 The appointed hour of six o'clock having been reached as chair of the Amherst Zoning Board of Appeals, I call this meeting to order. My name is Steve Judge, and I want to welcome everyone to this meeting. Pursuant to Governor Baker's March 12th, 2020 order, suspending certain provisions of the open meeting law, General Laws Chapter 30A, Section 18, and Governor's March 15th, 2020 order, imposing strict limitations on the number of people that may gather in one place. This public hearing of the town of Amherst Zoning Board of Appeals is being conducted via remote participation. No in-person attendance of members of the public will be permitted, but the public can listen to the proceedings by clicking on the link on the town's webpage. In accordance with provisions of Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 40A, in Article 10, special permit granting authority of the Amherst Zoning By-law, this public meeting has been duly advertised and notice thereof has been posted and mailed to parties at interest. We will begin with a roll call of the regular members of the ZBA who have been in panel for consideration of the item on tonight's agenda. I'm Steve Judge. Mr. Langsdale, are you here? I'm here. Ms. O'Mara? Here. Ms. Parks? Here. Mr. Maxfield? Ms. Waldman? I'm here. Mr. Beric? Mr. Greeny? Mr. Meadows? We have foreign attendance. That's a quorum for purposes of receiving testimony and we expect Mr. Dillon, Maxfield, will be on in a second. Also in attendance is Marine Pollock, a planner with the town. Dave Washevitz with the building inspectors department. I think Mr. Mora is also here and John Whitten of the law firm of KP law firm who is serving as outside counsel to the board on this matter. The zoning board of appeals is a quasi-judicial body that operates under the authority of chapter 48 of the general laws of the Commonwealth for the purpose of promoting the health, safety, convenience and general welfare of the inhabitants of the town of Amherst. One of the most important elements of the Amherst zoning bylaw in section 10.38. Specific findings from this section must be made for all our decisions. All hearings and meetings are open to the public and are recorded by town staff. Each petition is heard by the board is distinct and is evaluated on its own merits and the board is not ruled by precedent. The procedure is as follows. The petitioner presents the application to the board during the hearing after which the board will ask questions for clarification or for additional information. After the board has completed its questions, the board may seek public input. The public speaks with the permission of the chair. If a member of the public wishes to speak, they should so indicate by using the raise hand function on their screen. The chair with the assistance of the staff will call upon people wishing to speak. When you are recognized, present your name and address to the board for the record. All questions and comments must be addressed to the board and I want to remind the applicant, my fellow board members and the public to seek recognition from the chair before speaking. The board will normally hold public hearings where information about the project and input from the public is gathered, followed by public meetings for each application. The public meeting portion is when the board deliberates and is generally not an opportunity for public comment. The following is a statutory timeline for ZBA action on a comprehensive permit. Within 40 days from closing of the public hearing, the ZBA must render a decision, denial approval or approval with conditions based on a majority vote. Within 14 days of its decisions, the ZBA must file a copy with the town clerk. And with 20 days from the date of the ZBA decision is filed with the town clerk, the public can appeal the ZBA's decision. In addition, I just want to review the ways the public can be informed about and comment on this application in addition to these public meetings. Residents can sign up to be notified of any additional information recorded by the town concerning this application through the notify me feature on the town website. Copies of all submissions can be found on the town website. Go to the ZBA page, click on the link for 132 Northampton Road. That link will bring you to a page which allows you to navigate to all the public information regarding this application. Public comments can be submitted on the 132 Northampton Road page or by emailing to Marine Pollock Planner at P-O-L-L-O-C-K-M at amherstma.gov. Amherst Media will not be broadcasting tonight's hearing live. However, check their website for information or on when it will be rebroadcast or if you can or you can view a recording of this meetings on the town's YouTube channel. Before we proceed, I note that Mr. Maxfield is here so we'll mark him as present. Tonight's meeting agenda is as follows, a public hearing to consider ZBA 2020-39, Valley Community Development Corporation, 132 Northampton Road, request a comprehensive permit under Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 40B to construct a new two and a half story residential multifamily building containing 28 small studio apartments and related common areas on an approximate 0.88 acre property located at 132 Northampton Road, map 14C parcel 8, general residence, RG, and educational ED zoning district. This meeting public hearing is continued from September 24th, 2020. Items on the agenda for tonight's meeting, responses to questions from the board at the September 24th public hearing, review and discussion of waiver requests, public comment regarding waiver requests, discussion of possible questions, requests and conditions among board members and other items deemed appropriate. We will also have a general comment period as we do every meeting on matters that are not before the board tonight and any other business not anticipated within 48 hours. We have a full agenda tonight and I intend to provide time for public comment. The board has a 21 page memo reviewing the waiver requests which we received earlier today. Board members have not had the time to review this memo prior to tonight's meeting. We're not going to vote to approve or deny these waiver requests tonight. Rather, tonight is an opportunity to review and discuss these waiver requests and to get input from the applicant, town staff and the public. We will dispose of these waiver requests at the next public meeting. Since the September 24th public hearing, the board has received the following submissions, a PowerPoint presentation from the applicant responding to questions from the board at our last meeting. Amherst Historical Commission, a letter from Amherst Historic Commission saying they voted to support the demolition of the structure on 132 Northampton and further did not believe that a demolition delay was warranted. And we received six public comments between September 24th and October 7th. Those public comments were anonymous public comments submitted to the town via the town website dated September 24th. Kate Troste comments submitted via email dated September 28th. Anonymous comments submitted town website dated October 6th. Hilary Wilbur comments submitted via email dated October 6th. Barbara Graven-Wilbur comments submitted via email dated October 6th. And Rebecca Frick comments submitted via email dated October 7th. The first item on the agenda is the answers to the questions we asked of the applicant at our September 24th meeting. Ms. Baker, are you representing the Community Valley Development Corporation tonight? Yes, I will be. My name is Laura Baker. I'm the real estate project manager for Valley Community Development Corporation. We're located at 256 Pleasant Street in Northampton. Great. I know we've got a PowerPoint presentation from you. Can you discuss that? We'll deal with each of the two questions individually. Okay. Okay, I'm hoping you can see this first page. Yeah. Yep. Great. So we had a lot of discussions at the last meeting about various locations, possible locations for a smoking area. We were asked to further explore two potential sites, a modification of the original location, which we're calling option A, and a possible new location, which we're calling option G. And I'm gonna actually ask Rachel, who I see is here, to maybe go through a bit of the details related to these two potential locations. Sure. Thanks, Laura. So per after last CBA's discussion, we looked at it off. Again, we just need you to identify yourself for the record. Sure. Rachel Leffler of Berkshire Design Group of Northampton. All right, thank you. Okay. So after the last CBA meeting, we heard input that the previous location A, which is nearby where we're calling Alt A, would be more acceptable if it were closer to the property line and further away from the building. So we looked at what that would entail, and that does require a little bit more grading and a slight retaining wall, a two foot retaining wall for the smoking area. That area is shown in red. So it's moved closer to the property line. And then additionally in that option, we explored removing the garden beds, which were on the west side of the building and moving that to the north side of the building, which are the little squared and orangish red on the plan to the right of the building. And also we moved the patio area, three feet to the south again, to get it a little bit further away from Alt A. That area would have a smoking pavilion as we previously proposed with a bench and an asher. And then we also heard feedback that it was desired to look at possible location closer to Northampton Road, further away from the building with maybe not a shelter cover, but a bench and some sort of screening with vegetation. It's really tight over there in terms of grading and drainage, but we've carved out a little space for that bench. So that would be a bench with a bit of a fence behind it, the low fence, a four foot high fence and some shrubs behind that also. That also would have a smoking urn for removal of the cigarette waste and some evergreen shrubs for screening. So we can see just chiming in a little bit that the Alt A option is now 25 feet from the building, which was something that was important to folks. And the Alt G is set back just far enough to pull it out of the front setback. It's 86 feet away from the building face. People may recall we were a little sensitive about this area in front of the building because it does have the intake for the fresh air system. So I'm hoping tonight we decide on a location or to make this a smoke-free property, which we had offered. And I know some public comments that came in related to that. And then we could, depending on which location or selected, we could provide additional, say, if it was this location, we could provide additional images of what this might look like. Are there comments regarding the two proposed locations for a smoking area? Mr. Maxfield. I guess this is a question for you, Mr. Chair, which would be, do we want to take some type of vote on whether or not we want it to be A or G tonight as a board and then can move forward with conditions about that later or even say the selected location versus no smoking later if we want to do that, just so we can kind of be done with this location area? No, the goal would be not to have a formal vote, but to give it a sense of the board and then we would do it when we do conditions at a later point. But I think we have to answer all three questions and we probably ought to do it, but number one, should it