 We have George. We have a couple of. Count town counselors. And here is that. Yes, they're here for one, for one of your discussions. Okay. Okay. So I'm just hold. Okay. I now see. Amherst media. And I see. You're good to go, Jack. Okay. Bring that up. Okay. So, welcome to the Amherst planning board meeting of July 7th, 2021. My name is Jack Jemsack and as a chair. I'm the chair of the Amherst planning board. I'm calling his meeting to order at. 632 p.m. This meeting is being recorded and is available via. Amherst media live stream. And it's being taken. Pursuant to chapter 20 of the acts of 2021, the planning board meeting, including public hearings will be conducted via remote means using the zoom platform members of the public who wish to access, access the meeting may do so by following the link shown on the slide. This link is also available on the meeting agenda posted on the town's website. Calendar listing for this meeting or go to the. On the board webpage and click on the most recent agenda, which lists the zoom link at the top of the page. No in-person attendance of the public will be permitted. However, every effort will be made to ensure the public can adequately access the meeting in real time via tech technological means. In the event. We are unable to do so for reasons of economic hardship or despite best efforts. We will post on the town of Amherst website on audio or video screen. Transcript or other comprehensive recording of proceedings as soon as possible after the meeting. So board matter board members, I will take a road call. I call your name and mute yourself, answer, and then please. Place yourselves back on mute and Maria chow. Tom long. It's not with us. So he gave us a heads up on that. Wendy, Madougal. Good. All right. Doug Marshall. Janet McDonnell. You're. Johanna Newman. Present. Myself. So we definitely have a quorum. That's good. So board members, the technical, the technical issues arise. Please let Pam know if necessary. We may need to pause temporarily to fix the problem and then make a comment. The discussion may be suspended while the technical issues are addressed. The minutes will note. If this has happened, please use the raise hand function to ask a question or make a comment. I will see you raised hand and call on you to speak after speaking. Remember to remute yourself. Opportunity for public comment will be provided during the general public comment period. If you have any comments regarding items that are not on tonight's agenda. Public comment may also be heard at other appropriate times during the meeting. Please be aware that the board will not respond to comments. During general public comment period. Please indicate if you wish to make a comment by police, by clicking the raised hand. Button when public comment is solicited. If he has joined the zoom meeting using a telephone. Please indicate you wish to make a comment by pressing star nine or your telephone. When called on, please identify yourself by staying in 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 lot of time, their participation will be disconnected from the meeting. So, and we have no minutes. Pam, correct? No, not tonight. Okay. So we can solicit. Public comment. And I see one hand raise. Janet Keller. Hi, Janet. Hi. Can you hear me? Yes. Hi, everybody. So my public comment is about. I had a rough week and then I got late to your. Notice. And just assuming that the materials in the packet will be there and they weren't. And so I just wanted to tell you that. And I know that Chris offers the option. I just wanted to tell you about that. And I like very much like the opportunity to comment, but that made it. Quite a bit more difficult. Thanks. Very good. All right. So we can get into the agenda and. So we can get into the agenda. It looks like. 635 is 637. So we can get into. SBR 20. 2111. We until savings bank. Six. That's 22 university drive. Request a site plan review approval under section 5.043. For a drive through. The zoning bylaw to install an ATM. As an accessory use to an existing bank. Authorized under section 3.358 of the zoning bylaw. Including minor grading and paving with the. Existing parking area. Which is map 13 B parses 30. In the BL zoning districts. With that. So I'm just. Getting my. Cree ambles here set up. Cause I tried to go paperless. Where you go. Okay. Sorry. And okay. So board member disclosures, please. And I see not. All right. So the applicant. Presentation. Who do we have for that? Chris. We have Tony. We have Tony. We have SVE associates. And I think he's in the attendees and he would need to be moved into the panelists. Okay. Yeah. He's in the process. So there's also somebody named. Jim. Tony. Yes. Hi. This is Tony. One seski with SVE associates. Jim is my client. And I think he would be the one to answer those questions. If there's questions relating to Greenfield savings bank and operations, you would be the one to answer those questions. And I will give the presentation on the site plan. For the board. Okay. Jim should be coming over. This Tony. Okay. Jim is here. Okay. We don't have his video. He has his video off. But he is able to speak. Okay. Tony, you ready to roll. Okay. Great. Thank you, everyone. My name is Tony. I'm an engineer with SVE associates. We're contracted with Greenfield savings bank to put this application and site plan together for their desire to install an ATM at the Northwest. And we are currently at the northwest corner of the new market center. It's right at the intersection of university and amity. And I don't know, Chris, can you bring up the site plan. On the screen. That would be awesome if you could do that. Essentially. We, we looked at three different areas. The Northwest corner for a number of reasons, which is stated in our, in our narrative, but just to go through the positions on why we chose this. Tony, can you, Tony, can I stop you for one second? Sure. Okay. Because I lost my packet here. Hold on one sec. Okay. Can you all see the packet. But the agenda anyway. Yes. Yes. Okay. Sorry about that. And it should be at the end of this. Okay. This. There we go. Thank you. Oops. Where did we go? It should be right there. That's where we are. Perfect. All right. I'm sorry, Tony. Oh, that's fine. That's fine. Thank you for bringing it up. So this shows the position of the preferred alternative of the ATM, which is under Northwest corner. I'm sure everybody's familiar with university. There's a, there's a drainage scale between the parking area and university, which is a wetland area. We went before the conservation commission and received approval to go ahead. And that's where we're going to go. And that's where we're going to go. Which is an order of conditions to go ahead and construct this now or before the planning board to obtain site plan review. As I said, we looked at three different areas to do this. The other areas you'd have to blow up into the site, but if, if you were out there a little farther to the south, there's seven isolated parking stalls on the west side adjacent to the wetland. But with the, that type of a position, if you were out there to the south, you'd have to go to the south. And then very close to the wetlands, we would have had to create more asphalt there and just maneuverability within the parking lot. When you go in, do your, get your service and then pull out. You have to really use your mirrors or cream your neck to be able to see oncoming traffic within the parking lot. Parking lots. A lot of folks tend to go fairly fast in parking lots and, and they can, you know, be difficult. But it's, it's really important factor when looking to place parking or anything within a commercial parking site. So we elected to go at this location so that if someone's pulls in and we can actually park three cars in there, we can have one that's left the ATM, one being serviced at the ATM and one queuing outside of the travel aisle of the parking. When someone ends up leaving that, they can look straight down the aisle and don't have to look straight down the aisle. They can look straight down the aisle and they can look straight on to be able to see oncoming traffic. So this location is, and those alternatives that we studied was the best for site distance. Other reasons, it's far away from probably the most extensive use, which is the hanger and in the restaurant there. And it's also away from the front of the building where the regular accessibility along the front of the businesses are. So it's more isolated, but also close to the branch office of Greenfield Savings Bank. So we chose this location for that fact. The other thing that we tried to do with this, this is a corner where the new market sign is there's a little bit of an island that just juts out to protect the sign. Our goal was to pretty much keep our improvements with inside the parking lot. So we would not extend impervious area out beyond where the majority of it was in the existing conditions. So with this development, we do lose parking, we lose eight spaces, but we do create more additional impervious area. And so what we'll be doing is taking out that entire bank of parking, putting in new birming, we'll be using that as a way to move it into the existing parking area. And then we'll be reshaping, asfalting that restriping. And then the areas beyond the burn that would be. Where we would do our grading to tie into natural would be loaned and seated similar to what's there now for easy mowing and so forth. The existing lighting pool on the west side of that will stay. The existing trees will stay. within the existing parking area. All of the drainage now drains from that north to south along that curb line to existing catch basin down at the south side of this drawing. That will all remain. And you'll notice along the west side of the parking area we have erosion control methods to protect the wetland resources. We're asking for some waivers with our site plan approval because it's very small in nature and it really does not disrupt the overall maintenance and operation of the site. So our waiver request is section 11.221, a landscape plan. We didn't feel it was necessary to provide a brand new landscaping for this. We could show our intention was to replace and mimic essentially the landscaping that's in that area of the site today. We're asking that because we're not doing any lighting changes to the parking area that we wouldn't have to supply a lighting or a photometric plan with the submittal. Sign plans, we don't have any sign plans except which is what is on the preliminary architectural plans for the ATM, which is standard. And those are sheets beyond this which we can bring up if the board would like to look at those and if they have any questions regarding those. The existing new market sign, as I mentioned before will be removed and it will not be replaced. It's the semi-circular sign that I'm sure everybody's noticed when they've driven through the intersection. A site management plan, if this was a new development or major amendment we would be supplying a management plan for this. Well, Gleeson John Droll Rentals LLC owns this property and they have their own landscape company that maintains this property. They would continue to maintain this property in a manner that they do presently. And then because of the minor use of an ATM we are asking for a waiver on a traffic study for this. We do lose parking but I think when you think about it or at least when I think about it that vehicles that are going to the bank now have an option that they don't have to park and go into the bank. Although a lot of people still like to do that find that for the convenience especially during this past year people want the accessibility to be able to drive up through their banking and leaving. So that's the reason for installing this facility here. Not only help the Greenfield Savings Bank customers but also other residents and people that use the new market center if they need banking they'll have the opportunity to do that without parking. And that is my brief presentation of what our intentions are. Jim, I'm not sure if you have anything that you would like to add to that from as far as the bank's perspective and what the ATM would look like. Pam can scroll down and you can see some cut sheets of what the ATM elevations look like. So that's, it's very standard ATM cut sheets. Do you have anything to add Jim to this? No, I just wanted to say good evening and thank you for entertaining our request. Tony hit it on the head. What we as the bank wanted to do was provide the additional options and services for not only our customers but the community given everything we've been through in the last year but we wanted to do it in such a way that would have a minimal or at least to minimize any negative impacts on the site. So we secured Tony's services and expertise and I think he's explained it better than I ever could. All right, well, thank you, Tony and Jim. And do we have a site visit report? I think it's limited but I believe it's Janet. Jack, Chris Brestrup has their hand raised. Sorry, Chris. Hello, I'm Chris Brestrup, planning director. So I went on the site visit with Tony Wenceski and we saw the new market sign that's going to be removed. We saw the area where the new ATM will go and then area where the parking places will be removed. We saw a large tree in the vicinity that is not going to be disturbed. There's gonna be a curb line that will be replaced along there but it looks like it probably won't require much excavation to do that. We saw the light pole that's going to remain and we looked at the way people come in and out of the parking lot and how they would be able to continue to do that and be able to enter the parking lot and exit the parking lot. And this ATM facility won't cause a disruption there. I think that's all I have to say about the site visit. It was, although it was raining and I think I kind of scheduled it at the last minute. So planning board members weren't able to go but I think it's a prominent enough site that most people are familiar with it. And when Jack is ready, I have a statement to make about the use and parking. And also, I wonder if Tony and Jim, one thing we'd like to know, yes, is the image of this ATM, what it's gonna look like, what its graphics are. So here you're looking at that and maybe Jim can describe that. And the other thing we'd like to know is what is Jim's last name for the record? Hey, thank you. My last name is Loined. It's L-O-Y is in yellow and is in Nancy, D is in David. Thank you. Thank you. And maybe to answer your question, the graphics, as you can see, the left elevation would be working left to right would be the image you'd see as you're approaching the ATM area, traveling westbound parallel to Amity Street. What's shown is the front elevation would be the part of the structure that would be facing Amity Street that has the interactive screen, the cast dispensers and whatnot. The right elevation would be seen if you were facing eastbound up Amity Street. So from the intersection looking up towards the center of town, the rear elevation would be the side facing the parking lot if you were looking at the structure facing northbound. The graphics that you see are the bank's logo and would be consistent with our current bank colors. The area along the top is Lexan and it is illuminated, but it's a soft illumination as you may see it. Other banking facilities, other ATM signage. So I can answer any questions that you might have more specific than that, if I could try to. All right, thank you. Jack, Chris Breastrup has her hand raised. Chris. So if you would permit me, I'd like to make a statement about the use of this ATM. Would this be an appropriate time, Jack? Absolutely. Okay, so I already introduced myself. I'm Chris Breastrup planning director and we didn't have an opportunity to draft a development application report for this project, but I just wanted to tell you a few things about it. The use of a drive-through facility is permitted under section 5.043 of the zoning bylaw. It's an accessory used to the principal use of the bank which is allowed in the BL zoning district and this property is in the BL. The Greenfield Savings Bank operates a bank office in the building at 6-22 University Drive. A bank is a retail business and consumer service listed under section 3.35 of the zoning bylaw. The specific use category is allowed under section 3.358 office uses bank, which is allowed by site plan review in the zoning district. So in other words, the ATM is an accessory use that's allowed under the use of the bank. The applicant is proposing to remove the new market center sign and also to construct the ATM and there will be a loss of eight parking spaces. And the building commissioner provided me with calculations on the parking spaces for the shopping center as a whole based on the calculations that he and a member of the planning department put together for the Amherst Brewing Company in 2011. There are sufficient parking spaces for the uses on site. The number of parking spaces required for all the uses based on the zoning bylaw, including the Hanger, which was formerly the Amherst Brewing Company is 186 parking spaces. And in order to share parking among uses, one needs to show that there are 120% of the parking spaces required. So 186 parking spaces times 120% or 1.2 is 223.2 parking spaces. So that's the total spaces required if you wanna share parking, which this site does. Existing parking spaces on the site are 229. When you lose the eight parking spaces to the ATM, that brings the total down to 221, which is less than the number required, 223.2. However, the building commissioner informed me that the hanger is being reconfigured and that the total seats or number of people who will be in the hanger is going to be 50 fewer than is currently allowed. So that's gonna bring the parking requirement down. So the conclusion is the number of parking spaces required for the shopping center as a whole will be less than 223.2 with the hanger being reconfigured. So the loss of eight parking spaces will therefore not be a problem and will meet the current requirements of the zoning bylaw. And I believe that Mr. Mara is here as an attendee if people have specific questions about the parking calculations. Thank you. Thank you, Chris. Let's see, Andrew, you have your hand up. Thanks, Jack. Can folks hear me? Yes. Yes. Great. Yeah, my question may be more for Chris, actually. When we talk about the lighting plan, we're essentially taking a sign in existing, I think it's non-illuminated sign for the center and replacing it with an illuminated, essentially sort of billboards, right? When you consider the graphics on all four edges of this, like I'm just curious with this being illuminated, whether that would warrant any additional review from a lighting plan perspective. Thank you, Andy. Chris, you have your hand up, so. I'm just putting my hand up to answer that question if you want me to. So I don't think there was any more review required other than what the planning board