 everyone welcome to the April 22nd select board meeting. This meeting is called to order at 6 30 p.m. and per usual we start our meeting with public comment. Does anyone have any public comment to offer this evening? Please come forward. For precinct one I believe this evening you're going to be considering the articles 31, 32 and 33 and I would like to comment on those. I'd like first to say that these are attempts to rezone North Amherst again and I believe Mr. Moussanti you said at the end of the last town meeting that there'd be no more rezoning of the villages until we had a housing market survey which we've been waiting for in the hope that it would in fact identify places in the town that were suitable for densification for student housing. We don't have that and we were told in February that North Amherst was not going to be rezoned and was taken off the agenda and reappeared in these articles in late February I think maybe early March. We have not had time to either understand the implications and the impact that these articles are going to have on our neighborhood. I've tried to get information from the planning board about the number of residential units that could be placed on the common property now with the new dimensions and so forth and they're unable to do so and I think given that fact that we can't have a reasonable idea of what is going to occur there that these are not ready for public discernment as to their appropriateness for the area. The when the other two efforts at rezoning were made calm was we were told was not appropriate for a village center and so they were wanted to rezone it. The thing is that that is not the village center. The village center lies south of the river where the post office, the library, the bank, the pizza house, the laundry, all of those few amenities lie south of the river and north of the river is actually connected to the rural part of the town, the rural area beyond it and it's our end up month. So I know you're anxious to densify in the village centers and we would welcome density in our village center south of the middle river. We do not welcome it north of the river especially when we can't learn what effect that's going to have on traffic, noise, a number of occupants. It's all seems to be unable to be determined at this point so I don't think it's ready for our discernment and I would ask you not to rub a stamp this these three articles that relate to our neighborhood. Thank you very much. Anyone else like to make public comment this evening? All right then we will deal with a couple of untimed items before we get to our 645 timed item. Let's see the first one is the to extend the land development agreement with HAP for Olympia Oaks. We talked about this at our last meeting this is kind of a technicality that we have to go through to keep the process moving with Olympia Oaks. I have to ask folks if conversations could happen in the hallway please. Excuse me, conversations need to happen in the hallway not during our meeting. Okay so the land development agreement with HAP for Olympia Oaks so this is as I said a technicality Miss Stein would you like to read the motion? Sure I move that the select board authorize the extension of the land development agreement between the town and HAP incorporated from June 30th 2013 to August 30th 2013 to allow parties additional time to satisfy the preconditions to enter into the lease for the Olympia Drive property. Second for the discussion Miss Brewer. I just wanted to reassure the public that nothing has gone wrong in this process. It's simply a delay as is very typical in as the processing happens at the various different state agencies. So things are proceeding apace we just need a little extra time on this particular aspect of the agreement. Thank you. Further comment. All in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. That is unanimous. All right next up we have the announced the DCR interest in South East Street property acquisition and consider request to reduce notice period. So this is information in our packets this is also a technicality essentially because the state is interested in potentially requiring the land on Southeast Street that is one of the articles on our town meeting warrant they need to make that that announcement needs to be made in public by the select board and they have also requested a waiver or a shortening of the hundred and twenty day requirement period for for their notice. This is something that we have dealt with before. Typically we just say yes fine no problem. There was one time recently when the state was interested in a property on Fearing Street and we opted not to approve the shortening of the notice period because we didn't have enough clarity on the information. So that was a there was a lot of concern about what was going on with that property. So we did not agree to shorten the waiver period. At this point I think really it just is a technicality. I don't know if anyone would have any concerns about this but I think that I think that considering that this whole thing is moving forward with a with a deliberative process through the town meeting that there's not any reason for us to oppose it. Mr. Hayden. Yeah the speak into your mic. The material that we have didn't include a minimum time for notifications. It's asking us to relax the maximum time but it doesn't doesn't give us any idea of what how far they want to be relaxed isn't thirty six hours or is it four days. I don't know I don't have a real problem with that but it just seems to be a deficiency in what we're being asked to. Is that anything you can speak to. I was sort of assuming that the notice period essentially starts now and goes till whenever it needs to go. Yes that's actually correct. So just to slightly modify something. Ms. O'Keefe said this the state has to do this anytime they're expressing an interest in purchasing any interest in land whether it be fee interest or purchasing a development rights in this case as you may recall and in the lead up to town meeting this will be well articulated but the CPA C is moving forward on the assumption that the Kestreland trust the town if town meeting votes to approve funds from the CPA and the state through DCR and private funding will all come together to purchase that seven plus or minus acres off of Southeast Street. So the state is essentially saying we need time before a summer closing and it would be beneficial for the state to say the clock starts now. So there is no minimum because they would like it to start if you're so inclined to vote on it now to have the state clock start essentially now and so they can proceed with their due diligence. All right. So does that answer your question so that it doesn't the clock doesn't stop until whenever it needs to stop waiting four months for to start we're starting it now. If all goes well there would be a summer closing and they need to start their process now not 120 days from now. I just wanted to verify my understanding that although this is all supposed to come together in a piece that by us voting this and even though it says hereby approves the acquisition this does not tie our hands associated with the town meeting article and whether the select board recommends or doesn't recommend the town meeting article and town meeting recommends or doesn't recommend payment. This can proceed irrespective of that and it's not like DCR is going to come back to us and say you said this is just a separate piece that they have to go. Yeah it's a separate piece that a formality that they have to go through to notice the town but whatever vote the select board takes or town meeting takes is separate track related but separate. And so I can just quickly read the paragraphs in the letter so that it's a nice official announcement keeping with provisions of 301 CMR 51.00 we'd like to inform you that Commonwealth Massachusetts acting through its Department of Conservation and Recreation DCR has under consideration the acquisition of approximately 5.44 plus or minus acres of land or other property interest therein in the town of Amherst the properties currently used as undeveloped unmanaged hayfield the proposed use for the property will be land managed for protection of natural resources including rare species habitat and a vernal pool and include public access for passive outdoor recreation purposes the properties adjacent to the Norawatic Rail Trail enclosed is a locust map marked exhibit A which shows the property in which we are interested in. That's what we're talking about. Mr. Aden. So the answer to my question is zero and that's okay too. All right and the other questions then about this so we've made the announcement duly noted and now the question of shortening the waiver period. I think we've addressed concerns about that and everyone's good. So it's time. Okay I move the following pursuant to the Massachusetts general laws and 301 CMR 51.00 at sec the Amherst Select Board hereby agrees to waive the 120 day notice period and do hereby approve the acquisition by the Department of Conservation Conservation and Recreation of approximately 5.44 plus or minus acres of land or other property interest in the town of Amherst in less than 120 days. Second for the discussion Mr. Aden. I'm just reading the motion the form, I got it to figure it out. Okay let's do a couple of quick things. We have a taxi license. I move that the select board approve a new 2013 taxi driver slash chauffeur license for Dennis Rstein of Eastampton in M.A. on behalf of Aaron's transportation. Second. For the discussion. All in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. That's unanimous. Common. I move that the select board amend the common victory license for Bessem and FOM doing business as college pizza at 150 Fearing Street for our Sunday through Thursday from 12 a.m. to 1 a.m. closing and Friday and Saturday from 1 a.m. to 2 a.m. closing. Bessem and FOM owner manager. Somehow that seems wrong. It doesn't match. Yeah. We have a new motion sheet but oh what he asked. It doesn't. Right. It doesn't. His application is different. It's just from 1 to 2 doesn't seem right. It says 11 a.m. or 1 a.m. which makes sense rather than being open for an hour. That's what I mean. And Friday and Saturday from 11 a.m. to 2 a.m. That's what it looks. That's what it says on the request. This is already a revision of a prior one and I don't think it's right yet. I don't think he plans to just be open for an hour or an hour. I think this really shouldn't be voted. It should go back to him to figure out the timing. Well are we just missing is this just a noon problem on Thursday. It should be noon. No. I mean what he's put in here is on. Let's see. That's calm. Mr. Missy and see if you know what I want to suggest that the select board amend the motion sheet so that it is consistent with the application itself. So the application doesn't make sense. That's the problem. Even those hours are strange. So he has from 11 a.m. to 1 a.m. That one I guess works and then the Friday Saturday would be 11 a.m. to 2 a.m. OK. OK. So the motion sheet changes are changing the 12 a.m. to 11 a.m. OK. And 1 a.m. to 11 a.m. Second. OK. A bunch of extra and missing ones here. As amended for the discussion. All in favor say aye. Aye. That's unanimous. OK. Now we're to 645 and our 645 item is something rather delightful and different. We are going to be honoring a certain distinguished member of our community as well as taking care of a little bit of business in relation to him. So the individual is none other than Mr. Stan Zomek and Mr. Santy would you like to tell us about this. Sure. And Stan is here and will be formally making some gifts to the community on a couple of projects that he has had a direct hand in making a reality. The purchase and installation and for low these many years the maintenance of the lights over at community field on the baseball field. And the beautiful work in Sweetser Park in and around the fountain. Major fundraising. And so there'll be some donation letters. But first drafted with the help of staff and others including staff who know the gentleman very well since birth on a resolution that recites stands long history with the community over 40 years as a town employee in leadership positions including acting town manager multiple times head of the DPW and any number of building projects and then serving the community many many other ways including over 60 years of service with founding and running Amherst baseball all these years serving many many generations. So there's a proclamation that's been prepared for the select board's consideration tonight that someone might want to read. You know as a town leader as a parent as a as a former coach and friend you know stands one of the treasures of the town and it's great to honor him in this way. I'm pleased to do so given that he gave my son his football jersey which was greatly treasured whereas Stanley P. Somack has served the town of Amherst as a dedicated town employee for over 41 years including service as supervisor of maintenance supervisor of recreation superintendent of highways and parks superintendent of public works tree warden assistant to the town manager and acting town manager on numerous occasions and whereas Amherst citizen Stanley P. Somack has served the town of Amherst in many capacities for over 60 years including service on the mill river recreation building committee crocker farm building committee wildwood school building committee middle school advisory board regional refuse disposals planning board eastern Hampshire solid waste district 250th anniversary committee kendrick park committee community preservation act committee comprehensive planning committee recreation commission and leisure services supplemental education commission and whereas Amherst citizen Stanley P. Somack has served the town of Amherst tirelessly in his commitment to public land in the town of Amherst including negotiation and acquisition of Blumbrook recreation area mill river recreation area land on chestnut and strong street for the middle school and wildwood elementary the town's land land filled market hill road water treatment plant as well as supported acquisition of the Hawthorne property on east pleasant and the ruckston parcel on pulpwood hill road and whereas Stanley P. Somack has served the town of Amherst working on construction projects including the wastewater treatment plant landfill and capping of the old landfill rough park ball fields and picnic area the mill river recreation area 1950s reconstruction of community field reconstruction of the fountain and walkway in suites or park with the rotary club recreation fields on stanley street with the Qantas club administration of a fun drive for the pool with the war memorial pool trustees supervision of construction of war memorial pool and fields with the recreation commission and whereas Stanley P. Somack has further served the town of Amherst community including services as the president of the Amherst area chamber of commerce in 1979 founding of the Amherst little league and and Babe Ruth programs coordination of programming as Amherst league president operate opening the Amherst league to girls the first in western massachusetts to do so serving as western MA district two commissioner and as president of the national Babe Ruth league and as chair of the Babe Ruth world series committee managing tournaments all over the nation serving as coach umpire supervisor of umpires and most importantly mentoring generations of Amherst children and whereas Amherst citizens Stanley P. Somack has provided many services to the town of Amherst well beyond the call of duty especially during periods of severe financial constraints now therefore we the select board of the town of Amherst commend Stanley P. Somack for his outstanding service and hereby proclaims saturday april 27th 2013 as Stanley P. Somack day in the town of Amherst second mr. Hayden so there's no truth that he also signed a declaration of independence he's a near young man so it is our great honor to make this uh resolution and this will be read and celebrated at an event on april 27th there will be a uh a dinner in mr. Somack's honor and fundraiser for Amherst baseball uh tickets for that are available at the chamber and in other places am i missing any details on that no and tickets are still available for saturday april 27th should be a great great night to be an Amherst uh citizen come out and enjoy an honor honor stands omeg thank you mr. Somack for all that you have done for the town low these many years uh you can officially vote to sign the proclamation all in favor say hi that's unanimous i think a round of applause okay and then we've got the gift acceptances so how does that work exactly uh sure uh in your in your packet you should have two two letters of donation uh and the first one is related to community field and yeah to the packet so i mentioned in my opening remarks the community fundraising effort you know spearheaded by i stan uh many years ago now to install uh lights at the ball field on the baseball field over at community field and uh it was a big fundraising effort uh and lights were put in and there was a there's a small balance in the fundraising account the athletic alumni association has been uh keeper of those funds and been using them uh piecemeal uh for maintenance needs and that donation has been uh offered to the community which is the purpose of of the business tonight and i'd ask stan to and there's a question who would maintain the lights if the bank went out and in our discussion david nightly might be here if hopkins could beat baseball and make show up but anyway we decided that to initiate a maintenance account with the town that would perpetuate itself without a financial problem for anyone so i have a check here for seventy five hundred dollars as agreed upon to initiate that maintenance account david would you take it up to mr sammy he happens all the money thank you very much so do we do we have i would like to mention one thing with john read all that or whoever on this big issue that my first pay for the town in 1950 was 90 cents per hour we get 82 cents an hour or no per day i'm sorry 82 cents a day for select boards so i feel your pain okay so do we have a formal motion on the community fields uh acceptance no we can win if i could just add one point of clarification that it that it is the donation of the lights and the fun right right which is significant and and um you know uh i know the fundraising all the people and all the time that went into fundraising for those lights it was a significant cost and a great benefit to amherst athletics absolutely and it's a well the lights actually cost about ninety five thousand dollars okay so i think mr musanti is drafting a motion for us as we speak to make sure that we properly accept both the property and the money to the gift account um my suggested motion and i apologize for the lack of wording on the motion sheet uh motion to accept the donation of lights at community field uh and uh a contribution of seventy five hundred dollars from the amherst athletic alumni association per their letter of april 22nd 2013 which would be put into the file i still move second for the discussion all in favor say hi hi thank you all right and then the sweet sir park sweet sir park fountain uh again mr zomac can fill in uh another fundraising effort uh from a group aptly name the friends of sweet sir park uh on the fountain area and there's a significant balance remaining that he wishes to donate to the town to be used for future repair and maintenance of the fountain marble granite and engraved bricks in the park and there's a letter to that effect also dated today and the friends were andy jones justin barnes who's in atlantic georgia but andy jones couldn't be here because he's managing a baseball team and myself for the friends and selling the bricks and getting other donation uh after we were all done we did have a balance of twenty thousand one hundred and eighty one dollars and that's we used to repair the fountain in the future and the bricks as you know the fountain was out of commission from 1975 and the town had no money to repair it until the rotary club stepped in about 1993 94 and had rededication i would pass those on too and they didn't have enough very but it was done in 1975 and it's still running and it's a real treasure of the downtown and just makes that park so thank you again very very much we have another motion to accept the donation of twenty thousand one hundred eighty one dollars and fifty seven cents from the friends of suitzer park for the purposes outlined in their letter dated april 22nd 2013 i still move second for the discussion i'll in favor say hi hi and that is unanimous sorry we don't have any more keep them coming thank you very much happy stan zomec day on saturday okay let's see it's now time for our seven o'clock item which is the fy 13 third quarter budget update stan don't let us keep your flyers we'll get them today we'll get them back and we have mr pooler here to talk to us about the third quarter budget update and we have a memo in our packets so thank you very much for being here mr pooler thank you very much for having me and i would like at the onset to i would say to thank sonia aldrich our comptroller who's very good work for the town all the time keeps track of all these numbers and who is deserving or enjoying a well-deserved vacation with her family on the west coast so i get to fill in just by myself tonight we said that the budget this year was a no drama budget and i think for 14 we said it was a slow and steady budget and our third quarter report could be a whole home report because there's we're right on track there are no big surprises i'm happy to report we are three quarters of the way through the year this report shows that we've collected 79% of our budgeted revenues that's a little bit higher than you would expect only because there are certain timing things certain transfers happen right away so they're not reflected through the course of the year on a steady pace such as the departmental revenues from the recreation department where there's an administrative transfer from the revolving fund that comes all at once so that looks a little higher than it probably really is in the income area i think the only area that i think is of real concern is investment income that continues to lag because we are in a very low interest rate environment and from year to year it kind of sort of gets worse because in prior years we had some cds that were a little bit longer term that matured and now reinvesting those new cds just don't get the same rate so we're going to continue to look at that and i will i think as we go forward we may have to adjust that down further and for f y 14 once we set the recap sheet but that that has lagged everything else is doing pretty well motor vehicle excise taxes which are a big source for us are on target with where we expect them to be this year with continued growth in car sales and so those are keeping a pace our other departmental revenue we did have some nice surprises there we had a one-time refund from the commonwealth for the money that we normally have to pay them for our teachers being in the g i c for the retired teachers insurance they actually gave us a refund this year and that that's not going to happen again because now we're out of the g i c but it was about eighty six thousand dollars that was a nice one-time source of funds the hotel motel tax and the meals tax are doing very well hotel tax is at 104 percent of its budget so far the meals tax is right on pace at 74 percent so those continue to meet expectations and in case the hotel tax actually exceed them and the most important thing on the next page refers to our property tax where we've collected just over 75 75.9 percent since that's our biggest source of income it's very good to see that that is on pace and state aid has come in and at the rate that we expected to on the expenditure side in the general fund the one department that sort of stands out in the sheets that we handed out is information technology because they had to expend so much money to replace the audio visual equipment here that will be made up mostly from an insurance settlement and there's something that is on the warrant for the town meeting to deal with that everything else is really continuing to pace again with the exception of our insurance costs which are up slightly insurance rates have increased we have made an adjustment in the FY 14 budget to supplement those accounts so that they will have sufficient funds next year overall that deficit in that area in general services will be made up from savings and other parts of general government so we don't see a problem there and other spending we are tracking but I think it is fine and the question always comes up is about snow and ice on the sheets here you'll see that looks like there's a deficit but in fact there are a number of encumbrances for things like buying more sand and so on and since we really don't have to do