 The appointed hour is six o'clock having been reached. I call this meeting of the Amherst Zoning Board of Appeals to order. My name is Steve Judge and as ZBA Chair, I want to welcome everyone to this meeting. Pursuant to chapter 20 of the Acts of 2021, this meeting will be conducted via remote means. Members of the public who wish to access this meeting may do so via Zoom or by telephone. No in-person attendance of members of the public will be permitted, but every effort will be made to ensure that the public can adequately access these proceedings in real time via technological means. Additionally, this meeting is recorded and may be viewed via the town of Amherst YouTube channel and the ZBA webpage. In accordance with the provisions of Massachusetts General Laws, chapter 48, and Article 10, special permit granting authority of the Amherst Zoning By-law, this public meeting has been duly advertised and notice thereof has been posted and mailed to parties at interest. We will begin with the roll call of the members of the ZBA. Steve Judge, I'm here. Ms. Parks. Here. Mr. Maxfield. Here. Mr. Meadows. Mr. Gilbert. Here. Mr. Cochran. Here. Ms. Winter. In panel for tonight's meeting are Ms. Judge, Ms. Parks, Mr. Maxfield, Mr. Gilbert, and Mr. Cochran. Also in attendance is Marine Pollock Planner and Dave Washevitz, senior building inspector. The Zoning Board of Appeals is a quasi-judicial body that operates under the authority of chapter 48 of the General Laws of the Commonwealth for the purpose of promoting the health safety and convenience and general welfare of the inhabitants of the town of Amherst. One of the most important elements of the Amherst Zoning By-law, the section 10.38, specific findings from this section must be made for all our decisions. All hearings and meetings are open to the public and are recorded by town staff. The procedure is as follows. The petitioner presents the application to the board during the hearing after which the board will ask questions for clarification or for additional information. After the board has completed its questions, the board will seek public input. The public speaks with the permission of the chair. If the member of the public wishes to speak, they should so indicate by using the raised hand function on their screen. The chair with the assistance of the staff will call upon people wishing to speak. When you are recognized, provide your name and address to the board for the record. All questions and comments must be addressed to the board. The board will normally hold public hearings where information about the project and input from the public is gathered, followed by public meetings for each. The public meeting portion is when the board deliberates and is generally not an opportunity for public comment. If the board feels it has enough information and time, it will decide upon the applications tonight. Each petition will be heard by the board that is heard by the board is distinct and evaluated on its own merits. And the board is not ruled by precedent. Statutorily for a special permit, the board has 60 days from the close of the hearing to follow the decision. For a variance, the board has 100 days from the date of filing to follow its decision. No decision is final until the written decision is signed by the sitting board members and is filed in the town clerk's office. Once the decision is filed with the town clerk, there is a 20-day appeal period for an agreed party to contest the decision with a relevant judicial body and superior court. After the appeal period, the permit must be recorded at the registry of deeds to take effect. Tonight's agenda, a public meeting, ZBA FY2022-07 Pleasant Trees Incorporated. F-COT were formerly known as Robology Group Inc. for review and approval of a proposed contingency plan pursuant to condition 38 of the previously approved special permit, ZBA FY2019-13 and ZBA FY2019-14 located at 422 Amity Street, map 13B Parcel 18, Limited Business BL, and Research and Development R&D Overlay District. Public hearing on ZBA FY2022-03 Redwood Construction Inc. requests a special permit to transfer the permit holder of the previously approved special permits ZBA FY2018-21 and ZBA FY2020-16 to Redwood Construction Inc. under section 10.34 of the zoning bylaw located at South Point Apartments, 266 East Hadley Road, map 16B Parcel 13, Neighborhood Residential R&D Zoning District, ZBA FY2020-04, Gregory Biggs and Howard R. Paul request a special permit to modify the previously approved special permit, ZBA FY2002-21 in order to remove condition seven, which states this permit shall expire upon change of ownership or management located at 19 Phillips Street, map 11A Parcel 34, General Residents R&D Zoning District, ZBA FY2020-05, Lane B. Floyd requests a special permit to modify the previously approved special permit ZBA FY2011-04 in order to remove condition 13, which states this permit shall expire upon change of ownership, located at 204 and 206 Belcher Town Road, map 15C Parcel 32, Neighborhood Residents R&D Zoning District, and ZBA FY2020-06, Lane B. Floyd requests a special permit to modify the previously approved special permit, ZBA FY20-01, excuse me, FY2011-03 in order to remove condition 12, which states this permit shall expire upon change of ownership, located at 192-194 Belcher Town Road, map 15C Parcel 64, Neighborhood Residents R&D Zoning District, then there's a general public comment period at which, during which people can comment on anything that's not before the board tonight and other business that is not anticipated within 24 hours. First on the agenda is a public meeting, ZBA 2022-07 Pleasant Trees, AKA, or not formally known as not doing business as, formally known as Probiology Group Inc. for the review and approval of the proposed contingency plan pursuant to condition 38 of the previously approved special permit, ZBA FY2019-13 and ZBA FY2019-14, located at 422 Amity Street, map 13B, Parcel 18, Limited Business BL and Research Development R&D Overlay District. First off, do we have any disclosures from members of the board? If not, the following submissions have been received by the town staff. 422 Amity Contingency Plan, a previously approved special permit decision 2019-13 and 2019-14. We've received comments from the fire department dated September 29th and comments from the police department dated September 29th. I have no, I don't think we've had any public comments every morning on this. No. No. We also have the, that's it, that's all we have also the application and the contingency plan has two plans on it, an exterior and circulation plan and an interior circulation plan. Who's wishing to present for the applicants? Zachary Wilson. Could you give your name and address for the record please? Yeah, my name is Zachary Wilson and the address is 145 Front Street in Worcester. And then the address we're talking about is obviously the 422 Amity Street. Yep. Go ahead and proceed, Mr. Wilson. Yeah. So I'll share my screen here first with you guys just so we can pop up the plan. All right. Can everybody see that plan? Yes. Perfect. So I know you guys got that. I kind of want to just go right down to the actual exterior first. So basically this is going to run a similar site plan to what we have up and running in East Hampton. But basically we have adequate space inside the dispensary where we can kind of be able to separate people on the adult use side and the recreational or in the medical side. But realistically if we do end up having a line which it's not expected because we have enough space inside we're going to have it go right here on that front sidewalk and then kind of trailing over here. I don't expect it being any longer. We do have in the plan if it ends up being over 10 people we'll actually have people kind of wait in their cars and then we have a digital queuing system. And it kind of talks through some of that on how we can kind of manage that. And then once they are inside this is over a little bit. So once they're inside they're going to come right in here check into this lobby. So basically from right there that's where we're checking to make sure that they're actually allowed in the dispensary. But again once they are over 21 or they do have a medical card that's when we allow them to enter into the sales area. So the sales area can fit a good amount of people. And again based on the current foot traffic in the area I don't see it being that big of an issue to have to have exterior line queuing. But again you can see how this is the wide open sales floor for the recreational customers. And then we have the medical portion of the dispensary right there that will be accessed only by medical patients as well. So basically jumping into kind of the plan a little bit more. So staffing also the fact that we do have the East Hampton location we can be able to kind of float staff from one location to the other. But basically having somebody deployed to manage the traffic outside we're gonna do a similar thing that we did with East Hampton too is having people onsite right as we open to help kind of manage that flow of traffic throughout the day. And really make sure that everybody's entering and exiting the building it has is designed in the plan. But we also do have on call people that we can call in if it's a busier time and we go through some of that stuff to be able to justify having some more folks in to be able to help manage that line. We absolutely will. As far as the parking goes we'll basically once the parking lot has reached that three quarter capacity that's when we're gonna start kind of employing multiple people outside to help raise that flow. But again I don't see that with the amount of parking that we have being a constant issue. But again we do have the on call staff part-time staff to be able to dial it up and bring it down depending on how that goes. As far as the pedestrian traffic goes again lined out where that will all be happening ideally nothing in the parking lot we'll have those 10 people lined up on the side and if we reach that 10 we move them back into their cars and then call them in one by one. We'll also been in talk with the police department about having people onsite again they don't think it's gonna be that big of a deal we have one right next to us that really doesn't have a ton of traffic but we've been in very close talks with them to make sure the flow is happening correctly and people are coming in and out of the parking lot safely as well. And the fail safe plan the final thing I think that is the it's just way too busy we can't fit anybody in there we basically can switch to a pre-order only model that then allows us to then text people hey we got your order we're making it getting it ready to go but don't come onsite there's nowhere for you to park yet and then we'll be able to manage you and give you a text right when you come in then. Again I don't think that's necessarily gonna happen right away just based on some of the other surrounding places but we do have that in place right now. But yeah I think that's again there's the kind of interior flow to exterior and open to answer any questions that you guys may have. Great thank you very much Mr. Wilson I have a couple of questions to start off and to start off with first of the comment for the board members who weren't on the board when we approved this special permit one of the concerns at the time we approved several recreational marijuana dispensaries was that there was gonna be a just a swarm of people traffic was gonna disturb the neighborhood that it was gonna be very busy and as a result in every single case of every single marijuana facility that we approved we had them work a contingency plan especially for those first few days and to work with the police to do that. In this case they weren't gonna open right away they were going to give us a contingency plan at a later point in time before they opened up and that's why this is before us now it wasn't something that was to change this is just didn't have to be done till then and that's the reason it's here today before us. I have a couple of questions Mr. Wilson for you the first is just, please if I may just for my information on staffing part A you say that the following tasks we