 But now. Okay, we are recording now. It's 104. We're still waiting for a few people. I did just see Maureen come in the door so I trust she's logging on as we speak. I've not seen Rob. There's Maureen. Okay. So Jessica is the co-host. We had already discussed this and she will be sharing her screen shortly. As soon as we do our introductions. I'm going to allow her to have the screen to share. The things that they're working on. Which she kindly sent around already. So I'm hoping that some people had an opportunity to look through those documents. So okay, let's go ahead. I'm going to just read. Read the name as I have it. And if I missed somebody, let me know. Once I say your name, if you can just say a little bit of, you know, who you are, where you're from. Let's start with Tom Chalmers. Hi, Tom Chalmers, Austin Design Architects. And we are the architect for the project. Great. Thank you. Thank you. Mark Stednicki. Yeah, Mark Stednicki from the associates with a civil engineering design team. On this project. Okay. Thank you. Nate Malloy. Hi, Nate, a planner with the town. Okay. Thank you, Nate. Jessica Allen. Hi, Jessica Allen, a project manager here at Valley CDC. Thanks, Jessica. Jason Skeels. Jason Skeels, town engineer, public works. Thank you. Peter at Dodson and Flinker. Yes. Peter Flinker and the landscape architect. Okay, great. Thank you, Peter. Christine Brestrup. Hi, I'm Chris Brestrup, planning director. For the town of Amherst. Thank you, Chris. Dave Buskevitz. Dave Buskevitz, senior billing inspector. Hi, Dave. Laura Baker. Hi, I'm Laura Baker, real estate development director from Valley CDC. Great. Thank you, Laura. Aaron Jock. Aaron Jock, wetlands administrator for the town of Amherst. Thank you, Aaron. Hi, everyone. My name is Maureen Pollack. I am a staff planner and I work with the zoning board of appeals. Okay. Thank you, Maureen. All right. So as I mentioned earlier, I just want to make sure that everybody is aware we are recording this meeting. And. I have turned over the co-hosting to at this point to Jessica Allen. If anybody else desires that privilege throughout the meeting, you can feel free to ask me. And I can just click a little button and you'll be able to share your screen. So without further ado, I will mute myself and turn it over to Jessica. Thank you, Jennifer. I appreciate it. Let me just share my screen. Okay. Can everybody see. A slide from, I think the PowerPoint that came through. Okay, great. So just to give you a little bit of site context and where we're at here. So we're very early in the process, but we want to come to you because we have a number of questions regarding utilities. Some of the future of ball lane and ball lanes current status. We have a number of questions regarding the site. And we want to make sure that we have a number of questions about the site as early as possible so that it helps inform our site design as we move forward. As you may know, we purchased the site in August. We've been having some community meetings. We've had one zoom meeting with the butters within 300 feet of the site. We attended the district one neighborhood association barbecue. Earlier this month and, we've had a couple of meetings with the neighborhood association association. We've had a couple of meeting plans for comment to the neighbors. We have an existing conditions plan that our civil team has. They've delineate wetlands. Prior to, and they've done the existing, the topography utility identification. So we have an existing conditions plan, which I'll pull up in a minute. And before purchase, we did due diligence. And then we did a phase one and a phase two environmental study report. Based on the formal use as a, as a commercial. Trucking and vegetable processing facility. We wanted to make sure that we were working with a clean site. So we had about 13 soil borings done and had the soil tested. Those locations where were the existing underground storage tanks were located and everything came back clean. So with that information on the environmental as we move forward with negotiating and purchasing the site in August. So like I said, we're very early in the design process, but really are looking for town feedback before we get too much farther ahead of ourselves. It's better to get these, these questions answered now than to be backpedaling a year from now. So. Okay. The design concept right now we are looking to do 30 mixed income duplex homes. 15 structures. A mix of two bedroom and three bedroom homes. We are looking to have 20 of these homes deed restricted as affordable homes to purchasers that are between the 80% and 100% AMI. Framework. And we're looking to have 20 of these homes deed restricted as affordable homes to purchasers that are between the 80% and 100% at market rate. So the program that we're looking at the main subsidy is the Commonwealth builders program. This is the only funding source in the state that provides subsidy for affordable home ownership. Projects. And this site just happens to be located geographically in a, in an area that is eligible for Commonwealth builders funds. So we're looking to have 20 of these homes deed restricted as affordable homes. And what we're intending to do from a site design concept is to try to concentrate development and cluster these structures. We're in areas that have already been previously developed by the commercial trucking and the vegetable processing facility. And trying to preserve the frontage as much as possible. We understand that we're going to have to utilize some of this area for stormwater. And we'd like some feedback on that. So we're trying to keep the costs down. We're trying to keep the costs pretty small in terms of their footprint. There's a lot of reasons for this. One, we want to try to keep the, the costs down. Construction, as you know, is very expensive right now. So there's a, so there's a financial side to it. We also want to try to create a community here. Trying to, to site the homes in such a way that we're building a community. We're also looking at passive solar as a, as a design of the, of the homes themselves. So what that means is the, the homes are designed to capture solar heat in the winter and to shield it in the summer. So it helps with the heating and cooling and then helps hopefully reduce costs for the, for the maintenance of the home for the heating and cooling systems. And we're also looking at photovoltaics as an option as well. Again, to bring some of those operational costs down for the, for the feature home buyer. So first time home buyers for those deed restricted units. And then the market rate would be open to the market. So that's the general design concept. Anybody have questions about the design concept. Okay. I'm going to move over to the existing conditions plan because. There's kind of really too big things that we want to be able to discuss with the town. And I would say if anybody on the design team, feel free to jump in at any time. To supplement what, what I'm saying here. So existing conditions plan. We do have two wetland areas that have been delineated. One of them is like a country ditch that over time has become jurisdictional. There's also wetlands back here. There's a lot of wetlands. And there's a lot of wetlands. And there's a lot of wetlands. And there's a lot of wetlands. And there's a lot of wetlands in the slight blue. And you'll see on the existing conditions plans that we've got the 30 no build plus a 50 and 100 buffers. Represented on the existing conditions. There is an existing house. That is on the property. It's about 812 square feet. Has a existing tenant located in the. The property. The building has been demoed. There's concrete pads that are left there. These are the locations of those two concrete pads. There's driveway access here. There's also access off of ball lane. Right up through this area. On the existing conditions plan that highlighted a couple of the utilities, blue being water. Red being sewer and orange being drainage. So there is an invert here. We have drainage that is coming here, probably contributing to the creation of this wetland. Down in this. Section of the site. And then sewer here running down ball lane, providing access currently to four ball lane, 35 ball lane and one 77 Montague road. As I've vetted with Jason a little bit, I'm going to show you a little bit of what we're going to do. So the pipe is a six inch in which has been confirmed by our civil team. One of the things that we're going to be asking the town to think about and looking for some guidance here today. Is understanding that we're going to likely need to upgrade. The pipe size to eight inches. And that the most ideal location would be. In terms of the existing manhole is a sewer manhole. Somewhere access in here. And understanding that ball lane is a private way. With public utilities. And so how exactly is that going to, to work. In terms of if we need that infrastructure. As far as I understand, there's no easement in place. Ball lane has been in existence. As far as I can tell from about 1870s is. I found it represented a map going back that far. So it's not associated with any of the abutting properties. It really is its own entity, but it has public utilities on it. So accessing that and sort of the structure, the legal structure in the town structure of how a private developer would be able to potentially upgrade a section of this. I think is one question that we have. I think that's a really good question. And I think that's sort of related to that, you know, is there a desire by the town to turn this into a public way. My understanding I'm getting kind of mixed feedback from residents in this area on whether they do or they do not want it to be. Upgraded to be a public way. There's at least one resident who's very adamant of keeping it a public way. So I'm going to kick around with you and sort of what's the town's desire there. And that very much plays a part in terms of our site design and how we intend to access the site. So I'm going to flip it over quickly to. To the site options and Peter, I don't know if you kind of want to walk through any of these. I'm going to go back to the existing conditions. I'm going to go back to the existing conditions. I'm going to go back to the thoughts and. Sure. If you just want to go back to that existing conditions plan. Sure. Jess. So. Can you go back to the existing conditions I'm seeing me. Oh. I should be on existing conditions. Hold on. Oh, I pulled it out of the. There we go. You see it now. Yes. Okay. So what we're trying to do is Jessica said is sort of make as much use as possible as the area that was already disturbed. But the other sort of, if you look at the contours there, there's kind of a no. High ground on the eastern part