 All right, yep, you're ready. The appointed hour is six o'clock. Having been reached, I call this meeting of the Amherst Zoning Board of Appeals to order. My name is Steve Judge. As ZBA Chair, I want to welcome everyone to this meeting. Pursuant to Governor Baker's March 12th, 2020 order, suspending certain provisions of the open meeting law, Massachusetts General Laws, Chapter 30A, Section 18, and the Governor's March 15th, 2020 order, imposing strict limitations on the number of people that may gather in one place. This public hearing of the town of Amherst Zoning Board of Appeals is being conducted via remote participation. No in-person attendance of members of the public will be permitted, but the public can listen to the proceedings by clicking on the link on the town's webpage. In accordance with the provisions of Massachusetts General Laws, Chapter 40A, and Article 10 of the Special Permit Granting Authority of the Amherst Zoning Bylaw, this public meeting has been duly advertised and notice thereof has been posted and mailed to parties at interest. We will begin with a roll call vote of the roll call of the members of the ZBA and paneled for this meeting tonight. I'm Steve Judge, Ms. Parks. Here. Mr. Maxfield. Here. And we have two associate members sitting in and in panel for tonight's meeting. Mr. Barrett. Here. And Mr. Meadows. Here. Also in attendance is Marine Pollock Planner and Dave Washevitz, Building Inspector. The Zoning Board of Appeals is a quasi-judicial 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. One of the most important elements of the Amherst Zoning Bylaw is section 10.38. Specific findings from this section must be made for all of our decisions. All hearings and meetings are open to the public and are recorded by town staff. The procedure is as follows. The petitioner presents the application to the board during the hearing, after which the board will ask questions for clarification or to gain 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 raise hand function on their screen. The chair with the assistance of the staff will call upon people wishing to speak. When you are recognized, provide your name and address to 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 the project and the 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 is evaluated on its own merits. 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 its decision. No decision is final until the written decision is signed by the sitting board members and is filed with the town clerk's office. Once the decision is filed with the town clerk, there is a 20-day appeal period for an agreed party to contest the decision with a relevant judicial body and superior court. After the appeal period, the permit must be recorded at the registry of deeds to take effect. Tonight's agenda, ZBA FY 2021-15, Mark Sulfield, renewal of special permit ZBA FY 2018-26, for a flag lot under section 6.3 and section 10.33 of the zoning bylaw, located off Southeast Street, map 23D, parcel 57, outline residents RO and aquifer recharge protection ARP zoning districts. ZBA 2021-16, Andrew and Sheila Jones request a special permit in order to allow the preexisting, non-conforming one family detached dwelling to be structurally altered and expanded into the required side yard setback by 13 feet, adding 237.9 square feet to the proposed house addition under section 9.22 and 10.38 of the zoning bylaw, located at 297 or two, excuse me, 279 Amity Street, map 14A, parcel 6, neighborhood residents RN zoning district. And ZBA FY 2021-17, College Street 1957 LLC request a special permit in order to allow the change of use from a one family detached dwelling to a non-owner occupied duplex dwelling, extension and alteration of the lot coverage and building area on a preexisting, non-conforming lot, modification of the required additional lot area slash family under dimensional regulations, footnote A, sections 3.211, 9.22 and 10.38 of the zoning bylaw, located at 187 College Street, map 14B, parcel 169, general residents RG zoning district. Following those matters, there's our general public comment period for matters not before the board tonight and any other business not anticipated within the last 48 hours. The first order of business tonight is a public hearing on ZBA 2021-15, Mark Sulfield, renewal of special permit ZBA FY 2018-26 for a five lot under section 6.3, section 10.33 of the zoning bylaw, located off Southeast Street, map 23D, parcel 57, outlying residents RO and aquifer recharge protection, ARP zoning districts. Are there any disclosures? We conducted site visits on May 26th and May 27th. I can report on the site visit on the 27th. It was, we arrived at the Mount Pollux parking area for the Mount Pollux conservation, walked to the property with the applicant. We viewed the site lines, the lot lines, the site lines from the property, heard a bit of the history of the property and viewed the other homes in the area as well as the views from the property. Some went over to the far lot line to view that. I came back to the car and that's pretty much I think it for the visit. There weren't a lot of questions asked we need to look at if we have to disclose tonight. Was there a lot, was there any additional information that people want to offer for the site visit for this property? Okay, good enough. The following submissions have been received by town staff on this. The applicant has supplied the ZBA applications for ZBA FY 2021. There's a boundary line agreement and subdivision approval, not required plan in Massachusetts prepared by Neal and Marie Christine L. Kregel, prepared by Randall Eiser, dated April 20th. Previously approved special permit decision from 2018 and previously approved plans. The applicant's waiver requests are for site plan waiver, building plan waiver, management plan, landscape plan, lighting plan and sign plan waivers. Planning staff submissions include a zoning map, an aerial map, conservation and trails map, topography map and a project application report dated May 20th, 2021. Is there any other, since you prepared this project application report Maureen, were there any other submissions to the board of the town government? Nothing? No. Okay. Who's here to represent the applicant? We have Mark Sofield himself. The applicant himself. Mr. Sofield, please state your name and address for the record. Mark Sofield, 1339 Southeast Street, Amherst. Great. Can you present to the board your application and give me an idea of how much time you think you'll require to your presentation? A minute, probably. It's a request to renew a special permit that has been renewed every two years since my parents bought the land in 1974. Is fine, thank you. Are there questions from the board? The one question I have, Mr. Sofield, is I know this has been continued and renewed seven or eight times, I think. Just give us some history on why it's been there and you haven't built anything on the lot which has required after two years. So my parents bought it with the intention of building a house there and they got divorced before that could happen. My mother got the lot in the divorce settlement and she held onto it as a legacy for her children. Me and my sister and our three children. And she passed just a few months after the zoning, the last time this came up for the zoning hearing. And it was in probate for a year. It's now out of probate, but we just haven't decided what my sister and I and our children haven't decided what to do with the land at this point. Thank you. Are there other questions from board members? Mr. Maxfield. I don't know, just going through here, nothing significantly has really changed in our zoning laws since the last two years, the last time this was renewed that I'm unaware of. Has that been the case, Mr. Chair? I think it came on about a year ago and there's been no major changes since then the last time since I was on here. So there wouldn't have been any major changes to the zoning laws, correct? Not that I know of, no major changes. Okay, fantastic. Yep, Ms. Parks. And I'm just looking at, I think it's page four where it talks about the aquifer recharge protection. And it was saying the health department suggested that a condition be added for soil testing. And so I'm just wondering if those conditions that are on this page four would be a part of this new permit. You see where it says residue from apple orchard. And so the last sentence there is that it suggested that a condition be added to the soil tested. Am I assuming that these conditions that are here? Because it's saying that Mr. Sofield was asking to waive some of the original conditions. And like at the bottom here, it says the board did not waive condition one. So we can, there's two parts to the answer to your question, Ms. Parks. The first is we can decide on what conditions we wish to impose in order to approve the special permit. Those can, I would think we should continue the conditions that have been imposed in the past and continue those and we can hear from the applicant if there is a concern about that. But that's the first thing. And so that would be part of our discussion on conditions. The second thing is, I think that the project application report inaccurately talks about a waiver for condition one that the, if you look at the condition that exists under possible conditions of approval on page eight, dealing with the maximum height of the building, that is a condition that was adopted in 2000, 2018, I think was the last time. And that was in modified from an earlier condition. And I think this is a condition which was negotiated at the time with the applicant. And then on the, we can, I don't remember reading that there was concern on the condition five, I think, which is the one, where is the condition that deals with the drainage, not the drainage, but the former orchard and the insecticides, is it condition five? Yeah, condition five was part of earlier approvals. And I have not, don't see that there has been an actual request to remove that, but it was an orchard. It was, it is on, you know, aquifer recharge area. We should make sure that there's, when a building permit is approved, we should make sure that the land is not reaching to the, there's nothing reaching into aquifer. So we can discuss those when we get to conditions. Yep. Any other questions or comments from board members? Maureen, do we have anybody from the public? We do. So are you saying that you're opening it up to public comment? Public comment, yeah. Sure, I'm sure we have Aaron Hayden. If you could state your name and your address. Hi there, this is Aaron Hayden, 1491. Hi Mark, it's been a long time since we've seen each other. I'm one of the people who got the letter because I do have an interest that's being the parcel immediately to the east. Among the conditions, I'm hopeful that you will retain both the height restriction and also the setback from the ridge line. There's a detail there that keeps the building it's a little bit further than the setback is required. I believe it's 50 feet. I have solar panels there personally and I would like to keep them unencumbered but also just generally keeping things away from the ridge lines, which are in this case, a ridge line which is abutting a very popular park. I think it's important. And among the four acres, there's lots of room to put some very many beautiful views as you know, because you've been there. Not opposed to building there at all, Mark. Happy to have a new neighbor but I'm just hoping they can be a little bit down the hill. Thank you. Thank you. Other public comments, Maureen, do we have anybody? No, we don't. All right. This is an opportunity for Mr. Sofiel to respond to any public comments or to any questions of the board. Any questions the board had or anything you heard us say? I have no questions or comments. If there are no other questions from the board I think we should move to a public meeting where we can discuss conditions and findings that we have to make. I wanna make sure that we keep the public hearing meeting open while we move to the public meeting portion and we can close both once we finish this disposition of the matter before us. So I would entertain a motion to open a public meeting on this matter while keeping the public hearing open as well. Do I have a second? Or do I have a motion? So moved. Second? Second. There's a roll call vote. All in favor say, I'll say aye, Ms. Parts. Aye. Mr. Maxfield. Aye. Mr. Meadows. Aye. Mr. Barrett. Aye. So this is a time when we can discuss those findings and conditions that we have for us. We have to do a couple of things here. First off, we have to make some, we have to find for section six of the zoning bylaw dealing with flaglots. We then need to also make a finding on 6.37 which deals with driveway or the access strips, which is in section seven. We have to look at the technology aquifer protection. And then we have a 10.38. But before we go through all those, I'd like to look at conditions that were imposed in this application previously. And I in review of those conditions, they all seem to make sense to me. And some were adjusted in the last application, last hearing to accommodate requests from the applicant. And it deals with also number two deals with the question of the construction area being tested for arsenic because it was a new raised Ms. Parts section, 6.35 and 6.34 and 6.35 as a building area, equal to 150 feet that will come in play when there's an actual building plan. The driveway and the drainage plan must be approved by the town and submitted to the zoning board of appeals. The aquifer