will perform the following tasks upon the following conditions or as needed as determined by pleasantries management or upon the advice or direction of the building commissioner fire department blah blah blah blah I suspect you have advice or direction because you're hoping that just because you're anticipating that you're going to respond positively to the suggestions of the police chief or the fire chief rather than having him give you an order is that why those both are there? Is that the reason? Yeah we're keeping that's kind of our like the way that we deal with it is we're gonna leave it up to that local law enforcement and whatever you guys know it a lot better than us so it's really just putting it into their hands and doing whatever they do to it. So it's important to note you're gonna be reaching out to them and if they say we think you ought to be doing this you're vouching to us that you're gonna respond positively to their suggestions. Absolutely yeah we've already started the communications and that's good. We don't have to rely upon being directed or being forced to do something on your part by the police. That's great. Absolutely. The second thing pleasantries employees will be deployed to manage traffic exiting I suspect that's foot traffic under 1A. Can I suggest that you just mentioned foot traffic so it's not confusing? Just make that a moment and we can submit that. And the last thing is on your failsafe plan again this is just I'm just either way is fine with me but should just be clear. The failsafe plan says that if you get too full you're gonna shut down normal operations and go to order operations for the rest of the day. And then the next sentence says that if it clears up in for more than an hour you're gonna go back to normal operations or you'll do it the next day. So kind of those seem to conflict. So just have I just would encourage you pick one or the other whichever one you wanna do but do you wanna suspend off normal operations for the day or do you wanna make it have to make a judgment for that at one hour at some other point in time you can start normal operations. It just seems to be a conflict. Yeah, I definitely agree with you there. I think again, the one you mentioned before is back in 2018 when this was all there like a really bad CFP in issue where we have to do that and I think that's why adding in there hey, if it's crazy at this one point in time where a capacity we can't fit anybody there maybe we'll run through it and then two, three hours it slows down. We don't wanna force somebody to do just the pre-orders we wanna make it as acceptable as accessible as possible. So then I would, if that's your desire and I have no problem with that it seems to me you should be able to manage your business that way, especially working with police I would say that you should just be clear that you if the area is clear from more than one hour or whatever period of time you can start you could revert to normal operating rather than saying the remainder the prior sentence says that you're gonna require pre-orders for the remainder of the business day. So you just have to choose I would choose one or the other and then submit that amended version back to us and which one would you wanna choose? Being able to kind of adjust it in doing all right, okay then great. So Maureen we'll expect from them an amended contingency plan with those two changes that I thought of that I mentioned and they agreed to and they'll submit that before the certificancy of occupancy and I don't think we need a condition on this that's just they agreed to do that. And lastly, what is the occupancy limit Mr. Wilson in the building? This is something that we spent a lot of time working on where we even took little people bubbles space bubbles and put them out and how far everybody was from each other that was in very COVID worried times. Mr. Wickersham, identify yourself and you can answer that question. Yes, Brian Wickersham, 25,000 North River Road Harrison Township, Michigan. The building occupancy for customer facing which would be the retail floor is 53 occupants. So it's quite a large dispensary compared to them. Good. All right, that's the limit of my questions to any members of the board have questions. Mr. Axfield. Well, just a comment here where I definitely we've made them do it, it's done. I mean, we might see it on the first day but I think now that we've really had that experience of seeing some marijuana shops open up in town. I know I'm RC retails now in there. I think we've definitely gotten to a point in recreational marijuana where I think there's gonna be less of a praise. But so yeah, I think this all looks good better to have it than not, especially at this point where it's all done. So yeah, I certainly support it as it stands with those changes that you suggested, Mr. Chair. Thank you. Any other comments from members of the board? All right, Mr. Norther comments. I would entertain a motion to approve the contingency plan submitted pursuant pursuant to section 38 to motion to approve the contingency plan submitted pursuant to condition 38 special permit ZBA FY 2019-13 and ZBA 2019-14. Do I have a motion? So moved. Mr. Maxfield moves. Do I have a second? Second. Ms. Park, seconds. Is there any discussion on the motion to approve the contingency plan? If not, this requires a majority vote of the committee. This is a roll of the board. This is a roll call vote. The chair votes aye. Ms. Parks. Aye. Mr. Maxfield. Aye. Mr. Gilbert. Aye. Mr. Cochran. Aye. Motion carries, it's unanimous. Congratulations, gentlemen. Get that revised. Those two little changes up to the Maureen and the building commissioner as soon as possible and then you can proceed. Thank you very much. Have a great evening. Thank you. You bet. All right. The next order of business is Redwood is a public hearing on ZBA 2022-03. Redwood Construction Inc. Requests a special permit to transfer the permit holder of the previously approved special permit ZBA FY 2018-21 and ZBA 2020-16 to Redwood Construction under section 10.34 of the zoning bylaw located at South Point Apartments 266 East Hadley, map 16D parcel 13, neighborhood residential RN zoning districts. Are there any disclosures? I wish to say something here just before we start these next, all what you deal with the same basic issue which is the removal of the change in ownership and removal of the waiver of the extinguishment of the special permit upon change of ownership. One of the things that I was the one who suggested to Maureen that we did not need to have site visits this time. Because I was familiar with the first two things and I just thought it was gonna be pretty simple. And I think that that was a mistake guys. I did that and it was my suggestion. And that's on me. I think we should have had site visits because it gives us a better feel for the properties for what is there in the neighborhoods and it gives you a better idea of what you're voting on. For some of these, I think it's more important than others but I think that is something that in the future I will, I think we should have site visits from almost any case. Because I think it's important for how you evaluate these things. And if anybody tonight, if people tonight feel that they needed to go there and they can't make a decision because of a site they did not have a site visit, do not hesitate to speak up and let your fellow Board members know that that's a concern of yours and we will take that into account. But I want to tell you that in the future I think site visits are important and that wasn't the staff that did this even though they sent out the email that was my mistake, it's on me. So we can proceed and please let me know if that's a concern of yours on any of these, the following applications. So are there any disclosures other than that on any disclosures on the redwood construction matter? I don't have a disclosure but I have a point of order maybe. Yes, Ms. Parks. Craig Meadows is listed as the one of the sitting members for the next couple of matters but I think Eric Cochran should be in there. You're right. And I think I mentioned it at the start of the- Oh, okay, I'm sorry. That the impaneled members, I think I mentioned it but let me just run through it again just in case I did forget. The impaneled members tonight are myself, Ms. Parks, Mr. Maxfield, Mr. Gilbert and Mr. Cochran. But thanks for the check Ms. Parks, that's helpful. I wanna make sure we notice that. So our following submissions have been received by town staff on this matter. Applicant has submitted a ZBA 2022-03 special permit application, the management plan, additional information required for apartments, an approved special permit decision from 2018, 2020, approved special permit decision, the ZBA approved plan set for the expansion of January 26, 2018 and a sample lease agreement. The town staff has submitted a project application report dated October 6th, comments from the fire department dated September 28, 2021 with attached smoke detector agreement prepared by Trinity Property Consultants dated April 8th, 2021. The applicant's waiver request from plan requirements for a site plan, a building plan, lighting plan and a sign plan. There's a list of complaints that have been received about this property over the last goes back how far, I guess, to 2014. Those are the submissions that we have received on this. And Maureen, there's been no public comments on this at all. Correct. Great. Who's here for the applicant? Carlos Niento, principal from the Berkshire Design Group for Allen Place, Northampton. Okay, Carol. There is also the owners representative, Tyler White for Redwood Construction. And, but I will start the presentation and if you have any questions, they will be here to support us. Okay, you may proceed. Yeah, first of all, good evening. And just to start off, I wanted to make a quick clarification. We're not, I don't know the other projects that are going after us. I saw that there might be also transfers of permits or that sort of thing. But in our case, there's no amendment to this permit. Ours was, there's a condition that if it was sold to another person that we needed to come back to a hearing and also there is a section on the zoning bylaw that requires us if there's somebody else buys a property that has a project that was previously approved and that person wants to go ahead and build that, they need to do an official transfer, which is what we're doing tonight. And it just a point of clarification just to make sure that we were all on the same page. So as Chairperson explained, the applicant Redwood Construction is seeking a transfer of a previously approved special permit in for the 266 East Hadley Road, which was formerly known as South Point Apartments. It's been changed since there's been change of ownership to renew Amherst. But for sake of argument here because the previous permit was to South Point Apartments I will keep with that name just to not make things more confusing. The original permit was approved in 2018. And several years later, the former owner and original applicant came back to the Zoning Board of Appeals for an extension which was approved in 2020. So that's why there is two permits there. And the very quick summary, this is a 47 unit apartment building as an addition to the South Point Apartments. And the applicant, which is Redwood Construction is the new owner, they've been on their ownership, they've owned the project since for the last two years and they wanna move forward and build this 47 unit apartment building that was previously approved. The intention is to transfer the permit and then go into building construction which was as soon as possible. And the idea is that there will be a tentative date of starting in December 2021 with this project if approved. And one of the things that I wanted to straight out, this seems to be a fairly straightforward permit process. What we're looking for is straight transfers from the original permit to now to the new owner. And the owner is not proposing any changes to the original plans. So he wants to go ahead with the original plans as they were submitted and approved. And there's no additional amendments or changes at this point for any of the other documentations