 So I want to welcome everybody to the Amherst community chat for Thursday, March 11. Today we have planning director Chris Brestrup back again joining us as well as building commissioner, Rob Mora to discuss the upcoming zoning amendments and answer your questions about that or other topics. So, before we have our guests introduce themselves, I will give your town manager, Paul, welcome in a few moments to give any general town updates he might have. Thanks. Yeah, so I guess Chris's ratings from her last time on we're so high that we had to bring her back to keep our ratings up. That's great. Thanks for taking the time Chris. We're just talking about how these are 30 minutes session so they go pretty quickly, which, which is good. So, the, since we're on zoning and development and things like that, we were fortunate to have secretary Keneally from the secretary of housing and economic development in town for half a day yesterday. We were able to show him the Pomeroy village area that we have received a $1.5 million grant for and walk him through what the intention of the grant was and that was exciting. He came into the center of town he met with the chamber in the bid about all the work that they're doing downtown. And we were able to take him up to North Amherst as well to show him about some things up there so we're looking at. We threw a lot at him, and it went from South Amherst to center Amherst downtown to North Amherst. We talked about projects that are about to that are really close to being started to some ideas that are being generated to serve a long term infrastructure needs. So, you know, who knows what he's going to remember from this but at least, you know, we had our chance in the sun with him is one of his first times out of the office in Boston. So we're really privileged to have him stop here. We have a number of town counselors who were able to be present, along with our state representative as well. So, on all really good morning so I'm just leave it at that I think. Great. Thank you Paul. And just to give the folks in the room a little context we do have the project that Paul referenced the Pomeroy village intersection improvements up on our new engage Amherst site so if you want to go in there and learn a little bit more and start interacting with some of the content, the web addresses engage amherst.org slash Pomeroy. So, before I ask our guests to introduce themselves I just want to remind everybody that we highly encourage questions whether using the q amp a function in zoom or by raising your hand and zoom and you can ask your question live. So just a reminder to do that. I will ask both Rob and Chris to just introduce themselves for those who do not know them. Tell us your your title your role how long you've been with the town and what you do. I'll ask Rob first because Chris is frequent flyer. Hi, Rob more I'm building commissioner for the town of Amherst responsible for the day to day operations of the inspection services department with respect to zoning specifically. I am responsible for interpretation and applying the town of Amherst zoning bylaw. How long have you been with the town Rob. It'll be nine years in April. Wow. I'm going to test to Rob's encyclopedic knowledge of codes and zoning bylaws. It's, it's really impressive so we're lucky to have him here today. Chris, could you introduce yourself to the room please. Sure. I'm Chris Brestrup. I'm the planning director. I've been with the town for almost 18 years. My role is to manage the planning department the staff here, both in terms of the applications that we receive for the planning board and zoning board of appeals and other boards and committees but also to manage the projects that we get involved with. Great, well welcome back we are happy to have you both here. So, just for for those who might not know what we're talking about when we're referencing these zoning amendments and zoning changes could you give just a brief explanation as to what the, the processes and where we're at as a town right now with it. You want me to talk Rob. Sure. I'll talk first. So, we've been asked by the town council after the town council studied a number of many, many different possible zoning issues and the town council came up with a list of what they felt were the priorities for them to work on in the next six to 12 months, as far as zoning goes and many of those priorities had to do with finding ways to build more housing in Amherst because Amherst has a great record of conserving property in the outlying areas, both farmland and forest, etc. But it really hasn't built very much housing since the 1970s so recently we have built some housing but it was it was a long time coming. So the town council is interested in finding ways to improve our housing stock. And there are also recognized issues with our zoning bylaw. Rob and I have worked with it, you know, over the years and have found that there are problems with interpretation, lack of clarity. Just, you know, things aren't really spelled out in a very understandable way. So, one of the things that Rob is working on which he can talk about is recodification of the zoning bylaw so that's really taking the zoning bylaw reformatting it and trying to eliminate the lack of clarity and conflicts. But we're also working on specific zoning amendments where we're looking at different neighborhoods like the general residence district and limited business district to figure out how we can build more housing there but not overwhelm those communities. Rob, do you want to say anything. So, about the process itself. You know it can happen a couple of different ways but what we're working on right now actually began with some specific requests from the council to staff to work on a various set of bylaw amendments. The process