recharge protection district restrictions found in section 3.254 of the bylaw shall be observed on the access poll section of the property. This includes but is not limited to a prohibition on the use of sodium chloride, fertilizers, pesticides and other hazardous leachable materials. This permit, the condition six has a two year expiration period that is all special permits do. And when there is a plan and there is construction, all exterior lighting shall be designed and installed so as to be shielded with a domcast and a dark sky compliant in compliance with ZVA rules and regulations. Those are the conditions that have applied before and I would recommend that we be applied those conditions to this reapply, I don't get, I guess it's the free certification of this application, renewal of this application. Are there any other, any comments on conditions, questions, concerns? Okay. I think the thing to do would be to vote on these, vote on these Mr. Meadows. The comment that Aaron Hayden mentioned about keeping it farther down from the ridge line. I didn't notice anything in the prior conditions about that. Is it, did I just miss it or? The highest point for roof reliance, that's my answer to the roof average height. I saw he said it was in the, he understood it was in the previous special permit but I do not see it here. Maureen, would you know? We could read aloud, Steve, I don't know if you, did you read aloud condition one as written? I can read it again. Yep, I didn't read the whole thing. The maximum height of any, this deals with the height of the building, I think. I don't know if it deals with the setting. The maximum height of any building upon the land being conveyed shall not exceed 24 feet in height at the assumed benchmark elevation of 100 at station 306, which is in reference to a topographical plan of Amherst, Massachusetts, prepared for David Sofield by Elmer Huttley Jr. and associates. So that's a point on the property, a specific point on the property from which to reference the height of the, of the height of any building, I assume. Is that, I'm gonna ask Mr. Sofield if that's correct. There's a specific point on the property that this references to, right? Exactly, yep. Okay. The minimum or maximum height of the building shall be measured at the vertical distance from the average finish grade on the street side of the structure to the highest point on the roof class, to the deck line for Mancid roofs and to the average height midpoint between the highest eaves and the ridge of the main body of the roost for Gable hip shed, saltbox and gambrel roofs or combination thereof as defined by Amherst's owning bylaw. So, Mr. Chair, I pulled up a previously proved plans related to the flag lot. And so when you repeat the condition, as you were repeating condition one, if Mr. Sofield could indicate that specific point that was referenced in condition one, that would be helpful. Yeah, I'm not sure it shows on this plan. What does show, however, is the restricted building line that Erin was referring to. This line right here, if you can see my mouse. Yeah, which is further, which pushes what would it be, the typical setback further west. And the solar panels are perhaps in this sort of general area? Well, I, presumably they're not, they're presumably they're not in, they're in so on the Hayden side of the line. There's also a restricted building line. And presumably the solar panels are east of that line. So is that- Actually, I don't actually know if that's correct, but I hope so. But Mr. Sofield, again, we're going to try to get the answer to this. So we're going to get your response. The restricted building line, this is the line to which Mr. Hayden was speaking, is it not? And would this also be then, Maureen, is this in reference? Would this be included by reference in the special permit, this drawing and this restricted building line? Yes. So this was a previously- Continue. Yeah. And so you, the ZBA could be specific in citing this, you know, this plan sheet, and you know, who prepared it and the date. The applicant did submit a recently an A&R plan that's, the plan I just showed you before, I think is from 1978, 74, sorry. So this one is a digitalized approval not required plan for, let me make this larger if I can, for the flag lot. And let's see here. And so this plan continues to show that restricted building line in question. So, and I believe this is where Mr. Hayden resides. Yeah. But. Okay, we'll go back to, go back to that 74 map again, make sure that's the same, yep, it looks to be the same line, 74. Is that your understanding that it's the same line of 74, Mr. Sofield? Yes. Okay. All right. Thank you, Mr. Meadows. Does that answer your question? I'm not really certain. What Mr. Hayden was saying was a certain distance from the ridgeline, not the restricted building line. And I, the ridgeline I would assume is closer to the top of the map than it is to the bottom of the map indicated. I can answer that if you'd like. Please. Yes. So the ridgeline is to the bottom of the map. Yeah. The topography rises, paged down. And in fact, that station point referenced in number one, it is shown, I'm seeing it now, it is shown on this 74 map, elevation top of 100. Yeah, it's referenced in the general notes. Yeah. It's referenced in the general notes, number one, all grades shown are based on a, I assume benchmark elevation of 100 at station 306. And if you can see my mouse sort of swirling around, that's the high top elevation of this hillside and which is at 100, which is outside of the property line. And then it slopes down this way. And then it continues to slope downwards in this direction. So that if I understand the comment that Aaron Hayden meant indicated, he said 50 feet from the ridgeline. And I'm not positive, it's difficult to determine if this station 306 is what he was asking or not. Well, it's, we know the ridgeline extends to, that where it says 106.5. Right. This, the access is 40 feet wide coming in the access line with those, what it looks to be trees in it. Yep, right here. That's 40 feet wide. Yep. The restricted, it's close to 40 feet just from the lot line. The restricted line was back about 40 feet from the lot line. Certainly it's, I think it's awfully close to 50 feet from the point and certainly 50 feet from the top of the ridge of 106.5. So I didn't hear him say that he wanted to change the existing, change what was there. I heard him say he wanted to maintain what was at the, was in the old condition one. Well, if condition one, if interpreting them will, if this condition one can be interpreted to suggest that it's, it meets the conditions that he was asking for, then that's fine. Yep. All right. Ms. Parks. Is it okay to ask Mr. Hayden to clarify? We can, yes. Mr. Hayden. So thank you. I'm sorry, missed the 2018 meeting. I was away, but in the years previous, I recall, and I'm of an age where recollection is something that can be tricky, that the 50 feet was defined from the ridge line. It may have been from the lot line and that's, so yes, and I think Steve got it right when he guessed that what I'm looking for was to keep what was there, the restrictions that were there, they seem to be correct. All right. Thank you, Mr. Hayden. I would like just to remind the board and the public that, you know, condition two gets into prior to the issuance of a building permit for whatever would be there, a residence, a single family home, et cetera, that the board would review the site plan, the grading, the drainage plan, the siting of the residents and outbuildings, driveway, et cetera, et cetera. I believe Steve had mentioned that earlier, but so, you know, a butters can review what is being proposed in the future at a ZBA meeting. Right. This action we're taking tonight is just to continue the flag lot. It is not, there's no building permit being granted. And that would require an addition, any building permit would require additional adherence in the ZBA. All right. What I'd like to do is finalize these conditions and then move on to the findings. Are there any comments or questions? If not, I'd like to like a motion to approve these conditions. So moved. So moved. Is there a second? Second. Any further discussion? If not a roll call vote. Mr. Chair, you could approve the conditions as part of the decision for this special permit and do it in one motion. We could do it in one, but tonight I wanted to do this first, just so we knew what we were, that these were applied to the findings that we have to make because they help to make the findings. So I understand that's a good point. And normally we do it that way, Maureen, but I thought tonight we should establish these conditions and then that helps us move through the findings that we have to make. So roll call vote. I vote aye. Ms. Parks. Aye. Mr. Maxfield. Aye. Mr. Meadows. Aye. Mr. Barrett. Aye. That motion was approved. Now we need to go through findings for section 6.3 and the flaglots. The area of the flag, this deals with the first 6.32 deals with the size of the flag lot. This flag lot is substantially over the minimum size required. 6.33 deals with the access script. And if anybody has questions while I'm going through this, please raise your hand and let me know. But I'm going to run through these and assume it that you are in concert with these findings from the staff review for the most part. This deals with 6.33 deals with the access strip. It is in compliance with the access strip. It's supposed to be 40 feet wide, it's 43. The width of the portion of the lot where the principal building is to be constructed shall be equal to exceed the distance normally required from steep frontage. This means the flag lot meets the requirement that is much wider than 150 feet in all directions. 6.35, the portion of the flag lot, which is a principal building is to be located shall be considered a building area. The flag lot meets the requirement because it can contain a circle within 150 foot diameter. The basic minimum lock frontage is 150 for the RO zoning district in order to comply with section 6.35. Condition number three that we just agreed to shall remain. 6.36, there's no more than three flag lots adjacent. This is the only flag lot. 6.37 deals with, again, access strips. The first is unimpeded access shall be provided across the access strip or an easement at least 20 feet wide. There's an old gravel and when there is a plan for a building, this will have to be approved. The driver with the access strip or easement shall have adequate drainage and shall not exceed five feet in grade within 50 feet of the intersection. From the survey, it looks like that's the case. Approximately greater 4% along most of its length but it won't become steeper as approach to Southeast Street. Again, I think there's no reason to impose to, I mean, this can be dealt with, this will be dealt with when there's a building permit at a later point in time. Accord for recharge protection. I think condition five and condition two deal with that. And residue from the apple orchard, condition two deals with that as well. We do, I did note that the special permit decision had a, I mean, the project application report had a mistake in the special permit decision dealing with condition one. So we've corrected that. We're quoting the same condition as before. Now we move to section 10.38 findings. The proposal is suitably located in the neighborhood in which it was proposed under the town as deemed appropriate by the special permit granting authority. I think we find that the proposed flag lot is not suitable for the site. It is suitable for the site and it's compatible with existing uses and other uses permitted by right in the RO zoning district. I didn't want to give anybody a hard attack with that mistake. 10.382, 10.383, 10.385 and 10.387 all generally deal with nuisance to air, water, pollution, flood, noise, odor, dust, vibration, lights, et cetera. And it protects adjoining premises against detrimental and offensive uses. This inclusion of the flag lot is within an area that does not constitute a nuisance to the surrounding properties since the future home will be set well back from the road, from adjacent properties and through to the property about conservation along to the north where there will be no additional neighbors. It has adequate and appropriate facilities. 10.384 has adequate and appropriate facilities which will be provided for the proper operation at proposed use. Per condition number two, the board shall review and approve final site plan prior to issuance of a building permit. 10.386, the proposal ensures that it is in conformance with the parking and sign regulations. Again, condition two will require that we do that if and when there's a building permit prior to prior to issuing a building permit. 10.387, the proposal provides a convenient and safe vehicular movement within the area. Again, condition two, the board will review and approve the final revised site plan prior to issuance of a board of a building permit for the residents. 10.388, proposal ensures adequate space for off street loading and unloading of goods. Again, condition two will review the final site plan prior to the issuance of a building permit. 10.389 deals with adequate methods of disposal or storage of sewage waste. Again, condition two will govern this and we will review this before building permit. 