that we will liquidate those encumbrances and so we should be in line sheet there veteran services will have a deficit again you see it projected here on these sheets we know that so there is an article at town meeting to do a transfer of $35,000 to make up some of that we did also put more money in the FY 14 budget to continue to try to fund that adequately but again I think overall we won't have any deficits it will create a free cash problem or anything because there are other departments that will have savings finally the enterprise funds are on track for their spending and their revenue water and sewer and solid waste are all doing fine I continue to closely monitor the revenue on the transportation fund because frankly we're not writing as many tickets as we have in the past in some ways that's a good thing because tickets are supposed to deter behavior that you don't want to have happen so some people would say in an ideal world you wouldn't write any tickets I would never say that it is something that we continue I continue to keep an eye on so those revenue numbers are down just a little bit everything else is going at the pace we expected to so it's a little bit of a ho hum report but for these kind of reports that's probably good ho hum we will take everything tracking just as expected without concerns or or drama discrepancy is exactly what we want to see and again we thank you for this very detailed report it's it's so good to get this check in every three months and really just to know where things are um questions or comments from the select board this time is it the speed bumps that are coming down maybe we should take them out no those would be those are fines for moving violations these are these are tickets the fines are actually coming in fine sorry but it's the parking tickets that uh we're just not writing as many other questions comments mr it's probably all those one dollar transactions on credit cards the other thing I just wanted to mention is I really appreciate you telling us as we were going along you know that we've already adjusted upward for the other types of insurance the not health insurance and also for veteran services you know that that's the other thing that gives us that reassurance over the course of the year yeah things are a little bit like this and then we've already adjusted for the upcoming year so that's really great and then just to emphasize again so we actually got money from the state we didn't expect that's really a bonus on a move when we move the teachers over so and you said that was in the 80 000 yeah no it was uh they keep very careful track of the charges year to year and and at the end of the day when we pulled out of the gic they said oh well actually we owe you some money other questions or comments on the budget update questions or comments from the public on the budget update all right then thank you very much really appreciate this and we'll talk again in three months okay let's see 709 so that is the same as 710 which is the beginning of this week's town meeting warrant article review we have tonight we're doing we're finishing up most of the budget stuff and we are doing zoning but first we're starting with the Amherst Poem Regional Assessment Model we did invite the folks from the schools to come if they wanted to do you know if they opted to or not they are not coming they're not coming okay so we decided that really like their budget doesn't change dramatically from year to year the slack board is familiar with how both the but the library and school budgets work and all of those have been debated in great detail at the school committee and library meetings so we opted to give them the opportunity to do a commercial on this if they wanted to but to not have to come in and explain to us the stuff we already know miss burr and also a quick plug for budget coordinating group because budget coordinating group keep and we all talk every so often about where are we at with our budgets is there any expected drama etc so we can feel assured from that right right and and you know i can't um what's the word is it underestimate overestimate can't speak highly enough about the value for that coordination because uh you know i like to sense like word dramas in other towns periodically and you know when the when the school folks in the town folks become completely um out of out of sync really bad things happen and it's incredible how um how the distance in their budget planning can grow and at the end of the day folks have no idea what the what the other folks are doing so that is not at all the situation in amish we're very fortunate to have really excellent budget coordination um so the schools in the libraries were able to completely meet the finance committee guidelines and and they've addressed all of their issues internally so we will start with article 15 which is the amherst poem regional assessment model this is one of these uh articles that we have to do every year to deal with the fact that we are using an alternative to the state's formula for regional assessment this is this takes a rolling five-year average uh rather a five-year average of the student population from each of the communities in the region to determine the assessment and town meetings in each of those towns need to vote on this every year that's exactly right and it requires a vote each and every year so town meeting has seen this article for the past several years when we reverted essentially back to the original original agreement about how the assessment assessments are are distributed amongst the member community so this article is before all four towns once again just prior to consideration of the school budget itself and we're recommending approval as is the regional school committee um i think it's not unreasonable to imagine this might have more questions this year considering the um the situation with the regional school uh planning uh process that's ongoing so this could be folks opportunity to kind of ask for i'm not sure if there's gonna be an um an update from folks under article one do you know a brief one a brief one yeah so it's a little it's a little it's a little soon even with town meeting getting relatively late it's a little decisions won't have been made yet and it is but i appreciate that that comment because if nothing else it's important that people be aware that if regionalization pre-k to six happens based on the votes in the various towns in the fall then when it comes time for annual town meeting there will be a second one of these assessment method discussions and it's theoretically possible this one will change but there will be two of these kinds of motions because we would have two districts so yeah it might be an update at that point mr hayden and in the meantime i'm recalling that at the four towns meeting that this model was generally acceptable there was some there was some discussion but it was generally okay so right the schools do always figure it out based on on both models just so all the communities can look at the plus and minus as a both but uh it consistently is agreed that this is the fairest way to do this for for all the communities right miss timers like to make the motion i move that the select board recommend the may 6 2013 annual town meeting article 15 ever spell on regional school district assessment model method second further discussion all in favor say hi hi that is unanimous uh next up is the oh miss bro would you like to speak to that yes yes she can give my little commercial all right uh next is the uh back to article 16 which we mostly dealt with last time on the operating budget schools portion so we did kind of a little intro to that we do have the school budgets in our packets those are online for everyone who is following following along at home um but we're not going to go into great detail on them mr santi is there anything you would like to say in general about the elementary and or regional budgets i think reinforcing the main point you made that both budget proposals have been uh recommended by the respective school committees and they are completely responsive to the budget guidelines that were put out in november by the amherst finance committee that um now for a three percent increase amherst assessment for the regional schools and um just over a two percent increase on the uh elementary schools which is a the equivalent of a three percent increase to the base but subtracting back out some one-time monies that were used to support the current year budget from uh free cash in anticipation of school choice revenues replacing that in in next year so both of those proposals were made by the superintendent and vetted through a very public hearing process through the school committees and they've been recommended for approval and thank you and thank you for making the point about the um the school choice so basically that makes whole what had been kind of them borrowing against the future uh last year so there's the understanding we all had reached last year when budgets were recommended to town meeting that was that was why we did that that we recommended that free cash appropriation which town meeting supported so all right further conversation discussion about the school elementary or regional assessment anyone public want to comment on that all right miss stein we'd like to make the motions i move that the slip word recommend to the may 6 2013 annual town meeting article 16 f y 14 operating budget elementary schools in the amount of 21,989,199 dollars second for the discussion in favor say hi hi that is unanimous region i move that the select board recommend to the may 6 2013 annual town meeting article 16 apply 2014 operating budget regional schools in the amount of 29,130,815 dollars and the appropriation of 14,158,830 dollars for amherst proportional share second further discussion anything more to be said on the region all right all in favor say hi hi so we're gonna begin to the school's elisper well my theory was that if mr hayden wanted to do all of the operating there's that would be fine okay okay all right i won't ask that question again all right all right so then the next step sure you can make the motion then we'll talk okay i move that the select board recommend to the may 6 2013 annual town meeting article 16 f y 2014 operating budget libraries in the amount of 2,339,757 with town tax support of 1,741,512 dollars second further discussion so uh this was another uh excellent planning process excellent coordination process process with the with the town and the schools um again this budget meets finance committee guidelines um it was done extra early this time i think that this budget came out uh like the day before the town manager's budget which was fun duly noted uh anything else you would like to add again responsive to uh the the available constrained revenues uh and uh director sherry and the library trustees did an excellent job articulating in their budget proposal which is posted online including in tonight's packet along with the school budgets um a good job explaining the operations of the library uh upcoming goals and objectives and some performance information and explaining what's going on with their other funding sources a multi-year plan to position the endowment or for sustainability long term and so there's a number of initiatives a very uh reinvigorated fundraising effort etc so a very thorough picture and encourage folks to read up on the library budget in that thank you further discussion and comment from the public on the library but and all in favor say hi hi hi i'm unanimous okay now we get into zoning articles and we have mr. talker here from the planning department and mr. crowner here from zoning subcommittee and we have uh in our town meeting packets and i hope folks brought the information on the following articles and just so um you folks know we did have public comment at the beginning from miss perot who was expressing concern about um i believe it was 31 through 33 or 32 uh the first couple about it's um about the timeliness of the articles given the lack of the housing study and not being able to get full information about what the implications might be so she had to leave but just so you know that was public comment at the beginning so uh we do have these in our packets but uh why don't you tell us what you'd like us to know extra about article 30 and welcome um so i'm i'm uh representing the planning board i'm rob crowner um article 30 is is uh is just corrects um the duplication of of effort that we did in the in the fall town meeting in which we passed two competing sets of of standards and conditions for converted dwellings um we passed one that that called for oversight that included um professional management of converted dwellings and subsequently we passed that is time meeting passed um a condition that required owner occupancy or resident manager for converted dwellings so the clear intent of town meeting was was the latter and and so this just erases the the duplication of the previous one great questions or comments about this we kind of knew this was coming based on the discussion from the from the previous um town meeting okay anyone from the public like to comment on article 30 you're good okay all right uh so select board uh miss stein would you like to make some motion if i can find it just give me a minute okay i move that the select board recommend to the may 6 2013 annual town meeting article 30 zoning converted dwellings second for the discussion all in favor say hi hi it's unanimous and we'll go back to speakers for all of these at the end okay so then article 31 i'm going to do article 31 along with 32 and 35 those are the three that we're presenting as a sort of a package um as our as our main um work this this year these these articles are first of all you have the the map of the town nice colorful map these articles are focused on the on the red spots that's that's all that's those are our business zones that it's not affecting any of the yellow or the gray or the green it's just the red and these these articles are are motivated um by our our continuing effort to implement the master plan and its vision of enhancing of enhancing our village centers and also by the housing production plan which indicates a significant shortfall in our housing supply across a range of demographics so how can we address these what we're trying to do is make it possible for more housing to to happen in amherst but to direct it to the centers while at the same time trying to make it so that people want to live there and so that businesses want to locate there a strategy is is to make some changes to our business zones you know in a more broad application than than before but also more incremental not as dramatic at least in our opinion we're doing that by loosening some restrictions that speak to capacity and tightening some that speak to form or character so that's that's the introduction to these these three so the first one article 31 is standards conditions for mixed use buildings currently mixed use buildings these are the only kinds of residential use that are allowed in certain zones the bl and the comm zones those zones don't allow apartments and so on so so if there's going to be any residential in those areas it has to be a mixed use building mixed use building contains generally commercial and or retail or something on the ground floor and residential on upper floors but those residential uses are constrained by lot size they're constrained by a fairly low threshold for a special permit what we're proposing to do is raise the threshold at which a special permit is required to put residential use in mixed use buildings and also allow for the possibility of some residential use on the ground floor of mixed use building which currently is not allowed other than staircases and things that serve upper floors so our proposal is is to put the threshold for a special permit in mixed use buildings residential uses at 10 units raising it from 6 it's actually 6 or 6 000 square feet or more than twice as much as as the ground floor use all these things are make it difficult to to attain any kind of residential use on on upper floors and we want there to be mixed use buildings want mixed use buildings to be built we want them to thrive and so we think that we need to allow for more possibility for residential use that's what this is intended to do the the with regard to the ground floor residential use currently it's restricted to 10 percent and that's incidental to upper floor use we're proposing to increase it to 40 percent of which only 15 percent can be incidental to upper floors that means that around 25 percent is possible for ground floor residential units for living space and we're going to direct that to the rear buildings you want to maintain a commercial streetscape so I think in in most cases there will not be a dramatic amount of ground floor residential use it will require actually a large building in order to have a lot of units but there might be room for one unit two units in a standard mixed use bill that's summary okay questions or comments from select board about article 31 mr. Aden I wasn't able to go to the public hearing on this I'm wondering what issues were raised there that we might want to consider so I think there there are two main considerations one is that as I said mixed use buildings are the only possibility for residential use in commercial zones and nbl zones there are some people who are concerned about allowing more more residential use in commercial zones so that's concerned anytime anytime you make it more possible than there's more possibility of people actually living there so that's a good point yeah yeah it is or it isn't else the other possible concern is that allowing ground floor residential use sort of dilutes the purpose of a mixed use building was the rear entrance helps that exactly right that's yeah that's this time you had your hands raised I don't know how reasonable this question is but I'm wondering about building mixed use buildings if we don't have businesses willing to take up the space I watched how slowly um the space behind zoos it was vacant for a long long time so I guess the zoning is reasonable I certainly approve of of the suggestions that you're making I'm just wondering if you know buildings get built and then the front stays vacant because there aren't businesses willing to be built yeah that it is a concern and I guess I would say that there's clearly a market for housing and so one response to your thing is is just a lot of housing there but but that but that means that there's less space for commercial so we actually want to promote both and so um so presumably um they will happen in tandem perhaps slowly but um we want to make the possibility there Mr. Wong yeah just briefly thank you that was very clear and helpful I my impression for reading the description of the other articles to the explanation was that precisely for the reasons missed on referred to that purely commercial buildings are not going to be as successful either so the idea is by the mixed use to attract greater vitality and bring people who live there plus the businesses a good split approach to the problem other questions and comments from select board Mr. Hayden in the housing production report there was um some some discussion on the value the need for um live work type of of residential units does this um add those types of units to our stock I mean it doesn't doesn't mention it explicitly but I'm wondering if there's a sense that it might that is part of the intent so so that's that was the motivation that was why we started thinking about ground floor residential use in mixed use buildings as a sort of a live response to live work need so yeah anytime you you allow someone to live where there is business there's greater possibility that person who lives there will actually work in the business or vice versa the person who has the business will find a place to live there other questions Mr. Hayden yeah and that's an interesting distinction to make people who are living where they work as a similar to people who are living where they own a business where they work so most people don't know that actually that's what this big curtain is here that we all keep going to live there this birth I just wanted to take this opportunity before I forget to say thank you thank you thank you to the planning board and the planning department staff for getting reports to us in the first town meeting I know that's a big struggle to get done to try and get the hearing completed the work done to actually write the report etc etc etc and I always gripe about it every year that we get them off the last minute and it's gotten better over the years and this is really exceptional to have had several in the first mailing so thank you please do what you can to keep it going it's great other questions or comments from Blackboard all right anyone from the public like to comment on article 31 Ms. Keller thank you Janet Keller precinct one if I may just briefly preface my remarks about article 31 with some remarks about the package of the main zoning package um and talk about the challenges that it's presented to us as citizens trying and members of town meeting trying to understand as best we could no one can predict the future and this is expected to play out over time I perfectly will understand that but even when I take a 10 acre parcel and try to um go back and forth among all the references I'm having a devil of a time trying to work out what the impacts are at one point I came up with well it could be about 200 250 units now and it could be to 300 later but I can't really be sure and then of course those numbers translate if you multiply them by four into quite a few units 1200 so the one thing I want to say is it's a big package it's got some big pieces the pieces are intertwined and they're very complex and that alone has raised concerns it makes people a little edgy that said the other thing I think that the folks that are in north amherst are very concerned about is that we are impacted by a relatively large area that is next to some unprotected farmland historic resources and conservation areas and the whole principle of the master plan is to develop first and to focus on those areas that most need redevelopment and infill that are already developed so I want to say we share the concerns about mixed use intensifying the residential use and mixed use pushing out businesses that certainly is the line of lease resistance and we are eager to have businesses that would serve our neighborhood and the surrounding areas so that's a concern for us and I think that's basically it we're concerned it's a big area it would be would greatly increase the density it's very complex and intertwined some days I say inter twangled when I'm trying to do the math and we're very concerned about it pushing out businesses that we badly want in our village center thank you thank you other folks from public miss Adams morianne Adams is this working precinct 10 we had raised these points with the planning board a very great concern for many of us was that the intertwined package was simply too big we felt that the North Amherst area which had been wisely separated from Atkins corner in an earlier discussion at town meeting was not really a village center it's a very broad package of acreage and in that it differs from the other much smaller areas and I think arguably fair and appropriate areas so it seems to me that the package is a setup for an up or down vote for people who might want to vote for it but cannot vote for the North Amherst piece we discussed this with the planning board the planning board said that they were all calm areas and couldn't be separated but I still feel that with a careful scalpel it should be possible to make the kind of distinction that would enable us to vote for the remainder of the package while separating the North Amherst issues which are different both in quality and in kind from the issues raised by the other parts of the article so I regret that they're linked and I appealed to the select board as I had appealed to the planning board to please find a way to disentangle them most serious in my mind for the North Amherst part is that as uh uh Janet Keller said a moment ago there's no real calculus for the impact and with such a broad area and so many potential scenarios of development there I think it's seriously risky for the inhabitants of North Amherst and finally I would like to remind us that the master plan had two components two major themes one of course is development but the other is protection and sustaining neighborhoods and I often find that we emphasize the one at the expense of the other so my basic request is that we find a mode of disentanglement thank you thank you other folks on a comment on this article okay uh for the questions or comments by select board mr krainer would you like to address any of the issues raised it's true that that we can't know what the impact is going to be but but we also don't really know and we're