 This program is brought to you by Cable Franchise Vs and generous donations from viewers like you. Okay, welcome to the Amherst Planning Board meeting for Wednesday, February 19th, 2027 p.m. Town Room Town Hall. We're going to start with item number one minutes. We have minutes in our packet from 20 November 2019. I assume everyone has reviewed them. Are there any comments changes, suggestions? David. Yes, I think that this is just like transcription of the speaker, but there's no language here that I think. Oh, sorry. Yeah, thank you. In the first full paragraph, in the middle of the paragraph, the sentence begins, in good faith the security agreement was blah, blah, blah. And then in the further down one, two, three paragraphs down the last sentence of that paragraph, it would be an act of bad faith. I think that that doesn't add value to the minutes. I think that that's just a real accurate transcription of the speaker and that that's kind of, I'd suggest removing it. Okay, any other comments, suggestions from the minutes? And if I don't see any other comments, do I hear a motion to approve? So moved. Second. Okay, okay. Any other discussion, comments? If not, all in favor? Six. And one abstain because Doug wasn't there yet. Thank you. All right. We'll move to item number two, public comment period. This is a time where people can come forward and have a few minutes to ask the board or present something, but it has to be something that is not on our agenda for tonight, something different. Does anyone here show of hands have anything that'd like to come forward and speak? I see no hands, so we will move forward. I've been requested to not go directly to item three, and instead we're going to go to item seven a under old business. It's the SPR 2019-06 and SPP 2019-03, town of Amherst Dog Park, 95 Old Belcher Town Road, and I believe we have Nate Malloy here, who is going to bring some changes for it. This, it's a presentation of changes and new information regarding conditions one, information kiosk, four, site plan, and six, landscaping of the site plan review decision map, 21B parcel eight, PPR zoning district. Hello. William, I'm on the dog park task force, so I forget what I did last. So I have to leave the room? No. Sure. Thanks for having me out of order. The, right, I'm returning just to ask the board to review a few things. One, the fence location changed a little bit to reduce the amount of fill in the dog park, and that can be seen on the plan with the red lines. And so in an effort to reduce cost and reduce the amount of fill on the site, the fence was brought in a little bit from its configuration when it was presented earlier. And so originally the fence was, you know, further into the landfill, and we brought it kind of west eastward and north, and we tucked it in a little bit around the perimeter just to, you know, change the configuration of that. But because of that, you know, the overall location of the pathways and things changed a little bit as well. And so the request here is just to have the board look at this and determine if it's in, you know, substantially in accordance with the plans that were approved. And so I was just going to pull up the next, you know, this sheet. So, you know, originally, you know, this was, you know, the pathway, this was a little bit more of a circle, and this was a little different shape. And so the pathway change and the location of the shade structure has changed a little bit, again, to accommodate the reduced fill. So the originally we thought we may need almost three-foot ballast on the fence and footings in some areas, so that required that much fill on top of the cap. And we were able to reduce the ballast for the fence to 18 inches. So instead of, you know, instead of needing two to three feet of fill, we only need a foot and a half. I mean, there is more fill in some areas in the central part, but because the perimeter fence now has shallower ballasts, we don't need the, you know, that amount of fill everywhere to cover the dog park. And so we've, you know, there's been some internal arrangement of pathways and shade structures to accommodate that. That's one of the, that's one change. And per condition one, the other request is to have a look at the pavilion, the entry kiosk. This was brought to the design review board, I think it was just last week. They voted to approve it with a few recommendations. And so here's a perspective drawing of it. The location obviously is not shown here. This is probably the best view just to see it. It's something that will be paid for by donors of the dog park. It's not, you know, emblematic of other kiosks in town. It's something that's unique to the dog park. And so as it's shown here, it is represented with a metal roof. The, you know, color green is actually, I think it would be that. It's a timber frame kiosk. It'd be an unfinished timber frame. So, you know, some resembling some notch construction here. This is a veneer stone base. And some of that's to hide some of the footings. And there'll be the kiosk, the board inside is actually, you know, there's six faces to it. And I was trying to see if there's a good plan for that. But, you know, inside the kiosk, the board is actually, you know, three panels. So there's a number of faces that can be used to display information. So the design review board had, you know, comments about the material of that, of the, of the sign. You know, right now it says just pressure or just plywood. And so there's recommendations to have that be a better weather resistant material. And then recommendations for how things could be displayed or, you know, sleeves could be stored on the kiosk board itself. So information pamphlets or things. And so this, you know, this kiosk is, again, paid for by a donor. And in the plans, it's right up here up front. So, you know, there's parking along the street. And the kiosk was always shown generally in this location. And so I'm bringing back just the final plans. So the plans that were shown are for, you know, price estimating in construction. And so the kiosk would be right up here in the front. It would have, you know, the rules and regulations, other information about conservation areas and then the dog park. Is that everything? I think that's it. Are there any questions from the board? Doug? You mentioned that the structure would be paid for by a donor, right, who will maintain and replace things as it gets older and or gets graffiti on it or whatever. Right. So the, the dog park task force is also trying to raise money to put into a maintenance budget. So it's something that there'll be funds for. And then it'll also just become part of the town's general maintenance plan. So public works and conservation staff would help maintain it as well as, you know, there's a, a friends of the dog park would be formed to also do that work. So that the town is prepared to add this to its maintenance load? Well, we're hoping that the friends of the dog park would take care of the daily maintenance. And then, you know, some of the more seasonal items could be taken care of by the town. I just have one question on the picture. There's a weather vane, a dog weather vane? Absolutely. Yeah, you know, that's as shown. So that's something that, you know, the dog park task force, they've, you know, they've reviewed this and this is something that they would like to have. So a lot of the movement was just to save fill, but it's to, so the footings, you don't want them to go too deep on the landfill. Yeah. So it was both the realization that if, you know, if the fence can, you know, the fence can't penetrate the cap. So the fence is going to have these 18 inch deep by, you know, one foot footings for each pole. And originally they thought the footings might need to be three feet deep. And they really only need to be 18 inches. And because of that, the amount of fill could be reduced if the fence was shifted a little bit. So the hope was that I could cut the amount of fill by a third by just those little changes. And that's the same I know for the, for the posts for the sales, because they, there was talk, I remember when you came about, they are put under a little more stress with wind and stuff. They will. So the, the footings for the shade sales are, are quite big. So they'll be, you know, four feet or more in diameter. And then they'll be, you know, about two feet or could be a little bit more deep, but they're, the shade sales are positioned in a place where there's more fill where the existing contours that might be concave. So the amount of fill will be graded to make the park level. But, you know, in this location right now, there's quite a bit of depth here to make this level. So there'll be enough fill so the footings will fit. Any other questions from the board? So are you looking for a vote from us or? You know, one is just to present the kiosk plan, so if there's any comments or questions on that. And then the other one is to determine if the changes to the fence in the fill and location of the shade sales is, you know, in accordance with condition four or, or yeah, so that's, you know, in accordance with the plans that were approved earlier. You know, is it a de minimis change or is it enough that the site plan would need to be amended? So are there any members that feel that this is outside the limits of four item condition four? I don't, everyone seems fine. So do you want us to take a vote on it or just yeah, okay. So we'll take your vote. So I'm looking for a motion. I'll move that the presentation. Thank you for coming back to us here that the conditions one and four. Thank you for meeting condition one and coming back for the information kiosk and that the change in the fence perimeter is substantially in accordance with the previously approved plan. Second. Second. Any discussion or comments on this? If not, we'll take a vote. All in favor against and abstain. One. Okay. So we got five, zero, one. And you can stay