10.390, the proposal ensures protection from flood hazards as stated in such factors as elevation of buildings, et cetera. The project has not found to be within a designated flood zone. Per condition number two, the board shall review and approve the final revised site plan prior to the issuance of a building permit for our residents. At which time the applicant can provide information about the elevation of buildings, drainage, adequacy of sewage, disposal, erosion, runoff, sedimentation and all. Nothing that we're doing tonight will change the existing conditions on the ground. 10.389, 391 protects to the extent feasible, unique or important national or historic scenic features. Preserving the views from near my mount, Mount Pollock has been an issue of concern during previous reviews of the special permit application. I would amend the staff review to say, condition one provides the maximum height for building upon the land being conveyed and shall not exceed 24 feet in that height if you assume the benchmark elevation, station 100 at station 36. The board finds that the modification will protect to the extent that the condition, not the modification, that the condition, that's condition one will protect to the extent feasible reviews from Mount Pollock. So that just incorporates what we did in number one. 10.392 proposal provides adequate landscaping, including screening of adjacent residents, provisions of street trees. Again, this deals principally with screening from adjacent properties. Properties not found within a designated flood zone. The board shall review and approve the final revised site plan prior to oceans for a building permit and provide information about the elevation of buildings. Is that the right response there, Maureen? Trees parking landscape, I'll just put it down. Yeah, I think so regarding the 10.393. 10.392. Oh, oh, short. 10.392 is adequate landscaping. It doesn't really deal with flood plan. I think we just have a glitch there on 10.39. So this is, yeah, this is, I think we just had the wrong staff review here, but I think what we have to say is that there isn't, it does provide adequate, I mean, it's far enough away from other properties to at this point, it doesn't provide a, there's no change. And we will look at a site plan review before granting a building permit. So we can redo this condition or the staff review is finding to incorporate what we said before, how we're going to look at the ZBA, we'll look at it before final building permit. 10.393, proposal provides protection of adjacent properties by minimizing intrusion of lighting, including parking lots, exterior lighting, et cetera. Again, we're going to review it per condition two. 10.394, the provision avoids the extent feasible impact on steep slopes, flood plains, scenic views, grade changes and wetlines. Again, I think we just modify that staff review our finding to read, delete the modification of and just say condition one will help avoid to the extent feasible impact on, add the words impact on scenic views as per condition two and then just continue on. At this time, the app can provide, when there's a building permit, they can provide information about the impact on steep slopes, flood plains, scenic views, grade changes. There are no wetlands in this parcel. Did you get that Maureen? Mm-hmm. 10.395, the proposal does not create disharmony, et cetera, et cetera. This is not applicable to this project. The proposal provides screens for storage areas. Again, this is at this time, the finding is not applicable to this project. 10.397 is not applicable, dealing with recreational facilities. 10.398, the proposal is in harmony with the general purpose and intent of the bylaw. And I think we find that it is in harmony with the general purpose and intent of the bylaws and of the master plan. Those are the findings we have to make. There's no other findings that we have to make in this particular application. So with the adoption of the conditions, from our previous vote, this is the time to discuss. If I would entertain a motion to approve the special permit with conditions. At that point, we can discuss if we want to approve it or amend the conditions or amend the findings in any way. So if there are a motion to approve, go ahead Maureen. I just wanted to suggest an additional condition which is regarding approving the recently submitted A&R plan, which is a digitalized version of the older, the previously approved plans. And to make a condition that approves all those plans and state the sheet name, who prepared it in the date for future reference. For reference. That's just good practice to have that. Yep, since we're continuing it. Okay, you will draft that, you go ahead and draft that and we understand the intent of what you're doing. So we will include that by reference when we approve the application. And if there are any substantial changes to those plans that the applicant would need to come back to the board for review and approval. Yes. Okay. All right. Is there a motion to approve the special permit application with conditions, including the conditions stated by Maureen, the conditions stated by Maureen. Do we have a motion to do that? So moved. Ms. Parks. And second, Mr. Barak, did I hear you? Second. All right. Is there a discussion on the application, the conditions for the finding? Hearing no discussion, the vote occurs on the motion to approve the application with conditions, including a condition stated by, or described by Maureen. This is a roll call vote. Chair votes aye. Ms. Parks. Aye. Mr. Maxfield. Aye. Mr. Meadows. Aye. Mr. Barak. Aye. Motion carries. Mr. Sofiel, congratulations. Thank you all. Great. Good luck. Thanks. I can leave now, Maureen. Yes. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. The next order of business is ZVA FY2021-16, Andrew and Sheila Jones request a special permit in order to allow the preexisting, non-conforming one family detached dwelling to be structurally altered and expanded into the required side yard setback by 13 feet, adding 237.9 square feet to the proposed house addition under sections 9.22 and 10.38 of the zoning bylaw, located at 279 Amity Street, map 14A Parcel 6, neighborhood residents, R and zoning districts. We continue the same panel for this matter. Are there any disclosures? If not, site visits were conducted on May 26th and May 27th. I attended the meeting on the 27th. We met the applicant and Mr. Reedy at the site. We walked around to the proposed, the area of proposed expansion of the house. It's a padded, we observed it with a patio. We observed the lot line and the existing encroachment on the lot line. We observed that we talked about the design of the building, the front of the building and the side of the building, the windows, the roof line and we observed it. And we, I think that was the basic, essentially what we did. Dylan, do you have anything to add to that? Or does anybody else, other site visits have anything to add from the board? Pretty straightforward, is it? Okay. Following submissions have been received by town staff. The application for ZBA 20, 2116, email correspondence from Attorney Reedy dated April 29th. Site plan prepared by Mr. Eisner dated April 27th, 2021, showing light fixtures. Floor plan, exterior elevations prepared by Lawrence Tuttle, AIA dated April 22nd, 2021. The south elevation landscaping prepare and date unknown. Exterior photographs of building and site, email correspondence from Thomas Reedy dated May 14th, light fixtures, specifications, sheets, the applicant's waiver requests from plan requirements of a management plan, a landscape plan and a sign plan. Planning staff submissions include a zoning map and aerial map and a project application report dated May 20th, 2021. Who's here to represent the applicant? I am, Mr. Chair. Mr. Reedy, can you go ahead and proceed, give us your name and address for the record? Sure, I'd be happy to. Good evening, Mr. Chairman, members of the board, Mr. Roscovich, Ms. Pollock on Tom Reedy and Attorney with Bacon, Wilson and Amherst, here on behalf of Andrew and Sheila Jones of 279 Amity Street. Also in Amherst. If I could, I'm gonna share my screen and then I'll probably drive you around a little bit. So if everyone can see my screen, I've got the Amherst GIS map up, just the property map showing property boundaries. I've got highlighted 279 Amity Street right here. Most of us, at least today at the site visit pulled into the driveway here. We walked up the sidewalk on the neighbor's property and then down and took a look at the area right here, which is as I'll show in the next PDF, where the expansion is going. And so as the chairman mentioned, we're asking for relief for the alteration of a pre-existing non-conforming structure. The lot itself, so there's 122 feet of frontage. However, as everybody's aware, there's a building circle requirement where you have to meet the 120 feet has to meet the circle where the building is located and we don't meet that. I think it's 109 feet is what's been calculated. So we're non-conforming there, but we're not making any changes. We're also non-conforming as to lot coverage, but because there's already a patio here and I'm not sure that you'll be able to see it, but there's a patio right here and that patio already counts towards a lot coverage. So we're not changing the lot coverage. And then as I'll show, hopefully everybody can see this. We've got, here's where the proposed addition is going to go. You don't need to do that. The property is 2.6 feet or the building rather is 2.6 feet from this property line. The proposed addition is going no closer than 2.6 feet to that property line. So you have the backside of this chimney right here. And maybe what I'll do is zoom in a little bit so you can all see. It's like it's my first time using a computer and I swear it's not. Okay, you'll see here, here's that proposed addition. This is where that patio is, the stone patio is. You'll see that the distance from the corner of this chimney to the property line is 2.6 feet and the proposed addition from this corner to the property line is also 2.6 feet. And so we would suggest this addition is not substantially more detrimental to the neighborhood than the existing non-conformity, which is also 2.6 feet to the property line. And I'll show you a little bit of what it's going to look like. And I think here you can certainly see it's not gonna be detrimental to the neighborhood. I think they've done a really great job. So in front of the house here, Amity Street is at the bottom of your screen, little entry vestibule. You'll see that it's stepped back a little bit. So I think that helps the house is massing. This is the area of the patio and you'll see the extent of the original footprint is hashed out right there. So this is all going to be a great room. This is for those members that were there today from that abutting properties of the closest one, this is that the side there. And so you've got long window, transom, transom, transom with long window and then a couple of transoms. I think this is where Andy's probably gonna have his television, but Sheila could tell him otherwise, I'm sure. But this is that easterly side. And then this is obviously that from the southerly facade. And you'll see that the roof lines, the structure of it, the hip roof, along with, and I don't know enough to call it flashing, but it's probably something more elegant than that along the base of the roof line. So this is what they're proposing. And I can probably show you one more here with the landscaping. You've got obviously Amity Street descends from east to west. There are some evergreen plantings in front of the house. And then this is essentially what it would look like. And this is just for those who haven't seen it. This is what's existing. And so this is the area that is going to be changed along with the roof line. And then like I had pointed out, we're gonna have a hip roof there. Also as part of this, Andy and Sheila are gonna redo the entirety of their lights. So they're gonna change all of their lights to be dark sky compliant. I'm happy to go through and point out each of the locations that they're gonna exist in. It has been submitted to the record. I don't wanna bore the board, but they are all dark sky compliant. There is a key, so there's a legend on one of the plans showing where the fixtures are and what fixtures would be going there. So the board obviously can reference that. But without belaboring it, because I do think this is pretty straightforward, we would suggest that the board can approve it because it's not substantially more detrimental to the neighborhood. And obviously we're happy to answer any questions. I know that one came up today, which maybe I'll just beat you to it, Mr. Chairman. So I think one of the questions was about the butters. This actually says it's Andy and Sheila's, which it is not, it was conveyed, I wanna say, and was it, it was either 2020 or 2021 to I think John Evets and Lindsay Berry. There's a trust that actually owns this and it's land court. This is land court and this is land court as well. They're both registered land. So hopefully with that, the board can make their findings and any questions we're happy to answer. Great. Thank you, Mr. Reedy. The one thing I noticed is that on the, there are several incursions into the side setback already pre-existing. You have incursions of 2.6 feet, 3.9 feet. But farther up you have four points. I think it's 4.6 feet and eight points. So there's several existing incursions into the setback already. Those are pre-existing. Correct, yeah. So on 7.3, 4.6, 6.6. Yep. And I don't even know if this back here is, this deck is far enough away. I guess it's maybe 15 feet, but I'm not sure. And even then, yeah. They probably just didn't even bother, because it's further away