 Okay, Jack, we are live and you are a co host, we are recording and Amherst media is in the house. So you are good to begin. Okay. Welcome to the Amherst planning board meeting of September 1 2021 my name is Jackson second as a chair of the Amherst planning board. I am calling this meeting to order at what 634pm. The meeting is being recorded and is available via Amherst media live stream minutes are being taken, pursuant to the chapter 20 of the acts of 2021, the planning board meeting, including public hearings will be conducted via remote means using the zoom platform the zoom meeting link is available on the meeting agenda posted on the town websites calendar listings for this meeting, or go to the planning board web page 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 technological means. In the event we are unable to do so for the reasons of economic hardship and despite best efforts, we will post an audio or video recording transcript or other correspondence. Record of the proceedings as soon as possible after the meeting on the town of Amherst website, or members that will take a roll call when I call your name and you yourself answer firmly and then place yourselves back on mute. Maria chow. Tom long. President. Andrew McDougal. Doug Marshall. President. Janet McGowan here. Donna Newman here. Okay, and I'm myself of course. If you're members of technical issues arise may need to pause temporarily to fix the problem, and then continue the meeting at the discussion needs to pause, it will be noted in the minutes. Please use a raise hand function to ask a question or make a comment, I will see your raised hand and call on you to speak. If you're speaking remember to remute yourself opportunity for public comment will be provided during the general public comment period and is reserved for comments regarding items that are not on tonight's agenda public comment may also be heard on a other appropriate times in the meeting. Please be aware of the board will not respond to comments during the general public comment period. Please indicate if you wish to make a comment by clicking the raise hand button when public comment is solicited if you have joined the zoom meeting is a telephone. Please indicate you wish to make a comment by pressing star nine on your telephone. President McGowan, please identify yourself by stating your full name and address, bring yourself back in mute when finished speaking and residents can express their views up to three minutes at the discussion of the planning board chair. The speaker does not comply with these guidelines or exceeds their a lot of time, their participation will be disconnected from meeting. So with that. We have no minutes to review correct. All right, so we have let me bring up. Looks like we have five attendees. This is a public comment period. If anybody would like to speak I see two hands three hands. Susanna must prat then he'll agree bomb and then Pam Rooney. I also can't hear you, Pam. Back I have the timer if you need it. Oh, yeah, you want to put that on that's fine. Yeah, that'd be great. So Susanna must read you know state your name and address please. I have two general comments. The first one is that I know you have closed the public hearing on several of the issues on the agenda. But there have been some significant changes. And so I hope that the, the language that's being proposed since the public hearing ended and so I hope you will allow further public comment tonight on those issues. The second is that when it comes to the apartment's discussion. I think that Marine provide an analysis of the impact of this change in the two BL districts downtown. She studied the impacts in a lot of other parts of town and completely ignored those two districts, which we're very interested in. And I'd like to see it both with the current zoning and with the proposed new zoning for those bills. Very good. Thank you. Next we have Hilda green bombs that your name and address please. Hilda green bomb 298 Montague road, and I would like to be able to comment on both parking and the apartments when that moment arises. I guess I have something else not my mind now I can't remember what it was I'll think of it in a minute. Thank you. Thank you, Hilda. Pam Rooney. State your name and address please. Pam Rooney 42 cottage street. Miss must print took the words out of my mouth. I think we have accumulated a number of wording changes and graphic change changes and analysis that has been provided to both the CRC and now to the planning board. After the fact after the public hearing closed and hopefully you will allow public comment to take place since you've essentially got new material to discuss. Secondly, this must protect covered my second topic which was why the heck that we have the BL analysis for North Pleasant Street and triangle street. Thank you I look forward to those conversations. Thank you, Pam. Chris, what was what's your opinion. You know we have closed the public hearings. There have been changes. What's the protocol in this. In this situation. Well, the planning board can decide whether it wants to take public comment or not. You've closed the public hearing so you're not obliged to take public comment because we're not in the public comment period anymore we're in the discussion deliberate deliberation and voting period but if you feel that the changes have been significant enough that you want to hear more public comment. You can decide that you don't have to decide right now. You can wait and see what the changes are. I think that you've received the changes either in your packets or the email since the last since last week, and it may be that after you see what the after you kind of confront the nature of the changes that you'll have a better opinion about whether you want to take public comment or not. So that's what I would say is wait until you have kind of an assessment of what the changes are. That sounds reasonable. Janet you have your hand up. Taking public comment during the deliberation period of the planning board on a zoning amendment different from reopening the public hearing, which I think we were talking about at the last meeting is there a difference between those two. And of course I'm in favor of the public comment I feel like this has been a quick process and I'm always interested in hearing from the community. Yeah, so if you were to reopen the public hearing you would have to re advertise it. And I don't think you're planning to do that so it's at the discretion of the planning board and the planning boards chair as to whether you all want to take more public comment you're not obliged to. Okay. Very good. All right so. Next item. I can't hear. Max muted. I can't even. I can't hear either. What happened I'm sorry. I muted myself. All right, but I was wondering, are there opening comments that you gave me I don't, again, there's been a lot of files for this for this session. Yes, yes, Jack, it was with your opening comments. I scanned them all together into one document. Oh, there it is. I think. Yes, I got it. All right, thank you. All right, so we're noting the time at 644. This was scheduled for 635 were good to go in accordance with the provisions of mgl chapter 40 a. This public hearing has been duly advertised and notice there have has been posted and is being held for the purpose of providing the opportunity for interested citizens to be heard regarding SPR 2022 dash zero three Amherst college way finding sign system various locations request sign plan site plan review approval under article eight of the zoning bylaw of a complete way finding environmental sign design package to be located at multiple addresses on and off the Amherst college campus including 155 South Pleasant Street, 101 South Pleasant Street 129 South Pleasant Street location on Spring Street. 46 Boltwood Avenue 140 College Street 22 Hitchcock Road 22 Snow Street and 14 Hitchcock Road. So are there any board member disclosures on this. I see none. All right. And we would ask Amherst college to present this. May I make some remarks to see. Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah, you asked that. Yes. So, good evening. I'm Chris Brester planning director and I wanted to just give some remarks to put this project in context. Amherst college is proposing to install a way finding sign system throughout their campus and elsewhere. Three places where the signs are being proposed and I'm sure Tom Davies will go into this in more detail later. But the three places are in the ED educational zoning district on the Amherst college campus. Amherst college is presenting a general overview overview of the sign system to the planning board. And this will satisfy the requirement in section 3.2 1 1 of the zoning bylaw, which requires that the residents of projects within the ED zoning district submit plans to the planning board prior to installation. The second part of their sign project is signs in the town right of way. And these include areas along town streets and the town common. These signs are being reviewed by town council, which has referred the signs to the TSO town services and outreach committee. The TSO has referred them to the design review board and historical commission, which have both submitted comments to the TSO. And the TSO will be reporting back to town council prior to its vote in a few weeks. And the third type of sign or this the third location of signs for Amherst college is on private property owned by Amherst college, which is not in the ED zoning district. And these signs are generally located in the general residence district with one or two signs proposed in other districts. And these signs fall into two categories. Signs that meet the zoning requirements as to height, size, and number of signs on a single property and I think Seth did a very good job of sort of outlining this in the big chart that he sent you. There are also signs that need a waiver and the waiver is under is being requested under section 8.5 of the zoning bylaw. And they're asking for waivers for height, size and number of signs on a single property. Article eight of the zoning bylaw contains a section for modification and waivers. And it says that any section or subsection of article eight, which is the sign regulations may be waived or modified by the permit granting board or special permit granting authority, authorized to act under the applicable section of the bylaw for compelling reasons of public convenience, public safety, aesthetics or site design. So Amherst College is coming to the board to obtain waiver waivers and modifications for the signs that I sent recently I listed all the signs and I sent a copy of that list to Amherst College and to the planning board members, as well as to Pam if she's able to pull that up Of course Amherst College had sent us their own list of signs, but it was sort of embedded in a larger list so I thought it might be helpful to pull out the actual signs that we're asking the planning board to review so thank you very much and I'll turn this back to Tom Davies now. Thank you. So, Chris, that's the email you sent what I said, I sent it at about 615 tonight I think but anyway. Okay. Yeah, I have five. Okay, nine locations and the number of signs and the types of signs that are being examined here tonight just to kind of narrow your focus on to exactly what you're being asked to do, and you don't necessarily need to refer to this list tonight but it may be helpful from time to time to refer to it. And I also provided you a set of maps which show at a large, a larger scale where these different, where my understanding of these different signs is located. That also may be helpful but I'm sure Amherst College also has that in their presentation so it's available if you need to look at it or want to look at it but you don't necessarily have to do that. Thank you. Thanks Chris. So Tom. Great. Hi everybody. Thank you for your time this evening. And thanks for persevering through what is a far more complex process than I think any of us would have ever guessed. And Chris and her other colleagues at the town have been terrific and in helping to guide us through this. So I will, I will make a couple of introductory comments and then we'll, we'll kind of run through all this with our, our folks here we have Andrew Bracey from Role Bracey who is our wayfinding and signage consultant and designer. And Seth you mentioned earlier has been really spearheading the effort to try to figure this thing out and shepherd it through the multiple presentations and reviews and processes and trying to just keep everything figured out. So I want to provide a little bit of context in that, although I probably don't even have to say this but most campuses have some kind of campus identification and wayfinding. And that has been lacking at Amherst College. But the, the, the primary motivation for this is our, our president and trustees want to convey the, the welcoming and the inclusion that is at the core of the college that that you know, we go way way way across the globe to attract. And bring families and students from all kinds of diverse backgrounds and different economic circumstances to the college and then when they get there they can't tell where the colleges are where to go it's it's not terribly welcoming. So that's really at the core of what this is about. The, the second kind of just general comment that I'll make is that largely what we're talking about here are what I will maybe some people may disagree but but we're talking about technicalities largely related to the fact that much of our campus for historic reasons is not in ED zone. We have significant chunks of the campus that are in the general residence. And just having, you know, and multiple dormitories for example on one property so once you have a sign in front of each building, you know, that's more than one and therefore we need a special permit or a waiver for that. So we'll be running through all that stuff. And I guess we'll just start running through it and I guess what I want to what I'm wondering out loud is if at some point you might say okay well let's let's let's skip ahead and get to the next piece because there's a lot to it so with that as a vague introduction, why don't I hand it over to Andrew and he can step us through these different pieces to it. Thank you. Can everybody see my see what's up on my screen here. Yes. Okay. So what we want to have here is the package that was sent to you some time ago. Essentially intact but what we've done is to make slight modifications to the illustration so it's clear. So for example we've faded out the signs that are not in your purview and highlighted the ones that are so it's all clear what we're talking about. We've augmented some of the sign elevations with a little inset maps that show you where they're located so again it's just easier to walk you through it but essentially it's the same information that was sent to you before. And as Tom said we've been. 18 months now maybe a little longer that we've been developing this comprehensive plan with amherst college to sort of complete that last leg of a perspective students journey or first time visitors journey, which is getting you hopefully to the right place to put your car and get out of your car orient yourself on foot and beyond your way to where it is you're going and you're going to see that the signage that we've developed is really speaking primarily to first time visitors, and is addressing those destinations that are predominantly those, those more public first visitor destinations so we're not, we're not referring to everything on a side as things like the museums and athletics and of course admissions those kinds of destinations and parking. And what we've done is to create a system that is has multiple parts. What we're seeing here is that welcome statement that Tom mentioned. Okay, so gateways to the campus, both primary gateways, such as at the intersection of South pleasant college, and also down near the entrance to admissions and secondary gateways, such as on East Drive and the entrance at quadrangle, and then at various locations. On the outer routes, some small trailblazer signs that that hopefully gets you to these to these gateway moments. The other sign types are for vehicular way finding. So directional signs, like you see here on the left, both larger and smaller, the smaller ones are principally on the campus there's very few of them. But they're helping very importantly to get visitors to accessible parking locations, for