 The appointed hour is six o'clock having been reached. I call this meeting of the Amherst Zoning Board of Appeals to order. My name is Steve Judge. As ZDA Chair, I want to welcome everyone to this meeting. Pursuant to Chapter 20 of the Acts of 2021 and extended by Chapter 22 of the Acts of 2022, this meeting will be conducted via remote means. Members of the public who wish to access this meeting may do so via Zoom or by telephone. 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. Additionally, the meetings are recorded and may be viewed via the town of Amherst's YouTube channel and its ZDA web page. In accordance with the provisions of Massachusetts General Laws, Chapter 48, and Article 10, the Special Permit Granting Authority of the Amherst Zoning By-law. Hold on. Marine, you just changed my screen. Oh. Just a second. I've got to get my side, but get it back up. You're going to excuse me. So sorry. That's all right. I'll get it back up. I didn't realize. I wasn't paying attention. Sorry. That's all right. Let's see. In accordance with the provisions of Massachusetts General Laws, Chapter 48, and Article 10 of the Special Permit Granting Authority, the Amherst Zoning By-law, this public meeting has been duly advertised and notice there have been posted and mailed to parties at interest. We'll begin with a roll call of the ZDA members in panel for tonight's meeting. I'm present, but I'm not on the panel until the next two items. Mr. Maxfield? Here. Mr. Meadows? Here. Ms. Parks? Here. Mr. Gilbert? Here. Ms. Marshall? Here. Also attending tonight is Marine Pollock Planner. And, Maureen, do we have anybody else in town that's going to appear tonight? Not at the moment. The building commissioner may be joining us in a little bit, depending on the schedule. The Zoning Board of Appeals is a quasi-judicial body that operates under the authority of Chapter 48 of the General Laws of the Commonwealth for the purpose of promoting the health, safety, and convenience, and the general welfare of the inhabitants of the town of Amherst. One of the most important elements of the Amazonian bylaw is Section 10.38. Specific findings from this section must be made for all of our decisions. All hearings and meetings are open to the public and recorded by town staff. The procedure is as follows. The petitioner presents the application to the board during the hearing, after which the board will ask questions for clarification and additional information. After the board has completed its questions, the board will seek public input. The public speaks with the permission of the chair. If a member of the public wishes to speak, they should so indicate by using the raised hand function on their screen. The chair with the assistance of the staff will call upon the people wishing to speak. When you are recognized, provide your name and address to the board for the record. All questions and comments must be addressed to the board. The board will normally hold public hearings where information about the project and input from the public is gathered, followed by public meetings for each. The public meeting portion is where the board deliberates and is generally not an opportunity for public comment. If the board feels it has enough information and time, it will decide upon the applications tonight. Each petition is heard by the board as distinct and evaluated on its own merits and the board is not ruled by precedent. Statutorily, for a special permit, the board has 90 days from the close of the hearing to file the decision. For a variance, the board has 100 days from the date of filing to file its decision. No decision is final until the written decision is signed by the sitting board members and is filed with the town clerk's office. Once the decision is filed with the town clerk, there's a 20-day appeal period for an agreed party to contest the decision with the relevant judicial body and superior court. After the appeal period, the permit must be recorded at the registered deeds to take effect. Tonight's agenda is public hearing ZBA FY 2020-23-05, Otello Co. Inc. from Richard Pasciutto requests a special permit to modify a previously approved special permit ZBA FY 1964-32 in ZBA FY 1981-46 to incorporate a new site plan and to allow the construction of fiber telecommunications cabinets as a complementary principal use to the existing residential use under sections 3.01, 3.340.1, and 10.38 of the zoning bylaw, located at 615 Main Street, mapped by the 14B-242, general residence RG and commercial COM zoning districts. Members sitting for this panel are Mr. Maxfield as the chair, Ms. Parks, Mr. Meadows, Mr. Gilbert, and Ms. Marshall. Next order of business is ZBA FY 2023-04, Redwood Construction, Inc. requests a special permit to modify the previously approved special permit ZBA FY 2018-21 for the proposed modifications to conditions 1, 6, 11, 12, 19, Commission 4, 21, 22, 23, 25, 28, among possible others as they relate to the proposed changes to the site plan, site amenities, building plans and management plan under section 10.33 and 10.38 of the zoning bylaw, located at Renew Amherst, 266 East Hadley Road, map 16D, parcel 13, neighborhood residence RN zoning district. This is continued from our September 8th hearing. Members sitting for this are myself, Ms. Parks, Mr. Maxfield, Ms. Marshall, and Mr. Gilbert. And ZBA FY 2023-06, Loomis Communities, Inc. requests a special permit to modify the previously approved special permit ZBA FY 1985-04, ZBA FY 1988-45, and ZBA FY 1990-8, with the expansion of an existing planned unit residential development, or PERD, with a proposed construction of the three additional, three building additions, including a pool pavilion, meeting room and closed atrium, and a three-story residential addition with nine new multifamily dwellings. And for amending conditions 6, 9, and 10, under ZBA FY 1990-8, under Article 7 and sections 4.4, 10.33, 10.38 of the Zoning By-law, located at Applewood, one Spencer Drive, Mach 25A, parcel 43, Outline Residence RO and PERD overlay zoning districts. Members sitting on this panel and myself, Ms. Parks, Mr. Meadows, Mr. Gilbert, and Mr. Maxfield. Following that is a time period for general public comment on matters not before the board tonight, and other business not anticipated within the last 48 hours. And with that, I'll turn it over to Mr. Maxfield to chair the first panel and the first application. There you go, Dylan. Thank you, Mr. Judge. All right, who do we have representing the applicant tonight? Maureen, you're muted. Oh, thank you. We have Richard in attendance. He's representing the applicant. Let me, I need to make him a, I'm trying to promote you as a panelist, Richard. You might have to press a button. Good evening. Can you hear me? Well, we can. Before we get started, does anybody have any disclosures that they need to make? Hearing none, go ahead if you'd like to go ahead. And we're actually before we get started with that, I want to mention that we did the site visit yesterday on the 21st. At that site visit, we viewed the location where it was going to be, showed the dimensions roughly look like. And we're just giving kind of a brief overview of the project. If you want to go ahead, there's anything else anybody wants to add to that? If not, we can go ahead and start the presentation. And would you like to mention, sorry to interrupt, would you like to just to mention the submissions that I don't know if you have that list in front of you? I'm looking here just a moment. So I have the applicant submissions here. Is that what we're talking about, Maureen? Yep, and then this. Yep, exactly. Good, we have the ZBA FY2023-05 special permit application, received a management plan, an easement sketch, a plan set prepared by Centerline Engineering Services dated September 20th, 2022, which includes the title sheet, the site plan, the compound plan, the equipment plan, details, and then another list of details. We have the written narrative for 60, or 615 Main Street special permit application for hotel co-fiber installation, sample easement photograph, received figure one custom dual bay enclosure, 300 by 225, figure two, a fence stock photo, figure three, the propane tank detail. And I received a specification sheet off the Tech Indoor Local Convergence Cabinet generation three series, email from Richard Pasciuto, I don't know if I'm saying that right, apologies, got it. That's dated August 22nd, 2022, and the letter of intent and authorization. Do we need to run to the staff submissions as well, Maureen? No, I think that's fine. Right. I guess the one staff submission of importance would be comments from the wetland administrator dated today, September 22nd, and then the special permit decisions from 1964-32 in 1981-46. All right, thank you. Was that in mind? Yeah, go ahead and get started. Good evening, Chair, members of the board. My name is Richard Pasciuto, I represent Hotel Co-Fiber or Go Net Speed. Hotel Co-Fiber, for the sake of the set of the plans, is a fiber provider that's providing high-speed fiber access to the town of Amherst, Massachusetts, similar to Comcast and Fios and other high-speed providers. They're interested in bringing some competition to the market and offering services to not only the residents of 615 Main Street, but the residents of Amherst overall. We identified as a part of the process areas where Hotel Co has access to existing overhead fiber lines. And in this case, the reason 615 Main Street was of a particular interest is, Hotel Co has access to fiber lines that run on Main Street and College Street or College Road. And the goal is to be able to attach to those fiber lines, which they have lease rights to install equipment and then become a third-party provider of internet service or fiber service to the town. So my job as a site acquisition agent for Hotel Co is to go out, find those locations that best suit their design, determine the zoning requirement, perimeter requirement, completed design, get a lease with the underlying landlord and develop a site. The site itself is a 20 by 20 foot chain link Fenton area. It's cleared, cleaned, finished with fabric and stone vent weeds from coming up. This installation here is gonna be improved with two pads for cabinets, little bit bigger than a college dorm refrigerator, a generator should Amherst lose power and propane backup. We would have hooked up to direct gas but there's no direct gas available now in the town of Amherst. We located a spot on the property at 16 Main Street. We submitted a set of plans for review. There was a concern from your conservation commission agent, Aaron Jakes, that we might be close to a established wetlands that was identified back in 2019. We redesigned the site and moved it to be 132 feet away from the wetlands to the south, 127 feet away from the wetlands to the north and between on existing right away on private property and would otherwise be considered a relatively highly vegetated area. I was with the board yesterday when I say vegetation it's more like four foot stands of ragweed, thistle and bramble and it's relatively dense. So the idea would be to wait a located equipment so that it's almost invisible to residents and people driving by. The way the site is designed is we're cut into this dense area of weeds. We install a six foot chain link fence surrounding the 20 by 24 compound. We finish it and we hook up to our fiber lines and we become a provider to the town. We're on a site that was originally permitted for a multi-use facility as an apartment complex. There's an existing gate valve in a closed in area that we originally had located, but we've since moved and our current location I think satisfies the setback requirements from side yard, front yard and wetlands. I got an email later earlier this afternoon saying that Ms. Jakes was happy with the design we provided because we kind of really jockeyed the site to best accommodate everyone's concerns and needs. If you see the plan that's up in front of you now you'll see that there's two maple trees and then between two maple trees is the edge of the mowed area. And when they say mowed on the right-hand side is grass. I mean, very nice lawn. Right at that edge of that line is really dense vegetation. So we're gonna be installing that 20 by 20 foot stone finished area inside that side yard and I think that kind of just, it's a relatively clean, simple installation and I think that's all you have to, that's it for me. Thank you. With that, I guess we can go into questions here from the panel. My first question here would be the maple tree that's right in front of that. Is that staying or is that going to be removed? It looked like it and seeing these plans it looks like both of those maple trees are staying. Is that the idea? Both trees will stay. We'll most likely just do a stone access way to the swing gates. All we need is an access for a truck with a small boom to drop the equipment. And then, cause there's no overhead lines that's gonna be installed. There's no wires, there's no tower. We don't need a great deal of heightened access. So in speaking with Otelko, they can easily get into the site, drop the cabinets and not mess with the trees. And then my second question here is what is the, so it's gonna be a kind of gravel rock pathway getting there. What is going to be the surface inside that fence area? So we're going to cut and clear and grub down probably six inches. Remove all the seed and base. Refill with stone. Well cover with the cross section there. Thanks very much, Muin. There's gonna be a compacted grade. Then we'll be putting in a fabric to prevent weeds from coming up. And then stone, the two, I'm sorry, the four slabs for the equipment. And it should be extremely low maintenance. If you recall on the property, there is a gate valve to the south of our installation with a similar installation. And then two, which I understand had been gravel areas installed by Aspen Chase for having had provided pods in storage areas at some point when people are moving in and out. I think they use that area to put a pod, utility storage on grid. Also stone, also very unweeded, very well kept. And it's going to be in similar nature. So when you look from the access way to the fence, there'll be a gravel drive on previous material. Two swing gates, you open the swing gates to that entire area will be clean and neat with stone. And then my last question, I'm going to open it up to the rest of the board here. The devices in there, what kind of noise would they make? Would it be like an electric buzzing? Would there be no noise? Would it be in something? From the two cabs themselves, there are two small cooling fans which will provide no noise outside the lease area. It would be like installing similar to a dorm refrigerator and only when they overheat will a small fan come on. No air conditioning, just regular circulated air. The only real generating, anything that's going to generate noise would be the propane generator, which is a standard commercial generator, but only to power up those two cabinets. I'm not trying to power up the entire complex. So, and it's fueled by propane which is also very quiet. So, this will be the probably the least noise providing installation on the property should power to go out. There is going to be an average of a monthly test of that generator. They'll come out, test will actually test remotely just to make sure that it fires up and fueled. But like most installations is going to be batteries in the cabinets that'll last for eight hours of a typical shutdown and then a typical outage, then it should extend past that the generator will fire up and power the cabinets. Thank you. I'm going to go ahead, open this up, Ms. Marshall. Thank you. Oops, all right. So I don't see the plan anymore, that's okay. You've mentioned another piece of equipment, somebody else's on the site, a gate valve I think. I just don't know what that is. What is that? If you expand the plan out a little bit and look a little bit south, I think there's a gate station which typically takes a high pressure gas line and converts it into a low pressure gas line which exists existing on the property prior to our installation. I'm not sure when it was installed, but we had identified that as a, so we consider ourselves to be a quasi utility. And when you see a utility use on a property you kind of want to snuggle up to the next which would say utility and utility, it usually makes it better for residents to know that there's two utilities. But we didn't, that's part, I'm not sure how the gas company got that in there. That was installed when, prior to us. Sure, okay, thank you. And my other question, so your plan is to basically hide this. Yes. In the weeds, they're very beautiful actually. I think it's quite colorful. But since I understand that you're only leasing this 20 by 20 area, do you have an agreement with Aspen to not mow? You're like not mow down all those weeds and then expose this to be. No, no, so with Aspen, so we had our original agreement with Aspen to install right next to their unit which was in a lawn area. And we'll work with Aspen because we only have leased a 20 by 20 foot area. There's no requirement to go beyond 20 by 20 foot. And the idea would be to cut it as tight to 20 by 20 foot as possible because typically in a situation like this, the board might require me to put abravities around the side of it, which we would have done. But in this case, I have a six foot chain link fence and that barrier, and you could see when we were out there, it was very dense. It was very, very organized. And if you just cut in 20 feet on either side, that would be the perfect surround for a six foot chain link fence. I agree, my concern is whether you don't have control over that vegetation. So has Aspen agreed not to mow it down? No, well, you're right, A, we don't have control of that vegetation. We only have control of our 20 by 20 foot area. I don't think Aspen Chase is gonna change the entire topography of that property now to push all those weeds back to accommodate us. That would be a huge expense for them to undertake. And I'm not interested in clear cutting that barrier. It is, when you look at it from the road, it is one beautiful clear line of growth. And I think it's been maintained like that. So I don't think Aspen Chase has the intention to cut that down. I think it's part of the feature of the property. Okay, thank you. You're welcome, thank you. Questions from other members? All right. Seeing none, we'll go ahead and we can open this up to questions from members of the public. If we do that, if you have any questions, please go ahead and use the raised hand function. We'll go ahead and call on you. We'll have a chance to speak. Please address your comments directly to the board. And let's see, do we have anyone with public comment on this? Not seeing any? All right. Seeing none, we can move on past that. Do we wanna go ahead and worry? Sorry, procedurally we closed the public hearing and moved to a public meeting. Is that correct? No, you could actually just not need to make a motion go into your deliberation period, but keep the public hearing open in case more information is requested or you'd like to seek input from the public. Got it. All right, well with that in mind, I'll