not counting the impact that not doing anything is having I mean what status quo is um we I think the points that are raised are are very important and they and they they make a lot of sense to me um but the feeling of the planning board is that all of our all of our business zones including the comm zone are um potential mixed use residential commercial areas um they and and we should think of them all as as centers they have uh different sets of of dimensional regulations they have different sets of sets of uh use possibilities um so they're going to be they're going to differ but there's um the the original point of the comm zone um to try and track uh heavy industry or mall or something like that that's not going to happen it's it's it's not going to happen um it's it's probably not really what we want um so so we need to find a way to to uh use them differently to think of them differently um the other point that I would like to make is that um as far as uh saving neighborhoods goes that's also extremely important to the planning board and people will differ but about our approach is that we are attempting to save neighborhoods by directing new housing new um residential use to centers rather than neighborhoods I mean that's our neighborhoods are under under threat and um and we need to either kick them all out which we can't do or find somewhere else for them to go and so that's that's that's part of what this is about thank you very much other questions or comments from select or Mr Tucker I'd like to speak briefly if I could to the question of impact I'd like to roll three of the um amendments article 31 32 and 35 very briefly basically the changes are not large remember what's happening is that the mixed use building is going from six upper floor units to 10 by right anything more than that anything bigger than that automatically goes to special permit which is the way it works now so that's not a huge change it makes them slightly more viable article 32 makes changes to several of the minor dimensional regulations front setback being one of the most important it's creating a range for in order to bring new buildings up to the street to create a pedestrian streetscape probably the most significant change under article 32 is the addition of a footnote B so that minimum lot area an additional lot area per family is no longer tied to residential units in that in that district that is the way it is now in the general business district in the downtown it's the way it is in all of our village center districts and this is an attempt to shift the limited business districts and the commercial districts maps of which you have to becoming as mr. crowner says more like centers and less like potential shopping mall areas that does create both the opportunity for more units remembering that if you have a mixed use building you still have that limitation of 10 above which is a special permit because we had an example during one of the earlier hearings on this where someone was proposing to develop the concept for a building in North Amherst and the lot that they were on would allow them to have you know three-story building which is the size of the building that's permitted in that district for apartments no more than four so they ended up with two huge apartments conceptually on the upper the two upper floors the only which the only way to make viable would be to make them into many many many many bedrooms which lends itself to you can imagine with the removal of that limitation you can have more smaller units fewer bedrooms on upper floors with the opportunity of having a market other than students which is part of the intent here finally article 35 and i don't mean to ramp things here but just to talk about how it knits together takes some of the dimensions that are created under article 32 and tries to cause buildings that are now the result of 1960s and 1970s zoning for highway commercial strip development and are set well back from the road with driveways and parking in front of them pull any additions or expansions would come up to the street to create that pedestrian streetscape over time that's not a spur to greater intensity that's directing where intensity goes so the overall impacts of these in all the districts in which they're located although it's impossible to quantify uh is not uh huge and doesn't begin to approach the kinds of impacts that were being discussed under both of the previous village center results thank you and do you want to speak about miss adams point about the the various districts all being all being part of these and whether or not they could be disconnected so the way to do that would be to create a new zone which is what we tried to do before we tried to create a new zone called an abc now maybe maybe we had the dimensions maybe we had the boundaries wrong but but right now calm is common and and and it exists in a few places in town um we couldn't we couldn't break off one calm from another calm unless we created a new zone that's not what that's not what we're doing here right uh for the comment by select we're Mr. Hayden and then Mr. Wong you suggested that um this is an incremental change and you know we're hoping it's going to have an incremental effect um i'm wondering if uh you imagine it's going to be enough um as you know there's a little bit of a housing crisis not i'm not going to call it a housing crisis i'm going to call it a neighborhood crisis going on um where um you know this type of occupancy is ending up in places where it really doesn't um support high quality neighborhoods and family-based neighborhoods um will this really help move traffic and density um out of our family neighborhoods and into places where we have the infrastructure um really i kind of i see huge pressures on housing in town and right now that pressure is being relieved relieved in a way which is inappropriate um and will this help i think it'll help whether whether it will solve it i i'm not i'm not going to claim that um that's that's too difficult to say but but um the the press of demand dries up the cost and that and that prices people out it both it both makes um some houses um too too tempting to sell and too hard to buy so um so if you have a greater supply i i i imagine that the cost will go down and it'll be more economical for people to stay in neighborhoods and not turn them over to somebody else and mr wand thank you again that was very helpful and i think mr tucker's point about the the state law and zoning is well well taken it seems problematic always to have one particular part of town another one to exempt itself from a plan that's intended to be comprehensive because that's the nature of zoning it's got to be consistent uh i'm also a little bit i mean i understand that the fear is because change is difficult and uncertainty of course causes stress and we've seen some very unfortunate developments in neighborhoods so we don't want to repeat them but i think right now we risk losing more by inaction than by action um i noticed also recalling the debate about north america zoning last time if i recall correctly people were so concerned in some cases about change that in the attempt to produce a compromised package in hopes of getting it passed uh areas that would have been downzoned to the west of sundown road were put back into the current status because people felt the status quo was more comforting than change the problem is calm let's do some kind of ugly things i live in north america i drive through these areas every day and precisely what mr crowner mr and mr tucker we're saying is that we want to be avoiding here the all kind of strip mall development that has you know that's not a village center that's ugly suburban sprawl when you've got large blocks of asphalt and parking and then the structures all commercial set back from the road the other thing is that uh as the report of the planning board says the current zoning for mixed use centers is not attractive to our businesses and other uses in part because those uses require a critical mass of immediately predation adjacent residential customers so it seems to me that the idea of loosening things as you said very nicely loosening up some requirements on dimensions but tightening the requirements for character is very important and the form-based culture important there too because as i understand it the current zoning and the combination of the current zoning with a lot coverage and and heights and so forth encourages people in commercial areas to put in lots of rectangular buildings with flat roofs and what we're doing here is producing a more vernacular style in keeping with new england farmhouse so it's more in keeping with the aesthetic and historic character of the neighborhood and it encourages mixed use residential small units and we're not allowing townhouses we're not allowing apartments we're not putting in student slums so uh i understand some of the concerns but it seems to me that the measure which again passed unanimously the planning board is reasonably well crafted and offers probably the best chance we have to fix some of these problems now and not not let them get worse just a request of your presentation i'm looking at the the red up in north amherst sort of with an eye towards the earlier comment we had about appropriateness and i'm recalling one meeting that i attended where there was a nice i would call it an overlay except that's a technical term that you use all kind of a graphic that showed which part of that was had building restrictions on it either because it's already in farmland protection or it's in um floodplain and what well not only floodplain but conservation there's a there's a number of 50 foot resource areas and 100 foot buffers that have to be observed which do significantly reduce that part of the triangle this suggestion yes so a long range goal would be to change the boundaries there so that actually more closely reflects what's actually possible it's not going to be possible to develop every square inch of that red spot it's not so this is awkward but maybe somebody else can help me reword it somehow unfortunately miss pro had to leave and i want to think about something that i thought i heard her say that i'm not and i don't want to miss speak for her speak for her it's just that if someone else understands the concept behind it because it came up at the planning board hearing that maybe it will become clearer to me what we're talking about when i look at you know first you know i look at this which is in the back of the room and that we had on our desk tonight with the two reds above and below the river north and south of the river and then when i look at the page that says north amherst mixed use districts north which is mostly above the river and a little bit of south the river is shown there what i thought i heard said earlier is north is rural south is where the amenities are but north may be rural seeming but it has a huge area of commercial zoning that hasn't been successful the way we expected in terms of commercial zoning so arguably you know we're one to turn back the clock 30 or 50 years one might not have zoned a commercial one would have thought of something else but and that's was your reference previously to malls or a heavy industry but the fact that it is currently not a mall or heavy industry doesn't the fact that it's failed commercial doesn't make it rural isn't that true and that village center is what we have south of the river so it's not like it's two sets of commercial and we like the north commercial and not the south commercial it's that it's not very commercial north of the river and what south of the river is where what limited business you know people go to the post office and go to the convenience store is right there so i'm having a little trouble with the way some of the arguments are being framed in terms of what i would expect a map to look like based on what certain comments are and so um i'm just a little confused so if you have anything to add to that that would be helpful that'd be great um i don't i think i think you said it well that that it's it is it's it is um difficult to to to really understand it completely and and and and it's you can easily see things in different ways depending on which direction you're looking and which you know what color glasses you are and so on so currently because aspects of that question have been floating around i checked the our archives of our zoning archives this afternoon and found that in 1958 this whole area including the area west of monagu road was zoned for manufacturing and it basically allowed everything under the sun and it wasn't until 1962 that the more or less current commercial district with that boundary line pulled back from monagu road came into play and most of the dimensions including floors three floors and most of the use categories have been consistent and remain the same since 55 years just about of no change and not very successful uh implementation of the zoning in in terms of business activity so it's overdue for a change thank you and mr wilde that's just mr tucker and mr crowner could clarify something we don't want to go back and and go through all the old failed attempts but maybe you could just speak briefly to this note as i recall quite well in fact a lot of the concerns were about that strip on monagu road and that's is that residential that is not touched by this and could you then clarify the difference i mean in a nutshell between the initial proposed rezoning for nabc the north ambitibulate center and the proposal here this is a lot less intense as i understand it it's okay it's i would say it's less intense in two ways or it's it's the intensity is changed into different two ways one is that we're leaving leaving the comm uses intact we're changing how flexible they they can be but leaving the comm uses intact not adding the strictly residential uses that that we had originally proposed last year or two years ago the other way that it's that intensity is affected is is is in the boundaries the the boundary along monagu roads stays the same as as our ultimate proposal last year but we we did also propose moving the comm east away from 116 away from the river that's not affected by this proposal so technically that still will be calm all the way to 116 regardless of whether this passage or not that's going to be calm right um it's just a matter of how flexible the the use of that land is okay select board need other comment or question before we're ready to take a position all right this time i'd like to make the motion i move that the select board recommend the may 6 2013 annual town meeting article 31 zoning mixed use building standards and conditions second for discussion all in favor say hi hi that's unanimous all right next up is 32 mixed use center dimensions okay 32 is uh changing the uh dimensional table for for the business zones for the mixed use centers um and by the way we're that's we're referring to them as as mixed use centers i mean there there are business zones all of our business zones all the ones that start with b um plus com um and what we're doing here is is changing some of the dimensions making them a little bit more flexible um and at the same time introducing what was before in in the form-based design form-based code section of of the proposals that we had in previous years um so we're for bl and com we're we're proposing to reduce the minimum lot area required for for residential units um for for each of the zones we're we're proposing to substitute a range of setbacks both minimum and maximum instead of just a minimum um we're adding uh footnote a which allows the permanent granting body to modify the zone modify the dimension for for a number of of the dimensional things there uh building coverage most particularly maximum building coverage um so we're not changing we're not changing the default we're not changing it from 35 or 70 um but we're allowing the permitting body in most cases it would be the special permitting body um to change it if if it fits in the context of the surrounding neighborhood and we're also substituting a maximum height with a range that goes from minimum to a maximum we want a um buildings to be both a certain height and um and not exceed a certain height we want we want to create a streetscape we want to create a uh a street envelope that that is um you know closes the street it makes makes it a place where people want to be so so that's what part of this article does the second part is uh as mr. Tucker says it it adds footnote B to the uh lot area requirements for BL and common that's pretty important that's that's where um that regulates the number of units that are possible on a lot more so than than anything else it's it's if you have as it stands right now if you have um if you are allowed to do six units on a lot you would need an acre a lot of an acre in order for that that means that you have one building with six units in it on an acre of land and you can't have another building there that's it's it's not an efficient use of of the land so we're we're suggesting that um lot size be taken away and and and regulated strictly by um the permit how many units you can have the size of the building and the permit um and finally uh we're we're proposing to change how we measure uh the height of a building right now uh we measure height by the highest point on the roof unfortunately that means that um slope roofs do not have a capacity that they that they otherwise have and so it it uh sort of encourages against uh New England style pitched roofs uh encourages in favor of flat roofs that's not as friendly looking it's not interesting so we'd like to promote uh pitched roofs and so we're suggesting that roofs you measured by the midpoint of the top the highest point of the of the main range line in the lowest point that's a standard way of measuring height in many other places and so we're just adopting it in Amherst we're proposing to adopt in Amherst that's uh in section 6.19 that that's referred to in in the uh dimensional table thank you questions or comments for Mr. Craner on article 32 Mr. Heaney yeah i'm gonna ask maybe this is going to be the repeated question what in your public hearings what came up in um as responses and concerns with this um it's the same thing it's it's um it's what impact will it have on the business next use business so that's near me i mean how much how much more residential use is going to happen as a result of these proposed changes um i think the the changes to the to the dimensional table itself um are are not very big those are small changes um again where where the impact is is in footnote b that that that takes away the the lot size requirements for resident use um Mr. Heaney yeah i'm going to recall from my planning board days that sometimes it's a small change that gets you under the threshold or over the threshold to the big change that you're you're looking for so i understand that there's like board questions or comments Mr. I actually like the small thing of the roof situation because i flat roofs not only i'm not as in some ways even as entranced by the appearance but just the necessity of having to maintain a flat roof just so it just seems like an unfortunate consequence of what the way we were doing it before whereas not only do we like the way they look better it's a lot better to maintain so good on us yeah we have some architects on the planning board pointed that to us other questions and comments from blackboard mr. wall at the risk of our digression i want to speak out in favor of flat roofs in general but not so easy to announce them as alien arab architecture and thought the pitch roof was the ultimate in german culture so uh these debates change from context to context uh no i i'm occasionally regret the fact there isn't more modern architecture in amherst but i think here what we're trying to make things fit there's a logic for it but i wouldn't i wouldn't want people to get the impression that a flat roof is entirely bad because we have green flat roofs and we have gardens and things like that so i hope that we still room for flat roofs and amherst yeah so they're not not prohibited it's just it's just a lot more flexibility other questions or comments from select board all right anyone from the public like to comment on article 32 that's killing so this is new information or specific to 32 right that excellent uh janet killer precinct one to point out a few important points here um the first is that um if someone can show me that my math is off i'll be glad to um step back from this but my assessment of these changes is that they are decidedly non-trivial so for example um let me pull this back up here um i've got a lot of paper i've been working on this and this is the guy i want so the mix use center dimensions as you know we do have this big section of red commercial area in the center of uh north amherst um and what this rezoning does is allow higher buildings on much smaller lots as i do the math now um 63 less lot space for each added family 58 less frontage 66 shallower setback cut the minimum lot size from 20 000 square feet to 15 000 and the added lot area per family from 4 000 square feet to 25 000 cut the minimum lot frontage by 50 percent from 125 to 60 feet minimum setback from 50 percent by 50 percent from 20 to 10 i appreciate the minimum um minimum maximum that flexibility i think that reasoning makes a whole lot of sense um and also raising the height but that doesn't trouble me and i like the peaked roofs as well i think they're more functional i think they look better i think it's a great idea um so i i want to emphasize that um sometimes i feel like north amherst is rodney danger field don't get no respect um and we in north amherst are not afraid of change and we are for appropriate change that does not put out of scale inappropriate uses cheek by joll with multi-generational neighborhoods farms blood plains wetlands and unprotected historic resources these are our assets they're looking a little shabby right now but they can look a lot better and packing in more housing um i uh don't feel um is going to help us in regard to the ruralness or not ruralness of north amherst um it's 60 low density despite um the stuff on on meadow street um and south um when you come from meadow street north um that area is 60 percent low density it's either r n which is a reasonably low density um uh residential neighborhood zoning um ro rural outlying residential outlying or residential low density in fact um though our residential low density is the lowest density um category and um i want to caution that while the land that's permanently perfect protected for farmland we have some um farmland that the town has identified as um farmland conservation i believe that's the right term um that's unprotected as are um and i think we should not be sanguine about the protections for wetlands and flood plains either they are regulated they're not protected absolutely so um i guess those are the things i want to say um the um article is the um just 32 is designed to be somewhat separable bl and um calm our one set of uh of uh regulated separately um separate dimensions business general business has a separate set as does business village center so um this has been described as incremental change there is the opportunity if one wanted to work with us and we are i want to reiterate we're not against change we are stand fully ready to support appropriate change for our neighborhood um so um those parts um commercial and business um limited business could be separated out thank you very much thank you other questions or comments from the public on article 32 okay um mr crowner anything else i'd like to add or good um okay select board raise any other questions or comments from this miss raiden just just um um as you were crafting the the minimums and the maximums and the heights and everything else um what were the range of values you considered was there one did you did you push and pull at at these things um so so we are proposing actually to raise the maximum on in some of the zones um and we i think we discussed up to 45 feet in in the comm zone at one point but we decided to to just go up by five feet at this point really we're not changing the number of floors so the floors stay the same it's just it's just how easy it is to to build three floors how easy is to put up the infrastructure into the air conditioning and all that kind of stuff that that goes into a building nowadays in in the in the height range that that is now allowed um so um yeah we did look we did look at at at substantially larger and we decided not not to go too much larger thank you questions or comments from select miss twill again just to clarify as i understood at reading your report and the article there are several purposes for doing that and one again is to encourage not building more boxy buildings and providing upper stories that can be used for multiple purposes and we also mentioned the solar placement right so i mean it seems to me a five foot increase is not a terribly drastic