example. And then we want to be sure that when you've arrived at a building it's clearly identified. So the meat art museum, for example, or Pratt Field admission center, again those high first time visitor destinations, smaller, lower profile ones for those buildings that you're approaching sort of face on, as opposed to from a distance. And very importantly, parking, we want to be sure that those principal parking lots for visitors are clearly identified as Amherst college lots. So those parking identification signs are part of the overall kit of parts that are consistent with the design that you're seeing elsewhere, and then secondary lots that are more sort of private kind of lots have a smaller identification than finally pedestrian way finding. So we want to celebrate those museums the performance halls the theaters with banners on campus. And then, as I said, when you get out of your car, have a orientation map there for you and we have a few different kinds, depending on the location and application we have a three sided kiosk, which also combines posters of coming events and those kinds of things. We have a double sided sign for most parking lots. It's upright so it's right there and you can see it right when you get out of your car. And on the other side when you're returning to your car, perhaps there's a poster about what's going on at the museums and music, a performance center and theater so that you're encouraged to come back and visit as well. And then finally, the lower profile one, which is like a tabletop for interior in the campus, where we really don't want to block your view to those things that you're looking for. And while not a trail of breadcrumbs, we do have periodic small scale pedestrian directional signs at those key decision points where you need just a little bit of encouragement. So we provide some directional signs for pedestrians there. As far as the design rationale for what you're seeing, we're really trying to keep things as small scale as possible, though still being legible. So all the signs have a very dark background, such as this very dark aubergine color, which is consistent with the college's identity but verging on a black. So it's there's a hint of it there, but it's a very dark panel and the reason we're doing that is so that the signage can recede into the landscape doesn't really scream at you. There are dark old gray posts, which is reminiscent of the granite material you see in the landscape and in buildings around campus. And finally, all the information is white on that dark background so it's very legend. So the information is there that you can clearly see the signage isn't playing a starring role. And we're using materials that are consistent with what you see on campus, particularly in the case of these maps, where we're using granite bases. In some cases reclaimed granite from previous projects that is still stored on campus, but all very consistent with what you're seeing on the campus. So giving you these examples that we sent to you previously. These gateways are not necessarily. These aren't signs that are, you know, in the discussion tonight but we think it gives you a more comprehensive understanding of the overall program this is that East Drive where we said we have a gateway. We're doing landscape improvements along with the signage that you can see here with granite seeding walls and retaining walls, new plantings that are native and smaller scale trees as a backdrop, really trying to improve the overall sense of welcome not just with the sign, but with the landscape as well. So East Drive being an important entrance but we feel as a secondary entrance. So we have this upright a tavern style sign here. And you can see different views of it. It's a double sided sign. So we're getting people coming and going along college street. Andrew, I interrupt you but is that where the bus stop is trying to get oriented. This is East Drive right here and this is college street right here. You can go back to the plan. So again college street. The railroad. The railroad bridge. The railroad bridges right. Oh it's further down. Okay. Yeah. At the corner of college street running this way and South Pleasant Street this is at the four way intersection. We have a primary gateway, which wraps the curved corner here like this set back, and we're making a proposed sidewalk and landscape improvements here as well. So you can see in the design here with the granite seating wall here so that people if they're waiting at the light can can sit. It's also designed in such a way that you can sort of see through it it's not a big wall. It has a sort of a transparent quality to it while also having of course, sufficient scale to be read from across the wide intersection. So if you look up the view to the landscape or doesn't obstruct it I should say a similar type of gateway here, along with similar landscape improvements at the entrance to the athletic center area and admissions. Here you can see where we're realigning the walkway through the landscape and a similar style gateway here with the granite seating wall and the signage with dimensional letters. Now, this is the comprehensive program you're seeing here and that was in your packet. Not all of these signs of course are what we're reviewing tonight, but it gives you a sense of the total scope of the program and the various different kinds of sign types in our locations and we've taken that and it's superimposed over your zoning plans here, and, you have details of each one of these sections of the map. Not again all of these sections do not have signs under your, your consideration, such as here. But in this location here. So this is Main Street, and this is South Pleasant Street here. We did have a trailblazer sign here but through our coordination with the town sign program that we've been doing these past few weeks we've been able to eliminate that sign. But here on Spring Street is the entrance to our alumni lot. So that's an important visitor oriented parking lot. We want to be sure that's clearly identified with a parking ID sign. We have elevations as you know, in the packet of each one of these locations that we're asking you to consider. So D 1004 is one of those. Here we have to orient you route nine College Street and 116 South Pleasant Street. And here at 79 South Pleasant where the building that houses the human resources is located it's very important that we identify that with an Amherst sign, because it does get outside visitors. So we have C 1004 on that parcel, as well as a three sided kiosk at that location. We have a small scale parking identification sign on that parcel as well. So we have three on that one parcel, hence the request for the waiver there on this parcel down here. Excuse me may I say something. Sorry to interrupt but I think that the actual address of the signs that you just talked about the F 1002 and C 1004 actually on the adjacent parcel they're not actually on the parcel that has 79 South Pleasant. Just, I wanted to clarify that for the planning board members who have lists of all of these signs so those signs are actually on. I think that is 101 South Pleasant South Pleasant Street, and it's a dormitory building. So the signs that Andrew just spoke about, lead you to the, the building at 79 South Pleasant but they're actually on the adjacent property. That's what I wanted to say. Sorry for not clarifying that. That's correct. So here is a vehicular directional sign be one dash 005 which is directing folks. I'm sorry. She's directing folks to admissions right and the museum and visitor parking straight ahead. We're coordinating with the town sign program as I said before. So there's no redundancies in the messages that the town sign system is is carrying and what ours are carrying. We're also coordinating with them to refine, you know the spacing between the signs so there's no conflict there. This small parking area is also identified on that parcel. This small parking sign D to 004. And finally, further support for alumni house. We have a identification sign for alumni house as well as a, another three sided kiosk at that location here. This small pedestrian directional sign, so that when you've parked at the alumni lot, and you're making your way. You've oriented at that kiosk. And as I said make your way down the path. There's a little bit of encouragement there with a small pedestrian directional sign, helping you to get on your way to the main part of campus. We have a bridgecock road. We have a building identification sign is small scale one. C two dash 003 believe that Smith House. And off of South Pleasant Street C to 005 for. I think that Scott House, and this is. County pool as well so just small building identification signs for those buildings on on those two parcels there. And a parking identification sign the second one for the alumni lot on ceiling, because some folks approach come off of college and go up silly here to enter that lot as well. And so we've singled out elevations for those signs we're asking you to consider. This was part of the number of signs we were looking at but in our meetings with the design review board and the historic commission. And of course TSO that sign has moved out of its original location, and is a located off of a South Pleasant, just prior to Bill Brook. I'm always misplacing the name of that that small street. We have a conflict with the town directional sign at that location as well. So again we're trying, we're trying to accommodate and coordinate with the town sign system as much as we can and make modifications where possible. But that is no longer a sign that we're asking you to look at. And for what it's worth I think that's well not straight there. Chris you have your hand up still you muted. I have my hand up I'm sorry. Okay. There is. This is that directional sign that I mentioned on North Hampton Road leading up to the intersection. As I said talking about admissions and athletics and straight ahead for the Amherst College museums and visitor parking. We've modified this message so there's no redundancy with what the town system is asking for. Again, these are painted ill posts charcoal gray with a black bracket that holds the dark averaging panel with reflective white lettering identification signs for alumni house here. And parking lot identification signs for South, I mean, the 79 South pleasant offices here. These are the smaller scale signs for Smith House of a pitchcock, Scott House and Ponte pool as well. We need to give permit information when when you can and can't park there as well with regard to overnight parking. So we're doing that for the alumni lot at the entrance off of spring, and at the entrance off of seal. And the smaller scale ones for the secondary lots. Here at Hitchcock Hall. And college and Morgan calls. This is the three sided kiosk with the granite base and the locked display case that houses digital prints, which will be backlit. So inside there'll be illumination. But it's just to provide lighting at night for those translucent prints that will be in the case. This is the one there's one in front of in the lot adjacent to 79 South pleasant as well as adjacent to the house. And the two sided a style here at the Dickinson lot as well on near East Drive. And here's that small pedestrian directional sign I mentioned from your path from alumni house to the king. Again talking about those key for some visitor buildings like the music bill arms music building converse hall, where there's often conferences meet Art Museum the chapel, of course, and the two theaters. And this is the comprehensive list of the signs that we're asking you to consider. Is there anything that you'd like us to circle back to or having questions about. Well, I believe, you know, we have a, we had a site site walk here. Someone from like to make a report on that. Tom Maria, Andrew Tom. Okay, Tom, you want to, you know, go over there. I got there a couple minutes late so I thought maybe these guys would, you know, cover for me but so we basically went to the alumni lot and we had both the plan and the signage package available to us so we were able to have friends different locations with the signs and their actual scale. Chris was there and illustrated for us actually did today. Why we're looking at certain signs. There are more than we would typically allow by zoning within this particular site or this one is too tall, or this one is too much for footage and so on so we were able to have some clarity about why we're looking at the different signs, which was super helpful. And when we started in the alumni lot we were able to move through a collection of at least four different locations right within that particular site where we were able to see where we would have the information kiosk that we see here, as well the taller sign, and one of the taller parking signs as well so we're able to kind of see where all of those different sign types actually even a small pedestrian sign, you know, see where those would all be within that location. So we can get a sense of the scale and proportion and how it would sit in the landscape which is really helpful. So when we moved from the alumni lot out to boltwood ab and across the common river to look at the site for along silly house and along south pleasant and look at a few other locations. Again just to get a sense of the flavor and the scale of the signs and how they be positioned within that landscape. We had a scale question as to what these taller signs at 12 feet might look like in context and at one point. I was used as a puppet and ran across the street to stand next to a state highway sign, and we could gauge the height of that sign based on my height so everyone would know what 12 feet look like on 116 to someone driving by. So we had a sense of scale within that context as well for the tallest sign that was on that list. And then from there we kind of regrouped about what signs were around and individually went off and visited those signs separately, just so we didn't have to walk all the way around the neighborhood but we had the flavor. We had the signage package and we're able to see those visit the other sites as well. And I think that pretty much covers what we what we had discussed but anyone else can chime in and give us a flavor to support that. Who was at the site. I was myself, Andrew Maria and Chris. Okay. Andrew Maria you went. That was a perfect job. Okay, we measured in units of Tom for height so some signs were to Tom's tall and one were just like one Tom tall. 1.5 times. So is this, I'm just wondering for the folks that did this is this. And we kind of like review this as one package or do you feel like it needs to be divvied up or, because it is quite expansive, you know, you know, normally we're looking at one side. And here we're looking at, you know, a couple dozen. Just wondering, you know what what your feelings were on that Tom and then Andrew. Sure. I mean, my sense was that we were looking at a package and we're gauging how it would fit into our landscape and I think it would be a challenge to go through each one and say, you know, this one's oversized by two square feet in this dimension or this one is too tall. I think we were looking for the moments where we found something that might be offensive or trusive or break with the consistency of Amherst landscape and I think at least the way I approached it when I was looking for the anomaly I was looking at that which might be a problem. So I approached it that way so I don't necessarily I think we could probably bring up if we think there was something that we want to draw attention to you but I think we can imagine it as a package that would need to be approved from my perspective without necessarily having to go sign by sign. Okay, Andrew. Thank you Tom and I think just Andrew's presentation helped help us understand the intent of some of the heights of these. You know, as we walk the placements, I think there's certainly nothing that was even remotely obnoxious or concerning. I would agree that we can look at them as a single package. Very good. Thank you. So that's the site visit report. And you can just open up to the board at this point. I see Doug. Yeah, I had three, three questions and I guess one is directly related to the graphics and the sign design and the other two are more peripheral but related I guess. So the first question was about the building signs where you listed a date under them. I can assume, I guess that the typical date is the date of completion of