say kind of looking at this project, as far as things as we're concerned about here, I think it's pretty straightforward. Building of the 20 by 20 on this lot here, this doesn't exceed their lot coverage. Am I correct about that Maureen? I don't think I saw anything about that, but they have a lot of coverage to do this. They do. This is a very minor 20 by 20 area and then plus the little new gravel access strip. And it's been determined by inspection services that there is plenty of, they don't exceed the lot coverage for this property. Excellent. All right, in that case, I guess we can go on to conditions and then start reviewing for specific findings here. Am I correct about that Maureen? Yeah, so if the board would like to go through the sections, we could start with section 3.01. And I can pull up some of my notes. So unfortunately I wasn't able to produce a project application report for this proposal here tonight, but I do have some key notes here. I'll let you run with the show, but the first section that you could look at is under section 3.01, the development or operation on a single lot of more than one dwelling or more than one of the principle uses described in section 3.3 is expressly prohibited except where the principle uses are clearly complementary to each other or whether otherwise provided by this by-law. Yeah, and I think that definitely meets that threshold. We already have utilities there on that lot allowed in the special permit. And then we have, is it 3.3401, right? Yes, so the use that's being proposed here under this application would be considered under 3.340.1, which includes communication use excluding any office storage or repair use, unless otherwise allowed by the regulations of the district. And so the proposed use, which is a fiber telecommunication is a use permitted by special permit by the ZBA pursuant to the section 3.340.1 and 10.38 of the zoning by-law. And then do we have anything else from 3.3 here? It's all in the project. Yeah. And so just to recap about, you know, there's an existing principle use on the property, which is Aspen Chase Apartments, which has been there for many decades and has been approved by the ZBA. Many decades ago. And so the applicant is proposing a construction of a fiber telecommunication cabinet as a secondary principle use on this property. And so the board needs to, you know, determine whether it's complementary to one another in that. So as you said, Dylan, that, you know, there are utility systems on the property. There's the utility towers along the property as well. And, you know, the tenants of this property will most likely benefit from the installation of this fiber optic telecommunication because it'll provide faster internet and all that kind of stuff. Yeah, I believe that we can make that finding that this is a complementary use that is providing utility that will be utilized on this property and beyond. Then we have, is there anything else from section 3 or can we move to 10.38? You can move on, but before you get, oh yeah, actually we can, yeah, let's move on to 10.38. Okay, see everything else there, we need the dimensional requirements. Correct, yep. Yep, all right. Then we'll go on to 10.38. 10.380 and 381, a proposal suitably located in the neighborhood in which it's proposed. We have a review here, the applicant is proposing fiber telecommunication cabinets, principle use. I believe we can make that finding as well for 3.382, 383, 385 and 387. This proposal provides the six foot high fence around the cabinets. The applicant is not proposing any landscape or lighting, so I don't think we have to worry about that. Ms. Marshall? Yeah, I just wanted to make it explicit really just for the benefit of anyone listening or watching this that the applicant is not building a structure, it's not a building, there's no roof, it's just four pieces of relatively small equipment inside a fence. Yes. Thank you. And then if I'm concerned about the noise, and then we don't have any concerns, I think yeah, as the applicant has stated, the screening there provided by that vegetation, we think that that's adequate. I think so anyways, do you agree, Ms. Marshall, on the board? All right, wonderful. Yes. Great talk. 0.384, adequate appropriate facilities will be provided for the proper operation of proposed use. I find that utility services are found to be adequate for the operation of the existing and proposed use. So 0.10.386, proposal ensures that in its conformance with the parking and signage regulations, articles seven and eight respectively. So the applicant proposes the following for the gravel access drive, prepare the subgrade and compact the gravel base with eight inch depth, appropriate grating and drainage with a four inch compacted process aggregates. Section 7.101 requires minimum 12 and all this. Yeah, and there's no signage proposed here. We'll move on to 10 point, 10, go ahead. If I may. So section 7.101 requires that a minimum total of 12 inch depth be provided for grating and drainage. And so the applicant is only providing a subgrade with the compacted gravel base of eight inch depth. So it really should be a minimum of 12 inches, not eight. So technically the board would need to grant the proposal waiver from that depth amount, or you may wish to ask the applicant to update its plans in order to meet this section. I mean, would it be the building inspectors or inspecting services consider on this one is the one that's going to be provided or is it something that they believe is necessary? Because I think for the water runoff, I think they would have a better idea of what would be best in this project than I would, is this something that we should hold off on? Rob, do you want to weigh in here? Sure, the bylaws standard design standard requires a 12 inch minimum for the base and then a two inch finished material. But I think for the such a limited amount of use that this driveway would get, I think as long as the base materials are appropriate, the subgrade materials are appropriate for when they start building that eight inch base from, it should be fine. So I don't have any concerns with a waiver being granted. And I think we have the opportunity to adjust that if we see something in the field with the soils conditions that would suggest something better be done. All right, and then if we want to go ahead and improve this section and grant that waiver, we want to include a condition that that would need to be approved by your department or would we want to, or is that that's something that's automatically going to be done? I think it'd be appropriate to include in the condition that either inspection be done prior to placing the gravel material or we receive a some sort of letter or notice from the engineer for the applicant who would have conducted that type of inspection either way would be fine. All right, yeah, I want to include a condition and that the describe access drive that the material be approved by our inspection services so we'll go ahead and move on to 10.387 the proposal provides convenient and safe vehicular and pedestrian movement within the site and in relation to adoration streets, property and improvements, the special permitting granting authority deems the proposal likely to have significant adverse impact on traffic patterns. It shall be permitted to require a traffic impact report and the proposed job comply with sections 11.2437 with bylaw, yeah, safe vehicular and pedestrian movement is found on the site, 10.388 Spinding is not applicable and 10.389 finding is not applicable as well as 10.390, 10.391 also not applicable to this project we'll move on to 10.392. This proposal provides adequate landscape including the screening of adjacent residential units providing street trees, landscape violence parking lot, non-residential units and joins the residential district. I'm not gonna go through it, I'm gonna go we've already talked about this here and the board needs to determine whether adequate landscaping including screening of adjacent residential units is provided, we've talked about this we've determined that the vegetation that is there provides that as well as the fence screening it from the front of the road we'll move on to 10.393, lighting is not proposed so this is not applicable to this project. Then 10.394, proposal avoids to the extent feasible impact on steep slopes, blood plains scenic views, grade changes and wetlands there are no wetland resources associated with buffer within the hundred feet of the project limit work as we determined in the moving of that. 10.395, 10.396 neither are applicable to this project 10.397, approval provides adequate recreational facilities open space and amenities for the proposed use that site sufficient open space is located on the site. And then lastly, we have 10.398 proposal is in harmony with the general purpose and intent of this bylaw and the goals of the master plan. And then I think, yeah, board needs to determine whether proposal meets the applicable zoning bylaw section including 3.0, 3.340, 0.1 and 10.30 not 10.38 and possibly 7.9 and you reviewed 7.9, Maureen, we talked about that. Yeah, that was the waiver request regarding the access wrote the gravel access strip for under section 7.101. All right, and then for moving to grant the waiver and make findings and include the condition we wanna just have all three of those in a proposal am I correct about that Maureen? Yeah, so we do have staff has created possible conditions for the board's approval of this special permit. So if you would like to review those. Sure, let's go ahead and work through those. Shall be built and maintained according to the approved plans application package any changing shall be reviewed by the building commissioner to determine if submission to the zoning board of appeals is necessary said changes may be reviewed and or approved by the zoning board of appeals in a public meeting or if the changes are significant up said changes shall require a formal modification of the permit and or condition. The approved plans include ZVA FY 2023-05 special permit application, the management plan the easement sketch, the plan set prepared by Centerline Engineering Services dated September 20th, 2022. Then we have the title sheet, site plan, compound plan, equipment plan, details, the details again. And then we have the written narrative for 65 Main Street, we have the... Dylan, if you may, I can interrupt you. So these were the submissions that you stated at the beginning of this public meeting. It feels redundant going through them again. So you could just say as submitted. As submitted prior. Perfect. Yeah, there you go. You can save yourself your voice a little bit. Excellent. All right, so before the issuance of any building permits the applicant shall obtain all necessary permits from the Amherst Department of Public Works. Tree protection of the two existing maple trees nearest to the proposed cabinet shall be in place prior concerning construction in the event that either of these two maple trees nearest to the proposed cabinet are damaged or die as a result of the construction under this permit the applicant shall replace the said tree. The special permit shall expire within two years of date that this is filed with the town clerk unless it has been both recorded at the registry of deeds and substantial construction or use has commenced within that two year period of time. And then that last condition, if you wanna include that in there Maureen for condition six here, that gravel driveway that we... Be inspected. Be approved by inspection services. Yep. All right. I'll add that in. Any other conditions from any other board members? If not, then I would entertain a motion that we make the special findings to approve with conditions and that we also grant a waiver for the requirements under 7.9. Am I correct about that Maureen? That's everything we need. Right. Do I have such a motion? So moved. Thank you. We have a motion. Do I have a second? Second. All right. Motion and a second. I'll go ahead and do a roll call vote. Chair votes aye. Mr. Meadows? Aye. Ms. Parks? Aye. Ms. Marshall? Aye. Mr. Gilbert? Aye. All right. Motion passes five to zero. Special permit is approved with conditions. Thank you so much for coming on in. Folks, good luck. Have a great evening. Thank you much everyone of my final. All right. With that, I'll go ahead and pass it back over to Mr. Judge. Steve, are you talking? You're muted. I'm mute. So what I said was that we're moving to the second item, which was ZBA FY 2023, Redwood Construction Inc requesting a special permit to modify the previously approved special permit ZBA FY 2018-21 for the proposed modifications to conditions one, six, 11, 12, 19, condition four, 21, 22, 23, 25, 28, among possible others. As they relate to the proposed changes to the site plan, site amenities, building plans and management plan under section 10.33 and 10.38 of the zoning bylaw located at Renew Amherst, 266 East Havley Road, map 16D, parcel 13, neighborhood residents RN zoning district. This has continued from our September 8th meeting. What I'd like to do is go through the submissions that we have received since that time and then to discuss each of the, we'll go through the submissions we've seen at that time. Then I'd like to specifically deal with the response to the requests that we had to the applicant run through his responses and then open it up for additional questions. And then we can continue to look at conditions before we go back to findings. So with that is our plan. Let me just run through the new submissions that we've received since our last meeting. We have an email from Mr. White dated September 15th, the list of our requests, his response to the list of our requests dated November 8th, plan set, LC 200 to 202 dated September 14th, which includes planting snow, snow storage plans, management plan and addendum updated September 15th, an email from Tyler White dated September 15th, a building plan set prepared by O'Sullivan Architects, the first floor, second floor and third floor and bicycle rack specification sheets. Additional town staff submissions include a project application report dated September 21st, ZBA requests from us on the public hearing follow up, email exchange between the building inspector, Edmund Smith and planner, Marine Pollock dated between September 9th and September 12th, which includes six attachments, email between the police captain, Gabriel Tang and planner Pollock dated September 9th through September 14th attachments as well to that. Email from, we received today an email from Mr. Mark Satterfield. We have to note that as we did before that the applicants waiver requests for plans and submissions include lighting site and traffic impact statements. So what I'd like to do, unless there's anybody who has any questions, what I'd like to do is run through the applicant's response to our request from the last meeting. And so let me start off with you, Mr. White. I'm assuming you're gonna speak for the applicant. That is correct. And there's two others who for my team will be presenting as well. Rachel Window looks like she was just promoted. And then David O'Sullivan should be on there. Is he here, Marine? Carlos Yettor, engineer was planning on being here, but he had a medical procedure and is unable to make it tonight. So he's recovered. Okay, so the first request we had was, so let's get each of those names down for the record and then we won't have to interrupt again. So Mr. White, give us your name and address for the record. Sure. Tyler White, 2082, Michelson Drive, Irvine, California. Great. And is it Rachel? Name and address for the record, please. Hello, my name is Rachel Window and my address is the same. It's 2082, Michelson Drive. And Mr. O'Sullivan. David O'Sullivan, O'Sullivan Architects, 606 Main Street, Reading Mass. Great, thank you. So the first request we had was for tenant demographics. Your response is that you're not legally prohibited from collecting that information. And so therefore you are unable to reprite us with the requested demographics. What we asked for were how many units had children under age 18 at the meeting. I think it was one of your team suggested that about 35% of the units contained families which isn't the same as having children. You have a family of two adults. But the discussion was about children. I'm unaware of any legal impediment to you telling us how many kids are on your property. So explain that to me. I can have Rachel weigh in. Per my discussion, we have a separate property management group. And when I requested this information that was the response that I received is that they were not able to request information on the minors that reside within the complex. Rachel, is there any other information that you can provide on that issue? Thank you so much, Tyler. No, there's no other additional information. That is correct. And speaking with our local legal counsel since children are not considered to be part of the household and aren't considered in the technical head of the household count or occupant count in the Amherst, excuse me, the town laws that I've seen and what the lawyer had seen. We don't have that information. We don't collect minor children information in part of our leasing process. So while we would love to provide it, I just don't simply have that information since we're not permitted to collect it. Mr. Mora, does that comport with your understanding of Amherst law? Well, I don't think it's a matter of Amherst law. It sounds like what we're being told is that the applicant doesn't have that information. I have no idea what to suggest at that point if they're telling us that they don't have that information. I think it's pretty standard typical information available through census collection data. There's probably other ways to get it. The applicant certainly could have made an effort to try to get it from the census information or school department or something. I think the request here from what I understand is that the board had asked for a count of number of units that would have school age children residing there that's expected to be a pretty rough estimate of the number of minors that are living there. We're not looking for any specific information about children. So I think it was, I wasn't at the earlier meeting, so I'm not sure what the purpose of the session was, but it seems like it's a pretty legitimate request and could be responded to. And I think, if I may respond, I think the issue is we can provide an estimate and that was provided last week. Well, that was a guess, Mr. White, that was a guess. That was by somebody who doesn't. Correct, it was a guess. It was an estimate and in order to provide the exact data that was requested, our council is telling us was, in order to provide that exact information that we were not able to provide. So we can certainly provide estimates, but exact data is what we do not have. So Mr. White, what I would like to see, I'd like to know if the estimate by your, who was the guy that was on that last week? I wanna make sure I get his name right. Mario Martinez. Mario, so if the estimate by Mr. Martinez was wrong, I'd like to know that. So what I would like you to do is talk to your local management people, ask