be a smoke-free and that eliminates the need for a vote on ALT A and G? Yeah, ALT A and ALT G. And then if that doesn't, if that isn't the consensus of the board to have it non-smoking, then we try to give the applicant, we do give the applicant the idea of where we will, what we as a board would support and they can go then and move on and we will vote on that when we vote on conditions. So I'd like to give them some kind of consensus, something to move forward on tonight and not discuss this at any length in the future. Go ahead, yes, Mr. Max. Oh yeah, my follow-up on that is yet at this point currently I'm in support of ALT A's location. Any other comments from board members regarding ALT A, ALT G or it being a non-smoking site? Ms. Parks. I'm just wondering, you were saying for ALT G that you may have some kind of images of what that might look like. Do you have that in this presentation? No, we do not. Okay. We were kind of thinking of a softer approach. We didn't really want to put a big structure right in the front yard. It felt a little inconsistent with our goal of having a traditional style building. So we were looking at, it's described here, but a trellis, basically a corner trellis fence with some vines on it, with maybe two chairs or a bench, just something that looked more like it belongs in a front yard, but it might not have a full rain cover over it. But yeah, we didn't want to dig really deep into images until people decided what was their preferred location. Ms. Parks. Yeah, I don't know if I, how to ask this correctly, but for the other properties that you manage, what, how are any of them non-smoking and how has that worked out? Yeah. So many of them are non-smoking. I know I've referenced the Sargent House because it just opened in Northampton. Initially it was a non-smoking property and building. It's very tight to its neighbors. We had complaints from neighbors that people were smoking in front of their house. And so the solution was to set up a designated smoking area on our own property. It's not 25 feet from the building and it was very close to the sidewalk. I showed an image of it, it's just a bench. There's no cover over it, but it seems to be working effectively as kind of just showing people where that behavior is going to happen and controlling it in that way. People don't seem to mind if they have to use an umbrella or anything like that. So it's not like a, we don't want to have something that looks like a bus shelter, kind of in the front yard. Right. You answered what I was thinking of, which is if people are going to smoke, they're probably going to smoke. And so, yeah, to my mind, it's better to have a place to smoke than having people either smoke in the units and not say anything or smoke in places you don't want them to be. Yeah, there's some evidence that making it, putting up barriers for people to smoke, it does act as a deterrent. But I don't think it's quite that simple. I think people have to be ready to cut back or quit before that's really going to happen. But then every time they raise the price of cigarettes, every time it becomes harder to smoke in different places, all those things act as subtle kind of deterrence to people. Ms. Leclerc. I would just add quickly that as the no smoking rules evolved and became rules applied to properties, there was definitely an evolution. And we're talking back 15 years ago, this was starting optionally and whatnot. And there's just been an evolution and recognizing that the indoor air quality and the health concerns of neighbors were really what was trying to be eliminated by making properties go no smoking. And the first compliance issues were there. And residents who have kids with asthma or any other concerns about indoor air quality, that was where the compliance and lease enforcement happened. And Laura is very right that you can't force people to stop smoking. Sometimes they do when these rules happen and they don't, or they start to vape and you can vape inside your house. It's not, it doesn't cause the same problem. So it does cause some changes in behaviors in my experience working in my portfolios, but it is also true that those who will not quit having a pleasant place for them to sit and talk to each other while I have a cigarette works. As far as my thoughts, I like Alt A just because I don't like the fact of putting people out on Northampton Road to smoke and then walk in. I think it's, I think it's stigmatizing and I don't think it gives the, I don't think it's consistent with the neighborhood field. I think other structures along Northampton don't have, would not have a similar situation where people would be smoking up close to the road. They would be in their backyard or on the deck or someplace else. I think Alt A seems to me to be far enough away from the building to not cause problems with the air intake. It's also bordering on a parking lot that is, that I think is not used on a regular basis. Whenever I go past that there are not a lot of cars parked there, perhaps on a Saturday afternoon when there's a game or some other function at the school, but I don't see that it's a crowded parking lot. And I think this gives a lot of, a lot of air for around the park, the smoking area for the smoke to disperse and not create problems for people. So my inclination is Alt A. And I don't think it's, I mean, it's up to you but I don't think that it's a realistic to have a non-smoking property because I think people will find a way to smoke. Is there any other comments? Mr. Langsdale. I have a couple of questions. Alt A now is five feet from the property line. And on the other side of the fence that's along there there is some grassy area and then the parking area. And the parking area extends all the way the length of your property on the other side of the fence, of course. Have you, has there been any discussion with Amherst College about this, about the location of this? Yeah, very, very informally. There was early discussion and it was my question to them about, you know without some kind of guidance and rulemaking by us people would probably use this back patio to smoke. And their preference was to move that further from the track. And so their suggestion was to shift it this way toward Northampton Road. The patio, you mean? Nope, the smoking. Well, the smoking area. Yeah. So have they seen this? This one that you're seeing tonight. Yeah. They saw the original plan, which had, you know it's, I think it was maybe eight feet from the property line instead of five feet. I don't know if you remember, Rachel but the concept. It was 11 feet from the building and now it's 25 feet. So that's a difference of 14 feet. So it couldn't have been eight feet from the property line. It had, it was on the other side of the pathway. Yep. So it was more than certainly more that it is more like 15 feet from the property line. I send them routine updates but I do not send them every time we tinker with them. And I don't send them. But they did see the original plan with the original smoking area and they did not make any negative comments about where it was located. Okay. My preference would be G because I think the A is for one thing it's a pavilion which will house more people. Also it would house people during the snow and rain and it might engender more smoking than G which is only one bench. And it's 86 feet from the building which would not have an impact on the intake. And it's over, it would be well over 100 feet, right? From the neighbor to the east. And 15 feet from the property line and then the sidewalk and then the road. And it would be significantly far enough away from the neighbors on the other side of the road but I don't think it would be a problem. Plus you've done I think very well with putting the fence and the shrubs around it. I just think it isolates it more and I think that's better for everyone in the building and better than the alternate A which is a lot closer to the parking area. The other question I have though is if you were to let's say do alternate G and put that there will there be anything in I guess the lease agreement that stipulates where that smoking area is that that's the only place that smoking can occur and what kind of what ways you might have to enforce that and any possible outcomes if people disregard that and smoke in other areas. Sure. So like any other type of house rules or lease requirements that would appear in the lease that you can only smoke in XYZ area or this is a non-smoking property you can't smoke on it at all. Like any lease violation there are usually protocols in place there might be a warning at first there might be a second warning written warning. I don't know Jane you may know this better than I do whether landlords have had success evicting tenants for legal behavior like smoking. It's a tricky issue. I think is what we saw at Sergeant House was there was actually peer pressure. Like people were really grateful to have the housing they didn't want to muck it up and they policed each other like they didn't want problems with the neighbors they just didn't want problems they didn't want to be kicked out they didn't want to be seen as a troubled property and so they kind of kept on an eye on each other. Does it mean that no one will ever violate the lease? Of course not, people do but we find that there's a pretty good self-patrolling system. And I would add, may I speak Mr. Chairman real quick? Okay, I would just add Laura I agree with everything Laura just said I think Mr. Langsdale's question does go to the processes we've brought up in these meetings along other lines as well where property management will enforce the lease and the house rules and policies and it will typically be someone who is chronically breaking those rules and landlords we do win those cases if residents are not complying with the lease and they're doing so over and over again but as Laura pointed out, there would be a conversation there would be a warning there would be a process before we ever got there and I also really agree with her that neighbors are a big part of the process neighbors make it uncomfortable for you to break the rules and those are the neighbors and residents we like because they help us with our community. So. So it seems to me we're coming close to a consensus on this and I'd like to indicate that through polling rather than a vote. So Ms. O'Meara you haven't spoken is there anything you wanna say before we kind of try to determine a consensus? No, I appreciate the thoughtful discussion. I think I'm leaning toward A as well. Okay. I think G would stigmatize people hate to say that but I think that's true. Excuse me, how would it stigmatize in what way and who? Well, when I said it, Keith, I was thinking that it stigmatizes people by pushing them farther away from the house, putting them out on the residents out on the road to smoke and as if it's kind of they're pushed away and it's unusual in that area to see people so close to standing out there and smoking. When I drive up and down or walk up and down that area I don't see anybody kind of at the end of the driveway. There's no one living there right now. Well, no, all along North Hampton there's a lot of houses on North Hampton and I don't see people doing that. I assume that if people are smoking. If it becomes a no smoking area they'll be on the sidewalk itself. So being on a bench at least 15 feet from the sidewalk and surrounded by evergreens and a fence I don't understand who you're stigmatizing and we're talking here about not