 The recording. I just started it. Yeah. This meeting will be conducted by a remote means. Members of the public who wish to access the meeting may do so. In the following manner. I think the best way is to go to that. Amherst MA.gov. Website homepage. At the bottom of the page where there is a meeting calendar. If you want to navigate to today's date. Click on that find the historical commission. Meeting and that will have. The connection. Information by phone and zoom. For those who. Have difficulty connecting. They may email. You can find it online. Find it online. Okay. No in-person attendance of members of the public will be permitted. But every effort will be made to ensure that the public can adequately access the proceedings in real time via technological means. In the event that we are unable to do so for reasons of. Economic hardship. Despite best efforts, we will post on the Amherst MA.gov. Website and audio or video recording transcript or other comprehensive record of proceedings. As soon as possible. After the meeting. So with that. We'll just sort of take a take attendance of members of the commission who are here at this time. Patricia. She is. Hi, Pat. We're just taking a roll call of commission members who are in attendance. And as I called your name, you magically appeared. Present. Robin Fordham. Present. I'm here also. So let's see our agenda begins with. Announcements. And. Aren't there. Announcements that anyone. Would like to. Bring to our attention. And you're going to do the writer's walk later on the agenda. Right. So. Correct. Yeah. Okay. Thanks. Okay. Then the North Amherst community farm. Historic barn. Representatives up here. To make a presentation and discuss. Possible next steps with the historic commission. Great. I will. Invite Bruce and the rest of the. North Amherst community farm. Barn. Or sorry. Committee to join us here. So I've added Bruce. Dave. Jackie. Hi, Bruce. Hello, Ben. Jane. Hello, Bruce. I think. We've met. I'm on the historic commission and you were. You. We were talking. And Dave, I see Jackie Fiochi and. Barbara. Party and Larry Zacharias. And they're a little confused because they're not used to zoom. Calls conducted by the town where you don't see yourself until. Someone like Ben decides that you're going to. Yes. And it looks like. Our barbers here and. Jackie and Larry may decide to. Put their video on or not. But. I will make a brief presentation. Introduction. And Barbara and Jackie and Larry. Our fellow NACF North Amherst community farm. Board members. And Dave. Is. One of the two. Partners in simple gifts farm. Who are the less ease. Less ease worth 50 plus 50. Leases. So this is. I mean, this is. It's as good as. Owning it in the sense of their. Durable presence. On the property. And Dave. Also has a very. Indomit. Relationship with the barn because he works the farm. And he's there all the time. He's the, and I have. Worked hard on the farmhouse restoration together. So. We are. Contractors at sorts together and so forth. So that's the introduction as to who you are. Who is here with us. I should start by saying. The question before us is that what is the, what is the fate. Of this historic bond. That we have. We have. A bond building there that it was attached. To the farmhouse. About four or five years ago, we came to the, we made application to the CPA. For funds to do a study. That would establish, establish. Or help us establish a case for. Seeking rest funds for restoration of the farmhouse. From the CPA. The study funds were granted. $10,000. Which basically went to. Financing. Greg farmer. The historic consultant's presence. And it was matched or more than matched by my commitment of my time. I was still. That's long. As long ago. I was still working as an architect with. Colderman Hartman. Before I retired. We. We were persuaded by the historic commission of the time that we should. Look, not just at the farmhouse, but also. The farmhouse was our first priority because it was a necessary high functioning building for the purposes of the farm. And it was in pretty good conditions. Structurally and constructionally. It just needed. It just needed to be. Brought up to code in all sorts of ways. And we ended up spending a half a million dollars doing that 150,000 of which was the restoration portion. But the historic commission wanted that study to include. The barn. And we did. And Ben, I have previously forwarded you study. The historic commission has seen that study in 2018. But more recently, I've sent to you. And that study. Revealed that the barn really was in bad shape. And there are estimates of the cost of bringing the barn. Back to. Well, whether it was going to be. Restored in a, in a, in a historically accurate way. Matching materials. Another price for if the building was restored, but with. Timbers and so forth that would be. Purchased. Modern timbers. Replacing the old timbers where the old timbers had broken or were rotten. And then there was a third price for the reconstruction. Which is to say taking the barn down and building it. As it is now, but in new materials. Those. Figures. Four years ago range from I think. 200 round. Just under 300,000 to approximately. Close to half a million. That's to do the restoration work. We sat on that for the two or three years. That it took us to do the restoration of the farmhouse. Because as I said over there. That was the building that we really needed. To make function. And the. COVID year proved just how critically important that building became. Because it really allowed the farm to continue. As a. As a bubble. Labor. Group. Through that. Terribly difficult. Yeah, we've just gone through for a year and a half we've gone through. But now. The farmhouse is complete. It's functioning. And we are looking at this barn and what do we do with it. And. There are. A few things that are different about between the barn and the farmhouse. One. Well, I've said them one is that the building is relative in pretty bad condition. Beams are broken. Rocked and so forth. The second factor, which is relevant to. Us is that the, there was no real use for this building in the, in the company. So far as the current. Program or the current. Business of farming. This is not a dairy farm anymore. This is a. Mixed. Vegetable. And. And livestock. Farm. Or the very different. Type of. Operation. And a very different need. For. Building spaces and where those building spaces should be. And a very large space right next to. The farmhouse. Is not a useful. Space for anything that the farm. Currently needs. And we don't have a story. To. Build a fundraising campaign to restore this building. We've had. We've made. Some very compelling stories. Around the. Need to restore the farmhouse. And then the need to retire the debt on the land. In other words, to purchase the land. And we've been successful at raising. Monies to do both of those things. But there's no compelling story that we have associated with this building. And we don't know anybody who would partner with us. Who. Might be as we. We were talking with. Tom. Staff earlier. We thought we could find a, what we might call that mission rich. And a building poor. Organized. And. We thought we could find a. What we might call that mission rich. And a building poor. Organized. Who could. Share the parcel with us. We thought that. Entity might be the. University. Mass Aggie. But they went and build a building. Just up the road. So there. Program their educational agriculture. Sustainable ag program. And so forth, which would have been a good fit with us. Is now. Happily located. Up the road. Not very far. About quarterly. In a wonderful new building that they built. So they're not a contender anymore. And we don't know anybody else that is. The building meanwhile is progressively deteriorating. And it's becoming. A hazard. And we have to do something. Our. We've had. Over the past few years. Eight years. Five. Post and timber. Post and frame construction. Practitioners. Look at this building. And each one of them has given us some opinion. And one of those. A couple of those. Or what we based our. 2017 18 report on. There hasn't really been any change. We can't. Think of anything to do other than to take the building down. And to do so. We would expect. Carefully with. A night of salvaging. The material. And using it. On buildings around the farm. Particularly the siding. We have. Used for as much of that as we can salvage. But. We thought we wouldn't just make an application for. Demolition permit, even though. We would call it deconstruction. The. The mechanics of. Building practice would not distinguish. And it would be a demolition permit that we would ask for. And that would set a clock ticking. And that would. Come to. This commission, I think, and. And we want, and since we knew. That you were. You, this commission. Is interested in this building. We thought rather than make that application. We would. Come and discuss it with you. The only thing I can think of is that the town. CPA would. Produce something close to half a million dollars or 300,000. We were reconstructing, but it doesn't seem that that's a compelling. Argument that the CPA committee would likely. And I'm not on that committee. And I haven't talked to them about it. But. It would be. A. It would be. It would be. Ask that would be heavily supported and lobbied for by this. Commission, if it was going to happen at all. And if it was, that's what we would need to hear from you. I think. But we wanted to understand. What this commission's interest. And position might be. In regard to this building as we contemplate what seems to us to be the only. The only thing that we need to do is make the building down. I think that's the, that's all I really need to say to open the conversation. Maybe I should ask if any of my colleagues would. Had anything to that. I'm not seeing anyone. So let's say that for the moment. That's the starting. Introduction. Okay. Thank you, Bruce. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And we turn to commission members to, to ask if you have any questions. Regarding the information sent out in advance of the meeting or. Questions for, for Bruce and his colleagues right now. Jan. I was interested in the. Three options and the way that reproduction is so much cheaper. I realize. It's really hard to repair and restore. What kind of reproduction are you imagining? I know you said in there that it would be relatively loose that you're not going to do. That would be. You know, more restoration to do an exact replica of the barn, but how, how are you? What. You're thinking to use it as housing. So would it just be the exterior that would look similar? No. I think it would be. Bearing in mind that our answers. Mine, let's say, particularly. Will be answers that are not filtered through a. The intimate knowledge of the current zoning bylaw. Although we have had conversations in the past. But generally answer, I think would be if we were going for a reproduction. It would be a reconstruction of the building. We would be using pine. Material. If it's strong enough. Rather than. Hardwood. I'm guessing, but I'm thinking that it would be the least expensive because I think if we were going to. Use this building. If someone were going to use this building. And of course we'd have to come up with the use because we could construct this building as it is. And. Without any real. Purpose in mind. That would seem to be. Rather extraordinary. So I'm going to assume that there would be a purpose. And the. The most likely purpose that I can think of. Would be. More housing. And. And I'm not sure exactly for whom. But that would mean that there would be interior walls that would. Be supported. So we could probably use this substantial. We could probably use. Softwood. Members to reframe the building. It would. Probably be done on a. Poor foundation rather than on. Lumps of