 This program is brought to you by Cable Franchise V's and generous donations from viewers like you. Welcome to the Amherst Planning Board meeting of January 20th, 2021, based on Governor Baker's executive order, suspending certain provisions of the open meeting law, GL Chapter 30A, Section 20, and signed Thursday, March 12, 2020. This planning board meeting is being held virtually using the Zoom platform. My name is Jack Jemsak, and as the chair of the Amherst Planning Board, I'm calling this meeting to order at 6.30 p.m. This meeting is being recorded and is available via Amherst Media Livestream. Minutes are being taken as normal. Board members, I will take a roll call. When I call your name, unmute yourself, answer affirmatively, and then place yourself back on mute. Maria Chow. Here. Tom Long. Here. Andrew McDougal. Present. Doug Marshall. Present. Janet McGowan. Here. Johanna Newman. Here. And myself, Jack Jemsak. Here. So board members of technical difficulties arise, we may need to pause temporarily to correct the problem and then continue the meeting. If you do have technical issues, please let Pam know. Discussion may be suspended. While the technical issues are addressed in the minutes, we'll note if this occurred. 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 item and other appropriate times during the meeting. Please be aware of the board will not respond to comments during the general public comment period. If you wish to make a comment during the public comment party must join the meeting via the zoom teleconferencing link, which is shown. Yes. Okay. And the link is also listed on the meeting agenda posted on the town website. And via the calendar listing for this meeting or you can go to the planning board webpage and click on the most recent agenda, which lists the zoom link at the top of the page. Please indicate if you wish to make a comment by clicking the raise 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 telephone. If you have called upon, 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 and at the discretion of the planning board chair. If the speaker does not comply with these guidelines or exceeds their a lot of time, their participation will be disconnected from the meeting. So, tonight we have, we're going to have, we're going to briefly go through our minutes and then have that public comment period and then we're going to ask town council to join us at, and that would be item three for the presentation of by Doug hall. And I'll introduce him at that time but he's with the Pioneer Valley Pioneer Commission and his presentation will be on the initial impacts of COVID-19 on the Pioneer Valley economy, and we'll have an Amherst focus to it. So, with that said, let's, let's review our, our minutes. The minutes are from the meeting of January 6. And anybody want to make a motion. Any comments. I move to accept the minutes. Okay. Is there a second. Andrew. All right. Any discussion. I see none. Okay, let's do, let's do a roll call. Maria approve. Andrew approve. Hi, Janet. Hi, Johanna. And myself is yes. And that brings us to public comment period. Do you see anything Pam, or any raised hands at this time. At this time I do not. Okay. So at this point, I would like to. Have the town council. Call their meeting to order. And you will be bringing them in. Yes. Welcome town council members. We're not completed yet. Okay. Please bring Mandy Johanna key in. And also Paul Bachman. And Ryan, which is George Ryan. They should all be on their, on their way. Just give me a second. I'll call the town council meeting to order. Okay. And at the planning board meeting, I'm going to call the council to order. I need, we have already, Jack has already talked about the governor's orders and so forth. So all I'm going to do is just make sure that the town council members can hear us and we can hear them. And I'm also going to use this as an opportunity to take a moment to make sure that the town council members can hear us. Okay. Alyssa Brower. Not present. Pat DeAngelis. Okay. Here. Lynn Greece murder is present. Mandy Johanna key. Dorothy Pam. Present. Evan Ross. Present. George Ryan. Present. Kathy Shane. Present. And Paul Backelman has joined us. Thank you. There is a person that we brought in by the name of Brian. And he does. He did not come in. He should not have come in with the council. So we should put him back in the audience. Good. Good. Okay. So I'd like to introduce. Doug hall. And again, he's providing a. Presentation on the initial impact of COVID-19. On the pioneer valley economy with a. Town of Amherst focus. Doug joined the pioneer valley planning commission in 2020. At the PVPC. He is responsible for overseeing the pioneer valley data website. And it is contributing to. Pioneer Valley planning commission's efforts to help the people. Businesses and communities of the pioneer valley recover from COVID-19. Doug is a member of the Hampshire, Franklin, and Hampton County workforce boards data committee. Providing expert use of feedback on the data and data tools, guiding the region's labor market. Blueprint. And a contributing member of the community. And a contributing member of the western, Massachusetts COVID dashboard advisory group. Prior to joining prior PVPC. Doug had spent time working in the states of Rhode Island, Connecticut. And Kentucky. And was director of the. Economic policy institutes. Economic analysis and research network. His policy expertise and compass. Is a broad range of family economic security policies. Economic development. State tax and budget analysis. Labor market analysis and workforce development. Doug has a bachelor's degree from York university. A master's degree from McMaster. University and a PhD. From Queens university. All in Ontario, Canada. Doug. Welcome. Thank you. Thanks for the invitation and for the, for the lovely introduction. I should probably have also added to that. Boiler plate. That I am also a 14 year resident of the town of Amherst. So. I appreciate all of the work that all of you are doing. So I think step one here is to share my screen. How's that working? Are people seeing a slide that says that looks like a title slide. Great. Yeah. All right. So, you know, as Jack mentioned. You know, I've, I've spent most of my time while at PVPC, you know, in COVID mode. I spent a week, a week, a month in the office before we adjourned. In the middle of March there. And pretty much since then I've been keeping track of various economic indicators. Trying to wrap my head around the various dimensions of COVID. And share that information with folks so that they can, you know, shape appropriate public policies. So businesses have a better sense of what they're dealing with. And so that, you know, the people of the Pioneer Valley, you know, hopefully can access the services that they need and the resources they need to get through this very bleak period. I think it's important to stress. Sort of as background, the fact that the economic impacts of the pandemic. And the health impacts of the pandemic. And the health impacts of the pandemic. You know, they're very much intertwined. We can't, we can't really address appropriately. We can't fix the economy until we fix the actual pandemic. And certainly, you know, that's been a, a weak spot. And I think a spot that there's been some inconsistency around both at the state level and at the federal level, certainly. The good news is that the government that took office a few hours ago, they seem to have a better plan than we've been dealing with at the federal level. And they're certainly making it a top priority. While also ensuring that. That their response is guided by science. So I'm hopeful that that will. You know, result in positive things. And I think it's important to, you know, I'm hopeful that that will, you know, result in positive things for our, the way we're dealing with pandemic, but also in term for our longer term efforts to recover. One sort of big picture concern that I have is that the economic damage that has been done. Is been sort of deep enough. That I think there's a very real chance that when we figure out how to dig our way out of the quote unquote pandemic. You know, recession that we may find ourselves struggling to get out of sort of a more traditional economic recession. You know, when the question is sort of what are we dealing with down the road? I think the smart money is on continued economic pain. That will take the form of, you know, people struggling on unemployment, people struggling, you know, with, with housing issues. You know, if we've been sort of kicking that can down the road, but at some point, you know, the, the chickens are going to come home to roost on that one. And, you know, the economic impacts of providing, you know, eviction protections in the short term, you know, have rippling effects that are also leaving scar. So the bottom line is, I think we should be prepared for there to be a lot more pain in the pipeline. And we need to make sure that we have policies that are appropriate to, to focus on that. I think there are some good reasons to be optimistic. And I would say that, that my two most recent pieces of optimism have to do with both the substance of the plans that the new federal government is trying to put in place and the people who are responsible for that. And I, there's two examples here. Heather Boucher on the left and Jared Bernstein on the right. He's the fellow with the, with the gray hair. Those are two members of the Biden administration's council of economic advisors. I've known them both for 20 years. And, you know, I know that their top priority is ensuring that we find our way to an economy that works for everybody. And so that's going to be, you know, what they're going to be pushing obviously in any administration, you know, there's competing voices at times. And so we wouldn't want to over promise what people like this can deliver. But I think it's fair to say that despite the fact that there are continued very severe warning signs out there, we have some plans and some people in place that I think are going to take us in a more positive direction. In terms of sort of the very early impact on the pioneer value economy, most of the impacts that we see tended to reinforce some of our sort of existing trends and disparities. So, you know, things like unemployment were much worse in our bigger cities. Definitely workers of color, families of color, women were harder than, than others. You know, that's, that's a fairly typical pattern. There were a few curve balls though that I think stand out in terms of maybe not what we're normally used to seeing. The most obvious of which, and certainly very relevant for the town of Amherst is the fact that the higher ed is normally sort of the one of the bedrocks of our economy. And we can normally count on that as being like a major stabilizing effect. It turns out when you take the students out of that equation, you know, the ability of those educational institutions to, you know, continue to have a positive impact on our local economies is severely limited. I think the most honest thing that we can say at this point is that there's still lots of unknowns out there. I think now that we have an active vaccination program that is being ramped up, I think there's certainly reason to be optimistic, but you know, the next few months will be critical both in terms of the public health response and whatever we come up with in terms of the economy. Just to reinforce the fact that these two things are so highly interrelated, you know, these are two pieces of data that I've been tracking fairly closely. You know, a map on the left that shows pretty clearly that, you