 Okay. Jack, if you can wait just one minute so I can make sure Amherst media is they told me they were here. I'd just like to be able to see that they're here before you get going. And it, it takes just a minute for the attendees to pop in but okay so Amherst media is here Jack and you are the co host. Very good. Welcome to the Amherst planning board meeting of June 2 2021 based on Governor Baker's executive board is suspending certain provisions of the open meeting law, GL chapter 30 a section 20 and signed Thursday, March 12 2020 this planning board meeting is being held virtually using the Amherst media platform my name is Jack jumps second as the chair of the Amherst planning board. I'm calling this meeting to order at 630pm. This meeting is being recorded and is available via Amherst media live stream minutes are being taken. Members, I will take a roll call when I call your name and meet yourself, answer firmly and then place yourselves back on mute. Maria chow. Tom long here, Andrew McDougal. Doug Marshall present. Jenna McGowan is not present she gave us notice. She's not feeling well. I'm a little bit a little bit human here. Great. And I'm here. Obviously so board members if technical issues arise. Please let Pam know if technical difficulties occur. We may need to pause temporarily to fix the problem and continue the meeting. Discussion may be suspended while the technical issues are addressed and the minutes will note if this happened. the raise hand function to ask a question or make a comment. I will see you raised hand and call you on call on you to speak after speaking remember to remute yourself. Opportunity for public comment will be provided during the general public comment period and it was reserved for comments regarding items that are not on tonight's agenda. Public comment may also be heard at other appropriate times during the meeting. Please be aware of the board will not respond to comments during general public comment period. If you wish to make a comment join the meeting via the zoom teleconferencing link. This link is shown on the slide and is also available on the meeting agenda posted on the town website via the calendar listing for this meeting. You can also go to the planning board webpage and click on the most recent agenda which lists the zoom link at the top of the page. Please indicate if you wish to make a comment by clicking the raise hand button when public comment is solicited. If you have joined the zoom meeting using a telephone please indicate you wish to make a comment by pressing star nine on your telephone. When called on please identify yourself by sending your full name and address and put yourself back into mute when finished speaking. Residents can express their views up to three minutes at the discretion of the planning board chair. The speaker does not comply with these guidelines or exceeds their a lot of time. Their participation will be discontinued from the meeting. So with that said, looking at the agenda, I don't believe we have minutes. So 635, I see that we are at 635. I actually started a little bit after 635. So we are at 635 so we actually can have the site plan review meeting. So let me introduce that. Let me grab that sheet. Okay. In accordance with the provisions of MGL chapter 48, this public hearing has been duly advertised and notice there has been posted and is being held for the purpose of providing the opportunity for interested citizens to be heard regarding SPR 2021 10 Emily Dickinson Museum 280 Main Street and 20 Triangle Street. I probably should have said, yeah, that's what we're Emily Dickinson Museum 280 Main Street and 20 Triangle Street. So this was what the public hearing is request site plan review approval to replace the existing HVAC system and electrical system from the street to the homestead with the addition of a pad mounted generator and pad mounted chiller and fencing of seven foot three three inches and nine foot zero inches in height for screening off of 280 Main Street and pad mounted transformer associated with 20 Triangle Street. And this is all I'm at 14 B parcels 2026 and 27 in the RG zoning district. So at this time I'd like to ask are there any board member disclosures? I I see none. And then the applicant we have Jane wall and Shantia is that how you pronounce her first name okay so you are welcome to present your project. Thank you I think I'll be begin and we'll hand off to Shanti in a moment and Shanti if you don't mind putting the power point up on the screen I'll just take a quick look at the first two slides and then ask you to continue. But as a just a general introduction to this project it's good to be back with you relatively soon after the last time the museum came before the planning board to talk about what is really the most ambitious restoration project we've undertaken up to this point and the main outline of the project overall is to restore the main block which is you know the what you see front and center here excluding the the addition to the right to the east to restore the interior of that whole section to to be more what it was in the 19th century based on kind of forensic investigation of the of building changes and of decorative finishes and wallpapers so that's going to involve restoring the the double parlors on the first floor of the homestead the the wide first and second story main stair halls and a transverse hall that leads from the east addition into the west the parlors on the west a room at the top of the stairs and a passageway that led from Emily Dickinson's room to the room her mother occupied in the last years of her life and the there's now there's some telling documentary accounts of how Emily Dickinson herself cared for her invalid mother during that time so it's an interesting story for us to be able to tell of course the main reason we're here with you this evening is not really to talk about what's going on on the interior but to talk about what's going on on the on the exterior and on the site so I think at this point I'll ask Shanti if you would if you would continue sure um good evening let's see I'm a preservation consultant who is working with Emily Dickinson museum to project manage the preservation aspects of this pretty exciting project the interior restorations very exciting I think as you can imagine but one thing that it will involve is as you can see on this site plan the hatched marks the darker areas on the plan are all hardwood strip flooring from the 19 early 19 excuse me early 20th century that will be removed to expose the softwood flooring that would be familiar to Emily Dickinson her family members and the result of that will be that the areas that are bubbled are six doorways in on the left hand side are four french doors and then to the right is the main stair hall north doorway and south entry all of those doors were shortened in the early 20th century when the softwood flooring went back in so they now need to be re-lengthened to their original height through these dutchman type repairs there'll be a little bit of adjustment at the thresholds as well to accommodate for the restoration of the door heights and so that's happening at six six doors this is the south entry there is a bit more happening here as well which is pretty exciting what we are looking at is a early 20th century appearance the project will restore this entry if you look on the left you can see what is existing and below it is what is proposed for restoration restoring the door again to be familiar to Emily Dickinson the door has been on site for a number of years so that door will be restored including the etched glass windows and again some changes you can see on the left hand side to some of the entry surround features to restore them back to the period of significance in the mid to later 19th century and again some minor changes at the north entry which is the slide on the left and the french doors on the right the other exterior aspect of this restoration project is the replacement of the existing storm windows exterior storm windows with new interior storm windows except at the four french doors on the right those will have custom new custom exterior storm windows uh let's see let me stop my share for now that's the partial interior restoration and partial exterior it imposes a bit on the exterior then the other large portion of this project is I'm assuring your packet we didn't pull together drawings for it but it is the installation of the chiller and the generator and the transformer the chiller and the generator are located to the north of the early 20th century garage and fenced in as your chair described with a wood fence that's approximately seven foot three inches on two sides and at the rear nine feet and then a pad mounted transformer over closer to 20 triangle street that's primarily because it's a significantly long run from triangle street which is where uh the electric has to come in uh over to the garage it could go closer to the to the uh to the garage except that then it would have to be larger so the choice was made to keep it smaller and somewhat shielded on the landscape I think that that's the extent of it Jane if I missed anything those those are the main elements um and we'd be glad to to answer questions thank you um and uh I lost with all these pages here um what I'm what I'm referring to here um okay so now all right here we go uh sorry for that so now uh I'd like to discuss a site visit report and Chris you know mentioned several of the board members were able to make it this afternoon and do we have a volunteer I'd be happy to give a little synopsis okay okay so Doug and Chris and I and um Andrew were able to meet with Jane um on the site we looked at the back of the outbuilding near the Emily Dickinson main house where the proposed chiller and generator are gonna be um we discussed the fencing around um that equipment and had a conversation about the heights of the fence um around that um we discussed the access to that area um and then we walked further um oh gosh I don't know what direction it was but toward triangle street where the plan is to have a transformer on site um in order to bring power to the chiller and the generator um and I don't know that was the extent of the site visit thank you so at this time uh Chris do you have your hand up thank you I just wanted to know if Shantia or Jane could describe the fence that's going to go around the generator and chiller area um what what is it made out of and what color is it going to be uh it's a wood fence with vertical boards vertical panels that make the full run from from the ground level up to the top of the fence uh on the east side the side that faces faces the parking pad there'll be two large gate gateway doors that'll be secured together when closed with hardware the color is intended to be um the same as the garage which is a kind of oyster color thank you great all right so um board members uh Doug yeah I have uh I have two questions one first uh when you put the the interior storms on the windows of the house