out there. All right. So thank you very much. And just one question. When is it expected to be done? So the we're bidding it in the next few weeks, but the the grasshopper sparrow, the breeding terms are June through mid August. So we can't have any construction during that time. So we're hoping to start September one at the latest and then have a survey done in the summer. And if they're not there, construction can start in the summer, but otherwise we have to wait until September one and it would be done in the fall. The hope would be that we can done. Great. Thank you. Sure. Okay. So now we'll go back to the original agenda and we'll go to item three, which is for the planning board. It's a review and comment and it's Amherst supportive studio apartments, 132 North Hampton road Valley community development corporation presentation review and comments for the department of housing and community development on a project eligibility application for an affordable supportive studio housing development with 28 studio apartments for team parking spaces and site improvements. So I will welcome whoever's here to present to us. I will note that this is the first time this is coming to the planning board and it's not in the capacity of for a permit. It's just to solicit our comments because they need to go to the department of housing and community development. Right. So introduce yourself for the minute takers and welcome. Thank you. So my name is Laura Baker. I'm the real estate project manager at Valley Community Development Corporation. We're the developer of this proposed project. As you indicated, this is not a point of permitting. So this would be intended to be permitted under a comprehensive permit through the zoning board of appeals. As part of that process, we requested a project eligibility letter from a state financing agency. They initiated a 30 day comment period. You're not required to comment, but you have the opportunity to comment. And so I prepared a brief presentation here. Everything that's here is also you can see there's a website up there available through the town's own website plus more. This is a very abbreviated version. So if anything catches your eye and you want to know more, that's a resource. Oh, and the public comment period began January 31st and it ends in 30 days. And I don't know, Christine, if you've decided a date, official date for that. Chris, go ahead. I believe Nate Malloy is the person who's coordinating all of the comments. And he would like to have the comments by the Wednesday, which is, I believe, the 27th of, is that right, or 26th? 26th of February, so that he can package them up for DHCD. And we have to draft a letter on behalf of the town. So that's the date on which we would like the comments to be submitted. Thanks. So this is a map showing where this project site is. It's this yellow rectangle here. It's very close to Pratt Field and it's along North Hampton Road. It's about halfway between University Drive and Town Center. We have a number of maps included that show kind of what is near this. Obviously Amherst College athletic uses a variety of single-family homes, multi-family homes. Over here there's an assisted living facility called the Arbor's down here with urgent care facility, church. Looking toward town, this is really to just show that there are a lot of amenities close within walking distance of this property, including this building, the library, a number of social service providers, the Bang Center has a community health center in it. Quite a range of bus stops and other retail uses. Again, going up Amherst Center, we're seeing churches and Craig Stores up way up there, bus stops, bike share stops, et cetera. And again, looking down toward University Drive, we're just illustrating that there's a lot of amenities, post office banks, shopping, Goodwill, and another urgent care center right in close walking distance to this site. This is a survey of the existing site. It's about 0.88 acres, so a little bit under an acre. It is improved with a currently vacant single-family house that's located to the far rear of the property. This is Northampton Road up there. We brought a couple of the initial test fit plans that we did for the site. We first looked at it trying to determine how many units might be able to be located on this particular property. The entire site is quite buildable. We don't have any wetlands issues or steep slopes. There is a slope, but it's not the steepest on Northampton Road. So just showing a variety of iterations that we considered, some of them having more or less build out on the site. This is a view of our current site plan, and again, all of our plans at this stage are preliminary and works in progress. It's showing the building in its context, and I believe the massing of the building is in proportion to some of the other larger properties that you see in proximity to it. This is the current site layout plan. Originally, we had looked at reusing the house and adding onto it. We've moved to a new iteration where we demolished the house and rebuilt, partly because we were really pinned to the back lot line. With the existing house, it was within about 8 feet of the lot line that it shares with the Amherst College field. That's the rendering of the site plan. There are walkways. There are 14 parking spots provided, one accessible one. Some of the green parking spaces are grass creek parking. We just tried to make as much impervious surface as pervious surface as we could. These areas are pervious. The walk paths are a poured pervious kind of crushed rubber. We have some suggested areas for gardening. We have an outdoor patio back here, and plantings to provide some privacy, both for tenants as well as users of the athletic field, and again, some new screening that's coming in along the side of our single family house that's next door. This is just a very quick overview of the building. It's a multi-unit department building. It's two and a half floors, 28 units. They're all studio apartments, very small. Two of them are handicapped accessible. The average size is 245 gross square feet. The total square footage is almost 11,000 gross square feet. The idea for this property is to have all these units be at some point of affordability, so 10 are intended to be for very low-income individuals who are currently homeless. Two are intended for low-income individuals who are referred by the Department of Mental Health. Eight are for other low-income persons, probably working persons earning about 50% of the area median income, and then eight, four persons who are moderate income earning up to 80% of the area median income. Just for point of reference for a single person, 80% of AMI is $49,700. That's kind of the top of the income spectrum. Then if you're in one of the 30% units, you would have a rental subsidy, so you could make as little as $100 and pay a third of your income for rent. It's a pretty broad span and intentionally kind of mixed income profile. A few quick facts about the site layout. The percent of land occupied by buildings, as you can see, is just under 10%. Paved areas, about 32%. Total and pervious areas, about 32%. Open space, 65.5%. 14 parking spaces, which is 0.5 spaces per unit. We own a number of other similar properties, most of which don't have any parking. Some do have some parking, but our experience with this population group is that many people will not have cars. We've intentionally chosen a walkable location so that people will not need to own cars who live here. This is a quick look at waivers that we anticipate requesting from the Zoning Board of Appeals as part of the 40B Comp permit process. Probably the biggest single issue has to do with density, that under zoning, you would not be allowed to have this many units on a parcel of this size. What else have we got? The maximum lot coverage, we're coming in at 41.64% right now. The maximum lot coverage is 40%. I think we'll probably hover somewhere between 40 and 45%. Again, some of that will be pervious. Fence height, we've had a neighbor request a taller fence along the property line in excess of the six-foot limit. And again, back to parking. Significantly less parking than is typical under zoning. These are some renderings and plans of the proposed building as it looks at this moment in time. Again, still in the preliminary design stage. So these are a number of views, an effort's been made to have a very traditional looking building. One that reads as a residential building rather than other type of use. One that has different aspects to it is well articulated so it looks different from different angles. This is a sloping site. So you can see this is the kind of entry from the parking is on grade. You would go in and it's essentially a split level. You'd go down to a basement level or you'd go up to the first floor or up to the second floor. When you go in on grade, there's an elevator. So all three floors are fully accessible. And as the grade slopes away, you can see that the units on the ground floor have full windows. This is the first floor plan. Again, this is the part that's kind of below grade. We've got laundry and mechanical rooms in this area. On the ground floor we have common room. We have an office for a resident services coordinator. We have a public restroom and this is the elevator. And then it's basically small studio units that are pretty similar in size and configuration. This is the first floor. This unit is the handicapped accessible unit and then there are more units. Up on the third floor we have another accessible unit and we have a property management office as well on site. This is the roof. It's complicated. This is an elevation. This would be the side of the building facing the parking for the Conway Fieldhouse. This would be the site of the building facing the parking area. This would be the side of the building facing North Hampton Road. And this would be the side of the building facing the