 This program is brought to you by Cable Franchise Vs and generous donations from viewers like you. Good evening. This is September 29, 2020, and we are actually having two meetings tonight. The first is something that we invented when we first started doing public forums, and it's something we call a primer, and it allows us to have an in-depth presentation about an issue, in this case, the master plan. So I'm going to start by just saying Governor Baker's March 12 order suspending certain provisions of the open meeting law allows us to hold this virtual meeting. I will call upon each counselor by name at that time they should unmute and their mic and say present. This will indicate that they can hear us and we can hear them, and then please re-mute your mic again. This will allow how we'll also do counselor comments throughout meeting along with the raised hand function. So given that we have a quorum of the council, I am calling the meeting of the Amherstown Council to order at 633. There is no chat room meeting includes audio video and is available live on Amherst media, and it is also being recorded and will be available after the fact. If we have technical issues, we will suspend the discussion or make note of that and move on. I do want to bring to your attention. Three announcements that we wanted to make sure the public knew so Athena would you put those up please. Oh, I'm sorry. I haven't taken roll yet. So, I'm going to start out with shall any Balmille present. Alyssa Brewer. Not present yet. Not present yet. Melissa Dela. President. Darcy DeMont. President. Lynn Griesper. President. And Joannikie. President. Dorothy Pam. President yet. Evan Ross. President. George Ryan. President. Kathy Shane. President. Steve Schreiber. And Sarah Schwartz has informed me she will be absent. And if somebody would let me know if they see others as they arrive. So now we're gonna just put these three announcements up on the slide very quickly. Thank you. We just wanna call, no, that's the connection slide. Thank you. We wanna just call attention to the fact that there is a COVID-19 concern hotline and also email. We wanna also make sure that people are aware that the Community Preservation Act proposals are due on October 12th. And a new round of funding for emergency rental assistance is now available. And you can go on the town website and find that information as well. We'll leave that up for just a moment. All right, thank you. We can take that down. So the first part of our meeting tonight is an overview of the master plan. This is prior to having a public forum on the master plan which we will begin at immediately following this meeting. Christine Brestrup will be providing us with the overview. And she is also going to give us just a brief review of the upcoming zoning bylaw review. While we will provide an opportunity for counselors to ask clarifying questions during the primer, we will not have public comment until we officially begin the public forum. We will not be taking action on any item during this meeting. So with that, Christine, please go ahead. Good evening. I'm Christine Brestrup, Planning Director. And I'm here to give you a short presentation tonight about the master plan. And then during the public forum to hear comments from the public about the master plan. But first I wanted to say a few words in general. The master plan is a dynamic long-term planning document that provides a conceptual layout to guide future growth and development. The master plan is not the same as zoning. And I think that's hard to understand sometimes. The master plan doesn't tell us how wide the sidewalk should be or how high buildings in the downtown should be. It doesn't tell us what style of architecture should prevail. It's really much more general than that. So getting down to specifics, we have other plans that map out details for us. And since the master plan was completed in 2010, we've had many other plans that have been created by the town, some of which are as follows. We have a sewer extension master plan. We have a housing production plan, a housing market study, a transportation plan that was adopted by the planning board and then incorporated into the master plan by vote of the planning board on June 10th, 2015. We have an open space and recreation plan which was updated in 2017. We have a bicycle and pedestrian network plan, a community field master plan. And we currently have a plan being developed by the ECAC, the Energy and Climate Action Committee, which will be completed by the end of the year. There are probably other plans being developed now that I don't have listed here. We've also made many changes to our zoning bylaw since the adoption of the master plan. And these changes were considered implementation of the master plan. And we're currently working with the CRC and the planning board on a number of other changes, including a complete rewrite and recodification of the master plan or excuse me, of the zoning bylaw incorporating many of the suggestions that the master plan makes. So this master plan that we're gonna talk about tonight was created over a period of about five years from 2005 until 2010. And the town should think about starting the process for a new master plan in about four years with the goal of having a new master plan in place by 2030. Meanwhile, we should work on implementing the master plan that we have, including continuing to create new plans to address issues that are important to the town, including changes to our zoning bylaw. So let's talk about the master plan. May I have the next slide, please? What is a master plan? A master plan is a community's general longterm blueprint for its future. It's a dynamic document and the beginning, not the end of a process. Next slide, please. What does the law say about a master plan? Well, the mass general law chapter 41, section 81D, requires that cities and towns in Massachusetts create and adopt a master plan. This is usually done