that were required. As part of the conditions and the owner will follow all the conditions that were previously imposed on the project. As part of this process, one of the conditions on the previous permit required to come back and provide an updated management plan which the redwood construction has supplied and giving you a copy of. And it pretty much follows everything that was discussed in the previous management plan with when we previously approved this project. So what I'm trying to get to is that what we're trying to do is a clean transfer of the permit, no changes. And the client really wants to follow every single condition that the board previously had imposed on the project. As part of the application process, we did get some comments and it was mentioned about the comment on the fire department. And the applicant has answered the question from the fire department in regards to the smoke detector agreement. The question was a simple one where the old agreement was built upon the old smoke detector systems that were installed. And the fire department pointed out that there had been some new detectors that were installed and that the agreement had to change its language. And the owner has done that. They've changed the language in its in regards to the battery operated or non-battery or combo of hard wire and battery operated type of detectors. So the applicant, what they've done is then their smoke detector agreement, they've added the other types of detectors that could be included. The project right now 90% of the smoke detectors in the project have been upgraded to wired and battery backed up smoke detectors there are some apartments that have not been renovated and as they keep renovating, they will upgrade which is part of Massachusetts code to change those. And that is the reason why they've added this language and I believe that's the reason why the fire department asked for us to add some language to be more broad in the definitions of our smoke detectors. I think, again, I believe it's a straightforward process. We're trying to get a transfer of our permit that was previously approved and I will open up to any questions that the board has at this point. And I was gonna ask Maureen, I have another computer which is the one I could share documents. I think Carlos, I raised my hand on the other computer. I just wanna make sure that that if there's any questions, I can share that screen. Sure, absolutely. However, the one that you raised your hand with is an attendee and I've tried to make Carlos 2.0 a panelist. So you might need to press a button. Okay, Jillian has balanced. I saw it right now, perfect. Okay. Okay. Good, well, thank you. Well, we lost, we lost, oh, there we are. Okay, we've got them. All right, so help me with this. When did Redwood buy the property two years ago? Yeah. Tyler, we answered that. He's the owner representative. Thank you. But Tyler, what's your address again? My address is 2082 Michelson Drive, Irvine, California, 92612. Thank you. And if I may correct Carlos slightly, we actually purchased the property this year in March. Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah, good, all right. So yeah, I just wanted to make sure the old special permit went to Yonix, it was a different company. Okay. So you said that you're gonna follow all the management plans, including staffing, everything else. So there's a couple of things that are in the conditions from the last special permit that I don't see in the management plan. One is having a weekend security guard. It's condition 25. Steve, sorry to interrupt you. Could you reference the number in which special permit you're referencing? Is it the DBA? ZBA, 2018-21, and it's condition 25. And so that one says you shall add a weekend security guard when the new building receives 80% occupancy and review and security shall occur at the public meeting within 90 days. You talk about security within the addendum for the management plan, but you don't mention that specifically. And it's not mentioned in the other, in any other management plan. So is that something you're gonna add to the management plan? And you intend, of course, to follow through, but that should be in the management plan. So, Tyler, if you wanted to answer that specifically, I can add, but I think you're more. Sure, sure. Yes, we can add that to the management plan. I'm happy to do that. I think the intention was that because it was already covered in the conditions of approvals, why it was left out initially, but happy to add that if that's your question. You've done such a complete job of listing staffing in the management plan. In other areas, this was notable by its absence and I didn't want that to be a inference that it wasn't gonna be done. So that'd be good if you'd add that to the management plan, that's great. And I didn't find it in the lease, but condition 24 of 2018-21 limits the stay of guests to five days and a maximum of 10 guests per unit. Our thinking at the time was that you have families there and they'll come for a week and it's not just one person coming over to visit, you'll have more than, so that's a large number. But I don't see, is that in the lease? Is that in the lease? It is in the lease, I will find, actually the lease goes in and it's a little more strict that actually says three days. And then it limits it to six days within a month. So it's less than 10 and I will pull that from where it's in the lease, yeah. All right. And so that language, yeah, in any, man, this is page, in the total PDF, it was page 47. Apartment lease contract, it's in the first page and it says on line, on line item two, no one else may occupy the apartment. Person not listed above must not, was not stay in the apartment. Person's not listed above, which would be the occupants. Must not stay in the apartment for more than three consecutive days without prior or written consent and no more than twice that many days in any one month. If the previous space is, yeah. So it's a good, there is language there. And if you change that lease, you have to come back to us. You understand that if you change that lease, the lease, you have to change it in compliance with the conditions, but you are, you've met the condition, you've exceeded the conditions, so that's not a problem. All right, that's good. And I'll just say one final thing, actually two final things. First, when this, Mr. White, we weren't there. When this was discussed, there was a lot of discussion about and representations of good offers made by the previous owner on the playground. We wanted to make sure that the playground had safe material on the ground for falling for children to take care of. And we didn't go into details about that, but there was a lot of discussion about the new playground material. There was also a lot of discussion about providing some kind of shade someplace, especially around the playgrounds. And there was various ideas of screens and kind of sales. We didn't go into detail about that in the conditions, but that was something that the board had discussed at the time. And I think our decision was not based on that, but it was informed by the willingness of management to look at this into our belief that they were gonna be responsible and provide playgrounds in safe areas and some shade for playgrounds as well. So I think that's something that we anticipated with not requiring you to do. So I just wanna make sure that you, as a representative of the new owner, is familiar with that. And I hope you will follow through in that as well. Yep, our intention to follow through with that request. Thank you. Lastly, is this, so this management plan that you're submitting is the last, is the final management plan that you will have? Do you anticipate any kind of changes in the future? Besides the request to have the condition 25 with the night security guard that we don't expect any additional changes? Okay. I'm gonna add Tyler just to be very transparent and clear. There's been a change on since we had sent this on who plows the site. There's been a change from one company, Mohawk, to a different company, which Tyler, sorry, I forget the name of the new company. That's doing it now if you wanted to mention it. But that would be the only other change that we could see that could happen because it's just a change of company who's gonna be doing the plowing. That's a ministerial change and you just submit that to the department. That's not something that we have to, we don't have to approve that. Whoever you want to plow it, that's not who we have to have, but you just have to have somebody to plow it. Yes. Okay, all right. Parking, and the last thing is you, the condition is you have to have a parking sticker, submitted to the department before final occupancy. You're aware of that. All right, I don't have any other questions. Do any, does anybody else on the board have questions regarding this? And Maureen, have I covered everything that we needed to cover on this? And do we need to make, go ahead? Yeah, I believe you've covered everything and perhaps, well, maybe other members have questions or comments, but perhaps you should, I'm sure you're about to review the suggested conditions and if there's any new suggested, oh, there aren't any suggested conditions. Yep, okay. After this one. No, and I was just looking to see, we have to make a finding under 10.34 under this, but first I want to make sure I could give board members opportunity to comment if they so choose. Mr. Maxfield. Yeah, my question here is for Mr. White. So you folks purchased this earlier this year, you said, am I correct? And then... Yes, that's correct, March of this year. Got it. What was just kind of the motivation of purchasing this and you guys are based out of California, but you guys do stuff across the country with property building and property management? Correct, yeah, we're a national multi-family developer and owner of property all across the United States. And so this project that our business plan to purchase the property and to hold on to it. And also, I mean, it wasn't that, we weren't aware of the situation of the previous owner already having to maintain the special permit. But when we found out about that, it was our intention to continue to on with that plan to construct a new building, but that was the motivation. So yeah, this is what we do all across the country. Okay, thank you. And I guess one more question follow up with that, just how long have you guys been in this business now? I think if I'm not mistaken, it's been, it started in the 90s. So it's 25 plus years in this business. Yeah, thank you. Good questions. Mr. Gilbert. Thanks, Steve. Yeah, quick question here. I know that based on some of these extensions that have been received, you guys have until December 31st of 2023 for substantial completion of construction. It's my understanding that you reference the intention to break ground in December of this year, which would give you approximately two years to complete construction without having to return, of course, the CDA and the question extension. What is your estimated timeline of construction? I mean, if you want, I can answer that. I believe if, I mean, if we can get this permit approved and then we move to the construction documents part where we're gonna be submitting building permit documents. And if that happens before December, we can break ground in December. Obviously there will be just ground prep during that period because we can't really build the building at that point. And then construction will start, we'll continue then during spring. And my understanding, this is a, you know, kind of a year long, year long construction type project. If there's no, you know, major issues. So we're, I would say that we will be looking at summer of 20, you know, spring of 2023 or end of 2022 to be closing out with the project. Okay, so for close out, in fact, not. Yeah, well, when I say close out to finish construction and having, you know, having a building at that point. Yeah, yeah, of course. Yeah, just trying to sort of understand the timeframe and what the expectations are and make sure that we're anticipating, you know, that that's even within the two years. Mainly at one year construction period. And