track in the athletic field. Just some blow ups of, you know, different unit types. Each unit will have its own bathroom equipped with a toilet sink and shower and then each one will have a kitchenette. This is supportive housing. So we're just sharing a really a snapshot of the supportive services that we're proposing. There is a pretty detailed supportive service plan that's online if you're interested in looking at that. Essentially it's a resident services coordinator on site about .75 FTE. We have the Department of Mental Health that would provide services for its clients. We have several other local service providers that are committed to serving homeless tenants who are moving in. The Amherst Health Department and then there are a lot of community-based providers also that would assist people. These are kind of the folks who would be actually physically coming onto the property to offer services. And that's it. Be happy to take any questions or comments that you might have. Thank you. Are there questions from board members? Doug? I have one question. Sure. Have you been in contact with the fire department in terms of their access around the building? Yes. I have a few questions and comments. One of them was about that they're all studio apartments and I was wondering if you had considered some one bedroom units. And I was sort of thinking of clients that I've had in people who are trying to get custody of their children or and so parental rights restored and visitation. I think it struck me that some of your clients would be in that situation and it might be nice to have a bedroom so kids could stay over as if that relationship is worked on. Has that been thought about? Yes. So we looked at a number of both plan and budget scenarios with larger units and struggled with the cost of the larger units and wanting to have maximized the amount of supportive services onsite. We do own similar housing with parents who are looking to reunify with their children. We've had tenants that have become pregnant while they lived onsite. And we've always been pretty successful at being able to transition those folks into a more appropriately sized apartment. Some of them need more than a one bedroom apartment at that point. So we did look at it and we felt like this model worked best for the population and need that have been identified in town. So because I'm kind of we seem to be getting a lot of buildings with only one floor plan and I wonder about flexibility and people being able to stay in their apartments for a long time and maybe move to a different unit in the same building because these are the homes. Are you expecting people to stay for a few years or many years or yeah we well again we've owned properties like this for almost 30 years. So we see a pretty wide range. We've certainly had people stay 18 to 20 years. We have had people you know leave after a year. For some people this is kind of a stepping stone potentially to a larger apartment and then a lot of folks somewhere in the middle like three to five years. So I guess I'm sort of saying I'd like to see someone bedrooms because if they're the parts of our community it'd be great that they could stay in Amherst and not have to go to Northampton and things like that. So because those kind of ties are important. The other question I had was another another situation I've been in that came up where at some public housing where people where people can smoke and so at first the tenants could smoke in like they were smoking outside the front door and all the smoke was going in the apartment. Sure. And so then they were like forced down some slope to some picnic tables. And so this was like in the middle of the winter. The person was in a wheelchair, chain smoker. It was just and I just you know and it wasn't really part of what I was there but I finally convinced the housing authority to put some kind of structure overhead. So when people are smoking which they're usually addicted to that they're not getting sleeted on and rained on and it was just and you know I just thought that's kind of a consideration to me. It's something we spend a lot of time thinking about and talking about. This would be a non-smoking building. We have some in some cases made non-smoking properties which tends to result in people smoking here on the sidewalk. In this case we have a designated smoking area for now. This is again preliminary. There's usually not a perfect answer to this is here it's a bench. So certainly we could consider some covering for it. You know we didn't want to. So we didn't want necessarily people to smoke on the main patio because you know some people will be non-smokers. So this is our our current effort to accommodate both the health needs of non-smokers as well as have a place available for smokers. It's it's it's we're trying to get it away from from this patio. We're trying to get it away from the building. We're trying to get it away from a butters who are nearby and away from the sidewalk and away from the track. Yeah. So I've covered all my clients that I've had in the past and Janet since you've had like three or four questions could I open it to the board and then we can come back so we can sort of rotate around. Thank you. Does anyone else have Maria? Thanks. I appreciate the sort of forms and working with the context and it's keeping the scale and I know this is preliminary and I kind of agree that the landscaping there's a lot of things on all sides and so to be very cognizant of that and and this drawing south is up correct. Let's see. To the left. To the left. Okay. Captain Rhodes on the right. That's north. Okay. Okay. I'm so used to the north thing up. So okay. So I would just be wary of like when if you're truly you know encouraging like the garden raised beds in which I love I think that'd be a really nice amenity and be community building just make sure you know you're not shading it and right and that yeah the smoking area that's a tough one because it is something on all four sides. So yeah I give that some more thought especially because the Amherst Fieldhouse parking there it's a very public space but I mean I guess all four sides really are so but I do appreciate the care and thought about you know really trying to work with the site and bring the scale down you don't have it as you know massive as you can. Right. And I think that yeah having it toward the back of the site makes a lot of sense just keeping that sort of the green space on route nine that makes a lot of sense. So yeah I look I hope you show more iterations but I think it's a good first step. Great thanks. Doug. My first question was are we commenting about this as though we were doing a site plan review or are we not really getting down to that level of detail? We're not getting to that level of detail it's just about because they're in general schematic right now they're just trying to you know get ready so they can go through those processes. It is going to go to zoning subcommittee I mean sorry ZBA so part of it is comments to the Valley the Department of Housing and Community Development. Yep and to zoning ZBA so our memo will go to both of them am I correct Chris or yeah. The memo for now will just go to DHCD and it will be packaged with other comments that we've received and we're going to draft a letter from the town manager that tries to encapsulate all of the comments that we've received. So the detailed review of this will come later during the comprehensive permit process this is sort of a first look and an opportunity for you to say this is a good location it looks like a generally good layout you know that you are generally supportive of this project or not sort of general comments more than specific comments I would say. Okay so in that spirit I think first of all it was a wonderful submission it was clear easy to read you highlighted the issues that are going to be before the town I haven't looked at a lot of these but I appreciated that I am generally supportive of the project and my only comment on the site the sighting even would be could you rotate the dumpsters so that everybody driving in and out that isn't looking straight at them you know that little dog leg at the lower left corner I'm not quite sure what that's doing you know so you don't need to respond that's just my only and I respond so the dumpsters will be in a cedar fenced enclosure I know as long as they're closed as long as you know so the dot this little business at the end is intended to allow the dumpster truck to turn on the site and not have to back out onto route nine but I hear your comment. David. I also would like to I thought it was a really thoughtful and well presented narrative of the project I think that your identification of the primary neighborhood that corridor and I also especially appreciated the kind of ratio of owner occupancy to to rental properties on that corridor I thought that was really you know made it clear to me being also a neighbor of the proposed project that it is really well cited for the the purpose as I understand it of the project I also would like to commend Valley CDC for the responsiveness to the neighbors concerns or some of the neighbors concerns as expressed and tabulated in the narrative the the thing that I because the the the renderings that that I would like to see eventually or I think that would be helpful because it is on a slope and it's on a slope if you're going east you're going uphill and it's on the right hand side of the street just to see in relation the the height in relationship to some of the the abutting house the bnb relationship to the those tall I think there's spruce I don't I think they're coming down but that's like the sight line that's the upper horizon just to get a better picture of the scale of the yeah of it but otherwise I think it's it you know I really do appreciate its sensitivity to the environment and to the the the the various neighbors and I think it's a great suggestion but