by the planning board. In Amherst, the planning board adopted the master plan in February of 2010. Our Amherst home rule charter requires the adoption of a new master plan by the town council every 20 years. So 2030 would be the target date for a new master plan. Next slide, please. This master plan was the first in Amherst for nearly 40 years, and it was based on an extensive public input. You can see us all gathered here in the cafeteria of the high school talking with our consultant about our vision for the future. In addition to public input, the master plan was also based on research on the community's existing conditions and anticipated trends for the future. There's a whole section of our town website that's devoted to the creation of the master plan. And whoever hasn't had a chance to look at that, you might find it interesting to see all the different aspects of creating the master plan. So this master plan represents Amherst's best effort to balance competing interests of a diverse population. Next slide, please. So the master plan began really in the 70s as a result of a lot of development in town and people were wondering how to be able to control development. The town established a select committee on goals in 1971, and they worked for the next two years and created a report that we call the SCOG report. It's an unfortunate name, but it's a good document. And this conceptual plan that's shown here in black and white shows the basic plan for the town that they came up with, which was to focus development in the downtown, which is that rectangle in the middle and in the village centers, which are the circles scattered around the map of Amherst and to try to preserve the outlying areas as much as possible. And since then, we've actually done a pretty good job at doing just that. So in the late nineties, we had an Amherst visioning process. The town hired Walt Kudnowski of the Conway School of Landscape Design, and he and his staff or team developed this Amherst visions plan. And then in 2005, town meeting voted to appropriate $65,000 for a new master plan. Next slide, please. So the process really began in earnest in 2006 and lasted until 2010. In 2006, the process was called Planning Amherst Together, and a consultant was chosen. The consultant was ACP, and they were based in Ohio at the University of Ohio, I believe, and also in New York City. So they had a wide range of expertise. Town meeting voted an additional $135,000. So we had a total of $200,000 to work on the master plan. And a lot of data was gathered, and that was really done by ACP. So in 2007, we held many idea gatherings, group workshops, and sent out a community survey to about 600 randomly chosen households. And we've got a pretty good return on the survey. And again, that information is online. And we developed the first draft of the master plan. And then between 2008 and 2010, the master plan subcommittee of the planning board along with the planning department director added the draft. And in 2010, in January, a public forum was held on the draft master plan. And then in February, the planning board voted to adopt the master plan. Next slide, please. So the master plan contains chapters as required by mass general law. And the chapters are as follows. The first one is goals and policies. So that's kind of a broad general statement about what the town wants itself to be. The second chapter is the land use chapter, which is the one that I'm most familiar with and work with most often. And that helps us to determine how we want to develop the town of Amherst. The next one is demographics and housing. So that analyzes who lives here and how are they housed. Economic development is another chapter. And that is obviously focused on how do we get more economic development in our town. Natural and cultural resources is another chapter, open space and recreation services and facilities. And this one focuses on the fire department, the police department, the schools, the building roadways and things like that. And then transportation and circulation. And the last chapter is in the implementation chapter, which has some text in it, but it also has a really good matrix listing all of the strategies that are in the master plan and then encourages us to think about which things we have done and which things need to be done and who's responsible for them. Along the way, we have implemented a lot of the strategies of the master plan. I would say though, we haven't been deliberate about checking on this implementation matrix to make sure that we're actually doing the things on the matrix. So the planning board is thinking of establishing a subcommittee to track the implementation of the master plan. Next slide, please. So the master plan is organized in different ways. And the first thing in the master plan that you see is key directions. And this is a list of things that the community thinks are really important. Maintaining Amherst's existing community character is one of them. This is not an exhaustive list by any means, providing housing that meets the needs of all residents while minimizing impact on the environment. Diversifying and expanding the economic base and promoting an ethic of sustainable environmental energy practices and all town activities. And that's an ongoing activity. Next slide, please. So I'm gonna go through, I think it's four of the chapters just to highlight some of the things that are contained in those chapters. And the first chapter is land use. So among the objectives contained in the land use section, there are many, many objectives, but among them that I thought were particularly important were preferentially direct future development to existing built up areas. And that's exactly what the SCOG plan said. Preserve key undeveloped land. Again, that's coming right from the SCOG plan, keeping the outlying lands undeveloped. Protecting key farmland and farming in Amherst. Guiding new housing growth while minimizing impact on