of the site. And what basically what you're going to see in the concepts is in order to fit the program, you basically have to use that existing area of disturbance and then extend across toward the no. So what you're going to see is the north is toward the top of the, the screen here. So the best way to do the passive solar is to have the, the long sides of the houses facing south, of course. And so what you'll see in the different. Schemes is a sort of a long east west access. Of the project. Extending from the area that's already developed. Toward that, toward that null. And then there's sort of in the middle of the sheet here, you see there's a row of trees. And then on the site is like a big hedgerow almost. And then there's the large meadow toward. Puppet Hill Road. And so visually that corner from Montague road and Puppet Hill road is very visible and it's beautiful. Sort of rural scene. So in general, we're trying to preserve that as much of that meta was possible. Preserve those trees as screening. And then have the development line up east and west. So if you go to the next one, Jessica. And this is one option and the idea is. It's not going to be a co housing project. Per se, but we're using that kind of a model. Where you come in and park at one end or the other of the project and then walk to your unit. On a pedestrian system. So the entire. Interior of the project would be pedestrian only. With probably like. It's typical with co housing to have some of that area. And then you can have some of those paths widen up that you could drive an emergency vehicle down them. And then as you see here to line the buildings up. Largely facing south. To have access off of a sort of a shared open space. And to create sort of private garden spaces on the front of the house, sort of facing the entrance. And then on the back have private patio spaces. And then to create some kind of a system of shared. Walkways that. Could be used by people in the community. So this is one example that has an access off of ball lane. On the south. And then another. Short access and parking lot off of pulpit Hill road. The, the next one. Sort of a similar. Iteration of that, but this case has the access directly off of Montague road. With a parking lot at one end. And then again, a parking lot and access off of. A lot of public Hill road. And this one has. What's a cul-de-sac at the end of ball lane, but doesn't have major access other than to that existing home. That's at the end of ball lane. And here we've sort of split that off on its own lot. Now this is. Probably about a half or a three quarter acre lot. So it doesn't meet the zoning requirements. So we're going to split that off. We're going to tear it off and sort of run all the way to the Eastern corner. To meet the required lot size. So this is a question we have to. To figure out if we're going to split that off. Can we use a smaller lot? And then the next one. Shows a similar. Kind of two parking clusters at either end. With a long. Sort of access path in between them and then access to the individual homes. And then we have the. What we think of as probably kind of the ideal. Diagram in that it's the most efficient diagram. In front of reduced pavement. Provide access. Reasonable walking access from both ends. To the different. Clusters of houses. And then provide some shared open space. Within the clusters as well as. Preserving that. The metal along public road. We have one more. We do have one more. We have one more. We have one more. We have one more. We have one more. We have another more recent one, which has a somewhat smaller footprint for the buildings. Which has sort of been evolving. And this, the bright yellow is sort of. We're thinking about solar access. Around primarily on the south side, but also on the east and west sides of the buildings. And in this case. That long pedestrian access connecting the two parking areas. And then a series of. As you go through. So we're trying, you know, from a design perspective, of course, we're trying to make this an interesting. Layout that will fit into the kind of irregular New England. Development context. But also for purposes of efficiency to try to duplicate as much as possible before plans of the different buildings. And Tom has been working hard on. He's been working on it. He's been working on it. He's been trying to do that. So this one, you might note. We're sort of assuming probably the easiest thing all the way around is not to have any access to the site. From ball hill. Road. So this uses sort of the existing access and a new access off of pulpit Hill road. Again, sort of short driveways to parking lots. Get people out of their cars. And then. Not have to have. Access from. I do want to just jump back real quickly to zoning because. And I'm going to go to the existing conditions plan because it shows that it is a split zone. So there's a split zone here. And we anticipate going under chapter 40 B. In order to hit the density requirements to build where the existing disturbance has already happened. So I'm going to go to the existing conditions plan. And I did a preliminary confirmation with Nate a long time ago on numbers. You know, if we were to, if somebody was to build. Use it in within this zone, they could fit 35 units in a cluster subdivision on this front area. But since we're trying to protect that area and protect the views and protect the character of the site and bill towards the back. The zoning would only allow eight units back here. We anticipate going through a 40 B process to basically flip the, flip the development densities to have the concentration of the development towards the back, tuck it away, tuck it away from site of the public ways and try to preserve that front. Our thoughts are. If we do, and if we do end up splitting off this existing single family home and selling it, which is where we've been headed. My thought is that the. You know, the bench and all requirements that would be needed under the A and R could be incorporated as part of that 40 B package. So I reduced, you know, lot size. So not hitting a 200 foot frontage requirement with a two acre minimum lot size, but really shrinking that down. And I think that it does make sense because most of these, most of them have had special permits or variances in the past in order to build in this location. So it seems consistent to request an A and R to be that smaller dimensional requirement and potentially a reduced frontage along ball lane, ball lane being a private way. I did again confirm with Nate early on that we'd be able to pull frontage off of ball lane. And he indicated that we would. I think that's because that's been consistently been the practice along ball lane for these other, for these other. Lots. So just wanted to put that out for, from the planning side and the zoning side. We can stop there for right now and. Answer any questions or I'd love to hear some just preliminary feedback from town staff. Hi, this is Nate. Just a quick question on the concepts. Yeah. I think we're going to be doing 16 buildings. Which would be 32. And so I don't know, you know, is it, does it, is that, is 30 a hard number? Or is there like a community building in there? We're kind of flexing between 30, 32. It's really going to depend on how the numbers pencil out. With construction pricing so high. It makes it a little bit difficult to kind of recoup, especially for a subsidized unit. The gap between what we're able to get in subsidies versus the construction costs is pretty significant. We're not going to be able to fill that gap. We're not going to be able to fill that gap. And commonwealth builders program will not be able to fill that gap. And commonwealth builders also doesn't allow us to go request any other additional soft debt from DCD. So we're a little bit. You know, need to be able to fill that gap. So probably when we get. A permit application together. We may end up having a plan with 32 units on it with an understanding that we may not be able to build one of those units. But we're going to be able to fill that gap. And that's probably what we're going to be able to do. So we're going to be able to do that. So that's what we're going to be focusing at some point. Sure. And another one is. Ball Lane is actually part of this property. So on your maps, you're showing like a dotted line that it's not, but it is as part of the Matusko property. No, it is not according to our GIS it is. So I did a bunch of deed research. On ball lane. And I'm happy to send you what I have. So the two things that show ball lane and all the legal descriptions for all of the parcels use ball lane as their boundary line. So I know the GIS is reflecting one thing and I think we actually talked about this a little bit, Nate, but our, but maybe Mark can speak to it, but when they did the existing conditions, we made sure and had them dig in, see whether it was part of the deed. And we had our legal team look at it as well. And it is not reflected as part of the. So I have a question, it's like an anomaly. It's like, you know, out there all on its own. It's very bizarre. I have a question about the single family house and the desire to sell the single family house separately. And I wondered, I think we're going to need to talk to a couple minute page. I have a question about how that fits in with the comprehensive permit. We'd want to make sure that that could be included in the comprehensive permit in order to get the waivers from the dimensional requirements. Okay. So I think it's back that they do not believe it could be part of the 40 d process would be if we wanted to section it off would we just put in a variance requirement, like how would be, or would you be expecting that the site would have to meet the dimensional requirements. You need to meet some pretty rigorous criteria in order to get a variance in Amherst. So, you know, you need to think about how you would describe what the hardship is, and the hardship has to do with the land so you know if you want to review what the criteria are and then think about how you could, you know, use those criteria to justify variance, you're welcome to do that but Amherst generally speaking doesn't grant variances. Okay. And so the, the parcels that were approved over the past couple decades across the street on ball lane that had special permits through the ZBA. Don't know how those were approved. So we would have to look at mom, any kind of permits that those may have had. Okay. Karen has her hand up. I have a couple of questions I think they could be answered relatively quickly. What is the overall lot size here. Sure it's 8.33 acres. Great. And the wet swale that runs along pulpit hill was there any flow detected in that. Yeah, go ahead, Mark. At the time of