about the smokers we're talking about the non-smokers those are the ones who were trying to protect and A is closer to the building and around the patio and the parking area and everything. So for me it's better for them to be further away from the building than close to the building or closer to the building with alternate A. I just think it's not gonna stigmatize the smokers that makes sense to me. So I think I hear a consensus that there's not a consensus to vote this to make this a non-smoking property. And if I'm wrong, any members of the board speak up. So now I think we have a choice between A and G as Alt A and Alt G. I've, Joan has mentioned, Ms. O'Mara has mentioned Alt A Mr. Maxfield I think you mentioned Alt A I mentioned Alt A. Ms. Parks, do you have a preference for Alt A or Alt G and Mr. Langsdale has evidenced a preference for Alt G. Ms. Parks, do you have a preference for one or the other? I do have one question before I say is there a big cost differential between these two things now that with a new location of A there needs to be a reach anymore? There is a cost differential. Alt A is going to be more expensive because it has a structure and some additional grading. I don't think we're talking a huge magnitude of scale. So I wouldn't say that cost should be the driving determiner of this decision. I also would say to Mr. Langsdale comment about the pavilion, pavilion is a big word for what's really a tiny kind of covering. And the covering came to be because neighbors requested it. So initially it was just a bench. And then people said, oh, people have to be covered while they're outside smoking. And so we added it. So it's, but it's very modest. It's like an eight foot by six foot, you know it's a rain cover. So it's not going to fit a huge group of people under it. Ms. Parks. So I would say that I prefer alternative A as well. Okay. Well, it looks like we have to polling of the committee, not a vote. We have some direction for you for the next meeting on a location. All right. Yep. Okay. Excuse me. Yes, Mr. Langsdale. How is that not a vote? Because we didn't have a roll call. We're just trying to give them. You did have a roll call. I didn't call a vote. I said, we were just trying to get polling to get to try to determine a consensus so we can move off the topic. But I think, and we typically vote on these things in a public meeting and not in the meeting portion and not the hearing portion. And we're not, and this would be part of the conditions and we're not doing conditions tonight. So I'm just trying to give them a consensus so they can move forward. Consensus of the board so we can move forward. All right. Any other discussion on smoking areas? Let's move to the second question, which is sections, massing sections and drawings. Thank you. So we took, Chris Brestrup helps us with a sample that we followed to try to give a sense of the relative, this is very approximate, the relative height and massing of the different structures that are in the immediate area of the proposed building. So essentially what this section is doing is it's kind of cutting through the middle of the building that we've proposed as well as the two buildings here and the field house here. And then it's kind of dropping them down and it's showing you it's using the town's kind of topographical data about Northampton Road, which as we kind of know goes up in these little kind of hills and plateaus. And again, an approximate height of the neighbor at 126, an approximate height of 132, approximate height and massing of the field house. This was the most interesting part to me. This little black stub here is an eight foot high fence. And what it made me understand was there would have to be a massively high fence. To actually screen a view from here over to here. And that's mostly a function just of the topography of the site. The better approach seems to be not to say we don't, we're proposing a fence, we're not changing that, but that these are the mature height of trees that are proposed as plantings in the landscaping plan. The other thing to think about with these two buildings is just that this one sits further forward so that they're looking down kind of in this area. They're not really looking down directly at this building per se. Do people have questions about this? It's a little, it's a little tricky to understand it. And I'm sure Rachael will be happy to answer questions. People understand that, okay. I have a question, I don't see the raise hand option. Oh, well, I saw your hand. I'll look into why you didn't see that. Let me, oh, meanwhile, but continue. So I have a statement. I am still struggling with demolishing those beautiful spruce trees. There was a tree that came down tonight right across from there, but it was not any of the spruces, it was an oak. And I actually went out there to see it. And I still have trouble really accepting that as a viable option. I just wanna put it out there. Other comments. I think we understand the massing. Great. Should I move along? Yeah. So there was a question because the renderings and the elevations were not quite at the same level of development. And so it's a little confusing. So what we did is we brought the elevations, which are the kind of two dimensional looks at the building up to the level of detail that we know at this time. So this is the elevation of the side of the building that would be facing the field house. And you can see the double doors that would be leading out to the patio are here. We did move this horizontal band we talked about last time. It was a little higher before it just, it was not the proportions in quite right. So it's been re-centered a little bit. This is the elevation of the building. This is the main entry that would be facing the driveway. The grades that you're seeing here are approximate. This is a side of the building that would be facing North Hampton Road. And then this is the back of the building that would be facing the track. And then we had a question about kind of what would this potentially this material on the ground floor look like? So I just pulled a sample of what I thought a stone veneer might look like that would be kind of in this section here. Again, looking to kind of echo the treatment that's on the field house where the upper is brick and the lower is kind of a gray granite looking stone. And that's all we have for pictures tonight. So if you go to the rear view of the building that's facing the track, there's two doors here. So there's two doors here and there's two doors on the other side. Is that right? This would be exiting the common area. Yeah. And this is more of just a fire regress. They would probably be an out only door be locked from the outside. And then if you get to the view facing the track, so I guess that's A5 1.0. This one's facing the track, that's the back. It's facing the parking lot, I should have said. I'm sorry. 1.0, 5.10. Sorry. That's our, there you go, that one. Yeah. So these two go out to the patio, right? Yes. The two here. And then you have a door, a third door on the other side. Right. I understand. Yeah, and it's really to just open it up. A lot of connection between the indoor and the outdoor space. And then the, under the gables, it's sort of a crosshatch look. Are you having scalloped? Yeah. Or what's up there? Yeah, so I think the main purpose of this is to show that we would have a contrasting siding. These I think are supposed meant to be shingles. Yeah. Kind of traditional New England shingles. Got it. Okay. And then you use cement or concrete siding and what we were talking about, right? Okay, got it. Yeah. So they would look very much like wooden clabbers, but they wouldn't be wood. Yep. Questions from the board regarding the site, the elevations, materials, the look of the building. Great. I found that helpful. Is there anything else? Those are the questions that we had from the meeting two weeks ago, if I remember right. Yep. Great. All right, thank you very much. You're welcome. The next item on the agenda is a discussion of waiver requests. And we had a, the package you got today is a big pack. It's a lot of stuff. It's more than it can be digested. And you can't, you're not, I don't, I'm not able to, and I suspect you're not able to make a decision on all these waivers in such short order. But I think we, I don't want to waste the meeting time and I don't want to waste this meeting. I'd like to go through these waivers so that we all understand them. So at the next meeting, when we consider waivers and conditions, we will have had a discussion about these and you will have time to look at the waivers over the next week or two weeks or the next week, I think. So my intention is not to vote on these, but to discuss them, to give us an opportunity to ask questions, the applicant to respond on the need and the town staff to help us understand them. And that's really what this is about. So I propose that we go to the waiver request that Maureen sent out today that you all received that looks like this, the review of waiver dated October 7th. And we'll use that as our kind of starting point and as a discussion document that we can work off of. And what I intend to do is I'll kind of introduce the subject for specific waiver and try to describe it, Rob and Dave and Maureen to the extent that I, because I'm not an expert in this, to the extent that I have mischaracterized that I've described it inaccurately, please feel free to correct me. And I'd like the applicant, Laura or Jane to comment on the reason for it and why you need that waiver request. Does that make sense from everybody? All right, let's do that. So the first one is article, is waiver of section 2.04 special district, which also includes also section 2.22. But this really involves to the best of my knowledge is the actual lines of the ED zoning district which come across a very narrow portion of the property at the rear of the property. And that under zoning requirements, you would have to be anything on the uses of the property on within that ED zoning district have to be educational and the zoning bylaws intend that they be buildings only owned by Amherst College, Hampshire College of the University of Massachusetts. So it seems to me that this is what we have here is a discrepancy in zoning lines as opposed to the intention of the zoning bylaw. And the applicant is asking for us to waive the requirements of the ED zoning district so that they can have their building in the site. Have I described that correctly, Rob or Dave? That sounds correct, yeah. It's good enough, all right. Valley, do you want to discuss the need for this? Is there any more to say? Just would say that there is language in section 2.02 that says boundaries which appear to follow public or institutional property lines shall coincide with such property lines. And in our case, the line is a little bit off the property line and we think it's like a scrivener's error. It's a mapping error. So that's how we're treating it. Any questions or discussions from members of the board? That seems to me to be fairly straightforward. The second one is 3.21 educational district. But this again is the same kind of issue if we're going to waive 2.04, it makes no sense not to waive 3.21 which says the use of the land in an educational district has to be for a college. It's intended the zoning map in fact, owner managed by them, by colleges, all setbacks and rear yards in that area in that ED zone have to be within 50 feet of, that are within 50 feet of a boundary have to conform with the neighboring zoning district requirements which makes no sense in this instance. And the deals with off street parking which really isn't applicable in this case. It seems to me that this is another case where we just were trying to clear up which is a surveyor's error or an inaccuracy in the lot lines or maybe just an inadvertent mistake. Does that describe it accurately? Yes. All right. Valerie, do you want to say anything about this? Grace, any board members have concerns about this? All right. We'll move on. Article three use regulations. 