open space and small town character. We've done a good job with that too, I think. And we've developed the cluster housing subdivision form of development. And honoring historic and cultural character and beauty of neighborhoods. And an example of that would be the establishment of the local historic districts of the Lincoln Sunset neighborhood and the Emily Dickinson neighborhood. Next slide, please. In terms of demographics and housing, among the objectives were to encourage a greater mix of housing types, sizes, and prices serving a wider range of income levels. Preserving and expanding the number of affordable and moderately priced rental units and housing stock. Encouraging production of housing in an environmentally sound manner. And improving housing and services for people who are homeless. And that's something that I'll talk about later. Next slide, please. Natural and cultural resources. I think we've done a pretty good job with this. Promoting preservation, appreciation, and sustainable use of our historical and cultural resources. And applying principles of environmental sustainability town-wide. We've been learning more and more about this as time has gone on. And these images show the solar array at the at Hampshire College. And the current center at Hampshire College, which is part of the living building challenge. It's a completely self-sustaining building. Next slide, please. In terms of transportation and circulation, some of the objectives were to actively promote alternative modes of transportation. Provide adequate public parking to support existing and desired new development in the downtown and elsewhere. And to pursue funding strategies for achieving transportation goals. We're continuing to pursue funding strategies by applying for grants whenever we see them. We did apply for a mass works grant recently for improvements to the Pomeray Village Center. And we've been applying for monies from the state to help us with our realignment of our downtown so that we can provide dining opportunities for the restaurants. Next slide, please. So in terms of implementation, as I said, we do have an implementation section of the bylaw. We've been implementing, or excuse me, the master plan. We've been implementing the master plan but we're not always deliberate about checking off the boxes and saying, yes, we did this. So the implementation chapter asks that the town provides sufficient resources to implement the master plan. Involve a wide variety of stakeholders in implementation and require concurrence with the master plan. So that's something that we have to do every time we adopt a new zoning bylaw. We have to state that it is in current concurrence with the master plan. Next slide, please. So I just wanted to give you a brief idea of what we've accomplished since we adopted the master plan and how have we implemented the master plan's objectives and strategies. And I'm going to focus on housing. Next slide, please. So these are examples of affordable housing developments that have been built since the master plan was adopted. The one on the left is the Olympia Oaks project up in North Amherst, an Olympia Drive, which contains 44 units of affordable housing for 80% or less of area median income. And the main street housing project on the right is probably something that you pass by every day. That has 11 units of affordable housing that was developed by the Amherst Housing Authority. Next slide, please. The way we get affordable housing is through multiple avenues. We preserve existing units as we did at Rolling Green. We work with developers to create new units as we did with the Beacon communities at North Square. We work continually with Habitat for Humanity and this image shows a picture of Habitat Crew working on a house on East Pleasant Street that eventually was acquired by two families. And then we've been working with Valley CDC on their individual single room occupancy apartment house at 132 North Hampton Road. Another mechanism we use is inclusionary zoning and we've had some pretty good success with that. We have six units of the presidential apartments. We have four at University Drive, the new building that Barry Roberts developed and Espen Heights is a new building that's being developed on North Hampton Road. And I think we have 11 units there of affordable housing. So little by little we're building up our numbers and the town can help by the zoning by-law. We have an inclusionary zoning by-law, but we know that there are improvements that could be made to that to allow us to get more affordable units. We act as a facilitator. We help the developer and the state and consultants get together to put together projects that provide affordable housing. The town provides funding in terms of CPA funds and tax incentives. We gave a tax incentive to the Beacon communities when they were developing their project in North Amherst. We also help with permitting and sometimes the town donates land to affordable housing projects. Next slide please. So these are some recent projects. North Square at the Mill District, which is the one on the upper left is completed and is being occupied now. University Drive is the Barry Roberts project with the four affordable units and I think 32 market rate units. And then Espen Heights on North Hampton Road, 88 units overall and 11 affordable units. Next slide please. We've also been working with the Amherst Municipal Affordable Housing Trust and here's an image of the East Street School. It's property that is owned by the town, but the town has been working with the trust to try to develop that property for affordable family housing. And we do have some good conceptual plans as to how that property could be developed in that way. Next slide please. So we're continuing to work on several things that are contained in the master plan. We're trying to address homelessness and the need for more affordable housing by working on the North Hampton Road project with