rotodendrons and other things that were supposed to have been planted along the, it would be the west side of the driveway. The trees are at the end of the driveway, they seem to be there. There was three trees that were required and then there was planters and shrubbery along the driveway and I didn't see any there. Can you talk, just briefly talk about that or perhaps the landscape plan has been modified with the permission of the building to measure and that just isn't reflected here. So either one of those, either what you plan to do with it or if it's been modified would satisfy my question. Yeah, I do know that some of the plantings have died and so we actually removed some dead bushes. I'm not sure if they were rotodendrons but I was thinking springtime we would put in some new plantings where things have been removed and I can refer back to the plan, the old plan of what was gonna happen with rotodendrons and we can go forward with that. All I would say is that that was a condition of the original permit that the plants that had been done that's just planning to be done and be maintained and I would, so you're supposed to do that. So your representation to us tonight is that you're gonna do that in spring and you'll have the regular plantings that's fine with me. I didn't have any, Mr. Wachilla. So my question involves me screen share, Mr. Chair, if that's okay, I can do that really quick. So I'm just gonna briefly pull this up. There was one question I had regarding, oh, my apologies, I just have to switch this over. There we go. Regarding the parking layout. So I was a little bit confused from the documents that were submitted previously. Could you, Jai, could you just clarify how the cars park in the driveway or in the parking area that's identified here? Just because it's a little bit confusing. We don't know if they're parking perpendicular to the house or if it's parallel like it's shown here. It is parallel, like it's shown, except that the first and second, so that you have three over to the right side of the parking area. And what we did is we're having the second two be on the left side of that driveway before you get to the turn in where you'd access the basement garage door. So it's just two up in the front. Right here. And yeah, oh, can you see my, you can't see my cursor, can you? No, that's okay. It's not helpful. Okay. You have to translate it for Rob. Yeah, okay. So where your cursor is, Rob, that nine foot spot there and then the far right corner, those two are just like that. And then those two beneath that on the right are actually going to be on, they're on the left side before you get to that pull in. So down here. Yes, exactly. Okay. And this way they, the tenants can access the recycle and garbage bins, which are over to the right there. Right here? Yes. Okay. Thank you. Sure. All right. Are there any other questions from members of the board? Does the, you managed other property in town. So you're the new man, you're the new property manager for this property. Is that correct? That's correct. And you have it. And you are the designated person on the complaint designation form? That's correct. Problems with the neighbors? Okay. And the other thing on the map, there was, I don't think we can do anything about this because it hasn't already, it wasn't included, but is there a limit? Oh, there's a maximum of 10 guests should be allowed on the site at one time. That condition still follows through. Does it not, Rob? It does. So let me double check to make sure it was included in the proposed conditions. And then you also intend that the, while he looks that up, another one is that you have some existing lights. And are they, the original permit required that they be downcast and shielded before we use the term dark sky compliant. But that's what it means. Are they currently that way? And if you put any new lighting in, are you pledging that you will do that? It will be downcast and dark sky compliant. Okay. Mr. Chairman, I mean to reject, but the condition that no more than 10 guests on the property at all times is in there as a proposed condition. And the condition on the lights being dark sky compliant and downcast is as well. So both those conditions are reflected in the list that we have in the project application report. All right. I have no other questions. Okay. Is there any public, did you wish to say anything more? Is there any board members have a comment? If not, is there any public comment? Let's see any hands raised, Mr. Chairman. For those of you who want to public comment, use the raise hand function, or if you're on the phone, press pound nine. Not seeing any hands up, Mr. Chairman. That being the case, we'll move to the public meeting portion while keeping the public hearing open in case we need to get additional information. My impression of this is that this is a simple change, and we should approve the special permit request. Yeah, I only, I remember that Rob flagged the possibility that we would maybe change some of the conditions from requiring public hearings to public meetings. Oh good. So eight, so eight. Yes. Condition eight, B, C and G are all hearings, but D is a meeting, and I don't, actually NK, so I don't know what the rationale is for doing one. On things like, on things like this, we can make that rational, we can determine that ourselves. And I think for the most part, doing it at a public meeting makes more sense for most of these, a management plan, a public meeting. You know, if we need to get information from the public because the management plan is insufficient and there's causing trouble in the neighborhood, we can get public input even at a public meeting if we deem it necessary, but we don't have to go through the whole formal process of a hearing. But we can also get information from the applicant during a public meeting. We don't have to do that in a hearing. We don't have to, it's up to the chair to say we're gonna have some input from the public at this. And we do it all the time, so it's from the applicant, so we do it all the time. And so I'd rather move to a public hearing for B, C stays a public meeting for D. And I, but I don't think, I mean, if you're gonna have a new structure constructed, I think G should remain on a public hearing. Is there any, Rob, is there any reason