 This program is brought to you by Cable Franchise V's and generous donations from viewers like you. Welcome everyone to the Amherst Planning Board meeting on November 4, 2020, based on Governor Baker's executive order, suspending certain provisions of the open meeting law, GL 30A, Chapter 20 and signed Thursday, March 12, 2020. This planning board meeting is being held virtually using the Zoom platform. So my name is Jack Jumsick and as a chair of the Amherst Planning Board, I'm calling this meeting to order at what, 6.04. This meeting is being recorded and is available via Amherst Media Livestream. Minutes are being taken as normal. I will not take a roll call. Board members, when you hear your name called, unmute yourself, answer affirmately, and then, you know, place yourselves back on mute. So Maria Chow. Here. And myself, I'm here. Tom Long here. Andrew McDougal. Here. Dick Marshall. Present. And Jenna McGowan. Here. And Johanna Newman. Thank you. Board members, if technical difficulties arise, we may need to pause temporarily to correct the problem and then continue the meeting. If you do have technical issues, please let Pam know. Discussion may be suspended while the technical issues are addressed. And the minutes will note if this occurred. Please use the raise hand function to ask a question or make a comment. I will see you raised hand and call on you to speak. After speaking, remember to remute yourself. Opportunity for public comment will be provided during the general public comment period. But other appropriate times during the meeting, please be aware of the board will not respond to comments during. Excuse me. Please be aware of the board will not respond to comments during the general public comment period. That's a little, I'm sorry about that. But if you wish to make a comment during a public comment period, you must join the meeting via zoom teleconferencing link. This link is shown on the slide and it can be entered into, you know, a search by the following link. Pam, as you know, you have that shown. Great. The link is also listed on the meeting agenda posted on the town website via the calendar listing for the for this meeting or you can go to the planning board web page and click on the most recent agenda. We should list the zoom link at the top of the page. Please indicate if you wish to make a comment by clicking the raised raise hand button when public comment is solicited. And if you have joined the joint, the zoom meeting using a telephone, please indicate you wish to make a comment by pressing star nine on your telephone. So when called on, please identify yourself by stating your full name and address yourself and put yourself back into mute when finished. Speaking. Okay, residents are welcome to express their views for up to three minutes and at the discretion of the planning by chair. If a speaker does not comply with these guidelines or exceeds their lot of time, their participation will be disconnected for the meeting. So with that said, I'm going to go back to our agenda. In the minutes. What do we have for minutes here. October 21. Okay, I'm pulling those up. Okay, that's in the packet. Janet McGowan made a request for an additional sentence. Maybe Pam can pick that up or put that up. Okay, I have, I have them up. So what we're Janet, do you know if your hand, your hand raised or not, but Oh yeah, I could. So I thought that the minutes were great on them on page five they left out. Andrew McDougal question about the site plan review requirement that the lights be turned off at the end of business hours. And so I thought that was kind of important because that's a big issue as we'll see later. And so I just, I sent a sentence to Christine, which I could read right now. Do you, is that easier? It's on this screen. Okay, I can't so I have some. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, I can barely read that, but Can you zoom in on your end, Pam? I know we can do it on our end, but it's might be easier for you. I think I need like some kind of I can read it. Yeah, I can read it now. So it's just that Mr. McDougal asked at the site plan review permit language at section 11.2417 that all site lighting be extinguished after business hours, except for safety and security lights was a rule or a guideline. So that was, I just wanted to put that in because That's going to be that seemed important. That may have been my comment, Janet. I'm not sure. Yeah, I'm giving that to you. Oh, you are. I'm sorry. I'm not speaking clearly. Okay. No, I didn't. Because I said Mr. McDougal. Wait, I'm sorry. Is it Tom? Yeah. Okay. I'm sorry. Maybe maybe maybe Andrew raised it also. I think it's yours, Tom. I'm sorry. That was your sum. Okay, sorry. Okay. Does it, does it make sense to be adding that comment and not providing what the answer was? Um, I guess that makes sense because I think I remember Christine Brestrup saying she felt like it was a guideline. And then I said, I thought it sounded mandatory, but I wanted to look at it some more. I think that was the just, is that right? Is that what you remember, Doug? I didn't go back and listen. I just had that in my notes. I don't have a clear enough recollection of it. And I just think it doesn't make sense in terms of putting it in the minutes. Half of it. Um, let's see. Yeah, there's not really a response. I thought Christine, I thought you said something back and then later on. It says that I was, I wanted to ponder the section. I think I said, this is Chris Brestrup speaking. I think I said that it was something that the planning board needed to look at when they were reviewing the site plan review application. And I thought it was a guideline, but that's something that can be discussed with the building commissioner who actually is, is here. He's present. So if you want to discuss that now, or if you want to discuss that when, when the Emily Dickinson museum case is being considered, I guess you could do it either time. But I believe I said, I thought it was, it was a criterion that the planning board needed to look at during their review. I felt it was a guideline, but there may be more. It may be more regulatory than that. And then I guess if we add that in, and then it explains why I'm pondering later in the minutes at the, at the. And then like, there's something where it says, Miss McGowan added she would like to look at other lights downtown and take some time to ponder section 11.2417. So I think, I think if you put Christine's response in that it all, it kind of makes sense. It's like, you don't want to do a transcript, but it's an important issue. And I definitely we're going to be looking at that tonight. Okay, so we're just trying to get these minutes. Approved and I'm a little bit confused with where, you know, what, you know, what section we're looking at here. But yeah, we're on page five where we're talking about the Emily Dickinson lighting and the kind of like what the board was talking about like the conversation that we had. Jack, Mr. Marshall has his hand raised. Okay, Doug. Like to make a motion that we table this conversation and have Janet work with Chris and Pam on bringing back a complete. Okay, proposal to the next meeting. Second. Okay. Any comment help you out with that as well. Okay, thanks, Tom. So any other comment. On the board. Okay, so, you know, based on Doug's motion here, let's begin to a roll call. So, Johanna. I And Andrew. I Tom. I Maria. Are we approving to postpone the approval of the minutes? Is that what we're doing? Well, What are we doing? We're approving postponing. Yes. Okay. Yes. Okay. And then Janet. Yes. Yes. Okay. And, okay, I apologize. Have I forgotten? Did I get everybody? Yes. And then myself. Yes. Okay. I think we got us all. Thank you. Great. Okay. You have two people in the attendees who are related to the next topic. So I don't know if Pam wants to. I don't see any raised hands, but I don't see any. Do you? No. Okay. All right. So the public comment period. Okay. So we're, we're good with that. So I'm going to move. Selina. Webber. The panelists. I don't see any raised hands, but I don't see any, do you? No. Okay. All right. Okay. The panelists. Martha Lyon and Jane Wald. Okay. So we can ask. Jane. For the public comment period. You have like three minutes. So, um, Jack, do you want to read the, um, What is it? I'm not sure about that. That's just what it is. I can't hear. I think Pam had sent it a couple of days ago. Okay. Do you have it up there? No. No, I don't. Um, The preamble for. Preamble for the Emily Dickinson museum. Oh, I thought we were taking public comment. No, the people who just came in are people who are going to. Okay. Okay. Yeah. I have it somewhere, so many files. Okay, I have it here. So, okay, so 647 in accordance with the provisions of MGL chapter 40A, this public hearing continued from October 21st, 2020, has been duly advertised and noticed. Thereof has been posted and is being held for the purpose of providing the opportunity or interested citizens to be heard regarding SBR 2021 dash 05 Emily Dickinson Museum dash 280 Main Street. Request site plan review approval to install a permeable pedestrian pathway between the two historic homes, including lighting the pathway and to install the lighting to illuminate the facades of both homes and some tree removal. And this is on lot map porting B parcels 4th, parcel 16 and 27 RG zoning district. So are there any board member disclosures? I see it on and the applicant. May present at this time. So we're asking for these things you just mentioned and we had a discussion about it a couple of weeks ago and there were some things that were still, I guess you wanted to consider some more and can you hear me okay? Yes. Yeah. So we're here to answer any more questions that you might have about the pathway, the lighting and the tree removal. So, I mean, I personally did not go by there. I mean, I thought that the historical commission, there's a ticker of approval there. But anyway, Johanna. Thanks, Jack. So what I remember coming out of the last meeting was that a bunch of us were just curious to see what it looked like at night. And today, right before dinner, my kids and I drove by and my reaction was just that it was so tasteful and so beautiful. And because the buildings are on a hill and there's the fence there, it doesn't feel obtrusive at all. It's lovely. Even my 11 year old son said, it's perfect. So my, I don't know if this is jumping the gun, but I would like to go ahead kind of, just in the spirit of time. And I feel like we spent a lot of time on this last week to go ahead and move to approve this proposal. Okay. I do see by Doug and Andrew, Doug in response to Johanna's, I don't know if you have additional comments or you want to. Yeah, I had a question for the applicant. Should I proceed or not? Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. I did go by and look at the lighting. The lighting on the Dickinson house looked great. One question about the security light that's on a pole behind the second house, whose name I'm blanking on, the evergreens, I think it is. Would that security light stay on all the time as it does now? Because it's kind of harsh and kind of all out by itself. I wondered whether it might go on after it would go on when the architectural lighting goes off. That's my question. Right, so the plan is to put in new security lighting at the backside of the evergreens. So the current security lighting wouldn't be operational anymore. And the new security lighting would be somehow less jarring. Right, and it's at the back corners of the evergreens, the two corners pointing down at the, you know, towards the ground. If I can share my screen, do you wanna see where they are? No, that's fine. It sounds like I'm fine with the fact that you're looking at that. Absolutely. Good question, Doug. Is anyone who want a second, Johannes? Well, I'll go ahead and second it. Okay, further discussion? Chris? One of the things you were waiting for was to hear from the Local Historic District Commission and they did meet and issued a certificate of appropriateness, which you have in your packets. And they were recommending were, they issued the certificate to approve what was being proposed. So I just wanted to point that out. Okay, so, you know, I think we've gone through like a site visit report because people have gone by. I don't know if there's any other comments from the board. There were questions about whether the board could approve this to be on after business hours and also a question about whether the board could approve this to not be completely downcast and so I sent you some information today about the level of restrictions that planning boards can place on non-profit educational institutions. And I quoted from chapter 40a, section three, which states what kinds of things can be restricted and it's things like height and mass and setbacks and that type of thing. But it doesn't mention anything about lighting. So I wanted to ask Rob Mora, who is here, the building commissioner, if he would make some comments about the level of regulation that the planning board can put on lighting and in specific with regard to section 11.2417, of the zoning bylaw, I thought he might be able to enlighten us about that if you would recognize him. Rob. Hi, thank you. Rob Mora, building commissioner. So to respond to Ms. Pressroom's questions, I think there's definitely a limit to the amount of regulation that can apply to these types of uses but what that 48 section three language doesn't talk about is what cases have over the years told us is that these uses are subject and can be subject to site plan review with reasonable regulation. So I think that it does give you the opportunity to look at lighting and even change it or improve it for a project. But when you look at lighting that might be unreasonably regulated, I would think of something like an athletic field where reducing, limiting the height or eliminating lights would really render the use non-existent. And that's what the Dover amendment is intended to prevent. So I think if we're dealing with a use where lighting is more architectural or parking related, serving its purpose but done in a way that is appropriately found by the board, I think it can be regulated. 