stone, which it currently is on. Or peers. But more likely. And so. If we were to do that, we would have to give some thought to. The use, but my, my thought, my guess is that it would be. A reconstruction of the barn as it currently. Appears in form. Using the least expensive. Framing materials that would create a. Replication at least of the. If the would timber frame structure, i.e. post. Post and beams. So I don't imagine that we would build it with stick framing or anything to get this current shape that would be. Really stupid. But a replication of the building. A reconstruction of the building. As I'm described. Would would be the. That's what we. That's what we would mean by reconstruction. It would not attempt to salvage the existing. Structure in any way. The existing structure, by the way, is not a terribly. Valuable. Historically, I don't think it's. It was done on a number of. It doesn't appear to have been done all at once. And the. And the framing is fairly. Pedestrian for the era. So we wouldn't be trying to, if we. We wouldn't be trying to save anything particularly from that. But you did talk about a certain amount of salvage. Is there some. Are there a certain number of say chestnut or oak beams or anything that you try and reuse or. I don't think so. Not for a reconstruction. We might reuse them, but not in the building. And I'm not even saying we, I'm saying somebody. I don't want to speak as though NACF has gotten a dog. A stake in this. But if someone were reconstructing, they would. They would take the building down. Seek to salvage what can be salvaged off the. Structural members. But my guess is that. You'd be lucky to find a useful. Good use for 20% of those logs. But I think they might have a. Confirming view on this, but it, it seemed to us that. These. These beams are in such bad shape that. You're not going to get a lot of them. Into another life, at least not with me, not for the length that they are deciding on the other hand, because there's a lot of it and we could. Salve, even if we salvage 50% of that, that would be a useful recovery. I could just. Adds very little. Slightly what Bruce said that. I mean, if you look in the barn. There is. Virtually none. There might be a. Couple of the. Various, you know, structural members, the beams. Although all of the beams of the framing, there's. Almost none at the most a couple that are not broken. So you would be. You could, you could. Salve is a lot of pieces, but they'd be short pieces. You know, you could get a 10 foot piece out of this one where it's broken or the end of this one's rotted off. You could get a 10 foot piece out of there. So you'd have a lot of neat pieces of wood, but really short pieces. The barn's got. Tremendous amount of water damage probably. But if that's on, it looks like it was put on it. Probably in the 30s or 40s, and it had a tremendous amount of rot before that. And it hasn't leaked much since then. So there's right. And then. It was built on a rough stone foundation that settled. And all the posts are basically sitting on bare dirt now. So they're all. Rotted. So there's a lot of, a lot of parts of it have settled anywhere from a foot or two, up to three or four feet. So a lot of the internal. There's photos. Yeah, I saw them. Yeah. And you want to bring those up. So. What we'd be left with is same location, 21st century barn based upon this style, maybe some of the sighting on it. If somebody wanted to reuse it, it would be a 21st century structure. Right. Yes. Yes. It would take the form that we're looking at now. Then the other file that you have shows the interior. And that's, that's for the moment, that's the. I don't think it's in there. It's in a PDF of a PowerPoint. Okay. I got to hunt through my email for that. But you brought it up. For the, in the staff. Discussion. I know that's why I didn't send it to us. It might be in the email you sent us. Okay. Have you talked to the co-op? The housing co-op about this location and going together on something. Aren't they right here? You mean the John. I don't know who has anything to do with it. I just know there's a housing co-op right. At simple guests right there. Oh, well, that was, that was a habitat for humanity building that's next door that we, we were involved in. I was personally very heavily involved in that. Because I have an equally. Energetic presence with habitat that I do here. But I'm not going to take this one on. Did you have a question? I just want to clarify for myself that you've got these three options. But it's my understanding that the least expensive would be to recreate. But do any of these, you need funds beyond what you have now? Say that again, sorry. That you, you would be looking for funds, whether it's CPA or a partner in order to accomplish any one of these plans. Yes, we have zero. As I said, we don't have a story. If you're raising money, you've got to, you've got to have a story. It's, it sounds trite, but. Yeah. Do any of these, you need funds beyond what you have now. It's, it sounds trite, but, but fundamentally, that's the energy that makes the sunrise. If you're trying to raise money. Absolutely. And we have. We have all sorts of reasons as we said that we could, we could get people excited about why the farmhouse should stay and why the farm itself should stay as a farm and not as a housing development. But this building. We don't have. It doesn't fit our story, which is sad because it's a, it's historically, it's a very nice story. And Greg helped us write it. About how it. You know, the farms like this were part of a. A renaissance of agriculture. It was done. It was done 150 years ago when, when, when a scientific. Method was approached, was applied to farming. It was done through places like mass agricultural college. And this part of the world. And. But. These are the images that I was thinking would help. Explain why the. The amount of salvageable material would be. And the structural members. Point of view would be so. To me. Is there a, in the future. Of the community farm. Is there any. Is there a need for, I mean, is there a sort of positive need for any. Structure at all. I mean, this, this one is not useful to you if you said. But is there. You know, is there a farm need for. A different or smaller structure. There's a farm need, but. Speaking frankly. The farm need is for the footprint. For the space that the building is on. It's not that we want to tear it down to get that. But the. We would, if that building was taken down. We would not plant grass there. We would take advantage of the. The coverage that this building represents. That's. That is valuable to the farm. I suppose. Looking way down the road. You could think, well, maybe we, there could be a farm community kitchen or. Or some way of adding value in other words, the farm grows tomatoes. You could create salsa. But all of that is more likely to happen. In association with the farm store that's already there. And the expansion of that, which is. Not on this location. This also is a question that David is more. I think it's probably more. Better place to answer than me. But I know that we discussed this so much over so many years that I. Kind of know what he thinks and he knows what I think. But it's true that the. That the. We were successful with the other projects we've had because we. We worked in so many partners where we got. Habitat involved. We got into faith housing trust. Involved. We got. Various energy organizations involved. We had annual fundraisers for. Five or six years that netted between 20 and 30,000. They were huge amount of effort. Involved in doing it, but we have. Upwards of. 670. People or families that contributed. We've built all that around the stories that we've been able to tell up to now. But that 700. People or families. Is not committed to this building. And I don't know any way of which I could. Pull them into that. And so it seems to me that the fate of this building. If it wants to be. Retained. Is. Is, is, is. Would be driven by. An outside body, someone else other than us. I mean, it is our building. In fact, this is a building that is not owned by simple gifts. I mean, it's, it's, it was that clear to them that they, in the lease arrangements where they were. Keen to own. All of the rest of the buildings in some fashion. The one, the buildings that are on the AP are. Have an ownership interest. It's not a simple straightforward ownership arrangement, but there's an ownership interest. The other buildings on the site. In the, in the non APR portion of the site they own, but this one. They, they didn't. And weren't interested in owning and in ACF is the. Is, is, is the owner of this building. And it is our responsibility. But we don't have any way. Of bringing any capital at the moment that I can think of. To restoring this building. It's going to be a struggle just to find the, the. The resources to take it down. Take it down carefully. Thank you. Thank you. I'm a member of the simple gifts. I go there all the time. I parked my car by that picture on the left. You know, this, this entryway into this space is. Compelling. And beautiful, even though it's a very. Very beautiful. It's a structure that needs a lot of TLC. I had a student when I was teaching who has made her living basically print, a print maker. Doing prints of barns that look like this. There's a kind of sort of. Aesthetic that is. Interesting to her and, and, and there's a, you know, it's, I don't know what you call it. I don't know what you call it. I don't know what you call it. I don't know what decade or somewhat neglected. And. I didn't know until now Bruce that, that this building wasn't part of simple gifts farm. And I'm really interested to hear what kinds of. Initiatives you've. Gone through to, to, you know, to find uses for it. I'm curious what it would look like if it wasn't there. I think it would be more that you were somehow using for other purposes. And you know, part of me is like, oh no, that. That would be awful. You know, it was part of the charm of coming to simple gifts is to see this. You know, the way you have made it. You've made this kind of beautiful sense of, of, you know, the turning circle and the parking and the store and the. The pathway to the, to the fields and the, you know, the hoop houses and everything is so. Beautifully accessible to the community, even if you're not a member or CSA member to sort of think about it like that. So, you know, I used to work at redgate farm out in Buckland and Ashfield and they use, they have a pretty important barn completely different from this one. And they use it for programming. You know, salsa is made up the, up the road at kitchen garden farm in Sunderland. So why reinvent the wheel when, you know, it's already something that's being made locally, you know, is, could it be used for a place for programming? You know, I, I guess I'm all, all I'm saying is in all of this is let's not, let's not give up the ghost at this point and say, oh, you know, okay, it, it needs to go because I can't. While I know that you've done all these sort of scenarios and thought about all the other possible things that might happen, it seems to me that. You know, we're, we're looking at something that's. In tact, even though it's very. Structurally fragile. How to go forward at this point, given that structural fragility is, is complicated and I'm not no engineer. And it might be very expensive, but I feel like. As a commissioner, I want to see sort of all these little scenarios in little nuggets sort of presented so that we know that we've been through all of the programmatic conservation, you know, of materials or preservation of materials before we make other decisions. We, you've, this is, this is day one for you, but it's five years. There is also, there's no concrete for there. When I mentioned concrete, it would be what would happen if we were to reconstruct it. We would