flying or at the time of server. Okay, thank you. The meadow was that checked for hydric soils. Yes, it was flagged by Dan one or not and one or more Smith of what then, or window well and services. Okay, property and dominated what he found. Okay, but he did check the, the meadow for wet soils. Okay. I think he did. Okay. Great. I also, I just wanted to point out that the buffers have changed. We recently updated our bylaw on June 22nd. And so the setbacks have changed a little bit. Just wanted to point that out. And then have you guys done any test pits? Are you planning to do test pits prior to submitting permits to the town? Okay. We have a test pit scheduled for the 11th. Okay. The 11th of. Of October. Next week. Oh, great. Okay. Excellent. Okay. That's good. Just because. We've been having a lot of permits coming through where people have not been doing. Test pits in advance and it slows down the permitting process pretty significantly. And it bogs down the conservation commission with content. So anything we can do to do that in advance is appreciated. I guess the last question was just storm water. What you guys have in mind for storm water to. Compensate for the impacts. Mark. Yeah. As of right now, I was planning on doing shallow basins. Within the green space and have overflow that travels. Kind of to the downstream to that north. Western corner. And have a larger detention base in within. That area along. The right away of. Money. You wrote. And try to detain as much as I can. Water in that area. And then have an emergency overflow that will go to the existing. Swail. That's a long pulpit hill and. Money you wrote. And when you say basins and detention, are you talking. Like. Sort of water quality swales. Are we talking infiltration basins? Mix of all of that. Hopefully. As of now, if they do the driveway and. Parking area along the north eastern corner, I was planning on doing like. Quality swale or water quality swale on that. And just, you know, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. But I was thinking a long, a north eastern corner. I was planning on doing like. Quality swale or water quality swale on that. And just. She flowing it across the field. After it goes to the quality swale. And then. Catch storm model within the units. To. Get the required infiltration. And within like infiltration basins and. That sort of thing. Okay. I just want to make sure that there's going to be multiple treatment. Systems in the treatment train. Like if you come in with just a water quality swale, it might not provide adequate treatment. But if you do. Something ahead of that, like a. A sediment for bay or something, then you might be able to get your treatment for both of those systems. So. I'm just trying to make sure that we. Again, it's with the concom. When we get a plan that like, for example, with a treatment train that doesn't meet 80% TSS, we're looking at a complete redesign. And so. Every treatment train. In the project for each drainage area should have 80% TSS removal. Just. Just want to underline that a little bit. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Anything else, Aaron, on your. Radar. How do you feel about it? Access of public hill road. I mean, if word is checked the soils and it's. Determined that there's no wet soils up there. I would feel pretty confident in that. I guess my only concern would be to. To check and double check for culvert inlets and outlets. Make sure that there's no culvert existing underneath that. And then there's a lot of water coming in from the other. From the North side of pulpit Hill, just to figure out where water's coming from and where it's going as much as we can sort of in the due diligence phase. Cause we've had another situation where. Very similar, actually, on route one 16, something like this. And the connection between the wetlands was up. A culvert, which had been crushed. And they told me there was no culvert. And I got on site and found one side. There was a culvert on the other side. Right. And then the site was done. And it was being collapsed and covered over with sediment. So now they have to incorporate a culvert replacement in their plan design. So just anything like that, that you can. Stake out and address on the initial run through would be awesome. That way we're not dealing with multiple continuations that'll save everybody money. Sure. So there is an existing culvert right here in between the two. Yeah, there's the existing culvert that's there but we would be proposing an entrance to the east of that where there is not currently a swale it just. Right, I'm just wondering like there's got to be a source for that water like where is it coming from it might be sheet flowing off of that field which is fine and if there's no culvert inlet to the sort of the higher gradient end of the of the swale and and you guys have investigated that it's fine just want to make sure that it's been looked at and we sort of know what the lay of the land is before we get out there into a site visit. Shot during the survey it shows that the field is mostly the feeding so source of that swale, the road is actually pitched away to the opposite side. Yeah, but there's nothing from the other side of the road going under the road that's feeding that. Okay. Now I'm telling you that in the end of the hill, which is. Is, is there any encroachment on the buffers with this project or you guys pretty well staying out of. We're trying to stay out of it. I think if you look at Peter's site concepts. This entrance is trying to stay outside that buffer area. However, we have I will know we've met with this landowner directly. We showed them preliminary site plans and no surprise they're hoping that the entry would get shifted. So, you know, I don't know how how we feel about, you know, if we can get into the 100 foot buffer and we can push a little bit just to give him some Well, I'll just throw out there an idea which is that if that farm access culvert where that little wetland is right here there, you could do a restoration and daylight that section of culvert as a compensation for the buffer zone encroachment. We love to see mitigation projects. So if you're proposing impacts in the buffer that would be a really great way to compensate for that. Okay. Okay, that's good to know. Thank you. That's helpful. You had mentioned. The existing Noel, are you going to be cutting into that? Are you going to be working with topography? And is that also in the wetland or part of it in the wetland buffer? So Peter, I think you've been trying to stay out right? Largely, I think. Yeah, we haven't looked in detail at the grading but it's pretty modest. So we wouldn't expect a lot of a lot of regrading, but I wouldn't doubt that we'll be pushing a little bit into that buffer, certainly not behind beyond the tree line or close to the tree line. What are the implications of that for you? Well, I mean, if there's any cut and fill, we would need to see those calculations and have a plan indicating the quantity. But yeah, perhaps if this is like minimal, we would see if that would, there would be a requirement to provide that or not. In terms, I so I noticed that you have the parking areas. So you don't have, you know, parking spaces adjacent to each unit. Will any of these units be fully ADA accessible? Tom, do you want to talk about the building plans at all? You're on mute. I don't want to get into that, but before we do, one of the house types is a one-story two-bedroom that will be laid out so it could be fully accessible. Okay. Yeah, so if I just get to the question, are there any, I try to quickly look on the AAB regulations. Are there any requirements about, you know, what is there a maximum length between parking area to units in terms of particularly for an ADA unit? Well, since these are, I don't think it's, since these are home ownership, one and two family home ownership, I don't think it's covered by 520 and CMR. So for instance, if we're just trying to comply, I can't quite remember what they are, but it's, I think it's like within 200 feet or something. On this plan, for instance, that top left unit was one of the ones that could be accessible. That's right by the parking. And then same on the right side. Both of those two could be also easily, those are sort of designed to be fully accessible. So they are also the closest ones to the parking. Yeah. I just see that being such like the first question for those. There's easily four or five units that, you know, are within less, not very far from the parking, certainly less than that couple hundred feet. Yeah. And then again, there's 30 units total. So are these parking lots, do you envision having two parking spaces per unit? Which would be 60 or would, there are provisions that could allow you to have less. Yeah, we've been bouncing back and forth. There isn't an active bus stop right at the corner of public Hill and Montague road. So there is public transportation available there. There's also another bus stop that's down the street across from the co-housing. So there's two bus stops pretty close by. And I think we were kind of landing within a one and a half to two parking per home. Yeah. What's shown here is 32 units and two spaces per unit because we figured start with the extreme example, and then see if it fits so we can easily sort of dial that back. So I would like to see, you know, if there's overflow parking that it could be pervious payments and do some of it paid to some gravel. So what. Yeah. So, if you haven't looked at the parking section, we just updated it back in last December, I guess, under 7.000 I guess this would be under a 40 B so you could ask for waivers. There are, there is a section, part of that section gets into what we call a shadow parking. So if you feel that, you know, majority of time we, you know, you only feel like you need, you know, we'll throw out we only need 50 parking spaces but perhaps for holidays or a few times a year, you'll you may need overflow parking that could be gravel or ground cover or something like that that's something that can think about but in context of, you know, the, the bus line, you know, we would if you are going to sort of capture that as part of your proposal, it, you know, what would be important to the board to know is, is there a connection, is there access, how would to that bus stop so is there for these homeowners to that bus stop so is there a public sidewalk to get from this property for these homeowners to get to the bus stop. And if there isn't, is that something that you would want to sort of think about. I don't think thinking about whether that could be, you know, perhaps being a conversation with with the board of adding maybe a public walkway. Yeah, it's similar feedback that we receive