11.2417 is pretty interesting because some of those guidelines they're pretty specific and they almost read more like rules. So they can be a challenge for projects. I know in the zoning board of appeals world we struggle with this oftentimes because the architectural lighting that is desirable and done tastefully and appropriately sometimes doesn't really work consistently with the language we have. So there's a lot of language in that section. Some of it might be a guideline or some criteria to judge the proposal on and something like more firm of a requirement. Thank you, Rob. Chris Breastrup has her hand raised. Okay. I just wanna make one point which is that in the second sentence of 11.2417 there's an exception and it says except for architectural and then it says and interior lit signs. And I think there's a word missing there. I think it should say except for architectural lighting and interior lit signs. All exterior site lighting shall be downcast because the last sentence says all site lighting including architectural sign and parking lot lighting. So that indicates to me that there was a word missing from the second sentence. And after the word architectural there should be the word lighting. So I just wanted to offer that for your consideration because that to me would give a little more flexibility with regard to architectural lighting in this particular situation. Is he Janet Sand? So I did a drive around Amherst around seven o'clock on Sunday and I was just looking, as one of the things I noticed when I moved to Amherst it's extremely dark. And so I started in my part of the town I went to the Munson Library and there was a door light on a lamp like at the entrance that you could see the entrance. The South Congregational Church was dark except for two lights by the door. Everything I went by was just lighting doorways. The Johnson Chapel was an exception. They had a spire, their spire was lit up and there was like a light, I guess these lights were going up and on their clock and flag. The bowl went in had lights at their doorways and the building and sign, but between that and the street lights you can kind of see everything and also it being white. So pretty much everything was not lit up after hours except for lights for entranceways or you think about safety or security. Amherst works did have a light onto its building. It was kind of like off from the ground pointing up it's like a flood lamp but it's open 24 hours a day it turns out although I think right now it's not. And First Congregational Church had a spotlight from the ground up onto its front. And so everybody was dark. Fine Arts building had a hideous blue lights on some facade and maybe it would be an art project but I didn't do the whole look at UMass which obviously is open 24 seven. And so that was sort of my field trip and so buildings don't have architectural lighting as a rule except for Johnson Chapel and those exceptions. And so that's one thing. I've been looking at the language at this section of 11.2417 and when I first read it when Tom called their attention to it I was thinking it sounds like to me you have to turn your lights off when your business hours are over. And for the Emily Dickinson Museum I don't think that necessarily is when the last guest leaves or visitor leaves it could be when the staff leaves. And then today I was kind of reading it and I started to see it in a different way that maybe if there's an approved site management plan with business hours we could follow that which is what we have now that the lights go off at 10. And so I went into this windshield wiper of legal analysis which made me feel like I wanted to know what did the planning department the planning board select board in town meeting mean when they wrote this? Like is or any, sometimes the planning board has commentary was that issue discussed where they trying to make sure when you walk out the door at the end of the day you turn your architectural lights off and everything but safety and security lights. So to me that's like an open question. And then Christine I didn't really get a chance to look at that last thing about chapter 40A but I think Mr. Morris interpretation makes sense to me because it seems like it might be too strict to say you couldn't do lighting. So I sort of leave that to the board and I feel like, and then the other thing is I looked at the Emily Dickinson Museum when it was lit up, it looks beautiful. I love the Emily Dickinson Museum. I think I've been there like seven or eight times but I don't know if we have the power to say yeah you can leave the lights on until 10 and so I'm kind of left in that dilemma. And then I was trying to think of a way to approve this project with some coming back later to see how late the lights can go on. We can do that look into the legislative history and figure out what a town meeting and the planning board and the select board mean when they said this or the planning department. I don't know when this rule gets written. So that's my physical journey. I think the lighting looks fantastic but I don't know if we can let you keep the lights on after the last person leaves other than safety lighting. Thank you Jenna and Doug. Yeah, I wanted to say that the first congregational church more or less across the street from the Evergreens has facade lighting that is on at least late, if not all night. I believe that the police station also has exterior lighting or else it's well illuminated by street lights, I can't remember. So there are a couple of instances right in this neighborhood where there are already architectural lighting going on. I guess I also was wondering whether my colleague on the board who just spoke is an originalist and whether we need to find out what the intent is of every single article in our bylaws. Good question. I mean, who on the board has actually viewed the lighting in the evening? Okay, so, because I have not. Okay, so Maria, Yonah, Doug and Tom and obviously Janet, okay. Jack, Mr. McDougal has his hand raised as well. Okay, let me put that back on there. All right, Andrew, please. So I did see the lighting. I thought it looked beautiful as well. I mean, I do think Janet's questions are valid. Like, do we, if sort of Chris and Rob feel comfortable that this is compliant, I think that's one thing I just would love to have that maybe be stated a little bit more definitively for the minutes. But yeah, I mean, I had some similar concerns around maybe similar, but as I was contemplating this, are we setting any of the precedents that might impact other buildings that we just have not considered at this point? I'm not sure if that's the case or not, but I would love to have an answer to Janet's question as well, to really feel comfortable because I would love to be able to approve this. Chris, Rob, not sure if you might feel comfortable. Back. Thank you, Andrew. I guess we could pull in with that, Chris. Well, I did want to go back to my point about potentially a missing word in 11.2417. It says protection of adjacent properties by minimizing the intrusion of lighting, including parking lot and building exterior lighting through the use of cutoff luminaires, light shields, lowered height of light poles, screening or similar solutions. And then it says, except for architectural, what does that mean? And interior lit signs, are they talking about architectural signs? That doesn't make sense to me. It makes more sense if you say, except for architectural lighting and interior lit signs, all exterior lighting shall be downcast and shall be directed or shielded to eliminate light trespass on it and then it goes on. So I just think there is a word missing there and that architectural lighting may be an exception from this. In other words, if you have a pole light, it's got to shine down. But if you have a light on the building that's an architectural light, does that have to shine down too? So anyway, I'm just offering that for your consideration. And I wonder what the building commissioner thinks about that interpretation, whether he thinks there might be a word missing or not. And if that makes any difference, because I know that many people believe you have to read the black letter of the law. And even if there is a word missing, you have to go along with whatever the words say. So I'd like to pull Robin to see if he has comment on that. Sure. Yeah, so I do agree with Christine on that. They're definitely, in my opinion, is a word missing there. And we have to oftentimes try to interpret what's there and apply it in a way that makes the most sense. So I would agree with that, but it does sound like to me the question here is about the time when the lights are extinguished, not so much whether or not the lights can be there and be used. And I think that's really up to the board to make that call. I think it's not wrong to have the lights on for extended periods of time. On the other side, it's certainly to regulate their timing. So it really does depend on the board's view of the business hours that are established, extinguishing outside of those business hours established under the plan and how much flexibility the board wants to have with the timing of those lights. Thanks, Rob. Janet? As to Christine's point, it might just be a typo. So if you went back to when this was on the town meeting warrant, it might be that word architectural lighting that phrase might be there. So this could just be a typo of transcription. I guess my question is, do we have the discretion to extend business hours beyond when people are really using the building? And so when I was doing my drive around Amherst, I had never had thought about this issue before. And since almost every old, beautiful, iconic building I saw was dark, except for lighting of doorways, which you would do for safety, I wondered, is this a rule? Like when people aren't there, you turn it off. Some buildings had interior lights on, although nobody seemed to be in there. And so I don't know if we had the, what this last sentence means. And so as, you know, I don't know if I'm originalist, but with a question like this, I would go back and say, what's the legislative history? What was meant at the time? What was the legislative body or the planning department that it's like where was this issue discussed? And if people are like, oh, ask the question and the answer was given or it's in something. And you would just say, okay, this rule is very narrow. You can't have lights on after business hours. Or it could be like, no, if the site management plan has a limit, that could be the limit. So it does seem technical, but I think that on one hand you look like, if it is a rule, it looks like most of the town is complying and maybe not first congregational church, although they may see that as a safety light, but I just, I don't have the answer to that. Like I just kind of went back and forth between interpretations. And I thought, you know, Lord knows that when we decide things in this town about zoning, there's a lot of, you know, information and writings on it and be good to look at. And then maybe we can go back and look at what was on the warrant because, you know, that missing word architectural lighting and interior lit signs might be in there. And it's just a typo in how this was described. I, you know, I kind of, I want to approve this project too. I just want to know to do it the right way following the bylaw. And then the other thing about what Andrew said is we may be changing the rule and we might be just starting to light up all our buildings in Amherst, which may be lovely or not. You know, I just, I just want to know what people meant at the time when they approved this. It's very detailed. Thanks, Janet. So somebody must have heard of it. Sorry. It's a very detailed, very specific rule. So it seems like there's a lot of thought put into it. It's just this last little sentence that is confusing to me. And I just don't come out on one side or the other. And so then it goes, they go to the intent. It's not originalist. It's kind of the normal way you would interpret any kind of ruler law is to look at the legislative intent if you need it. Thank you. Maria. Let's see if I can remember. I think that this project is not going to set a precedent for other projects, whether or not we would follow the letter of the law. I think the intent is that this is like a, like that bylaw that Chris Brestrup set a few weeks ago, like Somerville, they make exceptions or a different sort of situation for like monuments, landmarks. And I think that's what this is. It's basically, it's not like a business hours issue. It's literally they're lighting up a landmark for the town. So I'm not as concerned about, you know, meeting the letter of law regarding business hours. I think this is a special case. And I think we're treating it that way because we're allowing, you know, like the actual fixtures are not down, oh, a dark sky compliant, but that the design is. And so I'm not worried about this project being pointed to by other projects saying, well, you did this for the museum. So I feel like, you know, if Mr. Mora and this Brestrup are, you know, I've been saying it's open interpretation. Well, my interpretation is I'm fine with them leaving it on for the appropriate amount of time, like beyond what other buildings in the area do. And I think that when I drove by, it was a lot less clearing than the photos because when you take a photo, it kind of catches the hotspot. So it was very nicely designed. And I know there's a motion on the table and that it's been seconded. So I'm eager to move on that if we can, but that's my perspective. Thank you, Maria. And Doug? Yeah, two things. First of all, I've just received a call from somebody who's trying to get into this meeting as an attendee and they are saying that the Zoom link is not letting them in. So I thought I'd let Pam know that that's at least what apparently five or six people are not being able to get into the meeting. Although I see that there's a bunch of attendees. So it's working for some people. Then at least the way I see the bylaw, you know, it looks to me like we could establish the business hours during which the lighting can be illuminated through approving the site management plan. So I can't remember whether we've received a site management plan to review. But, you know, it seems to me, whatever hours are approved in that plan is consistent with the letter of the law. We did get a management plan, I believe, Chris, and I believe I have it. It would be in the packet from the 21st of October. Tom? Yeah, I just wanted to follow up and say that I agree with Maria as well as Doug and I was the one who raised this and it was more of a question. And I think that it's good for us to dig into these kinds of questions to try to better understand what it is that we are and are not legislating and what it is that the intent was behind this. I think that regardless of what the official intent was, I do agree with Maria that this is not a case that a home depot could use as a precedent or even a bakery for that matter. I think that this is a landmark and this has a unique position in our community and therefore our interpretation is open in that way. And I do agree with Doug that the management plan also allows us to better understand that, to approve that and allow us to move forward with approving this project in haste. Great, so there's not any other questions from the board. We can open this. Oh, Janet. So just an idea is, would people eject to finding out more information about why this language is this way? It would just take us two more weeks and so that's thought. So I don't wanna like, we make decisions that are not what the language says, we're sort of becoming legislators. I appreciate that the Emily Dickinson is iconic but there's no exception for iconic buildings in this town and there's lots of historic buildings. In fact, I was thrilled at how many beautiful buildings we had and so I think we could be opening the door to a lot of requests to light up Amherst which could be fantastic, but if the town meeting didn't want that to happen and we have all this language about dark sky and keeping things low, let's follow the intent and the language but I do see the interpretation in the other direction. That's why I would like to go back and find out was this discussed. So if people, could we take two weeks to look at that and find out what they're saying and then see if this is a typo leaving out the word lighting in front of architect? I mean, just, I don't know. So I've asked people to consider that. Rob. I just want to offer a little something here because it does sound to me like it's, the hesitation is only about the language and the bylaw not about the project or the design itself. And, you know, what Christine brush up brought up earlier with the 40A section three language it is really appropriate for the board to determine that this section pieces of it are reasonable