 All right. The appointed hour of five o'clock having been reached I welcome everyone to this meeting of the Amherst Design Review Board kept my name is Catherine Porter chair of the Amherst Design Review Board. I call this meeting to order pursuant to Governor Baker's March 12 2020 order suspending certain provisions of the open meeting law. And the governor's March 15 2020 order imposing strict limitations on the number of people that may gather in one place, this public hearing of the town of Amherst Design Review Board is being conducted via remote participation. Members and attendance of members of the public will be permitted, but the public can attend tonight's virtual meeting by using the zoom login information provided on the meeting agenda listed on the meeting calendar, which provided on the town of Amherst website. We will begin with a roll call with the members of the Design Review Board, who have been impaneled for the consideration of the items on tonight's agenda. Please say I, if, when I call your name, Tom Long. Lindsay Schnarr. Janet Mark Ward. Okay. Okay. And Erica's Ecos. Okay. Also in attendance is Marine Pollock planner and staff liaison to the Design Review Board. The Design Review Board, and it's accompanying zoning regulations were created by a town meeting in October of 1983. The charge and purpose of the Design Review Board under section 3.2 of the zoning bylaw is to preserve and enhance the town's cultural economic and historical resources by providing for a detailed review of all changes in land use, the appearance of structures and the appearance of sites, which may affect these resources. The Design Review Board exercises this responsibility by providing design review and recommendations to private applicants and permit granting boards within specific overlay zoning districts in the town center. The Design Review Overlay District and the Town Common Design Review Overlay District. Design Review was also provided for town departments and permit granting boards with respect to town projects anywhere in Amherst, which will result in substantial deterioration to the form or appearance of a structure or site. All design review board meetings are open to the public and are recorded by town staff. Each meeting recording will be uploaded to the town of Amherst YouTube channel for public viewing. The petitioner presents the application to the board during the meeting, after which the board will ask questions for clarification or additional information. After the board has completed its questions, the board will deliberate. If the board feels it has enough information and time, it will decide upon recommendations for each respective application. Once the board has voted on its recommendations, the staff liaison will type up the recommendations for distribution to the applicant, board, applicable land use, board and building commissioner. And then we have tonight's agenda. Do you have that, Maureen, or the actual. I can certainly pull that up. Yeah, why don't you pull that. Also just wanted to point out that Tom Long is now in attendance. Oh, okay, good. Tom, is it are you here? Is it here? Okay. Okay, this is an application DRB FY 2021-04 town of Amherst various locations to review the proposed locations and design at the proposed solar power public information and emergency communication system. There you are right there. Okay, so we're back to where we, we were picking up where we left off. Is that right, Maureen? And how do you want to proceed? She only have Brianna. Brianna has provided the board a mock-up design of what the Sufa signs could look like. So, Brianna wanted to re-induce yourself and show the board what that mock-up design looks like. Absolutely. Thank you, Maureen, and thank you all board members for your time last week and more time this week in order to respond to some of your feedback and questions. I am going to, I believe everyone here saw the presentation last week. Do I need to recap any of the background information? Okay. So, if you bear with me one second, I am going to share, start by sharing the mock-up of the signs with the, using wayfinding assets from the upcoming signs for the town of Amherst, as well as just a reference to having an Amherst specific background to hopefully give us some context. So just a moment while I pull that up. Okay. So hopefully everyone can see my screen now, which you see on the left-hand side is the front view of the sign. We're incorporating pieces from the wayfinding sign package and design guide that was provided by Seth Gregory Design. And on the right-hand side, they would not be side-by-side like this. It's just the reverse of the sign shows elements from the wayfinding and a sample map that we could use. Again, these are all just sample potential images. We've pulled the map from the writer's walk, which Jen might be very familiar with. So it's just a sample of a design that we could have on the back. And we are pulling the colors from the wayfinding signs design guide. The colors on the side here are just placeholders. We can match those to any specific color. And the news feed that's framed in here just gives you another sense of the information that could be pushed out on the sign, local updates. We can hook it into our social feeds. We can have PVTA bus scheduling and weather information and draw your attention to the black box would be kind of a placeholder for the free local business advertising. Okay, so what are people are they. I was trying to reflect on the size they look very big, particularly tall based on the photos we had last week, whether it was a person standing beside one. I would say Catherine that this is this imagery is just a mock up and I realize that but I remember from last year, they, from last week, they look tall, they look rather tall maybe that's the whole aspect of trying to provide, you know, enough solar battery I don't know. So the solar and it's has to curve and so to stand out of it seems to me and look at an eye level. Imagine neighborhood news feed is just above your eye level so then all the rest is above your head. Yeah, very much. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Now that the color on the side is taken from the way finding it's actually a darker maroon that looks kind of red there, but I'm thinking he must be using the darker maroon color. What are you referring to the side, Jim. Yeah, that. Yeah, that part that part she's marking right now. Brianna said that could be any color we wanted to be. Yeah, right, but I'm just saying it looks bright red there and in fact if it's from the way finding color series it's a much darker maroon color. Do you all have questions. But maybe we should start with this is what we asked for was a mock up of what might be maybe more appropriate for Amherst. So now the question is, are people comfortable with this. Well, I first I want to go back to Brianna because I got the impression that we, you have this money because of the COVID funding, and that the thought was this would, this was more or less necessary because of the situation and trying to put out, you know, flash news that might affect people because of the environment but I'm not sure is that really what we're talking about or is there an attempt to sort of incorporate this long term into the town for various kinds of information. Thank you for your question. Madam chair so we are justifying this project and we received funds from the cares cares act spending because of its connection and important importance to sharing that real time information specifically to do with public health emergency notifications to visitors to our town or to to community members in our town who's who spend time in the downtown area, who may not be getting this information in other ways. You know, other other traditional print or news media ways, or who lack access to internet and or devices. The part of the project that has the signs I will remind is a is a pilot project. We are only signing on to have these signs for a year and then we'll reevaluate. I imagine at that point we would probably have a going through a similar process although I'm not entirely sure. But the signs are going to be a pilot project to see if it's the right fit to see if it has the impact that we anticipate, and then the charging core elements is something the solar charging cores that you saw. And in other slides which I'm happy to bring back up are something that the town can will keep as part of the project to do with what we will if if we find that it's been beneficial to have in the downtown area. We will keep them or move them as needed but the signs are only a license pilot project so that we would anticipate and reevaluate after the license agreement expires or as it is about to expire. So, questions from anybody. I have a question is more general. I'm relatively new to the design review board do we have a sense of the timeline. This is not not just for you, but for everybody, a sense of the timeline of the way finding system that is going to be implemented in the downtown and when that might be implemented and what impact or overlap these might be providing in relationship to that so any updates on that might be really helpful for me to consider this. I think it's pretty close because we have been looking at it for a few years and most recently the determination was made of which exact spots certain signs would go. We've been scaled back to be affordable. Maureen correct me if I'm wrong on any of this but I would say that probably they're, they're looking at next spring to start installing things. Jan's correct. So, the planning department has gone through the design review board for the design and locations of the way finding signs including the gateway signs and informational poll signs. And I believe, I believe they have the signs have been reviewed at the town council there is one sign that is located on private property at the Emily Dickinson property, and that needs to go through the planning board for site plan review. Oh so yeah Tom you're on the planning board has that one gone through the planning board yet. I've only been on for about two or three months so if it came before that. Yeah, I think that should be coming up soon. And that would be at the corner of triangle and Main Street at the intersection there. So, if all goes well, the plan is to do is to fabricate them order the fabrication and have them installed in the starting in the spring of 2021. I was asking if we know where these are located in relationship to existing signs in that plan and whether there's any duplicates or proximity to those. Yeah, so Brianna has met with myself, been from my fellow planner and Chris Brestrup the planning director to look at these proposed signs in relation to the location of the way finding signs. So they're not, you know, right next to each other or there. There's no conflict in location so it has been vetted and it will be continued to be vetted if there's any changes to either do for science or the way finding science and additional science such as you know just your plain old directional signs. So this sign, one of these would be installed at the same corner as the way faring signs wouldn't it up at the corner, right, right where this corner is right here isn't that correct. Isn't the way faring sign going to be right there at the corner of in the main light main intersection. Brianna. Can you pull up the latest look at the