probably put it on to a solid foundation. As Dave said, this one has no foundation that's gradually collapsing as the, as the wood that sits on rocks and then the wood above it comes down and becomes the found, you know, so this is. Floor and so what could you make, could we make objects out of it to sell, you know, at the farmer's market? Could it be, I don't know, could it be somehow repurposed? Well, we can, we can repurpose the siding probably. The roof material is metal is over what was there previously, it's got a repurpose, but it's going back into the steel making process. And these woods, as Dave says, we can, you see, we've had a number of people, not a large number of people, two or three people come with a view to buying the building for the salvage value of the material. And we've seen this, the buildings like this sometimes have value and you, and maybe the value is enough to cover the cost of taking them down. But in this case, the people who have looked at this have not seen that kind of value even in the timber is the salvage value. Do you have documentation of that Bruce, that we could share with us? I, the two most recent folks have looked at it happened after the 2017 report that we sent in. But we have been trying and I can, I've got it, I've got it in those meetings and so forth and emails of my own. I could recreate that as an agenda and as an appendix or an agenda to the report that we sent you four years ago. And Nathan Alloy, when we talked, we did have a discussion with Chris Breistrup David Zomek, Ben and Nate Malloy and Nate because he was part of the applications that we made for the, when we were getting the funding for the farmhouse. And we did a form B historic analysis of the farmhouse. It kind of extended to the, the, the barn but we didn't write it up particularly and there is a some documentation of the building as it exists, particularly a plan and so forth. And it was suggested that we could make some documentary record of the building before it either was taken down or fell down. But those are the, those are the thoughts that we've had more recently. Jan, would you like to speak? Yeah, I'm afraid I'm one of the people who caused all that to happen because I was pushing so hard to save the barn. I was in that the beginning of your request for the house work because I've been on the commission I think and I have a fondness for barns. But I was, I just was struck by your, the narrative on your options page about a duplex for farm manager families. Is that not anything that really is useful at this point to create more houses? We created, when we renovated the farmhouse, so the design and development which came after the document that you read, we managed to divide the farmhouse vertically into two units that had three bedrooms each and we created a small farm manager's apartment on the end of the farmhouse. So there are basically seven bedrooms and kind of three apartments even though Rob Morrow would hit me with a bucket if he heard me say that because it's really would have to have a sprinkler system if it was really a triplex. But it functions nicely as a triplex so we've so we've satisfied part of that particular. Oh I see. So the document that we're reading is actually before that happened because you were talking about having accommodating more but you've already done that. I see. I didn't realize this was date. Yes, that document was written in association with the study for the farmhouse, the study for the farmhouse was done to identify just what the farmhouse could be restored and what would be legitimately restoration and what would be remodeling and what would be renovation and then so we went to that's why we've got all these other parties involved in the farmhouse because the town contributed to the portion for restoration but there was there was remodeling work in putting the firewalls in separation walls and upgrading the electrical services and all that. So that report on the barn was written as we were studying the farmhouse and then on the basis of that study we went and designed the farmhouse and then built it and so all of that was done in the subsequent two years to that report. Now I mean it's possible that I mean if this if this was housing well you see the thing is that David and his family David Tepra in his family and Jeremy and his family the two owners the two farm owners both have their own houses at the other end not on the farm but adjacent immediately adjacent so 30 years from now it's possible that let's say Dave and Jeremy turn the lease over and they who knows then then the new farmers might wonder might have a use for some residential accommodation here in addition to the farmhouse but that's so far into the future and so speculative that I can only postulate the narrative or postulate the notion that that would be a use in the future but it's certainly not a use now because or a need now because the both the farmers were able to find houses that just came on the market right adjacent to the farm it was rather wonderful you're accommodating all the apprentices in the farmhouse there's no more apprentice housing needed I don't think so Dave you could speak to that what there you what exactly was the question about the housing well I was just saying do you have enough for all the apprentices now there's no I'm just trying to think of ways you could justify a proposal for funding do you need more housing for apprentices or anything yeah well perfectly we haven't done a formal apprentice program in a couple years it's farm employees now it ebbs and flows you know last year during the covid business we were in seven bedrooms you know people come and go you know employ a lot of young people who are mobile most of the time we had six to seven this year for some reason which we don't really understand we've hired more people who happen to have housing for one reason another in Amherst each one has some different story about why they have housing in Amherst and we actually have a couple empty bedrooms in the house right now which is we're sort of scratching their head on that and actually on that we're actually we have to make a decision soon we're probably going to talk to we have been talking we're probably confirmed talking to us you know we know all the faculty at UMass and the various egg we're going to open it up and see if we can get a couple UMass you know egg students of one kind or another to live there part of living in the farmhouse there people are required to you have to work at the farm at least 10 hours a week in order to be allowed to to live in that farmhouse it's part of the whole arrangement our ownership arrangement with NACF so anyway I'm getting off track here but just to point out we it is more so far has been more than enough housing for us I can imagine another you know a number of imaginary hypothetical situations five years 10 years 15 years from now where it's possible we need more I can you know we need more grand ideas about maybe some day but nothing remotely likely anytime the next five to 10 years that I can think of whatsoever is there do you have a particular timeline when when when does this structure kind of lose so much integrity that it is a real hazard that's hard to say I thought it was being progressively deteriorating but I have to say that the late early this afternoon when I reviewed for this meeting and I looked at those photographs then that you put up in the in that slideshow that were taken five years ago and it's and I I thought the barn was progressively deteriorating but to the way it was five years ago which actually is blessedly reassuring to me because my sense was that I'm fearful of parking my car where you seem to be prepared to park your vehicle because I can see a board falling off or something and and which is just there you would say well Bruce you should be there with a hammer and nail and putting those tools back on and you might be right Jane the answer is that this is not something that is do we have an established schedule on where but it's one of those things that I feel that we have to move forward with because it's very easy to say well maybe we'll just wait until next year and and if I start doing that personally then I'm I'm the energy frankly behind all of this and if I energy flags I don't think there's anybody that I can see behind me who's going to come and deal with this so it's got to be done while I'm still strong and fit reasonable prospects that that's going to be good for a while but I don't know and so I would like to move forward in the next 12 months to do something with this building to secure it in some way or other and one other question for the three scenarios in your memo with their different price points does that include is that only to either repair restore or reproduce the shell yes okay so any other functional insertion or amendment would be any electrician that arrives any plumber that comes any carpenter that puts any petitions or does anything inside it and so forth that's all additional and those numbers were generated with the best will by people who know the business but they were they were done four years ago so there's certainly dated in some fashion I would expect so you how can the historical commission best respond or best assist you right now I think I think we are we being my board colleagues and I are judging the likely reception of request for demolition and and we are seeing just whether there is some alternative to that that we should be doing based on this conversation and and I'm not hearing it so far I mean I understand the observations about the graphic aesthetic the visual interest of these buildings and I know because I've got drawings of dilapidated barns on my wall I used to do many of these and I've done one of these buildings as well from a graphic standpoint it's brilliant but but we can't we can't leave it there for that purpose I don't think I just feel that we're courting a suit of irresponsible behavior or something of that sort I'm just fearful that the longer we leave it the closer we may get to something happening that we will regret and so I think in a sense you don't have to do anything I'm really not asking you for anything in particular we are judging the options from our point of view I think the ball is in our court I think it's for us to decide whether and why we shouldn't make an application to take the building down and as Dave Zomek said to do so or suggested that to do so in a way that would salvage to the greatest extent possible the material of the building further said for the purpose of using it around the farm Dave's notion was that these old buildings historically old buildings were taken down and parts of them found their way into new structures and that was that was the historical method or one of them and he thought that that seemed to be the way in which we might choose to behave here and I thought that was a good idea so we would be coming to you with an application to do that and as I say it probably manifests itself as an application for a demolition permit but it would be done in a way that wouldn't have all of the brutality that's associated typically with demolitions there's going to be no swinging balls or bulldozers or buckets with big jaws on them that grab the whole building and kind of put it into a dumpster we don't want to do it that way behind my earlier question about you know is there a need for any other structure farm related structure was the thought that material that could be salvaged could help to create something smaller that preserves some of that material on the landscape on which it sits now if there's a purpose for it but it would be in a way kind of a reuse with a little more integrity than using the siding on a variety of buildings although I think that's a fantastic idea to use the siding on other buildings but it was just like a thought about is there any use for