to regulate and others may not be. So you've received cut sheets on shielded proper lumens angle of positioning and determine that, you know, regulating it to that degree is reasonable but extinguishing at a certain time when the staff leaves or even applying a standard that raises question you know, where it comes from is unreasonable to apply in this case. And you can simply move on from that point and just establish that under a nonprofit educational institution application. Jane. Yes, thank you. There's only one comment I'd like to make and that's about the issue of precedence. The Emily Dickinson homestead is literally a national historic landmark and there are maybe I it's almost unique in Amherst for having that status in case that helps with the question of precedence. Thank you. May I make a comment? Yes, you may cross. I wanted to comment on the ability of staff to research what the intent was. And the reason I'm saying that is because section 11.24 is largely based on the special permit criteria which are section 10.38. And the wording of one of the criteria in 10.38 which is actually 10.393 is essentially the same as 11.2417. So my understanding of this is when site plan review was adopted and I think it was adopted in 1988 or 87, something like that. The town looked back to the criteria that the ZBA used to accept or deny special permits and they pretty much adopted the same language. So we would have to go back to the time when the special permit was adopted by the town. And I don't even know how far that would be that we'd have to go back. So I don't know if there would be planning board reports from that time. Rob may know more about when special permits were first adopted by the state. And it could go back into, I'm sure it goes back to at least the forties because we have special permits here from the forties and into those records is going to be challenging. So that's all I wanted to say. Thank you, Doug. Yeah, since Chris cited 10.393, it does read exactly the same. If there were a missing word, it's in both sections. Which starts to make me think there's not a missing word and that architectural is modifying the word signs, not lighting. Gotcha. So thank you. I mean, amongst the architects, you know, on the board, I appreciate that. I'm a little confused with regard to the extent that we're deliberating this, but I'm trying to like, you know, get this to a vote. And Janet. So now that we're in another area, is there, for the architects, is there a difference between an architectural sign and an interior lit sign? Is that the interior lit sign, like a neon sign versus just like a, what's an architectural sign? Is that something that like a wood sign or? I believe this reference is an architect. The reference is an architectural lit or interior lit sign. And so it in architectural should have a hyphen after it. Meaning that the lighting is shining up on, like an architectural lighting onto the sign, or that it is internally illuminated with light bulbs inside of a translucent material from the inside out. So architecture, I don't know why we're dealing with this now, but if it had a hyphen, that would make more sense. So we can rewrite that sometime in the future. That's my. So I'm confused. Not being an architect and this whole lighting thing. So I would hope one of the board members would make a motion to, you know, amend or approve the project as proposed. And Maria. I thought Johanna and Doug already most made the motions and seconded. Are we ready to vote? Okay. Discussions over and we can. Vote. Okay. I kind of lost track. If that is the case. Is that right Chris? Yes, that is right. Okay. So, so, all right. So we are ready to vote, but, but, uh, Janet had one more comment. Do we, do we have public comment on this? Or do we have a moment for that? I'm just wondering. Is that, isn't that when, do we normally do that? Or do we have to do that or we can skip it? Uh, no, we do have public comments from, uh, In the question period. So. Yeah. So Jack, before you do that, can I just say, um, Sort of in response to Doug receiving a telephone call. That people could not get on. I've been in contact with the IT folks. They've checked the links. They're all the same. And they are having no problem getting on. So the IT people are suggesting that people try again. If they, if they could not get on. I'm just going to say that if, if you're going to do public comment. Okay. Um, I don't see any hands raised at this time, Jack. Okay. Okay. So, uh, Now one has popped up as soon as I said that. Alrighty. Who's that? Um, Elizabeth Veerling and allow her to speak. Okay. Hi, Elizabeth. Yes. Can you hear me? Yes. Yes, I just wanted to comment that the problem with getting onto the. Into the meeting was not that the link was not working. The problem was that the link was not available. Um, I could not find it on the town website. And we had received an email from. Chris, who's been wonderful in keeping up a prize in the neighborhood. Uh, but that link was not functional. So. That was the problem is that if you go on the town website, you could not find a link for this meeting. Thank you. Interesting. Um, Doug has his hand raised. Well, I don't do you want to respond to that, that Chris, I mean, or Pam, I mean. Um, I'm it's in the meeting posting that I know. And also, um, the link, the zoom link to the meeting is also on the agenda. So that's also posted in a few different ways. So. Yeah. Um, what I T suggested was, was that maybe that they were trying before we went live. But I don't think that that's the case because the link would still be there. Because when I go back after a posting has been submitted and I see that it's posted and I go to check to make sure everything is, is there and correct. It's, it's there invisible. Um, so I'm not as, I'm not exactly sure, but I'm really happy that, um, this be early and pointed it out. Um, and so we can, we, we're still looking into it here. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Doug. Doug. And we have another hand in the public comment. Yeah, the, uh, Am I correct that the thing we've been talking about for the last half hour is whether we are legislatively allowed. To approve a design where some of the lights are not downcast. You know, Is that what we're talking about that, you know, all exterior lighting shall be downcast. And shall be directed or shielded to eliminate light trespass onto any street or a budding property. Well, I think all the lighting that we're talking about is directed away from a budding properties and away from streets. It is not all downcast. So I guess, you know, it seems like most of us think this is a decent proposal and I don't know whether we're better off just approving it and having somebody. Object later, but, um, Maybe Janet, maybe you could, you could confirm. That's what the problem is. Thank you. Thanks. Thanks, Doug. Also, Jack, I want to let you know there, there is another hand in the, um, Public comment. Public comment. Yes. Okay. Okay. Mara, do you want to say, um, Yep. Here you are. Yeah. Were you live sort of thing. Sure. Um, I'm more keen and I live on Dennis drive and Amherst, but I have once responding to Elizabeth's comment. That the way to get on is to go to the planning board page of. The website and then the agenda is posted there and the link is on the agenda. If you go to the main town website page, it's hard to get on. Thank you. Okay. So at this point, I see no more. Um, hands from the public. Um, And the applicant, you know, I don't know if you have any other. Any other responses. No. Okay. Um, so final comments and questions from the board. For conditions findings. Can we discuss. You did receive conditions. Um, in your packet. I don't know if you want to look at those or, or look at the findings. Um, yeah, I'm bringing those up myself. Yeah. I also have them on the screen. I can share my screen. So those are in our packet, right? They're here to Jack on the screen. Can you. Okay. Do you want me to read them, Jack? Or do you want to read them? If you would, that'd be great. Yeah. All right. Um, so these are draft findings for the Emily Dickinson project. So I plan review 2021. Oh, five. So the board found, uh, there's, these are findings that the board needs to make. Um, 11.2, 4, 0, 0. The project is in conformance with all appropriate provisions of the zoning by law and goals of the master plan. Um, so just to let the new members know what usually happens is we go through these and read them. Um, so that the new members know what the plan is and what the plan is. So they can review the plan in order to minimize their hand and ask to be recognized. Um, and I'm going to be reading this, so I won't know if anybody's raising their hand. Um, 11.2, 4, 0, 1 town amenities and a budding properties will be protected through minimizing detrimental or offensive actions. All of the changes will occur on site with the exception of a tie into the town drainage system via catch basin on main street, which he has not expressed concerns. Um, 11.2, 4, 0, 2. I want to let you know that Jenna McGowan has her hand raised. I'm not sure when it popped up. Okay. Does Jack want to recognize Janet? Yes, Jen. So. You know, the, the first criteria, the project is in conformance with all appropriate provisions of the zoning by law. And I think I, I, I feel like I can't say yes. Um, because of the issue that Tom had raised about whether lighting can go on past business hours. And now the issue that Doug has raised, whether downcast lighting, I mean, Oh, lighting should be downcast except for those limited exceptions. And so I feel like I know what this by the section, the bylaw actually said part. I can't really say, yeah, we're meeting the sections of the bylaw when we have two discussions going. Not clear on what this bylaw requires. I can't say yes to know. And then we're going to start talking about the lighting saying lights will be downcast and shielded or directed. You know, and so I think, um, I kind of just need to know more about what this provision means. And so, you know, you're putting me in a hard spot because I do like the lighting plan. I do like the way it looks. I like the Emily Dickinson Museum. I particularly love the evergreens, but I don't think we can say yes, but we're meeting all the provisions of the bylaw because the issues raised. Thanks, Janet. Do you want me to keep reading? Yes. Okay. 11.2402. Oh, I think I just read. Oh wait, no, abutting properties will be protected from detrimental side characteristics resulting from the proposed use lights will be downcast and or shielded and or directed. So it's not to spill onto adjacent properties or streets. So that's really the issue having to do with it. The lighting's effect on adjacent properties and streets, not on the exact reading of 11.2417. Okay. Section 11.2403 adequate recreational facilities and open space are available because the property is large and open and will include substantial lawn areas. 11.2402 for one zero. Unique or important natural historic or scenic features will be protected. The local historic district commission will be has has reviewed, I have to say has, has reviewed the proposal and has issued a certificate of appropriateness. I wrote these suggested findings back before the local historic district had made its determination. 11.2411, the project provides adequate methods of refutes disposal as described in the management plan. 11.2412. The project is connected to town sewer and water. No changes are proposed to the sewer and water connections. 11.2413, the proposed drainage system within an adjacent to the site will be adequate to handle the stormwater. Okay. I thought there was a new connection to the town sewer. Well, there is a connection to the town drain it drain. System, but not to the sanitary system. And this 11.2412. Relates to the sanitary system. There is another item here that relates to the drainage system. Okay. Thank you. So 11.2413, the proposed drainage system within an adjacent to the site will be adequate to handle the stormwater. Underdrains are being added under the proposed pathway. And in the lawn area to the south of the proposed pathway. The town engineer has reviewed the proposal and has not expressed any concerns. We did get a subsequent email from him, which I think I forwarded to plan. They're saying that he was fine with the proposal to connect to the drain system in the street. 11.2414, the provision of adequate landscaping has been addressed. The project includes significant existing vegetation. That will be maintained. And some existing vegetation that will be removed. To return the site to the conditions closely resembling those at the time. 11.2415, the soil erosion method control methods are considered adequate to control soil erosion. Both during and after construction. 11.2416, adjacent properties will be protected by minimizing the intrusion of various nuisances. And here's the bugaboo. 11.2417. Adjacent properties will be protected from the intrusion of lighting because a condition of the permit will require that exterior lighting be downcast and or shielded and or directed. So as not to shine onto adjacent properties or streets. New lighting will be directed towards pathways and structures and on the road. And the project will be directed to the adjacent properties and the adjacent properties will be protected from the intrusion of various nuisances. And here's the bugaboo. 11.2417. Adjacent properties will be protected from the intrusion of various nuisances. And here's the bugaboo. 11.2417. Adjacent properties will be directed towards pathways and structures on the site. Except for the lights that will shine upward to eliminate the facade. All exterior lighting will be downcast and directed or shielded to eliminate light trespass. Onto any street or abutting property. And we'll eliminate direct or reflected glare perceptible to persons on any street or abutting property. Other than security lighting. And the project will be directed towards the adjacent properties. And the project will be directed towards the adjacent properties. And we'll only be on from dusk until 10 pm. Mr. Jamsic and. I see Doug sand. Yes. Yeah. Once again. I'm not sure that's quite. Exactly true. Because there's those. Lights at the two pedestrian entrances through the fence. Those shine. Mostly up. But on the. On the right side of the fence. So except for lights that will shine upward to illuminate the facade. Or fence posts. I would add those words. Good comment. Tom has a comment as well. Just a way to frame that. It could just be architectural elements that include the building and the fence posts and other things. So maybe not so specific as fence posts. Chris, can you. I shall agree with that. Interpretation. No objection. Okay. All right. 11.2418. Is not applicable because the property is not located in the flood prone conservancy district. 11.2419 is not applicable because there are no wetlands on or within a hundred feet of the property. 11.24. 11.2420. The planning board did not choose to refer to the design principles and standards set forth in sections 3.3040. And 3.2041 of the zoning bylaw, because the local historic district commission will undertake a review of the proposal or did undertake a review. Of the proposal and considered issues of design and, and issued a certificate of appropriateness. Okay. 11.2421 is not applicable because there are no changes proposed to the setbacks placement of parking landscaping and entrances and exits. Chris, if it's, it's not actable. I think we're good with that. You know, you don't need to read. No need to save it. Okay. 11.2422 not applicable. 