when we did our community outreach at the barbecue we heard a number of people asking if they're in these units how are they getting to the bus stop so that's definitely on our radar screen. There's no public sidewalks out here. My understanding on either Montague Road or Hopewood Hill Road. Is that correct. Correct. On the west on the west side of Montague Road isn't there. Only out to, yeah. Yeah, it makes it to Cal's Lane and the next house down. And isn't Montague Road a state highway. Correct. So they would have to negotiate with the state about putting in sidewalks there right. Yeah, throw their complete streets back at them. And I just a quick question. I just got you mentioned that you'd want to stay away from ball lane but why wouldn't you want to use that as a driveway, you know, to access the site. Well, I think it gets into complications in terms of future maintenance and costs. So, you know, if we were going to use that as a main access road then that road would have to be completely redone. Sub bases, top coats, base coats, like it would have to be a more formalized road. The budget is tight enough as it is that I don't think we can accommodate as the development team the cost to upgrade ball lane to accommodate the site so that's that's part of it. Two, there seems to be not a consensus for the folks that actually live on ball lane on whether they want it upgraded or not so I have heard from one homeowner very adamantly saying he prefers it to have a gravel road. He doesn't want anybody coming down ball lane. He likes it that way. However, they have also expressed concern knowing that the town is trying to no longer maintain snow plowing and that sort of thing for for private ways. So, you know, I think that's, if, if, if there was a desire on behalf of the town and I guess the neighbors to upgrade it to a public way that I think that would have to be a discussion that we would have need to have with the town if there was some sort of cost share because it's not something we certainly could support under our budget at this time. I also think that having an access from the driveway plus ball lane, it's just so much pavement up in that section and when we were looking at the site plans it's like we should either pick one of the other it should either be just ball lane, or it should be the access driveway that already exists. And we've been kind of just landing on on the access driveway so, you know, we haven't made a final decision and we're kind of hoping that you could help guide us because it's our assumption that the town is going to want to have two points of access to the site that fire and police are going to want that. Is that a, is that a correct. Probably accurate without without fire here that's probably accurate. So, yeah, go ahead, Jason, then turn ball getting ball lane up to subdivision standards has its challenges as well because it's got a 25 foot pinch point. So, as you enter the first two properties are 25 feet apart and subdivision rules require minimum of the metric equivalent of 50 feet 49, I think it's 49 and a half feet right of way. It's going to be the first stumbling block is the was the width requirement. The rest of it could be built up to subdivision standards with the cul-de-sac that you showed earlier and one of the one of the proposed schemes or one or two. It is doable. The town, we're either going to stop maintaining it as a private way or it needs to be accepted as a public way if we and paved if we want to continue maintenance of it. So I think that's our two options and I see. Yeah, I understand where you're, where you're coming from with the cost part, obviously. I don't know if anybody has history of this but it looks like, according to your Amherst Street history database on your website which is awesome by the way I wish all down to that. It said it was proposed as a town way in March 1941 and it was the article was dismissed. So I just think that's kind of interesting that at one point the town did look to accept it and then decided not to and it'd be interesting to understand. If it was just politics or if there was something specific with the site that still applies today, I don't know, but I just find that to be a little bit interesting. In terms of the sewer upgrades on Ball Lane, presuming we're going to need to do something and presuming it stays a private way with public utilities with no legal easements in place. I mean, how would that all work? How would that, how would that. That is tricky, especially with Ball Lane being a song, weird little entity with no clear ownership. Yeah, I can, I can send you guys what I have. That would be helpful. Yeah. Okay. Well, wouldn't the derelict fee statute apply so everyone who owns to it owns to the centerline. So then they're whoever it falls that's that's their responsibility so you know even if you don't want to continue using it you're still going to be in a butter to it so that you know value your properties always going to have some responsibility for that. There's a hydrant at the end of Ball Lane too so I guess Jason I was wondering like if they, you know even if they wanted to not continue using it they're going to have I mean at some point we have to figure out what's happening right with the water sewer and everything else down there right. Yeah, if I don't have an easement I can just cut them and cap them at Montague road and stop worrying about it. That's gonna, that's gonna. Obviously kidding out very well for you. So yeah, we like the next the next, you know the next argument would be we have a prescriptive easement. It's been there for X number of years. We've maintained it we've, we've taken care of the sewer there we've taken care of the water there we blow off the hydrant so the legal argument is that it's been there long enough that we have a prescriptive easement for the right to maintain the water and sewer. We even replaced the water in. Did we do that. I was like, so the first CAD plans I ever drew and I don't think I put a date on it. No, no date. Yeah, it was somewhere in 99 I think we replaced the water main over there, because it was blowing out of the ground. So that's when we installed the six inch ductile main. So and just to add to the so yeah we can look into upgrading the sewer, whether it's funded by you or funded by some sort of grant application. That would fall into your alley, Nate. And then, as far as the water main goes since you are running all the way over to pulpit Hill Road, we would love to try and get that water main looped over to pulpit Hill Road. So there would be a connection between ball lane and pulpit Hill to so that you're not taking water off of dead end water main for all 32 houses. I was. Yeah, that was going to be the water main would be looped. Okay, cut off some both sides, obviously. Yeah, that would be great. We'd like that. Somewhere. Come right down your driveway entrance. Okay. Fire fire department would probably want to hydrate somewhere in that area anyways. That's what 150 150 feet right within the new from the new buildings right on probably both ends. 30 feet from the new within 100 feet, but no closer than 30 feet of the new buildings. And then what about sewer Jason can that do they need a pump or can that how does that work. They'd have to tell me if they've figured out how to make it by gravity all the way but it's it's tight. I mean I see you're on a ridgeline and yeah that's possibly doable but yeah you'd have to prove it to me I guess. Mark you've taken a look at this right because we've we've had conversations of pulling off of ball lane and then what if it made sense to try to talk to the town talk to the state running sewer down Montague road and pulling down that way, but your assessment showing that ball lane is the most ideal location based on topography correct. And you can gravity sewer most of the proposed units. Um, there might be a few that need to be pumped out to the main. I won't know until we finalize the layout and get to it. I mean, I can get to. I would propose running, putting a new sewer manhole, probably like 10 feet off of that, the full ball lane property line on the existing main. And then from that manhole back to Montague road with eight inch, and then you will spur off into some place along the property line to try to collect all of the higher elevation houses, and then we'll see which houses need to be pumped at that point. None of this will any of these upgrades are not going to impact these two of butters right I mean it's only actually benefiting them at the end of the day because they have a larger pipe size that'll be now being installed past their house. You know less chance of a backup for sure. There's a little more flow. I don't know if it's a weighted equation. There's more flow so there's more chances of a backup but the bigger pipe with less chances of a backup. So I don't know where that it's got a plus and a minus. And then just going back to like the 63 I know there's an existing driveway on to it but would mass DOT if you don't use ball in it all as a driveway I mean what is it just an access permit. Or is there any would you have any problems Jason with having a new driveway. You know just just you know north of ball lane that serves you know 30 homes or is that not. A trucking company so yeah I mean mass DOT would probably want you know they'd probably it's probably still want to state highway access permit just because it's a big change in use you're changing from you know commercial trucking with with I don't know how many trucks they had their 10 or 20 ish to residential and it's going to be traffic generation there so they would want they'd want their permit as well if it did come off of money you wrote. Okay, so even if we're still using the existing curb cut location not changing curb cut location will still need to get a permit because it's a change of use. I think so you'd have to check with the. I believe that's how they function changing use. Okay, to get an access permit anyways for any construction that's happening within money. Yeah, for the sewer to even go into money you wrote up size to eight inch requires that access permit as well. Speaking of traffic. Will you guys want to have a traffic impact memo or study I mean it's 30 homes. What's your thoughts. Do we, we wouldn't need to do a full traffic. I think a memo would be okay. What's that a memo would be okay there's the developments closer to you are having far greater impacts. And if the at the public during the public hearing if the ZBA, you know, requests more than that, then. Then we'll deal with it then but yeah, I would say what Jason recommends is it would be fine. Oh, before I, before I forget, doubling back to the test pits on the 11th can you send me a time and a for that