could start with the planning board bringing forward suggestions and sometimes staff has their own suggestions which are also incorporated into this process. But from that point the the council would choose to move forward with any particular amendment and that would kick off a series of public hearings on the matter. We're nowhere near that point in the process that we're just starting now we're more in the beginning of the development stage of the bylaw and proposed bylaw amendments. But at some point in the future there could be a bylaw, a public hearing process that would begin. I would just like to add that over the last month, we've held multiple meetings with the planning board and also with the CRC about the zoning amendments that we're working on. So if people are interested they could go to the town website and find the recordings for those planning board meetings and CRC meetings. So the town zoning bylaws is really the sort of blueprint for what we want to see happen or what is happening in our town. It's an important document and that's how land use is regulated in a community. And it's a hard thing to change because it requires typically for most items a two thirds vote of the town of the legislative body which in our case is the town council so it's a very high it's the highest bar we have in terms of changing laws. The actual legislative body has to vote to change the laws of the zoning bylaw so it's an important process but it has impact on anybody who owns a piece of land typically. When was the last time that there were any significant changes or updates to the zoning bylaw and Amherst out of curiosity. Well the zoning bylaw has been amended over the years but I would say the last major overhaul of the zoning bylaw was probably in the 70s. When Amherst experienced a huge surge of growth as a result of the university growing from a land grant college to a major university, and developments started popping up all over and people felt that there was a need to kind of control the level of development. So, but certainly over the years there have been several or many amendments to the zoning bylaw. I just got to take a quick chance to remind a couple of the new attendees who just got into the room. Feel free to ask your questions q&a or raise your hand. It doesn't have to be related to zoning but we certainly welcome all questions. And I do see Hilda in the room so Hilda. Hilda could unmute and introduce yourself. I'm Hilda Greenbound 298 Montague Road. And I'd have to tell you I'm really disbanded this morning and what's happening to this town. I've known this town since 1958 when I came as a freshman to Mount Holyoke and of course no Mount Holyoke social life was rather limited we spent a lot of time on this side of the notch. It was a really cute little new England town with lots of nice little stores to go to, which continued I guess until mountain farms mobile but my biggest issue is not with the growth and the changes downtown, as much as will be aesthetics. There seems to be that every single building that Mr. Williams and Mr. Wilson proposed for this town is ugly it on the one before, and I would really be grateful to know what kind of control we have over the aesthetics of the architecture and that we get places that the small businesses can afford to rent. Now they're talking about a overlay district on the west side of the common, which would displace lots of little therapists who rent little office buildings where they're going to go. We lost all the businesses from the carriage shops lost all the building businesses from the, the tower pizza, they're all gone. What's going to be the reason to go downtown the bars are closed the restaurants are all Chinese take out. I'm really unhappy with the designs of the Jones library I think the thing looks like a cow barn. What can we do about it we have an article three that controls aesthetics of duplexes, they have to look like what's next door. How can we make the downtown look like what's no and I think this new thing that's been proposed and today's paper looks like an orange crate. It may be long and Northwest Arkansas but it ain't Amherst and I'm very upset about it. And, you know, it's in contrast to what's happening with the North Amherst library which is absolutely gorgeous and absolutely what belongs on a historic building. We have the design review board and the design review board will be taking a close look at the latest building that's been proposed, and they will be advising the planning board about what their recommendations will be as far as the exterior of the building, and the site, the proposed site work. So, we have the, as I said design review board then we have on the planning board I think we have three architects who are on the planning board and they certainly have a strong sense of aesthetics so I think there will be a very careful scrutiny of this new building. It hasn't happened in the past okay. Staff has already done it carefully. Yes, the track record is not good. Thank you for your comments Hilda we appreciate them and I'm sure Chris and Rob have are going to take those into advisement. So, I am going to recognize counselor Dorothy Pam who is in the room and has her hand raised if you could unmute and introduce yourself counselor. Hi, this is Dorothy Pam. Yes, we have a million questions and I will tell you if you haven't probably already guessed that my district is extraordinarily upset but I'm only going to focus on one little question today and this is the practical one of parking. I know the theoretical position that cars aren't needed, but I don't agree with it. I do think we could go bold and say, if you want to live in this building have an electric car, because the car makers are actually they've got the message, the cars are coming, and I