 Continue. Sorry, Shawnee. I just did it the way I would know how to do it. That works. Great. Welcome to the Amherst Planning Board meeting of April 29, 2020, based on Governor Baker's executive order suspending certain provisions of the Open Meeting Law, GL Chapter 30A, Section 20, and signed Thursday, March 12, 2020. This planning board meeting is being held virtually using Zoom platform. My name is Christine Graham Mullen, and as chair of the Amherst Planning Board, I am calling this meeting to order as of 633 p.m. This meeting is being recorded and is available live stream via Amherst media. Minutes are being taken as normal. I will now take roll call. Board members, as you hear your name, unmute yourself and answer affirmatively, and then please place yourself back on mute. Michael Burtwistle. Yes, I'm here. Maria Chow. Jack Jemsik. Here. David Levenstein. Present but remote. Doug Marshall. President. And Janet McGowan. Yeah, present. Board members, if technical difficulties arise, we may need to pause temporarily to rectify the problem and then continue the meeting. If you do have technical issues, please let the IT support representative or PAM No discussion may be suspended while the technical issues are addressed and the minutes will know if a disconnection has occurred. Please use the raise hand function to answer a question or make a comment, you will see your raised hand and call upon you and I will call upon you to speak after speaking remember to remute yourself. Opportunity for the public comment will be provided during the general public comment period and at appropriate times throughout the meeting. Please be aware, the board will not respond to comments during the general public comment period. If you wish to make a comment during a public comment period, you must join the meeting via a zoom teleconferencing link. This link is shown on the slide. Yep, it's there. And can be entered into search engine by typing HTTPS colon backslash backslash zoom dot us backslash s backslash 396819426 or cutting and pasting the link can also be found on the meeting agenda, which is located on the town website in two places. One way is through the calendar listing for this meeting from the home page, the town home page and then find the link with event details and there will be a link there. A second way is to go to the planning board web page and click on the most recent agenda. On the agenda document. There is a link towards the top of the page that states virtual meeting please indicate you wish to make a comment by clicking the raised hand button when the public comment is solicited. If you have joined the zoom meeting using a telephone, please indicate you wish to make a comment by pressing star nine on your telephone. When called on please identify yourself by stating your full name and address and put yourself back into mute after you're finished speaking. Residents are welcome to express their views for up to three minutes and at the discretion of the planning board chair. If these guidelines are not complied with or the speaker exceeds their lot of time their participation will be disconnected from the meeting. Moving onward the slide will now show the meeting agenda. Again note the virtual meeting zoom link as chair I am taking the liberty to move public comment agenda item number two to the end of the meeting. This will give the public additional time to log into zoom and familiar familiarize themselves with the technology. Okay, so now we will move on with the meeting and looking at the agenda. We're going to go to item one minutes. We have two sets of minutes. We have March 4 and we have April 15. We'll start how about we start with the older one March 4. And I need to find my screen so I can see hands hold on here. Okay, so are there any comments or suggestions corrections that any of the board members see for the March 4 minutes. And I see I recognize Michael he has his hand up. I move to approve the minutes of March 4. Okay, I see no other hands raised. Is there a second. Excuse me. Yeah. I think Janet had some comments. I don't know if you saw her hand. I do not see her hand. Her hand is not raised. Physically it is raised but not symbolically. Oh, yeah, I'm sorry. It's two because I don't even see you all on my screen. I'm trying to get us. I'm trying to get back to that bigger screen I have. I see most of us and I don't see where it says raise hand and I'm struggling. If you go to the bottom of the screen it will highlight and you'll see participants right now it says 14. Okay, good. Thank you. Yeah, right. Participants I clicked 14 and then my hand raising and I will raise my hand somehow raise hand. Thanks. I had a completely different screen a good strange green screen. Okay, thank you. So I believe you have a comment about the March 4 minutes. So I have a couple. One is on page two. On the fourth paragraph. Which paragraph? Sorry. On the fourth paragraph it starts attorney Reedy. And so I wanted to change the part of that first sentence that said of parking study data to two days of observation of parking because I thought that was, you know, a parking study is sort of a different thing than just writing down. I was in a lot on two nights. It turned out. Janet, can you repeat what you wanted it to say? Sure. I'll read the whole sentence. It says attorney Reedy. That support the parking waiver request, including a spreadsheet of, and I would write two days of observations of parking in lots. How about a spreadsheet of parking data. For two time periods. Yeah, I'm fine with that. I just think it's not a parking study. So I think, because we're talking about doing a systematic study of parking. And so I thought that was kind of an, I didn't like the characterization of that. And then on the next page, I had made comments about my observations of parking. And that, sorry, Janet, Janet, can you, you're on page three. Yeah. What paragraph. Well, I'm not, well, it's kind of not there is I had made a comment during that discussion about parking that I had observed I had done some parking counts and parking lots on two days. And it's not in there. And so I wanted that to be added to the minutes, although I didn't have their comments that I made. So I didn't act, I have notes of things I saw. I'm not sure exactly what I said. So I talked to, I emailed Christine and she didn't have that down. So I think we have to go back and look or someone of us has to look at it and see what that data was because it did show a fair amount of parking use. Well, we then cannot approve the minutes. So you're proposing we put it on hold until the next meeting and some research be done looking at the video for what you actually said. Yes, yes. I will withdraw my motion then. Okay, and you've got that Chris and Pam. I do. Okay, so So I had another edition of something that Mr. Burt whistle had said Michael had said during the discussion of the discussion of proposed draft zoning bylaw amendment process on page 15. It makes me realize this is a very long meeting. And I remember Michael talking about being concerned that the planning board might wind up holding two meetings, public hearings, like one, when it was looking at a zoning bylaw, decided to hold the public hearing and then sent it to the town council. And then it would come back for a joint hearing public hearing with CRC and the planning board. Okay, why don't I open it up to Michael and he can give some feedback on it because you're, you know, and see what he's comfortable with or if he feels he needs to Or let me put you this way Michael you read the minutes is are there items that you want to include that you stated that are not there right now. You're talking, Janet you're talking about the second paragraph under B. I think, you know, it's actually, it's another kind of comment I remember, and it's not here so it's not really, you know, I can't say, oh, I don't remember exactly when it was said but I remember you talking about this process that we were given might lead to more public hearings for the planning board, and then you raise a sort of different point that is a joint CRC planning board meeting when they're supposed to be two separate ones. And I think that the public participation part isn't impactful like people like usually the planning board holds a public hearing would might take some, take some input, make some changes and then send it to in the old days a select board and town meeting. And if we have a joint hearing, it might sound I'm paraphrasing here like it's already been baked and no one really it's a public hearing for input but it's already been decided. I remember those two points because I thought I thought about that a lot after you said them. Well I recall making them but I don't know where they would be. You know, I could go back and listen to these parts of the hearing, because I read to remember them I just don't I can't say oh it came after, you know, Maria's comment or you know I can't say when it was I just remember hearing it so. Can I can I remind you something about minutes minutes just capture the general of the meeting mostly importantly taking on action items and votes and, you know, in the end things past and, you know, transcripts you know that's why we have the videos if people want the details they can go and watch the whole meeting, you know, I mean this these minutes are already 18 pages long if we turn, you know, and try to capture everything that everybody says it's a transcript. So if we're missing something you said or Michael said I could tell you there's like 50 things that I said that aren't in here but that's not the point of minutes. Well I think that you know when I when I look at minute I mean my experience with minutes and also looking at the meeting law is like so somebody who wasn't there can understand what was said. And so I thought these were important points and I think they're actually important points because in my experience with the CRC is they're not getting what we're saying, and we're not getting what they're saying and so I think, you know, if somebody read this they would think this was a full discussion and I thought those points by Michael were actually very important. So if you want I can do is I can take these minutes, you know, add my changes in red and then we can I could send them out and then we could vote on my the next meeting I would hope that would be the choice. I do any other members have any feelings on this. Should Janet keep more to her comments that she made and where she feels she wasn't fully disclosed, or, you know, captured. You know, I just don't want just to get minutes done to get spinning that we're worried about what everybody said, because like I said then it goes to a transcript. I could look into a Chris we've talked about this before about running this through some of the Google softwares to produce a transcript, which could be posted. I just think minutes, like what you're saying Janet is people should be able to read this and get a feeling of the meeting but not necessarily that they sat through a four hour meeting and I get concerned that minutes would start to become, you know, over 20 pages. It's a good use of our staff time when it's being captured in other ways. I understand that you might feel that they're important parts. So I guess it's the prioritization how important and vital do you feel that these comments have to be in the minutes. You know it. Well, I'm bringing them up because I think they aren't. Yeah, well there's important and there's like, we can't have these minutes finalized because it's vital. I see Chris's hand is up, Michael. Oh, great. Yes. I will call on Chris Bestrup. Thank you. So I think I'm unmuted. I just wanted to say if Janet listens to the video and comes up with exact wording that she would like to include here. You could review it the next time around. I don't really have time to go back and listen to those videos to get the exact wording but Janet could propose some kind of summary of exactly what was said. And then we could include it next time around. Does that work. We can do that. And so she'll submit these and then you'll incorporate them. Can you put them in red or highlight them or something when the document comes back to us so we can go right to it. And I'm going to call on Michael. Oh, no, Michael's got David. Thank you. If a board member thinks that it's substantive and important to revise the minutes, I would encourage them to speak up. I think that it is I take your point, Chris, Dean, that these are not transcripts. These are minutes and so there should be a balanced judgment used. If a board member thinks that that that's substantive and should be edited, but, you know, and weighing a part of that balance is also the staff resources. So I appreciate that. I support Chris's suggestion and appreciate Janet's willingness to go back and propose revisions, keeping again this the balance of all of the resources and our time. But, but if it's there you go if the board members thinks it's important, it should be taken up and the minutes can be revised. That's it. Thank you. Great. Can I also bring up, we are given these minutes ahead of time in our packets. It would be helpful for people to save time to send me their comments if they have issues you review the minutes and send them to Chris and then Chris can reissue the minutes. You know, Chris, what do you're feeling, you know, so that we some of this might be able to be addressed before we actually get to the meetings. Sure. As long as everybody's clear that, you know, these are things that so and so would like to change and then we'll bring them to the meeting and you can decide whether you want to change it or not. Yep. Great. I think then we'll know what to expect and we have a list and we can work off that. So if everyone can just try it then to be a little more proactive if they do have comments and we won't just leave it to right now. I'm looking at the hands if there's any other comments on March 4 if there isn't, I'll give it a couple seconds. We'll move on to April 15. I see Jack has his hand raised. I just want to say, I'm not an attorney but there is a video of our meeting. And can there be some sort of disclaimer at the bottom of the minutes, saying that if you want the, you know, exact sort of proceedings referred to this video. That's all. That's all I had to say. Thank you. That's also a possibility and send somebody in the right direction if they're looking for more. I'm going to move to the April 15 minutes. Again, I'm looking does anyone have comments or additions