than I think the rest of the stuff. So Randy got tired of measuring. So, I mean, the real question is whether, everything that you can't do anything about the 120 square feet, that already exists and you're really not changing that. And the other is the lot coverage and that's maintained, that remains the same if I understand this correctly. So the only, it seems like the only question for the board is whether there should be a side setback incursion of that only allows 2.6 feet, a second incursion into the side setback that only allows 2.6 feet from the lot line. That seems to me that's the only question for the board to answer at this point. And we should care about the light in too, but they're all dark sky complaints. I wear the cut sheet. As far as I'm concerned, it seems to be carrying on something that's already being done on that property and hasn't gone and isn't an additional detriment to the neighborhood. But I'd like to hear from other people on the board and see what questions and comments other board members have. So I can open it up to any board member. No comments from, I can't see up from what I see. I don't see anybody raising their hand. Somebody had their hand. Oh, there you go, Dylan, the view didn't have you. No worries. Have we heard from any statements from the member of the public neighbors who, I mean, specifically the neighbor right there do they have anything to say about the 2.6 incursion or have we heard from them? Are they at this meeting? Yeah, I haven't received any public comments or comments from any of the town departments. And everyone knows all the butters duly notified, I assume. Correct. Yeah. Yeah, then I guess I'll just say, yeah, as long as the immediate neighbor has no objections to it, but it all seems to be kind of in line with what's already there. All right. Any other comments? If not, we'll go to public comments, if any. You don't see anybody with their hands up Maureen. Correct. Yep. All right. I have no further comments and I don't see any reason to continue this further. What I'd like to do is move to the public meeting on this where we consider conditions and findings we have to make. As we did before, there are no two very simple conditions, pretty standard conditions that are included almost all the time that the first condition is the project shall be built according to approved plans and maintained as needed. Any substantial changes from the approved plan shall come back before the VDA at a public meeting. And then we reference then in that condition, our reference the specific site plans, drawings, maps, elevations and light fixtures. So if they change from this and what they've submitted, they have to come back to us. And lastly, all the pretty much standard dark sky compliant, according to VDA rules and regulations lighting condition. Those are things that are normally included in any conditions for approval of a special printer. Did anybody have any problems with these conditions? If so, I speak up now. Otherwise, I'd like to move to our findings and then we'll vote all in one in this case because it's pretty simple stuff. I think first finding we have to make is on 9.22, the special permit granting authority is authorized to act under the provisions of section 3.3 of this bylaw may under a special permit allow a non-conforming 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 on property and the vicinity. Set authority may also authorize under a special permit a non-conforming use of a building structure or land to be extended or non-conforming building to be structurally altered, enlarged or reconstructed provided that the authority finds that such alteration enlargement or reconstruction shall not be substantially more detrimental to the neighborhood than the existing non-conforming use or non-conforming building. So 9.22 requires that we make the determination that the non-conforming construction is not more detrimental to the neighborhood than the existing non-conforming use of the building. And I am prepared to make that determination. And the staff response on this goes through the three areas the side setback which is the 2.6, an incursion of leading only 2.6 feet of the side setback the lot coverage which has not changed but if there's a structure where there was hard escape now and three building area of the frontage lot which pre-existed and can't be changed. So I'm prepared to make the finding I think we should make the finding that this is not substantially more detrimental to the neighborhood and it's in compliance with section 9.22. Any objection? Not, I'll move on. Then we have 10.38 and proposal suitably look 10.38 and 10.38 one deals with suitability of a location in proposed in the town and deemed appropriate by the special branding authority. The proposal is suitably located in the neighborhood and is compatible with the existing owner occupies and family homes. I think we can see that from the drawings and the elevations and the surrounding residential neighborhood. The applicant is reporting proposing to build in addition to their existing single family homes. 10.382, 10.383, 10.385 and 10.387. Proposal would not constitute a nuisance due to air, water pollution, odor dust, vibration lights. Really protects adjoining reasonably projects adjoining premises against detrimental offensive units and water pollution flood noise, dust, vibration, et cetera. The application proposes to replace all non-compliant light fixtures so it solves that problem. And the proposed addition includes a door entrance on the East building facade. The existing stone walkway from the said door connects the subject property to the budding property that be taken out. Yeah, that doesn't exist. So we want to, I think, Maureen, we want to amend this staff review here to delete the connecting walkway to leave that sentence. All right, and the property owners are not the same. So we have to delete that second sentence. So we end that review with the word facade. 10.384, adequate and appropriate facilities provided the proper operation utility services to found existing. 10.386, the proposal ensures that it conforms with parking and sign regulations. There are two parking spaces provided for the single-founding home. No signage is required or proposed. 10.387, the proposal provides convenient and safe vehicular and pedestrian movement within the site in relation to adjacent street's property or improvement. If we are concerned about that, we can require a traffic impact statement. Safe, I find that we find that the safe vehicular traffic and pedestrian movement is found on the site. 10.388 is not applicable. It deals with off-street loading and unloading of vehicles. 10.389, proposal provides adequate methods of disposable storage for sewage, refuge, recycles. The applicant has requested a waiver from submitting a management plan. The submitted site plan does not indicate the location of where the trash and recycling goods are stored and whether they're enclosed or screened, the board may wish to see its location. When we were there, I didn't notice the location of the trash can, and I didn't even ask. Are they behind the garage? Yeah, there's certainly not in public heat in the garage or tucked around that driveway. Yeah, they're in the back. I didn't see them. Did anybody else notice them at the site visit? Which is an excellent point, if nobody else noticed it. Great, that's the conclusion I'm drawing here from this. 10.390, the proposal ensures protection from flood hazards as stated in section 3.228, considering such factors as elevation of building, drainage, adequacy of sewage disposal, et cetera. Property is not found in a designated flood zone. It's not applicable to this. And 10.391 is also not applicable because it's not in the Lincoln Sunset Historic District. 10.392, the proposal provides adequate landscaping, including screening of adjacent properties. The applicant has requested a waiver from submitting a landscape plan. And we've seen from the drawings plans for, I think our provider or the plans along the property line with the abutting neighbors. But you've requested a waiver from a landscape plan. And I think we can find that. 10.393, the proposal provides protection of adjacent properties by minimizing intrusion of lighting. This is basically dark sky, which is acquired in the lighting, is contained and referenced in the conditions. 10.394, the proposal avoids the extent feasible impact on steep slopes. Again, this is not applicable to the project. 10.395, the proposal does not create this harmony with respect to the terrain and to the use scale and architecture of existing buildings. This is made of south elevation plan, shows the height of the proposed addition to be lower than existing building height. The style seems to proportionate with and matches the existing building. And the south elevation elevated plans, in my opinion, it views, it fits nicely in the neighborhood and works with other homes in the neighborhood. 10.396, the proposal provides adequate screening for storage areas. Again, this trash and recycling are back behind. We did not see them. So they're screened. 10.397, provides adequate recreational facilities, open space and amenities for proposed use. We find that there's sufficient open space located on the site. 10.398, the proposal is in harmony with the general purposes and intensive bylaws and the goal of the master plan. The proposal provides proposal building addition to the owner occupied single family home at the subject properties in harmony with the master plan. The board needs to determine whether the proposal meets the applicable zoning bylaw sections, including section 9.22 and 10.38, which we just did. Are there any questions regarding from board members? Any questions regarding the findings of 10.38 and 9.22? All right. The next order of business would be a motion to approve the special permit with the conditions as laid out in the, and as amended in the staff project application report and make the findings and necessary findings of 9.22 and 10.38. Is there a motion? To move. To move, Mr. Maxfield, is there a second? Second. Yeah, three seconds. Any discussion? If there's no discussion, this is a roll call vote. The chair votes, roll call vote on approving the special permit application with conditions. Chair votes aye. Ms. Parks? Aye. Mr. Maxfield? Aye. Mr. Meadows? Aye. And Mr. Berra? Aye. Motion approved unanimously. Special permit is granted. Good luck. Thank you very much. Thanks a lot. Good seeing everybody. Have a great long weekend. I like you too. Thank you. The next order of business is ZBA 2021-17, College Street 1957 LLC. Requests a special permit in order to allow a change of views from a one family detached dwelling to a non-owner occupied duplex dwelling. Extension and alteration of a lot coverage and building area on a pre-existing non-conforming lot. Modifications of required additional lot area slash family under dimensional regulations. Put note A, sections 3.211, 9.22 and 10.38 of the zoning bylaw, located at 187 College Street, map 14B, parcel 169, general residents are RG zoning district. Members of this panel are the same as we've had all night. Are there any disclosures? Sites, site visits were conducted on May 26th and May 27th. I can report on the visit on the 27th. We arrived at the property. We viewed the, from the parking lot side of the property, we viewed the extension of the new dwelling unit that was proposed, where the garage is located and where the garage was located but where the cement plant is currently located. We walked the front of the building, tried to get in to see the building but it was locked and we weren't able to see the interior of the existing structure. We noted a, we did note a light fixture under the porch of the existing structure seemed to be loose and there was questions asked at the time about whether that was going to be replaced. It wasn't clear. We walked to the back to look at the site regarding the elevation of the second of a new unit, the difference between the common, I guess it'd be a common doorway between the new unit and the old unit for access to the basement. We looked at that. We walked around to the back and looked at the lot, what appeared to be the lot line for the property where the proposed berm would be to mitigate, runoff into the wetlands behind it. And we walked the lot line there and examined what was the vegetation that existed. We then looked at the parking area, tried to line up the parking area with the house and the, that exists and the neighboring house. We looked at where the fencing would be along the lot line of the neighboring house to the, the house is to the east, is it not? East to the east. East to the east, house to the east. We did that as well. And we looked at the elevation and compared the heights of the houses and those in the neighborhood. I think that pretty much sums up the extent of the site visit. Maureen or Dylan, if you have anything, Mr. Back, Maxwell, if you have anything to add, I think that pretty much sums up the questions we asked and the nature of the site visit. Does anybody else have anything to add from earlier times? The town has received the following submissions. The ZDA application, a management plan, including an additional information required for apartments, supplemental information prepared by Valley Management dated April 23rd, which includes project description sample lease complaint response form, reference photos for neighborhood compatibility, exterior light fixtures, details and specifics. I guess those are cut sheets for the light fixtures. Sample