a smaller structure that is almost a child replacement kind of a child of the barn I think in taking the building down as David said we could expect to salvage shorter useful members from longer present members and that and if I can find I used to have some reasonable relationships with the timber framers guild Ted Benson for example is a friend of mine as well and it's just possible that we could figure out a raising or some way to build a single story structure that is about a quarter or 20% of the area that one has but uses those beams and we could probably figure that out because we took it down and we had an array of posts and beams and so forth so I like that idea from your point of view it's a suggestion but I think it could be turned into an idea let me just add that in principle if you'd care to come out I could show you many examples I'm I'm a 40 plus years of experience of of a thrifty farmer I I could show you my piles I say every possible piece of wood and every long piece that I have a short piece off of and stuff I've scrowned from one building to use another and I've seen a lot of those. So Dave what do you think about Jane's suggestion that we might be able to it might have happened immediately but we could no it's not well one thing there's you know a little bit of background Bruce has been actively pushing it on this you know for the whatever it is six or seven years and I don't know when it was but one thing that came up that I've always loved the idea is you know some at least some of you have been up on our festival hill always at the farm where we have a lot of events wasn't my idea and I don't remember who it was but I loved it is a sort of a smaller since we have so many public events up there a smaller post and beam or open you know gazebo kind of structure up there which is sort of the social center of the farm in a way okay so now we even have a place where we can sort of you know both those ideas are exactly what I was kind of thinking about which was the agreement we have with Hampshire College about bar on their property was that they would not take it down but when they had the funds they would just restore the exterior and just lock it so nobody could go inside just just stabilize it basically so that that romantic landscape would still be there and that if at some point in time a use came about you know it would be structurally sound and then they could do whatever they wanted to be inside later and I was thinking about the idea of a pavilion or something where you just restored the frame and the roof but you didn't worry about windows and some of the walls and stuff it basically be a four post or probably a 16 post whatever you know open air roofed space and you could have one facade maybe the one that is the most romantic the one that's seen the most intact and keep the best of the building and then and then leave the rest of it or it could even be smaller as James suggested you could do a reduced version of that but you'd have yeah somewhat of that look you know the look is a bit let me be clear if you know we've been talking about and it's covered in in detail and some of the written reports there is no restoring that bar because first maybe not every but virtually every timber there's only you know there's no replacing pieces to keep even any part of it the only you know short of you know half a million dollars based on five-year-old prices the only remotely reasonable way to reuse it is to take it down completely and reuse those pieces for something else so there's no support to put in new ones you could do a simple version and then clad it with some of the old materials and I think that the story or the experimental you've given with Hampshire is we've got a couple of these types of bounds further up in the property where they're fundamentally solid and and so long as you can keep them dry you know keep a good roof on them then you've got a structure that you can weight out but this one is not like that you have to imagine that the posts that are holding up a rotten at the base and a rotten broken at the joints and the beams substantially are either both of that but the rotten or they're broken and in fact is just snapped in half in the middle and there's a number of those beams that are like that snapped and one imagines that there might be some others that are about to do that but nonetheless the structure is irredeemable without replacing those beams or making it much much shorter by using them in halves like Jane had the idea you'd have to take it apart to do that so taking it apart and finding the pieces of wood that have value have integrity the 10 foot portion of a 16 foot beam the 10 foot portion of a 12 foot post or something like that that's what we would be doing and there may be one or two pieces where the full length of them is useful but if we were looking to a smaller building on a 10 foot module and we decided to use the 15 foot timbers to do that that's why Jane's suggestion probably has legs because we would be able to build a smaller building with a smaller scale and a smaller grid using the structural materials but as we said we've already thought that we would use the cladding materials but Jane's suggestion and driven by your vision and David's notion is a way of which we can also conceivably give some additional use to the structural members of the building. Dave you could use a smaller building for storage but is there some sort of like even machinery there's a lot of possibilities but not necessarily there it's a really lousy place for machinery storage right in the middle of what we've worked on over the years is separating the active farming part as much as we can but we've really worked at containing the farming all the farming activity messiness and dangerousness keeping people somewhat away from it or if they have to go through it channeling them in a way as much as we can in light of all the restrictions we have but we've got another one further into the middle of the property that we are currently working to turn into a machinery garage or a story. At the moment it's got all sorts of historic antique farm equipment that's kind of bogged in there it's settled into the sand and we have to dig it out but once all that's dug out in the building will have some use and it's in a location that's the scale and the shape and everything where it'll be very useful for that purpose maybe we need a little Amherst farm museum we have a little Amherst farm museum up there already unfortunately a lot of the equipment are out in the rain well this little new building maybe could be something I hope we probably ought to wrap up this conversation for now but you know we're all really very interested in what's happening with the North Amherst community farm and certainly admire the unquestioned success of the restoration of the farmhouse I hope that maybe a couple of these thoughts will be useful to you I mean I myself am sensitive to the extraordinary expense of restoration for a small organization that doesn't necessarily serve their immediate needs but I hope a couple of these thoughts can be carried away and considered a little more well I thank you for your for the hour that you've given us and I think we certainly do have something that I think can improve the process that we maybe were thinking of up until 60 minutes ago well please come back if at any time when we can be of more help well I think we'll be back because I think we have to come back to to pursue the process that we've been discussing we'll just see if we can make it as as at least traumatic as possible all right thank you Bruce thank you to the rest of the board members today I guess we leave although you usually demote you demote us from being panelists but I'm going to sky before you do that so thank you all very much and I appreciate it I'll talk to my board college later thank you all right I'm looking got too many windows open now I'm looking back for the agenda yep I can pull it up here writer's walk updates then next steps yeah so thank you Jane so as some of you know hopefully all of you know by now writer's walk signs I think seven of them have been installed after a long process to get to here I took a few pictures yesterday just so I could share them there's a this is the baker standard Ray Baker house on sunset on Amity street downtown and then Noah Webster house on spring street the Todd house and then where's this on Harkness road a Goodale house and Eastman house I almost had a car accident when I was driving down Harkness and saw the house I drove up to Northamers today and I did confirm the one on Market Hill Road was installed as well and then I was on the road I drove up to Robert Francis and yeah so it's really exciting and Jen and I have been talking about kind of where do we go from here obviously this is a there's a lot of interest in this project around the town it's been you know been discussed for I think like almost 10 years now people have been asking every so often ask about it it's the signs have been installed and the writers walk is here so I think we had an urgent had an idea of like having like kind of a launch event or launch party some some sort of like formal event to kind of announce the the start of the writers walk and you know we have those pamphlets that that we developed and I've started you know I've put some in town hall I put some at the library I put some at bookstores the visitor center that you know where the Chamber of Commerce is and so there's kind of thinking about this launch party whatever we want to call it kickoff event I was thinking you know August is a tough time especially in a college town not many people are around and everyone's kind of gearing up for this semester so I was thinking you know September or October might be a more apt time and also that will give us a little bit we need a little bit more time to get the last four signs in the ground so I just want to make sure just want to make sure we have enough time to do that so so are we clear with Amherst College then or is DPW able to put them in they just haven't found the time or are we still held up by Amherst College we're not held up by Amherst College per se I just we need to you know people have been on vacation we just I just need to I have a time to that I'm going to talk with their facility or campus operations team next week to confirm and then a certain executive director of the Dickinson Museum I need to talk to as well about where to place that sign where to place that sign but no Jane and I will discuss that because I don't want to call the bookstores and I'm not real happy about the cards being out until they're all in place because if somebody tries to do a tour they're going to come up empty at various spots so I'm waiting to call the bookstores until we have a date for the launch and we know they're all in and people are actually taking the tour you know and I'm hoping Amherst Bookstore will actually do a window display to go with it you know we could even do a little poster or something to go in their window with the books but I'll call Northampton and South Hadley and all those bookstores once we know what's going on should we talk about potential dates there is September there are a couple of events I could possibly be good pairings one is the block party I assume and I assume the bid is doing another block party there's going to be a block party this year I have the date somewhere in an email but for the block party we have the option of maybe having like a tent there's a lot of different vendors and stuff like that October 17th that's what I recall as well there's also the art nights I think they used to do those on Thursday a month if we could maybe try to coordinate with that maybe I can try to figure out what the October night is the first Thursday of the month but there hasn't been quite some time been but it was the first Thursday