will that will expose the existing sashes to the weather uh are those sashes of historic value and uh you know are they better off protected with some sort of storm on the exterior the existing storm windows are the whole system of interior of storm windows right now um they are interior storm windows except for the uh uh long exterior panels over the french doors on the uh there are four on the west side two on the east side and one on the south um and those cover each one of those that's a set of seven exterior panels that cover the french doors on the house and all of the rest of the system uh has been interior storm windows for about the last 10 years so that the um interior storm windows that need replacement will be replaced in kind the sash um the original sash we we think it's probably we don't think it's the 1813 sash but at some point after that yeah it is those are um of historic value and we maintain those uh with you know periodic reglazing and repainting okay um my second question jane has to do with what you just said about the fence um when i look at the drawing i see horizontal boards rather than vertical boards i'm looking at sp1 in the lower corner detail three uh and that is my error i'm opening the plant you know they sort of seem to correspond to the clavards on the garage so that makes some sense yes exactly yes yes i'm sorry that's my okay uh no further questions oh may i um sure may i amend something that i said at site visit absolutely okay thank you yeah um and it had to do with the the fence uh the wall of the fence on the north side which um which is taller than than the other two sides of the fence um and the nine foot the nine foot height um has to do with uh the the plywood sheets that support the the control panels so the control panels are eight feet tall and they're 12 inches off the ground so that's that's the control panels then are at nine feet and that that is actually the reason for um for the height of that side of the fencing just to shield the so that the panels are not really visible from any from any perspective all right um andrew please thanks jack um excuse me i thanks i was actually gonna ask about the heights and i think i've followed you there but maybe you could explain one more time jing the the eight foot height or the nine foot height height that's something that's being attached to that nine foot wall or you're saying that's the height of the relative to the generator and the chiller that is as i understand it that's the height of the panel that um let's see shanti has put this yeah and shanti please uh please help uh if you so your control sorry go ahead that's okay we're looking uh we're looking west right now um so facing the garage to the right of the garage as jane described are the gateway doors the pole to the right which is taller um it says two and a half inches by eight and a half inches sloped cap that that's nine feet and that's where the panel uh the electrical and control panels are going to be mounted so that ends up being nine feet of plywood which is why it's forcing the fence to be nine feet otherwise you have a foot or well almost two feet i guess of plywood sticking up at the back of the enclosure does that help um i may just be dense here so apologies no no no it's so it's it's mounting to so plywood will be mounted to the back the inside look here of back portion of the fence the north um can you is my cursor visible i i don't know whether okay so so the plywood is mounted somewhere along here and it it goes up about a foot and a half more than the seven three but we want to keep that seven foot three line because it's a better visually otherwise it starts bumping into the um roof okay the garage so so there's when you're in the enclosure there'll be a panel against this north fence that has all the controls for the chiller and the um the panels for the chiller and the generator okay i don't know if i've tried to annotate the screen if you could see that or not but that i guess that makes sense so the purpose is not yes it's it's really to accommodate it's nothing to do with visual screening because you actually would sounds like you probably would be able to see that from the parking lot certainly from the building um because that you know you whatever if you have a panel coming off here that would all be exposed yes exactly you may see a little bit of something there okay no thanks thanks for clarifying that actually that was all i i had to ask you thank you all right um i keep losing my page here i'm sorry um i guess we can open up to uh any other board comments and i see none so uh oh uh dr well i thought i would just repeat a question that came up at the site visit which was uh whether you considered some sort of battery storage as a power supply rather than uh the diesel fueled generator solution yes um we've had a chance to um do a briefly check in with the engineer for the project which is quantum engineering um and uh the the quick check in the quick responses that that would be the energy requirement would mean a much larger enclosure a much larger courtyard than then is is planned for the generator and the chiller so it would occupy more space uh would be considerably more expensive um and it's the engineer's opinion that that that kind of storage solution may not be adequate to support the museum during an extended power failure but the the the the answer to your question is no not really we didn't consider it for these reasons very good um i see no other uh whoop andrew sorry jack i just again kind of a click behind today i'm just wondering whether that panel we talked about could be mounted on the west fence instead which seems like it would then have no visual impact to the property or reduced well we um we actually have talked with the engineer uh about whether it could be mounted um on the garage yeah on the garage was what we talked about we hadn't asked about the west panel jane i assume that is something we could certainly check in about but it but it may have to do with the can the footprint configuration of where the generator and chiller are going because one i think is square and one's rectangular as i recall so it may be a it may be a factor of where the the uh mechanicals are being located within the caged area there's not a not a huge amount of room there let's see if i can pull let's see i'll share my screen again and yeah we we had started to walk around the west side and you you can't even get close to it so it certainly seemed like if you had everything there it would be quite invisible so you can see up here at the top uh it looks as though so the dimensions of what he needs or what he's specced uh we know that the panels are eight feet tall and held a foot off the ground um which makes it nine feet high and they're roughly 24 feet long so it may be that the west length of fence is too short to support what they need but it seems to me it's probably something that could be explored i mean if it's 24 you're showing that dimension as 24 five and a half so there's no way i mean it's basically using up that entire north yes yeah that's wow that's huge the question about the north elevation of the garage jane do you recall if we if how far we got with that conversation um i my memory is that it does have to do with the length uh and that if it were reoriented on either the west or the east side it it would intrude even more on the property line right i think that was the that was the reason for the orientation okay thank you thanks andrew uh any other board comments okay um and we can open up to the public and not sure i see any so um we can come back um anybody you know further discussion want to make a motion yes doug yeah i was wondering if you could talk about what color you were going to make the fence and you know is it going to match the garage color or be some other contrast now we're we're planning on the color of the fence to be the same as the garage which is probably best described as an oyster color it's not not white it's a bit a bit more tan than white good um and i see yohana i'd like to move to accept okay so do you want to go uh you want to say to close the public hearing do we need a motion to close the public hearing chris and yes you do okay i will move to close the public hearing and then you can incorporate that into and then can i go ahead and okay and approve the and approve the site plan review application application perfect thank you all right is there second second okay tom all right any further discussion do you want to go through um conditions and and findings and then wrap that into your um approval it sounds like a good thing um you have a draft yeah i sent out conditions and findings today i'm sorry i didn't send it out till today but um pam has it uh and can bring it up on the screen so we can go through that and then um conditions i oh findings yes the findings are um you findings first or did you want conditions let's do findings first and i'll just read through them and if anyone has a problem with them they can let jack know okay i'll be on the lookout for hands raised okay 11.2 400 the project is in conformance with all appropriate provisions of the zoning bylaw and the goals of the master plan the applicant has requested a modification of the requirements for fences under section 6.29 of the zoning bylaw um section 11.2 401 town amenities and abutting properties will be protected through minimizing detrimental or offensive actions all of the changes will occur on site with the exception of trenching along the edge of triangle street to allow an electrical connection to a utility pole on triangle street a street off opening permit will be required from dpw section 11.2 402 abutting properties will be protected from detrimental site characteristics resulting from the proposed use no new lighting is proposed the property lies to the north of the proposed the property that lies to the north of the proposed generator chiller area will be protected by a nine foot tall fence surrounding areas to the east and west will be protected by a seven foot three and one eighth inch fence 11.2 403 adequate recreational facilities and open space are available because the property is large and open and will include substantial lawn areas 11.2 410 sec unique or important natural historic or scenic features will be protected the proposed project will help to maintain the Emily Dickinson Museum building at the appropriate temperature and with appropriate electrical power supply the local historic district commission has reviewed the project and issued a certificate of appropriateness 11.2 411 the project provides adequate methods of refuse disposal as described in the management plan 11.2 412 the project is connected to town sewer and water no changes are proposed to the sewer and water connections 11.2 413 the proposed drainage system within the adjacent within an adjacent to the site will be adequate to handle the storm water no changes are being proposed to the drainage system 11.2 414 provision of adequate landscaping has