 Okay. I have received notification that having some technical difficulty. Bye. Your voice continues to drop in and out. The microphone is on. And I did get a notice that recording was in process. I see Amherst media now in the attendees. Okay. They're telling me that they are good to go. So we are all set. Thank you. Okay. Welcome to the Amherst planning board meeting of September 29, 2021. My name is Doug Marshall. And as the chair of the Amherst planning board, I am calling this meeting to order. At 6 32 p.m. This meeting is being recorded and is available via Amherst media live stream. Minutes are being taken. Pursuant to chapter 20 of the acts of 2021. This planning board meeting, including public hearings will be conducted via remote means using the zoom platform. The zoom meeting link is available on the meeting agenda posted on the town's websites calendar listing for this meeting. Or go to the planning board webpage and click on the most recent agenda, which lists the zoom link at the top of the page. No in-person attendance of the public is permitted. However, every effort will be made to ensure the public can adequately access the meeting in real time via technological means. In the event we are unable to do so for reasons of economic hardship or despite best efforts. We will post an audio or video recording transcript or other comprehensive record of proceedings as soon as possible after the meeting on the town of Amherst website. Board members, I will take a roll call. When I call your name, unmute yourself, answer affirmatively, and then please place yourself back on mute. Maria Chow. I think. Jack Gemsick. Here. Tom Long. Here. Andrew McDougal. I think he caught Jack off guard with a question, but I am present. All right. I, Doug Marshall, I'm present. Janet McGowan. Here. Johanna or Johanna Newman. Here. Board members, if technical issues arise, we may need to pause temporarily to fix the problem and then continue the meeting. If the discussion needs to pause, it will be noted in the minutes. Please use the raise hand function to ask a question or make a comment. I will see your raised hand and call on you to speak. After speaking, remember to remute yourself. Opportunity for public comment will be provided during the general public comment period and is reserved for comments regarding items that are not on tonight's agenda. Public comment may also be heard at other appropriate times during the meeting for the items on the agenda. Please be aware the board will not respond to comments during general public comment period. Please indicate you wish to make a comment by clicking the raised hand button when public comment is solicited. If you have joined the zoom meeting using a telephone, please indicate you wish to make a comment by pressing star nine on your phone. When called on, please identify yourself by stating your full name and address and put yourself back into mute when finished speaking. Residents can express their views for up to three minutes or at the discretion of the planning board chair. If a speaker does not comply with these guidelines or exceeds their allotted time, their participation will be disconnected from the meeting. All right. So first item on the agenda for this evening is minutes. And before we, before I ask if we have any minutes for review and approval, I wanted to just state that for reasons that will become clear later in the meeting, Maria Chow will be taking the minutes for this evening's meeting. All right. Chris and Pam, do we have any minutes for approval this evening? No, we don't. Okay. We have no minutes for, for action tonight. Second, public comment period. Do we have any public comments? All right. I'm seeing two. Okay. Pam, do you normally move people in and out? I usually allow them the opportunity to. Yes, they don't actually come over into the panelists. Okay. So the other thing that I wanted to let you know is. I do have the timer available. If you want to use to have that available. Yes, I would like to use the timer. And let's see, I'm seeing Yasmin Eisenhower first. Yasmin. Hello. Just confirming that you can hear me. Yes. Okay, great. Great. I'm Yasmin Eisenhower, executive director of Amherst Cinema. And on behalf of Amherst Cinema, which is located at 28 Amity street. I offer this statement to express the cinema support. Of the town's pending decision to amend the official zoning map to extend the general business district. To include a vacant parcel of land owned by the town of Amherst. In the vicinity of North Pleasant street, North prospect street, cows lane, Amity street currently located in the general resident district. As you may know, from previous conversations and meetings with my predecessor and former executive director of Amherst Cinema, Carol H. Johnson. Public parking has been an ongoing concern for Amherst Cinema. Our movie going patrons are highly car reliant traveling to Amherst from near and far with an estimated 25 mile radius and beyond. In the year 2019, the cinema sold more than 100,000 tickets. An average of more than 2000 per week. These are not only movie goers. They eat in area restaurants, spend in our shops and help the local economy to thrive. So when our customers tell us that finding parking is one of their biggest frustrations that is not only a concern to the cinema, but it has a larger impact on the Amherst community and economy. In the worst case scenarios, some of our patrons have had to leave their movies to feed their parking meters. It is our opinion that the scarcity and inconvenience of parking options must be addressed and is solvable. Resoning the parcel of land to make way for destination parking is an important first step. In my short tenure as executive director of Amherst Cinema, my work has been focused on bringing people back to the big screen to experience the magic of the movies. And that hinges on creating a rich and holistic customer experience that will make people feel welcomed, wanted, and a part of our community. There are exciting developments to come as we envision what the future holds, re-engage with our community, and offer new films in educational programming. We are working closely with partners like the Amherst Chamber of Commerce and the Amherst Business Improvement District to collaborate on community programming. And on a national level, we recently learned we are a Sundance Festival satellite screen, one of seven independent art house cinemas across the U.S. that will showcase a specially curated selection of Sundance 2022 films during the festival's closing weekend. I'm honored to be a part of the business community and the caretaker and curator of our cinematic home. Thank you. Respectfully submitted. All right. Thank you, Yasmin. I need to repeat that comments need, during this point in the meeting, need to be about things we do not have on the agenda. And the rezoning of this parcel is on our agenda as the next topic on the agenda. So at this point, I will call on the rest of the people that have raised their hands, but please make sure that your comment does not apply to anything else that's on the agenda. Next, let's let's hear from Ann. Hello, everybody. Can you hear me? Yes. Okay. I am speaking on behalf of laughing dog bicycles, which is located at 69 South pleasant street. And I'm speaking to amend the zoning map of the parcel of land designated in the agenda. Okay. Can we have that comment in a few minutes? Sure. Sure. These are comments not about things on the agenda. And the agenda includes CV, the rezoning of this parcel. I apologize. That's fine. I see Lev. Ben Ezra. Thank you. Yes. I similarly misunderstood the instructions. My comment is in relation to the discussion of the temporary structure of the survival center later in the evening. So I'll reserve comment until that time. Thank you. All right. Thank you. So I don't see any more hands raised. I think and that's a legacy hand that's up. And so we will. Move on to the first item on the agenda, which is the rezoning. So the time is 6. 42. And we are at the zoning bylaw, the official zoning map. Map 14 a parcel 33. Rezoning North prospect street. To see if the town will vote to amend the official zoning map to extend the general business district. BG. To include a vacant parcel of land owned by the county. BG to include a vacant parcel of land owned by town of Amherst. In the vicinity of North pleasant street, North prospect street. Coles Lane and Amity street currently located in the general residence district. This has been continued from July 7th and from August 4th. Chris, do you have anything. To say about this as an introduction. We've been working on a. Proposal that's related to what was advertised. It's not exactly the same, but it's related. And both Rob Mora and Nate Malloy have been working with. The proponents. Of the initial zoning bylaw amendment. And I think it would help if, if either Rob or Nate. Would like to have a conversation from here. All right. Rob, can we call on you. So yeah, Nate, Nate will be handling the, the overview of where we are. Okay. Yeah. Thanks, Chris. Rob, Doug. The, you know, I think that was mentioned before instead of. You know, what we're looking at is an overlay zoning district, right? That's. Only for that parcel. So it's. You know, originally the thought was maybe contract zoning or something like that. And so it's, you know, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, you know, it's another technique to allow a parking facility. But after speaking with legal counsel, it really, and you know, looking at different options and overlay zone. Is probably the most appropriate method for this property. You know, it doesn't require covenants with the town or with other entities. It's really. And it would only allow just a parking facility. So every other use would be governed by. You know, it's not an overlay to allow a parking facility. It's voluntary. You know, working on details right now with the proponents. And so. You know, in general, it. You know, it would have its own dimensional standards, you know, standards and conditions. You know, zoning can't regulate everything. So there are things that the town would still be the property owner that could be managed through lease agreements or through permitting. So. You know, you know, I think the underlying zone would facilitate the development of a parking facility, whether it's a structure or a surface slot. And those are the only things that would be allowed in the overlay. So you're proposing that in lieu of rezoning this parcel. From RG to BG. That you instead. An act and overlay. On the parcel, the underlying zoning would remain the same. Right. So you would describe the conditions under which a parking garage could be built. Correct. Right. So it'd be like, you know, a parking facility overlay. Zone just for that property. All right. So at this time, do you have anything to actually propose to the board? Or is this more of an information session this evening? This is informational. And then the idea would be it could be continued until next week on the sixth. Okay. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. You know, specifics now is really just to receive comments and questions. Okay. Thank you, Nate. Chris. So I would suggest that you might want to hear from. The members of the public who came here to speak about. The need for a parking garage since there seemed to be a lot of people here. And then continue the public hearing to October 6th, the next Wednesday. Agreed. Okay. All right. So it looks like we have a couple of members who would like to say something before we get to public comment. I'll call on Andrew. You have three minutes. Thanks Doug. I'll keep it under three minutes. I was just reacting or just curious. I know when we brought this up one other time, there was a question from a. A person who asked about this being spot zoning. And Chris, I think you'd said that it really wouldn't because it's adjacent to other PG parcels. And I'm just curious what. Whether the, this application of using. An overlay. Would. Would constitute spot zoning. I'm just asking. For the information. Okay. Thank you, Andrew. Nate, would you like to respond to that? Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Chris, as our hand raised, but I could say that it's not spot zoning. You know, even if it was just rezoning that particular property. As is originally proposed, it wasn't considered spot zoning just because of. You know, the proximity to a similar zoning district, but as an overlay, it's not a spot zoning. Thank you. Chris, did you want to say something? I just wanted to repeat something that Rob told me a while ago, which is that this is considered boundary. That means that it's essentially an extension. I think this is what it means an extension of an existing zoning district that's right there adjacent to this lot. This lot shares a boundary with the BG zoning district. And so if we were to take some of the things that are allowed in BG and bring them over in, in this overlay that we're talking about into this. District or into this property. I think it would be. Not considered spot zoning. We're taking aspects of BG in the sense that. There are public and private parking lots allowed in BG. There are certain dimensional requirements that are allowed in BG that we'd like to bring over that would be applicable to the parking, just the parking structure or a lot. And so we're really just kind of enlarging what is, is allowed in BG, but Rob may have more technical explanation for, for this. Thank you, Chris. Rob, did you want to add anything? Just that as we switch gears from, you know, looking at the BG as a possible. Changed to a overlay, you know, it really takes out the question of potentially any spot zoning anyway, but I think both Nate and Chris, I agree with, you know, Chris's explanation is probably. Was, was really helpful back when we were looking at it as a change in zoning district to BG, but that doesn't look like that'll be the case as we move forward. Thank you. Janet. I have, I would first request for a little more information on boundary boundary districts, maybe in our packet next week. I haven't heard of that before. I have a question. Or I have a, you know, I was reading through all the, the parts of the packet talking about the CVS lot rezoning and, you know, I was reading Susanna must brats thing and, you know, lists of really good questions. Kathy Shane has questions. And I'm wondering how we're going to get those answered about in terms of, you know, this lot, this location versus other locations downtown doing some kind of comparison, you know, in terms of, you know, and then also, you know, in terms of location, you know, size of how many parking spaces, you know, we can go up to four or five stories on the, you know, LSC light lot. Could we do more there is a spot off of Amity street, a better spot or, you know, doesn't have, you know, what are the pros and cons of those we have studies on that. And, you know, people are raising questions about road access, removing parking spaces to get onto Coles Lane. You know, are there, you know, what's the traffic impact on North Pleasant street versus Amity street. And so we have a list of really good questions that people have. And I think, you know, questions that I had just reflecting on this is terms of like, is this economically viable, viable, like we're hearing it's a five or $6 million parking garage. If we're only adding 50 or 60 spaces, those are kind of expensive spaces. Maybe we can do it cheaper somewhere else, or doing something alternative. And so I'm wondering, how are we going to get that information? How are we going to get those questions asked? So if we go to town council saying we make it a recommendation for a zoning change, we're not just recommending a zoning change, we're recommending at a parking garage be built on this lot. And this is a better spot than two or three other spots in the downtown. So I'm looking for that information. And I'm just wondering who's going to provide it or when we'll get that. Thank you, Janet. Nate or Rob, do you want to respond to any of those questions? Certainly some of the questions like traffic and that sort of thing would come up when you actually had a design and you had some engineers involved in designing the facility. The financial viability is probably going to come when you put out an RFP and somebody either replies because they think they could break even or make some money or no one replies because they don't think anybody could make money on it. But that's just my two cents. Chris. I think Nate has looked at the other two sites pretty carefully and he has some comments to share about the other two locations. He's read the reports and he's, you know, studied those as potentials. So perhaps you'd like to recognize Nate. Yeah, no, thanks, Chris. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I think this location. Yeah, this location has been studied for, you know, decades as a possible garage. And I think, you know, in terms of its size, its location, I think it's an appropriate, you know, site. I think the Amity street lot is too small. You know, the town doesn't own a lot of municipal property in downtown and the BG. So I think that, you know, additional studies, you know, a really in depth study is not necessary to, you know, have an overlay district. And Nelson Nygaard looked at it a bit when they did the parking study in 2016 and 2018. And, you know, they cautioned about cost as a municipal project, but as a private project, as Doug mentioned, I think that's not as much of a concern because the town's not outlaying the funds for it. It's a private entity that would be spending their money to develop it and manage it. And so I think the location is appropriate. You know, it's centrally located and, you know, maybe that the town needs, you know, multiple parking facilities or multiple parking locations. So, you know, it's, you know, even if a garage was located somewhere else in downtown, it doesn't solve the problem of someone parking right in front of where they want to go. But this location is within the 15 minute walk of most of downtown. And so, you know, there are other locations people have mentioned, but at this time, you know, most of those are not municipally owned property or of the right size or location. So I think, you know, town's thought too is providing an overlay district also could serve as a template for how to zone other properties if, you know, if this is successful. So, you know, sometimes parking is complex and it's not, you know, one solution for everything. This is my thought is this is one phase, one step in helping provide parking. I appreciate it. I think, can you mute yourself? Thank you, Maria. That's exactly right, Nate. This site hasn't studied for longer than my term. And I agree with, I forget who said it, but that all those questions about traffic, financial issues, those studies come after the design has shown up. Zoni isn't meant to solve all the problems of what is it look like? How is this going to be impacted? I mean, how is, what's this look like? I guess I'm confused why so many specific questions are coming up when we don't, yeah, this is more about planning for what could happen, not planning what is going to happen. So I think that laying this as an overlay makes a lot of sense if that's an easier path forward than the changing of RG to BG. And we don't know all those answers until we study them and to stay in them before the zoning change doesn't, you don't, you normally do zoning that way. We don't normally design all the apartment buildings in every area that might have it be available or we don't study every ADU in every parcel. It's just not the way it works. So raising those questions after we have a design, after we've had studies makes a lot of sense, but to do that before we're trying to make this type of project possible doesn't make a lot of sense. And so I think that's great. And they just keep pushing forward whatever, you know, seems to be not the easiest path forward, but just the one that makes the most sense as far as, you know, what's the best way to do that. Right. Not making it seem like spot zoning, that it's something that relaxes the ability to have this project, but that the current. Zoning, you know, you know, if something else comes up, there's still a zoning that project can follow. So I think that's probably a safe way to move forward the overlay and that sounds good to me. Thank you, Maria. Janet. I'm just a little bit agnostic about a location of a parking garage or where it should be in downtown. I do think it's sort of astonishing that we wouldn't have any information as a planning board on traffic impacts, impacts on roads, whether we're moving pop, you know, parking, the costs of the garage, you know, what the deal is, you know, how