Valley CDC and the East Street School project with the housing trust. The DPW is continually repairing aging infrastructure and we've been seeking funds to help them do that. Constructing new sidewalks and bicycle lanes. We have a community development block grant program going on on East Hadley Road. Developing a multi-use path there. Working on a comprehensive budget plan to address the four new large capital projects which you're all familiar with. Updating the zoning by-law, which is something I'll talk about in a minute and applying the principles of environmental sustainability town-wide. So the town adopted the stretch building code which is a few steps above the state building code and it requires that buildings be more energy efficient and the town also adopted the net zero requirement for municipal buildings. Next slide, please. So I just wanted to tell you a little about our efforts to redo the zoning by-law or to update the zoning by-law. I've been working with the building commissioner and we had a presentation to the CRC a few weeks ago about this. The overall goal is to create a new zoning by-law with new formatting and correct a lot of the problems in the zoning by-law that we know are conflicts. One chapter says one thing and the other chapter says something else and we have to constantly be trying to figure out, well, what do we do here with these two conflicting requirements? We're also trying to incorporate as many of the desires of the planning board and the CRC as near as they can agree on what they would like to see done. So it's going to be a big project, complete rewrite and incorporating a lot of the things that we've been talking about for the last few years in terms of improving our inclusionary zoning by-law, fixing some of the things that are wrong with the parking requirements, making them more realistic, fixing our mixed use building requirements. We have a lot of problems with the signed by-law. So little by little, we're working through those. And so I think the planning department and the building commissioner are working with the CRC and the planning board to develop this new zoning by-law. And I hope that you stay tuned and listen to us as we move forward. I think that's all I have to say for now. Thank you. Thanks. So I just want to mention for the people who joined us later, this is a primer period meeting and we're going to ask for, I'm going to ask for any questions or comments from the town council at this point. We will have public comment once we start the public forum, which will be as immediately following this meeting. So are there counselors who at this point would like to ask a question or make a comment? Kathy, you have your hand up. Yeah, thank you, Chris, for that presentation. And I found the bullets very helpful to bring out some points. My question is, and I'll pick out a couple of your bullet points. If the master plan is a concept that's called the small town rural character or provide alternative means of transportation. When the planning board is reviewing a site plan or when reviewing your proposal, to what extent is the master planner, those words, he said it doesn't dictate zoning laws, but is it open for interpretation of what those mean as you're looking at what is being proposed and have you in the implementation. So that's my question, here's a concept and then here's something specific that you're considering and how do you go back and forth? And I can pick out others because you said, some of them are not necessarily mutually supportive. Some of your bullet points. So may I answer that now? Please. So I can think of two examples of maintaining the small town rural character. And I think one of them is the Emerson media project that's being developed on Main Street. When that first came to the planning board in the spring of 2019, the planning board was very disappointed in the proposed development of that site. And over the course of the next year, the Emerson media worked with the local historic district commission and then worked with the planning board to come up with a plan for that site that really did maintain the small town rural character of that neighborhood. It didn't allow a big inappropriate building to be built there. And it thought very carefully about the views that would be preserved. Another project that I can think of is the cluster subdivision in South Amherst along West Street which is down, it's kind of across from Atkins Farm, but it's a cluster subdivision that has eight housing units, but about seven acres of that property. I think there were 11 acres all together and seven acres is being preserved and will eventually be given to the town. And I think that's a really good example of trying to accommodate the needs that we have for more housing, but to create it in a way that is maintaining the small town rural character. It's part of the South Amherst village center. It's close by to the Hampshire village and Applewood and Atkins Farm. So it's kind of all a part of one and the buildings are also looking like they belong in Amherst. In terms of alternative means of transportation, I think that when the planning board reviews projects, it really tries hard to understand what is available. For instance, two housing developments that were recently approved by the planning board, one on Main Street, 462 Main Street, which is being built right now. It's right near the railroad tracks. The planning board thought carefully about how many cars, how many parking spaces would be needed there because that property is within walking distance of Amherst College and UMass and the downtown. It's on a bus route and parking for bicycles was provided. And that same type of thinking went into the plan for Amir McChes property on Southeast Street, which I hope will eventually get built. But there was a lot of conversation about alternative means of transportation and not requiring the number of parking spaces that would normally be required for that