 And if I'll just be checking my email if Peggy has any trouble as I'll make sure she gets in. Okay. I won't. Should I call her name or not? Do you think? Yeah, just yeah. Okay. I'm Judy Strayer and as chair of local cameras local historic district commission. I'm calling this meeting to order at 302pm. This meeting is being recorded in minutes are being taken as usual. I'll now take attendance by roll call. Bruce Coldham. Yeah. Rita Wilcox. Here. Carl Winter. Here. Peggy Schwartz. Jim Lumley. Here. I'm Judy Strayer and I am here. Also based on Governor Baker's executive order suspending certain provisions of the open meeting law general law chapter 30 a section 20 and signed Thursday, March 12, 2020. This hearing and meeting is being held virtually using the zoom platform. So we have. We're ready to get started or. Yeah, we have our applicants here. We will start with 285 Main Street. Great. That sounds good. I'll bring in a Pat Kamens here. Looks like we got Peggy. Thank you. Am I Peggy? We can see you. Okay. Sorry about being late. And then having technical difficulty. No problem. I'm here. Okay. Everybody can hear me. Patrick. Hello. Yes, we can hear you. Okay. There we go. Thank you. Great. So. Pat Kamens is here as the applicant. So I'll, as you all know, we're talking about the detached garage behind the apartment building at 285 Main Street. And then the district council commission under article 13. Did a review at a public hearing and also approved. The garage for demolition finding it to be not significant, but as a, because it's included in the local historic district as well. The local historic district commission. I think that needs to review the project for demolition. And so I'll just invite Mr. Kamens, if you want to say a few words describing the project and the impetus for demolition and, and kind of what you're envisioning for the space next. Thank you. Hello everybody. You may remember this house is right next to. One main and right across from Emily Dickinson's house. You know, up from the police station a little bit. This was the one that we had lit on fire by some students lighting fireworks off on the interior. And we lost most of the building to fire. Thank you. We rebuilt the entire interior and we wanted to, for a few years, pave the rest of the lot to improve parking. And because it's a time to pave and you'll see that stone wall to Ben's right, right where it says customer parking. So it looks like you were probably in 321 Main Street when you were taking that picture. Yeah. Yeah. Which is owned by a different owner actually. But anyway, you see the stone wall there. So we want to repair that and do the paving or whatever. And that dilapidated garage last barn slash whatever you want to call it in the back really serves us no purpose. We don't store anything in it. There's no utilities to it. We can't park cars in it. So it just seems to be an eyesore. It's the old color. You know, it matches the old building does not match the new building. So we'd like your blessing to remove that structure so we can add three or four parking spaces for the. When we do the paving project. Thank you. Thank you. And I'll just show this other image. This is taken from the sidewalk. So like behind me would be the Dickinson museum. And this is just to show that technically it is visible from the public way from the sidewalk on Main Street. Kind of you can see the back of the garage through there as well. So that's what you would see from that, from the street. Oh, and if the photograph before that was not. This is from. Oh, I see. I'm trying to think of businesses are there like elements hot tub. I think. Yes. Stakeholder place. Yes, I know. That's exactly right. That's where I parked my car when I visited Andrew. So now I know exactly where we are. I'm not sure if I made that. That's not, that's not elements. It's not that far down the street. It's a frame shop. And it's the dance studio and the doggy dog. Right. Okay. That's right. Thank you. Yeah. Well, this seems to me to be one of the most straightforward. Requests we've ever had. And I'm on the point of moving. To grant the application. But Ben, this is not a certificate of appropriateness. Is it, or is it, is it formally and technically a certificate of appropriateness to that, that it's appropriate to demolish the garage? Is that the way we. Framing this. Yeah. Yeah. It's the, yeah. Obviously a change to an exterior feature of a structure. You know, so it's in this case, it's full demolition. And I don't think that the subsequent repaving doesn't necessarily need. A certificate of appropriateness. Because it's not a structure, but it's the, it's the removal of this garage. Yeah. Well, for the purposes of moving us forward. I'll move. That we grant the certificate of appropriateness. That involves the demolition of the. The garage. And finding. That it's consistent with section 8.1 and three and. And will not. Involve any detrimental