them what their estimate is for the number of households that have children under the age of 18, number of units that have children of the age of 18. That's 35%, that's great. If it's 20 or 40 or 50, it does relate to the changes to the recreational material, to the amenities that are being provided, that's the reason we're interested in the information. Okay, we're happy to confirm that estimate. Well, but you will ask, okay, you'll get that information from on-site people, I would suspect, is that right? Correct. Okay. The second- Considering that you're going to reach out to your local property management company that have an understanding of this property, the tenants, the amenities that you provide, is it reasonable to ask for an actual count, not an estimate? So it's a real data, a real factual information than an estimate. Rachel, would you mind weighing in? Yeah, absolutely. I'm actually local, so my office is technically out of the corporate office in California, but I actually live just up the road in New Hampshire. So I can definitely get that information probably this week for you, and with a confident number that I think you guys will feel confident in as well. So it'd be an accurate number, not an estimate. You got it, absolutely. Okay, all right. So we're looking for an accurate number on the number of units that have school-aged children under 18 years of age. Thank you. The second is community gardens. We asked to consider keeping one of two proposed community gardens for tenant use and to get your response to that. And you agreed to keep one of two proposed community gardens. You have a site plan that shows a possible position of that or placement of that community garden. One of the things that I have since discovered is that there are groups that... One of the things that your folks said at the meeting was that you don't know if it was gonna be used and that you'd be kind of ridiculous to set aside this community garden and not have it used. And maybe tenants wouldn't like it or they wouldn't know about how to use it. So there are groups around that help people, especially multifamily developments to manage, use community gardens. Now, would you be willing to work with a group such as Healthy Hampshire, which is a group that I've seen on their website, help to work with them in trying to formulate a program that not only introduces people with community gardens but helps them manage it? Sure, we'd be happy to reach out and to connect with that group. So we might... So would you be... I think we might condition, place a condition on the extension of the timeframe on your application to require you to meet with the Healthy Hampshire or to meet with some local agency that does this kind of work. Sure. What's the size? Can you tell us what the size of your plot is going to be? I don't remember there being a size on a number of foot feet or it's just as a red line. What's the size that you expect it to be, do you know? Do you have some things... Are you talking about the individual plots within the community garden or the community garden? The community garden itself. I don't have that number off hand. That would have been a question for Carlos. Who's not able to make it, I can certainly provide that information after this meeting. Okay, size of garden. All right. Any questions from board members on that item? That response? All right. Mr. Judge? Yes, Ms. Marshall. Yeah, thank you. Maybe Maureen can correct me if I'm wrong. I think the town of Amherst itself has some community gardens and maybe it's the sustainability coordinator or somebody in conservation. I mean, I think the town has some expertise in this. I could be wrong, right? There is... You know, to be honest, I wish I knew more information. I know Stephanie Chickarelli, who is our director of our sustainability department, does work with the Agricultural Commission and does have connections with food justice and food security programs and whatnot, but I don't know the particulars of town staff's involvement with providing guidance on community gardens or programming or how to go about implementing a community garden. I do know that the town of Amherst does work in partner with Healthy Hampshire or it was called... Yeah, Healthy Hampshire. It was at the nonprofit that Steve had mentioned. And so... But I can certainly give Tyler, Stephanie, Chickarelli's contact information to talk to, to see if there's additional resources through the town, but I don't have the particular information on that right now. I think I was heard that the town is even... recently made or will make some new community gardens over near the Fort River School, I think. So... There must be some people in town who know about this. So there are additional resources available to the applicant to help manage and encourage the use of community farms if that's, and gardens if that's something that the tenants desire, both town and as well as nonprofits. So that's good to know. Thank you. Any other questions regarding the gardens? The next response was on bicycle racks. You agreed to put up 11 bicycle racks and additional 11 bicycle racks in addition to the two that are already there, so a total of 13. And I didn't see the design or the footprint. I know that it was submitted, but I just don't have a copy of it. I might have dropped it or misplaced it. Is it the same as what we saw as what was on site? I'm not exactly sure to tell you the truth. I can, if you'd like, I can share my screen and provide the spec sheet. Yep. Okay. So this image on the right is from the spec sheet that we submitted and can hold six bikes per bike rack. If you'd like, I can also go through and show all of the 13 locations of the bike racks on our plans. If you'd like to see that. Yes, I would. But before we leave this, are these then on a pad, the metal is the metal connected to cement pad? That's my understanding. There's a small pad that the metal is attached to. The rack is attached to. And because of that, and we'll get to this in a bit, but our lot coverage was increased slightly in order to take into account. Commodate that. That's right. Okay. So show us the locations. Sure. So as mentioned, there's, we initially submitted plans for two bike racks in our plans, but we'll go ahead and add 11 to 10. But I've, we'll go ahead and add 11 additional ones for, for total of 13. And we can start on the northern portion of the site. This symbol is the bike rack symbol. So there's, there's generally one per, per building. One right there. All right. Is that two racks? Why are there two lines? Is it. It's just a symbol, I think. There's not two bike racks there. It's just a symbol. That's just. Thank you. No problem. One right there. Two. Yeah, I guess I can get my pointer to point it out. Number two. Three. You know, I did see this on the drawings and I didn't know what those were because it wasn't. It was the key wasn't. It wasn't identified in a key. Okay. Here's number four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. 10. 11. Well, and 13. Got it. Okay. So essentially every building has at least one. Correct. And there's some buildings that are essentially attached to each other where we've provided additional ones close together. To be able to handle the amount of bikes there, but. Based off of, you know, the. These bike racks were for, were providing. I believe that that will be sufficient to handle. I guess to mitigate the problem that was observed on site when there's bikes left on the ground. Great. Any questions from board members about bike racks? All right. The next. Request was to show the location of. To add picnic tables and trash recycling bins. By the grill stations. Can you, and you've have. Responded that you've added one additional picnic table and two sets of trash bins. Can you show us that. Correct. Here's, here's the screenshot from. The updated. Plans. Down here on the bottom left is the picnic table. And right adjacent are the trash cans. We've also added another set of trash cans. Up here. To the north of the playground. So how many trash cans. How many picnic tables. Are no other. We added one for, for a total of. Three. One. Two and three. Okay. And now there. We added. We added the two sets of trash cans, which were not. Included in our previous plans. Are there. Questions, concerns about. Trash cans and the picnic tables. If not next question was regarding. I think it's snow. Correct. That's correct. Snow storage. Yep. I'm disappointed that the Carlos is not here. I had some questions. That may come from that. So you're proposing to. First of all, your management plan says you're going to try to. Take the snow off site. Is that correct? Yes. Okay. And so when you can't, until you can take it off site, or if you can't take it off site. You're going to, you're going to store it. Along the tree line and then next to the egg, the curb cut. Is that correct? So let me pull up our snow storage plans. So we went ahead and updated a further quest of the board. We updated our plans to show. Snow storage locations. And so it can be taken off site. As you can tell here. That this. Planning on storing the snow. So we're going to go around this, this parking area right here north of the new building. And then also around the. The park, the new parking lot south of the new building as well. And forgive me as a Californian snows pretty, pretty foreign to me. So I can't, I don't have all the technical details. On snow storage and. And Carlos can, if there's any other questions that. That I might not be able to provide or Rachel might not be able to provide. We can certainly check in with Carlos to get any of these questions answered. My first question is, and I, I don't have the answer to this, but as a Minnesotan and we tried not to store the snow, especially if snow was going to be around for a while and especially contain chemicals around the trees. It wasn't something that iron clad rule, but it was something you always tried to avoid and we always, we did try to avoid having it near exits and entries of parking lots because of you wanted, didn't want it to get so high that it obstructed traffic. I mean, that is already taken care of by other, the traffic obstruction is taken care of by other conditions. But I wouldn't, I would wonder if what Carlos would, how he would respond to a question of whether this is, whether it would damage the trees. That's an appropriate place to store the, the smell. And we're happy to, to make any modifications to this snow storage plan that the board sees fit in order to have a more efficient and safe snow removal and storage plan. And if I may, this is, this is Rachel again, I apologize. I am a new Englander and I do the snow removal contracts for our entire new England portfolio. We do not utilize any harmful chemicals such as calcium chloride. We always utilize a landscape safe salt, plus a combination of sand that our landscapers recommend as well. So if that's something that you would like to see, you know, documentation of or how to say, and of course the quantities, you know, involved in that would be more than happy to provide that as well. Rachel, do you pile it up by trees? At this site, no, it's, it's actually more difficult in my opinion to pile up here. We've done a lot of relocation off site. Once we receive a threshold inch above roughly 20 inches, give or take over an accumulative period of about a week, which honestly hasn't happened since we've owned the site on due to, you know, a number of factors in the world, like global warming. So we haven't had as much snow, but we have plans in place at all of our sites to do relocation off of the community. Okay. So you relocate after, you relocate after an inch. So we have a one inch trigger. We have a one inch trigger. And then we push the snow. And then once we get a cumulative accumulation of over 30 inches and a one week period is when we would do any type of removal away from the property. That's a lot. That's a lot of snow. We found that. Yeah, but we also are piling up in the trees. We haven't had to do that at this site. I've again been to the site. Very, very numerous amounts of times, especially when there's been snow incidents or snowfall events that have occurred. And we've pushed against the grass on, you know, it's kind of hard to describe, but we've pushed more against grass and kind of compounded on top of kind of a hill more so than hitting any tree lines. But again, if a contingency is that we don't do that and we just do removal, that's an option we can do with our snow removal provider as well. We can easily change our contract to reflect that. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Rachel. You're welcome. No problem. Are there any questions from members of snow removal? I have, I have one. I'm just curious about. Miss Marshall. I'm sorry. Yes. I'm curious about that. And maybe Mr. Judge will answer this. The concern about the trees. Is it that they may be damaged by the heavy equipment that's pushing the snow and then trying to grab it. It's more of the chemicals or the chemicals. That was my initial concern. Also just. If it stays there. I mean, snow. Snow does. That's what happened. Yeah. Yeah. But it's more of the chemicals and. And also potential equipment. If it's. The operators aren't careful. But I. Yeah. But we could also if trees are damaged. By the snow removal. There is a way to require that they be replaced. So that can be also another consideration as well. Other questions regarding snow. This is Rachel again. I apologize. And we also have a contingency in all of our contracts. That any damage to property or landscaping has to be resolved and repaired by the snow removal company. At the end of each season. Okay. Thank you. All right. Lot coverage is the next question. And it seems that. You're going to need to go up. One quarter of 1% from where. You were because of the, principally because of the cement pads for the, for the bike rack and the. Picnic tables. Is that correct? That's correct. Yeah. I think that's a good point. Yeah. I think that's a direct result of. The concerns that we've expressed in your response for them. I'm not bothered by a one quarter of 1% increase. For the site coverage, although it is. It is, you know, it's not conforming, but it's above that. The next response was on affordable units. You would propose for affordable two bedroom units. Five affordable two bedroom units and one affordable three bedroom units. We asked you to consider to have four and two, two affordable one, three bedroom units. Your response is that you would prefer to stay with five and one. We also went to our. Our planning department to look at the. The market. The market. The market. We also went to our planning department to look at the. The market in the area as to what's needed. Between two and three bedroom units. And Nate Malloy is one of the, our housing experts and works with their affordable housing trust. And does a lot of work in housing. Submitted a. An assessment. To the board. His recommendation is that he is comfortable with five and one. Not four and two. If you have that information. The board members have you reviewed that. Peace by Nate. He talks through the tremendous needs for rental housing, both two and three bedroom rental housing. And there's not enough in town. And he's comfortable to that. And I, my inclination. Had been to. Think that the three bedroom units were in such need that we should require that. But it's his belief that. The need is for both four and both for two bedroom and three bedroom. And the need for five, three bed, five, two bedrooms would be a sufficient. For our needs in town. Mr. Judge. Yes. No, he couldn't make tonight's meeting, but. He, I just wanted to point out he also indicated in his. Email to. To the ZBA that. Since. The, the, there are more than 21 units. Opposed in the 47 unit building. A minimum of 12% of the total unit count. There's two asterisks. Where it says when six. And this is under sections 15.11 of the zoning bylaw. When six or more affordable rental units are required under this bylaw. 20% of the affordable unit shall be affordable to. Households earning 60% area, median income, AMI or less as calculated by the US department of housing and urban development. Or any successor. Agency. And so because of that language right there that I cited. From the bylaw, there needs to be a one of the total six affordable units. Needs to be affordable to a household earning 60%. AMI or less. For our Springfield metropolitan area. And then the five other units would be at. At 80%. 