parking permit and additional reference photos. We've also received a plan set consisting of five sheets which includes a plot of the land, demolition plan, a layout plan, a grading and planting plan and a proposed lighting and photometric plan. There's a building plan which includes three sheets which is elevation, a floor plan and foundations all prepared by Laura's architecture and drafting design dated April 23rd, 2021. The staff has submitted a zoning map, an aerial map, a topography map, wetlands and NHSP map. As I said, the project application report dated May 20th, comments from the town engineer and dated May 19th, comments from fire prevention officer Mike Roy dated May 19th, 2021. In addition, I'm told that the planning board has requested that they be able to review the application and provide comments to the ZBA before we take final action on the application. The planning board could review this application at its June 16th meeting and provide comments to us after that. I'm inclined to grant the request of the planning board and my inclination would be that the board grant they request to the planning board. And as a result, it's my recommendation that tonight we conduct a public hearing on the application and continue that public hearing into the next meeting date subsequent to the planning board meeting. So I think the next meeting date would be sometime in July then because I don't think we can meet in late June. We have an early June meeting, a late June meeting might be tough. So we did be in late June or early July and probably early July. So those are the submissions that we've received. And the last was something we learned of this afternoon just before or just after the site visit. So who is here to represent the applicant? Oh, yeah, go ahead. I am Michael Liu from the Berkshire Design Group site designer, Allen St. Hilaire from Valley Property Management is on, but Allen, you have to unmute yourself. If you see the little microphone. Got it. Okay, there you go. Thank you. Good. Great. And then you're in your address again, Mr. Liu. Yeah, I just wanted to, I guess we were planning to have Allen give a quick introduction and go over the architecture. And then I would give a presentation on the site design and layout. And then just, you know, basically open it up to comments and questions from the board. Well, we just need your address. I know you're Berkshire. I'm sorry, Berkshire Design Group for Allen Place, North Hampton, Massachusetts. Mr. St. Hilaire. Allen St. Hilaire Valley Property Management. Do you also need my address? Yep. PO Box 3649 Amherst, Massachusetts. Thank you. Proceed. Okay, so I'm happy to do the project overview and review the architecture of the property and kind of explain the site and the neighborhood and how it will be no more impactful or detrimental to the neighborhood. I did have a quick question before we jump into that. The planning board, the request for the planning board is can someone explain what they might be looking for so that we can be prepared for that? Are there certain aspects of the project they wanna look at? Is it the architecture? Is it the site? You know, all I know is the request was made, Mr. St. Hilaire. I think there's probably part of the, I don't know the answer to that. I can assume that some of the questions may relate to the additional coverage, additional lot size needed for a second unit, the second duplex is a item that the planning board is dealing with in other contexts. Maybe that's part of it. Maybe it isn't. I'm not sure, but Maureen, do you have any indication or Dave, do you have any indication of what their concerns are? Sure. So, all applications, ZBA applications are, the sort of legal ad or agenda items are provided to the planning board. And at their meetings, they actually review ZBA applications. And from time to time, they make requests to the ZBA for referral as they would like to have a presentation and provide the ZBA recommendations. So this is a standard procedure. The planning board doesn't do it for every application, but if there's an application of interest, they would like to see it. So while you could email Chris Brestrup directly to see if there's anything specific that they would like to see, I think it would be safe to say that you should provide them your general presentation similar of what you're doing today tonight. And I'm sure the planning board would then have a discussion with you and amongst themselves. And then they would make recommendations for recommendations to the zoning board of appeals for their consideration. Thank you. Okay, great. So I will jump into it. The first thing I'd like to present is the neighborhood. We are here. See if I can share my screen here. Here we go. Can everybody see my screen there? I've got the GIS viewer up. Yep. Okay, great. So this is the subject property 187 college. This is where the garage was. A couple of things I'd like to point out. There are quite a few, I would say the majority of the properties along this stretch of the road are in fact rentals. Many of them are multi-unit rentals. I've got some photos for reference that I will touch on later. And four doors down, we have Amherst College physical plant and across the street, leader lumber. And in the other direction, four doors down, we have Fort Hill Auto Body and Enterprise Rent-A-Car. So it's a mixed use commercial, heavily traveled state road, College Street is route nine, tens of thousands of cars a day up the road. So that's the idea of this site. The addition would be going to the south of the property further away from the road. Parking of course, might can review the site plan but the parking would be to the east of the property. That is the neighborhood of the subject property. And what I'd like to do now is jump over to the architectural plans so that I can show you what the property addition will look like. These are the elevation views here. And for reference, College Street is out here to the north. This section of the property is the existing house, the existing single family house and the two-story portion here to the south would be the proposed addition. The north elevation of course is what you would see from the street. And the roof lines here represent the existing structure, the roof line that's a bit taller represents the proposed addition. Similarly, this is the south elevation which is predominantly the addition. There is a small piece of the existing dwelling off to the left here that shows through the elevation. And the west elevation, again, the two lower portions are the existing and the two-story portion here is the proposed. It's worth noting that we are stepping down the addition by approximately two feet. There is a grade change that drops off from the north to the south of the property and we are following that with the addition and the elevations of the addition. Jumping over to the floor plans and Maureen, I heard through Mike that today you asked about photos of the interior which I did send earlier this afternoon and I'm happy to share and present those at the meeting as well. So what we have is in the existing dwelling, this is the first floor plan. We have a bedroom, a front hallway and stairway, living room, dining room, kitchen and two bathrooms next to each other. The driveway for references off to the east side here. The proposed addition, first floor. And let me see if I can zoom in on this a little bit, make it easier to see. This is the proposed addition. So it will be one bedroom, open concept, living, dining, kitchen with a laundry room and bathroom on the first floor. Exterior covered staircase that goes out to the parking area. On the second floor, we have again, the existing dwelling footprint on the second floor. You come up the set of stairs into a small hallway with three bedrooms off of that hallway. This is just a attic over the first floor and the addition down here to the south would consist of stairs coming up to a small hallway, two bedrooms with a bathroom and a master suite with its own bathroom and a walk-in closet. The foundation, the existing basement, as you'll see in the photos that I will share next is unfinished open space. Some mechanicals down there and shelving. There's a boiler off to the backside of the building. The addition basement will include a common hallway to maintain exterior access to the existing basement space and it will be up and out of a hatchway to the exterior and it will have a separate doorway into the proposed addition. This is a fire-rated, fire door, common hallway in compliance with building regulations. So the basements will be completely separate but they share a hallway for exterior access. This basement will be unfinished. There will be a mechanicals down there, a propane boiler, hot water heater and just storage. There will not be any finished space in the proposed basement. Any questions about the floor plans before I show the interior photos? Can I ask questions when you're done, Mr. Lillard? Unless they're just truly clarification questions, we can board members that ask questions when you're done with your presentation. Okay, perfect. So at this point, I'll jump over to the interior photos. Coming right in off the door, the existing entry from the south is the kitchen, another view of the kitchen. The two bathrooms are directly off the kitchen. There's a bathroom door to the right here and an open bathroom door to the left. That shows the bathroom number one, bathroom number two, living room, which is right off the kitchen. The door you're seeing in front of you is the kitchen door and the open door is the exterior door out to that side porch. Dining room off the living room. First bedroom, which is on the first floor. Front hall and stairway. Bedroom number two, which is on the street side of the second floor. Number three is on the south side, the backside, the way furthest from the street, as is bedroom number four. Unfinished basement, unfinished basement. These views here just show the photos that closely match the elevation views, the east elevation from the parking area, college street off to the right here. Southerly elevation. This is the face of the existing dwelling where the addition, the proposed addition would contact, would tie into. Kind of a southwesterly view to show you the existing structure. West elevation, college street off to your left in the photo, north elevation showing the front porch and the roofline. There was a question about the light fixture on this porch is underneath the porch roof. So by definition, there would be no light going up into the sky. It's dark sky compliant. Northeasterly view. So the college street is behind us in this view. Those are the photos. And I believe that is what I wanted to cover. I'll jump back to the architectural plans to show the, actually, I think I have a site plan for that. The side setback is not going to be any more non-conforming than the existing side setback. So I'll share that screen to show that. The existing house on the northeasterly side is within the 10 foot side setback. The proposed addition will not be within that side setback. So we're not increasing the non-conformity there. And Mike from Berkshire Design will talk about the coverages and those aspects of the non-conformities, but I did want to point out because it relates to the building positioning that it does not increase the side setback any further than is already existing. Is there any part of the management plan that the board would like me to review or specifically comment on? I noticed that you did not include a contact, on-site contact. I suspect that's something that you don't know until you have tenants. Is that correct? Is that the reason you didn't include an emergency contact, but there's not a contact on property? I was unaware that that was something that the board was requesting because it is simply a duplex. It is managed off-site, of course. And in prior meetings of this nature, we didn't come across that request. So I didn't know that that was something you were looking for, but it certainly could be provided. You can proceed to the site plan. Okay. Despite, I'll turn it over to Mike Liu of Heritage Design. All right, thanks. Before I get started on the site plan, there was a question that came up today about the height of the structure. So I measured those off the plans. Obviously we didn't have time to go out and take physical measurements, but according to the plans, and I don't have an exhibit prepared, I didn't have time to do that, but the existing house, the height from ground level to the peak is 23 feet, six inches, and to the mid-roof line is 19 feet, three inches. Just to let you know. And on the addition, the two-story addition to the peak of the roof, I measured 29 feet, six inches, and to the mid-roof line, 24 feet, six inches. So it was noted that that information didn't seem to be anywhere on the plan. So certainly we can add that to the final plans if that's requested, but I just wanted to make sure you knew that. All right, let me see. Bear with me while I grab my plan set here. Might do a little bit of hopping around from page to page. Whoops. Can you guys see that? Okay, whoops, come on. So I'm gonna maybe jump to the layout plan here first. As Alan mentioned about the setback. So first of all, here's the site. This line type here indicates the property extents. College Street is over here on the right, which is to the north. So north is to the right, south is to the left, east, down, and west, upper part of the page. This site does have non-conformities in the setbacks. The existing house is 8.4 feet