effect on the. Dickinson historical district. I think that's the motion. Yeah, I second. Thank you. Let's call it out. Power and winter. I approve. Bruce called them. I approve. I approve. I approve. I approve. I approve. I approve. I approve. I'm Judy Strayer and I approve. Great. Oh, thank you all. And thanks for coming. Mr. Caymans. We'll. Get that permit processed shortly. And I work on the demolition once you have the building permit in hand. Okay. Great. Thanks, everybody. Appreciate it. Thanks. Enjoy the rest of your day. Well, then you got another easy one. Yeah. It was. Great. Well, great. We'll move on to our next hearing. We have for a 46 fearing street. Does that. Sound good, Judy? Yes, we do. Yeah. So I'll invite our applicants in here. Hi, Tom. Thanks for joining us. Thank you. Do you want me to get going? I didn't know if you want to read anything beforehand or if we'll just get started. I don't need. Do I need to read it a second time? I'm sorry. No. Okay. Okay. No, we can just start. Thank you. Great. Well, good afternoon, everyone. Tom reading an attorney with bacon Wilson here in Amherst. Here on behalf of the applicant for a certificate of appropriateness. With me this afternoon, Barry Roberts. The applicant. Hopefully this is another easy one. So if I could, I think what I'll do is I will share my screen. Just to give you a little bit of sight context. So. 46 fearing street is the box that is highlighted here as a parcel that is highlighted. You'll see. Just orient you on the East. You've got North pleasant street here. Over here you've got sunset. And then Lincoln out in the middle. This is a currently vacant parcel. In the RG zoning district. Barry acquired this along with some other back land here. I want to say maybe it was a year or so ago. You may remember that. We were here for 164 and 174 sunset. We talked about a proposed project, which was still working our way through the zoning board of appeals. And part of the discussion and one of the conditions I think you put on because we said we were going to relocate it was see if you can. Relocate it to Amherst. And so we're happy to say we're going to be, you know, with your approval, of course. Relocating it to Amherst. And so the proposal, I'll show it on the next. The next screen. But the proposal is going to be to relocate it. To this parcel. Right here. Which, you know, not to get into the weeds too much, but I know that the neighborhood had had some concerns given that Barry had acquired this land back here. And there was a thought that all of these, there may be some driveway access to all of this area back here from Fearing Street into this, into this vacant land. And so. I'll say obviously, but obviously by putting the house there, that was never the plan. And this is just another kind of instance of showing that that's, that's not what Barry was looking to do. So. This is for context. And then I will share. My screen. Hopefully you can all see the plan. And so for orientation. Opt is actually south. So down is, is North. Fearing Street here. North pleasant would be on the left side of the screen. And then you'd have Lincoln and the other side. And then further off the screen, you would have. Sunset. The idea is to take 174 sunset. Loaded up on a truck. Come up Fearing Street. And then place it right here. On site. We do have a proposed garage. Frankly, we don't have it designed yet. I think. One of the things. If everything goes well, this gets moved in about July. I think once that gets, I think we're going to be able to, We'll have a better idea of what this is going to look like in relation to the proposed dwelling. And we'll be back to you at that point for a certificate of appropriateness. For the garage. And so Ben, I don't know if I'm happy to keep all of this up, but if you want to show some existing photographs, the idea is the front door that you see. At sunset would be right here. So it's just. We're, we're taking it and just rotating it. 90 degrees. Just slightly. So that the front door then would be facing north, whereas the front door currently faces. East. If I was. So with that, Ben, I don't know if you want to. Go to any of the photographs or if we want to, if anybody has any questions on this plan. Before I stop sharing. I'm sorry. Sure. I can show some pictures of the property. So we're, again, we're talking about one 74 cents that have, which is the yellow house green shutters shown here. Here's just three pictures, kind of different angles. And, you know, I've also asked Tom, if he could describe, and it just. So he covers all of his bases, any other changes that are being made to the house. Just so. Don't need to come back, but it sounds like, you know, for the most part, it'll be moved intact as the, as the plan. Yeah. Essentially. So that detached garage doesn't coming, you know, on the right side there. And then there's a porch on the back that also isn't coming just because of