many spaces could we have more spaces in a different location is one more visible, more viable, more economically viable. So I, you know, and so there we have so little information and we're sitting here again. And Nate, I appreciate your perspective, but please give me the data that supports that. And so we have some studies. Can we compare this, you know, the, the, the LSSE lot versus the amity lot, maybe throwing in also the Bank of America lot, which it's, you know, because that could be combined. Like, let's look at three alternatives, at least put a chart together with pros and cons on each, some numbers, if we are going to build, you know, like if Mr. Roberts wants to build the five or $6 million lot on the CVS lot, well, maybe another lot that, that could happen on a different town lot across the street. That's more accessible. That's easier to get cars on and off and has less impacts. You know, so I just find it odd that we wouldn't be as a planning board looking at all the aspects of our proposed garage in that location. Cause we're not just talking about like rezoning abstractly, we're talking about what that would mean realistically. And so I don't know when I read those, those comments by Kathy Shane and all these things, I just think, well, this is some information. We're not going to get all of it, but we're not even, we're just having, you know, we have so little information to go on. And if we, what if a garage is built there? It's not viable. It's not used. I have no idea how much money the town is putting in or not. I don't know what the deal is. I don't know what we're talking about. And so I feel like I need more information before I can make a recommendation that this is a good light. You know, let's do overlay because this is a good spot for a garage. And this is what it means. Okay. That could happen next week. I do think we need more information. Okay. Tom. Sure. Thanks. I mean, I think the way I'm thinking about this is that there seems to be this comparison of this lot versus that lot. I think if you asked anybody, the amount of parking spots, we can fit in either of those lots might not be enough. So I don't know why we're saying this lot versus that lot when maybe both of them need parking lots and, and we don't know. I think what we're trying to do is figure out if we can put one on this particular location because it's an easy reason as an overlay. I think the overlay helps get rid of some of the issues that people have about it potentially becoming some five story building down the road instead of a parking lot. I think it's a really smart decision to open this up and to explore it because we can't vet it. We're not here to vet the potential of it being an apartment building either. And we're not vetting it being a five times the size of a CVS. We're vetting. We're just sitting here wondering whether or not we can explore the opportunity of putting parking on this particular location. And that feels like a very positive thing for us to try to explore with the limitations of the overlay versus. Opening it up in a variety of other ways that people had some serious issues about. So I don't see it as an, as an issue that we're going to explore this and open it up for an RFP whereby it's cost effectiveness, it's function, it's access and all of those things we can then vet and say, you know what, this is zoned for this, but this particular building is not going to work in this particular site. And we will see this again as a building and be able to decide whether or not it meets your criteria for whether it functions on a particular site. But I think right now we won't know that until somebody pitches in the money and the time to actually show us what this might look like as a design. Thank you. All right. Does anybody else on the board want to speak? Seeing no one. Why don't we go to the public comment about this. Jack was raising his hand. Oh, thank you. Thank you. Jack. Yeah, I just, I think the only thing that I have. You know, on my mind about this is the, the BG versus the BL. And the potential for the five story aspect. You know, for this lot, which is, you know, adjacent to residential, I thought. That was, you know, we're, we're putting trust into. You know, what will be developed there. And that, that's the only thing that kind of caught me is like. Um, you know, we don't want to fight story. Thing in there, but the BG allows that. So how do we deal with that? And that's the main sticking point for me. Nate, do you want to comment on that? Yeah, thanks. Yeah, I think, you know, as an overlay. You know, we'll have different dimensional standards that are specific to if it's a parking. Facility, right? So we can have our own setbacks and heights as you'll see. Hopefully next week. So I think that. You know, then there can be discussion about it. What's at an appropriate height in that location for a parking facility. And so I don't think that. You know, we're anticipating a, you know, a five story building. So that's, you know, I don't think it's going to be as big as say in the BG, but that's something that an overlay can, can regulate, can regulate, you know, the size and mass of a structure. And setbacks. And so. You know, that's why we like the idea of an overlay too, because the underlying zoning is in place or any other type of building, any other type of construction. And so, you know, those dimensional standards can really help shape what, you know, what the massing can be. Thanks, Nate. Andrew. Thanks Doug. Give a quick sort of fast follow on that first question, just hearing some of the comment. I actually. With the overlay is it does sort of make it seem to me almost like it's more spot zoning, right? Because it's where we're creating a set of standards for a single parcel. I actually felt like it was less of a concern when it wasn't an overlay, but. I. That said, like I support the proposition. I just, I, in the back of my mind, I just wonder is this setting a precedent where we. Might start creating individual overlays. Or create overlays for individual parcels. And I'm just curious if, and you don't have to answer this now, we'll talk about next week. If, if, if anyone's aware of situations in other communities where you have an overlay for a single parcel. Thanks. Okay, Janet. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Nate, did you want to answer that? I was going to say, you know, I could look in terms of the parking garage. I feel like I've seen it, but you know, like a, when we were looking at the 40, our district or 43 D expected permitting. Those are often property specific. And only on one property. So it's an overlay zone. You know, just for a certain type of development. So, you know, when we were looking at 40 hours, a community was a, it was a. It was a capable zone for the people in the neighborhood. And it is a, it's a big area. It's a big area. And it can also a single property. It can also be designated as a local historic district, which isn't zoning, but you know, there are, so some of these tools can be on a property without being. Spot zoning or in violation of. You know, mass into a lot. Thank you. So I was going to say. Partly in risk. Just that I was sort of excited by the overlay because it seemed like. We were looking at one zoning. sequences and heights and, you know, footnote a waivers and it seemed like nothing would quite fit, or give a people certainty in terms of what would be there in terms of not having it too big or whatever. But maybe we could also use some information next week about these overlay districts and how they're used to, you know, in addition to the, the boundary, the boundary lot to just to give us a little background. So we'll feel more comfortable with it or see some examples of it or there have to be times when it's great and other times when it's not, but I like the flexibility of being able to shape that a bit. Great. Thank you. All right, we'll go to public comment. I see Claire first. Pam, you are muted. Okay, I'm sorry that I'm muted. I'm hearing something for the very first time apparently Claire is using a different version of the version of zoom. We can't hear you, Pam. Can't hear me at all. Now I can when you sort of like your head down. Okay. So I have to promote Claire to panelists in order to speak because she is running an older version of zoom than we are on so bear with me a moment. Yes, give us your name and where you live. Hi, thanks. My name is Claire Bertrand I live at 610 Bay Road, South St. Thank you for letting me speak briefly. I would like to speak in favor of this proposal for an overlay. I feel like a suitable garage is needed in downtown Amherst and any tools that the planning board can implement to move that along will suit the many people who visit town. This garage probably wouldn't be built for me or you because we know how to find parking in town. This garage would be built for my out of town family who post pandemic might be able to come back and visit. And when I say let's go down now, they won't get lost. I can just tell them where to park the garage. And then we can meet up. It makes a lot of sense. It's needed. And I appreciate your thoughtful research. And we certainly don't want to. We want to answer all questions we want to do our research, but we also need to really trust the process that is going on and trust that if there is private money that will put forward that our support in donating this can invite investment. That's a good thing. And people like the cinema. And justice is deserve town will support them with goods only. So thank you. Thank you Claire. I will, I will point out that it was, it was somewhat difficult to hear you, but I think we heard everything you said. Next. Next will be Gabrielle Gould. Hi, can you hear me. Yes. Right. Hi, Gabrielle Gould as the executive director of the Amherst business improvement district. Also the downtown Amherst foundation also a resident at 34 Canton Avenue and taxpayer and Amherst. I would like to start with this. I want to set the record straight. There was a piece written in the Amherst indie that had some highlight points in it. I believe it was written by Terry Johnson. The first thing is that if indeed I said at the library trustees meeting that John Cune or Cune riddle had anything to do with any designs for this. That was a mistake on my part. If I actually said it, I don't believe I did. I do think there is some confusion over the Drake live performance and music venue that Cune riddle is indeed assisting in designing Cune riddle has nothing to do with any designs that have been put forward or designed for this parking garage. The other thing I'd like to say is there is absolutely no under the table dealings or backdoor happenings. The bid has been very transparent. We have attended most of these meetings and spoke publicly in support of this. I think that everything nefarious has been done in the background and any plans that we have drawn up were simply simple preliminary plans to find out what something like this could cost the bid because to put ourselves forward if an RFP were put out for a PPP. It's been really silly and unprepared to come in with something that we had no concept of cost or what that could look like. So there have been plans drawn up. They are very preliminary plans and they're really just to show us what could be possible on that place. I'd also like to make it clear that Barry Roberts is not building a garage for five, six, seven, eight, nine or $10 million on any lots in downtown that I know of. What Amherst does need is destination parking. We all see that when we go to Northampton we look right in front of where we want to park and then we move on and go to the parking garage where there are lovely signs that tell us how many parking spaces are left. I'm going to reiterate what Claire said, I now after two and a half years know where all the hidden secret spots are and I love finding them. Nelson Nygaard put five things in place, both in their first and second time, and the town is working on them and I have been privileged to be with Sean Mandano and work with him on some of those things going forward. I'd like to just reiterate that in 1990 that in the 90s both Northampton Amherst were looking at building parking garages. Northampton did indeed build a four story plus roof structure that has about 430 spaces. Amherst, due to the town meetings, politics and lawsuits, managed to turn that four story level garage into two. There are 196 spaces, 106 spaces above and 80 below. There are 96 spaces existing so the neck gain of 90 spaces that cost the town $5 million at $55,000 a space. And now we all know that that parking garage is in need of a lot of repair and has mold and water problems. I'd like to also say that the committee looked in the 80s at the parking garage on the CVS spot and there's been a lot of history there and Nate Malloy I'd like to thank you for looking at that as well. If you have not seen them I'm more than happy to read but I'm going to wait and hear if you haven't gotten them from Lori Christensen at Clays which is a downtown Amherst business right on Main Street. I'd also like to say that there was a letter written to you from Sean Cleary from Amherst copy, who has moved out of Amherst and made it clear that part of the reason why he decided to relocate his business was because of parking concerns. There's also a letter to you in your packet from Karen Rhodes from Clays Donut and from Amherst books, Shannon Ramsey and Nat Harold. I think also you'll hear from a lot of business owners and stakeholders in our downtown. This is a constant concern. The first thing I heard about when I was hired at the bid, and it is the thing that I constantly hear about going forward. Yes, you've exceeded your time. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Next, let's hear from Rassif Rafiq. Can you hear me? Hi Rassif. My name is Rassif Rafiq. I'm a resident of 61A Main Street. It's the building right after the town hall and the owner of Bistro 63 and Monkey Bar in downtown Amherst. First of all, as a resident, I've lived in town for, I think 14 years, and I think it took me a good six or seven years to find out where to park on a busy Thursday, Friday, Saturday, sometimes on a Tuesday evening. It's a business that sees about 70 to 75,000 people come in and out of our doors on any given year. It's a big complaint of ours from not only large reservations, the private events that we have, but from, you know, the senior citizens that come to a restaurant that don't want to park all the way on Triangle Street to walk over into downtown. From the locals who love coming out over the summertime or discover us over the summertime, then stop coming out when they realize what kind of parking is not available during the academic season. My staff complain always about parking. I can't say enough how helpful another parking lot would be in Amherst. I feel like the businesses in Amherst have sort of plateaued because we cannot have more people come downtown on a regular basis year round. As we all know, Northampton has better parking. And, you know, when someone local comes out here to a restaurant for the first time in the month of October, on a weekend like this weekend, parents weekend, and I bet you if they haven't been to town before they're not going to find parking, they're not going to take all the things into considerations that I know, such as there is a thousand parents in town this weekend. So parking is really bad. They're just going to think Amherst is a terrible place to park. You know, yes, there's restaurants here, some cool places to visit, but there's no parking. So I will not return, even in January, even in the summertime when there are no students here. So, you know, I've been a business owner for seven years now. I love living in town. I love walking to town. But when I have guests, when my restaurant has guests, they do not have parking. So it is, it is a really, it is a really big issue. Unfortunately, on my night off when I go out to eat, especially if I do have the luxury to go out on a weekend or even Tuesdays for some reason is a really busy night in town. So I go to Hadley I go to Northampton when I go out with a big group of people, because I want to be able to park and and and walk around and have a good time and that option. Amherst Amherst does not know I'd really love to see some some headway on this. Thank you very much for your time. Thank you. Next will be Barry Roberts. Doug, Doug, Doug, I've had my hand up. Yeah, I could not hear anything that Claire Bertrand said, and I'm wondering if she needs to, you know, restate what you know what it was because I didn't, it was so choppy. I didn't hear anything. Well, is she still in attendance. I mean I could hear her it was sort of elongated. So, but, but I could hear the gist of it. Why don't we get through the people with their hands up and see if Claire at that point wants to try again. I think it was probably some sort of problem with her microphone and I'm not sure whether it's fixable this evening. So we'll help me remember to come back to that. Barry, do you want to speak. Pam, can you unmute Barry Roberts. There we go. Thank you all. My name is Barry Roberts. I'm the owner of Bay Road Namers. I've been a lifelong resident of Amherst. We actually own a property through a trust the realty trust right in front at 96 North Pleasant. You may know the driveway that goes between CBS and the building to the right where Miss Saigon is that is my property that it's my driveway. The property is located right in front of the building and it's right on the right side of the building and it's located right in front of the building and immediately behind. I just wanted to bring, you know, I've been involved in this discussion about a parking facility at this location for a long, long time in 1984, Robert's family through the E.V. Realty Trust, they even had included in the original motion the Catholic diocese, but that was pulled off just before town meeting. So it was four or five parcels right there and eventually the town voted the money to acquire the Vincent property, which is now the town parking lot. But this has long been identified as a prime location for parking, easily accessible, short walking distance to the major attractions downtown. And as a landlord to quite a few restaurants in the area, I can say that it's very important parking. That's a constant complaint that I get that none employees can park and visitors can't find a place. And I say that our competition is the malls, our competition is Northampton. And if we wanna create a vibrant downtown and make it stronger, which I think we're on the way to doing it with a music venue, maybe an outside band shell, I think this is another cog in a wheel that needs to be added. And without the town investing their own money, I think it's a really good way to go. Thank you very much for your time. Thank you, Barry. Next I see Amy Gates. Please state your name and address. My name is Amy Gates. I'm at 54 Spalding Street in Amherst. I'm a resident here and I'm really interested in the importance of destination parking in this town because as Barry was just talking about, in order to make it vibrant, businesses have to know that they can count on parking. And my reps, this was right before COVID, my two reps I'm in district four talked about, they'd been, there'd been contact and communication with a garage company that was going to pay for the garage in exchange for taking the proceeds from the ticket. So I'm just curious, Jan at McGowan, where you get this information that Barry Roberts is gonna build a garage for a $5 million or that it's gonna cost a town of dime, to me that kind of histrionic misinformation is a big problem that happens in this town and divides people and people can't make clear decisions. I really want people to get their facts straight on that one. I mean, that's really frustrating to me, I have to say as a resident of this town. I've talked with Gabrielle Gould in the past and she's stated how she's contacted really wonderful businesses in other towns, neighboring towns and they've all said we'd be here in Amherst and a heartbeat if we knew we could count on parking. And to me, that garage behind CVS is the perfect location. It's sort of tucked away. It's not, it wouldn't be an eyesore, it wouldn't be in the middle of obvious downtown. Thank you very much. Thank you, Amy. Next, let's hear from Anne. Hey everybody, can you hear me? Yes. I think I was a legacy hand before the debate started. I just wanted to speak to, I think it's really important to explore the CVS lot. It makes the most sense. And I should restate that I'm speaking on behalf of, I think a 30 year, 35 year business in downtown Amherst, laughing dog bicycles. And we've thought about this parking thing forever. And it's important to