a challenging task because it is little plateaus as you go up and so the neighboring property is going to sit much higher not because it's a poll taller structure but because of the rising grade so you're gonna you know Doug on that subject I've wondered if the town has ever considered investing in a topographical 3d model of the town with the existing buildings masked on it and any one that comes before us could essentially insert their project into the town and then we could have 3d you know flying or flyarounds and drive alongs thank you so I this is not a permit I'd recuse myself because I did some due diligence on this property working with Laura but I have a question and I think it's I think I'm fine talking with Chris yeah I was wondering about similar concepts that you or you know similar agency to your to yourself or program where you have the single occupancy structure yeah you know where it is how it's working out and that sort of thing yeah so we we have one of these properties that's under renovation now just now but prior to that we'd 53 units and four different buildings in Northampton all single room occupancy some are traditional kind of lodging houses where people just rent a bedroom and then they share kitchen and bath others are like this these kind of very small studio apartments and I think we've had a great experience you know they tend to be a mix of people from different walks of life some retirees some low-wage earners some people with disabilities some people who were homeless you know it's it's a whole range of of people and I think without those types of housing opportunities some of these people would be on the street so I don't know it's work that we're pretty proud of and we have really have not had issues with immediate neighbors or butters there were several who wrote positive letters that are kind of in the compilation of letters that's in here did you want to add anything this is our director Joanne Joanne Campbell I'll just I don't want to sit next to you Joanne Campbell executive director of a valley so yeah we've been doing this for for 30 years and I think the project that's under construction now that's a renovation and expansion from a typical lodging house to a 31 unit SRO very similar to this small studio apartment is on bridge street on the way into town if you're coming from Amherst on the right hand side as you come around that bend that'll be finished in probably May or June we'll have an open house so it's we're taking it from 15 rooms put an addition on the rear and have gutted the front of the building and it's very similar to this project and so we've got people who we relocated out and folks will be coming back you know they're thrilled to have their own bathroom that's a key to this change to this model of a small studio apartment none of our other properties have this level of supportive services it's a challenge a financial challenge to to be able to provide that I want just want to echo my colleagues support of this and to compliment the proposers on a very clear and important project that they brought us like any housing development it doesn't answer every housing issue in town but in my view it answers probably the most important housing issue in town and I applaud that and I'm glad it's here and I support it thank you so so I have a question about the existing house and was the decision to take it down a financial decision or it doesn't seem it seems aesthetically it's a very nice looking home and it you know just built off of that it would look good well the existing house it was a carriage house or garage associated with the neighboring house and then in the 40s it was made into a home it has a couple of additions on it that we would never save because they're not structurally sound so we were going to be left with a fairly small building and we felt like the scale was a little off when we put this large addition next to it I think the biggest single issue was that it was so close to the rear lot line and there was nothing we could do about that again it's within about eight feet when we take off the back porch it's about 15 feet both neighbors who used the field as well as Amherst College were hoping for a little more buffer between this property in the field and the only way to get that was to to start fresh and shift it the other issue was handicapped accessibility so of course the current existing house is not at all accessible there's stairs up and so we had a ramp that you had to go up to get in and then we were kind of trapped in these stories because we were trying to make all the floors accessible that were very short and it just it was going to be more expensive per square foot to renovate it and and it was degrading some of the other features that we now have a building that you don't have to go on a ramp to get up into that has more green space around it that has more separation from its neighbors and is probably going to be cheaper in the long run I had a question about parking and bike so you have a point five ratio which I think is appropriate for this type of use for each dwelling and you have 14 spots and I think it's great that you have some of them as pervious that's interesting you chose not to have a spot you have a tree in like spot number seven just wondering why you didn't go with the spot there and I also on the south side there's pervious but it's not a parking space right I don't think it's needed for turnaround it is is that that's why it's there for what kind of vehicle for the dump truck interesting just seems like a lot of space we've had a lot of buildings come forward and that just seems like because that other area to the east is quite large so as I'm sure you've seen the landscape architects do the the turning study so they did it with the packing truck which would be coming in front ways and then would make basically a three-point turn put its back end against the dumpster hoist up the stuff and be able to go out front ways onto North Hampton road I'd love it if it weren't true we didn't need that much space how do you know how they could back up to I mean we've seen it all anyways we had a lot of concerns from neighbors about the idea that we would be introducing regular traffic that would be backing onto North Hampton road I'm sure it happens all the time the tree is there to break up the row of cars okay as a you know often planning document zoning will require you to only have so many spaces before there's some greenscape just so you don't have this monolithic traffic so if there were cars parked there you know now you don't see green grass creed anymore you see vehicles and so at least the vehicles are broken up by having a something planted something growing very nice thought and with the so you have other places where you must have limited parking like this and I'm just wondering how does that work for who gets the parking you're 28 units right I assume a lot of the lower income won't have cars but could but then I also the like 80 percent they might have cars so um is it first come first serve pretty much so we just as an example um we just built a property in North Hampton that has 55 family units all two mostly two and three bedroom units we were able to build 41 parking spaces in a zone in North Hampton where they require NARA um because we wanted them 33 of the spaces are taken so basically what we had tenants um apply for you know a parking permit they had to have a car and it was registered in their name and so we have extra spaces and during the day a lot of extra spaces so what I would anticipate here and this is partly why we did some grass creed because we may 14 maybe too many we don't know we don't want to run short we don't want to have too many um and we anticipate we will have some staff coming and going and there would be a natural rhythm of staff coming during the day when people other people who have cars are probably driving to work they return at night so um our goal was between 0.25 and 0.5 spaces and we're able to get to 0.5 on this site um we the property Joanne was talking about with the 15 bedrooms had about eight parking spaces about half of them were filled wow okay good to know so it's all relative to you know the population no you seem to know your population so it was just um but the 0.5 overall seems appropriate yeah just last question so they great place for them to have bikes yep um especially after mass DOT redone the whole road there oh we're excited about that but they are very small units 245 square feet sure so are they expected to keep their bikes I know you're going to have an outdoor bike ride but that's you know they might have a nice bike right or do you you don't have any storage I noticed there's no room left in the building at all yeah and so the building small units yeah so the building you know it in in actuality this footprint may grow a little bit when we really put mechanical systems in it I don't know that we'll have space for indoor bike storage but certainly we could look at a covered area for bikes outdoor bikes backing up to the smoking shed yeah we're pretty close to the bike trail it's one of the other nice features of this so we do anticipate that this is a really livable location if you want to be on foot you want to get to the bus stop if you want a bike um so 0.4 miles someone said it's nowhere near near a bus stop it's about 0.4 miles to the closest bus stop are there any other Doug does this population get visitors is that a park part of the parking demand for the building I can't say never yeah I think sure people may get visitors I read in your plan that there's a going to be a system for overnight visitors right and that yeah we we in other properties of this scale we don't allow overnight visitors we had neighbors strongly feel that we should allow them and so we're trying to find a compromise position there is this building how do they is it like fob fobs it'll either be fobs or a keyed entry it'll have an