logistics. Yeah. But I. Right. Yeah. You know, I would expect we'll probably repair or, you know, place a new shutter up there. If you look, yeah, right there. Barry, any ideas of changing the color of the house? Or is it. Or are you thinking about keeping it the same. I hadn't intended to change the. Color. Okay. Also how house color is exempt from local historic district. Okay. Yeah. So yeah, just so you all can see. There's a, you can barely see it. There's a detached garage off to the right here that. I guess that'll just. Be demoed at that point. And then the back porch that you can't see here. So I just want to make sure we're capturing all of that in the motion, I guess. So I. Very Tom. Ben, I mentioned that the single story. Addition on the left hand side that that is not coming. Very commute on mute, but I think it is coming. That should be. Oh, it is. So the lot is wide enough to. Take all that. No, that's interesting. Thank you. Great. I also have a question. I like the color a lot. So I'm glad to hear you might keep the color, but I also noticed the house had a lot of deferred maintenance. And I wondered, and I'm glad to hear you're going to fix the shutter, but I wondered if something will be done to spruce it up a little too. So. I think the answer will probably be yes. I don't know if you want to unmute, but I see this very similar to what Barry did over at the Snell and Baker street. So if you've seen what that house, I mean, I think it's gone through a new paint job or, or will if it hasn't already, it's some nice landscaping around it. So yeah, I mean, it, it, it's an investment. It's not just picking it up and moving it. It's Barry's got a stable of, of really great subcontractors who can, who can do some work and just make sure that it's. Given a little bit more love than it has probably had in the recent. Thank you. Yeah. And just to show a little bit more information. This is the, if you can use your imagination, this is the picture of the vacant lot at 46 fearing street. I don't know exactly where the property line is, but you know, there's a shrub line over here and a driveway to the right over here. So. Whoops. Yeah. Here's just another angle. Of the lot. So that. All might come down and. All the wires will come down. Yeah, Barry, they'll, they'll drop those wires. Right. And then they'll drive over them temporarily. They'll move the wires and we'll go in this driveway and bring the house. Towards the. The east end of the property. Okay. So the trees on the street could stay. Yeah. Well, yeah. Nice. I'd be curious to know what will happen would be. The lot that is currently occupied, but that will then not have a house on it. Is that under our purview in any way? Or should that be a concern for us or not? That's the, the, that's the site we've, we've asked them to move the house off. And. If possible. So they're doing exactly what we asked them to do. Okay. I've lost that. Hi, Karen. Yeah, I think it's a great solution. I'm so glad you have that lot and that that house. We'll find a home there. And I think it's going to fit in beautifully. So I think this is kind of an easy one because. Yeah. When I, when we asked you to move it. I was skeptical. That you could find a good place for it, but you have. So I'm, I think it's great. I think it's brilliant. It's, it's moving houses is not easy. You've got trees and all these things. And it's just, it seems like it shouldn't be too difficult because people here are people having done it throughout history. But with all the regulations and things, we have a lot of, we have a lot of, we have a lot of, a lot of people who have not done it. And it's very difficult to do. I think it's like it shouldn't be too difficult because people here are people having done it throughout history. But with all the regulations and things we have now, and all of the infrastructure that here now that wasn't here, you know, 50 or 100 years ago, it's really difficult to do. And Barry is just somebody who does it. And they're very fortunate, I think that. So I, again, this is, this is no problem at all for me. Any comments or comments. I'm just going to give you a little message. For the. For the. Before you do that, I just want to see if there's any more comments. And also open it up to public comment as well. Yeah. Jim. Oh, yes, you're right. We have to. Public hearing before we can do this. I just want to jump in along with everybody else complementing Barry on following. Thank you. I agree. Are there any members of the public that would like to comment? Great. And so for, if anyone's joined via telephone to raise your hand, you can press star nine. Otherwise, if you're here on a computer, go down to the bottom of the screen and click raise hand. So we'll start with Mr. Gensler. Let's see what this hand up. Hi, my name is Edwin. And I am, I live at 43 fearing street, which is just across the street. I may be a little late. You've probably already covered this, but