3.323 deals with the number of apartments in a building. It also deals with whether apartments can be located if they're close to a heavily traveled street, close to a business and commercial educational district from an area already developed for multifamily use. I think those requirements are met in this area. Each building in this area has to have three, more than, no fewer than three apartments have to have no fewer than three or more than 24 dwelling units. This proposal has 28 dwelling units so we need a waiver of that requirement. In addition, I think it meets the additional side rear yard per floor, two foot additional side and rear yard per floor requirement of the zoning bylaw. I'm learning this as I'm going through it so please give me a second. We'd also grant, ask for a waiver to allow, to exceed the maximum number of apartments in a building, a waiver to allow the buildings, all the apartments to be of the same size and that is the number of bedrooms to waiver, would grant a waiver for not necessitating a review by the Amherst Design Review Board but because that's a part of the comprehensive permit it isn't needed and if you have a comprehensive permit and to grant a waiver for a special permit application for apartment building accessory uses which would normally be part of the special permit process but because we have a comprehensive permit process we don't need to have the bound by the rules of the special permit process so we would take care of it here. I think that is the crux of the request for the waiver of 3.323. I guess one other thing is that this, one by the justification for the waiver request if I'm reading this correctly is that the units will all be for affordable housing and therefore it meets the town's definition of affordable housing and there is grace I guess granted or consideration should be given to creating affordable housing and perhaps waivers are more applicable in that case or more justifiable in most case. Is Dave and Rob and Maureen have I missed anything on that? Okay, the valley do you have a disaster point you want wish to make? Mr. Chairman, I do have our zoning waiver table in a PowerPoint format that I could put on the screen and I'm honestly not sure if it would help or hurt. You know, it's very handy, it's very good. That would be very, but no, no, no. But I think that's a good way to look at it's like a great table of contents but we're gonna have to deal with these documents eventually, so we might as well deal with them now but it's a great reference sheet and it's what I used, it's very handy, right? That's fine. So I think it's very good. I think the area of grace is that the zoning requires no more than 50% of units being of any one size except if you're doing affordable housing then you can get your mission to not meet that requirement. Thank you, that's correct. Questions from the board regarding that provision that waiver request. Okay, the next is section five, filling of land. Any filling of land is accessory to the development of the property which raises the existing grade more than 5,000 square feet or more in area than the average of two or more feet to require a special permit. Now, we are in the comprehensive permit process and therefore it supersedes the special permit process. So we can deal with, we can waive the requirement for a special permit when we're doing a comprehensive permit. That's essentially the purpose of the 5.00 general accessory waiver. Just a second Felicity, hold on a second. Mr. Woskiewicz or Mr. Mora, Maureen, any comment on that? Just to clarify section, the applicant's waiver under section 5.00 is in regards of their proposed accessory uses. I, for some reason, I heard you say filling of land. I'm looking at the wrong thing. It's 5.1, I hit the wrong five. Yeah, and I would like to just point out I don't know why but people's option to use the raise the hand button for panelists specifically may not be used. Could someone try it to be honest? I know Felicity, for instance, you physically raised your hand. Were you able to press a button? No. I don't, yeah, but Dave is, Dave is a lot. Okay, so maybe I'm not really sure what's going on. So I guess if you just speak up as a panelist, but attendees are, when a time does come, it looks like that function's still working. I don't know what's going on. So, let's see here. Okay, so anyways, yeah, so we should be looking at, if we wanna keep in order, we're at the waiver request under section 5.00, which is regarding the two assessors, which is the two offices that are inside the building. Right, thank you. Which we require a special permit. And we're waiving the need for a special permit because we have a comprehensive permit. Correct, yep. Correct. Ms. Hardy. I was just gonna make the same point, Mr. Judge. All right, thank you. Any comments from board members regarding that? All right, the next is article 4.004.0. This one page six of the 21 pages. Four methods may be utilized for developing land. Residential purposes are section 3.3. Development standards. The applicant is requesting a waiver from the development method set forth in article four under this comprehensive permit application. Article four of the bylaws is not applicable to the proposal therefore the board does not take action. We don't need to, so we don't need to waive 4.0 and 4.1. Is that the determination, even though that's the request for that? Correct. So after talking with the building commissioner this week, we determined that there are various development methods. There are various development methods. These are four that are specified under article four. However, they're not, they don't deal with apartment buildings. So for instance, under the four methods are in regards of conventional residential subdivision development. That's not what's being proposed here. Two cluster development that is not being proposed here. Plan unit residential development, PIRD is the acronym. That's not being proposed here. And open space community development is also not being proposed here. And so therefore those, the standard, the general standards that are applicable to those four different housing types are again, is not being proposed here. And therefore the board does not need to take action regarding this waiver request. Ms. Baker. We aired on the side of being conservative in our list, aided and vetted by the planning department that it was safer to ask when we were not sure if something applied to us or not to ask. So we're certainly willing to be told we don't have to ask for this. That's fine. Any other comments? All right. Next, it does deal with filling of land. I jumped ahead. The applicant has submitted a cut fill analysis as shown in the sheets we've received. The applicant is requesting a waiver from the section 5.10 of the zoning bylaw in order to allow quantities of cut fill as shown on sheet LC-602. The cut fill analysis without need to file a separate special permit. The applicant stays in the necessary cut and fill as a partially a function of stormwater management and partly a function of making the building an outdoor areas handicapped accessible. So this requires, this is another case in where we're requiring a special permit for the cut fill analysis, which is not necessary if we're doing a comprehensive permit, but we're also, there may be conditions we wish to discuss concluding a provision that requires the applicant to return to the board for review at a public meeting if any substantial changes are proposed to the cut fill analysis. It seems to me we have a preliminary cut fill and we may have, once they're on site, they may have different, they may have to do something different than they proposed in the cut fill analysis. Is that the reason this is stated that way, Maureen? Correct, so as the applicant further... Develops the property, they may have to make changes. There could be changes to the cut fill analysis and therefore if there is substantial change, the condition would require that the applicant come back to the board for review and approval of those changes. Okay, it seems a reasonable condition for our consideration at our next meeting. I do have the cut fill analysis ready, queued up if you wanna see it again. I think the issue is just we're moving enough dirt that we trigger a threshold that requires a special permit. You're moving more than the 5,000. Yeah, it's slightly slopey and we're almost kind of evening it out. So that's the short version of it. Any questions or concerns from board members? All right. I would add, so if you back up to the page, section, so again, we're looking at article five or section 5.10. And then there's, I guess you would call them subsections which are, if there was a special permit requirement for a filling of land, 5.100 through 5.104 are commonly conditioned as part of the subsection of a special permit decision. And so I would suggest that the board take a look at that as possible conditions for consideration. So these will be conditions that we'll put in the draft conditions that we'll put to the board members for our next meeting. Correct. Okay. Article six, dimensional regulations. The applicant is requesting the following waivers from article six, table three. So asking for waivers from additional lot area for 28 units. Applicant is, you would require additional lot areas for 28 units. You're requesting a waiver for that. Lot coverage, your present, the required, what's currently required in RG is 40%. You're at 45.59% and you're requesting a waiver under the comprehensive permit for that. And I expect a lot of that is driveway and parking as opposed to just the structure. Yeah. And again, if I may say, we aired on the conservative side in that calculation and we included the grass paved parking areas as part of that lot coverage. So. Family, lottery for family. The board member was considering footnote M of the zoning bylaw. I'm not, I'm not familiar with that. I have to admit, I don't know. Can you help us? Can you help us out with that? Sure. Okay, so let's back up. So a basic minimum lot area for like a single family home in the RG would require 12,000 square feet. The applicant is, and then for every additional lot area, there's a, for every additional unit proposed on the property, there's additional lot area that's required. And provision, I mean, footnote M, let me just go to this. This is in addition to the areas required by this table, table three, dimensional regulations for any existing dwelling unit on the lot, the density for new townhouses and apartments shall not exceed one dwelling unit per 4,000 square feet of the remaining lot area, or in the case where there is no existing dwelling unit of 4,000 square feet for each dwelling unit beyond the first unit. So you would take the basic minimum lot area of 12,000 square feet, that's for one unit, and then, so that's unit one, then for the 27 units, that would be 4,000 square feet times 27, and that's how you get to the 120 square feet. 