intercom a visual intercom system for safety security cameras it'll be kind of a state of the art security so that there's people that during the day obviously that so at night if security is breached or there's an issue what where does that go who right so we have a 24-7 line that's for property management that someone would call usually with a property emergency if it's some other type of emergency medical emergency or whatever they would call 911 does the board have any other questions and Chris do you have enough to write up a memo I do but I it would be helpful if you would make a statement about whether you're generally supportive of this project or not as a as a board we could take a vote does anyone that support it at this point in the process that we are supportive of the project just something general I just need someone to do a motion Dave oh I move that the planning board supports the alley CDC's submission to the DHCD did I get that right yeah and and you'll incorporate a lot of the gist of the comments does that work Chris good and a second second thank you any comments or suggestions on that I see none so all in favor and I see unanimous for that we're not going to be taking public comment on this tonight because um and during the comment period to her they don't have equipment we can come back it's important to us too so if you give us at least three minutes if someone's just a motion we're not okay so here's the thing we have an agenda and it's very long so we no no no don't don't argue with me let me explain so what I'm going to ask is how a show of hands so I could see how many people because I can't just give one or two I would have to give everyone and if everyone had two or three minutes we could be here for a very long time so could I see a show of hands of people who if offered the opportunity would come home up up here and speak so I so there's only three hands then I just want to ask either Nate or Chris what are the other opportunities for these people to give their comments and handouts and such because we're not we're not deliberating on this right now this was the first time we've seen it so your comments aren't really very helpful to us right now Chris so there's an online portal where people can offer comments people can also send in or deliver written comments to either Nate Malloy or myself in the planning department so that's for this 30-day comment period which the comments only go to DHCD then there'll be a whole process of public hearings where everybody will be heard verbally or in whatever manner they want to be heard and that will probably start in a few months once Valley CDC submits their comprehensive permit application to the zoning board of appeals so the zoning board of appeals is going to hold a multi-evening set of public hearings and that would be the most appropriate time for people to offer comments but perhaps you want to take 10 minutes worth of comments at this time so that's what I was thinking that at this time to keep us on schedule I saw four hands and we could do you could come up for two minutes okay you know if you want to come up for a comment did you raise your hand with the four no then we'll add you as number five and you can come up I need to keep this moving we're trying to be very flexible we're trying to stick to our schedule so at this point I'm going to ask the clerk to keep a timer for two minutes and if she could raise her hand at the two minute period and we'll go through everyone and they'll get their two minutes and so I'll ask you to come up one at a time and you need to introduce yourself give your name and your address and to the minute takers and then you have two minutes so can I see the show of hands again one one two three and then there was one in the back I think that's four and then Ms. Dandlis so if the first person could come forward and you please introduce yourself I'm Melissa Stanley and I appreciate the fact that you've taken the time to hear me because while you're sending a memo to chcd about your concerns I'm here to represent someone who's chronically at risk of homelessness and as you can see I'm coherent I'm sober and I don't have any needle marks in my arm I'm completely upset at the bias of this community as a result I'm here tonight to set everyone straight the town is building a wall a classist wall and it's very difficult for us to overcome those of us who have disabilities those of us who are facing chronic homelessness and those who are already homeless are already faced with the lack of the first hierarchical need stabilized housing have you ever come up with more than two thousand dollars more than one or two or three times a year to get first month last month in a security deposit together have you ever been told by a rental agency that they won't rent to you because you're not a student or a professor in this country you can be displaced in other countries too by hurricanes and there's hurricane relief funds and everyone thinks that's really tragic but I'm here to say that myself and many other people in this room have come to represent us are chronically displaced by students higher income than minimum wage income landlords are currently pricing units above a minimum wage salary intentionally I've been told word for word out of rental agencies that I've been discriminated against multiple times I'm also here to represent domestic violence and survivors of domestic violence where we lose our minds as a result of the experiences that we've had and then we're judged for it so while you're making your memo to chcd I'd like you to be very very very very aware of what you're actually reporting and make sure it's the truth and make sure you're not building or reinforcing a classist wall that this town might actually live up to the progressiveness and the intelligence that it thinks it might have thank you number second thank you come on out yep so my name is Emily Hamilton I live here in Amherst moved here in 97 loved Amherst but I would not be here now if I wasn't living in Chestnut Court I had to leave for a period of time to a housing space that was affordable outside of Amherst and I waited five years to get the place that I have I was on the housing trust board for a period of time I chose to get off for various reasons but I followed Laura I followed the gone to the forums and followed this project for a long time and know a lot of different people who for one reason or another are homeless but I also met people who work at UMass who live in rooms because they can't afford an apartment one woman in particular came to a training session it was for the housing board we were we were it was a training session she'd heard she just saw the words affordable housing so she came and sat down next to me she worked at UMass she was from Jordan she she graduated here at UMass and she lives in a room I'm not sure where she is now I have her email I tried to keep in communication she cannot have her mother come visit her because of partly maybe customers but if she's sharing an apartment with whoever knows I don't know who she was sharing apartment with it wasn't appropriate for her to have her mother come she would love one of these studio apartments she can't afford anything you know other than this room so you know then her mother could come visit her so she's just one person but the fact that she came to this training session just to ask a question where is affordable housing in Amherst so there's so many it's not just for homeless people it's going to also be for other people who who need a break when I first came here I was working five part-time jobs I rented the third floor of an amity place condominium felt really blessed to have a little room and a half bathroom for so much money but I was in Amherst and I was I loved being in Amherst so I'm just saying it's it's hard for people here and if you want quality people working on campus you have to have some housing for them um thank you yeah um number three thank you madam for giving us a few minutes to talk two right my comments are prepared to hopefully it'll be just two so Jane don't I am a domestic vines victim I'm going to use 138th underline avenue and I'll get to some of that but my comments are related to the documents in the project eligibility drop-down tab on the website specifically 26 and 27 of the community letters so those are available in the letter 11 Amherst college professors and three members of staff oppose the project in the summer without input from the 1855 member Amherst college student body by far the largest group of stakeholders the project will affect there were 56 signatories in total to the letter a minority in a town of 38 000 citizens as someone in attendance at town meetings related to the project last June I found their alarmist tactics sophisticated justifications for opposing the project narratives of criminality mischaracterization stereotyping and stigmatization repugnant to the ideals Amherst college spouses the college's center for community engagement has involved Amherst college students with local nonprofits serving the unhoused and the athletic liaisons work with organizations and their teams to help the unhoused and food and secure Amherst athletics leads program engages directly with this population through its leadership program for student athletes in 2016 the Amherst survival center awarded me the president's lifetime achievement award the award an initiative of the corporation for national and community service honors individuals just that was signed by Barack Obama which is so cool sorry I just it was something I was so grateful for this thing um for their exemplary volunteer service over the course of a lifetime it's prestigious and it was awarded for volunteering at the Albers survival center over 4 000 hours so this was a period of 10 years I volunteered alongside Amherst students assisting the very types of individuals who would be prospective applicants and they're really nothing