 Dorothy and show me. All right, we're recording but there's still people coming in so just hold off. Certainly. We'll go ahead and start. Okay. Good evening. Two meetings. I want to ask people to mute so that there's no echo. Thank you. We have two meetings this evening. The first one is public form. I'm calling on the CPA recommendations, but not including the library. The second is our regular town council meeting. So I'm going to start by calling meeting to order. Governor Baker's March 12th order, suspending certain provisions of the open meeting law. Allows us to hold town council meeting. Given that we have a quorum of the council present. I'm going to call upon each councilor by name. At that time, they should unmute their mic and say present. This one to Kate that you can hear me and we can hear you. Please remember to mute your mic after saying presence. And so I'm going to start. I don't see Shalini. So I'm going to start with Alyssa Brewer. Present. Pat De Angelis. Present. Darcy DeMont. Present. Lynn Griesma is present. Mandy Johanna. Present. Dorothy Pam. Still waiting. Okay. Evan Ross. Present. George Ryan. Present. Kathy Shane. Present. Steve Schreiber. Present. Andy Steinberg. Present. Sarah Schwartz. Present. We're going to begin with a very, very brief presentation on this. It'll be a slide. It will show the recommendations. Of the Community Preservation Act committee. And I also want to note that with us in the audience this evening. Is Sarah Marshall. Who is chair of the Community Preservation Act committee. And also note that with us. As a panelist is Anthony Delaney. Who is the major staff supporting. That group as well. So very quickly. Could you show the slide that shows the recommendations? So this is the fiscal order. That shows the recommendations. And I just want to point out very quickly. That each of the recommendations is shown by the amount of money. And they are. In various. Groupings. The first one is housing. The second grouping is historic preservation. The third grouping is open space, but there are no projects in open space this year. The fourth is total recreation. And the fifth is administrative. And then in addition to that. We also make sure that there is. A reserve. And a. Historical reserve. So we're going to take that down. I'm going to ask the audience to raise your hand. If you have. Comments with regard. To the community preservation act. Recommendations. Chris Brestrup. Would you like to make a comment? Can you show the slide again. About the CPA. Monies. I guess I was mistaken about. The North common. I thought there were two amounts for $250,000 each. One for historic preservation and one for. Recreation. Anthony, do you want to clarify that? That is, that is what's there. There's a. There's a line. It would be line six there. Yeah. Where the mouse is. And then yes. So it's the same project split. Into two different fields. Two different functional areas. I see. All right. Thank you very much. We'll leave it up for a little bit, but meantime. Are there any questions or comments. From the audience. This is the public comment period. This comes to the public comment. This is the public comment period. This comes to the council for a vote later on. We are not voting on the recommendation with regard to the library. That's the Jones library. Are there any other questions from. Staff or counselors. Kathy. Lynn, I have a comment more than a question just for the audience. I just wanted to make sure that. I just wanted to make sure that this. We earlier this year. Voted on the Belcher town road purchase. So there we have actually CPAC has allocated more to community housing than is shown here, but that was taken because we had an immediate need to close down a purchase order. So it was done off the normal. Michael. So it's just. Thank you. It's not on this purchase order because we've already done that. Are there comments or questions from the audience? Yes, Bruce. Please enter the room. State your name on mute. State your name where you will live and your question. Bruce called them. I live at 159 mine street. In Amist. My question is just looking at the. The list of projects here. I noticed that almost all of them are. Town related. Which seems to be a change from the. Previous years where I was more involved and interested because of the North Amist community farm. I was paying attention to this. Over the past five or six years. I'm not sure if this is just a section of the, of the total. Allocations. There's actually two allocations that are not on here. One was mentioned earlier by councilor Shane. And that's the allocation that we did. To purchase. The property on Belcher town road for low income housing. The town community has to buy a $20. $20 for the Jones library historic preservation. That was before the council in April. So, so I guess then we are looking at a CPA allocations, which is substantially. Town generated the town projects. Is this a trend? Or. Is this an aberration? Do you think it's, I don't think it's either. I think it's a. a respectable applicant for community preservation? Oh, yes, yes, I'm sure. Sorry, I didn't mean to imply otherwise. I'm just curious as to why there seems to be so few community nonprofits that have been apparently motivated to apply. Athena, I'm gonna ask if you would bring Sarah Marshall into the room, if she'd like to comment on that or maybe Anthony Delaney would like to comment. So it is true that the town makes up the majority of the proposals accepted this year. Only one proposal was proposed and not accepted this year. It was a private initiative that was in its initial configuration rules not eligible for CPA. The CPA has some ideas about outreach and we'll be making some efforts towards that this summer. Greater advertising, some info sessions, other ideas under consideration. So committee has noticed that too. If Sarah has something else to say there, I would definitely want to hear from her. You could bring Sarah into the room. Sarah is, as I mentioned earlier, is the chair of the CPA committee. Am I in the room? You are. Okay, hello everyone. Bruce, I don't know, but my guess is the pandemic may have just slowed down the work of a lot of private organizations. That's just a guess. Thank you very much, all of you. That's helpful, I'll help them. Thanks, Bruce, and thanks for joining us. Are there any other comments from the audience at this time? Questions are also welcome. Yes, Janet Keller. Please enter the room, state your name and where you live. Sure, Janet Keller, and I lived on Post-It Hill Road in North Amherst. I just came in, I apologize. Are we only talking about community preservation at things? We are, this is the Public Forum Community Preservation Act only. Okay, I'll go away. Thanks. Thanks. Are there any other comments about the Community Preservation Act recommendations from the CPA committee? Janet, you need to lower your hand, please. Thank you. Are there any other comments? Going to remain for about another two or three minutes, and then we're going to move to the regular council meeting. Okay. Any other comments from the audience? Gabriella, please enter the room and state your name and where you live. Can you hear me now? We can, and these are comments only on the Community Preservation Act. Okay, so I have a question about the Gabriella for that. I live in Amherst at Greenleaves, and I have a question about the North Common Project. I confess I have not been following this project at all, so I may be asking a question or making a comment which has already been covered at previous times. So is the North Common Project, is that the one that is going to be removing parking spaces and putting a ban shell up in the common? It is the one that we are going to be discussing later on the agenda tonight, and there's actually dedicated public comment for it. It actually, there's two proposals on the table. One is a partial removal of parking. The other one removes all of the parking on the common. It is not where there is a proposed ban shell. That would be on the South Common. Okay, but there will be, you will be addressing that later on in the meeting? Yes, we will. Okay, thank you. Are there any other public comments on the CPA recommendations at this time? I see none. I'm going to ask that we take the slide down and I'm gonna just pause for one more moment. And I'm going to at this point adjourn this public forum and we're going to move immediately into the town council meeting at 6.45. I've already talked about Governor Baker's provisions. This is now the regular town council meeting. I'm calling it to order at 6.45. Two additional counselors have joined us. I wanna make sure that they can hear us and we can hear them. Shallonee Balmille. Yes. Thank you. Dorothy Pam. Please unmute and let us know if you can hear us and we can hear you. And I'm gonna come back to Dorothy in a moment. Okay. This meeting includes audio, video and is available live on Amherst Media. There's no chat room. If anybody has technical issues, please let Athena and myself know and we can decide at that time what to do with the meeting. I also want to draw attention to the announcements on the printed agenda. I'm not going to go through those announcements but I do wanna highlight that there are two public forums on the property village intersection. One is Thursday night at six and one is on Saturday, March 7th. Dorothy, I see that you're here. Can you hear us? And we can hear you. Right. Thank you. All right, so we're going to move on to, and let me just mention, we have one event outside Town Hall. It is an event with flag raising. It's a ceremony along with a proclamation regarding child abuse awareness and prevention month. And that is on April 6th at 9 a.m. in front of Town Hall. We can take that down. We have no hearings this evening so we're going to move to public comment. While there may be an opportunity, while there will be an opportunity for public comment on the North Common later in the agenda, this is the only other public comment this evening. I'm going to ask for a show of hands of all the people who would like to comment. Okay, residents are welcome to express their views. I'm going to say for up to two minutes at the discretion of the council president, based on the number that I'm seeing, I'm going to keep it to two minutes. The council will not engage in dialogue or comment on a matter raised during general public comment. So I'll begin by asking Michelle Miller to enter the room and state your name and where you live. Hi, I'm Michelle Miller in North Amherst. Good evening, counselors. I'm here tonight on behalf of reparations for Amherst to comment on Mr. Vakulman's memo 7C update on funds appropriated to address systemic racism. First, we want to commend the community safety working group for their deeply transformative work on behalf of our community. We congratulate seven generations movement collective for winning the bid and are confident they will do exceptional work to support the group. We're also very happy to see Mr. Vakulman's thoughtful consideration with respect to the remainder of the funds available to address systemic racism. We wholeheartedly support the work of the core equity team, proposal one and the data collection, proposal three and do not wish to compete with either of those initiatives for funding. And we firmly believe both of those things should be incorporated as line items into the regular operating budget and be considered ongoing work of the town. If we are to become a truly anti-racist community we will need to be addressing equity and collecting data regularly. Our municipal budget is a direct reflection of our value as a community and must therefore include addressing the town's systemic racist practices and collecting racial data in the regular planning of our budget. Our request is a one-time ask specific to time-related items and if approved will be directly used to support the town's commitment to engage in a path of remedy for black residents. Specifically, the funds will be used to compensate black folks for engaging in our research work and facilitating educational opportunities for our community. The town council support of this request will have benefits for all. At this very moment, counselors in Evanston are getting ready to vote on the first iteration of their reparations bill. If the vote passes, they will become the first US city to offer reparations money to black residents ever. We could be the second but we need your support to help us advance. Thank you. For your comment, Michelle. Alex Kent, please enter the room, state your name and where you live and please to the extent possible keep your comments to two minutes. Thank you, counselors. Alex Kent, 83 North Prospect Street. Naomi Klein has written limits are a problem for our economic system. Ours is a culture of endless taking as if there were no end and no consequences. A culture of grabbing and going. This attitude is manifest in buildings like one East Pleasant Street, a building that is vastly out of scale compared to the rest of the downtown business district. Its walls run sheer from the sidewalk line to the top of its barely articulated no setback five story facades. Friends are sky high from $1,660 for a studio to $3,100 for a two bedroom. Like other archipelago projects downtown, the building offers zero affordable housing and probably never will. As a 20 year downtown resident, I support development of the business district and downtown neighborhoods. I would support zoning that permits even encourages greater density, but only if that development includes owner occupied rentals, multi-unit owner occupied condominiums and preferably in town co-housing. I want zoning that actively discourages the construction of absentee landlord student housing. I strongly support the proposed permitting moratorium. Thank you. Thank you for your comment, Alex. Ira Brick, please enter the room, state your name and where you live. Hi, I'm Ira Brick. I live at 255 Strong Street. And I just want to support the idea of taking a break, a moratorium to do more planning, more public input, more seriously considering a lot of the objections from a lot of people in our community that we are not building the right things. Nobody wants those five straight buildings and it looks like there's no end in sight to them. Nobody who's complaining on these calls at least wants the densification to the point that you're creating overcrowding that is more slum-like than anything else. Everybody wants to live in a nice neighborhood no matter how diverse that neighborhood is. And I think that there's a lot of damage that can be done if you build now that's gonna last for generations. We can take a pause and you will be glad that you are building what the community wants, what's going to entice people to go downtown. And just one mismatch that just seems to be more apparent than ever is the number of student apartments that are surrounding the new playground. Who's gonna play there? It's an attractive nuisance for college students. So I'm just saying let's pause and do more planning and more public input. Thank you so much. Thank you for your comments, Ira. Ruth Hazard, please enter the room, state your name and where you live. Okay, thank you. Can you hear me now? We can. Thank you. My name is Ruth Hazard. I live on Pine Street in North Amherst and thank you for giving me a time to speak. I see that a decision about anti-racism training for the council is on your agenda this evening. I'd like to express my appreciation and my support for the anti-racism training that you are soon to embark on and urge you to fully engage with the training. I have also done various trainings from decades ago to days ago and to learn about and to gain skills to undo the systemic racism that pervades our country. And I have learned something new and important from each one of them. As a person of European descent who has the privileges of whiteness, I have had to learn to see what was all around me and what I was conditioned by white supremacy culture to not see and to not understand. Often it is very painful to understand how the system has harmed black people, indigenous people and other people of color over centuries and how the system operates to keep itself going. It is not easy work, but I find that every time I see more clearly the truth of the harm and injustice that was and is still going on, I also gain in wholeness and integrity within myself. The work of white folks is not about becoming swamped and mired and lost in guilt and shame. Though the fear of that can sometimes stop me and us from moving deeper into the work. It is about lifting ourselves into wholeness, into being our highest selves, being grounded in our bodies and our hearts so that we can generously take responsibility for working to change what's wrong. I urge you to hold to the vision of a fully inclusive culture and structure in our town and beyond, one that empowers and enriches all of us. When I have taken the risk to keep moving toward that goal, I have never regretted it. When I have invested time and energy into that work, I've grown stronger accordingly. It was worth the investment. And so I offer you my support and respect as you move forward into that vision. Thank you. Ruth, thank you for your comments. Mary Sayer, please enter the room. State your name and where you live. Can you hear me? You can. Oh, Mary Sayer, Pine Street. And I thank Ruth for that. That was, anyway, I thank her for saying what she said. I'm calling about the moratorium. And I would, I am in favor of it because what I've heard from the town council and I've tried to follow the planning board on this that we have a housing crisis, but I haven't heard any even approximate figures on how many people in town rent, how many people own, how many people would like to move, where they would like to move to, what size they would like to move into, are they downsizing? So I think that we need to get that kind of information before we start simply building. Amherst actually in the past, in the 70s overbuilt. And I think it was the kind of place we're in right now where we just said, we need housing build. And I think that we need to do it in a considered way. So I am for this moratorium simply, I think we should send a survey to the town via our census and it can be anonymous, just asking people telling them why we wanna know their opinion and then asking simple questions. Are you planning on moving? Would you like to move? If you would like to move but can't move, why not? Where would you like to move to? There are so many pieces of information that I don't think the town has because I've asked and I haven't gotten any sort of hard figures. So I would like to get beyond a feeling that we have a housing crisis to, we have a housing crisis and here, and here's what it represents. Quickly, I know at North Square, all the affordable housing went very fast and the rest is primarily students and graduate students. So I think we need to look at what's already built and who's in it and then go from there. Thank you. Mary, thank you for your comments. Kitty, Axels and Barry, please enter the room, state your name, where you live. Hi, Kitty, Axels and Barry, I live on Stony Hill Road in Echo Hill, South. And I'm just wondering really what your vision for Amherst is, especially in light of COVID and affordability and the lack of projections about how the student population is going to increase or decrease. I don't think we really have any idea whether we're gonna need an urban corridor or even be able to use an urban corridor, tall apartment style student dorms that many people think are pretty ugly and overshadow everything else. So I'm wondering if what you really want is a healthy, robust, sustainable mix of ages, mix of shades and colors and genders, young families, middle-aged, older people, local, small, local businesses. I used to be able to get everything I needed downtown when I first moved here in 1971. Now, I really can't get ahead of lettuce unless it's the summertime, and then I can go to the farmer's market. But you just can't really get any groceries other than maybe CVS if you wanna support CVS. I can't get a hammer. I really, I can't get a pair of socks unless they say Amherst College. And yes, I can go out to eat. But I wanna be able to support my small businesses. I wanna be able to get what I need downtown and to walk there once I get to the downtown area by taking a bus is what I wanna be able to do. So my basic question is what's your vision for Amherst and is densification throughout the area that goes all the way from about Southeast Street, all the way to beyond Sunset Avenue, it goes way out to Route 9, it goes over to Polkberry Ridge, is making a lot of putting, is increasing the density so much, really the way to accomplish whatever your vision is. And I don't know what it is anymore. That's all. Thank you, Kitty. Suzanne Fabing, please enter the room, state your name and where you live. Hello, I'm Suzanne Fabing Muspratt. I live at 38 North Prospect Street and I'd like to speak in favor of the proposed moratorium. A lot of issues are in the air at present that should be resolved before any more new buildings are approved, inclusionary zoning, downtown parking, how to attract year round residents, families, workers and retirees to live in or near downtown, how to sustain the small businesses that locals depend on, how to make our town a magnet for visitors and enhance its economic vitality, in short to address some of the other objectives of the master plan for town center beyond housing. There's even simply been a need to define a mixed use building and an apartment building, which hasn't been properly done here to four. The planning department has been working on many of these questions and studying several of the zoning amendments that council wants to consider, but those efforts are still very much in process. They've recently decided to hire a consultant to facilitate discussion with residents and other stakeholders, that's a great step, and to make recommendations about design guidelines and zoning changes. The consultant won't begin work until June, however. Meanwhile, developers are rushing to get their downtown projects approved lest any changes might be adopted that are not in their favor. Since all of these issues are actively in play, it makes no sense to approve building permits for new residential buildings in our precious but very small downtown and the surrounding RG before the consultants and planners have done their work and town council has been able to chart a course forward. The moratorium now will permit a reasoned and considered planning process for making the crucial decisions that will determine the town's future. With that a moratorium, more bricks and mortar will be put in place that the town will regret for decades to come and opportunities for positive improvements in our built environment will have passed us by. Thank you. Thank you for your comments, Suzanne. Susan Cummings, please enter the room, state your name and where you live. Okay, can you hear me? Yeah, okay. Yes, I'm Susan Cummings at 27 Greenleys Drive. I request that they propose moratorium on the construction permits for residential buildings be extended to route nine and university place where in recent months there has been a dizzying amount of residential construction primarily for college students adding to these new buildings is yet another one currently under construction at the corner of route nine in Snell. The impact on traffic, crowding and the character of this area of town is staggering. I also would request the council to extend the proposed moratorium is two more than six months to at least nine months until after the town elections in November so that candidates and citizens can discuss what they all want for Amherst. And I just heard about this consultant which sounds like a great idea. So thank you very much. Oh, if I may, do I have time? Yes, okay. I would like to say looking at the future I would ask that if it is determined by the town and UMass that even more student housing is necessary the council seriously explore with UMass the alternative of joint public, private housing projects on the UMass campus which has been the idea of which has been thrown around for years and I don't know there was press about it a year or so ago and I don't know why it's not being considered. Sounds like a great idea. Thank you very much. Susan, thank you for your comments. Pat Rooney, please enter the room, state your name and where you live. Hi Pam Rooney, thank you for having me. I'm sorry, Pat, Pam. It's okay. My grandmother called that too. I support forwarding this article to the planning board for the process by which the community can weigh in and discuss a moratorium on what's coming down the pike at us. I have been advocating for some time that we plan first and then change our zoning and adjust our bylaws second. So I am hardly in favor of moving this along so that we have some good discussion