been addressed the property includes significant existing vegetation that will be maintained 11.2 415 the soil erosion control methods are considered adequate to control soil erosion both during and after construction the town engineer has expressed no concerns regarding soil erosion 11.2 416 adjacent properties will be protected by minimizing the intrusion of various nuisances 11.2 417 adjacent properties will be protected from the intrusion of lighting because a condition of the permit will require that exterior lighting if any be downcast and or shielded and or directed so as not to shine onto adjacent properties or streets no new lighting is being proposed 11.2 418 is not applicable the property is not located in the flood prone conservancy district 11.2 419 non applicable there are no wetlands on or within 100 feet of the property 11.2 420 the planning board did not choose to refer to the design principles and standards set forth in sections 3.3040 and 3.2041 of the zoning by-law because the local historic district commission has undertaken review of the proposal and has issued a certificate of appropriateness 11.2 421 not applicable there are no changes proposed to the setbacks placement of parking landscaping and entrances and exits 11.2 422 not applicable there will be no impacts on steep slopes flood plains scenic views grade changes and wetlands 11.2 423 not applicable no new buildings are proposed for the site and the existing buildings relate harmoniously to each other in architectural style site location and building exits and entrances 11.2 424 screening has been provided as appropriate for storage areas loading docks dumpsters rooftop equipment utility buildings and similar features the generator chiller area will be appropriately screened with fencing and the new transformer at 20 triangle street will be appropriately screened by existing vegetation 11.2430 the site has been designed to provide for the convenience and safety of vehicular and pedestrian movement both within the site and in relation to adjoining ways and properties no changes are being proposed 11.2 431 i see andrew has a stand up oh andrew i i just want to give you a break christ now i was actually i hadn't even thought about this before but is there lighting on the back of the garage right now and then and sort of part of my ignorance but would would we need to or want to have lighting here to be able to services it's a pretty dark area surrounded by vegetation that would be a good question for either shanti or jane i'll i'll just begin that there's right now there is lighting on the east side of the garage that's mounted on the garage itself and that that will continue in some form perhaps at a lower lumen but that that is the lighting for that particular area yeah would that cast any light within the new enclosure though uh within the new enclosure no it would not yeah um yeah i would suspect that you would want the ability to have lighting in there to again to be able to service this um you know in uh dark hours like i think that sounds right and reasonable okay um may i say something yes christ so um often service workers bring utility lights with them if they need lighting to you know accomplish a task so we may be able to rely on that yeah i i mean that i think whatever is reasonable um and if that's something that we feel is reasonable that's fine it it is a pretty large area and again pretty well enclosed that it would seem like having a permanent coach light or something like that would probably would probably be beneficial like you know are andrew you thinking about like what period of time like just something you know 24 7 or no i i just think like for for being able to to services i don't think you'd need to have it on oh just a switch yeah yeah yeah i mean yeah that may be beyond the purview of this review so apologies if i'm you know speaking a bit out of turn here but it seems like it would be a worthwhile thing to have a part of this again pretty big enclosure to to light up with uh with flashlights or something temporary thanks thank you uh Doug please yeah i guess um i don't feel strongly about the need for for lighting out in that enclosure i guess if if you do put lighting i might put it on the nine foot high wall so that it shines toward the garage rather than toward the neighbors but uh i mean it seems like the proposal before us has no new lighting so we would need to either continue or they would need to come back if in order to alter the proposal is that right you could put a condition on it that says if they do decide to add lighting in that area that they would come back and show the lighting to you yeah i have to say i'm not that familiar with with the capabilities of um you know um ever source or whoever would be you know maintaining this but um chris you're of the understanding they could just bring portable lighting with them i believe so yep yeah so i'm i'm good with that but andrew yeah i don't want to i don't want to slow this down this is like a a technicality so i appreciate what what doug has said and maybe we just have uh i don't know if it's just something where uh we just asked that if lighting is added that it is done in a manner that's dark sky compliant and maybe that would that be enough where they would not have to come back to us chris um i think so as long as you mentioned it yes if they decide to put lighting in that enclosure that'd be dark sky compliant okay i'm comfortable with that okay uh doug did you have well i was just gonna say you know there's that double double door gate on the east side of this enclosure you know somebody could just drive their vehicle up to it and turn on the headlights um so no objection to where andrew and where we've gone with this okay i did i did have one other comment i was holding until chris got all the way through these which since we've had the interruption i'll just mention uh 11.2402 i'd like to remove the one eighth inch dimension from that uh text i think that's overly uh precise in its uh dimensional tolerances okay shall i continue yes please does anyone remember where i left off i think i was on 11.2430 the site has been designed to provide that for the convenience and safety of the vehicular and pedestrian movement both within the site and in relation to adjoining ways and properties no changes are being proposed 11.2431 not applicable no new curb cuts are being proposed 11.2432 the location and design of parking spaces bicycle racks drive aisels loading areas and sidewalks has been provided in a safe and convenient manner parking on the site is limited and no changes are being proposed to the parking area 11.2433 not applicable provision for access to adjoining properties is not an issue the new pedestrian pathway was proposed and approved to connect the two homes in place of an existing deteriorated pathway that was part of a previous site plan review and there's also a new pedestrian pathway connecting the homestead and the administrative offices at 20 triangle street 11.2434 not applicable no new driveways are being proposed 11.2435 not applicable join access driveways between the adjoining properties are not an issue no changes are being proposed to the driveways each building has its own driveway 11.2436 the requirement for submittal of a traffic impact statement will be waived I'm assuming there will there's very little traffic expected to enter and leave the site given the limited amount of parking on site and 11.2437 not applicable no traffic impact report will be required so those are the findings do we agree with those findings I believe so um you know I think with with the well Doug has this hand up I was just gonna say I would approve them as amended yeah that's right approve as amended okay and do you want me to go through the conditions that I've drafted now uh I can't put my hands on them as them you can put them up you hold on one second there we go can you see them yep so I left out all those construction logistics things because this project isn't big enough and I'm trying to figure out a way of including those in the future without overwhelming people but anyway the conditions for this draft conditions are the development shall be built substantially in accordance with plan submitted to the planning board and approved on and I would put today's date in if you approve it today number two development shall be managed substantially in accordance with the management plan submitted to the planning board and approved on again that would be today's date if you approve this today um number three changes to the project or substantial changes to any proposed site plans were to the exterior of the generator chiller area shall be submitted to the planning board for its review and approval prior to the work taking place the purpose of the submittal shall be for the planning board to approve the change and or determine whether the changes are de minimis were significant enough to require modification of the site plan approval and the last one I was I was thinking there might be lighting um and it says all exterior lighting shall be dark sky compliant and I could add the words if any and then um exterior lighting shall be downcast shielded and shall not shine onto adjacent properties or streets so do you agree with those conditions or do you want to add any conditions yeah I think Andrew does doesn't this uh this consistent what with what your concerns were yep it is okay were you were you thinking we should add a conditions if lighting is added um to the enclosed area it shall be dark sky compliant right okay great okay um so does um Johanna want to add the approval of the conditions and findings as amended to her motion to approve that's exactly what I want to do chris thank you and who oh I think it was tom long who um seconded second again yes yeah all right any other for the comment I guess um can open it up to the the public if we haven't yet um you did do that jack yeah we already did that all right so we're we're good in there all right so um um any for the discussion amongst the board I see none so we can just do a roll call um Maria you're muted approve okay um Andrew hi Doug hi mom hi and Johanna hi and myself as I so that's six zero thank you Jane and uh Fonte oh Jane you have your hand up only only just to say thank you for your site visit today and for your good questions um we really appreciate your approval of this and um look forward to a successful project and to reopening with a fantastically restored homestead um next spring thank you very nice thank you thank you good luck thank you thanks good night all righty so chris what do we have coming up with this the next item here because I thought this is going to be continued and just how are we going to get through this for the next item what you need to do is you need to open the public hearing for the special permit SPP 2020 103 and then um you will entertain a request to continue all of the public hearings related to the archipelago project to either um June 30th or July 7th and I let's see I have