locations of the Sufa signs. Yes. Yeah, busy girl. I know it's a bit busy of a map because you are also seeing dining and other icons on here. So the question marks represent the Sufa signs and the stars with the room I guess represents the charging stations. Yeah, the way finding sign is Caddy corner. Okay, across this sort of. Okay, okay. All right. Brianna, well that helps. So they're not at the same. I thought they were going to be at the same corner. Okay. Yeah, you know, I think originally Brianna had proposed it at at the way beginning at the same location but after, you know, collaborating with the planning. Things have been adjusted. Yeah, yeah. So what are what are members thoughts about the colors, the color of the Sufa sign, the layout. Can you bring it back to the design. I feel better about it seeing it contextualized with this other way finding effort it does feel like it has more of a home here and so I'm really appreciative that Brianna and team you were able to pull this together for us I think that it has more of a home here and doesn't feel quite like a misplaced new set of signage. So, I, I'm appreciative I do think that, you know, I know this is just a mock up and so some things are a little askew and what have you but there are a few things that might be nice to see and that is say aligning the vinyl at the bottom of each one, the left and the right, you know, one side and the other so that it feels like one continuous rapper to the best of our ability. And I am also a little bit hesitant about the map and wonder what kind of information we'd like to see. It seems to me that the way finding signage is kind of in lieu of a map right that you would be looking at signage all over town that says go this way to find X thing and somebody spend a great deal of time thinking about what would be inclusive in the signage. And in this case we're looking at a map that is kind of upside down. And so there's always the question with maps and way finding whether you want north to be on top or you want what's ahead to be on top and it gets confusing for people to read. And so I'm just debating in my own mind whether a map is the appropriate thing or we want to include interesting facts about Amherst or anything else. That's a really good point. Breonna didn't you have a couple other ideas or examples from other communities of what in lieu of a map it could be you had mentioned it maybe an email that it could be a or B or map. Yes, definitely. And I can bring up some of those examples I think Brookline was one of the examples where they incorporated some, some facts, as Erica Zico just mentioned so I can happily show that and it, it really is up to us we don't have to stick with one design for each of the signs, or we can. And I will just remind that we can change the vinyls out several times with relative ease. But I'd be happy to bring up that example if it'd be helpful to see what, for example what Brookline did on some of their, their signs where they kind of shared more interesting facts about the community. So if you just give me one moment I can, I can pull that up. And while Brian. And as Brianna is pulling that up. Again, this is just a mock up and, and Brianna wants to have this mock up to show you so as she moves forward to the town council as, as she would as a town debates whether to even make this, this purchase or lease contract with Sufa company. And after the, the, the panels in such have been purchased, and Brianna works with Sufa and the planning department to finalize the designs, she can certainly come back to the DRB to finalize the layout and font, etc. So this is just to give you a, is just a conceptual design. It would be nice if on the information side, the news side that changes. If we could have, for instance, the writers walks up map and information as just an item with a QR code, so that, at least for the first year, or every fall as families come or it would be available but it doesn't have to be always up there. I mean I realize that was just a way of Seth, getting something from Seth to put up with the colors but I like this idea of mentioning other things about Amherst than historical things you know it could be a did you know that in Amherst there is blah, blah, blah. Yeah, you know actually the town could really have fun with it of maybe each month is, you know, historical month for the fall or you know the historical, you know, one month or season. You can use like women's history month but history month things like that and highlight things in the town that relate to that. Public art, architecture. You could really have fun with it of having this to be an example of a theme or celebration of a month long. So how often can this be changed? Can you change it every day, every month? Maybe I should have to say I thought there was some electronic capability. On the other side, right now we're talking about the permanent skin. The other side is the news side that can be changed. Okay, so where the map was, was the news side? Okay. It was the idea for a permanent skin just as a way of showing the colors. Yeah, yeah, okay. The colors to me are actually even better than the ones that were proposed for those welcome to Amherst signs. Well, they're the same. It's just that. Yeah, I mean, that's right. We were looking for, to me, those, the quality of those colors was, was even better than what we were presented with before and hopefully everything can go together really be, you know, good looking. Okay, so this is the, okay, so what are we looking at here? Would this be the sign, the side that would be changed, Brianna, or? Yes, this is an example, whereas I showed you for the Amherst mock-up we had the map. This would be a sample of another