to this corner and about 8.5 feet to this corner to the property line. The addition would be about 12.5 feet to the property line to this corner and 12.6 feet to this corner. So as Alan mentioned, we're not getting any closer to the property line than the existing, what the existing condition is. The other non-conformity on the site is the coverage. Currently, according to the survey that was done and taking those areas, the maximum, well, the coverage requirement in this zone is 40% for site coverage. In existing conditions, it's 41.4%. In the proposed conditions, we are actually reducing the coverage to 40.8. So a few tenths of percentage points, but it's worth noting and I'll get into that a little bit later. But again, here's the existing house, the addition. The parking is proposed here along the east side utilizing the existing curb cut on College Street coming in on a driveway and then providing eight parking spaces that will face the structure. There are parking blocks that separate it from a walkway. And here we have a walk that connects up the flight of steps to the porch. And this walk, this portion of the existing walk will be retained to provide access to the front porch. We are proposing to remove this section of walk that goes out to College Street. It's not really used. And that's one way where we're trying to kind of get rid of impervious area on the site to reduce coverage and get it to balance out. As you saw from the site visits, there were orange flags placed at the approximate corners of the addition. So you could get a sense of the footprint for the addition there. In terms of other aspects of the site, we are providing dumpsters and recycle containers here along the walkway. Also being offered is a bike rack along the walkway. Cars will be prevented from accessing the rear lawn. We definitely wanna reserve that for the residents use. We are proposing to use some large stones, large low stones along the edge of the parking area here so the cars cannot drive onto the rear lawn. During yesterday's site meeting, a comment was made about, is there a way to prevent cars from driving onto the front lawn? We discussed a couple of things. What I think that Allen's preference is to leave this open. Let me just skip to the grading plan for a second here. Okay, here is the grading and planting plan. We are proposing to have a couple of arborvite shrubs in the front here to screen the parking area from College Street. There's some smaller shrubs, some evergreen inkberry on this side of the litter and recycle bins. But I guess Allen and I both feel the same that we'd like to keep the front area open. We don't wanna extend the plantings along the driveway. What we're proposing is that the changing grade will almost be a natural barrier to prevent cars from driving off the driveway onto the grass. We can adjust the grading so that we can create a one foot plus slope up to the lawn area. So hopefully that'll be an adequate method to prevent cars from driving up. If there's any series concern about that, we can even berm it up a little bit higher and create a taller berm, but we still like the idea of leaving an open lawn area without fencing or hedges or more shrubs. In regard to screening, we are proposing a wood stockade fence along the east property line. You can kind of see it back here beyond this dark line, which represents the erosion control. But we were standing out in the field and the fencing starts opposite the parking spaces and if you extend this line to the butter, we figured that it was gonna come in about three or four feet behind the front corner of the abutting house or almost at the first window on the west side of the abutting house. The grading and drainage is such that existing conditions it basically water flows from the north part of the site and leaves the south side of the site. There is wetland associated with a ditch on the Amherst College land. It's pretty far back from the property line, but we are proposing to add an infiltration swale. People might call it a rain garden. It's not a proper rain garden in that we're not putting a heavy layer of sand under there for drainage, but this will intercept runoff and slow it down, filter it. And when the pool overflows, it'll go back toward the wetland as it does in existing conditions, but it'll be water that's been somewhat treated to take out the sediments that might runoff from stormwater. The southern line and the infiltration swale are planted with native species. We did present this to the conservation commission in I think it was January of 2020. We received a negative determination from the conservation commission with a couple of conditions and meaning that they felt that they agree that this project would not have adverse impact on the wetlands. I think before we, you know, when we were out in the field, we kind of talked about the extent of the gravel and the existing garage, which you can see shown lightly here in this square and how the new impervious surfaces kind of balance out with what's there in existing conditions. As I mentioned, we are reducing the coverage by a few tenths of percentage points, but due to the reduction, technically there is, it won't increase any runoff from the site. Therefore, you know, we are not required to provide further drainage for attenuation, for infiltration, it's not required under the stormwater guidelines if you have a reduction in impervious, but to satisfy conservation's concerns about, you know, the runoff going in that direction and to keep people from wandering back into the woods and potentially impacting the bank on that swale or the ditch on the Amherst College land. You know, we felt that this was a pretty good idea to handle the runoff with the vegetation that would, you know, form a barrier to prevent people from wandering off the property and into the wooded area that actually belongs to Amherst College. In terms of the lighting, let me jump to the last page there. There are three new lights proposed. As Alan mentioned, there is an existing light which is in the ceiling of the front porch here. It's, you know, looking at it, it looks like a pretty low wattage fixture or at least low wattage bulbs can be used and it's enclosed above by the roof. So, you know, and it's been in use for, I don't know how many years, I can't imagine that there's been any complaints about that. But for the new light fixtures, we are proposing wall packs and you can see those in the submission pack package. They're basically kind of like enclosed square metal fixtures with downcast lights. This is kind of the template, excuse me, provided by the manufacturer, which shows the intensity dropping off as you get out to, let me see, is that, about, yeah, 15 feet or so and, you know, we're down to below, you know, half a foot candle. Obviously the highest illuminated zone is right near the light. We're proposing one at the corner of the addition here above the bulkhead or hatchway. One at the existing house on this Easterly facade to provide lighting for the parking and the walks in that area. And then an additional fixture here with a shield on the west side so that we don't get light spillage toward the property line. We're trying to focus that light kind of onto the, you know, to the south and east into the yard space. I think that's about it for the site I guess if there's any questions we can about the architecture or the management plans or any of that or the site will be happy to hopefully answer them for you. Mr. Chair, if I may, the one other thing I'd like to add to the presentation I've taken some photos for reference of neighboring properties, as I mentioned earlier, you know, kind of demonstrating that the neighborhood makeup and the proposed project would not be out of kind with that. So I will jump over to that, see if I can zoom in here. So 175 College Street is two doors down up College Street closer to the center of town. So that would be to the west. This is a very similar property to what we are proposing that the actual structure is, I wouldn't be surprised if it weren't built from the same plans. There's three or four houses along College Street that look like they were stamped out of the same cookie cutter. And there's an addition to the south of that that is very similar in size and scale to what we are proposing. Similarly across the street from that 174 College is actually four units, four residential units. That is closer to leader home centers and leader lumber. 200 College Street, which is nearly directly across the street. Again, a very similar architectural structure, house in the front, a single story, connecting structure and a two story house in the back. That is another two unit building. Two doors down from the subject property, of course, is the commercial building with the rental car and the auto body operation. And three or four doors up is the home center and lumber yard, of course. So it's our position that what we're proposing is in kind and certainly no more detrimental to the neighborhood. Great. Thank you, Mr. Stahler. Time for comments and questions from board members. I had a couple of questions I wanted to pose. Some are, I just did, they're not major, but I'm interested. So you can get rid of the sidewalk going through the front door. How do people get mail and deliveries? If you had the mailman walk around, did you get through the parking lot to the, how do they get to the houses to do that? I mean, it's easy when you're up front, you have two mailboxes on that front porch, but how is it gonna happen without it? Yeah, I mean, they would have to walk down the driveway and then access the walk that's to the west of the parking spaces. And that's, and is that open? Well, if there, if there's a lot- Or is that snow storage? Is that snow storage area? There is, there is no storage on the north side between the last parking space and those shrubs that we showed. So if it was wintertime, yeah, I guess, you know, they couldn't use that pathway, but, you know, they could get to the houses by, basically they'd have to walk between the parking spaces. Parking space, go up. If all the spaces were, you know, taken. Did you have asked to the existing house by going to the parking lot and then going back around front or going up the side stairs, I would call it? Yeah, they can- Right, lower. Okay, all right. They can access the existing house at two locations, the porch. That's- So they'd have to walk to the front again. Right, or then walk around to the front porch. All right. Another question is trash receptacles. What is it? What's the ground surrounding it? Receptacles are out from the unit. You've got three bushes there of uncertain height. I'm not sure what height. How are they shielded and what's that rectangular? What's the nature of the rectangular area around them? Is that grass? No, it's this, the parking and the walkway and the area that the receptacle sit on is all stone dust, similar to what is there now, that type of- For the driveway. Surface, yeah. Yes. I think this has been, you know, Allen has used the same surfacing on a couple of other projects in town. I'm just trying to see the details and the place on the drawings. Hold on a sec. We have a detail of it on sheet L 102, gravel painting. So it says litter and recycles, bulkhead access. All right. So the bike rack is on grass and the wood steps and handrail. And then what surrounds the trash receptacles and recycle bins is stone dust. Well, yeah, we have a label that's trap rock gravel on the detail on the left-hand side of the page there, detail number two, correct? It says detail two L 102 gravel paving. Okay. All right. And then you're going to plant shrubs in rock gravel. No, behind the pad, behind the between the receptacles and the porch of the existing house that's grass. Well, that's what I was asking. Oh, sorry. I was unclear. That area behind the grass. Sorry. I'm sorry. That's grass. All right. Got it. That makes sense. And what's the height of the shrubs? Those shrubs can attain the height of, you know, between three and a half to four feet. And what's the height of a trash receptacle? Maybe four and a half. Four and a half to five feet. Yeah. I'm sorry. I'm going to shield it. So they may not shield it. Okay. If I might just answer that question with a little more clarity, they're 36 inches tall. They're not four and a half feet tall. The blue trash totes are 36 inches tall. Oh, they're only 36. Yeah. They seem taller. I can get a field measurement, but they're just, you know, they're rolling totes. It's just a bit bigger than a residential trash can. It's not a dumpster or anything of that nature. All right. So the point is to shield them, the plants have to be able to grow to be big enough to shield trash receptacles. If we're going to accomplish what you say. So I guess the condition that I'm thinking about Maureen is making sure that whatever's planted there is sufficient within a year or two to actually shield the trash receptacles. We don't have to, we don't have to decide the height of the trash bins right now. Is there a detail of the stock yard fence? Yes. Also on- Where is that? Yeah, that's L one. L two. The back page. Yep. And so there's no gaps between the boards about each other directly. Incorrect. There's no gaps. Incorrect. And what were the conservation commission conditions and where are they reflected in the plan or in the drawings? I will, I can read them to you. There were only three conditions. Erosion control, well, number one, erosion controls must be installed and inspected by the wetlands administrator prior to the start of work. Number