five members of the planning board who have said they're available on June 30th and I have four members who've said they're available on July 7th but maybe when you get around to that um to that uh continuation we can talk about that a little more but right now what you need to do is open the public hearing for this special permit that's the first one listed on the um agenda and then after that we can talk about the continuation okay point out that it's only 720 and we have advertised that the public hearings would open at 7 30 thanks let's welcome um I did notice jack that you skipped over the general public comment earlier okay so if you wanted to if chris thought that was a good idea we could go back to the general public comment period that's great did I I did skip over that I'm sorry I didn't see any hands raised but um I certainly I should have I should have opened it up sorry yeah um so at this time a public comment period on items that are not on the uh this evening's agenda so I see none and we can we can do you know skip down to the form a we do have a form a and pam can bring that up on the screen it's on a road called blossom down in south amherst and the property that's outlined in yellow is one of the two properties that's being altered so the property in yellow is a flag law with its access point off southeast street and the property right to the west of that is a lot that's at the end of blossom lane and what's happening here is as far as we can tell this property at the end of blossom lane was not part of the subdivision of blossom lane it was created later I believe but in any event what what's trying to be corrected here with the change in the property line and I think that red line is pam did a good job in trying to represent it but I think that red line should actually be on the other side of the yellow line and what they're trying to do the the people who own 23d 67 which is the property right at the end of the blossom lane have built a fence on the property of the flag lot and so they are proposing to purchase a little strip of land and if you could make this a little bit bigger pam if you can yeah I'm working on it Chris let's see um that yeah that helps it helps a little there's a tiny triangular piece of land here that's along this property right yeah and they're proposing to purchase that from the flag lot it doesn't really have any negative impact on the flag lot but it means that the people who own parcel two will now be have their fence on their own property and can maintain it as they choose so that's what this is all about so then you will be asked if you would authorize jack gemstick to sign this plan as approval not required meaning it doesn't need to go through the subdivision control process and you can sort of acknowledge that by consensus or jack can take up the vote whichever does anyone have any questions you Hannah thank you um it's possible this is not germane but did they just screw up and put the fence on the wrong property and rather than taking down the fence and repositioning it onto their own property this is like the path of least resistance well I think that's the case but I also think that there was some um potential error on the part of a surveyor previously um if you look really closely at this in our plan you see uh something that says line as shown mathematically in plan book and then they reference a plan book 107 page 81 um which sort of indicates to me that there was some difference between the way the line was drawn and the way it was described but I'm not sure about that but in any event the fence did end up on the neighbor's property and the neighbor wants his fence back so hmm is the the property um that is I think not is it 57 not 67 the property of budding 67 to the to the east property of budding 57 to the to the wow the one that was outlined in yellow on the plan that pam uh created is 57 and that's the flag lot and the property to the west of that is 67 and that's the one that has the fence on the wrong side so law 57 has nothing developed on it right now no but there is it's had a a flag lot a special permit for a flag lot ever since 1974 and um they're actually in the process of renewing their special permit for the flag lot and um Maureen Pollock is in charge of that so I've made her aware of this a and r that's coming through okay um any objection amongst the board for this modification I see none all right good so I'll be bugging jack to come and sign it or thank you upcoming zba applications we do have some of those as well um bear with me so the first thing that I thought that I would mention at your last meeting we talked about um the project at 187 college street and you folks thought you would like to see a presentation it's a change of use um to go from a one family detached dwelling to a non-owner occupied duplex so that applicant is going to come to provide you a presentation on June 16 I believe that's the right date and then the next three applications are new to zba so at 120 southeast street um they're proposing to add a 10 by 18 mud room onto an existing house and there's also a foundation there there's a patio so the new mud room is going to go onto the house but also onto the patio and that's that 120 southeast street um at 300 north pleasant street they're also requesting a change of use special permit the existing vet clinic um they have received permission to demo that building and they're proposing to build a one dwelling unit which will have four bedrooms there is an existing one family detached dwelling on that property as well and that will remain so the existing veterinary clinic is sort of a little bit behind the existing building and then at the wildwood cemetery or 70 strong street they're seeking a special permit to construct a new maintenance garage which would be 36 feet by 64 feet as well as to install two new signs they would both be on strong street one would be at the main entry and then there would be a smaller sign that sort of in the directional or address sign and that's it thank you you're welcome all right so it's seven uh we have seven thirty so we can go back to the public hearing um site plan review and special permit uh SPP 2021-03 archipelago investments LLC has the project 11 uh dash 13 east pleasant street and they're requesting a special permit for a non-conforming building to be structurally altered and enlarged or reconstructed under section 9.22 of the zoning bylaw for mixed use building uh proposed under section 3.325 of the zoning bylaw and Chris what are we hearing from the applicant or not? I'm not sure if the applicant is here I don't see the applicant um in the attendees list we do have a request from the applicant in the form of an email which i alluded to the planning board earlier this week and Pam might be able to bring that up um essentially what the applicant is asking for is that all of the um public hearings that are related to his project at um 11 east pleasant street be continued to date certain in the future so here he's saying this email is to request that the public hearings for 11 east pleasant and 15 east pleasant be continued to either june 30th or july 7th so um i gave a lot i can read in the next two items and then we can kind of um discuss the rescheduling as i sound yeah it would be actually the next three items there two more on this page and on the next page why did the first one oh they're four are all uh am i wrong about that oh that's three the first one they're three sorry okay so the the uh the second one is is SPR 2021-07 and SPP 2021-02 for archipelago investment LLC at 11 east pleasant street a joint public hearing to request site plan review approval for construction of a mixed use building containing dwelling units in combination with ground floor retail commercial including approximately 13 square feet of retail space lobby leasing fitness trash area mechanical space elevator parking and 55 apartments under section 3.325 of the zoning bylaw and request a special permit to modify dimensional requirements for height side and rear setback under footnote a of table three section six of the zoning bylaw and the third is SPR 2021-09 archipelago investments LLC 15 east pleasant street request site plan review approval under section 5.0 zero of the zoning bylaw for an accessory and incidental use to a permitted principal use on adjacent lot for construction staging and management of the 11 east pleasant street project post construction site will be stabilized with asphalt surface and vents so they have proposed those two days june 30th july 7th um and then you know so there's not an applicant presentation should we take well public or excuse me uh the discussion amongst the board first um on this continuation andrew yeah i was only only let's say chris i indicated i'd be available for both days i'm not available on june 28th i looked at the wrong week so i think that gets the june 30th yeah that i i can make the july i cannot make the june okay thank you so what's what's the statistics there then for the june 30th versus july 7th i have tom long uh johanna newman maria chow janet mcgowan jack gempsick and it didn't hear from doug marshall about june 30th dog at the moment i am available on both weeks okay my apologies if i didn't apply earlier okay and um janet or not no janet maria may or may not be available on the seventh we don't know that yet so why don't we continue to june 30th and of course comes to worse and the applicant isn't ready then you can um always continue to another date certain in the future um so do you want to do that continue to june we have uh six out of seven members available yeah uh what about public comment on this um well it could be in the form of a procedural question i think but i don't think you would want to take um public comment that's related to the contents of the cases because the applicant isn't here and we're not taking testimony oh i think pam had her pam rooney had her hand up check in with her see what her oh she has put it down oh she put it down okay all right uh so someone i'm gonna move uh for the june 30th continuation of this hearing i moved andrew okay second all second all right that was tom okay any further actually seconded and tom first tom am i correct that's right yes huh any further discussion sena and so let's uh do a roll call for that uh continuation ria um for uh yes andrew hi dog hi tom hi yohana i and myself as an i and i forgot to ask about the time so june 30th are you going to say that it would be 635 in june 30th yeah i think it's we should if that agenda is is when we're having um the hearing just for this purpose correct yep it's nothing yeah so this yeah so 635 it's kind of okay good kind of taken for granted there but very good all right so old business we have proposed changes to demolition delay zoning by law uh repeal section 13 uh demolition delay of the zoning by law adopt new general by law for preservation of structures of historical uh uh of significance so we have a presentation from the planning department ben i'd like