the building if Amherst College built it. I'm just curious if it's a building that you purchased what date do you use. They're consistent in that they are the date of the original construction. So for example 79 South pleasant that Andrew just pulled up here. I noticed in 2005 ish. Okay. And yet, you know, we're, we're calling it 1834. Okay. And then I noticed on the town engineers letter that he said we need that this should include the replacement of the failing brick and granite sidewalks on South Pleasant Street and Tom. You were here before us earlier this year. You know, you sort of tried to be as diplomatic as you could that Amherst College had put those in and the town was obligated to maintain those. It seems like there's some sort of disconnect between the town and your college. So I wondered, maybe Chris could advise us on how we kind of address that comment from the engineer. Yes, Chris. So I think that the town engineer was commenting on the sign project in general. And I think his comments really related more to the sidewalk that is being proposed around the corner of what is that the entry drive into the athletic center and South Pleasant Street. And that's not one of the things that the town that the planning board is reviewing that's one of the things the town council is reviewing. So I would say, as far as the planning boards review of this project that issues related to crosswalks are not relevant. And there is a sort of continuing dialogue between the town and the college about those crosswalks. But as I said, it's not part of the planning board review process. The last comment. I think was more something that it makes me kind of makes me wonder whether we on the planning board ought to be thinking more about since a lot of these reviews are because we have Amherst College buildings that are not in the you know, should we be thinking about redefining, you know, expanding the ED zone to be more reflective of the current boundaries of any of our higher institution, higher education institutions in town. You know, I know Amherst College and you know they all probably buy and sell property on a slow moving basis, but maybe we it's been a little bit too long since we considered that. So that's a comment I guess for Chris and maybe our agenda at some point in the future. Certainly something to be considered. So we will put that on our list of things to talk about in the future. And Tom Davies says to stand up. Okay, Tom. I can without question, tell you that the college would wholeheartedly embrace that effort and would make all kinds of things about our lives easier in the future so we look forward to that conversation and can do it however you you all decide is appropriate. So I assume that there's like some contiguous kind of, you know, properties that could be readily identified is. Is that fair or. Some of the properties I think that would be in question, you know, don't have residential scaled don't have residential buildings on them nor residentially scaled properties. So, you know, maybe not every property we own would be a candidate I don't know but certainly some of them, you know, haven't had residential properties in over 100 years. So, you know, we could talk about the scale and proportion relative to their zoning district. Okay. And are there any other board. Doug, you have your hand up. Yes. Yeah, yeah, I guess I neglected to say I thought this was a really nice package. You know, very sensitive and the presentation to us was pretty complete. You know, everything looks tasteful from my perspective. I'm assuming I would call aubergine purple but other than that I don't have too much to comment. So, you know, thanks I think it looks great. Yeah I mean it's some of those. The ones with Amherst college there that they don't exist which is kind of surprising so it'll be a welcome, you know, addition to to our premier sort of intersections downtown I think Maria. I don't want to say it looks more like eggplant to me but I think yeah, very, very tastefully done and where we walked it looked like it would just sort of blend in where appropriate and stand out where appropriate. Yeah, I think it's more of it. Any other comments from the board, if not, can open up to public comment. Okay, see none so what let's see if there's anything in public comment. Okay, we have eight attendees, I see nothing so I don't know if the applicant, I don't feel like you really need to respond anything but you're welcome to tie up anything based on what you've heard okay good good. And so someone. Okay Doug and then Andrew. Well I thought at the beginning that Chris mentioned that she hadn't put together findings or conditions or anything for us to review. I guess the question would be. Can we move this tonight or do we need to wait for those. That is correct. Chris, what do you. I think you can move it tonight and you can put on, you know, some basic findings like, or excuse me basic conditions such as building. I can't hear Chris. Can't hear me. I'm sorry. I was saying, I can't hear Chris. I'm not muted am I. No, I hear you. I can hear you. I hear you too. Okay. So what I was saying is that you can put on some general conditions like you usually do like, build and install according to plan and manage according to the management plan and if there are any changes. I can't hear Chris. Can other people hear me. I hear you. I hear you. Yeah. Can you hear us? Can you hear anybody, Janet? I can't hear anything. She might be muted. I mean her, her volume on her computer might be muted. Yeah, so Janet, do you hear me? No. Want to try a chat. I don't think we do chat. Someone want to text maybe her and have her like log off and back on. I just texted her. Okay. All right, we'll just hold this up for a minute. Okay, so I have Andrew, did you want to. No, I'm okay. Okay. Wait a couple of minutes here for the Janet get your text. Andrew. I'm just going to exit and come back in. Okay. We'll wait. What time is it? We could take an early break. She could also call in on her phone as well. Yeah. When she comes back, we should like just play a gag and like, say we've wrapped up. See what she does. It's like Janet's back. She's back. Janet, can you hear us? Can you suggest that she check her volume at the bottom of her computer? Will do. Oh, there she is. Yeah. Okay. Janet, do you hear us? Do you hear me? Yes, I do now. I find you. Okay. And do you hear Chris? I didn't hear anything Chris said, but I, I think that I left. I last heard about whether. You were all going to wait for this, the conditions. So I could take a thumbnail of that. So what I said was that you don't necessarily have to wait for conditions. You can put conditions on tonight and you can make them the general ones that you usually apply, but you don't have to wait for that. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to show you what the changes are. Which are that the applicant shall build the, whatever it is according to the plan that is presented and manage it according to the management plan that was presented. And that if there are any changes. That they need to any significant changes that they need to come back and show them to the planning board to determine whether a change will be made or not. So I think that this is usually determined by the building commissioner. Thank you. And then you can also, in terms of findings, have your general finding that this project meets the relevant criteria of section 11.24 of the zoning bylaw. Very good. So I see a number of hands up still. Andrew. Seth. Yeah, Jack, I was ready to make, make that motion. I couldn't track all of the recommendations you made Chris, but certainly like the standard, the standard ones would make sense to me. Although as you were going through them, I think the first one or second one, wouldn't that already be implied anyway in our approval that they would be following. The plan as presented or no. It is, but it makes it easier for the building commissioner to enforce it. If you put it as a condition. Okay. Well, then I, if you don't mind sort of. Regurgitating the standard conditions, I would like to make a motion to approve this. So the standard conditions are for something like this, that the applicant builds whatever it is, according to the plan that has been presented and approved at the planning by the planning board, that the entity manages what is going to be installed according to the management plan. And I must say in the management plan is fairly slim in this regard, but it's accurate. And I saw it tonight. And then the other one is if there are significant changes to the proposal that they would bring back the changes to the planning board for review and approval. And the term determination as to whether the changes are significant enough to require a new site plan review. And then the second thing I said was that you could find that this project meets the relevant criteria of section 11.24 of the zoning bylaw. Okay. And then. Okay, so that's hands down Tom and then Doug. I'll second that. Okay. So, so moved. With regard to what Chris. Has stated any further discussion. I see none. So we do a little roll call. Maria. I approve. And Andrew. Hi. Hi. Hi. Janet. Hi. Johanna. Hi. And myself as an I said seven zero. Closing the public hearing with the conditions. That. Chris mentioned. Thank you, Amherst college. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you all really appreciate it. Thank you, Tom. Have a good evening. All right. You too. All right. So it's seven 34. And now we're going on to zoning amendments. And again, that we've, we've gotten a lot of info. On this and Chris, I don't know if you want to kind of give a preamble to where we are. So we'll dive into the first one, which was be the zoning bylaw article three use regulations. Section 3.2. 3.323 apartments and article 12 definitions. Discussion of vote on recommendation to the town council. To see if the town will vote to amend section 12 definitions of the zoning bylaw to revise. To amend the recommendation of apartments by removing the limit on the maximum number of dwelling units for building to amend section 3.323 to change the permitting requirement for apartments from special permit to site plan review for the residential village center. District and from site plan review to the special permit to the general business. District. And to modify requirements regarding the site bedroom. To amend the recommendation of apartments. To require that enclosed. Enclosed parking on the first or ground floor be located at the rear of the building and designed to reduce visibility from the public way. And to acquire that the principles and standards of the design review board be applied to all new apartment buildings. So it's my understanding that this is, this is. It's been tweaked. A little bit. I'm wondering if you can kind of. I'll give a general statement and then Maureen Pollak is here to talk about specifics. So the general statement is. Three things have changed. One is we're no longer. Suggesting that. You allow. Apartments in the RBC zoning district. By site plan review. We're reverting to special permit there. There is a section that's been added having to do with. Location of apartments and I'm going to let Maureen explain that. And then Doug had a suggestion about. Wording under enclosed parking. So Maureen can. Talk about that as well. So they're really just those three things. Just. It's a marine. Oh, there you are. Oh hi. Hi everyone. Hi everyone. Hi. One second. Okay. So I could. Can everyone hear me? Yes. Yeah. Okay. Great. Full stack. Staticy on my end for some reason. So I could share my screen to show you. The proposed. Language and. If folks want me to go through the. The latest slides that I. Provided. I can see the PowerPoint is data. August 27th. So I could go through that. So let me just pull up. The. The proposal. Let's see here. So. Can everyone see the. The draft language here. Yes. Okay. So just to recap. So. The, the green, bold, italics taxes, the proposed language. And the bold italics with green lettering and highlighted in yellow. It's indicates the proposed language dated. August 16th. So that's the latest edition. And then the red strike through in bold. Indicates. Removal of the existing zoning bylaw. And so just to repeat under article 12 definitions. The proposal is to remove the. The maximum amount of. Units in an apartment building, which is currently max out at 24 units. And we would be. Proposing to remove that. And as Chris had indicated. Earlier in this process, we had. Proposed that in the village center residence zoning district. That it would be by site plan review. We're redacting that and agree that. That that should be by special permit. And we are still proposing that. In the general business zoning district, it would. The proposal is to allow it. By special permit. And we are still proposing that. To remove that. Instead of the current, which is by site plan review. This section just repeats about the removal of the cap of 24 units. Building. And so the latest revision. Is here. Highlighted in the green text in. Highlighted in yellow. Which states proposed apartment building located on any given area of the building. The area of the building should be measured from the nearest point of the building. From the nearest, pleasant street. Self pleasant street main street and amity street. Within the general business zoning district. Shall not be located within 500 feet of an existing apartment building. The distance under the section shall be measured in a straight line from the nearest point of the building in question. I could certainly show you a few slides that I provided to illustrate that proposal. And then continuing on the original, no changes to our other proposals, which the bedroom count gets into how apartment buildings with 10 or more units, there would have to be no more than 50 percent of the total number of dwelling units could have the same bedroom count. We are getting rid of the management plan section largely just because it's redundant. It's a requirement under the Planning Board and Zoning Board of Appeals, Rules, and Regulations, and as part of the application form itself. And as Chris indicated earlier, we made a slight modification to the section about enclosed parking, which is to say that enclosed parking on the first or ground floor located inside the building would need to be at the rear of the building, and it would be designed to minimize, that's the slight modification, minimize the visibility from the public way or walkways in areas customarily used by pedestrians and the public. Oh, and this should be, I guess, oh, yeah, I guess that is in the existing language, but just as a reminder, in all zoning districts, the permit granting authority shall apply the provisions, the design review principles and standards for any new apartment building under this section. And so it says shall apply on those sections. And so if you want, I could pull up, hold on a second, so let's see here. So this is the proposal pertaining to the general business district. Again, you know, the proposal is to say that apartment building located on our main corridors in the downtown in the BG zoning district shall not be located within 500 feet of the existing apartment building. We do know that there is an existing parking building located, let's see here, I believe it's right next door to the black sheep. I think between the black sheep and where lone wolf in the, in that sort of vicinity, it's highlighted here in yellow. It's a long main street. It's a three unit apartment building. And so the measurement would start off of this, because this is the existing parking apartment building and measuring, you know, 500 feet apartment building. It could be located here at the minimal. So here, here, but only, you know, one, one could be located here. And this sort of reflect illustrates this would be the maximum amount of apartment buildings that could be located facing the front of the main corridors in the BG district. And so the proposal. And so we wanted to be respectful of that we want to encourage, you know, mixed use buildings along our main corridor. But we know that, you know, we need to encourage population support for businesses along the main corridors as well. I mean, so we feel that a maximum of five apartment buildings that a but or face the F the our main corridors would not hinder, you know, the streetscape of our main corridors. And so you have that addresses the section along the main corridors facing the street. The parcels. And