if we can start in December, it means that we'll be, you know, hoping to be done by December of next year, if not extending to spring of the year after. Great, thank you. Other questions? The board, if not, are there members of the public that wish to speak? Do we have anybody more in? No, I see none. Yeah, I see none. Okay, is there anything else that Mr. Nito or Mr. White, you wish to say before we give her the last chance for the board to make any comments? No, I think we're all set. Done, all right. Any further comments from the board before we move to the public meeting portion? All right. If there are no questions from board members, I'd like to move to the public meeting without closing the public hearing but keeping the public hearing open just in case we need additional information or public comment. I'd entertain a motion to open the public meeting on this matter while keeping the public hearing open. Do I have a motion? Mr. Maxfield moves it. Do we have a second? Second. Ms. Park seconds. This is the roll call vote. There's a discussion on it, any discussion? It's the roll call vote. Mr. Chair votes aye. Ms. Parks. Aye. Mr. Maxfield. Aye. Mr. Gilbert. Aye. Mr. Cochran. Mr. Cochran. He's muted. I see an aye. Okay, I see an aye. I didn't hear an aye. Okay, sorry about that. I got it. That's good. You got it. All right. This is the time we can make specific findings under 10.34, which is fairly easy to do but it's also the review any possible conditions. If that is something that the board wishes to discuss. I think that in this case conditions probably should be limited to just to read if there are any conditions just to be discussed they're just conditions on the transfer not on other aspects because there's no proposed difference and no proposed changes. But I would leave that open to members of the board before we move on. If not, we need to make a finding out that we need to act under 10.34. We don't have to make a finding under the other parts of 10.38. 10.34 allows for the transfer as long as we approve the transfer of ownership by this body. So unless there's any for the discussion regarding this I sense that we have consensus on doing this. I would entertain a motion to approve the transfer requests to the new permit holder redwood construction Inc. Do I have a motion? So moved. Maxfield, do I have a second? Second. Ms. Parks, is there any discussion about the motion to approve the transfer? This is one that I think my discussions is one that I think is pretty straightforward and there's no reason for to not approve this to get the new owners who probably can get this thing going and built after several attempts which is really what we want to do with ads. It'll add 90 more units of housing in Amherst and we should get that done. So any other comments? If not, this is the roll, yes. I was gonna say, yeah, I agree with your Mr. Chair looking at the initial application that I served on the board at that time. I might have a lot more to say, but it looks like we've done it and I think I agree at this point for something like a transfer it should be relatively straightforward. And I agree with your sentiment on getting some more housing here and down. Just to clarify, I believe you said 90 dwelling units to be added. It's 47 new dwelling units. 47, yeah, that's right. And like 90 some beds, is that what it is? Yes. I got confused. If you can give us 90 units, we'd be really happy about that. You'd have to be back in front of us. I don't think we're gonna do that right now. All right, if there's no for the discussion we're prepared to vote on this. This motion requires the four votes. No, it does not. I'm sorry, this vote majority vote. So the chair votes aye. Ms. Parks. Aye. Mr. Maxfield. Aye. Mr. Gilbert. Aye. Mr. Cochran. Aye. Great. Congratulations, gents. You've got the transfer. Be sure to make those changes we discussed to your management plan. Incorporate the security guard in the plan and the other things and give some thought to the concerns that we all had when we approved this about the playground, the material that the kids fall on and some shade. Really appreciate it. Thank you very much. Thank you everyone for your time. Let's see. The next order of business is ZBA FY 2022-04. Gregory Briggs and Howard R. Paul request a special permit to modify the previously approved special permit ZBA 2002-21 in order to remove condition seven, which states this purpose shall expire upon change of ownership or management, located at 19 Phillips Street, map 11A parcel 34, general residence RG zoning district. Are there any disclosures from members of the board? The following submissions have been received. A memo from attorney Tom Reedy, Thomas Reedy, dated September 2nd, 2021. A waiver request from attorney Reedy dated September 2nd, 2021. ZBA 2022-04 special permit application, prospective purchasers management plan, additional information required for apartments, prospective purchasers lease agreement and the ZBA approved special permit decision. That's a 2002 approved special permit decision. Town staff submissions are project application report dated October 6th, a 2021 residential property permit, landscape plan with lighting trash storage and parking dated 9, 15, 20, 0, 3. ZBA approved 10, 9, 2003, pursuant to condition 600 ZBA, a special permit of 2002-21 zoning map. The applicant's waiver request from plan requirements for a building plan, a lighting plan, a site plan, a sign plan, a site plan, another lighting plan and a landscaping plan. Who's here to appear for the applicant? I am Mr. Chair. Mr. Reedy, would you give your name and your address please? I'd be happy to do it. Good evening, Mr. Chairman, members of the board, Mr. Roscovich, Ms. Pollack, I'm Tom Reedy, an attorney with Bacon Wilson, here in Amherst, here on behalf of the owners of 19 Phillips Street, requesting a, I hope, pretty simple modification of an existing special permit for converted dwelling to eliminate the condition that requires the permit to expire upon change of ownership or management. The owners are here on offline, but they're listening. I told them that I think I can handle this, but obviously if the board has questions for them, I'm happy to bring them on. I guess pretty simply this 19 Phillips Street received the special permit for converted dwelling back in 2002. And this was at a time, and I'm on for the next two hearings as well for the Belcher Town Road ones. And I'm gonna be saying probably something similar to what I'm saying now. Some of these conditions are a little vestigial, where, I don't know if it, I think it was the board's policy at that time. And I know that at least since I've been practicing here in Amherst over the past 10 years, subsequent boards, I think beginning, I think when Mr. Parent was the chair specifically, the board has transitioned to allowing applicants to modify their special permit to eliminate that provision where it expires upon change or ownership. And I'll talk about that in a moment and really transition to requiring a subsequent purchaser or a prospective purchaser to come in at a public meeting and to talk about complaint response plan, lease and management plan, just to make sure that it's the use of the use that's going to be continued to be managed. Now, one of the issues with having that provision, the expiration upon change of ownership provision is financing because effectively, if there was a foreclosure, what would happen is it would be a change of ownership. And at that time, the mortgage holder who would have stepped into the shoes of the previous owner would really only have a single family. So as far as lenders look at this, they say, well, I can't even finance it as a two family as anything besides a single family, because if I were to step in, then the two family status would go away and I would only have a single family. So that's just like a practical real-world concern. And that was something that we had talked to, previous boards about, and I think that was one of the reasons, one of the driving reasons, there might have been others, but one of the driving reasons to switch to that public meeting, et cetera, peace. So this is one where it's in the RG district. It's in close proximity to UMass. I think management is obviously important. Potential purchaser is killerine properties. He owns, I think 15 other properties in town, pretty well maintained, managed. He has St. Hilaire from Valley Property Management, who I would suspect that you're familiar with. Allen does a really nice job of managing. He's a professional manager. He manages the properties pretty well. And so, simply put, what we would be looking to do is to eliminate that condition. And then I've taken a look at all the things that Ms. Pollock had presented in our project application report. And they're all fine to be added to the special permit. I'm happy to answer questions, but I think short and sweet is always the best. So what's the status and the transaction, Mr. Reedy, right? Yeah, so it's not, no, it won't close. So one of the conditions of the closing is to effectuate this transfer. And then, frankly, to have a decision file with the town clerk and then wait out the 20 day appeal period. So whatever, if there is an affirmative vote, whatever Ms. Pollock can do to get it to the town clerk as quickly as possible, that would be helpful. But yeah, so it hasn't happened yet. It's, so I've got Randy Paul and Greg, Greg's on with me, but it will be transferred to killerine properties. And we're targeting, we were targeting November 1st, but obviously by the time we have this hearing, the decisions filed, et cetera. So I think we're looking at the December 1st. That's in November 1st. So December 1st date is what we're targeting. And who's a current property manager for the current owners? Yeah, I think they manage the properties themselves. So I think we're transitioning to a, with all due respect to them. A professional manager? Yeah, to a professional manager. I mean, they're both local guys, contractors, builders. They do a really good job with the property, but then it's being transitioned to a valley property manager. So one of the things that is confusing when I read through this is the limits on the number of occupants per unit. Back in the 2002 and all the way through it till now, there was a limit of three in one unit and a limit of four in the other. The reason I guess was because one is a two bedroom unit and one is a three bedroom unit. So it's four and three under all the old, but I noticed in one place, it says no more than four unrelated. So one of the potential conditions says no more than four unrelated individual show occupies unit. I don't think we wanna change what has been used, been there for a while, but it's four and three currently, I think. And that also goes to the guest policy, which I think was eight at one point. It's just confusing. So can you run through number one? How many people live in each of those units? And number two, what the guest policy is in those and going forward from the new, I guess it would be for the new owner. Yeah, and so, which puts me in an interesting position because I'm not working with the new owner, but according to their application, and we're not trying to change anything. So if the existing permits restrict occupancy, as you have said to three and four. Yeah, I mean, we're not looking to change it. All we're trying to do is have that expiration upon change of ownership condition removed. And then Ms. Pollock's thought, as we'll talk about in the subsequent ones, having a lease and a complaint response plan and a management plan of the prospective purchaser would be a good thing. Because to a certain extent, take away that next step, of having them come at a public meeting to present what they've got. So I can only rely on what was presented to you all. And so I guess what I would say is, if you say, let's keep it as it is, then we're keeping it as it is. But the occupancy limits are keeping that as it is. All right, and that is, so that's the, that would be the new management plan coming in. You're not representing the new owners, the prospective owners, you're representing the existing owners. Correct. And how do we make sure, and I'm gonna ask Dave and