to make an introductory statement first okay in context so ben ben brigger one of our planners is going to give the presentation but um i just wanted to say a few words so uh to explain why are we doing this why are we proposing to change the demolition delay by law and um rob mora may have a few comments at the end of my statement um for many years the planning department staff the building commissioner and the historical commission have recognized that there are problems with the existing demo delay by law the language is unclear the process is unclear the bylaw contradicts itself and these are among other things among other problems if the process were followed as written it would be difficult to complete the review within the allotted time the notifications process for publishing legal ads posting meetings and notifying the butters conflicts with itself um because of confusion and the cumbersome aspects of the timelines there have been instances where when constructive grants of demolition permits have happened meaning that there hasn't been a good review it's just gone through because we didn't need timelines the new bylaw will improve clarity and efficiency we hope it will cut down somewhat on the workload of the historical commission and it will provide more predictability for applicants we've looked at a new model that's been recommended by the state planning staff members of the historical commission we invited chris skelly who used to work for the mass historical commission to give us a seminar on demolition delay and how it's being handled by other municipalities and what the state's recommendations are so we learned a lot from that seminar and we're incorporating aspects of what we learned into this proposed bylaw the planning department staff and the building commissioner recommend repealing article 13 demolition delay from the existing zoning bylaw and adding a section to the general bylaw entitled preservation of historically significant buildings um rob mara may have some more to add to that but if not then we would be ready for um the presentation by ben bregger thank you ben or thank you chris ben great thank you chris um i also just wanted to recognize too that jane wald is still here and as a panelist and she's the chair of the historical commission um so we'll likely have things to add as well with this conversation you're a little bit muffled okay uh can you hear me better now and all just not really no no more headsets is that better that's better yes okay i was just saying that jane wald is still here in attendance and she's the chair of the historical commission and so i would be invited to uh comment on the demolition delay bylaw as well but i will give a brief presentation um then you might just want to talk louder i'm not sure about your audio but just just okay yeah i'll see you all you'll be great yeah it sounds good thanks jack thank you um so i am sharing the screen correct yes so yeah i'm just going to give you a little bit of background about what you know what is the demolition delay bylaw um how it's you know been used in amherst and then kind of go over some of the issues with the bylaw and then talk about what we're proposing um to replace it so just briefly um demolition delay bylaw uh as of April 2020 160 towns in massachusetts have some sort of demolition delay bylaw um so it's you know fairly popular uh bylaw and you know has um been adopted by many towns in massachusetts uh the purpose of the demolition delay bylaw is really you know i think of it as a pause button it provides an opportunity to uh you know press pause on a proposed demolition um for a historically significant building and gives the historical commission regulatory authority to um you know place the delay on the demolition but then work with an applicant to find an alternative to demolition so we don't uh lose you know uh you know permanently lose a historically significant building so during the demolition delay period which uh the historical commission you know typically works with the applicant to you know investigate you know alternatives whether it's you know relocating the half of the property the structure i mean uh you know restoring it some sort of adaptive reuse uh finding another owner who might be interested in saving the structure and you know in in amherst uh we have a 12 month delay period um some towns have six most have 12 some have 18 and some towns are even moving for the 24 month delay period so in amherst um the demolition delay bylaw article 13 was first adopted in 1999 and was subsequently amended in 2005 um i think that's when they extended it from six to 12 months here's just two examples of buildings that have been saved uh from demolition in the past few years the uh Bertucci's building uh was a former auto automobile shop from 1946 that had some unique architectural features and was an important building for the development of downtown and the historical commission placed a delay on the demolition and was able to you know the building was saved and a new owner was found and uh it you know will continue to be a functioning restaurant space in downtown uh likewise the home on south pleasant street which is an amherst college home uh amherst college property uh 1862 uh demolition delay was placed on that property and gave the historical commission time to work with the uh with the owners to hopefully relocate the building um still to be determined the exact date of that property but uh it was not uh the 12 month delay saved it from imminent demolition so um a demolition delay bylaw has a lot of different kind of components and you know the state puts out a model bylaw but then each town kind of tweaks it to their specific context so there's just a lot of different things that uh it's seemingly could would be simple but you know actually has a lot of nuance involved such as the definition of a building you know how do you exactly define demolition you know what are the different thresholds for review and the criteria for uh determining significance you know the length of the demo delay period um and you know various other things so in amherst this is kind of the current bylaw um and it kind of just pointing out some of the issues with the bylaw uh we have a vague definition of demolition and that's led to um it requires the building commissioner to provide a lot of interpretation for like you know exactly when to send things to the historical commission uh versus just um you know approving it or you know reviewing it administratively so the definition of demolition currently and I'm just paraphrasing here but it's you know dot dot dot destroying removing or raising a structure or portion there of so it's that little clause there or portion there of which has caused a lot of confusion I guess about what exactly you know a portion could be anywhere from you know trim on a windows to you know an entire addition on a building so it's where we're proposing to clarify that definition for demolition you know similarly the definition of a structure you know isn't you know involves a lot of nuance that's basically staying the same we have a threshold of 50 years so a structure that's 50 years or older is kind of the first age-based age-based threshold for for getting into the historical commission review process uh and that's not going to change we're proposing to keep that 50 years um similarly you know we have 11 criteria in section 13.4 that we use to determine significance um that also uh you know there's some that are very very very specific criteria but then also some that are very vague and can almost be interpreted to catch every in all structures so we're proposing to kind of clean up that language a little bit and then yeah I think I'll get into more details but you know we're you know the demolition delay length is 12 months that'll stay the same and kind of one important thing too is there's no appeals process built into the demolition delay process right now and that's another reason we're proposing to move it out of zoning and into the general bylaw so then we can write in an appeals process that would likely operate similar to the local historic district commission the local historic district their bylaw is in the general bylaw as well um so we would uh copy essentially uh use their appeals process to guide this bylaw and so yeah just some of the issues uh you know there's a high there's a high caseload for the historical commission so um because of you know there's that first age-based threshold of any building that's proposed for demolition that's 50 years or older which at this point is a lot of buildings um that would be sent to the historical commission and also you know there's the vague definition of demolition so uh it could mean you know small changes on many homes or buildings are being sent to the historical commission um and so you know get it it does start to add up there's a high caseload last meet last few weeks ago we had the core for demolition hearings um you know and they kind of they add up and it you know it does take away from some of the other good work of the historical commission and you know it's uh you know it's sometimes uh for an applicant you know they might not think that what they're doing warren's going to the historical commission so um this could be a way of kind of making the process more efficient um yeah like I said the definitions are somewhat big and also kind of this uh bullet point down here um where's my cursor yeah the uh right now there's not we kind of do it anyway in the historical commission um we work we try to work proactively with applicants during the hearing and after delay has been placed to work with the applicant to preserve the building uh whether through relocation restoration you know finding a new owner but we we wanted to kind of spell out that process a little bit more clearly in the bylaw um and then finally there's uh this issue that kind of really only affects you know internal town staff you know operations that are historical commission or review process is now intermingled with the building permit process so and they operate on different timelines so when someone submits a demolition permit application it both starts the historical commission clock and the building permit clock and so um that has caused some issues certainly because uh yeah for a variety of reasons so we're proposing to kind of pull those processes apart so that someone um can just submit so they can know essentially if they'll have a delay placed on their property first and then they and then once they've gone through that process they can apply for the demolition permit so yeah and finally yeah and also the appeal process so these are these uh flow charts I made um that kind of show how the process works essentially so starting from the left and this is how the current bylaw functions someone an applicant submits a demolition permit application staff reviews it and first looks at is it meet the definition of demolition and is the building 50 years or older um if it's you know