not to move to public hearings for those three but also put remain on a public hearing for the new structures? Do you mean move to public meet? They're already. I reversed it. I wanna go to public meetings for the three and public hearing for the new construction. That's what I mean. Mr. Chair, I agree with your logic on changing at the public meeting because that's what we've done for other recent permits for residential properties, change in management plan and change in management company. As you can see, there was another condition somewhere in here regarding change of ownership has to be done during a public meeting process. That was the case for the existing permit. So they've changed ownership, I believe once since the special permit became effective. I don't remember the exact year, I think it was 2018, 2017. And they only had to go to public meeting, but for some reason this condition was worded that change in management requires a public hearing. So I think changing those two conditions to public meeting would make sense. All right, okay. With that, is there any other discussion? I'd like to go to the conditions and then we can make the findings that we have to make. So I would move, I would accept the motion that we approve the conditions as outlined in the project application, draft public application report with the changes that we have just agreed to or that were just stated and without objection. Is there any, do I have a motion to accept those conditions as modified? I move. I can, all right. Any discussion on the motion to accept the conditions as modified? If not, vote occurs on the motion. Chair votes aye. Mr. Henry. Aye. Mr. White. Aye. Marshall. Aye. Slobberter. I saw you say aye, but I didn't hear it. Aye. All right. Unmuted, yes. And then to make the findings we have to make, we have to make findings under 10.38, 10.381 and 10.380 are not applicable. 382, 383, 385, and 387 are not applicable. 10.384 dealing with adequate and appropriate facilities are provided for the proper operation to pose use. They have adequate and appropriate facilities to properly operate the site as evidenced by the operation without complaint. 10.386 is in the form of the signs. We discussed that to clarify where the stock spots are located. It was done. And the plan is attached to the application. 387, 388 are not applicable. 389 deals with disposal or storage refuge recyclable. You have appropriate facilities available for trash collection and you have a trash plan, a company that picks up the trash. 10.390, not applicable. 10.391, not applicable. 392, it's not applicable. And Rajya Rabya has a note about clarifying the existence of screening. That wasn't something that I addressed, is the screening for the lights of the cars and the neighboring property. That's correct. So the Amazonian borrower requires that parking areas have screening to protect light intrusion from cars onto neighboring properties, specifically neighboring property windows. I guess the board could consider asking the applicant whether or not such screening exists, or if the cars are parked in a way where it's not gonna go directly into somebody's window, that's like a neighboring property owner. So I don't know if Mr. Chair, if you want to ask that, will the applicant, totally up to you. Yeah, I think I'd like to know, is there screening there for the lights that go to the neighboring properties? There's a fence to the right of the parking area that screens from the property on the, that would be, yeah, the backside. And then when they pull in, there's no house straight on in the way that they parked. The houses are all set forward closer to the road. So it's just people's backyards with no windows or homes there. So I have Google maps up, and what I see is the fence along as you describe it, and then the trees that were required to be planted in front of the cars parked at the end of the driveway, the two cars, the two spaces you have there. And you say there's not a house directly onto the side, but even if there was, that looks to be sufficient screening in that. And you are required to replace those if they should die. So... Those ones are doing well. Yeah, they look healthy, but if they aren't, you're required to replace those. All right. I think that deals with 10.392, 10.393. You're required to have downcast lighting. And they've represented that they are or an entity that aren't, they'll replace with downcast lighting, correct? Yes. All right. Pros and voids, 394 is not applicable, 395 is not applicable, the six and seven are not applicable. And 10.398, I don't know if it's not applicable, but it certainly meets with the general purpose and intent of the bylaw by having well-managed properties in town. So for that reason, I think I feel comfortable in moving that we accept the make findings required under 10.38, Ms. Marshall. I would hope that they'd submit a clearer parking plan because I couldn't make heads or tails of it. And it sounds like some of the actual parking spaces are not even marked on this. So, right? So... Right. So I guess let's improve the condition, the finding, we can add a new condition, that's fine, that you will provide a better, a new parking plan, a new representation of the parking plan to the building commissioner and the building commissioner will approve it. Does that work? Good enough? All right, that should be another condition. And if you would move that, oh, we're still under, we'll deal with that after we make the findings. So that's, so let's have a vote on the findings. I would entertain a motion to approve the findings under 10.38. Mr. Sloveter moves it. Do I have a second? Aye. I've got two seconds. Is there any discussion? If not, the vote occurs on the motion to approve the findings. I vote, chair votes aye. Mr. Henry. Aye. Mr. White. Aye. Ms. Marshall. Aye. Mr. Sloveter. We've made the findings and an additional ability to make those findings would be found in a new condition, condition nine, I guess it would be, condition that provide a new park, a redraw, a new draft of a parking plan that the building commissioner shall approve. It has to be approved. The new parking plan has to be approved by the building commissioner. And what we're anticipating there is that it's a better drawing and representation of your existing parking