is currently doing. I don't think that a photometric plan would help in this particular instance, because it's not gonna show the illumination of the ground based on this Lexan panel. And there is an existing light there. So you might ask for a photometric plan of the existing light if you thought that was worth looking at. I'm not overly concerned of, sorry, Jack, do you mind? Yeah, proceed. Sorry, I'm working off my phone here, so it's a little more tedious. Is yeah, I don't think it's necessarily gonna throw a ton of ambient light. It's just the nature of the corner is going to change with a, again, I think non-illuminated design being replaced with this illuminated box. So I think more like just want folks on the planning board to be aware of that. I think many of you know, I kind of do these sort of things all the time. I think like just from my professional perspective, this is a totally reasonable proposal. So yeah, we would have that. Thanks. Thanks, Andy. Doug, please. Thanks, Jack. Okay, so let's see. I guess I was interested in the location of this as a billboard or a sign and wondered whether, in fact, it qualifies as a sign and is subject to some of the Amherst sign bylaws. So maybe Chris could answer that question. That was my first question. My second question had to do with whether there would be any security cameras in the vicinity of this. I could imagine people who are pedestrians deciding to walk up to it and use it since it's a lot closer than walking to the ATM that may or may not still be in the lobby. And in that sense, I guess I wondered whether there would be was going to be any provision for a path from the public sidewalk to this facility. Third, I wondered whether the ATM in the lobby would stay. And then fourth, based on the comments that Chris made about the fluctuating parking requirements based on the hangar, I guess my question was in the event that the hangar decides later to add back those 50 seats, will it be incumbent on the hangar to find eight more parking spaces? And then fourth or fifth, I forget, I wondered whether there were any invasive plants in the wetlands or in the buffers such as burning bushes that might have established themselves since this area was last reviewed and whether this might be a good time to remove those. So maybe start with Chris, is this a sign? I think it is a sign, it's on a structure. So my opinion would be that it should take up no more than 10% of the area of the wall on which it exists. And the graphics, I guess that would be up to the building commissioner to determine whether the graphics are a sign or whether they're just graphics. And as I said, Rob is here. So that would be my take on it, but Rob may have a different take. Okay, Rob does, we pulled Rob in, I don't see Rob. He's coming, he's coming. Okay. Bear with me. Oh, there he is, yeah. He should be coming over to the panelists. Okay. It might be easier to see if I stop the screen share. Hi, Rob, Laura building commissioner. I certainly think the portion above the kiosk is a sign. I think it is up to the planning board to decide whether or not the graphic actually qualifies as a sign just in similar cases, if the graphic is displaying a message of some sort, commercial type message, we typically would consider that part of the signage. And another question that was asked about the parking, the parking is mostly regulated on the site by a special permit of Amherst Brewing Company now taken over by Hanger restaurant. And I am in process of amending that special permit with an article 14 decision that reduces the occupant load of that establishment from 450 to 388, which is where we're gonna get the reduction in required parking spaces. I don't have those numbers worked out yet, but there will be a reduction in parking as a result of that in a document under the article 14 decision. So in the future, it would require a special permit to put those 50 or 62 seats back in the establishment if they choose to do so. Thank you, Rob. All right, then I guess I'll just say, I think from a business point of view, I don't think the bank could have picked a more prominent location to put their kiosk with the logo and the sign at the top of it. So I guess that's of concern, I guess I'd say. Thank you. Thanks, Doug. So you're, Doug, you're thinking that I'm trying to get your last take there. If you wanna reiterate, I mean, are you okay? Well, I guess we're taking a pretty low key sign that identified the location and told everybody the name of the little shopping center. We're no longer gonna have that. So nobody will know what that shopping center is called. And in lieu, we're getting a, we're getting the logo that's presumably well known of a local business that's pretty prominently displayed at a pretty high profile, pretty highly trafficked intersection. Okay, thank you. Any other board members? Janet McGowan has her hand raised. Yeah. Thank you. I'm struggling to read this map and understand where things are. I wonder if Pam, you could put it back up. I'm pretty familiar with the shopping center. I couldn't see from my at-home map or on the screen where the wetlands were that were being discussed. I didn't really understand where the entry way is off of Amity Street. And then I even from the tiny green map, I couldn't even figure out where Greenfield Savings Bank was, which I think is adjacent, the first thing you run into, but just my memory. And I'm sorry I wasn't able to make the site visit because I thought I wasn't sure that it was a go. And so I had another appointment scheduled. It might be helpful to look at the photographs. If you've been to the property and you're familiar, I mean, we can try to blow that up. But just in front of this, there's photographs of where the sign is and where the ATM would be replacing. So that's looking north, parallel to, and that's looking down to Amity. So they were going pretty quick there, but. Sorry. Yeah, so there's. Yeah, no, that's fine. So this is standing on more towards the easterly side. And that van is right at the intersection, parked on Amity, getting ready to either go straight left or right on university. That's where that sign is. It's right at the northwest corner of the parking area. The wetlands are just on the other side of that. And they run parallel between the parking, the edge of parking and the improvements on university drive. So if you go ahead down, there's another picture looking same position just a little farther to the right. So you can see the tree that's going to stay. You can see the berm, which is, you know, in the pavement, it's been, you know, it's somewhat stressed over time. That will get repaved in that little area there where the parking bays are, and that berm will get replaced. It's hard to see this pretty well. I'm sorry, the wetlands are behind or along that line with the trees. Is that what? Yes, so yes, right there. So those tall shrubs in that, that's the wetland area. And it's been flagged. And I went back and I looked, because I didn't send the wetland report in with my planning board because we were, I typically just put that for the conservation submittal, but I went back to look at the site description from our wetland scientists. And he doesn't mention, invasives what he does say, there's a linear wetland that is a mixture of emergent marsh and shrub swamp wetland types. Dominant plant species include silky dogwood, sensitive fern and cat tail. And he says that the wetland receives a great deal of stormwater from the adjacent parking area. Everything drains to that area. So I can't state whether there is some invasives in there, but he was more or less describing what the primary wetland plants are within that wetland area, drainage area between the parking area and university. Okay, thank you. And so I guess my other question, the next one is looking at the site plan map. Yeah. I can see where Amity Street is. I don't quite see the entryway off of Amity Street. I have a good- It's farther to the east. So we'd have to go and try to blow up into that colored photograph on the right side. So if you go down, I am all the way to that plan of ours. The site plan? Yes. So Amity's to the top of the page, university's running from bottom to top on the left side of the page. So that entry off of Amity is quite a ways over to the right. It's in front of the building that's actually a different building, a different ownership. So if you can go down in the right-hand corner, we can see if we can blow that up enough. I can, you can probably see that. Yeah. Lower right-hand side. Yes, right in that area. Yeah, this was really difficult to see and I have a paper map. So you can see the whole center there. You can see us where we identify where our work is. The property is heavy where it says Amity Street. The entrance in is way over to the right there in between Amity and Street. So you come in in front of that building, which is a different ownership. There's multiple access easements through this property between these different ownerships. I can't speak to that in detail because I didn't study that. I was focused mostly on the ATM area, which is to the top left. There is a business sign, multiple signs identifying businesses on the main entrance coming in off of university, which is the southwest corner of the site. I hope that helps. I'm sorry I don't have anything. But none of that is changing, correct? None of that is changing. The only stuff that's changing is up in that little area which you can see that we identify as site and you've got a little polygon line of the area that we're working in. So that's the focus. And then we detail it up on the upper left with the actual survey shots that we took and created a base plan of the actual area where the work is going to be done. Well, Mr. Could we go back and look at the green map? And can you just show me where your bank is? And that has an ATM that you can access after hours. Is that correct? Can you just circle around where your bank is? It's, I don't know if you could do that Pam. It's on the north corner of that, of the buildings. We'll have to slide over a little bit I think. Yeah, so it's in the northern part of that northern building. In here? Up a little higher, up, up, up, up, down. That's a separate ownership. Keep coming down, come straight down, straight down, go a little bit left, a little bit left over to that building, right in there, right up in front of that. So a little higher, little up, right in that area. That's the branch office right there. And so do people have access to that ATM 24 hours a day? I'll have to let Jim speak to that. Okay. There is magnetic card access to the vestibule and access to that ATM. Okay, thank you. Any other questions from the board? I see none. Oh, Maria. Thanks, Jack. So I was listening to Doug's comments and I went to Google Maps to sort of take a look at that intersection and see what vegetation was there. I don't know how old this photograph is, but you were saying the vegetation is staying and the current new market center sign looks like maybe it's seven feet tall, I'm just guessing. And then it looks like the parking lot actually is a bit lower. The asphalt is lower than that sort of berm. So I'm just wondering, and I looked at the drawings, it looks like the ATM is maybe 11 feet tall. It's hard to say it's like eight, six, plus another 20 inches. So I just wonder how visible that lit signage part is above the vegetation. I mean, because that's a good point Doug was bringing is just, you know, it's literally a new sign at that intersection. I don't know how important that new market center sign really is that, you know, I think if you live here, you would know what, you know, how to find it. I'm not sure people who don't know where it is would look for that sign really, but it is a good point that it's just, it's a very prominent intersection and it's basically the sign right at the street corner. So I just wonder if the height of it could be described as far as like on Google Maps, I can see new market center sign very clearly. But again, it looks like the paving is down and I can't tell from your survey what the, I can see a few contours, but there's no like elevation points of the sidewalk and Amity Street versus the parking lot. So it's hard to say how visible it will be really from the public way. So I guess I share a little bit of concern about, yeah, it's like basically a big new sign right there. I don't know if there's anything in the documentation that I missed that could tell us about, you know, how high the top of them. The kiosk would be that sort of horizontal band. Yeah, we can go back to the cut sheets on that, but if you see, if you're looking at this plan right here, you can see the existing sign, there's a notation that's an existing sign to be removed. And it goes right through, the front part of the sign goes through that first car and goes back and you can see the note that says existing sign to be removed. That's the existing new market sign. So we're gonna be, I don't have a scale in front of me, I'd have to go walk away to get it, but we're about, I don't know, 10 to 15 feet to the east of that. I get a figure we're probably 30 feet off the right away to Amity. So we're more towards the southerly side of that sign if you were to line it up. And we're quite a ways off of the sidewalk from university because you've got the wetland in between the parking and the university improvements. So I don't know if that helps from kind of a distancing thing. There are elevations on this plan. Every one of those boxes talk about what the pavement is and the berm is a six inch asphalt slip form berm that'll be there because we wanna control drainage to run it down to that catch basin. And then behind it, that whole area there is lawn and so we're gonna replace that lawn in that area, that big tree that you saw in the photograph which is shown on the plan will remain also. So we're just doing some fill-ins where we're taking out pavement and also doing the tie-in so that the grades match appropriately there once we're done and finished. So I don't know if that helps. We can go down if you scroll down, Pam, to the architectural plans then there's should give you a height on that. So right there to the top of the canopy we've got from the ground, eight feet, six and three eighths inches. So there'll be a curve around the island for that. So you go up from the curb, eight feet, six and three eighth inches and then the band strip, they're lighted lexicon is a 20 inch tall strip around the ATM. The ATM length is 10 feet, 10 inches and that's to the upper part where you're talking about the canopy signage, 10 feet, 10 inches and well the width isn't all that much. I don't see a dimension there for that but hopefully that helps. Thank you. Maria is that good for you? Yeah, I just, does anyone know how tall the current new market center sign is? It probably isn't data. I mean, just looking at the photos it looks like it's slightly shorter than what your ATM would be so. I would say I don't, I didn't measure the height of that sign it's pretty good size but I got a feeling that this ATM is taller than that just by inspection, being out on the site and looking at the pictures that I supplied I think this will be taller than that but it is slightly east of where that sign is. It's gonna be 10 to 15 feet east of that. It won't be right where that sign is because we have to be, remember we're trying to bring cars in, get them serviced and then get a car out so that it can look in both directions of the drive aisle so that safe entry into the parking lot. Okay, thanks. Thank you. Doug, please. Thanks, Jack. I guess I had another thought which was I wondered whether you would have the capacity to create some sort of three dimensional rendering of just showing the massing of this and so that we could see how visible it is from the street and it seems like on the one hand this is just a small ATM and you're a great local business and on the other hand, I could imagine people really reacting strongly to seeing this all of a sudden and kind of thinking we made a big mistake. So I guess I'm interested in whether we could get some more visualization of just what the impact of this would be. Thank you. Thank you, Doug. Good comments. Pam? Yes? Oh, you had your hand up. Okay. Oh, sorry. Is this Nero? So any other board? Oh, okay. We have Johanna and Jenna. This is a quick question, but I took Maria's suggestion and looked at Street View on Google Maps and I see these big bushes on the intersection of University and Amity and I don't see those on your schematic and I was wondering if they stay because those strike me as pretty significant visual barriers. Yes, we're not. We won't be over there doing any work. This is confined right to the parking area and just outside the parking area. So no, over by the intersection and where there are large shrubs in that, we will not be there. We don't affect the wetland shrubbery at all either. I mean, we're required to stay away from the wetland. So yeah, I guess if you were out there from the curb to the light pole that's there, which you can see in the pictures that I provided, that extent up to the north a little bit and then we bring it right back to where the tree is. And then the other landscaping is actually where there's pavement now. We're gonna be removing that and actually creating an island there. So, you know, all of that stuff stays. That light pole stays. Our actual improvements will be inside of that. We actually circle through there and don't push out. So actually, I think where the backside of that sign is, that's just gonna be lawn there. The tall shrubs, we do not get into the tall shrubs there. So that's right at the limits of where our work is. Okay. And those shrubs are probably seven, between five and seven feet tall would be my estimate from this. So like they don't fully block, they wouldn't fully block the atm from the road, but they would offer some screening. Okay, thank you. Yeah, they're probably on the order of four to five. I would get, you know, just being out there. I would think something like that. Thank you. Great. Thank you. Janet. Hi, I think we can only, I don't know, like, Johanna, I wish I could see what you're talking about, but I think we need to, you all need to sort of, I feel like we're all lacking sort of information, enough information to kind of make a decision. And so one thought I had was just putting, you know, continuing in the sort of taking it up at a different hearing when we could do a site visit, get a development report. I found it really hard to follow like all the numbers and stuff. And then also the idea of a 3D massing. So we can think about the sign and the implications of it. I have a question about whether other business owners in the new market center buildings know about this and what their reaction was. And I know that's, I think there's, you know, legal notice to the butters within 300 feet, but that's the property owners, not necessarily businesses there. And so I was wondering, have the other business owners seen this and do they have a reaction to it? Tony. I'm going to let Jim talk to that. I'm more of a site plan guy. I don't, I know he's, Jim's had conversations with the owner of the site, Matt. Yeah. My conversations have been exclusively with Gleason Genro. I haven't communicated at all with any of the neighboring tenants, other businesses. Okay. So I don't have a, so I feel like I could use more information and a look myself or a development report. But I think what I, I think what maybe what Doug Marshall is talking about and Maria is sort of like, I think by putting lit signs on that corner, it might start feeling a little strip mollish and kind of the vibe on university drive in Amity street is, you know, mostly the, you know, it has trees, it has grass. There are stores, but they're set back. And so maybe by putting a ATM right there, it just, it sort of looks a little bit strip mollish or I would say sort of Long Island as much as I love my home, home Island. So I wonder if that's kind of the concern. It's like changing their way the new market center looks or the whole corner looks. And so I don't feel able to sort of make a decision on that based on what we have here. And I wonder what other people's thoughts were. Thank you, Janet. Chris, you have your hand up. Yeah, I had two things to say. I wondered if the applicant could bring us photographs of one of these ATMs installed somewhere and maybe take photographs at night to show what the effect of the light is. And I also wondered if it would be possible to tone down the white of the sign at the top. In other words, instead of having it white, brightly lit with green lettering, have it, you know, sort of a grayish color that wouldn't be maybe grayish and maybe not as transparent so that it wouldn't really be so shiny and stark on that corner and would tend to blend in a little more. So those are just two suggestions. Thank you, Chris. Maybe I can speak to that a little bit. We don't have a structure that's identical to this. What we do have is in Greenfield, we have a walkup ATM that is adjacent to a restaurant that wouldn't be exact, but I could provide photos of that and what that looks. This would be not exact, but similar to that in terms of the visual presentation and feel as far as changing the white lighting, I would have to discuss that with the manufacturer, but my belief is that will be illuminated with LED. And what I know about LED lighting is they generally have options to change the intensity as well as the shade of the lighting. And I could certainly look into that to see if that is in fact an option with this particular setup. Thank you, Jim. With regard to the board, I don't see any other hands raised. So perhaps we can go out to the public. Is there any public comment on this? Dorothy, Dorothy Pam, stay your name and address. 