to these. I don't see any hands so I could also take a motion to approve the minutes. And is there a second. Second. Thank you. So this is the first time we've done this, I guess I have to do a roll call to pass the minutes. So as I call your name. I'll answer and then we meet yourself. So I will go to Michael. Maria. Approve. Jack. Approve. David. Yes, approve. Doug. Janet. Yes. And I also approve them. So we have unanimous Chris. I think we're good with those. So we will move on to. The next agenda item. And I believe we have a slide. We do. I'm, I'm going. Thank you. Oh, we moved public comment. So now let's try this one. So we're going to open the first public hearing. Yes, we are. Okay. So it is now. Okay. I'm going to move Tom. Great. Amherst planning board notice of public hearings. The Amherst planning board is holding a public hearing right now to consider the site plan review and special permit applications. Okay. So SPR. I'm going to open the first one. The site plan review first. The site plan review. First or second, No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. Yes. No. No. No. Zoning District map 15A-24, 15A-97, and 14B-222. All right, Chris, I just want to ask, are there any board disclosures? And I'll watch for hands. Raise your hand if you have a disclosure. I am seeing none. So we are going to move to the applicant who will give their presentation, which I believe is Mr. Tom Reedy. Is he set up? Do we hear, are you there, Tom? I'm here. Can you hear me? I hear you. Welcome. Thanks for having me. I just see your name, but we hear your voice. And if you say next slide or backwards or forwards, Pam will drive those around. Sure. Okay. We only have, just so you know, Tom, we have these three. Slide. We have three slides. Perfect. That's all we need. Okay. Beautiful. Okay. So good evening, everybody. For the record, Tom Reedy, attorney with bacon Wilson here in Amherst, here on behalf of Mr. Paul Schumway, owner of the college street shops. And we're going to move on to the next slide. And we're going to move on to the next slide. Which is the subject of a couple of different matters in front of you this evening. We've got the site plan, the modifications of the site plan approval, which the chairwoman just mentioned. We've also got a couple of special permits, which we'll get to later. And also seeking the endorsement of an approval, not required plan. So this parcel. Or maybe I should say these parcels. So we're going to move on to the next slide. 15 a 24, 15 a 97. And 14 B 222. The shopping center that, that retail center. With Kelly's on, on one end and then a vacant space on the Easterly end is on 14 B 222. According to the assessor's map. And 15 a 24 labeled as three 30 college street. The building of a mixed use. It's a mixed use building. On its own assessors parcel. And then you have. And it looks like a flag lot, which is 15 a 97. And so they're all separate assessors parcels. But. And about, I think it was 1998 Paul sought and was granted. Approval through site plan review. For a mixed use building, which contains about. 5,000 plus square feet. And 12 residential units. That was. Issued by the planning board in 1998. And then there was a wetlands determination. There was a wetlands appeal. There was a sub proceeding order of conditions issued, which was appealed. And at that time, the building was where the detention basin, if you've been out to the site was where the detention basin currently is. And so as a settlement, what happened was the parties agree just to flip flop the detention basin. With the building. So the building ended up where it is today. But. It required a modification to that previous planning board approval. So in 1998, it was originally approved. In 1999. Attorney McConnell went back and got a modification of that site plan approval to put the building where it exists today. But at that time. If you're familiar with the zoning. That's where the zoning line is. Which separates the commercial district, which is towards college street from what's now the BVC business village center zoning district, which is to the rear by Watson farms. At the time in 1999. It appears that. The whole parcel was. Commercial. Because what happened was once that building ended up. Where it is today. The applicant needed relief. Because the building was going to violate the side and rear yard setback at that time in the commercial zoning district. The side and rear yard setback was 25 feet. That building was going to be less than 25 feet. From the site. And so this is kind of all by way of background. And I think it's going to feed into each of the pieces of relief that we're going to be asking for this evening. So the zoning board of appeals. Granted that relief for the rear and the side yard setback to allow the sighting of the building where it is. As part of that site plan review approval. However. It appears that the applicant. At that time considered the entirety of. All three parcels. And so when you look at all three of those parcels. You've got a combined lot area of 115,193 square feet. That affects directly the lot coverage, which we will get into later. And the building coverage because that as a whole. Would form the denominator. With the building coverage. So building on the entire site is 26,808 square feet. Which represents 23.27%. Which is less than. Fortunately, both BBC and commercial. Have the same building and lot coverage requirements. It's 35% building coverage. 70% lot coverage. So overall as a whole site. The building complies 23.27. And the lot. Complies. It's at 68.81%. And it's a 79,268 square feet. Of what lot coverage for the entire site. A couple of different considerations. And this is going to lead into something. That we'll talk about later. So I don't know when you want to open that public hearing for the special permit piece of it. But that's going to impact the overall lot coverage and building coverage when we ask for this division. And so one of the things we're asking for is an endorsement. Of an approval, not required plan. And Pam, if you want to go to the public hearing, you can go to the public hearing. You can go to the public hearing. You can go to the public hearing. You can go to the public hearing. Of an approval, not required plan. And Pam, if you want to go to the next slide, that probably shows it. Better. And if you want to maybe zoom in just a little bit. If you could zoom in. How do I do that? Maybe in view. Next to over from slideshow. And then the zoom. Okay. Is it doing it? Yeah. It's doing it. It's doing it. It's doing it. Make do. With that. And if anybody needs to. See it closer. But if I go into slideshow. Could you make it bigger? Sort of better. We all have paper copies of this, don't we? Yes. Oh, good. That would be great. If you can, if you could look at that. Thank you, Michael. And I do notice some of the members don't have themselves on mute. So, if you look at the, the plan that's up in front of you. You'll see that what we're asking for is a division of that. Essentially it's three assessors parcels, but it's being considered as one. Parcel for permitting purposes. There's never been an 81 X plan or perimeter plan recorded. So really what we're looking to do is clean it all up. Part of that cleanup is to put each of these, you know, the shopping center. And then we're going to do that. And then we're going to do that. And then we're going to do that. Which is going to be called lot one. And the mixed use center. On lot two. And, um, To, in order to do that, we need to modify the site plan approval. So that it now runs with both lot one. Um, and lot two. So that each of them are on their separate lots. One of the things. That you're looking at. So we talked about the overall site and the overall lot coverage and building coverage for the overall site. When you look at just lot one, that also will as an overall site. Um, without regard to the lot line, the zone line rather, which if you're looking at the paper copy in front of you, or if you're looking at your screen, you'll see that in green about it, that rear of 14 B 222. There's a zone line where as I mentioned, college street is a lot more than that. So that's a lot more than that. Um, I think what's controversial to the rear of that is BBC. So without regard to the. Zoning line. Lot one. Complies it's building coverage is 25.8%. And it's lot coverage is 69.5%. Um, And then lot two complies. Where you've got a building coverage of 17.2% and a lot coverage of building coverage within the BVC. And then a lot coverage and building coverage within the commercial. So that's really what is precipitating our request for relief through that special permit where we're asking for, um, alteration or extension of a preexisting nonconformity, which is the lot coverage and building coverage in the commercial zoning district. For the modification of the site plan review, I think as you'll see in your proposed findings, there are no physical changes to the site. We're not proposing any use changes to the site. We're not proposing any pavement, any pavement markings, nothing. It quite literally is just. The lot line that is now dividing lot one and lot two. Um, I'm happy to answer any questions. Yeah. I know that's a lot. I'm happy to answer any questions that you have. On that request or the, the ANR, uh, endorsement. Thank you. Um, So I just want to ask Chris. We have three related, uh, public hearings here and we've opened the site plan review. And we have two others for a special permit. Um, Should we open the other two or. Chris you there or, um, just do one at a time. Chris has a raised hand. She does, but she just has to unmute herself and she can. Yeah. Well, I think it would be a good idea to join these public hearings together. Uh, for purposes of being able to discuss all of them at the same time. And then once you decide to, um, close the public hearings, obviously you don't have to close each one, but we do have, um, suggested findings and conditions. Findings and conditions for one of them and findings for the other two. So you'd have to, um, vote on them separately. But it might make sense to. You just have them all open now that it's after seven o'clock and all open and joined. That's what I was thinking because we passed the seven. So I'll open the other two. And then we will move to the site visit report. Um, I believe Ms. McGowan is going to give that. And then I'll, um, We'll just, uh, stick to questions right now about, well, the. The site plan review. And then, yeah, Chris. So, um, just make sure that you're going to read the. Description of the two special permit application. I am. Yes. Um, okay. So, uh, 645 we had SPP 2020. Dash zero for Paul Schumway, three 14 and three 30 college street. Request special permit to modify, um, by extinguishment, the existing special permit ZBA. Fy 99 dash zero five four relative to the site. And rear yard setback for the mixed use building map 15. A dash 24, uh, BVC zoning district. And at seven o'clock opening the public hearing for SPP 2020 dash zero five Paul Schumway, three 14 and three 30 college street. Request special permit under table three footnote a of the zoning bylaw to modify the site. Setback requirement of the existing shopping center to allow the reconfiguration of the lot into two lots and to alter the pre existing non conformity of lot coverage and building coverage to allow the division of the lots map 15 a dash 24, 15 a dash 97 and 14 B dash 222. Commercial and BVC. Zoning districts. So now we have all three open. Um, I'm going to call on, uh, the site visit in a moment, but I just want to ask Mr. Reedy, do you have anything else you want to add at this point? Not right now. I think, you know, we can get into the footnote a modification, the extinguishment, and then the lot building coverage. Okay. So, um, and since I've opened the other two, I just want to ask the board, are there any disclosures? I don't think I see no hands. So I'll call on, um, Janet McGowan right now to give the site report. Which I believe happened yesterday at four o'clock. Yes. Am I unmuted? Yes, you are. We can hear you. Thank you. Um, so at the site visit, um, we saw that there was one, we, we walked around the entire lot. Um, which has two zoning classifications. So we've walked around the calm part and we walked around the business, um, village center part. Um, in the commercial, is the building that's in front along college avenue. It, it has eight small shops in a building. Um, and one of the shop spaces, um, on the corner is empty. That is a potential place for a marijuana retailer. I think they have an application into the cannabis control commission. The back section is, um, I don't know, the kind of a, the, the, the area zone business village center. And it was noticed, it was noticed that it was kind of like an island of zoning, um, um, kind of just hanging in there. And on that, um, um, BBC is a building that has a few, a few stores in the first four weeks. And then two stories of apartments. And there's 12 apartments up there. Um, And then like across from that to the West was what I would call a sump or now it's called a retention pond. Um, And so that was that. And there's a parking lot. There are parking lots all around the commercial building and parking spaces. And then to the West of the multi-use building, there were two lines of parking spaces. Um, Let's see what else to be seen. Um, there's entrances and exits to the, to the entire lot on the West side and the East side of the property. Um, Let's see what else. Um, Can I ask who was there? Um, Michael Burt whistle was there. Um, Christine Brest, Um, Attorney Reedy and who am I forgetting? Um, Doug Marshall. Thank you. And then we, we kind of walked along where the proposed lot lines were. And we saw that, um, at the back of the commercial building to the East side. Um, The lot line sort of angles off. And it goes, you know, through partly attention pond, which is a little unusual. And the purpose of that lot line was described partly because it, um, The marijuana retailer, if it comes in needs to be 500 feet away from the Fort River school. Um, and that. And then so that was, I think that's the gist of it. I'm trying to think of anything else. If somebody wants to jump in with some more stuff, it'd be great. Uh, Michael, I see your hand. Yes. There was one other thing that we did notice that the parking, the driveway on the East side of the building. Uh, Would ultimately be some kind of shared. Driveway. Um, the, the lot, the, uh, the curb cut on the, uh, on the West