when the house was owned by Stephen Fletcher and. The Avarles were living there. Warren, Martha and their son. They had told me oftentimes that. Edwin, don't worry nobody's going to move in or build across the street because it's a wetland. That area used to be a lake. And I did note that the conservation commission did look into this. And they, they, they did, they found standing water there. They put up the little blue flags and. It looked like that that area was going to come under a certain amount of consideration for being. Designated a wet area or that at least there would be a certain barrier between. The edges of that wetland and where a house could be located. I was wondering if the. I'm sure Mr. Roberts knows all about this. He's appealed the decision of the conservation commission. And I'm sure the historical commission knows about that as well, but I would just. I'd like to ask the questions. The Avarals and the Fletchers are still around. They're not an Amherst. They've been. They've moved. But there's a, the children are certainly around. And I was just wondering if anybody has looked into the history of. That particular property and how it was zoned when the Avarals were living there and the Fletchers were living there. Mr. Roberts probably knows about this too. He knows about that area pretty well. Thank you. Mr. Roberts. Yes. If Tom could put the site plan back up. You can see that we are locating the house 50 feet away from the designated wetlands. In conversation with the. Concom. We can see that inside wetlands that he was speaking of. And we need to be 50 feet away from there. And that's where we are locating the house. Is my mic still on? Yes. Okay. Well, I guess that satisfies the requirements. Of the. Of the town. The area is still awfully wet. The Aver is a war and had to dug a little drainage ditch that took the drain that property into tan brook on the. On the south side. And that brook is no longer or that. Canal or bridge or. Ditch or I'm not too sure what the terminology will be. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Is blocking up with leaves pretty quickly. And the area where the proposed house location is, is still awfully wet. In fact, you can see the ridges. Warren Aver would fill that in with leaves every year. The town of Amherst would drop its leaves. In his driveway. And he would. He tried to fill in that lake. He wasn't successful, but he did. He didn't work very well. Where he tried to plant some vegetables. It didn't work very well because the area was so wet, but you, if you look at it, you can physically still see some of the ridges. They're starting to flatten out now. Yeah. Hi. I'm nervous about. That. Is all I just want to, and I just wanted to. Yeah. We can develop. Empty lots. Empty. It's not really empty. Some beautiful trees on that property. There's also a chestnut tree on that same property. So I am concerned about what's going to happen to that. And then what's going to happen. To. The water in my basement, the water now doesn't go to the south. It goes to the north, which flows right through my property. And in the spring anyway. It's guaranteed to be in my basement. Thank you, Mr. Gensler. Mr. Roberts, you had a, your hand up. Yes. I am aware of the wetness of the area and I don't envision a full basement here. I envision a crawl space. Maybe a protected crawl space, because, just because of that issue. So that's my plan right now. Thank you, Barry. Okay. We lose. We lost him. I think so. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Let's see if we can rejoin us, but we have one other public comment. Hand up. Yes. I think you can unmute by pressing star six on your phone. Hi. Hi there. Can you hear me? Hi there. Yes, we can hear you. Hi, my name is Jennifer Larson and I live on the other side of this property at 38 Searing Street. Nice to meet you. Thank you. Thanks. So I'm outside standing right now in the ridges that you were just talking about. And yeah, they're pretty deep and it's pretty wet here. I've been here for a year and moved here last summer. So I've just about been able to see the full cycle. It's, it's definitely wet here. And I also wonder about, you know, the stuff that's going on in the back with tan brook, how that's related. If I have a lot of information, so I'm just going to throw it at you and then we'll see what comes out of it. The 50 foot delineation from the wetlands, you know, part of why I chose to live here was because of this amazing wetland and brook and you know the access and the forest in the back and how that will be impacted. And what this will look like as a construction project for us, the neighbors who live nearby, you know, what's the timetable what's involved. And just making sure that this build is just right here on this property and not really going any further back into the little bit of forest that abuts it, would you be able to speak to all of that. Through the chair. I