229 Amity Street. And I'm very familiar with this little shopping center. The corner where the ATM is planned, yet usually there's nothing there. Now I only go there in the daytime, but there was always a lot of empty parking spaces in that vicinity. So from the daytime anyway, I don't see it getting in the way and I don't see that there'd be a parking problem. I have always found the placement of the sign kind of eccentric. It doesn't really, it's kind of, it's not, it's rarely placed to tell you where you are. So I don't see it's moving as a problem. I do think it's good to have signs somewhere letting people know the name of the shopping plaza because sometimes things are identified that way. I did see what looked like a streetlight behind the sign in the picture. And so my thought was, I was kind of hoping that there were some street lights at that corner just to make it safer for if there were a pedestrian using it at night. But it's a very quiet little corner of the parking lot. And I don't, I really, you guys know so much more than I do about the electric sign and how big and how tall and what it would do. But it doesn't seem to me that it would cause much problem because that's kind of like, I think it's kind of the, it's lower. The land is lower there than the surrounding land. That's it. Thank you, Pam. Dorothy. Who else do we have? Janet Keller. Is that your name and address? Sure. Janet Keller, 120 Public Hill Road. I really appreciated the discussion about the detailing of that corner and the shrubbery adjacent to the wetland and the whole idea of fitting it in. I appreciate that very much. And wonder if it's possible to add to the shrubbery rather than lawn to add a little bit more of ecological and to the good looks of that corner. And finally, on the tree and the berm, you know, trees, basically what they do is they eat sunlight and they drink mud. So I wondered if you could ensure that it has a good soil base around it and under the asphalt for its roots to do that job. Thanks. All right, thank you, Janet. And other hands, I don't see. So any response from the development team there, Tony or Jim? The first speaker, she's totally correct. There is a light post, the street standard of parking light fixture right there at the corner, which will remain. We're gonna keep that there and that provides the lighting for that corner of the parking lot. As I said, this ATM is gonna be shifted to its position is gonna be 10 to 15 feet farther to the east of where the existing new market sign is. So, you know, so she's correct in that and that would stay as far as the berm and the tree. As you saw in the photograph, all we're gonna be doing is replacing the berm that's there and putting in new pavement. So there won't be a lot of excavation and so that tree will have the same soils that it's had and will experience essentially the same condition that it has historically. Adding additional shrubbery between the trees and maybe in that island, that's something I'd have to talk to Jim and here and we'd have to get back to the owner obviously adding shrubbery to areas where they mow lawn in that. It's just something that would affect them and we'd need to talk to them about that. I don't see it as a problem or anything. It's just more of an operational maintenance problem that we'd want to get approval from them before we added it to the scope of the project. Thank you, Doug? Yeah, I guess I'd like to make a motion that we continue this hearing to at least give us a chance to either have another site visit or each get out there individually so that we can look at it a little more carefully. Very good. Anyone want to second that? You should continue it to a date certain. Second to a date certain. Okay. We're pretty filled up. I know our schedule so. Yeah, I don't know our calendar so I wouldn't know what date to put in. Yeah. May I make a suggestion? Absolutely, yeah. August 4th would probably work. Okay. Chris, do you know what time? I would say seven o'clock on August 4th. Do we have anything else scheduled for that day? Yes, you have the Sweet Ellis Trail Parking Area Plan which is a town project. It's relatively small. Okay. So if that came at 635 and you had this at seven, that would probably work. Okay, let's make a note. So is that good with the board? And with the development team? August 4th? You should take a vote. Yeah, okay. So, well, number one, Tony Jim, is that okay? Can you make that date? I can make that date. I should be able to all have a representative from my office. Okay. And we can go through Andrew. Just, is it whether we can make the August 4th date? Correct. Continuing the public hearing. Oh, yeah, I'm fine with continuing. I'm not sure if I can make August 4th at this point. I'll be out of town. Maria. Yes, I won't be around, but I'll try to send comments beforehand for the August 4th. Okay, Doug. Hi. And Tom. Oh, we don't have Tom. Janet. Hi. And Johanna. No, I don't think we should postpone it. I have, I feel like I have enough information to make a decision. Yeah, I'm looking at my calendar. So we're looking at August 4th. Yeah, I will be around. So. So, Jack, are you a yes to the motion? Well, yeah, I'm available August 4th. Yes. So, and Chris. So that's only three people that you have who are definitely going to be able to come that night, who are also in favor of continuing the public hearing. So I could offer another date. I could offer August 18th as a possibility. If that makes a difference for people, I know it would be not for Johanna, but it would possibly make a difference for others. So that's it. Sorry, I didn't, I thought the question was, how are we voting? Not, are we available on August 4th? I may be able to make it on August 4th. But my, I, yeah, I don't think we should continue. I think we should resolve it tonight. So that just to clarify my vote, in case that affects things down the road. Maybe you should have two votes, Jack. Okay. So does anyone want to make a motion to approve this with some conditions? I would be prepared to move that. Okay. If I get support. But yeah, I mean, I think I guess the motion is to approve this proposal with the following conditions. There is serious attention paid to the site lines and work put in place to like try to ecologically improve the area as much as possible. So take care of the existing trees that are there, make sure that they stay healthy through construction, plant additional vegetation. And then, you know, really take into consideration the feedback of the board that they don't want prominent advertising on this corner for a private business and to, you know, consider scaling back the design. I don't know if that's clear enough, but those would be my, the constraints based that I'm hearing based on our discussion tonight. Okay. Doug. I guess that, I mean, I appreciate Johanna wanting to move this along, but I feel like that kind of description leaves a lot of wiggle room for how it really turns out. Okay. Yeah, I would, I have to say that I'd be obliged to get a little more information. Not many of us or none of us made the site visit on this project. So the question is, do we continue to the fourth? What was it the alternative date, Chris? The 18th. 18th. So I will withdraw my motion. Okay. I'm looking at the 18th. Yeah. Okay. I can do the 18th. So going back to the development team, Tony, Jim, can you do the fourth or 18th in terms of providing a bit additional information as requested? I'll be out of town on the 18th. I'm good for the fourth. Okay. If I can't, I can make the fourth. If I can't make the 18th, a representative from the bank will be here in my place. Okay. It sounds like we can do the fourth then. How about if we go back over the people who are available on the fourth? Okay. Andrew is out of town. Maria is out of town. Doug is here. We don't know about Tom. Janet is here. Johanna could be here and Jack could be here. So one, two, three, four. So you have four people who are available to be here and we don't know about Tom. So that would work. You'd have a quorum and you'd be able to vote on the site plan review application. Okay. So I guess we can move, you know, to continue the hearing to the fourth and we have a second on that. Oh, Doug. Yeah. I guess I wanted to ask one other thing, which was whether somebody from the property owner would be able to perhaps attend. When I look at the Google site view, I'm seeing a lot of shrubs that look like burning bushes, just about to turn in the fall. And if we wanted to talk about the landscaping, you know, I assume that that would be the property owner rather than the bank. Tony or Jim? I can certainly reach out to the property owners and request their attendance. Okay. So do we have a second on the continuation to August 4th? Second. Who made the initial? I did. Jack did? I did. Jack moved. At seven o'clock? Seven o'clock on August 4th. Okay. Sounds good. So we can do a little vote here. Maria. Yes. And Andrew. I. Doug. Hi. And Janet. Hi. Myself. Hi, Johanna. Hi. Okay. All right. So let's pick this up again on August 4th. Great. Thank you, Jeff. Can you let me know when the site visit is? I'll try to have some site markings out there so that it would be very helpful for the board when they go out to view. Just marking where maybe the ATM is and maybe the curb. So that would be helpful for the board to actually see it on the site. Thank you. Okay. Thank you for your time. All right. Take care. We're on the 4th. Thank you very much. Thank you. All right. So. Mr. Marshall has his hand raised. Yes, I saw that. Doug. Yeah, I just was going to say before they left that it might be useful to have a pole that's 11 feet high so that we could stick on the pavement and see how high the sign is. Maybe have if somebody could pass that word to them. Chris, would you mind? I'll do that. All right. Thank you. All right. Next item is the zoning amendment. Excuse me, Andrew. Andrew had his hand up. Okay. Yeah, I was going to say as I was going from one spot back to my house, I drove right past the center and went in. I think Maria, you're right. It's that the existence sign is almost exactly 11 feet would be my guess there. And the vegetation is very significant around there. You can't even see into the parking lot from Amity on the west, from university on the south, even approaching from Amity down the hill. It's pretty obstructed the way it's set up. We'll see it all on the side visit, but it's not as bad as I expected as I took a closer look. Thanks. Thank you. So looking at the packet here. So next item is the zoning bylaw, official zoning map for 14A, parcel 33, rezoning North Prospect Street to see if the town will vote to amend the official zoning map to extend the general business district to include a vacant parcel of land owned by the town of Amherst in the vicinity of North Pleasant Street, North Prospect Street and Cow's Lane and Amity Street currently located in the general residence district, RG. And Chris, how do you want to proceed with this? We have with us the proponent or the one of the proponents, George Ryan, town counselor. And Dorothy Pam was also a proponent initially, but I believe she's dropped out of the group that's proposing this amendment. So I think Mr. Ryan has a presentation. Right. I appreciate it. Thank you, George. Thank you, Jack. This is something that Evan Ross and I have put together and Evan would very much like to be here. Unfortunately, this was scheduled after he had made his vacation plans. And so he can't be here tonight. So you're getting the B team. I'll do my best. You have a memo, I believe in the packet that hopefully you have a chance to read or have access to pretty much spells out the rationale behind this proposal. Basically we want to rezone parcel 14A33 from the RG to BG. It's currently used, as you know, as a municipal parking lot and the larger rationale behind this is to open the opportunity for the development of a new parking structure on that lot potentially. This kind of this rezoning that we're proposing will not mean the lot will become a parking structure, but it creates the opportunity for such use should the town decide to pursue that option. This site has long been looked at and considered for a parking garage over the years. Most recently it was identified by the bid as one of the four capital improvements that they were proposing as part of their destination Amherst to those Kendrick Park playground and the improvements in North Common are already either near completion or about to begin. And this was one of them. The centralized location is, I think, ideal for visitors coming to the downtown. There's long been a perception of a parking problem on Amherst from those on the outside as well as those on the inside. And this is something that I think would address that. It has strong support amongst the business community. It would be, I think, a very strong statement in terms of economic development coming out of COVID. Also, it has the potential of being used by people who work downtown since many of them currently have to pay for parking even though it comes out of their salary, basically they're paid. So in the memo, it spells out the rationale. I'm not going to go through all that. We certainly can talk about it if you wish. Essentially, what we're looking at or hoping for is a public-private partnership. But for this to happen, the first step is to rezone this parcel. And YBG, well, as explained in the memo, the current zoning, of course, would not allow any such thing. It's currently zoned as RG. And so BG would be, I think, the best solution in terms of providing maximum live coverage and making a parking garage a feasible economic possibility. Really, that's really, at the moment, all I have to say. I think at this point, it's really something for you to ask your questions and to think about the possibility of this in terms of the larger picture of Amherst. We have renovated and expanded Jones Library. That's going to be right there. We have a world-class independent cinema. We have a music space, a venue that's being considered for the downtown. We're going to have more development into downtown over the coming years. So it seems like this sort of development would be good. But for this to happen or even possible for it to happen, a rezoning would be necessary. Thank you. Thank you, George. So Janet, you have your hand up? Yes, thank you. I have a million questions. But I think the most preliminary question to ask is when was this zoning amendment submitted by town council to the planning board? We've had previous zoning amendments submitted to town council with a cover letter from the town council chair, Lynn Grissmer, and we never received that. And so the reason I'm asking that is because once the zoning amendment is submitted from the town council to the planning board, that starts a 65-day clock in which we have to hold a public hearing. And under the processes that we've had traditionally and also outlined in the May 6, 2020 flow chart, after the town council submits to us, we start our planning board review process which can include ZBA and zoning subcommittee review. It is likely to be minimal if the proposal originates from the planning board. So here we are without a formal submittal from the town council. I don't know what date started the clock for the public hearing that we're required to hold within 65 days. And I don't know why we're holding a public hearing before actually talking about this. But I just want to get the timing down because I feel incredibly pressed that we're sitting here in what is usually almost a final step before it goes back to town council and I don't know when we got it from town council. And so when I look at the statute, it's, I mean, chapter 40a, section 5, it says, said public hearing shall be held within 65 days after the proposed zoning ordinance or by-law is submitted to the planning board by the city council. And I don't know when that day was. Okay, Chris. I believe the day was the date that they referred it to the planning board. They referred it on May 24th and the 65 days after May 24th would be July 28th. So you're required to hold a public hearing within that time period or at least start open a public hearing. So we've