project. So those things are on top of the planning board's minds when they're reviewing these projects. Thank you. Thank you. Questions from the council at this time? Yes, Shalami. I have a question about the land use, numbers that are presented on, I don't know, what page. But anyway, it says, yeah, it's under land use. And so it says that the residential, I find these numbers really interesting and I have a question related to them. So the numbers that are there say that residential is 23% of the land protected agriculture is 18%, conservation 18% and land owned by the three institutions is 16%. So that adds up to 75%. And then the town has only 3.6% designated as commercial, retail, or industrial zones. So my question was that out of the 3.6%, is that all already developed or do we have more space? And then the difference between, like if it's only 75 and three, like do we have some scope for that unaccounted land? Is that available for more development? So those numbers are leftovers from the 2010 master plan and those numbers will be revised when we do our new master plan in 2025 to 2030. I have tried to work with our IT department to update those numbers for now and it's hard for them to understand where those numbers came from. The mass GIS was used back in 2005 to 2010 to develop those numbers and we can't quite reproduce how those came about. So would you repeat your question about the developable land? I might be able to answer that. Yeah, so I mean, just based on the numbers that are given so far, it just adds up to 75 plus three is like about 78% of the land is accounted for. And so I was wondering if this scope for more development for commercial use, either within the 3.6% that's mentioned or do we have land right now that could be rezoned and used? That's not protected and not residential and could be used for that's more developable. I think that the way the town is zoned right now in terms of the zoning map is probably a reasonable zoning map. We do have land that is undeveloped in North Amherst and quite a bit of land, it's in the PRP Professional Research Park. One reason that it hasn't been developed to date is because it doesn't have sewer and water going to it. So if the town really wanted to have those properties developed, the town could consider extending sewer and water up there. There are small pockets of PRP land off Belcher Town Road that could still be developed. And there are many, how can I say this, underdeveloped parcels of land in the commercial and the business limited districts that if you really look at them, you could say, well, do we really need one story building on that property or would it make more sense to put something bigger and maybe allow commercial and retail on the ground floor and housing up above? So there are a lot of underdeveloped properties that are potentially ripe for redevelopment in places that are already zoned for development. Thank you. Are there any other comments or questions from the council at this time? Okay, then seeing none, I'm going to adjourn this part of the meeting. Don't go anywhere. We're using the same connection. We've already made sure everybody can hear us. I do want to note that Councillor Brewer has joined us since I took roll call. And we are going to move into the public forum period of our meeting, okay? So the meeting, the primer is officially adjourned. And so now I'm going to call the public forum to order and note that we are calling, given that we have a quorum of the council, I'm calling the meeting to order at 7.06. And let me just explain, we're going to actually show how you can connect if you're watching through Amherst Media. So Athena, let's put that slide up. Thank you. I just want to make sure that you can connect either by coming in on Zoom, which is the first bullet and when you come in, you are in the audience and I'll be going to the audience in a moment to see who's raised their hand and would like to speak. I also want to then indicate that you please use the raise hand function. If you wish to join by telephone, you can use the phone numbers that we're showing here and you use the pound nine or the star nine on your phone if you wish to indicate that you would like to make a comment. So leave that up for just a moment and see if there's other additional people. Right now I have somewhere around 20 attendees and some of those people that have joined us are people from the planning board who we made a specific effort to make sure they knew we were doing this tonight. Okay, so let's take that down and the public comment period is open. Again, I want to stress, this is a requirement of the towns charter. It requires that half a time be spent with public comment, although we do have an opportunity to have more of a dialogue if you have questions and we're able to answer those questions. So at this time, if you would like to make public comment, please raise your hand. Could be a very short evening gang. Is there anybody in the audience? Yes, Johanna Newman. Please come forward, state your name and where you live and make your comment or ask your question. Can you hear us? Hello? Hi, can you hear me now? We can, thank you very much. Apologies, technical difficulties. My name is Johanna Newman. I live at 137 Stanley Street in Amherst, newly appointed member of the planning board so definitely still learning my ropes there, but I just want to reiterate how upon, like before I applied for the planning board, I reread the master plan and was once again, just reminded of how much of it is relevant to Amherst, but that the, and where I think we should go as a town, the planning board covers the zoning issues, but there are obviously a lot of other parts to the master plan that are relevant to actually reaching this vision. So I'll just say that I'm really excited about not only my role on the planning board, but also just some of the cross-cutting issues that involve the town council and the zoning board of appeals and