two, monitoring of the erosion controls is the responsibility of the site manager during construction. And Alan, in the duties of Valley property management, they will be monitored during, you know, when the site is, you know, opened up for construction. That will be part of their responsibility. And number three, the wetlands administrator shall be contacted to inspect prior to removal of erosion controls. So I take it that would mean that they wanna make sure that the site is stabilized before the erosion controls are removed. Are removed. Yeah. And those conditions from the wetland are incorporated into our conditions. Or do they, Maureen, do they have to be incorporated into our conditions or are they separately applicable and enforceable by the conservation commission? There is no wrong answer. There is no wrong answer. You can do either. So you could make a condition saying that, you know, the conditions of the permit and then reference the number shall be, you know, provided, but yeah. Okay. Was this, my initial questions, I wanna open it up to other board members. So Mr. Meadows, you're the first, you got your hand up first. Well, taking off and what you said earlier about the removal of the sidewalk made me think about the location of the parking, the lack of a sidewalk. And maybe it's not our decision. Maybe it's something the building inspector or the fire inspector might be concerned with. But if you leave this curb cut the way it is and you have in the evening eight spaces taken and there's an emergency to need to get into the building, how do you bring if you're coming in with a fire truck or if you're coming with an ambulance, how do you get through the parking spaces to the building effectively with any equipment? And I don't know if that's something that we should be concerned with, but it's something that becomes obvious when you think about it. I don't know if I can maybe, well, maybe Mr. Woskiewicz has a response. I don't know if I can adequately answer that. I doubt that fire trucks enter the site. They're just, you know, there's just not enough room for them to maneuver off College Street. An ambulance certainly might drive into the driveway. Well, even if they in the driveway or if an ambulance was in front of on the street. Yeah, I hear, I understand. Yep. Well, I guess, I mean, we really wanted to try to not to make the coverage condition worse than it was already given that it was non-conforming. I believe that, you know, if you have to try to not make any non-conformity worse than it already is, given that, you know, we needed eight spaces to serve the building and we try to keep everything at a minimum, but getting rid of that walkway, which seemed like it was, you know, not heavily used by residents, you know, to walk out to College Street. It seemed like one way to reduce coverage on the site. If you move. Mr. Matos, if I may, I know that the fire chief had a comment on this, but he didn't mention your concerns. He mentioned other concerns and requirements, but he didn't mention that. So it must be, it must comply with existing fire department regulations or concerns. Mr. Wosevich, can you enlighten us on this? Well, I was just going to say if there should be a fire at this structure, they will be taking over that street. So they'll be parking on the street primarily. They have a ladder truck, which has a pretty good reach. They won't be able to get to the back, but even if you've made some room for that to happen, I don't know if they would do that just because of the, it looks like the terrain. So, and I would think that they would have made comment to that if there was a concern. But I think the question you raised about access from an ambulance or from the street through the sidewalk is a good concern. I think that's, we should think about what does an ambulance do? If God forbid they need to get in there. Go ahead, Mr. Matos, I didn't mean to cut you off. No, I mean, the only other thing I could think of was reverse the move the parking spaces to the east and change the curb cut and bring the driveway in where into where the parking spaces are. Yeah. If I might add to that comment. Go ahead, Mr. Senator. There is a minimum distance from the structure that a vehicle needs to be. And I believe that is also rooted in fire safety. I know in past projects, we've had to keep them. I believe it's eight feet from the structure. So flipping the parking would potentially be an issue there because now you've got vehicles coming and going hugged against the side of the structure. Other questions, comments from board members. Where is that? Go ahead, Mr. Maxfield, preparing my questions. Go ahead. I just want to know, do you know offhand what the difference in lot coverage would be if you were to just leave that front walkway? Does it put you over? I do not. I'd have to add that back into the equation. I don't have that figure for you right now. So the, I have a question. One in the new structure, the bedroom number four is seven by eight, seven by almost nine. That seems incredibly small. I mean, you've got a bedroom that's a hundred and how many square feet is that? Seven times eight is, you've got a tiny bedroom. Seven times eight is 50. Bedroom number four in the new structure. Yes, is that my reading this incorrectly? Bedroom number four is that the old structure. I'm sorry, that's the old structure. I'm sorry, Mr. Steeleur, I've read that wrong. That's facing bedroom number four is seven by eight on the second floor. Yes, that's the existing structure. That's the existing structure. I'm sorry, I misread that. It's still really small, but it's not when you're proposing. This is, I had a question for staff. You can't answer this, but one of the things I'd be interested in Maureen is proposal here is to have a duplex, a non-owner occupied duplex on a 12,600 foot lot, 12,000 and a little bit. And it doesn't meet the requirements of zoning bylaw, which says you have to have an additional 2,500 feet for the area above the 12,000 square foot, a minimum for a one unit or one single family dwelling. You got an additional duplex, additional unit, you got to have an additional 2,500 square feet. This doesn't provide that, this lot is not big enough for that. There's only, it only exceeds the bare minimum by 260 square feet. So it's substantially less than that. I'm interested in knowing how common that is in the neighborhood. Is there, can you look on from the map and tell us if that occurrence is common in the neighborhood or if this is the first instance where you have a duplex that doesn't meet, is it 3.321? What is that requirement in the bylaw? Yeah, so to answer your question, so let's see here. The lot size is 12,240 square feet. And what would be required is required for a two family unit, would be a 14,500 square feet. The applicant is requesting a modification under footnote A for a reduction for the additional lot area for the second dwelling. I don't have information about what the lot sizes are in the surrounding neighborhood, in the surrounding properties, but I could certainly provide that in preparation of the next meeting. Next meeting, I think we're gonna probably go to the next second meeting. At least I would recommend we do that, but that'd be good to have more in if we do go to the second meeting. Mr. St. Haller. I do have that information on a few of the abutting properties that I mentioned in the photos. 200 College Street, which is a duplex, is the same lot size 12,249, 175 college, which is also a duplex is the same lot size 12,249, and 174 college, the four unit building is only 18,500. So it is all the lots along that street, seemingly we're laid out with the same area. And there are several duplexes on those lot sizes. Are they all non-owner occupied? They are. They're all pure rental properties. They are. So we have a couple of Maureen from you and also just take a look at the broader neighborhood. That would be great. Sure, thank you. Mr. Haller, that's helpful to know. Ms. Parks. I'm just gonna say, I do have those ruling trash cans and I think they're about 45 inches tall if I'm pretty sure that's what it was. I also have a concern about the mail delivery. So I'm just gonna throw that out there that I'm not sure if you can move the mailboxes around to the side, but still, I'm not sure how a mail was delivered there. I guess someone walking that. Okay. Do they just park on college and walk the mail to the door, Alan? I can answer that. I can't tell you where the vehicle is parked but we do manage several properties along this stretch of the road. And it is a foot carrier route. The mailboxes are all on the structure. They are not at the curb. So I believe what they do is they park and walk between houses to a certain extent. So they would be walking across the front lawns from house to house, presumably because there's not a municipal sidewalk on this side of the street. It is grassy area right up to the curb with all the houses along this side of the street. So as Mike alluded to, we eliminated that sidewalk simply to bring down the overall lot coverage and impermeable area. But if the concern of the sidewalk remaining is more important to the board, we'd be more than happy to leave it because we are asking for an expansion on an existing non-conforming use under 9.22. I think that the impact to the overall lot coverage would be negligible. It's a two foot wide by 15 foot long sidewalk. So if that is a concern, we'd be happy to update the site plan to include maintaining and not removing that sidewalk. Yeah. It's 30 square feet. I would like to move the supports. I was just wondering if you could put a path between the parking spaces and then put mailboxes there, actually put delivery and mail. If you wanted to remove the front sidewalk, but make a smaller, shorter sidewalk, it'd be four spaces on one side and four spaces on the other, something like that. But I don't know, maybe Maureen, you know, is that okay to move where you have your mail delivered? Can you put mailboxes on the side of a house? I don't know that answer. It's a good question. We could look into it. And as Alan pointed out, this application, one of the applicable sections that is under review is a 9.22. And the lot currently exceeds the maximum amount allowed for lot coverage. And therefore, they don't need to go, they don't need to reduce the amount of lot coverage. They could maintain the lot coverage as existing or increase it because this is being reviewed under 9.22 as a modification in expansion. I would just also note that with the addition, having the mail delivered to a central spot on the side would be more convenient for both dwellings instead of on the front of the house. Well, we'd certainly like to be able to check that then if we're allowed to go over the existing coverage, but I have a hunch that we'd be very close to that 41.4 if we were to leave that walk-in because as Alan mentioned, it's pretty narrow as it is. I don't think it's even three feet wide maybe, but we could probably keep that coverage pretty close to the existing if we leave that in. I think Ms. Parks has an idea that might work. Take a look at it. And if we come back for a second meeting, you can provide an alternative for us or something we can look at it. There's some concerns raised here by the board and I think it could be worthwhile to try to think about it. Other questions, Ms. Parks? Anybody else? A question I have often with rental property like this is what are your expectations for the number of people that are going to reside in both units? I know there's four bedrooms. What are your expectations for that? And how do you enforce that to make sure that the limits on four occupants per dwelling unit is complied with? I'd be happy to answer that, Mr. Chair. The primary means of controlling the headcount is through the lease contract. And we do do occasional inspections. We also, our maintenance staff gives us feedback when they're requested to come in and do maintenance. So we can remain aware of the number of occupants in a number of ways, but the primary means which is the most enforceable for us is the lease contract, which we provided a sample of. And our expectation is one person per bedroom. So four in unit one and four in unit two. So how often in your experience, and you have a lot of it in this town managing property, in your experience, how frequent are your management personnel having eyes on those units to be able to determine whether your truly is for there and they're not just people splitting up the bedroom. And there's more than four people living. There's not four, six or eight. How often do you actually do that from your experience? Give us a feeling for how active your surveillance is. Sure, yeah, I would say every couple of months, perhaps six to eight times a year that we're in doing maintenance or on property, checking out to make sure trash is in the proper location. Every Monday we do drive-by inspections to make sure that there are no issues. We see a lot of properties that we don't have control over that have tables and chairs in the front yard and they use them for the weekend and they stay there all week. And we pride our reputation in keeping our properties clean and well maintained. And so every Monday we drive-by these properties just to make sure the cars are in order. There's no litter everywhere. We can't be there every day, of course, but once a week and we do it on Mondays because on the weekends is when there tends to be more activity. So we do drive-by as exterior inspections every week. And I would say six to eight times a year