120,000 square feet. Correct. And so the applicant is requesting the waiver from that requirement to allow 28 units to be built on a 38,252 square foot property under the comprehensive permit. Comments, questions? Okay. And the reason, and Laura and the applicant certainly should chime in here, the board may wish to consider granting that waiver request from article six, table three, footnote M under this permit because as the applicant has indicated in previous presentations that fewer apartment units would make this proposed project uneconomic. And so that would be the reason why 28 units is being proposed at this property. The next waiver is on maximum, in that same area is on maximum lot coverage. And again, I know that you said you were conservative in your numbers, but you exceed the lot coverage of 40% by some amount. And it's up to us to decide whether the lot coverage is appropriate given the size and density and whether it meets the overall goals of the town to provide affordable housing. And if it's a balancing act, that's again, another thing to consider, to Spaker. What's interesting to me when I look at this table is we're at about half of the zoning allowance for building coverage, but we're way over on unit coverage. And again, it's the disconnect in the fact that we have these really tiny units. And if they were, as we've talked about before, we could build seven four bedroom units and it would be a bigger size building potentially than this one. So just to remind people that we're building at an odd size of unit. And when there are measures that are given on a per unit basis, we just don't, this type of property doesn't fit very naturally into that kind of formula. The next waiver is minimum side yard waiver. You're looking for an, even accessory structure having a height of six feet or less shall be set back a minimum three feet from the sidewalk line. The structure over six feet shall be set back a distance equal to its height. And I think you're here talking about the bike rack, the bike rack, the trash area. And one other, is there another structure back there that are gonna be set on the lot line or set very close to the lot line, but within this and you're asking for a waiver of the setback. Right. So there's the bike rack. There's a trash dumpster area with a fence around it. And there's a little kind of eight by eight storage gardening shed. And there are, none of them are within three feet of the lot lines. Go ahead, Rachel. Oh, and I would say there's the possible smoking shelter. Right. So we have to, if we make the direction that you're giving tonight and we'd need to make a new waiver or amend our waiver request to include that pavilion. It looks like you've also been conservative and asking for a waiver to 6.132. It looks like that's dealing with general business and neighborhood business and light industrial districts. I don't, it does not look like we need to waive that. So we'll drop that. Yeah. 6.134, the Zebo structure, single story use location to both dimensions. I'm not sure why. Maureen, can you help us on this? Why do we need the waivers of 6.134? Look at it within the side yard behind the front line of the principal, oh, I see. You're not going to be behind the front line of the principal building. Is that correct? I think we are. I'm not sure. Look at it within the side yard behind the front line of the principal building. If you're off to the side, the front line would be the line that runs across the front of the property. In any case, this looks to be a matter, a matter of where a building is on the site. Rob or Dave, can you help us out on this? Does this need to be waived? So 6.3, yeah, yeah. So 6.34 talks about under a special permit to be able to be located closer. I think that may be where the waiver is. That's it. You're right. It's just because we're not doing a special permit. We're doing a comprehensive permit. Okay. So we still need that. I understand. Thank you. 6.14 minimum rear yard. Again, we're talking about the dumpster, bike storage, storage shed, a light wall. It was in the setback. That seems to me that that's just dealing with that issue, correct? Yep. Am I correct, Maureen? Correct, yep. This is pretty much the same issue that we've had before. Exactly, but this is regarding the rear setback opposed to the side. The side setback. All right. Section 6.2, fences. Fences and walls shall not exceed four feet in height. You're asking now for a eight foot high fence. Is that correct? Correct. Along that portion of the sidelot line. The pros fence is at the request of the abutting neighbor. The applicant is requesting a waiver from section 6.24 that's going by a lot. That seems pretty straightforward. You want to be eight feet when the zoning says it's only six. No waiver from that. And then we have the setback from the lot line that would normally need to be setback as high as the, no, we have to be setback from the lot line and you're proposing the eight foot fence right on the lot line, correct? It's probably, Rachel, maybe you can tell me it's usually setback like six inches or something. It's usually not right on the lot line. Yes. It's within six inches. It's what, Ms. Losler? It's within six inches at the lot line. Six inches, but it would need a waiver from the other. He'd be within the zone where you'd need a waiver. So that's really what that deals with. Yeah. Any comments from board members regarding the fence? The need for a waiver. All right. Parking and access regulations 7.0, article seven. First off is needing two parking spaces for every dwelling unit. You provide, you would need under the bylaw 56 parking spaces for 28 units. You're proposing 16, two of which are ADA successful, I think. Yep. You're requesting a waiver from this to allow 16 parking spaces under the comprehensive permit. We've talked a lot about parking in this. Is there anything else? That's pretty much all it's straightforward is the request for the waiver is just that you want to have less parking spaces than required. Anything else regarding this, Ms. Baker? No. Any questions from board members about the need for the waiver of this requirement for 56 parking spaces and only providing 16. Okay. I'd like to say, if I may. Yep. Yes. Keep in mind as we're going through these topics if you have possible conditions that you would like to discuss it, future public hearings. Please chime in. Yeah. Raise your hand. On this one it may be that you want to say something about, you can announce that you have a desire or an interest in having some of the parking spaces available for snow removal or snow storage. I mean, that's both kinds of things we can talk about in conditions. But just raise the issue if it's important to you. Landscaping for parking areas, shared parking, driveway length. I'm reading off your cheat sheet, Ms. Baker. And it seems to me that paving for the, so we'll get to those in a second, but paving is the first waiver request on asphalt driveway for the purpose. I mean, that's what you're requesting. You do have some papers. Sorry to interrupt you. Please. Well, actually let me refer to the cheat sheet. I don't, I think I might have just added that in, just I don't think you're requesting a waiver to that. I don't think so either. No, no, but I decided to include the entire section of seven regarding parking, just. All right. Well, we don't need a waiver for 7.1, 7.101. I don't think we need a waiver for 7.102 setback in the building, 7.1303. I think you meet the application, the requirements of that 7.104. You're asking for small car parking. Parking areas in five or more spaces. So they should be painted in marketing, otherwise the winniated, the eight proposed parking spaces located on the asphalt pavement, including the two ADA spaces are nine by 20 feet and eight parking spaces located on the grass crate pavers are eight by 8.5 by 20 feet, which is a compact car or a small car space. You're asking the waiver to allow 50% of the proposed parking spaces to be designated for small vehicles. I think it's actually a waiver. It's a waiver from the special permit. So you can have 50% of your spaces just anyway with a special permit. And so the waiver is just about not having a separate special permit. All right. Quick questions, comments from town or from board members. All right, lighting, adequate lighting should be provided for all parking spaces of five spaces or more. These lights are to be used at night. All exterior light associated with parking areas shall be downcast and shall be directed or shielded to eliminate light trespass onto a budding property or explaining streets. Also calls for adjacent properties to be protected from light intrusion. You have, these are all, so I'm correct. You have downcast, dark kites, guy compliant lighting. You've shown them to be low, I think on the, they only come up a little bit on the property and then there's one tall light. If I remember it, no, they're all. They're, they're. Sure. Shepard's Crook kind of style lamp posts in the parking area. And we, at the recommendation of the board, they were originally 12 feet in height and they were reduced to 10 feet in height. And then we got one more of them so that we could provide adequate low light throughout the parking area. So seem to meet the requirements of the lighting. All right. We need to, is there a waiver needed for that? No, again, I decided though the board should be reviewing the section in its entirety. Yep. And we have interest in making sure that the downcast and dark sky compliant lighting is always used. Again, I don't think you, I don't think you need a waiver from the entrance and exit of the driveway. No. All right, but it's laid out. So it meets the standards landscape 7.11 landscape standards. 10% total parking areas, landscape is open space. They have new planning along the perimeter of the parking areas and drive. And it's landscape tree island. So 711, 7.111 is for those over 25. So 7.110 may apply, but you're saying that you have enough. I suspect you're asking for a waiver from that because it would be extended the parking area to a large degree if you had to put in these parking landscape islands, right? Right. I don't think the grass creed counts as landscaping. So between the grass creed and the asphalt, we don't have enough islands of green. We just have one essentially space that's got a tree in it and that's what we're able to fit. And you're asking for a waiver from that requirement? Yes. Yeah. Comments from the town or from board members. I don't think 7.111 doesn't apply, 7.112, five or more spaces. Screening parking areas of five more spaces shall provide effective screening for parking from the adjacent streets of properties. Screening, maybe depressions in grade three or more feet ahead of wall or any type of appropriate work with the structure. You are proposing a fence in place of the trees in order to screen this. And so it's not to imply and it's not to impair driver safety so that the fence doesn't go too far towards the road. Mr. Chair. Again, I don't know why we need a waiver on this. Go ahead, Maureen. There's no waiver. Request. All right. Is that where you're gonna say, Rachel? Yep. We also are using a lot of vegetation for screening throughout on both sides of the drive to help with that too. Okay. Any other comments? Shared or lease parking? I don't know that this is, you're not sharing, you're not leasing the parking space to anybody, you don't anticipate doing that, do you? No. And you're not leasing parking from other places for this