know, that Hampton County is, you know, tends to have a significantly higher rate of cases than we have here in Hampton County. And Franklin County is consistently the lowest. I think right now we are second lowest in the state. So that's definitely, definitely a positive sign. Over on the right, you see the, the trends in terms of the number of cases, obviously we've seen significant growth through December and January, but the good news here at the end is that we are finally starting to, to trend downwards and hopefully that will continue. Looking more closely within the, the communities of the Pioneer Valley. You can see here that, you know, to me that the two takeaways here are the way in which this chart on the right ramps up. The three spots that I've labeled on here correspond to the three different times I've updated this chart. And, you know, in each of these times, you know, those numbers were like the one that was going off the page, which of course is what happens with accelerators. Cause they, you know, they recalibrate the, the index basically. But the takeaway for me is that, you know, as time went on, these numbers just kept growing and growing. And of course the most recent data that I have here is for the end of November and we can be very sure that, you know, we've ended up with numbers that were much higher, you know, both in Springfield, but also throughout the Valley. One of the interesting things in Amherst, you know, you can see there's some interesting blips here. The numbers obviously numbers tend to be lower. You know, I think that middle bump was, you know, some house parties that ended up in some, you know, substantial infections. I had Sutherland on here at one point in that same period of time, same thing happening. So obviously the student population, you know, they're what it's a very real thing in terms of the impact that it can have on the public health side. Obviously, you know, we know we are hurting when we don't have them in the mix on the economic side, but their public health impact, you know, tends to be challenging. Although, you know, I think they have a pretty, pretty solid system in place at UMass right now for testing and they're ramping up vaccinations as well. So that's very good news. You know, what does all this mean for the economy? I mean, basically just the fact that a lot of us like me have been, you know, sitting in our home offices for many months, going out much less. That's going to have an impact on the broader economy. And so if you take a look here, this is Hampshire County trips, time spent outside the home. You see the top. It's sort of a total time outside the home, which is down, you know, even now down 17% compared to, to January 2020. Trips to the workplace are down almost a third 30.4%. And trips to retail and restaurants is down a whopping 41%. And again, this is Hampshire County. We don't have, you know, specific local data for something like this, but just the fact that we have County data is actually huge. This opportunity insights is a website that I highly recommend to folks. There's lots of information there. I've just, you know, scratched the surface with some of the pieces that I pulled out. But the obvious, you know, the really hard hitting fact here is the fact that both our retail and restaurants are continuing to see numbers that are down that low. For anybody who knows anything about, you know, restaurant profit margins, you know, that's obviously a really troubling situation. And folks who've been, you know, hanging on, maybe they had a PPP loan, you know, they're doing what they can to keep their employees employed, while also not digging too much of a hole for themselves. But, you know, I think there's a limit to that. They're basically on life support. And the longer, you know, they're in that situation, the harder it's going to be. And we're going to continue to see businesses closing. And their, their employees, you know, falling into bad economic situations too. We see this reflected in, in our transportation. This is looking at PVTA trips. And this is across the entire system. And obviously, you know, the big takeaway for, for Amherst folks is that, you know, during the, during the school months, you know, when there's normally a bunch of students around, when they weren't around, you saw declines, you know, that were like, you know, 80%, 70%. And that's pretty devastating, obviously, for, for that system. This is a little further afield, but still relevant to kind of the big picture of the economy. This is looking at air travel out of Hartford Springfield airport. And, you know, there you can see pretty clearly, you know, substantial declines hitting in March. And, you know, the recovery from that has been slow. I don't have more recent data I checked today. And they, they didn't have more recent data on that, on that. Bureau of Transportation statistics website, but. And the bottom line is that as long as the pandemic persists, the economy is going to continue to struggle. These are unemployment rates. This is spring, not spring, but this is Massachusetts in red and the US in blue. And you can see here, you know, essentially between March and April, you know, those numbers went through the roof. Massachusetts unemployment rate peaked at 17.7%. Noticeably, if you look over here, I've pulled that out. You know, Massachusetts continued to see growth in unemployment rates after the US had started to see, you know, substantial decline. So that by itself is interesting. The fact that as of November, you know, we're essentially in the same place in terms of the unemployment rate, which, you know, certainly positive news. Important takeaway here though is that, you know, even at 6.7%, you know, we're still more than double the unemployment rate that we had prior to the recession. I think we're at 2.8%. You know, I think that was in, I guess in March of 2020. So the important thing to recognize with the unemployment rate is that the unemployment rate only measures, both the numerator and the denominator are comprised of people who are in the labor force. And so one of the things that we're seeing to a substantial effect across the country and very much so here in Massachusetts is that the labor force has been shrinking. So people are falling out of the labor force, you know, whether that's because they've given up on finding employment or whether they've resigned themselves to staying home, to supervise their kids who are, you know, remote learning or whatever. I mean, the reality is that we're down between February 2020 and November 2020, we're down, you know, a quarter of a million workers here in Massachusetts. So that's obviously of considerable concern. In terms of the unemployment, the original spike, these two maps compare year over year, which is in some ways the best way to compare. And you can see here on the left, you know, the city with the highest unemployment rate in July of 2019 was Springfield at 6.6%. If you kept the same scale on this one as you had over here, you would end up with this map where every single town has an unemployment rate that's more than 6.6%. And that's, I think, you know, just the visual impact of that, I think is kind of an appropriate way to think about what actually happened. If you want to drill down and get a sort of more nuanced version, notice that the data on this version is exactly the same data as on the previous one, but here we've reset the scale essentially. So, you know, some of the numbers were just stunning, you know, Springfield at 25% unemployment in July of 2020. You know, that's pretty devastating. You know, the cities were used to seeing Springfield Holy Oak Chickabee with very high unemployment rates. There were a few surprises, places like Montague and Rowe with quite high unemployment rates. Amherst, you know, obviously, you know, a 12% unemployment rate is not good, but in the context of all the communities in the Pioneer Valley, you know, definitely a long way from the worst. We tend to be sort of middle of the package. And this again is looking, you know, at that July point and just driving on the fact that, you know, A, all these communities saw huge spikes and B, you know, it was very substantial, like, you know, it hit hard and quick. And of course we've come down from those points across the board, but we tend to come down sort of in proportion to the size of those spikes today. This is looking at unemployment in, let's see, I think that's October's unemployment rate. And you can see that, yeah, October. You know, again, those rates are definitely coming down, but, you know, cities like Lawrence, Springfield, Brockton and Holy Oak continue to have unemployment rates exceeding 10%. I forget exactly where Amherst was there, but you'll see where it is in the next chart, which by November, Amherst's unemployment rate was sitting at 5.1%. So you see here in the table, I'm comparing both the employment numbers, the labor force numbers and the unemployment numbers, as well as the unemployment rate, comparing between February 20, 20 and November 2020. And you can see the changes down here. A couple of things that I think are noteworthy, you know, again, Amherst, you know, not doing so badly, 28th out of the 48 communities that you see on this map, neighboring Hadley had a November unemployment rate of 8%. So, and that was like the highest in the region. And certainly, you know, obviously, we're more connected to the communities around us than, you know, than to once further afield. And that has a real impact on us as well. Notably, of the 2000 or so jobs that were lost between February and November, four out of five of those workers have dropped out of the labor force while only one in five are currently unemployed. So, you know, that's what I was talking about before. And it's important to keep that in mind when you're looking at the unemployment rates, too, because essentially those rates are being artificially kept low by the fact that people are not in either the numerator or the denominator of those numbers, if that makes sense. And if anything ever doesn't make sense, feel free to interrupt. And I'm happy to take questions at the end as well. Just in terms of wrapping your head around which sectors were hit hardest. This is actually looking across, I think, all the towns of the Pioneer Valley. And you can see here that in that initial phase between March in the middle of May, health and social assistance, food and accommodation, retail trade were the ones that were definitely hardest hit. And that has continued to be the case for most of the recession. You've seen some recovery in some of those areas, but others are still very much hurting. As I mentioned in my introductory comments, the impacts of the pandemic have been felt more acutely by workers of color, by women, by lower income earners. This chart takes a look at claims for unemployment insurance by race and ethnicity. And it bears a little bit of explanation. One thing that's important to note, and it's hard, unless you really know what the numbers are, it's a little hard to wrap your head around. Despite the fact that the white claims are much higher as a rate of those people who, of white workers, the share of white workers is smaller than the share of Hispanic, Latino or African American workers who have been claiming unemployment insurance. A couple of other things to note. The fact that the peak in the claims for white workers, you know, happened pretty early. That's basically early May. And pretty steady coming down from there. Whereas for Hispanic, Latino workers and black workers, they didn't peak until into July. And so as a share of the workers claiming unemployment insurance, workers