back side of the sign where some people choose to do more wayfinding directional signs. Some facts, some communities are even doing right now because of COVID, custom public health reminders and things like that. So this one is representing Brookline and I hope that you can see it. I know the text is probably rather small. So I can zoom in if that's better, but we've got the more you know Brookline kind of sharing some more interesting facts about the community and highlighting some of their historical buildings in this case. I don't believe this is their town hall, but I don't know Brookline well, but they're highlighting some of their, some of their buildings. And then, and to answer your question about how often, you know, in speaking with Sufa, they say that some of their clients will update it every season. So to me, that's saying maybe four times a year. So if that aligns with campaigns, some campaigns that you were mentioning about history or even, again, topical information of public health related. We'd have that probably at least four times a year where we could easily put up a new design. Okay. Okay. That has like the trails around town or something to encourage people to know to learn about new ones. I love that idea. So I'm writing down so the vinyl side up, you know, just this is just in a lot of way brainstorming, but if this could be updated for four times a year maybe it's each each time there's a different theme. That's the backside, right. Yeah. So if we wanted something monthly, like for the various months, like I mentioned, women's history or black history or all those kinds of things we could do that on the other side under a news box. That would be what you would do Breonna right. You're in charge of that. Correct. So the front side of the sign. And if you'll bear with me I'll refer back to here if you can still see my screen but I'll refer back to here where you get a, can you see the neighborhood news feed the box didn't change. Oh, it didn't change. Okay. I'll have to reshare that with you. But the news feed the ink box, a lot of them are basically outlets. So many apps that we can connect to automate a lot of information but we also control information that we can directly push out any time that we'd like. So it's an opportunity to do a feature of the month using the ink technology on the front side of the sign. And I'm going to just share that back with you guys now so we can see. But it's awesome. You could change at the drop of the hat like when the new mask order went in you could just put that up right away. Part of the technology is giving the administrator or myself access to a dashboard where we can update and push where it says local updates, pushing things out specifically to the sign in real time, as well as linking to other feeds either through RSS or through other integrations for example the PVTA schedule if we decide we don't want that for this particular sign we can put something else in that space but the capability of us pushing out real time information would come directly from us we would not have to go through the the sign company. And something like the weather is just an athlete that would be feeding in continually. Yes, exactly and we could change, you know, each sign can be customized for what's displayed if one is in direct proximity to a transit stop then we can make sure that the bus schedule is on that one. If one isn't then we can choose something else to occupy that space that's more relevant. So I have asked marine that's under email but I really probably should bring it up. Now, because they're rather tall. Are there any ADA implications here if somebody's in a wheelchair. Is that something we should consider will they be able to read the message would it be at eye level. Is that ever a consideration Brianna or marine. That's a good question I didn't have a chance to respond. Yeah, I really popped that on you but the department can work with Brianna and Sufa to explore. What are the appropriate appropriate font sizes that a font types that are ADA compliant. So does it the solar panel on the top. What's your understanding as to how long it can power the board, if you have a week of, you know, no son, or lots of snow and ice on top of it, is that, is it going to go out. What do you what's your understanding of that. My understanding that that has not been an issue that the slope of the panel is designed so that for the most part snow or ice would. Right. And the science, I can get more information about about downtime or anything like that it. It hasn't been an issue in any of our conversations to date but they do the sign company does maintain the signs weekly on their own the town doesn't have to do any, any of that so we will have weekly touch points with the company who physically come on site to check the signs and maintain any issues. Okay, good. A local company. It's in Massachusetts. Yes, it's a Boston based company that is in Massachusetts and it's, I think I have some more details here at its. I don't know if this matters to this board but it's a female owned and led company in based in Massachusetts and the primarily most of their customers are in the eastern part of the state. But there's communities out here that are actively acquiring these signs some of our neighboring communities in fact. So they are they do have a presence and commitment to this to this region as well, a growing presence. Is there any questions or comments about the mock up design. I have one. I remember the super representative. Last time when I asked about metrics for success of the pilot she mentioned something about pedestrian metering, like some kind of access. I thought she mentioned something about interaction and I