set the public hearing date for tonight. And if you don't feel comfortable in voting to support this zoning amendment, you can certainly vote it down or you can continue your public hearing to another date. But essentially you had 65 days in which to hold a public hearing and the CRC is holding its public hearing on July 13th which is next Tuesday and I believe theirs is going to be held during the day. So you'll have another chance to talk about it with them. But that's my understanding and I don't think there was anything wrong about the way this process occurred. It was something that came from the town council to the planning board. And so there wasn't initiated by the planning department. It wasn't initiated by the planning board. So it's really got its own path. And I think I've been telling the planning board about this periodically when I've had an opportunity to give a staff report. And so I think you've all known about it for a while and it was probably fairly early in the process that Janet reached out to me and asked me to forward the exact wording that was given to the town council to the planning board members. And I did that. I can probably figure out what date that was. So I consider it to be submitted to the planning board for public hearing by the town council. And if you, so I'm just going to stop there. So Chris, if we continue the hearing and we continue the hearing beyond July 28th. I don't know. I think so, but I'm not sure. I think it's a question of opening a public hearing. Okay. That's usually what it is. Yeah. Okay. So I think in thinking, well, I'm not going to speak for you Janet, but I feel like the hearing can doesn't have to conclude today. And then we can wait more information and deliberate. But Janet. So I did not know when the town council voted on this. I heard about it about a month later from people talking about it. And I sent you an email and I asked you to send a copy to me because I just had heard about it. And I think you emailed that to me and the planning board on June 22nd. So I could almost say, I mean, I still don't think the town council has submitted that to the planning board. And it sounds like a technicality, but in a situation like this, we're rushing along. We're holding a public hearing after not having our normal back and forth and discussions about something. This is a really big weighty issue. I know parking garages and things like that have a long history in this town. I'm very agnostic on parking garages. I'm willing to hear anything. But I think there's a lot to go through. And if we have a ticking clock over our head of the end of the month, then we've added planning board meetings to this month. I don't know. It's just, I don't get it. And so I don't think it's... I think a town council vote is not a submittal to the planning board. And I think that's not the way that... It looks like an omission by the town council and the chair. Maybe the clock started on June 22nd after I asked, but then that's... We still have 65 days from that date. So I would... I think it'd be healthier and to stick to the process that we usually do. I think it would be better for the town if we actually talk about this at some length and then go to a public hearing with the public. Having heard our deliberations, having seen that, us being comfortable with it to basically say yay or nay. And I don't, you know, it seems like we could have a public hearing in sometime in late August after taking some time to review it. We just spent an hour and 15 minutes talking about a kiosk. You know that we're going to take a long time talking about this. I just wonder what other people do. You know, I just... I think this is... Maria has her hand up, so... I just think it's a legal issue about when it was submitted. All right. Maria, please. All right. Yeah. I'm confused about where... I think... Well, okay. So I think it was Janet who sent to the whole planning board a series of files and one of them was useful, the meeting minutes from June 3, 2020. It seems like they did exactly what the process, this flowchart, that was May 6, the revised one. It seems like they did exactly what that flowchart said. That the minutes same, Ms. Hennessey pointed out the two boxes at the top, our new additions, are intended to address proposals coming directly from the planning... From the board... Sorry, Maria. Are intended to address proposal coming directly from the board or planning staff. All other proposals would begin the process in box three, which is exactly what happened. Town council received proposed zoning bylaw amendment and then from that box three down, here we are. We're at the public hearing. So I guess I don't... I mean, it's a public hearing. This is where we deliberate. Am I incorrect on that? Isn't this where we sort of think through the pros and cons? I mean, it's not like we skipped the step because those first two boxes are if the amendment was initiated by, you know, planning staff. What does it say? Maria. What are you looking at, Maria? The files you sent us, Janet. The May 6 revised flowchart. And then the meeting minutes you sent that were from June 3, 2020. Those two files you sent, I think there it was just this morning, maybe. But the minutes literally call out. And in fact, it even says here, Mr. Marshall suggested an arrow from the side pointing to box three could aid in defining this is where the process begins for a community petition or a counselor proposal. So it's literally that's where we are now. And the stage after town council has proposed a zoning bylaw amendment. And then the next step is this what we're doing right now, the public hearing. So I feel like I don't quite understand why it seems like we're not going through the process correctly and that we're not going to be deliberating it. Isn't that what we're doing today and then moving forward? There's like a bunch more arrows moving down that we are doing. And I guess maybe I will ask Chris today, I don't know if someone can pull up the basics chart that Janet sent. But today is just the beginning of box four in the flow chart. Correct. We still have like seven arrows ahead of us. It looks like one, two, three, four, five or Pam, do you have that file that Janet sent today to everybody? I'm trying to get to it. I don't think it was in our packet. I think Janet just sent it to all of us. Is it this one? Except that that one doesn't have the first three box. So the third blue box is where this originated. And then now we're at the fourth blue box, which is the public hearing, which we had to hold within the what you were saying, Janet, the 65 days. So aren't we then and then further down, there's like a whole slew of steps that maybe I'm incorrect. Is there a timeframe on those? Is that why you're feeling like we're pinched on time? Because where it says planning board review process, isn't that where we are now? Or did we skip all that? That may be Chris, if you can just tell us because I know this is all new. We just adopted this and this is our first really official one. It seems like we're in line by Chris. Yeah. So many Joe says that the dotted boxes are optional and it's the solid boxes that show us what the legal requirements are. So we're actually in this box on the left here that says planning board public hearings and we've submitted the first notice and the second notice. And we're in the public hearing, but it's not a joint public hearing with the CRC because they've chosen to hold their public hearing separately for this for this particular item. And I must say this is the way things occur in Northampton. So there's nothing wrong with it with regard to state law. Northampton Planning Board doesn't really get too much involved in development of zoning amendments. They receive zoning amendments from their version of CRC and town and the city council there. And then they hold a public hearing and determine whether they're going to support and recommend approval or adoption of a zoning amendment or not. But they're most often not involved in the development of zoning amendments. So that's not a requirement of state law. Good. So Chris, what's the next step here then for us? I would suggest that you deliberate that you have some discussion about whether you think this is a good idea or not. And if people feel comfortable voting to recommend this to town council tonight, then you would take a vote. If people don't feel comfortable and they feel like they need more information or more discussion or whatever, then you continue this public hearing to a date certain in the future. Okay. Yeah. So if I can, yeah, I mean, I'll let Andrew speak and then and Janet. Mine is just real quick. I think isn't the issue more just around what is the date that starts a 65 day period that we're following the boxes. It just we're not sure when the clock started ticking. I think, Jen, it's right. Like we we generally have a lot of deliberation amongst ourselves before we would before we go for public comment. So I mean, if we feel like we've got the from date, I think we've got a document explains when we need to do this. I think being able to continue is also a useful mechanism to ensure that we don't feel like we're rushing this. Good. Janet. So I would like to talk about this tonight and start the dotted box. The planning board review process because it will be helpful to us and it will make a better zoning amendment or a better report and our better understanding. And I think it will help the public participate more effectively. So I'd like to make a motion to cancel this public hearing to discuss the zoning amendment tonight and also to to clarify legally what date town council submitted the zoning amendment to the planning board starting the date for our public hearing requirement. Doug. Jack, I would think that the next step according to what Janet just said would be to ask for a second and therefore I'd like to hold my comments until that process is complete. Okay. I wasn't sure what where you were. So is there a second to Janet's motion? Andrew. One second. Okay. And for the discussion amongst the board. Doug. I would like to ask a couple of questions about the proposal or should I hold that until we decided whether to approve this? I think it would be helpful for us to flush this out further before we vote. All right. Well, and I guess I'll ask a couple of questions probably mostly to George because you're the proponent. First of all, I'd like to know what the current revenue of the lot is and whether I see that in Evan's narrative. You know, he's envisioning a process whereby the land is provided by the town and the garage is built by a developer. You know, I assume the town would lose the revenue from the lot that's that it's now getting if it just leases the land to the developer. So I was curious how much revenue that lot is producing. My second question is that right now to exit the CV to exit this parcel you have to cross on to land that is I believe owned by the owner of actually CVS so that the curb cut that goes out on the North Prospect Street is not coming from this parcel. And I've heard second, third or fourth hand that there was a long lawsuit between the two between a couple of the owners of these parcels back here about the easement rights to get out to North Prospect Street. So I guess I wondered if you could clarify the legal right of exit from the town owned lot to North Prospect and whether a new curb cut would be required. Thanks Doug George. I can't answer those questions tonight. I think that our approach was that this is the first step of a long process and there are a whole host of issues that would eventually need to be resolved. And we have no idea whether they can be resolved. But trying to resolve them now I certainly can get the revenue address. That's easy. I don't know what I can do but the second and I'm not sure and I'm sure you guys will discuss it whether that's at this stage something that that needs to be resolved for kind of the larger issue of whether you feel that this kind of rezoning makes sense broadly speaking and whether a parking garage would be appropriate here and it may in fact never come about but it can't come about under any scenario without this basic zoning change. I think the question that I'm trying to raise tonight and I understand that you may disagree and you may wish to have specific answers to certain things but the question I'm trying to raise tonight is whether that broad idea makes sense to you the current zoning of the parking lot is a residential zone. Okay, I mean so this is a proposal to change it to BG it may very well stay the parking lot for the next 50 years. I hope it doesn't but that's that's the whole other question so I certainly can get the answer to question number one I don't have it here in front of me. Question number two I'm not sure how I could get an answer to that question but maybe I get some help from folks in town hall but I think it gets into sort of the weeds and that's that's I guess my thought for that. Yeah, I think my personally in terms of like you know baby steps the zoning as this general you know resident district as its current use as a parking lot isn't a really good fit and never has been consistent with its use. So I think this initial motion seems to be you know reasonable to be included within the you know general business district and then you know certainly there's be a lot of steps afterward if there is ever going to be a you know a parking garage but as proposed I don't have a problem with you know this this motion but Janet so I I wonder if we can talk about my motion or vote on it because I know we but I just I think the public should know whether we're having a public hearing the you know the public hearing if we're just having our if we're in the dotted red box you know if if you know we're having a public hearing which is towards the end of the process or just at the beginning of discussing this and Doug I love your question I have like 10 or 15 more like that about the specifics of the proposal what could be built there you know different things like that I'd love to get into that but I think we should decide if we're in the dotted red box starting our process or are we in a formal have we opened a public hearing are we are we you know so I'd like I think I'd love you guys to discuss the motion whether you think we should go forward with the public hearing cancel it reschedule it figure out when that's the clock or the the calendar starts ticking yeah so Pam what's your understanding of the motion right now be impressed my understanding let me just find it on the page okay to so Janet I think I got this right the wording is to cancel the public hearing to begin the review process and deliberation process discussion tonight and also to determine what was the date the exact date of submittal in order to determine when the 65 days is over okay I would say town council submittal submittal to the planning board but you got you got it all excellently good Chris please so I don't think you can just cancel the public hearing I think you would have to close it and you would probably have to make a statement about not being ready to make a recommendation to town council at this time because this is a public hearing and it has been duly advertised so it exists and in my mind it's based on a referral that came from the town council and it seemed like a proper referral to me should I amend it to say to close this public hearing I think so okay without making a recommendation at this time okay without making a okay making a recommendation at this time okay Andrew yeah Jen I was just wondering if you feel comfortable just continuing it I mean I think like I'm definitely would love to talk about this tonight I think I've got you know some some clear ideas I think it does make sense to clarify to make sure that we have the right date in place just just it's well managed like we should we should make sure we've got that but I'd love to have the conversation and I would say like if we if we don't feel like we can get to resolution we just continue I would prefer just to have a normal process the back and forth process a review process yeah a continuance of the hearing would achieve that I would think any other or Doug and I call the question and we just decide this and then we move on to maybe talking about it okay we haven't gotten any public comment at this point so I'm wondering if we should do that at this time Chris this whole thing is very odd to me I'm not I don't feel equipped to respond to it but if you're going to close the public hearing I think you should close the public hearing and then have your discussion my recommendation would be to have to not vote in favor of the motion to close the public hearing but have your discussion tonight entertain public comment and then continue the public hearing to a date in the future that would be my recommendation okay but we haven't had any public comment on this yet so no but that's why I'm saying so have the decision about whether you're going to close the public hearing or not now and then if you don't close the public hearing now you can entertain public comment and then later on after you've had your discussion and you've heard from the public then you can continue the public hearing meanwhile we will make a determination with town council about what date they feel that they sent this to the planning board and maybe we need to get a you know an attorney's opinion on that but at least it will be it will still be open and there won't be a question of oh we have to start this whole thing over again so that's my recommendation take a vote about whether you're going to close the public hearing now if the vote is negative and you're not going to close the public hearing then you hear from the public you make your discussion and you continue the public hearing okay so let Jenny have her hand up I thought you were asking if that you were interested in public comment on the idea of closing the hearing yeah and it sounds like Chris says I don't think that's worthwhile I think you should just decide whether you're going to close the public hearing or not and then if you decide not to close the public hearing that's when you hear from the public so let's do a vote roll call with regard to closing who's in favor of closing the public hearing to get more information and so Maria no and Andrew no so all right wait a minute yeah you're responding to the move the motion to close the public hearing without making a recommendation at this time and people are saying no they don't want to close the public hearing and not make a recommendation at this time so you don't want to close the public hearing Andrew don't want to close the public hearing so continue on the roll call okay and Doug could Pam just read the motion I can read it Janet moved to close the public hearing without making a recommendation at this time and then to begin to discuss the zoning amendment tonight and to clarify what date legally town council submitted the zoning amendment to planning board which starts the 65-day public hearing requirement. I don't think that's what you said. I think what are you adding to it now? It's what I said and I think Pam had sort of paraphrased it slightly. Okay, so can you repeat it so we can get it down exactly like you said it? We'll do a revote here. To begin to discuss the what? To discuss the zoning amendment tonight and to clarify what date town council legally submitted the zoning amendment to the planning board starting the 65-day public hearing requirement. Clock, I guess, mixing my metaphors. But we're closing the hearing and essentially delaying it with this proposal, correct, Janet? That's correct. Okay. So now you start voting again. Yeah, let's do this again. Maria, are you in favor of this? I don't understand what you just said. So I'm sorry, I have to ask a question now. So we've restated this but it's still Janet made the motion and Andrew seconded. Is that correct? Well, yeah, let's in this in this rephrase sort of motion. Can we have a second to Janet's? This is the same motion that I said back to me. All right, Andrew's second. Okay. All right, with that said, let's take it to vote. Maria, do you have, it seems like you still have questions. No, it's still a no. Okay. And Andrew? To no. And Doug? No. And Tom is not here. Janet? Yes. Okay. And Johanna? No. And I'm a no. So the hearing stays open and we will discuss further. I think, can we take some public comment at this point? Okay. So I see, might be Dorothy, I see Bob, Pam, state your name and address. Okay, this is Dorothy. Okay. Hi, Dorothy. 