of color, you know, basically through the entire timeline took on a growing share of the overall claims. Similar story when you're comparing by gender, you know, men peaked early women a little bit later. And you see that the female workers who, you know, had a much larger spike in terms of their unemployment claims. And note that, you know, while they started off with, you know, men at higher rate than women, you know, that quickly reverse itself through here. And so this is one of the reasons that you'll hear this recession referred to as a she session. And obviously there are huge impacts in terms of, you know, trying to shape an economy where women are treated equally and fairly, you know, and the scarring effects of this period of time will be significant unless we take actions to, to make sure that doesn't happen. Lower wage workers are hit hardest. This is a chart showing the essentially the continuing reduction in unemployment, again, compared to, you know, early in January. And you see here that basically higher wage earners are much closer to being back to where they were before than middle wage workers or low wage workers. And so, you know, again, we're seeing a repetition of patterns. And of course we don't have the data, but it's safe to assume that if we had this chart by race and ethnicity, you know, we would see the same disturbing patterns that we're used to seeing in the economy. I won't spend a lot of time on this. The short answer here is that folks in Massachusetts think that this is going to stick around for a while. This was actually an October poll. But at that point, you know, about a third of workers thought we would, you know, end up being, sorry, 75% total thought that we would be working in a less than normal situation for six months or longer. And certainly, you know, the core, the months that have passed since then would, would support that, that's supposition. There is some good news. And when I talk about the Paycheck Protection Program, the PPP, you know, my initial impressions of this program were, you know, I tended to be a little bit suspicious of some aspects of it. And certainly the way that it has played out, you know, there's no question that there have been some abuses of the program nationwide, and I'm sure as well in the Pioneer Valley. But the bottom line is, you know, with 660,000 loans across the country and 432 billion dollars, it was one way to infuse money into the economy and basically keep people's heads above water. In the Pioneer Valley, we were looking at almost 9,000 loans and the total amount that we ended up seeing, you know, was over a billion dollars. So again, that goes a long way towards keeping our economy a little bit above water. But of course, you know, these are numbers that we saw, you know, many, many months ago now. And that well is again running pretty dry. I'm just going to flip through these pretty quickly. The loans through the PPP were the way they reported them were divided into two categories, one for loans under 150,000 and one for loans over. For these lower amount loans, what you're seeing here are the, is the total loan amount for each community and the corresponding jobs. And I apologize. I should have individually pulled out Amherst so that you would at least see what that looks like. And I'm happy to get that information for you. In terms of the sectors that were the benefit from the PPP loans for those lower loans, you know, restaurants, both full service restaurants and limited service restaurants were, you know, major recipients of those loans, as well as some, you know, kind of characters that we don't normally think of as being quote unquote businesses, but they are, you know, they employ people, dentists, lawyers, religious organizations. For these larger loans, you know, again, the number of jobs that were supposedly retained pretty substantial and the dollar figures here, you know, because they're, they're much larger. They're much, you know, higher numbers. And obviously that goes a long way towards keeping those communities heads above heads above water. And for those larger loans, slightly different mix of employers. And I, you know, I think pretty, pretty interesting actually to see some of these. So, but despite, you know, that quote unquote good news for businesses, you know, here in Hampshire County, we're still sitting at the end of December with about 22% reduction in revenues compared to compared to January 2020. So small businesses are hurting. They'll continue to hurt until our economy is back on track. These are complicated. And I probably won't stay on these long enough to, for you to wrap your heads around what you're seeing. This is looking at the Springfield real estate market. The takeaway here really is that, you know, basically across these categories, you know, blue is bad. And so you can see here, this is Springfield on the left and the US on the right, you know, general office, not good for Springfield. And note that this has this spans, you know, before COVID as well. So it gives you a sense of, you know, basically these slots down here are when COVID really kicked in. In some cases that represents a whole new set of pain, but in other cases it's reinforcing, you know, trends that were there prior. You know, the takeaway here for Springfield and the Springfield area. And of course, you know, we're not talking about Amherst, but we do know that, you know, basically, I mean, I think when I think of sort of our region as an economy, I think of, you know, we're only as strong as the weakest link. And so when we see communities like Springfield that are really, you know, suffering like that, that's going to have a negative impact on us here in Amherst as well. And I will share these with you and you can spend more time on them and wrap your heads around everything you're seeing. You know, in terms of the employment by sector, you know, here we are looking a little further down the road from that initial set. And what you can see here is sort of the recovery of jobs over time. And it's pretty obvious that a lot of these sectors are continuing to see, you know, severely depleted employment with leisure and hospitality, you know, in the deepest hole still down, you know, about 11,000 jobs. And that was as of September. One of the things that we know about that sector is that Hispanic or Latino and Asian workers make up a much larger share of the accommodation and food services sector than the overall economy. So, you know, this is the, this is the overall economy over here. And this is the, this is the food services here on the left. And you see a different concentration. Actually, I had those switched and this is Hampton County. But again, you know, I think it speaks to the impact that we see here as well. Those sectors, hospitality sectors continue to be account for a high share of unemployment insurance claims. You know, you see that over time getting a little bit better, but still, you know, pretty disturbingly high. And of course, you know, I mentioned this earlier, the post secondary, post secondary education is sort of the elephant in the room for the Pioneer Valley economy. You know, we see substantial declines in post secondary enrollment compared to 2019. You know, stick is down 15%, Holyoke Community College is down 14%, Greenfield's down 9%. We know that for the universities like UMass, you know, those students, even if they were enrolled, weren't there in person. So obviously, again, that has a pretty devastating impact on our local economy. And just to add insult to injury, of course, you know, with so much, many of the things not happening in the economy, in the economy, the way they normally do, state revenues are down as well. And just really quickly, you see here that some of the big sources of funding that fuel, our transportation budgets took a hit. So you see the motor fuel revenue down 23% between January and October, and the motor vehicle sales tax down 7.5%. And that compares to an overall revenue decline of about 11.4%. One of the takeaways here is that without substantial state revenues, state revenues, one of the takeaways here is that without substantial state fiscal relief from the federal government, you know, we're going to continue to see a lot of pain in Massachusetts and no doubt that will be passed on to local communities as well. And you see that reflected here. This is the erosion of state and local government employment, which will continue to be a drag on the economy if we don't make some significant changes to sort of the status quo. You can see here that Massachusetts again, you know, down much more so than other states. What about the long-term impacts? You know, I think there's some big picture questions out there. One of these is sort of, you know, in the early days of the pandemic, you know, we were all treating our essential workers like they were heroes. And, you know, I'd like to think that we'll put in place some changes that will help them to, you know, actually live that build back better mentality. But as this person on Twitter notes, you know, I think the default is to slip back towards treating people who are doing those jobs as though they are lesser and to not value the work that they're doing as much as we should be. And certainly we can, you know, we can talk a long time about things like minimum wage and the impacts that things like that can and should have on our economy. You know, we don't really know what the shift is going to be in terms of where people choose to live, whether people continue to, you know, move out of cities because they're afraid of pandemic stuff. We don't really know if people are going to make those decisions based on rational stuff as opposed to, you know, they're feeling concerns. What we do know is that unless we're very diligent about it, we will perpetuate inequalities in our communities and we need to take measures to make sure that that is not the path that we take. In terms of working from home, I think it's fair to assume that even if we, we will probably not ever get back to exactly where we were before. I think there's been a lot of reasons, both on the employee side and the employer side to recognize that working from home has some merits and my suspicion as well as this gentleman from the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston is that we will continue to see, you know, a greater incidence of folks working from home. Here we have executives saying remote work is here to stay to a certain extent. Getting to the end here, what's missing, both from my presentation, but also from broader conversations, definitely concerns about broadband and the need to close a digital divide needs to be a priority. We need to find some good sources of regional data on business closures, ideally also including information about the race, ethnicity and gender of business owners. I have some data on some hunger and food insecurity things, especially around SNAP or food stamps use. That only tells a piece of the puzzle, but it's good to have even that piece and I need to find some time to crunch those data. Again, you know, issues of evictions and foreclosures, you know, we've been kicking that down the road by providing some relief, but that's definitely going to be something that's going to bite us at some point in the next few months. All right, that brings me to the end and I'm happy to take questions, but also happy to have folks, you know, if there's anything folks want to have a continuing dialogue around, here's some contact information, you know, please feel free to contact me directly and if there's any questions now, I'm more than happy to take them. Thank you very much, Doug. And