80%. AMI. So the board, which should place a condition that specifies that. Or that's what the plan department recommends. Just to include a condition about the 60% AMI for the one unit. Mr. White, are you familiar with that requirement? Yes. I'm familiar with it. Yeah. Can you repeat that question? Are you familiar with that requirement? And. Are you prepared to do that? Yeah. Yeah. Correct. Yeah. We're prepared to follow. That condition. Miss Marshall. The other hand up. Yes. Just to note that. I think we skipped over the EV charging station. Oh, thank you very much. I did not mean to do that right after the snow, right? Right after snow. Oh, it's right below that. I was thinking that Mr. I would think that Mr. Meadows would have. Waiting for him to say something there. But it's not going to be a problem. Okay. So, um, I'm sorry, we're not. I'm just asking. Please. We asked about, um, Consider providing a minimum one any charging station on the, on the new parking area. The 43 space. You'd agree to do that. Um, So. Can we discuss the overall sheet? I'm sorry to interrupt. Could you see the overall sheet? So. The proposed location for the charging station. of the new building, right? Oops. Not cooperating with me, but kind of on this southern portion right here of the parking lot. And the reason behind that location has to do with the, you know, for my discussion with Carlos is that this is one of the only areas of the parking lot that has one that is closer to the building, but also has some green space behind it to allow for installation of the charging station. And so that was the thinking there behind its location. Mr. Meadows, you raised this issue regarding this. Is this something that you're, well, Mr. Meadows isn't serving on this panel, I guess. So I know he's raised the issue in the past. Ms. Marshall. Yeah, I think when we talked about this two weeks ago, were we not looking at the North parking lot? And I mean, it's fine to put it in this lot, but. Another, if I may, one of the reasons too that we placed it here is its location approximate to the transformer or the electrical source. Based off my understanding, this location was such that it was close enough to the electrical source that made it, I guess, more financially practical to locate it here rather than in a different location. Okay, so there is just there is just one and now it's here. Correct. Got it. Thank you. All right, we've dealt with lock coverage. We dealt with affordable units. We have that's just a mission. Yes, I had a question regarding the charging station. I believe, and Mr. Mora can certainly probably speak better to this, but I believe there is a state regulation that may require that there is a five foot aisle next to the EV charging station. And if that is the case, would, you know, would the site plan need to be updated to reflect that? And as that may, you know, have a minor domino effect of affecting how many parking spaces are provided total, but perhaps not. That would prove or disprove whether maybe a parking space would be lost or or maybe there would be no change in the number of parking spaces. I can go ahead. We do have this small, you know, we would have to go, I can go back and check with Carlos on on the relevant codes here with EV charging stations and an aisle approximate to the station. I know we do have this little patch right here right next to the proposed station that could be an option to locate that aisle. But that's something that I would need to confer with Carlos on. Is there a way to, Maureen, does that satisfy your your concern or should we have something do we have to have a condition that says the plans have to be modified to reflect any state requirements for five foot. I mean, they'd have to, the plans would have to reflect the state law requirements for the EV station anyway, I would think. So I don't know that we need another condition to do that. But if we do, please let me know and we'll consider it. I believe we included a possible condition that gets into if any sort of minor changes need to be provided in the parking area due to the the layout of the EV charging station that that could be done administratively. So perhaps that that handles this topic. Okay. Ms. Marshall. I don't understand what is meant by five foot aisles. Can you just briefly explain? Yeah, so, you know, a good visual would be for an ADA parking space. You typically see like the parking space next to where the driver opens the door. There's a sort of buffer. There's not a parking space. There's a buffer. So picture that but it's it's not an ADA space. It would be the EV charging station and then next to it there would be a room for, there would be the parking space and then the aisle would be a buffer to provide for the user of the charging station. I was just made aware of a possible regulation on this. You mean to walk to to bring the cord to the plug it in? I believe so. But you wouldn't know which side of the car. I mean, wow. Okay, thank you. But if there's but if there is a state regulation that requires it, you'd have to have this, right? You would have to comply with it and it had to be reflected in the drawings. So if I think I don't think we need to address this specifically unless you determine something else, Ms. Pollock. Mr. Mora has raised his hand. Yes, Mr. Mora. Yes. So what we're what we're trying to do here is make sure that there's universal access to the charging station. So the accessibility laws that we enforce through the building code will require that one, if there's only one, the charging station have access to it. So it's very similar to a accessible parking space that you see striped. It doesn't need to be striped in the same way. It doesn't receive the signage and it isn't restricted parking to somebody with a placard. But it meets all the clearance and space requirements so that somebody with the need to access through the aisle has the ability to do that and and not have to, you know, work between really tight fitting car spaces to get access to the charging station. The code doesn't go further to designate which side it's on. You know, it doesn't do that for the accessible spaces either, you know, whether you drive in or back in isn't addressed in the code as long as it's there and available to be used reasonably, you know, properly safely and accessed by all users. You'll often see in larger parking areas that the charging station we place right adjacent to a access aisle that's also serving an accessible space on the opposite side. So it gets a dual purpose and it saves a little space. That can't happen here and doesn't often happen when there's only one or so few accessible parking spaces. So I think the issue here is just to acknowledge that either the parking layout will change, a space count might be reduced or there'll be a little bit more hard surface created so that the aisle can be placed next to this parking area. Thank you. The last item deals with police reports and activities and the amount of time and amount of the number of times police have been called to the property. So when you presented last two weeks ago, you accurately said we found no police reports of anything at the site during the time you owned it and have managed it and that was accurate because the police we've since learned the police have stopped publishing their lists in 2019. So you couldn't go to the website and find it but we asked them what I specifically asked at that time. I don't think it was your colleague who responded that I had a hard time believing that in 18 months you hadn't had any kind of need or any disturbances or any kind of need to call the police or if you hadn't called the police, if that was indeed the case, how did you handle things internally through your management company? Subsequent to that and he responded that no, we hadn't had any police, we haven't had any way, we haven't had any difficulties with, we call them nefarious characters, didn't have any nefarious characters on property. Subsequently we talked to the police and asked them to list for us the calls that they and their activity at this site. And so I looked at that and I took the calls that they had made from, I used April 1st, 2021 and forward and in that time period, in that time period, from April of 2021 when you took over management, there were over 200 calls of the police to this site, over 200 calls of police to the site. They went through, some of these are just drive-bys and they see something and they report it, some of these are serious, they gave a list of the kinds of calls that they have had, the most common is medical emergencies, but there's breaking and entering and vehicle theft, there's assisting businesses, there's two rapes, only one during your time, there's a call about a rape, there's robberies, and there's security checks, which I'm not really sure what it is. But those numbers are vastly different than what was represented to us at the last meeting, at the last meeting. And I'm troubled by that, Mr. White. I'm very troubled by that because we, as citizens, we try to, we do our best to try to make our judgments based on the assurance or the assumption that you are providing, the applicant is providing us with their best possible information. And it seems to me that you did not in preparation, your term in preparation for this meeting did not take the time to talk to the local people, the local management about police presence and police activity in that development. And as a result, we were given the impression that you had managed it with no police presence for the last 18 months. There's at least 200 calls, there's over 200 calls in that, that's, you know, that's 10 a month. That's more than one a week. Now, a couple of possibilities here, they all took place when you didn't have people on site. They took place at night, and they took place on Sunday when you didn't have people around. Or you just did, or that just wasn't checked by your staff to get the local knowledge that we need. So I'd like to know, I'm not inclined, I'm not like to know, I'm not inclined to deal with the your request to remove the condition that there'd be a security officer on site. I think that it's this level of police presence indicates that there is a value to having police, having a security guard there. And then talking to the police, they have found in other cases that indeed it does improve the conditions of the, of the project of the residents when there is private security during the most, the most likely times for there to be disturbances. But so I would like your response about, to that concern that I have, number one about not talking to the local people and getting local information from your management company, and two, whether you, your thoughts on the requirement to have a security company for the year to find out what it's like and to report back to us after a year when you have a security, private security company on property. Sure. So let me address your first, your first question. And so in preparation for our public hearing two weeks ago and for the public hearing today, we were in consultation with our local property management group and Rachel in a minute can, can share her thoughts on this as well. But that is, that is what was, was represented to us from local property management is that based off their records, that their, the incidents that did happen were not ones that were such that nefarious actors needed to be, needed to be that police presence needed to was needed on site in order to, to help mitigate some of these nefarious actors. That was, that was what was, was told to us from property management. And in a minute, we can kind of go through the police data to show what actually did happen. You're correct. There were, and you were a little bit more generous. You started April 1st, 2021. I got it from March 10th, which is the day after we closed on the property. There are 227 calls from March 10th, 2021 until when this data was pulled, I think February 14th or so, excuse me, September 14th, I'm sorry. So about 18 months worth of time. 23 or 10% of those calls were security checks and per discussion with the police department, those were regular monitoring checks, I guess patrol checks that were done by the local police department as part of their normal patrols and they would log those. That's 10% of those calls. The other 90% were not initiated by police, but were based off calls from on site or calls from a third party to assist. And I wanted to highlight the cases that or the reasons the police were called out of those 204 calls over the last 18 months to dig into the data and figure out what exactly were the police called to do. Because the big picture here is whether or not a security guard, a weekend security guard would help to mitigate these calls. And so what I have on the screen is a graph of all of those two, all 227 calls, but the ones that were where there's 10 or more calls I've listed out in red below. So 22 assist business slash agency. Based off my discussions with the police department, those calls are for if a third party agency calls in for help, such as the fire department or a different agency that needs police help on site, the police respond to that. So that's not necessarily a call from a resident on site or someone that is calling from on site to me, please help. But that's really a call in from another agency. That needs help. Correct. Call in from another agency that needs to please help. Correct. The next one, which is the highest reason for calls was emergency medical service. So obviously someone had a medical issue, you know, as is common all around the United States is that police typically accompany or oftentimes will accompany some of these emergency medical service calls. So that's 3520 is follow up. So if there was a previous issue where they're on site before, then the police wanted to check up on that issue, they would come back and address the situation. 23 noise complaints, 19 security checks, which is as mentioned before just the normal patrols, 19 still alarms and 11 suspicious, I guess, suspicious persons. So I think from in from our standpoint, yes, there were a lot of calls 227, but when you break it down, most of these calls in our opinion, and this is our opinion, would not have been mitigated by a weekend security guard. And so that's kind of my response to the to the first question also let Rachel weigh in kind of on maybe any, I guess, some of the and what what you pointed out as we represented two weeks ago that, you know, by all accounts that there really wasn't much police presence needed on site. I'll turn over to Rachel to kind of share her thoughts on what it's like on a day to day basis there on site in terms of security and any police needs. Thanks, Tyler. No, definitely agree with everything you just said. Again, I live about depending on traffic like an hour away, I'm on the site at least once a week, sometimes more. I'm also on the site at night, sometimes just if we're working late on reports things of that nature. I've never experienced any crime at the community. Just so you know, from an internal perspective, our company is required to submit an incident report that goes to our legal and insurance teams every time an incident is reported to our office or we are a part of that incident. Again, there's nothing in the lease that requires that tenants report anytime they call in a call or anything of that nature they're not required to but if we're ever exposed to any type of crime or slip and fall or anything of that nature we report that internally and that's stored. That data is stored so when we do have conversations about utilizing security or if it's a need we can reference back to those reports as well too. And again, I've been the regional manager since the entire time we have owned this community and been to the site more times than I can probably count. I can confirm that we've never had any issue with crime at this community. Thanks, Rachel. Mr. Judge, it's not our intention to be misleading about anything that we've reported. As Rachel mentioned, sometimes there's a disconnect between the police and what actually gets reported internally in our systems. Oftentimes police will respond without on-site staff knowing and so that takes into account those issues but I guess overall we want we're incentivized and we want to provide a safe environment to our tenants but based off the data that we're looking at we don't feel like the security guard is going to mitigate some of these issues. Now I'll also caveat that with look crime is going to happen anywhere and so no matter if you're here in this community or any community throughout the United States no matter the demographics crimes is going to happen and so I don't think you know we're not going to get these calls down to zero but based off the data we don't feel like it's going to move the needle in a meaningful way so that's that's kind of our thought process here and again we're not trying to be misleading at all. The data is the data and sometimes there's a disconnect between the police data and our internal property management data. Thank you for your view on this. Number one there are a lot of these that I think are not life and death responses on the part of the police and maybe a security guard would or would not on the weekends when you don't have you don't have on-site management may not make a difference on some of these other ones they would and I just for example I think if there's noise complaint having a security guard to handle that maybe to not have the police have to come out handle it ahead of time if there is a medical emergency making sure that there's that the security guard is there to guide the police to where they have to go to be of help and back the matter is the police say that they have found that security guards have had a beneficial effect on the on other residential developments in Amherst. It is an informative and I think a something that we should inform that as a board we should inform ourselves with. I am interested though that now you have you do have and you did have data and we that you have stored and you have reports and all of that wasn't wasn't delivered to us when we first looked at this and that continues to trouble me and I don't think it's a case of I don't think it's a case of we don't understand each other I think you used your judgment as to use you the firm use your judgment as to what we think that what you thought was important was what we thought was important and we really need to have that raw data that helps us make a decision and so for that I'll let the rest of the board deal with it have their own opinion on this but my opinion is that there's a significant there's just no way that there wouldn't have been information to your management company that the police had been there 200 times in the last 18 months and we and represent to us that there's been no problem two weeks ago that's my bottom line and I would leave it there to see if anybody else has a comment this is miss this is Rachel again I almost said miss window sorry I just wanted to make a clarification when I say we store the reports internally I meant in a general sense there is not a single report for this community I can have our lawyer email it me directly to confirm but I just meant generally because I have 20 sites in New England so that that was more of a generalization I apologize miss Marshall yeah um so it seems it seems like it would be desirable whether there is a security guard or not desirable for management to know about calls to the police so um I wonder if the management could collect reports from the police on a monthly basis however I don't know how much detail they'd be willing to give you even though you're the landlords there might be privacy um laws that would mean you wouldn't know who was the the noisy person or causing the disturbance or the fight so um I'm not sure um you know because you've said you try that you can evict people for bad behavior so if you don't know who the bad who's behaving badly you can't really can't do anything about it so that's one thought but second of all I I'm just like more clarity from anybody about how a security guard how that job what it would look like in this kind of situation I mean it's not a gated community there's no you know somebody who can monitor people going in and out and you know it's very open so what would that person be doing walking around constantly I mean I I just want I think we need to define some terms or what each person is thinking is meant by security guard and the kinds of services and powers that person would have was that a question for the applicant or for the board to discuss so mr. white I'll take that yeah um you know I'm not as I'm I am not a security guard um expert but I know that I know two things miss marshal the first thing is that the um the police have said that it is a help in reducing problems in other places and they've used it before um and that's the reason that and they've seen benefit from it and I think the reason they see benefit from that is that people are you do have something you typically will have a security guard move around the property if he is aware of noise is he aware of a break in is he sees strange vehicles around at night is there something that's what that's what a security guard does he also makes sure that you know at night and during the weekends when they don't have anybody else on on staff if they're a problem does arise if there's somebody that the residents can report to if there's a problem that does arrive and they don't have people on staff at nights and on on Sundays so that's there's another function that they have and sometimes it's just having you know as part of a whole security package whether you do lights whether you do cameras whether you do security guards they all add to the the health and the safety of the area now that's the reason that the one of the reasons that there was a one-year trial period and a report