side. Would serve only the, uh, building. The curb cut on the East side serves both the commercial building and the apartment building behind it. So there's a complication there of some sort. It's hard to know exactly what that means, but that is a difference. Excellent. Thank you. Um, any one else have anything who is at the site visit? Want to add anything? Um, I see. I, I Chris, you waited. Yeah. I saw a hand wave, but. Oh, I just wanted to mention that Mr. Reedy told us that the, uh, mixed juice building has four two bedroom apartments. And eight one bedroom apartments for a total of 16 bedrooms. So I thought that was a, an important point because we may be talking about parking a little bit later on. Chris, could you repeat that? Um, Mr. Reedy said that there were four two bedroom apartments. And eight one bedroom apartments. Um, for a total of 16 bedrooms. And also 12 apartments. So four plus eight is 12. But there are 16 bedrooms all together. Thank you. Okay. So I'm going to, at this point, open it up to questions from the board. Um, either to Chris or Mr. Reedy. Who you're looking to answer or either I'll watch for their hands. Um, okay. I only see one hand. I see two. I'll call on Janet. And then next will be Michael. Am I unmuted? I hate to skip on asking that. Can you see your button? So if you click on that participants. Yeah. And it lists everyone you connect. And the other places, if you go to the very bottom left hand side of your screen, it says mute and stop video. And those are, you can control and toggle those. Okay. I will get, I will get into this thing. So for Mr. Reedy, could, could you reiterate for us what the nonconformity is? It seems to me from what you've said that. Um, for your entire lot. Your media, the, the property meets the, um, lot and building coverage. So what's the nonconformity. On this parcel. Sure. Okay. Even though the entire lot pre-division and both of the lots post-division would meet the overall building coverage and lot coverage. Combined. That's not how you look at it. Uh, the building commissioner looks at it per. And if you look at the site plan slash special permit plan. Um, that hopefully you have, and if not, um, Pam, maybe you could put it back up. It was that slide that we were just looking at. We've got the calculation. Shown. Right at the top in the middle. And so. Perfect. So you've got the commercial district called out in the BVC district called out. If we go to the BVC district first, because that's going to be compliant before and after, you'll see that the pre-division building coverage is 10.1%, which is under the 35%. And the pre-division lot coverage, which is 36.9%. And that is under the 70% lot coverage requirement. So everything in the BVC complies. If you look at the commercial district, pre-division building coverage already, it exceeds the building coverage maximum. So it's at 35.1% where 35% is required. And then it exceeds the lot coverage. It has 96.8%. When 70% is required. So both the building coverage and the lot coverage in the commercial district are those non-conformities that are pre-existing. We're not looking to have any new non-conformity. And what we're looking to do is just to alter, extend or enlarge those because of the drawing of that lot line. So that post-division, the lot one building coverage within the commercial zoning district will be 40.2%. Again, above the 35. And an increase from the 35.1 that existed prior to this. Redrawing of the lot lines. And then post-division lot one lot coverage will be 99.1%. Which is up from the 96.8% that it existed as pre-division. If you look post-division for a lot two building coverage in the commercial zoning district, it's zero because there are no buildings in that portion. It's like that access strip, if you will. So that's zero. So that's not the post division lot coverage is 81.5%. So that portion of lot two, which is in the commercial zoning district is at 81.5% for a lot coverage. So you can't just look at it as BVC plus commercial. You've got to separate it out per zoning district. And it's when we separate it out by zoning district and specifically within the commercial zoning district. That's where prior, like as of today, prior to this division, the building coverage and the lot coverage both exceed what is otherwise allowed. And so that's what makes them lawfully pre-existing, not conforming. And that's what gives you the ability under 9.22 to alter, extend or enlarge those provided that the change. So it's, I think it's 2.3% for the lot coverage and 5.1% for the building coverage that those are not substantially more detrimental to the neighborhood than the existing building and lot coverage in the commercial zoning district. Not conforming to the requirements. So, so as a follow up a question, I actually follow what you're saying, I believe. And would it be, would your job be easier if the building inspectors interpretation was just, Hey, this is one lot. You know, the building coverage is fine under both, you know, either or zoning district and you're dividing it into two lots with, and they're complying. Is that, would that be easier for you? Cause I wonder if this is a question for KP law about how we should be looking at this. Should we divide one existing lot into like mentally separate lots just because of zoning changes and then give them different. Coverage is one. As the entire, the entire parcel now meets both zoning classifications. I'm just kind of lost on. How we got from what I think is just logical to this more kind of detailed and difficult. Look. Chris Christine Brestrup. Do you have a. I call on Chris and then I see Tom has his hand up. Yeah. Yeah. And Michael as well. Yes. Michael's next. I'm just trying to finish this Janet's questions. Okay. Michael. And so Chris. Yeah. So we have always looked at lot coverage and building coverage and any dimensional requirements based on the zoning district in which whatever it is, is located. So it's been a common. It's been a common. It's been a common. And by the current building commissioner that you have to look at the area that's in the zone. Determine whether it meets the requirements or not. And you can't. Just look at them overall. If there is a division and. Two or more zoning districts appear within one lot. We, we face this, you know, numerous times. We have to look at, you know, the area that's in the zoning district. We have to look at the area that's in the Brook subdivision, which is in two separate zoning districts. I think it's in. R O and R L D. And we had to jump through a lot of hoops to make sure that. The eight lots in that subdivision met the requirements for the zone in which they are. Currently located in. Thank you, Chris. Tom, do you have something to add? He is. Your hands. No, I think Chris. Yeah. Yeah. Thanks, Janet. If your question is. Would it prevent us from dividing these lots? I would say no, because if. You either way, there's an avenue for us to do this, whether it's through this. Preexisting nonconforming. Or. If there was an interpretation that you looked at it holistically, we could then divide it into a lot. The zoning requirements as a whole. So in either scenario, we would be. Still requesting this. Division. Thank you. Okay. I'm going to thank you. Move on to Michael. I recognize. Thank you. I want to ask a couple of linked questions. The first is. If, if this division that you're proposing is approved. Will there be any kind of physical barrier between lot one and lot two. Tom. No, there will not. Okay. Now. In case the lots were. I think. Felt into separate ownership at some point, which is at least part of what you were suggesting. Was the reason. For doing this division. If that were to be the case, if lot one was owned by someone and lot two was owned by someone else. The, the access to the. Lot one from the East side would be severely compromised. And the West side of course would have its own entrance. Which is not a problem. But it seems to me that those parking spaces would become. Unusable. Unless you were going to have some sort of. Easement from the owner of lot two to use their lot two's driveway to get into lot one's parking. Areas on the East side of the building. Am I correct in that so far? Yes. You are correct. Now the second part of that is. How many parking spaces. Are required for the existing commercial building. Or is the losing of it looks like 12. Park parking spaces on the East on the East side. Is that significant in terms of the number of parking spaces required. For the. For the retail building. Tom. Thank you, Madam chair. I don't know if I, I don't know how many parking spaces are required for that commercial building. What I, I think. You know, instead of saying you're going to lose those number of parking spaces, on the Easterly side of the commercial building. I think, and like I've seen in the findings and like we talked about at the site visit. A condition. And I think practically this would happen anyways. Of an easement. From. Lot two as the. Survey into state to lot one as the. The benefited estate. Allowing. The passage and repassage by. Persons on foot and otherwise. So that those parking spaces would remain. And that there shall. And I think that's enough. You don't even have to put. There shall not be any physical impediments. Or infrastructure between the two parcels, because. If you were to put something up there, you would frustrate the intent or purpose of the easement, which would be a good idea. I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. If you were to put something up there, you would frustrate the intent or purpose of the easement, which would be illegal. So I think it's, it's a. Simple fix. And the planning board could impose it as a condition of this approval. Where they would require an easement to be recorded and evidence of such. To be provided to the planning department after it's recorded, should these fall into separate ownership? I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. Often. When we're dealing with this type of thing, I've dealt with it. I just dealt with it in Aguam for a Cumberland farms who owns. An adjacent parcel that they're looking to put a car wash on. And one of the conditions of the planning board was if the lots. Are separated. In ownership. Then we will have to provide an easement showing access to. That other site. Cause it was even. I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea to set up. And I think that's, I think that's a good idea. Is that this. Which we're going to be able to do. So I would suggest that an easement would be the answer here. I would, I would agree that an easement as part of the condition. Would be an appropriate solution to what might be a problem, but probably wouldn't be, but conceivably could be. I think it's a good idea. Okay. Any other questions from any other board members? I do see Janet's up there, but this would be her second round. So I just want to make sure everybody else is covered. I don't see any. So I recognize Janet. Here we go. So I want just to ask that question again about how many spaces are required by the commercial building. And I have like three, a few related questions. One is, I think that there's 28 spaces that are for the mixed use building. And I'm wondering, and I know they already have a parking waiver for the whole site. And so I'm wondering is, what does the commercial building require if it was a separate lot? And then will you need to come back for two parking waivers? Because now you have to sort of get a new waiver. And then the observation is from driving by that spot a lot and actually using that, going to those stores a lot, is all those parking spaces along the east side, right close to Spirit House, not alongside the commercial building, are very frequently used by people who use those commercial buildings. And so I'm concerned that if we split those lots in two, there's like 22 spaces along that right-hand side, kind of adjacent to the Spirit House parking lot. And I'm afraid that that parking will be lost or could be in the future lost to customers of the commercial building and actually hurt the businesses there. So my question is, how many spaces would the commercial building require? And I know there's parking around and in the back. And then will they be, do you need to come back for two parking waivers or could we do a parking easement to allow people using that building access, the commercial space access to those spaces? It's kind of a bundle. Tom? Sure, so thanks. As far as, I don't know how many would be required in that commercial shopping center, just with that singular building. I know that the decision from 1999 suggested that the entire site would need 156 spaces and the planning board granted a waiver for there to be 104 spaces, which is what should be out there today. I think that that is pretty good evidence. I've not seen parking overflow there. I think that there's sufficient parking. It was underutilized at the time. And I think it's probably evidence of those waivers. You know, that waiver under article section 7.9 working. If the board, so I think it's sufficient. I don't think we have to come back for additional parking waivers. If somebody in the future wants to have a different use in one of the spaces or proposes physical changes, then as part of that approval process, whether it's with the zoning board of appeals or the planning board, they're gonna discuss parking. I mean, it's just, that's what happens in every town but especially this town. And so I think it's gonna be at that time that if they needed some to justify their parking or to show that there's sufficient parking on site, they would have to do it at that time. But again, you know, besides this lot line reconfiguration still being in the same ownership, we think that there's sufficient parking. Thank you. I recognize David. I think that, thank you. I think that the criterion here is that the requested change is not substantially more detrimental to the neighborhood than the existing non-conformity. Or, and I think that that would apply to the question about parking in the future. There's no proposed changes to the commercial site except for the lot lines and the extinguishment of the whole line. But how would you say it? The extinguishment of the, or the, how do you say it? The new non-conformity with the lot and building coverages, I think. But I don't see it, I've never seen this, there'd be a problem with parking there now and there's no really substantial change to the proposed use or to the neighborhood other than the