I'd like to witness those test bits. Someone from my staff. That'd be awesome. Mark is coordinating that. And, Mark, I don't know if you've marked up a site plan at all of where you intend to do test bits based on what you're thinking for storm water. I have and I can send that to him. I plan on being at the 8am on the 11. I'm going to send that to my calendar now. I've also just for town officials because I know phone calls come in from my butters so I have notified. Jeff and Sarah Marty who live on pulpit Hill roads they've been notified of the test pits. I've also notified my gauge she lives across the street from the site so she's got her network. I also let the district one counselors know as well in case constituents call them to ask what's what's happening out there. They're building already so Aaron. Did you have your hand up. I was just going to ask Jason. Jason, do you like to attend test pits on private properties, just because I, what's that. I try to do it for every single one because I don't. You do. There's a lot of ways to interpret soils. Yeah, okay. Good to know. Thank you verify what they're calling estimated seasonal and weeping and standing groundwater. There's a lot of interpretation that can go into those. I missed this morning on North Pleasant Street that they called the schedule with me but I was short staffed and overwhelmed without Barry Roberts. No, it was 778 800 North Pleasant. I think it's a frat house that's been undergoing a ton of construction, or like basically a full rebuild. Oh, are you talking about down on Olympia. No, no, no. No, I know just north of campus. Okay, okay, never mind. Yep. Sorry I didn't mean to take that time away I just. Yeah, I'm just going to clarify this property just I mean, I was like, yes, I mean there is like 50 40 to 50 feet right of green space between the edge of pavement and the property line as you go north and so, you know, if there was any sidewalk proposed it looks like there is room right at least it's that first entry drive. Okay, you know, or make, you know, maybe make it make up to pulpit hill but I don't I don't know what's you know, if that doesn't look like any utilities in there. If we ran like a path through the site and then got it to the intersection, would you would it be okay just to have like a crosswalk marking that would go from the corner of our property across the street, rather than doing sidewalks. Can have a crosswalk without a sidewalk. Okay. Okay. All right, I don't know if the building inspector wanted to look at oh he's got his hand up, probably want to look at the building plans. Probably not as critical right now. They're pretty standard to family homes with her's rating so that's pretty basic basic. I wanted to make you aware that when the previous owner had demolition permits for those structures, they opted not to remove the concrete floors and foundations. But one of the conditions we stipulated is that they would have a soils engineer available when they did just to be sure that there wasn't anything that was dumped, or I don't know if there's any floor drains but something that really could be under there, even though you did have some test pits done I just don't know where they were in relation to the structures so and whether or not that not having the exposure to rain and everything, or whatever, with that concrete maybe makes a difference with the current status so somebody should be aware that that should be checked. Okay. Thank you for that. Thanks for talking about buildings I mean my only thought was that you do mention in interior and exterior storage and so I know the site plan looks nice and neat now but if you have like all the little dog houses everywhere, I call them storage. Yeah, let me just pull up so really it has to do with. This is a, this is the first floor so this is looking at the two story three bedroom on this side. This is the one and a half story two bedroom on this side so this, this unit would be 1160 square feet this one's 1310 this is just the ground floor. So having being able to enter and then have some interior storage here kind of could be a mud room could be however they decide to use it. But using this kind of break between the two buildings. Tom has created a division so that from the exterior you could store bicycles and gardening equipment and that sort of thing so what we're trying to prevent is a bunch of sheds going in. We've already sold all the units after, you know, we are no longer part of this project that it's really the home ownership and the condo association, we're trying to, to provide those amenities now so that all of a sudden all these random sheds just don't start popping up and kind of change the dynamic of the site. Sure. Is the three bedroom a one and a half bath or is it just a one bath. Robert, you're on mute Tom. I think they were too bad. They're, they're, they're all one and a half baths at a minimum. Right. Yeah, so. So keeping with the topic of amenities. It's, you know, it will, as this design continues further along, it'd be interesting to see if you're offering any site amenities on the property. Like outside are there any community gardens walking paths. So I think our thought right now is that we may not have, again, the money to be able to construct like a community house or something like that we've somebody to put out the idea at the community barbecue about having a pavilion, which I think makes sense that if they wanted to, to turn that into an enclosed room at some point they would have the ability to do that. We may have set asides on the plan so we may not be building a playground ourselves or building community gardens ourselves but we may have set asides that are set out on the plan to allow the homeowners to really we want them to take ownership of this. You know, at the end of the day that this is going to be their community and their condo association. So, you know, we want them to have the ability to sort of build it out to what they need as they live there and as the experience being there. So, we may not be building playgrounds or building a community house but we may be doing some set aside so that that could happen in the future, and there's accommodated for. I have a single family house for a minute and I wanted to ask you the question of why you wanted to separate it out, because you could potentially get the zoning board of appeals to declare that it's a complimentary use. And so from a zoning standpoint you wouldn't need to cut it out but if you're interested in, you know, making more money as a result of selling it that's a different thing but I just wanted to bring that forward that it could be considered part of this community as a single family house. Yeah, and that would be under section 3.01 if you want to take a look at that section 3.01. You said, yeah, okay. Yeah, we need to think about that again it's coming back to sort of the community aspect of it and we were, we've been kind of kicking around like you know how would somebody feel being part of this house that was built in the 50s that needs a lot of work and a lot of you know will they feel like they're part of this community, you know, would they like we need to sort of figure out how that would kind of work. So that it doesn't feel like they're ostracized and they're just kind of like on the side you know do they want to be part of this community or do they want to be by themselves so we're still kind of kicking that around but it's thank you for flagging the zoning that would allow us to kind of incorporated in the design as needed. That's awesome. Well, you said Jessica so that I know yeah I was thinking the house needs a lot of work and you said it's only 800 square feet is it worth saving or is it is it you know. It's interesting the woman who lives there now she's been there for about five years single mom. She loves it there. She loves that house. It needs a lot of work so we've had some very preliminary discussions with her about would she be interested in purchasing this house would she like to move from being a renter to being an owner. I don't know if she's got the financial capability to do that but we've got first time home buyer counseling here we have financial literacy like we could totally help set her up so that in five years when we're kind of ready to go she potentially could buy the house if she really wants to be there and stay there. So, you know, and again we've been with our site design like we've got variations where the house is gone, and we don't have it anymore. And it's not part of it and it's not part of the development so again it's like you know this whole project is to help first time home buyers and here we have a single mom first you know potential first time home buyer. We're going to boot her out so that we can have other first time home buyers so you know we're trying to figure out programmatically from a community standpoint like what makes the most sense and like I said she loves that house she loves being there so. I don't need to sort of sell it out from under her but you know we do have it in the pro forma to sell it as one of the sources of revenue. So again it's something we're still kind of playing with but I have had some preliminary discussions with her so right I just think because if you're not if you don't want to use ball lane I mean the only right I mean the way you're have your site design then is that you don't have access from ball lane. Right. So it wasn't you know it's just a kind of an anomaly to the site design if. Yeah, no I agree. I agree it is a little bit of a little bit of a weird thing but we're still trying to kind of hash out what makes the most sense and we'd like to try to help as many people as we can, if we can do it so. I was just going to say if you're looking for input, we haven't had a chance to discuss this, you know, among ourselves but my initial reaction is to avoid using ball lane and use those other two access points that you have off Montague Road and off Montague Road that seems to make the most sense to me. It's just cleaner and keeps it all on your site. It seems like ball lane is a can of worms and you know, I think it's going to be it could be done but it'd be hard to do it. And just to piggyback on what Chris was saying. So Nate had mentioned about you had speculated that each of those owners along ball lane has the responsibility of maintaining up to maybe the center line. So I would say that that needs this conversation this item needs to be fleshed out. Especially the planning department wants to play out. Yeah, well I would just say that this needs to be fleshed out for the, you know, in time of the public hearing for these interested parties to better understand, you know, what's happening to ball lane and who's responsible