explore the CVS lot. I think it makes the most sense. It's already a parking lot, people use it. They know where it is. It's centrally located. And that's really important for folks with ability issues. They want to know that they can park and get to the locations they want to visit with ease. I think it's easier to work towards putting a garage there because your budding property owners are locals or have local ties and they're reachable. And I think other spots that are in consideration like the Bank of America lot on Amity Street, it's really hard to reach the Bank of America. So I think working with people that you can talk to is super important. It's a central location, but it's hidden enough and the slope are great of the lot. It makes a tree border on North Prospect Street able to provide a decent screen. So I just wanted to say, I think this is the most logical place to put the garage and that's all I have. Thank you. Can you give me your last name? Yes, Anne Tweedy. Tweedy, thank you very much. You're welcome. Okay, next we have John Snyder. Can you hear me? Yes, we can, John. Okay, sorry, I was muted. My name is John Snyder. I am a resident of Amherst at 74 Blue Hills Road, just down the hill from the lot in question. Also a member of the DAF board. And I also work with laudable productions who will be doing a large majority of the programming for the Drake. And I can tell you that, and I'm not here to talk about how incredible the Drake is gonna be, but I will say that it has every potential and likelihood of becoming a very, very significant driver for the downtown economy, not just in terms of bringing people to the Drake, but actually opening up lots of potential for other businesses to expand because of the incoming to, from all around. We're hoping that the Drake will actually become a nationally and potentially internationally recognized venue. And that's not hyperbole. There's very good reason to put money on that, and many people are. But to the point, I've already begun the process of reaching out to potential musicians and their agents to scope out their interest in coming to the Drake. And I will tell you, we are very excited that across the board, the answer is yes. People do wanna come to expand their audience and come to Amherst and to the Drake in particular. However, I will also tell you that many of the agents I've spoken to and the musicians have asked, in addition to what kind of piano are you gonna have and how many seats are there gonna be, is what is the parking like? And I can tell you that I've had to kind of work around that a little bit. I will just say that the Drake can become one of the most incredible forces driving the economy in Amherst, but it will not be able to do that and it won't become the kind of venue we want, meaning one that draws people from far and wide, not just locally, people who can walk to the Drake, but people who will come to Amherst just to see music, hear music. The facility that we're talking about is essential. It can't be that without that. So I'm not gonna talk about why I think that location is perfect. Others have already done that, although I will agree with all of them. I think it is the ideal location. And so I'll just leave it there. I thank you for your time. Thank you very much, John. Next we have either Sharon or Mary or both of you. Hi, my name is Sharon Povinelli. I live at 493 Montague Road in Amherst and I also run AJ Hastings with Mary Brawl who's sitting next to me. Hello. So I'm obviously here in support of the overlay idea. Everybody's talked about, or a couple of people have talked about destination parking. I think that's pretty clear. You head to Northampton, you head to the garage if you find a spot. Before that, you pull in, but you know you're gonna get a spot and you're gonna be able to walk around and do whatever you wanna do in Northampton. That's great. I'd like to also talk about why it's important to go ahead with thinking about parking, a parking facility on this lot and in general in Amherst. Pat D'Angelo said something really striking. I think it was Monday night when we were talking about the performance show in the common and she was talking about the design. She said, that design challenges me, but in a good way. And I think we need to challenge ourselves about what we think about Amherst and really how we can develop Amherst into an exciting place. And again, we have these programs coming on that are going to want to have people come in town, like the Kendrick playground. It's great to see people coming into town and using that nice new park. If, when the Drake gets up and running, that's gonna be another draw and then the performance shell is gonna be another draw. That's great. I know that the library wants to expand their programming. We need to develop, think about development in Amherst, not as a bad word, but development as like a child, you want to help them develop and grow. And one of the things that businesses need is a guaranteed people stream. Sort of like when you retire, if you can retire and have an income stream, we need to guarantee people stream and not just at one time of the year, but year round. And parking is a huge way to get that. And I would suggest that you humbly accept this idea of an overlay district. Thank you. Thank you, Sharon. Next we have Mary Sayer. Please give your name and your address. Hi, Mary, can you unmute yourself? You have the ability to speak. There we go. Can you hear me? Yes. Well, I just wanted to say, I think it's pretty clear that there's an overwhelming sense in Amherst that we need a parking garage. And I would certainly agree with that or better parking. But I think the discussion tonight is not whether we need a parking garage or not, which is what we seem to have, this talk seems to have come down to, but whether it's appropriate to make an overlay district and zoning before we know that a parking lot would really work there. And my concern is getting into the garage because I've been over to the garage in Northampton. And often there's a line of cars in both directions trying to get into the garage. So I'm just trying to figure out how that mainstream in Amherst is going to accommodate two lines of cars trying to get into a garage while we're doing flow through traffic and possibly the narrowing of the streets because of restaurants being outside. So my feeling is not that I don't want a garage there, it seems in most ways a really wonderful place for it to be but to change a zoning and then find out it actually would never work because of the way the entrance works, just seems like a backwards way of doing it. And maybe that would be just looking at that before making that decision. If you find out why find out afterwards that the garage isn't going to work and then you've changed zoning for that because you're really changing the zoning so we'll have a parking garage. So it seems backwards to say we're gonna change the zoning and then find out whether a parking garage would work there. So thank you very much. Thank you very much, Mary. Sharon, you still have your hand up and I'm gonna assume you no longer need to speak. And so Sharon Sherry, you are next. Hey everybody, can you hear me? Yes. Awesome. I'm Sharon Sherry, I'm the director of the Jones Library. I'm also a member of the BID Board of Directors. I just wanted to lend my support to the overlay zone for this parcel of land. I think Amherst absolutely needs destination, parking, library patrons are constantly complaining about the lack of parking, having to constantly circle to find a spot. Amherst attracts people from all across the valley. And these are people who don't know about those secret side street parking spots. These are people who wanna spend money in town and they wanna visit the town's cultural attractions. And so I really feel that destination parking will make such a difference and the location couldn't be sweeter. Parking garages tend to be ugly. So here is the perfect location hidden and because of the overlay, it will limit the number of floors that it will go. So it will help so many concerns. So I just thank you for your time and go play on board. Thank you, Sharon. Sharon, you'll need to mute yourself. I'm hearing an echo. Claire, I see your hand up. You wanna try it once again to give us the short version of your comments. Thank you. Yes, I apologize. Can you hear me better now? Yes, this is much better. Excellent, I changed computers. I'm lucky enough to have that ability. So thank you. In brief, I support this proposal and I appreciate so many people have spoken and I agree with much of what was said. I will remind us that this already is a parking lot. So we're not gonna find out if it works as a parking lot. We actually know it works as parking. What we're gonna do is double, triple it and cars will stream in and out as they do now. I would love to have us have double, triple what we have back there. It's a great spot. So that's all I'd like to say. Thank you. All right, thank you, Claire. All right, so this evening, we are only being asked to continue this hearing to next week, October 6th, I believe it is. So could I get a motion to do so? Janet, you are muted. Are you making a motion? You are still muted. Am I here now? Yes, you are. I'll move to continue this to October 4th. Do I need to pick it? I don't need to pick a time. Do I, Chris? The 4th is Monday, I believe. Oh, sorry, sorry. I think it's the 6th. And 6th. Well, I will then move to move it to October 6th. Oh, to continue. To continue it, yes. Andrew, your hand is up. I'll second that, Doug. All right, Chris, do we need a time definite? Yes, you do. And why don't you choose 635? I don't think there's anything prior to that. All right, Janet, do you accept that? I will amend my motion to 635 on that date. All right. Any discussion? All right. Actually, I have a quick comment. So I do not wanna spread rumors and misinformation. I actually feel like I have almost no information. So I was hoping that obviously I've raised questions. Can we get more information about the deal that's being discussed and the partners? I didn't, I had the impression that Tam was putting money in. I just don't know anything of what's going on. And I guess I can wait till next week. I'd love to hear some this week, but I just feel like I'm in a info desert in terms of this parking garage. I understand people feel the need for it. I just don't know all the details around it or any details really around it. Chris, do you wanna respond to that? I think we as a group, Nate and Rob and I have not been part of any conversations about the town participating in this project. If there are such conversations going on, they may be occurring at a higher level than we are. Like the third floor rather than the second floor, but I don't know if we are gonna be able to provide that kind of information because that is often, if it's related to land purchase, land lease or anything like that, that doesn't usually come into the public eye. So I can ask if there's something that can be shared but I don't know of anything. Chris, will there not be a public solicitation of proposals to put a parking garage on this site? Of course there would be, yes. So there is no deal at this point. There have been some probably conversations about whether anybody thinks it's feasible, but we won't really know a lot of these details until that RFP process results in some proposals for people to see and that'll be a public process. I assume the proposals would be available on some part of the town website, Jack. Yes, I see Gabrielle Gould has her hand up as well after me, but I just wanna say that what resonated with me for revitalization of the downtown is that parking certainty. And I just, I think it's such a turnoff for people when they don't know about parking. I thought that was key. And I think the Drake is a great opportunity and we don't know the details, but I hope that we can make this overlay work as it seems so vital to what we're trying to accomplish with downtown, but Gabrielle has her hand up. So I'll hopefully get it all on here. Thanks, Jack. Before I do that, we are in deliberation with a motion on the table. Chris, is it allowed to have public comment during that period? I think so. Okay, thank you. So why don't we let Gabrielle speak? Can you keep your comments to say a minute and a half this time? I would just like to speak on behalf of the bid. There is no deal. I believe that this is a very many stepped process that starts with you doing a recommendation to the town council, at which point I believe it will take nine of them to vote just to redo the zoning. Then there's the idea and the concept of writing an RFP and what that would look like. And then there's the accepting of bids for that public part, private partnership. And again, the bid has made it very clear that if there is to be an RFP and if the RFP is something that we see ourselves being capable of applying for and following through on, we would like to be one of the applicants because we see that this is one of the most important economic and destination drivers for our downtown and Amherst wide. So again, there is no deal. There are no offers on the table. There is no lease. There is no anything. What there is is the change of zoning so that it could be possible for a pre-existing non-conforming lot, which is what it is now because it is not meant to be a parking lot either to become a parking garage. And then I believe and Rob, you will know better than I and Chris that there are three or four more steps to go through before an RFP can even be put forward. So we're looking at 2024, 2025, which is fantastic because the hope is that this garage gets built after the library's finished that they're building and that we complement all of the things that are coming into downtown Amherst. Again, thank you all for your time. Always, I really appreciate all that you do. Thank you, Gabrielle. All right, so let's go back to the board. I see Janet. So next week, will we get any information about the size of a potential structure, how many new spaces, anything like that? Are we just gonna, are we getting any more information? I expect Nate, if I can speak for Nate, well, okay, Nate, why don't you just say what you'll expect to show up with? Yeah, no, I'd like, you know, the staff is working with the proponents to have something that can be sent in the planning board packet. So we can have, you know, dimensional standards, standards and conditions that can be reviewed. And, you know, what zoning right provides is the minimum or maximum build out. It doesn't actually say how big the structure will be or how many spaces it will be. So, you know, I think those specifics in that design is really up to each applicant for the facility. So what zoning is doing, as Gabrielle pointed out, is providing a pathway to have a parking facility be developed. You know, I think we could imagine, you know, what could be built, you know, what is, you know, what does a typical garage look like? But it's really up to someone responding to or press for proposals that the town puts out. So I think trying to assume what the building will look like or how big it is, you know, it's not really what the zoning does in terms of what we're gonna provide next week. It's really what are the, you know, the standards that could be used. All right, thank you. I think Johanna, I think you were next. Great, thank you so much. And first of all, I just wanna thank the staff for all the work they've put into this. It's always really interesting to see these projects evolve and get refined over time. So just grateful for that. Nate, do you anticipate that next week we would actually be able to see like proposed language for what that overlay, I don't know, district, you know, like what would it, like, yeah, would we actually be able to have language to respond to, do you think? Or would it be more like kind of broad concepts? No, we think to have language that the board can respond to. So it's not just a conversation about generalities, but just, you know, something specific that can be commented on. Terrific, I look forward to seeing that, thank you. All right, I'll remind the board this is not typically a conversation. So once you've finished speaking, please mute yourself and don't speak again until I call on you again. Thank you. Janet. Could we have drawings of maximum buildout, kind of three dimensional drawings? Thank you, Janet. Nate? I don't know, I'll talk with staff to see if that, you know, what that would look like. I think, you know, like I said, there can be different configurations for parking garages. And so it's hard to assume exactly what a response could look like, but we can have some, you know, perhaps some concepts. Thank you. Are there any other comments or do we want to go ahead and have a, and discussion and vote for Jack? Jack, did you want to speak? I was on mute, sorry. So I'm just saying with regard to this hearing, we're asking for a lot of details that I just think it's unreasonable for us to ask for. I mean, we're looking at a concept for a super need for downtown, where, you know, parking certainty that the town will most definitely benefit from. And, you know, to ask for details, is this unreasonable at this point, you know, in time? And those will come along if something happens, but we know that there is a super need for parking, especially if we're going to this entertainment, you know, sort of, you know, district with the Drake proposal, which is, you know, awesome for the downtown. So I just want to put the brakes on details on this, you know, garage. I mean, it just, it seems, you know, way, you know, ahead of the curve there. So that's all. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. And at the point that we have a proposal from Nate and the staff to vote on for recommendation to town council, each of us will have to just decide whether there's been adequate detail for us to vote in favor of it. Andrew. Thanks, Doug. Yeah, I agree that specifics for the actual property itself will figure that out down the road. I do think, though, that we probably could have some conversation around the traffic impact because there would be, and by that, I don't mean like traffic counts per se, but just, I think it's, I think it would be reasonable for us to consider that the likely access point is off of a one-way road and it's a residential road. So I do think that whether it's, you know, a garage for 50 spaces or 200 or 300, if we're directing people through that, I think that would be something worth talking about next week. Thanks. Thank you. All right, I don't see any more hands raised. So we have a motion, we have a second. Can we go ahead and vote? All right, so the motion is, let's see. Pam, would you be able to read the motion again? Good. Was that a no? No, it's yes, I'm flipping my paper. Oh, good. So we get it right here. It will help if I flip to the right page. I believe we were going to continue the hearing to October 6th at 6.35. You are. That is correct. Ms. McGowan made that motion to move, to continue the public hearing to Wednesday, October 6th at 6.35 p.m. and Mr. McDougall seconded. All right, thank you. So why don't we go through and vote? We'll go one at a time. Maria. Yes. Jack. Yes. Tom. Yes. Andrew. I. Janet. I. Johanna. I. And I'm an I, so it is unanimous to continue the hearing. All right. Why don't we go ahead onto the next item on the agenda, which is another continuation. This is, this is the public hearing for SUB 2022-01 for 11 and 13 East Pleasant Street from Archipelago Investments LLC. A request of approval for a two lot preliminary subdivision plan under MGL chapter 41, sections 81L and 81S with a variety of maps. I'm not going to read all of them. So, Chris, do you want to say anything about this to introduce it? Yes. We spoke about this earlier this year. I think the public hearing was opened on August 25th, and then it came back one other time, I believe, or no, it didn't come back. It was on August 25th. Actually, I can't quite remember. But anyway, it was opened on August 25th. And then I think it was September 1st when the board continued the public hearing to September 29th. Not exactly sure about that date. But anyway, the applicant is again coming back and asking to have the public hearing continued to October 20th, which is a regular board meeting. And so that is the request that's before you tonight. All right. So, do we have any comments or questions from the panelists, from the board? Andrew. I'm just wondering if there's any stated reason why they would want to push this back. Thanks. Chris. I have not heard a stated reason. Okay. Chris, is there any, there's no particular timeline on which this has to happen. It could just be continued on and on and on if we all want to do that. Is that true? Well, what you'd be agreeing to is further extending the 45-day review period. You already did agree to extend the 45-day review period to September 29th. And now you'd be agreeing to extending the 45-day review period to October 20th. So there is a time limit. It's a statutory time limit, but the planning board can agree to extending that time limit with the request of the applicant. So that's, that's what you did last time. And that's what is being requested this time. Okay. I see Andrew. I'll make a motion to extend that timeline. I'm seeing Janice Hand. You want to second Janice? Yeah, second. Great, thank you. No further board hands up. And I don't see any hands up among the attendees. I have, I have a hand up, Mr. Marshall. Okay. So I just, I just want to be clear. Are we going to extend it to October 20th? And Chris, do we need a time, a certain time? We do need a time. 635. All right. So Andrew, you're all right with us amending your, you're with amending your motion to... I was trying to keep it official. Yes, I'm perfectly fine with that. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Not seeing any further hands. Let's go through and vote. Maria. Yes. Jack. Hi. Tom. Hi. Andrew. Hi. Janet. Hi. And Johanna. Hi. And I'm an I as well. It's unanimous. Thank you. So we're almost at eight, we're almost at eight o'clock. I'm wondering if this would be a good time for people to take a break. Why don't we, I see 754 on the clock. And why don't we take a break until eight o'clock? So Pam, could you put up the, where we're on break? Yeah. Absolutely. So please mute yourself and turn off your video until you return. All right, I'm seeing eight o'clock. Folks who are back, if you could turn your video back on. There's Janet. You know, I keep thinking of romper room. You ever see, remember that show? I see you and I see you and I see you. I'm going to have a hard time getting that memory out of my head. That takes me back to pre-memory. That was an early, early memory for me. I can just say as someone who just had a birthday, I'm so glad I didn't get that reference, make it filled with younger. Well, it might have been, it might have been a regional thing too, Andrew. Are you, is that like, is that, Doug, are you from like the New York metro area? No, I'm from the Midwest. Oh, no. I'm aware of the show. I just, I didn't know where I was. I think it was national. I think it was a national hit for maybe funny to see that now. Doug, I forget. Where are you from? In the Midwest? St. Louis. Oh my gosh, you're like a stone throw from my hometown in Central Illinois. I think we talked about that. All right, and we can talk about it more later. Looks like we've got everybody back. Johanna. What's that? Johanna back. Oh, you're right. She has not turned on her video. Thank you, Janet. Well, I do have a preamble for this public hearing. And I'm wondering whether I should start that. Here she is. I see the video. All right, so we're all back together. All right, the next item on our agenda. In accordance with the provisions of MGL Chapter 40A, this is a public hearing. And I guess I'll just say this is a public hearing for SPP 2022-01 Center East LLC at 446 Main Street. So this public hearing has been duly advertised and notice thereof has been posted and is being held for the purpose of providing the opportunity for interested citizens to be heard regarding SPP 2022-01 Center East Street LLC at 446 Main Street. It's a request of a special permit to amend previous special permits, ZBA FY 79-57, ZBA FY 83-25, ZBA FY 92-70, and or 95-27 to allow a change in the site plan to accommodate a driveway connection between 446 Main Street and 462 Main Street. Map 14B Parcel 66 in the BN Zoning District. All right, are there any board disclosures for this hearing? I don't see any. Chris, do we have an applicant who wishes to present tonight? We have Mr. John Roblesky. I just wanted to make a brief statement beforehand to explain that Mr. Roblesky's property used to be in the RG Zoning District and the previous owners wanted to operate a mixed use building. And so they had to get a series of special permits in order to do that. Mr. Roblesky has plans for this property at 446 Main Street future plans, but those plans have not really been gelled yet. And so in the interim, he would like to be able to connect his property with the adjacent property, which he also owns. So Rob Mora suggested that rather than go through the whole site plan review process that Mr. Roblesky take this to the planning board as an amendment to all of those special permits which were granted by the Zoning Board of Appeals when this property was under different zoning. And so that's what is coming before you tonight. So you'll be, if you agree to amending these special permits to allow that connection to occur. So thank you. Thank you, Chris. Mr. Roblesky, you are muted. There you go. Okay, can you hear me now? Yes, we can. Thank you. All right, yep. Thanks for your time again. Yeah, a little background, I guess. During the course of finishing the project that for 62 Main Street, which is directly to the east of this property, the opportunity to purchase 446 came up at the end of May and we did purchase at the end of June. So over the summer and looking at different things and kind of thinking ahead a little bit, it kind of made sense to me to have a drive-through ability from Main Street all the way out to Gray Street, primarily for easier access and egress and exit and public safety response. The trash truck right now has to back in to empty the trash recycling. So this would allow it to drive in and do its thing and then drive out to Gray Street or vice versa. So it just kind of made sense to me to do this connection. It's only a piece of land that's about 22 feet long from curb to curb from one lot to the other. And it just seems to make a lot of sense. I spoke with Jason Skeels or sent him the diagram about it and Mike Roy from the fire department and they have no issues with it. Mike Roy seemed to think it made a lot of sense again from the public safety standpoint. So that's the gist of it. It's basically just making that drive-through access from one property to the other. So there's basically two entrances and two exits, one right out to Gray Street and one out to Main Street. All right, thank you. I think in an earlier package we may have had a site plan of this. Where is the site plan if Pam can bring it out? Yeah, why don't we bring that up at least briefly? I buy it. There we go. And was there another page with the actual sort of connection shown? Maybe not. Yes, there is. Yes. There we go. All right, so looks like Chris Brestrup is the only hand up. I wanted to, if you're recognizing me, I wanted to suggest that you ask Mr. Roblesky to describe the parking situation, both how this new drive will affect parking on the place where the new building just was built at 462 Main Street, as well as how it will affect parking at 446 Main Street. Cause it does have some effect, but it doesn't personally, I don't think it has an impact. So maybe you wanna hear him talk about that. Thanks, Chris. John? Sure. Yeah, so the building that was just finished and occupied as of August 15th on 24 residential units, that parking area has 32 parking spaces as approved by you folks last year. That did include about seven spaces that was gonna be like shared spaces for the business uses, one of the businesses being in a new building and then there was three office areas proposed in the existing building that is now scheduled to be removed. The impact here, well, first off, just so everybody knows from the 24 residential units that were occupied and are occupied now, there's only 16 vehicles associated with all those units. So we have about half the parking spaces available that are being used. The property next door that I just purchased the end of June has business on the first floor per the special permits that you're reviewing tonight or amending. And one three bedroom apartment on the second floor. So when we take the parking bylaw or parking regulations, you need two spaces for the upstairs apartment and then the downstairs business area is like three and a half spaces. I think that's right. Anyways, for a total of eight spaces or five and a half spaces, I'm sorry for the business based on a thousand square feet divided by 303 or the total square footage of the office area divided by 303 is the regulation. So total of eight spaces is what's required there. The current parking lot there has 14 spaces plus another two in the hash mark areas that really doesn't delineate a handicapped area but I'm assuming that when they put in the offices, doctor's offices or what it was in the seventies and early eighties that that area was supposed to be two handicapped spaces. So really we're gonna have more parking than we need or is required on the new property and the existing new building, the Sony 16 vehicles there. I think it'll work quite well for everybody. Thank you. Chris, I see your hand again. So I wanted to just mention that two parking spaces on the 462 Main Street property would be given over to this little driveway and two parking spaces on the 446 Main Street property would be given over. The net result is that there is still enough parking for both properties, but I wanted to point that out. And I also wanted to suggest that Pam could scroll down further and get an image of the two lots together showing the parking situation side by side. So this plan shows how the two lots interact with one another. And also the fact that Mr. Robolesky described today at the site visit that Janet and I attended and Jack was there also that the parking or the slope of the driveway would be 9.5% which is within the tolerances allowed by the zoning bylaw. So this image here will help you to understand what the interaction of the two lots is. Thanks, Chris. Do you or Janet or Jack wanna do a site visit report? Janet, I see your hand up. Would you like to do it? Sure, I had some questions for Chris, but I'll jump in. So if you look at the map, it says ride share parking and there is a marked out space there. And that was sort of for Uber pickup or drop off. And then Mr. Robolesky thought that was convenient if someone pulled into that at 462, drop somebody off or pick them up, they could just go forward and go into the parking lot at 466 and exit on Main Street or actually no, Gray Street. So there are two spaces that will be lost. They weren't marked out physically but you can kind of see them as a dotted line. The slope is a little bit steep but not dramatically so. And that's really the gist of it. There's not that much to say about it. It does go into this parking lot here and you could see how there'd be good circulation for a fire truck. Like the fire trucks can come to both buildings but now they can actually exit without backing up or kind of turning around and things like that. So that made sense. And I hadn't thought about the garbage trucks but that does make sense too. I did wonder, we did ask about the future plans for it and those aren't specified but I think Mr. Robolesky is looking for future housing there but that's an impact here. That Chris is there anything else that I missed? I'm trying to, there's two spaces lost on each side and so it's still within the eight spaces required by 466 but you're dropping down to that was in the management plan for 462. And does the fact that the house that had the businesses in it, once that goes away that would reduce the parking demand at 462, right? Well, I think we talked about that and when this came in front of the planning board the idea was the offices were used during the day and that the residents of the mixed use building would be primarily parking at night. So it was kind of shared parking because they were showing up at different hours of the day. So that wasn't in the, you know what I mean? So it's sort of overlapping. I mean, it does seem logical that we feel we need seven spaces during the day and now you have nothing there. So, you know what I mean? It doesn't affect the day parking. It could affect the evening parking in the future. Great. So that's the end of your site visit report and you had a question. So I actually had two questions. One is for Chris. So is it normal to amend a special permit by SPR which is what we're doing now for 46? Like I don't, would you go back to the ZBA and do this or how did we get here? That's my first question. You want me to answer? Yes, please. So you're actually considering a special permit. If you look on the application form that was in your packet, it's SPP and then in the upper right hand corner it says special permit. So since this use is now under planning board jurisdiction as a mixed use building, both lots are planning board jurisdiction as mixed use buildings in the current zoning. Mr. Moore, I thought it would be appropriate for the planning board to issue the special permit to amend the previous ZBA special permits rather than having Mr. Roblesky go back to the ZBA when the ZBA doesn't really have jurisdiction over these two properties anymore for this type of use. Okay, that's my first question. And then my second question, which just occurred to me when you were talking before was would Mr. Roblesky need to come back on the permit for 462 and ask for an amendment to lose those two spaces? Chris? Yeah, so I believe he will, but he already has a plan to come back to you once he figures out what he's gonna do with that space that's going to be empty when the building goes away. And I think he's also planning to replace the little building that now, you know, he's made a little renovation to the little building. It's got some post office boxes and some storage in it, but I think he's planning to replace that little building with something else. So he's gonna be coming back to you for 462 anyway. And in my opinion, he could roll in that change to the parking lot. In other words, taking away those two spaces and having the driveway. He could roll that into a site plan review for 462 Main Street. Okay. All right. Thank you, Chris. And thank you, Janet. Jack? Yeah, I just wanna say that, you know, when we were there, it was, you know, obvious that everything, you know, with regard to the new development there at the adjacent property that it was functioning properly, lots of tenants, they were going, you know, to the trash recycling situation there. So, you know, everything seemed to be in order. And I just thought that the, I just wanna say that I thought the building looked fantastic. And so John, you know, did a good job with regard to that, you know, existing building, but that was going on. So I just thought it would be worth, you know, pointing out to the planning board. Thank you, Jack. I don't see any more hands raised from the board. Oh, John, do you wanna respond to one of these comments? Yeah, just, you know, when the folks were there today, they saw it was pretty busy because the plan PV squared photovoltaic, whatever their proper name is, we're putting up the solar panels on a roof. So they had their equipment there. There was about 10 spaces that were blocked off. And yet the tenants were still able to come and go, delivery trucks were able to come and go. So it's been functioning pretty well. And thank you, Jack, for the comment. I am pretty proud of the way it came out. And the tenants are quite happy and really liked their unit. So it's working out. Thanks, John. No other hands raised either panelists or attendees. So maybe can we have a vote to close the hearing and approve the special permit or does anybody wanna do anything else? I'm seeing Jack's hand. Why don't you speak? So moved for the closure of the comments. Well, I don't see any public comment at all. Okay, Jack. So you've made a motion to close the hearing and combined with a second motion to approve the special permit. Do I have a second? I'm seeing Tom's hand. Tom on. All right. All right, why don't we just, Chris, do we need to have two votes, one to close the hearing and one to approve the permit? You can do it both together. I think you should make some reference to whether you think this meets the criteria of section 10.38, which you've been through before, I believe those are the criteria that are used to judge whether a special permit is adequate or is suitable. And I think for those of you who have been through it you could say that, yes, this does meet those criteria. Many of them, many of which are not relevant. All right, so Jack, we would amend your motion to close the public hearing, decree that the change or that this special permit would comply with 10.38 and approve the special permit. I agree. So moved. Okay. All right, Tom's seconding again. Good, so let's go through the roll. Starting with Maria. Jack? Aye. Tom? Aye. Andrew? Yes. Janna? No, approve. What did he say? You know, Hannah? Aye. And I'm an aye, it's unanimous. Tom, your hand is up. You want to say anything else? Or that was your second. Okay. Legacy hand, sorry. Okay. All right, so thank you, John. And we'll see you next time. All right, thank you to all the board members. Appreciate your time. And again, I know what it takes to be on these boards and spend a lot of time looking at different things, even when you're not on camera. So thank you very much. Enjoy the rest of your evening and weekend. Thank you, you too. All right. Moving along to the next thing on the agenda, we have old business. SPR 2021-01 with the Survival Center at 138 Sunderland Road. Discussion regarding the future of the shed as outlined in condition one of our site plan review decision from last year, I believe. Chris, do you want to speak to this? I just wanted to say that we have Sam and Lev from the Survival Center to make their presentation. And this is in regards to a condition of their permit, which required them to come back to tell you about what their future plans for the shed were. And they did try to come back earlier this season. They tried on, I think it was the first meeting in September, but that agenda was very full. So they were gracious enough to put off their meeting with you until now. And so they're going to explain whether they need to keep the shed. And if so, why? All right. So I see Lev in the panelists area. So Lev, do you want to start or should Sam? I'm happy to start. Thank you. Well, thanks so much for having us back. I appreciate this opportunity to talk to you all. I am Lev Benezra, I'm the executive director of the MR Survival Center. And I'm here with Sam Garrett, our operations coordinator. So as you recall, when was just outlined last summer, we filed a request for site plan review to review to erect a temporary shelter or shed in the parking lot of the MR Survival Center to replace a tent that we had been using with a more weather resistant structure to allow for continued emergency food provision outside through the COVID pandemic. And on September 2nd of 2020, the planning board provided approval as Ms. Brestrup just outlined and indicated that we should return to the planning board within a year to discuss the future and that the shed was, we were given approval to have it for 18 months. So up through March 2nd, 2022, and then we would be talking at this time about our needs moving forward. So before I discuss our future needs, I just wanted to take a moment and thank you for that consideration and share a couple of the anecdotes from the very first day that the shed was finally installed and in use. It was really sweet to hear just explanations from folks who were waiting in line to get lunch, to get produce about how beautiful it is, what a nicer place it was to come and get my food. A volunteer had shared that it just felt so much more dignified to distribute food from this beautiful shed as opposed to off of pallets or crates on the parking lot. And the one that was the most heartbreaking to me was a daily regular came up to me after going to the line and confessed that she was so glad to see this, that she knew that the tent that we had couldn't withstand the winter and that she had been worried that we would stop providing lunch once the snow came because the tent wouldn't be able to handle it. And of course, that was never our plan or something in consideration. But what it really made clear was that the shed became a critical part of our infrastructure, both very literally allowing us to conduct that essential part of our business, which is a part of us serving well over a million meals prepared in groceries to more than 7,000 of our neighbors over the last year. But then it also provided a really powerful signal to our community that we were here, that we were weathering the storm, so to speak and that we would continue to be a resource. So I really appreciate the current work's role in making that possible. So at this time, Sam and I are appearing before you here to respectfully request an