place? No. So again, it's good to have everything there but I don't think we need a waiver of this specific section, do we, Maureen? Correct. So the applicant did listen as a waiver request but so the accessory uses proposed for their RSC and the, I don't know, the property manager office, those are accessory to the principal use of the apartment building. And so this section for shared parking is not, is not equitable. It'd be like, property over here, there's use, property over here, there's use, they're gonna share but this is, the two accessory uses are, the two uses, the office or accessory to the principal use, therefore the section's not applicable. Got it. Turnarounds located at the end of a common driver for fire and other emergency. So we have Amherst fire department saying that they are comfortable with the design, design should take into consideration the 25, what's turning wages for a cab or over design, fire apparatus? What was the fire department's conclusion on this, Maureen? Were they satisfied with this or did they want this changed? I'm gonna let Rachel, we've had multiple conversations with Michael Roy with the fire department and talking through the radius consideration the location of the driveway is set in the curb cut and the radius is such that if we increase the radius of the drive, we start to impact the neighbor's property by our radius given the location of the drive and then given the grades on the site, our location in the driveway is sort of set. So in speaking with Michael Roy, he was willing to accept a 25 foot radius on the west side and keep our proposed 15 foot radius on the east side. He just needed a way for them to back out and maneuver in one direction. So does Maureen, do we have something to that effect from the fire department or will we get it? We will get a memo from him. We've had my office in Mike Roy, the fire prevention officer. Him and I have had multiple phone conversations. So he just needs to formally submit a memo to the board regarding that. So we'd want a condition, but that's the case. Yeah, another thing to add to the condition, okay? So the town engineer has to approve or, I guess you say stamp for the town engineer, the driveway and drainage. Are we gonna hear back from the town engineer or have we yet heard from them? Yes. So the town engineer has provided comments to the board regarding this. And he's prepared to work with the applicant with, let's see here, one second. He is prepared to work with the applicant regarding any plans that would need to be required for his purposes. But the board should consider making a few conditions regarding the driveway and drainage. I do list here. Yep. So the two bulleted items that you have on your possible conditions, correct? Yes. So one is all parking areas shall be designed and constructed to prevent stormwater drainage from leaving the project site. All stormwater runoff shall be directed to the stormwater drainage system for treatment. And I don't know how to say that. And then the other one is any substantial changes from the preliminary drainage plan that is approved as part of the plan of record shall be reviewed and approved by the board. Attenuation is what you want to say. I knew that. I just didn't want to say that last time. You got it. All right. Consider those under consideration. I will loop back with Jason Schill, the town engineer about that and see if he has any other possible conditions that he would like included. All right. Then we have signed regulations. Again, comments from board or town. We'll move on to sign regulations then. Essentially what you want to do is you want to put up a temporary sign regarding the project for you and contractors during the construction period. And you need a waiver to do that, correct? I believe that we do. There is a temporary sign section of the zoning permit, but you can only leave the sign out for three weeks. So we typically are required actually by the Department of Housing and Community Development to put up a pretty hefty sign, thanking the governor and everyone else, prominently displayed, and it has to stay through the whole period of construction, which is a lot longer than three weeks. So we were just hoping to get, we're trying to roll as many permissions into this as we can. So I think we probably want to have a sign, a copy of the sign or a model of the sign before the board. And on the condition in this waiver, we probably want to be specific amount of time, during construction period or something else, but I suspect we'd want to see a mockup of the sign, perhaps at a later point for a public meeting. We can consider that during conditions. You're only proposing one sign? That's all you need is one big sign. I guess that's a question. We do one big sign and all the funders are acknowledged. Often the contractor, as they would anywhere they're working, wants to put up their own construction sign. It's usually not a huge thing, but let me see them everywhere when people are working on a property. So I guess I'm wondering how much latitude we have to put up that kind of signage on a temporary sense. Well, I think what you do is come back to us next week with what you want and let us know. All right? Okay. If you think your contractor's going to want a sign, come back to us and say we want two signs, here's what the big sign is going to look like and we will have a sign of X size for the contractor and we'll see how we view that. All right? Do you guys want a sign? Ms. Hardy? I just was going to point out to Laura, if there are any other signs that would be needed for vendors during the construction phase, you might want to think about that. You're requesting a waiver. The next is a special permits for pedestrian seats. 10.387 requires for a special permit. We have to find that safe and vehicular and pedestrian movement around the site. You've submitted a traffic report. You want us to deem the traffic report as part of this comprehensive permit to be sufficient given that there's minimal traffic impact. We have the copy of the traffic report. Yeah. The town engineer still has to comment on that report. Is that correct? He did comment. Nope, he commented. He was satisfied with it. And I actually, I didn't get a chance to forward to the board, but I had an email correspondence with the town engineer today. And he does, so the applicant submitted, hold on, the applicant submitted a traffic report slash summary and the town engineer does not feel that it's necessary for the applicant to submit a traffic impact report. So therefore, they don't have to submit an impact report. A traffic impact report. Yeah. So they submitted a traffic. It's a traffic report. Yeah, so they submitted a traffic report. They did not submit a traffic impact report, but the town engineer is satisfied and does not feel that that's necessary. Right. So we would need a waiver of 10.387 for the traffic impact report. Got it. Correct. Before we move on, I've noticed that Mr. Malloy, senior planner has raised a stand. If you want. Sure. I'm on my phone. I don't know if you can see me, but I hope you can hear me. It was about the sign, the temporary sign. So with the block grant project, there was a number of, as Laura said, a number of acknowledgments that have to be made. And so we just have the contractor put up like a four by eight piece of plywood on like four by fours. And both sides of it can then be used. It's basically like a larger board that then different signs can be put on. So like, you know, you might have to put wages, you know, any labor standards reporting if there's not a trailer on site, but labor standards posters, you know, and it's, you know, they may have something a little bit more decorative, but, you know, we, you know, sometimes we'll specify like a nice piece of plywood or, you know, then then gets put on with laminated signs, but it's something just, it could be just as generic as that. I don't, you know, I'm not sure they actually have like a sign design ready. You know, because there's a number of things. So I was thinking just like, if there's a size sign, they may request, as opposed to actually seeing what a physical sign might look like. Maybe they just have an idea of how big it would be. That's all. Cause we usually just say a four by eight piece of plywood and then whatever signs are required by the funders, there's space to put them up. Yeah. And in the case of the project, we just finished in Northampton, the CPA committee has a giant banner that went across the whole front of the site that said, your CPA dollars at work. So we never really know what people are gonna come up with. But yes, Nate, it's a good idea. We could have a four by eight sheet of plywood and everybody would have to fit their signs on it. So come back to us with the idea that we can then put into the conditions of the approval. No, right. The next deal, any other questions or comments? Thank you, Nate. Any other questions or comments from board members or the town staff? All right, the next is site plan review section 11.2. You're asking that we waive the requirement for site plan review. The planning board has voted seven out to not to approve this. They don't think it needs a site plan review. It isn't necessary under a comprehensive permit decision. So that can be waived seems to me as a pretty straightforward issue there. Did I miss that? Is that correct, Maureen? Or did I miss something? Let's see here. This application does not require site plan review by the planning board. The applicant seems they were being conservative enlisted section 11.2 as part of their waiver request. But it's not required. However, when the ZBA received this application, we submitted the application to various town boards and departments for review and comment. And the planning board was one of those that did receive that. And the applicant went and presented their proposal and the planning board voted to, I believe, to recommend to approve this project to the ZBA. And they came up with, provided comments and recommendations, which is included in your handout here. So the board here, the ZBA could consider making the planning board's recommendations as conditions of the permit. Part of the conditions, right? Makes sense. And those conditions are raising the white band, which you've done in your drawing, I think, confirm the lighting plan is dark sky compliant and does not cast light, which we have as a condition anyway, considering increasing the amount of screening around the smoking pavilion. That's already been talked about and keep air intake to building and cooling systems away from smoking area. We've talked about that as well. So those can be, some of those are conditions and some of those are already taken care of in the planning. All right. Article 13, demolition delay for structures historical or architectural significance. We just received a letter from the Amherst Historic Commission. They did not find or be supported the project. They did not find that they wanted to oppose the demolition of the property and they did not feel it necessary to delay the demolition of the property, which is one of the tools they use to give people a chance to consider whether the property ought to be demolished or not. So they have reviewed that and we've received a letter from the Historic Commission and the comprehensive permit would provide all the permits needed under necessary for this. Article 15 includes the, not now this is my word that I'm having trouble with Maureen, inclusionary zoning. I've not had a chance to