thing but it actually produces a lot more benefit than you expect for an incremental change if we look at that perspective that is aesthetics plus sustainability is that a fair reading of the article thank you other questions or comments from select board all right if we are ready to make a recommendation this time i move that the select board recommend to the may 6th 2013 annual town meeting article 32 zoning mixed use centered dimensions second discussion on favor say hi hi i was unanimous okay it relates to 33 okay so we'll we'll go to 33 we're not we'll leave off them from now 33 um this is a this article was was requested by town staff specifically the building commissioner and what it is is an attempt to rationalize the permitting of non-conforming properties in business zones so that unnecessary or duplicate hearings need not be held and so that non-conforming properties in business zones are treated similarly to the way non-conforming properties in residential zones are treated i'm i have to read this because it's i understand what it is but it's it's very uh tongue-tying so uh i think mr tucker can say it from memory but no one else can so there are there are two ways in which a property can be non-conforming it can be non-conforming dimensionally or it can be non-conforming by use um and when when when a change is proposed to such a property that is non-conforming in some way it requires a special permit even when uh the non-conformity is not itself being affected and so this this creates bureaucracy it creates slowdowns and it's not it's not really necessary what we're suggesting is that um the building commissioner be empowered to grant a permit for a structural alteration of a dimensionally non-conforming building in the business zone provided that alteration does not exacerbate the non-conformity or create a new one just as he currently is for non-conforming residences we passed that five or six years ago so this avoids an unnecessary special permit hearing and as part of this enumeration of authority we're also clarifying that a structural alteration involves the exterior of the building so if it's interior it does need to come up for a dimensionally non-conforming building in which no structural alteration is proposed in conjunction with a new or expanded use that is conforming no special permit would be required just the site plan review or whatever else is applicable for a change that would otherwise require hearings before both the planning board and the zva because the use is allowed but a dimensional non-conformity is proposed or exacerbated the planning board would hear both the site plan review and the special permit avoiding competing permit processes as time meaning has approved in a number of other situations in recent years so the zva would still hear proposals in which just a dimensional non-conformity is proposed or exacerbated or when one non-conforming use changes to another non-conforming use that is similar in character and impact so we're just trying to reduce the unnecessary work with you without without relieving the oversight that that is necessary just we're just putting it in the proper place makes good sense questions or comments from the train did you hear from representatives at the zva in the discussion on this um this is a long time ago yeah i don't specifically remember what it represented the zva was had an administrative meeting during this period and discussed the zoning articles that were then under development they were aware of this they were also invited to the public hearing and there's a zva representative who regularly attends the zoning subcommittee meetings the meetings of the subcommittee of the planning board that works on zoning so that they were aware of this all along these changes were principally requested by the building commissioners a way of straightening out ways in which the non-conforming regulations don't work now in fact almost all of these changes were intended to do that again one of those intentions in more than one kind of circumstance is to try and prevent a circumstance arising where you have in order for someone to get a single zoning permit in order to operate a use they have to go to two boards that that just doesn't make sense and town meeting has been adopting amendments to do away with that for more than 10 years as we run into them here miss burr based on your large archive that's up here mr tucker in addition to in your paper files could you give us an example that does one come to mind of something where you know in the fairly recent past i mean within the last 25 or 30 years where somebody had to go through this process and this is what ended up happening what has happened is that we discovered several things at once as a consequence of having a new and highly competent building commissioner he was going to require that things go to two boards he had or is prepared to if these these changes are not passed what we have discovered is over the years because most of our centers are were built long before zoning came about almost all of the buildings for instance in the downtown here are nonconforming dimensionally in one way or another and a series of building commissioners has over time simply ignored that and unless there was something happening that was creating a new nonconformity they just pay any attention to that in the process on the other hand in residential neighborhoods where everybody is watching things very carefully about what's going on in their vicinity it was almost always the case that any nonconformity required a special permit process in addition to whatever use permit may have been required and that was why the current provision allowing the building commissioner in three different kinds of instances where no nonconformity is being exacerbated to make an administrative decision that that those kinds of things can go ahead was added about eight or ten years ago to the bylaw when our new building commissioner took a look at the situation well over here we've got one practice and over here we've got an entirely different practice that's not fair to everybody part of the reason for requesting these amendments was to make the practice continuous across everything he also although we don't we didn't have a specific example of this he did not want to have situations in the downtown in the process of trying to apply things fairly where you had a use that was going in a retail store or something it was going into a building that was nonconforming and nothing was changing on the exterior of the building but he was going to have to send them to the cba for a special permit because the building was nonconforming so that this is an attempt to fix all of those floating bits and pieces that have not been resolved previously thank you other questions or comments from select for this trading can you comment on how this is going to change the workload of the planning board and the planning department and this zoning board of appeals well it will streamline the process unless if we have circumstances where somebody has to go to two different boards that's twice as much process that's twice as many public hearings twice as many night meetings if it's all being done by the same board that's issuing the permit for the use in those instances where you need to have a special permit because something is happening with the nonconformity then it can be combined into a single hearing and done all at once by that one body also by adding the the three criteria under which no such review is required we are relieving everybody of the work involved in going forward with a special permit on that other questions or comments from select question or comments from public miss keller janet keller precinct one i just want to state that i have a lingering concern here with the loosening of the regulations through the buy right site plan regulations and laws are not for most of us not for the people in this room they're for the outliers who lack the capacity or the will to conform to good building practices when they're tempted by some extra profit and so it's very worrisome to me when we loosen those requirements and i that's the main point i'd like to make thanks thank you other questions or comments from select point mr. crowner and mr. tecker um so this is not intended to to relieve the need for a special for a special permit hearing when that is necessary it might mean that a different body hears the special permit but if a special permit is is going to be necessary it's going to be necessary we're saying that it's it shouldn't be necessary when there's when there's no significant change it's just it's just a the way the bylaw is written if it's not conforming that automatically means special permit even if it even if that doesn't make sense so so i agree we definitely do not want to loosen the oversight where where it's where it's necessary and i don't think that's what we're doing thank you all right the select we're ready to make a recommendation on this article all right miss stein i move to wreck that the select board recommend to the may 6 2013 annual town meeting article 33 zoning non-conforming uses instructors second for the discussion all in favor say hi hi that's unanimous next up we have 34 34 is um a very simple change to the dimensional table for a single zone the rf zone for the purpose of of increasing flexibility of interpretation of this zone the rf zone exists in two places in town one is on olympia drive as most people know the other actually is is right on campus on north pleasant street the newman center and the two fraternities that are north of that are privately owned and are in our rf zone which means they could they could be developed by anyone if they're not university property however the the are the dimensional table for for the rf zone is really geared toward the olympia drive locations and so it doesn't allow a at a very high intensity use that might be possible on the rf zone that is within the university we'd like to make it possible for someone to potentially redevelop the university the north pleasant street rf zone into potentially a high density student housing that that would conform to what already exists around it in campus so we're proposing to add footnote a to the building coverage lot coverage and maximum height dimensions for the rf zone only and again footnote a allows the special permit grand body a special permit to modify those dimensions to conform to the existing neighborhood in this case the existing neighborhood on north pleasant street is a university and there are five and six story buildings there are there are new modern buildings all over the place high lot coverage and so on it doesn't mean that we want that kind of building in an olympia drive necessarily and the permit granting body should not interpret it such they should they should be looking at the context of the neighborhood and the context of the neighborhood there is is more moral so it's not a blanket coverage it's just allowing flexibility questions and comments from select one i just have a technical issue does anyone have another copy of 34 i seem to have gotten two 35s and no 34 i would like to have a 34 i didn't bring my hard copies i'm sorry these are ones that were on the table tonight oh they don't give me hard copies on the table there you go you can have an extra one all right thank you i'm sorry to interrupt but i like to have it in front of me while we're talking so bottom line this is allowing private property on campus to potentially be redeveloped as dense student housing right this is the holy grail this is right it's all good okay questions or comments about this anyone misterine um we've we've um visited a number of fraternities recently for a number of functions and have learned through those events and and also just in interacting with the students and fraternities about the general rules that they have for their conduct in in our neighborhood i don't know that all frats and sororities behave that way i'm wondering if there's some part of this that encourages that type of activity and i don't know how to be more articulate about that but i'm really rather impressed with the the frats that are right down on fearing with their community service with their designated driver policies without which they would get kicked out of the their national organization um so yeah it can't it can't address that but but i guess i should clarify um it doesn't what is allowed in rf is not necessarily a fraternity or sorority it also allows uh social dormitories so um so you can imagine a different kind of housing that allows um individual rooms or something that that a lot of people commit that not necessarily fraternity so those are the only places you can put fraternities and sororities but you could also put other things in those places mr tucker the majority of private student developments now although not all the majority uh include private management because it is in the interest of the property owner over time to make sure that the property doesn't burn down doesn't have nightly visits by the police and so forth so that is an increasing increasingly standard feature of those kinds of developments now depending on what kind of development it is that that may vary but that is a increasing feature of these thank you all right uh select board any other questions or comments about this public any questions comments about this all right miss uh miss bruh since it's in the mailing that will be in the next town meeting mailing i'm presuming we just made the deadline for that on article 34 um could you characterize for us the two excerpts from the campus master plan i appreciate it's designated that these circles are for the newman area center but the red properties versus the brown properties this is um this is something that people who are not particularly familiar with the campus master plan might be rather surprised by there are two maps in the report uh the first one which says umass amherst campus master plan and then human area center area circled the brown buildings are existing and the red buildings are proposed as part of the master plan then if you turn the page there is a colored map that has a color code uh and the color code corresponds to the key above talking about some groupings of different kinds of uses of land uh this was included in part because it was a big enough plan to also show olympia drive but also it it shows that the area along what is now mass av uh is shown in yellow and it is contiguous with the three properties along north pleasant street and yellow is residential so this is a consistent with the master the state master plan as well as the town's needs thank you thank you it was the perfect opportunity to get my jacket thank you because it's freezing in here okay uh other questions or comments about this article that miss stein would you like to make the motion i move that the select board recommend to the may 6th 2013 annual town meeting article 34 zoning rf district dimensions second for the discussion all in favor say aye that is unanimous and 35 35 is is the final part of our package it's this is more strictly uh extending the our form-based design guidelines for for our zoning bylaw this would add a new section to chapter nine of the zoning bylaw which deals with nonconforming uses and structures which by the way 33 was also adding significant new language to chapter nine this adds a new section to chapter nine and it deals with um where we want um nonconform nonconforming buildings to be located on a property so when when there is an addition or expansion or a new building on a nonconforming property nonconforming for whatever reason when it comes in for a special permit we want it to um to conform to the front setback range that we are proposing to establish in article 32 and so that range is um to bring the buildings closer to the street to start creating that streetscape to create a public space to create a pedestrian way and to to start taking away the tendency to put parking lots in front of buildings so that's that's a one part of the dimensional table that we do not want to violate we want to to specifically enforce the front setback requirement for nonconforming buildings so this would apply to nonconforming buildings again 32 would apply to new buildings this would apply to nonconforming buildings when there's a change or addition to them I should note the final paragraph 9.313 allows for a special permit to to waive that requirement in cases where safety or aesthetics dictate that it that it's not really worth doing or it doesn't wouldn't really work so it's not a hundred percent hard and fast rule it's it's the default is is we want you to come closer but there is an escape valve if necessary thank you question or comments from select board mr wall just to clarify for the viewing audience others the supplies only to existing structures as the word nonconforming implies we're not talking about new construction or anything like that right no new development other questions and comments from select board question comments from the public okay that's an easy one this time I move that the select board recommend to the may 6 2013 annual town meeting article 35 zoning the vocational requirements for nonconforming structures in mixed use centers second mr. Hayden I didn't ask my question because it's it's well documented the back of the the package there what what concerns were raised in the public hearing so I appreciate that thank you a further discussion miss spur as it was and the other reports as well it's just good to hear well I like to hear those highlights so the the other comment I was going to make is should we go ahead and have the secondary vote that reflects what planning board's vote was if article 32 fails that this is our alternate position on this is referral just so we remember I mean I don't know where we write that down appropriately for the you know our backup plan you so I should explain that just just in case you don't realize this article 35 refers to the front setback range that we're trying to establish in 32 if it doesn't get established in 32 then it then it doesn't really make sense to to then go ahead with 35 so you would be moving to okay so we could probably incorporate that into the motion so by incorporation so or referral if yeah 32 fails okay so the discussion all in favor say hi hi that is unanimous all right so those are the thank you thank you so those are the um articles from the planning board we just do have a zoning petition article and we have mr gaider we petitioner here to talk to us about this welcome introduce yourself for folks at home uh my name is jerry gaider I put up article 36 as a uh citizen petition I guess it's called um the purpose is is pretty simple I think that the summary especially the recommendation of the planning board gets to the point I guess I can provide you with some history of the about the project we bought the land from Barry Robertson in January of 08 along with the Henry Hills mansion in the form of boys and girls club we developed um lots along gray street by relocating older homes and fixing them up and now we'd like to build a new headquarters for Amherst media on the main street lots and Amherst media now has the right to do that through either special permit or site plan review depending on how they go about it but this zoning change would facilitate that question or comments from select board question mr aiden are you prepping to make a question or well I um I was just I was I was wondering how best to get at this but I'm wondering if you can comment and then the planning folks have left so oh maybe we can get a comment on how it would affect that permit for the Amherst media headquarters sure no I mean the the greatest advantage of doing the zoning change I'm wondering we're not doing the zoning changes for a purely regulatory exercise here the zoning change would give them greater flexibility greater a lot coverage um they would be able to build a build out more on the land specifically that what they need is more parking space there's space available of course on gray street and there are other areas but this would make it easier for them to to reach their objective at the town meeting Jim Lesko from Amherst media will talk about why they want that zoning change um but since it's specific to their needs I just wanted to talk about mostly the zoning change and what it means and so that's effectively the big difference greater a lot coverage thank you mr waltz yeah just just briefly this is obviously a history that goes back a number of years and a number of us have watched this very carefully in fact it was the beginning of moving of houses to those lots by mr roberts when I was chairing the historical mission that brought out big crowds of the public were very concerned about that and was ultimately concerned about the theory that began the push for local historic districts to regulate inappropriate development and I think we were generally satisfied very satisfied with the way things actually turned out historic I mean many people would prefer the whole area to be kept undeveloped but that wasn't it was not zoned that way it wasn't that wasn't the end result and the end result has been I think people find satisfactory historically appropriate buildings were moved there they were placed as far to the north and then the east as possible to keep the view scape for the historic mansions open and so our concern about those two lots was that they would compromise the historic character of that property in general and just in a physical sense block the view I was I wondered for example if there might be problems with spot zoning here and I looked at the definitions and consulted with Tom staff and I was assured that was not the case because this is being done for the common good and in accordance with general planning principles so I think that's not an objection the other thing to and I'm not making a judgment I'm just trying to explain the background the historical commission took this up on a number of occasions this past year most recently just a week or so ago and they decided not to take a position they thought it was sufficiently addressed by planning and others I think one thing to bear in mind regardless of whether one is for or against it is that under the current zoning and Mr. Gader knows better than I do he can put up two buildings on those lots and there's not a lot of regulation over them except when the district comes in so as I understand it again correct if I'm wrong the proposal before us would more likely result in the intensification of use would allow for an appropriate structure rebuilt on the north on the eastern most lot leaving the second lot to the west probably open or at least not developed to the same height right and thereby preserving the view is that correct or the only argument you're going to hear from people really that I've heard at least is that people would prefer to have these remain open vacant lots and that's just not an option that's there's no option see here right now there's only two residential building lots as you know in fact many people don't know we actually got an offer at one point when we had it from investor real estate investors that wanted to turn it into two single family homes and then go before the zba get special permits and pack it as many people as possible and so we turned that down because we had a longer vision for this we took us you know what five years to find the right partner it's Amherst media once we have a structure built as far to the corner of gray and main as possible those those lots will be occupied so it won't be expanded and we'll actually secure the view of the Hills House to as much an extent as possible the question is how do we go about it do we go about it through finding the right partner which is Amherst media it's an invested organization here that's got an interest in being in a good spot and looking good and I think we're developers with a proven track record of having done that and that's basically why we think this is a good combination thank you other questions or comments from select point I was I was I missed I um I I like the buildings you put up on the gray street and and very much but it does really concern me how this new project would maintain a view at all um what would it be over the parking lot or what right I mean what the parking lot would presumably be somewhat sunken because there's a significant slope up and grade up to the Hills House it would be obscured presumably by a hedge and I say presumably because this would be the first test case really for the Dickinson historic district which is created as part of that local historic district study committee and so it would really be up to the Dickinson the historic district to define the parameters of this building within uh building code so you know we can't do five stories because the zoning doesn't allow for that uh but we may not we may have to build it in a certain style um that reflects the rest of gray street for example that's those are the questions that