I, you know, I think it would be great if we take this opportunity to ask Doug. He went through some complex sides there pretty quickly, but again, I was struck by how informative this was when he provided a version back, I don't know what was October to the commission. And so, Lynn, how, how would you want, with regard to questions, do you want me to... I'd love to be glad for you to just call on people, both hands and planning board. Okay, as I see a hand raised, that'd be good. So, with regard to the housing, I have a question. I think I started article just, you know, within the last couple of days about how the residential housing had a bump. I don't know if that was national or Massachusetts or local. And I think you confirmed that residential home purchases were good, but, you know, the commercial sector was not. Is that correct, Doug? Yeah, I think that's right. And, you know, I suspect those were probably national data. And, you know, I think one of the things that has helped us through this downturn is that the economy was in a pretty good place beforehand. And so people who have some level of financial security, you know, and had maybe been planning to, you know, make some changes, you know, the pandemic, I think acted as somewhat of a catalyst for people to, you know, maybe take some leaps that they might not have otherwise. I have some data from the Warren Group that I'm going to be looking at that drills down on what that impact has been at the local level in various communities. My suspicion is that, you know, whether it's in the West, into the Hilltowns, you know, you might have seen some more bumps, maybe then, then, you know, a little bit further to the East. And again, my suspicion is that, you know, house sales in communities that rely on the normal functioning of academic institutions have probably been somewhat depressed, but I haven't seen the data to confirm that suspicion. Okay. Andrew. Thanks, Jack. Thanks, Doug. This is a really, this is a fantastic presentation. I was curious, you know, you would mention near the end about the medium and long-term impact of COVID and where we choose to live. I have maybe a multi-part question here is, I guess at what point do you think we might get some actual data that helps us understand whether that shift is occurring? And then can you think of any examples of, you know, communities that may be positioning themselves well to capitalize on that through policies or just, you know, just, I don't know, the way that they run themselves, that may make them more attractive for folks who are looking to exit those urban locations? Yeah, great questions. So again, I think I probably will get at least a teaser of a sense of what's happening when I can drill down in the Warn data. That's a research group that does housing data that sort of builds a lot of the data sets that we have around housing at the local level. And certainly when I have any useful morsels to share, I will. In terms of which communities I think are, may have been sort of a little bit ahead of the curve. I suspect that the answer to that might be linked to that, the bullet here on the broadband, because, you know, the state, you know, has been pushing, closing the digital divide and has some programs that are kind of putting in place to help with that. But there are a handful of communities. And we definitely see some of this up in Franklin County, where communities, you know, saw the writing on the wall a few years ago and have, you know, been pursuing the policies that they need to, to make broadband more, more widely available to folks. I also think that, you know, even just culturally, I think that there's going to be some interesting conversations, because on the one hand, you know, no community likes to see their populations in decline or to see their economies stagnant and sort of the gut reaction to, you know, let's get some folks from Boston that come and work from home from, you know, from Pioneer Valley. That sounds great. But some of those very same communities are communities that don't like to see the nature of their community change very much. And, you know, I don't think that that's going to be an issue that Amherst will struggle with, because I feel like Amherst is already a pretty, you know, at least it's somewhat, there are dimensions of diversity in Amherst that you don't necessarily see, you know, in some of the other towns. You know, I'm being careful what I say as I'm looking here at my screen of, you know, predominantly white middle income folks. So maybe not that diverse, but you know, there's definitely some elements there to build on for sure. On that point, Doug, I also saw where Governor Baker did not approve. I don't know what the term was. It was the Office of Rural Affairs. I know Pioneer Valley Planning Commission was a proponent of, you know, stepping up this, you know, the voice for rural communities. But that was not approved in his budget. Do you know anything about that? I'm not very familiar with that. I think it links into the slides about the, you know, impending state revenue declines, you know, anything that costs money that, that, you know, one could reasonably push the back burner for a couple of years. You know, it's probably going to happen. You know, I think there's some other sort of big picture issues like East West Rail that might have a bigger impact. Obviously that's not something you can flip a switch on, you know, in the midst of a pandemic and have happened, you know, I feel like even in the most optimistic scenario, that would be, you know, several years down the road, but I think it's safe to say that, you know, if and when that does happen, you know, the impact will be very measurable. And I suspect more measurable than some of the estimates that we've seen as part of that official process. Good. Janet McGowan, please. Yes, thank you. I think one of the difficulties I've always had in Amherst and understanding statistics is to understand the impact of students. And so when you're looking at 2,000 lost jobs in Amherst, would that be students that normally would be working on campus or in the town, but aren't doing that because they're not here? Like, can you figure that out? And then, and a related thing, so, you know, and so I also was wondering about students who, you know, and then they would file for unemployment and show up there. And then also I know that there are a lot of people who could file for unemployment that are normally ineligible, like basically anybody who was willing to work and was affected by COVID and couldn't get a job could file for unemployment, even if they didn't lose a job. And so that seems like that could have spurred the numbers up. And I know I personally probably did that myself when I told my son's like, yeah, you guys can all apply for unemployment. And so I'm just wondering how those, those factors, and I thought that was a great program because it kept people, you know, kept money in the economy and kept people going. And there were no jobs to file for. And so I just kind of wondered, like, how do you look at the impact of an expanded unemployment program that normally ineligible workers can apply for? So it looks like this bike might be higher. And then, you know, what are the students doing in Amherst? And, you know, did we lose 2000 jobs or do we have 2000 students who stayed home and they weren't working on campus? Do you know what I mean? And so maybe like my hope is that when they all come back, those jobs come back. But I just always wonder like, how do we account for students in our stats? Yeah. So, I mean, a couple of pieces. First of all, you know, full disclaimer, most of the data points that I typically work with are based on some sort of, you know, estimates or modeling, you know, like the unemployment data is some combination of a consumer establishment survey and a household survey. And, you know, like those numbers have, have margins of error on them. So, you know, don't completely hang your hat on that specific, you know, set of numbers. One of the features of that, of course, is that it's really pretty iffy to try to make direct connections between, you know, those jobs and, you know, students on campus. Obviously, I think it makes sense to think about the types of jobs that, that students drive demand for. So, you know, bars that are closed or are only, you know, very nominally open, you know, that money's not flowing. Those bar, you know, keepers are not doing that job. You know, that's a good example. You know, these are COVID times. I've had, I've paid for one haircut since March. You know, I need to get back downtown and go into Matt's and have him do my hair again. But, you know, I suspect I'm fairly typical in terms of ways in which we cope differently. You know, my wife's already had one pedicure since March. You know, and some folks have learned new skills. She's gotten very good at, you know, doing her own manicure and pedicure. And, you know, for some folks that will translate into a lasting economic impact, you know, because they might decide, you know, I can use my discretionary income on something else and be perfectly happy with my, you know, with my do-it-yourself approach. Yeah, or whatever. And I think the most honest answer is that there are, there are some industries that will change, you know, forever as a result of this. And others that will bounce back very close to where they were before. And, you know, obviously there are some industries that have done very well. You know, I'd love, I wish I had invested in Plexiglas back in March. You know, right? And, you know, I think we're going to have to figure these things out. To me, the important thing to focus on for, you know, for policymaker types is that there are things that we can be doing to try to make sure that some of the changes that are made are ones that move us closer to a more equitable economy, you know, that raise the floor that, that where we see sort of an economy that works for everybody, that hopefully, you know, maybe close some of those disparities based on race and ethnicity, you know, those sorts of things. That was actually my last question, which is, you know, do you have ideas of ways to help fix that inequity that we, you know, it's, we started out with it got worse and now it's worse. And so like as the economy comes back, is there something that towns can do or, you know, people can do like what do you have like any ideas of how, I mean, everybody needs a jumpstart, but groups that are really suffering that, you know, the, that you were discussing in terms of women and, you know, Hispanic people and, you know, lower income wage workers. Like how do you, how do we, you know, do you have ideas for that? Yeah. I mean, I feel like some of the specifics are necessarily fuzzy, but I feel like there are a few sectors that we can point to that could have a substantial impact if we focus our efforts in a smart way. The one that comes most immediately to mind is expanding, you know, early care slots, daycare slots, you know, because that's a couple of things have happened for one. A lot of daycare workers have left, you know, have left their employment for a variety of reasons. And so what was a critical shortage of workers in the past is now, you know, hyper critical. So you have a reduction in the ability to provide that service. But at the same time, you're seeing an increase in, you know, the, the needs of families to draw on that sort of thing. We need daycare services that are more flexible in terms of times to reflect the fact that some of our workers, you know, are working on conventional hours. Anything that we can do at the local level to ensure, you know, a decent