of every month I think they're having a little difficulty maintaining their organization especially after such a long hiatus it's the poetry night in fall the poetry festival museum's poetry festival but that it's probably going to be largely virtual or hybrid at least but maybe we could have some sort of kickoff thing that could be zoomed and for people who do come it would give them something to attend because it was certainly fit since there are poets in the tour it might be kind of interesting to have a little writer's walk bookshelf maybe the library could yeah the library would Amherst public television would they be willing or if we did the photography for it to do a program on the Amherst writer's walk and have it televised on local television that they would is the poetry festival not virtual going to be held at the Emily Dickinson house at the homestead most likely not because the house has to be closed and access to the grounds will be a little bit restricted I've just been trying to think of if it weren't like during a block party with a tent downtown if we actually had it it would have to be closed at one of the houses where there's enough room to park and spread out on the lawn I thought in front of the bolt would make the most sense but it's not really a house house there are others that have space but that would be so obvious because the common is right there it's possible the college is policy on public access to its property and that's evolving what's the date for the poetry festival 20th through the 26th October September with most the highlight high profile events are close to the 26th if we were at the block party what would that look like we just have a table where it's at Amherst historical commission we'd hand out stuff about the writers walk what would be the it would just be to publicize this yeah like in years past like the you know for example the energy and climate action that we're going to do we're going to have a tent and they'll be there to be there to talk to people about sustainability in Amherst or something like that the transportation commission sometimes has a tent or a booth to survey people about biking or something like that different committees and commissions and boards do sometimes have books by these authors to have on the table to hand out or something old old copies that people don't want so yeah that's just one one idea I always thought the block party would be like in addition to an actual like event for the for the writers walk I think that it would be good to advertise that I also think that we might be targeted by people saying why are you letting downtown deteriorate into these big modern buildings and it's your fault that this happened so I think we'd have to be prepared to defend ourselves and say look at this is our only purview we can only put in a delay that kind of thing I think we'd be spending the whole evening explaining I don't know maybe I'm wrong that could be useful engagement with the public yeah I mean it could be good but I wouldn't want to stand there alone unless I was wearing armor we won't let you do it alone Jen we'd have to make it a meeting if we were all there yeah I was actually just wondering that two of us is not a quorum two at a time or something I don't remember it would be a good time time wise late September early October so and I think the in terms of like finding a gathering space downtown around one of the signs I think yeah either the grounds of the museum or in front of the common would make the most sense and you know I imagine we would like you know present the signs have some people talk and then maybe just do a loop of the ones in the immediate town center tell you to put a really strong sign in where we do it so I can break a ball of champagne over it post there are at least four in really easy walking distance yeah the museum and Webster and then the one we just looked at on the two on spring street both on spring street so one or five six six in close walking distance yeah yeah that'd be good okay so then are there considerations that we need to look into to firm up for us to firm up a date or should we choose something now or would you be willing to incorporate it into the poetry festival because if so we can work more directly with that but if you think it might be awkward then we'll go into other time I think the big unknown there is I mean I think it would be great to incorporate it into the festival I think the big unknown there is if we want an in-person event whether the museum grounds or well we could decide later where it is but I mean we could still be part of the festival and then whether it's a few blocks away or at the museum doesn't wouldn't really affect it right yeah true and then what would we think for like is this a weekend noon is it I would personally think like a week day like evening weekday evening is really good having done a lot of dinner tours for the museum's myself yeah yes we should also serve some food what about like on the 24th and then people could give patronage to downtown restaurants afterwards or something yeah some kind of maybe they'd even be a 10% off I bet the BID would be interested in this too I can't imagine that they wouldn't want to assist or brazen with us I feel like they've done so much at least make free parking I'd love to see part of things if that's convenient or appropriate they could have their office open at the same time if we were on the common or maybe the bookstore is the way to host it I don't know there's so many unknowns we could do it in front of the Webster sign the bookstore open their doors and have a big window display they might like that because they could sell some things it's actually pretty soon with the middle of July two months away so you think the Friday the 24th people might want to come out the first Friday of October I don't have my calendar it's the first actually a Thursday or Friday evening is good more likely to get people coming out is that too late in the festival dates for your programming would you want it on the first site or would it be okay that it were five days into your festival October first would be the 24th because you start on the 20th right so yes and it kind of grows over the week the 24th might be a program already so we might I don't know maybe Tuesday or Thursday I'll check with the program folks to I'm not sure they have a schedule for this year yet but we can look back at the schedule for last year it was all virtual so and I'll see where things fall there for time early evening or yeah okay so people can go to dinner afterwards five thirty six or you know five thirty quarter six we're not talking about something very long we're just giving people a taste the writer's walk usually starts at five and I think the idea is that people can get there after a day's work and then you know make a social evening of it and then you know make a social evening after dinner or meeting friends or whatever so five o'clock doesn't the arts night can I say writer's walk I'm sorry coordinating with that same time is probably a good idea because people are used to it but we'd have to look at your festival programming and hear that this week well let's get on to project updates and first off is the Jones library preservation restriction and we have a a final final basically I I made the changes that you all recommended or you know asked for last meeting the basic things just the spelling of jans last name and the tense there were some issues with the tense you know the work has been done already so I changed that and where it stands now is essentially the Chris Brestrup the planning director she presented to the library trustees in early July I forget the exact day you know they they they had a few questions you know just about the scope of the restriction and the and also still you know concern brought up concerns about the indemnity clause and so I think we're we're looking at the final final version and so we're working on you know if there's changes that need to be made to that clause we'll do it but I think there's kind of some conversations happening with the town attorneys the library trustees the and getting a better handle on kind of the insurance issues but I think we'll sort that out hopefully in the coming weeks and then be able to present a final version to the commission to sign great thank you yeah are there any questions or we can move on to the next update I think having the those things about indemnification and insurance that really we can't answer yeah to have those taken care of and then we'll and then we'll give it a last look okay great then the bylaw yeah so at the bylaw we have some dates that I've been able to confirm we will basically first present there's a date in August I'm looking at my calendar sorry August 4th is a Wednesday the planning board is meeting that night and we can present the bylaw changes to the planning board just to get their feedback and thoughts and comments overall about the proposal and then that would lead into August 23rd which is a Monday that evening is that there's a town council meeting and it's our hope that we could actually formally you know present the bylaw that night and that would be like the formal the beginning of the formal process to for the adoption of the bylaw where they would then refer it to their subcommittees for recommendation and it would really start the clock by which they need to adopt it that the meeting with the planning board is just more like to get their feedback but the 23rd with the town council is like the presentation of the bylaw and it's you know I think speaking for the planning department it's our hope that you know it's kind of jointly done by the staff and by commission members and I know we discussed that last time so I think Jen at least you and I need to get together I've been gathering all the old agendas and minutes and versions so we can sit down and construct a narrative and I've been taking notes as I go so I don't think it'll be too hard we don't need to give them every blow-by-blow thing that happened but there is a lot there are quite a few years of things out there so anytime you want to get together just let me know and I'll pull all that out of it. So I think it's a good idea to get together with all of us and we can do it. So for me a weekend is a little easier is that possible? So I could do this Saturday or Sunday afternoon and next weekend also. So I think it's about Sunday the 18th. 2.30. Perfect. You can come here. Got it. I think with the planning board you can assume there's maybe 10, 15 minutes for presentation and then 15 minutes for discussion and then 10, 15 minutes for presentation. Usually public comment. So, you know, could all be, you know, 45 minutes to an hour. Is that include the planning staff or is that just us? I would be there. You know, Chris Brestrup, you know, staff's the planning board. When you talk about 10 to 15 minutes for presentation are you talking about all of us together that much time? Yeah, I mean, I've given the presentation in the past. So I'm happy to do so in conjunction with with you and Jane, but yeah, we can figure that out. But yeah, I think it would be 10 to 15 minutes for the whole presentation. Okay. Well, in that case, would it be better for the three of us to get together? Yeah, that might be good. If you all want to start me and, you know, just to coordinate and and what not that we can have. I can, the three of us can have a follow-up meeting maybe. We had just talked about wanting to have some historical depth to this so that we can show them that we've been working on a long time and we had some of the ideas that they've already suggested we should have done. We had those and for this reason we rejected it or we worked through it, you know, because it just feels important to show that this has been on the desk and worked through. So that's why I just wanted to pull a lot of data out of the old minutes and stuff. Okay. So why don't we do this? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. One of the things we'll do when we, before we get together is look at your presentation. And if you. Think there are. Areas that. Members of the commission. Should. Cover in your presentation. You can let us know that. If there are areas that are not in your presentation that you think. Will be of interest to the planning board. You can, you know, let it. Let us know that too. Yeah. Yeah, that sounds good. All right. And sorry, I just had a thought and then it escaped me. Oh, the. The town's attorney is, is also reviewing the bylaw. That's kind of just a standard procedure for new. Bylaws for zoning and especially with this one going from zoning to general bylaw, there's some, you know, we just want to make sure we're. Everything is. Meets the requirements and is can be held up and stuff like that. So. I, I think he was on vacation last week, Joel. Bard, but. I had asked him to get it. Comments to me by Tuesday. Did not get those. So. I will. Yeah. I'm on that because if you hear anything egregious, tell us. I know. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. I just have a question. Obviously Jane and Jen, you, the ones who are going to make the presentations. Both to the planning board and to the town council, but would you want the presence of the other commission members of the town council meeting. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know if it would be, but just. Solidarity. I think so. Yeah. I think it would help to show that we're all involved. Okay. You two got that. Are you stressed? The other three of you get those dates. What were the dates? Yeah. You're all like not looking to eager here. I'm talking about the 23rd of August. Oh, just the 23rd. Okay. Because I don't know that it makes sense to go to the town council meeting. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Do you Ben? Well, I was going to suggest the planning board is where there's probably going to be more rich discussion that happens. You know, it's a longer period of time to just focus on the nitty gritty details of the bylaw. Typically in my experience with presenting to town council, you know, they have like four hour marathon meetings where they cover. Mind boggling amount of material. And typically if they know they're going to refer something to the city, they'll kind of hear the presentation, talk about it very briefly. And then refer it. Just to kind of keep the meeting moving. So just to, you know, with that in mind. The. Planning board might be where there's more, you know, engagement with the material of the, the bylaw, but the town council is where. You know, they might, they, you know, they might not be able to see that there's support behind, behind it, I guess, but. So are you suggesting that we put that we'd be. Not participants, but, but whatever the term is that we, we acknowledge our presence at both the planning board meeting and the town council meeting. Well, yeah. I mean, it might be the kind of thing where Jane and Jan could say, you know, and we're joined by, you know, members of the commission. Yeah, yeah. What were the dates of times again, Ben? August 4th at 630 is the planning board. And then. August 23rd. Probably at somewhere between six and 10 PM is the town council. Okay. And are these still on zoom? And. Correct. Yep. Thank you. I think it changes over on the 21st of September. Not sure, but I think I read that somewhere. That's when the protocol. Comes to an end. Remote meetings. For the state. It would. It could be helpful. For commissioners to attend the planning board meeting. So they're just more years open. To. I don't know in case we need to. The meaning of something. Ben, you'll send us the link. Those meetings, please. Yeah, yeah, certainly. Yeah. I mean, you know, like. I will send them, but, you know, they're also always posted on the town's calendar. But yes. Thank you. Okay. So now we're on to. Yeah. I think we're going to start with. Expanding the local historic district. Is anybody taking minutes? I just saw that. I've been taking notes, but. We'll have to reconstruct, I think. Yeah. From the recording. Okay. Yeah. I think it would be useful to have somebody other than two of us who are presenting like taking jotting down things that people say. Questions they ask us some points they make so that later we could go back over those before the town council. You know, some, some of the other one other member would do that. It'll be recorded also been right. Yeah. I mean, for the planning board. Yeah, it's always recorded. But I, I. You know, when I, when I'm presenting a bylaw to the commission, I'm always jotting down notes that of, of comments. But yeah, I guess the more people doing that, the better. So if we all tried to do that. Yeah. We won't catch everything, but we'll. Together we will. Yeah. Sometimes you have different perspectives and takes on what people. It might be nice to be able to kind of put our heads together. So let's move on to the local historic district question. Ben, do you want to kind of summarize. At our last meeting or two, we had a discussion. We had a discussion. We had a discussion. So Hedy and I were. Appointed by the historical commission to be part of an ad hoc committee. We then met with Suzanne. That's crap. That's crap. Just to get some background from her perspective. And then. We had conversation. Hedy and I were where. We were at the local historic district meeting. Last month. To discuss the interest of historical commission. And preserving the historic homes on the west side of, of North Pleasant street. And, and. They agreed to. Point two members to an ad hoc committee and that Jane. We had a discussion. We had a discussion. I'll go back to that. I'll go back to that. And I'll go back there to that effect. However, Ben has sense and I'll let you take it over from here, Ben, but I'll just say one more thing. After the historic commission meeting or between, after meeting with Susanna. I did an inventory. Of all those properties. And, and have sent that to Ben. And I think he's going to share it with you. But I also pulled the assessor cards. For every property. And so I have a file. It's this thick now. I tried to scan all of the assessor cards and macros information by property and send it to Ben today. I think that I mostly succeeded, but my scanner was skipping things. And then I had to go back and then the files were huge. And so I had to send it to parcels to Ben, but I do have all that information. I've done that work. And I think that that Ben can take over about actually how that what this process should look like, because the idea is that it should be the Lincoln Sunset local history that is promoting the inclusion of those properties. It would be a whole different process for an ad hoc committee. There's a whole different process and it would be be counterproductive for us to start with that. So Ben you can you can make that part more clear to everybody. Yeah, yeah, thanks Pat. So just to reiterate the at their last meeting the local historic district commission did, you know, vote and voice their strong support for this effort to study the enlargement of the Lincoln Sunset district. And in my kind of subsequent research, I kind of what combed through, I think, what is it chapter 40 C section three of the mass general law is kind of focuses on. The historic district act formally. And it does lay out the process for enlarge the enlargement of a district you know there's, you know, a process for starting a district enlarging a district shrinking a district removing a district so there's all it's all spelled out. And essentially the, you know, when a district is first formed, there's a study committee that comes together and there's kind of, you know, a recipe if you will for like who is part of that committee I think you're supposed to have an architect or realtor people from the district, something to that effect, and then they study study the formation of the district do all the research inventories. And then ultimately that report needs to be only to be adopted by the legislative body in the town so 10 town meeting or town council in our case town council. And it needs to be accepted by Massachusetts historic commission. And so they for for the enlargement of a district, because there's already an existing local historic district commission for the enlargement of a district the LHTC become is the study committee or acts as the study committee or undertakes the work. You know, I think if we were to do something different like you know have some sort of ad hoc committee where it's you know a few members of this commission a few members of that commission comes together. It might not be like formally accepted by mass historic because they really do lay out the process. So what I suggested to pat and heady was, you know, essentially the LHTC would kind of drive the process or you know, you know, it would happen at their meetings where the, you know, process plays out. And it's always anyone is able to attend those meetings their public meetings and certainly pat and heady and whoever can contribute research findings comments to that process and be engaged in the process but you know when it comes to actually voting on things and you know kind of holding meetings it would be the local historic district commission. And yeah, I think I, my next step for me you know I'm here to be kind of a technical advisor I guess free resource and so I'm going to look a little bit more closely at actually what these studies look like you know I think there's a formula for what you need you know different transactions that you need. I think what Pat's done is a great start already with all the inventories, you know it's not a huge area at all. Relatively speaking it's a handful of homes. So, it's definitely going to be work but it's not a tremendous undertaking. So what we've gotten with the joint ad hoc committee is it formed, is it meeting because it seems from things in the paper and opinion pieces on various sites online that it's really heating up and we're working against the clock. The whole point of what Ben is saying is that having a joint ad hoc committee is counterproductive that we need to lend our efforts as citizens to the local historic district so they can be the leaders. I thought the ad hoc committee would be like coordinating with them to work that. Well, there is there. I think the idea of an ad hoc committee is dead in the water. Oh, okay. Because because it's not going to. It's going to be counterproductive to, to what the legislative regulations say about who should lead this charge. But I'm more than happy to attend their meetings and be invited as a guest or purchase. I think it's a success clicking along. Right. And I think heady is also, but, but I really did initiate. There are a dozen or more properties that are of historic consequence. And I started with the building that houses Miss Saigon next to CBS because that's like a clean and 18 something house and then went, went from there to triangle street. Almost every single one of those properties along that western side of Pleasant Street from, from like 11023, whatever the last one is, have some historic significance. And even though they've been built out like in the Saigon building, the, the, the first structure, quite evident if you look at the. I'm fine and everything else. So I think what Ben is saying is, is that he's been you're probably going to talk to the Lincoln Sun said local historic district to explain this to them as well. But please share with them the work that I've done because there's no reason for anybody else to spin their wheels doing it. I would give them a good start to identify the properties. And then you will help them and heady and we understand what next and how we can be helpful