back to see how valuable it was was included is that we just we didn't know we'd heard from other people that it had worked so in in the past that was the reason for the the one-year trial period so I can't tell you exactly what the hourly duties are I can't tell you what the hourly duties of the security guard are but I can tell you that we think that they provide additional security and additional information and safety and we're willing to take a look at it and hence the year's trial that's what the thought was for the board last year. Mr. Maxwell. Thank you Mr. Chair. I mean yeah I've done I've worked as a security guard many years ago and your job really isn't to you know even prevent crime necessarily it's really more to prevent nuisances more than anything else and if we're looking at the the public comment we received from Mr. Setterfield that's really something that security should be handling and there should be a security guard responding to that that shouldn't be the police getting called for noise at an establishment of this size there should be a security guard for one of their primary responsibilities would be ensuring that there isn't loud noise on the property like that that would be disturbing neighbors I mean even just to make the findings that this is harmonious with the the neighborhood in which it is set and I think there's I think there is a requirement for a security guard to be there with one of their distinct duties being to enforce that there isn't loud noises coming from people's cars or the parking lots or those sorts of things um I personally would like to see a security guard on this I think a project of this size certainly warrants one any other comments from board members Ms. Pollock oh I just uh thank you Dylan for mentioning the public comment um submitted uh perhaps we forgot to uh list that in the uh well I thought I did I can't recall I think I mentioned it but it's not it's good it was good to catch yep if I didn't mention it thank you Dylan I also mentioned possibly collecting police reports you know so that management knows I don't know if that's possible for informing so one of the things that we do require um routinely Ms. Marshall is reports on disturbances or that where management feels that the activity is could lead to eviction breaks the lights the lease those kinds of things so those reports are already that the tenant with the management has to compile those on an annual basis and has to provide those to the town so that's not sort of crime reports for you know breaking and entering the uh or breaking a window in a car but that's for noise and other kinds of things that would cause um either punishment or eventually evictions that could break the lease there's some of that reporting already but there's not police reporting at this time that I know of and I'm not sure that the police are gathering this information this was you know they had to do this separately and compile this report for us because they don't compile this and publish it anymore okay are there any other questions for Mr. White or Ms. Window or Mr. O'Sullivan or members of the board if not um what I think we need to do them is since we have some new information we should open it up to the public to get public comments but well I guess before we do that Mr. White I want to give you a chance if you want to um deal with any of the issues we haven't dealt with before there's other things you want to say before we open it to public comment we did have additional submissions so I think the public comment period is appropriate but we that's normally after you've made any kind of presentation I think we've gone through your your responses to our requests I don't know if there's anything else you need to say um I think I I just wanted to respond to the last conversation in comments from from the board members about about the need for a security guard I think and I agree with with Mr. Maxfield in terms with his comment about the use of a security guard is more for public nuisance prevention and mitigation I think that's you know our our staff hours are you know Monday to Friday 9 to 6 p.m. and you know Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. so we do have staff on site Monday to Saturday um at least at some portion of the day um but we you know we would be you know if the if the board feels like a security guard is is necessary we'd be willing to agree to a weekend security guard uh with you know to cover up that gap of timing when there isn't anyone on site to prevent some of these issues from happening and mitigating some of these noise complaints but we would propose as as was mentioned before a review period after the security has been on site after six months uh to to gauge whether or not this is something that's been a benefit to uh to the property you know I think that's something that's reasonable it is a significant expense that we would have to to um make in order to hire the security guard and so we would appreciate the availability to do some sort of review um to see if that if if that security guard is something that needs to continue or not any other any other comments from your side mr. white i think that's all i have rachel rachel is there anything to public comment if there's anybody from the public that wishes to speak please raise your hand more and i don't see that there's any public commenters on this matter okay all right so what i'd like to do is um we'd be last week we began the prep just boring what we're gonna say uh craig meadows has raised his hand oh mr meadows i i'm glad sarah took up the eb charging line thank you uh i did look up the regulations it does say that if there are five or fewer um ev charging stations per uh site that um a site being an address that uh there is a handicap accessible one required and that handicap accessible uh charging station shall be 16 feet wide point of not certain if that has anything to do with the deliberations you're doing but since i have not been listening to all of it but if that's helpful thank you mr meadows it goes back to the need for the the plans to reflect what is required by state law or by state regulation and and local regulation okay um which there's no other comments uh what we last week we proceeded to um go through a number of the conditions that we we've approved not a number of conditions or several that we didn't we needed more information i guess that what my we have two possibilities here for this application and we have another one yet tonight two possibilities we can go through the conditions all the conditions that we hadn't dealt with before uh decide on them and then go and make our determinations and make our findings on this project i suspect that's going to take us the hour to do that um or close to it and then we would have to um continue the second probably we have to continue the second um application we have before us until later on or we can um um we can decide to wait for the information regarding the um that the applicant is going to give back to us which is the information on the number of children some snow storage information um we can proceed through much of this spend a half hour on some of the conditions and come back in a week or in two weeks and finalize it at that time if we if we wish but the question it's kind of up to the board if you're ready to act on this one knowing that we may not have enough time to finish up with the luma's application that's fine too we can act on this or we can wait and wait for more information if we if the board feels they need it so i've looked to the sort of the the feeling of the board it's whether they want to go on with this or whether we should continue this for two weeks is there anybody who wishes to continue it for two weeks and mr chair mr mack yep mr maxill um my feeling would probably be we still need to take public comment on this i'm not mistaken um so i would probably say my feeling is is wait the the two weeks to get that information and then just move through it on there uh that's that's me personally yeah anybody else i just say i think it's in fact three weeks till the next meeting just yeah what's the date on the next meeting morning actually and i want to make i believe it would be october the 13th and uh sarah who's on this is in paneled on this case may not be available on that particular date ish um i wouldn't say that i mean i'm supposed to get back on the 11th oh okay it's just that i won't have a lot of time to protect that's all but um but i would say that it seems that we're you know making a lot of headway here so perhaps there wouldn't be a lot of um review on your behalf sarah um but you know so maybe that would be fine okay yeah it doesn't seem like there will be very much new information okay so listen what i'd like to do is i i think that we um we have a lot of work left on this in terms of going through findings and we have information we want to get from the applicant um i would move that we continue this application to october 13th at six o'clock and at that point we'll take up the the application the special permit application we'll do conditions we'll do findings we'll review what we get from the from the applicant we may have we may need to get further information regarding the the police presence and maybe we can get some more information on what they feel is the value of a security guard and how what their experience has been in other other locations and answered some of the questions that hopefully raised by the applicant as well as by other members um do i have a motion to do that to continue it to the the 13th mr matryl before we make that motion do we not want to do public comment uh tonight but we did nobody signed up for it we know yep we call i think i did call for public comment didn't i morning yep i did yeah yep but and nobody commented yep must admit exactly in that case i will i will go ahead and make that motion all right do i have a second second mr park seconds it is there a discussion on the motion if not before you um finalize that uh does the applicant uh you know um the applicant i believe needs needs to make the request to continue the public hearing is are they agreeable to continue till i was going to say march until october 13th um the meeting would start at six via zoom yes we can agree to do that all right any other any discussion on the motion this is the roll call vote the chair votes aye miss parks hi mr maxfield hi mr gilbert hi mr marshall hi it's five eyes no nays motion carries we'll see you guys again in two weeks thank you thank you i'm not impaneled on the next application so i will thank you all right thanks for your work today all right so long everyone the next order of business before we start it's eight o'clock we have started a tradition of a three-minute break around eight with people like that quick fast one break quick yep all right be back in three minutes all right i'm back i'm just gonna have my camera turned off we'll eat this soup that i just made it totally i am edible i was just eating peanut m&m oh i can i can see your your soup dylan and you're eating peanut m&ms and i'm drinking water so the dinner is getting cold uh miss parks kami you have some the next order of business is zba f y 2023 dash zero six when this community's ink requests a special permit to modify the previously approved special permit zba f y 1985 dash 0 4 zba f y 1988 dash 45 and zba f y 1990 dash 8 for the expansion of an existing planned residential unit a purd with the proposed construction of three of three building additions including a pool pavilion meeting room enclosed atrium and a three-story residential addition with nine new family multi-family dwellings and for amending conditions six nine and ten under zba f y 1990 dash eight under article seven in section 4.4 10.33 and 10.38 of the zoning bylaw located at applewood one spencer drive map 25a parcel 43 outlying residents district and purd overlay zoning district members sitting for this panel include myself miss parks mr meadows mr gilbert and mr maxfield we conducted a site visit on tuesday was it yesterday tuesday i think it was and we met at the site met with the architect and the management at the site we observed where the new residential building was going to be constructed how close it was to the sidewalk how looked at drawings of what the exterior would look like and how it would conform with the extent to which it conforms with the existing building we went to the front to see where the new atrium and winter garden area is going to be where it's going to how it's going to affect a portion of the parking lot and some of the plantings we walked inside the the building to see the the current meeting space walked out to where the pool pavilion was was going to be and how that was going to be changed and got a sense for the size and a heft of the of the of the pool building pool addition we had some discussion about the need for an additional meeting space we had some discussion about parking and the number of parking places which are needed on a daily base which they feel are needed on a daily basis and are utilized on a daily basis and we had discussions about public transportation and other ways that people get around without having to use a car at applewood and we looked at the green space around the area i think that pretty much sums up the site visit i don't know if there's much else we have to report on i think that's that's it so who's going to who's going to present for the applicant please identify yourself and give your address for the record great so my name is jeff squire i'm a principal at the berkshire design group here on behalf of applewood and loomis communities here with me tonight is marge mantoni the executive the ceo of applewood i believe lou is also here and richard solovan from biggan wilson is also here tonight and i believe we also have some representatives from the architects that are here as well so um yeah i can take you through a quick presentation if that would be appropriate at this time be helpful run us through what your your built your plans are show us the site plans and give us a give us an overview please absolutely so um so yeah thank you um thank you for for joining us tonight um we are um this is a relatively small project in scope of uh the the entire property um just to give you a general overview um the the property is at the corner of west bay road which runs across the top of the page here and then and rambling road which um is on the right side of the page here at kins and that open uh parcel for development is to the right uh the eric car museum is directly across the street uh the hampshire college um on the north side of west bay road um the facility consists of a large a large sort of sprawling building um on the site there are uh spencer spencer drive circulates the the facility in the back which is a private drive it enters and exits onto west bay road and also at rambling road um there's a number of parking lots that are accessed um off of off of um off the spencer drive that include um number of garages and maintenance facilities but generally all of the access in and out of uh the property at least for the residents is via spencer drive um which comes in off the site um off the adjacent roads the um again this was submitted as part of the application package but these are just a few images of some of the areas of the existing site um where work is proposed so this is that main entrance off of spencer drive where that loop drive is um the loop drive can be seen um sort of down here on the bottom it enters in and around um and speaking to the uh residential uh addition component is really off the the wing of this building here that you can see on the right side of the page but this is a these are views of that um of where that uh that work will will occur um and so I think uh and I apologize I would like to have March uh Mantoni from Applewood sort of introduce the project um Applewood in general and um really what what they hope to achieve with this project um I should have done it at the beginning of this but it was excited to to jump in and get get on with the conversation so um I'll introduce March please just uh to introduce the project and Applewood um as an interruption here so yeah March. So Mr. Squire and March I do not want to interrupt it even more but I failed too because I was excited as well I guess we're both excited. I failed to list the submissions and so I'd like to do that now so that we're not doing it after the after the presentation um and so we can get it get it out of the way um so applicant submissions include um the special permit application and um two memos regarding the act regarding the expansion dated August 11th and September 2nd applicant response to section 10.3 specific findings your management plan lighting cut sheets a site plan prepared by Berkshire design group that includes one two three four five um plans including an illustrative layout and a landscape plan a building plan set which includes two four six eight ten um renderings including a bird's eye view a proposed common expansion etc then we have staff submissions which include a project application report dated September 19th ZDA special permit decisions of 1988, 85, 88, and 1990 a PERD boundary map a PERD aerial map GIS generated maps of the property a zoning map an aerial map a topography map and a conservation trails map. In addition there was a drawing dated 921 from email by Matt Hughes which regards the roof line calculations. I think that's all the submissions that we received and I again apologize for interrupting your presentation and Marge for delaying you but I just have to do that before we go any further. Oh no that's great thank you so much and I'm going to be real quick you guys have already had a very long night. Just on behalf of of the Applewood community really want to thank you for you know entertaining our proposal tonight. Just a little background Applewood is a not-for-profit community who opened its doors in 1991 providing 103 independent living apartments for people over the age of 62. So Applewood has been home to hundreds and maybe even a thousand people in Amherst over the last 30 plus years. The project that Jeff is going to go over with you will enable Applewood to continue to not only serve residents of today but those into the future and the new amenities will be really welcome additions for the residents and the new apartments the nine new apartments that are proposed will allow enable us to move some of the people we take a waiting list for people who want to live at Applewood. There are currently well over 120 parties waiting to live at Applewood and so nine doesn't seem like a lot but it's a help and it will enable us to serve more people now and into the future. So you know it's a real great the amenities are a great opportunity for our residents to gather to learn to stay well and the apartments will enable us to continue to fulfill our not-for-profit mission to serve to open doors to positive aging. So thank you for seeing us tonight and I'm going to stop talking and shift it back to Jeff. Thank you. Thank you March and sorry for that. So yeah just to get right back to it our the proposal and project consists of three three additions throughout