technical lot boundaries. So I don't see that the parking issue is for this application. That's significant. That's it. Thank you. Michael? Yes. I agree with Jack or with, sorry with David that it's not an impediment to any kind of approval, but I'm curious to know Tom, you mentioned a hundred and some parking spaces that were required or were allowed by a waiver. Is that right? Yes. Yes, a hundred and four. Four. Was, what was allowed. Do you know whether included in that a hundred and four are spaces in the back which are currently not lined there's plenty of space to park back there but there are no parking lines and also that gravel space on the west side of the building. Are those included in the 206 spaces? Because it looks to me like there are 23 or four spaces in the front and something like 15 or 16 on the side. So I don't see how. Yeah, the gravel is certainly not included in that. I think the parking along that on the northerly side of the zoning line I think was included in that, but not that not the gravel on the westerly side. Okay. Thank you. I recognize Jack. Yes. Whoops. Okay, I'm on mute. All right. We hear you. I'm wondering. I was wondering if we could just like move to approve this special permit. The SPR, are you proposing to make a motion? I am. Okay. So we will handle these individually. So your motion would have to close the public hearing for 2020-06 SPR. Correct. That you'd want to approve the request to modify the previous SPR. Correct. You can read it. And with that really great motion, does anyone want to second that? I see a bunch of hands. Maria. Sorry. Is this the one that we need to say there's a condition where, I think someone in the planning staff already drafted up that was sent today that if either parcel is sold and easement would be provided over the 40 foot wide access trip to the benefit of owner of lot one. Is that part of what we're doing right now? Good question. I thought it was under the SPP. Chris, are you there? It's SPR 2020-06. Yeah. Chris. So I assume that condition will go under one of the special permits. I thought that condition should go under the site plan review because the site plan review is reviewing the division of the lots. And when the lots are divided, then the property line goes past the commercial building and cuts it off from the driveway. So there needs to be an easement over the lot that holds the little mixed use building in order to allow the commercial building to have access. So I thought that was an important part of the site plan review. And I don't think it really relates to either of the special permits, but maybe I'm wrong about that. No, that's great. Thank you, Pam. I think that's slide you put up. I didn't have any piece of paper. Hold on. So that was helpful. I only have the two that have SPP. I think it was this one. No, that's the SPP. Sorry, sorry. Pam showed the right one a minute ago. So, Jack, would you agree that that should be added onto your motion? Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Sorry for that oversight. Okay. So we have a motion on the table. I'll open it up to questions or if other things need to be included. I just remembered something, Chris, that I probably should take, let me just ask, let me check attendees, because I can only see one, unless, Pam, we have phone. Is there any public comment out there on just this SPR? I don't see any hands. Pam, any phone calls or? I have no, well, no, I didn't get any phone calls. They're not, okay. They would pop up into the attendees. So let's see. Yeah, there's no, there's only one, and I don't see a hand up. So I just, good, I think we're clear on that. So I'll go through, I see some hands. I'm gonna call on Doug Marshall. Okay. I guess I have a couple of comments about the way the easement condition is worded on SPR 2020-06, the draft that was circulated. And, whoops. Well done. That's all right, Pam's pulling it up. All right, it was there. So first of all, it just says an easement will be provided. And there are different types of easements, and I assume that what you meant was an easement for vehicular and pedestrian access to those parking spaces that are along the east side of the building. So I thought that could be a little bit clearer. And then the conversation about the parking spaces on the east side of that parcel that are up against the spirit house, since those are essentially a resource or for the benefit of what would become lot one. I wondered whether the applicant would be willing to provide an easement for the use of those parking spaces to lot one activity as a part of a condition. And I'll stop there. Tom. Sure. So I guess, thanks Mr. Marshall, two points. One, I think, yes, vehicular and pedestrian access to those parking spaces, but I think also to allow circulation around that shopping center building. So I just wanna be careful about the planning board drafting something that private parties are going to end up drafting. So as long as it's general enough to get the sense of what you're looking to allow, I'm fine with the condition, which leads me to the next point that I don't think that, I don't think we'd accept the condition or we would respectfully request that you don't impose a condition relative to designating any of those parking spaces for the use of lot one. I think that might, I would suggest to allow the free market to decide how those parking spaces are going to be used, especially with, who knows if the residential tenants end up parking along that area in its entirety because the commercial uses at the first floor of the mixed use building are such where they need to have parking for people right out in front. So it might be a business decision by the landowner at that time where he wants to use the parking spaces that way. If there's a parking issue, I'm always of the mind that the free market will decide. And if the parking is not working, people are gonna get together and figure out how to make it work. So those would be my responses to those two points. Tom, did I hear you say earlier to the condition of the easement, something about recorded and provided to the planning department if properties, if they go into separate ownership. So that's the calling for the easement if the properties become owned by two different people. Correct. Because I think when one person or one owner, they probably let the parking share for the most part. Yeah, and they can't, as a legal matter, they can't grant the easement to themselves. Right. Okay. So Chris, I think your hand is up. Yep. So I wonder if Pam would show the conditions and findings for 2020-06. Oh, 2020-06. Yeah, this review. That's the one we're talking about. Yeah. Isn't that what I had up there earlier? I think you did. Yes. Put it up there, yeah. 2020-06. This, not what's showing now. Okay, so what's- Got a whole floor now. No, I'm seeing 06. Okay, let me see. I see 2020-04. That's what's up. This is 05. Not seeing that either. No, you're not, okay. It's not reading that part of your screen. I think you're going to slides. I don't have that in the slides, Christine. So hang on. Oh, so yeah, go out and then go back in and it should give you that white window with lots of options. Can you see it now? 06, you got it. Yeah. I'm sure on that whiteboard, they all look the same and blurry, so yeah. Somehow I didn't have it up there for you guys because I was looking at it. I've been looking at it for as long as Doug was talking, so I'm sorry, thank you for saying something. Okay, great. Chris, yes. Well, I wanted to ask the board about the conditions that we have here. One of the conditions is that the conditions of the previous site plan review would be carried over for both of the new lots, although I didn't really make that explicit. And the second one was that an easement be granted and I wondered if Mr. Reedy would offer us some language for that condition so that it's broad enough so that it could encompass the things that Mr. Marshall talked about and the concerns that other people have raised. Tom? Sure. So I would think that it's upon separation of ownership between lot one and lot two, or of lot one and lot two, lot two shall grant to lot one sufficient, an easement sufficient for access and circulation to lot one to allow continued use of the parking spaces on the easterly side of lot one for both pedestrians and vehicles. And to ensure, yeah, I mean, I could just send it to you, Pam, if somebody wants to make the motion and we can make sure that it works. I mean, it'll be pedestrian vehicular access and circulation to ensure efficient operation of the site, something like that. We get what you're saying. Sure. But you're gonna put that in writing, Tom, and send it to us? Yeah, I can get that to you tomorrow morning. You're great, thank you. Sure. Okay, so the second condition will be per the final write-up agreed upon between Mr. Redi and Ms. Vestor. Okay. And I just wanted to go back to whether you agree that the conditions of the previous site plan review should apply to both properties and also to ask Mr. Jempsick, who made the motion to approve if he agrees that all the relevant sections of worst criteria in section 11.24 are met by this granting of this modification of the site plan review. Jack? Sounds good. Sounds good by me. Okay. So that covers that sheet and we have a motion on the table and I do see, Tom, do you have something to add? No. Yeah, I just, when we're talking about modifying SPR 9904 and having it run with the land, when you look at some of the conditions of that original site plan review, some of them are just not gonna be applicable to that new land one. So I don't know if you wanna restrict it to lot two or just say as applicable, however the board wants to do it. I just, I'm just thinking of 10 years down the road when who knows who from this board is gonna still be on it or if I'm still doing this and saying, what was this really about? So just the more clarity the better. Chris, do you have a comment on that? Cause you were the one saying tying it to both. Yeah, I would be happy with saying as applicable or it really applies to, I guess it applies to lot two, isn't that correct? It applies to lot with the mixed juice building on it, right? Yeah. Yeah, and there's one like condition seven which talks about a traffic island with two 40 foot entrances shall be constructed along College Street. So that wouldn't be relevant to it. No. So as applicable, sounds fine. I think that's fine. I'll read it that way, okay? Okay, so we've got through that for additional questions on the motion that's on the table. I recognize Janet and I see no other hands. Janet, you have a question? Maybe not. I haven't had a chance to read the conditions that came sort of late and I'm not sure what they are now and I'm not even sure what the motion is at this point and I know we have three different actions to take. And so here's my plea for talking out some ideas and then continuing to the two weeks. So we actually, I don't really, I'd be so uncomfortable voting right now cause I'm very unsure what we're voting for. I actually wanna speak in support of Doug Marshall's idea of having an easement and access to those parking spaces that would be part of lot two along the east side of Spirit House. You know, we don't know how much parking is, would lot one would need, lot one would need for its commercial building. I know those spaces are used by customers to the commercial building. And I went to the marijuana, the hearing at the hearing, a public meeting on the facility that is trying to open in that building and they were expecting their peak traffic to be around rush hour, which is also the peak time for use of mom's house and also the neighborhood market. And so I think that there is a detriment to the neighborhood as well as those businesses, if members of the public in the neighborhood didn't have access to them. And so I support adding that to the easement and just have people work it out. Maybe there's 22 spaces along there. I guess, you know, I counted them today. And I think eight, Mr. Reedy had said, we're needed by the people in the mixed use building. So maybe, you know, 22 minus eight could be in that easement to make sure that those building, those businesses are viable and their customers can use the building. I think that's very important. If people don't support that, I would like to know before I vote how many spaces would be required under our bylaw for that commercial building? Cause there's eight businesses or seven businesses there and I wouldn't want to hamper their ability to operate and their customers to use it in the neighborhood also. So that's my, I just, but getting back to my first point, I don't really know what the motion is or what the conditions are under each permit. I'm kind of lost. And I would like maybe to see that written in time. Okay, maybe I can clarify a little bit for you, Janet. The motion is, if you look at the public hearings, we closed the public hearing for this site plan review and we would approve the request to modify the SPR. And if you just read it there, we're just approving what the hearing is about. And then there's two conditions and can you see them on your screen? Yes, but I'm not seeing what Mr. Reedy is gonna add in the, like, Well, just, and also to remind you, you know, right now the two parcels have the same owner. The easement only gets triggered if one of those lots is sold and they're different owners because right now it's the same owner. So there, it's all the same ownership on parking. Just, I just want to make sure you were saying you weren't sure where we were at. So Mr. Reedy can give his little, maybe he's been scribbling something down. I know Chris did too, about that number two. And we just made the smallest reference on item condition one about how it's locked to, but what was the word in Chris for that if it's we ended up with? I have something like under upon separation of the ownership between lot one and two, lot two shall grant to lot one and easement, sufficient for access and circulation to lot one to allow continued use of parking spaces and pedestrian vehicular access and circulation to ensure that the efficient operation of the site. So the way I interpreted to allow continued use of parking spaces was the continued use of the parking spaces that's in the strip, the 40 foot wide strip that leads back to the mixed use building that those could continue to be used by lot one. Tom, does that sound right? I don't know if I would go. Well, first of all, Ms. Breastrup did a fantastic job of understanding