plan. And that he can approve it. Yes, Rob. So, you know, since this isn't like pending any approval or, you know, approval for building permit, if they submit this update parking plan to us, would you want it to be submit to the building commissioner within a certain amount of time, Mr. Chair? Or do you think that doesn't matter? I think we do it in 60 days. 60 days of permit approval or granting of the special permit. Well, it looks, I don't want to grant special permit if they don't do it. So how quickly can, Jai, how quickly, Ms. Fuller, how quickly can you get a new drawing in 10 days a week? Give me two weeks. Two weeks. And you can wait for the permit to be approved for two weeks. Can you file for two weeks? All right. So we've got two weeks and the parking plan will be with Mr. Moorock. All right. We need to vote on that condition. As stated, parking plan within two, a new representation of the parking plan within two weeks to be approved by the building commissioner before the permit can be filed. Do I have a motion on that condition? How much is that? Yup. And there's a second. Second. Any discussion? Not. The vote occurs on the motion. I chair votes aye. Mr. White. Aye. Mr. Henry. Aye. Ms. Marshall. Aye. Just a little bit. Aye. All right. Is there any, the next order of business is to vote on the special permit application. I would entertain a motion to approve the special permit application, special permit application, ZVA, 20, I'm sorry, to amend, I need to have the, I'm sorry, I need to have the agenda in front of me, special permit. Rob, can you give me the FY, Yeah, sure. FY 2024-05. Yep. And that's to amend ZVA, FY. FY 2018. Dash. Yep. Dash 0 more. Yep. With conditions. And to close the hearing on such application. Do I have a motion? To move Mr. Chair. Mr. Henry moves. Mr. Is there a second? Mr. Slovitor. And now we got a lot of them. All right. Any discussion on the motion? If not, the chair votes calls a vote, roll call vote. Chair votes aye. Mr. Henry. Aye. Mr. White. Aye. Mr. Slovitor. Aye. Marshall. Aye. All right. Special permit is granted. It's public hearing on this matter is closed. And we'll be looking forward to your parking plan to be delivered to the building commissioner. All right. Thank you very much. Mr. Chair, do you mind if I just tell the applicant the next steps? If that's okay. Go ahead. Yeah, I'll be quick. I'll get my paper in order. Yep. Jai, so basically what happens next is that the board's gonna render a written decision document of the special permit tonight. Usually they take about a week and a half, two weeks to sign it. And then once that document is officially signed, we follow it with the town clerk. And then once it's followed with the town clerk, that starts a 20 day appeal period in which members of the public or any of grief parties can appeal the decision of the board to a higher court. It could be land court, it could be spirit court. I don't anticipate that happening for your special permit application. So after the 20 day appeal period has ended, you have to go to the town clerk's office to get a true copy attested from them of the special permit decision document. And then you have to get a certificate of no appeal. I will send a clever letter to you once the decision document is rendered outlining these instructions to you, just so it's clear. And then after that, you can file the official permit with the Hampshire County Registry of Deeds, which would make the permit effective. As for the condition where the board required a parking plan, I would assume that's two weeks within the vote to approve, which is today. So that means two weeks from today would be the time to submit that new parking plan layout that shows where the spots are to the building commissioner, Mr. Moore, who's on the meeting with us today. You can also send that directly to me as well. And I could share that with Mr. Moore. We can review it together. Otherwise, that's the process from here on outs to get you to the finish line. Do you have any other questions for us? I don't think so. That was helpful. Thank you. Yeah, no problem. And we'll keep in touch. Great. All right. Thank you. Have a good night. Good luck. Thanks. Next order of business is ZBA FY 2024-06, Priscilla White requests for a special permit under sections 3.3241 and 9.22 of the zoning by-law to change the use of an existing single family residence with an attached ADU into a converted dwelling with two units, five bedrooms total at 318 Lincoln Avenue, map 11C, parcel 55, RG, general residence, zoning district. We had a site visit on Tuesday where Ms. Marshall and myself and Rob walked around the site. We looked at the house, the lighting for the parking, the ADU, walked outside of the ADU, also observed the storage shed that was there, walked along the property line and out to the front. There was generally, I don't think there was many questions to ask regarding the, from the site visit that needed to be reported. Pretty much just observed the location. Ms. Marshall, do you have anything to add? No, it's a lovely spot. All right. So go through the submissions. Submissions are FY 2024-06 application form, management form, complaint response form, sample lease agreement and photographs picking lighting and parking. Staff submissions include floor plans with the approval of the ZVA FY 2006-00046, dated June 26, 2006, three sheets, first set in the third floor site plan from ZVA FY 2014-00014, dated February of 2014, a lot coverage map. The decision in 2006 of ZVA FY 2020-00046 and the ZVA FY 2014-00014 decision document. We do have one, I think we had one public comment, Rob, that you forwarded to us from a butter, and I don't have his name. Yeah, so his name is Steven Spiegel. Yep. He was submitted on November 8th of, basically yesterday, 2023. An email submitted to the town. I think that's it for submissions. And I guess I would just, Kurt, let's bring the petitioner. Yep, so I sent Ms. White a panelist invitation and she should be rejoining us shortly. She is. So she just has to unmute herself and then turn on the video. There we go. Ms. White, would you just give your name and address for the record? Priscilla White, 318 Lincoln Ave. Thank you. This is your opportunity to present your special permit to the board, which you intend to do while you're proposing