would be addressed by by the local historic district so the parking lot in particular the idea right now that we've tossed around with Amherst Media by the way you know we don't have a signed agreement with Amherst Media to do this this is just an agreement that we have in place um and either they will buy the lots and build it themselves or maybe we can arrange something whether we'll lease them back like what the folks for the Amherst Cinema did but the idea is to build the lot build the building as far to the corner of gray and main as possible and the parking on the other side and so that would maintain the view because once you have a structure covered then that would maximize the lot coverage right there so you can't build on top of a parking lot Mr. Hane I would just point out that Mr. Guderra's presumption that there would be a hedge of shielding the parking lot um is predicated on applying current zoning bylaw which requires it State again Aaron it requires it's a required around parking lots by bylaw by existing zoning bylaw the questions or comments from select Mr. Walton as I understand the parking lot is definitely part of your plan yeah it's considered desirable I imagine for the reasons of Amherst Media along with the public transit but there's that's pretty much a given or is there an option that would not involve parking there I think that would be negotiated as part of the discussions with the local historic district if we are able to do the zoning change we would be allowed to have if we maximize the usage more spaces than under the current zoning we've designed some plans for them based on the current zoning which would require them to either do a special plan review and those have let's say I don't know 50 just to pick a number of spots the new change would give us 20 spots instead these are just I'm just using these as numbers not really actual spaces any questions or comments from select let's see if Mr. Krauner would you like to come forward and give some comments on planning board and maybe take some questions on planning board so planning board supports this zoning change I should point out that that the proposal actually is a zoning change it's not a proposal for Amherst Media it's a proposal for zoning change and so so the question is is is BN appropriate for this part of town for this area on the street and and it was the opinion of the planning board that in fact it was it we very recently did a major rezoning of that area of town and so so there's a business village center across the street from it farther east along main street is is more BN zone BN zone is allows for it's a it's a softer village center type zone it allows some uses of business uses retail and so on that that are desirable for nearby neighbors but it but it has limitations on time and number of employees in general so it's it's a it's a good buffer for residential zone and business so we we think it's a good idea regardless of of who actually uses the property um could I just ask follow-up and might have more follow-ups um when you were originally doing the the change zoning a couple years ago why didn't the boundary include that at that point I wasn't part of planning board at that time so I don't I don't remember what the reason was I suspect because because at the time the rest of that lot was not developed and so it was it was thought of more as as you know this is a residential area and we weren't trying to create a business area on that part of main street now that that development has happened there and it's nice and it's good um and and it's and it's not as as threatening as as people may have thought why not why not take it the next step and and finish it off there and and and you know you know something really nice I'm Mr. Heen yeah I just wanted to recall that the BN zone came into being specifically to respect the the properties of that neighborhood the kind of transition between you know the downtown and you know the first in fact the first residential development in the town of Amherst Mr. Wilde did you have any memories no I'm sorry miss Burke I just wanted to reiterate something that was stated earlier associated with some of the history which is that although it took me a little while to get my head around it because I'm always talking about having more housing units I'm actually pleased about the fact that by converting it to be on that single family house is not possible there because of the possibilities of what could go wrong if it became if those were single family houses as opposed to businesses fitting in so nicely along that way and across the area so it actually seems very logical to me to take away the ability to have those be single family homes thank you Mr. Goodair and you're in another comment I just wanted to mention about the history of the zoning change because I was part of that reason that um that zoning change took effect I think it was in 09 was that I started having discussions with the planning department here about rezoning our building at 446 Main Street and we discussed the possibility of adding the two front lots from the Hills House project to that rezoning as BN initially then but it was considered politically unpalatable given that we hadn't worked on the project yet at the time and people didn't know what was going to happen and the separation of the the chopping up of the Hills land into six lots was already causing a lot of strife so really it was just a question of from what I recall from a discussion of the planning department that was a question of what makes sense at the time but again the idea of the business neighborhood is that it acts as a buffer as a collar around the business village center I think it's worked out well in the last few years at the buildings that were affected by those changes and you know we see things like the lumber yard going across the street and the hot tub and before that wonder arts those were all created after the zoning changes so it did effectively encourage what we want zoning to do which is a particular type of development whether it's um housing for students or in this case businesses thank you so this is a real uh an entry area to our downtown and uh I think it sounds like the plan which is a zoning plan but a zoning plan that specifically has a development uh potential attached to it uh is a is a good one and make for a very positive entry to the downtown and particularly something that is uh right next to Emily Dickinson's homestead so um other questions or comments from select board questions or comments from the public Mr. Greenbaum my name is Louis Greenbaum and I live in precinct number one I still struggle a little bit incidentally with the hearing and the acoustics and the PA system so if I may possibly have repeated something that I didn't hear I hope you'll excuse me the one thing that we have not weighed in our discussion and the evaluation of this proposal is that we are dealing with the historical district we are dealing with two extraordinarily important properties in the history of the town of Amherst the hills is by the midpoint of the 19th century were the richest people in Amherst they built those two magnificent mansions that still sit there and thanks very largely to the clearing of the lots you can get some sense of the grander the majesty nearly certainly the opulence of the architecture of the design and the ultimate creation of two beautiful houses on a magnificent setting don't forget his house was built on a lot of 2.8 acres I would like to appeal to the select board to not grant the commercial zoning that is being requested it just so happens that the first buyer of that property took what was nearly three acres and a single lot and created six lots in its place that in a historical district is absolutely unprecedented I don't know of anything like that that ever occurred in the town of Amherst five of those were frontage lots the sixth was actually where the mansion sits today which no longer has a digress it always had a main street address it has now a gray Steve address but that's less important than what we're prepared to do in order to honor the presence of this great family they were the people who brought the industrial revolution to the town of Amherst they were extraordinarily generous not merely as employers but also as citizens of this town they helped financially for the founding of the University of Massachusetts which is now 150 years old celebrating this year it has a score or an even more a benevolent and generous gifts and donations which it made including utilities and public public services for the town of Amherst and its citizens we have an obligation to remember those people we have something of a duty to acknowledge their presence by the end of respecting the houses which they had built which also reminds us incidentally of the public mindedness and the services which they rendered to the entire community what we did in providing the three frontage lots on gray street was to move three historical buildings onto an area which one might almost be tempted to say nowadays fits in beautifully well almost like those houses that always been there and that is due I think to this use test of a whole host of factors but I think we could live with that I don't think we can live with the possibility of the erection of a business of whatever sort and whatever service facilities and parking go with it that would be a defacing and I think it would also be a repudiation of what a historical district means to accomplish and if I may appeal to the board of selectmen largely as the people who we can favor as assuring something of the continuity something of the heritage something of the history that went on and continues and on our reverence our respect as I mentioned before for these buildings the historical commission and I was about to be a member at the time thought that we had had an excellent solutions to the problem of being able to maintain the integrity of the land and the building and that is to offer some of monday under seapack which was approved by the town meeting and which the owner mr. godara found fit not to accept I still have the hope that maybe he might be disposed to doing that one day but if that fails please do not permit the whole transformation of the use and therefore the appearance of what remains on the land the two frontage lots in main street which people enjoy which become part of the fabric of the enjoyment of one of emmer's great historical neighborhoods please keep in mind that our voting not to permit commercial development does not leave the owner of that land without options he can erect houses and he presented before the historical commission a schema of houses that I think would fit beautifully on the lot which be would be thoroughly in conformity with the buildings that already exist and nevertheless which have the one guarantee and that is through the control and through the permission which is accorded by the local historical commission thank you very much we have that and I have faith in that but I'm afraid if we go ahead with the commercial zoning we've lost all opportunities of being able to have the retention and the continuity of what you can look at and still admire with pride some of the great historical buildings and monuments of our town thank you very much mr. green bow it's like we're ready to take a recommendation on this miss burr I wonder if and I don't you know put him on the spot if mr. wall perhaps would feel he could respond to this although I'm familiar with the the boring aspects of the local historic district in terms of who signs what when and approves what thing when he's much more familiar with the actual what they can do and what they can't do and I know we've had a number of brief discussions here at this board about people's interest in developing local historic districts and our indicating to them that it's perhaps not the tool they think they're looking for on the other hand I think this particular use is exactly the tool that I was looking for the local historic commission local historic district commission to handle whether it is a house or whether it is a development of this nature so am I interpreting that correctly I mean this is the kind of tool I would we've been talking about local historic districts being able to impact as opposed to development or not development right yeah if I may I mean I just should preface this by saying since I've known mr. green bomb since I came to Amherst literally from the first day and we serve in the historical commission we've been through all this and I understand those concerns and I've been conflicted about this development this area since 2008 and but you know one makes what one the best one can on the situation I think we've gotten a pretty good situation all things considered it's worked out reasonably well so far so this actually came up at some point last time when we were trying to pass a local historic district on the town meeting let's serve some people were concerned about those two lots specifically and asked me what could happen and I gave the answer I think you're referring to which is basically that you know right now it's zoned for a certain use so the local historic district is an overlay it doesn't affect use it affects appearance so uh since the zoning was already in place the owner is entitled to do what he wants to do uh and at the center my bottom line too that under the current you know as mr. crowner reminded us quite appropriately we're not voting on ac tv amherst media we're voting about a zoning change so that's one thing number two again that's about the use my concern is mostly about the appearance you know does it fit the district and that's what local historic district comes in so while the local historic district cannot say that mr. Gadir cannot build there because he already has that right if these were if this if this had not been zoned that way a change in the zoning would would be involved also with historic district issues but right now they're going to talk about the appearance of that and so I guess my bottom line is right now he can put up anything he wants in those two lots under the current residential zoning yeah they can be boxy ranch houses or off the shelf two stories whatever is allowed by the height there uh the proposed rezoning at least holds out that there's no guarantee but under the proposals we saw and I think what mr. Greenbaum was referring to was the proposal for the ac tv building not residential housing but mr. Gadir can correct me I may not recall correctly uh so right now two things can go two houses can go there no matter what uh right under the change the likelihood is that one lot will be developed and one left open in both cases though the local historic district would be able to have a say in the appearance of those structures so I don't I guess it's a long way around but the protections I think are extremely valuable and I would I would trust the local historic district commission to make the right decision about whatever goes up there either way it's like we're ready to take a position on this all right this time would like to make the motion I move that the select board recommend to the May 6th 2013 annual town meeting article 36 zoning petition amend official zoning map to change zoning designation on parcels 14 b dash 250 and 14 b 251 from rg to be in second on uh for the discussion all in favor say aye aye aye all opposed I'm not opposed but I'm gonna abstain for the moment I'd like to look into a little bit more the kinds of businesses that could be built in a local historic district in terms of architecture Mr one again the business is not affected it's only the form so that's what I'm talking about the form there are the committee commission the the the the the rules are being developed just some general rules that are that are drafted but you're not going to get a guarantee of 100 percent about a certain outcome all right I'll just leave it as an abstention for now okay Mr Hayden did you vote I did I voted yes you voted yes okay so that was four in favor and one abstention is that correct right okay very good all right we'll be right along thank you folks for coming in for that so now we are up to article 29 the residential rental property bylaw and we have Mr Zomak here to talk to us about this and we also have article 38 which is the petition which is similar the residential rental property permit it's called but that we'll talk about that one afterwards to see where they differ did you have a comment yeah I just wanted to very briefly introduce this and then have Dave walk through fairly quickly some of the particulars strongly recommending to the select board that you support article 29 residential rental property bylaw this is the result of a very thorough process I think with safe and healthy neighborhoods working group I convened a few months back all kinds of input you know no one can claim any process is perfect but the fact that they work the problem exhaustively and the product that came out with set of recommendations at the end really did evolve over time and I think benefited from the input that was that was generated I think it's responsive to the many issues that were raised I think it establishes baseline compliance with life sanitary life safety and sanitary codes it increases awareness of the town bylaws on and health regulations on property exteriors it it takes a major step forward on identifying and clarifying parking plans appropriate property and there's a number of others but it's a complaint based system relies on self inspections primarily and then our inspector staff is really dealing with complaints that are received so on that basis we don't believe the proposal is overly bureaucratic or expensive there's a relatively modest $100 per property is the estimated fee that would be the bylaw gives the select board the authority to set appropriate fees for the administration of this bylaw and that was a specific recommendation from the working group about establishing $100 per property not per unit to pay for the cost of overseeing this and I think it has the potential to make some positive influence on on protecting neighborhoods while also allowing our very important rental market to operate but in a more effective way and more in harmony with the surrounding neighborhoods so turn it over to Dave I'm not sure Mr. Mizanti left me much to work with but given the lateness of the hour and the fact that we have been before you on a couple of different occasions over the last few months for updates and summaries I will keep my comments very brief I think Mr. Mizanti covered many of the high points this has been a months long process with extensive public input I would call your attention to the information in the packet that was provided for you last week and we'll form the basis for the information going out to town meeting members in the second mailing middle of this week in that packet just to call your attention to there was a summary of the of the bylaw itself and the process that got us to that making the recommendation to Mr. Mizanti there is a draft FAQ frequently asked questions that cover a whole host of of different things including many of the comments and concerns that we we received from the public throughout our process in it was a a draft of the application also included was a draft of the self-certification checklist as well as the required information that will go to tenants and then there was a nice one-page informational chart created by a member of the safe and healthy neighborhoods working group Phil Jackson and I think those documents together present a pretty clear picture of the recommendation that we brought to Mr. Mizanti after getting some feedback after the working group was done and getting some feedback from town council the article article 29 was tweaked in a few ways to tighten it up and to make sure that when it is reviewed by the attorney general that it is in the in the in the shape that we want it to be in and that formed the basis of of the text you see in article 29 so I think I'll stop there if there are questions I'm sure that Ms. O'Keefe who was on the working group with me or Mr. Mizanti we'd be happy to answer those questions as best we can thank you very much and I'll just point out a couple of other points one is the tenant information sheet and the registration forms things like that those are really just illustrative at this point those are those will be tweaked fine-tuned if this passes town meeting then we have about nine months to kind of take care of details like that but this was to give folks a sense at the other point I wanted to make oh I've one of my two other points one is the the big change from when this was presented to all of us several weeks ago is that at the meeting the next day after we had our presentation on Monday night at the Tuesday night meeting the next day the working group decided to make very clear in its recommendation that behavior was also a component of the permit and could be a consideration for suspension and that is addressed in the FAQ but I want to make sure that it's very clear it would not be the tenants behavior per se the landlord would never be held responsible for the tenants behavior per se which would be outside of their actual control but that is the it is responsive to what the landlord's actions to address any behavioral problems would be so just like it the permit concept involves uh the I should say the the suspension concept so the permit sort of presumes compliance but the suspension part of the permit is for incidents of egregious non-conformance or lack of good faith effort towards cooperation or obtaining compliance we had originally been talking about that just mostly in terms of kind of zoning and health codes but we added to that behavior issues so if if tenants for example were continuously parking inappropriately on the property out of accordance with the approved parking plan the landlord would need to take steps take some sort of good faith efforts to be dealing with that if they just threw up their hands and said hey I'm sorry not my problem that would be that would be a lack of good faith effort on the landlord's part similarly if the tenants were to have say allowed parties at a property if the if those parties if the landlord took effort to try and address those maybe that would be hiring private security maybe it would be sending you know registered letters talking about how this is absolutely not appropriate maybe it would be arranging meetings with the tenants whatever the good faith efforts would be that that would not have the landlord in any way in danger of having their permit suspended if they were in fact aiding and abetting the problem situation or they were simply ignoring it then that would be similar to the to with the building and health code situation they would be they would be not cooperating with the code officials code officials and and not making good faith efforts to solve the problem so we did very specifically affirm that the behavior bylaws just like the zoning bylaws are things that the landlords need to be taking positive steps to address so I wanted to make sure that that was clear that that was is that really a pretty significant change from from when we talked to you before and the other thing just Claire elaborate a little on Mr. Zomek's point about the parking we originally had said kind of very clear cut and dried no parking on dirt or grass and the attorney general flagged that and said you really can't do that that is that would be a zoning issue for parking you cannot do with a bylaw something that you ought to be doing through through a you cannot do with a general bylaw something that you should be doing through the zoning bylaw and so the fact is we actually already have covered through the change that we made in a spring of 2011 about parking design standards we're pretty covered by this so it's it's possible there's sort of a tiny percentage of properties that will fall through the cracks on this but but the new design standards for any change in parking requires that it not be on on dirt or grass anyway so that anything if you were to have a change in the parking on the property then already it would be covered by the zoning bylaw so so we think that this captures like 95 percent of what we were trying to do with our blanket statement but has the benefit of being able to pass the Attorney General's approval which otherwise would have been a complete disaster so those are the big changes well shut up now questions or comments from select Mr. Well one of the one of the positive we've talked about this obviously several times so I won't go over all my previous comments but I like the fact that you were specific in that there were not a minimum number of parking spaces required because there certainly are circumstances where depending on the location it may make sense that it would be perfectly okay not to have a car per person so I'm very grateful that we are considering that because we talk about that sort of thing all the time but then when we actually