just wanted to clarify the ink is read only or is it a touchscreen are there places where people can leave opinions or feedback or is it something you would do on your phone. Absolutely. So the, the interactive piece is something that we would send, you know, have on one of the squares of the sign as a prompt or a call to action, and someone who wanted to interact with that prompt or survey or quick poll would answer it from their cell phone. And so you would have to interact with it that way it's not touch based. And we don't have to use that feature but it is an element that is available to us for. So I was really asking in response to Catherine's question, thinking that if there are ADA issues their reach range and things like that so if our primary concern is is readability and it's text size then I think that's manageable. Well, I learned it wasn't only the size of the font, but it also was how low the sign has to be. And it looks to me here like they're a little too high. Yeah. Is this a set location for the, the new speed side, or can it go lower. I believe it is a set location and I hope that you can see my screen here but it's. I believe that's 37 inches off of the ground the sign begins to the big the lower portion of the display screen is there starts there. In response to that there are standards and the standards are more about distance and scale right so the height matters but the type is larger and farther away than it's appropriate and it can get smaller as it gets closer so I think that's something really you know super can also advise on in the sense that they have these everywhere so they may have minimal maximal sizes that are appropriate, but also, I'm sure there are standards by ADA about legibility and he is about distance. Yeah, as well scale. Okay. Okay. Are there any other questions. I think you had the most concern. Are you feeling better about it now, seeing it like this. I don't want you to be unhappy. No, I'll tell you I'm, I'm most excited about the charging stations which I think are going to be a real benefit to people in town, definitely the locations that were thoughtfully planned out. And we get to keep those so even if it's a year of this and we don't like it. I didn't get to chime in last time but I shared Erica's nervousness about the shape and scale without really understanding the signage package that was going out and how it fit into the community and I do feel better about it, seeing it in this context. I feel better being reminded that it's a one year trial and we can assess how it performs and whether or not it fits in. So, so I'm feeling more comfortable about it as well. Yeah, me too. Great. Should I make a motion. Yes. What do you need from us. I believe so and I just want to thank you all for your feedback before you get to the motion I spent nearly helpful and a good process to go through. Yeah. Do you need more feedback about the exact appearance, or is that something that you're going to work out with stuff or. So as far as the way that we wanted to proceed in terms of acquiring the signs was our staggered approach and we'd get the cores in place first and then that would give us many more months to actually work on the specific designs for each individual design for example if the back is going to be different on each three or if they're going to be the same. So I was hoping that we'd be able to get something closer based off of your feedback today, but probably have a future discussion about fine tuning the the back of the machine and then I leave it to marine to see if that's the appropriate reply to that but that was our understanding that we'd get, get the contract and everything going get the science purchased and then we put these out in the spring probably. I don't know the way finding schedule but maybe in line with the way finding schedule to have another opportunity to make sure that there's not any overlap. So you would fine tune it and we can certainly bring it back to the DRB for a review before it becomes finalized. Exactly. Okay, well then I will move that the DRB approved the town's proposal for a one year. pilot program with Sufa to put three signs and two charging stations downtown. The details to be determined for for three. Three signs three chargers three signs three chargers three charging stations downtown. With the caveat that we get to see the continuing evolution of the design of the skins, and that if we don't want to keep it after a year we get to keep charging stations. That's right. That says it all. Modify the motion. I think we got the point. Yeah, we need a second. I guess that Erica or Tom. Okay, thank you. Okay. Any further discussions or questions. If not all in favor and I guess I'll have to call your name Tom. I or I do. Okay, Erica. I, Jan. I, and me Catherine. Yes. Okay. Okay. Anything else related to this. We finished that. So we had on the agenda. Yeah, that's it. Do you have any meetings of minutes? Okay, no minutes. No, no old business. I hope to catch up. I've been. Don't worry about that. My focus has been on the comprehensive permit application, which is now. Okay. We focus. Not that we're dying to read them anyway, but. Okay. And they. Public comment. Anybody there from the public out there. You see anybody Marine. No, there isn't. All right. And I think we can adjourn. Do I hear a motion to adjourn? Hi, so. Thank you. Thank you. I'll second that. Okay. I declared. Somebody else. I know, but I'm. Yeah. I think I can't at least second. Okay. Somebody else seconded Erica. Do you second this? She did. Okay. Very good. There's mood to second it. All in favor say aye. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Love to see you all. Take care. Yeah. Thank you very much.