the property all associated with the with the larger building larger main building. At the main entrance there is a new meeting space new meeting room and a four-season sort of atrium space as an entryway that includes a covered walkway really a more inviting entrance to the to the site and spaces that offer some opportunities for the residents to to do some things and attend events that they may not have the opportunity. Above this portion of the addition there are three units or three new residential units that are proposed. The parking lots on the site will will mostly be maintained in their existing existing layout. There are some small modifications to this to this central loop here this drop-off to facilitate this addition which bumps out a little bit into the into the drive aisle now we are losing two parking spaces in this location to ensure that we have adequate access and vehicle circulation much as it is now but otherwise there's no no other changes to the site other than just reconnecting walks and entryways and exits out of the out of the building into the courtyard. Landscaping will be replaced there's a you know a valuable patio space at this you know at the entryway that will be preserved with its southern exposure and and offers a nice a nice amenity to to the residents so that will be recreated. So that's one portion of the of the project. Another is this three-story addition off of this wing of the westernmost portion of the building so as again in those images this is really just a replicate sort of the existing condition and the architects can speak to this more but this really just locates a three-story addition that would match the existing facility and what is currently green space now there are some retaining walls and some landscaping there now that will be replaced in the proposed condition and then lastly there's a one-story pool pavilion that occupies what is now a sort of an outdoor patio space and it's northern corner of the building. Again just taking you through some of the site plans and the site requirements all of the setbacks lot areas frontages most of those are all you know either being exceeded or or met minimally there's a number because of the PERT overlay district that don't necessarily apply particularly with building coverage and lot coverage number of floors we will speak about a building height a little bit later I'm sure the the building height now is not going to or the proposed building height is not going to exceed I'm sorry here I see the current building height and given where it's measured from it is a pre-existing non-conforming condition but we can speak to that later and then lastly with regards to parking I'm just going to back up a sheet as I mentioned we are losing two spaces here and in in one of the subsequent memos that was referenced with regards to parking we are seeking as part of this application a waiver from section 7.9 which for this use requires one space per bedroom. Mars noted there were 103 units I believe there's 177 bedrooms total and these these include two bedroom units they include studios and single single unit apartment so it's a range of of of unit sizes in terms of bedroom counts this would require 195 bedroom or 100 there's 195 beds I guess as a result of of this requirement 195 spaces there are currently 161 spaces available on the site and these are open space open parking lot spaces as well as the garage spaces there are a number of garage spaces on the on the site as you as we indicated before there's number in the western portion of the site that that that added all up include 161 spaces we are losing two as I noted so there there will be 159 total spaces provided on the site currently they have a need for 75 74 parking spaces at 98 percent capacity so of the of all the units that are there at 98 percent capacity there's only about three quarters or less than three quarters of the spaces that are being utilized by by residents there are roughly 29 staff spaces at at maximum shift change that would be required so there's roughly about 100 a little over 100 spaces that are needed at the current moment there's no spaces that are designated other than accessible spaces so based on their experience over the years since since the facility was built they haven't they haven't experienced any parking issues or parking shortages there is ample parking along Spencer Drive which is a private drive in the event of you know the need for overflow events or parking but based on you know again their experience there there just isn't a need for you know the 200 or so spaces that are required by zoning so we are seeking a waiver under that section I think there are no changes to to site lighting to to signage other than just you know relocating some of the directional signage that may result of as a result of this turnaround modification or loop drop off modifications but all of that work is going to be pretty minimal no new utility work site lighting was submitted there will be some downcast site lighting or wall packs at the various exits and egress locations again the architects can speak to those locations but those will all be you know dark sky compliant and downlit as required again just running through the submission application package a more detailed plan showing grading and and some of the specific site details relative to patios and heartscapes planting plan indicating a number of species and plants being relocated and added as part of the project and again I think this is an opportunity to turn it over to the architects sign that can run through the various building elevations and and images so Matt are talking with that I will turn it over to you and I can continue to flip through these slides if that works Matt is it Matthew yes you said I um hold on Matthew I need to make you a panelist sorry sorry about that Mr Hughes yes hi there hi uh so please identify yourself for the record yes Matthew Hughes name and address Matthew Hughes address 389 Elliott Street Newton upper falls thank you go ahead to walk you through some of the renderings plans and elevations first off we have the new commons expansion which consists of a two-story building approximately 10 500 square feet between the two floors on the lower on the entry level there is a large auditorium slash meeting space a enclosed winter garden with a winter cafe consisting of a small service warm-up kitchen type space to provide grab-and-go food for residents that's enclosed in a capped with a skylight and some curtain wall along the entry walkway covered entry walkway and then on the upper level there are three new residential independent living units arranging in various sizes and those also connect to the existing upper level as well via an elevated walkway an enclosed elevated walkway separating the two spaces and that connects into the existing building so this is the floor plan with the circulation highlighted in yellow and the lighter color being the existing building the orange being the proposed and it shows how the circulation is now entering the new proposed expansion there's going to be a covered patio on the lower level entry level as well located in the rear with the one of the apartments located above and here you can see correct yes and here you can see the general layout of the proposed auditorium meeting room space that can be divided as needed ample storage egress stair uh winter garden space as well with the the small service kitchen and above there's also the the three units with three balconies as well connecting into the existing existing building okay here is the updated elevation which we could talk about the average grade plane now if you'd like we thank you to Maureen and Commissioner Rob for providing some guidance as far as calculating the existing average grade plane relative to the bay road and rambling road so we've established those on the elevation and provided two dimensions to both one to the existing building noting the midpoint of the sloped roof and one to the highest point of the proposed midpoint of the slope roof as well noting that as jeff mentioned leading into this that the existing building is out of compliance with the 35 feet but we are not exceeding that current condition with the proposed new building so that's noted here for the commons expansion portion i've just one question what's the existing height what's the far left number there i can't read it 38 seven and three quarters and and the proposed 38 five and a half okay thank you and that's at least from bay road on the other side of the elevation is rambling which uh notes very similarly next portion of the project is the three-story apartment tower unit which consists of six independent living unit apartments approximately 2,500 square feet per floor totaling about 7,500 and the objective for us is to create an extension of what their current wing looks like and so it seems seamless and is to be an extension of what they currently have so really from a floor plan perspective it's very minimal to what we are adding other than pure units with a small extension of corridor to lead and to feed into those two units on each floor and here on the elevation as well noting the two average grade planes and then the proposed as it's relative to both grade planes noting that we're not exceeding the existing conditions and lastly is the pool pavilion which is one story located on the lowest level of applewood as on this side of the building the grade slopes down to become three stories it is about 1200 square feet of an addition with some programmatic and improvements to the interior spaces of the existing building as well to help benefit the owner and the residents here is the lower level floor plan indicating where the proposed addition will be located and the addition primarily consists of slab on grade with a recessed resistance pool prefabricated resistance pool that's just located into place and it would allow a exercise alternative for residents and provides rehabilitation alternatives as well using the resistance or treadmill accessories elevation as well noting the two average grade grade planes on both sides and showing that we are well below what the what the existing building is and the pool pavilion is also capped by a small skylight as well so i don't think i have um any other um any other points to present at this time but happy to answer any questions or um entertaining comments that the board may have at this time remember the board mr meadows help you're muted mr meadows as as i mentioned at the site visit i'd be interested in where you're going to put the ev parking to meet the requirement and i didn't also mention that there's up to $50,000 per uh street address for ev uh grants from the department of from master ep there's a requirement that if you have less fewer than five ev stations at a site that one of them has to be designated as handicapped and is 16 feet wide okay um do you have any idea where you're going to put that um i don't immediately just based on you know all this information was relatively new we did get um that rebate information passed along um to to margin applewood um you know quickly so i know that is going to be something they are going to pursue because as noted during the site visit um that is something that has been in the capital budget uh for applewood for a number of years because of the increased demand for uh for ev charging units so this will certainly uh be a catalyst to to to produce some of those results so i don't know you know we'll have to do a little bit of research in terms of um you know electrical um uh availability on the site and how that would affect some of the existing parking but i know it will become part of um a part of this plan going forward so i don't know whether marge or lou and anybody else can say anything more about it but i imagine it will be where um you know where it will be certainly most useful to the residents yeah we um you know thank and and thank you mr meadows for that information we were really excited to hear about the the rebate program and started looking into it right away so um as jeff said we um got the name of a of a one company at least that um i reached out to somebody else in eastern mass who had just added an ev station ev charging station and um so she gave me the name of the contractor that they worked with um but that was yesterday so or just this morning she responded so as soon as we have the information we can certainly update the plan but um would be um definitely um looking to do that so you'd be um you'd be amenable to having a requirement that you you put in in your final drawings that you submit to the town of the placement of the ev places ev uh parking spaces right yes good okay we can make sure that that's one of the conditions mr meadows good thank you other questions from the board i had a i had a question that's not really um that's not about the outdoor layout but about the layout of the of the pool how how big is it it looks like it's about 15 by 15 or something like like that it's hard to tell from the from the floor plan so it's just really uh it's sort of a it's not a lap pool it's a swimming in plate whatever they call those swimming in place pools with um where you swim against the a current is that what you're talking about here correct correct uh this model that we've been pursuing has uh two motors uh for two quote unquote lanes um in a in the resistance pool um the pool itself is about 16 by 16 feet okay and the the whole addition itself is is fairly small and so and you mentioned it can be used a lot for all rehabilitation and and for that popular for that population that might be really good makes a lot of sense any other questions from board members yeah mr chair um i'd like to just maybe raise a point about parking here um i you know i appreciate the applicant here you know kind of walking will actually be architected to that not a walking the layout of the building um you know i'm just looking at the numbers here i understand that you know with what's currently provided versus what's required you know of course by zoning by right um i think you're currently at like 91 of the requirement we're suggesting that we're going to add units of course um and decrease the parking by i think it's uh two spaces here so you know by my math that looks like 82 of the required numbers now normally i mean that would be you know uh item of concern but given given the use um you know of this as sort of an aging in place facility i'm a little less concerned you know it sounds like the current numbers that are provided are adequate i think the number mentioned was 98 utility right now um for resident parking my concern of course is if if we're adding more units to you know the existing um number here we're gonna you know require more parking so can you explain perhaps how the uh excess parking right now is is being utilized is that being utilized primarily by staff of which there's not a requirement for or you know are those sitting vacant then march could certainly speak to this better but i know there are a number of spaces that certainly sit vacant um you know again there's there are no assigned spaces other than the garage spaces um so any of the open air spaces that aren't taken up by you know resident vehicles or by staff um just remain vacant and there are you know frequently a number of vacant spaces you know throughout the site um i know that um yeah i mean one of the appeals of this facility is you know that they offer both both um you know van and car uh services as part of the um of part of the um functions of the of the facility in addition to you know the pvta stop across the street so there are a number of residents that you know don't even um need vehicles just because they you know they can depend on uh the the transportation that's provided there so um there there are frequently a number of vacant spaces there and the nine additional units um you know we don't or they don't anticipate that there'll be a huge change in the demand for vehicles resident vehicles anyway um the project is adding one um i think either full or part time staff um but that's but that's it it's you know the staffing um the staffing need upgrades with this proposal or minimal um it's really just the nine additional uh residential units which again it you know in 98 capacity um you know they're at less than three quarters um you know three quarters full for uh you know for for vehicles associated with those with those individual units you covered it well jeff thank you that yeah thanks for that overview um you know maybe just a follow-up question has there ever been historically any issue with um you know parking needs on site not being met by by which provided of course you know right now it sounds like it's not an issue but you know historically yeah i don't think so and so and just a point out too that there's no arboretum across the street that you know it's frequented by the public um and so spencer it's not uncommon for spencer drive to serve as overflow parking it's it's a full 24 26 foot wide roadway um so there's more than ample space for on street parking all along spencer drive where possible um in those you know in those events where you know there happened to be a um you know a need for overflow parking but um you know my understanding is that those are are rare and far between um but there are there is room on site and you know and all this service space down here also could function as overflow parking if it really comes down to it but i just i don't think there's been a demand for that or a need for that um that they've seen thanks for the explanation um not sure if anyone else you know on the board has any comments or questions about that but you know sort of satisfied with me just wanted to use that point since you know we're substantially under but at the same time it does seem to be um you know it's kind of uh accommodated based on there's any usage of that. Miss Parks. I was just gonna say the um the new meeting um space will that be open to the public um in other words i'm thinking of if there's an event there then where would parking occur? We don't have any plans at this point for it to be just open to the public um but we could invite groups in for you know for first if there was a meeting i mean we do we currently host um you know um you know continuous learning programs and things of that nature and and even with that we don't have any any issue with the parking and so forth because as jeff pointed out um you know if we needed it people can park along spencer drive um so we don't expect to have you know at this point our plan is not to have you know um you know graduations or you know large functions in in the um in the space it's primarily set to be used for residents um and then guests or you know some people but it's not it's not going to be rented out space so to speak for a recital or something of that nature. Okay yeah i was thinking more of like the league of women voters or something like that if a group wanted to um meet in that space and and we currently do offer those opportunities and have not run into any parking issues. Okay thank you. Are there questions from the board? I guess i would the only question i have really is um is perhaps mr mora can