yes to those then it goes to the historical commission and if no if it's you know less than 50 years and is not and it's not really demolition then it's you know we can issue the demo permit if it goes to the commission the commission then has two purposes that it's public hearing it's uh and you know it's a duly advertised public hearing with notice to a butters uh and you know legal ads and um a lot of work goes into obviously as you guys know a lot of work goes into um getting ready for a public hearing and at that public hearing will determine the uh if the building is significant and then if it is significant um based on those 11 criteria then it goes and then we look at uh will the demolition um of the historic uh be detrimental to the historical and architectural heritage community and so um there's kind of three outcomes from that uh public hearing if it's not significant then we issue the demo permit if it it can be found to be significant but the impact would not be detrimental uh so that could you know the demo permit would then be issued and then when the delay is placed that's when a building is found to be significant and there would be a detrimental impact um of the demolition so uh those are kind of the three outcomes from the public hearing and so what we're proposing um is that the there's the the step to determine significance is taken out of that public hearing and is done by staff and a member of the historical commission without using a revised set of criteria which I'll show in a second but essentially uh that serves two purposes so um the idea is that it cuts down on the caseload for the historical commission um because only buildings that are significant tend to be significant are being sent to the commission and two it also um you know makes the process more efficient for applicants so they don't have to wait um you know upwards of 30 days for just the hearing to begin and if if it's not a significant building so um in this you know proposal uh staff and a member of the historical commission would review for the for now three different things definition of definition of demolition uh the 50 year or older threshold and then whether the building is found to be significant um if if it's no then the demo permit is issued and um if yes to those items then at the historical commission then you know has a fully advertised public hearing um 30 days later where after a lot of more information and research has been carried out and then at this public hearing the historical commission is really only focusing on whether or not to place the delay um and you know we've had uh so that I think is what where the historical commission wants to be they want to be focusing on the detrimental impact of the demolition um and spending more time on that rather than you know looking at significance for um more building so um so I'll just go back to here I think I just wanted to mention too uh the um we're also adding in this uh uh ability I guess um of the commission the historical commission often want uh asks about the future plans for a property so there we're often faced with the building is being taken down and we have to you know the historical commission judges the um historical aspects of the existing building but then is often left wondering what's going to take its place is it uh a you know a building that's going to be equally or could it would it be a building that has you know architectural value you know contributes to the architectural and historical value of the neighborhood um and so where we we're the we're proposing to add um the ability I guess during this public hearing for the historical commission to um consider the owner's plans for reuse reconstruction or restoration on the property and actually spell that out rather than um just kind of being silent on the issue altogether um yeah I think I've hit the at these points um the definition of demolition is down here um it's kind of long but the uh we want to basically there's kind of three three parts to it there's um kind of total destruction of an entire building so that would be complete demolition there's a second one which is partial demolition so pulling down destroying or raising we're saying 25 or more 25 or more of the front back or side elevations um with the gross square footage okay yeah 25 or more of the front back or side elevations that that's in line with how other communities um measure demolition based off of like a partial amount and then finally this kind of this third point which is changing modifying or removing important architectural elements from a structure which define the historic integrity of the design so that could be kind of unique features of a building um that kind of add to the historic integrity of the building and we do have some exemptions in there as well so um I kind of went over this already the two the two stop two step process for review um this is kind of the new significance criteria that staff and the historical commission um member would use to determine significance and whether it needs to go to a public hearing so um essentially if the building is listed on the national register of historic places or the massachusetts state register of historic places be number one if the building has value in association with the location or one or more historic persons or events or with the broad architectural social political economical or cultural heritage of the town of amherst or the building um alone in the context of a group of buildings where as part of the view shed has historical architectural value as to period style craftsmanship method of building construction or an association with the recognized architect or builder so essentially the building has architectural value or was built with a via recognized architect or builder um I kind of went over this a little bit already just the new criteria for determining whether to put a delay kind of allowing the commission to look at plans for reuse reconstruction or restoration but otherwise you know looking at whether the you know just kind of lost your question of whether the building would represent a loss to the amherst community if demolition authorization were granted talked about this already and then talked about this already just kind of separating out those two processes and so yeah I just wanted to kind of reiterate that um we're looking to remove this from zoning bylaw and add it to general bylaw so um I'm not exactly sure kind of how that process works with town council and all of that but um we would need planning boards of four I guess to look at certainly look at the rescinding this from zoning and just making sure you guys are all comfortable that what we're adding to general bylaw you know um you know meets you know is something you all feel comfortable with uh when recommending to take this out of zoning so um yeah I know that was a lot and this might be new to some folks but thanks for bearing with me and uh we'll certainly let me know if you have any clarifying questions or if I can make anything more clear thank you Ben yeah so Chris um what's the our the objective here are we providing a recommendation you don't have to provide a recommendation yet this is uh this informational it's informational and it's an opportunity for you to ask questions it's probably going to go I don't think it's going to go back to CRC again but um if you're comfortable with it at this point we could bring it to town council um but I think it might have to go back to the historical commission one more time I'm not sure about that but um we're trying to get it to a point where we can bring it to town council and have them refer it back for a public hearing and I wanted to let you know in case you haven't read your email today that Janet McGowan did submit comments um about this demo delay bylaw and so you might might want to have time to read her comments and then um we can address her comments either now or uh at a future time um so it's really an opportunity for you to talk ask questions tell us what you like and don't like anything that you want us to change etc and Rob Mora is here and he's been really quite involved in the development of this bylaw so he's available to answer questions if you um if you wanted to ask him questions okay uh so Andrew and then Doug thanks Jack thanks Ben um so um just want to make sure it's clear too when you mentioned was was the primary reason of moving moving it out of zoning is to enable the appeal process so I thought I heard you say earlier is that is that the primary driver for this that um that's my understanding I think that uh it's to add the information about the fuel process and then you know I think just like a broader level you know zoning is more to do with the regulation of land use I guess whereas this is kind of you know a bit more about you know what we can and can't do with the building I guess and you know value for the town at all um so I that's how that decision was made and you know it's another thing that most communities have in general bylaw um and most communities have this in general bylaw and it's uh it's also how we do the local historic okay that that makes sense thanks for clarifying um and then a couple quick sort of thoughts to to that um one would be it might be useful then on the chart your flow chart to have like a loop back for what that appeal process would look like I'm kind of curious you know if you do choose to appeal where do you kind of come back into the process so like visually that I would plan that to be like a useful add to that um I was also curious um what happens if the age of the building is unknown and I'm thinking like like an out structure or like outbuilding or some some type of non like residential building um like do we do we round up like what what's do we just kind of associated with the the age of the actual house just curious if anybody had a had a thought or knew anything about that may I answer that sure chris I believe the way it works is if the age is unknown we assume it's 50 years or older okay correct yeah okay and then one other uh quick question I had was just um could you just uh explain a little bit more about what happened with bertugies in 2018 so I know it was bertugies and then it was porta and now it's going to be the new restaurant so but I don't remember the timing so like bertugies closed and then was there a change of ownership like I'm just curious to see how this actually manifests itself that's that's before my time first year recall I think I can help with that and Rob might be able to help too but um so bertugies closed there was a landowner who owned the bertugies property and several other properties I think they might have owned four or five properties in all vicinity and they had a proposal to build a mixed use building there and at the same time or around that same time they um applied to demolish the bertugies building and I think the um this the historical commission may have felt some pressure of the public I'm not sure maybe Jane has a better interpretation of