11.2423 not applicable. 11.2424. Screening has been provided as appropriate for storage areas, loading docks, dumpsters, rooftop equipment, utility buildings, and similar features. No changes are being proposed regarding screening. 11.2430. The site has been designed to provide for the convenience and safety of the vehicular and pedestrian movement within the site in relation to adjoining ways and properties. So no changes are being proposed. 11.2431 is not applicable. 11.2432. The location and design of parking spaces, bicycle racks, drive aisles, loading areas and sidewalks have been provided in a safe and convenient manner. Parking on the site is limited and no changes are being proposed to the parking area. 11.2433 is not applicable. 11.2434 is not applicable. 11.2436. The requirement for submittal of the traffic impact statement. I'm assuming this is true, but when you get to the waivers, you'll, you'll be able to tell me we'll be waived. There's very, very little traffic expected to enter and leave the site given the limited amount of parking on the site. And 11.2437 is not applicable. If you waive the traffic impact statement. The waivers are listed in the development application report. So you might want to look at that. If Pam can bring it up. That was in. I don't know if you have it in this packet, Pam. I do. Just tell me again where it was. Development application report right here. But it should be like on the second page or something like that. So. Go back. Pages. So the waivers are listed here on the second page. They've asked for a waiver of the sign plan and the traffic impact statement. So, um, Do you want me to read the, um, Proposed conditions? Jack. Um, I'm just trying to find them. Myself on the, on the packet here. Wait, wait one minute. Pam has them up on the screen. Okay. Oh. Okay. I blew right by them. Um, so please. Thank you. All right. So, um, these are draft conditions. Development shall be built substantially in accordance with the plan submitted to the planning board and approved on whatever date you approve this. Development shall be managed substantially in accordance with the management plan submitted to the planning board and approved on whatever date you approve it. All exterior lighting shall be dark sky compliant to the extent feasible. Exterior lighting shall be downcast, shielded and directed and she'll not shine on to adjacent properties or streets. Shielded directional flood lighting that is aimed so that direct glare is not visible from adjacent properties. We permitted for the purpose of lighting building facades. The purposes of other vertical structures such as fence post elevations and entry ways. I think I took some of that wording from the. From the summer regulations. Changes to the project and or substantial changes to any approved site plans or to the exterior of the building should be submitted to the planning board. It's review and approval prior to the work taking place. The purpose of the submittal shall be for the planning board to approve the change. And or to determine whether the changes are. Or significant enough to require modification of the site plan approval. And then one hard copy and then digital copy of final revised plans shall be submitted to the planning board. Thank you so much, Chris. So with that. I'm sorry, I'm looking for. I'm sorry. I'm looking for. Is there a motion to close this public hearing and. Approve with any amendments. You have a motion on the floor jack from. Johanna. And it was seconded by Mr. Marshall. Okay. Okay. Johanna's motion didn't include closing the public hearing or approval of the conditions, the waivers and. Findings. So you last time around, you decided as a board that you would. Take these things separately that you would close the public hearing. With one vote. And then you would. Move on to approval with approval of conditions waivers and findings as a second vote. Johanna has her hand raised as well. Okay. Thank you. I'm sorry if I jumped the gun in terms of process. I don't quite, I don't quite know whether the right thing right now would be for me to withdraw my motion and whether that needs approval. But it seems like that makes the most sense and then take them sequentially. So I withdraw my vote, my motion. Yeah, I don't think that needs a vote. Okay. Okay. So again, you know, there's been a lot of discussion on this. And I'm just. Looking, you know, I'm trying to reset here. We've been to this for like 45 minutes. Or more. So would there be a motion, a motion for, you know, the applicant that meets the relevant criteria of section 11.24. The zoning bylaw. And use me, Jack. I think what you want right now is a motion to close the public hearing. Okay. Need that motion. All right, Janet. I moved to close the public hearing. Okay. Thank you. And Andrew. I second that motion. Thank you. Okay. Do we need more discussion at this point? Mr. Mark. I think what you need is a motion to. Approve the project to, and then to include the conditions and findings and waivers in the approval. Okay. So as, as presented. Well, Chris, we didn't do a roll call vote. Emotion that's on the floor to close the public hearing. So we should do that first, right? Okay. So, Jack, you want to do a roll call vote. Absolutely. Okay. Janet. Yes. All right. And Johanna. I. And. Andrew. I'm sorry. I. And. I'm Andrew. Think about now. Yes. My sky. Doug. And Tom. And we have Maria. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm good. I'm good. Yes. Yes. Yes. I'm flipping, I'm flipping between the participants little. Frame and then our frame of our. You know, Brady Bunch. Okay. So, all right. So we're good with that. Okay. Now you need a motion to approve. And to approve the conditions and findings and waivers. Okay. So. Andrew. I would like to make that motion, please. Great. A second. Doug. Second. All right. Great. Thank you. And. No, for the discussion, right? I don't see any hands. Okay. So. So the motion is that the, the applicant meets the, uh, relevant career of section 11.24. The zoning bylaw. With the conditions. And. Waivers. As discussed. Okay. So roll call. Okay. All right. I'm going by the pictures this time. So I'm clear. Um, Andrew. Doug. Hi. Tom. Hi. Janet. And abstain. And Maria. Approve. Johanna. Approve. And I approve. So that's a six zero one. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Martha. And Jane. And. Oh, where I like. There you go. Selena. Sorry. Thank you. Thank you all very much. Thank you. Thank you. So we have an eight o'clock. We have an eight o'clock. No joint. Uh, hearing with the CRC. Um, and can we, I, I maybe we can take care of the apple brook. Yes. Quickly. Okay. So we go to old business. And. Um, Chris, if you, if you want to present this, I mean, it seems like we've got the appropriate. Recommendations from the town engineer. And from the, from the site development representative there, that. This could be a go. So this project has been on the planning boards plate for a long time since 2007. It's been under construction now for a while. The roadway has recently been completed to the. It's been under construction for a long time. I'm surprised by the extent that the town engineer feels that it has been completed with the exception of. Some minor work related to looming and seating for the amount of about $4,000. Um, so the town engineer doesn't have any. Reason to recommend that you don't release lots seven. So we do have a certificate of performance. And we do have a certificate of performance. That's under the covenant. And therefore all of the lots in the subdivision will be released. And seven can be sold to be developed. So that's the request. And we do have a certificate of performance that Pam. As available for you to look at, you're going to be asked to sign this. If you agree to release lots seven. So, um, I'm thinking on it. I think I sent it to you late this afternoon. Here it is. Can you see it? Yeah. Thank you. And Mr. McDougal has his hand raised. Oh. Um, Whoops. Sorry. So Andrew, yes. Yeah. So it was just real quickly on the map. the way the map had to get pulled up, or did lots mean anything here? The locus map, when we get that from the GIS, it's hard to select numerous items without one of them kind of standing out. So one that stands out, I think on that map, is the one that was the original house that was on the property. Yeah, okay, that's what I figured. I just wanted to clarify. Thank you, Jack. Thank you, Chris. Thank you. So the actual lot that is asked to be released is shown on the ANR plan, which Pam can bring up this plan here, and lot seven is this pork chop shaped lot. So that's the one that they want to be released. And we got an email from Jason Skill saying that the road was substantially completed, correct? Yes. Okay. Ms. Marshall, this hand down. Yeah, I just wanted to make sure there was documented evidence that it was finished. Except for that $4,000 worth of lumen seeded is finished. Okay. Just wanted to make sure we didn't need to make a site visit to see it ourselves before we certify. I don't think so. I think we can take the word of the town engineer. Yeah, great. So I see Andrew. Thanks, Jack. Yeah, I've just went to, do we just need a motion then, I mean, to close this old business out a motion to release a lot? Yes, I believe so. Yeah. To close any public hearing, because we don't have a public hearing open, it's just part of the public meeting. So you just need a motion to release lot seven. Okay. I'll make that motion. I'll second. Great. Thank you. Any discussion? Is that Janet or Johanna? That was Janet. Yeah, okay. Any discussion? We can go slow and we can go fast. Yeah. Okay. So, Andrew, I'm going to start with you. Roll call. Approve. All right. Thank you, Doug. Approve. Great. Tom. Approve. And Maria. Approve. Johanna. Approve. Did I get Janet? No. I'm sorry. Oh, there you are, very atop. Oh my gosh. All right. Thank you. All right. And Jack. And Jack. Oh, and me. Yes. Approve. So. All right. So I'll be asking you to come in and sign this. I'll try to combine it with something else that you can sign. So you don't have to make a free visit just for that. In fact, I might offer to drive to your homes and hopefully it won't be on a rainy day. Thank you. Chris, you go beyond duty with regard to coming to our houses and that. So I really appreciate that. I know other board members think the same. So we're right, you know, right at eight o'clock. I know we're going to talk about the, the, the 40 R for, for downtown. But that, you know, that's very conceptual. I can give a report for two minutes until we get to eight o'clock. If you'd like me to do that under new business. Sure. For implementation. Okay. Yeah. So Doug Marshall and I have been working on filling in the master plan implementation matrix. So far we've spent, let's see, one and a half to three, about five hours on working on it over the course of three days. And we've gotten pretty far, but we haven't quite gotten far enough to present the matrix to the planning board yet. So I just wanted to make that report. And hopefully we will be able to present the matrix to you soon. Great. Thank you. And thank, thank you, Doug, for taking that on. And so at this point, you want to have That was 169 by my computer, but we could start asking the CRC people to come in. Yes. Because they should be here in the attendees. I saw a few. That's me. Ms. Hanneke. I see Swartz. I see Mr. Ross. Okay. Shalene. I do not see where Mr. Schreiber. Unless they're here by a different name. You might want to ask Ms. Hanneke to list the names of the people that she expects to attend. Well, we have, we have Evan here, Mandy, and Sarah has been promoted over to a panelist. So I don't see Shalene or Steve Schreiber. I believe they are attending. Let me make sure I don't have any emails from them. So I'm not getting any messages that they're having problems coming in. We have a quorum to be able to start CRC. Shalene has just arrived. Oh, yeah. There's Shalene. Okay. Let's get her in first. And then I will. Hello. There she is. Hi, Shalene. I will, I will call us to order since she's in. We'll keep watch on the attendees to make sure Steve, so that we can get him in when he does join. But since we have a quorum, I will go through my call to order stuff. So seeing a quorum of the community resources committee, I am calling this special meeting of the community resources committee to order that is joined with the planning board at 8.02 p.m. on November 4th, 2020. Governor Baker's March 12th, 2020 order suspending certain provisions of the Open Meeting Law, MGL Chapter 30A Section 20 allows us to hold this virtual meeting, special meeting of the community resources committee. I believe the meeting is being recorded for future broadcast and any votes we take will be by roll call at this time. I'm going to make sure all the committee members can hear us and we can hear you. So I will take roll essentially at this time. Shalene. Here. Evan. Here. Sarah. Here. And Mandy is here. Steve is still not here, I believe, right? No. So Steve is missing. We will keep track to see. And then at this time, I am going to pass the virtual gavel of the CRC meeting to the chair of the planning board, Jack Jemsik, who will open the hearing on behalf of the CRC when he opens it on behalf of the planning board too. I think that's all I have to do at this time. Okay. So what we have, the Zoning By-law Article 14 amended. You have a preamble that Pam sent. Okay. I thought she already stated that. But so you should probably. It corresponds with MGL Chapter 40A. Is this the correct? Because I do have a couple different copies here. It's the one having to do with Article 14. It's a special one that Pam prepared. Okay. Let me get to that one. Sorry. I apologize. It would have been all the same email, Jack. Got it. Yes. I just, I have multiple emails here from. We've bombarded you with emails. Pam, can you bring it up on the screen? I actually don't, Chris. Lesson learned. I think I have it. If you want me to bring it up. Well, I just, I keep getting the one that Mandy had sent me. And that's not the same. Is it not the same? It's not exactly the same. Okay. Here I got it. All right. All right. So in accordance with the provisions of Sections 5 and 11 of Chapter 40A, this joint public hearing of the Amherst Planning Board and the Committee Resources Committee of the Amherst Town Council been duly advertised and noticed thereof has been posted and mailed to Department of Housing and Communication Development and the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission and Abutting Towns. This hearing is being held for the purpose of providing an opportunity for interested citizens to be heard regarding the proposed amendment to the Amherst Zoning By-law. This amendment will be on the agenda for Town Council at an upcoming meeting. Zoning By-law, Article 14, amended. Temporary zoning regarding permitting for certain uses during the COVID-19 emergency and its aftermath. So this article is to see if the Town will vote to amend Article 14 of the Zoning By-law. Temporary zoning regarding permitting for certain uses during the COVID-19 emergency and its aftermath by extending the expiration date until December 31st, 2021 and expanding its scope to apply to medical uses and the OP and PRP zoning districts and to apply to the placement of temporary structures in any zoning district for their following uses. Class 1 and Class 2, Farm Stand, Non-profit Educational Institution, Not-for-profit Library or Museum, Medical or Residential Institutions, Governmental Administration