review this. And so I am, is this something that we should discuss in depth tonight or does this make more sense to discuss at a later point in time on exclusionary zoning? I'm looking for some guidance on this one. Let's hear. So the applicant is proposing two waiver requests under this article 15, which is 15.12 and 15.14. I think it would be healthy for the board to review those two sections tonight. And if needed, you know, we have an attorney Witten and Rob Maureen and myself and Nate. To discuss that. All right, can you, I think it'd be helpful for the applicant then to describe the request for waivers under the inclusionary zoning. Sure. So one waiver that we requested, the 15.12 says requires establishment of housing restrictions to ensure that affordable housing units will be available to eligible renters. We're asking the zoning board to waive the application of section 15.12 and acknowledge the application of section 15.13 that assistance programs used for construction of the project will govern affordability. So if this was a project that didn't have public, other public money in it, the town might want to impose its own set of restrictions, but we know that there will be many eyes from the various public funders. So we're asking for permission to rely upon those other funding sources to govern the affordability restrictions. And 15.14 requires the affordable units to be comparable to market rate units. We don't have any market rate units. So we're just asking, we're just saying that we can't comply because we don't have any market rate units and all of our units will be possible. So maybe arguably that section actually might not be applicable to this project. Right. Yeah. So 15.13 just is here. So it's housing constructed by a public agency or nonprofit corporation using a federal state or local housing assistance program made here to the requirements set forth by the funding agency. Again, in lieu of having a set of local regulations. Just reading through it. All right, well, that's 15.13. We may, this may be the place in which some of the concerns raised by Mr. Maxfield last meeting regarding the character of the building in the future, should there be financial stresses is addressed so through a condition. So that's why one of the things we have to think about is how in the future, the character of the low income nature of the building is maintained. But that would be discussed when we discuss conditions. Okay. And we can see in Lua's. All right. So unfortunately, I, well, I'm continuing to work on the other waiver requests that, so right now we have reviewed all waiver requests under the Amherstowning bylaw. There is maybe 10 other waiver requests that are fall under the Amherstown bylaw. Other regulations, and approvals and requirements all under local authority under the town of Amherst. I don't know if it makes sense to review these now without providing sort of comment. I can sort of, you know, I'm not loud about them, but I haven't written anything. I think each of them, aside from the 3.50, the rental housing permit subsidized housing, most of them look to be pretty cut and dried. I mean, it's work on the town road, dealing with local driveway permit, emergency access. The rental housing, rental permit subsidized housing that may require some discussion. But I think if you provide the summary for the next meeting on each of these, we can discuss it then and I don't think it'll take a long time. Yeah, sure. I think we should work off, work off the common document that you're gonna create. Yeah, sure. Well, you know, Laura could speak to that waiver request section under the general bylaw, section 3.50. 3.50, yep. 1B, rental permit subsidizing housing. So she's requesting to permit applicant to provide annual certification that inspection. Yeah, let me ask about this because I'm a little confused too about what's asked here in this bylaw. So it reads where residential rental units are regularly inspected under the requirements of the Commonwealth or federal government. No self inspection and certification shall be required. Annual certification by the owner that a rental unit has been inspected in accordance with the law, the Commonwealth or federal law shall be provided to the town and shall be accepted by the town as evidence of self-inspection as part of any permit application or renewal. I think what it's saying is that if we have an entity coming in DHCD, whoever doing regular housing quality inspections that that can take the place of a self-certification? Yes. So Rob or Nate, you can certainly chime in. So I believe- Can you speak to this? Yeah. Laura, this property will require inspection from DHCD on an annual basis. And so that information could be supplemental to then report back to Amherst for our purposes. And then you would still be like all rental properties in Amherst, you would be required to renew your annual rental permit. Mr. Mora. It's actually exactly what Ms. Baker thinks it is as she described it. Each application for a rental permit does require at a minimum of self-certification by the owner or property manager for other properties. Most commonly for us would be like a housing authority managed complex where there's a state or federal inspector that comes in and looks at the units annually, we would accept that report in lieu of the certification by the owner for each individual unit. Okay. So I don't really think this is a waiver. I think we're just stating what is already allowed under this section. So, okay. So we can take this off the list. So we will either annually provide verification of an outside entity having inspected the property or a self-certification if the timing doesn't jive with the rental application, a self-certification. Is that right, Mr. Morrow? That is correct. Okay. There's another one of these, I think that wants to come off the list. 3.445 emergency access which is approval of style type and location of Key Vault by the fire department. We would like to withdraw this waiver request. We think it's actually gonna be simpler to just figure it out as we always do with the fire department and the general contractor in the field rather than have it the zoning board figure it out. Right. So you'll, the result of that is that you will comply with the request of the fire department. For what they do inside of it. It just, we were trying to do it early, but it doesn't make a lot of sense to do it early. I would note that two of the requests we've made, one was for the sewer connection permit to be basically issued as part of this comp permit and the other was the water connection permit to be issued as part of this comp permit. The town engineer wrote back that we can't do that. So maybe you just want to talk with him and those may come off the list too, because he may say, no, you have to do it when you have X, Y and Z plans in hand and we want to hold the authority for giving that permit, even though maybe in theory you could do it through a comp permit. Sure. Yeah. I wasn't aware of that, but it would seem to me that we'd want to be sure that whatever is done, the engineering department approves it. Yeah. Yeah. And then the demolition, well, we have building inspection staff on the call. We asked for waiver from a separate inspection for demolition, so that we could in effect pull a building and demo permit at the same time. And have approval at the comp permit would give us approval to do that. And I don't know how the building department receives that request. Well, we see it as not necessary because we would typically be willing to grant a permit that includes both demolition and construction if that was the way that the timing worked out for the project. Yeah, this says requires inspection services approval prior to demolition of existing structure. So you go out and inspect prior to issuing the demo permit? It certainly could be an inspection prior to, but I think that usually would be applications that are made under Article 13, which would theoretically would be waived for the demo delay purposes. And deemed not to be necessary. So there, I think the response would be there's no inspection, no permit needed, move ahead under the building permit requirements under the state building code for demolition and or construction. Okay. So I don't know that we need this special accommodation. I'll just do it as usual. Yeah, Mr. Nate Malloy is raising his hand. Mr. Malloy. Yeah, thanks when with regard to the water and sewer connections for public works with the North Square product in Beacon with these waiver requests, it was, you know, essentially the reason why it's a waiver request, so that they don't have to come and apply for a separate permit. So I'd have to look at the way it was actually worded, but essentially allowed this to proceed with a condition that the applicant would comply with review and approval by public works at the time of, you know, at the time it's necessary. So essentially we still want to bundle all the requests under this permit but allow for public works to, you know, review and approve the plans at a later date. So I don't want to, because, you know, otherwise essentially the Valley CDC is going to have to then go back and actually submit a separate permit application at some future date, which is what not, I don't think that's what we want. We wanted to have it all bundled in under this permit. So I think there's a way to word that waiver and have a condition so that it, you know, it can be satisfied. And that would be super helpful on our end because when we go to the many attorneys who review this project, they look at those permits in terms of readiness, is there water? Is there sewer? Prove it. So if you have the permits and you just need to kind of go back to finalize the plans, they're reassured that this property has public utilities. And then since, I guess we are kind of just going through all of them, the very first one work in town road, I do need to check in again with the town engineer just to confirm everything. But so North Hampton, that stretch of North Hampton road is actually owned by the state, Mass DOT, you know. I don't know if that's, this section is applicable, but I'll go to Jason's scales one more time. Okay. He's the same true for 3.3 driveway permit. I need to loop back with him. I'm not sure of the answer. Okay. So I guess what we have for next week then would be if you need to do something on 3.3 work in town road and the local driveway permit, we can come up with something. We don't need anything on, I don't think we need a waiver on emergency access. We don't need a waiver on rental permit, landscape and guidelines. You've already talked with the consultation with the three work. And I think we'd want to continue to have, I'm not sure about this one. We may want to discuss this next week, right? The waiver requirement, tree warden approval. I think the trees are an issue. So. Well, so his jurisdiction. A lot of tree vegetation removal and new planning that shows and submitted plans. Although we could provide all local permits, but separate requirement for tree warden approval. So the tree warden is, his jurisdiction is for vegetation within the public right away. So I need to check in with him. Maybe, maybe Rachel. Rachel has her hand raised. If I might comment. Ms. Laughler. We reached out to the tree warden early in the process to confirm what sort of review they needed. And he indicated that due to mass DOT, managing the right-of-way, that he actually didn't have jurisdiction over trees in the right-of-way