like the stereotypes that these four professors portrayed them to be there in this room they're actually really cool really cool so sorry I didn't think I was going to get this way just hurt the professors argued that development would eliminate public use of Pratt field because tenants would cause harm to users of Pratt field but it's not true Valley CDC has really excellent tenants screening criteria and it's combined with decades of experience and I would argue that these tenants would come to the aid of anyone in danger their fear-based rhetoric continued unabated this past summer with premonitions such as the as a row population has started to run afoul of many constituencies and alluding to harm to women and children was saying it's not unusual to see a female student running laps alone on the track there were alarmists pleased to protect vulnerable children from the private wood side children's center a child care center incidentally with a preference for Amherst college employees the college also offers subsidies for rentals and home purchases to these professors and staff benefits unavailable to the community at large for example the homes purchase prices are offered at 80% of appraised value the college provides down payment assistance and subsidies not available to the community at large 10% of the purchase price of these homes are given to these professors for capital home improvements $330,000 interest free loans and $75 monthly mortgage subsidies are provided to these professors none of which are available to the community at large and certainly not to this community these potential thank you okay I'm almost done beneath all of this we're self-centered concerns about a loss of space and Pratt field does not belong to these residents it belongs to the students in November the Amherst student newspaper broke the story and I brought copies for the board the DHCD and you to look at so that you can see what the students think thank you you Pam could you just take our copies for us thank you thank you we hear you thank you um number four I think there's someone in the back row do they want to come forward no no okay so uh miss miss d'angeles do you want to come forward okay well two minutes introduce yourself thank you my name is Andre and um I stayed at the shelter at greeks doors for a couple years I stayed there because I'm a christian so it's a church so for me it was more experience of um kind of like a missionary work for the people who stayed there and you know by god's grace I was able to actually make friends and get to know them closely and um I want to say that of course I'm in support of anything like this because like for example right now we have a few young people who actually um have jobs and you know they have jobs and they have to live in the shelter while they have jobs so it's very difficult for them because I mean sometimes they don't get enough sleep and of course if they had these opportunities like these apartments where you know they could just live and rest and all the supportive services they would be doing much better than just staying at the shelter um also like for example last year we had um a person who was staying there and he had medical condition you know he had seizures and when the shelter closed like you know people like me who have family and safety nets you know we can just rely on them I can go to a different town you know find another option but uh he didn't have anybody and you know he passed away because he had a seizure he had to stay outside on the street so you know if he had opportunity he had access to something like this that would be they would probably he would be still around with us so I would like you to you know um it's it's it's very easy to to miss the the the um you know the lives of all the individuals and like evaluating a project like that because you just don't really know them very well but you know there are people's lives on the line so you know when you evaluate this project that I hope you just take all this into account thank you so much god bless thank you sure come on up last one it's a very uh simple comment my name is tangus lifer um I would like to comment that the cedar dumpster uh because of the need of housing in amherst will soon become a thing of a relic for those who are unhoused thank you thank you okay thank you all um who came for this issue we're gonna move on now to our next agenda item which is item four this is another review and recommendations this one's for the zoning board of appeals um so at zba 2020-26 u drive south llc special permit application to allow an extension alteration change of a pre-existing non-conforming residential use to another residential use for a mixed use building including including 45 residential units including five affordable units by constructing a 1200 110 plus square foot building three stories a medical office and 44 on-site parking spaces and 20 off-site parking spaces if we could be um not have discussion in here please that appreciate it people are trying to listen um modification of the parking regulations under sections 10 dot 38 9.22 3.3 2 5 3.3 6 0.0 and 7.9 of the zoning bylaw located at 348 north hampton road map 13 d lot 19 and properties identified as university drive south map 13 d lots 56 and 57 and snel street map 13 d lot 55 professional and research park prp and neighborhood residential rn zoning districts so just to state for the record this is the first time this project has come to the planning board and it's not at this time for um a permit or a site plan review it's for us to hear this presentation and give recommendations that will go to the zoning board of appeals welcome mr reedy thanks for having me madam chair uh for the record tom reedy an attorney with bacon wilson here in amherst here on behalf of u drive south to give a presentation get feedback answer questions from the board uh with me this evening one of the managers of u drive south uh barry roberts and also um project architect or architectural firm john qan of qan riddle architects so probably one of the best ways to do this is to give you a sense of context of where we are um and so what i can do so right here where this hand is is where the site is and i'll as i scroll down you'll be able to see it a little bit more clearly so you have hawkins meadow to the west you've got the big y plaza shopping center here 70 university drive is here the hanger is over here amherst college fields are here the previous project that you were just talking about is right over here again a little bit more of the site and that site is outlined in red now with just topography and um a close up of the site so maybe a little bit of history of the this process as well so we started this back in 2018 the late late 2018 having discussions um with certain town departments about this site about potential uses it is zoned prp professional research park uh but there there is a pre-existing non-conforming single family home on it so residential uses are not allowed in this zoning district so what we are asking for from the zoning board of appeals and we've been there once we will be there again tomorrow night we are asking to alter or change that pre-existing non-conforming use from one residential use single family home to another which is a mixed use and as the chairwoman described it's it's a building that was originally four stories 72 units with i think it was 51 parking spaces but through discussions with the conservation commission with the zoning board of appeals and with neighbors we've dropped that down to what the actual proposal is here before you this evening and so what i can do is not to steal too much of john's thunder um but just to show you a little bit of what that building is proposed to look like and so i'll go to the site plan so here um you've got north hampton road which is route nine here you've got university drive south um currently it's two lanes it's kind of a hodgepodge as you get down towards this southerly end but you'll see that uh there's a proposal where we were asked by the town to come up with traffic calming measures and so to put on street parking in this area and then to make this a roundabout and then also add some parking some town parking back in this area and the idea was that with these parking spaces here it eliminates the double lane that you see now because maybe a little bit of history um university drive itself was supposed to be a limited access highway leading from the university down to south amherst but never got completed actually dead ended right there um university drive has a restriction on it that doesn't allow more than i think five curb cuts for 70 university drive we actually had to go in front of town meeting and get relief you know in the form of a release of an easement to allow that additional access point and so this boulevard was actually going to extend all the way up uh university drive and there is only going to be like i said a limited access highway so when that that ended here it is i think you have all seen it's kind of vestigial space at this point um is a little bit confusing for folks traveling um you know up snel street not necessarily down snel street but up snel street and so the idea was to regulate all of that in the form of this roundabout and then to add some i think there's 12 parking spaces here and then eight parking spaces here and so the proposal is for these to be constructed at the request of the town but at the expense of the applicant so it would be the applicant that is actually paying for all of this work let me get to the you know probably just zoom in on the site plan itself and so what you'll see are wetlands here we we went through uh and received an order of resource area delineation from the conservation commission last year that sets the wetland boundaries for a period of three years so that allowed us to actually do the design of the project our original proposal was a little bit more aggressive