Maureen, how do we make sure that the management plan from the new owners comports with this? The restrictions that still be there on the conditions. So that they wouldn't have a choice on that. If the conditions are four and three, that's what they are. They have to live with that. But other things such as parking and everything else that are currently there, how do we make sure that the new management plan for the new owners comports with what is currently being done? Maureen, I don't think we can hear you. You're muted. Dave, you're muted too. So yes, so since the tonight's request is to remove the condition this permit expires upon change of ownership or management, it is keeping in line if the board chooses to make any conditions, added conditions that the new owner come back upon change of ownership, they should come back to the ZBA at a public meeting to review and approve a updated management plan and lease and complaint response plan and to submit a parking management plan that would be acceptable because it is related to the future ownership of this property, which is related to tonight's request. And additionally, the board may choose to make findings under 10.38 that speak to why a condition like that should be included. So those are just a couple of things to think of. So it seems to me there are two choices we can hope to convince the new owners of policies that we believe a lot of our conditions, policies that we believe they ought to pursue should be in their management plan or we can make them as part of the conditions at this point when we're changing them. And those are some of the things that you have identified as possible conditions of approval. So that's really our two options, right? Sure, another option and I'm not necessarily suggesting this is that at a public meeting, the board doesn't really have the option of adding new conditions. So if the new management plan, lease and complaint response plan and the parking management plan is something that of not of your liking or perhaps it sort of spirals into other questions, the board doesn't really, can't really add additional conditions. So, if the board wants to review those sorts of things at a public hearing, there is this sort of option that the board may want to consider not approving this request and that a new owner would need to submit a new application for the use. Did I make it maybe before suggestion? Why not just the condition that the new owner, so either come back at a public meeting or just present the management plan to the planning, the building department consistent with the conditions of the previously issued special permits. I mean, if we're saying this is how it's been, you're saying these are the conditions, to me it's already documented. So it's just a matter of having the new management plan actually match what has existed or has been required on the site, which to me seems like less subjective, more objective. I have a counter suggestion is that the new owner come back at a public hearing. Yeah. Well, I mean, so just, I mean, respectfully, I mean, we've got a management plan here on for this property, it's been managed, it has been managed in accordance with the conditions. We're not looking to change really any of the conditions associated with the permit except for that one where we're saying, sure, four and three occupants, that's fine. To keep it open to a public hearing, I mean, frankly, pushes the closing off by, you know, who knows how long and transactionally somewhat disrupts where we're going with this. And I would respectfully suggest unnecessarily so. I think there are other ways to skin this cat besides continuing the public hearing or requiring new owners to come into the public hearing. And I think it's through either method of requiring a public meeting, which again, if you just tonight say, okay, we will modify the special permit by eliminating this condition, but then impose some of these conditions here, most specifically on change of ownership, the new property owner shall be required to return to the ZBA at a public meeting for review and approval of the management plan and complaint response plan, which shall be in fulfillment of the existing conditions of the special permits. Something like that, and you have them come back and then you run through it and say, because ultimately the conditions are gonna control because if the conditions of the special permit aren't being adhered to, Mr. Waskevich, unfortunately, is gonna have to issue some cease and desist or a notice, and that's what's gonna start the process. So I'm always like, yes, the new management plan is something, but ultimately it's the conditions of the permit that are gonna control. So I'm just, I'm trying to find the balance of moving, continuing to move this along, being kind of commonsensical about it at the same time. And I think the other unspoken concern that I have is I went past the property and I'm looking forward to new management of that property and improving the way it's currently managed. And so I do wanna, I do hope that the new, I wanna hold the new owners to that and I wanna find a way to do that. For example, I went there today and currently the limit is four cars and there was six cars on that property this afternoon. I went there, there's a beer pong table out in front of the property. There is kind of a radio, it just looks bad and it doesn't look like it's being managed well for that neighborhood. And it's right against the university. That is a problem block. And normally I think these are things that we should give that difference to the new owner who just haven't come in but this is a block that has a lot of problems. And one of the things that these conditions do and the management plan does is help the neighborhood improve the neighborhood because it solves some of the problems, the nuisances, the complaints that you get. And it also creates a better way to better housing for students. I mean, trying to keep this at four and three as opposed to people doubling up and tripling up and living in the basement, which, you know, I don't know but in this case, the basement is probably dangerous. You know, those are things I wanna try to avoid and the good, I think that's towards a public good. And so let's look at these conditions. I think we should impose them. I think that they make sense. I think that we should have the new owner should come back with the management plan and submit it to us in time for that. After we permit the transfer, I think the new owner should do that. But, you know, at that point, we lose our leverage, you know, to try to help make sure that these conditions are imposed. And so we have a choice of either composing conditions now or waiting on the, hoping that the management plan is satisfactory. Otherwise we have to deny the new management plan and that puts you as in as much risk on the financing as getting as having the management plan delayed. Either way, you know, that is not a good result for the clients with a new purchase. So, but the latter, if we could approve this without requiring the management plan to come back and without putting in conditions, we've lost our ability to make the kind of changes and conditions that would be helpful for the neighborhood, I think, and for better management of that property. Mr. Westkevitz has raised his hand. Yes. Yeah, I just want to piggyback a little bit with Steve. So when this special permit first came out was in 2002 and there was a way of thinking back then that people had and they, you know, did the best they could with formulating the conditions based on what they were experiencing at the time. So if we remove the ability to be able to add conditions at some point, we're going to be stuck with whatever we decide tonight and it will be based on that. And we can do our best to try to anticipate the future, but without that ability to go back and make changes, it really limits what we can do about problems that could occur that we never anticipated. So I would ask Mr. Reedy if he can think of a way that could alleviate this concern, that maybe something you've seen used in other towns or other ways to go about it. I mean, I think the lowest hanging fruit and something that I'd want to think about is a review period. I mean, that's one of the most simple ways to do it, right, is just to say come back in, you know, either upon the issuance of a cease and desist and you're coming back for violation and you're going to be in front of us or we'll review it in a year, you know, to make sure that you are adhering. I don't think that's an offensive condition. Frankly, I would think if the new owner is doing what they say they're going to be doing, which is obviously I think going to be in the town's best interest to do that and to keep them honest, then, you know, just have them come back in a year or earlier if there are, you know, I want to be sensitive to not just putting this open-ended like ability to call them back at any point because that's just as risky. Granted, it's in their control but sometimes as I'm sure the board knows and as Mr. Roskevich knows, you can't necessarily control the neighborhood and all it takes is somebody making a complaint call and then, you know, they're really affecting someone's livelihood of, you know, rental income just for their gain. So I think if you do maybe just a year review, then that probably at least gives you another bite at the apple, so to speak. And just expand a little bit off of that. So what if we find that this new owner is not doing what he should be doing? What other than finding or something like that is there would be no ability to put additional conditions on that, correct? No, well, it depends on the path we go down. And so if you say, okay, we have certain conditions associated with this special permit and those conditions are violated, then you're gonna issue a cease and desist and they're gonna do one of two things. They're either gonna comply with it or they're not and they may appeal it if they've got 30 days. So then they come to the zoning board of appeals and then it's, you know, your office versus them and then they can decide, you know, frankly, they're gonna comply because it's a lot cheaper to just comply than to try to push back. And I know that the building department isn't unreasonable with their compliance requests. So I think, and that's why I go back to the conditions of the permit are really paramount because that's what's gonna dictate behavior. And then if they're not behaving according to those conditions, that's where you have the opportunity and that's where you really gain the leverage. And so to me, it's always about condition drafting. And that's why I said, you know, when I look at Maureen's conditions here, I think it makes a ton of sense to just to include those conditions. Now, if I'm hearing from the board that, and what I heard from Mr. Judge, a couple of things, but one of them was it's not necessarily that the management plan and the lease reflect accurately what the existing conditions are through these special permits. And I think that's easily rectified through a condition. If you're worried about losing your leverage or your ability to pull them back in, to a certain extent, that's always a risk for you as a board. And I think it's imposing appropriate conditions so that there is an enforcement authority, the building department, who's able to go in and to enforce those conditions and if those conditions aren't enforced, then you bring them back through the season of the cyst. But I would say as a practitioner, and I say this to Ms. Pollock as much as I can is that developers always like and this isn't necessarily development, but developers like predictability. You need to say, here are the rules of the game. And then they can make business decisions of whether or not they're able to comply. And then that really colors what their next steps will be. To always have it hanging out there that they could be coming back just on a whim is gonna make transacting very difficult just generally in the town. So I just wanna be sensitive to saying like, if you're not comfortable with the conditions that you have now and you say, listen, come back at our next meeting which hopefully is two