go to do things it sometimes seems like we're still very car focused so that's great one of the things I'm a I have some level of concern about and I'm not I know that you perhaps all share at the safe and healthy neighborhoods working group what your expectation is how you plan to express to landlords because again we're not talking about 98 percent of the landlords we're talking about that weird 2 percent that's the problem in terms of what a good faith effort is now you gave the example of registered letter I know they were just registered letters private private security those seem like really concrete actions I would hate to see us get into a lawsuit over well I told him I told him not to do that anymore that was my effort that's all I have to do I'm not their parent I told him not to do it so I wonder how do you specify how can we specify to the landlords what some examples of what good faith means so that it's clear we're holding them to a certain standard associated with that rather than just what they might imagine to be good faith because those are the people that we all are at the problem with thank you Mr. Zomek sure I can I can just have at this so the bylaw doesn't get into the the kind of micro of those steps but it does in section 12 13 and 14 outline a very logical graduated increasingly clear series of steps that staff would need to take with landlords whether it be staff from the building department the health department the fire department or in concert multiple departments with the landlord for various things that might be happening at a particular property so I think although we couldn't get into the specifics of you must first phone call first certified letter or letter certified letter it does leave obviously some room for the figure be it the building commissioner or the health director or the fire chief to use their discretion but it does lay out a process by which those steps would happen including if an inspection was necessary for x y or z reasons and then it it even has the appeal process laid out in the bylaw as well if a landlord feels as though they have been not been treated fairly so that's really the way we dealt with those steps in talking with our building commissioner for instance there are multiple ways that good faith efforts can be shown some of them have been reported by mr morrow to this to this board as well as to the town manager in terms of responsiveness about parking we've had excellent success over the last couple of months with mr morrow simply working with landlords on voluntary measures that they can take let's get all those cars on the pavement let's create a short of this bylaw an informal parking plan that shows or installs stones here or a split rail fence here or some hedge to to block so again those that discretion and it will be up to the code enforcement person but I think there's a way way to do that that that is in line with section 12 13 and 14 other questions or comments from select this time is there an online site for the building and sanitary code because health and safety are you know dealt with very closely referring to that and I'd be curious to know what kind of health issues for example I'm sure there is I'd be happy to get that for you I don't know it off the top of my head because it's not something I'm just curious because health and safety it says health all the time but you know I'd like to be able to know that a landlord or a person who's interested could go and check out what the health standard should be well I will say that as part of this effort and we had extensive conversations about this in the working group all of this this program if if supported by town meeting and and and and funded will by and large be online so there will be a website created there will be applications created that are all essentially fillable forms so landlords owners can go in fill out those forms submit them online see how their application is being processed where it is in the process of being approved and then there will also be an online component of course with the reference material to links to various codes or other materials that landlords owners need to and tenants need to be aware of but then there will also be a way for anyone the general public to follow the if there are enforcement actions to follow those enforcement actions as they proceed and again Mr. Mora Ms. Federmann have been very upfront with their reports in the last five six months as we've gotten a better handle on how we're following up on complaints in the field this will be a complaints driven system as Mr. Muzanti said there will be no mandatory inspections so really the work will be upfront in the application process the reviewing of those applications the reviewing of the parking plan and then the maybe I wing of a permit okay um I got a call this week from a tenant very unhappy with the conditions in the facility in which he's living and I would like to be able to go and see if his complaints are reasonable by comparing them to whatever the standards are so I think other people may also have that issue sure well I'd be happy to get you a link that's fine thank you to the you want the health right sure because we you know it's part of the health and safety initiatives so knowing what the health concerns are legitimate sure but the useful happy to get you a link to that health code and and they could always meet confidentially with staff in the health department as well if they had questions the questions or comments from select board okay um questions or comments on the article in general it's Barbara Denise Barbara at precinct nine this doesn't sound like this is working I'm assuming it is doesn't yet sorry it is working it is okay all right so I have thought a lot about this bylaw particularly because as a renter it does affect me and I think I've finally come to understand what this bylaw is actually about as I mentioned probably about a month ago residents have been pressuring town hall for help in dealing with increasingly disruptive student behavior and while I don't know a lot about that I do know that in the first probably about can you speak a little louder because the people in the back can hear you and I'm having trouble so hold on just one moment Amherst media if you're able to increase the amplification of the speakers in this room that would be helpful so they will try and do that and we can just keep talking because they need us to be talking so that they can hear the happen so okay Barbara please continue but talk as loud as you can because they lead the people on the back wooden here they can also move up okay here we go again I haven't directly experienced the fun that people in Lincoln Avenue and Fearing Street and Main Street experience though I can hear Main Street definitely Thursday Friday and Saturday and probably in the last four or five years we have had increasing herds of students coming up the street one two three sometimes earlier sometimes later in the morning they usually don't disturb me because I'm usually still awake at those hours but nonetheless I'm very much aware of their presence so this was the impetus for this particular rental by-law it interferes with people's quality of life to the point where some people have simply said this is enough this is not what we bargained for and we're moving out of town and they sell their house and they move out of town which is very unfortunate so the safe and healthy neighborhood's working group and I want to mention again that that was a group of homeowners there were no renters not even a token renter not even a student on that group they came up with a solution in the form of this rental regulation by rental registration by-law but to my mind at least there is a problem what they were supposed to what you they were supposed to be solving was the disruptive behavior that people were having to put up with more and more and more in their own neighborhoods but it appears that the problem you have focused on instead is the condition of rental housing in town approximately 50 percent of the dwelling units in town interior and exterior conditions now I didn't realize that this was a problem now Diana has brought up at least one problem but I didn't realize that there was a widespread problem with this in town and as far as I know there hasn't really been any documentation presented as this being a widespread problem in town yes there are parking complaints apparently a lot of the part a lot of the complaints that have come to the building inspector have to do with parking some problems with the condition of apartments but as far as I know it is not a widespread problem and that is very unfortunate so now with this new by-law we're not talking about the two percent of landlords as being weird did you say as Ms. Brewer said we're talking about the combined total of the two weird percent and the 98 no problem percent to make it 100 percent of the landlords and tenants and dwelling units in town that will be affected by these rental regulations there's and essentially what they will have to do is prove why they are not a problem so rather than us looking at the problems that are already known that you can see that you can hear and that sometimes you can smell as you're driving or walking by those are the problems we know but that doesn't matter that's not what we're looking at we're going to look at everybody else presume that they're a problem and through paperwork and parking plans and checklists and certifications saying that by God all your what was it the non-porous surfaces are without interruption we are asking people to prove that they are not the problems and they're going to have to sign in a test that everything is up to code under pains and penalties of perjury so essentially this makes those of us who are not included in the voting members of the working group feel like we are bad like the landlords are bad like they are not keeping up their properties like the tenants are bad and they're like children because they don't know what their rights are and they are not capable of looking after their own health safety and welfare and in the meantime homeowners who may be in need of having their own health safety and welfare looked at just as much as renters and tenants will will not be subjected to these particular regulations this is a very unfortunate situation i know that the working group has worked very hard and they have presented something that purports to deal with the problem but unfortunately i don't think it does i think it distracts the town from dealing with a real problem which is a serious one how do you control this behavior nobody's come up with a pretty good solution at this point and i think people will say well they've worked hard this is better than nothing but it is not it is intrusive it is insulting to people who not only who are could you tell me what's intrusive about it as a tenant having somebody come in and going through and checking and saying this this this this and this if you're an adult you don't want to have your mother or your father come in and basically tell you make sure that your room is clean this is not something that any homeowner wants to be subjected to i don't think tenants should be subjected to it just because they're not paying a mortgage so that's why i find it to be intrusive and also insulting because it says i'm incapable of looking after my own welfare and i am certainly quite capable of doing that and i think you will find that most of the people who rent in town are and quite frankly if the town is looking to attract more high-end renters if they come and they find out wait a minute they're gonna come in and inspect my place they're going to go to north ampton they're not going to go to amherst thank you very much and then there's the the final thing i want to comment on is that this is not ready to go it is not better than nothing it should be referred back to the committee and the committee should have a different composition for the second time around to include renters because the fact that there was not a single renter on the committee yes you got input but no renters were voting members of the committee that is sort of like taxation without representation and that shouldn't be happening in amherst thank you thank you very much so i have to categorically reject miss barbara it's um uh categorizing this uh as a needing everyone to prove that they are not a problem um that's not at all what this is um this is a set of really it's a compilation of existing regulations the idea that that the landlord needs to attest to everyone's dwelling meeting the already defined health and safety codes there's no change in what those codes are and really this is a tenant protection you could quibble on the details of of how one determines that your your dwelling unit does in fact meet the health and safety codes but i think that as a community we all want to make sure that they do and at this point they don't um this isn't about two percent um this is about an opportunity to address a whole bunch of issues while it's true that the behavior issues in um and the the conditions of certain houses is what has brought a lot of this to the forefront we also have a new inspection staff that is finding horror stories like you can't believe in um in rental housing so when we have situations of illegal apartments illegal bedrooms um we have this is this is a a system that has been um not had enough attention paid to it uh up until now and so this is really an opportunity to try and uh protect tenant safety uh protect uh neighborhood quality of life and determine expectations and clarification on those expectations that's going to raise all properties i think it's a big mistake to think about this as a punishment to anybody this is no more a punishment to landlords and tenants than our food truck regulations were a punishment to food trucks or the taxi regulations are a penalty to taxi companies this is when when you reach a certain critical mass of having collective impacts you need to be able to have to exert some kind of community control over those if as a community you decide that that is in fact what you want to do so we are giving town meeting uh an opportunity to say okay are these the kinds of of controls that we as a community want to have in response to the concerns that have been brought to us so um so i just need to reframe that a little bit to the point of not having any tenants on the committee um the their efforts were made to get students onto the committee and they failed and i can't speak to why there weren't any non-student renters on there but the the fact that there were no student renters was uh was very unfortunate for sure but um but that was not that was not by design so mr zomec could i just add also that the committee and many members of the public who were involved in the multiple multiple meetings we had including night forums um also um um gathered information from communities like ours all over the country so this the set of bylaws that um the bylaw that is being proposed um two town meeting has many of the elements of other university and college towns throughout the country and so it is very much in line with what other communities are are doing to try to as you said bring together um health regulations other regulations under one the auspices of one program in this case one bylaw and um apply them fairly and and raise all boats in town i agree with you 100 percent that this was not about behavior this was about looking at our housing stock our rental stock throughout town and i guess i would challenge anyone to you know simply drive around amherst and take a look um it is it is not in the best condition it is not in the condition overall that i think a lot of us would like to see it so um some of it is very good well kept well maintained but uh hopefully this program will help raise all of that so that these are better dwelling units for all tenants thank you and i'm just the final point i wanted to make also is that um miss barbara mentioned that this is applying different standards to renters than to homeowners and that's just not true there's no there's nothing in here that is specific to renters um every every home is supposed to meet all of the health and safety requirements and as it turns over as you turn over a house when it's sold that's the only opportunity to make sure that they do um the parking situation if you were to change your parking situation and suddenly you were to need to park a bunch more cars in your home at your home as an owner document the exact same parking rules would apply to you the only thing that's different is the uh you don't need to register your property that's the only thing that's different so um none of the other no other specifics are are are at rental properties rather than owner occupied they apply across the boards this time i want to make two points one is that this is a a complaint driven process um in the case of where somebody feels there is um there are issues with a particular property and the owner has filed the list the uh the checklist and signed off on it and the tenant feels that that's or a neighbor feels that that there are things that are wrong it makes a complaint that's when things move forward and i'd also like to read a particular portion which says an owner shall not be found this is um well anyway an owner shall not be found in violation of the cell certification program if they have been refused access for an inspection by a tenant slash occupant however in such instances the owner shall either provide the town with a signed statement from the tenant slash occupant indicating that inspection was refused etc etc so i don't think this vision of people being forced to to have an inspection without a reason in the first place and even under those circumstances they could deny it so i just uh that struck me when i read this that um that in fact a tenant would not have to have their property inspected and there's also a separate provision for um long-term tenants having to have that self uh right have the landlords attest to the um status less frequently so the reality is we live in a community with a ton of students who are renting properties for the very first time it is a very unsophisticated rental audience rental consumer market that in some cases is being taken terrible advantage of and so we as a community because we we have a vested interest in it as well but also just because it's right are trying to take steps to also protect the tenants in this miss burr a couple quick things um building on what you just said about being taking advantage of that was one of the things i was really pleased to see that we covered quite clearly is that um when when if something does go egregiously bad it isn't the tenants are going to end up out on the street because that that's something we wanted to avoid and that was something we've always had some struggles with associated with the four person bylaws that it it's not the tenant's fault that six people live there it's the landlord's fault in many cases okay especially now because if this if this is to pass then the landlord is attesting that they understand and have made clear the tenant is receiving the information saying guess what this is the law this will be enforced i mean i deal with students all the time some of them have no idea that this is a bylaw in amherst and so and they'd have no reason to know any you know even if they were to be really you know want to comb through things it's just not something that would occur plus they see it happening out in the community so therefore they wouldn't be concerned about i also and and again the the inspections are not proactive so to speak i mean yes the landlord's attesting to the condition of the property but it's not like they're coming in and bugging you to do inspections so um it's a very different feeling and i also it's probably not worth trying to clarify who knows what'll show up in the newspaper anyway but the the two percent weird thing that was referenced that i apparently said is associated with the fact specifically of people in the very small percentage of landlords who seem unclear on the concept associated with good faith efforts associated with behavior so it's a very small drill down percentage of people that i'm talking about i'm not talking about because i know the theory's been thrown around well just because of a few bad apples they're making everyone suffer and i think for all the reasons that you very clearly elaborate mr so it's elaborated in the conversations we've had all this time have elaborated on that's not what we're attempting to do we're not attempting to put in some big bad system to deal with three really irritating people really irritating weird whatever we want to call them it's that we're doing a proactive thing given that we know that there are some people who really don't get it i was just trying to see what teeth we have to make sure that we feel like we have the discretion to be able to say to them yes that means you really have to do something so i was satisfied and at the end of the day this is not going to solve every problem no it's not going to create every protection to every tenant to every neighborhood this is this is going to do the best it can to establish kind of a new a new norm and and very clear expectations all right uh it's like we're need more information before it takes or takes position okay you want to speak so just like we need more comment on this from folks objecting to it mr gross cup you've been here patiently so we'll let you speak anyway please introduce yourself then gross cup town meeting member in precinct nine and just had a question about uh miss stein read section c of uh section seven about the um how it would be okay for a a tenant to refuse access to the to the landlord but i just was reading section d about the lease terms actually requiring that access be granted like that be part of the lease that you sign that you would actually have to grant access to the landlord so i was just wondering doesn't that doesn't that section sort of contradict the section that you read from so if i might answer that i'm still getting a handle on this it doesn't refer to the people who worked on the safe and healthy committee the fact is we live in a state with great tenant protections and so we started off with a wish list of things that we would regulate here that all just kind of disappeared because you simply can't do that in this state um so no matter what your lease says you as a tenant can deny access to your landlord you can they might not renew your lease or something like that but um but a landlord can't enter without your permission no matter what the word so c overrides d in this case the the we can't do anything locally that override state law is the bottom line so your your lease can say whatever it wants to say um and that also that's that's just an agreement between you and the property owner you are still protected as a tenant by state law so but but but a tenant is presumably going to know more about the lease that they signed and they're going to know about state law so it is you don't have to sign a lease that says that you are agreeing to provide access if you don't want to but having signed that lease it's an it's it's an understanding between the tenant and the landlord and so to qualify for a tenant for a permit as a landlord in Amherst your lease would have to say that if you use leases if you don't use leases not all landlords use leases um then they have to make clear in some kind of a letter that good faith effort is made to um to allow access as as practical or whatever I can remember what it says but as the as the tenant you always have the right to oppose that prohibit that it's your house it's your it's where you live you don't have to let anybody in that you don't want to all right other public comment all right so actually before we take a position on this I think it's important to get the um get the sense of the petition article because I don't want us to have taken a position on one precluding the other so um if the petitioners could come forward and and give us a um an idea of how your article is different from this and what the status of it is thank you so I'm Maureen Adams for town meeting rep from Precinct 10 I guess I should put my teacher voice on right to try to get the folks behind me they will be waving to you if they can't hear me right Steve Bloom is the person who submitted this on behalf of the coalition of Amherst neighborhoods Mr. Bloom is unable to be here tonight he sends his regrets and since I'm part of the et al I thought I would come along and represent our position as you know as a citizen position we had to get this in by March 11th while the shinwig as we call it the working group was still working hard so we presented a petition that represented much of what is in the working is an article 29 much of what we agree with although there are some differences that I will go through with you in just a moment uh basically uh we strongly endorse article 29 and so what remains of 38 