this but um anyway uh I think the public was um was had heightened awareness about this as a result of the mixed use building being proposed and um so when the historical commission reviewed the bertugies building demolition application they felt that you know they really wanted to try to preserve that building rather than having it torn down and having something else built in its place that's kind of my memory of it um but again Rob or Jane might have a more detailed memory uh Jane you have your hand up please yeah I can only add just a little bit to that and the general outlines that Chris has presented are those that I remember there was also a proposal from a member of the public community member uh for considering a way to reuse that space and so that uh uh reuse the space as it essentially as it exists and so that that also helped to influence the historical commission to think that there might be an adaptive reuse possibility and wanted to work with the owner about that um so okay so so it was the same owner and they they just determined that you know facing this this 12 month delay um it would be easier or more beneficial for them to reuse it and abandon their their plans for the mixed use building yeah I think that's right and I believe that they took uh Porta as a tenant uh after the the historical commission review and uh demolition delay okay great I'm just trying to understand how this actually plays out in in real world situations just I appreciate the the back story thanks hey uh just to continue on that I uh when a building like paints you know has a new coat of paint and all that we we've reviewed signs but that seems like things kind of happened at that site that um just happened and I was wondering if the process was uh consistent with our bylaws with regard to Porta more more review uh Chris do you well I would say that the um Porta didn't really pay attention to what was required to open a restaurant or change the facade of the building or really much of anything they really were I'll use the term scoff laws because they were that in many ways and they were that in the way of starting their business and also in operating their business so I think it wasn't a very successful start and we have some new people who are trying to open a restaurant there now and they are much more cooperative and um doing what they need to do to abide by the rules and I think they'll be good tenants great okay so we have Doug then Tom Doug yeah thanks Jack and thanks Ben um my question has to do with a if a property is in a local historic district um you know I can imagine with this bifurcated process that uh someone would apply for a demolition and be approved by the historic commission and then they have to kind of do the same thing over again later when they try to get a building permit but have to go through the local historic district commission um it could you explain the relationship and whether the there's there's improved coordination between those reviews for a demolition request in a local historic district um so uh I'll say this uh the proposal doesn't do anything to clarify that process uh I think right now um there would be a review by both commissions if a demolition application is submitted for a property in the local historic district um it would be reviewed by historical commission and local historic district commission um and so far there hasn't been any uh conflicting um votes on that they typically vote uh together I guess but um I think on I I think you do raise a good point about what what that would look like and um I know in some other communities uh that have a local historic district the the local historic district has sold kind of authority in that area and the historical commission does not um kind of review demolitions there but I'd be curious to kind of learn a little bit more about that history and kind of how that's been handled in the past well I I can imagine that there's rarely a disagreement between the two about the significance of a building I'm more interested in whether we're taking a timeline that now takes say three months to get through both of those entities and now it takes six months or you know have we made things worse from a timeline point of view or I say or not may I say a few things yes Chris so um I think you could probably do the review simultaneously you wouldn't have to do them one after another and the other thing is that the historical commission has power to impose a demolition delay of 12 months but the local historic district commission actually has a power to prevent demolition completely so those are two different um levels of power with regard to demolition that's all I wanted to say Jane Wald has her hand up okay Jane and then Tom yeah um the way it's actually worked in practice I mean Ben is correct that um that and Chris is correct that there can be two hearing processes but the way it's worked in practice is that the historical commission recognizes that the local historic district commission actually has more regulatory ability than the historical commission which has only the tool of demolition delay so in general if a property has been is in with is within one of the local historic districts overseen by the commission it's it's basically the historical commission's position that that would take precedence and um in practice there have I think there have seldom been two reviews well isn't it true that the local historic district review isn't triggered until you show up for a building permit with with Rob Mora the are you talking about the local historic district commission or the local or the historical commission local history commission um I think probably Chris or Ben can answer that better than I can but I it's been my um well for example my experience with the Emily Dickinson Museum is that the that plans need to be presented in a in a in a kind of sequential process including the local historic district commission before getting to the point of requesting a building permit so a local historic district commission review actually would happen prior in the process prior to review by the historical commission okay thank you great Tom sure thanks um I have a question and I'm trying to figure out how to actually phrase it in a way that um allows us to have a conversation about it so I'm imagining the capacity for individuals to have significant loss by way of fact that not all of these historic buildings have been archived and are publicly known and that I can invest in a property maybe a residential one expecting to take down this piece of this this shed barn whatever it is on that property and not finding out until on that demo that this is this is an issue and and I'm wondering a is there a process by which that owner can find out whether this is significant before they buy that land so does that and in this case does that then go through planning staff or does that go to the historical commission and secondly is there any protection for that owner who buys this piece of land um with this expectation that they're going to demo something and improve that property value and instead cannot cannot do that and might have the maybe enabled to sell that property again um for what it was worth so I guess I'm the question is what is what is this relationship to the individual owner and what are the processes by which they might protect themselves or be protected by this process so Chris or Ben so I would say that um sort of uh let's see usually smart owners you can't expect everybody to be smart but usually smart owners will contact us before they purchase the property and ask what they can do there and um along with what can you do you know what can't you do and we would um usually we meet with people who come to us we meet as a group and we share information with them about you know potential need to go to the historical commission or local historic district or design review board or planning board or whatever it is there could be people who buy property without you know doing that kind of due diligence um and you know that's uh unfortunate but um generally speaking if people are going to make a big enough investment they would come to us and ask uh questions um that doesn't necessarily apply to single family homes but for other types of property it does apply. Tom didn't know okay uh Maria um that has a hand up maybe did you want to answer a question Ben should the previous uh yeah I was just going to add to um saying that the the bylaw that we're proposing kind of adds in a step where uh staff and a member of the historical commission would be able to quickly get someone an answer about whether a building is significant or not and would mean it wouldn't would not need to go to a public hearing whereas right now um that determination needs to be made out of public hearing you know duly advertised you know 14 days noticed a butters being notified and so for the historical commission to even have that conversation um it it's out of public hearing but the bylaw provision that we're proposing uh makes that step more easier I guess okay thank you right Maria so yeah I think that all these improvements are great because you're streamlining the process and um I don't have a problem moving it out of zoning into general that's what's sort of standard a lot of towns have been doing um something previous and the previous comment kind of confused me about the it sounds like there is two steps you do have to do the local historic commission before the historic commission but maybe that's always been the case it's not like anything you're proposing now Ben that you've been working on you know is is causing that it's just always been the case so uh yeah I've had a lot of issues with this because I've had a lot of projects where it's too late you know the people come to me and then I look and I'm like oh you're already non-conforming or oh you're already historical in the local historic district and so yeah most people don't do this kind of research when they buy a house maybe for commercial projects but um so yeah it's it's I mean I think Amherst has a reputation for being a town you know they do everything by the book and it is tricky but it's not like they're making it more difficult it's just everything has to be by the book so uh yeah I've had a lot of projects where we've had to go through a lot um but uh I just have a random question so you're talking about the historic commission overseeing things uh do they for for things that on the national historical register that doesn't fall or fall under any of this purview that's just something that's unrelated to anything that this bylaw would be reviewing is that correct like there's a local historic district but then there's national historic designations throughout town do you know Chris has your hand up okay so usually the national register entity uh only comes into play when someone is requesting federal or state funds to do something on a property um the designation that your national register property is really kind of honorific um more than