with this, we could allow that apartment building be behind, you know, behind the building facing facing the front, the front here. So for instance, you know where I'm putting my mouse here there could be a mixed use building set here. But if, if there's enough, you know, lot area and all that, there could be an apartment building that's also existing on the same parcel, or, you know, the parcels back here, such as where the pub is or will be soon demolished. And that that parcel does not a front those main corridors. So an apartment building could be set back there. For instance, there are some existing apartment apartment buildings back here those could remain. And so the emphasis is that it's okay to have, you know, apartments in in the core downtown, but we don't want to have a combination of apartment buildings, particularly on the main corridors where we do want to activate the streetscape and provide a vibrancy of mixed uses such as office buildings and in particularly retail and commercial and you know restaurants and stuff like that. And we do, you know, we do feel that that this mixture of different uses will help support population for businesses. And that housing within walking distance of downtown and our main streets is vital to the to the success of downtown, especially outside of peak hours for retail shops, offices, cafes and restaurants and so on and so forth. So let me just stop you out there because I see a couple of hands up Andrew Doug and then I think Tom had his hand up as well on this BG district I assume so Andrew. Thanks Jack. Thanks Maureen I just want to make sure I'm understanding this map correctly. The yellow squares are exit like all five of those. Okay. Oh thank you that's a great question. Only this one that has this call out is existing. And so the measurement between the proposal is that if you want if someone if an applicant would like an apartment building along these main streets that are listed here. They would have to be 500 feet from at least at least 500 feet from one another. And so the measurement starts from an existing part apartment building. This is the only known existing part apartment building along these main corridors. The measurement from here straight out would reach this sort of vicinity. And this kind of gives you and in this way as well. This kind of gives you an indication where approximately the next apartment building could be located. And if you measured out this way it's just shy of 500 feet. So that wouldn't be possible. So, this is just to illustrate the maximum amount of apartment buildings that could be located along these main streets. Okay, no thanks for clarifying so then the other, like I know there are other residential properties they're just mixed these buildings, the one. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. Yep. Okay, thanks. Thank you, Andrew Doug. So the way you have this worded. We can't build any apartment building on these streets if it's within 500 feet of any apartment building. For instance, the hatched area you show on Amity Street. That's going to be prohibited by the existence of the Perry apartment building. And the hatched area you show on Main Street near Churchill. That's going to be prohibited by the elderly housing apartment building. That's kind of across the street, across the park from that. You know, I think if your intention is that we're only trying to measure from apartment buildings that front one of these streets and is within the BG district. We need to add that language to this proposed bylaw. That's a point well taken, Doug. Yeah, so the intention of this proposal is that the measurement would be only applicable for parcels that are highlighted in the sort of hatching areas. They are the parcels that front, that front, you know, East, East, North and South Pleasant Street Main Street and Amity Street. And so parcels that are in pink, if you will, those are not part of the measurement. They would only be measured within 500 within the sort of the measurement is only within the front part. Yeah, I just think the way you've got it worded. You know, we're going to be measuring from any apartment building regardless of whether it fronts one of these main streets or in regardless of whether it's in the BG district. Okay, point well taken we can certainly take a closer look and see how this could be word, you know, rewarded to be, you know, more clear. Well, I had one other grammatical for a word choice edit that I can come back to that later. Okay, Chrissy. I wanted to ask if we could come up with some wording now that would satisfy this issue. So what do we need to do add some words after the existing apartment building. Let me pull up that this is the official wording. This slide show is sort of a is sort of a just a less technical would be shall not be located within 500 feet of an existing apartment building that is located in the BG zoning district. Is that and all and also fronts in the frontage the same streets. Yes, it has to mimic the exact same statement about East pleasant North pleasant South pleasant that yeah. Word version of this morning. This is a version. Yeah, okay. Can you guys see me making these modifications. Yes. Okay, cool. Would this be. How does this look. So I oppose a proposed apartment building located on any given parcel that fronts onto East pleasant North pleasant South pleasant Main Street and Amity Street within the general zoning district shall not be located within 500 feet of an existing apartment building that is also that is located with the general business zoning district. And oh thank you thank you fronts and also, you know, and also maybe the also might go where you had it earlier right after located. Oh, here I mean. Yeah. Also, and that is located also also within. All right, that is located also within the BG zoning district and also fronts onto East, East North South pleasant Street Main Street and Amity Street, the distance under this section shall be measured in a straight line from the nearest point of the building in question to the nearest point of the building where the proposed apartment building is or will be located. Good work Maureen. No good work you guys thank you. Just do your hand is still up. I'm putting it down. Okay, Janet and then Doug. So, I'm wondering, I mean, I'm not in favor of this particular that language but it you know it seems to me, two things will happen is that it will push apartment buildings, five story apartment buildings sort of on the lesser streets that connect in. I think I counted at least one pray street triangle street, lessy but would walk Kellogg how like Cole's boltwood, I think I said but word and Churchill and spring streets and so it could just push, you know, very dense apartment buildings onto those streets which of course are very close to residential neighborhoods. But I'm kind of at the loss of why we're here because it seems to me that the downtown has had the remote most robust development of residential unit units. It's been able to do that with first floor businesses. And it seems to me by giving this option of sort of unlimited apartment units without anything on the first floor. We're just going to push out all the benefits we see in mixed use buildings and so it seems like we've gone from, you know, let's encourage more residential units downtown, but require and use, you know with mixed use buildings when we're keeping our first floor businesses robust and you know there's a place for people to go and now there's people to go there to now we're just having apartment buildings and they could proliferate downtown, pushing, you know, pushing out existing businesses or future businesses. And on the streets that I mentioned that are sort of like I wouldn't call them side streets there's plenty of businesses on the ground floor. You know, I'm just looking at, you know, if you look at the bank center, you know, there's a really robust restaurant there, whose name just ate there it completely eludes me. There's a whole bunch of businesses there. There are businesses along Kellogg Avenue, the coffee house. You know there's the channel strings and so also we're giving us incentive to build five story buildings all apartments, replacing existing businesses and I don't know why we're there because this is the part of town that has seen the most residential building permits. And so I just don't, I don't know why we're doing this at all. And I think that, you know if you want to see some more apartment buildings, maybe you want to see some condo buildings where people live year round and not just student housing. Maybe you could lift the cap from 24 to like 40 or something like that but I just don't understand the purpose of this it seems like it's undermining the downtown as fundamentally a place for business. We have tons of buildings that could be torn down that have three stories, you know, three stories of businesses right now. And also it's all going to be apartments and so what is that going to look like what's the impact on the downtown the existing businesses, the future growth of businesses in the area. Thank you, Janet. Doug and then Andrew. A couple of things. I guess it, you know, it seems to me we're here at least looking at the slide we're looking at and talking about the BG zone, because there was concerned that the original proposal which did not include this special provision for BG might in result in a more proliferation of apartment buildings. Now, I've never really shared that because we've now made it made it so that apartment buildings are only allowed in BG with a special permit, which we have on the board we have a perfect right to deny. It's not like a site plan review where we're just trying to tweak something that that is allowed essentially as of right. It's, it's a, it's a complete authority by us to allow or reject a proposal to put an apartment building in the BG district. So, you know, I don't even think we need this 500 foot language and, but you know, if people are concerned about that, that's fine. So then my second comment was, if we go back. I mean, are we talking about the overall proposal at the moment or are we listed limited to the BG I was going to mention my one edit on the language that was is proposed for the for BG, if you continue down marine, get to the bottom of the page. Whoops. Nope, go go up. Bottom of the yeah there okay bedroom count the end of the second line less should should be fewer. Thank you. We use fewer when it's something being counted. Thank you, Doug. Very good. So we have Andrew and then Janet and Maria. Thanks Jack, I would, I would just say to, to both Janet and Doug. I think yes right I mean I think, ultimately we want to prevent the apartment. The apartment from being built downtown we want to make sure we've got the vibe vibrant ground floor so I agree Janet with you that it. I would say that maybe this shouldn't even be in the conversation, because we don't want any of these, but then I also think Doug makes a great point that we don't have to have any of these if we don't want to. So it seems like there's a mechanism in here to prevent apartments from being proliferated. But I do just want to thank both of you for calling that out because I think that's really a critical point as we think about this in the development of downtown. And then Maria. So I don't know of any instance where the planning board has turned down a special permit so I don't, I don't see the special permit is this really rough road that is tough to overcome I just think that we need to make a decision, assume that any special permit that comes through, you know might be modified, you know occasionally modified I haven't seen that much in my two years here either. But I think that we should realize that, you know, opening the doors to unlimited number of units in apartment buildings will lead to many more apartment buildings. And we know that the property owners want that, and we know that we know that, you know, from what we hear from the property owners I'm not sure we haven't heard from the small businesses in these conversations. I think that the property owners want less and less ground floor retail business professional, and I think we're you know 40% first floor business is the minimum of all the towns that we looked at and now we're going to zero. And it's a small downtown we need to keep it open for businesses and people are going to shut businesses along Kellogg Avenue along, you know, pray street which has you know a little sort of backdoor businesses. There could be taller buildings that could be more robust with more apartment buildings, but they're not going to be here if we're opening the store and I think that it's a fantasy to think that we're going to turn it down, because I haven't seen the planning board do that and so I think we need to look at this with hard heads and just say okay 10 years in the future what happens when all, you know there's like six apartment buildings downtown and we've lost you know a few, you know thousands of thousands of square feet of business space, because it's so lucrative to have apartments but it's so lucrative apartments that's how we get our first floor retail in and vibrancy and small shops and a place for people to you know start and grow. And, you know, really a functioning downtown that I see in other, you know, I see it in Burlington I see in North Hampton I see I mean I see it in lots of places, but the downtown is filled with first floor retail Arlington is the same way. Right just was, you know, North Cambridge. Thank you Janet Chris and then Maria and then Tom. Marine has her actual hand up to. I just wanted to offer the fact that this is a special permit for use, and the SP indicates that it would be by the zoning board of appeals. So it wouldn't actually be a special permit from the planning board it would be a special permit from the zoning board of appeals. Thank you. Thanks Chris Maria, and then Tom. Yeah, this is special permits are not planning board so we wouldn't be reviewing it. I actually want to backtrack a little kind of on the same theme of this is marine could you tell me why what what happened with the SPR getting changed to SP for our VC for residential village center I maybe I missed some meetings but what was that just out of the blue or did that happen maybe I missed. I think this might be the first planning board meeting that this has been mentioned. There was a lot of concerns about making it by site plan review from member in the RBC by members of the public and from members and so we felt that it would it would be okay to keep it by special permit and and so we were and it seemed to make sense so we decided to just to keep it as is by special permit and just to clarify if I may. Almost four years that I've worked with the town of Amherst. I am the staff liaison to the zoning board of appeals, and while the in my almost four years here. The zoning board of appeals hasn't denied a special permit. But what often happens or not often when it does happen which has a growing list of of examples is that when the board has issues with projects and feels that they cannot make findings to approve a project and that during the public hearing process, the applicant has requested to withdraw without prejudice, because the applicant knows that the board is most likely going to ultimately deny the application. And so that gives that applicant a chance to, you know, is to go back to the drawing board and rethink the proposal and and then weigh out whether they want to resubmit an application with all the zoning board of appeals comments and that is raised in the public hearing process, as well as members of the public that had been actively engaging in that public comment period. Each time so there is definitely a handful of of these examples that the zoning board of appeals has dealt with. Additionally, the zoning board of appeals has in my time. They've certainly pushed back on applicants to to lower the proposed building height and an amount of floors, they've actually additionally have challenged developers to reduce the amount of units in buildings as well. So the zoning board of appeals is is is very comfortable to have these sorts of discussions and negotiations during the public hearing process. And so I just wanted to clarify that and give you the perspective of, of how public hearings are handled by the zoning board of appeals. Thanks. Thanks for it. Sorry, I didn't get to. So thanks for that. I reason why I brought up a why did the SPR change back to SP was I wanted