will really depend on what happens with 29 in some part except for the places where we disagree and then I think we'll need to make a decision about how to go forward with 39 38 29 38 thank you I have to get the numbers correct so let me just say before I kind of go through this sheet that in a similar discussion with the finance committee we the finance committee concluded that they weren't really certain what there would be of article 38 in the aftermath of decisions about article 29 so in that case we have agreed to have a meeting prior to the discussion of 38 but after the discussion of 29 and so that seems to me one reasonable way to avoid the kind of extensive discussions of ifs and thens which is very hard to evaluate at this point so what I try to point out uh what we try to point out in this one page overview to go with the mailings is that we agree with the working group that a rental permit requirement for landlords is one of many tools not the only tool to just to deal with the kinds of problems that we've all been talking about this miss barbaret was talking about etc in other words we're not talking about hordes of students on the streets we're talking about conditions created by the commercial use and in some cases abuse of rental property that have just that are destructive of the quality of life within a neighborhood so we agree with that very specific focus of the working group and we will be saving clearly the other problems for another day so that we agree with the idea behind a rental permit this is something that we wanted so much that we put in the petition to be sure there'd be something on the town meeting agenda pending the decisions about 29 uh we in an effort to create the least honoris permit system possible and I think that both the working group in our position is what you might call rental permit light it's nowhere nearly as demanding as other permit systems are in other municipalities and other college towns so that we agree not to have mandatory inspections as most other jurisdictions require but instead only that inspections be complaint driven so that they rather than being punitive they encourage compliance when violations are found so I've outlined the basic areas of agreement that we have with the working group now there are several striking differences one is that because we were so concerned about the commercial use of student rentals we did not include all owner occupied rental units and that's a very important distinction between the two proposals so rather than including all owner occupied as well as non-owner occupied rental units our rental permits cover non-owner occupied what we see as essentially commercial rental units I think that our reasoning was that we wanted to start incrementally and so rather than affecting the entirety of the rental stock we thought that we would take a more incremental approach I think that there are political dimensions to this as well that I won't go into but I'm just emphasizing the substantive reason why we made that decision our research had shown that all the nuisance houses were non-owner occupied we had found that owner occupied one or two rentals were not nuisance houses our concerns were about the regulation of nuisance houses and that's why we went in that direction the second difference has to do with the fees we had felt that there was greater parity and fairness in charging by the unit than by the address in other words we felt that there was a basic unfairness in someone by the working groups approach having two rental units paying essentially the same fee as someone who had 200 units we know that there are reasons there are arguments on one side or the other this is not something that we will live or die on but it is a difference between the two proposals and finally unlike article 29 we do not take up parking we felt that parking was a very complicated issue we felt that it involved uh non-rental households as well as rental units and commercial rentals and we felt that we would look forward to another day when the town's parking problems would be addressed by a separate town zoning bylaw so those are the three major differences are you planning to amend move to amend anything in 29 to uh my best understanding and uh I can only talk about my own plan I don't under I don't know what everyone will do who is in town meeting I have no plan to try to amend 29 I think we've had a number of discussions with with you with the town manager with others there's an interesting discussion at the finance committee about some of the political dimensions of issues on which we differ namely whether one does an overall approach to all rental units in town in order to get hold of the rental stock or whether one approaches the non-owner occupied essentially commercial rentals and starts there their political dimensions as well as other dimensions and our understanding was that those of you on the working group would have your own amendments on the ready if you felt that was appropriate in in response to the discussion at town meeting our purpose is that uh our purpose is to have something as a backstop to the working group and something that is more modest in scope and cuts out some of what we consider to be the more contentious issues because what we want is not that one article or another article succeed or fail what we want is a rental permit and that that is the reason for our having the backstop to article 29 okay so so it's a backstop it's not an alternative because you're saying that you're you yourself are not looking to move amendments to 29 and you would not be looking to oppose 29 and support 38 and that that's not my intention and I believe that that's not the intention of many people who are the at alls within the coalition okay all right but I I can't speak for what people might do on there for sure for sure okay so select board so so how would you like to deal with this do you want to deal with the pros and cons of the elements that are different here or do you just want to say like the finance committee we could leave this to a future discussion if 29 fails um so process miss burr I'd like to touch on the difference in the owner occupied or not because I know that was a conversation that we had here briefly and then I know that you had lots of conversations about and that's a component that's very important to me personally that I in supporting the whole process so while I understand the philosophy behind doing it one way I also appreciate that a lot of this was purely making sure there was space on the agenda so to speak on the warrant to make sure something happened so if everything went curfewy with safe and healthy neighborhoods there'd be something happening over here so I appreciate that it doesn't appear to be attempting to replace but I think it's worth having a brief conversation associated with the owner occupied you want to ask questions about her you want you're looking for a comment on the safe and healthy side I guess I'm looking again for the reiteration on the safe and healthy neighborhood side I mean I think it is a basic philosophical difference as I've understood how this is unfolded because you know are we looking at our entire rental stack or are we focusing on what we presume to be based on some gathering of data to be non-owner occupied one of the things that I think is is a big flaw in the owner occupied and what I was concerned about when that was seemed to possibly be the way safe and healthy neighborhoods was going is that we know that there are people who will say they occupy a rental that don't but it's really hard to prove that they're liars so if you don't have to have that conversation then you solve a whole level of problems because that's a person that's more likely to be a problem landlord in the first place so if you had anything to add to that beyond what I remember of this so I could just emphasize that point a little bit more so not only is it is it creating kind of an incentive to pretend that you're an owner occupying that's not just that's not just a difference in your your how much paperwork you fill out that creates a whole big problem solving process for the building commissioner so it takes a great deal of time to try and establish whether or not somebody does live there in and if you're going to now be applying different standards to that so so that seems like an something we would not want to encourage at all furthermore the we originally had had an owner occupied exclusion when we had mandatory inspections because we decided really people who owner occupy their houses are probably not stripping out the smoke detectors and blocking up their egresses and whatever and so that that seemed onerous to be to be requiring of folks who who rent out rooms in their house or whatever once we took away the mandatory inspection part of it we realized that actually we've left we're left with something that's not onerous at all so even under article 39 you would still be looking to have them register the only thing you would not be having them do is fill out the self-certification that their places are safe and then they would also not have the the permit attached to that but the attesting that their units are safe is important not just for the town but for the tenant so for that permit to go online so that the tenant can look and see and say wait a minute I'm I don't have any smoke detectors down here or whatever or in the case of illegal apartments in somebody's house that person wouldn't even they wouldn't even you know admit to that if that was the situation but now it would be much easier for a neighbor to say actually see they've got a they clearly have you know there are a couple of cars so there's clearly other people living there if the owner did not get a permit for that and identify that that dwelling unit then there's there's just no reason since there's not a high hurdle there's no reason to lower the hurdle at all for the owner occupied because it really it's the tenant that's put at risk furthermore we did hear very compelling I or I personally found compelling comment during a public forum that there is no difference whatsoever in the eyes of the law between an owner occupied rental unit and one that's not so if you're having the as the owner as the landlord or if you're having the biggest possible tenant headaches with your with your tenant it doesn't matter if they live in your same house or if they live in that house down the street that you own your your situation is exactly the same under the eyes of the law so it didn't seem reasonable to make any kind of a distinction in our regulations Mr. Zomek did I miss anything important that was very complete I did if we wanted to jump to fees for just a second because that was that is another clear difference very very briefly through staff input and and and and a and a thorough discussion among the working group really we came to this the the the conclusion that we did about fees and ultimately the select board will set the fees but the reason that we I think ended up at a one fee per property is really Mr. Mora made this case a number of times that again we took out the inspections this is really about the application process each owner of a property will apply once whether they have one unit or 450 and so we're really it's really all about the cost of and the staff time to review that application that parking plan it doesn't really need to cover the cost of what comes after that so to speak so it's it really is a is a fairness issue and and what is the cost to the town of reviewing each and every application and the materials that come with it so whether you own one unit here or a smaller four unit complex over here it's one application and you'll say I have five units and I I attest to the same things in unit one two three and four add a few points on on another point of view as you remember our basic point is we want a rental permit that will pass town meeting and so I just like make a few points in that connection one is we're very aware of people who are deceptive in their claims of owner occupancy we know perfectly well that they don't live there we know where they live we know where their tax records are we know where they vote the difficulty was that the zoning bylaws that not allow the kind of access to go in to prove what we already knew as neighbors so I don't think that the argument that it is particularly honoris to figure out whether something is owner occupied or not I I don't think that that argument has merit because it's actually quite easy to find that out what is more difficult is having the access to enforce it when the landlord is claiming that to live there in order to crab more students in so I just wanted to make that point I think that that's not a okay a second issue has to do with our wanting to focus on the non-owner occupied for two reasons one is because those are the nuisance houses and that's what our group wants to control the second issue I have to say is political town meeting I believe is peopled with folks who have owner occupied rentals and I was very struck at the fall town meeting how people were saying you can't tell me what I can do with my house and I can just hear a reprise of that argument in town meeting scuttling this part of the permit so I have a political argument there when it goes to fees I've noticed even though Mr. Mora has a very convincing point about the paperwork that people's basic sense of fairness and profits from their rentals are offended by the disparity of the amount of fees they have to pay in relationship to the number of units that they are that they are renting and so again I see that as a political issue of fairness as an argument in town meeting as well as a substantive issue so these these really a lot of this in our thinking was strategic to make sure that a rental permit passes okay let's not get bogged down to fees since it's 10 o'clock and exactly that's not that won't be set by the bylaw so it's select board if the bylaw passes the select board would be charged with setting fees the recommendation from the building commissioner endorsed by the safe and healthy neighborhoods group is that it would be $100 and then would apply equally to all properties but if this passes we can argue about that for months so so let's not talk about that part anymore miss brewer I'm not talking about the amount I'm talking about the permits themselves I want to just make sure everybody's clear on if one landlord owns five separate single family houses all over town they're getting five permits if one landlord has 200 units on one property he's getting one permit but that makes sense even though on the face of it it seems like oh that poor person who has five single family homes oh that's so cruel that they have to do five separate permits but they're five very different units versus 200 units that are basically all the same and if the if the permit holder for the 200 units had a unit that was egregiously out of compliance and they were being egregiously um non cooperative with they would only lose the ability to rent that unit they wouldn't have the permit taken away for 200 units so it does scale that way um okay um so uh the owner occupied thing there are a lot of different political arguments you could make and counter make on that so I I think that we should just leave it with what's the will of town meeting it will either be amended down at town meeting to to take owner occupied out of it or it will stay there and so we'll see um we already talked about fees parking so obviously it's better if we could get a parking component to this than if we can't but if you're saying that if there's people don't like the parking component then we're still left with something um uh let's see isn't there anything else then to talk about with this Mr. Walton okay um all right uh so it was just one other point I wanted to make about the owner occupied thing which was um I spoke before about unsophisticated tenants and um one something else that I found compelling at the safe and healthy group was the idea that um owner owners who are looking to rent out rooms in their houses are actually kind of often among the least sophisticated of renters so like suddenly if I were gonna start renting out rooms in my house I wouldn't have any idea this what the rules were like I would if I were investing in a property you know it might be expected to have more plans um so some of the um property managers said that that requiring them to self-certify which is really the only difference between whether it applies to owner occupies or not to to certify as to the safety standards that their um rental unit is also meeting is a way of educating those uh landlords as well so that that is helping to bring them into compliance and protecting their tenants so uh that's all seemed very reasonable okay so basically everybody everybody who's not supporting the rental regulation has left is that true is there anything else to argue about now okay so I think we're ready to take a position on 29 and we'll talk about how we deal with 38 I'm okay I move to recommend to the May 6th 2013 annual town meeting article 29 residential rental property bylaw second further discussion no favorite say hi hi that's unanimous thank you okay what do we do abstain on 38 and then decide based on what happens at town meeting I don't know this bro well I mean it seems like one of the obvious solutions would be to say that um we it it's going to be chances only seems to be logical although logic in town meeting but you know we're a tenant that that if 29 passes that there would be no need to have 38 so the petitioner would ask to have it be dismissed because obviously there would be a residential which may or may not have been amended on the floor so it's moved if it gets dismissed and if and if 29 fails we could we could have a backup vote a backup plan for a 20 you know assuming that 38 gets moved whether or not we recommend it right so um so I think I like what you're saying so if 29 passes doesn't make any difference if if 29 doesn't pass then we will have learned a lot from why 29 didn't pass and at that point we're going to want to have more of a discussion like these these elements might be the relevant points there might be different something completely different to sort of amend and strike and start again or whatever so um so let's just defer a position on 38 and only take a position if it becomes necessary if 29 fails okay there's a way to vote to defer yes sure okay I move to recommend that the select board defer taking a position on can residential rental um which is article 38 sorry I did that out of order do want me to repeat it I move that uh for the May 6 2013 annual town meeting article 38 petition can residential rental um the select board defers um making taking a position at this time second for the discussion Mr we want to be a little more definitive about when the the time would be that we would take a position no I don't think so because 29 fails right we've got a lot of space between 29 and 38 unless we move very fast I just just just as long as we agree on that I guess that's right well I think actually we should be clear on what is our message to town meeting so they're gonna I don't know if they're gonna know it yeah they're taking a position clear on what our town meeting is that we're not choosing between them it's I think that I think the key point that needs to be included is if 29 fails yeah right okay right because it isn't the circumstance under which we might find ourselves in another situation where we say no matter what happens we don't want 38 pass no we're not we're not at all but that's why I think you just defer taking a position but then I want to say if 29 fails it's that's I don't want anybody to have the miss uh the uh misconception that we're considering it potentially an alternative to 29 so we're supporting 29 and 38 really is only it's only viable if 29 fails okay so how do you want to right so in that case taking a position until town meeting and only if 29 fails yeah we could say we will we will consider it's way too late for me we could just say no we could just vote no and then change our minds if 29 well that's why I said we just abstain all right you can't abstain it's a recommend it's a not right all right so what's wrong with leaving it the way I said to um that the select board differs taking a position on the May 6th annual town meeting article 38 petition can resident rental um until town meeting and it only if article 29 fails it's fine yeah that's clear I was going to suggest that you don't even say anything about 38 until you get there but I mean I mean the only possibility would be if we were asked to comment on 29 as a petitioners for 38 and we would speak in support of 29 but the select board itself you are not making a statement about 38 until we count up to 38 unless we get into the fact that these are parallel articles so it will come up in conversation so we don't want it under the consideration of 29 people are going to say well what's going on with 38 the moderator may approve considering them together whatever there's going to need to be some distinction made so the select board's position on you are you are supporting 29 and you understand that the coalition has presented 38 as a backup to 29 uh it's it's sorry it really is okay the way it is because we supported 29 five to zero and this is saying exactly where we stand you know we're not against 38 but we'll take a position if 29 right because we don't want to go into 38 if 29 failed we don't want to go into 38 with a position of opposition to 38 but we also don't want to go into it supporting it because it's not that we're supporting it we're supporting 29 so we're deferring okay we're good we're trying to meet a number of needs we're trying to put it in a box because there's a little box we have to fill out here and we're also trying to put it on a script and we're also trying to be able to all be clear if we show up at a precinct meeting and somebody asks us at a precinct meeting which isn't at town meeting but yet will influence people so tell me right we want to make sure we're all on the same page anyway mr heaton it's way too late to even think about asking this question much less try to get it answered but um so i'm only going to ask it so it gets into the minutes um what are we going to do about um what could we possibly do about amendments that we that might get offered to 29 yeah but that's that's why i want to stop there but that that is gonna i just um yeah yeah that's gonna involve a lot of too much too much for tonight too much for now to be determined okay um what happened we've got a motion it's consecutive we've discussed it all in favor say hi hi hi that is unanimous hallelujah okay um i think we are we're not going no i think we are we are we are okay by god i spent so much time on this thing you know we've we've got all right let's let's keep control here so we have a lot of things to do next week also or else we defer i mean if we thought we weren't gonna be here until this time next week and we would change something all right so so where are we at we're not going to be here till next week so let's um assign speakers to these so we already have miss brewer on 15 mr hayden is going to finish up 16 the zoning ones are first let's choose the ones that so converted dwellings is just kind of a technicality mr hayden as a planning person you want to do converted dwellings number 30 yes and mr wild um because you were our village center zoning person would you like to speak to kind of the other ones so um number 33 is different that's the building commissioners thing about non-conformance are you happy you don't mind doing that okay so then we'll change seats that night yeah okay so then mr wild is going to take 31 through 35 do you mind doing 36 okay are folks happy with i know that's mr wild and uh so if you don't mind i'm going to do 29 um unless anyone wants to know we're gonna wrestle you for that we make so much sense at this point yeah so 38 i'll just sort of wing 38 also however that needs to be dealt with right okay good we're done with that all right tell managers report thank you uh very quickly state budget update two things uh the house of representatives in boston began deliberation today on the house proposal on the state budget including several hundred amendments which is actually normal uh and in their own legislative way they are dispensing with those amendments throughout this week and we think by the end of the week they'll have an adopted budget we'll then go to the senate and the senate will do their thing during the month of may reconcile in june get it to the governor etc etc so that's happening and there's a good information on the mass municipal association website uh in terms of updates about what the some of the particulars are on potential amendments in which ones uh cities and towns are supporting etc so i encourage you to read up on that the second thing legislatively the transportation finance bill uh different versions have been passed by the house and senate both very