think that, you know, people then make a choice. But I cannot see living in the real world as I do, how a new building, which I will not discuss the design. Okay, but a new building with all of those units will have 16 parking spaces. When real life comes back. We stopped with a Lincoln Avenue parking problem. It went away with the epidemic. But if you build more things downtown and don't require any parking, then, of course, all of the residential streets will be absolutely just, you know become parking lots, and people won't be able to pull out of their driveways. I think that, you know, ideology is has a place, but I think we have to be practical and understand the role of the car in today's life. And also, I think a fantasy that these buildings are not just dorms has got to be dealt with, because if they were for people regular people with families and jobs, they would need cars. And I think that Holyoke Community College if I took public transportation, it would take me back when we and we're going back to campus for some of the classes in the fall, it would take me almost two hours to get there, as opposed to 28 minutes driving. That's a big piece of time. So, I just think we need a little realism about cars and who places are for. And I also want to put this other thought in your head. If we build buildings, which are like dorms. What is missing? Well, the residential advisor is missing any kind of supervision oversight services for the students that are in those buildings. They're not different from the ones who live in dorms who do need residential advisors. There's also no recreation space for them in their buildings, just beds. I don't think that we're, you know, serving the students well by what's going on. So I want to just ask people to really think about this and not in terms of ideological terms but in just practical realistic terms. Who's going to live there. What do they need. What is necessary to make life comfortable and happy. And is are these buildings flexible. Maybe it would be students today. Maybe it would be what the people we keep talking about the young families or seniors in the future is the building one that they would want to live into. So, I just want, you know, flexibility to be thought of as well. Thank you. Thank you counselor. Anyone want to address any of counselor Pam's comments before we, we've seemed to hit a hot topic because we've got a lot of hands in the room and some questions in the q amp a so I can say that we recognize the fact that there are issues with our parking section of our zoning bylaw. And we do mean to address those and we may need some consulting help to do that. But that is certainly one of the things that we recognize as needing to be dealt with. We also understand that the bid has been working on potential for building a parking garage and we don't know if that's actually going to come about but that's another possibility for dealing with the issue of parking. The fact is that the zoning by and this is the first time the town so counselor Pam is going to be a decision maker on what the zoning looks like. And so this is the first time the council is really looking at the rules zoning changes but the existing zoning bylaw that has been in effect. That's what it requires in terms of parking is that accurate Rob for this project. There's a there's a requirement for parking in all the different zoning districts. And in this particular district that's, you know the examples being discussed there isn't a parking requirement. So the bylaw says you don't have to provide parking at a minimum number per dwelling unit. However, the site plan review criteria does include traffic and parking, irrespective of what the bylaw count may or may not provide the planning but it still has the authority to review parking and traffic. So, instead of simply accepting a waiver request for a traffic study, the traffic study could be focused on the amount of parking need for the building, based on the reality or the current situation, and that could be taken into account by the planning board and applied to the project or influenced it to the to the design of the project, even though our bylaw says you don't necessarily need to have X number of parking spaces per dwelling unit. So that's, you know, that's the, the power of the planning board during the hearing process. So these concerns about parking for this particular project will be played out at the planning board level is that what you're saying. They should be because it's specifically part of the design review criteria in the site plan review process. I have a question that counselor Pam raised, which a lot of people are raising about parking requirements. That's something that would have to be adopted by the town council at some point to change what we what currently it is is an existence. Yes, and I have to say that the reason that we have a municipal parking district is because for a long time there was no development downtown. The municipal parking district was actually established I think in 1969 and it was an effort to encourage businesses to locate downtown that and not require them all to have on site parking. Then it was expanded and something like 2008 to include residential. But at that time there weren't any residential buildings being built downtown so now that we've changed that bylaw, we're seeing a flood of residential buildings so this is a topic that's worth revisiting. Great, thank you and I have. I'm going to go to the comment and take these in order. So I'm going to go to this question that was posted and then I see Ken Jennifer and iris hands will take those in that order. And I'm sorry. Yeah, I think I think maybe we try to hear from the folks because we only were killing the time already. This is a more of a comment and it's probably