supply of affordable housing, you know, wraparound services, that kind of thing, I think can really make a difference for folks. And, you know, question, what's wraparound services? Just the, so a lot of people who are struggling, you know, they, they might need housing, but they might also need, you know, mental health services or they might need tutoring or that, you know, like the whole range of things that people kind of, you know, the people who are struggling tend to need. If we can be more intentional about making sure that they have access to a broad range of things. And ideally that they can, you know, that they can tap into those resources fairly efficiently. So they don't have to navigate, you know, seven different, you know, administrative bureaucratic hoop jumping processes. You know, there can be like a one-stop shop that provides a lot of those sorts of things together. You know, career mentoring, you know, that it's a pretty broad range of potential things, but. Lynn, you did have your hand up, but are you good? Yeah, I was just going to mention two things. The given reason by the governor for not signing the rural bill is similar programs have not produced the kinds of results he thought that they should. And the housing study that I think you saw was both national, but it had numbers from Massachusetts and with a housing growth here. But until we look at that in terms of regions and by community, we really don't know anything. Thank you. Mandy, please. Yeah. Again, my question surrounds higher ed. You talked about the potential trends for work at home changing. You know, and so people might work from home a little bit more than they used to, and that might allow them to move away from the urban areas into potentially more rural areas. So I'm wondering if you have heard of any potential trends in higher education after a year of remote learning. Any trends for large universities or non large universities to continue to offer some of those remote services for students that hadn't been offering them that were on campus. Experiences that now might decide to offer some of those experiences or remote experiences as a sole means of getting their education and whether you've heard, first of all, whether you've heard of potential trends towards sort of the similar work from home, but for higher ed. And if so, what trends might you think about that in terms of if that becomes the case, what trends might you think about in terms of if that becomes the case, would the students stay where they originate from, or would they still try to come to a campus such that maybe it would, how might that affect our housing sort of demands, I guess, in Amherst, if that type of trend picks up? Yeah, I mean, those are great questions, Mandy. I feel like what I've been hearing is a general sense that remote learning will continue to be a larger share of the teaching that we do, both at the community college and at university levels, going forward. So I anticipate somewhere higher than where we were before, but obviously, I don't think anybody thinks that post-secondary institutions are going to close their doors. For one thing, one of the main reasons that students like to come to college, to universities, is to live on their own, live with their friends, do that whole thing that they do for better or worse. And I think that will continue for sure. To the extent that it has an impact on real estate, I mean, I can see it cutting a bunch of different ways, having a weaker rental market maybe, but in a community like Amherst where there's so many great amenities anyway, having that house that used to be a party house next door to you, returned to being a single family home that some family from some Boston suburb wants to move into, that's not a bad trade. I think the most honest answer is that we recognize that there's a bunch of different pieces that are in play and we don't know exactly where we're going to go, but we can be certain that we'll be more likely to get where we want to be if we try to pursue policies that make that happen. And I realized that probably very little of what I said was a direct answer to your question, but I hope that some of my thoughts were food for thought at least. Thank you. Chris? Hello, I have a question about housing and Amherst already has a short supply of housing. And it seems like some communities are viewing influx of residents from cities to be a good thing to help them with economic development. And I think I was understanding that correctly. So that would be my first question. Is an influx of residents from cities a good thing considered generally speaking? And then second half of the question is for a town like Amherst that already has housing and short supply, is that something that we would want to encourage? Would we want to encourage people to move here? Would we want to offer them things that would, you know, make them want to move here? Or not because we already have this shortage of housing. And I guess that's also tied into the question that was just asked by Mandy Joe. How much is our housing supply and shortage of housing going to be affected by what happens in higher education? So I guess that's kind of three part question. Yeah. So, you know, my sense is that, you know, whether or not it's good for the economy when, you know, people move in from elsewhere, it depends a lot on the type of housing that you're thinking of putting them in. You know, if you're talking about, you know, building new subdivisions that require, you know, new services, sewer and water and all that sort of thing, you know, and attract families with kids that are going to require, you know, more spaces in schools. You know, the cost benefit of that, you know, is maybe questionable. If you're achieving it through, you know, infill or by, you know, encouraging, you know, multi-family housing or multi-generational stuff. I mean, that's another piece of kind of the post COVID puzzle is that I suspect a lot of us might rethink, you know, how we choose to, you know, reside close to our loved ones, you know, people who've learned over the course of this period that, you know, having grandma and grandpa watch their kids, you know, because they don't have access to daycare, you know, maybe that's a good thing. And if mom and dad are going to be part of our pod, you know, maybe we should be thinking about, you know, saving money on our housing costs by living, you know, moving in together kind of thing. Like, I feel like there's lots of moving pieces in the puzzle, you know, in terms of the way that we would plan for that, I mean, a lot of it to me, I guess my other thought is that, you know, even if we chose not to take a route where we are actively trying to encourage people to move into Amherst to live, we can be thinking differently about, like, well, you know, maybe we want people to move into Sunderland, but we're going to make sure that they have good jobs in Amherst so that they're spending their money, you know, we get the commercial real estate from wherever they're going to work, plus we get, you know, they'll spend their money downtown and then go back home to their, you know, community for living. So I feel like there's lots of variables there and, you know, at the end of the day, I don't have any magic answers, but just the fact that, you know, you've got a broad range of folks who are thinking about a broad range of things, you're going to be much more likely to end up with, you know, intentional policies that attract, you know, the right communities and help your community to prosper. Thank you. Any other questions for Doug before we let him go? I see not, oh, Janet. You're muted. I have a question, you know, one of the amazing things about Amherst is that we have the area's largest employer, the University of Massachusetts, and it's kind of like having a giant factory with all the jobs. And so I wonder, like, if you can give us some positive, you know, thing where, yeah, we got hit harder because the university got hit really hard and it's the major employer, but I'm assuming everything's going to be kind of back by the fall, I hope. And so could our recovery be faster because of that? And maybe an economic strategy would be just helping our local businesses to hold on for the next six months. And so somehow the town could offer payments or there's some federal money or estate money, cash going to them, thinking good times are ahead in the fall and most of the students are back and the factory is full again and it's working. Is there like a positive view of that? Because, you know, it's not like UMass is going away. And I actually think students are going to come back, not just to party and be with friends, is to get back into class face to face. I don't think online learning has been a treat for most people. So do you see like positive things ahead and when for, you know? I mean, I think you're right in noting that the big variable here is, you know, when do the students come back? And, you know, my sense is that that's kind of a squishy thing and, you know, anybody who pretends they know the answer to that question at this point is probably going to be shocked or disappointed. Ultimately, you know, having educational facilities as a big part of your local community, that's a really good economic strategy and it will continue to serve as well. And, you know, I think you're right in noting that there are some industries that, you know, their startup costs, you know, will be much higher. There's lots of industries where, you know, they just couldn't, you know, they couldn't get through and, you know, they will suffer, you know, the economic impact of that. So I think there will be some communities that will be much slower to recover. You know, in terms of the strategy and the best of, you know, recognizing the inevitability of better times and letting that guide some of the ways that we, you know, support our local businesses, et cetera, you know, that makes a lot of sense to me. You know, it's one thing to, you know, when there's great big uncertainty at the, you know, six months down the road, a year down the road, you know, the notion of throwing good money after bad kind of thing is a little bit questionable. But I think in the case, you know, in the scenario that you pay, which I'm endorsing, you know, we know things are going to get better. So let's figure out a way to help people keep their heads above water. Okay, thank you. And I promise I'll get that haircut in the next 10 days. Parking lot haircut. Very good. I think we are can conclude and Lynn. I'll let you take over here. All right, I'll stop sharing. Why don't we take the slides down? We appreciate your presentation. Jack, thank you for including us in the planning board meeting. I'm going to adjourn the town council meeting. Thank you. And people who would like to stay, I think can be exited to the audience instead. And folks should know that I will share a copy of this. I'll PDF it and send it to, to Jack to circulate the folks. And please do keep me in mind. If you have any questions you want to follow up on. Thank you. Okay. Very good. All right. Well, that, that. That was very informative. It really hits on so many points. So again, thanks very much, Doug. If you're still with us. Next on our agenda. So we have, we're at 745. And so. We're going to go into old business here. Janet has, if we put her item with, with the. The lighting by law, like. On item A for old business for that, for the next. Meeting, I think that would be a very fair thing to do. But we, I think again, we would like to kind of check out here a little bit earlier than we normally would. Given what today is. So with that said, we