229 Amity Street. So I did sign on to this originally. And then I realized that I'd made a mistake changing it from an RG to a BG when the appropriate thing would be to a BL. And that would be primarily to limit the stories of the fugitive future parking structure so that the trees on the street would cover the view. And I do believe that that would all, that would limit the stories to, of course, the number of stories in building seem to be changing a lot. So I always thought it was to three stories. And I do believe that George did say that he was in favor of it not going above that too, but that the reason he thought BG was because we needed more coverage of the lot size. There, as has been stated, there are a lot of questions that we don't have answers for right away. But I just thought that the BL would make more sense because that's the buffer zoning between a residential zone and a business zone. And it's also the residential zone is not just an RG. It happens to be a local historic district, which means that additional care should be taken with how, what happens around that district and within that district. I also would like to say that the question of the curb cut, I think is a very key issue. All right. And that something that would need to be before any real vote or deliberation was done, what that would have to be found out, whether that curb cut, which goes directly into the part of the lot, which would stay under the ownership of CVS should stay in that spot or whether for the town parking structure, which might be built in the future, whether it would be moved somewhere else and what that would be the impact. I mean, the impact would have to be studied on the residential houses near there. So I understand the interest and the need, but the desire to have something that would be suitable adjacent to a residential and particularly a local historic district would lead me to think that if you were to rezone, it should be to a BL, which is the transitional zone between residential and RG. So just a quick question. Dorothy, weren't, I thought you were like a sponsor of this? I was. And then I said, if you change the RG to BL, not RG, in other words, changing an RG to a BG is too big a jump. If you change it to the BL, which is the appropriate one. So I withdrew my name. I wrote in a formal retraction that if it were to be from a RG to a BG, that I was not a cosponsor. If it were to be from an RG to a BL, I could stay on as cosponsor, but they did, they decided to stick with the going from an RG to a BG. So therefore I am not a cosponsor of the measure as it stands, although I am sympathetic with some of the aspects of the approach. Thank you. Thank you. So we have Janet Keller, held a green bomb, then Sandy Musfrat within the public. So Janet, state your name and address, please. Hi, Janet, you need to unmute yourself. Janet Keller unmuted 120 Pulpit Hill Road. I share the concern for the change from RG to BG within the context of feeling that it's July 7th. It's in the middle of vacation season. And we're having a public hearing that came before your body in a way that's not the usual way. And there are all these other things before the different boards and before your board. There are stacks of zoning ordinances, and this one's a biggie. And I don't see it fitting into a coherent plan. I share the concern about the local historic district and the access and egress. Other sites have, I've heard, suggested maybe a value. And for public to participate, I will be more diligent going after packets in the future. But I can see people who want to participate and who, like me, had some disruptions in our schedule leading up to the meeting being in the situation I found myself in today, where I didn't have that in front of me. So for all these reasons, I hope you, whatever you do, you allow plenty of room and make the information easily available to the public because we care a lot. And this affects us. And we've seen how recent developments have affected both our downtown and our neighborhoods. Thanks. Thank you. And then Bob Pam, which is not Dorothy Pam, I assume. I don't, I'm not sure. We are separate people. Okay. All right. So Bob, say your name and address. Thank you. Robert Pam, 229 Amity Street. Dorothy, after silence, yours. Thank you. I'm a trustee of the library. And it is of interest to the library that there be, excuse me. Yeah, definitely get some feedback. I understand. It is of interest to us that there be parking near to the library. And this is probably the most convenient place for that. I am not entirely certain why it has to move now. There are a whole variety of things that go through my mind as I think about this. One is right now the town lot is vacant much of the time because there is a fee associated with using it and people park in the CVS lot instead. If a plan proceeds in which there is a fee for this, I don't know how much revenue it will produce, particularly if it is substantially higher than what we currently charge for the town lot. So there is a question simply about financial feasibility. We would want as a library that a substantial number of slots essentially be free because that is how we would like our patrons to be able to get into the library. I don't know whether that is going to be possible under the plan which is being discussed. It is clear that we are anticipating and hoping that the library project will move forward very soon. It is now at a stage where hopefully within a year we will be breaking ground. You should know that the construction is all in the rear of the library. It will not be accessible from Amity Street and so the only way that you will be able to get materials in and out is going to involve as far as I can see the yard behind the library and that is probably not enough and so that is probably going to require some portion of the existing town lot. If that is so then we really don't want to have construction beginning on a parking garage at the same time. There is also the question of how this is all going to affect the local businesses. My understanding is that in order for people to drive into the parking lot they will have to come through the North Pleasant Street entrance and that will probably have to be widened. If that is so how will that affect the CVS, the restaurant, the Vietnamese restaurant which is next to it on that lot. Will that affect that building? All of these are unclear and probably need to be thought through very clearly and thoughtfully before there is a plan to go forward with this. And finally what we're talking about is the rezoning of a lot in the middle of a block where if I remember correctly some seven or eight years ago when there was a discussion about rezoning a portion of the strong house lot to be BG which would have allowed for a much easier construction project for the library that was vociferously opposed by people in the neighborhood because they said this is the first step at rezoning that whole strip of prospect which would then possibly mean that more of that side of the street would become BG and they did not want to see that happen because of the effect on the other side of prospect. If we now do this in what is essentially the middle of the block what do you think their feelings will be now and will this in fact be exactly what they're afraid of which is the beginning to rezoning that side of prospect. So there are a whole variety of things that it seems to me really need to be thought about before you do this. If it is not tied to a particular project then it is being done in order to create the beginning of BG on that side of the street. If it is tied to that then it may be making a non-conforming use conforming but it is also effectively a spot zoning kind of issue and I'm not sure that you really want to be doing that. So I've got as you can tell very mixed feelings about this. I would love to see better parking access to the library but I don't want to see it done in such a way that it creates more hostility in the town between one side and another and I certainly don't want to see it really harming the little bit of consumer friendly business that still exists in downtown. I think that's it. Thank you. Yeah okay yeah we let you go a little bit longer than normal Bob but that was all good. Thank you. Sandy Musprat. So your name address you got three minutes. Thank you for allowing me to speak. I would like to record my support of Janet McGowan's motion or now defeated but since we've had a presentation from George Ryan perhaps one could ask him whether he's actually read the 2019 Niget Nelson report on the parking requirements for the town. Now answer. We can entertain that. George would like to respond to that. He mentions perception of a parking problem and the same sentence from outsiders would he let us know who those outsiders are and how did he become aware of the perception of a parking deficiency. So who are they and what is the data on which their perception is based. So again I refer to the 2019 Nelson Nigard report and even if you haven't read it all page three lays it out in eight goals. Okay well let's give George a chance if he chooses to respond or not. Thank you Sandy. George. At this point I think I'd like to hear more from the public. Okay so next would be Hilda Greenbaum please. I've got a couple of issues one the first one being you have to count given the egress and entrance into that lot being very difficult you also have to I think count the number of parking places on Coles Lane and North Prospect and Halleck Halleck is the nightmare of the way it is now which is parking on one side. How many of those parking places are going to get lost and along North Prospect and in order to let people get in and out of this garage if you consider that entrance from North Pleasant Street at a traffic light is a very bad place to have an entrance to a parking lot. So so you have to sort of figure out how many parking places are going to be a net gain if you get done with this car commanding scheme. The other thing I wanted to bring up is I have a little history in town meeting of over 40 years and in 1996 a very contentious article was passed to town meeting to build the garage at the bank center and at the time the compromise between the people that didn't want any garage and the people who wanted a four-story garage was that that garage would be so built that more stories could be added to it at any time in the future. Now there are various stories going around about why that's no longer possible but I think that somebody needs to find the as-built plans for that structure and see whether we can put more stories on top of that one before we mess up another neighborhood. And so one of the stories that needs to be checked out is that it was no longer possible once the Judy's building was put there for what reason I don't know but if that's in fact the case it was a dereliction of the duty of the board that allowed it to be there if it prevented us from adding on to the town parking lot there. And then another story that I've been hearing is that the last minute somebody in town hall I don't know who changed the plan so that the structure of the garage was not reinforced add extra stories but I think that that issue has to be figured out before we start changing zoning on North Pleasant Street a place that is a very difficult place for a parking lot. I guess I could also mention that a better place might be where a parking garage I think also about 20, 25 years ago was proposed for Amity Street in conjunction with the people's bank that's there now that would go between the movie theater and the people's bank. Danny Jones had proposed mixed juice building with stores on the bottom and residential on the top and the whole back is a parking garage. Now whatever happened to those plans whether he withdrew them or whatever happened I don't know but that certainly seems like a more accessible site to put a parking garage and add on to the one at the bank center than to try to take narrow roads in a historic neighborhood and ruin some nice neighborhoods that we really don't want we really want to preserve. Thank you. Thank you, Hilda. I'm sorry I didn't get your I didn't have you say your name and address at the beginning there but Mary Sayer say your name and address please. Mary Sayer can you hear me? Yes, yes good okay Mary Sayer 159 Pine Street in North Amherst. I'm finding this discussion very interesting so I'm glad you are discussing in front of the public hearing. I think that Dorothy Pam's point is a really important one that making the big leap into the business district means that much higher buildings can get put in and also it means if a parking garage isn't put there then it opens the door to a lot of things that we haven't thought about yet and I think it being a historic district with the strong house and the historic family houses and the Jones library it's really important to make that part of the transition space rather than say this is downtown so I'm anyway I'm finding this very interesting and I think there needs to be also maybe before we start going into zoning a real discussion about where the best place for a garage is before we start changing zoning on one specific lot for a garage that may go somewhere else okay thank you very much. Thank you Mary. So Sandy I think his hand has come down. Anne, Anne's that your full name and address. Hi Anne. Thank you I've just unmuted can you hear me now? Yes. Anne Streit 32 North Prospect Street in the Lovell House condominiums we're relatively new to Amherst having just moved here within the last year and when we moved into Lovell House we were fully aware that there was a parking lot the CVS lot and the town lot across the street but hidden by the row of trees that are there. One of the reasons we moved into this area was the historic district the number of homes that are along the North Prospect that people have had for a good number of years invested a lot of money in and additional investment is going into these properties trying to you know keep the neighborhood very nice and and so on including some additional ones that will be moved from I think student housing to single family residents hopefully in in the near future. We have observed as has been said there's very little activity in the city lot there's very and most activity is in the CVS lot and the flow onto North Prospect is not unreasonable I mean it is a difficult you have to access from Main Street and then they go out onto North Prospects very few people I don't think come around Cowles and come into the lot from from the other side so we would be absolutely opposed to a parking garage in this space that would create both access and flow out problems onto a residential street I mean this is a residential street with people that have invested a great deal of monies. I will also say to follow up that Janet know earlier we just learned of this meeting and this issue and this question about two weeks ago so I will say that this was news to us and we do get the local paper so apologies if it was in there we missed it so I'm hoping that you'll have additional comments and I would also like to hear my understanding is that there was a study done in Amherst of parking and there appears to be no significant problem I think the best idea I've heard all night is from our friend at the library is making that parking area for the library and make it free to access the library so that one is a good idea so thank you and we hope that we can continue this conversation but we are definitely opposed to changing the zoning of that lot in that area thank you thank you Anne again this is just the this is not about a parking garage but it is you know only about a zoning change that would conceivably you know allow you know a parking change down the road but there's way beyond many decisions have to be made so this is just a you know initial you know zoning change so George do you can you want to respond to some of these I just want to just draw the attention of everyone to how this got started before COVID there was strong interest from a number of downtown developers and working with the bid open to the idea of a public-private partnership that would be as a number of us saw as a win-win for both the town and for the downtown and so that's how this this began and then COVID hit and so everything you know stopped and at this point with us coming out of COVID one of the questions is whether this interest is still there but there will be no movement forward if the zoning stays the way it is so one member the public's already stated their objection to a parking garage their period of any kind I'm not sure about some of the others maybe they would say the same but the question to the planning board is whether they looking at this in the big picture agree that there should never be a parking garage there all this zoning proposal is trying to do is make it possible for something to be built at the land would still be owned by the town under any scenario revenues would be lost but the gain would be much greater it seems to me in terms of that counting up parking spaces lost sort of game so that's where it originated that's why we brought it back and you know that's what we hope the board will consider is that basic question do you think this makes sense for this area and given its current zoning it seems like a zoning change would be appropriate yeah I mean to me it certainly makes sense I mean we're not approving a parking garage