the department of public works so that we can fully realize the kind of walkable, bikeable communities available to everyone in Amherst. That's all I have to say. Thank you for your work. Thank you, Johanna. Are there other people who would like to make public comment at this time? Yes, Ira Brick, please come forward, unmute and make your comment. Hi, everybody. I don't want to be repetitious of things that I've said before and I actually got on late, so I did not hear the primer, but have some idea of what it is. And I think that there's a lot of people in Amherst who are not represented in the direction of the town and it's not because anybody is closing them out, but they are busy people who don't feel the will or enthusiasm to get involved in town government. And I would urge this town to do something that people don't really do who run towns and cities is to just have a modern way of taking the pulse and explain what the town might look like in 10 years. I'm sure that if you have a vision of what the town looks like and you describe it, people are gonna say, I agree with that or I don't agree with that. And it doesn't matter what philosophy of planning it's based on. There are people that do not wanna lose the small town feel of downtown who don't want continuation of the buildings that are downtown who don't agree with the idea that smart growth basically means that there's a lot of principles to it, but it's not smart growth. The other term I'm forgetting is that basically build more of what's there already. I would just urge you to reach out in some modern digital way to take more of the pulse to have a listening session that is efficient and online and that if you can prove your case by getting public opinion behind you a lot of people that disagree with what you're doing would probably just fall in line, including me if it was the will of the people. But I think right now the will of the people disagrees with a lot of the direction of the master plan. I say that respectfully, but we are a small town and run by a very small number of people. And I think that small number of people need to reach out. I know it's ironic since I'm one of two people that even is participating from the public right now. So far, thank you, Ira. We appreciate your comments. Ludmila, please state your full name and where you live. Ludmila Pavlovicillum, I live at 350 Montague Road in Precinct One. I just want to say that as a former member of the planning board who watched and participated during the development of the master plan and then was on the board when I voted to adopt the master plan some almost 10 years later. I think it was a very good document that took into account a great deal of input from multiple sectors of the community at that time. But towns do change, communities change. And I think it would be important, like Ira said, just to look and find ways to invite or go to communities where we could share the information about the master plan. And more importantly, even discuss the map that was finally developed and adopted and added to the master plan in the last sort of six months of the process because so much of the preamble was about gathering information, designing the goals, setting up the strategies. And the final map was the very last thing that was added at the end of the planning board if my memory is correct. So I think starting with that map and using it to educate our main constituents at different levels of the community would be an important way to at least start from a baseline and bring everyone along who hasn't been involved the way I have been, for example, in this conversation. Over what is now 22 years, I think the comprehensive master plan was started right about 20 years ago when I was still relatively new and so I was interested in the conversation. And I think there are a lot of new people who will be interested in what we're doing and we need to be able to find ways to get out to them. Thank you for doing this work and for hearing me out. Lou Miller, thank you so much for your previous service and thank you for your comments tonight. Bruce Baird, I think it is. Bruce, please state your name properly and where you live. Hi, this is Jeannie Hardy with my husband, Bruce Baird and we live at 116 East Pleasant Street in Amherst. And I'm familiar with the master plan and the most critical component of it that I'm really in support of is the idea that we not change the community feel of our town. So we live right downtown. We live one block from Primo II Pizzeria and a large building that was constructed during the time we've lived in town, right across the street. And we kind of feel split because we love being in town. We like to be able to walk to things. We like to walk to the pizza shop. We like to walk to Hennie and Bakery. We like to walk to CVS and we would like to be able to walk to a grocery store. But we'd like to be able to also enjoy living where we live. And one of the things that makes us enjoy it a little less is when we don't feel like our kids can be safe going downtown either because of people who are hanging out on the street or because of buildings that have such small setbacks that you can't even see around the corner. And so the part of the master plan about maintaining the feeling of the community that's important to me is to develop downtown and Amherst in general in such a way that people can still live in this neighborhood and feel like they live in a small town, not feel like they live in a crowded Manhattan street where there's no room for a bike lane. There's barely room for two people to pass on the street and definitely not room for two people to pass on the street with six feet of social distancing between them. And I think there've been efforts by developers to make use of every single inch of space and turn it into expensive housing. And that does change the feel because when you use up every single inch of space there's no green, there's no space, there's no