this. Okay. Gives you a very brief little history. We've lived here at 318 Lincoln Ave, which is the last block before Mass Avenue for 21 years. When we moved here in 2002, there was a balance of families and student rentals here. At first, we were a three-generational family with a daughter and a son-in-law and two young grandsons. And on this block, this 300 block, there were 10 children and two three-generational families among us. So we built the mother-in-law apartment, which is the ADU on the back of the house to give us a little more room and some privacy. And over the years that we've been here, the 21 years, almost all of the families on this block have left and sold their homes. And those houses have become student rentals. Now there are no families or children left on this block. And over the time, the noise level in student traffic has greatly increased. Thursday, Friday, Saturday nights are especially distressing for us with noise, students. There are a lot of students roaming this block. And so there's a lot of yelling and noise. But the final blow has been the opening of the new 600-bed dorm, which is three doors down from our house. So the foot traffic and the car traffic has really increased with the opening of that dorm, which we never expected was gonna be on our block when we came here. We no longer really have a good feeling of or any peace of mind about living here. It might have been our hope to age in place. And we held out when the other families left this block. And now with the dorm, we're needing to change our minds about being able to stay. So within the next year, we're planning to sell this house and move elsewhere. I mean, it kind of, there isn't even the tipping point to talk about where really the last holdout. And so in support of our plan to move we're requesting a special permit to change the use of the existing single family house with the attached ADU. And if this is approved, we plan to continue to live here for probably about a year before we'll move and to keep our tenant in the back. And it'll remain owner occupied until the house sells and we move. Almost all the houses on our block are non-owner occupied student rentals all the way down on our side and across the street. And in addition, we have, there will be 800 dormitory, new dormitory beds in this UMass complex that has been built on this block. So the character is no longer a mix of owner occupied and student rentals. And in order to get a fair value on the sale of our house we realize a non-owner occupied property status is needed. But while we're here, we'll continue to manage the trash and recycling after a change in use and the parking will remain four cars in the recently paved driveway. There's no parking allowed on the street. We have snow removal with four seasons property maintenance and that will continue. And that includes plowing the driveway and shoveling the walkways to the house in the street. And the stewardship of the property will continue to be performed by us, including pruning of the hedges and any seasonal raking and mowing of the lawn. Right, so your plan is to change from having the ADU to having two units. You have a total of how many bedrooms in the building upon once this application is, if it's approved? There are four in the front and there's one in the back unit. And you're not making any structural changes. So you'd have one tenant, one bedroom, second unit, and then you'd have the four bedroom first unit, correct? Right. Okay, so the difference is moving from an ADU to a duplex and to a non-owner occupied duplex. Right? Okay. Well, Mr. Chair, actually the use classification that Ms. White's going for is converted dwelling, which doesn't really have... So duplexes have two different types of use categories. So one is an owner occupied duplex, which is separate use category from non-owner occupied duplex. Converted dwelling could be either or. And usually if it's a non-owner occupied converted dwelling, you have to have a resident manager on site, which according to the materials submitted, there is a lease addendum language on resident manager towards the end of the lease agreement that was submitted as part of the application. And if it's an owner occupied converted dwelling, there has to be the owner living in one of the units at all times. So that's pretty much the use just to clarify that better for the board. So if this is approved, the existing, the owner is an occupant of the time being and satisfies that requirement. And upon sale, they'd have to either come up with a management company or a residential manager or owner occupant, if that's what your full soul is, is that correct? So it would require any change currently, but it could require a change upon sale. And if it does, the board could condition with other converted dwellings that change in ownership would require, meeting with the billing commissioner and then significant changes. So on public hearing with the board. Okay. Do people have any questions? Any board members have questions? Mr. White. Ms. White, that's weird. So from what I'm seeing, am I correct in seeing that you have across the street from you, I believe it's the sorority, Ky Omega? That was my only question. Other questions? If not, there are no questions. We open it up for public comment. So I'm not seeing any hands raised, Mr. Chair, just to remind you. Oh, we've got one. There is one. All right. We'll promote, allow for Sarah to talk. Sarah, when you come on, can you just give us your name and address? Address your comments to the board. I'll give you about three minutes. I'll try to keep track of it here. Yes. Can you hear me? Yep, I can. You may proceed. Name and address, please. I'm Sarah Braiman at 396 Middle Street in Amherst. And I didn't know if there was gonna be time for comment after you all discussed. So I just wanted to jump in. I lived, I'm Priscilla's daughter, and I did live at the property for 10 years, for the first 10 years we were there. I think it was 2003 to 2013. And I guess I just, just real briefly, I wanna concur with watching the nature of that neighborhood change and add in that during that time, my mom worked pretty hard on trying to maintain the spirit of the neighborhood with the town. And that's not the way things fell out. That the university developed