a quick answer on the design review board doesn't have much legal authority to begin with but isn't the site of the proposed 11 East pleasant outside of their zone. No, it's not. Okay. Great, so I'm going to invite Ken into the room if you could unmute and introduce yourself please Ken. Thank you. I'm Ken Rosenthal. I live on Sunset Avenue and I'm going to speak only about parking know I have some other ideas to Chris you're right. The reason that there is no parking requirement is because back in the 60s and early 70s we were thinking about commercial space in town, and nobody was assuming that anybody who came into town was going to keep a car here overnight. In fact what we really wanted were people to come in spend a couple of hours spend their money. We wanted to go to restaurants, go to the shops, and go home and have turnover and that's what we had, but we've been talking about the parking problem with residents ever since Kendrick place was put on the table. I spoke at a planning board meeting, and I said I support very much the proposed the ideas for Kendrick place but I don't support how they're proposing to realize those ideas. The parking has been needed for the residents in Kendrick place and one East Pleasant Street, Rob you can tell us probably how many of those residents have applied for permits to park in town and those are the ones who have applied for permits there are the others who cheat a little bit. Parking for that building by the same developers on Spring Street originally had 11 spaces after it was approved they came back and said oh sorry now we'd like to take the 11 spaces out and put residential spaces in. And we know that where those cars on Spring Street are going to go they're going to go into Amherst College parking lot Amherst College doesn't know it yet, but they're going to have those people there when that building is finished. So to say that we're going to look at this is a little bit late, and we need to look at it today, tonight, tomorrow, because we've been talking about the need for parking for those residential buildings, since they were planned, and the town has not responded. I'm sorry to sound so negative, but it's the planning department that's got a proposal so that the council can have something to vote on, and please do something about that now. Thank you. Alright, I'm going to go through so we can make sure we get everybody's hands on. So Jennifer, if you could unmute and introduce yourself please. I'm Jennifer Tau at 259 Lincoln Avenue, and I'm just reiterating I guess you hear this every time, you know, represents for our neighborhood speak, but I can't emphasize enough again with the new buildings that are very problematic for all the reasons that Hilda and Ken stated. That the number I moved here 10 years ago and I've counted at least 12 businesses that I and my solicited on a regular basis, Barthes Ice Cream, the lumberyard, Shea Aubert, the tailor at the carriage shops, Amherst Wine & Spirit, the music shop at the carriage shop, the yard shop, Kay's Antiques, there were two nail salons, one by the, I guess by Cousin's Market and another right where Clay's is downtown, the cross from town hall that it closed, the blue marble, which I went to regularly the loose goose. So that's like a dozen small businesses. And I don't know, you know, that certainly people in and around downtown solicited regularly and that's a real loss to the community and I firmly believe that even if you live, you know, a far from debt from town center in Amherst Woods. The more, why would anybody really aside from the schools now move to Amherst and pay our high taxes. If there's nothing downtown, but the student is getting to be student dorms and then like a mass mutual taking the entire commercial space at Kendrick Place. And there has to be some way I would hope we can require the buildings, the dorms archipelago buildings that are already there and anyone's that are going to come that maybe the commercial space on the first floor be made smaller so these small businesses can be there. But this is what makes a town and it's again I don't care where you live in Amherst. This is going to affect the resale value frankly and the quality of life of everybody here. I also added, we certainly, you know, I need, I guess a parking but we should be able to prove to when they say you can't compel the developers of these buildings to build parking I mean that's just a nonsensical zoning provision or bylaw that that should just have been, you know, not allowed the first archipelago buildings went up but that said, I guess we are going to need a parking structure but I'm concerned about it, going in like the CVS parking lot because again I'm no parking structure is attractive is that what we want to be the dominant building in our town. I mean, we sort of have the ugly application of a huge part of, you know, certainly the northern part of downtown I don't think a parking structure is going to, going to help that, and then the last question on the RGs and I know I sound like a broken record, but with footnote and in where you can already build six to nine dwellings in a backyard that's plenty, we don't need to increase that to nine to 14 there is absolutely no reason to tinker with footnote and the RGs already allowed for perfectly enough densification, thank you. Thank you Jennifer. Anybody want to respond to any of the comments from Jennifer. This moment. Okay. So I am going to go to Ira. If you could unmute and introduce yourself. Hi, I'm Ira Brick live on 255 Strong Street. And I just want to say times change. And I was just wondering this morning is Amherst center still called the CBD the central business district and I googled Amherst CBD and the first hit was rise cannabis so things do change. I just want to say, I have