extension to our permit through the end of calendar year 2022. So December of 2022. Given the ongoing concern that has caused by COVID-19 and specifically the Delta variant and continued uncertainty about what the immediate future provides, we are continuing to provide to go lunches and our fresh produce distribution outside from the shed. It is working really well and we have now done this successfully through all four seasons, through the highest peaks of our participant volume, through all weather and having moved really fully back into our mode of operations that relies so heavily on volunteers. We have reopened our indoors in-person full choice shopping for our food pantry that people come to on a monthly basis. And we have also opened an indoor warming center for individuals experiencing homelessness, but we do not yet know when it will be feasible to return to indoor dining. Obviously indoor dining in our setting would be lots of people very close together. There should be no way to ascertain vaccination status or restrict that for those participants and folks including a high number of people who are dealing with serious health issues and they are all at higher risk. So we, and additionally, we're also using the area of our building that had been previously dedicated to luxury distribution to help us provide a larger and safer pantry shopping space, which is facilitating the increased distribution of food. We're now giving families roughly twice the amount of food that they were able to access from the food pantry versus before COVID-19. So unfortunately, it really isn't possible for us to determine right now whether or not the shed would prove useful in the past 2022. And we would respectfully request the opportunity to return to the planning board to discuss the future if that need became clear or seemed like it would be useful. But at this time, within our current mode of operations, what we know is that the shed is working incredibly well. We have sufficient parking. Our pedestrian traffic flow is functioning well. The space has really served our student-armed needs beautifully both in terms of COVID safety and in terms of food distribution. And there are many participants who have just spoken really highly about that setup and the ability to comment the ease of access that it offers. It blends beautifully with the current building. It really matches the building quite well. I think it looks lovely in the street and it has stood up to the weather beautifully. And as I mentioned before, I think just really conveys to our community members that we're here and that these services aren't going anywhere. So just to wrap up, given these ongoing COVID concerns and the iterative and effective adaptations to our programs thus far, we would like to be assured that we may continue to use this shed through December of 2022 if the need persists. Thank you. So do we have any board questions? Maria. Thanks for that, Lab. That was really nice to hear that it was working well. And I remember the site visit, I can't remember when, but I remember being there and just you guys were just sort of bursting at the seams. And so I feel like during this time we're in that being flexible and using the spaces you have in different ways makes all the sense in the world. And if it's, I'm sorry I didn't go to the site visit, but if it's in fine condition, I have no problem extending to next December. And yeah, just really appreciate everything you guys are doing and how necessary you are in our town. And so, yeah, it seems like it's been working. And I just, yeah, I'm so thankful for that, especially now, so many people need it. And yeah, I just ask that you treat that building like another structure that needs maintenance and care. And it sounds like you are doing that. So, yeah, that's my comment, not really a question. Thank you, Maria. Any other board comments or questions? Janet, yeah, I think you guys got there first, maybe? I just wanted to thank Lev and Sam and the survival center for your work. And I'm sorry that we have to keep on extending this. Like I hoped 18 months would be enough, but I see the need because the future is so uncertain. But I do appreciate how you've stretched and accommodated and increased what you've done for the community, so. Thanks, Janet. And Andrew. I'm just going to pile on for five seconds. Thank you for all you've done. And it makes total sense, I'm very supportive of this. Okay, no other board hands. I don't see any raised hands among the public. Any final comments before we get a motion? All right, so Chris, do we need to have a, are we amending the SBR 2021? You are muted. No, you're not amending it. You're just responding to the condition. I think it's condition, what number condition is it one? You're responding to the condition that the applicant shall return and the shed shall be removed within 18 months unless the applicant tells the board that it's still needed. So the applicant has told the board that it's still needed. So if you vote to agree with that and to agree that they can have the shed there until December of 2022, what we would do is write a letter to them stating that that was the vote of the board in response to that condition. And then they would be good until December of 2022. Okay, thank you. So can we have a motion to, that we agree that the shed is still needed and we agree to allow it to stay in place through December of 2022, Andrew? I will make that motion. Jack. Second. All right. I don't see any hands for any further discussion. So we'll go through the vote again. I have a quick question. It's Johanna. Yes, Johanna. Sorry. If, as this motion is written right now, if, hypothetically, let's say there's another variant and in December of 2022, this like leadership at the Survival Center deems that the shed is still in good shape and filling an important role, would they then have to like re-propose it or would we have a similar process that will like come to us and we consider an extension? What would that look like? Chris, do you want to answer that? I haven't really thought about this, but you could put in a provision in that motion to allow them to come back sometime in the fall of 2022 to talk to you about future plans for the shed. And at that time, decide whether you wanted to extend their ability to keep the shed and keep using it. So. So we need a new extension clause. We can't just rely on the original one. Is that true? I think that's true. So how could we say that? That the shed shall be removed in December of 2022, unless it tells the board that it's still needed. Okay. Jack? Yeah, I'm just, I would recommend that we extend this as long as we, you know, is reasonable. Yeah. Yeah, I have a little concern with a deadline in the middle of winter. You know, I think our original one was March and that seemed to make sense to me to get through the winter and then, you know, as spring comes, we can reevaluate. So what if we made it March of 2023? I see a thumbs up from Jack. Thank you. I appreciate it from our end. Thank you for that consideration. Andrew, I think you made the original motion. You're on to that? Yeah, I did. I'm totally fine amending it. I feel bad asking you to come back because I don't see any circumstance where we would ever not recommend renewing. But yeah, could we please make the amendment per Jack's request? All right. So we agree that the shed is needed. We would allow the applicant to have the shed in place through March of 2023. And if they want to extend it beyond that date, they would need to return again to the board. Chris and Pam, does that motion seem reasonably clear? Yes. Okay, let's go through the roll call again. Going from the, going reverse alphabetical. Johanna. Hi. Hi, okay. You're getting tricky, Doug. My gosh. Andrew. Hi. Tom. Hi. Jack. Hi. And Maria. Yes, approved. And I am an I as well. All right. Well, thank you so much. Really appreciate your support. It has certainly been quite a year and a half and we're really appreciative of all of the many supporters in the community that made this collective effort possible and are here and available for any community member for moments for meals or free groceries with would be a welcome addition at this challenging time. So thank you so much. Thank you. Good night and we'll, we hope we don't have to see you in 2022 or 2023, but we'll, we probably will. Sounds like a good, it sounds like a good hope. Thank you so much. And have the rest of your evening. You too. All right. So moving on to a second item of old business. SPR 2013 dash 0 0 0 1 0. Unitarian Universalist Society of Amherst 121 North Pleasant Street. Discussion regarding the condenser unit screening as outlined in condition number one of the site plan review decision. Let's see. I see Maria's hand. Are you introducing this over there's Chris? Hi. We have Suzanne. Oh, sorry, Maria. Can I ask who seconded the last motion? Jack. Thank you. Sorry. Yes. Okay, Chris, why don't you introduce the UU fence? We have Suzanne personette who's going to speak about the fence. Back in 2013, the Unitarian Universalist Society went through a process with the planning board and they received site plan review approval to expand their building and do various site improvements. And they did those and they had a plan to put some mechanical equipment on the north side of their building and they were going to screen as a requirement of the site plan review approval. They were required to screen the mechanical equipment and they came back to the planning board and they showed what they were going to do to screen it and they installed the fence as it was approved by the planning board. But since then what they installed was, I believe it was a four foot high vinyl fence that was not connected to the building. So people could hop the fence and they could walk around it and there were problems with activities that were occurring behind the fence. So now the Unitarians are coming in to ask the planning board if under that same condition they can show you a new type of fence that they would like to install that has a locking gate and connects to the building. And I think it's six feet tall. So Ms. Personette is here to talk to you about that and there she is. Thanks, Chris. You did a really good job of explaining it. It's pretty simple. I believe you should all have the documents that we submitted because I don't have a presentation tonight. So is that right for the assumption? I'm bringing up the images. All right. We removed this fence that Chris mentioned. So this is the site plan. This is the original document. We're back, 2013. Ms. Personette doesn't need to share her screen because we have it in the packet and Japan is trying to access it among all the other material. Thank you. Well, she's trying to find it. I will just mention we removed the vinyl fence, the four foot vinyl fence which was only in small sections. Here we go. And so this is a photograph of after we removed the fence. You can see the posts that are still there in the condenser units that are behind it. This was while the Craig's Doors was using the facility and you can see that they have some USA garbage bins and a port-a-potty located on our property at the edge of the sidewalk and some garbage bins as well. Those are all gone at this point and this is a panoramic view of the garbage bins. So what we found is that, this is not the kind of equipment that one usually wants to put on a sidewalk because it's delicate, it's easily vandalized. In fact, somebody has turned off our solar system because the main breaker is out there. And so we would like to put in this kind of a fence which is keeping with the historic nature of the building and the neighborhood. But it's six feet tall, as Chris mentioned. It will be going from one end of the building to the other and there will be a lockable gate. This next plan, the dark line is a blow-up of the next drawing which shows the actual line of the fence that goes just behind the transformer. And we were asked by the electrical inspector to maintain a three-foot clearance between the condensers and the fence. So that's noted on this drawing right now. It's a little bit less than that. Code was probably a little different back then. So it's pretty simple. I consulted with Coon Riddle, who were the architects for the building and it was their suggestion for this fence and I'm an architect as well. And I thought it was quite appropriate for this location. So we have hasty fence set up to install it sometime this month or next month. All right, thank you, Suzanne. I see two hands on the board. Sure. Let's start with Tom. So I think it was last week, Suzanne, where you presented through the design review board and it was looked at and unanimously approved for its aesthetics and its function within the purposes that Suzanne is asking for. So I just wanted to put that in there for context. Oh, thank you. Thank you, Tom. Andrew? Thanks, Doug. Thanks, Suzanne. I guess maybe just to point to clarity. So is the purpose of this fence for privacy or security? It's for security. The previous fence was unintentionally providing privacy for people to do things behind the fence that were not okay. And so we felt that the sort of transparency of this fence but its height would also discourage people from hopping over. I mean, you really can't hop over the fence at six feet tall but it would keep people from hanging out back there. Okay, thanks. Suzanne, wasn't there an intentional screening function of the previous fence to not see the equipment? There was and this is sort of a, it's kind of a compromise between a full screen and accomplishing the goals of both security and protection of the equipment and screening the equipment. So we thought that it would be an acceptable, we were hoping it would be an acceptable compromise. The full screen actually provides a place for people to hang out and people to sleep and do other things. So it's a balance of several different needs. Okay, Andrew. Yeah, you sort of were channeling my thoughts there. If it's a six foot vinyl privacy that attaches to the building, would that also serve the function of the security as well? If it's, was the issue that it was four feet or was the issue that it was not connected to the building? It was both and it was also the vinyl fence provided a fully opaque screen for people to hide behind. Yeah, I guess that makes sense, but I guess would a six foot vinyl fence that attaches to the building provide the same security because you'd still have to jump a six foot fence while also providing the privacy? I think it would provide greater privacy. I think my sense is that it would be, I think that this is a screen while it's not a completely opaque wall. So my sense is that a six foot tall fence would be, would encourage that was a fully opaque that you couldn't see behind, would really encourage people to go behind it, to climb over it. So, but that's a architectural opinion. Yeah, I mean, I first thought that seemed like that would be the logical solution to me personally would be that, but I'm not aware of the, obviously the security concerns if you think that people will jump the fence, a six foot vinyl fence, but now obviously this is not one I would certainly want to jump, then that's useful information to know. Maria. I think usually when we ask for screening from mechanical equipment, it's partially visual, but a lot of it's sound. This, I guess is on the side of the property. So it's not on the front, correct? Right, some kind of street. Okay, so I'm just wondering. Yeah, I don't think sound was ever part of the original special permit on the site. So the equipment is not like noisy. Or just a visual sort of barrier. Yeah, the only neighbors are the backside of the post office across the street. And there's another screen fence right across the street there that is a chain link fence that has black slats woven through it. So I thought we'd do something a little bit nicer than that. Yeah, I mean visually it looks nice. And so I think that's pretty well solved. And you were able to make sure no one's doing anything behind a opaque wall. And so my only question was just the sound issue. And if that's not an issue, then that's fine. Not that I'm aware of. We haven't had any complaints or any problems since 2013. Well, can I ask one more question? What is your last name? My last name is Personette. Thank you. Can you spell that Suzanne? Sure, P-E-R-S-O-N-E-T-T-E. And I am a member of the Meeting House Committee of the Unitarian Society. That's the- Thanks, Suzanne. Oh, I'm here. So, Chris, I guess I'm not seeing any more hands among the board and I'm not seeing any hands among the public. So what kind of motion do we need to have for this, Chris? You need to have a motion. I'm looking for the site plan review decision that meets the requirements of the condition that talks about the fence. I'm not seeing my copy of the site plan review. Maybe Pam can bring that up. Yeah, she got it over. All right, I just stopped this screen share. Hold on. I think you'd want to make a reference to the- You want the number, Chris? 37, the condition number. It's SBR 2013-00010 slash M as in mother, 17206. There you go. So there's a condition number one, a plan for screening of the condensters on the north side to be submitted to the board for review and approval. So that's what this would be. So you would make a motion that what is being proposed here satisfies that condition and that you approve what they're proposing. Okay. Do we have a motion from anybody on the board? I'm seeing two hands. Andrew, how about you? I wasn't going to. I was going to say like, this doesn't seem like it satisfies screening at all. Just like it's security. Okay. And I just want to thought this is what, I guess what sort of maintenance will occur around those units now that they're open as well. I'm not, I did not get a chance to go to the site. I don't know whether it's grass, whether it's gravel, since it's not going to be visible. Is paving all around it? Paving, okay. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I mean, I can support the fence, but I wouldn't say that this is serving screening purposes. Yeah. I think if we go back to the original condition, it talks about low vegetation or a low fence. That's what I'm seeing on the screen. Yeah. The type of screening, whether low vegetation or a low fence and its exact placement will be at the discretion of the applicant. Yeah. And we'll be submitted to the board for its information at a future date. Chris, at least what we're seeing on the board doesn't seem to give us to ask for us to approve it at all. Submitted for information. See, is this the right page? It is. This is a page that came after the decision. The decision called on the UU to come in to the board and present a plan for screening, which they did. And they presented the plan for the four foot high and vinyl fence, which the board decided met the screening requirement. So now they're coming back to see if you will allow them to swap out the old fence for the new fence. And I think I'm hearing that you don't feel that the new fence meets the screening requirement. Well, we're certainly hearing that from some members of the board. And we haven't heard from everyone yet. So, Susan, would you be willing to think about some options that would have more screening function? We'd certainly be willing to think about whatever would get this accomplished. We did talk to the architects and kind of, you know, noodled around the question of, like I said, it's kind of a compromise between screening and security and preventing access to and illicit behavior going on behind the fence. I wouldn't really be very comfortable with a full six-foot tall vinyl fence. I think we would be inviting vandalism and problems when everything was fully screened from the sidewalk and you couldn't see anybody in there at all. And then the model of fence that you have proposed tonight, you know, if the manufacturer offers any mesh screens that can be installed behind the pickets that might be sort of partially visible, but not quite, you know, not fully visible. I don't know offhand, but I can talk to hasty fence. So something that would go a little bit more toward being a screen, but it's still allow you to see in there. Yeah, I mean, I'm thinking of, you know, how when you buy a window shade, you can get different meshes that have different levels of transparency. Yeah, you know, if there were a metal screen behind it that might help make it less transparent. All right, so I think we should, why don't we go ahead? We have and get a motion and just see if people wanna continue this or not and bring it back. Do we need a formal continuation, Chris, or can we simply decide not to decide tonight? Chris. You can decide not to decide tonight. You could ask this person not to come back next week on the 6th of October and she may be able to come up with some addition to that fence that's being proposed that would provide more screening. Jack. Yeah, I would move to, you know, close the hearing and approve this if there's a second. Okay. May I just say that it's not really a hearing, it's more meeting, so. So we could end discussion. We can end discussion, yeah. Do we have a second on ending discussion? Second. All right, Tom. And so we're with Jack's motion, we'll go ahead and vote on whether to accept this as an acceptable product to meet the condition one of this letter of April 24th, 2014. So going through the list of board members, Maria. Jack. Hi. Tom. Hi. Andrew. No. Janet. Approve. Johanna. Approve. And I am a nay. So the motion carries. I think it was five to two. And Suzanne, we wish you luck. We hope we all like it. I hope you do too. I think that the photograph is not exactly accurate. I mean, I mean, I think it's, it will be more screening than it looks like. Can I make one suggestion just now that we don't, we've decided to let you go. Since the long face of this is as very oblique as people are walking along East Pleasant Street. I think. No, actually the long face is parallel to Kellogg Street. Right. So I'm thinking of people on Pleasant Street and how most people are gonna just glance down Kellogg Street and see the short end of this enclosure. Well, actually they won't really see it because of the configuration of the building. It's kind of, you go back to the site plan, it's kind of hidden by part of the building. Okay. Well, if that's the case. It's a little nook kind of thing in the back of the building. Okay. All right. Well, then good luck. All right. Well, thank you very much. Goodbye. All right. Bye-bye. Okay. So finishing with that, we finish old business and turning to new business. The first topic is the open meeting law complaint and request for minutes. So Chris, do you want to introduce this? Sure. So you all know that we've been meeting much more than normal. We've been meeting, you know, twice, three, sometimes four times a month. So Pam and I have had trouble keeping up with minutes and we've received two complaints. One from a woman in San Francisco. She had been asking for information about the archipelago project. And then she was asking for minutes of certain meetings and we weren't able to provide them. We did provide her with information about the archipelago project. But in any event, she filed an open meeting law complaint because we hadn't had minutes available. And she listed out a number of meetings that she would like to have the minutes from. And then yesterday, we received another open meeting law complaint from Kitty Axelson Berry, who was a member, who's a resident of Amherst. And she also was complaining that we didn't have minutes available. And we have probably produced close to half of the minutes that we should have in the last year, but we didn't produce the other half. So we're coming to you to talk about this. And we do have a plan that I would like to talk about. And let's see if I can find a plan. It's basically to do a number of different things. And of course, I don't have the document in front of me, but it, oh, here it is. Okay, so I guess I should talk a little about what the process is. So somebody files a complaint and then we need to present it to the board or the body that is the subject of the complaint. And unfortunately, that is the planning board. So we've done that. And then we need to respond to the complaint with an answer within 14 business days. And by my account, that would be October 11th, but October 11th is a holiday. So I'm saying that we need to respond by October 8th. And what we'd like to respond with is... Well, Chris. Oh, yeah. Since October 11th is a holiday, that is not a business day. So I would think it would go to October 12th. October 12th. Okay. I'm willing to go along with that. Yep. But I mean, let's see what else you've got in mind. So what we would like to do is talk about a couple of things. We'd like to talk about what is expected as far as minutes go. We'd like to ask the planning board to potentially help us to draft minutes. We are already speaking to Assistant Town Manager, Dave Zomek about getting some extra help. So in terms of the details of the minutes that we need to resolve, we've been doing very detailed minutes. I did them before Pam came on and Pam has continued to do beautiful detailed minutes. That's not really expected. And most of the other boards and committees in town don't provide minutes like that. And so we're recommending that we do a much less detailed version of minutes and just really state what the topic was. You know, a summary of the discussion and then list if there were any votes taken and just make it much, much shorter than what we've been doing. So that's one part of the solution. The second part of the solution is asking if the planning board members would be willing to help us to catch up on old minutes. And we do have a list of the meeting minutes that we're missing. And the third part of it, as I said, was to ask for additional help. So Assistant Town Manager, Dave Zomek, has agreed to work with us to provide us with some extra help with a person who currently takes minutes for the CRC, the Community Resources Committee. And she's supposed to be very good at taking minutes. So she will be going back and listening to, you know, the videos of previous meetings and helping us to catch up. Ideally, you know, we'd like to catch up by October 12th, but I think that's kind of optimistic. But let's see if we can get some help from planning board members and also talk about the dates of the minutes that are missing. Maybe if Pam can bring that sheet up, I sent out a list this afternoon about that. So Chris, isn't it also true that by the end of that 14-day period, we have to forward the complaint to the attorney general? Yes, we have to... Along with whatever our remedy... With response, yeah. And I think the response can be this plan that we're putting in place. And then, you know, whatever we managed to get done by the date that this response is due, we're gonna have to respond to the complainant. And now there are two complainants, one of whom had her 14 days start on Monday and the other had the 14 days start the 21st of September. So we need to respond to the complainant and send our response to the attorney general. And then when the complainant receives our response, that person has a certain amount of time. I think it's 30 days to decide whether she has received a reasonable response or not. And if she hasn't, then she can file on a further action with the attorney general's office. Right. And as I understand it, her, the first complaint requested minutes that began on May 5th and went through August 4th so those are the most pressing minutes to be completed. I believe there were 10 meetings in that period. And we've completed the June 2nd and the June 16th minutes. Additionally, the May 19th meeting and the July 21st meetings were in combination with CRC. And they'll have to have their own minutes prepared. And I believe Pam's involved in that typically. Is that true, Pam? It is, if it is a joint meeting with the public, with the planning board, I have been asked to do those meetings, those minutes. Yes. So they don't have separate minutes. They use our minutes. Okay. So we probably ought to let Pam do the 19th of May and the 21st of July. So, okay. So we've got three hands raised. Why don't we start with Jack? Yeah. So I just want to, you know, everybody confirm. This is the year 2021. We have lots of technology. We have a freaking video of our entire meeting. And I'm just, I'm like, it's beyond me that we have to type up something that is already within a video with Amherst media. It makes no sense whatsoever to me. It's upsetting. And then the person from San Francisco, I don't understand, you know. Well, I believe the person from San Francisco is a college student who recently graduated from the Amherst High School. Okay. All right. But anyway, my contention is like, we've had so many meetings this year. It's off the charts. And we have video by Amherst media of each and every meeting factual, you know. And so I'm wondering, you know, the minutes are really outdated. This whole concept of minutes, is this, you know, it upsets me because I know how hard, you know, the town staff is working. And, you know, I just feel like we're regressing to have to put everything in, you know, well, that may be another reason for us to have more, a briefer minutes that are sort of hitting the high points and the actions taken. And then if people want more detail, they can go to the video. Yeah. I mean, there should be a link. There should be a link to our minutes and, you know, be done with it. But it's like the detail is this ridiculous. All right. In this day and age. Okay. Now, unfortunately, the law hasn't changed yet. Maria. Agree with everything Jack just said. I just want to put my two cents in that, yeah, our minutes did not used to be this detailed. There was a point where suddenly there was a request for a lot more detail. And we actually discussed this at length about how minutes are not supposed to be a transcription. And we would ask, you know, we get a little simplifies a little more simpler and then there was pushback asking for more of the meat of conversations to be put in. I think that's, yeah, especially with the year we're in with I'm going to use the word unprecedented times we're in pretty wasteful use of administrative time to have detailed minutes when we have videos. So I wrote minutes for tonight. It's literally five pages long for our three hours. And when we used to rotate minutes for the zoning subcommittee, which was an hour or an hour and a half long meeting, it was two pages maximum until someone decided, you know, we're rotating minutes. And again, suddenly way more detail than needed was put into those minutes. Granted, those are not recorded meetings. So maybe that's more worth it. The planning board meetings are literally recorded. And so I agree. I'm mind minutes for tonight are bullet points and votes and the salient points that were brought up that maybe led to the vote, but that's it. There's no like back and forth about who said what and everything. Yeah, exactly. I think we need to provide minutes because it's the law but they need to be summaries, not transcripts. And I agree Pam and Chris are doing incredible heroic work and we really need to use their talents places where, you know, it's helping the town get through this pandemic time, not do this busy work. And so I, yeah, I was pretty upset by all this sort of, especially people inferring that we were hiding things and, you know, these meetings are all public. They're welcome to come to the meetings. It's just, yeah, I left a really sort of sick feeling in my stomach because it made, I think, the planning department and the planning board feel, I don't know, I personally felt like, oh, I'm doing all this work already. And so is Pam and Chris. And then here, people are complaining. It's just, oh, I was, anyway, that was my two minutes of venting, but I'm happy to do the minutes in real time. And in fact, I'm probably gonna hit send at the end of this meeting. Like I don't wanna deliberate about minutes. I think we have better things to do with our time. Well, thanks, Maria. And thanks for taking the minutes tonight. I had asked Maria to take minutes tonight so that Pam and Chris could focus on getting as caught up with the other meetings. And so that we didn't get further behind. Maria, you know, my original comment question was for tonight, but I'm sure I may, if you're willing, it would probably be great for you to continue to do this for a few more meetings until we get this all caught up. So you can let me know or let Chris and know whether you would be willing to do that. Janet. So the minutes are important and there is state law requirement and we're not meeting it. And so the purpose of the minutes is to help document the thinking and decision-making of boards. And it had to be detailed enough so the person who did not attend could understand what was discussed and how the decision was come to be made. So I really think it's very unrealistic to expend people to know that say on May 19th, look at the agenda, see something that was discussed, maybe also discuss the next meeting and go and listen to meetings that went on for four hours to find the information they want. And so I think we should, that's not a viable option. It's not a viable option. Actually, I go back and look at old minutes too because I kind of get lost a little bit in what we've talked about and when. So we can, it's just, it's a good thing. It's a good government thing. It helps people understand what we do and why. It helps us understand our own history. So yeah, we've been doing tons of meetings but we haven't been doing, which I have kind of said over and over again, it's too much, we're going too fast. And so I think this is sort of the consequence. On the brighter side is, aren't there Zoom transcripts? Because I have been in meetings where somehow you click a button and there's like a pretty really good verbatim, this, you know, what people are saying and who's saying it. And so I wondered if we could produce those kinds of transcripts that it would be faster to do minutes. Like at that point, you're just editing down or maybe you just get the Zoom transcript and you highlight what you think is important and then delete the rest. So that's a question for Pam and Chris. And then I have a third thing to say about, like I think, you know, I'm counting like 17 set of minutes but I think the last two, September one and September 14, I think we have like a month to do minutes or three meetings to do minutes. August 25th was like a really short meeting so we can get rid of that one pretty quickly. And I'm just wondering if we can just do Zoom transcripts on the other 14 and if that's a way to cut to the chase. And I do think the CRC people on transcriber, I've seen their minutes. I think Athena used to do them and they're pretty good but I'm wondering if there's a faster way to use the technology. Okay, thank you Janet. Andrew. Thanks, I'm gonna sort of jump on what Diana was suggesting there. One, it sort of feels like these are, I don't know, it's like they're weaponized. I feel like the intent of this is to like be able to weaponize the minutes or like people wanna be able to see the stuff that catches on something. The process of taking minutes introduces bias. You're asking somebody to make a judgment as to what was said. And so I would actually say like, why do minutes at all? Why not just submit the full transcript and say, you know what, the minutes are the transcripts and there is no bias introduced whatsoever here. It allows us to use the technology to generate that automatically. We're not asking people to have to pull up a YouTube site to review it. And there is no possibility of somebody misinterpreting a comment that was made because you'll have all of the text. And it seems like that would fulfill the letter of the law and the spirit of the law and would save us all time. I would, you know, just remind folks that the idea of, you know, the planning board members going back through and taking minutes for meetings, like we sat through the four hour meeting the first time and to have like sit through it again to take more minutes, you know, we're volunteers. And I'm not sure that people necessarily understand that or maybe consider that, right? It's a lot of work. I would say, let's just take the transcripts. I've seen some of them and they're fantastic. The technology is really great. Just do that, say that it's done. And then again, we eliminate any potential for personal bias. Thanks, Andrew. Chris, you have a comment about that. It seemed to me sometime in the last year and a half when I was on the board, I did see a bit of a transcript from a Zoom meeting. There are transcripts from the Zoom meetings. And, but if we were to, first of all, you have to edit it. It doesn't come out like, you know, real English. And it also doesn't come out in the format of the agenda. But I think they're gonna be pretty long. You know, we can try it, but I think they're gonna be even longer than what we're, you know, producing right now. So if you'd like us to try that, we can do that. But I think it makes more sense to go in the other direction which is to, you know, just try to summarize things. And if you look at minutes from other boards and committees, they really do summarize the discussion more than, you know, say this person said this, this person said that. And we've been trying to do that. We've been trying to almost have a transcript because we believe that people would be interested in that. But I think when minutes get to be, you know, 16 pages long, which I think the last minutes were, I think that 18th of August was 16 pages long. That gets to be really too much. It's too much for a person to put it together. And then it's too much for people to read. And so I would encourage all of us to make the minutes much shorter, summarize things and put down what the votes were and move on. And that's, you know, that's the best way to do it, I think. Okay, thanks, Chris. Jack, you're next. Here, or Johanna, I see, I thought Johanna. Oh, wait a minute. You know, Johanna and Tom, your hands are almost flesh colored and I don't see them. So Johanna, thanks, Jack. Thank you. You need to move to a room with a dark wall behind you. Exactly. We're blue or something that is quite funny. It seems so, I agree that I think by and large, the recordings of the meetings are quite accessible for a lot of people and that the meetings can be shorter. And I personally know I can take at least two of these 17 meetings and do a transcript. So yeah, and maybe there's an opportunity to do more, but I will volunteer to do that. Okay. And I should comment in response to Andrew, I was actually the one that thought it might be, that people on the board might be willing to help out on this. So I know you guys are volunteers. So, you know, but if it's not feasible, I know Maria has already said she can't put any extra time in between meetings, which is why it's great to have her helping during the meeting that she already was committed to. All right, so Jack. Yeah, so I would just, you know, use the technology. You can, you know, for every item that we have on our agenda, we can point to a time within that YouTube video that Amherst Media presents. Put that in the minutes, bullet, you know, that, you know, a general sort of summary of each item and be done with it. I mean, it's just like, it's beyond me that we need to actually, you know, transcribe, you know, what we said within, you know, minutes because this is 2021, right? I mean, it's probably here like dating back to 19, you know, you know, before, you know, most of the board, you know, members were born. So, you know, let's, let's do this. I mean, it drives me crazy. I'm sorry. All right. Well, a couple of things. One is I'm happy to pitch in as well. If I need to pick a couple of these and turn a transcription into a minutes, I can probably figure out some time to do that. So I'm happy to pitch in there. But, but I do think that we can consider a both and and I think it would, you know, since the videos are posted, it wouldn't be hard to post a link to a transcript underneath it. That way our meeting minutes could be more brief and concise. And at the bottom for a full transcript, click here and you get all of the stuff. So if you really want to know what Tom said at 647 p.m., you will find out and you could quote me and put it right in the Amherst, whatever. But, but I think that the notion being that the minutes are easy to get through for people to digest the occurrences that happened and the opinions that were presented in a brief and accessible way for the public and for us to approve. And then the minutes or the transcript is there for everybody in the long run. So that would be the way I would think about doing this that seems to satisfy both sides. Okay. Thanks Tom. And thanks for volunteering. Andrew. Tom can do mine. Thank you. Isn't that the job of the vice chair to take minutes at that? For anyone who hasn't seen a transcript, I had to do that for CPAC. And it's, it literally has, you know, the name of the person as you're identified in the zoom, a timestamp and what they said in transcript, transcript came out really, really well. It came out almost perfectly in the one that I had done. So if folks, you know, if you're looking at the transcript, you can see that it's a little bit different. That's a level of detail. So it's not, it's not just here. The words that were said, it's Doug said this at this time. Right. Chris said this at this