Building, Fire or Police Station and other government use not specifically listed herein to help businesses to more quickly emerge from the economic disaster created by the COVID-19 pandemic. So any Board Member Disclosures and do we see? I see none. Chris and Rob or to provide a presentation? I think Mr. Moore is going to provide the presentation and I'm here to answer questions. Okay. Thank you, Rob Moore, Building Commissioner. The view is a proposed amendment to Article 14. Article 14 was adopted this past summer to allow administrative approval for certain types of use that was to expire mid-December. So what we have here is a proposal to not only extend it through December 31st, 2021, but to expand it a little bit to include some additional uses that we think we'd like to be prepared for the possibility of needing either additions or alterations to these types of uses. In the effective uses section of the proposed article, we are adding Office Park and PRP zoning districts specifically for the option to allow medical office uses to be able to expand if needed, alter the site or anything that might be needed to help accommodate whatever those uses might be dealing with during the pandemic. Beyond that, we are proposing temporary uses and a definition to go along with that. What we saw during this so far is a need for things, permanent temporary structures like tents and storage buildings and we are talking, we have talked a lot about things like portable bathrooms and other facilities that possibly could be needed. So we thought we'd include a temporary use provision that allows for things to happen here with the intent that when this is all over, that the use of the site returns to its original condition, which is how we defined that. We included a variety of uses here, class one, class two, farm stands are thought there is that maybe in the spring there'll be increased interest in opening or expanding farm stands. Again, this is all to allow things to happen quicker but not really bypassing any of the bylaw requirements. The nonprofit educational institutions, churches, libraries and governmental associated uses are included in the list for possible temporary needs. The rest of the bylaw will remain the same as proposed and so far just a little bit of background. We used a few times one permanent addition or alteration and a couple that were temporary for outside use for personal care establishment. There's quite a bit of talking and planning going on for possible use of this bylaw and certainly an extension to the end of next year would give confidence to a business owner to move ahead with a proposal. Thank you, Rob. So any questions from Plenty Board or the CRC on this? I see Andrew. Thanks, Jack. And thanks for the presentation, Rob. I have a question related to the memo from Paul, I'm sorry, from you and Chris to Paul. I just wanted to make sure I understood this correctly. That talks about a structure going into the public way. I can just read this paragraph if that makes sense. It says if the use is in the public way, sidewalk, roadway, parking lot, it will be likely to expire at the end of the authorization period for Article 14. If it is a newly constructed patio, it would be unfair to expect a business to pay for the construction of a permanent structure and not know if they could continue to use it next year. They would want to know that the approval is permanent. Therefore, such constructions will generally deemed to be permanent. The last sentence saying generally deemed to be permanent, does that indicate like that structure would go beyond the December 31, 2021 timeline? Rob, do you want to answer that? Yes. So one thing I just want to just bring to your attention is that the deadline that we're proposing is December 31, 2021 is the deadline to actually grant the approval. So it doesn't necessarily mean everything stops at that date. It could, but it doesn't have to be that way. So up until that point, we can consider granting an administrative approval or something that could go on for some period of time or permanently. So we are open to for these types of uses listed in effective uses in the first section. We are open to both temporary solutions to deal with whatever limitations around occupancy or HVAC systems or whatever else might be going on. And we're seeing mostly, we had seen mostly outdoor dining for that purpose. But we are also not discouraging businesses from thinking about maybe long-term permanent use for outdoor dining or possibly other types of extensions or alterations and be open to hearing that under administrative approval where it would be permanent rather than given a deadline to be removed or turned back to its original condition. Jack, may I add to that? Yes, Chris. I think there is also a question that Mr. McDougal raised about the difference between the right of way and private property. The intention is that permanent structures or installations would only occur on private property and any installation that would occur in the public way is considered to be temporary because that is land owned by the public and things need to go back to the way they were. That is exactly what I meant. Thank you for clarifying. And thanks, Jack. Thank you. Any other, I don't see any other hands from the CRC or planning board. Janet? I have a question for Mr. Mora. So you have a, so an applicant puts in an application and then you have 10 business days to approve it. How has that worked out for you? Because it looks like you must have had a quite a busy summer. And I asked that. So, and that's one question. The second question is now that we're in a slower period of the winter, would it be useful to you to have more time to consider things, especially since their permanent structures are going in? I'm having a little trouble hearing you. I don't know the quality. Is anyone else having trouble hearing Rob? Like, it's not great. It's not quality. I hear him, but his video is not matching with his voice. But is everybody else hearing Rob? Yes. Okay. Okay. So, yeah, it is a great aggressive timeline to review an application, but it's from a complete application. So just within our land use permit applications, we split the time with an applicant getting their application is deemed complete. We generally are, in this case, I wrote this point, know a lot about the proposal and probably be really comfortable with it. And the 10 days might be used to finalize any review and questions from Ms. Breastrop or any other official that we need to reach out to or final comment before grant approval. So 10 days have been available. It's it is aggressive. And it's most of the time beforehand that is that it takes more time beforehand to prepare for an application to be deemed complete. So, so you're saying I had trouble hearing you. So you're saying that it's 10 days from a complete application, but people are coming in and talking to you about how to fill it out and get everything together. And that gives you more time. Is that what you're saying? Yes. But we're also talking about the project itself. So we're really working and finalizing the documents of the design during that period to complete the application. So there there's often you know, I'm working with people right now that I expect to have an application for under Article 14 sometime in the future. So there's quite a bit of time sometimes that go about working with designers and preparing an application in a condition that could be consumed for approval. Okay. Thanks, Janet. I also wanted to do to make a motion about involving the public or you know, a butters in some kind of notification. And so I've sent in the language and I don't know if Pam, can you pull that up or should I just read it? I'm having actually as usual a little trouble reading my own handwriting. So I'd like to make a motion to add the following sentence to the end of the first paragraph of starting application process. And then I'm having trouble seeing this. You just shrink it a little. Applicant shall prominently place notice of the application of its application with contact information for the building inspector and planning director at the main entrance of the building on our front window. I can't see actually make it rid of you people front window door or siding. So I think if I get a second, then I can speak to the motion. Yeah, I'm just what's the other public notification that that we have going now for this because I'm wondering about signage and you know how effective that is. There's no public notification because we talked about this the last time and there was none. Okay, so it's an expedited process and there's no notification. No public. Okay, so a sign in a window is that going to be is that going to make a difference? I guess is a question. I see Mandy. I just have a process question. We're in the public hearing stage and normally at least in council public hearings, the motions for things like that would happen after the hearing closes and we've heard from the public and all. I don't know when motions like that happen in typical planning board hearings, whether it's done during the hearing or whether it's done after the hearing. Good point. I can wait. Yeah. Thank you Mandy. I withdraw my motion. What was that? I withdraw my motion until later. Okay. Okay. Getting back to my so any other further questions from the board or CRC on this and I see none and then we can accept public comments at this point. All speakers should ask to be recognized by the chair, myself, and should be identified themselves by the name and street address. All questions, comments should be directed to the chair. So what do we have here? Do we ask them to give their address? Name and address. Yes. Yes. Yes. Okay. And we have Pam. Yep. Pam Rooney. Yes. Hello. Thank you. I had a question to either Rob Mora or to Chris Brestrup. At what point would a request for permanency come before the planning board? At what point does it move from Rob's approval to a more official review of something that is being requested for permanent structure? Thank you. Rob, you want to answer that? Yes. Sure. For these uses that are identified in article 14, that would occur after the expiration date December 31st, 2021. I think may I make a comment? Yes, Chris. I think what Miss Rooney is asking is for things that are approved during this time period, is there a time after the time period is over that these things that are approved between now and December 31st of 2021, is there a time when those things would have to come back to the planning board or the zoning board of appeals? And my understanding is that no, the things that are approved during this time period, if they're considered to be permanent, would be then considered to be permanent. And their approval would be recorded in our records here in Town Hall, and there wouldn't be a requirement for them to go back to the zoning board or the planning board. I think that's what Miss Rooney was asking. Absolutely. So Rob, do you have any anything further to add? Okay. Pam, do you have anything? No, thank you. That answered my question. Okay. It appears that there are a number of permissions that can be granted during this time period that may or may not be wonderful additions to the town, but because of the need to move them quickly through the system, we hope that Mr. Mora would direct them to the attention of the planning board if they come across his desk and he feels that they do need a little more in-depth review. Thanks. Great. Thank you. And I, oh, we have, all right. It's Pam. Pam's hand is. Is it still up? It could be down, right? Okay. And then the proponent, okay. So I think we've heard from Rob and Chris in terms of the proponents' response and final comments and questions. Okay. So any motion to close the hearing and approve the amendment? Just be a motion to close the hearing. Okay. All right. Any motion to close the hearing? Andrew? Make that motion. All right. Second. Johanna? Second. Great. And any discussion? Is, I'm going to, I'm just going to note as chair of CRC that this is going to be a joint motion that we'll do all 12 or there's 11 of us as a roll call. Okay. Since it's a joint hearing, it makes sense to be one motion to close. Okay. And so we're looping you and just want to make sure that's the CRC members have a, you know, opportunity to comment. And I see none. Okay. So we can do a roll call. Andrew? Prove. Doug? All right. Tom? Hi. Janet? Hi. Maria? Prove. Johanna? Hi. And myself approve. Mandy? Yes. And Evan? Yes. Sarah? Yes. And Shalini? Yes. Thank you. So that looks to be 7-0 on the planning board and 4-0 for the CRC. And Mandy, what do we, anything else that you? I think now we move to general discussion and that would be, my guess is the time for Janet's motion and any other discussion. Okay. So Janet? So I'd like to move, if we can put the motion back up, at the end of the first paragraph of application process, the following language, and I'm trying to get it bigger. Applicant shall prominently place, I'm sorry to be, I'm getting my screen jumping around. Applicant shall prominently place notice of its application with contact information for the building inspector and planning director at the main entrance of the building on a front window, door, front door or siding. And if I have a second, I'll speak to that. Anybody want to second them? So motion, Andrew? I'll second the motion. Okay. Thank you. So when this article first came around, I was very concerned about the fact that a butters, not just property owners within 300 feet, but small businesses within 300 feet and residents, because a lot of the, you know, buildings might have people living upstairs, would have no notice that anything was happening. They wouldn't know that there was, you know, outdoor seating coming in or sidewalks are being moved or tents put up. And they just would have no idea what's coming at them. And they would have no way of participating in the decision making process, which is not our normal. And that concern did not prevail. And Article 14 was passed. And I think that we're in different times. Like I think in the summer, the urgency was there to get tents up and seating in and tables put out and, you know, the duty barriers and everything to, you know, because the summer is a short time. I think now that we're into the winter, and there's going to be obviously less need or people applying for outdoor seating or tents that we, you know, it's still urgent, but it's not as urgent. It's, you know, and I think we have time to reflect. And at this point, the residents, small businesses nearby and abutting landowners have no input into the process. And it could, and it could lead to permanent outdoor structures and dining forever. And so I think that people, you know, the abutters, people nearby may have ideas, concerns, issues, make a crossword change. There might be accessibility issues. People and walkers might need more space than we think. I trust the building commissioner and Christine Breschup to consider everything they can think of. But I also know that being, you know, hearing other people's views is important. So I think we have the time now to add a change. People who could be affected by this, you know, building permit and the change don't know what is happening, when it will happen, and who to contact. And our town hall is closed, and it's not obvious to anybody how to kind of, you know, that they should go talk to Christine Breschup or Rob Mora. So I think, and so I tried to draft the simplest way to notify people that would involve no effort by the town staff other than maybe preparing, you