mean, then you saw obviously some of the stuff is outside of the jurisdiction we're here for certificate of appropriateness, but I think we're fine answering, you know, most of the questions so this we're just talking about the relocation of a single family home to be put on that bacon parcel. It is not impacted by the conservation commission. The delineation claiming that tan brook is a perennial stream versus an intermittent stream that's currently working its way through DEP but this is outside even if it were to be considered perennial. This area is still outside of the 200 feet so it's not going to be impacted by that determination one way or another. And so this lot the revised lot line is the lots only 14,500 square feet. And so the this proposal isn't to go any further back into the wetlands or the forested the wooded area at all back there. And as far as timeline goes. No I would think that Barry would try to get out there probably in June at some point to do some site prep. And then the move happens overnight. So either, I think mid July is when it slated for and it's takes a lot of coordination with utility companies with the police, etc. So building movers and these are very experienced building movers. And so then it's once the site is prepped and I'll ask Barry in a minute whether or not he's going to put in the crawl space before if he's going to do the same thing that he did over at the snow baker where it's just kind of propped up on those stilts. And then once it's, once it's there they they lower it with hydraulics, it sits on its foundation it's crawl space. And then that's it so you know where a regular build might take, I don't know, six months eight months very probably a better idea of a you know, stick built from scratch. You know this one's probably a quarter of that time, maybe and then there'll be some work outside, fixing shutters and any, you know, insect damage, etc. But you're looking at a much, much more benign product than what you would have if it was a single family home stick built from the ground up. That reassuring thank you. Do you have anything to add on timeline or anything I know I think you're about right three to four months is be the maximum time it'll take us, you know, like in snow baker, the one we moved there. We're just doing the landscaping and seating the lawn today. The house there put the utilities back in and, of course, we have to reconnect the water the sewer and a furnace and all that. And then we went through and painted the inside of the house. And then we just painted the outside of the house and put the landscaping in. So I think if you drive by snow baker, you can see a real nice looking house that ended up being saved and moved. And that's what we want to do here. I'm glad to hear that it won't be big towering town, town homes that it will in fact be a lovely house next to me. And, you know, maybe this is or isn't appropriate for this conversation. But since we're talking about a certificate of appropriateness, I do hope that there will actually be a single family rather than college students as my next door neighbors. Does anybody have anything to add. If not, I guess the process is that we move to close the public hearing. Okay. Yeah, just thank you for your comment. This Larson. Thank you. Great. Is there any other members of the public wishing to make a comment. We're good. I see Mr. Gensler's hands is still up. Might have another comment to make or does he. That's fine. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Quickly, Mr. Gensler, I saw your hand was still up. Do you have another comment to make? Or was it up from previously? This is more of a question than a comment. One of the things that's happening, especially on this end of Fearing Street is that we're getting a. Absentee owners that are running to students and I don't know if the historical commission has any control over that and not are not. Outside of buildings and not inside, but the committee's been talking about this as being a singling single family home. And I think all of us in the neighborhood are very concerned about the. The, the, what I call the Phillipization of that end of Fearing Street now. And I think that in its own way, rubs against the goals of the historic commission and at least that historical district. There's one thing to talk about moving a single family house, but then it really becomes the owner's discretion as to whom he or she would rent and I guess my questions for the commission. There's a beautiful neighborhood now of some single families, some owner occupied rentals, and a handful of absentee owner rentals going on there. And what is the question is just what is the goal for the historic district in that neighborhood if. If the historic commission has any. Say on on on that matter. Thank you that's all. I do not believe we do now. That's correct. You know, we understand and certainly appreciate your comments. But we have no