setbacks. Luckily where these new buildings downtown are have Kendrick Park across from them. And so that adds some green space to the area. But an area that was recently considered for 40R across the street from us would have two huge buildings right next to each other with no setbacks. And I think it's crazy that the setbacks for buildings like that can be less than the setbacks that a property owner can have for putting in a swimming pool or building a garage. And, but yet they're right next door to us. So I would really urge this committee to take into consideration that there are people who are not super conservative or old fashioned or even old who also want to maintain sort of this small town feel that Amherst has. Thank you. Jeannie, thank you very much for your comment. Are there other comments at this time? Yes, Jane, I'm glad you were able to connect. Please state your name and where you live. Thank you for helping me get in Lynn. My name is Jane Pearl. I live at Six Ducksbury Lane in Echo Hill since 1993 and one of the apartments, Mill Valley Estates before that for a year. And I appreciate learning about the master plan. It was an excellent presentation. Thank you. I'm just starting to kind of wake up after all these years of being a small self-employed single mother. And now I'm getting more, I think that the issues are more obvious to me with the new buildings that were in town. And my understanding was that originally those five-story buildings were supposed to be four stories, that they were supposed to have parking and they were supposed to be affordable housing. I'm aside for the aesthetics, which I do not like at all. And that's saying it mildly. I would like to understand how those three requirements and possibly others were changed midstream because that's what's there is not what my understanding is what was voted and approved. Thank you for your comment. Chris, did you have any response to that particular comment? Yes, I would like to respond. So the new buildings that were built, the Kendrick place, excuse me, one East pleasant and the one that's currently under construction on Spring Street were proposed and approved after the town adopted five stories as the maximum building height in the downtown. So there had been a zoning by-law that only allowed four stories, but somewhere around 2010, 2011, something like that. The zoning by-law was changed to allow five stories without a special permit. In addition to that, those buildings were built in the municipal parking district and the municipal parking district doesn't require on-site parking for most uses. I think it does require it for some institutional uses, but not for residential or office or restaurants or anything like that. And that's something that we need to look at to decide whether we want to maintain that municipal parking district the way it is or to change it. The other thing that the speaker brought up, Ms. Pearl, is affordable housing. So affordable housing was not required of those buildings because they didn't require a special permit for use. They only required a special permit for certain dimensional modifications. And that's another thing that we can look at when we're examining our zoning by-law. Exactly what kinds of projects do we want to require to have affordable housing? And that's something that I think we will be looking at. So thank you for your comments. Okay, thank you. Are there other comments at this time? Yes, Brian Yellen, please state your full name and where you live. Hello, my name is Brian Yellen. I live at 13 Norweitex Circle in South Amherst. And I generally feel positive about what I've read from the master plan and support higher density residential, especially in the commercial centers. Just wanted to sort of share my enthusiasm for further development of Pomeroy Corners. It's sort of a great growing commercial center in South Amherst with high density housing on three of the four corners. And I think the imminent conservation of Hickory Ridge presents a lot of really exciting opportunities to sort of further enhance that part of town, especially connecting neighborhoods on East Hadley Road that to Pomeroy Corners better through development of that conservation area and really engaging all the neighboring folks to Hickory Ridge in the process of conserving it and shaping how it goes. So I know, obviously that's not part of the master plan because it is a recent development, but excited for the opportunities that it presents with respect to developing Pomeroy Corner. Thank you. Thank you for your comment, Brian. Are there other comments? Yes, Ginny Hamilton, are you able to bring Ginny in? She lowered her hand. I'm not sure that she still wants to speak. She's still listed. Ginny, please, yes, she's in now. Please unmute and state your name and where you live. Hey, Hamilton, I live in South Amherst at 140 Middle Street and agreeing with Brian's comments in terms of the development right up the street for me as a good location for bringing community together both for housing and for the land conservation. When I look at something like our master plan, I see the long-term implications and that the goals that her set forth take more than just a few years to accomplish. And so being able to see where we are now as an earlier commenter said, updating people who maybe don't have these details for them and drawing in their attention so that we can see where we still need to go. And for me personally, one of the highest priorities this is regards to our affordable housing goals given our current situation and the current stressors for low-income renters in particular, being able to keep a high priority on meeting those challenging and yet high priority goals for the value of who gets to live in Amherst, who gets to stay in Amherst. So I wanted to highlight the importance of the affordable housing goals as part of our plan and hope that we can keep with moving forward rather than reinventing the wheel. Thank