about, yes, let's build more in the town center but let's please do it in a way that we can live with for the next generation or two. So thank you, let's move it along and into the hands of the planning board with some good public process. Thank you. Pam, thank you for your comments. So again, my apologies for misstating your name. Jane Pearl, please enter the room, state your name and where you live. Hi, my name is Jane Pearl. I live in Echo Hill on Duxbury Lane for almost 30 years. I have a question about the definition of affordable housing. I haven't seen in any town documents the town, what that means in dollars and cents. So I looked it up and there's a simple formula which low income is defined as 50 to 60% of the area's median family income for a family of four. And so if we assume 60% to be, you know, magnanimous to err on the side of the higher number and assume that 30% of one's budget should be devoted to housing, then it seems like, oh, and the median family income for a family of four in 2019 was $56,658. The 60% of that is almost $34,000 and 30% of that is divided by 12 is less than $900 for a family of four. That would be rent, affordable rent. That's, I may be incorrect, but that's the number I came up with. And there's another formula that I came up with for affordable home ownership, but I think we're talking about rental more for the coming buildings that are being discussed. And so I would very much like clarification about what that town considers an affordable rent for a family of four, maybe also for families of two or one or three. And if the percentage of units that would be devoted for affordable housing will include rents that low, that's all I have to say. Thank you for your comments, Jane. Janet Keller, please enter the room, state your name and where you live. Thank you. Janet Keller, 120 Pulp at Hill Road in North Amherst. I too am supporting a temporary moratorium and I want to talk about the time it would allow the consultant to create design guidelines for how more housing can be built and then combined with small commercial spaces affordable and very... And is there a problem? A range of tenants and support, a year round economy it would address the problem that restaurants and other small businesses are now facing during the months of school break when their patronage drops by as much to 20% of normal while overhead remains at 100%. New guidelines would create an environment where local owners can afford to operate small shops, restaurants and services that cater to visitors and year round residents. Thorn's Market in Northampton shows how a collection of small and even micro businesses can draw customers and enliven a town center providing buildings with spaces to accommodate a range of residents and businesses is not necessary for a year round local economy. Many community members have spoken in recent months about the need for this type of development downtown and near downtown and the master plan repeatedly calls for design guidelines. Good guidelines will build community support for new developments and draw people downtown. I hope you adopt this important proposal to plan first for an outstanding town center along some outstanding design guidelines and then and only then incorporate them into any zoning changes. Thank you. Kenneth, thank you for your comments. Sandy, must prep please enter the room, state your name and where you live. We need to unmute. Then is there a problem? Thank you. There you go. Sandy must prep 38 North Prospect Street. I've looked over the town plan of 2010 and there are many lordable objectives including true, some for a regarding housing but not just a numerical count preserving the character of the town and so on. And as I understand it, there has been in recent years, last two or three years, a quite respectable number of permits met and buildings made and that is continuing. Under the current zoning laws is why is there a necessity of changing it? What experience we've had of that building has not been encouraging as many people have noted, largely students, not the desirable diverse population that we would like to see and certainly not affordable units other than those required by laws only. So rich students can afford these small place places but families of modest means cannot and there's not enough room for them even if they could afford it. So I want to know why there is a formulation of a housing crisis. I would like that to be explained and those who put it forward should put those numbers out there to explain why there is a crisis. I think there should be a moratorium. I like the idea of extending it to the time of the coming election. So indeed, extend it to nine months. Thank you. Thank you for your comments Sandy. There's caller with the last four digits of 5700. Would you please come in, enter the room and state your name? Are there special instructions we need to give them? I think that, oh, it looks like we're ready to go. Right ahead please. Hi. Yes, my name is Jeff Cobb. Six while, thank you for hearing me. I dialed in on a conference call not the zone, hence the strange introduction. That's fine. I just wanted to echo my support for a temporary permit moratorium until such time that some of the zoning rules and bylaws that are currently being looked at can be reviewed with the aim of having, you know, the right type of development that residents want in the areas that they live. I'd also like to see a better consideration of owner occupancy for supplementary units and also a dialogue with the university about the growing issue of student housing. You know, I participated in a number of planning board discussions and zoning board appeal discussions and there's no, and child beating discussions and there's no interaction with the university or there's no, I hear nothing from the university's input on this. And I think I would support a temporary moratorium and I would encourage the council and the appropriate town officials to really encourage the university to use their vast acreage to address the student housing problem in Amherst. Thank you for listening to my comments. Jeff, thank you for joining us. Claudia Pesmani, please enter the room, state your name and where you live. Because I'm unmuted. Yes, you are. Yes. Claudia Pesmani here representing the Amherst area chamber as the executive director and I'm offering a brief statement regarding the proposed building moratorium that we feel is detrimental to local economic growth. And this is accompanied by a much fuller and complete statement that has submitted been submitted in full to the town council. So as stated, our old school 16 temporary moratorium for 180 days on building permits for construction of residential buildings with three or more dwelling units as proposed would be detrimental to economic growth in the town of Amherst and send the wrong message. Amidst the economic and ongoing housing crisis our town and region are facing the chamber has worked hard to position the Amherst area to emerge more resilient and coys to be an economic engine of the region. Redevelopment and housing production are an important part of the recovery and our long-term economic development goals as a town. This moratorium will directly hurt builders, trades people is fixedly irresponsible for the town and sends a clear message to those who are considering moving to starting their system or investing in Amherst do not dispel. So we do want to highlight it. It's antithetical to the town's own studies and stated goals. And it's been as stated as such at length by the Amherst municipal affordable housing trust the planning department and town council demand for housing and Amherst greatly exceeds the supply. The move is also in direct contradiction of three of your stated FY21's town council performance goals for the town manager including economic vitality for major capital investments and housing affordability adopted by the town council in September. Ultimately the chamber who has been working directly with the bid has been working to support and recruit new businesses residents to move to Amherst as well as planning and while rebuilding our tourism initiatives and securing funding for revitalization initiatives actively securing funding for revitalization initiatives. I state that emphatically. This moratorium works indirect conflict with those investments. Even together with the bid during the pandemic we work to address the need for adaptable pivots for our small business owners. We work together to encourage a modified zoning process as a direct result in June and then again in November 2020 the town council overwhelmingly passed zoning Article 14 including some of that temporary outdoor dining to encourage we are here to encourage and facilitate the reopening of existing businesses and the opening of new businesses to stimulate economic activity in the aftermath of the COVID-19 emergency. We applaud you for all the efforts there. Again, the proposed building moratorium acts in direct contradiction with these goals and it really seems to undermine Amherst short-term economic recovery from the pandemic. So we're really imploring the town councilors and planning board members to unequivocally reject this policy. Please send the message of the Amherst as a place that welcomes housing and economic development and simultaneously continue working diligently on the important planning and zoning reforms introduced in January of this year. Thank you for your time and service to the town of Amherst. What do you think of the movement? Bob Tancredi, please enter the room, state your name and where you live. Hello, my name is Bob Tancredi. I live at 57 High Street in Amherst and I would like to reiterate that back up some of the folks that have already spoken about a moratorium on the building. I especially think that given what we've seen so far and the fact that elections are coming later this year, I think we need to digest what's happened to this point. Many, many people I speak with are not happy with it. Again, I'm just talking about friends and neighbors. And I think before we continue to pound nails and put in permanent solutions for temporary problems, we need to catch our breath and review where we're going. I'm certainly in favor of vitalizing downtown and revitalizing businesses in Amherst to spread this tax burden to businesses and other buildings, permanent business buildings. But as a homeowner, the tax burden continues to fall on people like me for everything we do. Again, a moratorium definitely, let's see where we are. Let's see if the people who Amherst are happy with what's happened so far and they can more time to discuss, more time to hear from other people and then they can vote their opinion. I would also like to mention the reason I'm on this call is somebody puts a flyer in my mailbox today, something about footnote M, something the planning board is reviewing and there would like to remove, I guess. And what that allows, I know I'm not gonna do it justice, but it seems like it allows knockdowns, houses, housing knockdowns in residential neighborhoods replaced with townhouses or apartment complexes, no matter who lives on either side or whatever. It just, it looks like a license again for knockdowns and building apartments. It sounds like a recipe to demolish neighborhoods near downtown Amherst. I can't imagine who came up with it, it makes no sense. But again, that's, I just wanted to get that comment and I really appreciate this time and thank you for listening. Thank you for your comments, Bob. I wanna mention to all of you that are so interested in commenting that the council will not be voting tonight on the zoning bylaw. It'll be referred and it must go through the hearing process and the hearing will provide plenty of opportunity for additional resident comment. So it's not a decision tonight that your comments are impacting. Carol Pope, please enter the room and state your name. Where you live. Hear me now? Yes, we can. Thank you. Carol Pope, 119 High Street. I would like to just strongly urge and echo many of the comments already tonight to support the temporary building moratorium. And I agree, it should be nine months, not six months. I think so many decisions are being made without people being fully apprised of what's going on. I know people should be listening to your discussions more, but for those who don't, I think there should be some kind of surveys or some kind of public information so they could all have a chance to express their dismay, perhaps, but anyway, their opinions about how this is all coming down. So I strongly urge that we have a nine month moratorium on this building projects. And I hope there will be lots of time for public comment. I appreciate your saying that, Lynn. So we are encouraged, I hope, to keep making public comments to keep this, whatever happens now is gonna affect us for generations to come. And it's already happened in our town. I mean, so many buildings have been built that many people I know and myself included are very unhappy with. They do not give us vibrancy in our downtown. They don't bring any wonderful green space. They bring nothing to energize our town or make people wanna come to our downtown. So I think at least having a brief nine month time where we can stop and make decisions and think about this would be a big help. Thank you all for your participation and your help. Carol, thank you for your comments. And Scarf, please state your name and where you live. Hello, my name is Annie Scarf. I live at 151 Amity Street in the Marsh House Condominiums. Just a personal note, we live in what was the Amherst funeral home. It's now been renovated and there are two condominiums in the old house, 100 year old house and then three units have been added to it. So we're five families living here and it's been wonderful. We've been here 12 years. So I guess that's one way of saying the kind of development that I hope we can focus on more than the buildings that have gone up in the last couple of years. I can second just about everything I've heard, but the three points that stand out for me are that with all of those four, five story apartment houses going up, as I understand it, there haven't been affordable units. There's no parking. And one thing I just don't understand is why are we solving the University of Massachusetts student housing problem? Obviously this is a college town and there's a lot of benefits that go both ways, but I don't understand why essentially dorms are being built in downtown Amherst. Anyway, thank you so much for the opportunity to speak and yeah, and have a good evening. Any thanks for your comment. Jennifer Taub, please enter the room. State your name and where you live. Jennifer Taub, I live at 259 Lincoln Avenue. I actually wasn't gonna speak tonight because I didn't wanna just repeat all the comments for people speaking in support of the moratorium as I do, but I just wanted to respond to the comment that was made from the spokesperson from the Chamber of Commerce. I think it was the chamber of the bid. And I'm not clear how the moratorium sends the wrong message to the business community since the new buildings downtown have only displaced numerous businesses. It seems like the new buildings have done the opposite of encouraging new business development that the new buildings downtown have done the opposite of that. And that they in themselves have sent the wrong message to the business community because the buildings have displaced businesses and no effort has been made, including the design of the first floor of these buildings to encourage businesses to come into Amherst. And as a resident of a downtown adjacent neighborhood, I want nothing more than to see new retail and service businesses come into downtown. I mean, I would volunteer to work with the bid and the Chamber of Commerce. I think the residents who live in the neighborhoods around town, we want new businesses. I think sometimes we're seen as anti-commercial development, but I can, at a recent conversation that the town manager has, I listed I think 14 businesses that have disappeared in the 10 years I've lived in Amherst that I regularly use. I miss them dearly. So I just, again, want to reiterate that I do support the moratorium to plan first before we build. But again, I don't see how the moratorium sends the wrong message to businesses. And seriously, if there's anything we in the adjacent downtown neighborhoods can do to work with the bid and the Chamber to try and bring new retail and service businesses into the downtown area, just call on us. We're there. Thank you. Jennifer, thank you for your comment. Kristi Straj White, who's entered the room, state your name and where you live. You are unmuted, but your voice is very soft. We need to turn your volume up, please. Yes. Okay, sorry about that. Hi, my name is Kristi Straj White, and I also was not going to speak and reiterate the same thing that everybody had said, but I also was moved by the statement of the business improvement district representative. And I guess I'm a little bit restating the person who was just on, but I am in favor of the moratorium. I am in favor of extending it to nine months to give more time for the consultant and to work and to get more input from community members. I also have noticed many of the businesses that we, our family, as we used to go to have disappeared downtown businesses like World's Apart Games and Amherst Martial Arts and the Amherst Pub and Loose Goose, just to name a few, are gone now and Shale Bear. There's more bubble tea shops. There's a lot more businesses that favor students and are not as good and interesting for families. And I would like to see more businesses that are great for families. And not have the downtown become another student center. Thank you for your time. Thank you for your comment, Christy. Adrienne Therese, please enter the room, state your name and where you live. Thank you so much. Can you hear me? Yes. Well, thank you, counselors. And as a long-term resident of Amherst, there are a few issues that raise the temperature of individuals and the collective town. And of course, one of them is zoning. And I'd like to encourage everyone's temperature coming down and I do see this temporary moratorium as assisting in that way. For me, it's not about should we amend zoning bylaws. It's about what should those zoning bylaws be? And for me, let's not pit people against purpose or power against purpose. And for me, it's about what our community's vision is. And I think a 180-day moratorium brings us to a place to bring down the temperature to plan and then to make those zoning amendments. So thank you so much for your time and for your service to this wonderful place we all call home. Adrienne, thank you for your comments. Jesse Maverick. Hi, Jesse Major, live on Cosby Avenue in north side of town. Again, I won't echo all the comments which were probably said more eloquently than I would. Just wanted to add one different perspective slightly, which is definitely a favor of the moratorium. And that's because I fully believe there's a way for us to change and develop our town as successfully as numerous other cases around the country of small college towns of the same size, which are very vibrant, have lots of small businesses and are a great place to live. And when I moved here 14 years ago, I feel like that's how it was. And all I've seen is mostly changing towards or away from smaller businesses. And so I wholeheartedly believe we can get back there with the right planning. And I just don't see that happening with some of these new projects. So I'll just stop there. And again, thanks for listening. Bessie, thank you for your comment. Gabrielle Gould. Hi, thank you, Gabrielle Gould. I'm going to first speak as the executive director of the business improvement district. Just for clarification earlier, you heard from the Chamber of Commerce. For over 12 months, our businesses in our downtown have operated at less than 20% of business. And that is because we have not had the students, the parents and the faculty frequenting our stores. So as much as I would love to believe that our community is enough to keep our downtown thriving, it simply is not. We have all done our best. We have gotten more takeout than I've ever eaten in my entire life. And I've done my best to keep shopping downtown. It is not enough. The fact of the matter is, is that we need collective density in our downtown. The current buildings that everybody is so upset about and I want to use that word everybody because whenever my children say the word everybody to me, I find that very offensive. Not everybody feels that way. I live downtown. I am fortunate to be able to live downtown. And I love the downtown that I moved into. Do I think it needs help? Do I think it needs more? Absolutely. The bid is working on major projects right now, initiatives that will be coming forward to the public if they can all go the way we want them to do. To do a lot of what people are asking for, smaller shops, marketplaces, et cetera, et cetera. Those are things that we are going to need state funding for and things that only us as a 501C can be able to do. In the real world, there is rent to be paid and there are taxes to be paid. And it's very difficult to be a small business owner. As someone who has run small businesses myself, I say that with all of the heart, our businesses are doing their best to stay alive. Couple of things I just want to bring up is that the buildings that are downtown are bringing well over a million dollars in taxes versus the $60,000 that the carriage shops brought in. I also want to bring up that I've been able to speak to several of the carriage shops' previous owners and they are the ones that said that those businesses were failing long before the businesses were sold, the building was sold, and that they were falling apart. They couldn't keep them cool in the summer and they couldn't keep them warm in the winter. In the past two years, it's my understanding from our police chief that three calls have gone to one Kendrick Place and 11, I'm sorry, one EP and Kendrick Place. That means that they are not sucking resources unduly out of our community for the housing that they provide. I also want to state the incredible diversity that those houses, that that housing provides. It may not provide low income housing and I understand that that is a goal for all of us, but it is normal to live in downtown anywhere in America and have to pay higher rents than you would living on the outskirts of a town. But those buildings have an incredible racial diversity that I think benefits our community greatly and I see it when I'm walking up and down the streets. I see it when I walk into Lillies. I know that they have been an incredible boon for Paul's shoe repair and for Henian bakery across the street. The people that live in those buildings, they go out and they spend money and they spend money in our downtown. Currently we are looking at a sea of asphalt and cement that the bid pays someone every day to go clean up and it is full of bottles and literal human species and it is disgusting. So the fact that somebody wants to come in and clean that up and build lead certified platinum buildings into this community, I do not see as a negative thing on any way, shape, or form. And when we're talking about a mere or a small nine months, the only reason our businesses are still in business is because this incredible community helped raise close to $400,000 for the bid and the chamber and the downtown Amherst Foundation to give grants to these businesses and keep them going. And the chamber and the bid have sat with business owners for hours and hours writing grants and helping them get all kinds of state funding. That is the only reason we still have businesses in place because most of them would have been closed if we had not done all of that. I also just wanna speak as a resident of 34 Canton Avenue with two children currently in the school system here. Most people cannot be on these calls because they're making dinner for their children. They're catching up on homeschooling because we're all sitting there watching our children learn and I use that in quotes on a screen. We are exhausted and we do not have the time. We should, we wish we could. I have five friends who would love to be on this call right now and make their opinions heard. It is a very privileged thing to be able to sit on this call from 6.30 PM until 10 o'clock PM to voice our opinions. And I count myself lucky to have that privilege. But there are not the majority of this community. There are 38,000 members of this community. 