would. I'm going to discuss Amherst Hills subdivision. Consider the request from a developer for release from notice. To building a commissioner requesting that he refrain from measuring building permits for certain lots. So. Chris, would you like to. Yes. Thank you. Yep. So I really just have an update for you. I don't have any new recommendation. I haven't had a chance to talk to Janet about her. Comments on the. On this. Three party agreement and nor have I had a chance to talk to Joel bar. We've been pretty busy here and working on zoning amendments, et cetera. So I do intend to do that. Soon. But the update would be that you all asked me to check with the town engineer on a couple of things. And I think it's a good idea to do that. And then being that he had come up with an estimate. Of $230,000 roughly. To. Complete the subdivision. And I confirmed with him that. Two things that. Applies to. Amherst Hills subdivision. But it's, it does not apply to. The little cul-de-sac that goes north from. The town engineer has come forward with. To complete the work on the subdivision. Most of that work is. Off-road. And it includes. Things like drainage infrastructure. There are. Drainage basins that have been created there, but they've been allowed to. Become overgrown. And so they're really not as functional or as. Safe. As drainage basins. Anymore. So those kinds of things. Need to be taken care of. And there are also other. Off-road things. Included in that amount. So the other thing was that. Town engineer had made a comment when he provided that. Cost estimate. That there was snow on the ground. And. He wasn't. Necessarily able to. Confirm that. That cost estimate was. Complete. So since then he's gone. And he's walked around there and he has. Determined that that cost estimate is complete. There's another piece of this, which is that. Warner brothers worked on the roadways there. In the fall. And in November, they pretty much finished. Paving the parts of the roadways that. Needed to be paved, but there are still. What we call punch list items that need to be finished. Within the roadway itself. In other words, Not including the off-road infrastructure for drainage, but just including what's. In the paved way. There are problems with catch basins and. Bits of. Missing. Pavement, et cetera. So. So those things need to. Be. Finished. So. I'm gathering information. I am going to talk to Janet. I am going to talk to Joel Bard and we'll come to some agreement about. How to move forward with this and how to. Advise the planning board about releasing lots. And I don't have that recommendation tonight, but I thought you'd like to have an update on what's going on. Very good. Because there's going to be more on this. I don't. Definitely open it up to the board for discussion and to the attendees. But if, if, if we. Electively. Know that we're going to talk about this at a later date. And then keep that in mind if. If you do want. To speak. I don't have that recommendation tonight, but I thought you'd like to have an update on what's going on. I'm going to keep that in mind. If you do want. To speak. So. Does anyone have any comments on the subject? On the board. I see none. And in. The attendees we have a. Jim. Master Alexis. Are you. Are you asking me to. Yes. We can open it up to public comment. All right. Hi, Jim. I just wanted to say hello and thank you. And I understand Christine has to. Gather other information. And that's obviously appropriate. And I will await when the time is that she can make a recommendation and we can discuss this further. So. I just wanted to say hello and we were here and I can't tell who else is here from our neighborhood. So I just wanted to say hello and let you know that I've only got two haircuts and smart myself. Thank you very much. Thank you. I could elaborate on that, but I'm not going to. With regard to the, you know, haircut and, you know. At ease and stuff like that. I'm way behind. Okay. With that said, we will put that on a future agenda. Correct. Okay. So let's move. To chapter 40 R. And we last time we closed. The discussion on this, but wanting to make a recommendation. Which is in our packet. And I can. Chris and I kind of hammered this out. And I can read it. Should I read it or. I guess I will definitely read it. Okay. So the, the proposed. You know, recommendation we have on the 40, our proposal. Is that the current proposal for locating the 40 are overlay district. And the downtown has provided a valuable perspective. And development options that may alleviate the overall housing demand. Provide much needed affordable housing and unlock development potential. Importions. Of the downtown. The proposal offers. Also offers. Valuable design guidelines that may be incorporated in future zoning by laws. Which are currently being rewritten. Unfortunately, the timing of the proposal conflicts with other zoning priorities that the town is currently pursuing. In addition to the downtown, the planning board also envisions. The merit and view reviewing 40, our districts and other portions of the town, such as. The village centers that the 40 are consultants reviewed. Therefore. I guess I could move that the planning board supports the idea of chapter 40 hours, Mark growth. In concept, but that the current proposal needs further explanation and refinement. Subsequent to the current zoning changes that are being developed. The planning board recommends that the. Chapter 40 are smart growth proposal be set aside for now. While the town revises its zoning by law and that the 40 are concept be resurrected. And at a appropriate time in the future. So this can be, you know, word Smith. Based on. Our review. Yeah. Jack, did you want to. Have that on the screen? I think Pam was trying to share it, but it didn't come through. Yeah. I don't understand why I just noticed that. Yeah. That's why I did read it. It's on our packet. Everybody has it in their packet. Yeah. You can't see it. No. Up at the top. It says my screen sharing is on the screen. I've never seen that before. Well, we can, we can go ahead and discuss Doug. Yeah, I was going to second your motion. Okay. Second. And discussion. Any further. Oh, sorry, Andrew. Mine was just, I know you mentioned word smithing. And I usually don't like doing that. But I think that first sentence in the second paragraph might make sense. In the third paragraph. But I'm, I'm in support of the motion, though, certainly in spirit. Okay. So we can definitely move that sentence. Move the first sentence in the second paragraph. Down to the third paragraph. Is that what you said? Yeah. I mean, I was just thinking that we sort of the first two of kind of summarizing the situation in the third. Kind of summarizing the situation. Yeah, I mean, I was just thinking that we sort of the first two of kind of summarizing the situation in the third kind of summarizing our perspective, but. Don't make it too. I don't get detailed in. Pardon. Make it two paragraphs then. Move the remaining sentence in that second paragraph up to the first paragraph or. Yep. I mean, then we could do that too. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Alrighty. Any other comment? It's a comment, but she's muted. Who? Janet. All right. So it's the motion. Are we voting like, will we, will we be voting on the whole statement or just. Is there a, is it more limited? I mean, the whole statement seems fine to me. Yeah. We're just, we're just making a recommendation. I think we didn't want to not. Provide the CRC. With our thoughts and, you know, and some sort of formal manner because we invested a lot of time. Into it. So. So we're, we're basically voting on the whole statement. Is that right? Yes. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Any other discussion? Okay. Can I ask a question before you take the vote just to make sure I understand. Yeah. So the first sentence. A paragraph two. We'll become the last sentence. In paragraph one. No, the first paragraph two becomes the first sentence. In the last paragraph. Sentence number one of paragraph two. Becomes the first sentence in the last paragraph. That's what you said. Okay. And then. Sentence number two. Can just be moved up to the first paragraph. In the last sentence. Yeah. Okay. Got it. Thank you. So let's do a little. Where is my. Will proof roll call thing here. All right, I'll just go by. The pictures here. Maria. Janet. Approve. Tom. Andrew. Doug. Hi. And myself is a yes. And so that's six zero. One, two, three. You've got seven people here though. Right. Oh, yeah. Okay. Yeah. I don't know what time she left. Yeah, we're not sure. Yeah. Okay. We can watch the tape. Watch the recording. I think it was a roughly when. Doug Hall left. Okay. Okay. So, um, Moving on to zoning priorities. And. This can really just be handed over to the. The zoning subcommittee and, and, and, and yourself, Chris. Um, But we want to review the draft of the work plan to meet the request of the town council regarding the zoning priorities and the zoning subcommittee. Um, And then, um, I would like to give a general rundown on where we are with this. And then Maria probably wants to say something. And maybe other members of the zoning subcommittee, but just to give you a sense of where we are. Um, the town council voted on the zoning subcommittee. Um, And then, I would like to give a general rundown on where we are with this and then Maria probably wants to say something. Um, The town council voted on January 4th. Um, to ask or to direct the town manager. To present zoning amendments to the town council. And they gave, um, Him a list of zoning amendments that they wanted to have presented to them. And they gave him, um, some deadlines. And the first deadline was March 15th, 2021. And the second deadline is, um, September 1st, 2021. So, um, the zoning subcommittee, which has recently been reconstituted, um, has jumped in with both feet to, um, start working on these things. And, um, I think that, um, As a result of starting to work on these things, we have realized that this is a really big, um, This is a big bite that we've been asked to chew. And, um, so the zoning subcommittee has, um, made some, what should I say? Determinations about what they would like to focus on. And, um, why don't we bring up the list, the motion sheet that the town council voted on, on January 4th. Can you do that, Pam? I'm going to give it a go. There it is. Yeah. Yeah. So, so the things that the town council asked, uh, us, Oh, it doesn't show. Oh, it shows them. It's kind of an odd format, but that's okay. Um, middle of the page. So by March 15th, they wanted us to be working on, um, adding this BL district, business limited district to footnote B. Uh, they wanted us to add footnote A to maximum lot coverage and building coverage. Um, they wanted a proposed, um, revised supplemental dwelling unit by law. And they wanted a demolition delay by law revisions. Um, they wanted us to work with town council to begin conversation about housing types in preparation for, um, what we're going to be doing for September 1st and, um, move apartments, uh, the use, the apartment use from site plan review in more zoning dis or to site plan review and more zoning districts from special permit. Right now it's, um, the only zoning district in which apartments are allowed by site plan review is the general business. Um, they wanted us to remove footnote M. And also revise the apartment's definition. So this must be a word document and somehow it's gotten. A little bit mixed up here, but that's fine. Um, so that, that was the list that the zoning subcommittee went in with. And, um, now if you could switch to the work plan, I'd like to talk a little about that. If