you. Thank you, Ginny. Are there other comments at this time? Yes. Myla Sherman, please state your name and where you live. Hey, this is Woody Sherman, Mila's husband. Yeah, this is a great discussion. So thanks for having this and thanks for letting us talk. Really just wanted to urge everybody and I presume everybody's thinking this way but just to make it very clear in the decision-making that the buildings in the future downtown maintain the character of the town and leave the open space, the park space, the green space and sidewalks that are not having very tight corners and that there's space for people. And we have a big town and we don't have that many people and it shouldn't be that hard. And it just feels like maybe the developers are pushing people around a little bit because I presume everybody here feels the same way. So it almost shouldn't be a discussion but just wanted to say that and urge everybody to stand up for what you all believe in and what I think I'll want for the town. So thank you. Thank you for your comments, Woody. Bruce, you had another comment. Yes, this is actually Bruce Baird this time from 116 East Pleasant Street in Amherst. And I have a kind of, I guess I have a question about how we're conceiving of affordable housing. My understanding of the sociological literature is that the best way to sort of generate kind of maximum equality in a community is to integrate people, like have a wide kind of integration of various kinds of people all together into a community. And so I'm wondering if we're conceiving of 10% affordable housing in an apartment building which is predominantly otherwise directed towards UMass students to really fulfill the goals of affordable housing in terms of integration into a community. So that's kind of a half question, half comment. Thank you. I'm actually going to ask Chris Brestrup to basically give just some general sense of affordable housing and also the percentage that the town of Amherst is presently at. So the town of Amherst presently has about, I think it's 12.7 something percent affordable housing which is really good. And we did receive an award for our efforts with regard to affordable housing a few years ago and we're very proud of that. Now we realize that we need to do much more because there are a lot of people who can't afford to live here and a lot of people who live here already who can't really afford to live here. But we do constantly strive to develop housing for people who make what we call 80% or less of AMI area median income. So that's really the benchmark for considering housing affordable at least as far as the state goes. We recognize the fact that there are people here who make more than that, who also can't really afford to live here or can barely afford to live here. And that is a, what should I say an issue that is harder to deal with because there aren't tax incentives and there aren't state grants and there aren't the number of funding sources for that kind of moderate priced housing. So as much as we can, we would like to allow that to happen, allow that to be developed, but developers are not necessarily incentivized to do that. So we have to figure out a way of doing that, but we are constantly striving to create more housing for people who make 80% or less of area median income. And the development on Northampton Road is actually a very good development because it's providing housing for formerly homeless people, for people who make 30% or less of AMI, 50% or less of AMI and 80% or less of AMI. So it's gonna be a stratified development that will have a fairly good integration of individuals who have those different income levels. But they're also, it's hard to think about someone who doesn't make very much money but lives in a building that where apartments are going for $3,000 a month. So integrating affordable housing into some of our new buildings that are downtown is going to be more challenging, but we're continuing to work on that. And I wanna thank you for your comment. Elizabeth, curling, please come forward, state your name. Anu, where you live? Yes, this is Elizabeth Veerling and I live at 36 Cottage Street in Amherst. And I guess I would like to start really by thanking Christine for what I thought was a very clear and informative presentation of the master plan and really overall for what I think is her excellent awareness and concern for town planning issues. And I really appreciate your work. I would just like to reiterate that I think the zoning bylaws that allowed the construction of One East Pleasant and Kendrick Place demonstrate the true inadequacy of those bylaws for central Amherst relative to the master plan. So I think there are communities across the country that demonstrate smart growth that is much more consistent with the master plan. And I sincerely hope that going forward that the bylaws for central Amherst are consistent with the master plan. I would also like to comment on the fact that I've seen much more consideration for every detail of the 132, I think that's the number, project for low income housing compared to the amount of consideration that has been given to the 40R proposal. So I hope that the kind of consideration I've seen for the 132 project really figures into how we reformulate the zoning bylaws. Thank you. Thank you for your comment, Elizabeth. Are there other comments? Are there other comments from the audience at this time? Seeing none, then let me just thank Christine for your press trip for your excellent presentation and for fielding the questions. And also to just say, this is a ongoing conversation just like the master plan is a living document. And as we get further into discussions regarding zoning changes, obviously we will come back to what we feel the master plan has kind of given us and whether we're listening well. We wanna thank all of you for your comments tonight and we look forward to hearing from you in the future. With that, I'm going to adjourn the meeting.