time. That's all. Okay. Thanks. Janet. So I have a question for Pam. I mean, I, two things is one of them is that given how many meetings we had and all the work that the planning department was doing the CRC and the changes, I could see why. We were talking about how we could do that. And I don't think that was a good idea. So I'm going to go off the table for you and for us. But I'm also wondering like just from Pam or like, how, how long does it take you usually to put together a set of minutes? Is it like an hour? Is it two hours? Like, how does. Three hours, like seven days. I mean, how does it. Because you do have that transcript, right. And then you have to call what you think is important. Like, how long does that process usually take. It takes days. Okay, so I, you know, one thing that it's clear is there are different opinions among the board members about how detailed the minutes need to be. So, you know, going forward, we may need to vote on whether amendments to minutes should be added or not, or whether we want to keep them, you know, following one model or another one. And as we get caught up, I think we should let Chris and Pam generate the minutes they think are appropriate. And then we'll have to decide whether we want to accept changes to those or not. Jack. Yeah, I would just like, you know, if there's some state law that requires us to do these kind of detailed minutes with the technology. You know, and, you know, in 2021, I would support Amherst kind of, you know, asking the state to kind of like revise whatever they have going on with, with regard to the regulations with regard to minutes. I mean, it just, um, we need, it just doesn't make sense to me. I'm sorry. We have a video. Okay. All right, Chris. So the state law requires you to record what topics were talked about, and to summarize the discussion well enough so that someone who wasn't there at the meeting would know what you talked about, and then to record votes. It doesn't say that you have to do detailed. He said this, she said that minutes. It's, it's really an effort to let somebody know who wasn't there at the meeting know what was talked about and what was decided. Okay. All right, I don't see any more hands. So Chris, you know, we've had Johanna and Tom volunteer. And I'm volunteering to pitch in. Would it make sense for you and Pam to. Essentially assign each of us one or two meetings. That we could. Take a pass at this and, you know, if you're able to generate the, or find how to generate the transcripts. We could see, you know, we've gotten some comments from Jack and Andrew. About how that might help the process. And maybe even incorporate some of that into the minutes in terms of where the transcripts could be posted or that kind of thing. But, you know, my, my, my first objective is to, for us to have a plan that seems plausible and is acceptable to the complainant. So that they don't continue their complaint to the attorney general and things get all kinds of more complicated. So how is going to be out of the office for the next couple of days. And she, she will be back on Monday. So I think, you know, we can address this issue full bore on Monday. I may be able to spend some time on Friday. Assigning some of these minutes. And we've already said that. I'll take a second. I'll take a second. And I will work on May 5th and May 19th. I'm the only one who was actually no, I'm not, but I was the staff person there on August 25th. And the meeting was about half an hour long. So I can do that. But I will try to think about what makes sense and look at my written notes and ask. Tom and Johanna and Doug to take certain of these minutes. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Andrew, you have your hand up and then, then Janet. Thanks Doug. Yeah. I mean, I'm not going to let you guys do it. I will help, but I would say like. We should adjust the meeting schedule. Because like, instead of having a four hour meeting next week, I'm going to watch a four hour meeting of the meeting that I was already in. And I'm going to say, you know, I think let's protect our time a little bit here and just say the cost of doing this means that we're going to have to push back on some priorities. And we're going to push some of these meetings back and, and get real about it. Like, right. It's unfair to say that we need to put in an extra. I mean, to take minutes effectively, you need to watch the whole thing because you don't remember even though you're there, you need to watch the whole thing. And I don't think, you know, you might be signing up for another 10 or 12 hours to do. I know. My hope is that this is sort of a one time. Dig it out and get it done, put it behind us. And find a more sustainable way to. A, take minutes and be schedule our meetings. So that we're keeping up. And then, then we can work on changing the legislation, which is years. Thank you. Okay. So I would like to, I'll take a set of minutes too. For solidarity and out of Catholic guilt. But I do want to echo what Andrew is saying is that, you know, I think what we just did was unsustainable. And the idea, you know, and our meetings went from like three hours to four to five. And so now we're going to sit down and watch a five hour meeting. And we're going to be spending an hour on it. And so I never want to go through a summer, like what we just did. And at the pace. And, you know, I felt like we spent hours and hours, but I felt at the same time we were giving things short shrift. And agendas became very packed. And so I think we should reflect on how things were scheduled and why, you know, and I, I, you know, it does take a long time to, you do have to listen to the meeting again. And I think that's a good thing. Although my wife tells me you can run YouTube at twice. Speed and still understand it. I have yet to know how to do that. Okay. So Janet, I assume that's a legacy hand. Yeah. I don't see any more. Chris, do you feel like you've gotten what you needed for, for tonight? Yes. Thank you very much. Yep. Well, so thanks. Thank all of you board members who have, who are volunteered to pitch in. You know, Chris, I hope you'll, frankly, I hope you'll give us the shorter meetings. So that, you know, we have the pleasure of feeling like we ticked off one or two. Andrew. Yeah. Sorry, sounds like we're all kind of landing in a similar spot, but back to some of the earlier questions. And then do we need to get this done? And will we, are we willing to not meet again until the meetings are done? So that, you know, we protect our time. Chris. So you've already said you're going to meet on October 6th to talk about zoning of that parcel behind CVS. And I think they're, and that, and that was really it, wasn't it? We talked about having a presentation about demolition delay, but there's no real need to do that if you don't feel like that's necessary. So we could devote October 6th to that rezoning of, of that CVS parcel and not have anything else on that night. Except maybe minutes, minutes. We're lucky enough to get some minutes together. But to answer Andrew's question, ideally we would like to have them done by October 12th, but I think that's not realistic. We're going to put together the plan. We're going to send these, this person who complained from California. Our plan and we're going to copy the attorney general on that. And we'll just say we'll try to the best of our ability to get it done. You know, let's promise within 30 days. How about that? Does that make sense? It does. I mean, I, I would say we shouldn't meet until it's done. I mean, I would just get really firm with it and say October 6th, cancel it until we haven't done. And if we want to say it's, you know, we pick a date where we say it's, it's, it's over. And then, you know, all of the other town priorities that we're working on have to wait. And that's, that's, I wish you were in charge. I wish you worked upstairs. All right. Thanks Andrew. Yeah. I just want to say that. You know, I kind of went to bat for us. I feel like this past year. I added up, you know, just in 2021. The amount of time that we all spent and. You know, minimum was. Couple hundred hours. And I'm sure some of us spent. You know, 300 hours. In our duties. So it's been a, you know, exceptional year. And I think, you know, we should all, you know, kind of, you know, recognize that. And, you know, and then we'd talking about minutes, which was additional time, you know, when we had the technology, it just, it's a very difficult subject for me. And I know how hard the town staff. You know, has been working. And, you know, it's, it's just, it's just, you know, it's kind of crazy. And I'm glad that we didn't have the meeting last night. So I feel like there's, okay, there's some recognition there. Upstairs. With regard to what's going on. So, again, I thank you all. Thank you. Thank you. This is my swan song. I think that my, you know, Andrew was, you know, you know, you're not leaving the board, Jack. No, I'm not. No, but hey, stop, stop talking like that. And Doug. Hit the ground running, man, you're doing a great job. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thanks, Jack. Thank you, Doug. I agree that we've been meeting a lot, but I also feel like there's a lot that our town needs from the planning board right now. And so, you know, I don't know, like, I think as long as we're making progress and advancing important things, like, yes, let's figure out how to make it sustainable. But I don't know, like Andrew, my thinking is like, let's just solve this problem and then keep doing the important work that is before us. So. Okay. Those are my thoughts. Thank you. Janet. So, so I'm, I'm actually interested in Andrew's idea about. Not instead of meeting next week, just all of us working on our minutes and, you know, we can control our calendar and schedule. And, you know, I don't have a full-time job like almost everybody else here. And, you know, I spend a lot of time working on planning board stuff outside of meetings and reading and researching and all these things. And so I think that the idea of, you know, can we move October 6th to the 20th? I mean, is that a full night or something like that? Or just can we move things off just to create some oxygen comply with the law, which, you know, I'm fond of doing. And we have to do. And so I don't, I don't, you know, I think we should just, I think we should take the heat off. Like the idea that you have to work full-time, balance your family commitments, have a four hour planning board meeting, and then stare at a transcript and spend, you know, seven hours putting that together. Sounds like a lot to me. Thank you. Johanna. Legacy hands. Sorry. Chris. So you've already committed to continue public hearing next week on the rezoning of that CVS lot. So I feel like, you know, members of the public are going to be expecting you to be discussing that. And. Town staff is going to be expecting to present that. So I would recommend that you at least. Have that on an agenda for the six and we can say nothing else. Yeah. So I really feel like it's, it would be hard to. Not have that meeting now that you've announced it. Right. Well, I mean, the other thing, I mean, we could also. Thank Andrew and. Janet for their offers and just, but still not assign them minutes. So that their, their current time commitment is not increased. Maria. I literally did tonight's minutes during the meeting and I will send it to Chris to distribute. And it's basically. Five pages, although we're not done with our meeting yet. And then maybe you guys can decide as using it as a model of life. Here is the succinct bullet point version of minutes moving forward. And hopefully it won't take you seven days. I think it takes him and Chris because of the amount of detail that for some reason. Was requested of them. I. I probably will review it just one more time before I send just to shorten it even more. Because I love that idea of, you know, click on this link to see full transcript or watch the full video. Because. Yeah, I am very put off by, I was worried there was some sort of. Weird ulterior motive, like they're trying to give us more busy work. So we can't push our agendas forward. Like I was thinking, you know, I'm starting to think like. Insanity here because I thought, why the world at this time. Do we need to produce these minutes? What could possibly be the reason for that? When they have full access to everything we've been through. So yeah, I'm kind of a sort of mental loss about this whole exercise, but I'm willing to just put out these succinct meeting minutes and hopefully there is a way to replay things. I think even triple time and. I've listened to CRC meetings in the past that way, just to get a gist of what they were saying. So, yeah, one big push to get these out of the way so that this open meeting complaint, whatever this is called is remedied and we can move on and keep doing the good work that we're trying to do. I agree with them. We can go on and said, yeah, I feel like we should not push on the brakes because I would hate for this kind of stuff to get in the way of the really good stuff that we're doing. So, yeah. Okay. Thanks. Jack. Yeah, I'm just wondering, is there a resolve, you know, with the planning department, you know, Chris. Rustrup to pursue the ability to link minutes. To the video. I mean, it just, it's just, it's just the way we are right now, you know, and it seems antiquated to do a transcript. So I would like for you to pursue that. Thanks Jack. Chris. So Pam already does that. Pam already puts a link to the video in the minutes. And I think we could possibly, I don't know the details of it, but maybe we could work out a way to put it. Link to the transcript as well. I don't know Pam might be able to speak to that better than I can because I don't understand how zoom works. Yeah, so we'll, we'll do our best going forward and thank you to Maria for taking minutes tonight that takes a burden off of us. Great. All right, so. Jack, is that a legacy hand? No. Okay. So I just wanted to say that there, there is a way to pinpoint within a YouTube video. The time for each item. And you're done. You know, you just, it's just the technology is there. And we should use it. Because it'll, you know, it's, it's the best for all of us. And knowing your staff. So, you know, we're item, you know, number one, it starts at like, you know, 30 minutes, you know, you know, 40 seconds, and you can just, you know, the tag it and it's there. I mean, I know Andrew. I mean, you're, you're pretty savvy on this. So maybe you can add that, but. Thanks Jack. No, I mean, you're a jacket can be done. I was, I was just going to say, Doug, first of all, like, I appreciate you, you know, insulating some of us, but like, I'm all with the solidarity. And like, if any of us are doing it, like I feel responsible. Well, I mean, we all have different obligations. And I know you in particular do a lot of travel. So, you know, I mean, I'm, I'm, I want to be sensitive. I, and I greatly appreciate that. Maybe I was going to say, maybe we can cap the meeting for next week. We do have the outstanding item there. Maybe we can say like, we'll wrap it up by seven 30 or something like. You know, really quick and we cannot be punctual with our comments with our comments would help a lot. And then, oh, I'm sorry. The other thing is it says, it's just for the assigning of minutes. Can we just make sure that we sign to people who are present at that meeting would help a lot. I think it's as you go through them, you definitely remember the meeting you're in. And if you weren't there, then it's, it's going to be a lot more mental energy expanded to get caught up. That's a good point. Chris on the subject of next week's meeting and the presentation and the CVS lot. Do you think that we could predict the, what a reasonable cap would be? I mean, we're going to have some sort of presentation from Nate. My guess would be that it would be at least two hours. He might be able to, he might be able to get away with an hour and a half. I think you're going to have members of the public wanting to speak about it. And I'm sure something in Nate's presentation is going to be controversial or will arouse some comment. So, so, you know, I think, um, I guess my question, I guess for the board would be, can we leave it to Chris to, and Pam to take a look at the length of the different meetings. And maybe try to parcel them out in a way so that, you know, nobody's getting the, the five hour meeting we had on, you know, July 21st. But, you know, maybe Andrew and Janet get some of the shortest, you know, one short meeting. And, and then you maybe some of the rest of us who had a little more capacity, maybe get one or two meetings. And, you know, let's, let's see how you, how you can do that. Can we leave it there for tonight? Yeah. Yes, definitely. Yep. All right. Does anybody else want to say anything about this before Chris goes with Pam to think about how to get us through this. All right. I just want to say thank you. Well, thanks, Pam. Thanks for everything you've been doing. All right. So, um, moving on in new business, do we have any topics not reasonably anticipated 48 hours prior? Chris. So, um, yeah. So Doug and I worked on the report to town council on supplemental dwelling units or AD use as we've been calling them. And so we sent out the report to you all this week. And Janet responded with quite a number of, of suggested edits. And I would like to say that I agree with many of them and would be happy to incorporate them. But I do not want to rewrite the public hearing portion of the report. I do agree with. So we can go through with these comments bit by bit. If you want to, Pam has access to the, the edits now or the board could leave it to Doug and me to edit it as we think is reasonable. This needs to be done really soon. It has to be submitted to town council by Friday. And then we'll be able to do that. So we have a lot of work that needs to be done. So we have a lot of work that needs to be done. We have a lot of work that needs to be done. And I'm going to talk about these. Apartments. And I'm going to talk to you about that a little later, but, so there's a lot of work that needs to be done. So many of Janet's comments were. Good, well thought out things that I think should be included. Some of them I don't agree with. And I would consult with Doug about whether to include them or not. So we can either do it with that method. And then we'll have some other comments with us right now. Okay. Janet. I would love not to go through these right now, but I do want to say that. Being a veteran of five years of town meetings where we, where planning board reports are presented to town meeting. And then. Trying to explain zoning changes. Listening to explanations of zoning changes to lay people. I was really conscious of that. And so. So I thought in a way that this report was too long and read, like you'd have to, like that you kind of have to have a really good strong grasp of what was going on as you read it. And so a lot of my things was to put. Right in front of the town council. What are the changes. And the goal, the goal of the change, like in the front. And then I felt like. You know, I feel like. Sometimes changes were sort of alluded to, but not explained and things like that. And so I was really trying to. Be very specific about here's how the law changes. And I think the report did that really good about 60% of the time, but left other things out. And so I put a fair amount of time to put into this. I actually have, I'm going to start a four day class. And I would be happy. Like if this thing turned like you accepted changes and we looked at it again, but I don't think I have time for that. I don't think I have time tomorrow night. And I don't think I have time on Friday, but I do think. The part that was really hardest for me and seemed long to me was what felt like. Like minutes where like this person said this person said that person said. And I thought that it was. Not really great to name people's ideas and attached to them. Just that the ideas themselves are more important to the comments that the council would just get lost in reading back and forth of this back and forth. And I wonder if that could be summarized better. And I understand that takes time. I didn't have the time to really do all that. But I do think that. I think it's important to get to lay people. The complexity complex zoning changes in, in terms that they can understand. And then say, okay, I like that, or this is the part I don't like. I don't like that. I've never seen this with the red stuff accepted. So I haven't read a final draft of my own edit. So I think I'd hate the idea of doing this right now. But if Doug and Chris want to take a stab at it, I can look at it again tomorrow night. I'm happy to do some more editorial. Help on that. All right. Thanks, Janet. Chris. So one of the reasons that I included. And I think that was, as a result of. Criticism that I received on a previous report to town meeting that, or town council, I keep saying that. From a counselor. That she really wanted to know who said what, you know, and if I made reference to the board talked about this, and they talked about that. Oh, who said it, you know, so that was a response to kind of, you know, just a bit of a, you know, a bit of a detail. And I don't have time to rewrite that section of this report. And I don't, I have too many other things to do. So my approach to this would be to. Accept probably. 