to make sure it wasn't just, you know, a small handful of public comments or emails that suddenly Swiss this because I really am pushing more for increasing housing and that move from SP to SPR for RBC make perfect sense because that's the ideal place to build more housing more housing where there's already density and to switch back to RBC to special permit seems really counter to that and I, I just wanted to make sure it wasn't, you know we get these handful of emails. I don't know that that's the voice of the town. I don't know that that's the population speaking and I just want to make sure that we're not moving back from this big push that we're doing to increase housing increase more affordability increase our housing stock. I just thought that was a great step in the right direction and then to see that switch. I thought oh I must have missed a meeting or something or some discussion. I was a little disappointed to see that switch from SPR to SP when I was, you know, it was like, oh hey, progress, but so that that was why I asked that question was just was was there a push from town council was there CRC was it from the higher ups that you know said, let's let's drop that switch from SPR to SP. I don't know if anyone can answer that for us or marine. I can answer it I think it was a recommendation on the part of staff to change back to what exists now. That seemed to be a focus of attention of many of the commenters from the public and it seemed that it would be potentially wise to drop that one thing in order to have this by law as a whole be more acceptable to people I think, you know, we're really focused on developing apartments in the downtown and village centers yes but you know I think BBC can also be a focus of developing apartments doesn't have to be in the RBC and RBC is close to farmland in some locations so it just seemed like one kind of thing that made people turn against this proposal and if we could put that aside for now and maybe get back to it later. Maybe that was a good strategy. That's something that we're offering to you at this point so the planning board can decide to change it back to, you know, if the planning board decides to keep the proposal to allow these apartments by our by a site plan review and the RBC zone. That's something that would be your prerogative but we're suggesting that it go back to being special permit in other words don't make a change to the RBC at this time, but you may wish to make a change in the future. So Tom, Doug and then Janet Tom. Sure. Thanks Jack. So I'm trying to figure out if I'm reading this right because I'm hearing that somehow this this proposal is liberating people to build tons and tons of apartments downtown and I'm reading over and over the current apartments description and trying to understand that if I wanted to right now. People could build 5024 unit apartments downtown on Main Street by right is that true. And if that's true then doesn't this actually restricted to only five. It does give you more apartment units per building restricts the number of buildings that are strictly apartment so is that is it true that by right. I can put as many apartments buildings downtown, as long as there's less than 24 units. Chris. Yes, it is Maureen has studied this more carefully than I have those so she may have some something to offer and I saw her raising her hand. I can't raise. I don't have to raise your hand future when I'm when I share my screen so you'll have to deal with my real hand. So currently in the BG zone it's apartments are permitted by site plan review. And in the current risk, you know, the, the bylaw says there could be no more than 24 units in an apartment building and so that's yeah so I don't know if that answers your question. I mean the theory that I'm reading is that we could have a downtown that's all smaller apartment buildings, and there's no limit on that right now because it's just by site plan review. And then what we're doing here is make switching this to an SP, we're living in capping it to a distance. And even though we are adding height, we're changing the way in which the downtown landscape could be built and so in my sense, my mind it feels like a positive way to restrict the way in which apartment buildings are built downtown and so that I'm reading it that way and so I just wanted to make sure that this is a restriction on the proliferation of apartment buildings downtown rather than an allowance of them. The language is clear as we as the public listens. Yeah, you're absolutely right Tom. Well stated Tom thank you. Doug and then Janet. Yeah, I guess, just to put on two cents at the end of that conversation I'd say we're now encouraging fewer larger apartment buildings in the BG. I was going to say that I agree with Maria that I am dismayed to have the RBC go from site plan review to special permit. As I look at the chart that's at the bottom of the first page of this. I'm not speaking, I'm not, I'm sorry I'm not seeing any, any site plan review anymore. And, you know, as long as we're kind of thinking about it, in that sense I wonder why we're not at site plan review for the BVC district. You know, I mean I think we were hoping to encourage the construction of apartment buildings that are not currently getting built because of the limitation on the number of units. So, you know if we make them all. I mean, we just haven't done very much I guess is what I'm kind of feeling at the moment. I would encourage us to at least go to site plan review on BVC. So that we can get a few decent sized apartment buildings in the village centers and start to build up the density of those areas as well. Because our downtown is too small. I also, I mean, I mean, maybe it's a, maybe it's a comment for another day but the additional site and rear yards per floor. I guess I just wanted to say it's not clear to me why we do that. You know, as you put on stories that really adds up and takes away from the utilization of parcels which are precious in an area where we want density. So, maybe that's just something to talk about next time we want to think about this section. I just want to let people know that, you know, normally we have taken a break at eight, but we've, we would like to conclude this meeting at 930 sizes, you know, I suspect everyone's okay was kind of pushing through, you know, through this, but we, you know, we have we're going to have to decide on the other factor was whether we want to hear public comment on this so that would be you know a choice on the board because again the hearing has been closed, we're deliberating. And so those are a couple of things that if anyone has an opinion on like to offer. So, Janet. So I think we need a mechanism to keep the incentives for towards mixed use buildings downtown. And so we don't want to tilt it. I think this current draft, tilts it too far towards apartments and we're going to lose a lot of businesses downtown. And actually maybe in the village centers which are filled with businesses like that's like the great thing about the village centers is like lots of little businesses to go. I'm really interested in that. I also want to just like offer up some facts is that, you know, we had a housing production plan, we wanted to see like 850 housing units in five years. And we in those permit, and that happened, right, there's not, there's a lot of housing demand in Amherst. The permits were issued. What didn't happen were, you know, low income housing and moderate really income housing rentals at all. And so we have very robust housing development in Amherst. I mean, you know, down on Southeast Street, we permitted, you know, the Southeast Street Commons, the North, North Amherst saw, I can always black the name of that 40 are 40 B development. So those are a few hundred units. University Drive had a thing built, and then there's something we've built now downtown has several things that are permitted that have yet to be built so we are we are seeing with mixed use requirements, robust development of residential units and so we're going to be in the next five years. And the problem, the problem I see with this is that we are lacking strict design guidelines, we're not protecting our streetscape and historic buildings and you know I don't know how many people you need to sign a petition but there's like at least 900 1000 people this town who are on board with increasing density but not in without design guidelines and some protection of the small town nature, all of which are master plan goals so I really think we need a mechanism to, you know, keep businesses on the first floor and so I don't, I just want to. So just, you know, so I here's my question for Marine is, if you know with your current 500 and understand the 500 foot thing is to try to keep people from tearing down buildings along the main streets and, you know, with all those businesses and with apartment buildings understand that, but even with your. Your 500 foot thing. How many apartment buildings could go downtown, including the back of the lots or along the side streets, because those are going to be very tempting areas for development of apartment buildings with unrestricted unit counts. And so can you do that and then, you know what would be the difference between doing in that and doing mixed use, I mean, I think you know eventually there'd be less residential units with mixed use but you'd have the benefit of keeping businesses or having space for new businesses. So, like what's the maximum amount of apartment buildings that could go in under the scenario. And you have a sense of the unit count of mixed use versus apartments. Marine. Yes. So I did actually do an estimate of how many parcels could be provided that don't face one of the main corridors and it would be approximately five or seven properties and I can point to some of them so you know this property. So let me make this bigger. If this is helpful. So, you know, the, the where the pub is situated in the adjacent property. These two could potentially be an apartment building. This back here could be an apartment building. These, these could potentially, I just so you know, like this hatching is just this has no meaning in like, you know, a mixed use building probably would go further back here. So, you know, this would be interesting to see if an apartment building could fit here. The leader building, which I believe was demolished back here could be an apartment building. This is where the post office is located. There could be a smaller development back here along the parcels close to North Pleasant Street. A very tiny apartment building, less than the cap. If the cap were to remain, or if the cap were to be removed. The same amount of units could would be provided as if the cat about 24 units would be provided where. Mix, mix, mix, mix a lotto, mix the new the new Mexican restaurant. Sorry, I'm back here. Back here, of course, is the parking garage. So that's not applicable. This is the bank center. And perhaps these parcels could be become apartment buildings. You know, this is the boltwood in here and the church so that that wouldn't really obviously wouldn't be applicable at the police station. And there is a, I don't know if this is a duplex or an apartment building or converted dwelling. There are multiple units in this building and this is an apartment building. So these are residential uses. So perhaps those could become apartment buildings. I think it's too tight back here. And of course, this is the library and, you know, the parking lot and the church. So I don't think any of these would become apartment buildings. So it's just really, you know, these, these parcels here could potentially That are not facing the road there in the rare. And that they, you know, you would say, you know, we all know that we need residents to help support businesses. They go hand in hand. And these parcels back here aren't facing our main corridors. So, you know, the planning department feels comfortable to say, you know, apartment building behind a mixed use building. That's, you know, that that is in the rare is acceptable. And, you know, in this where the leader building property is doesn't really make sense to have a mixed use building back here to have retail go back in this sort of rare parcel back here away from the main corridor. And, and back here on spring street, you know, that's when you're starting to transition back into the RG. And so you could ask yourself is, is it, you know, we is apartments appropriate place on spring street. The planning department believes that it is also another appropriate place to have apartments. So thank you for those, Maureen, I think, you know, you, you, you're convincing to me with regard to this plan so But there are businesses on those streets now that would be a limited and you might not think it's a good spot for a business but there's lots of businesses that are kind of off the street like the by the Amherst cinema has a ton of small businesses that you walk to it's actually super interesting to walk down that street. You know, so Amherst cinemas is back here. Yeah, I don't think that, you know, I don't think there's an awful lot area to put a additional building back here to be perfectly honest. And so with this, you know, besides this one, you know, if you meet the sort of buffer. So, you know, that apartment building would be, you know, would be larger and that would be that would be it. I don't I don't think you're going to have. I don't think you're going to have a mixed use building and apartment building in this little tiny section here to be perfectly honest. Great. All right. Well, thank you, Maureen, Janet, Andrew. Thanks, Jack. Try to keep it brief. I don't know that. I mean, from what I'm hearing, we all would like to make sure that we can bring in additional residential density but I don't know that anybody is interested in having apartment on ground floor. Why don't we just say no apartments, no new apartments can front Amity main South Pleasant or North Pleasant. And then just let the, you know, let developers figure out how they can get density and either through mixed use building or some type of type of creative multiple building scenario where they have a, you know, some type of commercial upfront and a standalone apartment building behind it. And from what I'm hearing, and I would, I would agree with this. I think that's really what we're trying to accomplish. Keep that street from fiber. Maybe we can just make it really simple. Thanks. Thank you, Andrew. Any comment, Doug. I think what we have before us substantially limits the number of apartments, especially in light of the zoning board of appeals having to issue a special permit for them in the BG. So I'm fine with this as, as proposed right now. Yeah, I agree Doug. So I think that the things that I've heard is like, do we want to modify the, the, the, the village district with regard to what Doug had mentioned before. And then do we want to hear public comment. At all, since the hearing is closed. Don't know the general sentiment of the board on those on those issues. So, Andrew. I don't want to pile on them on my last comment so apologies for this but I think it's, we can. I think Jenna makes a really good point right like we can just say no to all of them. But if, if none of us want apartment there anyway. Why not just close the door now. And why, why not. I mean, why, why let other planning boards make that decision so I understand either mechanism will probably have the same outcome. But if none of us really thinks that we want apartments on ground floor, then, then we can be pretty definitive about it. By by tweaking this. Thanks. Doug. Yeah, I guess I, I don't, I can imagine that a couple of apartment buildings downtown would be okay. And that's certainly the limit is, you know, not more than the several that marine had had sketched out there so it's it's not doesn't seem like a huge loss and you know again we've got housing issues in the town that we want to resolve. So what about the, oh, Janet, you have your hand on. I'm not sure if I said this earlier but there's, there's no reason why the property ours wouldn't take the buildings that are along those main streets and some of them are very low and just put up apartment buildings and even you know the older buildings that we all like there's no protection of those, and those can be taken down so I'm, you know I'm with Andrew, I think it's a decent compromise. I would like to see a cap on the units, you know, on the built on the units behind I just