to them. So, Jennifer and Susanna are here. And perhaps and I see Jennifer has her hand up perhaps we could bring them into the same. Hi, Jennifer. Yeah, hi. Hi, heavy and heavy. Yes, I'm Jennifer tau by chair the local historic district commission and live in the north prospect Lincoln Sunset local historic district which borders, you know the 122 through 336 North Pleasant Street. And so I just on behalf of the local historic district commission, we really appreciated a heady and Pat's coming and joining our last meeting, and we voted unanimously that we would like, you know, to, we were going to say form the committee and then I actually learned after that we are the study committee so that's actually great news because it means we don't have to form something we're already intact. And we absolutely, you know welcome and appreciate all the work you've already done pat and all of you, you know we certainly you know want to collaborate although it sounds like that the legal sort of responsibility is with the local historic district commission, but we're inclusive, and you know and that's really terrific all the work that you've already done and we would. I mean, I guess speaking personally, because my husband kind of chair the study commission when we were forming the local historic district and Lincoln Sunset, North prospect, and they initially wanted that those properties on the North Pleasant Street to be part of it so we're very just so you know we are as committed as you are. We're very receptive to that, and it would be terrific to make that happen. And Jennifer, this is Pat. I'm committed to participating to be a guest as you are tonight with the Earth Historic Commission. I'm committed to zooming in and when the moment comes when I can be helpful or can join the discussion with your local historic district to to help promote this. And I'm assuming that Ben, if he hasn't already will pass along all the inventory materials that I produced so that you have, you can start there, you will have to spend time. Right. And I actually have a question, which I'm sorry to take up your time with this but to Ben, do we form like a subcommittee of the LHD to be the study committee or are we all kind of the study committee. That depends on kind of level of engagement from the commission members I mean I think my sense is that you know somewhere down the road, the whole commission will need to like vote to you know finalize the study but I think the actual committee can take place and discussions can take place at like a subcommittee level. If not everyone wants to be part of the study committee. What I'm also saying is in terms of open meeting law like two members could work. Yeah, I'll have to talk to Nate and Chris about that because I was wondering about that too I mean like. Like the actual writing of the report I mean we're not people we're not going to do that all together. Copy you know we've done that with the bylaw before but sitting here sitting there and copy editing a giant report together is that doesn't seem the most efficient but I think I think members could do that work on their own and then contribute it and then or in pairs or something like that but and then that meetings kind of come together and discuss the the progress and the you know next steps and stuff like that. We could certainly have, like we have a subcommittee, one member could meet with Pat and go over what she's done. I think where you run into open meeting law issues is when there's a quorum of the commission and it's then that's like a formally a meeting that needs to be posted but if it's below that number, say three, then then it's not a meeting per se but I think you still just need to be careful that it's not that it's really the that meeting is happy is there there's discussions about kind of content rather than like actual like kind of like deliberations I guess so okay thank you so it will be on the agenda for our next meeting and so everyone's welcome to attend I think will we be in person we'll still be we'll still be still still I mean unless they want to but no it's still we're still allowed to meet via zoom and what I was going to say is there there aren't any project applications for that meeting and today was kind of a deadline for someone to get on that meeting so at this point we have whole whole meeting could be to talk about the process for the enlargement study. Yeah. Great. Okay, well thank you. Thank you Jennifer. And there, there must be a point in this process at which it's useful to have an endorsement from the historical commission. Is it somewhere somewhere in here. It might be at the might be toward the end. And it might be at the point where mass historic is reviewing it like that. Again I think the. I was when I was reading the chapter 40 C I was looking mostly at the process for like beginning the study but I think down the road there are steps for kind of finishing the study and transforming the study into actual proposal for enlargement of the district and I think at that point that's when there's there's going to have to be a public hearing with notice sent to all of the residents and property owners in the district. And ultimately we are building towards town council approving the enlargement of the district so. Okay, thank you. Thank you. And thank you pat and for for being so eager and willing to continue working on this. Appreciate it. That's done all the heavy lifting so far but I'm sure at some point I'll get plugged in. I think we support it and that's the most important thing for the local historic district to know and your question Jane is at what point do we speak and, and so, you know, there might be a role for us to support the formation of the study. I just local history just as as studying that the issue, and then another point supporting what they're recommending. I think direct call there is a point at which we offer feedback, I think, and support as a as a part of that process, if I remember correctly. I believe it to you and Ben to decide that. Alright, thank you. So we have. Next is Mill River archeology trail. Let me ask if we need. Do we need like a two or three minute break. I just took one. Sorry. Do we want to kind of figure out kind of what we're, we have a few more agenda items it's 830. Okay, the mill river update and the taken property. Those are just very short items of mine. I just wanted to give a quick discussion. Then let's just, let's just go ahead, because I think we can. We can. Okay, mill river archeology trail. Okay, so just to refresh everybody's memory, memory, trying to figure out how to possibly fund a planning portion of this project in the aim of also being able to fund it under CPA for execution. So this is going to be getting an opinion from town council, is that right on the allowability of funding the project was that in the email that you sent to me then. Yeah, basically our accounting department, they, you know, they're they're really mindful of, you know, audit, auditing and, and just kind of want to do everything by the book so they what they're looking for is an opinion from our town's attorney. This project meets the criteria of historic preservation under CPA we we I think it does, you know, the planning department we all think it does I think the language is clear. There's been similar projects funded by the town and by other towns. Right, right. I think what they just want to have that formalize so actually what I, what I mentioned the email Robin was just that I, you know, I can probably pull from different pieces but what I would would make that easier is just to have like a summary of the project that I can just is all neat and put together already that I can send to the, our attorneys. That's probably, you know, there's been multiple. There's been the CPA application there's the application you put together for the subsequent grant, but if I maybe I can pull from some of that stuff to Yeah, I was going to see if I could finish the draft of the grant application that that would suffice to have a brief summary in there somewhere. Yeah. Okay. And just a reminder that my argument was that this planning portion could be funded under administrative funds with the idea that that anything any preservation efforts that came out of that plan that planning effort would be like a second phase that would go under historic preservation. Does that ring a bell. Yeah, I don't. My recollection is that the conversation with accounting department or specific or Anthony who kind of staffs the CPA committee he he my recollection is that they were saying it's administrative expenses is more for like, you know, legal ads and, you know, or like printing off those banners that say you know this project brought to you by CPA rather than. Right, I had just been going off the do our guidance which actually specifically says this line about the exactly the sort of thing but I think I said that it's been a while I think I sent that email to Nate and yeah to that anyway we can go back and forth. Yeah. And then Anthony and make age and I went and walked the trail a couple weeks ago. And make just sent me an email that Eric would be getting back to her soon with a proposal summary including cost estimates. Ben I just sent you a link to a Google map that I made with. It's not complete but I made with pins on a map the trail so we can really show that to folks. It's going to be fantastic. Yeah it's really it's really neat. It's very exciting. Like pictures or some pictures. Yeah, if you go to the I think we're to the left of the pictures but. That's great. Yeah. Really terrific. Yeah, there's it was really it was really great to walk the site I just I don't I'm trying to pull together the pieces to, you know, it's it's this wonderful task of having a very small amount to write and yet and eating to be very specific. And I'm going to add a little piece and I have, I have photos that I took and I was trying to get them uploaded yesterday and for some reason they took forever to download to my computer so I'll add them as well but So that's where we're sort of stand before we do much more work obviously we want to get the town attorney to give us the thumbs up. So I'm going to add an October deadline for this national preservation trust funds grant application which would be a matching grant. So the CPA funds and that grant application would hold hands. Looks great Robin. Thanks. That old Christmas picture comes from the Jones. Yeah thanks for that. That's okay. No you were there was a great was a wonderful walk. It was. Yeah I think I think it, I think with what's going on in North Amherst with the middle district. With the way this kind of connects different. discrete parts of the town. I think, you know, different kinds of landscapes and settings I think it could be really fantastic. And very, you know, very kind of very Frederick law instead very sort of, you know, gentle kinds of revelation. But what all of this means I think I think it's, I'm very excited. And then I had a question about, while you're, while the attorney is being engaged, could we get also an opinion from them on. This would be really helpful in CPA committee and opinion from them that confirms that we can pay for signage, because the moment you talk about creating something. And the historic preservation area because of the grid that says you can't create everybody says we can't do anything like signage or right and if we can get a final ruling on that to just have for all time that'd be great. Yeah, because what, I mean what about the writer's walk wasn't I guess I was from so long ago was before just was an objective by anybody on CPA so it all depends on who's on CPA but at least we could have that question settled. You can use it as a precedent if you want to. Well, yeah, yeah. Okay, thank you. The day can property potential use of single building historic district or demolition by neglect by