and I'm sure that will be an item of interest for those residents. So that would really, really would need to be fleshed out and then with that it's like, would any easement be needed to clarify that what is the what is the document that that would prove or just prove that for these homeowners along ball lane. Well, I think from the town's perspective I like the tech the approach Jason has like we have a prescriptive easement for the utility maintenance but not actually for the road maintenance right so there's a difference. Right Jason I mean that's really what it is and and so yeah I think that's something we definitely have to look into. In terms of the overall development I mean I think I don't know what but you have the response you had from like the neighborhood one barbecue but you know we like the concept I like the concept right and we've talked about it before but I think it's a nice approach to the site insight design. But then you know there's all these little pieces like we're you know we've mentioned right like utilities and amenities and sidewalks and different things but the overall idea is really great. I like the homeownership piece, something that the town's talked about affordable homeownership so I think there's a lot of good things going. And then I know you Jessica you did present this to the trust I just wanted to have you maybe mention a little bit about timeline just so we're sure we're all aware. Yeah, so we have an application in for CPA money that we submitted on the 30th so that is currently under your review. We presented to the trust in advance of the CPA application. They have indicated that they intend to write a letter of support with the CPA application. We do also intend to talk to the reparations assembly. I think this is a project specifically when it comes to the first time home buyership and the first time home buyer preference that set by Commonwealth builders and really is the intent of this project. You know having having an alliance there I think makes a lot of sense for this project so you know we also do intend to talk to them so the trust was favorable. And they now have a copy of the CPA application and intend to discuss it at their meeting on the 13th I believe. How much are you asking for, I forget $750,000. Thank you. So back to the funding and how this works Commonwealth builders is the largest subsidy that we can apply for, and they do not allow us to apply for any other DHCD money. It's written the regulations so with construction pricing being the way it is the gap on those restricted units is between what it costs to build them, and what it costs, what we can actually sell them at, based on the HUD income guidelines, we're thinking about somebody's not spending more than 30% of their household income monthly on a housing expense. Once we calculate all that out. There's very limited amount of money that we can ask for these units I think the the smallest unit. We can only sell them at about $150,000. That's over $500,000 to build so at current construction pricing. So that's a huge gap for us to fill. So we are really looking to the town to help us fill that gap Commonwealth builders will provide us $250,000 per unit for that subsidy, but that still is not at current construction costs. So between CPA and Laura's had some initial discussions about our money and how that might be able to fit in as well. We are really going to be heavily relying on on the town to help us fill that subsidy gap that we currently have because we have no other kind of place to turn to under the guidelines of Commonwealth builders. So the units will be 80% and how many will be 100% you mentioned. I think it's 10 and 10, but let me just confirm. Okay, that's that's fine you don't have to. Yeah. And then just quickly, Jessica, you mentioned that this is going to be a condo development so really, you know, this will still be one property and then there'll be an association that manages everything is that. Yeah, so we'll create master deeds and be restrictions under the condo. Master General Law regulations. If it's helpful I do have a camp, a sample deed writer from another Commonwealth builder project on the Eastern part of the state it's in Boston so it's a little bit different because of the different regulations under Boston but it could give you a good sense of the restriction terms and I do want to know because what's important for you to understand is the 30 year restriction under Commonwealth builders. That's the the max that set under the program. The way that it is drafted though is that the town has a right of first refusal so that if one of those units does go up for sale within the first 15 years, the town has the ability to reset the restriction. And it's going to be sold to a first time home buyer that meets those home buyer preferences. So, you know, there is the ability to extend those restrictions but really the whole point of this program is to help black to increase black home ownership in in the state. You know, we are the sixth lowest in the nation in terms of the discrepancy between white homeowners and black homeowners. And I believe this program is designed to help increase black home ownership. And so we want to make sure that that is is a major goal for us it's a major goal for the Commonwealth builder program. And we're hoping that that can continue. All right, great. So, quick one other so that I'm just throwing questions around for the accessible unit have you ever considered doing covered parking. Like, you know something with a shed roof over just for the accessible unit. What about that. And I had a question so I understand this will be under 40 be what is what is the use going to be is it going to be a cluster development or is this going to be whatever 3030 duplex is. What makes the most sense do you think it can't be a cluster development because you'd need a roadway. Yeah, and you need lots. Okay, okay. Oh, so it does seem like it's just going to be a 40 be with and then the uses the use would be 30 duplexes are 1515 structures so 30 homes 15 structures. Yeah. And did you did you say you had a couple of single family homes I can't remember. No that hasn't been our intent at this point. Okay. I'll do plexus. Well, well that's great and then that'd be let's just pretend that you were able to do this under a cluster if the use could be a cluster development it sounds like there'd be a lot of waiver requests. And so if this is a do if this are going to be duplexes. It, there could be some waiver request I'm not sure, but it'd be very small if any. It really has to do down with the density I think is why we're under the 40 be in the zones that they're under because we're building and we're flipping kind of the density from the zones. The zoning wants us to cluster on the frontage. We want a cluster in the back. Just quickly for the wetlands piece the one that's to the well into the south. On the site is that right is that a perennial stream. What is that that flow. It's been it's internet. Is it yep. Yep, so we don't have any riverfront. Okay. Yeah just looking on the GIS and I noticed like a kind of. Yep, I checked it on stream stats to it's definitely well below the, the basin requirements for perennial. Okay. Good. I jump in Nate. I apologize I'm late and I'll probably have to leave in a few minutes. I know Laura and I have not connected on funding, but I just caught the end of that CPA discussion. I guess one question for Jessica is, I heard you say the housing trust is willing to write a letter of support for your CPA proposal. I think that couple of things one, this is probably going to be Amherst most challenging year in the history of the CPA. We have never had more proposals than this round. And we have never had more. The total, the total ask is, is extraordinary, I would say. I also know that there will be, there are other affordable housing projects so I'm just putting it out there that there's going to be the CPA committee is going to have their work cut out for them. But did you. So, so my understanding is you asked for what was it 575. We asked for 750 750 of CPA. I think the 575 you're thinking of is the ARPA number that we have in there. So regarding the 570, excuse me, the 750. So you're asking for CPA dollars but you actually you're you're seeking a support letter from the trust. But you didn't actually ask the trust for any funds because the trust does control Nate my guess is close to half a million dollars right now. So certainly one thing I will tell you one thing staff may be doing is saying to the trust. Hey, housing trust. I'm you're sitting on 400 to 500,000 the trust actually asked for more funding through CPAC. So the question is here we have a viable project right in our on our radar screen right on the tarmac. Why wouldn't the trust allocate some of the funds that they're currently holding to this project which is, you know, well well underway. So we do have in the development budget I don't know if you notice but there is a line for $250,000 asked to the housing trust. Our timing was to see where we landed with CPA first. And then if there was a gap in that CPA request, then we would go to the trust and see if they would be willing to bridge that gap for us so we will be going to the trust we were we want to see where CPA lands first before we go to the trust and making us. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Okay. So the site, you know that that house right there the Jeffrey Fishman and then the one on four ball lane, I guess they're two Jeffries. The, especially the newer one there's no buffering to the site so I don't know if you're proposing like plantings along. You know that one and then even the four ball lane there's a few trees but maybe, you know, if you know more planting or something would be helpful for both of those. Yeah, we had a really great meeting with with Jeff and Sarah, Tom, Peter and myself we met with him. We met with them. The Friday before the barbecue, the donut barbecue, and got their feedback and presented concepts so we had got some good feedback from them. They are. It was a great conversation I think we need to just land in a place we're trying to make everybody happy we'll see if we can do it. Yeah, absolutely buffers and screening have already been part of the conversation but it's, you know, is it fencing is it plantings, you know how far away is this road you want parking next to you and parking behind you would you rather look at a house would you rather, you know there's a lot of back and forth that we're having with them. You know if there's a fence and there's parking behind you you're just looking at sky is that your preference or would you rather look at a house you know so we're trying to have those conversations to land somewhere that makes everybody comfortable but yeah we're definitely very cognizant of that for sure. I have not had an opportunity to talk to the folks yet for ball lane and that is on my to do list for sure, and to get their feedback. Yeah, so quickly, another question if you have access where the Matusko you know the driveway is where the trucking was. Yeah, I don't know when the speed limit increases but would we make a Jason would it be the case that we would want to request a slower speed at least up to pulpit hill or did that already change like I forget how fast the speed limit is there on monogyro do you mean I'm on your right right, like is it, you know, I know is, I know it goes up to 50 right just a little north of here but I forget where what the speed limit is on this right on monogyro in this area. Yeah, I don't totally know. But it's a state highway and they set speed limits based on road conditions and 85th percentile so. So yeah so if so for instance if we're saying oh we're going to have you know, 30 new homes with a driveway on here. They may say on their own like okay we should reduce the speed or they say it's fine right now. It's the kind of their decision. Yeah, they won't bet an eyelash of 32 new homes. Yeah, I don't think people slow down till they get to Coles Road. Right. Well that's what I was wondering. That's why I was wondering like is it something we should try to start you know address like some traffic calming if we're just going to have, you know, homeowners pulling out on the 63 there. Yeah, 63 I have a question for Aaron actually because there is a, it's paved but there is a swale a paved drainage swale that runs along monogyro. Our initial wetland consultant who gave us just a very kind of initial peek at it flag that as potentially under wetlands jurisdiction. Well they just said based on your local bylaw maybe considered. I don't know that I can't remember the details of it but they had flagged it and I just wanted to bring it up before I forgot whether that's something we should be concerned about at all. Is there wetland vegetation growing along the sides of it. Yeah, I mean I had a similar situation with a project down on snail street where we had a paved swale and is the is the swale leading to a structure like a drop inlet or a culvert. Yeah, there's an inlet right at the bottom right here. There's a there's basically an inlet in the well and catch it. Yeah, I wouldn't, I wouldn't consider a paved swale leading to a catch basin to be well. Anything we need to worry about. Okay, yeah, I mean, I would, I would say that the soil should be checked and that the fed should be checked. But if there are not indicators of that being hydric, I would not, I would consider that to be a stormwater conveyance. Okay. So have we removed the language storm flowage from the local bylaw. Yeah. There used to be really weird language in the Amherst bylaw about storm flowage storm water flow flagged for us. Yeah, that's where that question mark comes in. Yeah, I mean so if it was stormwater flow on a natural substrate that was, you know, vegetated. We would have to apply common sense I know there are some like in in the wetland protection act. And I know that this has been brought into our local bylaw with the latest revision is that structures that were designed to stormwater structures. We consider to be stormwater structures and I know that the wetland protection act was updated to include that. So this is my application of how that the bylaw is written, I would apply just simple common sense so if, if for example, it's a vegetated area and I can see flow in it like a stream. I would say there's a hydrologic gradient I can see stream flow. But in a in a paved swale, I the assumption for me is that that was that was designed to be a stormwater conveyance to direct water probably from the road towards the stormwater treatment. I can have another look at the bylaw but just as far as historic interpretation since I've been here that's how I've looked at it. Unless there's hydric soils or wetland vegetation. I would mean towards stormwater on that on that specific type of situation. Okay, all right, thank you I appreciate the clarification on that. We are almost at 230 you have spent a tremendous amount of time with us and we are internally grateful for that it's awesome. Do you have is there anything else that we should be thinking about that we haven't talked about any. Okay, actually timeline are you, I mean, this wouldn't come through permitting until next year, I mean, yeah, I think, yeah, we're, we're, you know, affordable housing run the long game right so we're going to be working on design the rest of this year, I would like to have a the PL application into the state by early next year permitting next year. We'll be doing all of our community outreach, continuing to find financing for the project. Once we've got everything kind of in the permitting is in place and the financing is in place. Then we can go to the Commonwealth builders we need to have everything else kind of lined up first. We've already had multiple conversations with them were in their pipeline they know we're coming so once we have that funding in place we should start building in like 2024 and have all the units constructed and sold by 2026. Any ideas for housing choice Nate, I know that you reached out to me a while ago about when the last housing choice round was coming along does it make sense to think about something for sewer upgrades or. Yeah I mean so the state you know they bundled housing choice and mass works and a number into the, you know they're doing the summer. So we submit a letter of intent in the spring or something like winter and then we submit a full application, maybe in June or something. So yeah I mean I think, I think it could be, you know it's up to 250,000 housing choice for capital project. I'm assuming will be a housing choice community next year and we can apply so I get you know I think it is something that's possible in it. It doesn't even have to be related to housing right but I think if it is and it's just makes it more competitive so I think, you know whether it's. I mean it's interesting they like to see it as it has to be on public property. Public infrastructure so you know the whole thing about ball lane and if that's not public or not being used by the public then I'm not sure how eligible that is it might have to you know so it's. There's probably some things to look into like what is what would actually be eligible you know is it sidewalks then or is it you know anything within the right of way. I'm just thinking oh if ball lane is stays private but there's public access easements, then that might qualify but if really ball lane is not being used at all as part of this development that I don't know how much housing choice can, you know can work but I think that's something we can talk about over the next few months just to see where. Okay. Yeah I think you know public utilities, even ball lanes private utilities are public. Right, I mean that's sort of where we're kind of landing it sounds right so. There may be opportunity there. Our land use attorney has already kind of flagged that legal issue of using, not having you know legal document in place and how that may throw off title insurance down the road. So I think if we can kind of clear up the language now way in advance before we get to closing I just don't want to get to a closing be ready to go and then be like oh man there's this title issue that we have to you know falling using utilities and ball lane this is going to throw off title so. It'd be awesome if we can kind of try to figure that out now, so that we're not stuck later on. We'd have to get easements that would have to go if we have to get like official easements they'd have to go through town council. Right. As a sort of a taking almost right. But it's, I think that's all it's all doable, and it might be the best course to take without with all the vagaries of the history. Right. The prescriptive easement would that still have to be a piece of paper. It's the, it's a very loose legal argument that almost has to be an actual court decision to do a prescriptive easement so it has to be first it has to be contested that it has to be argued. So that's a whole horrible. So that's a whole other can of worms that usually worse than just getting an easement. It's usually a legal interpretation by the judge that grants you that prescriptive easement you can argue with all you want up front but. Take it to court to get it. We don't want that. Okay, nobody can testing it yet so. Okay. Yeah, I just want to really avoid a situation where we're ready to close we're ready to go we're ready to start building everybody is like geared up and then you know we come to a screeching halt because there's no official paperwork. It's just to be able to do infrastructure improvements so. Okay. What about the issue of initial local preference. What do you have to say about that and does Commonwealth, whatever it's called Commonwealth builders yeah I know in the case of 132 North Hampton Road DHCD had to agree to the initial local preference so does Commonwealth builders have a say in deciding in this case and how what is your approach to that. So, we haven't spoken with Commonwealth builders specifically about local preference. I think, typically because Commonwealth builders is allowed to be used in very specific geographic areas one is qualified census tracks which North Amherst is which is why we're able to do this. And then some designated cities, Boston and then a bunch of other communities as well that typically probably have a higher concentration of black households than Amherst. So that being said, you know this is a 40 b process if the town wishes to make that request, we would, we would have to run it up to the flag with with Commonwealth builders I can try to have some initial conversations to see how they feel about it. I suspect it would be a similar process is, I suspect it would be probably exact very similar to DHCD, and that you would have to verify and show proof of why the local preferences needed. So I would suspect it'd be a similar process. So that being able to say that you are willing to have a local preference may help with the CPA request and other requests from money from the town. It's a it's a it's a complicated topic for sure, local preference. And I think it's becoming more and more of a complicated discussion. And there are some cities and towns that are really taking a hard look at it so looks like Laura has something she'd like to say maybe in specific to that. I don't know. Jess, you had pulled a really interesting study from was it Somerville or Newton Newton, it would be great to share with these folks because