there's certainly many other alternatives that the town needs to look at you know the you know expanding upon the the boltwood parking area but this seems like you know brainer to me it's already a parking lot it's down on land um Chris you have your hand up I just wanted to clarify two technical things and one of them is the issue of spot zoning and this would not be spot zoning this would be an extension of the bg zoning district the bg exists along north pleasant street so if you were to extend it back to north prospect street that would be consistent with existing zoning so it wouldn't be spot zoning and the other question that came up was changing this from rg to bl and I agree that bl is a transition zone and from that standpoint that might make sense but the building coverage that's allowed in the bl is 35% and this lot is already very small so to only allow 35% of it to be covered with the building would be um it would make it not worth it to rezone the lot so those are just two things I wanted to clarify thank you thank you Chris uh Janet and then Andrew so I was um I I was told and I think maybe people can confirm is that the town's portion of the parking lot was acquired by a taking from louis louis or louis food back in 1989 and the town paid the the grocery store 485,000 and now the property is assessed about 170,000 um when I looked at the map that was provided it seemed like the cvs was had a bunch of parking spaces on townland and so that made me wonder if um the cvs is paying the town for them or if there's an agreement between the town and cvs about the use of the townland for its spaces and um is the cvs planned to continue using it as a parking lot are they in on this on these discussions about building a parking garage and then um so I just wanted if we could talk about the cvs um portion of that if there's a current agreement um if you know if the map that I'm looking at is correct um I have a million other questions one of them is like what are the dimensions of the slot and are there any build out diagrams of what could be built on bg versus bl versus com versus bvl because all of those allow garages and so it wasn't clear to me is this lot sufficient big enough how many spaces how many you know I have just dozens of questions um but I wonder if we could just start with the cvs lot and um if there's if they have an agreement right now to use the town spaces are they really on the townland are they planning to build the parking garage too or do they want to keep their lot separate Chris do you want to so I don't know if the town has an agreement with cvs to have cvs's parking spaces on townland that's a question that I can ask um I don't know what the town's arrangement with cvs is about crossing over their land to exit the parking lot so that's another question that I can get an answer to um and the other thing are there plans to for build out I know that um some architects in town have come up with plans I don't have access to those plans um I was shown those plans once a long time ago but um I don't really have any memory of exactly what property is covered and whether cvs is a willing partner in this I think the owners of that property may be going through some transitions um and I have not spoken with them and so I have no uh no knowledge of what their thought process is on this thank you Chris Andrew thanks um I just wanted to be clear and the BL is 35 coverage 35 35 85 35 percent building coverage all right I'm looking at locked it's okay so the bg but what all right because I think George you'd mentioned the 95 percent being important maximum building for bg is 70 percent so do you have I guess George would you agree then that all right what's your perspective is the BL given its building and locked coverage would the BL be able to sustain the parking garage okay and I was going to try to explain it towards the BAM but seem to not have any success that the reason that we uh have always asked for the bg is that a BL simply is not feasible okay that's that's where I thought I guess also I like I'm a couple thoughts one I think you make a good point George if if the the the thought is that there isn't a parking need then no developer is going to want to build this right and it will sit as a parking lot probably in perpetuity so I think that there's a little bit of a market force protection there that would keep a large parking lot from being built if it's not going to be used I will say one of the things that happened in COVID which I was pretty excited about um was the fact that we had so much um seating that was added outside I know that that was you know designed as a temporary measure but it got me thinking like what what a much more interesting streetscape we would have if we had less on-street parking and more um like on-street seating right and that that would actually be a pretty pretty cool opportunity for us to make the downtown be something that's maybe more inviting and exciting if we could concentrate the parking I imagine there's probably a lot of store owners who would rather have you know five tables out front than than a car in a in a single um in a single lot for a single spot um I I thought Hilda's comment I didn't even consider that I thought there was a pretty interesting one relative to the bangs garage like can we build up on that or not um I I've I've never I've went to that lot once and it was like a horrific experience trying to just navigate the turns and I'll never go back in there again it's like a to me a complete wasted opportunity I wonder if there's a way to improve that I don't know that there would be but whether we might actually improve utilization there but um overall I I think this makes sense I think that I like the idea of being able to concentrate the parking in a in a single area I'm excited about the opportunity of maybe opening up on more creative uses of our sidewalks and and streetscapes um I think that there is that control mechanism I no one will build it if we're not going to be able to cars in it um it's it's not you know I think the garages would be the highest and best use of that space I I do agree that um it would be a problem if we convert this to bg and then you know it gets um it gets developed into something other than the parking garage but the town owns a lot right so like we would have we would have say over that it's not like a private developer could come in and build something there they'd have to purchase a lot from us so another control mechanism mechanism in place so overall I I'm excited about the opportunity I think that it's something that I would recommend that we again maybe maybe there is some really positive upside that we can we can leverage to make the streetscape be more more vibrant and exciting thanks good points Andrew thank you George you have your hand up then Maria there's real interest and I believe there still is very real interest in the private sector in building a public garage on that lot there is no interest has never been expressed by anyone that I'm aware of of doing anything with the boltwood lot um and there's also the issue and part of the reason probably has to do with the fact that of where you put a ramp assuming you could even put a second story um on that and that's a question that no one has been able to answer to my satisfaction I've heard answers both yes and no but even if you could it's it's very difficult to imagine how you could construct any kind of ramp also given the fact that you already have existing parking there and you have delivery trucks that are 10 or 12 feet high so I guess my point is simply that there has been zero interest from any sector on doing anything with the boltwood but there is very real interest in the CVS lot also this would only be done with a private by private entity that the town would not be spending any money on this at all Maria please thanks Jack um I wish I had more time this past week I would have dug through years and years of notes from I feel like this groundhog day I know we've discussed this exact thing at previous zoning so committee meetings I feel like there was an article about this I found an article where we did approve that parking garages were allowed more and like for site instead of special permit we relax it to site plan review and bgbbc calm and maybe be all I can remember but this is something that I know has been of interest for a long time and we discussed it for so many hours and I just wanted to like dig through all these minutes and just see what the pros and cons were because I just didn't have time to research that and really get into that to get more information to really give my two cents but I think Andrew's points were great I mean it is basically yeah your downtown property is so valuable the land is so scarce it makes perfect sense to concentrate the cars in one area so that downtown can be for people for people walking biking enjoying the outdoors and get the cars the heck out of the way and so this is a good first step obviously there are tons of things to work out as far as the weeds you know the the parcels the access the adjacencies to other residences and other historical districts but without this first step that can't even be studied or it's not worth studying because it's not even possible so yeah that's been said so many times at so many different meetings I feel like and I just I haven't had time to dig through memos and minutes but I do feel like we've had really healthy discussions about this because there was interest and so this is a yet another try at it and I feel like the only way to really move forward is to approve this first step and then let's do the studies people will be able to find funding to get consultants to get a designer architects get civil you know people who can give us real numbers and answers but without this yeah it's been I don't know maybe decades I appears would know better but I feel like I've certainly talked about it in meetings many many times and I just wish I had dug up you know a lot of the pros and cons so I could be more informed with opinions other than just a feeling that it makes a lot of sense to concentrate the cars as Andrew just said so I won't reiterate his same points but but that's my first feeling about this problem thanks Maria I normally take a break at eight and it's nine so I would offer that we do a little five minute break right now because we do have a couple more items on the agenda including concluding this hearing so can we reconvene you know 907 ish and everybody put their video and audio on mute yeah Pam let me know when we have everybody back yeah this is a good view thanks for hanging in there George another long night I'm trained by town council so we're normally halfway through a typical council meeting so but you guys work hard too I can see that and you've been working regularly week after week and I really respect that admire that but yeah this is this is only halfway through my usual mother night so I don't see Andrew yet or um Janet there's Andrew so I don't see Johanna or or Janet yet okay my computer is just saying 907 my phone is saying 909 there's Johanna Janet actually had the next question so I'm sure she'll be popping in okay Jack Janet has returned okay so you want to get us back online we're good to go okay so we return from a break um it's 910 and Janet um so I there there has been a study of the three parking locations the bank center um the amity street lot and the cbs lot and I think that would be good to circulate amongst the planning board um and then also um you know I'd love to see Maria Chow's notes and also I know that there's been at least three parking studies at downtown none of them recommending a parking garage and saying parking is sufficient but kind of hidden unknown and I wondered if we could find out like I don't know if I want to read like 150 pages of those reports but really what they said about parking garages and maybe locations or upsides and downsides so we don't have to kind of redo the wheel um so that that's some information I'd be interested in having us look at um so I'm kind of wondering like if you built a parking garage on the cbs lot like how many spaces are there now how many can you get inside three stories um is it would it be underground like is you know what's the game you know what's the cost um and then you know versus other lots and so you know I think that that would be really valuable some some detail um it looks like a very tight space for a parking lot and I you know look at the amity street lot and I think people's bank has space bank of america has space you know there's a lot of you know it's a lot of space you know like bank of america isn't really using it during the day at night it's used more um you know at the same time you would want to buffer the south prospect people from tall buildings and so I think we need to keep that three story idea and also buffering the neighborhoods I also think that you know on the bg you still have setback requirements on the side it's adjoining a residential districts you have 20 feet and so I wonder like you know is anyone done any rough drawings of what actually is possible there and how many spaces you know you're going to lose spaces probably from what you have now at least on one floor and so I feel like I need a lot more detail about the proposal I mean developers are talking about it who are they what are they what are they seeing like that they could build you know and it you know it'd be great to see a 3d picture of a good really attractive you know not like a final drawing but you know how many spaces can you get are we talking about an extra 80 spaces can we get more on amity street and for god's sake someone please tell me if we can build another floor to on the bang slot you know I mean I don't feel like this is we can keep talking about this as if we you know live in some caves I'm wearing can't get the answers yeah you know so Jen I think what we're just looking at is you know the first step we're not really you know talking about a parking garage although that is a potential intent but but this is town on land it's a parking lot already and it's kind of consistent with the you know adjacent use and I think you know we would be prudent with regard to the eventual development of any sort of structure at this property but we're just we're I think we're just looking at the zoning and we're not we're there's nothing there's not going to be details available for us because this is not this that's way ahead but I agree you have great ideas with regard to um you know the people's bank area the the the you know boltwood you know area but I just think this is this is a little bit of a of a fix that really has really no major percussions at this point in time my opinion but who we get the study of the three different parking lots that has already been done I mean you're sort of saying I don't need information and you know I feel like I do need information I mean you know we're not talking about a parking garage we're just talking about a change to you know town on land that's adjacent you know adjacent to the the bg that should be bg anyway by you know and what's current use that's more Chris you have a hand up yeah I just wanted to say that there was a study done before the boltwood garage was built so that's back in the late 80s or early 90s we can probably resurrect that study but I'm not sure that it's going to be completely relevant to this situation but I'd be happy to do that research thank you that's all I wanted to say okay so I still would like that information on what can be built there and how many spaces okay I think that's this that's many steps forward and Doug yes seeing that it's 915 and we have other things on our agenda and it seems like we're pretty I think the sense I'm getting from the conversation tonight has been that we will be continuing this hearing I'd like to move that we continue this hearing to a date certain not before august 4th yeah I forget the dates that we were talking about Chris where do you see if we continue the hearing what would be potential dates for that um I guess I would recommend august 4th because what do you have then you have the greenfield savings bank and you have the sweet alice parking area so that would that would probably be a good date and then continue it to 730 on august 4th okay is there a second to uh Doug's uh Andrew okay um for the discussion amongst the board I see none all right um we can take a roll call here um Maria yes Andrew hi Doug hi Tom or Tom's on here uh Janet yes and Johanna hi and myself hi okay so that's six zero for continuance and we're looking at august 4th thank you thank you George the board and to uh to Chris and to Rob appreciate all you've done and I'll see everyone on august 4th thank you thank you thank you and next on the item we have um SPR 2000 0005-00001 Amherst Shopping Center uh Point Science Inc to present new signs for CVS pharmacy at 165 University Drive in accordance with condition number two of SPR 2005-00001 and who do we have going to present this Chris or you know I'm not sure um I can present it I'm not sure if there's anyone in the audience who's um here to present it I don't see anybody raising their hand I would not fault them by the by the length of the prior proceedings so um so essentially it is the CVS building that's at University Drive which is in the big wide plaza and when that um when that development was expanded a number of years ago um there was a site plan review um approval that stated that any new signs must be submitted to the planning board for approval at a business meeting so that's what this is all about so um looking at the new signs if TAM would bring up the images that would be helpful there's an image of the CVS building and it shows it in conjunction with the parking lot there and then we can walk through the signs that are being proposed maybe we can put a parking garage here the late reaction there okay so here is the property and you can see that the CVS building is part of the bigger um big wide property it's actually a property unto itself but it's part of this greater shopping center um and it's essentially surrounded by University Drive and parking lot and so PAM if you could continue to scroll through and this shows you the condition condition two I believe it is any new signs submitted to the planning board for approval at a business meeting and that is really true of this whole shopping center as you well know because we studied the big why signs a while ago so um what they're proposing to do they have their signs shown on this plan here so there's signs one through eight and we can go through those signs or actually one through six let's go through them one by one so the image on the left here is the existing signs um the existing uh I'm not sure what it's even says I think it says something about pharmacy and then there's blue writing and CVS so they're giving you the um the sizes of these um existing signs and the proposed signs are pretty much equal in size if not smaller and there's