help um it looks to me like the roof line is um while it's above the zoning bio limit of 35 feet it is below or almost the same if not a little bit below the existing conditions and existing non-conforming roof line and mr mora can you is that correct i mean from a visual standpoint it looks to me like it meshes well and it doesn't create a um a different roof line or a higher roof line it looks like it fits in with the the um the existing property and the existing architecture very well um but is it correct that it's it is no higher than the existing line and we we're really looking at is extension of an extension of an existing non-conforming pre-existing condition for this new roof line. Yes that's that's exactly correct so the the existing non-conforming uh roof line exists uh it's been there for a long enough time to gain that status uh the zoning bylaw allows the board to consider extending that uh to a height that's beyond what the the current bylaw has for a height limitation but not any greater than what's there as an existing condition and that's done under section 9.22 so that would be a finding that the board could make to support uh that addition. Great thank you other questions from members of the board um if not and there's no other presentation or information that the applicant wants to relate to the board I'd open it up for public comment um morning do we have anybody from the uh the public that wishes to speak and if you're a member of the public who wishes to speak on this matter please raise your use the raise hand function of zoom to indicate to us that you wish to speak. I'm not seeing any raised hands. I always give it just a little bit of time for people to find that raise hand function but it looks like we don't have any anybody seeking recognition all right if we don't have any um public comment one last chance for the applicant to make any last statements before we move into the um meeting phase we keep the the hearing open in case we need to solicit additional information but we move them to the meeting phase to allow us to consider um both the findings we have to make but first to consider the conditions that we'd want to impose on the um on the application in order to be able to make the findings that were required to make under the zoning bylaw. Yeah so the on behalf of the applicant I don't think we have any other further presentation material. All right then if firing any interest on the part of board members just speak further let's start looking at conditions um if we turn to page I guess it's 17 of the project application report uh the first condition is pretty much uh standard project use shall be built maintained according to approved plans this is our standard language the approved plans including xyz moraine we will of course have the most approved plans will be the most recently submitted plans and they'll be up to date correct correct xyz yeah you'll figure that out all rooms to be labeled on the following approved floor plans again we'll find these floor plans I think either the ones that have been submitted or a more recent one without any substantial change from what we've seen submitted the approved management plan shall be followed by the applicant the building shall be two and a half stories height and heights measured as shown in the approved plan which creates the highest point yes chair uh I guess I would want to clarify those three additions um of how many stories um shall be so I guess there's a variety do you have the pool for billion uh which is one story the common expansion um I don't know if that would be considered two and a half or three and then the apartment tower well how do we represent that in a condition do we just are we satisfied that the drawings that they have provided satisfied give us this and then we just reference those drawings and elevations that we've been provided yeah or we could do sort of within this possible condition for um we could state um you know the common expansion shall be this amount of stories the pool pavilion shall be one story and the tower shall be three I just I I can't recall at this exact moment what those particular built building conditions are so I'm comfortable I'm comfortable giving you and Rob the flexibility to reflect what we saw in the drawings today to um identify the height of those of the number of stories of those buildings so why don't we do why don't we leave it at that unless there's objection from anybody um any changes to the management plan and the complaint response plan shall return to the voting board appeals at a public meeting property shall be free of litter and debris before the issuance of any building permits the act until obtained sewer water driveway and trench permits in the emmer's department of public works building exterior and site improvements the town engineers shall inspect the construction of entry driveways and on-site paved areas for conformance to town standards now we're getting into um what are the some of the more again the more typical construction work conditions all on-site utilities shall be underground the applicants provide an ad built plan to show buildings locations grades access ways parking ways to the town building commissioner the town engineer and to be placed in this special permit from the planning officers in 90 days of receiving certificate of occupancy all exterior lighting shall be designed and installed to be shielded or downcast lighting shall be selected according to the darkside compliance recommendation the zva rules and rights the building shall meet all local energy efficiency code and regulations of stretch energy code in addition low flow plumbing fisheries shall be installed throughout the project temporary certificates of occupancy shall be approved to the building commissioner the building commissioner may impose 30 requirements to guarantee completion of any work required before issuing a temporary occupancy permit including for landscaping and or the top coat of paving and or other required items that the building commissioner determines maybe may be provided after a temporary occupant permit issues and the surty provided shall be an appropriate form pursuant to any written surty agreement with the amount of the surty to be determined following peer review of a punch list provided by the applicant of the work to be secured with the estimated costs and with required surty to be taken to account the cost of the town to be work prevailing wage and competitive bidding requirements and the impact of inflation all utility work and work within the public by a way should be conducted following the regulations and permits required by the town of amherst digital cab cab plan shall be required for final bill as bill plans for dpw these plan shall be called property lines pins easements and utilities the utility information shall include rims inverts pipe size slopes all water valves shutoffs and water service service locations including all clean out locations the following construction permits and current associated fees shall be required by the dpw prior to the start of construction trend permit sewer entrance permit and a water system entrance permit and all of the permits that may be required the final certificate of items should not be issued for any building or any unit until the final top coat of paving for all driveway and access areas sidewalks and berms has been completed landscape as shown in the plane of record and the plan of record has been installed and the complete as bill plans have been submitted the building commissioner and town engineer by all design professionals for the site and the building construction approved by the building commissioner and town engineer parking and access parking shall look clear but current improved services only the parking area shall be maintained as needed the parking and drive area should be constructed in accordance with your current article 7.1 the 159 on-site parking spaces shall be constructed and maintained by the applicant that's the right number correct 159 okay the parking management plan shall be followed all times and any changes the parking management plan shall be reviewed and approved by the zoning board commissioners at a public meeting landscaping and signage landscaping shall be maintained by the property owners in accordance with the management plan planning that I have to be replaced this is a typical requirement to condition that we place applicants shall make reasonable efforts to use natural herbicides and non-toxic chemicals for regularly scheduled treatments of landscaping in advance notice and appropriate warnings to tenants from the public shall be provided regarding the application of toxic treatments to any common area used by tenants of the public all mature trees found in the area shall accept those to be shown in the approved plans to be removed shall remain and be maintained to provide visual screening from the adjacent properties any existing mature trees from the project that dies shall be removed and replaced with the like species with the minimum height of 10 feet the applicant shall return to the ZVL public meeting for a view and approval of the design of any temporary signage and any change to the approved permanent signage stormwater and drainage prior to the start of any work in the issuance of the building permit the applicant shall provide the building commissioner with the final stormwater pollution and prevention plan to address specific sedimentation erosion dust control which illustrates at a minimum location of measures such as pay socks silk fence sedimentation basis and other erosion controls of the plan of record and provide detailed construction sequencing and methods to protect the infiltration capacity of each infiltration system a list of written procedures that outline a specific operation and maintenance measures for all stormwater drainage facilities including any temporary facilities and that shall be employed to minimize or eliminate the threat of transmission with mosquito-borne diseases to the residents of the project and nearby residents construction prior to construction of any building permit pre-construction meeting shall be scheduled with the applicants and in the town to 21 a written construction safety management plan shall be submitted to the fire chief and the building commissioner prior to the issue of a building permit 22 the approved constructional logistics plan shall be provided at the pre-construction meeting and shall cover the following items I don't feel the need to read through each one of those I think they're all before you and they're pretty and they're pretty standard 23 the approved constructional logistics plan shall be subject to the following conditions there should be no exterior construction activity including the fueling of vehicles on the project site before 7 and after 7 p.m. Monday through Saturday there should be no construction on the project site on the following legal holidays New Year's Memorial July 4th labor Thanksgiving and Christmas the applicant agrees that the hours of operation shall be enforceable by the Amherst police department and or inspection services parking for contractors shall be restricted to the project site no parking and idling and construction trucks equipment and any public right away blasting gives 24 hours notice project sites shall be fenced during construction members to measures to control dust and debris prior to the plan has to have prior to construction physical barriers to show the physical barriers to be installed in the tree protections of within the clearing line tires shall be washed before they exit the site during construction location of every project stormwater disposal area shall be protected to prevent compaction all cat spaces shall be protected from soil debris no stumps demolition material or construction material shall be buried or disposed of on the project site 24 is part of the building permit application the applicant shall provide the building commercial with the name address and business number as a project manager the applicant engineer record and during the site and construction phase shall visit the construction site the special permit so expired within two years from the date of that it was filed with the town clerk unless there has been both been both recorded at the registry of deeds and substantial construction or use that's commenced within a two-year time period so you've got you got to get this done within two years okay and construction shall be completed within 24 months you got to start within two years with substantial construction and construction must be completed within 24 months from the date of issuance of the building permit all right okay now there's one that we wanted to talk about which was the eb the eb site and we wanted to have that the eb stations located on the construction plan so can we add one i'd like to add one condition to do that either in the parking the parking notice condition or independently and and to clarify how many what's the number of eb charging station on in the parking lot if you provided what is the requirement is there a state requirement for new construction and for this it'd be nine units i guess it's not for the whole 180 and i'd be for nine units so this would be a requirement of a condition of approval right so whatever you want yeah so you know for other projects you've required one for example has the applicant given thought to the number of eb stations that you're likely to need over the next few years or given thought to preparing to have enough cable and enough power to get out to eb stations more than one eb station what's your thought on that yeah we we don't you know as jeff pointed out we don't really know what the electrical requirements are and so forth and so is it a piece of cake to do more than one or is it a massive and we just don't know enough yet i know that and and we do have some we have a resident who already has one in their garage for example so obviously there's a capacity to do it i just have i hate to say oh you know we can do a couple and then find out we can't um how how about if the condition says a minimum of one eb charging station yeah so they could do at least one but if they want to do additional ones that's what's hard about eb's i don't i know that we it's going to we're going to have a greater need than we than we currently have and it's going to be a lot of demand for but we don't have a really we don't have a direction as to how much we ought to be uh requiring of new construction and what the cost is yet it's really something that the board has to think about and well the whole country does but the board has to think about what we want to do with this so a minimum of one and if you're in in the course of if that doesn't mean it can't be more than one and in the course of your exploration of this you find out that you have you have the capacity and the interest in doing more put it on the building plans and so it's available okay sounds great yep all right are there any other conditions that people wish to speak to or before we go on to making our findings okay this is going to be a little different i have not done a perd before um which is so this is the first four uh while i've been on the board so we have to make a number of of findings for these planned unit um residential developments um so if you proceed to page six of the project application report um the first four point four zero four point four one are descriptions of what's required four point and then it describes other things that are required in the perd uh in for a for a planned what is it the planned unit residential development um the one we have to consider is four point four two one which is the density and intensity of land use and the staff has reviewed it and found that there is sufficient land use indeed the um there's if you look in the on four point four two one there's um one point six million square feet of land remains therefore the approved 13th single family dwelling meets the minimum lot requirement under section four point four two one number two is four point four two one one again that's a land question um and they're they're um it's more than sufficient land that remains so i think we can find that they meet the requirements for four point two one one and again if anybody objects uh just speak up i'm looking at the paper i'm not looking at the screen so you have to vocalize your desire to speak um four point four two one four point four two one two um is dealt with in four point two one three and that's proposing an expansion of an unconfirming dimensional standards requirements for the maximum density of lots of multifamily units under section uh four point four two three um i guess i'm confused about that one more in but it doesn't look like we have to make a decision on that until we get to four point four two one five is that correct um to make a finding on anything until four point two one five so the um you do need to make a finding regarding section four point four two one three um as as the applicant is seeking relief under section nine point two two um so uh i guess to give a little background information so this part development was originally uh approved by the zoning board of appeals under zba fy 1985-04 and um the the governing bought zoning bylaw at that time which was from may 1984 bylaw did not permit townhouses or multifamily uses uh which are uh use use types that are allowed in a purd um however for some reason the zba approved 45 multifamily units and 90 um um what was called retirement apartments which are multifamily units under that 1985 special permit so since that 1985 special permit approval the zoning bylaw has been updated to allow townhouses and multifamily uses under a purd the previously the previous approved uses and number of units have been reclassified as follows so the um there's 32 townhouses the 30 um 32 uh townhouses and 103 multifamily units so under the current bought zoning bylaw the additional lot area per family requirement for each of the 32 townhouses and 103 multifamily uses use units is 20 000 square feet there's no remaining lot lot area to account for this additional lot area per family requirement under the section however it's been deemed that these uses in dimensional standards to be pre-existing non-conforming so the applicant is not altering or expanding the uh the applicant's not altering expanding that the existing townhouses therefore the board doesn't need to take action on that but they do need to yeah the board does need to take action on the expansion of the non-conforming dimensional standard requirement for the maximum density allowed for the multifamily units as they're um increasing that non-conformity with their proposal of nine additional multifamily units it's a lot to digest but i hope i uh explain that well i'm not troubled by the lot coverage for this the new and i would find that it's we have we'll get to nine point two nine point two two in a second so um i think we make the the finding we have the next finding we have to make our four point two one five four point two one six four point two one seven and four point two one eight four point two one seven these all deal with dimensional regulations and they all