along the Hampton road. Or, yeah, that makes sense. So I just need to get him to, ask him to provide a memo for the board, but that would make sense. So, I don't know. Alrighty, so yeah, so it's just the first two and then the landscaping guidelines, which, so if that's correct, then that waiver request is not needed any longer. Right. And Nate's going to look at the sewer and the town water permit connection. Demolition isn't needed and development for plans. Oh, yeah, we really sure what that meant. I think that was like an umbrella of like, if you missed. That's right. So I picked this up from another comp permit. Actually, also this language came from KP law, another attorney there. It essentially says, if we all missed something, if our collective intention were to permit the project and we all missed something. This says to allow waivers to requirements in local bylaw and regulations relating to dimensional and use requirements to the extent necessary to build the project as presented on the plans and any subsequent final plans that may be subject to permitting authority approval. So we do commonly have a request from zoning boards to return with final plans just so that you can, you know, vet them before we pull a building permit. And again, I didn't make this up. This came off of someone else's comp permit from a town attorney. Well, it's like a catch-all. It is a catch-all. And I'm not always comfortable with catch-alls. So I just maybe want to think about it. Yeah, I think we would want to give that some thought. Yeah. If it requires you to come back, it may be something that's reasonable just because this is a complicated process and we wouldn't want to hold it up on the basis of just an inadvertent mistake. But in general, I'm not comfortable with real catch-alls. So it kind of says, whatever you think, go ahead no matter what. So anyway, we'll give that some thought. Okay. Any other comments from the town or from board members regarding these waivers? So the plan is for next week to have, I hope to be able to vote on these, to consider these waivers, to vote on them and to also start discussing conditions to the application. Yeah. I guess my only comment is, just so the applicants can sort of do a read-through and see what waivers that you've indicated are no longer applicable. And I did mention there were a few waiver requests that I felt that we might want to include. So as part of this application, so I would just review the list and see what needs to be deleted and added. And then in context of this smoking area, Pavilion, if that's something that you're gonna move forward with regarding the side setback waiver. Okay. Comments from board members. I think that completes the discussion and the review of waivers. Then at this time, it's about eight o'clock. I'd like to go to public comment and see any public comment. And then we can come back and discuss the next meeting and any other matters that before the board members bring up. So members of the public, if you wish to comment, this is the time to do that. The best way to do that is to use the raised hand function if you can. I think it looks to work for me as the raised hand function and Maureen will identify public commenters. I think the first one is Elisa. Maureen. Okay. Hi, Elisa. I think Elisa, you're- Sorry, I think I'm unmuted now. Yes, you are. Just give your name and address for the record. Elisa Campbell, 27 pine grove. And I've been tending most of these meetings representing the League of Women Voters. And I'm here again tonight to say we continue to support this project. We're very aware that there are many people who do not have a home and who need a home. And this project seems to us to be an excellent way of helping 28 of those people have a home. So we hope that the approval can happen soon. And we thank you very much for all your dedicated work. I don't, I don't know how many hours you put in, but it's a lot and we really appreciate that. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. George. Yes, thanks. My name is Steve George. I live on Dana Street near the project site. I've been interested in it from the beginning for really one reason only. It has nothing to do with the people who live there and what their income might be. It is that the density of units that is 28 units instead of the normally allowed seven is a very large deviation from what people in the neighborhood have come to expect for properties nearby. We follow the zoning rules ourselves and it should require a high degree of need and support to get that much of an override or a waiver. And I've listened to most of the meetings myself and I myself am perfectly satisfied that that standard has been met. I would like to see the ZVA kind of signal if it's possible to do so, that this is being done in this very specific case. It's not the special permit from a for-profit developer. It is a comprehensive permit for a very different purpose. And there's a lot of 38,000 square feet properties around and there are many developers that would love to put up luxury studio apartments, 28 of them on those properties, essentially student dorms. And so I perfectly satisfied that this should go ahead and I'm looking forward to being a good neighbor to the project, but I would like to have the ZVU just signal that this waiver, that one, what is it? Article six, table three, footnote M is much more significant than this height of the lamp standards or other things. But I appreciate all the work that's been done and the very great patients shown by Laura Baker and her colleagues. And I'm looking forward to the project going ahead. Thanks. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. George. KS. Thank you. Can you hear me? Yes. Thanks. I am a Amherst resident and I live on Dana Street. And I would also like to thank the zoning board for very carefully considering this proposed development. I agree with Alisa and I support this override that will allow the increased density of housing and the creation of the subsidized housing units to serve community needs. I would like to ask the board whether or not they're planning to consider a condition that would secure in writing the resident service coordinator position and the number of hours currently planned, I believe at about 30 hours for the development. Through this process, we heard town staff including John Hornick and several others as well as Valley CDC themselves speak at length about the importance of this position for the success of the development. And given the importance of these supportive services, they really should be pinned down in writing. This is the only way to protect them and ensure that the support really happens given the potential budgetary pressures that this development will face and that the board has previously discussed. So my question for the board is, is securing the supportive services definitely going to come forward as a condition by consideration from the board? I guess maybe it's the wrong timing in the process but I'm a little surprised that board members haven't been mentioning this when it seems to be such an important part of the mission of this development. There's been a lot of focus on the details of landscape and architecture and the size of the signs. And I hope that these very supportive services are also going to be remembered and recognized and I hope that the board will ensure that they are secured. Thank you. Thank you. Any other public comments? Anybody else wishing to speak? We'll close off public comments. We'll move back to the board. The next item on the agenda is my admonition to everybody to think of lists of requests and conditions for this property in the future. We've talked about them and either if you have them now that you wish to mention, we'll put them on a list so that they can be considered when we start considering the conditions. Otherwise, please talk to staff, let them know about what conditions you are interested in. And the goal would be to start taking those up next week. Mr. Linesdale. I just wanted to ask, I think normally after a public comment, if there are any questions or concerns that the applicant then is able to respond to them. So I think we should do that. Yep, you're right. It's normally the case. I would love to comment. I am so appreciative of the comments that we've been getting, particularly from neighbors who we've been talking to and working with for several years now. So I'm really impressed with the comments people have made tonight. The condition around the resident service coordinator, I think we've projected a range ranging from 27 and a half to 30 hours. We'd like to have some level of flexibility. I understand where the question's coming from. So I just think it's a negotiated point. If that's something that the board wants to add as a condition, we'd be looking for flexibility if the number of hours dips below 25, that's a red flag or we would have to come back to the board to kind of renegotiate it if there were a significant change in the hours because we're gonna manage the property for a long time. So there's some benefits with being prescriptive but also we need to have flexibility at the same time. So it's just that balance. That's all I would say on that. My only response is I know that that's an item of concern from members of the board and I think it's likely to see some kind of a condition proposed dealing with that at the next meeting. All right, so if people do have conditions that they, our ideas and conditions, please let Maureen know and we can discuss them when we start going through the conditions next. Other than that, I think it's a little after eight. We've heard from public comment. We have no other items on the agenda for tonight except for public comment on items that when anything that's not before the board tonight, we always have the required by town to open up the meeting to public comment on items that are not before the board. So at this point, I'd like to do that. If anybody wishes to comment on something other than the 132 North Hampton, this is the time when you have three minutes to do so. Maureen. Okay, sorry. I feel that you need to make a motion to continue this public hearing until... Next, I was going to do that. Yes, I guess I should have done that before we moved to public comment. I will do that. So I move we continue public hearing on this matter until the 15th of October at six o'clock. Is there a second? Seconded. Any discussion on the motion to continue the hearing to six o'clock on October 15th? If not, it's a roll call vote. I vote aye. Mr. Langsdale. Aye. Ms. O'Meara. Aye. Ms. Parks. Aye. Mr. Maxfield. Aye. All right, the last item on the agenda is the opportunity for public comment on any matter, not the subject of this hearing. That is not on 132 North Hampton. So is there anybody who wishes to make a comment? Maureen, I see no one up there on the board that is asking to speak. So we'll close off public comment. I have nothing else that have not been of any other new business on the agenda. And so I suspect this is time to move to adjourn this meeting. So I move that we adjourn the meeting of the Amherst zoning board of appeals. Is there a second? I hear a second from Mr. Maxfield. Is there any discussion about the motion to adjourn? If not, the vote occurs on the motion. All in favor of the motion respond to the roll call. I vote aye. Mr. Langsdale. Aye. Ms. O'Meara. Aye. Ms. Parks. Aye. Mr. Maxfield. Aye. All right, meeting is adjourned. Thank you all for all your work and your time tonight.