a health hub sign and the middle sign is going to be blank and the one on the right says um I think it says something about clinic maybe we could go down below and look at the individual signs so they show the individual signs there it is minute clinic so that's what the signs are going to look like on this um side of the building that's facing I guess that's east is that right or south maybe that's south um so does anyone have questions about this do you want to look at the sizes of these things in relation to the sizes of the existing um all right well Andrew how does this end up I'm I'm just ready to make a motion to approve this I mean I think if you like put the two pictures next to each other and didn't say which one was which I'd be I'd be impressed if we knew which was the current and which was the future I think it's like a non-issue and I'd like us to just I would I would propose a way to all right and then there's also this um the um monument sign where they're proposing to take out the cds and put in the heart with the cds pharmacy so that's um right here yep so Doug you're gonna second yes I am jack all right any further discussion uh yeah I I seen on so we can do uh a roll call here to approve this um Maria Andrew hi dog hi Janet this is a personal record for the planning board and I approve all right and Johanna hi and I am so myself hi so we're good to go on that so we can move on to new business and chris we have a chapter 61 a release request property of thomas f mitchell family trust and mitchell family trust land on sunderland road portion of assessors map parcel id two c dash 12 which is 18.5 acres we have tom reedy here um representing the owner and so you may want to hear from him he can explain this um better than I can attorney tom reedy I'm moving attorney reedy over into the panelist he makes his way how's that hello mr reedy hello hi tom to hear you hi everybody I I'd show you I'm I just pulled off the highway I'm in the car so you can't really see me I was coming back from a hearing in Douglas but nobody wants to hear about that because you've had a long night so let me get the business um so yeah uh the the mitchell family has a contract to sell there about 18.58 acres which is a portion of the land that they own between montague road and sunderland road and that 18.58 is currently under chapter 61 a as is the balance of their land but they want it um as you know under 61 a section 14 they have got to provide a notice of intent to convert uh the land to other use and the town has a right of first refusal I believe the purchase price is 1.6 million but chris breast strip could probably correct me if I'm wrong um we would request that uh the the board suggests the town council and I'll be there monday evening that town council does not exercise that uh option to purchase the town could probably find better use for 1.6 million dollars and this just doesn't seem like a piece of property that has connectivity or um serves any of the purposes potentially that the town would want to use it for so we would request uh that that the planning board suggests the town does not act thank you tom sure um yeah I'm just getting uh my screens here together so uh any planning board comment on this I see oh chris I just wanted to say that your duty is to recommend to town council whether you think the town should purchase this property for 1.6 million dollars and um I have not heard anyone in the town government um speak in the affirmative about that sometimes we do hear people speaking in the affirmative and recommending purchase because the property is contiguous with some other town owned property but I haven't heard that in this case so just wanted to make sure that you understood what you would be doing you're making a recommendation either to exercise the right of first refusal or not to exercise the right of first refusal so uh tom the access to this property would be from sunderland road or correct okay off sunderland road correct the current use is is what agricultural so I there I believe they're hay fields at least to the east of there's uh probably a perennial stream we're actually in the process of going through an anrad but uh I believe that there's hay fields and I and I know I saw a tractor out there maybe two weeks ago to the west of that stream planting something and I don't know what they were playing but a crop so it is agricultural currently and I'm just trying to get my bearings on cowl's road what significant so Pam should probably bring up the map Pam can you bring up the map so people can see and part of it is zoned commercial well I don't know Mr. Reed explain how it's zoned yeah so it's so so from the uh westerly property line which is also sunderland road about and if in traveling towards the east about 18.58 acres is zoned prp so professional research I say yeah that is a portion that is being removed and in the balance of the land from that zone line to the east property line which is also montague road I believe it's R n but don't quote me on that one it is a residential zoning district I just don't off the top of my head remember what it is. Pam can you bring up the map that shows the zoning I think it follows this it's part of that letter that was sent from Mr. Reed's office um so that that's part of the packet is that right it's part of the packet I think it's like page three in the packet or page I don't know I think it's page 50 in the materials okay that that bisects them it's yellow and red that's how you can recognize it okay I'm going fast so if you see it it's an RO thank you there should be the next yeah yeah there there you go there we go so the red is the 18.5 and that's the portion that is being requested to come out of chapter 61a the RO is not planned to come out of 61a and I'm not sure if the person who's proposing to purchase this property is proposing to buy that portion in the RO or just the portion in the PRP it's a little bit hard to read this plan because it's showing PRP land as red and we normally think of that as commercial but it is PRP professional research park. So I'm wondering if Tom or Chris can kind of go over this because Amherst has the most you know conservation you know recreation land percentage wise of any town uh you know in the Piner Valley so I'm just wondering what's the process involved there just kind of go over it one more time I don't see any issues but is so the process again so if the town felt that it was worthwhile to acquire this property and it felt like it wanted to match the purchase price that's in their purchase and sale agreement then the town would then the town council would decide to exercise its right of first refusal and purchase this property but nobody in the town government has said that they as far as I know said that they want to purchase this property or that they have a use for this property and it's not contiguous with other town owned land so those are the things that we normally think about if we have a particular use in mind for a property or if it's contiguous with other conservation land or something like that so I don't think the town needs any more land of this nature this guy's based on the statistics but uh Janet you having hand up um I'm actually a little I I'm I'm I don't know if I've missed the giant boat but I had no idea that we were being asked for to recommend to town council that this land not be brought and so it says chat on the agenda it says chapter 61 a release request I wasn't quite sure what our role in that because I know that goes to town council um so I have I mean I had no idea that this is what Mr. Reedy was going to ask us and I actually feel like I have almost no information about the land itself um we know it's farmland we know we have a river through it at least two or three streams it's got wetlands it's I know that's flood plain because someone told me so I don't know I don't know anything about the soils I don't know what the ecological importance I don't know the agricultural importance I know that we're cultivating more land than they were when I 2003 when I moved here I have literally no basis to make a recommendation to town council other than Mr. Reedy statements and so I I don't know why why it's even on the agenda I mean if if you want the town if you want the planning board to make a recommendation I think we need to know a lot more about this land and its significance as agricultural land as wetland I don't know I just don't know anything and um you know I don't know anything about this land other than I didn't know that we were talking about this so I would need to know a lot more information before recommending anything to the town council yeah it's on the agenda I mean but it says release request may I so I had no idea yeah so Chris so there was material in your packet describing what chapter 61 a land is and how it goes into or comes out of chapter 61 61 a 61 b I tried to provide you the state law that relates to this and an excerpt from a handbook that various towns and cities in massachusetts use in determining what to do with chapter 61 a land when it is requested to come out and in the past the planning board has had many of these requests and it's it's kind of a what institutional memory on the part of planning board members who have been around for a while who you know help other planning board members to understand what the process is I think I've described what the process is and the materials that were in your packet should have described them I think miss miss McGowan is asking for specific information about this land like soils and agricultural benefit and and all of that so perhaps that's information that she needs to make the decision as to whether she would recommend that the town acquire this property so that's thank you so Doug thanks jack I just wanted to say you know I came on the board in January of last year and sometime last year in the spring we had a similar request that was a little farther up sunderland road and that was my first experience with the chapter one 61 release I don't know if it was accidental but at that meeting Dave Zomek I think was present and talked about how the town had a strategic plan to buy a lot of the the land that was on the west side of route 116 I think it was just a kind of across the street from the parcel we were talking about and so when I hear Chris say tonight that there's nobody in town government that she's aware of who is advocating for this I think of the concom and you know the other people who are interested in land preservation and think about this you know how we prioritize what we want to buy and the fact that that Chris is saying that she's not hearing anybody advocating for buying this suggests to me that the other people in town government and probably the other committees that would be interested in this have have not expressed any interest so on that basis I am I am okay with proceeding to a vote on on these parcels thank you thanks so uh do we have all right Janet so and then I'm sorry the master plan one of the tasks is for the Amherst to get an inventory of its farmland and its priorities and you know what it wants to protect so is there a strategic plan and I've just never seen it I would love to see that and have the concom and the farm commission or anybody weighed in I don't want to assume silence is a scent um it's actually there's like 20,000 legal cases on that um but I just think is is there an inventory of farmland is there a priority list is there a strategic plan and you know I'd love to see that that'd be great if we had been implementing the master plan in that way okay I I just would reiterate that Amherst has an abundance of this type of land to where we we have the most of anyone in Pioneer Valley so uh I think we should scrutinize this but um um you know with with Chris's uh input that you know there's another you know there's no other concerns uh that she is knowledgeable you know with them you know the the town uh departments um I'm I think this is this is a go so uh Chris you have your hand up and then Andrew and then Doug I wanted to say that there is um this the open space and recreation plan has information about lands that the town would like to acquire but the town needs to be wary about expressing interest in land because it can end up competing with other purchasers so usually when the town is interested in purchasing something it kind of keeps a low profile about it um so I don't think that there's a master list of um of land that the town is planning to acquire I think it's more like um people in town hall have ideas in their heads about land that would be worthwhile to acquire land that is part of the Mount Holyoke range or land that abuts other conservation areas that the land that the town owns which may be in the conservation excuse me in the open space and recreation plan but I guess what I'm saying is it's it's not realistic to expect that there's an inventory of all the properties that the town might like to acquire because in some cases we don't want to let everybody know that we might like to acquire it and we come along and we say we bring it to the conservation commission or the planning board or town council or other bodies and you know when the opportunity arises and the opportunity might arise when someone passes away or when someone decides to donate land or sell land or whatever but it it's not a very um it's not a completely straightforward process so there is there's not an inventory of all the properties that the town wants to acquire thank you Chris uh Andrew and then Doug do you you can speak after if you want yeah I always I would say I I think I agree with Janet here I think there's there's really no additional context relative to the value of property it's the right or first refusal right so I don't know that necessarily the the concerns of like impacting the purchase price by sharing potential interests necessarily come to play here I I imagine like we'll probably all land in the same spot but I do think it would be uh useful to have a bit more concrete feedback I think the silence is not consent is a valid point here I imagine it's a quick ask of the of concom just says this you know is this something that um you feel is a value um that we should consider I would think that's really like their role in this process here I I would otherwise agree that it's it's just sort of um you know our general feel as to what we think the quality of that particular parcel is without a lot of additional content so I mean it has so many pieces available to join the meeting and maybe I could answer if I if you don't mind um please don't chairman so so under 61a section 14 we have to provide notice to certain uh parties and so we provide it to town council to the town manager to the planning board to the conservation commission to the board of assessors and to the state forester so those are the groups that under statute we have to provide notice to so all of those groups are going to give say for the state forester all of those groups and ultimately culminating in the town council are going to give an opinion on whether or not uh the town should exercise their right of first refusal um and so when we're when you're saying you're talking about the conservation commission they have an R I don't know if they already have um I suspect that they may have already discussed this um property and whether or not it should be you know they would potentially make a recommendation to the uh board to the town council to exercise that right of first refusal or not and so when we just take a step back and when we think about the groups that did receive the notice that are making their own response the formulating their own answer the planning board need not personal opinion here rely on what the other boards are doing because we've given all those other boards notice and so you know when I have asked you for uh and I and I haven't appeared in front of the conservation commission they didn't ask me to come Chris asked me to come here to to give the presentation this evening when I say make the recommendation uh it is ultimately town council's decision and so the board may say yes we want you to buy it for 1.6 million dollars um or no we don't want you to buy it and in either circumstance the town council ultimately can do what it is that that they want to do so well I know I haven't given any additional context about the land um at this stage frankly it is that if the town were to exercise their right of first refusal they would then step into the shoes of the contract purchaser and be responsible for acquiring the property for 1.6 million dollars um and so that's where where this is at this point thank you tom um sorry I was trying to do a little research on here with the GIS um so we have Maria and chris jack okay so Maria then chris or yeah oh I would say like chris go she's probably got some yeah oh I just I just wanted to mention that um this is on the town council agenda for monday night so um not that I want to put any pressure on you and I'm not going to put pressure on you it's completely up to you to decide and if you're not ready to decide that's fine but I just wanted to mention the fact that it is on the town council agenda for monday night very good I'm still navigating my my gs uh you may also be interested and I think I'm at liberty to say this that this property is being considered um for uh um what sort of an incubator space and you may have seen articles about the eruptor um in the town paper so really this is yeah this is the research yes research and development with uh light fabrication small batch fabrication that's that's and that that requires you know and I didn't want to get into it this evening just because I you know don't want to conflate topics because that's a that's a whole separate approval process which will be back in front of this board but yes this is this is the property I I I did not know that so uh but yeah that's a very exciting thing for for Amherst um good to know um and I'm looking again I'm getting distracted by my research uh so Maria and then Doug oh if I think back to previous uh uh approvals like this or sorry projects ahead in front of us like this um we don't normally have like a survey soil samples you know studies it's literally the parcel map what zone it's in and then Chris gives us um her input from town hall um I can't recall a single one that's come in front of us where we have any more information than that honestly I I I feel like this is not unusual um I don't want to say it's like we're rubber stamping but I do say that it's this sounds like a very safe uh decision um like Doug said that was you know David Zomek came just to sort of describe sort of town big picture kind of stuff but if nothing has been raised about this parcel I don't see any need for more information as far as the site itself and the you know its features um so I just wanted to put that out there because I'm trying to as as someone who's been on the board for a while I'm trying to recall previous and I can't remember