weeks from now. And then we're not worried about necessarily like a one year period. I think that would be better, frankly, than you putting on that one year second bite at the Apple provision, I'll call it. Or ideally, I'd like you to feel comfortable and just issue it the way it is, but it doesn't sound like it. So I think that's what I would say is if you are that hesitant because of its location and you want us to come back in two weeks and I'll bring Alan St. Hilaire and you can talk to him and he can hear from you and the public hearing still open and then you can impose the conditions. To me, it's like, I don't like it, but that's the answer, right? I mean, that's what makes the most sense for the situation. There's two answers. There's that and there's the year review. That's the both. Yep, but the next, the two week thing, we only talking to the current owners where we are talking conditions. The review, we are the new owners are and we're gonna review the management plan and the new owners if we have a year review. So there's a plus and minus of both approaches, but that's, I appreciate the thought you gave it to that Mr. Reedy. Mr. Maxwell. Yeah, I'm very much inclined to agree with I think a lot of what Mr. Reedy has said here in that I think once the ZBA is issuing a special permit, you were supposed to do our due diligence and drafting strong conditions, but I feel like after we've issued that the conditions are in place. You know, we have Mr. Waskiewicz, people in town hall who can then look at these, the transfer of ownership, having something in there that would still go to review, but as opposed to it coming before a public meeting where let's say this property is sold again in 10 years from now and now we've got a whole new board. They've never seen this. They've never looked at this and this is really just the transfer of ownership. It's just really a time that any time that a property with a special permit is sold that this has to come before the board. And I don't know, maybe I'm wrong. I mean, this really is the philosophy of the board as a way of doing things. But it seems like this idea that having it come back to us gives us this control to prevent blighted properties. Well, we're trying to insinuate here now that this property is being poorly managed and there is a special permit already issued on it. And we're saying that we're finding cars, too many cars out in the parking lot and we suspect that there might be too many people in there. And this is a- I didn't imply that. And I should say, I guess even in general, maybe not this property, but a property may have something like that. And just because there is a special permit attached to it, well, then it's already built into conditions. They can't do this. We technically already have the enforcement. We shouldn't even, they don't need to come before us for another, it's they're already in violation. So I think that once we've issued a special permit to say that there's a transfer of ownership, we need a management plan, we need this and that, and that can go for town staff for review. And they are approving it based on the conditions that we had set out at the initial time of issuing the permit. So that's my point of view on this one. I think Mr. Reedy is right about that one. I don't like the idea. It's when, just as our previous case came forth, there's been no construction done. This is a transfer of ownership. I can see that one, but even something like that seems strange in that it's creating an opening for us as the board to then say, no, we're gonna vote this down. So now somebody made a major purchase that is completely worthless, which if it were the case that we felt the person buying it were somebody who is not someone that should be doing business in the town of Amherst, I like that a little bit, no construction done, but we're talking about something that's been built, it's been approved, it's been approved to operate a way that they're asking to continue to have it operate that way. I think it's probably better for the town the ZBA to not have it come back to us when there's a transfer of ownership, but to still have the town review these things and then they can make that determination. You know, yes or no, we wanna have the condition that if Mr. Walshiewicz says, no, these don't meet the conditions that somebody could then appeal to come before the ZBA and then we could review it. I wouldn't mind something like that. But I think I trust Amstapp to be able to review. I think Mr. Walshiewicz will probably outlive some of us here on the ZBA and no decision we've made and be able to make decisions based on that. And then the day he retires the next person coming in there, I think we'll have a lot of longevity and no, yeah, I remember when this came before as five or six years ago, I remember what we talked about, I have it all here. I think that's in a lot of ways going to be more effective than that coming before the ZBA. So that's what I think I have to agree pretty much with Mr. Reed's point of view on this one. Other comments? I think one of the things that we wanna make sure is that over time, and I think some of the conditions that the staff pointed out, we want to adjust, realize that things have changed in the 22 years since this was first done. We weren't talking about dark supply compliant, we are talking about it now. There are things that we have learned as a community, as a town, as a board, as a building commissioner, things that we want to have as best practices for rental properties. And so some of those do need to be done and they have to be updated so we can't just lock everything in forever. And I do think that the board's role in some of this is to make that policy. So like the dark stack compliant in our rules and regs that we, the new language we always use for that. And we're updating our policy when we allow transfer without the expiration of the special permit. So we do have to adjust at times as times change. I think those, if I could, I think those conditions, I mean, those are totally acceptable. I know you do. And there was one that says, the approved management plan and complaint, just to think this through the approved management plan and complaint, so the approved management plan and complaint response plan shall be followed by the property owner. So that's a condition. And then the new owner is going to come in front of you and say, here's- Mr. Reed, I let you talk a long time and I'm going to let you talk a long time, but I was, I was stalking, okay? So just let me, let me finish. I kind of lost my train of, that's okay, but I kind of lost my train of thought. So what I think one of the things we need to do is to look at the conditions that staff has suggested, number one, and then see if we're comfortable with that. If you're comfortable making a decision to extend this, if you think we need to be talking to, that we need some conversation with the new owners and a commitment from the new owners before the board as we do on a lot of things, just like we did with these two other things earlier today on their management plan and to approve it to make sure that we, that we do approve the management plan, then we have them come back with their management plan to the board to look at. I don't, a management plan in and of itself, I think is an important thing. It's not something that is a minor thing that should be delegated, ministerial things should be delegated to staff on all the time. I think that's the management plan is more important and it's something the board could deal with. If it's, the staff should be dealing with whether the lights are dark sky compliant or not factual questions, but not always judgmental questions as big as the management plan. I think Mr. Maxfield. So I get your point. I get what you're trying to do. And I agree with minimizing the burden on landlords and developers, but management plans I think are something that this board probably should be looking at as opposed to the more ministerial things that I think the staff can be looking about. So Mr. Reedy, you did have something to say and I do want to let you say it. I just want to- No, I'm sorry for interrupting you. It's a terrible habit of mine. So really, I'm sorry. So I was just going to go through the next steps because there's a proposed condition that says the approved management plan and complaint response plan shall be followed by the property owner. And so to me, that is the condition where once you have this subsequent owner come in, present their management plan to you. You can say we accept it or reject it. And then once it's ultimately accepted, because if it's rejected, then they're in violation of their permit because then they're complying with the existing management plan. That gives you or gives the inspection services the enforcement opportunity that they need. And so, I don't know if you and Mr. Maxfield are saying two different things. I don't think there's a problem with us or any potential perspective potential purchaser coming back in front of the board at a public meeting to say, here I am, here's my management plan. What have been the problems associated with this property? Does this management plan address them? And then for you to accept it, and if you say, well, if you want us to accept this new management plan, then you have got to do X, Y and Z in it. And then once they accept X, Y and Z, then you've got a condition where if they're in violation of that, which has been before you, then it goes to inspection services. So that, I mean, and again, if this takes me just having, you know, Alan St. Helier here in two weeks before you close the public hearing, just so you're comfortable, that's fine. I mean, I'm not trying to make you make a decision this evening that you're not comfortable with. If you just want to think about it a little bit more, have them, you know, have him come in, keep the public hearing open. Let's make sure that all the conditions are what you want it to be. And then close the public hearing, considering that at some point in the future, this will likely be sold again. So you're also looking A to make sure that the management plan you get is how it should be managed so that the condition, which I just read is the condition that carries forward so that when a new owner comes in, you're gonna have that ability to say, no, no, no, this is how it has to be managed. And if you don't manage it this way, you're in violation of your special permit. I mean, I think that's, like that's the leverage, that's the hook, because it's not just, you know, part of what we do as practitioners is like, we don't just look at immediate, like we have to think out to the next few. So, I mean, if you want to continue this, and I don't know when the next meeting is, but I mean, I just, to me, that what seems like makes sense right now. Let's see if there's comments from other board members. I've spoken a lot, and I want to make sure I give my other board members a chance to speak there. So in that, I got two hands here. I see Maureen and then Mr. Maxwell. Maureen, you go first and Mr. Maxwell. Yeah, so if the board is agreeable to continue this public hearing to the next meeting, which would be the 28th, perhaps the board could go ahead and do a group site visit, looking at the exterior and interior of the home of the building and having Alan St. Hilaire and perhaps the new owner come to the next meeting to review those submitted documents such as the management plan, the additional information for apartments, the lease and the complaint response plan. And I would like to add another document if the applicant is agreeable to it. And if the board thinks this is a good idea is to provide a parking management plan. Which goes into how many parking spaces are there and how is that going to be managed? Is there a parking sticker or signage? What happens if, where it's supposed to just be four cars, what happens if there's more cars there? Is there a towing policy? So in essence, how is the property being managed specifically for parking? I think it gives us a chance, that does give us a chance to look at the property. And also to, I think quite frankly, it gives the new owners or maybe you, Mr. Riedi, the opportunity to try