think you should think about like what how many cats will jump out of that bag and you'll be surprised. And I do support having more people living downtown but I just think we need to keep the balance and keep spaces. Any, any, oh, Rhea. I just want to reiterate that fact that Tom brought up earlier which is, this is actually making it more restrictive, as far as putting more apartment downtown because it's a special permit. So, I feel like this is pretty safe without totally eliminating that possibility because I feel like, you know, desires architects developers, their creative bunch and they might come up with a solution that actually works pretty well for street edge. You know you just never know and to eliminate that possibility entirely might be short sighted and especially since now we're moving to special permit. There's a lot of a lot more per view a lot more oversight on to this. And so I want to fall back into the VC I really want to push for making I mean, from the very beginning back when we still had those zoning subcommittee and we're talking about how to bring more of this missing middle and more housing. The first things was relax apartment. Right building rights as far as the village centers mean that's why they're village centers they're designed to be sort of this intermediate density area that's not downtown it's not residential it's the sort of you know, a good balance between the two and that's the perfect place for apartments and so you know relaxing apartment. What we call it the uses the zones that allow more apartments was sort of like low hanging fruit in my mind. And so that's my one last push is you know I appreciate this really careful study of the downtown but I do think that. VC and BBC, I don't know. I can't even find where BBC is. I think there's only a few places, but I'm just that's my last pushes. Yeah, to sort of relax the apartments in that area but but as far as the downtown I feel like it's very safe now it's in fact more difficult than in the past like common point out so I'm fine with that as written. I guess another question is for Chris is, are we going beyond the original written version that was already sort of closed as far as the public hearing I mean, is this still in the same realm of the original scope of the amendment article so that we're still good to, you know not have to restart the process. I think we're still within the scope we've spoken with Robin I have spoken with Joel Bard, our town attorney and he's talked to us about about what is what would be considered within the scope of what was originally presented to town council and everything that we've done here is less allowing less change than would have been allowed. So, you know we're narrowing it from what was originally proposed to town council so that would be definitely within the scope. I'm sorry and I'm looking at, you know page one of three of the of the post zoning bylaw and. And again I SP is crossed out and then it's has SP. Again, but, but I'm reading this so the village district is it's would be site plan review, not a special permit is that correct or so it's all right yeah sorry for any potential confusion so currently the zoning bylaw allows apartments by special permit in the village center residents zoning districts, the planning department had previously recommended that it be by site plan review or suit. And yeah so we originally proposed that it be allowed by site plan review. And now, since we've heard sort of feedback from folks about their concerns about that permit change. It's interesting that. Alright, we'll, we'll just keep it a special permit but you know if the planning board wants to recommend that we take back the take back and and do it by site plan review that that's, you know, that that, please, please be, you know, please indicate that as a board and we can revise it. Yeah, I'd like to discuss that. It seems, you know, seems like, you know, Doug's suggestion that you know we should go back to back to site plan review and, you know, make it a little bit easier I mean there's enough restrictions I think in terms of how you know apartments would be able to be built there I mean it's, you would need to you know generous setback and things like that. I'm interested in me hearing what other board members think about that. So we have Janet and. And then, but I have a kind of process. So I have a sort of a process question so we're, we're kind of honing in on the BG. I would like to hear members of the public and talk about that. And then, if we're going to go off into the village centers, I would like to look at the Marines diagrams. I also would like to take a break so maybe we can hear some residents and then take a break and come back but I'm kind of. I haven't really I'd like, I'd like to feel like I don't know if we can finish the BG but I think if we're going to talk about the village centers. It'd be good to look at some of those diagrams to so it's a hard to manage I can see it. Yeah, it is a 30. And then I guess as a board we'd have to entertain whether we take public comment or not. I see your honor and Andrews hands up and then Doug. So your honor. Great. Thanks. It's been a really interesting conversation tonight. On my understanding maybe I misinterpreted this but if we want to take public comment we basically have to reopen the public hearing and in order to do that we need to give two weeks notice. And given that we've had apartments on the agenda five times at the planning board and the other. I'm a little bit inclined to, to move ahead and not reopen the public hearing. So in the downtown, I have been, I think, you know, people have said like this actually clarifies and restricts apartments downtown and so I think I've been moved by that and I'm comfortable with the plan. I have a question that I had like Maureen on your drawing it kind of have these little yellow blocks. Those are purely theoretical right like it could technically be a much longer strip of frontage that is apartment, as long as it's 500 feet away from the building right. Yeah, correct. So the one that has the call out that says existing that is the existing building size is a three unit building. And then the other ones. Those are just measurements of what 500 feet would look like and I just put in a little box. So that doesn't indicate the size of the building. And so, you know, so then let's just pretend there is that you know the proposed apartment the 500 foot measurement would be based off of the corners of that building to the next next spot along the main main corridors. Okay. And, you know, the village centers, I mean, I don't know it seems to me like North Square is thriving and getting a lot of attention and like, you know, I see some of the other village centers and they kind of feel like they need, they need more density to support more of the cool shops that then everybody who kind of lives in that catchment area will be. So I'm leaning towards what Maria is saying, you know, like, let's let's steer residential to our village centers and I do think doing it by site plan review rather than special permit would, would help kind of ease that. So those are my thoughts right now. Thank you. Doug. I just wanted to say I agree with what Maria was saying and what John, you know, I said, thank you. Okay, so it doesn't look like we're going to take public comment. Yeah, I think that's fine. Again, the hearing has been closed, but it seems like the one suggestion that that's that maybe we can move as is changing the apartments in the, in the village districts, you know, back to site plan review is something that we can kind of have a straw pole on regard to recommendation and then maybe just move to an overall recommendation of the zoning bylaw and and wrap this up so just to clarify, this is actually probably our third detailed discussion deep discussion of apartments, we barely discussed it may 12 we never discussed it on June 16. And then on July 4 14 we had four or five zoning and four zoning amendments we were talking plus the BL. And then we had the public hearing on July 21, which was five hours long with four zoning amendments so I think this is the longest discussion we've had. And I think we shouldn't let the public have some participation in it because it's been not super deep. I would be really unhappy if we voted on this whole thing, and we haven't gone through Maureen's charts I don't know why she prepared them if we're not going to talk about them and I think I would like to look at the different village centers and the changes in zoning before I decide if SPR SP is the way to go. I had a lot of questions about those. Doug and then maybe Maureen you can respond to that but Doug. Well it sounded Jack like you were ready for some sort of motion so I guess I'll put out the motion that we adopt this or recommend of town council that this this proposed change be adopted with the one revision that the RBC stay at site plan review. And we can either move that forward or not. Sounds good is there someone that wants to second that, then we can have a discussion. Maria. Okay. So, Maureen what what can you present to us for the village centers with regard to what Janet was referring to. Sure. Let me pull up my PowerPoint. Just bear with me for one second. Folks see my screen. Yeah. So, I believe you wouldn't want to see the slides related to the RBC, the residents, the village, the residents village center in the BBC, the business village center. So, we're going to I'll show you the North Amherst area that includes both the RBC and the BBC. So this is the intersection of North Pleasant and Route 63, which is Meadow Street then which then turns into Pine Street. And just as some landmarks to orient you. This little triangle here is the North Library Amherst library. The parcel to the west of that is the North Amherst school building and then this corner lot is the Amherst church. And so in the RBC is shown in beige and per table three, the dimensional regulations, a lot size of two and a half acres would provide a three floor 25 unit apartment building with also maintaining 40% of that of the land per open space and landscaping and whatnot. There is only one parcel within this focus area that it is more than two and a half acres that could provide that would benefit from the cap being removed. And that's this parcel right here, which currently has 40 units on that site. So, you know, maybe I would so theoretically they could add a couple more on this property. It's very unlikely if not impossible since there is adjacent to the Mill River and so it with its associated wetlands. And so I would so then that would limit the amount of developer land and whatnot. So that is very unlikely that that would be developed or redeveloped or expanded upon. And then I wanted to show, you know, there are a lot of smaller parcels and so I wanted to see how many units could be provided. Along Meadow Street. So I looked at the parcels that you can see the arrow so the parcels between here and here. I added up the lot area for all those parcels, which get you 206,000 square feet that's probably four or five acres, I don't know off the top of my head. And so with that, you could provide 48 units that would be on in a within a three floor building. And they, again, you would the applicant would need to maintain 40% for open space. So I would envision a sort of long, you know, you could envision maybe two buildings, or maybe a long sort of narrow building. Think of like maybe brown stones or something like that, where there's, you know, a gracious front yard, and then there'd probably be a driveway that goes back here they would have parking behind the apartment building, and then maybe a driveway coming back out. To add to that, you know, these parcels, the acquisition of these parcels, you know, you could go on Zillow today and see how much do these parcels cost to buy, probably 300 $500,000 each. And so, adding all that up that's that's a chunk of change right there. And the construction costs. You know, it costs somewhere between $49 million to build a, you know, a 48 unit building development. So, so, you know, I believe that that's a hard sell for a developer to even be enticed to build here, given the acquisition cost and construction costs and very, you know, 48 units is, you know, is is a lot, but it's it's it's the cost is that cost effective. And the one scenario that I could see it cost effective to a developer in and enticing is talking about owner occupied apartment buildings, such as condominiums. And so, perhaps in that market that would actually be feasible instead of a rental market. And I believe, and I believe the planning department also believes that that would fit nicely in it in a down in a village center. When you think in terms of the need for owner occupied. Owner occupied dwelling units. And so, okay, so we talked about the RBC. Now I'll go to the next slide, which is the BBC, which is shown in the hatching the red hatching. And so, per the table three dimensional regulations. There is no lot area. An additional lot area required for the BBC. And so, the numbers of the amount of units allowed if the cap were was removed. Increased. And so, a lot size of 25,000 square feet or point six acres could provide a three floor 25 unit apartment building with dedicating 30% of the total lot area for open space and landscaping and whatnot. A lot size of, we'll say 100,000 square feet or 2.3 acres could provide a 3493 unit apartment building with providing 30% of open space. There are four parcels that are equal to or greater than 25,000 square feet in size. And so, so there is opportunity to provide apartment buildings in these locations that would benefit from the removal of the cap. And let's see here. This is the RBC. We, there's very limited amount of properties that would benefit from the removal of the cap. And those are shown in red, which is the existing aspen chase apartments. And the yellow parcels would also benefit. And so again so as much as it's existing apartment building. I, it looks and feels that they're maxed out. Maybe they could add a couple more. I, to be honest, I don't know how many apartment apartment units are there. But this yellow parcel here is the Salem Place condos. This yellow parcel is the East Amherst Village apartments. I can't recall what's here. And this is currently, I believe, being developed with a couple of single family homes. I think that's is currently being constructed. And then zoning at me. So at zoning at me. Let me just pause a minute, Janet, you have your hand up. Thank you. Could we go back to the North Amherst one because it. So I have a question, I have two questions, one of them is with the BBC. If you added another story, you could add more units, right. And that's a lot that's, that's, there's a footnote eight on height. And in actually, there's a footnote eight on height and maximum stories for everybody. So if you so the parcels that we're looking at if they had an extra story, they would all have more apartments, the potential for more apartments, right. And then so that's that's the first question. The second question is, I keep on wondering, like, you know, how many units can you build as an apartment without a cap, given, you know, the various dimensional tables and the many waivers versus mixed use, like how many, like, you know, like when I'm looking at the parcel I think you have a 78 or the one that's in North Amherst and it's mostly a little commercial strip, where I've eaten many pizzas. If the incentive there is to take that building down and put an apartment center combine lots. Wouldn't it be, you know, like, I still think it'd be better to have mixed use because you keep the businesses there you get a ton of resident rental units. And so like what's the difference like so, if I took, you know, if I combined, you know, the I mean, you know, a lot size of nine point, you know, 99, 643, the 2.3 acres if I put that together. And I, how many units could I build what if I added another story, but what if I was doing a mixed use building there at three stories or four stories. What's the real difference except that I've lost, you know, with the apartment buildings I've lost businesses. Do you understand what I'm asking you. It's like what do you get that you couldn't just get through a mixed building like how many more units by the apartments thing. Because again, these are all village centers, they're all focusing on a mix of businesses and keeping them vibrant. Yeah, Maureen. Perhaps Chris or Rob could weigh