what I was trying to say. So who does, but I don't know that I would read it or would suggest it as broadly as allowing or requiring an easement to those spaces along the spirit house side. Again, I think that's something to be dealt with by private parties at the time and based upon whatever uses are in the shopping center and in that mixed use building in the back. I just, I don't, I think it's dangerous for the planning board to try to regulate that this time, especially when there's no separation of ownership. And there's no known plan for that in the near future. Correct, correct. So it could be a couple of years, it could be 10 years and parking could be completely different then. What's the downside of doing that kind of easement for the future? Just doing many commercial transactions. You let the parties figure out the business terms and I think by requiring something like that, it adds another layer of potential uncertainty, especially if then you have to go back to the planning board and get something approved or have a conversation with the planning board about getting something approved. And so it can chill sales or it can chill folks who are looking at getting through the process quickly. And so it's just, I think it's best left for folks who are actually going to be there on the ground actually using the site, whether it's an investment or otherwise. And if, you know, I think all of the tenants have redress if let's go down the road and say the parcels are separated and there is insufficient parking on lot one for the uses. One of a couple of things is gonna happen and it's probably gonna be those tenants talking to the landlord and saying, you know, what the heck? How come I don't have enough parking spaces? I'm gonna need parking spaces and then the landlord's gonna go to the owner of lot two and say, I need some and then the owner of lot two is gonna say, okay, but you're gonna have to pay X, Y and Z. And so I think letting that happen organically is important. Instead of the planning board saying, we're gonna tell you how to operate. Okay. Thank you. I'm gonna recognize Doug. Thank you. Having heard the alteration of condition two that Chris read to us, I was completely on board with what she read except that I interpreted Tom's original intent to that easement and the benefit of access was for the use of the spaces that are on the east side of lot one, not the spaces that are on the east side of lot two. I agree. I guess I would also say that I will defer to Mr. Reedy in terms of the possible detrimental effect on the businesses in lot one, if the parcels are separated and they no longer have access to the parking on the east side of lot one, of lot two rather. So Chris, I can't see you on my screen right now. Have you adjusted that writing? I'm trying to read faces. Hold on, I can't, there you are. There she is. I'm not muted, no. So I have not adjusted it, but let me see if I can. Upon separation of ownership between lots one and two, lot two shall grant to lot one and easement, sufficient for access and circulation, to lot one to allow continued use of parking spaces on the east side of lot one, right? And pedestrian and vehicular access and circulation to ensure the efficient operation of the site. So I think this needs to be, I need to draft it and I need to send it to Mr. Reedy and find out if that's what he meant and then send it to board members and find out if that's how you understood it. Unless somebody wants to take another crack at it like Mr. Reedy and just say it all over again. Tom, I thought that was perfect. I think with that little clarification about with reference to those parking spaces on the easterly side of lot one, I think that accomplishes exactly what we're talking about. I agree. I don't see any hands right now. Janet? I would support this whole process if I knew that there was sufficient commercial parking for the commercial building and that that was guaranteed in the future. And so I still feel very uncomfortable not knowing how many, I know there's parking in the back available. I just don't know how many spaces are left and if it's 20% less than it's required by our bylaw. I would love to ask people who own those businesses how important they think those spaces are along the east side of Spirit House and get their impact because they're part of the neighborhood. And so the only detrimental I can see to the neighborhood is the loss of those spaces by the commercial building. But in that I'm completely on board. I know people buy and sell property all the time with odd easements. It would probably, it could reduce the value of lot two, but I also think it's gonna prevent problems in the future. And instead of, I could see those problems easily. And that's just my point. So those are my thoughts. And I would love to wait for two weeks just to see the language we're voting on and have some time to reflect on it. Okay. Jack? Hello. So based on the comments there, I don't agree with Janet's last set of comments there, but I do agree with what Christine, excuse me, Christine mentioned as well. And then Tom Reedy, I think I acknowledge that. So again, with those amendments, I would move to vote on this. Okay. Thank you, Jack. Chris, your hand is up. Do you have anything to say, Chris? Oh, I forget what I had to say. All right. Raise your hand again if you need to. David, hands are flicking around. David? Hi, thank you. May I make a suggestion that I don't know the rules of order so at all, but that the motion, I would, in deference to Janet and to the confusing, not so confusing, but just the abstractness of the discussion. And I would propose that we, that a motion to approve the site plan review and that we will consider revised conditions reflecting that approval at our next planning board meeting. I think that that meets the concern that Janet's raising about the language, but the parties know that where the applicant knows that we're moving forward favorably for that. I would be, that's my suggestion if that flies. So are you saying, David, you're uncomfortable with voting right now, even if we read the motion again for the two conditions? No, I'm comfortable voting for them, but I'm trying to meet Janet's concern. And I think that we, I think about voting to approve the motion. I'm just not sure what we're waiting on because we have the wording, we just don't have it written on a slide. Why don't I hear what Michael and Jack, what I hear you, thank you, David. Michael? Yes, I'm comfortable with voting now. I think Janet's point is well taken, but on the other hand, there's not gonna be any change in the number of parking spaces, no matter what we do. It's gonna still be what it is now. And what we're basically approving is a redrawing of the lines and there's gonna be no physical change to what's going on in the buildings. If in the future there is a change if one building is sold and the other one is not, or both buildings fallen into different hands, then the parties have to negotiate what's going on with the parking. It seems to me it's pretty simple. And I think the original condition number two that Chris drafted this afternoon is fine. I think the one that we're now working on is also fine, but I think we're making more out of this than is there. So I think we should vote on this and move it on. Thank you, Michael. I recognize Jack. Yes, I just wanted to apologize. I felt like I called Janet out there and that was like, I would never do that if we were actually in our regular planning board setting. So I just, I am sorry for that, but I agree with Mike. I hope we can vote on this. Thanks. Thank you, Jack. I see no more hands right now. I will just put it out there. Are there any other members right now who are uncomfortable with taking a vote right now on this SPR? I'm watching for hands. I see David's hand up. No, second motion to vote for approval. Okay. All right. So we have the motion. I will do a roll call for maybe I can do this off of my head. I'll start with Michael. I approve. And Maria. Approve. And Jack. Approve. And Doug. Approve. And David. Approve. And Janet. Could you read the motion? Can you read it again for me? Sure. Read the condition for me. I can't, it's not, can you read the condition? Sure. Chris or Tom, or Chris I think has. Chris. There was just a small add-on on the first one. Mute. Okay. And there you are. If you could just read the two conditions for Janet. The first condition, let me see here, that the conditions of the site plan review decision for SPR 9904 shall remain in effect for lot two. Okay. Thank you. And that upon separation of ownership between lot one and lot two, lot two shall grant to lot one an easement sufficient for access and circulation to lot one to allow continued use of parking spaces on the east side of lot one and pedestrian and vehicular access and circulation to ensure sufficient, excuse me, efficient operation of the site. Okay. I'm just gonna abstain. Thank you. Okay. And for my vote, I approve. So we will move on to the two special permits. I'm going to open it back up to Mr. Reedy. I assume you want to dive deeper on those two. Do I want to? Of course you do. Do you want a certain slide up? Yeah. Maybe Pam, if you could, the second to the last one. So the one that is the site plan slash special permit slide, please. It's the colored one. Correct. Can you see it? Not yet. We see you. Can you see it now? Beautiful. Beautiful, yeah. Great, thanks. Is it big enough? Yes. It's big enough. Okay. So maybe we'll take the low hanging fruit first. So if you look at the Easterly site of lot two, so that mixed use building, as you'll recall from the beginning, I talked about how the applicant needed a special permit because it violated the side and rear yard setbacks as it was located in the commercial zone. It is now located in the BBC Zoning District. BBC requires 10 foot side and rear yard setback and this building complies with both. So technically what we need to do is, and what we've done is requested a special permit to modify the special permit by extinguishing the special permit. And so the building as far as side and rear yard setbacks in the BBC is compliant. So hopefully that one's a pretty simple one. And then the other special permit is both for a footnote A modification. So if you look at the plan, you'll see that coming off of College Street, the lot line division moves northerly in a straight line and then jogs to the northwest at an angle and then continues in a more severe northwesterly angle. The distance from the corner of the existing shopping center to that property line is 24.7 feet where 25 feet is required. And so in the commercial zoning district and the dimensional table under footnote A, you are allowed to under a special permit grant this modification to the side yard setback. And so our suggestion is that it's A, the minimus, but also you've got the Spirit House which violates the, is already less than the side yard setback. I think Spirit House is about 15 feet. City Tire, which is on the other side of Shumway Street is 20 feet. And then the subway building adjacent to the Dunkin Donuts so at the corner of Shumway and College Street is about a little less than 25 feet. So those are all examples in the neighborhood of building existing buildings that do not comply with the side yard setback. So we would request a special permit approval for that request. And then we talked about the alteration extension or enlargement of the preexisting nonconformity. And that's when we went through that commercial district, pre-division, post-division and the increase and as Doug put it yesterday it's because the denominator is changing. And when you're starting with the entirety of the commercial district on this site and then going to a commercial district that is smaller than really it's that access way it just mathematically increases the percentage because the denominator is decreasing the numerator essentially staying the same. So we end up with just a higher percentage based on math and the way the lot lines are drawn. So our suggestion is because there's no physical changes we're not adding pavement we're not adding building we're not doing anything like that that it's not substantially more detrimental to the neighborhood than the existing nonconformity and they're both de minimis. There was math in that. Tom, you said 25 required. Can you repeat the first number? What, what this ends up? 24.7 20, that's a really close. Okay, thank you. Yeah, very close, very close. I'm going to open up to questions. I do see Chris Bestrup's hand up. I want to see if she has a it's all right. Just turn your hand off. Great. So I see David has his hand up. That was a mistake too. Sorry. Okay. So at this time, do any members have questions to Mr. Radio and Miss Bestrup? And I see none. I'll take this moment to just check to see if we have any public comments. I don't see any attendees with their hand up. Ham, are there any phone call questions? Not that I am seeing. No. Okay, great. So back to board members. I see Michael has his hand up now. I'd like to move to close the public hearing for SPP 2020-04 and SPP 2020-05 and approve both of those special permit requests. Okay. Chris, should we pull up? We had findings. Thank you. Is there a second to that for anyone? Sorry, I had seconded it. Oh, great. Thank you, Maria. And I should have said with the conditions as drawn up by the planning department. Okay. Pam, if you can pop up, so that's on the table right now. We can pop up four and then five and just give them a peek. Oh, I don't know how to share two at once. No, just, you can go with 04 first. Oh, this one's on five, I think. Oh, that's on five, sorry. That's okay. Then why like slides? I shouldn't have said with the conditions. I should have said with the findings. Finding, yep. Sorry. No, that's good. We're good. SPP 04, this right here. Can you see it? Not yet. We see you. Okay. Are you sharing your screen? I'm trying to. Can I make a comment? I have so many documents open that it's not showing them all. We'll look at this in paper, don't we, in front of us? We do. We have them. Well, you're fighting with that, Pam. And I can recognize Doug, if you want to say something. I was going to say, if you have your papers, you can read through them. And if there's a bullet item that you have a question or want to bring up, just click your hand. Michael, you do have your hand up right now. Sorry. No, no problem. All right, Janet just said I've, oh geez. Janet's having a technical issue. So hold on here. I've lost everything