and frankly was based on the experience at 40 and 70 university drive where we were much closer to where that wetland boundary was but after discussions with the town the conservation agent um the request was and we acquiesced by pulling it out of the 25 foot no touch zone so that's you we have stayed and we respect the conservation bylaws and regulations with this design also through iterations of the plan the trash and recycling which were previously located out here have now been relocated inside the building that john can get to when when he talks about the floor plan we've got 44 on-site parking spaces including these parking spaces here here here here here and here you can see the truck turn diagram which we've used the largest amherst fire department vehicle to make sure that it does in fact circulate the site appropriately which it does um we are proposing i think it's 20 outdoor bike storage areas or bike racks and then 30 indoor um bike storage spaces and you'll see that later when when we show the floor plan this front piece as john will describe it is about 4,700 square feet of commercial space and so it's proposed to be a medical office most of it is going to be used by the ophthalmologists who would be using it as their primary office here they also have one in in northampton so i think is a in a snapshot that's the project the layout um and then if it's okay if you have questions on this i'm happy to answer it to talk about connectivity etc but i'm i can turn it over to to john chris i just wonder if mr reedy will um take that marker and go along the property line so you're clear as to what property belongs to this site and what property belongs to the town sure so if you follow this hand so this is the easterly property line i'll go back up and then this parcel is not part of the project but that is private property and so the townland is everything on this inside here and i'll just like i'm microsoft painting if you will so that's all townland and you'll see that this is a an unusually wide roadway it's i think it's a hundred feet wide because it was going to be that thoroughfare where typically you're talking about maybe a 50 foot wide right of way this is actually a hundred feet wide and so we've tried to come up with some traffic calming measures um just to still be sensitive to you know as you know there's going to be some dot improvements leading from this intersection all the way up to south pleasant street um we've had our i think the plans are in 75 completion right now we've had our traffic engineer talking with them so that we know exactly what's going on here granted they're only 75 percent so once they get to 100 we'll have an even better idea but we have been in those discussions and then so this becomes just that one lane going this way and then this widens into the two where you can make a you know a straighter right movement and then also the go west on route nine do you want to do your whole presentation and i'm happy to questions or can we break it up we can break it up whatever pleases the board does the board have questions i see janets hand can could you show me the 100 foot buffer zone and it looks to me like there's a building in it and i'm not sure how that i mean that just seems off that's normal so um it's in so there are wetlands and then there are buffer zones to the wetlands yes and it is assumed that any activity that within 100 feet is needs to at least be checked by the conservation commission so the conservation commission needs to look to see if the effect of that is alteration of the wetland and so that's really more of a jurisdictional mark and then there's a 75 foot um commercial no build zone a 50 foot residential no build zone a 30 foot no build zone and then a 25 foot no build zone unless it's between 25 and 30 feet you can have parking and driveways etc but you can't have buildings and so that's where you'll see here where where this mouse is that's the wetland line and then this is the 25 foot line and then on the other side of this is a retaining wall on the other side of that retaining wall is the 30 foot line this is the 50 foot no building line this is the 75 foot no building line and then this is the 100 foot buffer line it seems to me that you have a building in the 75 foot plus the 100 foot and i would recommend that that be changed okay um well thank you we are talking we're in front of the conservation commission through a notice of intent what i'll say is that for 70 university drive which is also a mixed-use building what we did was we kept the commercial aspect of that building outside of the 75 foot commercial buffer and the 50 foot uh residential portion of the building outside of the 50 foot residential buffer and we've done the same thing here we've kept that building totally the residential portion of the building outside of the 50 foot buffer and then as you know the commercial portion is way in this corner so we've kept that outside of the 75 foot buffer and so we've really tried to be sensitive to the wetlands the environment there is a pretty robust mitigation um enhancement package being proposed where so to get into the weeds a little bit there are wetlands here bordering vegetative wetlands there are wetlands here these are isolated vegetated wetlands and so these wetlands really were created and so i'll show you what they look like so that's that's what those wetlands look like currently they've got trash here they've got debris they've got structures within those wetlands it appears that those wetlands were were formed because of the runoff of snel street and so everything just kind of collected down in this area and so this is isolated it's not connected to any other wetland system this excuse me mr reedy in the back of the room can you if you're going to have hello in the back of the room hello if you want to chat go out and then come back it's just going on too long thank you sorry mr reedy no no problem back in your weeds thanks i'm happy to be there so uh we've got the bordering vegetated wetland here on the southerly side of the site and so there's no connectivity right now part of the proposal is to do some vegetation within here a pollinator habitat and really to make this a more sustainable environment and if you look there's over 700 plants on the property as a whole you've got screening with at planting 12 foot high i think it's black their black hills spruce which are an evergreen they're christmas tree shaped i've got photos if you'd like to see them but we've got all those proposed around this area um plus lower plant things plus some street trees along the street and so we've looked at pulling it out i think this is as far as pulling it out as i mean if you saw the previous version it was back here so i think respectfully we're trying to do is the best we can to make an economically viable project in a location that we think is appropriate for on route nine which is a commercial corridor while respecting the wetlands making them better and then also providing housing and and medical offices which we don't really have a lot of here in town so it's always development is always a balancing act and frankly we've done a lot of this with a lot of really good input by the town i mean the roundabout the parking wouldn't have happened if it wasn't for the town so you know i think this is a project that i mean i'm proud of i i would suspect barry's proud of as well chris i wonder if mr reedy would talk about how many affordable units will be included in this building sure so there are 45 total units the breakdown is 32 studios and 13 one bedrooms of all of those there will be five affordable units and so those are will qualify on the subsidized housing inventory and will be affordable and perpetuity three of those will be studios two of those will be one bedrooms and the breakdown really is i think a result of 70 university drive and barry's experience there what he's seen just from the market both the affordable market you know what folks where there's a waitlist and it's the studios and the ones what the affordable folks want the studios and the ones and then also just what market rate folks want and we're finding more of the studios in the one bedrooms as opposed to and i think i don't remember many projects that have three and four bedroom units coming forward and saying this is either what the market wants or what the town wants i think that what i've seen over time is that the town is you know i think of the emmer smell tell project for example in the town is shied away from four bedroom four bath units because they think it maybe looks and smells a little bit too much like a dormitory which they're trying to stay away from so i think you know this is geared towards and barry can tell you you know a mix of folks and i think that's why you know having the parking so 44 on-site parking spaces 45 units there are 20 off-site parking spaces that this building will have access to frankly i'm not sure how that shakes out yet the town rights of ways and parking are the purview of the town council so we've been talking with the town manager i think there have been some discussions with some of the counselors to gauge the interest and i think the town is interested in moving forward with these on-site parking spaces so we've also got you know this is and this is not news for you because every time i hear i hear i think i'm talking about parking we're trying to be flexible and adaptable for this parking where we've got those 30 indoor bike storage spaces we've got those 20 outdoor bike storage spaces we're all we're also looking to incentivize those folks who aren't going to have vehicles so through rent reductions and if you look at the proximity and maybe i'll zoom out to one of the aerials the proximity to the bike path so you've got the bike path right here and that's swift connector as you know if you go across university drive it can take you to the university i think with the complete streets