know, a one-page thing of saying notice. And this idea of a notice was suggested by Stephen Triber at a CRC meeting. And it reminded me that twice in my travels in the last years, I've seen in Florida and also in Colorado, you drive by a house or a lot. And there's this big sign that says notice, you know, this building, you know, has, you know, has applied for the permit and will be here on this day. And they give you a little number at the bottom. And I thought, okay, putting a notice that this is coming to this area, this change has been requested by this company or owner, people walking by, walking into the building will see it, and they will know who to contact if they have concerns. So I tried to do the simplest thing, the shortest thing, I tried to work inside the 10 day timeline. And so that's, that's the purpose of the motion is to keep the public involved that people affected by changes have some way to participate and comment on them and, you know, maybe shape the final decision. And that's my pitch. And I hope you guys can agree with me. Thanks, Janet. Johanna. Janet, I just really appreciate you're digging into the details here. And I think to me, this seems like not very prohibitive or arduous for the applicant. And, you know, if you're a neighbor and you see the sign, you might notice or somebody might flag it for you. And so I think this is in this, I think it's in the spirit of community engagement and expedited review that's critical right now. Those are my thoughts. Thank you, Mandy. I know this is going to be a planning board vote. And then so CRC won't have a chance to really vote on this until we get the planning board recommendation, but I thought I'd put my concerns out there right now, because maybe that can be fixed before it gets voted on. My main concern is there's no timeline for both when the notice needs placed and how long it needs to stay up there. And so I think that would be in some sense a quote easy fix to the language. But it just says prominently placed notice of its application at the main entrance of the building, but it doesn't say when that notice has to go up and it doesn't say how long that notice has to be there. And so I would ask the planning board consider those concerns as it looks at this language. Thanks. Thank you, Mandy. I forgot to start that sentence with the time of its application. And I don't know if it's going to be a complete application. I assumed your application was your application. So I think you're applying to the building commissioner and the planning department and you just put notice on your window. And I don't think it would stay forever. It seems logical. You would just take it down after the permit was issued. I tried not to put too many like when I was thinking about this, I was doing all these kind of literally like this that I thought, you know, just pick it up, you know, pick up and you're right. When do you have to clean it up? And it's when you at the time of your application on the day of your application, you know, and that would that would actually be much more clear. So I appreciate that idea. Okay, I'm a I would like to call on Rob, but but but Shalini has ran up. So Shalini, please. I just wanted to highlight the fact that this was a concern that was brought up earlier. And for those of you who didn't attend the CRC meeting, I had asked Rob Mara the question of how many complaints did he hear in this process, because this was a trial run of some sort. And we had an opportunity to see what would kind of concerns would come up from a butters and so forth. And he talked about only one situation where it came up and it was then they responded to it in a way that it worked out for everyone. So I just wanted to highlight that. And the second thing is I think this seems like a reasonable thing to let people know and and and and it's not slowing down the process because my main concern earlier was that time ease of essence, even though to us it may seem that it's winter and there's no such urgency, but I know that being a small business and when there is money invested and so forth, there are all kinds of, you know, urgencies that we may not understand. So helping them in any way psychologically, structurally, whatever way we can support, I think it's important. But this seems like it's not going to be getting in the way of any way. And I just wanted to hear maybe from Rob and Chris if what they're they have more experience in working with the local businesses and what if if any concerns they have about putting a notice like this. Thank you, Shalini. Maria, before we we hear from Chris and Rob, but you're muted, Maria. Oh, sorry, I was going to ask exactly what Shalini asked, which is what do Chris and Rob think of the work involved in this. Okay. But I just before Chris and Rob speak, I do, I feel like the word emergency in there kind of elevates this into something that is, again, temporary. And and as of a higher order, where the, you know, notifications, I think I saw some communications from Rob that it's not necessitated because it's it's a, you know, at a different level, it's great that someone has a sign in there, but I'm wondering like emergency. How does notification work when you have an emergency with COVID related things? So, Chris. I would say that it's going to be some work for us to help applicants to figure out what to put in their notice, because, you know, people who are applying for these things, some of them don't even speak English, so we'll probably have to work with them to come up with appropriate wording for their notice. And one thing Rob brought up to me, which may have been addressed by the fact that he works with applicants ahead of time before they actually submit their application, but the fact is that when people come to us, they have an idea of what they want to do, but it's not necessarily what they get approved for in the end, and it could change substantially, even the location of it could change. So whatever the notice says may not actually reflect clearly what is eventually permitted. And Rob may have more ability to talk about this because he's worked with the applicants and I, I've really been kind of at arm's length from this process. Rob? Yeah, I think, you know, a lot does happen from when we, you know, the initial contact with the applicant, but oftentimes that's not the moment when we're receiving an application. I think, you know, there's a couple of good things about this discussion. I think that will help establishing that, you know, it be at the time of the application is helpful to the language that I saw earlier. I think the expectation would be more that this is a notice, is a courtesy to the abutters, but maybe not so much. It may not be an opportunity for an abutter to have a part in the decision-making process. It may, but I don't think that's a guarantee depending on the timing and our availability. If, if you did decide to move forward with this, I think I would propose that we would, and this isn't part of the bylaw material, but I think we would put a template notice in the application package where it's a very simple fill in this information and a brief description of the project. I think it can be very simple and I would probably have like a checkbox on the application that this has been posted and maybe even ask for a date that it's been posted just so we can confirm it, but probably not go much further than that. So I think, I think it's nicely done as a simple solution. If, if the notice piece of it is desirable, and I, and I'm not really worried about the time that it might, you know, how much time would affect us done in this way. Okay. Thank you, Rob. Any other comment from on your board or the CRC on this, Johanna? Sorry, I can't remember. Was it Shalini who said that to date with all the different kind of temporary structures and emergency requests, there's been one instance where there's been a concern or yeah, and then that was worked out because I'm just trying to figure out, I don't know, are we, are we inventing a problem that doesn't exist? I think to some extent we'd be heading off problems by just making sure that this is in place, but I'm, you know, kind of, I understand the emergency nature and I'm just trying to, yeah, I still think it doesn't strike me as super arduous, but I'd love to know you know, whether we're coming up with a solution for a problem that doesn't exist. Should Shalini speak to that? No, so Mr. Moore raised his hand as well. Yeah, I think Rob is the person to answer that. Okay, Rob. All right, Rob. I think she was referencing a comment I may have made in a prior meeting when asked about what type of complaints we've received during all this time with, you know, everything we've done with moving dining out onto the public way, private property expansions of outdoor activities, and a couple of the more permanent installations, and I've only received one, one complaint. Most of our feedback is very positive and we are pretty actively out there trying to help all the businesses any way we can, and you can see that with what's been done with the dining and the heaters and all of that. So we're pretty visible out there helping. So we haven't, I haven't heard a lot of complaints. The one complaint I did receive that I mentioned during that meeting was when we set the Jersey Barriers and took away part of the bike lane on South Pleasant Street, and that was a complaint I received. And now, as you probably have seen, that that's been corrected with some restriping and re-establishing the bike lane. But we are a complaint response type of department. That's how we were designed for more for residential rental property type situations. So anyone who calls does get a response, whether it's through COVID hotline or directly to our office, all the complaints and concerns get a very immediate response usually within a short period of time within the same day. Thank you. And Chris? I just wanted to say that now that Rob Mora has made the suggestion of having a template in the application packet and having the applicant fill it out and posting and taking responsibility for posting it, that means that the planning department doesn't have responsibility for that. And that makes me feel better about this recommendation or the suggestion of Janet's. Thank you, Chris. Yonah, is your hand still up or is that an artifact? Artifact. Okay. Janet. So I know that your the inspectional services is super responsive to complaints. My concern is that nobody would know how to get to you or that there's a problem. And so I actually like most of the changes are made too. But I also think that if you know, say me, somebody in the second or third floor above a restaurant may have trouble hearing their client if they're talking to their clients. And that might become annoying noise. And you might just kind of sit with it. But you may, it might be annoying and you don't say anything. And so it's not, I'm not trying to drive complaints to the town. But I think that people, you know, I can, it's hard to figure out how to connect with anybody. And here we're just giving people notice this is coming. Here's the people you can talk to. If you have concerns, you know, that kind of thing. And so I mean, a really hard time to connect. Like I've been wanting to return a book to Christine. And I'm trying to think of like, Oh, when I'm going to wait to sign a decision to take, I don't want to take up our time. Most people don't even know who to talk to in the town. And it's really hard to do that. And so I think it'd be amazing if there's only one person that's been hurtful with change. And, you know, but I think that there's probably more people out there or people who prefer to have been a little more input in the process. And this change could have helped me, but I'm not complaining now kind of thing. So I'm not trying to drive complaints to you. But I think that people just don't really know how to get to the government right now. I guess just given again, this is like amendment driven by an emergency situation, I would think some people would, you know, in that situation Janet that they would have some empathy that, you know, this is what this is all about. And I would, I would think there'd be some tolerance for such clients that you mentioned, but that's just me. Andrew. Thanks, Jack. I think it's a great suggestion. I agree with what Rob laid out in terms of this being an opportunity for really kind of having some more visibility. When you think about the folks who are putting these signs up, I mean, they're, they're, they're asking for this seating. Many of these folks may be like just barely hanging onto their business, right? So like, if I'm going through town and if I see that sign, I might, you know, maybe I'm, maybe I'm more compelled to go there, right? If I'm trying to make a choice of where to eat and I see that somebody is really, is really suffering, then even if it's a 10 day head start, it's probably still a great idea. So I really, I think this is a wonderful proposal, just, just for that visibility, if nothing else. Thank you. Mandy. Yeah, I was just going to say, I think it's good. I would like to see some language added like at the time of application and for no less than 10 days or something, because I know Rob has 10 days to approve it to the beginning of that phrase. But I think we need to also remember that part of the concern for a lack of notice that this bylaw has right now is that these aren't only just temporary grants sometimes. You know, we heard it from the public commenter during the hearing. We've heard it as a lot of questions, both in town council and in these hearings and these discussions that some of these grants can be permanent grants that will not show up back to the planning board or the ZBA for any public review. And so I think the solution Janet has found to that concern is a good one. So Mandy, so you, so right now it reads, applicant shall permanently place notice of its application and you mentioned. You know, I'm not sure I can make a motion to amend because this is really going to be a planning board vote. But if I could, it would be something like adding the phrase to the beginning of that sentence, adding the phrase at the time of application and for no less than 10 days. Okay, thank you. Did you get that, Chris, Pam? All right, so. Janet want to amend her motion to include that. Janet? Yes, I do. I'd like to move to amend by adding the phrase at the time of its application and for no less than 10 days, comma, and then just go. Thank you. I second the motion. This is Johanna. Great. Thank you, Johanna. Any other discussion? And do we need to have public comment on this, this point? It's like there isn't any. No, once the hearing closes, public comment isn't necessary. Okay, sorry. Okay, so we can do roll call at this point. And this is just the planning board, correct? Yes. So, Andrew? Approved. Doug? Hi. Tom? Hi. Janet? Hi. Maria? Yes. And myself, yes. So, that is 7-0 in approval for the amendment with Janet's motion. Johanna. What? Where's Johanna? Oh, way down there. You're below everybody else. I'm sorry. It's next thing. This, this, the Brady Bunch, you know, all right, so sorry. My apologies, Johanna. I approve. Okay. All right. Okay. So, good. And Mandy? So, I guess the question is, was that an approval of the motion to amend the amendment? Or was that an approval of the whole phrase? Number one. Approval the whole phrase and the amendment. Okay. And so, I think your next order of business is to move to recommend the council amend that motion. I see. Okay. So, do we have a motion? I mean, I'll