a single one you know had anything beyond like just seeing the GIS map for the parcels that's it uh and Doug and then Janet yeah now that I realized that that this is the parcel that's related to the eruptor I I need to recuse myself from all of the deliberations related to this um I have a very tenuous family connection to that project thank you thank you uh Janet thank you Doug I appreciate that so um well when we had the salsa I'm not sure I'm pronouncing that right property Dave Zomek gave us kind of a lengthy history of the properties and the town's interested in it he talked about wetlands he talked about the soils and then it was kind of rocky with some ledge and so we have none of this information I mean I do know there's wetlands on it I know there's streams I know it's part of a flood plain you know district it's a recharge area I know nothing with the soils I don't know how it history of the site so I'm going to abstain from voting because I just don't have enough information to make a recommendation or not I don't really have an opinion on how much farmland amherst should have or not have or you know percentages and things like that I just I think that if you're asking me to make a decision about this property I need some information about it and I appreciated having Dave Zomek here and I just feel like we're kind of just kind of saying sure but I don't know the basis of it so that's all I'll say is there any public comment or anything to people is anyone in the audience now if the board has spoken again I think this you know Chris has I think spoken on behalf of the town in terms of general you know approval of this correct Chris um I think I have been around enough to know if anyone has an opinion about this I believe Dave Zomek would have told me if he thought that this property was worth acquiring for the town for agricultural purposes or conservation he's he's been asking me you know when is the planning board going to be meeting about this you know and he just sent me an email today asking how has the planning board decided about this so he's totally aware that the planning board is considering this piece of property tonight and I guess it's too bad that he's not here to talk to you about it okay um Andrew yeah I think some of the like you know the extra information that the channel talked about which I thought we need as well like knowing that it's going to be built out as this incubator like is consistent with PRP so like that would have been useful information as part of the presentation we have it now right and I think from a zoning perspective like our job making sure that that you know we've we have got uh you know the the parcels are zoned in such a manner that it helps develop the master plan that seems like it's consistent but I think that's like the level of information I would have would have appreciated sort of in the initial presentation this is what we're trying to do with it because as a member of the planning board I can certainly just be supportive of that use in the PRP so thanks thank you um I see no other comments from the or man's raised by the board so we can go to public comment and I see none Pam oh we're gonna end up Janet Keller Janet please state your name and address please Janet you're muted you need to unmute yourself sleep sorry um Janet Keller 120 Pulpin Hill Road North Amherst um so I just um I just have a question for you um it it is um a piece of farmland um that does indeed have flood plains and wetlands on it um and um I don't know that either the state law or um the zoning law um so I guess my question is is this strictly limited to you deciding whether to advise the town council to purchase it um to take the right of first refusal or does it have anything to do with the underlying land and the area surrounding it and I just don't know enough about that but um as a neighbor and in a butter you know that's important to me Chris would you like to respond to that um so there are a number of things to consider here and I think the primary one is that no one in town has come up with a use for this property no one has stepped forward and said the town really needs to purchase this land and operate a farm there or you know farm this property or sell it as a farm and and we absolutely need to have this remain as farmland this has been zoned PRP ever since I came to town which was a pretty long time ago um and it's always been the thought of people on the planning board and in town government that this would eventually be developed for PRP which is professional research park and so there is um you know a proposal to develop this property for professional research park so um the idea of stepping in and saying um no we don't want that to happen we want this property to remain farmland and we're willing to pay 1.6 million dollars for this property to remain farmland um that would be the statement that you would be making if you recommended to the town council just that if you were to recommend to town council to purchase this property because you felt like it really needed to maintain as farmland or that it needed to become conservation land that's sort of running counter to the way this property has been zoned you know probably since 1972 I'm not I'm guessing but you know I go back almost that far in town so um that's kind of the choice and so you you need to make a choice to recommend to make a recommendation to town council they're the ultimate deciders in this case but that that would be my um that'd be my thought process the other thought process would be if something is built there and it is a contributing um you know revenue generator that's a benefit to the town if the town spends 1.6 million dollars to purchase the property and it's that money that we didn't have in our budget we're going to have to go somewhere to get that money we'll have to go to CPAC or you know the state or I'm not sure where we're going to get the money but we'd have to go somewhere to get it we're taking it out of our operating budget or our general budget or our capital budget so it it kind of opens up a lot of doors to think about if you were to decide this land should not be used for PRP it should be used for farmland and we're going to recommend that the town spend that money to purchase this property so that remains the way it is right now that's kind of my opinion about what you're deciding yeah again I actually pulled this up finally you know there there certainly are wetland issues that's not under our purview with the planning commission but uh knowing that the uh what is it the um the the the eruptor okay knowing that the eruptor project is behind this I mean I mean knowing that Dave Zomac has not you know said you know otherwise Paul Baucherman anyone um I think this is this is uh you know go as far as I'm concerned um again Amherst has is overflowing with you know open and recreational you know spaces and uh and I can't imagine that this property going toward you know a development uh project in the future would be a judgment uh to the town so um I'm good you know I know that we don't have everything all the information that we would like but um um Tom um maybe you can fill in you know some gaps here but um I guess what gaps can I help fill in oh I don't I did I miss the mark anywhere here so no I mean I I think you I think Chris said it really well in the message that would be sent to town council um by a planning board recommendation that the the town council exercise that's right a first refusal you know I think the I can echo Chris's sentiment that I you know I've talked to Dave Zomac quite a bit about this land this project and I didn't want to speak for him um but to Chris's point we're on the town council agenda for Monday um and so if that if you get the sense of where the town is at with acquiring this this property and then you know I would I think Chris brings up a great point of of what the planning board has done um you know 40 years ago with the zoning of it as as PRP and without an outcry from the folks in town hall that this is a crucial piece to me it's it's probably a hopefully a deliberative but simple decision that that the planning board recommends um town council does not exercise the right of first refusal very good any any uh discussion further discussion on the board I see none uh public comment good so we have a motion anywhere andra thanks motion okay what's the motion the motion is that you the board recommends that the town council not exercise it's right a first refusal is that the motion that is the motion I'll second so uh any uh discussion okay could we just take it a vote then um andrew hi um dog abstain abstain janet abstain um yohana hi uh did I skip you maria I did approve yes okay and I uh approve as well so I think what is that four four zero two abstentions okay thank you very much thanks talking to everybody we'll we'll see you soon stay well bye bye thanks so uh next is chapter 61 a release request property of michael j stoss and laury a stoss land on market hill road map 3c parcel 106 which is 5.75 acres so that's I'm going to be presenting that because I don't see anyone I don't think there's anyone here on behalf of um the landowner and um essentially what they're doing they don't have a purchase and sale agreement here um so presumably the land would be if the town were to exercise the right of first refusal um it would have to either be assessed by the town or it would have to be we'd use the assessor's numbers which I don't have here um but essentially can can pam bring up the map yes I just need a second to remember where I put it it's in here no sorry about that so this is property on market hill road and it's owned by the um michael stoge and laury stoge and they live on market hill road and they're asking to have this piece of land that is outlined in yellow here uh parcel 3c dash 106 removed from chapter 61 a and um I believe what they're doing is they're changing the use of the property the property is currently under chapter 61 a which is agricultural and horticultural and they are proposing to change the use to residential I believe although it's not completely clear but they're not proposing to sell it yes in the bottom of the first paragraph this letter constitutes statutory notice that the owner intends to convert the parcel to a residential use from an agricultural use so that's what they're proposing to do and they haven't given me any more information about that but you have the packet and you have any questions I think there are other maps that um are further down in the packet aren't there pam in the highland portions of of amherst that's all Mitchell this is this is stoge yeah so here's the map map c3 106 so there are already buildings on 3c 19 and they've already taken 3c 25 which is that flag lot to the east they've already taken that out of chapter 61 a and now they want to take out this 3c 106 and I think the building there is a barn we have another map and this is a survey map it's pretty good so are there questions about this well I guess I would have to ask you know as Dave Zomac or you know else you know within the town made a recommendation no one has given me any indication that the town is interested in using this property for anything but they're aware Dave Zomac knows that this is coming before okay wood tonight and he sent it to town council just like he sent the other one to town council to make sure that they were both submitted in proper form okay so that says kind of like um what is it um some sort of approval if he had thought that the town should purchase this property he would have told me yeah yeah okay presumptive approval that's what I was thinking so um good any uh I see a couple Andrew and then Janet yeah I'll just say I I know this this property and the Stoats family you know they're related to Atkins not exactly sure how they're the Titans family but um I've driven by this thing like gazillion times over decades I don't know that I've ever really seen seen it farmed like it's sort of an awkward lot just triangular and it's almost on a plateau um it's got sort of hills uh on the other side of Market Hill it doesn't really seem like it's particularly useful for farming and I can't imagine that um this is one I will say like I feel comfortable with this one knowing knowing the property and seeing that it to me it seems like that it's probably not a very viable use for the the town's money to pursue to preserve for farming thanks thank you um Janet um I'd like to first express the hope that if the Stoats have this in agricultural um 61a for tax purposes that they are indeed farming but um I don't know anything I just want I just hope that when we get these requests in the future to make recommendations we have any some information about the land and its value or its use or its potential use or its record anything I just I can't vote on something where I know nothing about it so I'm going to abstain again but I really hope this doesn't keep happening it sorry yeah I think probably Chris just having a little something from the town um in terms of a formal memo would be helpful um but I think we can read between the lines and and understand the town's position uh on this so any other comment Andrea your your hands up that's I was just gonna say at the risk no just at the risk of calling the IRS upon Stoats like I'm sure they do use it for farming and I just haven't paid close enough attention um you know we should probably just do a side business for these things right I mean like it's it's easy enough to go there and get our eyes on it that would probably happen that's all and um I should probably invite Dave Zomek to come to these meetings while we're talking about chapter 61a release requests uh Doug please may make a motion that we uh recommend the town council that they not exercise their right of first refusal to purchase this land good uh I'll second that uh any discussion and see none uh let's take a vote um Maria uh Andrew hi and Doug hi Janet I'm staying and Johanna hi and I am a yes as well so let's six excuse me five yes one abstention good okay so uh topics not excuse me oh okay uh topics not reasonably anticipated 40 hours prior to this meeting anything Chris I don't have any topics okay very good form a and r subdivision applications no no form a and r okay uh upcoming zba applications no not tonight yeah we know we're meeting every week I mean we probably can like just peel the the this part of the agenda quite frankly um are you okay with that just go right to the board of the chair uh for the staff well so you could decide that this is a regular meeting of the planning board because it's on the schedule and next week you're holding kind of an irregular meeting so on irregular meeting nights maybe we could drop all of these things and regular meeting nights we go through them how's that okay all right so um with regard to uh planning board committee and liaison reports uh minor valentine commission I have nothing uh cpca Andrew we're not meeting we just got a newsletter sent to us I'll I'll flip it over to a chris new jack maybe just watch the board for them for you all to review at your leisure okay and then the ag commission we did get a notice from our staff member that the ag commission will not be meeting until further notice okay uh uh okay and then tom's not here for the design review board and then christine uh oh we can't really get into this but again thank you janet for correcting you know the the process chart uh has been up you know we had the wrong one and but we'll we're going to be talking about zoning bylaws quite a bit uh next wednesday so I think we can we can you know attack it at that time and again you know it's you know it's late but janet you okay with that I'm sorry what okay with what I'm just saying that that that that process with with the crc um we have a we now we have a chart that has been distributed to the planning board that is uh we have the right one now we have a related one and we're going to be talking about zoning bylaws and that's all we're going to be talking about next week so I'm just thinking that we're going to be good to go to take that discussion up then so now but I think it's a strange irony that I voted against this process chart a year ago and nobody who voted for it see I mean just I would like to see us implement the process we agreed to and not in this hell's rush to zoning amendments because we're talking about the things next week and they're supposed to have a hearing another public hearing and I still don't know when these have been sent you know they've been submitted to us for for yeah I just I don't understand this seems like we're going faster and faster on less and less information following random processes and you know we're having here public hearing scheduled way before we're ready I don't know why a year ago we decided to like put the zoning subcommittee on hiatus and that would be the committee that would go through things and here we are in the situation where we're just kind of like every week is a new week and you know everybody's looking at the wrong chart and what differences make if nobody implements it I'm just really disturbed by this whole thing I just wish yeah well I think you know Chris is going to speak but I believe that we can continue the hearing if we're not ready we don't need to why why do we have a public hearing until they're ready but I think we are at the disposal of the town council I mean we're a planning board we take our kids from them but let's say what Chris has to say here we could decide our own schedule with Chris Chris I I just wanted to say that during the meeting I did email Mandy Joe Haneke to find out her opinion about when things were things were submitted to the planning board so in her opinion the town council referred the rezoning of 14 a 33 the cds parking lot to town to the planning board on May 24th and then she has given me other dates she's given me the motions for all of the other referrals and I will forward this to you this evening so you can all read it and then if you have questions we can talk about it next week but I just wanted to confirm that in her mind the town council had referred this to the planning board on May 24th and that's the date of submittal and that's the date that the 65 day clock starts so I would love to hear from Lynn Gricemer in KP law but what is what it means to submit to the planning board and why we're not following the old process the process they started so I you know these are legal issues very good um moving on again report to the chair I have nothing to report to staff see you next week right see you next Wednesday we're lucky this is like such a thing we're meeting every week uh okay um in adjournment thank you so much everyone thank you I we all are doing a lot I think to keep up with you know what town council I guess and and and you know Paul Balkum and etc so I'm very appreciative of of everyone being available as much as we have so it's um anyway good night morning everyone good night good morning good night