but a picture of you. I can hear also. That's what she says. I don't know what that quite means. Janet, if you're in doubt, you could leave the meeting and then come back in. She's probably on speaker view now. Yeah, I can see her. I'm gonna, I don't know what control I have right now. Okay. Janet, can you unmute yourself? Can you go down to the lower left hand corner? Can you toggle that on and off? Yes, I just, I just really clicked on an arrow and everybody came back. Okay. Okay, great. All you left, but you're back. I'm glad, good. Okay, so I don't see any hands up. Chris, you have your hand up. Does anyone have any particular issues with the draft findings for either 0405 special permits? I see none. Chris, do you have something to say? I just thought I could read through them. Sure. Essentially. Yeah, Pam, of course, as soon as you say that, she's gonna, oh, she's got the six again. All right. You know what, Pam? Why don't you try to bring up 05 and Chris, if you want to read the 04? Yeah, I will read 04. Oh, yeah. There's a 04. All right, Chris, cancel that. Pam's got that. All right, take a breathe. Take a deep breath. You did good. Just so everybody's heard them and everybody knows. Is that okay? Sure, go for it. So these are taken from the 462 Main Street when we extinguished a special permit on that property. So they're essentially the same conditions just rewarded to the current case. So the board found under section 10.33 of the Zoning By-law Modification Amendment or Renewal that the extinguishing of the previous and current special permit ZBA 9954 is consistent with the purposes and intent of this by-law and a public hearing has been held. Now my internet connection is unstable that the special permit had been granted when the property was in the commercial district, commercial zoning district that the special permit was required for modification of side and rear yard setbacks when the property was zoned commercial, that the zoning of this property has been changed to BVC Business Village Center, that therefore a special permit is no longer needed for the side and rear yard setback that exists on the site. Thank you, Chris. I see Doug's hand is raised. I cannot hear you Doug, snap, mute, oh yeah. I was gonna make a comment about the SPP-2020-05 Oh, okay. Maybe we're not there yet. We're not, I'll call on you, keep your hand up and I'll call on you after we read through the O5. So I don't see any other hands up so I think we're okay with those. Pam? Yes. Wanna switch out? And Chris, you can start reading them if you want. Okay, so there were two special permits requested here, one for a modification under footnote A and that had to do with a side yard setback for the large commercial building. That's O6. Yep. The board found under footnote A, table three of the zoning by-law that the modification of the side yard setback is consistent with the purposes and intent of this by-law and a public hearing has been held, that the side yard setback modification being requested, 24.7 feet versus 25 feet is minimal, that there are existing buildings in the surrounding neighborhood that exhibit the same or less setback in the commercial district in which this building is located. And I would strike Cernar oil and add on city tire in its place. And then the second part of that is the board found under section 10.395 of the zoning by-law that the proposal does not create disharmony with respect to the terrain and to the youth scale and architecture of existing buildings in the vicinity which have functional or visual relationship there too. Thank you, Chris. Yeah. I revised this and sent it to you like five minutes before the meeting started to acknowledge the special permit under section 9.22 that the alteration of the lot line and its impact on the lot and building coverage is not substantially more detrimental to the neighborhood than the existing non-conformity. Since there are no proposed changes to the buildings or paving up the property but only a change in the lot line, there will not be a perceived difference in the lot or any impact on the neighborhood. Great, thank you, Chris. And thank you, Pam, for getting that up there. Doug, I recognize you. Okay, my comment was simply that I would hope there would be a more permanent way for us to reference the three properties that contain Spirit House, Cernar Oil, and Subway. Those occupants could turn over pretty quickly and... Good point. Nobody's gonna know where that is in five years. Excellent point. Let's reference parcels or addresses or something more permanent. That's all. Yep. If you don't mind, Chris, putting both. It's nice to have the visual, but absolutely, its proper name is vital. Thank you. Any other questions on the findings for 04 or 05? And I see no hands. So we do have a motion on the table. Janet? Janet, you're muted, I believe. Yes, you are. I have a question for Christine Brestrup about footnote A, does it apply to the comm in terms of the side yard and setback? Cause I didn't see that it was. And I was, I think this is a very de minimis change, but I just didn't understand. It looked like footnote A didn't apply. So I just wondered about that. Chris? Is the building, is the commercial building in the commercial zone? We're talking about the setback of the commercial building from the new property line and the commercial building in the commercial zone. So I didn't see footnote A applying to comm in that. Yeah. Footnote A doesn't apply to comm. I'm terrified. Look, I'm going to call on Mr. Reedy. I do see his hand up. He might. So yeah, if you look at the table, three dimensional regulations, you go to the basic minimum side in rear yards. And if you follow that across and then you look down from comm, it's 25 feet. And next to it, it has that footnote A. Okay, I'm seeing that. Okay. All right, thank you. Perfect. Okay. I see no other hands. I believe we're ready for a vote. There's been no seconds in the motion. Didn't we get a sec? Did Maria say? Maria. Maria chat. Yeah, I said a bit. Sorry. Cause I waited for a second, then it's on the table. We've had our discussion. I don't see any public comment. No other hands. Chris, can we vote? Do I, I should roll call twice? Breakout, do 04 and then 05. Okay, so we'll have to do this twice everyone. Um, so we'll start with SPP 2020-04 and I, uh, Michael. Maria. Yes, approved. Jack. Approved. David. Approved. Doug. Approved. Janet. Approved. And myself, I also approve. So we have seven, zero, zero. And I'll move now to SPP 2020-05 and starting again, Michael. Approved. Maria. Approved. Jack. Approved. David. Approved. Doug. Approved. Janet. Approved. And I also approve. So seven, zero, zero. Okay. Nicely, nicely done. That was a lot, the three. Thank you, Mr. Reedy. Chris, is there anything else or can I move on? You move on. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Reedy. Thank you. Good seeing everybody. And if Cam could just pop up the agenda for a moment. Yes, ma'am. Thank you. So just to show where we're at. We're here, number four. Okay. So item four is old business. A is review and consider the discussion at the CRC meeting of April 15th regarding the process for amending zoning bylaw. And Chris, I assume that you'll give us a summary of that meeting. And a link was provided to us through, I think it was YouTube, Amherst Media. And I know a few of us did watch it. I did. Ms. McGowan, Janet McGowan asked me to give a little summary of what happened at that meeting. And I would say a few things were discussed. It was actually a discussion about an hour long. And they kind of went back over their suggestion or recommendation of a few months ago, which outlined a process for amending zoning bylaw and kind of started to question what they had proposed as a process. One of the questions that came up was whether zoning should be considered three times a year or more than that. There was some discussion about the fact that town meeting used to only consider zoning twice a year. And now we're proposing to consider it three times a year. And is that enough? Is that going to be enough to cover all the things that want to be changed? The other thing that people were talking about was who should really be the main body that is working on zoning. And in the past, we've always had the zoning subcommittee proposing zoning along with planning department staff. And there was some interest in the idea that a new body could be formed. That would be a task force or a working group or something like that. That would probably be a multi-member body appointed by the town manager, although that wasn't discussed. But maybe what we need is a bigger group of people, not just three people on the zoning subcommittee, to talk about zoning and include some of the business people in town and others who may be interested in zoning. But then there was also consideration of an idea to have zoning go through the CRC instead of going through the planning board. So in other words, the zoning changes might be generated by town staff or others and be proposed to the CRC, who would consider the zoning amendment and work on it and then present it to town council. And then at some point, it would come back to the planning board for a public hearing, because state law requires that the planning board hold a public hearing and make a recommendation on zoning amendments to the legislative body. So those were probably the three big things that I took out of that meeting. And there was a lot of discussion. And since Ms. McGowan was the person who really wanted to put this on the agenda tonight, I wondered if the chair recognized her, if she wanted to talk more about this or emphasize something that I haven't emphasized. Let me find myself here. So I've gone to a lot of the CRC meetings. Occasionally, I make comments. The format has changed a lot. Sometimes I comment in the beginning as a member of the public. Occasionally, I'm allowed to comment on a substantive issue during their actual discussion. And so the CRC is handling zoning and planning. And the people from the council have different levels of experience with this through either town meeting or being on the select board. And then Steve Schreiber, who is obviously on the planning board and has a deep experience. I've often been struck by, I mean, they're doing planning and zoning and obviously we are too at this kind of lack of flow of information and communication between us. And I think I've mentioned this previously. Like I think that we need to have somebody, as a liaison to the CRC. And I've mentioned to the CRC, they need a liaison to the planning board because we would naturally collaborate and work closely together on the master plan and on zoning. And so, and then the CRC has a whole new set of members. Some of them have been on before, but there's also new members. So they're in kind of a reset mode. And then they've been trying to figure out these processes for master plan update and zoning bylaw revisions and whatever. And so I think there's kind of a lack of communication between our board and the CRC members. And I just wonder if there's a way for us to kind of open it up and exchange ideas and experiences and kind of work better together. Like that's sort of how, and that last meeting kind of took me back to put it in one, to characterize it in one way. Cause I just thought this is so different from what we've been hearing. And it's so different what we've been doing in the zoning subcommittee, which we have been struggling for a long time, trying to figure out how to work with the town council. And I just wonder if this is a good opportunity to kind of open up and have some joint meetings where more people participating and more conversation. But I think your summary, Christine, was excellent. Can't hear you. Okay, thank you, Janet. I just wanted to say that there is communication between the chairs and a lot of what they've been talking about has been talked about on and off for the last year, if not longer ever since we've moved into a new form of government. And I think my, like what I'm seeing is that a lot of the town councilors want to re-examine sort of like the bylaw system because it's completely new and different. And this is a time of change cause it used to be a town meeting and now it's town council. How I see it, cause I watched the meeting is there's just a lot of dialogue right now and they don't actually have a plan or a firm forward path. But I'm hoping that in the next month or so they will be sending something to us. And then it's time, we will have to reflect on it and have some discussions. And there's other groups besides us that will feed into it, ZBA and of course staff. There'll be lots of different groups that all have thoughts on whatever they're proposing. But Chris, my understanding right now, there's nothing, they're just really just looking at different options and I couldn't even tell if they were leaning towards one or the other. Last thought is there really was a lot of harping on looking to other towns or looking at Northampton. I know I've been looking at like Arlington and how different towns are moving forward because you want it to be a success. I think we all agree that there needs to be a lot of by-law changes and improvements. So I think everybody's on the same ship for that. And hopefully they'll come up with a good plan on how they want it to come to them, through them at Duke Town Council. And I see David's hand up. Hi, thank you. Yeah, it seemed like that seat, the CRC meeting, there's a lot of process talk. And since I've been on the planning board, there's been a lot of process talk and it's understandable. It's a new form of governance. I think that while thinking about processes, one thing moving forward, it's time for us to, as we discuss both the zoning subcommittee and at this body, I believe, presenting to or having discussion of actual substantive proposed zoning amendments and then handing that to the CRC or the town council and so that they can figure out, well, okay, here's the thing. What should be the process? Because it just continues to be, it feels to me like spinning wheels. And so while listening to the CRC meeting, Rob Morrow was there too. And we had sanctioned him and asked for him and encouraged him and his team to move forward with revisions, proposed revisions that were to help with the administration and the staffing or the administration and the staff use of the zoning by-law. I think we should continue that and encourage Rob and participate in that, again, to give substance and meat to the CRC and