it is regulatory although it is being proposed as a criteria a criterion for deciding whether a building is significant or not oh okay all right so that different from before that's always been the case that's the same yeah all right thanks good hand room yeah just hearing maria um and tom it it almost makes you think like we just need good I don't know if we necessarily need to outreach but I just wonder if the if the the realtor community uh stays plugged in with the town you know relative to these types of changes or not um but I think that's the primary source of information that that you know that residential homeowner would come in as they'd run by the realtor so hopefully hopefully the realtor community out there is keeping up speed on this very good um Jane you have your hand up I'm sorry if I'm talking too too much but um that's a very good point about the realtor community there's also a state database of structures that have been basically evaluated or nominated to be historic structures and that's that's a very easily accessible database and there are probably um I might get the the number misremember the number but I it's something like maybe 1200 uh buildings in Amherst that are in that database and then we know from um other surveys done over the years that there are probably another six to 900 buildings um that should be added to that inventory and that um the historical commission has recognized that as a as a good tool you know having a comprehensive inventory of buildings that might be eligible for some kind of review of this stuff having that having that put together and easily accessible and um you know provided to realtors and and even perhaps mailings to homeowners um that's kind of an ambition that has been an ambition of ours and maybe uh you know something that we we'd like to see happen at some point in the future thank you thanks jade um I don't see any other uh hands on the board we have public comment on this chris you can have public comment yep okay public is invited to speak on the demolition uh delayed zoning bylaw and I see none okay um so it's 8 26 so it looks like we might be able to wrap up here soon um topics not reasonably anticipated 48 hours prior to the meeting I have no topics and Pam just informed me about a few days ago that we only need to have this on the agenda once we don't need to have it under a new business and old business so that's good news okay only need to say it once good good um and I guess one thing we didn't hit was the upcoming SPP SPRS UB applications we have one application from greenfield savings bank to install an ATM machine at the new markets shopping center I don't I may have mentioned that before but that'll be coming to you sometime soon new market shopping center new market shopping center is at the intersection of amity street and university drive and they have a kind of arched um sign there they're going to find a way and they're going to put a little area where you can drive in and you know get um do whatever you have to do at the ATM and that's an accessory structure to the greenfield savings bank that exists in the building that's as part of that shopping center good good so um planning board committee and liaison reports um we had an executive committee last thursday but you know nothing of note um we will have an annual meeting coming up of some sort I don't think it's going to be in person but I don't think that has been decided yet so um the community community preservation act I mean the yeah Andrew no updates okay and the ag commission dog no updates and designer review review board tom um we had our archipelago presentations postponed as uh planning board did um we had a review of some signage and awnings and outdoor space um on keloch street and the old rayos space that was approved um just marginal changes um we have a couple upcoming projects for some signage and go berry um new signage for the the cemetery um the west cemetery and I think we have a review of two new public bike stations that are coming up that's uh I believe next week so that's june 7th great now are we are we still reviewing some of the signs or is that is that changed or the planning board only needs to review signs that are in specific locations like new market shopping center is one of them and the big y shopping center on university drive so it's usually written into the site plan review that there's a sign plan for those sites and when signs are changed there then those signs have to come to the planning board otherwise you usually only review them when they're part of a site plan review application good good um and do you have a a date for the crc I was not able to attend the last crc meeting but ben was there and maybe he could give a brief report about what they talked about that's a good question they well we talked about the demolition delay by-law I presented it kind of gave the same presentation to them um and I was able to incorporate their feedback into what I presented today uh I honestly am blanking on what else we talked about I was so focused on my bit how did they act on our recommendations for the the building moratorium and the inclusionary zoning by-law um yeah there was uh yeah that's a good yeah uh there was good discussion on both of those um and I believe they voted to recommend uh both I don't think they voted on inclusionary zoning yet that's coming up on June 8th so I believe they voted on moratorium but yeah we voted on inclusionary zoning okay and approval or or disapproval of the moratorium they voted not to support the moratorium yeah okay all right um so report of the chair I guess I I'm interested in terms of how we're going to go back in person um and how that's going to work and what's the what's the game plant or is there is it too early to to discuss have you heard anything Chris I think it's potentially too early the earliest we would have to go back into um in-person meetings would be June 15th or anytime after June 15th um we're going to have a meeting staff is going to have a meeting with the town manager fairly soon I can't remember the exact date but it's you know within the next week or so and he's going to inform us about you know what is upcoming um my impression is that uh well I do know that the governor has filed some legislation um in Boston to extend the ability to have remote meetings into the future I think it's as far as September 1st um so if that passes then we would have the ability to have remote meetings until September 1st and and I think there's a lot of scrambling in Boston to try to figure out you know what does this what does the end of the emergency mean so um but I think you know we're probably good for a while to have remote meetings but I'll let you know if that changes okay because it came up uh during the Piner Valley Community Commission with regard to doing the combination of the zoom and in-person and they I guess there's this feature called owl just like the bird that works with zoom and it just I guess turns and looks at the person talking and and sort of thing and um so it's a nifty device but I'm just wondering it's you know if we meet in person again we're going to have to like generate all this paper I think unless we all have you know our laptops or iPads or things like that it's just it's just going to be it's going to be changed to start meeting uh personally I'm um I am attached to all my screens and things like that um I'm sure you'll have lots to talk about um because we're not the only board uh obviously so lots of opinions I'm sure uh uh report to staff Andrew obviously I just I was in short to just as part of that discussion whether whether you anticipate a hybrid solution might be in place or do you think it's all remote or all in person so whenever those combos come up you know when when the world's back to normal I travel a fair amount for work and it would actually be super helpful for me to manage my time if I could if I could remote in to some of those meetings instead of adjusting my travel schedule so even if we do go back to fully in person there is an option for individual members of boards and committees to act remotely as long as there's a quorum present on site and as long as the chair is present on site you have to apply in advance I think you have to apply to the chair and tell them I'm going to be away may I remote in on this date but that's already in place um and I think that there are considerations about having hybrid types of meetings as we transition back to whatever the new normal is but we don't really have any details about that yet thanks yeah what's that the one law that that Steve Shriver brought up um where as long as you look at the video oh that's the um mullin rule mullin rule yeah okay so that's that's much different than yeah the live sort of zoom interaction that we've become accustomed to that would be a good thing to bring up um for Andrew who's potentially not able to come to the June 30th planning board meeting that he could um watch the video of that meeting and then um at a subsequent meeting be able to vote on the archipelago project so that's something to keep in mind um so that's an option that's available what you have to do is watch the video or read the material and the minutes of the meeting and then you um make a statement a written statement it's I think it can be by email or handwriting or they're you know different forms but um members of the planning board have taken advantage of this in the past and it's really useful because you're allowed to miss one meeting um with a consequence great I think a lot of staff you asked me about that yes I just want to encourage people to participate in the Juneteenth Juneteenth celebration that's coming up on um June 16th which is in a couple of weeks but um part of that is going to be um the public unveiling of these civil war tablets that we've had ever since the late 1800s they were created in late 1800s by the grand army of the republic um in Amherst and they're really quite amazing they're big giant tablets with the names of people who fought in the civil war and Ben has been very instrumental in bringing them back and being able to have them displayed they're going to be displayed in the lower area of the bank center and so you might want to just come by on saturday and and see those saturday June 16th and there'll be a lot of other um events happening then too but uh it's it's going to be an exciting time in Amherst so I just wanted to mention that good to know thank you so I think we adjourn what 837 thank you all our next meeting well um do you have a meeting in two weeks what's to do okay on June 16th okay all right June 16th June is it June 16th yeah it will be June 16th yeah should I get my daughter's birthday oh June 19th is the date of Juneteenth right we have the 18th off yeah so I said the wrong thing okay Juneteenth is planning board June 19th is Juneteenth celebration very good okay all right good evening all thank you all righty bye bye bye everyone good night stop recording you want to stop recording