15 people does not make a majority. That is at a resident, not as the bid director. I thank you very much for your evening and I know that this is not a voting evening. So this was the wrong tree to die on. Thank you. We have three more comments and I really would like to stop it there and one of them is repeat comments. So I'm actually going to suggest that Mary Shaw, Shahan, I'm sorry, I'm not going to pronounce your last thing correctly. Why don't you enter the room and state your name and where you live, Mary? You need to unmute. Thank you. Mary, I'm Shahan. I live on Blackberry Lane in North Amherst. Amherst is these enormous buildings, I think. Where am I? So I understand the economic advantages of having them and I just in support of a moratorium for the time being to look at things more closely before we expand and do. Sorry that we're having trouble. Mary, we did get your statement about understanding the economic advantages and but that you support the moratorium. Jennifer Taub, you've spoken before. Is there something that you feel pressing to add? Please enter the room and state your name. You lowered her hand. Okay. Francis Goyes, please enter the room and state your name. Hi, can you hear me okay? Yes. Excellent. Hi, my name is Francis Goyes-Flore. I am a renter and I am a resident in Amherst. I'm at 155 Lincoln Avenue, just a couple of blocks from downtown. I understand that there are serious, specially designed concerns with the two main buildings that are built in downtown. However, I also know that Amherst has a huge need for more housing of all types. The housing production plan lists more rental housing needed for families and individuals and also appropriate housing for students. There's been ample planning that's been done and I understand that whenever change happens, it's hard, especially for residents that have lived here their entire lives, but I don't think we should let some people that have had the privilege of being able to call this place home disallow others from joining us. I think that Amherst is a very privileged community that has many opportunities. And I think that it's only equitable to allow more folks to live. And even if the buildings, the new buildings are not for lower income households, increasing the supply is also likely to allow those lower income households to be able to live elsewhere. When you don't have enough supply is when we see displacement occur. And I am sure that as you know, displacement primarily affects both lower income households, households of color who also tend to be renters. So I think that if we want to be an equitable community, we have to keep those considerations in mind. And again, I know that change is difficult and that designs do need to improve, but I don't see the moratorium being a solution. And I also worry about what that means for state funding, especially at this time. I know that we're a housing choice community. And I also know that that may be at risk if we go down this route because then we wouldn't actually be a housing choice community. And that's all I'll say for now. Thank you. Francis, thank you for your comments. Janet, we really need to go on to the rest of the meeting. Is there something that you feel very pressing to say at this time? Please enter the room. You need to unmute. It makes me really sad when people suggest that those of us who are talking about bringing a wider range of business and people downtown, nobody here is saying don't develop housing. And personally, over the last five years, five years I've probably put 2,000 hours along with helping folks to become who are very low income and people of color to become homeowners. So it feels very hurtful to have those comments made. Thank you. Janet, thank you for your comment. We're going to move on to the rest of our meeting. And I do want to remind people that there will be additional periods both at the planning board, CRC and possibly other options. We're going to move to the consent agenda. Could you please show the consent agenda on the screen? The following items were selected because they were considered to be routine and it was reasonable to expect they would pass with no controversy. To remove an item from the consent agenda for discussion later, please ask me as I list that item or after I list all the items and the request to remove does not require a second. I'm going to read this as a motion and I will be looking for a second to move the following items and the printed motions they're under and approve those items as a single unit. The first three are the suspension of town council rules of procedure 8.4 for the following agenda items. 8E adoption of financial orders FY21-12, FY21-13 and FY22-07. 8F intermural agreements. 8G authorization for superintendent schools foster care transportation. That was just the suspension of the rules 8.4. 6.2 is the adoption of the 2021 child abuse awareness and prevention month proclamation. 8E is adoption of the following financial orders. F21-12-12, free cash to stabilization fund. F21-13, rescind authorized unissued debt. FY22-07, Community Preservation Act projects allocations. Please note that does not include Jones Library. 8F authorization for town manager to enter into the following intergovernmental agreements. Sealer of weights and measures with the city of Northampton for FY21. The municipal hearing officer with the city of Northampton for FY21. Veteran services with the city of Northampton and the towns of Amherst, Chester, Chesterfield, Cummington, Gaussian, Hadley, Middlefield, Pellum, Williamsburg, and provision of the ambulance service to the town of Levart for FY21 and 22. Provision of the ambulance services to the town of Pellum for FY21 and 22. Provision of ambulance services to the town of Shootsbury for FY21 and 22. Agreement for dog kennel services with the city of Northampton for FY21. Paramedic intercept services with the city of Northampton for FY21. Paramedic intercept services with the town of Hadley for FY21. And then we go on to HG, authorization for superintendent of schools, foster care transportation, and 11A, approval of minutes, March 8th, regular town council meeting minutes. Is there any request to remove an item? I have a point of order. Yes. You missed the paramedic intercept services with Turner's Falls when you read that. Thank you. Add the paramedic intercept services with Turner's Falls. Fire department for FY21. Thank you. Darcy. Yeah, I just have a question about the, financial orders and I guess I just don't understand if in the packet in the document with regard to the CPAC funding, it does include the Jones library. So could you explain why? And we're voting on that, right? Yes. The actual financial order does not include the Jones library and we're voting on the financial order. The packet in this overall report for CPA, but the actual financial order, what we looked at earlier does not include Jones library. And so did we already vote on that or is that coming up? Jones library will not come up until April 5th. So that will be included on that day, the CPAC funding? Yes. Okay. All right, Andy Steinberg. Yes. I request the removal of order FY207 Community Preservation Act project allocation from the consent agenda. That's ADE. I'm not objecting to inclusion under rule 8.4. This has to do with the adoption. Okay. Thank you. So the order that I've read earlier includes everything previously listed. What it does not include now is adoption of the financial order FY22-07 Community Preservation Act project allocations. It does however, allow us above to still act on that this evening after it comes to a vote. Is there any further questions or requests? I'll just for formality make a second on the motion. Thank you, Mandy, Joe. I appreciate that I was ready to ask for that as soon as we got there. Any other questions or requests? All right, hearing none. I'm going to move to a vote. And the votes I will start with is Shalini Balmilne. Yes. Melissa Brewer? Aye. Pat DeAngeloz? Aye. D'Arcy Dimog? Yes. Greecehiburds an aye, Mandy Joe Hanofi? Aye. Dorothy Pamm? Aye. Evan Ross? Aye. George Ryan? Sorry. Aye. Kat bola Shane? Yes. Dave Schreiber. Aye. Andy Steinberg. Aye. Sarah Schwartz. Aye. It's unanimous 13, 0, 0, and none absent. Okay, we are going to move on to the North Common. There is a very, very brief presentation. Then we also have a couple of earlier comments and we will take public comment. Ariella, I'll be asking how many people want to comment. Then we'll move to the council discussion and a motion and vote. So Athena, I think we're going to show the two different maps. And Guilford, you are making the presentation, correct? Yes, I'm making the presentation tonight. Thank you. There's really, everyone's heard the presentation before. You have the memo which shows the two differences. The plan you're seeing now is what we're calling 2B. It shows that you have parking on the common still and you have no parking on Main Street and you have some parking on Bultwood Avenue. The drawing you're looking at does show Bultwood being one way to the South, the way it's set up. And if you, if we get into more discussions about one-way traffic and two-way traffic, I can explain that better. The next drawing is the three, option three, 3B. The parking has left the common. We have parking on Main Street and we still have the parking on Bultwood and it's one way. In the table and in the handout that was giving to you, we talked about the parking changes. Right now, there's a total of 43 spaces in this area. With the parking lot, the way it is now before we do any work. If we go to plan 2B, two modified, we'll have 38 spaces. And if we go to the plan 3B, which you're looking at now, we'll have 27 spaces. If we just repave the parking lot and leave it the way it is now, we do lose about five spaces in the parking lot because we actually will lay the spaces out to their proper sizes. And some of them are smallest spaces right now. So as you, that's the basic, what we've been talking about for a while, I can't really add much more to it. So I'm willing to take questions if you're willing to, if you want to do questions. Okay. Are there questions from the council? You make that a little larger. Shalini. You can't see it. Yeah, I was interested in the feedback that was collected from businesses about the different plans, if that's possible. The head of the executive director of the bid is going to speak and I'll ask her to address that. Okay. Kathy, are there questions at this time? Yes. My question is the financing of this. The other part of the memo said the amount of money, including the new awards from CPAC, they have $500,000 and money that had been allocated in previous years is about 1.4 million. Does 1.4 million cover both plan? I keep calling them plan one and plan two, but modified plan two and 3B. So we've got that much money. The balance is 1.4. And I just want to know, as we're looking at this, whether that is enough money because there was one, there was a discussion at the Community Preservation Act of having to go out for a grant to supplement this money. So I just would like an answer to that. Our plan right now is to build to the $1.4 million. We believe we'll be able to do it. We may have to change some of the materials and go with a less expensive material versus a more expensive material, but we plan to build to the $1.4 million. Thank you. And just while I have you on your face anyway, Guilford, the one with the parking lot still there, can that be, that is going to be flat as I understood from an original Chris breast up presentation. So if we thought of it as a space that if we cordoned it off, we can put tables out, we could have a performance there, we could have a gathering there. So it's not slanted the way it is now. Am I correct? It would be a flat space that could be used that way. The one with the parking lot, that that parking lot could be used that way. It will be less slope than it is now, but it won't be totally flat. Okay, thank you. All right, I'm going to move to some public comment. We have in fact asked Gabrielle Gould to speak on behalf of the bid. Gabrielle, would you please enter the room and people are interested in the survey you did and also additional comments. Hi, am I here? Yes, thank you. We ran a survey going door to door to each of the businesses directly impacted by the work being done on the common all the way down Main Street to just below Black Sheep. We went into the Boltwood, Johnny's area, Arigato down to Amherst Coffee, Amherst Cinema, and then of course along both South Pleasant and all of Main Street facing the common. So you've just, so everybody understands it's Lavera Cruzana, et cetera. And if you look at Main Street, you're talking about Formosa, Pasti Basta, Russell's Lickers. The overwhelming consensus, 60% of the business owners requested that some form of parking remain with 30% saying they would prefer to see all of the parking go and 10% liking neither. And I'm sure anybody who has been downtown long enough knows who that 10% is. Even out of the 60%, there was a lot of heartfelt, I wish it could be all not parking. We think that that would be more beautiful. We think that that would be a better long-term position. But at this point, they feel that parking is going to remain important. I think before COVID, we were fortunate to come before the council with our wonderful plans of destination Amherst and those have not died by any measure. But our hopes when we presented that to the council was that we would be bringing the parking garage to you in tandem with the redo of the North Common or before the North Common. But due to COVID and a million other reasons, that was not the case. It is still our intention should this council deem it appropriate to change the zoning of the CVS parking lot that is town-owned and put out an RFP, we would like to be one of the private entities that apply for the RFP to be able to build this community parking garage. But unfortunately right now that's not on the table. So we have to look at the common without that as an option. And again, we're looking at a 60, 30 split on that. From our standpoint, and I speak for our board of directors, anything, anything will be better than what our offices look at every day. I have said this to several of you in person or on calls. When we had the Mary Maples strong this year, the landscaping company who we hired to do that for us told us that many of those branches are really about to come down. It is a dying tree and it is getting dangerous. We have ideas for a new tradition of Mary Maples part two for the future. And we look forward to seeing the heart and center of our downtown made beautiful, pedestrian friendly and accessible for all. Thank you. I also would like to call on Tom, the Reverend Tom Sinan, who is from Grace Episcopal Church. Please bring him into the room and have him on mute. Can you hear me? Yes, we can. I wasn't planning to speak. My senior warden is also present. But what would you like me to tell you? Well, we understand that at times you have spoken with Dave Zomac. Yes. If you would like, we can bring your senior warden in instead, but we didn't know which one of you would like to speak. We met with Dave and Christine earlier this month. The two proposals were presented to myself and members of our vestry. And we submitted a letter for the meeting that was supposed to be taking place earlier this month stating our position that ultimately, if the town council decides to go forward with the renovation of the North Common, we lean in the direction of Plan 2B. And in particular, I think our position is a lot, is quite similar to many of the businesses about the need for parking in the area for those of us who function and operate around the common. And I think also just to express our concern is not just it's about Sunday morning for us, it's the fact that parking in downtown Amherst in the evening is a very competitive operation trying to get a spot, whether or not you're going to Amherst Cinema or you're going to one of the restaurants, when we're not in the middle of a pandemic, we have things happening in our church in the early evening, almost every night, the choir rehearsals, 12-step programs, outside groups renting from us, our own meetings, and so on. So a thing we often hear, regardless of the work of the North Common is we always keep hearing how difficult it is for people to find parking in the evening. Excuse me, Reverend, but is Christopher Freightag, yes, why don't we bring him into the room as well? Good evening, can you hear me? Yes, we can. Well, thank you very much. I'm Chris Freightag, I'm the Senior Warden for Gray's Church. And I thank you for letting me have a few minutes here. Again, I think the Reverend sign and reiterated some of what we put in our note to the council. I know that Mr. Moreng discussed a little bit about one-way traffic, and it's been explained to us multiple times, even though the plans didn't show it, that should plan two, which is the preferred plan, not only by businesses, but I know that Gray's is leaning towards the preserved parking, is that this parking in front of Town Hall, that section of bullwood would be two-way. So it would allow traffic from the parking lot to go out onto Main Street and head away, as opposed to funneling all the traffic from Main Street, from the front parking lot, from the parking behind Town Hall, to in front of the church. And unfortunately, when Saturday's farmer market is there, in the past, that part of bullwood in front of the innet bullwood has been closed. So all this traffic would come through the church down Spring Street and then to get out. So it seems like quite a bottleneck there on Saturdays when the farmer market is there, if in fact that two-way designation for in front of Town Hall is not preserved. So again, we keep hearing about it, but even as Guilford said this evening, it's one way. So that's a major concern along with the thought of even losing parking. So I'd like a clarification on that and at least get the drawings updated to say what you mean, so that we have a better idea as to what type of traffic pattern is going to be coming through that area, especially on Saturdays with the farmer's market. But that's what I have to say for now. Thank you. Thanks to both of you for joining us this evening. Guilford, did you have any comment with regard to that clarification? So as far as, if you look at the plan, either one of the plans, if you want to bring it up. Either two or three B, both of which have been amended. Lynn, can you bring the one with the parking lot on it so we can see that's the going in and out of the parking lot? This is three B and this is two. So as you look, we did lay this out as one way down this way. So if you want to make this road two-way, there's two choices and it's in your discussion package. You want to keep it two-way, we need to either get rid of parking on one side of the road, either get rid of this parking, or move the parking in the sidewalk into the common about six to eight feet. So you can't have two-way, you have to get rid of the parking or you have to move the parking in the sidewalk into the common. And those are your two options. And we kind of showed you one-way because one-way is the least impact to the common itself at this time. And then if you want to adjust it, there's no really, it's easy to adjust it into the common. It's easy to take the parking out on the common side, but this shows you the most parking you can have there works best with one-way. Okay. Are there any, do any of the counselors need to see the drawings anymore? And I cannot, this is Kathy, I just, what the reverend said was he originally thought to get in and out of the parking lot, not all the way down, but just right in front of town hall, you could exit turning left and then go on Main Street the way you can now. So Guilford I think is saying you can't do that. So you can come in, but you have to go, there's not even that little piece in front of town hall that could be two-way to just get out of the parking lot and not go down Bultwood. If you really, really want to have two-way so you can go out of the parking lot, you can't have two-way at that end and you can have one way in front of the church. It'd be very confusing. All right, I'm going to ask if there's any public comment at this time, right? Then I'm going, I don't see any. So I'm going to go back to the counselors and ask for questions or comments. Darcy. Yeah, I just wanted to have a clarification. When we had the presentation at TSO, I asked the question about can we cap the spending at the amount that we have? And at that time, the answer was no, that we were expecting that it was going to cost more. But what I'm hearing you say right now is yes, that we have decided to cap the spending on the project with at the amount that we currently have. Is that correct or am I hearing it wrong? That's correct. We've done some more estimates and played with some numbers and more and we're confident we can get this done in the amount of money we have. It may be more asphalt than people want and maybe less granite, more concrete steps. Those types of things may play into the mix, but yes, we feel like the 1.4 we can get this project built as you choose one of these two options. Thank you. I just wanna give some feedback that I've heard from residents. I mean, as you know, I'm the district counselor for the north part of Amherst, so I don't live downtown. But the number of people who talk about that lot in particular being important to them because they come down, they go into town hall, they pay a bill, they pick up something, they go to a meeting, they're in and out. So it's the in and out lot, they're not coming for a long time. And it gets huge, even with that, it's difficult to find a space. So it's of high value because it's highly used and there aren't a lot of other spaces for that whole cluster that's downtown. And I know we got a strong letter from Amherst Cinema, the overflow from the cinema is huge. You can go behind the cinema lot and it's full. People come in jockeying for positions in this small lot on North Commons. So we do have this other beautiful common. It's not that we don't have green. And I've watched the Belcher Town parking lot that's on their Commons right in front of their town hall. It's busy, especially when they have festivals. So it is a feature of a lot of New England towns when they don't have vast other places to park. So I just wanted to make that observation on its value to people. And then the other thing is just on a very personal level, when we were meeting in the town council, in the town room, I often had to come down an hour early to find a space to park. And we were meeting at 6.30. You know, if I tried to cut it close and get down at six o'clock, I sometimes parked a 20 minute, 30 minute walk away. I would just drive up and down streets. That lot was completely full. And I'm talking about after five o'clock. So people were using it for evening, for meetings and others that it's, for those of you who can walk into town or bike, but it's also really good for people who are all handicapped, you know, impaired because they don't have to walk very far. So it's central to us. And unless we have a real alternative right now, I think we need it. Sarah Schwartz. So I'm gonna agree with everything that Kathy just said about why that's important. New comments would be that, so you, there are businesses that are there like the liquor store, right? And so if that's a liquor store you've used for 25 years and you need to get home because you gotta feed your wife supper and she expects it by six and you wanna bring home a drink, you wanna park close to that, walk in, get what you need and go home. If you have any limitations on your abilities, you're going to then, if you cannot park close, if you have to park with CVS and walk up, you're gonna go into Hadley and you're gonna park in their big parking place and you're gonna go to Liquors 44. The other thing is, is that we have a beautiful town hall and the parking in front to me seems welcoming to people that need to come in, run into town hall and get a map or get a permit or get their dog license. And I think that the people that still do that are the people that maybe are older or who don't have the money for a computer aren't computer savvy. And I think taking that parking lot away sort of sends the message that maybe town hall doesn't want people to have easy access to town hall. The other thing I wanna say is that I think during COVID-19 this pandemic time, we've learned that people need some places to be able to meet and churches are one of them. And I think it's really important that if the church is saying that it's going to affect their parishioners, I think we also heard, I think was brought up that it could affect funeral processions. I think we have to listen to them. I think churches are one of the places like libraries that are really important. And I would object to having the street be anything other than two way. And I think that maybe we should explore whether or not we wanna take part of the common or not. Northie Pam. I certainly think that Sarah made a lot of good points but I'm coming down on the opposite side. I think that the town hall is a beautiful and eccentric building and that we should have be able to see it that people coming into town should be able to see it without