you could share the work plan up here, which is on an Excel spreadsheet. I haven't passed it out to you because it's still in draft form. Um, but I did share it with the zoning subcommittee last night. And, um, this was really, uh, instigated by the town manager asking me and planning staff to put together a work plan to figure out how we could get all of these things done. Um, in a timely manner. So this is a very aggressive work plan here. Um, starting on, when was that starting on the 12th of January and aiming towards the 15th of March. Um, to get, I think there were six or seven, uh, items that, uh, the, um, town council wanted us to work on. And I want to review this with you and then kind of back up and tell you where we are with this in, in reality. So, uh, as I said, the zoning subcommittee started, um, with a bang on January 12th. Uh, they reviewed the list of priorities and they discussed, um, how they were going to manage this work with planning staff and, um, we're, we're lucky to have people on the zoning subcommittee who are both knowledgeable about law, but also about architecture and planning and, and design. So people were really, um, very energetic and helpful. Um, the 19th we met last night for our second meeting. Um, just to, just to let you know, this work plan here has the zoning subcommittee pretty much meeting every Tuesday between now and, um, middle of March. Um, so on, on this past night, Tuesday night of this week, um, we looked at putting the BL district into footnote B and Mermia and Doug had done some really excellent, um, work on showing us how many units that, that would mean. And I'm not going to present that information tonight, but it is really revealing and it does show that, um, changing that one thing would allow a lot more residential units to be built in the BL zoning district. Um, we had a number of, uh, guests at the meeting or attendees at the meeting last night and they, um, chimed in with the discussion. And, um, so there's kind of, um, a feeling that maybe putting the BL district into footnote B, maybe we want to think of other ways to achieve the goals that that would, um, that would allow us to have. Um, and maybe, and maybe kind of take a, take a turn on exactly how we do that. So I'm exploring that and I'm thinking that Maria and Doug are thinking about that as well as other zoning subcommittee members. Um, so I'm going to, um, I'm going to talk a little bit more about that. Um, I'm going to talk a little bit more about that. Um, I'm going to talk a little bit more about that. Um, and then next week, um, we're meeting on the 26th, which is a Tuesday, and we're going to talk about removing footnote M and footnote M says that for apartments and townhouses in the general residence district, um, you need a 4,000 square feet of additional lot area per dwelling unit. So we're going to look at that and figure out if that would be a good idea. Um, so the first three things are things that the zoning subcommittee has said that they would like to focus on. Um, the next thing is at the next meeting, which would be February 2nd. We're going to work on revising the supplemental dwelling unit bylaw. And, um, that really means that we would be allowing supplemental dwelling units that are larger than what are currently allowed. Um, that same night, we're going to, um, we're going to have to, um, to present, um, the draft demolition delay bylaw, which is something that we're working on. Um, staff had a meeting today that. Kind of made it clear that, um, the demo delay bylaw really isn't ready to be presented. It needs to go back to the historical commission for more work and staff, meaning, um, Nate Malloy, who's been the historical commission staff person for a number of years, and the staff person, myself and the building commissioner. We all looked at the draft and we just said, this isn't really ready to, uh, to present to, um, the planning board or the zoning subcommittee. So that's going to be dropped. Um, we had a plan also to have a joint meeting with the planning board and the CRC on February 3rd. And Mandy Jo Hanneke has told me that, um, the CRC would be available to meet with the planning board that night. And, um, what we're planning is to have an update on where we are with zoning amendments that night and talk to the CRC about, um, you know, what, what the, what the ideas are and probably present the work that Maria and Doug have done on the BL district and subsequent work that we will do within the next two weeks. Um, we're also going to have Rob Mora talking about the update on recodification. Um, and, and he's gotten at least the format of it is pretty well settled. And the third thing that I had on this list, which was to present the draft demo delay bylaw, we're not going to do that. Um, so then in week two of February, again, the zoning subcommittee is, uh, going to be meeting on the 9th of February. Um, and the thought had been to work on a draft to move apartments to site plan review and more districts. Now it may be that we're just, as I said, biting off more than we can chew and that we have, um, a lot of work to do on the first three things, the BL removing footnote M and working on the supplemental dwelling unit bylaw. So that may be, um, all we can really manage, but we'll kind of see as we move along how, how much we can get done. The week three of February is, uh, the zoning subcommittee is going to meet on the 16th and the plan initially had been to work on footnote A and, um, putting that into a maximum lot and maximum building coverage. But again, we may find that that's more than we can really, um, deal with. So down below, you can see that, um, the CRC is meeting on the 9th of February and I would present drafts of the things that the zoning subcommittee has said that they definitely want to work on. I present those to the CRC. And then I've been invited to go to a district two meeting. Um, and that actually happens to be my district. Uh, it's Lynn Griesmer and, um, pat de Angelis who've invited me to that meeting. And the purpose of the meeting is to present zoning amendments to, um, district two. And it may be that we only have three to present to them or, or drafts of three. I understand that more districts will be inviting, um, me to come to their meetings. And it is possible that, um, some of the zoning subcommittee members might want to come too, to hear the discussion, but we can cross that bridge when we come to it. Um, so then moving on down the line, um, we were going to have a planning board meeting on February 17th and present and discuss the new and revised drafts. It's, it's, it's nice because of the, um, of the planning board members, five of them are on the zoning subcommittee. So they, they will know these things backwards and forwards by the time that discussion actually gets to the planning board. Um, then week four of February, we were planning to work on with the zoning subcommittee, um, work on revising the apartment definition. And, um, you know, that's a pretty big thing because the apartment definition says you can't have more than 24 units in a building. And then the units need to be 50%. Um, you can't have more than 50% of any one type. So that's, that's significant to work on. Um, and then that same week we were, we're actually the same day we were going to present and discuss drafts of the revised zoning amendments to the CRC. Um, we were going to, we were going to, we were going to, um, we were going to, um, We were going to, um, We were going to, um, We were going to, um, then week one in March, um, We were going to, with the zoning subcommittee review and refine the draft zoning amendments and then try to have a joint meeting of the planning board and the CRC to update and check on the progress of the zoning amendments and then talk about how we were going to present them to town council. And then the, um, the city council would present and the new and refine the revised drafts. And then the second week of March, again, we were going to have a zoning subcommittee meeting, refining and revising and meet with the CRC. Um, to do the same thing. And then the idea was to, um, have, have draft amendments. Well, not draft, draft amendments that were in a form that town council could adopt and present those to, um, the town council in the week, the third week of March, March 15th. So looking at this work plan, you know, we really realized that, wow, this is a lot of work to get done in this amount of time. So, um, I am thinking carefully about how much we can actually get done and keeping in mind that the, um, zoning subcommittee has really, you know, stake their claim on these first three things, footnote B, um, footnote M and revising the supplementary dwelling unit bylaw. Um, I've been asked by the town manager to relook at this schedule and think about whether, um, March 15th is a realistic date, how much we can get done, um, and whether we should project a date, uh, a little farther into the future. So those are all things that I'm working on. Um, I've also been, uh, it's been suggested that we include the recodification that the building commissioner and Ben Breger are working on. Um, we, we did have a, uh, a time when, um, the building commissioner would present this to the planning board and the CRC, um, the first week in February, but there should probably be more discussion of it. And I know the building commissioner is planning to add some, um, I won't call them non substantive, but add some sort of technical changes to the bylaw as he's doing that recodification. And then there are planning department priorities and planning board priorities. So how do we fit those into this timeline? So those are all things that we're going to be thinking about and, um, planning for over the next couple of weeks. And I'll have more to share with the zoning subcommittee on Tuesday about this, but I think that this work plan is really aggressive and possibly not, um, doable. So we have to figure out what is doable and you know, what is a reasonable timeline. So that, that's the presentation on the work plan. And I don't know if people have comments on that. Um, they'd like to share comments. I guess what I would second that, uh, you know, everybody on the zoning subcommittee, but I know Maria and, uh, Doug, you know, as well as Janet are uniquely bringing their talents, um, you know, into this and I'm, I'm very impressed. So, uh, good job everyone. So. I wonder if the, any members of the zoning subcommittee want to say anything about this. Maria has her hand raised. Yeah, Maria, please. And it's popped up. Um, I just want to say I appreciate what Chris said. This one sentence that really sort of sums it up for me is, um, we'll see as we move along how much more we can take on. And I think because we've started with the first item, we're just going to start the work and exactly to see how it goes. See what kind of progress we can make, whether, um, things are so complex that we really need to take our time more on certain items and others are kind of closer or further along that maybe they're quick fixes. But yeah, I'm glad that we're just getting into it rather than talking about process and, you know, how we go about doing it. We're just going to do it and see how it goes. And, um, yeah, I really appreciate all the people volunteering for this subcommittee and, um, uh, all that different perspectives that we can bring on, but, um, we're just getting into, we're just starting. Um, so I think Chris already summed it up really well. And I think most of us were at that meeting, except for maybe Pam and Jack. So, I don't feel like we, I need to re-hash the whole meeting really. So that's it. Okay. Janet. Um, that