control over, over that. Somebody at in the town that may have some control over that. I guess I was wondering what was that area zoned 5075 years ago when the Averils moved in. And why would Warren and Martha who've been there a long time I mean they were in their 90s when they. They might know and why would they share with me that this is a wetland. I'm not sure you might want to contact the, perhaps the conservation commission in town I'm not sure what the appropriate. I have contacted them they do not have that authority know. I think that we can say that these varying levels of accuracy and perspicacity when it comes to people in neighborhoods, figuring out what the likely possibilities are regarding there's another properties. And as far as wetlands are concerned of course it changes with time this is not something that's static. So, I would, I would say it would be very difficult to identify with any accuracy what what was in fact I'm not even sure when did we start when was owning enacted in this town that possibly in my lifetime. So, that would mean that maybe there was no zoning. When your neighbor very well yeah. Thank you. Thank you for your attention. Thanks. Oops. I think we can end public comment at this point. And then, if unless there's any other questions or comments from commission members. We can move on. We can close public meeting now. Oh, sorry. I was just going to thank you for finding a space and saving a beautiful old house. I knew for children who grew up in that house and so it's nice to see staying in the neighborhood. I guess move to close the public hearing. So, we take roll call for that. We probably need a second second. Thank you. Greta Wilcox. I agree. Sorry. Karen winter. I approve. Peggy Schwartz. Approve. Jim Lumley. I approve. Bruce Kulden. Yes. I'm Judy Strayer and I approve. So, at this point, I guess I could proceed with that motion that I shouldn't have moved early. Shouldn't have begun to try. So I apologize for that. I had forgotten that this wasn't as perfunctory as perhaps the previous one. I just wanted to move that as a commission granted certificate of appropriateness. Involving the proposed relocation of the house on the sunset to the proposed new location. At 46 fearing street. I think that's, well, with. I would just, I would just add that. And also the demolition of the detached garage and. End of the rear porch. Yes. Haven't we already approved that in the previous hearing related to fearing street. I think we. Well, maybe we didn't, maybe we said if it was, if it wasn't moved, then we wanted to. Okay. Okay. Okay. Including yes, if you had the, the, including the demolition of the existing garage and. And marginal portions of the buildings. That are not appropriate for relocation. Okay. Thank you. Second. Thank you, Karen. Okay. Let's vote. Greta Wilcox. Yes. Thank you. Karen winter. Yes. Peggy Schwartz. Yes. Jen Lumley. Yes. Bruce Colton. Yes. I'm Judy Strayer and I also vote yes. Great. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thanks, Tom. Thanks, Barry. Thank you, Barry. Very much. Great. So I had, I just had included in our agenda. To go once we ended the public hearings, which we just did if, if. It's optional. If we wanted to just check in about anything else, including the. District, the study committee. And if there's any, you know. Kind of next steps you want, you all want to check in on about that or. But if not, I think we could, could adjourn. Anybody have any. Any updates from anyone. Updates. Karen. I move we have our steady group meet at Jim Lumley's lilac land. Maybe. But we'll figure out, Jim, you let us know when it's the best time. Well, we just need to go from there. To the public meeting. Sunny day or no, but we could even meet inside too. Whatever day and time is convenient to most people. I think we can make it work. Great. Great. Yeah. Okay. Cool. Alrighty. Well, I'll, I guess we should set our June. Meeting date while I have you all. Yeah. We have one application that's likely to be submitted soon. I had. Initially told the applicant, you know, it's probably would be. The first or second Monday in June. I think I'm actually, I might not be here the second Monday in June. So I was thinking June 6th. Could work. Does that work for folks? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. It was me. Works for me. All right. So we'll say June 6th. And hopefully it's more straightforward. No jumping around between zoom calls. But thank you all for, for bearing with me on that. So I'll keep everyone in the loop when applications come in, let you know any details, but plan to touch base then. Okay. Thanks. Thank you. What time on that? Is the three o'clock time still working for everyone? It's okay with me. Yeah. Great. Yes. I'll say a 3pm on June 6th. So I guess we therefore I move to adjourn. Second. Okay. Thank you. Great. All in favor, I guess. Everyone. Yeah. That's okay. All right. Take care everyone. Bye bye.