around us there. And it makes sense. It's so close to UMass that this, I guess, would happen. But I guess my point is, I just, in case there's not time for discussion later, we talked a lot about whether to, mom was talking a lot about whether to go for this change. And I think one of the things that came up for me thinking about it is, it's really, it's kind of, it's just disingenuous to sell this property at this point as the owner occupied property. I mean, you could, if you wanted to, put it on the market in the summer and sell it to some unsuspecting person who may be on a quiet, quiet week in late July, doesn't understand what they're buying into. But that's not the kind of thing that anyone of, I think anyone here would wanna do to somebody. It has been, I mean, it's turned into just such a stress. And when the building was happening, such even a health hazard of the trucks going back and forth and back and forth, building that huge, huge dorm for almost, I think it was over a year. So, I'm just trying to paint the picture with a little more detail. And certainly I've had close experience living there and visiting there obviously pretty regularly off and on for the 10 years that we've been living on the other side of town. But I just hope that the board can kind of, take into context the, yeah, just sort of the, you know, a fairness here to a person who's lived in the town and worked pretty hard for the betterment of the town and is just at this point having to give up. So, I don't know if no one has any questions, that's all I wanted to say. Thank you. Are there any other comments from the public? I see a hand raised from a Phil, and forgive me if I mispronounce the name Phil, Phil Grower. So, I'm going to give him speaking permissions. Mr. Grower, can you state your name and address for the record, please? Hi, can you hear me now? Yep. Oh, great. My name is Philip Grower. I'm Sarah Braemans husband and I am Priscilla's son-in-law. And I live at 396 Middle Street in Amherst. And right now at the Mueller Center, so it's a little noisy. But I just want to add that the nature of the neighborhood on Lincoln Avenue where Silla owns this house has changed very dramatically in the last 20 years. And I am completely in agreement with Sarah that I think it would be disingenuous to keep the house in the state of occupancy that it is for a resale because I think it would be very detrimental to whoever moves in there and would be occupying that house. I think it's just the conditions of that neighborhood such that the property really is part now of a community, a student community attached to the UMass campus. And I don't think that pendulum is going to swing back and it definitely changed the nature of Priscilla's living conditions over the last 20 years. And in particular over the last five years. And I think it's something that this board should take very seriously. And thank you very much for your time. Thank you, Mr. Grover. Any more comments from the public? I am not seeing any other additional hands raised, Mr. Chair. That's it, I think. Yep. I can't imagine that you want to rebut anything that your daughter and son-in-law have said, Ms. White, but this is a chance to comment on whether commenters for you, if you wish, or to add something to their comments. I mean, that's perfectly appropriate as well. No, I'm fine. All right. Does anybody on the board have a comment or a question before we go to the public meeting portion? Mr. Sliver. Yes, I have a comment. I was, after reading all of the information in the packet, and reading Mr. Spiegel's letter, and given my feeling about preserving the character of the town as best we can, I was fully prepared to oppose this. I am persuaded that that would be very unfair, and inappropriate given that this block is not at the tipping point. It is way past the tipping point. This block is a disaster. It should be viewed as a shame on what has happened to Amherst in certain neighborhoods. I admire Priscilla White for holding out and being the stalwart for the neighborhood and the town that she has been. And she and the letter from Mr. Spiegel actually make my case for me in terms of the other property that we discussed today. And the effect of neighborhoods tipping drastically towards student housing. Mr. Spiegel's letter clearly stated that Priscilla White has been a wonderful neighbor and a pleasure to be near, but that every other condition in the neighborhood has deteriorated. So I am in great sympathy with her and her situation. And my mind has been changed by the realization that this neighborhood is already lost and is definitely, as her son-in-law said, I think he was very diplomatic and said something like not likely, is the pendulum is not likely to swing back. I'm going to be dead for 100 years before this pendulum makes any movement back. So I agree completely with the case that they have made and whereas I entered this meeting tonight ready to oppose it, I support the fairness in her not being penalized for having made such a noble effort to hold out for the betterment of the town and the neighborhood. So in case any of the rest of the board was worried that I was going to make another stand and oppose non-owner occupied, I can't do it to her. I think she has been exemplary in her conduct and I support this. Other comments from the board? If not, Mr. White. Just real quick, I'd like to actually echo what Mr. Slovider was saying. Upon looking at this, just glancing at it, from what I'm seeing only four of the 14 properties on this kind of block are actually owner occupied, I think it's kind of passed a point now where there can be a reasonable assumption for what Ms. White's looking for. And I did drive by the property yesterday and yeah, with those apartments, dorms, whatever they are, right there at UMass, they're right across, I mean, essentially right across the street. And that was also why I asked the question about the sorority being across the street from her as well. Yeah, I came into this thinking that it was an all likelihood I would oppose it, but I can't in good conscience, or conscience, I believe, do that any longer. If there are no additional comments, I would entertain, we will move to the public meeting while keeping the public hearing open in case we need to gather more additional