to put together all the occupancy numbers so they all make sense. Right now there's a bunch of different numbers. There's four and three, there's eight, there's 20. It doesn't, it seems like they're kind of a slap dash. So the number of people that can be there, the guests, the policy, the overnight guests, all that would make sense to have that consistent. It seems now to be confusing to me. I went through it and I couldn't figure it out. And I think the only, so if I could to that, I think the only inconsistency, because as I looked at Ms. Pollock's project application report was the condition that suggests no more than four unrelated individuals in each unit. So eliminate that and then you've got the number of overnight guests that can be there, the total number of people that can be on the property. And then you would revert to no more than four and three respectively in each of the units. So I don't know that there is an inconsistency. I think that is. You're happy with the overnight visitors at three and four. Okay. That's the guest policy in the lease now. That's what we were providing. That's why I want to. 20 people total. Okay. All right. Any other discussion? Any thoughts? Members? Mr. Maxfield. Yep. I guess I just want to still follow up on what we're talking about here. It sounds like the applicant is amenable to this being extended and coming to another meeting. But again, I still think in just me, this is better for an administrative meeting down the line to how we should handle these sorts of things. But I guess my real concern here is I agree with your point, Mr. Chair, that this isn't something that is just sort of as administrative of is this a light, dark sky compliant or not? It is something that might actually require a review. Who is this manager? What is their experience? What have they done? What's the plan look like that? That might be something that should come to the board. But my worry here is that in an effort to, I would say to do our due diligence for the town in making this process more cumbersome in doing so, I think it puts it out of reach for, I would say more kind of your everyday homeowner who might say, I would like to purchase a property like this. It has two rentals. Maybe I could move in there, do something like that and try to get ahead, something like that, where then you see that the permit expires on change of ownership or it's going to require coming before the ZBA. And when I feel we end up becoming more cumbersome like that, if you're talking about somebody who can hire Mr. Reedy to come represent them before the board, you're gonna have a much better chance than if somebody wants to say purchase that themselves and they don't know how to navigate this bureaucracy, they now need to come before the board. I think we've certainly seen it in the past where you have much smaller developers having much more difficult time dealing with the ZBA than much more well-financed projects coming for the ZBA seem to get through much more easily because they can't afford to handle the bureaucracy that we put out there. And I definitely agree that we have a job we have to do to serve the town interests, but I think we do need to hit a balance of not becoming so cumbersome that the only people who can afford to deal with this really are people with the deep financial resources to come before and kind of meet all of our conditions. And I just, I think this might be an opportunity for us to achieve that same goal. I think that's a good point, Mr. Maxfield. I do, I think that's a good point, but I think it's a point, a public policy point. I don't wanna, I agree with you, we don't wanna advantage people with means over people who don't have means, but that's, this situation is not what we're facing tonight. I see the point you're making that this situation tonight, we're not facing that, we're not facing people who don't have the ability to financial ability to hire the excellent legal counsel and consultants. So I don't think that's what we're doing tonight. So I would like to, what I would like to do is unless we have another comment as to the merits of the proposal, I would like to move on the procedure here. And see if, I think I sense a consensus, but I haven't heard from Mr. Parks or Mr. Cochran or Mr. Gilbert, but I think if we can move to a, here at this post, suspend this or move this to two weeks, leave the public hearing open, have a site visit, have a, we can have more, we have a agreed upon set of conditions and a condition on the management plan come from the new owners that we could move next week perhaps and get this done. That's what I would like to, or not next week in two weeks, excuse me. I'd like to see if that could be done. Can we meet in two weeks, Maureen, on this if we keep the public hearing open? Sure, if everyone's available and the applicant is amendable. Yeah, that's fine. Okay. Mr. Westgevitz has phrased his hand. Oh, I didn't see it. Go ahead, Mr. Westgevitz. Yeah, I just wanted just a general comment. So if the board is considering removing this condition upon having it expire, the conditions that we have a chance of adding next in two weeks are very important for the future. So we should take some time and think about it and think about what has been working in town because this will be your last chance to place these conditions on this property. So it would be good to give it some time. I think this through. Yeah, because the point is if this expires, right now they go back to a single family home. I think if I think I'm right. So the special permit gives them the right to have two units there. That's what the special permit does. Absent that special permit, this is a single family home. And that's the reason that there are conditions is that this would be, but for the special permit, they would not be allowed to have that rental property that the type of rental property they have now. Is that right, Mr. Washevich? Okay. All right. Is there any objection to moving this to two weeks and putting on the agenda then? So I hear an objection. If not, let's do that and we have to move a motion. Go ahead, Maureen. Did you want to see if there's any public comment before you make your motion? Yes, thank you very much. Thank you very much. I think it's a no, but you never know. No, it's a good reminder. Thank you. I was moving to a conclusion. Oh, someone has raised their hand, actually. Oh, actually I think that these are the current owners. So we'll let them speak. They raised their hand. Hold on. Hello? Hi. I'm not a current donor. Oh, sorry. I'm, my name is Kayarn Briggs. I live in Cushman. I would just like to point out that this was, this way of issuing special permit restrictions was set up in the early 2000s because Amherst was very leery about moving from one family homes to creating housing for more people. And that is no longer the case. So I would point out to the committee that you've got three more cases before you tonight that have to do with exactly the same question. And what you're looking at is an outdated policy. That's what you're looking at. And I would encourage you to consider it that way. Thank you. Thank you. Absent any objection? The schedule is for two weeks. We'll keep the hearing open. All right, Mr. Maxfield. I'm just making the motion to do just that. Second, Ms. Parks. Discussion, there's no discussion. We'll move to the vote. I vote aye. Ms. Parks. Aye. Mr. Maxfield. Aye. Mr. Gilbert. Aye. Mr. Cochran. Aye. Okay. All right. The next are two Belcher Town Road properties. The first is ZBA 2022-05, Lane v. Floyd, request a special permit to modify the previously approved special permit ZBA FY 2011-04 in order to move condition search team, which states this permit shall expire upon change of ownership located at 2004-2006 Belcher Town Road, neighborhood 15C, partial 32, neighborhood residents are in zoning district. Is there any disclosures? If not, Mr. Reedy, are you representing the applicant here? I am. So for the record, Tom Reedy, attorney with Bacon Wilson out of Amherst here on behalf of Lane Floyd, the property owner. You know what? I forgot the submissions. I was trying to move through quickly. I know end of everybody's time. I need to do the submissions here for the record. The project application report for this one, Phillips Street 204, okay. The applicant has submitted a ZBA application, a management plan, an application memo from attorney Reedy dated 2026, August 26th. A waiver request from Mr. Reedy dated August 26th. Previously, it was ZBA special permit decision, applicants waiver requests for site plan, building plan, lighting plan, landscape sign, and management plans, additional information required for apartments, zoning map provided by staff, also provided from staff, presidential residential property permit effective until June 30th, 2022 and a project application report dated October 6th. All right, Mr. Reedy, I'm sorry to have interrupted you. Now you can go. That was hardly an interruption, Mr. Chair. I think I've already stated for the record who I am and you're probably sick of hearing it by now anyways. So like I said, in the preceding hearing, and I'll probably say in the subsequent hearing, this is one of those, and this is a little bit different. It's not right by the university. This is on Belcher Town Road. It's zoned RN, I believe, neighborhood residents, Lane Floyd owns this property and the adjacent property, it has one of those, and I would say vestigial conditions where it expires upon change of ownership. And so then the request is just to modify, for this one, it's removed condition 13 and we are fine with all of the conditions that Ms. Pollock had suggested. I have not heard back. I don't have a management plan. I don't have a lease of any perspective, anything. So we fully intend to come back with that individual, whoever's, because I think Mr. Floyd wants to ultimately sell these properties, but this is not like Phillips where there's actually a buyer who's ready, but so this is somewhat anticipatory. So there's no transaction anticipated at this point in time. This is just kind of a prophylactic removal of that to increase the ability to sell the property. Yeah, and this was one I know, I think it was 286, 288 Belcher Town Road, Paul DeBenedetto, we did this and he's just a stone's throw from here. We had had, because this condition was on that to family permit as well. And so we had that one removed. I don't remember when, but this is a little bit different part of town too. A couple of questions. Since there's no transaction is this, this is obviously this is not urgent, but I guess I had a couple of questions. Number one, how many people live in 204 or 204 and 206, do you know? I don't, I would have to assume it's in accordance with whatever the permit approved. But I can't find that number. So I'm not sure what that is. And then if it's, I mean, if it's, it has 11 cars, I'm just trying to figure out. Yeah. Let's see. I don't think that I saw any limitation. And so, you know, and let's see. An absolute limitation that I just, I default to, you know, no more than four unrelated individuals is where my mind goes. You know, we really did, we wanted a, you know, we typically asked for a management plan and look at the lease before we approve these things. And we don't have either one of those. So all we're looking to do is eliminate the condition that says this expires upon change of ownership and really substitute that with not only your conditions, which, you know, your dark sky compliant lighting, you know, rental registration, those, like getting the nomenclature and then the new policies updated, but it's really substituting expires upon change of ownership for come back at a public meeting with the management plan and lease at the time of that transfer. And I mean, that's really the sloth that we're looking to do is one for the other. So I wouldn't anticipate, you know, cause there's, I would assume an existing management plan. And I mean, there's existing operations on the site. And so then whoever comes back, and then to go back to my last comment, if a condition exists that says, you have to abide by the approved management plan and complete response plan, then that's the hooks of the zoning board at that time