been watching a lot of town council and town planning board and all of that and it's been stated many times by the experts in the town that it's hard and the developers it's hard to attract stores and restaurants and residential seems to be much the better mouse trap that's going to attract paying customers. And so I can see why they are going for that easier business, but now it seems like UMass is saying that they're going to start building a lot more stores on campus and so, you know, kind of reminds me of the man who's feet smell and whose nose runs he's built upside down and seems like that is part of being built upside down. The presentation the other day by the planning department included a comment that you can't legislate what commercial use you can say this space needs to be a restaurant or a store, but also Christine who I respect a lot said we should build things that will entice new businesses here. How do we entice the developers to build things that will entice new businesses here and what else do we need we no longer have an economic development director, I understand the bid is hiring a firm that looks substantial but that's more about building from COVID. I would love to see somebody come up with plans in the town that a developer we know who they are says yes I can make money building that stores and restaurants in the first floor with the setback like really get even more specific and I know that the building department has been getting very specific and 3D. It's really starting to evolve into something that is more realistic and less objectionable. It also preserves character which is part of the master plan that's kind of being not only ignored but disparaged master plan has 15 separate mentions of why if you don't protect and preserve the character of the neighborhood. It doesn't matter what you build it's going to be bad. I just want to say, I think we need to think about how to attract in those residences, the families retirees workforce, along with student housing that is affordable for them. That is not, you know, as expensive as these new buildings seem to be. So, you've heard you hear from me regularly I'm sure you could have written the speech yourself but I just want to say it again. Thank you. I had not heard that the, you know, feet spell and nose runs that I appreciate that one a lot. I wanted to say a couple of things and one is that one of the things that has been bothering people about the new buildings that have been built to date is that they tend to have the same size unit. Particularly the one on spring street has big studios and one bedrooms. So, the new building that's being proposed that everybody saw the newspaper this morning. That building actually has a mixture of units, studios ones twos threes and even some four bedroom apartment so there is a possibility that there's more of a possibility that families might choose to live there. I also wanted to make a mention of something that came up back in the 2000s when we were really experiencing a lot of financial difficulties in the town and there was a decision made to make it a little bit more easy for new buildings to come into town and in order to boost the tax revenues that are so, you know, desperately needed by the town to pay for schools to pay for teachers to pay for fire and police, etc. You know, I understand that people may not appreciate the aesthetics of some of these buildings but they do produce a lot of revenue in the hundreds of thousands of dollars per year that helps the town to keep running and since we have proposition two and a half. It's hard to raise taxes, but one of the ways we can raise revenue is by having what we call new growth. So that's kind of a silver lining if you will, you know, it's something to consider anyway about this new development. Thank you Chris for making that point and we said earlier before we started that 30 minutes goes by really quick and we are now at 1231 we're kind of at the end of our time here so I would like to invite our special guests and or Paul to leave the attendees with any final thoughts or statements and if your question did not get addressed or not fully addressed feel free to email us at info at Amherst MA.gov and I will make sure it gets to the right person. Chris, Rob, Paul, any, any final words. I'll jump in first I think this is a really important conversation I appreciate the people in Amherst really educate themselves about the bylaws and things that are in on the table and these informed comments are really important for the town staff to support the town decision makers which ultimately the council in the planning board in their decision so I really appreciate that. All right, Chris or Rob anything. I would just like to say that people should continue to pay attention to the planning board meetings and the CRC meetings and town council meetings to know what's going on and have an influence over what kinds of things might be adopted. Great. All right, thank you and Rob. Oh, yeah, thanks. And just that you know there are very specific discussions in the meetings and often not time to talk about other items so always feel free to email us. Questions or comments regarding the bylaw we are working on other parts of the bylaw we don't know if they'll ever come into the public discussion but you know it's good to know if there are any suggestions along the way thanks. Great. Thank you, Rob and Chris for joining us we really appreciate it. I know that the planning staff is working on some sort of web page to kind of house some of these changes or proposed changes so stay tuned for that where you can hopefully follow along learn more and share your pointed feedbacks as that process goes along. So thank you all for joining us and we'll see you next week. Thank you everybody. Thank you.