in about the footnote a comment about the building, the floor maximum amount of floors, but you know, I mean, the, but to answer your other question, I mean the obvious differences. You know, is there, you know, non residential use on the first floor versus. You know, for, you know, or is there not, you know, that that would be the difference between the two uses. Ten more units. Let's see here. I wish I had my, I wish I had my calculations in front of me. Yeah, probably you know I would say my guesstimate we're talking probably a difference of 10 to 20 units that you know if the first floor was all residential then it would probably be you know 1020 units. And then if that was a mixed use building then that would be non residential. It depends on how big the building is this first example that you have a 25,000 square feet, three, three floor 25 unit apartment building would assume that you'd have like seven or eight units on each floor right. Eight, I guess, is an eight times three 24. Anyway, so you would have eight units on a floor so you would add. You would subtract eight units if the ground floor units went away, and then you'd only have 16 units. And I think that's right. I think that's how you would figure it out you just figure out how many units do you have on a floor, and you subtract the ground floor, and then you get the number of units that you would have in a mixed use building. Well, I was, I was giving the 40%. You remember that we did we yeah there's like, you're only keeping 40% for the businesses on the first floor. Yeah, so it's, you know, so it's a couple, you know, maybe it's, you know, you lose three out of a 25 unit building maybe on a 93 unit building you lose 10 you keep the business. And just to keep in mind in this is added a whole other layer to my these buildouts where the buildouts are reflected in the circles of my estimate is that to keep with the proposal of having a diverse mix of building building counts for apartment buildings. There, there is a mix of different unit types so in all these there's, you know, single one bedroom units two bedroom units three bedroom units and and and some studios so I really tried to diversify the mix of bedrooms. And so, with that, the unit size changes, you know, a little bit, you know, depending on the amount of bedrooms so I just wanted to clarify that. Thanks, Maureen. Yeah, you can proceed with your. Okay, sure. Okay, so then moving on to, oh yeah, we talked about zoning districts at mean and triangle. Okay, so we're going to look at the, the slide looks at the neighborhood business zoning district, which is reflected in purple dots and do per the table three dimensional regulations and the floor area ratio requirements for the bn. We need a two acre lot to provide a two floor 25 unit apartment building with 40% of open 40% of the total lot area for open space, none of these parcels are large enough to provide a 25 unit apartment building. And here. This is the BL zoning district. There's only three three parcels is they're located along the corner of Dickinson in College Street. The O'Connell lot is located at the corner. None of these parcels are large enough to provide a 25 plus apartment building. And this is the bvc zoning district located at the corner of Dickinson and Main Street. And this is where triangle street is right here. And then this parcel right here is elements hot tub just to give you another landmark. There are only, I'm not going to go through all these bullets, but this last, I'm going to try to try to speed this long just focus on this last bullet because that is sometimes the summary of the slide. So there's only two parcels that are large enough to provide a three floor are large enough to benefit from the capping removed. And so those two parcels is this parcel here. And this back parcel here. This is owned, I think by the train station or Amtrak or whatever train people. And, and so this, so I would say this is probably unlikely to be developed. So perhaps this spot back lot right here could benefit from the cap removal. And then zoning districts at College Street, South East Street and Main Street. So in beige. Oh, and so again, let's see here. So this is College Street along here. This is Southeast Street, which then connects you to Main Street right here and RBC is reflected in the beige color. So there are three parcels that are equal to our graded greater to 2.5 acres. And that is the threshold to provide 25 units or more. And those three parcels include the Fort River School, the Watson Farms apartment, which is owned and managed by the Amherst Housing Authority, I believe, and the town of Amherst property right here. And so those are the only parcels that could benefit from the cap being removed the other parcels are just just too small. And this is this slide. Focuses on the BBC, which is represented in the sort of red pin catching. And to, let's see here. So there are seven parcels that are equal to a greater than 25,000 square feet in in size. And so those parcels, which I'll wave my mouse, those parcels include this one, this one. Let's see here. This one. This one here, this, these two back ones here. The parcel along South East Street, which is where the recently approved mixed use building was approved by the planning board. And this parcel that is across the street from that that that approved project so so those are seven parcels that could provide 25 units or more. And in a single building on that, on those respective parcels. And then here is the BL zoning districts along University Drive. This street here is Amity Street and the street along here is University Drive. Oh, sorry, sorry. And then this is route nine. And, and this parcel is where big Y Plaza is located. And you would need to have 2.6 acres or 116,000 square feet to provide a three floor 25 unit apartment building with having 15% devote 15% of total lot area for open space. There are four parcels larger than 116,000 square feet that would benefit from the capping removed. And let's see here, I'll, I'll point to them. So this parcel here at the corner of Amity and University Drive where is it still called the ABC the hanger. Yeah, okay, thank you. Okay, that parcel here. The part now okay hold that parcel. This parcel here which I believe is perhaps we're 70 University Drive is the mixed use building. I believe is. Yeah, so that parcel here. Let's see here. The Y is to one, two, two, three and four. Hmm. Sorry, I don't know everything off the top of my head of, I don't know if this is where the post offices or which sort of is located here maybe Chris can point that out but anyways, we were familiar with the sorts of businesses that are a long university drive. And then here is the zoning district at Pomeroy Village. And so this is West Street, which is also Route 116 and then here is West Pomeroy Lane and then turns into Pomeroy Lane. And this slide shows the RVC zoning district which is shown in the beige color. And this is where an existing 25 unit apartment building is located. And then further landmarks. This is this parcel has Mission Cantina and this parcel has like the moment of. So let's see here per table three, you would need to have a parcel of 111,000 square feet or 2.5 acres to provide a three floor 25 unit apartment building with having 40% of the lot area for open space. And there's only one parcel that is equal to or greater than 111,000 square feet and that is the where that existing 25 unit apartment building is located, which is owned and managed by the Amherst housing authority. And so they couldn't even expand it because that that is the that is the amount that they could provide. They have 25 and they only could provide 25 because of the table three dimensional regulations. And then this slide shows the BVC, which is reflected in the red hatching. And you would need to have 25,000 square feet to benefit from having a three floor 25 unit apartment building and then you would need a board still 100,000 square feet for a three floor 93 unit apartment building. And there are nine parcels equal to a greater than 25,000 square feet that could have a three floor apartment building with 25 or more units. So nine parcels I had mentioned so Chris may need to chime in here. So this is this parcel would could have 25 units or more, which is already developed. And this parcel here, which is already developed. This parcel is, I believe, you know, you know, these two parcels here this one and this one could benefit from the cap removal. And so one, two, three, four, and then this parcel here, this little back parcel here, this parcel here, this parcel here where the gas station is, and this parcel. And so, you know, as we said earlier, you know, retail does need does need the population to support to support the retail. And we believe that that if there was an apartment building built in this intersection this cluster here. It would actually encourage a developer to provide retail or non residential uses, because now they have that population to support the, the, the viability of that business or businesses, and so they do go hand in hand. And these, you know, these village centers are places where we want to encourage, you know, both residential and non residential. And as I just said, they go hand in hand. This zoning district, which is the BBC is at the corner of West Street and West Bay Street, West, the West Bay Street and this is where Akins Farm Market is located. These two parcels back here could benefit from the cap removal. Again, as I just said in the previous slide, you know, retail and residential go hand in hand, where, where if you have a population that would support more retail and or you know, in general, non residential. And it would make it enticing for a developer for you for either the uses. And so zoning along Belcher Town Road. This is route nine or Belcher Town Road and this is gatehouse road and the existing use here is the Amherst insurance agency. And that one parcel could benefit from the cap removal. And I believe that building was recently in, you know, redeveloped. And so I'm not sure what the feasibility of this being redeveloped in the near future, but you know this parcel is large enough to accommodate probably to use uses two buildings, maybe retail and residential would be interesting to see, see this redeveloped. And so that's, that's about it that I had I think I went through all of them, the zoning districts. Yeah, very informative Maureen, I see Janet and Maria and then Doug. So, um, I just, I want to, I'm assuming that if you add a floor, you can add, you know, if you if you have a 25 units on three floors and you can add a floor then you have 25 plus, you know, eight or something like that so I'm just assuming you get more apartments. But you know when you look when I look at Pomeroy, which has a lot of large lots. It's clear to me that hundreds and hundreds of apartment units can go into Pomeroy village atkins that counted at least 500 just on two lots. And then, you know, even the Amherst insurance center property look like it could take a few hundred and so I think it would be useful to people to know. When we're going to if you're lifting the cap on apartment buildings in the different village centers particularly the maybe the quieter ones. We need to know the unit count like what's possible we asked this question about the BL on North Pleasant Street. We asked it on triangle street. And I think before we talk as a board or make a decision as a board we should know what we're talking about with the village centers. To me, it's like a red flag that we should be doing village center planning and Pomeroy village. We should be doing it in Atkins I know people would be a little startled live around there, say 500 apartments went in those spots. They may love that idea. They may want to see more of a mixed use thing they want to they may want to expand the business district. This is why we have planning and village center planning. I don't know why you know I hear we had a planning process that started in 2018 for village center planning it's obviously gone and fits and starts but I do think that this is a huge change, and it's a change that's going to happen without people who live there knowing or virtually anybody in this town at this point. But just to begin the end of the summer. I think we can't, we have to know the numbers and we have to have tell people about it. I can't be more clear. Okay, let's hear from some of the other board members. Maria, and then, and then Andrew. Yeah, thanks so much for that marine that really was helpful because it shows to me just how few parcels in the BBC and the RBC actually even benefit from that lifting up a cap for apartments so in the RBC it was for parcels that were built over the 24 unit. So, that's not a big risk BVC, the two village centers Pomeroy and Fort River were the two that had the most number of parcels that would benefit from that calf lift otherwise. It was only three other VC BVC areas, it was like two, three and one as far as the number of parcels that would be impacted by that lift on the cap. And that just tells me even more so that changing it from SP to SPR makes a lot of sense because it's not a huge number of parcels that can even build with the new capitalist like what they can do now is already the 24 units. And what they could do with that lift in the maximum number of apartments is a handful of parcels like you just showed so it's just sort of further and still to my mind that, you know, the relaxing of SP to SPR makes a lot of sense. It's really great to see those numbers. As far as Janet's comment about 500 units. It's hard to throw out numbers, scary numbers like that without seeing real data and I mean with the 40% required open space for the RBC. But that's very few units, I guess the only two districts would be the two BBCs the Fort River one and the pulmonary one those are the two that had like seven parcels and nine parcels that could benefit from that cap lift but as you said, most of them were already developed. There was only a couple I saw that were like empty lots right now so again the risk seems very low relative to what's already allowable. Okay, I mean your sort of presentation kind of really set my mind I think it's just a very safe thing to do SP to SPR. I know there'll be a lot of comments from emails and the same, you know, group that we keep getting these comments from but I just want to make sure you know it's hard to gauge the whole town based on the few emails we get so I just, I hope you're pressured by a group versus like, I mean it has the CRC or town council weighed in, or are they just sort of following the recommendations of the planning board and the planning department. So, that's more data we need maybe just those two areas the two BBCs are a bit worth studying but RBC, there's only four parcels that would even possibly have the chance to build more with them what's currently allowed so yeah the risk seems really low so thank you so much for that presentation it's really good to see all those numbers. Thank you Maria. Andrew. Thanks Jack, I agree. Marine that was super useful going into the deeper dives. I, I in principle I liked the idea of making it easier and going from SP to SPR. I do, I do agree with Janet though I think like mixed use doesn't preclude us from adding residential and I think any developers going to do everything they can to maximize residential to offset having some some retail there and as I look at some of those areas and I, I couldn't keep track of RBC versus BBC but like atkins would probably do great having some residential around that right it's got a phenomenal market. And I think that's one of the challenges atkins is you have to drive there like it's some people, some people never make it over there because of the fact that it's so dependent on car. As I think about, you know, belcher town road. That's surrounded by housing it's obviously largely single family but you've got rolling green nearby as well. That would seem to really benefit from having some type of retail, right now. It's, it's as I hear these examples it just makes me realize more and more that it's hard for me to say that there is a good sort of one size fits all I think maybe we do need to consider RBC versus ABC a little bit differently. But I think the overall takeaway for me is that mixed use seems like it could accomplish all of what we're trying to do in that we can still build residential density but provide amenities. You know, my, my, my mom lives near shoots