information. The public meeting portion is generally where the board deliberates. We've had some of that already. And it's not normally a time for a public comment. This is a chance to give you views on the application before us. And I think we've heard from two people. I'm in the same position. I'll give you my first overview. This is one of those neighborhoods where it's happened. And it's not that I think it's a natural occurrence that you're that close to the school, that close to the university. All these properties are student rental except for the four. There's some owner occupied buildings. There's some two family residences. One of those that I see nearby in the immediate block, only one of those is owner occupied. It's mostly single family houses in the area, mostly non owner occupied. I think the neighborhood has turned over into a student housing. And I can't imagine that we would tell somebody who's lived there for a long time that they can't sell the house as everybody else has done in the past in that neighborhood. So I'm prepared to support this. So if other comments, we have some questions. We have some, if there are, yes, Mr. Henry, I saw your hand up. So just want to understand if Ms. White sells the property, would we ask the buyers to come back before and get a different special permit or are we gonna allow just change the use and it passes with the sale of the property? Permit, the special permit passes with the sale of the property. But also, but there is a, but we tend in a converted dwelling, we ask the new owners of the prospective owners to come back in case there's a need to review conditions on that property. And so there's a chance for the board to say, you know, we notice that there's X, Y, and Z that has caused problems in the past or was of concern, whatever it was, not in this case, I don't see that. But there isn't, but in an under converted property, there's a chance for the board to look at it if it's up on sale. And also, Mr. Chairman, I want to add that under proposed condition two, it actually talks about change of ownership must meet with the military commissioner to determine if further reviews needed by the board. And that will promulgate whether or not it has to come back before a public meeting or if it's significant enough, it has to go back to the public hearing portion. And so usually that would, so say if she were to sell and the new owner wants to do non-owner occupied, they would have to meet with the board at public meeting or if it's completely changing the application and management plan, they'll have to modify the permit. It just depends on the situation. So the short answer, Mr. Henry, is that the building commissioner and the board gives us a chance to review this if need be. Okay. Okay. All right. Rob, we need to make a waiver, I think for a waiver on, but we don't need to make a waiver on parking. What? Let me just take a quick look. Are there any conditions that we need to have that are not in your proposed 14 conditions that we discussed? So I guess you're gonna ignore proposed condition number, sorry, conditions, the board should discuss number one regarding owner occupancy because the board is in agreement that the neighborhoods change a lot. I think number one, the board doesn't have to submit a condition that it needs to somehow want to be occupied that there is a resident manager or there's already conditions in the zoning bylaws and they're not for, so we don't need number two. And number three, the board should discuss how many occupants are allowed in each unit. Is that specified here in the, I think four and one. And are these occupants, again, if it would be a family, they'd be a not, these are the unrelated occupants, right? Yes, that's correct. So if you want to add, if you want to add number three as a condition, it would have to be front unit has four, underlaid individuals and one person in the back, unless the board wants to allow for more than one person in the back up to you. That back unit only has one bedroom. So I don't know what the board's feeling about that. Yeah. You're not seeking to change the, Ms. White, you're not seeking to change the number of people to live in the back unit. What is now in the ADU? It's appropriate for one person, right? It's either appropriate for one person or a couple. It's a, yeah, it's a, it's a 640 square foot spacious, one of the spacious apartment. And when my daughter moved out 10 years ago, we rented to a number of UMass couples. All right. So then let's change that to no more than four unrelated occupants in the front and no more than two unrelated occupants in the back. Does that make sense? You agree with that, Ms. White? Yes. Okay. Makes sense. All right. So the conditions that we've, that are before us, the standard conditions are going to be complied with the plans that are submitted. The ownership were to change and then we'll meet with the building commissioner. We discussed that ZBA earlier. This is what we're trying to do often now is to, is to nullify pre old Z special permits so that it's clean going forward. We would do that on the 2006, 2014 special permits. The floor should, the rooms have to be used as labeled. The management plan should be followed and it changes comes back to the board, the public meeting, lighting shall be shielded or downcast, lighting fixtures are dark crack compliance regarding our rules. Two dwelling units shall be assigned a number of the unit and with signs depicting the unit clearly visible. So you'll need to have well numbers that can be seen. So that would be, once this permit goes and if this gets approved, you need to do a better job of having your units the signage being obvious and seen, okay. Parking shall occur and approved services only is maintained. I think you can apply with seven. We'll go back to that already. I don't think there's any changes there. You've got the property shall register with the residential rental program and you have to file an annual report on complaints of log violation. Again, that's a standard provision for rental properties. Parking area should be designed in conformance with the article eight and zoning bylaw, the trust receptacles are already screened from public right away. Existing plant screening shall be maintained on the early side of the driveway and