internally. We, of course, buy tenant landlord law and tenants' rights have to get noticed when we're gonna go inside. But those are the frequencies of inspections that we conduct. And the owners that we represent have a vested interest in not having excessive number of persons in the structure as well because now we're talking about more wear and tear, more water sewer, more expenses to the owner. So it is of interest that we keep the head count down. Other questions, comments, concerns from board members. I'm just gonna go through the project application report. I've marked things and I wanna make sure I've got all my questions asked before we move on to public comments. I have no further questions at this time. If the board members have no questions, is there any public comments? Members of the public can comment now. I don't know if we have anybody who wishes to comment. Maureen. See here. I don't see anybody. Nope. Well, I think maybe this is a point for the board to discuss the request from the planning board about to postpone our final decision on this and go to continue the hearing until they have had a chance to get the presentation on the property. I'd like to open that discussion up now and hear your opinion of any members. I stated my opinion, I think in comedy to another board of the town that has jurisdiction and frequently does look at things that would be considerate of us to provide that opportunity for the board. I know it's a disappointment or a delay for the applicant, but I think it's common decency to provide that opportunity for the board. Until it becomes a burden for us, I think it should be common for us to do that. But I'd like to hear from other members before we make a decision to continue this until a later date. Does anybody disagree? Good, okay. Then let's review, let's be clear on the things that we'd like to get from the applicant before the next meeting so that we don't have, we don't extend this to kind of precise things that are of interest to us. And so for me, it was helpful to get your view on your senses of some of the non-owner-occupied duplexes in non-conforming properties in the area. Maureen, would you look at that just within the block and see how many others are there if that's possible before the next meeting? You can build upon Mr. St. Hilaire's information. I think it'd be helpful if you would look at some other way for people to access, mail particularly to access the block would be good. I think that we should probably have conditions ready that require the performance of the conservation commission's conditions. I think that should be done. I would like to see a, myself, I would like to see the plantings be amended or changed so that they actually screen the trash receptacles, whatever the height they are. Okay, I've noted that. Cutting up something on that. You had the detail of the stock would fence. Are there other conditions that people or other questions that people had that they want answered for the next meeting? Mr. Meadows, did you have anything? Nope. No, I would just like to know specifically about the fire department's opinion on access. All right, that's a good point we can ask. Mr. Roya there, can't we, Maureen? Maureen, could you repeat that, Craig, for some reason I couldn't hear you. I would like to know the fire department's opinion specifically on access to the building in case of emergency. And that would both include fire trucks and ambulance because they do both, right? Okay. Mr. St. Hilario, you had your hand raised for a second. The question that I have for the board, there was a bit of discussion around that front walkway. And if the lot coverage does not exceed what is currently in place and we were to keep that sidewalk, does the board feel that that would be beneficial? In other words, you know, the site coverage that we have presently is slightly more than what we are proposing. So if we do the calculations and say that we can keep that front sidewalk and not go within any number that's a lot coverage number that's more than what is presently in place, is that something that the board would look upon favorably? I can't speak for everybody, but it seems to me that if you're not making the conditions worse in terms of exceeding the lot coverage limits, that would be a positive thing and providing more access. So one way to do that is that strip. It looks like it's about 45 square feet. If you're right, three feet times 15 feet long, that's not a lot of lot coverage. Another way is if you're looking at trying to do something in the center where they have to walk up the driveway and you just, if you can create more space between the fourth and fifth car and move the parking area a little bit to the front, but you have a kind of a walkway between the fourth and fifth car that leads you up to the middle of the unit, that's another possibility. But I'm not gonna tell you what to do. I mean, I'm not concerned about if it's at or less than the current lot coverage, I think that's a good thing, but I wouldn't be concerned if we exceed it. So I think that answers your question. And I don't think there's, I don't see any opposition or concern expressed otherwise by the board. Thank you. Ms. Parks. I'm just gonna say you might consider putting a little fence around the trash receptacles. So I'll just throw that out. I don't have a decision on that. I'm just saying it might be something to consider since it's hard to control the height of plantings and whether they survive well or not. And a stocker fence that matches the one you have on the side would be. Sure. And it wouldn't have to be six feet high, it'd just be the four foot fence or whatever. Yeah, good suggestion. Okay. Oh, go ahead, Ms. Parks. I was gonna say, and you could put mailboxes on it, but that's the possibility. Better check with the post office on that. All right. I think we've reached a consensus on what we want to do in terms of continuing this for another date. You've got some assignments for you guys. We've got some stuff that we have to do and the planning board wants to take a look at this. So what I would like to do is move, I would entertain a motion that we continue the public hearing. I believe Michael Lu wanted to say something, is that true? I think it's in relation to where you were going, Mr. Judge, about scheduling the next hearing. I mean, are we guaranteed a spot on the June 16th planning board hearing at this time or? I have no idea about that, but all I can do is say that we can continue this for a date certain, which would be our next meeting after the planning board meeting, at which I think they are going to have the presentation. And if it isn't, we can have a continuation again, but I think that I can't promise you with the agenda from the planning board. Right, right, I understand. I just can't do that. So what I think the best thing we can do is, Maureen is to continue this to the next meeting after June 16th, which is when we think the planning board will take this up. And I think that next one would be early July because I know that I can't be at the 24th, right? Yep. I don't know about the rest of Doodle Pole, but the 24th, I will not be around. I think people are still kind of getting to filling out that Doodle Pole, I don't know if that's complete. So let's leave me, let me pull up. And if someone else doesn't mind pulling up a calendar, because sometimes I look at the wrong month. I got it. It looks like the next, the second Thursday of July would be July 8th. I think it's the next. Now, let me look at my work calendar in case some reason I have, nope, yep, that would work. I hate to interrupt, but I should say that my term expires at the end of June. And so if I don't know whether you could continue with only four of the people who've been at this hearing, this might be the way to get you, this might be the way to extend you against your will, I'll add. If he's agreeable. But I'm sure we can get an extension or we can handle it with four if there's only four. Okay, okay. We can't handle it with four. That means it requires the unanimous consent from the unanimous vote to do it. But we also could perhaps ask for your extension for a week for your term if you're willing to go a little longer. But I'm just relieved to know that there's a way of continuing to, of the board's continuing to function. Even should my wisdom be absent. There it is. All right. So I'd entertain a motion to- I think Dylan, do you have something? Oh, I was just gonna add on to that. I'm pretty sure it was covered in one of those BBA classes was that members whose terms expires, they're still actively working on a case or automatically extended for continuation of that case. So sorry, Peter, it looks like you're stuck. All right. Yeah, there go my plane tickets. Oh no. No, no. Yeah, we might have to give you a remote access to it. So from the south of France, we're gonna have to call. All right, all right, all right. And that meeting would start at that public hearing continuation would start at six PM. Six PM on July 8th. July 8th. Do I have them? July 8th. Do I have a motion? I moved. So I moved in a second. Did I get it? All right, it's a roll call vote. And for the discussion, I assume not. I vote aye. Ms. Parks. Aye. Mr. Maxfield. Aye. Mr. Meadows. Aye. Mr. Barrett. Aye. Great. The hearing has continued until July 18th. And did you say July 8th or 18th? July 8th, July 8th. Yeah. And Alan and Michael, I would suggest that you reach out to Chris Prestrup. Yep, we'll do that. Great. Okay. All right, thank you. Good luck, you guys. And we'll look forward to getting material from you and from Maureen before that. Again, we have, make sure you get up to us at least Maureen's 10 days before the meeting date so that we can process it and get it to all of everybody on the board. Thank you very much. Thank you. All right, good night. Thank you. Next order of business is public comment on matters not before the board tonight. This is where the public can comment on anything except what we had before us tonight. And I don't see a hand raised. Okay. If none, what I'd like to do, I had one new business that's not anticipated last 40 hours was the doodle poll and scheduling for the rest of the summer. I'd ask you to fill out that doodle poll. Maybe you could recent it again, maybe sometime Maureen if people can't find it, which tries to lay out, which does attempt to lay out your availability for the rest of the summer through, I guess it's through September. Correct. And if you fill that out, then it helps us try to plan. I know we all have life to live other than ZBA. That's important. And that can't dominate what you're gonna do this summer, but to the extent that ZBA and your life allow for full participation in our meetings, it's easier if we know when you're around. So please fill that out and get back to Maureen on that. Yeah. And also about the doodle poll is it can be adjusted as the months go on. So if you say that you're available in August, but then suddenly you win free tickets to go to Paris, you could update the doodle poll and then bring me. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Anything else, any matters that you guys wanna discuss? I do wanna say one thing, Peter, you have had the best backgrounds of anybody. But the library at Mount Holyoke is truly a wonderful, wonderful building. And I love to see that. It's really, that's when I first walked in there and saw that I thought this is just a gorgeous place. I don't know what I can study. I'd be looking up at the architecture and the detail on that. And then the million dollar tree that you first had was something I really treasured, whatever that was, it was a butternut or something, but the million dollar tree down your background. So you've had great, great backgrounds. Thank you. And you get many points for recognizing that reading, which is indeed the handsome of space on the campus. Well, I better get some points because I paid an awful lot of money for my daughter to go there. So that's, I hope she spent some time in the library though. So, she did. Yeah, she did, she did. All right, folks, if there's nothing else, I hope you all have a good week. We will, the next week, we'll win. Oh, Mr. Maxfield. I just wanted to put that out there. I mentioned before the meeting as long as we're all going off topic here. I have finally graduated from UMass. So I am celebrating this Saturday. If any of you folks would like to come on out, I'm doing a barbecue, some pulled pork and some ribs that I'm gonna be smoking. If any of you folks are hungry, come on by, say hello. And I don't think we're gonna be violating open meeting here because I'm going to urge that nobody talk about the ZVA. Posting guests, I don't want to talk about them. So morning, nice to send you my address and you can send it out to everybody with that work. Best way to do it, cool. All right, Saturday at one o'clock, if you can swing by, I hope to see some of you folks there. Aw, congratulations. Thank you. Congratulations. Good work. Thanks. All right, that's it for me. I'll make the motion to adjourn. If we could just suspend that for when's the next time we meet, Maureen? Uh, good question. June 10th. June 10th? Okay, June 10th. All right. All right, guys. Now the motion is good. You can use this motion. Is there a second? Second. Second. All right. All in, it's non-debatable. All in favor. You will say aye when I call your name. Chair votes aye. Ms. Parks. Aye. Mr. Maxfield. Aye. Mr. Meadows. Aye. And Mr. Barrack. Aye. We are adjourned. See you in a couple of weeks. Bye-bye. Or at Dylan's party. Or at Dylan's party. Yes.