with that new owner to say, your management plan needs to say X, Y, and Z. Okay, but right now, the existing condition that is proposed by the staff is it says, you know, it says the approved management plan and complaint response plan, which is referring to the one that is currently in place shall be followed by the property owner. Any changes shall be turned to the board of appeals. So I guess it's hard for us to judge because we don't have the management plan or the complaint response form before us and we don't have the lease before us. And you're saying that the new owner would have to come back and provide that and then we could approve it or not approve it. But if he just says, well, I'm just going to do the same thing that they're doing. We don't know what the current owner is doing. But if I could, so then what would happen is they would, I mean, you would get the management plan that you thought was right. And so if that new owner came in and said, I'm going to do what they're doing and say, well, tell us what works. And then you're going to be able to say, okay, we want the trash in this certain area. We want to make sure that, you know, the snow plowing occurs this frequently. Okay. So let me ask you a question, Maureen. Do we have a management plan for this in the files? I don't see, I didn't see it. Maybe I missed it. I don't believe so. So this was. I don't think so. If you give me a few moments, I can verify. We have a guest? No, we don't. Anyway, I'm just trying to figure out the best way. So it says the property. So one of the conditions of the 2011 special permit condition number six says property and use shall be managed in accordance with the management plan received on August 26th, 2010 and stamped approved on September 2nd, 2010. We have to look for that. So I want to give other board members an opportunity to talk and then we can continue the conversation with them. But there may be questions that board members have for the applicant. Mr. Maxwell. I was going to say where there's not a. Perspective buyer here. I mean, it's right. This sounds kind of similar to kind of what we were doing last time. Yep. If, you know, there's no, there's no pressure, I think to get this done quickly, because no one's trying to buy it. Are we all kind of thinking maybe this one as well between now we've all kind of shared our thoughts about how to handle something like this. We all kind of want to just think from now till the meeting we handle these and of what we all think about our procedure going forward is for this, at least in these cases. Or do we really want to kind of maybe get more into the into this one specifically? I mean, from my perspective, if you want to kick me over to more weeks, I'm here anyways. And if you want to think about more of a higher level of approach, I think it's somewhat apples and oranges. I mean, this one, I'm not going to go through the manager. There's a management plan. Take a look at it. You'll be able to see what it requires. But I think respectfully, you know, the board, the board saying, I don't think we're just working mechanically. Yep. Yep. I've obviously, but we don't have that before us through remoring. We don't have the management plan. We don't have that. So Mr. Ede did submit a management plan. What wasn't submitted was the, part of the management plan is additional information required for, for apartment units. But they're not apartment units though. Yeah. Well, rentals. And a standard lease and a complaint response plan. I mean, if I may, I would add a parking management plan. So I think, I mean, those, we should have those things. If we're going to rely upon that being the governing documents, can we get those in the next two weeks from the applicant to be put on the next? Oh, yes. Yeah. I mean, I think I'm looking forward to our conversation in a couple of weeks as well. I think, but yes. Yeah. But if we're going to base our decision on the management plan, the parking plan, other things, which I think are, it's a reasonable thing to do. One of the things we could, we have to decide whether we want to eliminate the condition. That's what you're asking us to do. Yes. One of the things, it's totally reasonable for us to say to eliminate that condition. We'd want to make sure we know what the management plan is as a board. We want to know what the parking plan is and we want to know what the complaint response plan is. And that's reasonable of the board to want those things. And so we should have that before us and we could do that in the next, we could get that to us before the next two weeks, I'm sure you could. Yeah. And I think why I said what I said is, so that now we know going forward, okay, upon these requests, here's what's going to be required because we submitted the management plan that was part of the initial special permit from 2011. So here we come in just talking procedure and think, okay, we've got everything that you need. And I don't think it's unreasonable to say, okay, we need to see these things. But, and I'm sure going forward, you'll have a standard procedure to send this pollock will know to say, okay, here's what the board looks for when you're looking to have this exploration upon change of ownership removed. So I don't see an issue getting into weeks. No, I don't think there's been an issue. And because the lease would then be able to answer some of the questions we have on the conditions of her overnight guests and all those kinds of things, I would guess. If not, then you'd be prepared. Yeah. And I'm just, yes. And I'm just trying to think about how that, I guess. So then what you would be looking to do at that point in a couple of weeks is to lock in, here is what is happening at the property. And then using that as the baseline for subsequent owners when they come before you with their management plan. And you even might even want to say management plan property, sorry, parking plan lease, like make those all explicit in that public meeting when they come before you. I think that is a good suggestion for a process. But anyway, that's what we should have that. And I would think we'd all feel better about it. No problem. And Mr. Chair, would the board like to do a site visit at this property as well? I will go out there. I think I just think it's good practice that we didn't do it this time. I think that's part of the reason we're having trouble making these decisions is we didn't physically look at it. And it just helps you to do that. And that's, again, that's my fault. I shouldn't have said we don't need to do it. But I think that makes a lot of sense, folks. So I will do that Maureen. I'd like to have a site visit and I would encourage everybody to attend. I'm very pro site visit as well. Yep. All right. So I would like to move that we... Oh, wait. Oh, sorry. If I may. Did you want to see if there's any public comment? I think we had, can we just have the woman from Couchman? Didn't you just speak on it? That was Philip Street. Yeah. That was Philip Street. I'm sorry. It's all merging into one. Okay. Public comment. Exactly. So if there's someone that has a public comment, please raise your hand. The button to raise your hand. Okay. Yeah. No one's indicating. All right. So I would entertain a motion that we move that we keep the public hearing open on this matter and we move it for consideration on October 28th on the agenda for October 28th. Is there a motion? Mr. Maxfield? Don't move. Is there a second? Second. Ms. Parks. Mr. Gilbert, you've got to be faster in order to get that second up. I vote aye. Ms. Parks? Aye. Mr. Maxfield? Aye. Mr. Cochran? Aye. Mr. Gilbert? Aye. Motion is unanimous. Motion carries. We're going to try to make this next one quick because I think it's the exact same situation as the previous one. The next over business is the CBA FY 2022-06, Lane B. Void, Floyd requests a special permit to modify the previously approved special permit FY 2011-03 in order to remove condition 12, which states this permit shall expire upon change of ownership located at 192-194 Beltry Town Road, map 15C partial 64, Neighborhood Residence District, Art and Zoning District. Are there any disclosures? I'm not going to go through all the other submissions because I think there's no reason to do that. We've opened up the public hearing. We can make those submissions for the record when we recon, if we do indeed reconvene. And at this point, I would entertain a motion to continue the public hearing on this matter until October 28th. Moved. Is there a second? Mr. Gilbert to challenge. Okay. All right, we got a second. Is there any discussion? If not, a vote occurs on the motion to continue the hearing until the 28th. Chair votes aye. Ms. Parks? Aye. Mr. Maxfield? Aye. Mr. Gilbert? Aye. Mr. Cochran? Aye. All right. That concludes the items on the agenda. We do have two more things to go through. Thank you all for this. Thank you, Mr. Riedi. We'll see you in two weeks. Thank you. The next order of business is public comment on anything not before the board tonight. So this is a public chance for the public to speak on any item not before the board tonight. Could be the Red Sox, it could be anything. Not even Red Sox can get people to talk. That's amazing. All right, and the last is other business not anticipated 48 hours before the meeting we had done. So I would just say that two things, I would encourage two things. Number one, you get a chance. We've got some decisions to sign up there. There's one, I know there's one. There's probably another one coming to get a chance to go up there and do that. That starts the process for the applicants to, and that we've approved to start their construction or whatever they're gonna do. And the second is again on the site visits, I look forward to seeing you on the site visits and I apologize for that, I think poor decision that I made not to have a site visit on this last one. But we'll go forward with the next one. Oh, if I can, so just to clarify, especially for the new members. I will send out a doodle poll with suggested times and dates for the site visits. Typically they are, I think we've been doing them at five o'clock or in the morning, I can't even remember. I guess this would be a good opportunity to take a straw poll or we could just wait for the doodle poll. I was gonna say if folks wanna indicate if first thing in the morning or at eight o'clock or if five o'clock is better, if people wanna tell me now or you can just indicate in the doodle poll actually. What do people think about that? Five, better? Or eight? Yeah, later in the day, what's better for me? Same. Five, five, five. Later. I mean, I can, yeah, I can tell them five's need be. Five works for me. No early morning risers here. Or are you already at work at eight o'clock? Probably, it's a problem. Early morning business. I can do mornings, but if everybody else can't, I can do five. Five o'clock. Thank you. All right. Okay, folks, is there any other comments, questions in the other business before the board tonight? All right. Thank you all. I was just gonna say just a little bit of kind of an anecdote, but I guess it's considered CBA matters, so I might as well mention it in a public meeting where it's not gonna be any violation of open meeting law, but I know just, you know, where we were dealing with the new marijuana facility and all of that, you remember that discussion that we had a long time ago about, will they be allowed to open at eight? Will they be allowed to open up at nine? And we had a long back and forth with that. I actually stopped by to check it out. They open at 11 a.m. After all of that, that's the time they've been. After all that, that was cardinal. Yep. South Amherst, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that was a big discussion. Yep, man. Well, if they wanna open at nine one day, I guess they can, but there you go. Opening up at 11. All right. Okay, folks. Motion to adjourn. Yes. Do I have a motion? Is there a second? Yeah, yep. I got a couple of seconds. This motion, this motion is not debatable. Chair votes aye. Ms. Parks. Aye. Mr. Maxfield. Aye. Mr. Gilbert. Aye. Mr. Cochran. Aye. Thank you all. Maureen, thank you. Dave, thank you very much. We appreciate your effort and your work. Thanks all the members.