additional planning from time to time to maintain screening at ground level for your neighbor, your butters and the gravel driveway shall be maintained seasonally or more often if needed to prevent ruts and or vegetation within the gravel area and to maintain a distinct edge between the gravel and any lawn or landscaped area. And the reason for that is that you're not allowed to park in the parking lot. Mr. Chair, actually I might have put that one there in error, they actually have a paved driveway. So I guess we can propose to remove condition. I believe it's 14. Wasn't there a railroad ties there? Is it the railroad ties that are then, am I confusing this with someplace else we've been to? There's not a wooden tie there. Okay. I thought there was. It's paved at a year ago. So we'll remove 14, right? Yeah, we'll remove 14. Sorry about that. Okay. And then you propose adding a condition, so possible condition number three, but changing it to be no more than four unrelated occupants in the front unit and then no more than two unrelated occupants in the back. Correct. Okay. Another condition 15. Are there suggestions for other conditions from the members? I just want to be clear. Are we removing the possible one and two? Both of them? The possible one and two are gone. Correct. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. The possible one should consider one and two are gone and three becomes 14. All right. If there's no discussion about conditions, I'd like to approve them in block. Do I have a motion? So moved. You're at second. Second. If they're moved and seconded to approve the conditions in block, all in favor say aye. Oh, no, excuse me. Someday we'll get to that, but we're just going to do, we're going to do roll call, but let's turn it. Vote occurs on the motion to approve the conditions in block. The chair votes aye. Mr. Henry. Aye. Mr. White. Aye. Mr. Sloveter. Aye. Ms. Marshall. Aye. Aye. The conditions are approved and blocked. Now we have to make our findings under 10.38. I, help me, Robert, do I have to, do we have to make any other findings or are there any waivers that we need before we get to 10.38? Yeah, sure. So you have to make two findings. So the first one is that you have to make a finding for condition eight under section 3.3241, which in this case, you're essentially approving that this project's eligible to be a converted dwelling that doesn't involve any demolition or removal of existing structure or reconstruction that exceeds 20% of the gross square footage. In this case, it's clear that nothing's happening. So it doesn't really exceed that threshold. Then you also have to make a 9.22 finding because I believe the lot itself is nonconforming because of area and frontage. So the lot doesn't have the sufficient square footage, I believe, for two units, but it does, it is preexisting nonconforming. So the board just has to make the finding that it's not detrimental to the neighborhood for them to change the use to a converted dwelling with two units. So those are the two additionals you have to do on top of 10.38. That's right. Thank you, Rob. So I'm prepared to move, I'm prepared to accept the motion on 3.3241 that it does meet with the requirements of the converted dwelling and section 9.22 dealing with nonconforming uses and structures and that it does not provide, it's not detrimental to the neighborhood. Unless there's any objections, I'll proceed on to the other and we'll vote all these findings and block. 10.380 and 381 is in the residential district, which has several rental properties in the neighborhood. It seems that it's not, it's suitably located in the neighborhood. 10.382, 383, 385 and 387 deal with nuisance and dust and vibration and lights and offensive odors and structures. I think we're not proposing any, there's no change proposed in the physical structure of the building. I think that condition, those findings can be made. 10.384, adequate and appropriate facilities to provide proper operation and use. They currently have it. 10.386 deals with parking signs and regulations, parking is in conformance with Article 7 of the bylaws. 10.387 provides convenient safe vehicle traffic. Just not, we don't believe it. It provides any issues to vehicular pedestrian traffic or movement on the site. 10.388 does not apply, deals with off-street loading of vehicles. 10.389 provides a message of disposal or storage of refuges. The applicant would be doing the trash removal themselves. I guess we didn't discuss that. But you're currently doing this trash removal yourself and you're gonna continue to do that? Yeah, we are three grandmothers now in the house. We generate very little trash. We have a composter for all of our vegetables and we have a very complete recycling. So we take a blue bag every week or two to the transfer station. So that doesn't mean that, but if the property sells and there's, this will be a reason Mr. Henry that we might have a meeting with the new owners is that we would want them to have trash pickup or at least a plan for pickup. We'd wanna discuss it with them. You may not have the same trash demands. So I think we can say that you currently meet requirements of 10.389, 390 deals with flood, doesn't apply 10.391, does not apply historic buildings, 10.392, the poles are adequate landscaping, the pudded the fence and the rear of the driveway, the applicant. You have, I remember correctly, we walked in the back and it gets a substantial screening to your neighbors in the back. Yeah, we have a six foot fence and we have shrubs and across the fence are two oak trees. Right. So I think there's, on the site visit, I thought there was sufficient screening for the property. 10.393, we discussed any new lighting would be dark sky compliance. And 10.394, it's flat, it's not very applicable. 