deal with the fact that we have a pre-existing non-conforming pre-existing condition and we have a sufficient open space so i think we can find that they meet the requirements under you can find the requirements under four point four one two one six one seven one and one five four point two one eight is percentage of dwelling units of any one type uh because of the um dispersion of different um building types and unit types this meets the it does not exceed the maximum amount allowed and therefore meets section four point four two one eight four point four two one nine deals with parking requirements as regulated by article seven and for this the proposal as we know does not meet the parking space requirements by 36 spaces but we want to we we believe that it does not we can waive that application where the the application of section seven and i guess it's seven point nine at the later point when we come to the waivers and so therefore we can find that the applicant will make the waiver for the parking requirements and the 159 spaces are deemed to be sufficient for this this project and that's because of the nature of the the clients and the residents of the the project don't have a lot of cars and we don't see that changing much in the in the future in design standards and parking plans we have to do anything else under the the purge are we done with the purge okay but we won't have another purge for another five years so we got to that okay all right paving um under the requirements of the uh conditions will allow we'll provide for this and slope proposal meets the requirement setback from building the proposal meets the requirements dimensions markets market marking and delineation there's not proposing any additional parking spaces therefore the selection this section is not applicable to this project and so entrance and exit driveways are not changing anything there so this is not applicable landscape standards it's not proposing any additional parking spaces so that's not applicable parking on 25 or more spaces this this is not applicable screening existing screening is is is uh sufficient article nine this is the finding we have to make so that we can allow for the continued use of the non-conforming building 9.22 the special permanent granting authority is authorized to act in the provision of section 3.3 of this by-law may under a special permit allow a non-conforming use of a building or structure land to be changed to a specific use not substantially different in character on the effect on the neighborhood of the property and the vicinity the one we portion we care about at 9.22 is that authority may also authorize under a special permit a non-conforming use of a building structure a land to be extended where non-conforming building to be structured altered enlarged or reconstructed provided that the authority finds that such alteration enlargement or reconstruction shall not be substantially more detrimental to the neighborhood than the existing non-conforming use or non-conforming buildings I don't believe I believe that we can find that this does not provide a a substantially more detrimental effect upon the neighborhood than the existing conditions the existing buildings so that would be as it relates to the all three the expansion of the I guess the density of the multifamily units so they're adding nine more units that non-conforming building type or housing type and then the and then they're expanding the non-conformity of the building heights for the common expansion and then the apartment tower correct it it seems to fit in well with the neighborhood is not going to be not going to be detrimental significantly detrimental to the existing neighborhood than the than the existing use section 10.38 findings required 10.380 and 10.381 it's it's a locator neighborhood which is proposed under the town needs appropriate this is located in a purge it's been located there for a long period of time 10.382 383 385 387 mostly all deal with different ways in which the property could offend or provide a nuisance to the neighbors I don't think this is this significantly increases that and they do provide dark sky compliant lighting 10.384 adequate facilities for the proper operation of the proposed use there's utilities there and with the current use it's no reason that they're it isn't adequate for the their proposed new use 10.386 you have to be the proposal requires in conformance with the parking waivers with the parking and sign regulation we will are granting a waiver under section 7.9 for the parking requirements 10.387 proposed provides convenience a particular traffic traffic we find that that there is safe vehicular pedestrian traffic on the site 10.388 deals with adequate space for off-street loading you find that that is the pit is not applicable to this project it hasn't changed 10.389 proposal provides adequate methods of disposal and or storage for sewage rough refuge or recyclables three building conditions will use the existing utility disposal services which are sufficient 10.390 the proposal ensures protection from floodhands this is not the proposal meets the requirements 10.391 the architectural style of the building does keep with the architectural style of the existing property and there's no unique or important natural historic scenic pictures 10.392 adequate landscaping clearly makes that finding 10.393 provides protection for adhesion properties again from intrusion and nuisance of lighting and and again they're going to comply with dark dark sky compliant lighting which will not spill over to abutting properties proposal avoids the extent feasible impact on steep slopes there are no wetland resources here and or associated buffers found within a hundred feet of the premises 10.395 does not create disharmony with respect to the brain user scale of the architecture of buildings and and with the grounds of budding the old caves the board needs to make a finding on whether the proposal is harmony with the rest of the train we have found that we've already made a finding regarding the existing refight and in the air that it does not significantly differ from that and the board I believe the board can find that this is in harmony with the rest of the terrain use and scale of the buildings 10.396 the proposal provides screening for storage areas it's already there 10.397 the proposal provides adequate recreation facilities there's a lot of open space 10.398 proposals in harmony with the general purpose of the intent of the bylaws and the goal of the master plan I think it isn't I think this is closed in the goal of the master plan section four objective h.3 which encourages opportunity for proper infill development the board needs to determine whether the proposal meets the applicable zoning sections including 4.4 yes section 9.22 we've done that 10.33 and 10.38 which we've already done so as a result I think we've had the findings that we needed to make including the findings of 9.2 2 and the PERD findings we've done a 10 point we've done our section 7 findings and section 10 findings 10.38 findings I'm prepared to consider a motion to approve the application the special permit with conditions based on our findings and with conditions do I have such a motion so moved is there a second all right is there any discussion on the motion so to restate it the motion is that we approve the special permit application based upon the findings we with the findings we made and based upon the conditions required the vote requires a roll call vote the chair votes aye miss parks aye mr maxfield aye mr meadows aye mr gilder aye the vote is five to nothing votes unanimous and it passes congratulations you've got your special permit and good luck with your building thank you so much we'll invite you over we just the problem is that there's going to be so much there's so much demand for your product that it'd be great if you can even have more but oh you've done well with this great yeah it looks really nice thank you so much it looks really nice come over anytime thank you so much you bet thank you good night thank you everyone thank you thanks chef thanks have a good night good night Matthew the next order of business is public comment on any matter that was not raised in the meeting today tonight so if any member of the public wishes to speak on a matter that was not before the board tonight now is the time to do that I don't see anybody raising their hand if not the last order of business is items not considered in the last 48 hours or new business I'll just give a quick report at our last meeting we spoke about the fee structure for special permit applications I said I'd meet with the with the town staff as well as the chairman of the planning board we had that meeting earlier this week we came up with a staff is going to review this but with a agreement in principle to have $500 instead of $300 application fee for commercial products and for larger applications and that for single family homes and duplexes owner-occupied single family homes and duplexes something in the 150 range staff want to take a look at that to see what that would do to the budget and the likelihood of reducing the costs and I think we'll hear back from them but we'll have something more formal in the next couple of weeks and I'll report back to you at that point and we can talk about the relative merits of the of the proposals proposed fees Maureen and Rob does that accurately reflect our discussion and and where we're at okay so we'll probably put that we could let's plan to put that on the october 13th agenda so we said we'd try to do it in october early october and I think we can probably meet that deadline good all right is there anything else that people wish to discuss mr maxfield I want to say thank you to that mr chair I like I like that schedule that's a it's a good fee schedule yeah the same thing I want to ask is I don't know if you guys know it's my my change of scenery here I moved my computer around I've moved it out of my room so on and so forth uh just me is reminding me more what is there any any updates on on what's going to be happening uh with returning to in person at any point uh I I have a I can't help but have a suspicion that the expiration of the virtual meetings is set to february right when incidentally we'll see a spike in covid numbers and need to extend it again indefinitely um I'm not I is it is it mandated that that we be um or is it is mandated that we be remote or is it simply an option for us and is that something we want to support want to start discussing for maybe as we go down the line especially if this ends up getting extended because I know I personally uh I I didn't just join the zba to do a zoom meeting bureaucracy personally and maybe other people did I don't know maybe that hasn't it built with someone but uh you know I for one would like to like to get get in person with everybody at some time in the foreseeable future rather than distance so I don't know if people's thoughts are on what they would want to do with that one and then two if we even are allowed to do it um does does anyone have any information on that or any thoughts on that you know I I don't I don't know if the except I was under the impression that we needed to still do zoom but rob a moraine what's the what's the direction number one from the town and number two from the state so the state is offering the ability to continue with the remote meetings through next year uh and I think Dylan you know like we saw twice now the decision to extend it comes you know the last couple of days leading up to that expiration so I guess I wouldn't expect anything more than that uh next round but uh as far as locally at this point the council has made the decision that uh all boards meet remotely until you know another decision is made so certainly this board could uh if they had an opinion about it or wanted to um you know share that and make recommendations to the council to reconsider that at some point they certainly could do that but uh that's where we are today nobody except for the council is meeting in person and that mainly has to do with um being able to offer the remote uh means as well it's a very complicated uh you know endeavor to bring bring in the staff that's needed into be able to host the the meeting remotely and in person concurrently and we're just not able to staff that for all the boards and committees so we would be giving up the remote portion if we were going uh back to in-person meetings whenever that occurs uh unless there's some new solution that's found between now and that time so it's a real question for the town the hybrid meeting is expensive and we don't have the bandwidth and or the the personnel to do the hybrid you want to do a hybrid meeting at least for the time being I'd love to be all together with everybody but I think that the town I would assume this town would want to keep the option for people to to comment or to report in on a on a remote basis right yeah I think I think that would be the the suggestion at this point yes yeah well so what we could do is we could raise our fees to like maybe $1,500 and pay for the bandwidth we could do that right sound like we've got some more money coming in I think I think that new money is already spoken for though I think it was already spent but yeah that it's really a question of dollars isn't it Rob right now and staff time and staff time you know it requires at least one IT staff person with every meeting uh to make sure that that's uh you know things things go as needed for the council so uh you know when you think of the 50 or so committees that we have if you know any number of those decided to do a hybrid meeting we could never we could never staff that and support that so Dylan I I really do um sympathize and agree that I desire to be in a face-to-face meeting I haven't had a single meeting that I've chaired I've been a board member had uh you know face-to-face meetings but I haven't chaired a single face-to-face meeting yet and I think it's um I I would really like that not to be my legacy the zoom chairman so um but I just don't think right now that the town is ready to let us back in Rob's points refreshed my memory from a discussion with the town councilor I had about it not too long ago but I'm sure you guys can see your face as a person I think Tammy there is Tammy I I also I love the idea of meeting in person but I will say that the zoom meeting makes it more accessible to many people and I know for a lot of people driving into town from Boston or wherever they're coming from and then you know sitting for two to three hours waiting for their meeting time to come up is a little bit is a hardship and I I personally am very happy that I am not having to go out to my car now and drive home so because I don't live close to town so yeah yeah so but I do think accessibility wise I I do like the zoom meetings for that I mean because you can be on Cape Cod or you can be we can be on vacation it makes it so that you know there's more opportunity to have um everybody available I think there's pros and cons I'm going to take vacation where there's no zoom though there's no wi-fi we'll find you we'll pay for hotspots boy that's an old technology I remember that I remember those all right I'll be in Bonaire in January and if anybody wants to have the meeting down there that'll be fine you want to be out at the Cape at my house you're welcome to come just one more thing I want to mention I I know it's Thursday night and I I want to go watch the football but I do want to mention because I was thinking about this when I was looking at that that security guard issue from before of just thinking of in a lot of cases when we talk about how we do any sort of enforcement it seems like our only real enforcement is to revoke somebody's special permit which I think in almost every case is is a little bit extreme especially when you're talking about where people are renting you say well you know if you don't comply with this then what are we really going to do about it I think we should start thinking maybe have an administrative meeting sometime in the future when maybe we have a lighter workload or something like that imposing in conditions maybe some type of fees or fines should in specific conditions be violated of something I the only reason I thought about it was something like a security guard would be well we can always say well we couldn't find a security guard and it's like well how hard were you looking you could have a something in that it's like well it's a penalty of whatever amount per day that that goes unfilled beyond some day without some you know really make some reasonable accommodation something like that I don't know it's something I've been thinking about because I don't think we're ever going to be revoking a special permit especially to a large residential area unless it was something extremely grievous so I don't know have we done something like that in the past is that something we want to consider in the future for imposing on conditions now we're of course speaking in a hypothetical here and something that is a general issue and not related to any specific application but not this one just yeah just some general thing like that you know I think there are aren't there penalties for violations of some of the for some of the conditions because they violate the the building code or they violate other kinds of things in town that we force them to that conditions force people to comply with but I don't know about say we had a condition that said your grass has to be a mode when it reaches three three inches three feet or three inches or whatever and it isn't done if there's a ability for us to say and if you don't do it that we oppose a fine or if the fine imposed automatically by law rod is there any anything like that yeah any condition of the permit that's in violation can result in the fines being assessed the non-criminal disposition is for any provision of the byline and provision of the conditions of the permit I think you know it does it does help us to be as specific as you want to be so you know giving deadlines for things to occur by a certain date makes it really clear for us because otherwise we're you know we're working with the the issuance of the certificate of occupancy or some some date that we're you know making up on our own and deciding how much tolerance we give to that or flexibility we give to that so more specific the better but and to drive the point to the applicant you can state it in a condition that you're really concerned about seeing enforced but know that any violation of any condition could result in the penalty great no thank you good question thanks for the information Rob all right I don't think there's is there anything else for anybody in terms of comments questions all right I if not I'd entertain a motion to adjourn so moved mr. maxfield moves to adjourn do I have a second second mr. Gilbert seconds the motion this is non-debate and requires a roll call vote chair votes aye miss parks aye mr. maxfield aye mr. meadows aye mr. Gilbert aye we are adjourned thank you all thanks for your hard work tonight and Rob and Maureen can you stand for just a second without the recording and just had a quick question