75% of the comments that. Janet has made. And not accept others and just send it in by noon time. other report. And I guess I should also say, and this has been a tough week for me and for Pam, given, you know, the really difficult way we started the week with the complaint of the open meeting law complaint. But I forgot what I was going to say, my mind is, you know, not working as clearly as it could, because I'm clouded by this cloud that's hanging over us. But I do have a tremendous amount of work that needs to be done between now and Friday. And I just don't have time to rewrite most of this. So anyway, I'll do my best, I'll send it to Doug, and I'll send it to Janet, and she can look at it tomorrow night. And then if there are a lot more changes after that, we're just not going to be able to accommodate those changes. And oh, I know what I was going to say, I remember now, because Maria, and other members of the Zoning Subcommittee used to write these reports a number of years ago. And the staff didn't write the reports prior to that, Jonathan Tucker wrote the reports. And the Planning Board would see them or not see them, but they would go right to town meetings. So at one point in the last few years, the Zoning Subcommittee took it on themselves to write these reports. And so we may want to consider doing that if if people feel strongly about what needs to be included in them and what doesn't need to be included. Anyway, so just to wrap this up, I will do my best to to accept the changes that I feel need to be accepted and to ship it off to Doug, and I will send it to Janet, and we'll see what we can produce by Friday morning. But I'm not going to be able to devote hours to this. Thanks, Chris. Janet, is that a legacy hand? Yes. Yes, sorry. Okay, Maria. I didn't send any comments when you asked for the comments, Chris, because I thought the draft report you wrote was just fine. So sorry, I didn't chime in with that. But I thought it was ready for prime time, honestly. Alright, thanks. So it sounds like we have a plan for getting this completed. You know, Chris will do as much as you can. And I'll get a short amount of time to look at it and hopefully Janet will too. Alright, so that's, I think the end of that topic on new business. Do we have any form A&R, A&R subdivision applications? We do. Unfortunately. Alright. Pam will bring it up. Actually, a lot of you are bringing that up. Does anybody want to take a break again or not? Okay, we'll keep going. Alright, so this A&R has to do with the property that's shown here. The old Starbucks building, which is now, I don't even know what it is right now, and then the building next door to it, which is Bistro 63. So we'll show you a plan of the site. And this is the plan. And is this the plan? This is not the plan with the new with the old lines on it. Is it, Pam? Show the colored one. The lines that they added are here. Okay, so this one is easier to read. So the two properties are the one that's outlined in yellow, and the one that's outlined in blue. So what the intent is, is for the owner of the property outlined in blue, to give the little leg at the top of the drawing, in other words, the one that's outlined in red and blue to the yellow property. So the yellow property will get bigger. And that's Bistro 63. The one that's next to it is owned by Mauro and Yellow, who used to have a couple of restaurants in downtown. Actually, I think he owned Bistro. But anyway, he's holding on to the portion on the left. And and and Bistro is acquiring that portion on the top. And so if we can go to the A&R plan now, we'll see that I guess there are, yes, I see existing lot lines is labeled there. So they are there very faintly. And this plan is showing what the proposed lot will be. So there's lot one, which is 4,069 square feet, and there's lot two, which is lot two, which is 5,438 square feet. So what you will be saying here is that this does not, does not consist of a plan that needs to go through the subdivision control approval. In other words, it is subdivision approval not required or A&R. So you would be authorizing Doug to sign this plan on behalf of the planning board to acknowledge that it does not require subdivision approval. All right, thanks, Chris. Chris, you cut out when you were explaining what's moving to what on this plan, this map. So I kind of missed some piece. So let's go back to the colored one. Yeah, the L shaped parcel, the top of the L, transferring over to the yellow parcel. Okay, okay, the yellow parcel would become a T shape. Yep. And is this in are these connected buildings in reality or is this No, okay. Pam, can you show the front the picture again? Yeah, they're separate structures. Is the plan to take that building, that white building down and build on the back of it or something? Or do you know what their plan is to do with both either of these buildings? We don't know what the plan is. Any comment from the board? Any objection to having me sign this on our behalf? I see no objection or and I see no hands. So Chris, can we consider that to be approved? Yes. All right. Next item upcoming SP SPR SPB applications. I can talk about an upcoming planning board application, which I'm very sorry I've neglected. It's an application that Rob Mara put forward for a parking lot similar to the one that he showed you the sweet Alice trail parking lot. So somewhere in my email is an application from him to have another parking lot approved for the town. And that will be coming to you probably in late October or early November. Other than that, I am not aware of any applications, but Pam maybe. Pam, I'm not aware of any planning board applications, but there are some things coming in front of the ZBA if you're ready to hear about those. So these are applications that are going to come in front of the ZBA on October 14. The first one is has to do with the South Point Apartments. That South Point Apartments has actually been bought. So the existing special permits that were granted to the owner Yoss Rex for construction of a new 47 unit building. They have to be transferred over to the new owner, which is going to be redwood construction in substantial construction has not started on that new building. And so that's why they can go this route. Then the other three applications all have to do with the very same thing. And that is they are all requests to have a condition from their special permits removed. The conditions all say this permit shall expire upon change of ownership or management. And so there are going to be three of them. One is for property at 19 Phillips Street. One is for property at 204 to 206 Belcher Town Road. And the other is for 192 to 194 Belcher Town Road. So basically, if the ZBA grants these condition removal requests, then the existing special permit can just continue under a new property owner. I did ask Maureen Pollock if she knew what was happening with these properties. And she did not she said that it was not specified. That's that. Thank you. Welcome. All right. Planning Board Committee and Liaison reports. Jack, you want to say anything about PVPC? Yeah, I unfortunately had a work commitment. So I missed last executive committee meeting. But the quarterly meeting is scheduled for October 14. But we had like an emergency meeting with regard to Kim Robinson and she's the director of the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission. And she has done a stellar job. Just amazing. And so no, it was recommended that she had a recommendation for a salary increase. And that was unanimous. But basically, yeah, that's it. And I'm actually going to miss the next meeting. Because I'm not going on vacation at the end of October. That's all I have. All right. Thank you. Andrew, CPAC. Thanks, Eric. We have not met since that the initial meeting in August. I do know that we've got three applications so far. Two of them were for housing and one was for recreation. I'd not have a chance to read to read through those. But I know that the that the Amherst Municipal Affordable Housing Trust was responsible for those two. The two proposals relative to community housing. And then the third one was I think related to simple gifts farms. Again, I haven't had a chance to read through them, but be happy to provide details on those and future meetings if folks are interested in hearing about them. Just let me know. All right. Thank you. I have nothing to report on the Ag Commission. Tom, design review board? Sure. No, no surprise on the Ag Commission. Can I take a look? I got to put myself on mute here. The ARB did. We had four things to look at last week. One was the fence that we just reviewed for the Unitarian Society. The second one was the parking lot that Chris just mentioned, which was the Pigcock Coal Conservation Area, which is in North Amherst, which was approved as well. It's basically the same as what we saw. So, you know, it's the prototype of Sweet Alice being repeated, which is great. And then there were two signage projects downtown. One was signage replacing the high horse for the Drake. So signage on that particular building, which was pretty straightforward. And then another simple signage swap for where the Kaizu awning is that goes down into the basement. The most one of the most high turnover locations in all of Amherst that every three weeks is a new something. Some new signage on the awning there. So that was some pretty simple stuff that was all approved. It was a very productive and fast meeting. So figuring out how can we adopt those practices and bring them over here? But anyway, we'll see. Let us know. Let us know if you have any tips to share. So, Chris, CRC. So the CRC met on Tuesday. Yeah. Is that right? Yesterday. It seems like a long time ago. And they talked about zoning amendments. And they briefly talked about the rezoning of the parcel behind CVS. They didn't talk about it in any great detail. I think, you know, they're knowledgeable about a new concept being brought to them. And the other things I think I will save for my staff report later, because they all have to do with zoning, except for the other. The last thing was talking about Article 14. And Article 14, if you'll remember from last summer was something that we put in place quickly to allow restaurants to operate either on the sidewalk or in the street to accommodate the fact that people were worried about COVID and they weren't able to eat inside. So the thought is that we may want to extend Article 14. I think Article 14 extends as far as December of this year. So it works through December. But then the governor has put in place a similar or something to allow outdoor dining through April 1 of next year. But we acknowledge that, you know, people aren't really going to be eating outside between December and April 1. So anyway, we would like to put something in place to allow outdoor dining to continue to occur during 2022. So the CRC did discuss that. And the other part of my report I'll save for my report. Okay. Thanks, Chris. Report of the chair. The chair hasn't done enough yet to have a report. But thanks for letting me try this out. And I hope it works out. Chris, report of staff. Okay, report of staff. So I'm going to talk to you a little about zoning and how it's kind of evolved. And this is this is a result of the fact that the planning department was feeling very unsettled about certain zoning amendments that were being moved forward. And we felt that it was necessary to take a little more time to look at them. And so I'll list them in an order and then we can talk about what's happening with them. Well, the one that we didn't feel anxious about was ADUs. And so ADUs are moving forward, they're being considered by Town Council on Monday night for a first reading. And as we said before, some of us are working on getting that report on ADUs to Town Council. Hopefully we can do that by Friday at noontime. Mixed use buildings, we have uncovered some concerns recently with regard to the clarity of the description of the non residential uses and potential problems with interpreting the bylaw. And so we went to Mandy Jo Hanneke and we talked to her about these misgivings that we had. And so what we agreed to was to bring a new, a slightly new rendition of mixed use buildings with a couple of tweaks back to the planning board on October 20th. And then the CRC, which is required to, the Town Council is required to act within 90 days of the CRC closing its public hearing. And the CRC closed its public hearing quite a while ago on mixed use buildings. So they're going to have to hold another public hearing, which is going to be on October 26. So anyway, that particular bylaw is still in flux, but you will see a slightly revised version of it on October 20th. Apartments, the Apartments Bylaw also ran into kind of a little bit of a snare. We took the Apartments Bylaw that the planning board had recommended, and we went to CRC about two, I guess it was two weeks ago. And they made a change to it that we really didn't agree with. And so we told them that we would like to have an opportunity to work on it more. And they said, well, okay, but we would like you to put through the portion of it that changes the permitting for Apartments in the RBC Zoning District. So that was going from special permit to site plan review in the RBC Zoning District. And they also wanted us to put through the portion that goes from site plan review to special permit in the BG Zoning District. So so Apartments is being brought to Town Council on Monday night. And that was something that I just understood on Tuesday. So anyway, that's why I haven't written the Apartments report yet. But so those just those two aspects of Apartments will be brought to Town Council on Monday, the change in the RBC from special permit to site plan review, and the change in BG from site plan review to special permit. And I think the intent there is that we want to make it more easy to develop Apartments in the RBC Zoning District. And we want to make it less easy to build Apartments in BG, and therefore promote mixed use buildings instead of Apartments in BG. So the idea is that the CRC will be holding another. Oh, no, they won't need to hold another public hearing on that. So that's just that small piece of Apartments that's going to Town Council on Monday. The rest of Apartments probably won't be acted on until next year. So we have a lot of time to think about that and talk about it. The parking bylaw, it, it became clear to us that people didn't understand what we were trying to do. So we need more time to be able to explain the parking bylaw to people. And that included members of the CRC, they really didn't understand what the purpose was, what we're trying to do. So again, the CRC is going to hold a new public hearing on November 9th. But we would like to bring it a new, well, maybe not a new version, a slightly tweaked version of the parking bylaw back to the planning board on November 3rd for discussion. And then Town Council would have a first reading in December and a second reading in December. And then the CRCVS parking lot. Planning board still has its public hearing open. But the CRC needs to hold a new public hearing on October 26th. So the planning board is going to continue to talk about it. CRC will continue to talk about it. And it's expected that Town Council will hold a first reading in mid, just mid November or early December. So that's the latest news on zoning amendments. So we're in a little bit less of a rush to get these things through. And we're hoping to have more time for conversation and, you know, further consideration and make them better than they were previously. And much of this is based on things that we heard at the meetings, you know, people who spoke, members of the public who spoke. So that's, that's my report. Thanks, Chris. There's plenty going on. Jack. Uh, yes. So outstanding job, Doug Marshall. As a new chair. I mean, I just amazing. So and then kudos to the vice chair Tom Long. Amazing. You guys got this. So I'm so happy. And I'm proud of you are now in a cocktail. And, you know, of course, Chris, you know, I'm Pam, you know, you guys, I just, you know, working in overdrive. Thank you for, for navigating us, you know, through this, through this time. So thank you. Okay, Jack. Thank you, Janet. So it sounds like the planning board won't see the apartment it's its own report to town council on the apartments change. I will send it out when I have it ready. It probably won't be ready till the end of the day tomorrow. So the planning board will see it. It's going to be not as lengthy as it had been as it had started out to be since the town council will only be seeing this one portion of apartments. I'll try to capture the the flavor of the discussion leading up to the decision to just have this one thing go before town council, but it's really just going to be focused on that aspect of the change. So one thing I think is, is, is, I think it'd be really good in that report to, to clearly explain the change between site plan review, scrutiny and consequences and then special permit. And so there's, you know, they obviously require, you know, everybody has to comply with the whole bylaw. Section 10 with special permit has sort of extra criteria and sort of extra powers for the board administering it to, you know, move things around. And then site plan review has, you know, review and obviously the board can condition. But then there's consequences in terms of like who makes the decision who gets to, you know, with the planning board gets site plan review. Once the site plan review permit is get issued, the appeal period starts with the building permit with the special permit. It starts, I think, 10 days after the special permit. So I really think like, this is that chart I keep on asking for is like listing out what the differences are between these two routes through the bylaw. And so I don't know if you have that, but I keep on asking for that. And I think that for lay people, it's sort of like site plan reviewers by right. And that kind of just sticks in their head. And they don't understand there's like really different analysis or special permit gives you extra control and analysis. So I don't know if you had that chart handy or, you know, kind of we can pull it off or something. But I do think lay people don't understand the differences between those two permits. And, you know, when we take something out of special permit, that means that a level of scrutiny does not happen. So that will not happen in rural village center zoning. And the ZBA will no longer handle that it will go to the planning board for a lighter hand and a little less control over the project. So I just think that that's the kind of thing I want to be in a report or just for us as a board or showing to the public like, here's the actual consequences of this move that just looks like a chess move, but it has a lot of real life ramifications. So anyway, it sounds it sounds impossible to do by Friday. What you've outlined what you've outlined for just, you know, your work in the next, you know, two days. But how did we get here to be on this track? And is this taking all year? Is this so important an issue to like push through to the town council like moving RVC or do you know what I mean? Well, it sounds like some of this came from CRC. Chris, do you want to comment at all? Yeah, so I just wanted to invite Janet to send me language that describes what she just said, because I, you know, after this week, I may not be able to retain what she just said. And I would like to include some of that. So please feel free to send me that language, and I will try to incorporate it. All right. Thanks, Chris. So I believe we have finished our agenda. I'm hopeful this is not going to be a typical meeting length. And we will try to it sounds like we really only have one thing on our next meeting agenda. And you really would prefer that we not cancel next week's meeting. So let's try to be easy on Andrew and Janet at least in terms of the minutes and the schedule for completion. With that, can we adjourn? Thank you. All right. Bye. Goodbye, everyone. Good sleep. All right. Bye, Jack.