10.395 does not create disharmony with respect to terrains, does not apply, 10.396 provides screening for storage areas. You don't have trash receptacles. So you've got compost pile or composter. I think you meet the requirements of that, 3.97, adequate green space for tenants to enjoy. And 10.398 deals with generally the proposals in harmony with the general purpose and intent of the bylaw and the goals of the master plan. I think I would say we could find that as well. So the question before the board is, it will be approved those findings and block on 3.3241, I think it is, and 9.22, as well as all under 10.38. Do I have a motion? To approve those and block. We're getting shy here, guys. Okay, we got one, do we have a second? All right, we've got a second. Is there any discussion on the motion to approve the findings and block? If not, the vote occurs on the motion to approve the findings. The chair votes aye. Mr. White? Aye. Mr. Henry? Aye. Mr. Slobiter? Aye. Marshall? Aye. All right. So we've approved the conditions, we've approved the findings. The last thing to do is to move to approve the special permit application and close the public hearing on special permit application FY2024-06. That's on the 2. No, yeah, yeah, 06, correct? Yep. We got one little mistake there on the, Rob on the application, you got a 01 up there and you mean 06? Okay, yeah, I could change that. Go on, and then I'd say to permit the staff to make any technical conforming changes from our discussion tonight, including that one. Any discussion on the motion to approve this application and close the public hearing? If not, the vote occurs on the motion. Chair votes aye. Mr. Henry? Aye. Mr. White? Aye. Mr. Slobiter? Aye. Ms. Marshall? Aye. The vote is five to nothing. The special permit is approved. Congratulations Ms. White. Good luck. Thank you. Well, and just, you know, general spiel that I always give. So we're gonna render the decision document, Priscilla. They'll take about maybe a week or two. Once that's rendered, the board members have to sign off on it. And once they sign off on it, we file the decision with the town clerk and once it's filed with the town clerk, there is a 20 day window appeal period that starts during that 20 day appeal period, a member or a grief party from the public can appeal the decision of the board to a higher court, spear court, land court. And after that 20 day appeal period, you have to get a true copy of tests of the special permit decision from the town clerk's office. And you have to get their certification of no appeal during the 20 day appeal period. Then after you get all that information and all those documents, you file it with the Hampshire County Registry of Deeds and the special part becomes effective. Of course, I'll send a cover letter with a copy, unofficial copy of your decision document that outlines all these steps. And, you know, if there's any questions do you have for us for the time being, you can ask now, you can always follow me later. But I guess, Torek, do you have any questions for us or is it pretty much clear what's happening next? Are you asking me? Yeah, I'm asking you, sorry. Okay, I just, so the language is a little bit beyond me but I think the converted dwelling part has been agreed to and the non-owner occupied part is also agreed to, is that right? Yes, so the non-owner occupied part is for when, if you were to sell and the prospective buyer wants to make a non-owner occupied complex, they have to meet with the town first to make sure there's going to be no significant changes and then they have to deal with their own processes of coming back to the board. Okay, okay. So you're allowed to continue living there as an owner occupied premise for the time being. And you're allowed to sell it as two units. Yep. All of those two units, thank you. Oh, for your hard work. Of course. Time to go home. This is our Thursday nights. Thank you, Ms. White. Good luck. Thank you. Next order of business is public comment on any matter, not before the board tonight. I see no hands raised. Do you, Rob? I do not, Mr. Chair. I think we didn't intend to but we may have waited everybody out for exhausted them. Probably. The last thing would be our schedule. The last thing is old business and I would raise the schedule, Rob, if you could tell us what's going on. I know we got a couple of weeks off. Yes, which is nice. Because I've had a meeting every Thursday for the past month and a half now. So the next meeting for the Valley CDC 40V project would be on November 30th. And then after that, December 14th, we have anticipated one or two permit hearings for that normal scheduled dates. And then the week after that, I'm not sure which December date. I think it's the 21st. There is another Valley CDC public hearing as well. And then we have a normally scheduled meeting after that, before the holidays, which has nothing scheduled for a moment. So that's our schedule coming up, Mr. Chair. It's getting pretty light, which is good. Is that normal this time of year? Yeah. Then we'll crash back into it in January, where we'll have both solar and Valley. Those are two big things. Okay. Absolutely. And I'd open it up to anybody on the board for any comments or questions or anything else, any new business. I just have to say that this was a meeting that I think where a lot of issues were raised that really tested the board and it's on tough things. And I think it was all handled. I want to compliment all of you. I think you did a really good job of stating your case, looking at the requirements and the responsibilities that we have and trying to figure out what is the right thing to do, given within the framework of the bylaw. And that doesn't mean we always agree on all of it, but I think everybody had a heartfelt and strong representation of their views. And I think everybody tried to stay within that responsibility and within the bylaw and using their discretion. And so I applaud all of you and thank the staff for their work. And I appreciate what you do. So thank you and good night. I would entertain a motion to adjourn. Happily moved. Do I hear a happy second? I second. All right. In spite of your slightly early good night. You know, sometimes that happens. Good night, but I need a motion. Right. I'll never get to sleep unless we have this motion. So let's say I have this left. Right. You have your motion and your second. I would. We have to all come back in. That would be awful. All right. Since this is not debatable, that's not what we were doing. The motion before us is to adjourn. The chair votes aye. Mr. Henry. Aye. Mr. White. Aye. Mr. Sloveter. I vote aye for good night. And Ms. Marshall. Aye, but I want to know the dog's name. Oh, this is Daphne. Daphne. Right. I'm Daphne. There's another one on the floor named Tony. Hi, Tony. Same breed.