the screen of cars. Countering something Kathy said, I have never not gotten a parking spot for a town council meeting because Paul Backelman told me about parking behind town hall, which is there. But I wanna talk about why I think we can solve this problem in a way that will work. We had a parking consultant a couple of years ago and he talked about lots of little small parking places that existed that were private. And he said that we could make some arrangements and make some of them small available for public parking. And I'm not really good with some of these tech stuff but there are people that use their phone to find parking spots that actually use their phone to pay the meter. And that can tell you where these little parking spots exist. And if we can't find them behind local businesses where there are available spots then maybe we can make a deal with Amherst College which has parking lots nearby. I mean, it is too bad we lost the Spring Street lot, okay? I am gonna remind us that that was, I think, a bad decision. But many things take place in front of town hall which are very meaningful. The tech, the civic ceremonies take place in that region. The flag raisings, the proclamation readings. And I find that the drawings that Gilbert presented with the, that a green flat free area that was open to public life, it was just very attractive to me. So I'm not saying we don't need the parking. I'm saying, let's get more inventive. Let's find the spots. Let make, create more public spots in and around that area. But to free the town green, it's a very small. It's a very small green. We're gonna spend a lot of money, whatever we do on it. And I think that we should be able to see it and enjoy it and use it in the best way. George Ryan. I wanna follow up with Dorothy in support of this plan through the, first of all, it's not a choice between parking and no parking. In fact, as you can see from the chart, there's only a difference of 11 spaces between the two plans. Well, I realized that there's going to be some inconvenience. I'm not sure 11 spaces really is an overwhelming argument in favor of maintaining all that asphalt and that kind of unwelcoming space in front of town hall. So first I just point out that the difference in spaces is really not very large. And I think what we gain from plan 3B, besides the green, which I think is precious. And so the place for people to sit and read or play chess or have a sandwich. And there's still seven parking spaces right there for those who just need to come in and go out. What we really gain, it means the most to me is what Dorothy pointed out. It's that civic space. I think many of us have had, at least I have had some very powerful moments when members of our community, we had Tibet Day the other day, Puerto Rican Heritage Day, Black Month celebrations. We've had a series of important events that are held on a regular basis where we gather as a community. A flag is often raised, speeches and proclamations are read and people gather. And to me, I don't know if we could put that plan up again, but just to keep in mind that space that's created right in front of Town Hall, right by the flagpole, to me is a very meaningful action, especially coming out of COVID that draws people together. So for those reasons, I think, well, I acknowledge the inconvenience that will be for some, I think it's far outweighed by the advantages of the green space and by the possibility of creating a true civic space in front of Town Hall. Amy Steinberg? Yeah, I don't wanna repeat everything that the last couple of speakers just said, I agree with them, that the purpose of having a town common is the green, the enjoyment of the fact that there is a green space when Ms. Gould spoke on behalf of the bid, she talked about that as being something of value and she recognized that there was a split decision amongst the members of the business community who were polled. But it is 11 spaces, there was a creative part of 3B that has not been mentioned and that is angled parking spaces off of Main Street that do replace a good bit of the parking that's lost. And the idea of saying, well, we can't do it because we don't have any new parking accommodated now doesn't really solve the problem of we're looking at a long-term solution for the North Common and I think we have to make the decision as to what's the right long-term solution. And I think the 3B is the right long-term solution. Thank you. Alyssa, there you go. I couldn't tell if I was hearing my last name or my first name, I got so confused. Thank you. So obviously I'm in disagreement with the last couple of speakers based on things I've said in the past. So I'll try not to repeat new things and just kind of build off of some of the things other people have said. I do use Park Mobile to pay for my parking spaces. That app doesn't tell me where the available spaces are. Those do exist in other communities. We don't have that yet. So that's not gonna tell me. I've been parking for meetings a lot longer than Dorothy Pam has and I can tell you that no, there often aren't spaces behind Town Hall nor in front of Town Hall nor in Spring Street during the nights of what used to be select board meetings and we're later Town Council meetings. So obviously we all have our own experiences but I can tell you that that has been mine. I wanna make sure it's clear that I don't have strong feelings one way or the other for a change about something which is in regards to one or two-way traffic on boatwood. So I'm willing to listen to others and I think we haven't perhaps discussed that enough as to how that really impacts everybody and I really appreciate hearing from the church on that because I think they've been clearest about their concerns associated with that. In terms of me wanting to keep some parking on the common I of course do not see it as detrimental. I do see it as a welcoming space that exists now. I have been to many, many, many events in the 20 years I've lived here that have been exactly around the flagpole. I've been to many events that have been further over in the North Common section. We haven't needed the space in the parking lot. What we have needed is we've needed those spaces for elderly people and people with disabilities who can't walk very far to the flagpole or to the section of the North Common where we're meeting and celebrating Veterans Day or other items. So I think a lot of this is perspective based on what people's experiences are and I am going to say that I've had many, many years of experience with this and so I get frustrated when I hear people saying it's not a big deal to lose those parking spaces. It in fact to me is a very big deal for all the reasons that other people have stayed in that I've said. There is a clear majority, not a split, but a clear majority of businesses that depend on drop in business, not a business by appointment or that have a couple of their own parking spaces. A clear majority of businesses that depend on drop in business say that they want that parking to remain. So for us to just say, yeah, but it would look so much prettier if we didn't have the parking there. Just really smacks of privilege to me and in a way that doesn't make sense if we're supporting our business community particularly as they struggled come out of the pandemic. I would like to have a little more talk about the back-in angle parking. As most of you know, I went through the angst over the very first roundabout we built in town. So I'm certainly aware of how worried people are about change, but I'm wondering if this is actually a reasonable place to put back-in angle parking for the first time at Amherst and I'm also wondering what our options are in terms of if we put it in and then we say, you know, this is really working, although I think people could learn, then if we take it out what the impact is of that. Thank you. Man, Joe Hannake. Is it okay to make a motion right now or should I wait? Please go ahead. I move to approve plan 3B as shown with no modifications. Is there a second? I'm sorry, who seconded? Evan? Evan. Thank you. May I speak to it? Please. So plan 3B eliminates 11 spots from plan 2. As many people have said, if there wasn't parking on the common, we would not be having this discussion because at this point in time, we would never choose to add parking specifically on the common. We have a downtown parking study that we dealt with a little over a year ago that showed in appendix A, on page 26 of that appendix, parking utilization, that did not show at any time on a Thursday or a Saturday when they did the study for utilization, parking, public parking utilization in downtown exceeding 90%, not at a single point in time on those two days. If we eliminate 11 slots, it still will not exceed a 90% on any of the days. If we're going to do studies on parking utilization, we should pay attention to those studies which showed that we have plenty of public parking in town. What it showed and what we as a council actually voted to ask the town manager to do was we need signage. Those, that parking lot right there on the common might be used most because it's the easiest to find, not because it's the most convenient. I think we need to go with signage. I think we need to get rid of parking on the common because we need a nice common that people can use, that people can sit out and actually eat at or gather at. We're building, as Andy said, for 50 years, not 10. We should return the common to what it was meant to be a common for all people and not a parking lot. Steve Schrager. Wow. I have nothing more to say. Plus one to what Mandy said. Evan Ross. Right, also plus one. A lot of what I was going to say has been said. I think that in the public comment we heard earlier, we heard a lot of talk about making decisions that have long-term impact for generations to come. And to me, this is one of those. It is unlikely we will redo the common after this project for a very long time. And so I think we do need to be thinking long-range. I think we need to be thinking in terms of what do we want our downtown to look like? And I think we also need to be thinking in terms of how this matches up with our climate action goals. And I think, hey, continuing to pave over our common, pave over downtown green space to continue the support of cars is short-sighted. I understand the concern over losing parking. I don't really think that 11 space is that big a deal. But building on what Mandy said, she mentioned that we have a downtown parking study that we should listen to. I want to continue on that and say we have the recommendations from the downtown parking working group. One of my biggest frustrations I think on this council has been the amount of money that this town spends on consultant reports that we then put on shelves and don't pay any attention to. That plan gave us a whole lot of solutions to parking problems. Some of them which are pretty low cost like re-striping from 22 feet to 20 feet. And we have just ignored all of the hard work of that citizen group. And now we're talking about making a major capital investment of repaving a parking lot instead of considering other ways that we can offset the loss of those 11 spaces throughout the town with Dorothy said being more creative. I don't necessarily want to lose that parking but I don't think that that is the place for that parking. I think that there are other ways that we can offset those spaces which at the end are only 11. So that wasn't my most articulate way of saying things because everyone took most of what I was going to say but I am in support of plan 3B. I'm going to skip over Sarah because you've spoken already and go to Shalini. Yes, too many of the things that have been said. I do agree that we want to have a long-term vision and given that we are considering a parking garage down the road. And the other thing I want to highlight also was we've seen examples of the block party where we actually blocked out so much of the parking and it was really the, and yet people came and it was a building that community and so they can create these spaces downtown where people can bring out their dining and sit and congregate. I think that can be really very useful. The one question, oh, and the other thing was, can we, two questions, can we make it one way for now? But once we have the garage, could we open that up and make it two way in the future? And the other question was, how many handicap parking spaces are we losing? Please go ahead. So, yes, if you went with plan three, our plan two, and you set it up for parking on both sides of boltwood and after the garage is open, you decide you want to remove the parking on the common side, that's just a matter of taking meters out and repaying the road and that parking would go away and you could have two-way traffic there without encroaching onto the common. So, yes, that's doable in the future. The second is, is there's two handicap spaces in the area now and when we're done, there'll be two handicap spaces. Darcy, you've not spoken, please go ahead. I would like to say that I agree to a large extent with what Alyssa said and that I find it kind of not shocking, but just hard to believe that after doing so much to try to help our downtown businesses during COVID that we are not really making sure that we're paying attention to what they need now. And it feels like we are superimposing some kind of value on the situation. I also think we have like an amazing park system in our downtown with the South and North Common that we already have, Kendrick Park. I mean, we have a great downtown park system. So it's not really like we need to have this crown jewel park, but anyway, I also feel like I agree with Evan that we have to look at climate considerations and that with whatever we do, we need to sort of have an, take an inventory of what have an greenhouse gas impact report on what all of our projects are creating because we're trying to meet this goal. And it's the more we do to the more projects we do, the more projects we do, the more we sort of slower we can, slower it is that we can accomplish our climate action goals. So my actual preference would be to just upgrade the green space of the North Common and just leave the parking lot or upgraded as in the existing parking lot. Sarah, you had your hand up before Kathy, so I'm going to call on you and then I'll go to Kathy. So one of the things I was going to say is that location is really important. So evening hours are very busy, trying to get into meetings at night. And when I was on finance committee, I'm going to echo what Alyssa said, if there was any kind of events in town, people go into movies, you had to drive around forever. So, and also just to get into the businesses that are there and to Town Hall, you, if you are 74 and you are a cancer survivor, you might not be able to walk from the CVS parking lot down. We need some kind of parking there. The other thing is we have the South Common, which is huge and beautiful. And then when you turn the corner, you're looking towards the lime red, not even, I mean, probably 65 feet from the Town Hall's second entrance is Sweetster Park, which has a fountain and which has permanent benches. So we do have a place for seating. For me, it just, it seems really, it seems like in some ways a vanity project. And the other thing is, is that I don't know when people will ever get away from cars completely. So eventually you could have charging stations there for electric cars. I think until this town actually really, really finds a way to make public transportation dependable and regular, I think we can't just wish away cars. We can't just say, I'm gonna not make a space. And so people from out of town or people from the North or the South end of town, you're just gonna have to find a way to get there. I don't think there's common sense involved. Matthew Shane. Okay, I have a question and then I just wanted to build on what Sarah said. My question when I look at the budget, and I thought I remembered you saying that the transportation fund money, which makes this possible, 450,000 was assuming a parking lot. Do we have that 450,000 if we don't have a parking lot? So that's a question just on money. The second is the observation in addition to all the little businesses around the green, we have two major draws to downtown right now. We don't have huge numbers. Emmer cinema and they, it was a cry of pain from them at the thought of losing this overflow lot for them and the church. So I'm listening to what the church said about two way and I'm not completely a person taking a little bit of the park along the edge to leave two ways along there. If that, if that's, we have a design choice on that. But I just think we need to listen to the downtown businesses as well as the people who come downtown. And I read the talking study extremely well, Mark Nandy, they did not talk about this lot. They still assume some parking spaces that had long since disappeared with one each pleasant. They didn't do their homework the second time around with the amount of cars downtown. They just, they, they took some old data on some of these. These places at various times of day are full on menu circles. So it isn't, we did do the survey. And if you read those answers, there were some that were distraught. They weren't just on the fence. They were distraught. Steve Schreiber. If I park on my front lawn, John Thompson will write me a $100 ticket per day. We do not allow parking on front lawns of houses in the area. I do not understand why we allow parking on the towns from lawn. That was a grave mistake that was made sometime in the, the 50s. We have a chance to rectify that. So that's been a 60 or 70 year experiment that needs to go away. And this is our one shot at it. Habits are really hard to change. You know, you're absolutely right that the proximity to those stores along Main Street and along South Pleasant Street, people are in the habit of parking there. That's totally, I totally get that. Habits can also change. I think that the net of 11 spaces is really nothing. And I'll, says a guy that hardly ever drives into town because he walks into town, but it's just we're debating and discussing and basically 11 spaces. On street parking is the most efficient way to park because basically the road is already your dry vial. You don't have to also build a road. So basically if I put in any parking on the common, you have to build a road, the dry vial to get to the parking. And then you have to have the parking. I just wanna repeat one thing that Mandy said that the town common is, or I'm gonna paraphrase it, the town common is the most democratic space in Amherst, other than possibly the public library. That's another discussion, but the town common is the most democratic space that we have. It was, that's the purpose of a town common. That's why it's called the common. So what do we wanna do with our common? Do we want that to be temporary space for somebody's car? So they were running for somebody's car? Not everybody drives, not everybody has cars. No, but not everyone has access to that space. Or do we wanna make the common for everyone? So I feel strongly that this is our shot to change a mistake that was made a half a century ago. And it's the right decision, 3B. Seeing no other comments, I'm going to ask the town clerk to repeat the motion. To approve plan 3B is shown with no modifications. Okay, is there any further comment or question? Seeing none, I'm going to bring it to the vote. And I'm going to start with Brewer. Are you using first names or last names? I'm so confused. I'm sorry, Alyssa. Alyssa Brewer. Thank you. Thank you, I appreciate that. Although I know we're alphabetized by last name. I'm voting no, thank you. Pat DeAngelis? No. Darcy DeMont? No. Rhysmer is a yes. Panicke? Yes. Dorothy Pam? Yes. Evan Ross? Aye. George Ryan? Yes. Kathy Shane? No. Steve Schreiber? Yes. Andy Steinberg? Yes. Sarah Schwartz? No. Melanie Balmille? Yes. The way I counted, it's eight in favor and five opposed. No abstentions and no absence. Is that correct Athena? That's what I have. Thank you. We are going to take a five minute break and be back for the temporary building moratorium bylaw. Please unmute while you're gone and unmute when you come back. When you return, please turn, excuse me, turn your picture back on so I know you're back. Alyssa, are you back? Yup, she is. All right, we are going to continue. We're doing 8B next. It is the proposed temporary building moratorium bylaw. There is a brief presentation and then based on some counselor questions, I have asked the town planning staff to provide answers to those questions that was completely at my request. And then we will move to counselor discussion in a vote. And before we, after we get done with the presentations and the brief clarification, I will talk more about the vote. So let's start with a brief presentation. Kathy, Dorothy and Darcy are making this presentation. Thank you, Lynn. I'm going to lead off for the three of us. And we have focused on trying to keep this brief. My role is to say why we need a moratorium and why we need it now. And I just want to stress, this is a moratorium on permits for multi unit residential projects in the downtown and adjacent areas. It's three or more. It's not to stop business development on town. It would allow home development. It would allow duplex. It would allow various other things. It's just to put a pause button on it. We need to do this because we really need a vision of the direction of change. I think many of us, and you heard eloquent voices better than mine earlier tonight, saying that this is not anti new development. It's just the size, the shape, what it feels like, and what we can have our vision of what we could have downtown and what we're going to have for years matters. We need to have a vision of what we could have. We need to have design standards. We just don't have them. Why now? Why is this urgent now? There are multiple reasons. The first is the council is actively considering new bylaws that would define what a mixed use building is. What's supposed to be downstairs in these residential buildings? Can we have shops? And discussing inclusionary zoning for any building with 10 residential buildings. We need to have a vision of what a mixed use building comes in. The timing is perfect to wait for those, have those buildings wait. So we do acquire those units. Second, we've had experience. We've had good experience with developments that added over 200, 227 residential units downtown without provision for parking, without walkable sidewalks where two people could pass with strollers with kids with walkers. And that's because they come right out to the street with no place to sit outside. If you want to have convening welcoming places. And meanwhile, they just play small businesses. This means we need to rethink the current zoning visions. It's not to stop a building from coming in, but have it set back, have some street design. And those were absent from our current zoning laws. And third, and very importantly, the planning staff had proposed a consultant project that would allow us to have a public meeting and recommend design guidelines and streets, streets, streetscape improvements that could go into our zoning laws. So the time is really ripe to hit the pause button and think about what we could have. So when new developments come into town, they bring us what we would really like to see. And it's not to stop it, not even to stop people living downtown, but to give that space that we can see in part of our town that we're losing. And I am now going to turn it over to Dorothy, but I just want to stress the urgency. And the other thing. As I'm talking about this is we put out that we were going to do this. The newspaper picked it up and we had people clamoring to sign our moratorium said, where can I sign just to show. And we had nearly 250 signatures without much effort. So it's a chorus of voices, not saying stop development, but saying let's think about it because we're going to live with it for a long time. It's a pro business pro downtown business argument that we're making. Thank you, Dorothy. Thank you, Kathy. So what will we gain with the moratorium? Words matter. People matter and history matters. And what is that? A city, a neighborhood or a community. We all decide kind of place we want to live in. Before we moved out, checked out towns in the vicinity of my daughter and grandchildren. Because we value community and neighborhood. We chose to live in the RG precinct 10, but then walking distance to downtown. They're full of owner occupied houses, both big and small and friendly people of all ages living. This is the neighborhood of socially responsible problem solvers figured out a way to slow the conversion of one family owner occupied homes into provide student rentals to the rental registration program. I live next door to a large house filled with students who value this neighborhood and behave appropriately. This is a neighborhood whose