was a good summary of everything that happened in the work plan. I am, you know, I have nothing but sort of deep reservations on the work plan, partly because I afterwards, I was thinking that the planning department is going to be working seven days a week. So I know you have other things on your plate. And I just felt like, you know, it was, it's like, it feels like too much to me. And I'm also, I also just like, you know, I think when I look at this list of like 12 or 13 different or 14 different zoning amendments, there's like eight of them that would affect the RG. And then there's, you know, like another seven or eight that would affect resident, any residential neighborhood. Um, and so I don't really understand. I mean, I'm glad we're jumping in on the BL, you know, into footnote B because you're right. Like you learn stuff and you analyze stuff and questions come up. And you, as you go deep, you realize like, Oh, this is complicated. Um, but, you know, you know, even that footnote has a profound effect on the RG. And so, you know, and then if we're changing the, you know, with a lot coverage requirements for every district, that's going to affect the BL and it's going to affect the RG and footnote M. And you know, so I, I don't like, I can, I just, I'm worried that this is way too much to do in a short period of time. And if we're going to say, okay, we're looking at those impacts to the other ones later, we're going to make those changes later. We know now that we're looking at those change later. So I think, you know, slow and steady wins the race and getting into some real depth. Instead of these deadlines and some very worried. Um, I just don't think the March 15th is, is realistic. And I think I'd rather do a good job, a slow, good job thoroughly looking at impacts and, you know, trying to piece together how later changes will affect this change. Or you might say, let's not do the later change because of, um, you know, we know there's going to be a bad impact already. And so I do think we need to plunge in. I think I'm glad we have a great team working with us, but I just, the schedule I just think is unworkable and I have nothing, but fear for the planning department staff. And then, you know, I'm happy to work hard, but I want to work well and thoroughly. So I'm just expressing my reservations. So, so more time would be great. I guess that's in some. Very good. Uh, any other comment? Maria, what do you think about the schedule? Oh, I, I was a little worried, but like I said, we're just going to get into it. And see what the case is as we're doing it. Okay. Um, I think there's a hand in the public. Okay. So, uh, no further comment from the board. We can open up to the public. And we have. Pam Rooney. Hi, everybody. Um, I had a question that came out, uh, in, in the timing of public involvement. And it's clearly a very aggressive schedule for marching through the zoning changes. Where do you see, um, public engagement in terms of presenting, not just material to the CRC, but at what point does the public get a kind of a full revelation of all the changes that are being discussed if they don't happen to tune into the zoning subcommittee meetings every Tuesday. Thanks. Thank you, Chris. I think that, um, the CRC is working on a public outreach process. Um, and I really haven't. Been privy to what they're talking about. Um, but we do have some things that we're working on ourselves. And one of them is to establish a place on the planning department webpage. Pam has been working with Brianna Sunrod on this. Um, so we're going to be placing information on the planning department webpage. Um, in a separate sort of zoning, a project related to zoning. Um, and we can probably point to that from the news and announcements that scroll that comes across when you first get into the town website. Um, so that's one mechanism, um, to have that webpage. Uh, and we're going to try to have a place where people can offer comments and that would be, you know, to the planning department and the planning board. And then the CRC, as I said, um, is planning its own mechanism for public outreach. And then we also have this, um, this set of meetings with the districts that's coming along. The first one, um, the district two meeting, I think is in early February. I think it's February 11th, but I'm not sure. Um, but anyway, that's going to be another mechanism. So apparently all of the, of the districts will, all five of them will want to have, um, a presentation about zoning. Um, so little by little, we're, um, we're figuring this out as we're going along. Um, but I think there will be a lot of opportunity for members of the public to make comments. I was really pleased to see that we had, um, you know, several people come to the zoning subcommittee meeting last night and, um, some of them offered comments and, um, and I'm sure that, uh, Mora Keen, who's been coming to a lot of these meetings and rights for the Amherst Indy, she communicates with people in that way, which is great. So there are a number of different mechanisms and of course the planning board will be hearing about these things. The CRC will be hearing about these things. So I think it will be, um, well publicized. It's hard to, we can't have public meetings now, you know, other than on zoom, we can't really have public meetings. So we're kind of doing the best we can. And we're hoping that people are paying attention. Great. Thank you so much. Thank you, Chris. Okay. I think. That would conclude the discussion on the zoning priorities. Correct. Okay. So, um, I think we're going to put this, the lighting, uh, review at the top of the. Old business agenda for the next meeting. And we'll be able to close here in a few minutes, um, as a result. So thank you, Janet, for. For agreeing to that, uh, topics not reasonably anticipated 48 hours prior to the meeting. Um, I have a couple of things. Um, well actually just one old topic, which is that I'm about 90% done with the Emily Dickinson decision. Um, and so I'll be writing to people who have voted affirmatively need to sign the decision. I'll be sending the decision out to all of the planning board members, and I'm hoping I'll be able to do that in the next few days. It needs to be filed with the town court by February 4th. Um, that's a hardly fast deadline. If I don't do it by then, I'm going to be off with her head. So anyway, look forward to hearing about that. And then the second thing is I think I sent you, um, house bill 5250, which was something that was sent to me by Hilda Greenbelt, and it's, um, quite a meaty document. I didn't send it this week. I probably sent it last week. Uh, and I may only have sent it to those who are in the zoning subcommittee. Um, but what it's got in it, it's got lots of information about budget and Amherst is actually getting some money through this, um, budget. Um, we're getting $250,000 to work on affordable housing or potentially getting another $250,000 to work on housing that is net zero energy. The bid is getting, I think $50,000 to do some, some work. Anyway, it's, it's a, it's a huge document and it's, um, well worth going through and you probably can't go through it all at once. Um, but the second thing that it has in it is a lot of changes to state law with regard to zoning. And, um, it has to do with the governor's desire to build more housing. And so the, the state law is being changed to allow cities and towns to, uh, have a majority vote on the part of their town meeting or, um, town council for zoning amendments that promote the building of housing. And then the other thing, I believe it is also allowing cities and towns to change the, um, the number of people who need to vote for a certain types of housing such as special permits. I'm going to need to look into this a little further and I'll probably send you a memo or if I'm really lucky, the state law will send me a memo that I can forward to you describing what this is all about. But, um, I think it, you know, provide some exciting, uh, new ways of promoting housing. Um, and those may be, uh, for those of us who think we need more housing in Amherst, this may be a really good thing. So those are the two things that I wanted to mention. Yeah, I don't recall getting that Chris. So whenever you just don't forget me and your honor. Yes, that's right. Chris, I would think that, um, you know, every community is going to want to understand the changes in the zoning voting. And so it seems like KP law would be, um, doing summaries and explanations. So I think I would love to see that and I would love to not read like 150 page bill. Although I, if someone could give me the actual spots, that probably would be fine for me, you know, but I just, I think that would be good to get a summary from them. Cause I'm sure everybody's asking for that. Yep. I found the, I think, uh, Chris had forwarded the email from. Miss green bomb and, uh, it contained a link. Uh, and, and at that point I went and Googled the, the bill and was able to find the zoning area pretty, pretty easily on the state website. So I don't think it should be difficult. And I think it went to the whole planning board. Uh, it did was not, it was prior to the reconstitution of the, uh, zoning subcommittee. Now I feel bad. I can go look that up. Yeah. We've been, we've been getting a lot of emails. So I obviously, uh, got by the goalie there. I think. Okay. I'll check that. Um, very good. Very good. And, uh, anything else with regard to topics? Not anticipated. No more topics. Okay. Uh, new business. Um, topics not reasonably anticipated for new business. Nope. Okay. Uh, former, or excuse me for, for me and our, uh, in our subversion applications. No for a's. Okay. ZBA applications coming up. Nothing new. Okay. Upcoming SPP SPR. I see these, uh, applications. No, you know, we continue to talk to people about projects, but we haven't gotten any applications. Very good. Going on to the planning board committee and, uh, liaison reports, a finer valley planning commission. Uh, I have nothing. Uh, community preservation at. Committee. We have a meeting tomorrow. That's our first one in about a month, month and a half. But, uh, otherwise no updates. Okay. Uh, commission dog. Yeah, I did. I did attend my last, my first meeting, uh, I think it was last week. Um, it seemed like it'd been a while since the commission had met. The, the primary agenda was brainstorming ideas for what the commission could do this year. And what kind of initiatives they might want to pursue. Seemed like the leading, uh, idea was to develop some sort of newsletter for the farming community and those who are in support of it. But, uh, we didn't make any decisions. That's it. Yeah, I thought of the commission. There was an article in the paper and geez, what was it? They wanted to. The farmers wanted a larger voice. So, um, So, um, So, um, So, um, In some sort of decision making body. Um, But I can't put my finger on it, but. Seemed like something was happening on the state level. I don't remember seeing that. So I'm not sure. Okay. Um, design review board, Tom. No meetings. No, nothing to report. Very good. Um, The CRC, I think. We probably have covered that. Um, I don't have anything to report. Yeah. And we've got the zoning subcommittee discussed, uh, but please confirm Maria. Yep. Okay. Uh, reported chair. I have nothing. For the staff. Thank you to the zoning subcommittee members for being so energetic and smart and. Contributing to the conversation. I really appreciate it. And also to the planning board members. So, um, Thank you. Very good. So we can adjourn and, uh, Thank you. We were done at eight 30. This is fantastic. I'm very happy. Hope you all are happy too.