the town council so that they can decide what process they want. Really, I think that my second and last point is that I think it would be useful for the planning board and perhaps the zoning subcommittee is to sort of noodle on what the goals of any revisions would be. And I've got, for example, I've got examples that when we consider revisions to the zoning by-law and the development of the town, that it's important to consider land use and development and economic development hand in hand. So that it's not just about, yeah. The second thing is a second goal that I would suggest or propose for discussion is that the zoning law conform with staff process, the process that the staff in the town hall goes through in order to approve proposed projects or work with proposed projects. And that the zoning by-law be clear and enabling rather than a hindrance. And the third goal I would say for any, or principle for any revision would be that the zoning by-law have sufficient flexibility to meet future changing, unforeseen circumstances. So that it needs to be clear and present, but also flexible enough to address things that one can't anticipate today, but might occur down the road five, 10, 15 years. Thank you, that's it. Thank you. I recognize Michael. Yeah, thank you. I agree with everything that Jack just said. Sorry, Daniel. That was- Why do I keep calling you Jack? I think because Jack is right on the list next to me. Anyway, that's great. I agree with everything you said. And I would add two things to it, which are not in any way contradictory to what you said. First that it seems to me that, and I too watched the discussion of the CRC, it seems to me that most of the ideas that are coming up in that body complicate the process rather than simplify the process. And I think we have a reasonably simple process now. It doesn't work because we don't ever get anything to the CRC and they don't do anything about what we do get to them. But if we started to get material to them, then they are the legislative body. Apparently we are not. We are the recommending body. They are the legislative body. And when they get stuff from us, recommendations, then they legislate. They do what they want with it. They put it through whatever committees they want to. We don't really send things to the CRC. We send things to the town council. Then the town council refers it back to the CRC and so on. And that's a council function. It's not our function. And if we go to the root of some task force which involves people from the council, people from the business, people from the planning board and anybody else from the public who would make it a representative body, then we're just adding one more layer and maybe even two more layers because it might have to go back once to them and then back and then back and then back. We have to have a process at the planning board through the zoning subcommittee and the planning board which is open to the participation of everybody who's involved. When we have meetings, public meetings, public forums, whatever they have, they must be planning board forums and we must take the responsibility of getting recommendations as specific and well considered as we can make them to the council. Then the council can do with them what they will. I've run a point and I lost it. Maybe it'll come back to me and I'll jump back in. But that's the way I'm seeing this process going right now and I do think we need to get working. And oh, I know what it was. Many people at the CRC made the point or suggested that in some way we should be doing, we should have this burden taken off. The planning board should have this burden taken off them because the planning board is too busy. Well, I submit that we are not that busy and that the CRC, if they're doing their job, ought to be a hell of a lot busier than we are. And I think if we take the responsibility of putting these zoning changes and helping assisting and working with Rob to make the major organizational changes that he's anticipating, get those through our zoning committee and the planning board and then get them to the council. I think that's the best thing we can do. And I think this fooling around with trying to invent a process that we don't have control over is ridiculous. I think the planning board, sorry, I think the council has to figure out what they wanna do process-wise and not involve us. So that's my say. Thank you. I recognize Maria. Thanks. I appreciate everybody's thoughts on process and wanting to stay involved and understand that we just hit this pandemic. And so everything kind of went on pause, but I think it's a little early right now to get deep into a discussion about process and how we're moving forward because the CRC hasn't figured out with Rob Mora exactly what they're even thinking. They sort of threw out a lot of big picture ideas and nothing was actually resolved. I mean, as much as I'd like to keep going on about life, what we think the process should be or what we should do, I don't think we should be reacting to anything they've said because they didn't really say anything, in my opinion. Honestly, I feel like they're going through exactly what we already went through, which is talk to Rob and talk about process and what could work and who should be involved. So I say we just give it however long a few weeks just because we can't get together and work anyways. Why sort of deliberate about which group or which task force, which committee gets formed. I think we should just see what they propose, but Rob keep doing what he hopefully is doing in between all his other tasks that he has day to day and go from there. I feel like, yeah, going around circles and talking about process ourselves is sort of doing the same frustrating thing that we saw them do. It's nice to talk to you guys, but I feel like it is a little premature to just go deep into what next steps are at this point. So yeah, I wonder if we can just table this perhaps because they didn't really give us, I guess, a clear path forward and we don't have one either. And a lot of it's in Bob Mora's plate, so yep, that's it. Thank you. Janet. So I'm glad we're having this discussion. I'm really getting a lot from it. I think the town council and the planning board and the town staff, we all have the same goal of a better zoning bylaw. We may have different paths to it, but I think simplicity and flexibility and lack of contradictions is a great idea. I think that we should proceed with the zoning subcommittee and our work and working with Rob and just chugging along because under statute, changes can always come from the planning board, they can come from the public, they can come from a town counselor for their CRC or proposals. So I think we should do that. I think that I really did feel like one of my big feelings after the meetings of a tenant for CRC is that the plant, this board has had a lot of experience with zoning changes, proposals, going to town meeting the process and how hard it is to actually draft and get things through. And I thought that I was hoping that, I think it just needs a more communication and information exchanged. And we don't control what the town council process is gonna be. And we can kind of take care of our piece of it of what we do. But I really do think that there just needs to be more communication and information going back and forth. And I was just, maybe it's a simple thing of just encouraging people to attend CRC meetings or us have a liaison who just, I don't know, I just feel like, everybody seems to be in a kind of parallel universe and I'm kind of jumping back and forth between them thinking, there's so much experience in the planning board and ideas that information or just kind of, they could talk through things. You guys could talk through some of the ideas with the different CRC members. So I don't know if that's appealing to people or just an idea I had. Thank you. I see no more hands. So I'm gonna move on to item B, old business. Topics not reasonably anticipated in 48 hours prior to the meeting. Chris, is there anything? Nope. Nope, okay. And then item five, new business. Topics not reasonably anticipated 48 hours prior to the meeting. Nothing. Janet, you wanna say something? I don't know if this is old business and new business, but I'm just not getting my packet until like three times I've gotten it on a Tuesday and the last two have come on Tuesday, but fortunately my mailman's coming a little early. And then once I got it on Wednesday, and I just wonder if there's a, I know it's kind of a big ask for the planning department, if you could mail it out a day earlier, like on Thursday, is that, or is there some way for me to get, because it just seems to be getting later and later. I know the post office is also struggling because of the pandemic. And so I don't know what other people's experiences are, but it's hard. I can tell you mine over the last five years, my packet comes either Monday, I mean, I'm sorry, it comes Tuesday or Wednesday. Once in a blue moon, it's come on a Monday, but that's why I really appreciate how our packets are coming through the email now. So it's actually to me an improvement because now I look at the packet on Friday or Saturday or Sunday, where I never could before until Tuesday or Wednesday. I'm probably thinking other members probably are the same thing with mail, but hopefully the email is helping. I do see, Chris, you can address, I mean, I think this has come up over the years because before we had that email, sometimes when we had a really heavy agenda, it's really hard to get it on Wednesday. And we had asked Chris, but they're really pressed to get it out earlier than what they do on Friday. I don't see her or if Pam have a comment. I'll go to Michael. Do you have something to add to this, Mike? No, it's totally a different issue. Okay, hold on one sec. Let me just check. Jack, you have your hand up. Jack? Yes, I'm just saying at this point in time, I am totally relying on digital media. When I get mail, I'm like, I don't even really want to touch it at this point in time. That's a good point. I don't, but I know that everything is delivered to me via email. So I slide it in and over into a folder on Google Drive. And I don't really want mail from the town right now or in the future, because we have advanced technologically as a nation and as a world that, do we really need paper copies of anything at this point in time? I'm really glad you brought this up. I completely agree with you. Now that we have the electronic, I used to really just want, the packet, the paper was for the drawings and figures, but they are so much better to look at online. You can zoom in, move them, layer them. Anyways, I am willing to forego my paper packet. Maybe we can have that discussion at another time because I'd rather save the trees and I really, you're right, I don't want to touch the mail right now. So it's different. I'm gonna go to Chris because her hand is up right now and then I'll go back to Janet and Michael. I know you're still on. So one thing we tried, I think this was probably before the shutdown, was that some people came in to pick up packets. So David Levinstein came in a few times to pick up his packet because he didn't want to have to wait for the mail to arrive. So usually Pam has the packets done sometime after noon and if somebody really wanted to come and pick up a packet, I could walk out to the parking lot and hand it to them. So that's something that we can offer if you want to do that on a Friday afternoon. And then if you don't come, I guess I'll take it to the post office. So you'd probably want to- Or they could set up with you that they just pick it up on Monday or something or Tuesday. So if you didn't want that, they'd have to set that up in advance because this obviously Pam looked to get the mail out on Friday afternoon if it needs to be mailed. So I guess we're offering, if anybody wants to have a packet to pick up, let us know by probably Thursday evening and we will be able to put that packet aside and give it to you whenever you feel like driving into the parking lot and picking it up. Great, and we could have the option to say no packet. And you could have that option. Okay, so give that some thought people as we try to move into more and more into the digital age. Janet, I see your hand, nope, she took her hand down. So she, Jack, your hands up. Jack? Yeah, I was just gonna say it's kind of ironic that we're doing these meetings via Zoom and we're thinking that we need people that's all, but I understand two screens help in this situation, but- I use two screens, yeah. Yeah, I just would encourage people to increase their technology just a tad bit and I don't think really we need paper. I don't. Yeah, I set up a laptop next to my desktop and utilize that. So play around with what you can and thank you. So if there's no more discussion on that, I'm gonna move to Michael. Is this under new business, Michael? Well, it would be like a committee report, but they're not on the agenda, but I do have something else. Oh, good point. It's my review board. It's free. The design review board met last week to review a proposal from the bid to put a mural on the side of the Michelson building in the parking lot area behind the bank near the cinema. There's a big broad brick wall back there. They wanted to put a mural on there. All five members of the design review board had issues with the particular project. And to the point that Ms. Gould decided or said at the meeting that, well, she was not gonna bring that proposal back again. So it was taken by her apparently with some hard feelings, I'm not sure about that, but it seemed a very abrupt withdrawal of a proposal which had some merit to it, but had many problems, different kinds of problems from all five different points of view of the board members. So that's just for your information. Thank you. And do you actually, for them to put it up, do they have to get approval from someone or was this a nice no? Well, the design review board is an advisory board. Okay. But maybe this gives them some thought to go back and give it some more thought. I don't know. Thanks for the update. Did you guys, and this was through Zoom? Yes it is. Yeah, okay, great. Thank you. That's true. Does anyone else have any other committee reports? I know a lot of committees aren't meeting. Show your hand if you have something you'd like to report. If not, I'm gonna move on to item six, which is... Christine, Chris Brestrup has her hand up. Oh, she doesn't. Chris, thank you. I just