very and I just think of, you know, just shoots buried like anyone who lives in shoots for he's got to believe for everything. And it just it's, and I would hate to think that we're adding more and more housing at the expense of something to actually go to. And then would just add to like my comments earlier we're very much focused on on downtown right in terms of what I think would make sense and that would be limiting apartments from fronting those those major materials. Thanks. Thank you, Tom. Thanks. I mean, I think in theory, I actually agree with with what Andrew saying but I also think that it reinforces our need to put residential near some of these locations and that Atkins thrives off of the people that live in that residential neighborhoods right nearby and have a sidewalk that they walk to Atkins and to go there at noon and try to get lunch every single person in that building is actually walked down there and actually in Atkins waiting in line to get their lunch. So that is that building is activated by the residential buildings around it. And I think that happens in all of these different locations and if we go to Pomeroy we bring more residents is down there. We have more business in the future because we have more people in a direct feed into those zones, and, and people would be shopping within those zones, rather than as you say, driving there with a sense of purpose like I'm going to drive their park and then leave the people living in that neighborhood and be using that village center as a resource and I think in many cases we need to bring the people to that place first, in order to actually make businesses viable, and not just, you know, drive up drive away kinds of businesses I agree with you that we there's a demand for both of those things and I think, you know the way it's written right now it allows, if there is a need or a demand for mixed use. Someone will come in and put retail there they will put a mixed use building they will make that choice because they will make a profit off of putting mixed use in that particular place and there will be demand for it. If they see that they will put a residential building there to bring more people to that neighborhood and so, so I do think that there is a sense that we're not trying to prescribe it by saying this is better than that, that, you know, all these places are unique. But I do think affording the opportunity for both of those things to take place on the site would be beneficial for everybody. I'm going to go with Doug and then Janet. I have a small comment which is I think the way I moved the question does sort of prescribe that you that we would be, we would prefer to have apartments in the RBC, immediately next to the BVC, which, you know, in the hope that the BVC is where the mixed would happen. And then the residential apartments might be, you know, on the periphery around that area. So I think I think we're actually in a good place with with my motion. I agree, Janet. One thing that we haven't talked about much is lot consolidation. And so, you know, when you talk about what is on the ground now you're like well not that many lots are available but obviously with greater apartment density there's incentive for people to, you know, build in those lots actually a lot of times one person to build lots next to each other. I really, you know, when I, it's, I think that we have this one size fits all let's lift the cap. Every village center is different the downtown is different from from Southeast Street, whatever that is down there. And we're not doing any planning. We don't know what these buildings are we have no 3D buildouts. We have a 93 unit apartment building or two next to Atkins or you know whatever. And, you know, this, you know, it's like okay now we've done that, and let's see what happens and then maybe it's four stories so it's not 93 units maybe it's 120 units. We have footnote a that's this is not we're a planning board this is this is like a not a one size fit all sort of situation I really do think we need to look at things one by one and that is in fact what our master plan says it doesn't say, increase density lift caps and see how it goes. It says do village center planning downtown planning. The planning board was saying to do down 10 planning last year. And we've gone from that to this kind of, you know, free for North Amherst Village Center is got like seven historic district buildings in the RBC and the BBC. That has to go differently than Atkins or Pomeroy. People who live in Pomeroy deserve to have some notice of this. Maria, you're tired of hearing from the same five people that you're not listening to. We don't talk to anybody else like these people come to this meeting, and we haven't informed the community in any way of what these zoning proposals are we have community participation officers we have emails we have this. We have no clue what people are thinking because they have no clue what we're talking about here. And so I just think, you know, I, I came into this thinking I really think that this should be referred back to the planning board and planning department for some planning. Let's let's let's take a village center let's take to build centers. We are going to do downtown planning with the form based zoning person. Let's, we were talking about doing downtown planning last year on the planning. We all know it needs to have happen. We know that, you know, and so I would refer this back it's too big of a change in too many places with too little information, and it's going to be a stunner. You know, and people deserve to know what's going on in their community and reflect on it and if you don't want to hear from them that's fine but at least tell them. If you don't want to listen to them at least tell them and have them talk and don't listen but I really think we're, you know, this is this is this is probably of all the zoning amendments we've looked at. As quickly as I think we have looked at and this I think is the most far reaching one. And I think it's under my businesses also. Thank you, Janet. Um, so, you know, again, I thought Marines presentation was was very informative, and we do have a motion to vote and and then we are short on time. And now, you know, we're going to have to reschedule some of the items on our agenda for other dates but I'm wondering if we've heard, I think, again, from Marine that, you know, there's seems to be fairly limited in terms of what may happen and what may happen could be really good for the village centers and I think at this point I would just, you know, ask that we with any objection that we just have a vote on on the motion that's on the on the floor here so Andrew. Thanks, Jack. I'm prepared to vote because I do think that this is moving in the right direction but I agree with Janet that that we should get down into like really more detailed build center by build center by by town center planning and let's not lose sight of that. But anyhow, just wanted that that additional context before I voted. Thanks. Okay. The motion can we read that again. The motion that we have is to accept with the changes that were made. Marine did some text edits and then we're going to, we're going to change the review of the village centers from. It got switched back a couple of times that we're going to change that back to site plan review from special permit for the farm and bylaw. It was just the just the RBC and the RBC only any further discussion. All right, let's do a roll call then. Maria. And Andrew. Hi, Doug. Hi, Tom. Hi, Janet. No. And Johanna. Hi. I'm an eye as well. Thank you all Marine, you know great job, breaking down all these different, you know, things you've, you've, you've always do a great job with the GIS and everything at your disposal there so appreciate it. So, for us, we are not going to get to this parking one. We're not going to get to the mixed use building one, and then the election of officers and planning board reorganization. I think it's built right in the game for all these things so you mentioned next week. Or we also have I don't have anything I don't have anything listed for the 15th. So, 15th is a Jewish holiday. It's a Yom Kippur so we can't have a meeting that night. Okay. But we could have a meeting next Wednesday which I think is the third night of Russia Shana. But I think we can go ahead and have a meet have a meeting that night if people are available. And then another idea would be to have a meeting on the 22nd. So I think the eighth and the 22nd are possibilities if people are available to 29th already has a pretty heavy agenda. So, so it's the eighth or the 22nd I know the 22nd I'm kind of tied up. Our people looking for next, next Wednesday. I can't do either. I was looking forward not to meeting the planning board every week. We can't do it. How about others. I'm free both days. Okay, Doug. And Tom are free both days. Yes. And what is Andrew saying, maybe. Yeah, I've taken a new job with a lot of West Coast people so I don't know what I'm not sure how the schedule is laying out yet I'll probably need a couple weeks for that to sort out. Yeah. Again, I'm good for next week but the 22nd. A little bit more. More iffy. So, I think I could make either night, although I might have to pull some strings on the home front. Yeah. What about Maria. Maria's good. So we have Doug, Tom, Andrew, maybe Jack, Johanna and Maria, who can all meet next week for the eighth. Yep. Okay. I mean, are you, Janet, are you out of. Out of town, and then I can't, I definitely can't do it the 22nd. I have a thing. Health thing. Can Andrew do it? I didn't hear him say yes. So I hear him say no. I'm not sure yet, Janet. I've got a, I've taken a new job and, and I've got some West Coast folks so it's quite possible that I'm going to be rolling into after five clock hours for work obligations, but I can't. Yeah. In terms of the weekly piece that's going to be tough for this month for me to commit to. The 14th, which is a Tuesday. Is that any better? Let me check my calendar. Hang on. Well, normally I would have ag commission, but I don't seem to be happening. Does Maureen have something on Tuesday the 14th. Well, not at 630. Yeah. So that's right. And we have the CRC meeting at two o'clock. And CRC at two. So the 14th would be a possibility if people want to try for that. Yeah. So Doug is yes. Jack is a yes. Johanna. We're talking Tuesday the 14th. Yep. Yes. Okay. I can do the 14th. And Tom. Yes. Tom is yes. And who else do we have? Maria. Yes. Yes. And Andrew. Sam answers before maybe. Maybe. So that's. Either way. Oh, so one night we have five potential one night. We have six. Good. So it looks like the 14th is the better night. Okay. Go for the 14th. What's on the 29th? I forgotten. The 29th is the preliminary subdivision plan for archipelago. Okay. East center commons. General Blesky is coming back to talk about. Four 46 Main Street. You have this rezoning of parcel 14. 33 behind the CBS. We potentially have the historical commission members coming to talk to you about a. A newly revised demo delay by law. Okay. That's it. Okay. So we're not doing the eighth, the 14th. 14th. Yeah. Okay. Is that good? That's good. Okay. And we'll just pretty much completing the agenda. So we'll do parking, mixed use buildings and. Election of officers and planning board. Is that right? Okay. Is there going to be a salary increase with these extra meetings? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know what to do with this. Yeah. I don't know what to do with this. I don't know what to do with this. I am asks me that. Actually that's really stupid. Can the town distribute like little gold stars. That we can go. Come on. Can we get like gift cards to like? Something. Spend some money downtown. I have to talk to developers about developing a. Come on, let's go. Good for me. I just want to get on the ad commission. That's mine. Chris and Jack, we do have an A and R that if we could. Oh, yeah. That would be really great. You want to do that. I think we can do that. Okay. That should be easy. Famous last words. This is an A and R that relates to property that Ron Laverde or owns along research drive. In East Amherst research drive. You may know is where. Kate Atkinson has her office. And it's that one that Pam is pointing out. And she has made arrangements with a fellow who owns parking. Owns a lot near old Belcher town road. She's purchasing this lot number two from him. And in order to connect the two lots. She would like to purchase a one foot wide strip of land owned by Ron Laverde here. And that's what this A and R is about. Connecting Kate Atkinson's two parcels with this one foot strip. So if you would agree that this is not something that requires subdivision. Approval. Then we can get Jack to sign it. How does the one foot help? Yeah, it connects the two properties. So it's sort of like a hammerhead sort of makes it easier to. To say that the parking. That's going to be proposed on lot two is associated with the building that is where Kate Atkinson has her practice. So you can combine those two lots into one. She have the parcel to the right as well. To the right has a house on it. You mean lot one. No, I mean, I mean. You, you, you're cursor has been on the one that. He's kind of in the middle of those three. And what about the one to the right? The one to the right is. Camille. Camille. Or it says Karex. See there. There you go. Okay. I'll see. Yeah. She on that. No, that's owned by Mickey. Mark or used to be owned by Mickey Marcus. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. So her connection will be through that one foot strip that goes along the bottom of Karex. Yes. And Rob Mora. Goes along with this. He agrees that that one foot strip will connect those two properties. Wow. So she actually owns. So her place, dragonfly health. And then she will own the one foot strip. And then people have a right to pass and repass over that easement. So she actually owns all the way to the one foot strip. And then she will own the one foot strip. That's to this. East side of the Karex property where. Mickey Marcus used to be. And then she will own the one foot strip associated with lot two. So they will all be connected by that. Little one foot strip. And then they will be connected to the one foot strip. And then they will be connected to the other. A and R. What an A and R can accomplish. Could, could you just build a parking lot there and just use it? What, what actually stops her from just doing that. Without their one foot strip. Yeah. Like why can't you just. Needs to be associated with the use. Otherwise it becomes something that's probably a. It would probably become something other than what we're proposing it to be. We're proposing it to be a parking lot that's associated with the use of the Dragonfly Health Building. And if it were completely separate, then it would have to be shared parking, leased parking, commercial parking or something other than parking that's an accessory to her building. And by the way, this is being done under Article 14, which is sort of an emergency. It was our temporary zoning that was passed last November. So there was a provision in there to allow medical uses to expand or change. So do you agree that Jack can sign this. Essentially what you're saying is it doesn't have to go through subdivision, the subdivision process. Yeah, I just like full disclosure of people I have worked on research drive with over the last 20 years with three different companies. I feel like I don't understand enough to say yes or no so I would just defer to the group. Yeah, I mean, I don't see any objection. If anyone speak. Johanna. I mean, it, it seems fine. It doesn't seem like it should go through subdivision review, it's one foot Rob Mora signed off on it. Like, does it feel a little hokey or, you know, yeah. A little bizarre. But I think it's fine if you sign it Jack personally. As long as Rob says it's good. I'm good with it. Okay. So we'll be calling on you to sign this. I can either drive down to your house or you can come up here one or the other. I'd love to get on my house and come visit you. Big thrill. Okay. All right, so we can, again, continue the agenda, the portion of the agenda to the 14th Tuesday. And adjourn. Now, so. At 939. Yeah, I really appreciate that. Yeah, well safe travels Janet wherever you go. I'm going to the Quad Cities. I don't know where that is. I want. Yeah, yeah. Wow. Yeah. Jack what if I said I had a trip every Thursday morning. Every other Thursday morning. Could we. I would say, be safe.