different from the governors in terms of scope uh but we believe uh similar and uh positive related to support for regional transit including the pbta and we're dedicating serious money to begin to address local road repair needs in particular 300 million a year for local so-called chapter 90 work which is our local local streets uh so that bill is now there have been conferees named by both house and senate uh they will begin to meet and we expect that to be conferenced out with a bill that is quite possible to be closer to the senate version when all of a sudden done which we think would be a very positive outcome uh so that's state budget um safe and healthy neighborhoods initiative in the online packet are the latest in a series of uh code enforcement related reports from health building and uh uh excuse me health building and uh health and building including you know kind of outcome focused and so you get a sense looking over the last 12 month period the number of of complaints filed and the status and the vast majority of which are in the resolved category and so that's good reading it's by property address the nature of the complaint who responded and what the current status is of those so uh that's an ongoing work in progress that they're all posted online on our safe and healthy uh neighborhoods uh uh web page on the town website and uh they're on tonight's meeting packet online encourage people to uh inquire and learn about particular properties being addressed one by one uh let's see uh staff recognitions i wanted to mention uh we had a number of uh public safety staff who were called to duty in their uh mutual aid in other roles uh related to the marathon bombing you know in the greater boston area uh we had uh two police officers who were uh activated uh detective janet lopez is in the 747th military police unit an officer uh gohan let madrano's unit was put on standby but he did not have to respond but janet was down in the boston area uh for a few days and he meted aftermath of the bombing on the day of the marathon we also had three firefighters tom messer bill messer and read fraily who were called into service uh the messer brothers were both on security detail securing the perimeter of the 14 block area in the immediate area of the of the bomb site of the explosions having that be a secure site for the uh you know various uh you know investigations that were going on forensic and otherwise uh and read fraily was also in service on a security details i want to recognize all five of them um so while that event happened in boston watertown etc you know there were law enforcement and other public safety resources called upon state local and federal and our our folks were part of that i want to commend them commend them for their service on that um a couple other things recent and upcoming activity uh umass is having another springtime emergency alert system test uh we've been noticed on that it's happening this wednesday morning uh that will include sirens and other uh you know text messaging it's a test of their notification system so when you hear those sirens go off that has caused some alarm uh anxiety in the past it's part of a test and just well we're trying to get the word out and this is another way to get the word out that's happening this wednesday the 24th um on the uh 27th is our fourth annual sustainability festival in the town come in 10 to 4 there's a whole uh news blast on the website bring the family come on down learn about tree pruning other sustainability initiatives it's a growing event encourage people to come and participate uh let's see uh last week i had the opportunity to meet again with chancellor supe swami we had a really good good discussion frank discussion on many of the issues uh we're working on together very positive discussion and that's that's ongoing and university is really renewing its effort to be a really positive partner with the town uh and there's a number of initiatives we've had some tremendous outreach on the part of students in particular any number of events i think there's there's a award ceremony and reception happening tomorrow night the student government inviting a bunch of us i know a bunch of us are going to that there's this online undergraduate uh training that's being built into the uh residential life piece about uh what it's like to be a young new tenant for the first time and what your rights and responsibilities are as a tenant living in a rental property within a larger community so i want to applaud the university on that and help try to do what we can to help them have that be a success also we have the uh founders week activities going on all week at the university including the inauguration of our new chancellor this coming saturday morning at 11 at the mullen center and looking forward to that uh also had the opportunity to meet with a group of pakistani local government officials who are in massachusetts with an institute for training and development uh overseeing this program uh and they were getting exposure to how we do things so we had a great discussion with them with some staff about uh local government and local government democracy new england style and amherstyle it was a good it was a good i'll stop there thank you very much questions or comments from mr c i'll just note a couple things um thank you very much for announcing our public safety uh representatives involvement in the boston situation i think that amherst can be incredibly proud knowing that uh our folks were there as part of that extraordinary effort um so thank you to them um the umass alert i appreciate your um announcing that i think it's really important for us to be spreading the word on this like more so than ever um i think people by and large are kind of used to the fact that oh that happens they hear it sometimes people are hearing it for the first time and think it's weird but now people are going to be hearing it very differently um and people may well be concerned that that is actually an incident as opposed to a test so the degree to which we can spread the word about the fact that that is only a test on wednesday by umass's system i think is very important um and that's all i have to say about all right uh where are we member reports liaison representative reports need to know basis miss brewer two seconds so you mentioned the sustainability festival one part of that is the whole gardening 350 initiative there was a meeting in this room our room you know this is our room right gardening meaning wall to wall people so that was pretty impressive Thursday night and then the other thing was i went to craig's store's um open house on saturday they had even more food they had a ridiculous spread of food on saturday but two of the interesting things that came out of that beyond just the great opportunity to talk to board members and hear from some people there um is that they felt i said well you know what's the big difference between last year and this year with the increased capacity and they said they felt like they were turning fewer people away which is obviously a good thing um at least one person stated that they thought that that was probably you know kind of a good number in terms of future planning for a different site also um that they are still continuing to work with various other agencies and successfully transitioning a number of people into transition transitional housing so that there are people who actually you know have sufficient income that with some support services as we've been talking about for a long time have actually been moved into half of the house so that's also very exciting so in addition to you know finding individual placements there's also this kind of cocoon effort in the in the intermediate space so lots of different things going on and the amazing eight-foot cow is going to be down by the um installed perhaps the end of the summer mr. wild has told us about this this is a fundraising thing that's going to be a sculpture outside of chair shops raising money instead of the frog i'd forgotten i'm sorry i'd forgotten the cow all right all right i can report all right i attended the satree public hearing about saving the 113 year old oak tree and the bottom line is the unit the vote was to try to save it and unitarian church is going to do its best to help out on that um went to personnel board meeting on wednesday they discussed the non-union employee meeting that had been held it's important that the job descriptions be complete but the data from that are critical some departments do annual performance evaluations like dpw some don't it be might be worth doing so there'd be one member felt that there should be a paper trail of successes and weaknesses um they thought it would be good if staff successes um as you mentioned tonight be put on the website because a lot of people don't listen to us hard to believe but that's a fact and it would be nice if you know the staff accomplishments for this week were listed and then it was kind of kept up so people could even go back and look in a previous week and i think making appreciating our our staff and showing that so in a way that more people know about it would be good and that came up um there's a revised um sexual and other unlawful harassment policy which is now included in the personnel manual went to the board of health meeting that night and there's um a lot of effort underway about the medical marijuana being established and there's going to be um probably we will try to get a medical marijuana dispensary in Amherst which is um there's if you want to know more information about that you can google frequently ask questions about the medical marijuana policies in massachusetts i did and it's very helpful and the other is and um Julie Federman our health director felt that the state was handling this issue very well she was very reassured about what she was hearing and that was going to be hearing the next day at Northampton um the other thing that they're working on is tobacco regulation modifications particularly about minor smoking and they are trying to have the policies be um the tobacco coalition would like the policies to be the same from one community the next so they're going to be working on that and there will be a public hearing June 19th um at 7 0 5 p.m. on the tobacco regulation modification and um i also attended the craig store reception which was great and i just made two quick announcements one is on may 18th um the survive at the survival center there will be uh a say goodbye to Cheryl's oh who has been so wonderful um so it's come and have a bagel from 10 a.m. to noon and the other is that this uh fraternity that a lot of us had supper with dinner with pie kappa five is having this is the first annual disability week that they're sponsoring but they've been active in disability all along and they're having a bike a thon a 36 hour bike a thon and i think they've done that maybe 38 times before um as part of push america but this is to earn money for disability projects thank you i'm done um yeah so that's a stationary bike a thon so they just so they they raise awareness by all being on campus um taking turns on these stationary bikes bicycling in place for 36 hours raising money and the other thing they're doing is having a um shooting beauty film right um that's wednesday night at eight o'clock in mahar auditorium and this is uh i think it's 8 30 is it 8 30 well that's what i have down on that double check it's eight or eight 30 in mahar auditorium on campus and um that is going to be um i believe it's about shooting like a day in the life from the perspective of the disabled person i think that's correct people in wheelchairs use them cameras is a large part of it right so that i'm hoping to get to that and again wednesday at eight thirty and it's on the front page of the town website so oh great next all right uh other questions or comments from miss stein all right other liason um i'll just nothing you need to know well i just want to get full credit so you need to know that i did the walk this way thing again on saturday night so walking around wearing many layers trying to stay warm from 10 o'clock to about two o'clock uh saturday was quite a it was a pretty quiet night so i was going to say the cold weather is bad for you but it's good for keeping it's true and saturday was an incredibly busy day with the extravaganja festival um all the greek houses uh or chapters had four moles that night there was a big concert at mullen center i think people were very occupied or very tired or whatever um so uh but it went well and it was the best part of it really is about the um the conversations that students were having with each other so it's a very kind of different experience for me so i was kind of part of a group that was roaming around all the time checking on all the other groups but the groups of students who were having the conversations with each other there were a lot of students going out not so many coming in um but but even less so of both than the previous week um and the reactions that they're getting from each other and we talk a lot about peer influence and how valuable that is so um i i was pretty impressed by it we didn't i don't think we diverted anybody to a different route but we did raise the awareness about um about being respectful of neighborhoods so um that's all i have to report uh okay so let's do our untimed items and get out should we do the liquor licenses first while we can still talk sorry i've lost somehow i managed to lose the emotion sheet the motion sheet but i i won't know what i meant to if i can't find my own i don't know how i did that all right so why not i think it's actually better to do the uh the Lincoln Pleasant thing before our brains melt so or melt further so yeah how do you want to do this because i didn't expect anyone to be here about this i didn't expect historical commission to come i expected it to be an internal discussion so i mean obviously we're public but so i don't know so this is a technicality right historical commission has asked us to do this so we're doing it right what else is there to need to talk about so you you had told us you wanted us to do it now yes and not wait into the future because it does kick off this whole process of needing to solicit yes um representatives as as uh mandated by state law from the different boards of professionals that's the first thing that has to happen so if we can do it now if we establish this district now then Nate Malloy senior planner who does who takes care of these behind the scenes things for us can solid it can make those solicitations together with the same ones from the um North Amherst historic districts so um is there more to know than that so we're doing it from timing wise we're doing it now to to maximize to optimize uh uh that process and and because they've asked us to do it the the only thing we would do is say no and that's not really what we do to request like this so mr wilde yeah that's basically and the again the Dickinson commission in some sense under state law has the first option of this but they're meeting on the 29th so I presume with the process could start soon thereafter so what do you mean they are first option I mean I think again we're back to that state law issue uh which is back to why are we doing that yeah right so under item three of why are we doing this don't we have to wait for the Dickinson local historic commission to decide if they want to be the study committee well they've already had a conversation about it they've said it's too soon for them to serve as the study commission for somebody else because they're still new to this and they are planning as far as we know to vote on the 29th to not do this by us doing this today yeah what we're doing is we're taking ourselves out of the process so that we're not holding anything up as we get even busier closer to town meeting because they have to vote that they have to say nope that's right we don't want to be the study committee we will have preferably already tonight based on this wonderful packet of information Debra pulled together for me after I've sent her all these separate links that we will we will set up both yes we want to study committee here's the charge of the study committee then we don't have anything else we have to do for a while because Dickinson has to vote yeah we don't want to serve as the committee it's fine for us if the select board does it and then immediately Nate can send out that letter soliciting the professionals for both North Amherst and this committee at the same time get that process going we have to wait 30 days to hear back from those folks and then we can actually appoint people but if we take ourselves kind of you know do our part and then step away then we're not in the way of making this move along as quickly as it possibly can okay so we're all set to do this so what would you like please come forward and identify yourself actually speak into the microphones um so the people who are delighted that the select board um is you know following the recommendation of the historic commission to form a study committee for the sunset pleasant what will hopefully soon be a local historic district there's a number I mean there's a whole group in the sunset pleasant neighborhood that is very supportive of this in hopes that it can move forward as quickly as possible and they have actually already solicited you know volunteers from the groups that have to be on the study commission so I don't know if there's a way to bring those names forward to try and expedite the process because we have been told that the um Dickinson study committee is not going to want to take this on so the part that's mandated under state law we can't do anything about so actual isn't it true that the solicitations need to go to the professional organizations of the architect society and whatever they are so we don't um they could communicate with the architect society they're professional architects in the neighborhood that they have to let this right it doesn't matter if they live in the neighborhood or not and so right as you know so the individual right she says they tell their professional hey I'll do it and then they can write their name down and then that'll make it that much faster if they actually respond because if they respond to us in two days we can start appointing if they but if they don't we have to wait 30 days for them to respond right they have right a first refusal within 30 days basically for the right okay so will um guidelines be public I mean how would we know what the guidelines are for who needs to let who know that they may be interested it's in the state law it's in I mean it says which organizations are soliciting okay we have that okay you have it already this is all in the select which page tonight yeah okay so our web materials have all this information so I'm just curious I don't want to take it you know time um what is kind of the soonest that a committee could be formed if it has to go to the Dickinson and then come back to you so I'm not gonna come back to us so Dickinson is going to do their vote they're going to punt on this and so then um then the vote that we take tonight will take effect then does it go back to the local historic district so it goes to staff so this is what we're time out the letter so what happens next after so we're gonna do our part now Dickinson's gonna vote on the 29th in theory the very next day assuming all the other thousands of things he has to do Nate will send out these solicitation letters but until he sends them out the 30 day clock can't start okay so that's why we're trying to combine the two letters because we haven't been able to make the time to send out the letter on the Northamers study committee which we've already done this part of the process for and the charge assuming we vote it tonight will be already available online and individual people from all over can go ahead and fill out citizen activity forms so we would be so after the say for example some of those agencies probably won't respond at all so we probably will have to run out the clock at 30 days but then if we have a pool of people to pick from that'll be great as as opposed to sitting here twiddling our thumbs because I think two people have applied for Northamers even though we've known for months that people want okay that's great but and then Nate Loy is the person that that fiddles through and then we do the appointments here eventually right okay that's thank you very much okay thank you sorry for the for the rush on that but all this is also there and you've seen all of it before okay so miss stein I move to us that the select board establish a seven member local historic district study committee for the Lincoln sunset area per ends lhd sc dash lsa and per ends per chapter 40 c of the massachusetts general laws for a term to expire june 30th 2014 sc c o n d what just prolong what second for the discussion if anybody asks the question as someone pointed out earlier originally on our agenda it said Lincoln pleasant we are calling it Lincoln sunset it doesn't matter what we call it but what matters is that it actually has something to do with the actual national historic register district so that's why it's being called Lincoln sunset not Lincoln pleasant as you may have seen previous references well it also has a different right that's why it's not Lincoln plus right we're not calling that I know I move that the select board did we vote oh the wording is different let's do all oh I was going to point out that the wording is different in the title of the motion the title of the motion doesn't matter right so yeah no it's Lincoln sunset all right I thought I heard sunset pleasant so we should clarify this doesn't matter but Lincoln sunset everyone's going to wait to be recognized or else we're just devolving into madness and it's too late for that mr wilde do you have a recommendation for how to correct the inconsistent no I just just want to note that the title of the the common heading for the motions is Lincoln pleasant the individual motions themselves are Lincoln sunset okay there's a reason for that so and so you're saying that the appropriate motion is Lincoln sunset so I wrote the agenda who cares what I wrote on the agenda the reason the reason it's like that is because that's what the historical commission said we have changed it since then but it was posted that way so that's why the heading of the motion yeah I just want to motion yeah I'll make sense and your your larger point is no matter what we call it that is not in any way defining the boundaries of it the committee will determine the boundaries and that they need to be they need to have a relationship to be national or some geographical geographical whatever okay right so this is so this we've just spent three minutes talking about nothing okay right but for him favorite vote yes all in favor I unanimous okay next I move that the select board grant the local historic district study committee for the Lincoln sunset area special municipal employee status as of April 22nd 2013 second no discussion my favorite say I meant we didn't vote on the charge because Deborah says we don't have to vote on charges okay good there we go so next up special licenses thank you I move that the select board approve an extension for a special wine and malt license approved for concessions at the fine arts center UMass Amherst Saturday April 27th 2013 from a 10 p.m. to a 12 30 a.m. closing time Judith Bardwell clerk second I move that the select board approve a special wine and malt license to Elizabeth Bridgewater on behalf of Pioneer Valley Habitat for Humanity for a fundraiser event on the grounds of cows calls I can't even stalk anyone calls building supply 125 Sunderland Road North Amherst on Thursday May 2nd 2013 from 2 p.m. to 11 p.m. second discussion no favorite say I I move that the select board approve special wine and malt license to Danielle Laferrier and Greg Wardlaw on behalf of the Amherst College catering for a cash bar catered event at the King dorm quad at Amherst College on Thursday May 2nd 2013 from 9 p.m. to 12 a.m. second for the discussion all in favor say hi hi that's unanimous okay so two things we just need to make note of is Thursday we have a joint meeting for all of us who can attend it's not a requirement but if you can attend it's a joint meeting in this room with the finance committee for the new updated actuarial study for the OPEB report and so you should have gotten hard copies of the report if you requested it so that's in this room seven o'clock if you can't be here don't worry about it someone who's there will report back plus of course it will be televised the other thing is next Monday the 29th at five o'clock is our coffee our reception honoring Harrison Greg so please be here for that spread the word possibly can be that's going to be in the bulletin this week that is all does anybody else have anything that needs to be said before next Monday I move to adjourn and without objection this meeting adjourns at 1042 thank you very much