members have served and still serve on all committees of the new government. This is a neighborhood that hosts monthly brunches, open to all schools, teachers and home owners. We know that the way to get more affordable housing in Amherst is not to replace family home. The kind of expensive high rent, small apartment buildings necessary for a builder to make a profit. What is needed is across the board, inclusion or rezoning of the large buildings being built downtown. What is needed is public funding and or landowners, such as have created Amherst successful affordable housing such as Olympia Oaks and the upcoming affordable housing on Belcher Town Rub, East Pleasant Street School property, nearly increasing the supply of apartment housing does not lead to increased affordability. However, it raises the prices surrounding properties. My neighbors who lived downtown, they chose to live downtown because of the past. They enjoyed walking and shopping there. But now so many of the small, unique stores have been replaced. So they play glass windows. They're back at us. Invite no one in. It's harder to find a destination. The town is spending a lot of money making can be parked. A lovely place for families, children and people young and old together. But who will play on the imaginative structures? What are the children? If they come from outside the area with their parents and grandparents, where is the restroom? The loose goose, which in the past sold cookies and happy children. As the public service is a thing of the past. Now I would hesitate to walk past the driving corner of one East Pleasant Street children in hand. That's an exuberant child dash off the narrow sidewalk into the street. Remember my day pushing one child in a baby carriage and walking with one or two more rambentious children on the way to the park. I shuddered. So as I looked at the setbacks today, it became clear we need a consultant. The setbacks from the street sidewalk width that looks appropriate on a two-story building do not work on a tall building. Even the projects have large grassy spaces around them. We need to have the shadows of the existing and prospective buildings measured to guide building so that Kendrick Park does not become a shadowy uninviting place where nothing grows. We need to know how much space feels inviting to people for small plazas, courtyards and insets for outdoor dining and benches for sitting that the planning department is talking about. We need to have a more detailed public engagement process to find out what our residents as taxpayers value most, density or community. New England small town character in the street or inward looking tall buildings with no porches, no balconies, no intermediate shared public private spaces and barely any grass, shrubbery or trees. We need design standards that we want to live with that will allow the business districts BG and BL to look as if they belong here in this college town. With good strong design standards, it is possible to create buildings that work and also contribute to our tax base. As Senator Jones knows and is working hard to create in the mill district, we need art, culture, theater, music, poetry, painting and experiences downtown, a place where town and gown can meet, where people from all groups and neighborhoods in town can get together and create the community that we call Amherst and Darcy. I'm going to cover the last three bullets on slide two. Can you hear me? Yes. Okay. Several counselors, including the three co-sponsors of this legislation support amending the zoning bylaw to include inclusionary zoning that would require developers to make a portion of the housing units in their project affordable to low and moderate income households. That approach to affordable housing is the most effective means of increasing the number of affordable housing units and creates a wider variety of affordable levels within a development. And it's a proposal that has been put forward by the planning department since at least 2018. So we want to have time to get that out there. Common concern about inclusionary zoning is that it may slow the pace of development acting as a disincentive for private developers who may be considering investing in a community. But studies have shown that inclusionary zoning does not in fact slow the pace of private development in a community and residential development rates are driven much more by the strength of the local housing market and broader economic and market trends. Next bullet. In canvassing district five during my campaign in 2018, I found nearly universal disappointment in the planning board approval of the spring street building, whether with the height setback or some combination of those elements and much disappointment generally with the tall buildings that had appeared downtown. But parking was noted in particular as a problem. The fact that the new buildings in the core of downtown are not required to provide parking, even though the town provides parking permits at low cost for the residents of those buildings caused much concern. I support disincentivizing fossil fuel powered car ownership and incentivizing biking and car sharing. But if we do nothing to support those goals, we do continue to need parking. Many drivers are transitioning to electric vehicles, which don't add to our emissions. We will need parking for those EVs as well as EV charging infrastructure for residents of those buildings. Plus, if the downtown doesn't provide the basic goods and services required in a densified neighborhood, such as a grocery store that was mentioned before, cars will continue to be needed. We still need to go to the mall to get the hardware, the hammer, the head of lettuce, whatever. One way to disincentivize driving is to charge much more for our parking permits. That would bring in more revenue for the town if residents still need parking. And this is something that is currently being proposed. So I'm going to go back to that. I'm going to go back to that. Though the new buildings have some green features, we will, we want to make sure new construction is following the most updated recommendations for green buildings. And as I've repeatedly mentioned, the town staff will be presenting a climate action adaptation and resilience plan at the beginning of May. And it will include a number of recommendations regarding the building sector, some of which are recommended to be implemented in the near future. We just want to make sure that the building is on the最 minimum level and is at level five. It will be important for the planning board and CRC to make those recommendations under, take those recommendations under consideration, rezoning amendments during this temporary pause. So Kathy mentioned what an overwhelming response we've had to this moratorium petition. We got, I think. So I am prepared to read the motion now. Is that good, Lynn? I want you to read the motion that is in red on the sheet. That's the one that we submitted. We had to make some changes to the one that you submitted because there were some inaccuracies in what it was, what was stated. I just ask, we had one more slide Darcy on what are the proposed journey change would be. Can we just assume that the counselors have read it? Why don't we just, do we want to take a quick look at that? I'm sorry. I, I, I intended to say go to slide. It's fine with me to move on if everyone has read it, but I don't know whether the public knows what's in it. It's the next slide, Athena. I mean, I can do this Darcy if you want me to. Go ahead. Okay. So it is a temporary moratorium. It's as people have mentioned somewhere asking that it be longer. We thinking of it, it's hitting the pause button. It's not ending development for six months. It's a temporary moratorium on new permits for buildings with three or more units in downtown, which is BG district, limited district BL and the adjacent general resident or G districts. Note that this does not mean that it would make any stop on a single family home, a duplex, adding a, an accessory developing unit in your backyard. It would allow time to act, develop and implement provisions regarding mixed use building definition, design standards for streetscapes, revisit the parking overlay district provisions downtown and potential climate action criteria for new construction. We included in the proposed moratorium. It was that the temporary delay could be extended for 90 days. That's the summary of what's in. The longer text. I'm going to ask you to take that down and then let me just explain the following. Parts to this agenda. The first is the proposed bylaw that was originally submitted by three counselors. And I'm going to read a motion that in part incorporates what the three counselors wanted, but we had to make amendments because actually there was some inaccuracy. And that motion is now on the screen. So somebody can make that motion. Um, Lynn, could I just ask a question? The, the, um, petition of the residents. Yes. Um, if you'll allow me to finish, I would be glad to explain what will happen. Okay. Thank you. Regarding the part regarding the petition by the residents, the town attorney has advised that this is a non-discretionary action. It is strictly an administrative function. Therefore I am noting in the minutes receipt of the petition. And, and, and. Um, I am. Administratingly referring it to the planning board. CRC. And eventually GOL. So if counselors would like to discuss the initial proposal, they can certainly go ahead and do that with this motion, which will be put on the table. But in fact, what are the timelines though for the resident petition? Because that is in the, the other motion, but if the other, if the resident petition was automatically referred, how do we know what the timeline is? We will not know what the timeline is until the planning board meets and sets their hearing. That's at the discretion of the planning board. Can I say point of order? Yes. Okay. So there are state laws that require the hearing. As of today's date to be held within 65 days. Both the planning board on the CRC hearing to be held within 65 days. And the town council to vote within 90 days of the CRC's hearing. Thank you. So. Would one of the petitioners like to make the motion on the screen. I will read it. Can you make a figure? It is just so small. I can't. I'm having a real trouble reading it. You have control on your zoom. Is there any reason why we can't combine the referrals of this and the resident petition? Point of order. Yes. I'm sorry. And I really didn't mean to interrupt you. I'm very sorry. I really just don't understand based on what you just said, Lynn, about the citizen petition. Why on earth would we move this one? When we have the citizen petition, we have to do it. We have to do it. Which yes, is an administrative duty, but we still have to vote to do it. And so that's why we have one kind of motion. And I realized we might need to match up parts from the two different motions, but I have no idea why we would move the motion by the three counselors. In addition to. The motion by the petitioners. I'm really confused. I appreciate your question. I think the three counselors originally submitted their request. And it included the temporary zoning bylaw. In addition to that. 2,230 to 40 or 50 residents have signed a separate petition. That separate petition. Has to be referred. It doesn't matter, frankly, if the council votes to refer it or not. If the council would like to vote on whether they want to refer. The same wording. And the same additional. Petition. From the three counselors. This is your opportunity to vote on it. But the dates are different. In the two motions, one is based on mass general law and the one by the petitioner. But sorry. It's a wrong use of petitioners. The one by the three counselors is using an earlier date than the one that's required by law. These are the dates that those counselors requested I put in here. That's just an outside date. For when it would need to be held. No, it's an inside date that April is too soon of a deadline based on mass general law. So that's just an outside date. That's just an outside date. So that would be within. What 60 days. So you're putting on an additional. Okay. Now we're in deliberation. I'm sorry. Christine Brestrup has her handle. I wondered how you came up with the date or who came up with the date of April 21st, 2021. How was that date arrived at? It was 30 days. By the three petitioners. So that's just an additional. Proposal by the three counselors. Is that right? Is it a motion that the three counselors advanced to me today? With that date. That's kind of soon. It can be done, I believe, but it is. Rather soon. We, we put it in there because we thought the actual act of having a public hearing. Would not require. That much preparation. Compared to, for example, making the written recommendation. Order. Are we in debate on something that hasn't been moved yet? Or are we still. We're still in debate on that. That's the. To make this motion. And then if somebody wants to amend it, they can. Okay. I'll read the motion. I guess I. And if either of the other counselors wants to. You can do so per MGL chapter 40, a section five and charter section nine point eight G. The proposed temporary building moratorium zoning by law. Sponsored by counselors do not Pam and Shane. To the planning board and to the community resources committee for a joint hearing held no later than April 21st, 2021. And for a written recommendation along with an explanation as to whether the proposed by consistent with a master plan. From the planning board to the town council no later than 21 days after the joint hearing and further to direct the community resources committee to comment on. Voter recommendation. And to submit all materials to the governance organization and legislation committee for review of clarity, consistency, and action ability. And time for the town council to act within 60 days of the hearing. Is there a second. My second. Now there's a motion on the floor. I'm going to turn it over to you. Alyssa. Rather than trying to mess around with this based on what I was trying to get across and point of order when I really was just truly confused. I believe this isn't. If close to being illegal motion because mass general law gives a certain period of time. I have no idea why we imagine. That we can make that time period shorter just because we feel that we can make that time period shorter. And that we can make that time period shorter. One be defeated. And the other reason it should be defeated. Is because as we know, it's not automatic that when three counselors bring forward a zoning bylaw that we have to push it along. But it is definitely automatic that we need to push it along for the signed by 10 voters. And we obviously have way more than 10 registered voters. So as you point out, it's not automatic. It's not automatic. It's not automatic. We just come through as a 10 signature. We technically wouldn't need to vote. We always do just because then it's in our minutes really clearly that we know what we're doing. And it's always nice to have dates if we can. So that everyone knows to expect both on town council and in the public as to when these things are going to happen. So they don't have to go look up. MGL 48, 40 a section five. But I can't support a motion at all. I don't know what mass general law requires for zoning. There's a motion on the floor. It's been made and seconded. Are there any other comments? Um, Lynn, I withdraw the motion. Does the person who has. Seconded the motion agree with that. Yes. Okay. Any other comments. I said, yes, that we go back to the emotion that had the other dates in it, right? That's what works. I guess. You want to make that motion. Kathy. The computing thing to me. Um, just as the second. I hadn't seen the first motion until the weekend and it kept having edits in it, Alyssa, you know, so I'm. So trying to figure out what. Which is the motion. So ling. Can I just ask, do we have to make a motion to refer, or is it automatically referred. With all the dates that are in that. It's really a pleasure to counselor. It's automatically referred. Point of order. Yes. What has been automatically referred is what has been submitted by has not been referred. Is that correct? Thank you. Is there any further question? So the minutes will show that the petition submitted by the residents were in fact referred to the planning board, CRC, NGOL on March 22nd, 2021. Alyssa? I have a request. I'm wondering since we're just putting it in the minutes, because we're not trying to recraft a motion that might have changed, is we are actually, could we have in the minutes reflect those time periods? Because again, we're all going to be scrabbling to look and say, well, was it 60 days from and was it 21 days from? Can we just make sure that that's noted in the minutes as well, as opposed to when it gets closer to our actual town council meeting? And then my other question is, since we're talking about what's being automatically referred, what does the petition itself, which we didn't get until Saturday, say in terms of dates, just to make sure it doesn't say anything different about dates? I'm assuming, I'm glancing at it quickly here again. I only looked at the signatures before, that it's just following mass general law and it's not asking for different dates, but since we've never put that up on the screen, maybe we could do that. Okay, would you please put up the petition language for one of the petitions? Sure, just one moment. Thank you. Kathy, I'm waiting for this first. Are there questions with regard to the petition? Kathy, do you have a question with regard to the petition? I was just going to answer Alyssa's question, the petition, petitions this particular article. And so the understanding was that once 10 people had put their signatures on, it would go through this process. So there were no dates inserted into it. We did explain to people that by signing this, they were asking for it to move to the next stage, but that was it. So literally, that is the same language that you had in your packet as town councillors as the proposed amendment. Mandy, Joe? I just want to clarify on dates. May 26 would be 45, 65 days from today. So the hearings will have to be held by May 26. The next deadline is movable. It's 90 days from the date CRC helps the hearing that the council must vote. So you'll see that you can't name that date because you don't know when the hearing is. Darcy, you have a question? Just a procedural question. What is the language of the referral that is being made with regard to the resident petition? It is consistent with mass general law, and it is to refer to the planning board, the CRC, and the GLL. Is it the same language that we have here? It is the language that we have up here. It is consistent with the charter and with the general mass general law. And so we'll be able to see that somewhere, that referral order. Yes, Lynn? Yes. Okay. That seems adequate. I'd like to also just for the sake of answering questions, have the other slides that were prepared at my request by the planning staff shown. And this is an answer to questions from councils. Right. Rob Moore here, building commissioner. If the presentation can be brought up, I'll get it started. And Christine, brush drop planning director will join me in a couple slides. Thank you. So, yeah, in response to a few very specific questions, we have some information clarification about the proposed article 16 temporary moratorium for holding the issuance of building permits for six months that are related to residential buildings of three or more dwelling units. Next slide, please. Yes. As mentioned by the sponsors of the language initially in the presentation earlier, there are three zoning districts that this proposed moratorium would apply to the general business, the limited business and the general residence. Next slide, please. Shown here on the map are those three districts. Right in the center in red is the downtown, the business, BG, general business district. Right up against that in blue are several little areas of the limited business district. You'll notice as you look far to the west on the map, there's another section of that limited business zoning district. And then a little piece as you work your way over onto College Street at the intersection of Dickinson Street. A little piece of BL limited business there also. The remainder of the colored portion in the center of the map is the general residence district, the third district that would be affected by the proposed moratorium. Next slide, please. We were asked which projects potentially would be affected by this moratorium. Currently there are two that I know everyone has heard about and were aware of. One of them, 11 East Pleasant Street, that's the site that includes the former pub restaurant owned by Archipelago investments. Proposed there will be a mixed juice building, 55 dwelling units, a mix of one to four units with a first floor retail component and parking on the interior of that level as well. This is an application that is not fully complete but has begun that we expect to and does not have a hearing date yet with the planning board for site plan reviewer special permit, but we expect to have that established in the coming days. The second proposal that we're aware of would be what was advertised recently as a demolition permit of 37 North Pleasant Street and 45 Boltwood Walk. At this time, there are no plans of the redevelopment that have been provided, but we do understand that a similar type of development to 11 East Pleasant of a mixed use building, first floor commercial with residential units above. Next slide, please. We were asked about applications that are in process that would not be affected by this proposed by a lot. In other words, this could be, as an example, a apartment building in a district that is not subject to the moratorium. In fact, we don't have any proposals of that sort at this time. I'll turn it over to Chris for the next slide. Good evening. I'm Chris Brestra, Planning Director. So we were also asked about other projects that would not be subject to the proposed bylaw. And for various reasons, these projects here would not be subject to the bylaw. 26 Spring Street is the building on Spring Street that's partially constructed. That was fully permitted a while ago. It's going to contain 58 apartment units. And it's under construction. And we understand that construction will be resuming soon. The reason that's not subject to the proposed bylaw is because it is already fully permitted. 