it was a study that Judy Barrett did on behalf of the community of Newton about how that impact of their local preference was segregating. And so I just feel like Amherst is poised at a time where looking at a lot of racial equity issues. And this is one of them. This is right at the heart of it. If you preference people who are already in your predominantly white community to become owners. I think it's a great favor that over people from other communities who are people of color, you are contributing to a pattern of sexual sexual segregation. So it's just something. I just think we all want to be thoughtful about. And I think Amherst, again, you're working on so many fronts to counteract racial segregation that then to do this may fly in the face of some of those other other efforts that are happening in the community. So it's an interesting study. Again, we're not needing to make a definitive decision today. I just, I think it's one that we want to just really take pause and think through carefully together. That's all. Sure. Thanks Laura something totally unrelated back to the site. I would you only have one building typology the whole time so it's like the same unit you know like the same building repeated 15 times or would you have variations. I can speak to this but the idea is to have different story levels and to match it up in such a way that there's a there's a variation in the roof lines. Yeah, so there's three to three houses three different unit or house blocks and one is a three bedroom two story. One is a one and a half bedroom. I'm sorry one and a half story two bedroom, and one is a one story two bedroom. So that basically in both size and shape and height and those three different houses can be put together in clusters of two in any combination really so there really can be quite a few different configurations. And I just want to yeah I was just thinking that from, you know, a site design perspective if it looks like that, you know, there's 16 anywhere from 15 to 17 buildings that are exactly the same. You know the ZBA might say well could you consider varying it looks like you have so we have in addition, in addition to that. There's a difference in the in the plan whether based on whether because we're trying to do passive solar. There's a difference in the plan based on whether you're entering from the north or the south of the building, because that they kind of the floor plan works out differently so there's, there's increased variation based on on how it's whether you're entering south and north, how it's configured relative to the street and the north and south narrows. I just have one quick note about the demolition. I'm not sure who did the demo, but they missed their utility abandonments. So, once again you guys required a property that needs to have the water, a couple of water services abandoned main and ball lane. We'll work with you to help find them and figure that out. Down to it. Thank you. I'm going to go fill up. I'm going to go fill up right now Jason when I go bring some big tanks down there and measure it out and we'll bill you anything else any other comments anything that we've missed huge red flags that just not a red flag or anything but some reason I love circulation. It'd be interesting to see where your access drives are and walkways are in relation to the bus stops like I just don't know where the bus stops are but like, are they what's that look like what's that walking distance and then and then from the parking area what's that walking distance to the furthest dwelling. I'm just thinking in context of your access drives. Is it to take in a way that that makes sense in context of those bus stops I don't know if that's needed but I'm just interested in those topics. Little bit hill is the nearest bus stop the co housing just past there. Actually there's one directly across the street. It's right at the corner to it's right at the corner so it's right at Papa Hill and monarchy road and it's, I could even give you the line number and have it somewhere it's in the CPA application. Here's something that has to do with circulation. I'm thinking of Fire Island I visited there a long time ago but there's no car access so people have wagons that they take their groceries to their places with. Is this development going to have any kind of system like that where somebody would, you know, have their car in the parking lot and then they would have a wagon to take their groceries to their unit, or is each person going to do that on their own. I think we were assuming people would do that on their own. I lived in the city for a while and had my own grocery cart that I would drag through the neighborhood to get my grocery so I know what it's like, for sure. But I think our intent was people would would figure that out on our own and we wouldn't do that for them but it's an interesting idea. Maybe there's a, maybe there's a little shed where things are stored like that I don't know. Interesting idea. I'm going to throw in my one last plug for ball lane to become public. I'm just just for Gilbert's sake here. There are two residents to owners I'm not going to say residents. There's one resident and one property owner that would love to have that road become public and get it paved for free. So I'm just throwing that out there. They were in my office this spring, arguing why why we were planning to stop plowing it and why we don't maintain the dirt road anymore. So you stopped maintaining the dirt road completely. We have. Will you be plowing at this winter. Probably. And you said it's only one property owner that doesn't want it. Yeah, number 35 Lawrence Quigley. He's very adamant about not having, not having it be a public way. He likes that it's dirt road he likes that people aren't going to come down there looking for him. And he's the last one. He's the last one and he made a very interesting comment which I have not been able to verify in the deeds he seems to think that people only have access from like from one of you road to the to the end of their property line. And then like the next person has access to their property line. So, in his mind, even if we were trying to use ball lane we wouldn't have access all the way down towards his house. Interesting. So, not usually how those are worded but right, and I haven't been able to verify that but that is that is what he in his head has told me that he told him when he purchased the house. I don't know. Okay. Another complexity to ball lane. And then I write across the street from him is where that existing single phone family home is correct. And I think where our challenge was is, you know, if it has to be a cul-de-sac how that like if that is going to if that is an absolute way of looking at a public way. How does that work how does it fit into our development. You know, Peter kind of played with the idea of turning that into maybe one of the main common open spaces that if that you know, like trying to incorporate it so that it's not like just stuck at the end and seems weird because it's a public way. So, you know, it's, it's, there's no clear, there's no clear design answer. It's a public way before number 35. Hold the cul-de-sac further down. And then it just turns into like a, like this gravel, the old man's land forgotten, forgotten part. Yeah. That's possible. I don't know. It's a tough, it's a tough sell I know. We'll have to, we'll have to continue our conversations on that for sure. And definitely whatever the easement language needs to be. I feel like that's got to knowing how long it takes things to get through any town council for a vote. That's actually going to have a proponent somebody's got to push for that. And I think that's sort of got to be you unfortunately. Okay. So maybe with ball lane, this private ball lane, would that be considered? So your property, is that considered? I think someone already answered this, but I want to ask it again. Is that considered frontage? That, yeah. Yeah, that's a private way before the subdivision bylaws were enacted. Is that right, Christine? Yeah. Yeah, the way we've been interpreting it for rezoning purposes is it's frontage, right? I mean, you know, for like a lot, you know, for that kind of thing, it may not be, you know, considered a road for like we're talking about like public way or maintenance or other things, but for zoning it is. I think there's something else that the town engineer needs to declare like it's constructed properly for access to whomever it's giving access we had re ran into this on Allen street over off Heather stone road. Remember that with Valerie Hitzel, you had to make some declaration to the planning board and then the planning board declared that it was suitable to have one more lot on it with frontage. And I feel a seven PPs if anyone's familiar with that that was a Joel Greenbaum. Yeah. And it looks like Laura, I don't know if that's a legacy hand or if you actually have another comment to make. I haven't seen it up since she turned off her. A legacy. I haven't heard of that one. You like that. You like that. I'm going to work on taking it down. It's the it's the zoom lingo I picked up I haven't like been Google. That's hilarious legacy hand. Okay, we have taken up a huge amount of your time today. So, thank you. Thank you for being accommodating with your schedule really appreciate it. And like I said, this is the first iteration so I suspect we'll probably be coming back to you with more formalized plans once we start pulling things together a little bit and if you, if you would be willing to we would like your feedback for our next iteration if you'd be amenable to that just to make sure that we've got all of everything kind of queued up before we actually enter permitting so. I really appreciate having this opportunity to give our input early on and it was so good to see this project. See your ideas for it because we've been hearing about it through Nate and others but we hadn't actually seen what your ideas are so it's been really fun and interesting to hear about it. Thank you and feel free to reach out if you anybody has questions as we move ahead please. We are open transparent about what we're up to so please just let me know. I'm going to go back to fire if you could you know they're going to be interested in like flows and you know just a lot you know the things that could impact site design so. I invited them. So I'm guessing something is more major going on and I'm going to share that well I'll share the recording with everybody but. I believe that Tim Nielsen is away this week. He sent me a quick email about something else and said, I'll get back to you next week when I'm back so maybe they're short. Yeah, okay. Thank you. All right. Thank you everybody. Thank you. All righty. Bye.