law to prevent loss. Right so a while back now a few months back, a friend of mine took me on a walk around this property that I'd never seen before and I had an informal conversation with Jane about it that is a beautiful serious set of buildings. And I just thought it was a fantastic example of what demolition by neglect looks like, because nothing no effort is being made to preserve it and even, you know to cut down the trees or on the perimeter or anything like that. And I thought if the Historical Commission wanted to start to think about how to proactively treat a property like that this would just be a great example I don't know if we would want to go on a site visit just to take a look at it, but Amherst College owns it, and I would imagine that with the lack of care that's going on there right now their intention is probably to demolish it and if their intention is to demolish it and we know that ahead of time, or we could assume that the intention might be there to demolish it then we would want to think about how to act sooner rather than later with either one of those tools obviously demolition by neglect by law is we know a much longer process to create a whole bylaw. And then we were just talking about historic districts. This would be a single building historic district so those are just sort of philosophical ideas with an actual property that I thought we might want to think about. Are those buildings her original house and that sort of thing. Janet taken. Was Arthur taken. Oh that's a different day can I thought it was. Yeah, there's two day properties yeah I don't know I was just looking at them. Yesterday I don't know that the history that well and then then I think I sent you a link to something I found yesterday that there might be a folder at Amherst College with info on the property itself but so I remember when Amherst College bought that house at an auction. And paid. I think this if I remember correctly paid way more for it at auction, then, then the sale price was before. Yeah, that was yeah that was that was Larry Kelly wrote there's a there's a blog post by Larry Kelly on this house and other day can property it's not very much information but he does, he does say that I'm not sure. It's also it is that there's 36 acres of land to with the house so that might have been part of the sale price right. I think the Janet taken house. The day can house that is now the Renaissance Center, right. Okay, that's the humane center. Okay, but it's up by so it's up by the, and it doesn't it doesn't even have a macros entry. You know that could be a. Well, a starting point. Yeah, that could be a place to start because I mean it. Pretty much, I think pretty much anybody can. Or be for any property but it could matter more that the Historical Commission does it. Yeah. Yeah, that'd be a good place to start. Is anybody interested in a site visit. Yeah, I'd be interested. Sure I'd go. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The history of the buildings, the dates or anything. Do we have any of that information? Yeah, there's information about that. Little bit. Yeah. Yeah. Should we set up a commission visit. Or if it isn't. Is it. If it's not an application to us already. Can we do a formal commission visitor? We just be a group of people going. Yeah. Yeah. Talk about it when we're there. Well, but it's not on our agenda as something we have to deliberate on. Okay. We. Gee, I wonder if we need to make. Separate visits. Or, you know, like going to. No, I mean, I think it can. I mean, we can always post it as a meeting if we, if we, if we, if we want. But I, there's, I think there's just no trigger for like. Like it's not an application that we, we have the. The right or the, the, the obligation to do a site visit. It would be something more informal where obviously we would. You know, need to. Tell us permission from Amherst college. Right. A group of disinterested citizens. Look around. Okay. I think you can. Kind of wander over there from the golf course. Yeah, you can. That's how I got there. Accidentally run into each other with. And golf clubs. Okay. I just hear that a single original cat door in the home was left intact in memory of Janet. No, that's a different day. Different day. Property. Yeah, we just established that. Sorry. Arthur, her husband. Sorry. The link. I think I sent you the link of the Larry Cali. Thank you. Mary. No, it didn't, it didn't have a link in it. Right. It's Arthur. It's a different day. Different day. Thank you. Talking cats. I have to go and put some cats to bed. I'm cat sitting there really lovely cats, but that's completely beside the point. During the day. So how. Shall we. Set a date for a. Yeah. And as permission. Someday that's cool and dry. That's over. Thank you. Dream on weekends are best for you, Jane. Apparently how about Saturday? Is that good for people? The Saturday works for me. 24th. Works for me. Are you talking about the 16th or the. 24th. The 24th. You're in August. We're talking July. Talking July, I think. I can't do the 24th. I thought you're talking about this coming Saturday at 17. 17. Well, Jane and I are meeting on the 18th. I don't think she wants to spend the whole weekend with me. Well, I don't know that we would have time. Would we have time to post that as a meeting? Probably not. Yeah. What about the 31st? Okay. I'll be out of town, but, but go for it. If all of you can do it then. Ready. Robin. It will depend, but. I have decided to stop some plans that are in flux. Bring them with you. No. Well, I might, I might not be here, but. If I am, I'll go, but. Okay. What time? Before it gets hot. It's probably going to be hot by then. Yeah, maybe like. Nine or 10. AM. Ben, are you coming with us? July 31st. You don't have to. I know it's the weekend. Jane and Heady and I can go and do a movie of our being there for you. We can take some pictures and photos. Right. You can share them with us. Yeah. Okay. So how do you, that's good for you. Yeah. Nine o'clock would be good. Okay. What's the address? Hard to find. You can't see it from the road. Oh, great. Yeah. I think it's three, three 55 South pleasant street. And it's just north of the golf club on the same side of the golf course. Yeah. Yeah. Amherst golf club. So if we park. And walk towards the golf. Course club, we would just kind of veer off in the trees. I think there's a drive, right? So you go up the, if you were, if you're walking north and you turn to left to go into the drive to the golf course, don't turn there. I think it's the next drive. Is that right? Yeah. Okay. So if you walk up the drive, eventually you'll see buildings ahead. Yeah, I think that's right. Yeah. Yeah. What do you mean you think you were just there? No, I was in the one is there was snow. Oh, I had to get snow in my. Okay, we'll find it. We're in traffic. Yeah. And then we need to talk about our next meeting. Next, just a commission meeting. Yeah. Should we try to meet between the planning board and. Yeah. What would that be August between August 4th and August. 23rd. 23rd. Yeah. Yeah. So maybe the week of the ninth or the 16th. I'm not going to be able to do Wednesdays during that period of time, but I could do Mondays. I could probably do Thursdays. I can do Mondays or Thursdays. Yep. Monday or Thursday. So the ninth or the 12th. The ninth or the 16th. Or the ninth or the ninth or the 12th run a gear for the nine. Yeah, then we have backup dates. Yep. And our, and the planning board meeting is fresh in our minds. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Would it be possible to. Well, I might be just a tad late for 630. But I'll be there. I'll be there. I'll be there. I'll be there. I'll be there. Is the following Monday easier for you, Jen? No, it's a kind of standing thing. I have on Mondays that runs till six. And while it was virtual, it was easy, but now it's going to be in person. So Thursday. Is Thursday better for you? We could just put it on the. Yeah. That's tough. Okay. Okay. Thank you. I don't have to start the meeting. Yeah. I can do it earlier. On Thursdays. If that is better for anyone. Earlier is fine for me. It doesn't matter. Earlier on that. Yeah. Yeah. You'd rather wouldn't you bat your days off? Yeah. What about 30? 530. That works. I could for you, Pat. That works for me. Thank you. Yeah. I can do it earlier on Thursdays if that is better for anyone. Okay. Thank you. Great. It won't be that late. Yeah. August 12th at 530. You'll have to remind us when you send the agenda out that it's at 530. Yeah. And on a Thursday. Okay. So given that, shall we. Bounce future agenda items and projects to that. Meeting. Yeah. Yeah. I just, I thought there was maybe a chance we'd have time at the, at this meeting because we didn't have any demo applications to just kind of talk about. Future agenda items and projects coming up, but. Well, there was a chance. Yes. There was a chance. I apologize for asking all those day one questions. But at the farm, I, I, you know, being. I know it's been a much longer history than I've been involved in. Yeah, they've actually come. They've come to the historical commission quite a number of times. Often just to kind of tell us what they're thinking and get our feedback. Oh, nice. Nice. Yeah. Because that seems, I mean, even though that they are dealing with a building that is. Very neglected, it's not. It's not really that they've intentionally neglected. I'm sort of trying to wrestle with this, this, this issue myself right now. And, you know, but it's nice when people come and say, look, we've got this problem and we've got these priorities and we're trying to do this. And then with that, and you know, it seems to me they're thinking in a very holistic way about what they've got, what their resources are. So I appreciate that a lot. And they felt a good relationship with us over the past five, six years. Yeah, they're really an exceptional group. Well, public comment is there. There are no members of the public. Attending. Yeah, I was the only unanticipated item I was going to mention is, I think. Before, I think maybe in like May or something, I had talked about setting up a time for commission members to look at the Civil War tablets. And then I, and then we were like, oh, well, some of you might be going to the Juneteenth event. You'll see them there. I'm not sure who ended up going, but I can still, we can still find a time to, to do that. Because I think, and I think the room is still set up as an example. I always thought that we could have an exhibit with the materials from the Juneteenth event. I, I was not able to attend. Unfortunately, but, um, so I. Could, uh, there were the buildings closed to the public, but we could arrange a time for the. Commission to walk through there. That's something we wanted. Set talk about now or. Um, I don't know. Um, I don't know. Um, I don't think, uh, thought of taking the exhibit down or moving the tablets elsewhere in the near future. The tablets aren't going anywhere anytime soon. Um, and, uh, I imagine there's no reason to take the exhibit material down. So it's more just, you know, I know we, the commission was involved in a lot of the discussions for many, many, many years and. Uh, but no, I don't think there's urgency to it, except for just. Um, I don't know, but that, it can wait. But I'd like to see them, but the next. Couple months are, are. Complicated for scheduling. So. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe better. Okay. For me anyway, I'm just speaking for myself. Yeah. Well, thank you for remembering that. And. You know, it's fine for us to keep that. On the agenda until we. Actually set a date. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I move we adjourned. Thank you. I think, uh, that's not debatable. So. Well, we have to open it for discussion. No, we don't. All in favor. Hi. Hi. Have a good night everyone. Thank you. Good night. Thank you very much.