462 Main Street is a project that was proposed by John Roblesky. It's a mixed use building in the BN zoning district. It contains, it will contain 24 apartment units. That is also fully permitted and under construction. And it is not subject to this moratorium because it's in the BN zoning district and also because it's already fully permitted. There's another project at one university drive south, which is a project that Barry Roberts has gotten his land use permits for. He hasn't yet gotten his building permit. That's in the PRP zoning district. So that would not be affected by this moratorium. And that's going to have 45 apartments and five of them are going to be affordable. Other projects that you may have heard about that wouldn't be affected would be University of Massachusetts is proposing what we've been calling the P3 projects, the public private partnership projects. They have one on Massachusetts Avenue, which I believe is going to contain 800 dwelling units along with some commercial and retail space. And they also have North Village, which they're proposing to rebuild essentially. So neither of those would be affected by the moratorium because they are both in the ED or educational zoning district. Then we have a building at 133 and 143 Southeast Street known as Southeast Commons. It was proposed by Amir McChie and his wife. It is in the BVC business village center district. And so that would not be impacted by this moratorium. And that's going to contain 57 apartment units when it's completed. We also have 132 North Hampton Road, which you may remember from last year when it was permitted by the zoning board of appeals. It's the Valley Community Development Project. It's going to contain 28 apartment units, all of them affordable. And it was granted a comprehensive permit in 2020. And we believe that that would not be subject to this moratorium. And the last project that I wanted to talk about is 408 North Hampton Road, which was proposed by the Breckenridge Group Amherst, MA, LLC. And that is under construction now. It's in the PRP zoning district. It is fully permitted. It has 88 apartments with 11 affordable units. Next slide, please. So we were asked to outline a timeline for this moratorium. And that's what we've attempted to do here. So the town council received the petition, I believe they received it on March 19th, which was Friday. And the petition is now being referred to the planning board, the CRC, and the GOL within the 14 days from March 19th. So the planning board will receive the referral and it will schedule a public hearing. The planning board must hold its public hearing within 65 days of referral. And I think Mandy Jo just gave you a date for that, which I believe is May 26th. And they, the planning board may hold its public hearing jointly with the CRC or the Community Resources Committee. Prior to the public hearing, the planning board will a notice of public hearing that has to be published in the paper and sent to adjacent towns and the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission and I believe DHCD at least 14 days prior to the hearing. So then the planning board holds its public hearing and the planning board issues a report to town council with a recommendation on whether to adopt or not adopt the proposed moratorium. And that has to be done within 21 days of the close of the public hearing. After that 21 days or after receiving the report from the planning board, the town council may vote to adopt, amend or reject the proposed zoning amendment. And then town council, excuse me, must vote within 90 days of the public hearing or else the planning board needs to hold its public hearing again. And then we have some Q&As here at the end. Questions, next slide please. Questions that we think that people have asked. So is a mixed use building considered a residential building that would be affected by the proposed moratorium? And the answer is yes. The reason we thought that was important is because people don't always think of a mixed use building as being a residential use, and it is. The second question is if the proposed moratorium is adopted, can a building permit be issued before the moratorium has expired? And the answer to that is no. The moratorium specifically would prevent a building permit from being issued. The last question though is something that we thought everybody should be aware of. If the proposed moratorium is adopted, can a site plan review approval or a special permit be issued before the moratorium has expired? And the answer to that is yes. So somebody who's already in the permitting pipeline can or even somebody who hasn't yet submitted an application can submit their application and go through the public hearing process and then receive site plan review approval or a special permit. The only thing they can't receive is a building permit. Now this all is premised on the fact that new zoning would not have gone into effect. So if new zoning has gone into effect, if we can hold a public hearing on some of the new zoning that we're that we're putting before the CRC, those new zoning amendments may affect anything that is submitted in the interim anytime soon. So I think that's all I have to say about that, but you may have questions and Rob and I are ready and willing to answer your questions. Christine and Rob, first of all, thank you. With short notice, you turned this around at my request and it was based on questions I received from counselors. It is in your packet or if it isn't, it will be. So you don't need to take notes. But Steve, let's go ahead with questions are coming. Yeah, so if this is answered somewhere else, my apologies. But when does 180 days start? Does that start? Because right now there's a de facto moratorium period because there has to be a public hearing. Once there's a public hearing that basically creates a moratorium until we vote otherwise. So does 180 days start at the time of the public hearing? The first time the hearing is when does 180 days start? Because what I'm counting all those numbers there and I'm coming up with a number that could look like 180 days. So I'm actually wondering if we're talking about a one year, we're talking about a one year moratorium minimum. Christine. Rob, Rob, more I may be able to answer this better than I can. Yes, the 180 days will start from the date the council votes if they were to adopt the moratorium. The last step of the timeline that was just outlined. If I may, so then everyone should be clear that we're talking about a much longer than 180 day moratorium because of the de facto moratorium already. Rob, you want to comment on that please? Just to clarify that the moratorium would have an effect the date of the the date when the public hearing for the planning board hearing is advertised. So it hasn't wouldn't have started yet at this referral stage but coming soon there'd be a date soon where that moratorium would have effect but not counted towards the 180 days yet. So the date that they publicize is the date that the basically anything that is filed for application after that would be subject to the moratorium if it passes. Correct. Thank you. I want to make sure I remember everything the attorney told us. Steve does that answer your questions? Okay Dorothy. So my questions are really simple ones. May 12th would be the day that you would have to advertise the hearing. That is a while from now. It seems to me that many buildings could get under the wire before that date. Is that a possibility? Rob, Chris? Well so we're competing with each other here. Nothing has well. So we've received a very unfinished application for 11 East Pleasant when that application is finally submitted and it's complete. The date that we're assuming that there would be a public hearing would be sometime in early May. It's the planning board meets twice a month normally. It's unlikely that the planning board would approve such a large project in one hearing. So it's more than likely that they would have a hearing in early May and depending on how the applicant is working they could have another hearing in late May or they could wait until early June. We really don't know. Once the planning board opens its public hearing on a project it can carry on for months depending on whether the planning board has all the information it needs. So I don't believe that the two permits that that project needs which is site plan review and a special permit would be obtained by the date of the public hearing for the moratorium or by May 12th. So I don't know. Maybe Rob can explain it a little bit better. Rob is shaking his head. Yeah, I don't, nothing else I can add to that. Maybe Joe, you had your hand up. Did you want to comment? No, I decided not to. Are there any other comments or questions? Melanie Balmille. So I have a question but before that I have a kind of comment-y question. And so I'm trying to understand this moratorium because I think all the goals that are listed in it are things that we are all discussing and talking and we all have in the council agree that these are the goals we are interested in. Affordable housing, solving the parking problem, design and walkability, economic vitality. And my question is I'm trying to understand the reasoning and the research that suggests that this moratorium will actually lead to those stated goals. For example, we are doing the moratorium so we can talk about how to put the inclusionary zoning so that we can then expect the developers to build with affordable housing. And there's a big assumption there that when we do put and we stop, stall the businesses, the developers who've got the funding right now for whatever proposals, they have a plan. And we're saying stop that. And because we are going to create this proposal now so that you have to put in the inclusionary zoning, we have not included, I'm assuming that none of you have included the developers and the people concerned in this process. So we have no idea what they're thinking, where they are in this process, is it feasible for them? The research I have studied is that inclusionary zoning only works under certain conditions. And so if you're starting with the assumption that if we put this and they will do it, I'm not sure that it could backfire, which means that they don't build at all. They go and build in Hadley. And so we're not left with any housing that is going to meet our housing demand. That's one point. The second point is that we could be actually using this time. And we have been discussing a community engagement plan, a very elaborate plan that was created, which would bring all the people, all the stakeholders to the table, which would include developers, which would include students, it would include diversity, people of color, it would include residents, so that we can talk about what is possible. And I had already started these conversations, for example, with Cinder Jones, I said, you were interested in supporting affordable housing. How can you support this? And she brought out this box of files that she's been collecting to build starter home communities. And she wants to do that. She wants to engage our local builders and the bankers to create starter homes. And the message we're sending out instead to people like her and Barry Roberts, who helped revitalize our Amazon cinema and Amherst works and wants to do this, we're saying no. We want to do it this way. We don't want to include you, because you are only doing work for profits. Yeah. Is it over? Time up? Okay. So my question was then, is this going to lead to the, what is the research? What is the reasoning to get there? And the question also that was one, and the second question is, can the petitioners withdraw based on further conversation? Can they withdraw this? Can we talk of another way which includes people? Is that a possibility? Either Chris or Rob, on the question of can they withdraw? I believe the answer is no. I think the answer is no. Once you have a petition, and it's been signed by all those people, it's practically impossible. What you could do is go around to each of those people and ask them to agree to withdraw. And if they did agree to withdraw and sign something saying that, then I believe it could be withdrawn. But practically speaking, it's really not possible. Well, give your hand up. So we did ask that question to the town attorney, and he said, no, you can't. Once it's submitted, it's submitted, because some people may have relied on someone else signing it, and that otherwise they may have signed it. So in all practical, for all, just agree with Chris, for all practical purposes, the town council must consider this proposal. Thank you. The other question that Shalini asked, I think is much more, um, might require a much more complicated thing. And I'm not sure we're going to get into that tonight. Alyssa. Okay, three minutes. So really helpful slides. Thank you so much staff and everybody for pulling those together. Really important context for all of us to understand. It's super frustrating that my three colleagues have had over a week to build public support in the press and elsewhere for their point of view. And that with the rest of us town counselors started receiving emails expressing that point of view before we even knew this idea existed. And the remaining 10 of us have had zero opportunity until tonight to present our concerns with the impact of such a moratorium. And also to address the types of complaints people have expressed in those emails that they hope the moratorium is going to address. For example, we do have inclusionary zoning. We have article 15 as passed by representative town meeting. Now it's not been particularly effective, but please stop acting as though we don't have inclusionary zoning. We have some, we just need to fix it. And that's one of the things we know we've been struggling with. The municipal parking district was not created by some other. It was created by representative town meeting. And the reason you have parking permits issued to people who live in that municipal parking district is because staff took it upon themselves to issue those. That was never the intent of the keepers the public way. We said, really, you're going to have leases that say you can't have a car. And the developer said, yes, people will love that. And we said, okay, good luck with that. Design standards, representative town meeting turned them down twice. We, the town council have done basically nothing. I know Mandy Joe is going to love this, but basically nothing with the zoning since we were elected other than the really important temporary zoning we did with outdoor dining support. So all the things we said when we were running for town council back in 2018, including a moratorium, including additional affordable housing have not in fact changed any zoning to make any of those things happen. So I'm truly frustrated by the people who've written to us and expressed tonight in public comment. Well, it'll be good to extend this past that campaign so that we can hold these town counselors to account for what they've done. We've done nothing for zoning. And in fact, the buildings that a number of people, not everybody, but a number of people are unhappy with were created far before this town council came into existence. And there was nothing that we could do to fix those buildings, although it's true a moratorium will stop another building like that. Finally, because I only have 28 seconds left, even though other people have had a week to talk about this in public with everyone, is that it's important that for those town counselors who are most of you who never served in representative town meeting and therefore never dealt with zoning proposals to understand the part about the two year limit. If something's acted on unfavorably, I wonder if Chris or Rob could put that in context for us, or maybe Paul's already talked to the town attorney about it, because when a zoning bylaws very specific like this, and it says three districts, if the temporary zoning bylaw, I know I'm over time goes is fails at the town council level. So it goes through its whole process and then it's voted down by the town council. There's a two year limit as Steve could obviously speak to, but how specific is that limit to a moratorium versus a moratorium in these particular districts? Oh, Rob? Yes. So we did actually have that discussion with the town attorney recently. And just as an example, if a moratorium were to this moratorium were to fail and be repurposed again, eliminating say the RG district from that proposal, that could be viewed as different enough to proceed just as an example. So it could happen that in that way. Thank you. Steve Schraber. So I was actually going to ask a nerdy question, but Alyssa, a councilor brewer, has me down my list of things that I want to say. So zoning is always changing. So the fact that we're in the middle of zoning changes right now, that's how communities, the zoning bylaw is not written in stone. It should be forever changing. There was a when we had town meeting zoning changed all the time. So the fact that there's zoning underway now is absolutely no reason for a moratorium. The other thing I want to say is just perception versus reality. So I can't tell you how many times tonight we've heard that the new buildings downtown have replaced businesses. Kendrick Place was built on a vacant lot. Boltwood Place was built on a service yard. It's true that Wendy's Pleasant was built on the carriage shops. If you look at the list of the building code problems with the carriage shops, you probably, you know, that's that was a substandard building. And yes, it's true that the buildings behind Berkhusen's Market is those have closed. But Kendrick Place and Boltwood Place were built on vacant lots. The other thing is a little bit of science. So I can't tell you how many times I've heard that the new buildings have cast shadows on Kendrick Place. Did you know that the new buildings are on the east side of Kendrick Place? And basically the only time that the sun will ever possibly cast a shadow on Kendrick Place is on sunrise this time of year. And it doesn't even do that because there's a hill behind them. And it's the hills that cast the shadow. So you have the petitioners have a perception that shadows are being cast on the sidewalks and shadows are being cast on the park. They're not. That is your perception. That is false. Any other comments before we move on to the next agenda item? All right. Thank you. You're now going to go back to presentation items. I want to point out that each of these items had in your folder or in your packet a memo. And so I'm not going to ask for a presentation on that memo. Instead I'm going to ask counselors if they have any questions. And the first item is the major capital projects update. I see no questions. Okay. Then we're going to go on to the update on the review of the Jones library options. That's a memo for me. And it was also accompanied by the beginning of, I don't know, 40 plus pages of answers to questions that have been asked. Are there any comments or questions at this time? Darcy, please use the raised hand function. Trouble going back and forth. Yeah, I just have a comment that there were a number of questions that I asked and they were all listed together on one page. And with a statement that they were all answered in the narrative and they weren't. So I guess I just need to re-send them or something. Okay. If you would, please, thank you. Are there any other questions or comments on the Jones library options? Then the next one was on the update on funds appropriated to address systemic racism. Are there questions on that? Sorry, come on, it's on me. It's really a question maybe for Paul, but he talked about three alternatives that for the remaining funds that are available. And all of them seem like they are the beginning of a project that would involve significant more funds to complete. And I was wondering if any analysis has been done on what the funding needs might be to complete those processes, whether they, how they could be funded has been considered and whether that should be a factor in making a determination as to what are appropriate uses for the remaining balances that currently appropriated funds. Paul, please, go ahead. So, yeah, so that's a really good question, Andy. We're looking at the options for what we need for next year as part of our budget process. And this could serve as the seed money that moves into the needs for the next fiscal year. I definitely want to support the work of the core equity team. I think that's very important work. And there's a lot of different directions we can go in that. You'll see that in the budget presentation when I deliver it on May 1st. The research that needs to be done, I think that will grow out of the work that is being done by the community safety working group, which we will know by the end of April where they are, what gaps of research they'll have because they have an consultant working on research right now. The reparations question is a bigger question, more of a policy question that I'd look for guidance from the council on. If the council wants to start moving in the reparations, I think that's a pretty significant step. And I would rather have the council saying, yes, we want to be moving in that direction if you think that that's the wisest place to go. I do want to point out that that is not an agenda item tonight, so we are not going to get into that debate. If somebody would like it to be an agenda item in the future, when we get to future agenda items, please make that request. Dorothy Pam, you have your hand up. Dorothy, we can't hear you for some reason. Can you hear me now? Yes. Going back to the building project update, I have it on my computer. I hadn't really studied it beforehand. I was very busy with other things. I'm looking at it and I'm confused. You haven't said where to the fire, new to fire department would be built on the DPW property. That both of them will be on the same property or is the DPW, you're going out for proposals and I don't know where it's going to be. I think I missed something. Okay. Dorothy, can we just hold off a minute? Alyssa, is your question with regard to the update on the funds appropriated to address systemic racism? Yes. Okay. Please proceed. Dorothy, we'll come back to it. So thank you. So this is a little confusing to me because I have, I believe we were just directed that this isn't on the agenda tonight to make any sort of vote associated with moving forward on a path of reparations and that that would have to be discussed under future agenda items. I have asked this to be on future agenda items, although in the past and it has now appeared tonight, which I really appreciate. So I'm not sure what different way I need to ask it, or if it's that you're looking for a specific proposal. I think maybe this is a chicken egg situation where we've been waiting, those of us who have been working on trying to implement the resolution that we passed, that we all passed in December, is to try and figure out what the town manager can find out from legal counsel as he's indicated. He already got some information from and is still working on information from in terms of how the financing would actually work, the techno geek type stuff in terms of how it would actually work. But then there's also, as he just asked for tonight, the sort of direction from town counsel. And so I'm not sure other than the agenda item tonight, what more you want from me to be able to express, to get the town council to say, yes, we'd like to actually live up to the resolution that we passed in December and start working on some specific things. And it may or may not be that individual counselors feel like they want to talk about that particular $5,000 request. But that's why we were thinking more about a process associated with that with what the money might look like. So I appreciate it's all gotten very complicated because we don't formally set aside $80,000. We have the core equity team doing some terrific work. We have community safety working group doing amazing work with a consultant that's going to help find some gaps. We have the League of Women Voters asking for some data that in my mind, because I haven't seen anything more specific yet, is data that we could simply be gathering on forms we already have. And in fact, should have been doing all along because we had a police stops committee years ago that said we were going to collect that data. So I don't know why we're not already collecting the data. But two of those things seem like very necessary operational budget things that should be going forward. And I don't think $12,000 is going to go very far toward those things. And I think that's why you normally shift money over the course of years for new things like that. I think that the separate $5,000 is for a particular time sensitive thing. It is not for like all of reparations, a huge program like Evanston is about to undertake. It is for a portion of what might potentially be a program. And so I'm not sure how we communicate effectively to the town council, to the town manager, that yes, to be very blunt, yes, I want that money to be spent that way. So what's the way of making that happen? My apologies. My apologies if I did not see your request as wanting to discuss the larger issue of reparations. Okay, I saw it as wanting to discuss whether or not the request for $5,000 could be honored and should be honored. Okay. I don't think there's an apology necessary at all. I think it was it's both is the confusion because we didn't know what the process would look like. So I think it's that we're still trying to figure this all out as we go along. But if we're saying that the town manager needs more direction to be able to feel like he needs to pursue it further, how is it that I get the rest of the town council to provide that direction? Paul, would you like to comment? Yeah, so I mean, just a few minutes ago, the city of Evanston just approved their reparations decision. They made their reparations decisions. There's been articles in the paper about the work that they're doing. So that their council just voted that the first count, the first community in the country to do that. It's groundbreaking. And I think that it's a significant step in a certain direction. And if the council says we want to move into the reparations thing, I think the council needs to say that. If you're if the council saying we're not quite there yet to start devoting money to this, we need to do other work, then the council look for guidance from the council on that. But I think that the moving into the reparations area, which is, you know, I think a lot of us have educated ourselves and feel that that may be a very wise direction to go in. But I do think some of the significant policy decision that the town manager shouldn't be doing on its own, but the council should be saying yes, we want to move in that direction. Yeah, let me. Okay, so I what I'm hearing is that we not hearing we all did sign a resolution for anti-racism making an anti-racism for reparations for black people. But it also what I'm sensing and I may be wrong is that not everyone in council agrees what that looks like. And so is that a discussion we need to have or and I think I'm seeing these as two separate things. And then I want to also acknowledge the work that's already been done by reparations for Amos