wanted to speak on behalf of the bid. I know that they had a difficult meeting with the DRB and they seem to be sort of miffed at the reception that they received, but just to put a little different spin on it, they are trying so hard to help the businesses that are essentially failing in downtown Amherst and they're working really hard to get some money from some small business administration loans or something. They've set up a foundation that was originally gonna be used for downtown improvements like the Shell, if we wanna call it that, the musical show and other things, but they're turning their attention now to helping the businesses downtown. And I think that perhaps their frame of mind was colored by this difficult situation that they're going through and they're trying to help. And so anyway, I just wanted to put that out there that they may not have reacted the way they would react in normal times. Thank you, Chris. I recognize Michael. I'm sure that's true, Chris. On the other hand, they did bring it forward to us. They could have withdrawn it without any difficulty at all. And I understand that the funding is an issue for them and I understand and appreciate the fact that their funding efforts are going entirely towards supporting small businesses in the area, which is wonderful. But I just felt the need to report on this because that's what the design review board is all about. Thank you. I recognize Janet. So just to support what Christine was saying is at the CRC meeting, the bid and the Amherst Area Chamber of Commerce, they had a really excellent presentation. And I don't know, maybe Chris, you could send that out to the board. It was really quite comprehensive what they're working on. I thought it was useful for people to know. I didn't cite it in my notes because I didn't have the link and stuff like that. That was, they had a really fine, their whole view of what they're trying to do and trying to use this as an opportunity to move Amherst forward and stuff like that. So it was very impressive. Christine. So if I remembered to do that, I will send you a link, but you can also go on the CRC page. And I think that they included that in their packet after the fact. I think they got it late before their meeting and it should be on the CRC webpage in case I forget to find that and forward it. But it was definitely worthwhile watching that. And hearing about the foundation and hearing about the opportunity for all of us to contribute to that. I did watch the whole CRC meeting and their presentation was very informative. And my family is definitely making an effort to do a lot of takeout from downtown. And I have to say, I won't mention specific, but the ones that we've been going to really have very good technique and nice systems that they've set up. You can just call ahead, place your order. It's just waiting for you, pay a head with a credit card. We usually try to stick your gratuity in there, but I highly recommend it. And I have a bunch of young adult children. They really seem to need some of that food that's down there. So I don't see any hands, so I'm gonna move on to the next item. Pam, in case you're just hanging out there, could you pop up the agenda again just so we can see where we're at? So I'm going to item six. It's Form A, ANR, subdivision applications. Do we have any of those? Yes. So I don't know if I'm muted or not muted. No, we hear you. I'm sorry. So we do have an ANR and it's related to the things that Tom Reedy was talking to us about before. It's essentially splitting a lot into, you know, with that lot line running straight north and then off to the northwest. And the plan that you're looking at right now that Pam's brought before you is, in fact, the ANR plan. And if you would authorize Christine Gray-Mullen to sign it, then she and I can make an arrangement to have her come to Town Hall to sign it. Should we have a show of hands or everyone want to just click their hand on for a sec if you're good with that? I'm good with it. And, okay, I heard someone. Yep, there's Maria, Doug, Jack. Great, so I've seen almost all of your hands. Great, thank you. You can turn them off. Chris, we'll figure out how I should come by and do that. Well, I'll call that a consensus. Yes. Great. And item, we'll move to seven is upcoming ZBA applications. Yes, we do have ZBA applications and I had them all lined up here. And what did I do with them? Here they are. Okay, so Colonial Village is coming before the ZBA to alter their approval for the development in general. They have acquired a playground from North Village. North Village is undergoing changes. They're demolishing the buildings and building new buildings there. So they're giving their playground to Colonial Village. I don't know exactly if there's a monetary transaction there or not, but it's pretty nice play equipment and they want to install it at Colonial Village. So that's one thing. Another thing is 948 East Pleasant Street. Apparently there's a woman there who wants to put in an eight foot high fence and she is reacting to some difficulties in the neighborhood. And so the ZBA will be considering whether she should be allowed to put in an eight foot high fence. And then 65 High Street. It is, I believe it's, I don't know if it's a single family house or a duplex, but there's some special permit that's needed to either acknowledge or create a duplex there at 65 High Street. And that's it. That's all I need. Thanks, Chris. I will move on to, I see no hands, eight upcoming SPP, SPR, SUVs applications. Yep. So you know you have the Kendrick Park Playground coming to you on May 6th. And we won't have all of the details worked out by then, but we'll have more than we had on April 15th. So I think you'll be able to comment and then probably want to continue the public hearing to May 20th so that we can really acknowledge all of the details. Then Russ Wilson, who's a builder is building houses down at the Applebrook cluster subdivision. So one of the houses that he's built, the owner of that house would like to put on a deck and a three season room. So he needs to come to you for a change and modification of his site plan review. All about learning is a preschool in the Pomerai Village area on Pomerai Lane. And they occupy some space in seven Pomerai Lane, which is the building right next to the Jehovah's Witnesses. And they'd like to expand their play area. They had a proposal to do that at a different location a couple of years ago, but that didn't really go through. And then Amherst Media is just on the brink of submitting their site plan review application to you after having gotten approval from the local historic district. And recently the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission has upheld the decision of the local historic district. So that's going to be coming to you. I think that's it all I have right now. Just a quick question on the first one, Kendrick Park. So that'll come back to us, won't be complete. So we'll send it to the next meeting, which is end of May. I assume we're gonna do a meeting at the end of May, but wasn't there a deadline, a June deadline or something with the grant or something? Well, yes there is. And that deadline may be extended, but it hasn't been extended yet. So I thought as we could get as much done on May 6th as possible. And then we hope that we'll just need to come back with some final details to you on May 20th and that we'll be able to wrap it up before the deadline on June 1st. But maybe I'll have good news for you next week and be able to say the deadline's been extended. But since it hasn't been yet, we need to push forward with that one. Okay. Thank you. Report of chair, the only thing I had is a little bit about scheduling. We're sort of rolling again here and we have a meeting next week on the 6th and then we have it on the 20th and then it would be June 3rd. So that's what we're looking at right now. Do you wanna know other things that are coming up on those two dates? That would be helpful. Yes, I see some nodding, yes. Okay, so on the 6th, you're gonna have the consultants for the 40R district coming to you with a presentation about what they've done in general and what they're doing right now and also a proposal for a zoning amendment that would incorporate what 40R is all about including design guidelines. So they're gonna be making a presentation on May 6th. And then on May 20th, on May 20th, I think we decided that I would come and give you an update on the master plan and where we are with the master plan. So you long ago had sent us out an example of one of the chapters, I think the land use. And we were supposed to get back to you with comments and then all this happened. Should we reset and what are your expectations of us right now? Yeah, if you wanna read it and send me some comments that would be fine. And possibly I'll have some more done by then but I don't know, it's just to let you know this is an unusual situation. I work in town hall most of the time, other people don't work in town hall. So there are a lot of things that need to be done to coordinate all of this work. And that actually takes up a lot of time. So for my actual work, it's hard to actually work and get it done. I just wanted to share that with you. But possibly by the 20th, I will have more than just chapter three ready for your review. All right, that would be great. Thank you for trying. And then we'll be into June. Thank you. Is there a report of staff? And after that, I still have to stick in public comment. I don't think we will have any, but just in case. Oh, I- Excuse me, man. Yeah, I see your hand. I don't recall the draft chapter three land use. Can you either resend or just let me know where, what the timeframe was so I could try to find it? Here, yep, I will send it, yep. And by the 20th for that meeting, I will also reach out to Brianna and IT and see if they're lightening out and have any bandwidth. So we can get that website out. All right. May I make a plea as part of my review? Which is that if you could, I don't know if you're all planning on taking vacations this summer or if you're gonna stick to home. But if you are planning to take a vacation, it would be good if you could send me that information. Because then I would know, you know, how to plan planning board meetings, whether we're gonna have a quorum for some of the dates that we have and you can, you know, look at the calendar and count on having a meeting scheduled for the first Wednesday and the third Wednesday, you know, to have an idea. I think I've sent you a planning board schedule but if not, I'll do that again. Summer vacation. So what does that mean? Like we just don't go to a planning board zoo meeting and stay at home or do we actually get to leave our houses? I don't know. It's kind of weird to plan for summer vacation. Yeah. But yes, thank you. I also wanna say that since we'll be entering June, I think there's three of us that are up for reappointment and the steps for that are, are we supposed to fill out a form? I would if I were you. Let's see, Christine Gray-Mullen and Michael Burtwistle and this other one. Is there another one or is it on? Is David? Yeah, I was thinking David. Yep, there's three of us. David also. Okay, so I think it would be advisable to fill out the CAF. You know, if you can dig out your old one, send that along, but I never know from time to time what the requirements are gonna be. So I err on the caution side and have people send in the form and that sort of prompts people in the office upstairs to consider your application. And they recently, the town council recently appointed a number of members to the zoning board of appeals. So that's really good because they were down to only four people. So they'll be able to carry on with their work. So I hope that you all, the ones who have their terms coming up will agree to keep serving and I look forward to keep serving with you. I just, cause there doesn't seem to be any rules. They've tried other process interviews and stuff like that, but they don't seem, it's unclear how to proceed. I also wonder in the charter, it says that there's three year terms. They've been giving less than that to replace members, but like Michael and I, he's closing in on his fourth year and myself on my fifth. Would it be for three year terms? That's my question to them. They've seemed to be sticking that they want the six year max. So that would mean Michael only would get a two and I would get a one. It's just, when you're weighing your commitment and life, the difference between one year and three year is quite a bit different. So I was wondering if you can reach out to them or are they, you know, I don't know if Michael has any feelings on that. I see his hand. I'll call him Michael. Yeah, I do. I filled out an application and as part of the application, I said I would be interested in serving a three year term. Which would be for a total of seven. Yeah. Yeah, okay. I mean, they have no actual rule. It's just something they've been saying, but it's unclear. Thank you. Um, David has his hand up too. I see Jack also. I'll call on Jack first. Jack, is that it? Okay. There you go. And you guys can raise your hands again if you change your mind. All right. Oh, there he's back. Hello. I thought I unclicked it. Sorry. I just want to say that I think Christine, you're doing a great job. And and I really would like to see you continue for whatever, you know, one, two, three, you know, whatever the next assignment is. Thank you. But I know I'm on the vice chair and it would be, I mean, it's telling everyone on the board that, you know, I don't know. I just feel like you just, I hate to see what happened like before with regard to the chairman because it's just such tumultuous times. Let's keep some, you know, consistency to what we're doing. I think it's good. And that's all. Thank you, Jack. I enjoy working with all of you. Chris, you're just up. Okay. All right. So we'll go to, well, it's back to the beginning. Let me just go to item two, public comment, period. I'm just first going to see if there is anyone who wants public comment. I only see one attendee right now. The hand is not up. Pam, just checking there's no phone calls. No, ma'am. Okay. So we can pass through that. And if there's no other hands or anything, I think we can move to item nine, adjournment. And thank you all. Yay. Well, thank you all. Stay safe. Good night. We did, we did good. Thank you, Chris. And Pam, you did great. Thank you. Oh, wait a minute. We got to stop recording. Because I want to stop.