move. Do you want me to try and read a potential motion? Oh, please. Okay. Even though I'm not on the planning board, someone else is going to have to make it. It's moved to recommend the town council amend zoning bylaw article, hold on, let me find the right one, article 14 temporary zoning as shown in the document named, I'm not sure what the name of the document is. Just add it into the motion. Okay. And revised on November 4, 2020, to make it effective until December 31, 2021, add office park and professional research park zoning districts as permitted zoning districts, medical uses as affected uses, add a definition of temporary use, add a notice provision, and add several uses to the affected uses for temporary use. And further, the planning board states in accordance with Charter section 9.8G that these amendments are not inconsistent with the master plan. Can you send that language to Pam and me? Pam's got it up on the screen. It's option one. The only thing I added was the phrase and revised on 11 for 2020. Okay. After the name of the document because it was just revised tonight. So it's the option one motion with that extra phrase. Thank you. Oh, and I added the and a add a notice provision too. So I, Pam, I will send you the final. That would be great. We need to write a memo to the town council that I believe is due no later than Friday. So we need to button this up pretty quickly. So whatever help you can give us to make our work go smoothly and more easily would be helpful. And I see Mr. Marshall has his hand raised. Yes, Doug. Yeah, I think you need somebody from the planning board to make the motion that Mandy just read. So I'm offering to make that motion. Great. Anyone want to second that, Tom? I'll second. Okay. So I can do a roll call or discussion. I see none. Okay. So Andrew, Doug, Janet, and oh my God, the names are bouncing around here. So apologize. Well, I'm going to hit Johanna because I skipped here. So Johanna? I approve. Maria? Prove. Janet, did I get you? Yes. Okay. You're good. Tom Long. Tom. All right. I approve. And myself approve. That's seven zero. And I think now it's the CRC's turn. There you go. All right. So I am going to look for a motion from a CRC member to recommend the town council amend zoning by law article 14 temporary zoning as shown in the document named article 14 temporary zoning amended temporary zoning regarding permitting for certain uses during the COVID-19 emergency in its aftermath and revised on 11 for 2020 to make it effective until December 31, 2021 at office park and professional research park zoning districts as permitted zoning districts medical uses as affected uses at a definition of temporary use at a notice provision and add several uses to the affected uses for temporary uses. Is there a motion from a CRC member? So move. Evan moves. Is there a second? Sarah seconds. Sarah seconds. Is there any further discussion? Shalini? Nadia Joe, can you clarify whether this, I mean, I'm sorry I missed the first part. Did it include the notice thing change? Yes, it does. It does. It does because the planning board amended that document before it made its recommendation. Okay. And then my follow up question is can we still count the first reading when we meet or is this going to delay it in any way? So the amendment will not delay the first reading or the second reading because we're allowed to amend things even after they've been posted on the bulletin board. The first reading will still happen on this coming Monday. Is that the ninth? I think that's the ninth. And then the second reading on the 16th. Okay. Thank you. And if it gets amended, I will let Athena know tonight to update the bulletin board. Thank you. Also, can I just make a statement? It's not related to this, but it was in the planning board. Someone said that the Zoom link was not available. It was uneasily available to attend the planning board meeting. And I just wanted to clarify that that's there on the calendar, on the home page of Amherstown, the calendar. And if you click on the planning board meeting on the calendar itself, there's a link to the Zoom meeting. So I'm just clarifying because people could not find the access to the Zoom link. Let's talk about accessibility. Thank you, Shalini. You're welcome. Any other discussion? Seeing none, we will come to a vote. It will be by roll call. We're going to start, I think I'm the next in order. So Mandy is a yes. Evan? Yes. Sarah? Yes. And Shalini? Yes. That is unanimous with one absent. So I think now I get to go to the rest of my meeting, which is items not anticipated by the chair. I don't have any if I don't see any hands for CRC members to have any. And so I before I close, I want to thank Rob and Chris and the planning board for hosting CRC tonight for the joint hearing and getting us through it and the motions. Again, the first reading at Town Council will be this coming Monday, the 9th. The meeting starts at 6.30. I don't know when we will get to the actual discussion of this bylaw. That probably won't happen until at least 7.30 or later. And then the second reading, if all goes well, will be the 16th. And that would also be when a vote occurs. And with that, Chris, did you want to say something before I join the meeting? I just want to affirm that Mandy Joe will send the new wording of the amendment, Article 14, to Athena and that I won't be doing that. Mandy Joe is going to do that. I will do that tonight once the meeting is finished. I'll copy you, Chris and Pam and Rob on that so that you guys all have it. But I will send and I will send the motion language to Pam and you, Chris. Thanks. And with that, thank you, planning board. I'm going to adjourn the CRC portion of the meeting. Thank you, Mandy. At 9 o'clock. And the rest of CRC. Thank you. Thank you. Good night. Good night. So, Pam, I don't know if you want to wipe that out. Article 14. Good. There you go. All right. So, now, what did we skip? All right. So, we got Emily, we got Article 14 done. And now we're looking at Applebrook plus for subdivision. We did that, Jack. We did? Yes. We did. Okay. We fit that in. That's right. So, now, 40R. And we have, it's 9 o'clock. We've been at two and a half hours in. And this is a broad subject that I'm not sure how much we want to get into this. And then also we have the master plan implementation as new business. I'm open to suggestions in terms of directing the last, what I would hope the last half hour of this meeting. Jack? Yes, Doug. We did the master plan implementation update because Chris gave her update on the work that she and I are doing on the spreadsheet. Right. Oh, that was brief. All right. That was very brief. Nothing more. Okay. We'll put that on the agenda for the next meeting so you can have more of a discussion about that if you want to. Okay. All right. So, I guess that brings us to 40R. And that is, that is, you know, just a topic that we're trying to follow up with regard to the last forum. There was some interest. And then, who do we have in the attendees? Because I know we talked about Rob Crowner and. Yeah. They unfortunately have lapsed. Yeah. So, I think, I guess, I would suggest we, we push that. I mean, this is the meeting again, two and a half hours in. And 40R is, you know, kind of conceptual on nature. I don't really want to take that on right now, but I hopefully, you know, if anyone has any questions about it. Mr. Marshall has his hand raised. All right. Yes. So, go ahead, Doug. Yeah. I wanted to ask when Chris thinks the consultants might have their final report with the revised bylaw that they were, that they had drafted back in May so that we have a more coherent product to talk about rather than, you know, we have the bylaw that was done back in May. And then we have the presentation that was done in October. But, you know, that presentation doesn't seem to reflect everything that some of Rob Crowner's responses said would be fixed. So I think it'd be great to just have a single consolidated, you know, coherent product for us to talk about. I don't know when the consultants are planning to have the work done, but I, I think it's going to be very soon because I believe they worked on it over the weekend and they've been working on it this week and they, you know, took into account Janet McGowan's comments and they took into account Rob Crowner's comments following that. So I would just, I don't really know when they're going to have it, but I would assume that it's within a few weeks. We could put it on an agenda for November 18th, which is the next planning board agenda. The only thing I have for that agenda so far is a new building that's proposed on the UMass campus for the Newman Center. And they're required to come and show us drawings of what they're proposing. There's no permit process because it's within the ED zoning district. So you could have a discussion about 40R that night, which by that time you may in fact have a product. So do you want me to put it on the agenda for that night? Yeah, please. And I want to thank Janet for her comments, very detailed, per usual. Thank you, Janet. And, you know, again we asked Rob to chime in and, you know, this is all good. It's all for, you know, betterment of, you know, the town and, you know, our vision for downtown. And I just, you know, I just, I'm just thinking that we're confronted with so many things with COVID and businesses closing and then, you know, housing issues and we get information from, you know, the school committee or school administrator Mike Morris that, you know, our student population is going below a certain, you know, threshold that further, you know, harms the town's ability to finance our existing school system, which so many people move to the area to, you know, participate in and, you know, so I'm, I'm very concerned about what's going to happen, you know, within the next, you know, months and year from what we've seen. So this 40R thing will be a very good discussion for us to have amongst the board. And with that said, Jack, just like Per Ryan, if you guys read Rob's comments, sorry for speaking out of order, but hopefully we don't have any five-story gas stations or nuclear power plants or whatever he had hauled out in there. Let's, let's. Only in your backyard, Andrew. That's it. That's it. So we were going to talk about Bruce Carson's letter if we're finished talking about 40R for now. Okay. I'm bringing up, let me bring up the agenda. I'm sorry. I'm kind of trying to go digital. I know I have paper in front of me, but give me one second. Okay. To bring it to the attention of the board, send the letter to the board. And when the board is considering zoning amendments, the board may wish to consider the things that Bruce Carson mentioned in his letter. There are things that came out of a project that's being proposed at the corner of Strong Street and East Pleasant. And it's a proposal to create a converted dwelling out of an existing garage building. And many residents have expressed concern about it. It's going before the zoning board of appeals. But this letter is specifically about the issue of resident manager. And that topic isn't really addressed in the zoning by-law. So it isn't well, it isn't well addressed in the zoning by-law. So Mr. Carson is bringing this to the planning board's attention in hopes that the planning board will consider more clear language with regard to what exactly is meant by resident manager with regard to some of these rental units that are non-owner occupied. And you can certainly, you know, discuss this tonight if you want to, but we just wanted to bring it to your attention tonight. And then if you would like, we can put it on the agenda for a future meeting. Yeah. I mean, I, this really brings up a lot in terms of like, you know, planning board making recommendations to the town council to, to, with regard to critical issues, you know, within the town, this is, this is a great example that I'd like for us to wrestle with a little bit. And I'd like to, in this meeting, you know, in 20 minutes, so we have 10 minutes of discussion maybe before we go through the, the, our, our committee, you know, reports. But this is the sort of thing that we're talking about in terms of planning board being able to discuss and be, you know, in lieu of not having the zoning subcommittee. This is, this is, I think, will be real, you know, productive for us to advance. And, and, you know, personally, I, you know, my daughter is moving 45 minutes away because you can't find housing with her, you know, husband and twins, you know, in the Amherst area, which, you know, just brings her right home to me that, you know, we have issues and those issues are because, you know, housing and rental housing, going to student, you know, population, that, then that whole ball of wax. So, Andrew. Yeah, I was, I was, thank you, Jack. I was only going to say that I have not had a, this is the letter that came out earlier this afternoon, is that right, Chris? Yeah, I was just going to, I haven't had a chance to review it. So if you did want to talk about it, I wouldn't be able to really fully participate. I think the intent tonight was really just to bring it to your attention and to let Mr. Carson know that the planning board has seen the letter and that you will consider this at a future date. That sounds good to me. Just wanted to make sure. And, and sort of in this, in this whole concept, I mean, I've, you know, and 40 are, I'm just, you know, in terms of like, affordable housing, getting young families into town, someone brought to my attention, this residential exemption. It's not in the purview of planning board, but when it comes to, you know, our taxes, how do we make it easier for owner occupied, you know, homes to, to, you know, meet the, the, you know, minutes poll sort of, you know, property taxes, et cetera, versus people that are developers that are, you know, renters and that sort of thing. And this residential exemption thing was brought to my attention. And I get, I think that there was like 12 towns in Massachusetts that participate in this thing that, and then there's, I guess it's MGL chapter 59, section 5C, that, that allows it maybe, you know, Janet, I know you're, you're pretty good at this sort of thing. But, you know, it's not our purview, but I'm wondering with the news that, that we got from, from Mike Morris that, you know, we're, our student population is going below a threshold that we're losing money, the ability to gain money because the student, our schools don't have adequate, you know, population there. It's like, you know, it's it's like a catch 22 situation. Janet? So, one thing that comes to mind, and this is in one of the, I think the housing production plan or the other, the Amherst housing market study, is you can require that students can't be in housing. So, you know, this is just literally off the top of my head. If you say the Liz, the living resident, you know, the manager cannot be undergraduate student, can't be a student, you know, because I think, you know, with, with Bruce, Carson is identifying is like a huge loophole. And so, you know, any, you know, I can, I can picture a very responsible college student being a very good resident manager to his roommates and the, the people and the students next door. I just don't think it's probably a great idea in the long run over time with lots of people. And so, you know, there, we can say no undergraduates, we could say no students. And so, you know, and make some space for non student housing in town, because I think, especially with UMass adding so many students the last decade, I