group. They're doing some very important work that is needed that is so essential. And having Alderman Simmons come and lead the black community and lead the sessions with them and then to have other forums, that's very important work that someone had to do. And they are doing that. And I feel they should be paid for that. And the other the third aspect is of measurement, which is also something we need to do as a town. So these are all very important issues. And I don't know, do we need to take a vote on that? Or what do we need to do as Alyssa was saying to make some decision and to give clarity to Paul as well about, you know, how do we assign this money? Is there a motion that someone from the council would like to make with regard to that specific request? Mandy Jo. Oh, I guess one of my questions is, I don't know whether the council has the right to assign that money or vote on where that money goes. I would say we passed a budget, it's now in Paul's hands to spend the money. So I think we might need clarification on whose authority it is for the rest of that 12,000 to decide how that 12,000 is spent. Because I don't know whether it's the council's authority to make that decision versus what I read Paul's memo as was he's seeking some guidance. But that guidance I didn't think was was as a council as a whole, I think he just wanted to hear from us as counselors. But maybe I interpreted things wrong. Alyssa. While I certainly appreciate that the division of power is far different than it used to be, we are policy making body, he has asked for policy direction. I think that what individual counselors want is not relevant at all. Even if I think it's the best idea in the world, if I can't convince a majority of town counselors, it's a good policy direction, then I fail. And so if I just called Paul up and said, I want you to spend money this way, I don't think that would be appropriate. And so I didn't think his memo was asking for that. I again, you know, I don't want to belabor the whole issue of process, but we're still just all trying to figure this out. And so I do believe that we, if he had not created the community safety working group, if we had not come up with that plan together, he didn't need us to give him thoughts on that. But he asked us for that because we're elected officials and he wanted to know policy guidance from us. And he eventually came up with the community safety working group he came up with. He didn't ask us before doing the core equity work because he knew it was important work to do. He sounds like to me, he's not sure he's getting adequate direction that of this little amount of money left, what, assuming it's legal to do, he should be doing with it or if he should just be leaving it aside for a future budget. I'm saying, if he's saying he doesn't have to use up all the money a certain way, and I'm not waiting until his evaluation to complain about how he spent the money, that we should be able to give some policy direction saying, yes, we think this is a good direction to go in, see if you can make it work out legally, or no, we think this is a terrible idea. And even though we passed that resolution, we've literally done nothing since then and don't intend to do anything until we have some other budget conversation. That's the answer. I'm going to take a risk here. In Michelle's speaking, Michelle Miller speaking, in public comment, she talked about not wanting to be in competition with two other projects, one of them being the core equity and the other being the League of Women Voters. We have not, as a council, beyond creating a resolution, had any real substantive discussions about reparations. We haven't looked at what they could look like legally, creatively. We have not done that. And that, so for me, I feel like I feel comfortable with Paul taking, you're taking the $12,000 that's left and making a decision about how you're going to use it. I would like to see it spent this year. And I feel comfortable with whatever that decision is. That's me personally. What I don't want us, though, to do is to go, oh, okay, that's solved, because it's not. We need to come together as a council, and I'm not sure how to do this, and have time in our meetings to really discuss the issues of reparations. I want to, and we need to take that time. If we're going to address racism in any way in Amherst, then it's going to take time and commitment on our part. I have no idea what I have imaginings, but I have no direct idea about what reparations should be. And I would want, I'd want us to begin a conversation, but I also want then the community, the Black community to come together with us to tell us what they want. And somewhere between, maybe we'd be in the same place, but somewhere between, we could do, we could have a very creative solution to reparations in Amherst. I believe that, but I don't think that's going to happen with one decision right here, right now. And I do want to leave that with Paul. I'd like to just exercise my word as a counselor and build on what Pat has said. I think Paul needs to make the decision. If Paul can legally see a way to support the work of the reparations group as requested, and that reparations group will then come and share with the council what it's heard and help us through that think about this issue, then it's an investment well made. My hesitation all along has been, we didn't set out a competition for this money. Are there others that would like to have, you know, also applied for it and to do something also similar? And that has been my hesitation all along. But if what Paul is looking for is, yes, it would be useful to have some support for a group of people who it has been talking in depth about reparations, and that group can then come and share what they have heard with the council so that we can have a meaningful discussion, then I think that's a good investment. Just very quickly, what I've heard is that they are creating a report, one from what they hear from the black community, what the black residents community comes forward with in working with Alderman Simmons, they are going to bring a report forward to us. And secondly, I've also heard that they're creating a report on the measurement of the systemic gaps in the five different areas in our town. So they will be bringing that forward. Are there other comments on this? Paul, do you have anything else? No, this is helpful. Thank you. Dorothy, I really think that you, Dorothy, you're not very clear. We need you. I think you made a very good suggestion. Begley. Okay, it is good. And I think you shouldn't worry about any other to be reported. Are there any other comments at this time? Dorothy, we can do one of two things. We can either wait till the town managers report to ask questions about the building, which would be my preference because since we are going to do the CPA vote separately, we have a couple of staff people who have been waiting, and I'd like to move back forward. Okay, so given that, what we're going to do is actually go to item E, financial orders, and we're going to go item E3, which is to the FY 22-07 Community Preservation Act project allocation. And Andy, you are the person who asked to take this out of the consent agenda. So I'm going to call on you first. Okay, the reason that I had asked to take it out is not that I'm supporting or opposing any particular thing, but I wanted to point out a little bit of additional information about one of the proposals. And unfortunately, it's the only one that's left in for affordable housing, and that's the Amherst Community Connections. And what they're asking for is a third round of a program that has been previously funded by town meetings in the past that takes people who they're working with or apply through them and rents houses, rents housing for those individuals and places them in housing. And with the goal of trying to move the people from homelessness into a mode in their life where they can productively find their own housing. That's what their hope is. And I had asked several questions in the process going along. And one is whether this has been evaluated since it's been in prior CPA budgets, whether there has been any real evaluation done or assessment of whether this has been a successful model or not. And what our expectations as a council should be about evaluating ongoing projects. And I also wanted to point out that it's a fairly big chunk of money really. It's not small when you talk about you know over $225,000. And especially when you're considering that it's serving six people for three years. We had for Northampton Road allocated $750,000 of housing money from CPA to create 28 units for an in perpetuity commitment. So we don't really know how many years but I'm assuming at least 30. And Belcher Town Road we allocated $825,000 to get project off the ground for creating 40 units of housing again that's a long-term housing. So I just wanted to make sure that as we vote this recommendation which was you did have the unanimous support of the CPA committee that we understand all of the factors that are behind this as far as the amount of money involved, the amount that we're tying up and not making not reserving for future housing and some of the logistical questions that are there. I think the last thing I'll just say is that when this was put forward and I did ask Sarah Marshall about it Sarah's statement was yep it's more expensive but it's a different model and that's what their conclusion was at the CPA committee. So I believe it at that I'm not pushing but I wanted to make sure that there was an opportunity for the counselors to at least my fellow counselors to at least be aware of the tensions there and the real cost of what we're talking about. I'm going to put a motion on the floor and then ask for a second and then we'll have for the comments. So we have already moved 8.4 for this so the motion is in accordance with Charter Section 5.6 having been published on the Town Bulletin Board for a minimum of 10 days on March 10th 2021 a public form held on March 22nd 2021 and having been reviewed and recommended by the finance committee report of March 8th 2021 to adopt council order FY 20-07 in order appropriating the FY 2022 Community Preservation Act budget as presented. Is there a second? Second DeAngeles. Thank you. Are there further comments or questions? Mandy Jo. Yeah I would just second the desire for more information on on this particular item that Andy talked about. I know a year ago or so I was asking the same thing in a committee meeting that about just outcomes on it because it is a significant amount of money and I understand it's a different model and I think we need to be discussing whether that's a model we want to pursue or not given the amount of money it is versus other models that seem to provide similar amounts of housing for less money. Are there other comments? Alyssa. Yes along those lines I mean it is there is this tension right between the idea of do you solve transportation problems by getting everybody on the bus or do you just buy several people cars and so this is kind of an offshoot of analogous of that sort of situation and so it's providing real actual help to people but we always talk about how much our affordable units cost like in terms of town funds in terms of state funds etc and so it feels like this ought to be worked into that comparison as well and so I just wonder because it's Community Preservation Act money which is a little different than some of our other money is what kinds of reporting is there beyond just when you come back for your next round of funding and you say that went really well and everybody says oh good here's some more money um just so that we could help like provide context to the community like we do different kinds of things for housing and this is one of them and these are some of those outcomes that that Andy and Mandy Jo talked about. So we have both Anthony Delaney here as well as Sonja Aldridge and Sarah Marshall still in the audience. You want to speak to that Anthony or Sonja? So to a to a variety of the points raised um you know the this is uh the third year I think that ACC has has come back with this project um it is true that there are other ways that we could support affordable housing but the while the committee values building housing there's also a need to help the people that need some assistance paying for their current rent as far as accountability while we're not we're not doing on-site inspections or anything every year when they've come back we have seen testimonials written and spoken at the public hearing the project has has the support of the housing trust um and the actual invoicing for the uh for the rental subsidies is approved by town staff and it's not handed directly to ACC but uh to the landlords um probably missed at least one or two points that people want a clarification on and I would if uh Sean or Sonja or Sarah wants to pipe in here I'd welcome that as well Sonja or the hand that's up is the accounting department here and I think that's Sonja. Sorry Lynn that's uh Sean Sonja hates when I use the um accounting department account so sorry Sonja um Anthony I just wanted to clarify one thing Andy might have mentioned this it's a three-year the allocation is for a three-year program correct that's correct so it's you know it's roughly I think between 60 and 70 000 per year when you break it down that way um this and Andy maybe or Anthony maybe you can also provide more information on this I know CPA is looking at updating its reporting process um we're going to be getting more regular reports I don't know if they decided on whether it's once a year or twice a year um but we can take this feedback you know that we're hearing to make sure that this is the type of information that we gather in those reports um someone questions like this come up we'll have something to point to. Sarah Marshall who's here at CPA community has also joined us Sarah do you have a comment? Yes I just wanted to confirm what Sean said we did decide a while ago that we would institute annual reporting um back to the committee so we would be able to compile those reports and I should say about the Amherst community connections proposal um in the proposal uh they um describe their success with the first rounds it's true we don't try to confirm that information in the way um but uh they report that they have been quite successful and uh because of their experience in the first two phases um they're able to expand the program and I also wanted to remind the counselors that the amount requested for this particular project um is a maximum both in that um you could vote a lower amount that funds either fewer uh rental units or a shorter period of time that's that was all in their budget so that's an option um and that they generally or they certainly try to um uh get their clients to qualify for any kind of income that they don't don't already receive and that they put 25 percent of their income towards their housing but the budget that um it was proposed assumes that nobody has any money to contribute to housing so uh it is quite likely that the true cost of the program will be less Dorothy you have your hand up I wanted to speak in support of that funding because uh housing first is a well-known program it's been used by many places I know from personal experience that providing stable housing keeps people from becoming worse reduces costs in the long run and prepares them to be ready to receive services and to take a positive role in their own life so we don't have we have to have many different tools to deal with the housing problems because they have many different causes so I do support the program I think we need it as part of our overall program for housing are there any other comments or questions from the council motion on the floor is a motion that basically that allows us to approve the um financial order and that would include this proposal as well seeing no other questions and then going to move to the motion and again the motion is in accordance with Charter section 5.6 having been published on the town bulletin board for the minimum of 10 days on March 10th 2020 public forum held on March 22nd 2021 having been reviewed and recommended by the finance committee report of March 8th 2021 to adopt council order fy 20-07 an order appropriating the fy 2022 community preservation act budget as presented okay i'm going to start with d angeles hi humon darsie yes riece mersey yes hannity hi Dorothy pam hi ebb and ross hi george rime yes pathy shane yes b schreiber hi andy steinberg yes fairer schwarz hi shallony bowman yes elizabeth brouwer hi unanimous 13 000 um i noticed that shon has joined us and i want to go back to um the questions that Dorothy had it seems as if we went over the issue of the um capital projects too fast Dorothy you were asking questions and i believe the question was will dpw and fire be on the same site paul no they won't be we're moving where these two projects are moving in tandem um but we need to find a site for the dpw but we can start the work for the fire on the schematic sign because we know where that's going to go are there any other questions at this time on this issue okay then i'm sorry to be skipping around like this you're now moving to the council agenda item 8b which is the town council anti-racism training and i'm going to ask shallony and pat who proposed this training the way of comments at this time i can go first that okay um so i think we wanted to address some of some of the concerns that might have come up and to share with the council and to let you know that we heard you and there and so we want to take a few minutes to just go over some of the points that may be of concern um so we were very careful in going through different looking at different options that were out there and i just want to go over some of the points and then pat can add to and share her perspective um so i'm sorry i'm fumbling over here it's okay okay so the first thing is i think the the the biggest criteria the fundamental criteria we used for picking a curriculum was something that would help us address systemic racism that was in the resolution that we passed that we committed to eradicating effects of systemically racist practices in the town government so the curriculum that we selected if you look at it it really helps to over two days and it's a very concentrated curriculum where on day one we talk about it's always at the level of individual cultural and institutional so the idea is that day one helps to build off day two and you know that's that is a concern we understand it's a it's a big commitment of two days but this curriculum has been shaped by consultants who've been doing this work for 30 years and and it's really hard to if you look at the curriculum and you try to remove any of the modules from it it makes it less effective and i know we're all committed that if we are going to put in the time and money that we get a framework that really allows us to do our job better and so that was the other concern i mean the consideration we had we wanted to pick a curriculum that helps us do our job better that empowers us to do our job better as leaders and not just personal growth because i know we are doing that individually people are reading different books and and and whatnot but this is basically to empower us to look at policies from that perspective of um to racism given that we are not a very diverse town i think that would be really helpful the third criteria was to allow us to do it in a safe place so we uh there are certain programs like we heard from crossroads they said that um you can for the that you can do you can have six counselors take this program at a time which means we would be split up and we wanted to make sure that and that would be with a public program so here we're trying to do something that is only for us that's what we heard is we want only counselors and paul and atina to be part of it so we have that flexibility to work with it okay i might be losing you all at this point but i'm going to march on the other thing is the timing because as uh the consultants are really busy and given that we have the budget and all of that coming we had the restraint of constraint of wanting to do this in the next coming two months and with the consultant we found she gave us many different dates as possibilities to work with us in the short run and um the last thing is i think yeah yeah okay that's it for now and we're happy to answer any other question and pat go for it i'm gonna make a slightly more personal statement but and we can both answer any questions racism or white supremacy has been with us from the beginning of this nation from the beginning of the common and from the beginning of the town of amherst it lives within us and it's among us it's in the air we breathe uh in and in the ways we interact with each other as a town council especially at this time in history we have the opportunity and the real necessity to learn to see how white supremacy silently drives each of us and our limits our visions and ability to creatively govern and transform our community we as a predominantly white council need to understand that our version of reality is not the reality um to understand and pay attention we need we need to understand and pay attention to the reality as others particularly our bipoc residents experience it we need to understand uh the culture of the council and the way it supports and limits our ability to eradicate the effects of systemically racist practices in our government and in our town this is substantial work work which will take considerable time and commitment to accomplish the rethinking races in workshop we are proposing to you will assist each of us individually and assist us as a public body to transform amherst into an anti-racist community well and that's all i have to say right now but we looked at one two three four five six seven or eight other trainings um to find one that we felt would address us as a municipality as a group of people working together and we think that rethinking racism is the workshop we should begin with questions from the council or other comments at this time mandy jay so i since i'm the one that asked for this to be on as a discussion item i felt like i should say something um i i appreciate the conversations i've had with both shallony and pad over the last week um to help me understand better what this particular training um is meant to do because it's one thing that was not good in my understanding through all the different meetings we've briefly discussed this if we could call it a discussion at the council meetings um so i appreciate that because it's better helped me understand why you have proposed training that takes so much time and that has always been my primary concern um is trying to create that healthy balance that is in our rules as one of our um goals and values as a council on the healthy balance between work council and personal life um i will say i am still concerned about how much time we are being asked to devote to this as when you look at it as compared to the time in a council meeting that we spend in a council meeting we're going on four hours right now um that's four you know or four times that amount of time um you know and all um but you have despite that concern um and i don't i'm not sure i will ever relieve of that concern and i want to say that um you know despite still having that concern i am coming to a better understanding um as to why such an amount of time um will be valuable to the work we are doing as a full council um and why it um may be the best training out there although since i haven't done the research i can't say that and i have to rely on you guys um you know i i so i i can't whole heartedly endorse just this one i but but i am saying i i understand where it all is um and and i i will you know i would love to have seen other options but i understand why they're not there um so i thank you for doing the research um and and i will work hard on coming to the training um with an open mind in terms of how much time it's going to take away from family and personal life split george i think for me um the fact that there aren't any options and that we are basically being presented with this as a given is a problem um apparently there are good reasons for it but um it certainly makes it difficult for me to enter into this wholeheartedly since i really haven't seen what the options are i've had any choice in them um it's basically being told this is it and um i don't like that narrow so i'm a person that originally had you know i think i've always talked about the fact that i want this job to be something that working people can do and moms and dads can do and that i have concerns about how much time we have to dedicate um to everything town council however in looking at the training i can see where a group would benefit greatly from spending that immersion of time together and in looking at what this course offers i think that it would be valuable and i think that you know i also keep talking about you know what we're going to hand down to the second town council and even if most of you are still on that second town council um i'm thinking that we maybe think about some guidelines right now and maybe we prioritize i mean racism is systemic racism is so i mean i don't it's devastating and i don't think that you can ever really know until you go through some kind of a a discussion or a training how much it is systemic and i think that it would be important for a town council so maybe what we do is that this town council says yes we need to make priorities of what time we spend and what things matter but that this is something that really matters to amherstown council so we take the leap and we do it this time and then we look at how we spend all of our time and then we hand that down to the second council so i've come around to seeing where the value in this particular training are there any other comments Evan yeah i just wanted to sort of piggyback on what sarah said that i i do think we really do need to think uh seriously about especially as we go into elections and we're trying to convince people to take away from us um that we really need to think carefully about what expectations we're setting um for people uh already we gave up a saturday in february for the library many of us are giving up this upcoming saturday for the tso public hearing on power our village this is looking at giving up not just a saturday but an entire weekend this week uh sunday and friday are the only days i don't have council commitments um because of that tso public meeting saturday that's a big ask for this position this is not meant to be a part-time job and yet this week i'm actually spending more time on the council than i have a job that pays my bills i think that that's something that we need to um consider and we can justify why this is the right thing but i i was really concerned when i first brought up this uh concern that that concern was just outright dismissed um and i think that we need to take that seriously we can't just dismiss it by saying well racism is a is a serious issue and we have to commit to this because we are sending a big message especially as we go into um some really difficult issues when we're asking counselors to spend an entire weekend um and for me that weekend is actually going to be very tough because that week uh work wise for me i had actually planned on using that weekend to do a bunch of uh grading but now i can necessarily uh do that so and i just think we have to recognize that this is there is a message that is being sent and so i i agree with george i had always expected we'd be presented with some options um they had different commitments i'm sure there were reasons why we weren't um but that concern remains um about what message we're sending and about the time commitment that we're actually asking of people and and i think we can't just dismiss that thank you garson uh i just wanted to express thanks to shawnee and pat for putting this together and i um you know i i understand completely that this is the kind of immersive experience that we need and in order to get um in order to get it basically and um but i i do also want to emphasize that that um the best timing for it would be a in the winter and b uh like right after the new council takes office although i think it's great that we're doing it now i think that as a as a regular event it should be you know like the february or march after the new council takes its office you know because it's not the greatest to be doing it you know on a beautiful april weekend um but i i'm not complaining i'm just saying better to do it in the middle of the winter yeah okay um yeah thank you so much um i guess i'm also feeling part of that group is like this sounded like a great idea when we first were discussing it and now it's spring um um it's we're getting vaccinated and just um i just have you know just the timing just feels you know it's the end of the semester for me also so i will do what the will of the group is i'm in i i i guess i really i don't like going into things where i don't have an idea of what the actual outcome is and i i understand generally what the outcome is but i don't have a clear idea you know why exactly we're doing this at the end of our terms you know etc etc so this this is me just realizing that this is you know we're coming into april it's starting to get really beautiful out um i'm in the group that's going to get vaccinated so you know etc etc doesn't mean that that doesn't have anything to do with the fact of what pat was saying about this fact that we have a systemic racism in the air that we breathe but i guess i'll make a pitch for the next council which is i think a workshop on urban design on the built environment is critical and there these do exist for counselors because a lot of what we are struggling with has to do with the built environment and quite frankly the built environment is a product of this systemic racism that you're describing also and i think that sort of looking at how you know sort of whether it's amorous or not but whether or not the way that we think of space is also related to all of this i think that would be incredibly helpful so if i'm still around in the next term maybe maybe that's another thing that we can all engage in but thank you again for lining this up yeah yeah i just want to add one more thing to what george was saying why we can definitely make a list of the choices if that's gonna make make you feel better about what were the choices and then you can see why and we can explain why but one of the reasons that we want all of us to do the same training maybe a different i mean preferably at the same time because we have a shared experience but we want to do the same training because it gives us the same language and the same framework because if you take a training on just implicit bias and somebody else takes a training which is a part of that module of cultural or one is on hatred and compassion and one is on institutional then we're all bringing different frameworks and we are not really able to shape the policies using that same framework and lens and if it's helpful we can definitely present the different options that were studied and the reasoning that just means we will do more work and we're happy to do it i mean we just have to put it down it's just it's already done the work is done we just have to put it down in a document and share it if it helps you feel better about the choices at some point as you actually several of you have remarked upon i think we do just need to figure out who we're holding responsible and it can't be the president okay maybe it can be the vice president i don't know avid who we're going to hold responsible for kind of this memo to future town council because a whole section needs to be about what's the value of being on an mma policy committee what's the value of going to annual meeting what's the value to being part of a town councilor's thing or a western massachusetts network thing in addition to all the meetings you just have to go to right and how often should you hold district meetings i think all those things are incredibly valuable for the next town council even if the next town council is 98 same people and so i think this feeds into it and so i hope we don't lose sight of that and then lynn decides who's going to keep track of those things so that that can be managed so that we're prepared to hand that information over to say you really need we wish we'd had you know sooner and at these times of year to do different kinds of training i think that's going to be really valuable for the next group very timely i'm talking to Evan tomorrow i think he just found his next assignment um it's such a good writer anyway um without further comment i'm going to unless i've heard something differently we're going ahead with this training and uh i want to thank pat and shallowness for all the work you've done to get us here and uh we will be signing the contract and moving forward pat anything else you want to say no i was just wondering whether we were supposed to make a motion or anything because it was an action item but basically have heard lots of commitment and uh the the additional explanation was excellent okay so um we'll be hearing more from people and how we link up that day uh we have one other item on the action items it's under the dist called districting advisory board again you have a memo in your packet along with the draft charge i'm going to elicit your hand up on this or something else okay i'm going to go ahead and make the motion and then ask for a second and see if there's any questions carry for the memo in the draft districting advisory board charge to the governance organization and legislation committee to review and and recommend a charge timeline and appointment process to the council town council by april 12 2021 is there a second i could second it all right go ahead i'll second it but then when you're ready i'll speak to it please go ahead okay so i know we're all exhausted i just want to ask that we don't overthink this i know it's not usually how i approach things but we do this every 10 years just because this council's not done it before doesn't mean it hasn't been done before it was a very straightforward process last time 10 years ago and partly you know things are screwed up because delay and results but it's a very straightforward process we just did some cafs that the town clerk looked at and said yeah these people these are who we recommend select board appointed them done they had six meetings done they did the work and so let's not make this too complicated um use that old basis if we possibly can bearing in mind that of course while our districting does in fact affect the districting at shall we say higher levels and the legal win voters has a meeting coming up about that on the 29th that i think we all got an email about about how districting works at the state level because it has to do with how they divide things here but honestly there's not a lot of choices when it comes right down to it because you can't gerrymander we know that here in massachusetts and so let's not ever think it and i do have an objection to the composition as drafted i don't think town counselors belong on this it's not a political issue for us and we all have way too many other commitments and i would love to see it as another leadership opportunity for other people in the past when it had a somewhat different composition it was when we had the 10 precincts right we had somebody from each precinct basically except precinct 10 and they were often town meeting members or former board of registrars but they were also people who had other leadership skills that they either have brought with them or that they developed over the time that they were there and i hate to see two of those seats sucked up by town counselors who already have a million things to do and don't need to develop their leadership that way but other people could over a very short lived time sensitive you know six meetings and done kind of thing thank you um i want to i know it's coming to gl and i sit on gl but i want to put out there that i object to two things that are in the charge um and i think we need to add one thing to the charge the charter itself in section whatever the section is five point seven point four states that the district um shall to the extent possible cluster together centers of common interest or neighborhoods considering but not limited to places where people live congregate recreate worship shop or learn that is not anywhere in this charge and because it's part of the charter and it must be followed it should be in this charge um and i i must put forth my objection to the in addition to the statutory requirements the district advisory board should and then the two bullet points under that the first one is maintain current district it says precinct but it really needs to be district lines to the greatest extent possible so as to displace as few voters as possible my objection to this one comes from the fact that we are a new form of government um the charter commission when it drew district lines had to follow the precinct lines um and could not draw its own districts um in any way and so if you look at the districts they don't always actually cluster common centers of common interest or neighborhoods together and so if we're going to put into a charge that we don't want to displace voters in terms of where they're voting we're almost potentially um hampering the ability of this body to follow the charter in clustering areas together for example it might be logical to have the district and north amherst include kushman and the north amherst intersection at pine and and north pleasant street for example and i'm just i'm making that up but by putting this one bullet point in there we are really hampering that committee's ability to look at that um and then the second bullet point distribute the student population across as many precincts as possible elissa just said we can't gerrymander um i read that as gerrymandering i read that as harming the students in our town if we've substituted the word any other word that you can think of for the word student in here if we took out student and put black or asian or white or um low income or elderly we would know that that sentence seems wrong and so to keep it in here i have a real problem with that so i'm gonna argue and and push for g ol removing those two items but i wanted to put that forth at the council level too indio thank you for those comments to be honest i realize i attached the wrong version but having said that i drew this from elissa this goes back to your comment when this came up i um actually it contacted the town clerk she sent me the most the report from 10 years ago and i pretty much drew directly from that report for the charge this now goes to g ol if we vote that way and uh we look forward to them returning with recommendations there's nothing sacred about the way the charge is written it was a process of wanting to get it moving are there any other comments at this time okay then the motion is strictly a referral motion and um are there any if no other comments i'm going to begin with the voting and i'm starting with darcy demont yes respite panicky hi there's a hand yes evin ross hi george ryan yes at the shame yes the schreiber hi andy steinberg yes there are schwarz hi stony ball melton yes licebro hi pat de angeles hi thank you that's 13 0 0 and no apps uh we are now on to the last part of our agenda which is any um excuse me many reports some of these are reports that are in your packet and so i'm merely going to ask if there are additional questions regarding the report that was in the packet uh for the community resources committee um can i just make a update please since since the report was written the agenda for crc's meeting tomorrow changed we will not be addressing accessory dwelling units instead we will be addressing inclusionary zoning along with the two others that were in the report which is mixed use building standards and the bl overlay proposal thank you elementary school building anything kathy uh the main big news is that um anthony got the request for services into the federal register it was approved by the granting authority so now we wait for responses that's it thank you uh finance committee andy anything else no i think that uh council is aware of the process that we're engaged in with getting information of john's library we have one more meeting on the 30th of march on that subject we allow george nothing to add to the report any questions any questions for jcpc any questions for tsa then uh we are going to move on to the town managers report and i'm going to ask if there's any questions on the town managers Dorothy like to have a brief report from paul and the town managers report he does it so well all the highlights um well i try to make it as comprehensive in my writing so you don't have to listen to me because i know your meetings always go long so i try to also i look at these things as being um something that the public can read after the fact so they can keep up to date on things in an easier way um just an update the um in terms of of um st patrick's day and last weekend is relatively quiet throughout town which is really good news in terms of large gatherings we have not seen that um and so last week and even though it was really warm um we didn't have many incidents at all uh a few noise complaints but pretty low volume compared to what we had anticipated um and that's that's where i have to add that's different than was there's nothing else i didn't put in my report any other any questions then uh i've provided you with both a president's report and an update on the calendar and let me just mention that on the update on the calendar there is one item uh that you should remove and it was the item uh under may code wayfinding signs we already voted on that and so it doesn't need to be there again are there any questions on either the president's report or the uh future agenda items handy job the future agenda items had that there's a third meeting in june is that meeting actually happening on the last monday in june we left that on case we needed for the budget it didn't say tentative on the future agenda items and it had non-budget stuff on it so i'm just trying to set a calendar here i will add tentative to it and to the extent possible um we can leave the other items elsewhere um the rank choice voting is it's not going to make it by life it's the house is in a mess um and uh the housing crc is up to maybe joe and that committee okay any other questions on the future agenda items okay then we get to councillor comments and other future agenda items garcy yeah i just have three very short comments on basically um um access of the public um i was i would like to actually make a request that at our next meeting we start showing um the videos of you know people put people who make public comment on camera um or give them the ability to do it i don't know how that works um i i would you know there have been requests about that for quite a while and i i don't really see why we can't do that uh so that's one thing um i um would like to just request that the public comments on the temporary moratorium be available to the public somehow rather that they're they are archived and available on the website so that people can see them since they're part of the public record um and thirdly i when i came down to the town hall today to um to go to the clerks um i just was surprised shows that i haven't been there in a long time but um i tried to get in three different doors and but before i really realized the place was locked um so i just i'm interested to know if that's what other towns are doing i you know it seemed like everybody was in inside the building working so i just wondered why why the building would be locked yeah so the town hall has been closed to the public we've been serving people either remotely or in person outside if they come in as for an appointment we meet with them independently so if you had an appointment with the town clerk she would have met you um and met met your needs that way we are looking at reopening the building as we start to move into more people being vaccinated uh most of people are working in town hall uh so it's an you know actively in the building we have uh we are depopulated to a certain de-densified to a certain extent uh based on the requirements by the um by the health director uh but now we've been we've been broadening that and more and more people are back in the building we're probably i mean everybody's on this floor first floor is pretty full um but we have people spread out throughout the building we're utilizing conference rooms as office space um so that's where we are we we are looking to open up begin a gradual opening of the building in different ways in different trying to help people serve to serve people in a different way thank you oh Darcy is there anything else no i just was thanking paul and um and but i would be interested to hear from you lan about the uh the public comments yeah i will make that request and metheana and i will work on it thank you oh you mean the public comment regarding the showing the videos yeah that we can work on that okay great uh kathy um this is just um we we took a vote on the north commons parking lot not parking lot and there was an effort to go out and talk to the businesses i had asked to try to get those materials a while ago so i could post them and get them out to the broad community and i think we should be doing that in the future i mean we're we're changing the way we're using uh shared public resource downtown and i bet a huge number of people don't know what we just did i mean what you know we have the one tool is engage amers and if i know people said last time don't do a survey on it but it doesn't even show the pictures you know to how do we you can't finding it in a council packet would require you knowing that we're thinking of doing something so i just would like in the future if we're doing something fairly significant that affects a resource that's used by lots of people that we get the word out well in advance so people are at least aware of what we're doing um and i appreciate that we did walk around and talk to the businesses in the area but then it was an overwhelming majority don't do it um you can't look at that any other way with 63 percent but that wasn't enough to move things i just think we need to have that as a practice so people feel like they are at least aware even if their voice may or may not make a difference because i don't think most people knew so hopefully we'll at least get a story in the gazette um to explain to people what we did and i just as lin you know i asked for it a few times and you said don't put anything out till the new design is ready um and so you had the new design you had it but it was only at the beginning it was only and and so i appreciate that there was a delay on it but i just what i'm saying is a practice i think we should get it enough in advance of us making a decision if we have to postpone the decision still get the word out so people can see you see what it is we're talking about doing that's my comment i just want to compliment the town clerk's office i had to make four visits there today as people just would show up handing me petitions and um calling ahead they would open the door they were friendly they were efficient then they would send me the email copies of the signatures they would hand me the originals uh they were really very good um so i think that they're doing a fabulous job under the difficult situations of covid and they should be be appreciated that's all thank you Dorothy um steve shriver yeah so maybe a comment and question so this has been one of the busier email weeks that i can remember on the council other than the time that we were talking about the polling places but because zoning gets everyone's attention uh because zoning has to do with your property your house your streets you know your downtown so um a lot of the zoning concerns were mixed up so in other words people thought the moratorium had to do with rezoning rg or rezoning bl or whatever so um i spent a lot of my time writing to people in district four saying though those are two separate issues but i just wonder i know that the our president who is typically responds to those is that i'm not sure that there was a satisfactory response to those people who thought the moratorium had something to do with rg zoning in particular that seemed to be the one that was mixed up the most there was no yeah so that that might be just us on the ground trying to disassemble all of them there was not a good response to that because there wasn't a response that i could come up with and fault with uh the chair of crc to determine when those are coming up next so i make sure those are in the response i actually felt quite quite unable to respond on that one chalony um to me it felt like when i was reading that that that information is being shared with people that we have either we're ready to pass or remove you know that footnote or it seemed like people had this impression that um we are changing the zoning whereas what we're doing is having conversations about it studying the impact and pros and cons and so i think sharing that information with people it seems like people are not very clear what is going on and it's hard for people to follow because there's so many processes that so many boards and committees so i understand people are confused um but i think that might be helpful to let people know what's going on and if i could ask um the chair of crc to let me know when different topics are coming up and we'll make sure people know that any other comments any other future agenda items being done then i am going to during the meeting at 11 o'clock