think it's a huge amount of pressure on the lower income houses, the cheaper houses, the neighborhoods that are, you know, with more ranches, are converting more and more to student housing. And the study, it says that kind of goes back and forth, you know, sometimes it's, you know, a lot of families are buying sometimes lots of, you know, developers or landlords are buying, but I think in the last 10 years, with 4,000 more students in the area, and the pressure is going to be on those lower priced units, or to convert a garage, you know, we thought, oh, you're going to convert a garage for its owner occupy, and then there's no owner, and then it's college students or the rental managers. So it seems like a slippery slope, and we can just put something in there just says, you know, the rental manager cannot be a student, you know. Yeah, I mean, I remember. Make some space, you know. Yeah. I remember discussing with folks in the planning department, and I felt like that that wasn't possible to kind of restrict it at that level, but maybe by the tax property tax option is more viable than, you know, trying to put it in, you know, restrict is there so so the property owner, if they live there, then they would be able to file an amendment or an application, an abatement, and they, you know, so they would get, you know, like say 20% off of their taxes, and, you know, so it's complicated, but there are like 12, you know, a dozen towns in Massachusetts that do this, Nantucket, a bunch of towns, Boston number one, but another, you know, so it's just something, and it's not in our purview, but we could recommend that, but it's this, this, you know, Bruce's request here kind of just brought to mind and, you know, also if you want to encourage people to convert and build more housing out of garages or, you know, sheds or buildings, and, you know, to build support in the town, you don't want to have undergraduates in a house and then the garage living, you know, like that could really turn your neighborhood, and so I think we should think, I think we have to talk about the undergraduates and the impact on neighborhoods. Some of it in North America, some of the neighborhoods, it's really had a very negative impact, but I think the tax abatement you're talking about is also a really powerful tool to make owner occupied, you know, multi units much more attractive to people. It's not a big market here, but you know, those units are really sought after in the cities because they're great deals for people, you know, to have a few rental units and live there. Doug? Yeah, I wondered if between now and the next meeting, anybody was thinking of coming back to us with a proposed alteration to the text of the bylaw so that we could use that as a starting point for a conversation. I don't know if that's something that Chris's, Chris or her staff would have time for, or if somebody may be on the board who no longer has to go to zoning subcommittee meetings might want to take on and come back to us with or somebody that's new to the board and is really looking to cut their chop. Yep. No, I just, I feel like with with the COVID, you know, we have this article 14, you know, businesses, you know, lack of students, lack of town revenue, I'm really concerned and I just want our the planning board to help the town to the extent that we can with regard to recommendations. So I'm just, I'm really, I'm really worried about our town right now. So, Tom? Yeah, I'm just, you know, I'm just wondering if, you know, with with a set of questions in mind if, you know, that's something that we do spend time, maybe not so much writing, said bylaw Doug, but thinking thinking about, you know, how we might propose language or what areas we think changing language might help going forward and that way we can have a more robust discussion about whether, you know, there's room in 40R for that or there are other things that we need to start to address and, you know, how we can make recommendations and proposals and put things into action that we're not doing yet. So, you know, maybe finding space in our agenda for in the next meeting and homework being, you know, doing some some thinking and writing and research on that ourselves. So I would ask, like Chris, you know, can you work with me, you know, for the next agenda that we can kind of like, it sounds like the next meeting will be a little bit, you know, light. Okay, so maybe we can, you know, take this up and talk about the 40R in a little more detail and, you know, have Rob and John Hortick present. And yeah, because these things this way heavy on my mind. Doug? And we're going to talk about this resident manager definition. That's what my comment a minute ago was about. That would be, you know, getting into the specifics. Yes. So so I will consult with Rob Mora. He's more used to dealing with the resident manager issue because the zoning board of appeals is the word that normally takes up this kind of application. So I'll speak with him about if he has any suggestions for language. So this was kind of a little tangent off the 40R I guess but for old business topics not recently anticipated 40 hours, 40 hours prior to the meeting. That was Bruce's letter. I'm sorry I brought it up. And nothing else. No. Okay, good. So new business. We talked about the master plan implementation. We'll carry that on. And then anything else new business? Nope. Bruce, okay. Form. Form A. A and R. No. Form A's tonight. All right. Great. Great. Upcoming ZBA applications. Pam would know about that. There is. But I should be scolded because I don't remember it. So I will have to report it to you at the next one. Chris, do you remember it? I was going to make it a slide and I got so busy doing other ones that I forgot. Sorry, I don't remember. All I remember is that there is this case before the ZBA now about the converted garage but I don't remember any other cases. That is the one, the converted garage. The garage at the corner of East Pleasant Street and Strong Street. So that is going before the ZBA. But I think there's been a request to continue that public hearing till January. But I will, I would like to announce to the planning board the good news that the zoning board of appeals approved the comprehensive permit 40B. That's awesome. We're 132 Northampton Road and we're very happy about that. I think we in the department feel that that's a really good project and we worked hard with the zoning board to help them to get all the information they needed and I think that they came up with a really good decision and good conditions. There are almost 100 conditions and we had a good lawyer working with us from KP Law, John Witton. And so it turned out really well but I think there were probably eight to ten public hearing sessions. So it was a long process but I think the result was very worthwhile. I should have saved that for the report of the staff, shouldn't I? I can put it in there, Chris. ZBA thing. Yeah, I mean I try to attend some of those hearings and then, you know, but my gosh, that is laborious sort of approval process. So kudos to, you know, the value of CDC getting that through. And then we can go upcoming SBP, SBRS, SBP applications. None that I know of. None of the things out there but none that I know of. Good. Yeah, I'm just thinking of, you know, Pioneer Valley Planning Commission report that I kind of pundit on the last meeting. And I'm wondering if I just should send, you know, a report to you that you can distribute, Chris, because... An email would be good. Yeah, I'm into the weeds there and I know I can't really give a brief synopsis. So I'll do that and then you can distribute. How's that? Good. Yep. Okay. Nothing per shaking as far as I know. But I would like everyone to be aware of what's going on. So... And then Community Preservation Act. Yeah, I think that we meet tomorrow to be our third session. We've got four more proposals we're going to hear from. Great. And Ag Commission, any news on that? I think Doug's appointment has not yet been finalized unless he's heard something different. But I wouldn't be surprised if they take care of that at the next Town Council meeting. They seem to be doing them little by little. Maybe I'm too controversial. Should I withdraw? You have a great background in your pictures. Yeah. We should send a snapshot of that to the Town Council. Doug, as long as you keep that background, you're kind of like in contention, I think. Design review board, Tom. Yeah, we had actually a meeting today at five. So I've been on here for a long time. Oh, my. And I had to leave early, so that was fun. So there are two things that we're viewing. One was they received a grant, and I'm sure Chris noticed some of the details of this, about they're going to use for funding for bus stops downtown, sort of bus stops in area or bus shelters in areas that currently don't have them. One in front of St. Bridgets on North Pleasant near Cole Street, and one on South Pleasant by Spring Street, right across from the Common, or basically right across from the other bus stop, the Peter Pan stop, and then as well possibly replace the bus stop on the corner of Main and South Pleasant. So again, by the parking lot there. So they're trying to get them to match in line with the existing ones that are across the street. So using the same aesthetics for those. So that's pretty simple stuff. And then I was, I had to leave before any conversation or detailed debate, which I was hoping to get an update on. I didn't. There was a proposal for a new kind of digital wayfinding system for town, sort of updating people on news and events and programming. Some electronic charging stations for people's phones and devices as well as part of this package. It wasn't going too great the moment I left. So I'll probably have, there are very contemporary signage systems and they didn't match very well with some of the existing systems in place or match with our proposed signage and wayfinding system. So there was a little conflict there. So I'll have an update on that next time. So to let people know this is part of the CARES Act funding. It's not money that's being authored or appropriated by the town. It's money from the government to help us to emerge from COVID-19. And the communications manager and the town manager have come up with this idea. It's called SUFA signs. I don't know if I'm pronouncing it right, but it's S-O-O-F-A signs. And Janet may be familiar with them because I think they have them in Somerville. So I just wanted to mention that. I have a question. Yes. Yes, Jen. In terms of the bus stops, is there any way to make them fun and kind of arty instead of just generic kind of city like? I think about this. So yes and no. So part of the discussion was that there's a lot of different things that are happening already. And that they're totally uncoordinated. And so hence the signage that came up, the SUFA signs, was also a thing that felt uncoordinated. And the suggestion was to merely just match the ones that are across the street. Rather than do something different that kind of draws more attention to a new thing. But I do think that there is room to start thinking about some other things that might stand out. But those are things that wanted to disappear, like right in front of St. Bridges Church. The design review board was not very happy that there was a thing that might block a photo. So I think they want to kind of disappear, at least the bus stops themselves. But I do agree that there are other opportunities. The nice thing about art is you don't really want it to coordinate. But I could see one, maybe that being invisible. But sometimes I thought it might be just take it in a different direction. The bus stops are another thing that's being paid for by a grant. It's the Mass Department of Transportation grant that we received for shared streets and sidewalks. Anyway, we have to spend the money by December 31st or they take it back. So we're in a big hurry to get this approved, get these bus shelters agreed to, where they're going, what they're going to look like, and go ahead and buy them. And then maybe we'll end up with more than we actually need and we can think about where to put some more in the future. But for a couple of them, we really want to nail it down. And we have a very short timeframe to do that. So I just wanted to share that with you. Andrew. Chris, can I shoot real quick? Is a town responsible for those or for PVTA? Most of the time that PVTA is responsible for them, I think the town puts them in, but PVTA buys them. In this case, since we had this opportunity to get new ones, and some of the ones we have are pretty old, we thought that would be a good thing to do. And so it was part of the shared streets and sidewalks grant opportunity that we had. And some of those may have digital information that updates on bus time schedules and whether they're on time and bus routes and things like that. So it's also part of figuring out where those go and whether we can afford to do all of them as a question. PVTA would manage those going forward. Thanks, Tom. And the zoning subcommittee, I assume that is, you know, no issues, but and the report of the chair, I just want to, you know, circle back to Amherst Hills and the paving. It seems like that's going to happen within the next week or two, based on a recent communication. Is that correct, Chris? So it seems. Okay. So it seems. All right. So let's keep, you know, keep an eye on that. And then I think I had a conversation with one of the someone with regard to what's going on with Spring Street, you know, in terms of the construction there, it seems like it might have been halted. And I guess, you know, there's be some, you know, concern that be that doesn't progress. So, but I know in the age of COVID, it would be nice to get a report, I think, on the progress. I will ask Rob what he knows about that. Okay. And that's all I have. Andrew, Andrew has a stand up. Yeah, thanks. I was just wondering, does anybody know, you know, the tent we approved at the Jones Library, I see the structure there. One of my kids indicated that it may have blown, like the covering may have blown off of that. Does anybody know what happened there? If that happened or not? I haven't heard that. But the day after that big windstorm, it wasn't there. Okay. Yeah. I think that was maybe the rumor on the school zooms, perhaps. But all right. I would have taken it down to avoid the windstorm. Yeah. That does not back up though. So, you know, I mean, on that topic, all the structures that we talked about with, you know, at the high school, the tents, there's one at Crocker Farm that I walk under pretty much every day. I don't know what people are thinking, you know, with these tents and are they, I don't know that they're ever, they will be used. It's unfortunate. Well, if Article 14 passes, then you won't ever have to have this come before you again in the realm of the town, of the building commissioner. Yeah. I mean, that's more of a school issue that, and again, they've delayed, you know, student attendance at the, you know, but they were thinking warm weather, obviously, but so report of staff. Larry gave my report about the ZBA approving the 40B application for the Valley CDC at 132 Northampton Road. Oh, okay. And so we can adjourn. 936. And we're meeting, what, the 18th? The 18th. Okay. Right. All right. Good. So, thank you all. Thanks, everyone. Thank you. Thanks, Pam, for holding us together. Pam, you were stellar. Thank you so much. But I had to report my own faux pas. How are you? All right. Well, good night. Good night, everybody. Bye-bye.