proposal from dot you're going to have biking access up to the center of town you've got a bus stop here some bus stops down by i probably can't go that far you got the big y-plaza and i think there's one by green leaves down here as well and you get the b43 and i think b33 bus so it's it's geared towards a what i'll call a non-auto oriented development which is one of those pieces of the master plan and transportation plan when i say what does that mean and i think we're hitting on it respectfully we would suggest we're hitting on it here with this location and with what we've got with that rail trail with proximity to services you've got cvs you've got big y you've got restaurants you've got i'll call it pot alley just down the street university drive and so you've got really everything that you could potentially want i almost didn't laugh in this in this area back in the weeds i know but um so terrible terrible so does uh were you going to have i was going to have john talk about the architecture if that's okay and i don't know if you want to uh which one do you want to get the one you had up this one there okay the architecture of john qan qan rural architects the the architecture of this uh oh is this my con thank you the architecture of this project evolved as buildings often do out of the the configuration of the site um this is a very busy corner probably one of the busiest intersections in amherst so it seems like a very appropriate place for a mixed use building it's a the the lot shape as you saw from from the site plans that tom was showing while it's perpendicular at the corner there's a there's an angle on the west side and that's typical of all the lots that go down through most of hadley they're all at a very sharp angle so we had to respond to that we tom talked about the wetlands and certainly that was an issue that we had to deal with in locating citing the building there's a fairly substantial setback on that westerly site sideline because that's a residential project the jason hawkins meadow so i think it's 50 feet uh correct there um and and access to the site we decided not to come off route nine it was just too close to the intersection and the site was too narrow there so that's why the the entrance to the site is on the south's south end of south university drive so inciting the building what you see here uh the the lower plan is the first floor plan and the the plan on top is typical of the second and third floor we felt though though a mixed use building seemed appropriate here and uh was required here in fact it didn't feel like the southerly part of the first floor would be very appropriate commercial space so we decided to keep the the commercial space toward the front where it'd be very visible and uh the angle of that is corresponding with the setback line from the from the property line and we we felt like pulling the the first floor of the commercial space out from under the three-story block would would would create some interest for the building and doing so um we determined that this space right here would be a good entrance for the the housing which is kind of in the middle of the space and the parking is over here yet the main corner is over here so we created a little bit of an arcade here that you'll see in some of the renderings that brings you to the entrance to the housing as well as the entrance to the housing on the west side and then the the entrance for the commercial space is out at this kind of point entry and as Tom mentioned this is going to be an ophthalmologist's office they're leasing the entire space in fact in hope that this space here is a space they may expand into someday but they'll sublease that in the meantime so that meant we had the rest of this this first floor for our units we have a bike storage area here we have a mechanical space here and as Tom mentioned trash enclosure here everything else is studios in one bedrooms architecturally as you'll see on the elevations we we sort of jogged the units in and out to create some interest and we set back the entrance here to kind of create a front area for the three-story building and then a back area here so if we go to the elevations here this is a wood sided building three stories were within the the the height limit of 35 feet you see that the base is kind of a red color and then the there'll be two colors is all clabbered the the bays are the lighter color and then the main body of the building is it's kind of a darker gray color and that red first floor area kind of wraps up here where those indentations for the entries are and then that creates a wall here that's set back and that hides the fact that there are 35 units for heating and cooling the buildings that will be hidden up there this is a rendering of the corner actually we have another we have some more foreign after that no way so there's a series of i think five slides here this is the this is looking east on route nine existing conditions and this is the building as it will sit on the corner at the light this is looking west down route nine this is the building on the left this is from Baker Street which is off Snell Street a little bit to the east and that's the three stories rear section of the building that will be seen there near the roundabout this is an aerial looking to the southwest and see the existing house there and this is the building sitting there and then this is looking from the southeast you see the building there and i think that's and then this is the rendering at street level so i think that's just a quick overview of the architecture great thank you um are there any questions from the board at this time michael yeah i'm i'm confused about the difference between the several parking areas could we go look at the slide which shows the uh now the the area i maybe i misheard you when you were describing where the property line was on the south end there uh am i correct in saying that many of those parking spaces i don't know how many are are outside the property line correct 12 of them who owns those who owns that space it's within the town of amherst right of way okay so that's not right that that and i don't know if i've got a now can you uh describe the parking spaces in terms of the number of spaces that are in each of the three areas the area around the circle the area in the front and the area behind the building sure um and can i just mention to people that if they go to page well it's page five but it says page one in the packet there was a kind of a helpful breakdown that maybe is mr reedy goes through it you can it's uh the parking management it says and that that might be an older one if that has a breakdown of 39 spaces and something like that it says 30 36 full time nine part time yeah so that that's um that was a an original one that we had sent to the zoning board of appeals before we had had some discussions with the town manager and assistant town manager about what is this actually going to be here are we going to be able frankly we're going to be able to lease it lease it is there going to be a license for it how is it going to how are we going to have access to it and so it seems like there may be an interest by the town to meter it so that there wouldn't be exclusive use for this project of all of those spaces and so i think what i'm what i'm trying to say is that we can be flexible and adaptable based upon how we regulate this property um to what the parking situation actually turns out to be after we talk with town council and so it could be that these are metered at for one hour and so useful for the medical and commercial spaces and it could be that these from 6 p.m. to 8 a.m. there's a permit for overnight and so i think you know with that in mind if it turns out that those are going to be metered 24 hours a day seven days a week which i i don't think that would happen can't really anticipate we could control the site especially given everything that we've seen based upon actual parking needs and we could restrict and incentivize those folks to make sure that we do have the adequate parking and i think what we would do because there's 44 spaces on site 45 spaces what we would have to do is just restrict restrict some folks to off hours parking so like complimentary parking similar to what north square has where residents can only park from 5 p.m. to 8 a.m. and then they've got to be out of that space because the commercial use is going to take up the balance of that space let me just clarify a couple things if i it says total is there still 56 spots because it says 44 on site right and 12 so there are 44 spaces on site okay and then there are 12 in this area and then there are eight so that's what for a total of 64 64 so that part is still correct and four are of yours on the property are a da so there are three on the property that are a da so we changed that's the ray and how many commercial spaces so we need 16 commercial spaces and you still have 16 correct from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m and there's 45 bed or units correct okay that's a starting point do you want to ask your question again yeah and that still does not include any of those around the traffic circle so these from if you see my mouse from here over are counted in the 44 oh the ones on your property are added in the 44 44 on site parking spaces so then the 12 here and the eight here are those town spaces which because of proximity the site will have access to and then hopefully because it's being created by the developer there there will be some opportunity to have a permit from like I suggested 6 p.m. the 8 a.m. for overnight parking if necessary that's if necessary and even the metering may not be needed right away because who would be parking there well the fear is that the fear is that you mass students because of this proximity to the rail trail and the bus stops they would park there and then just buy hoof to write or take the bus or bike to campus and then that car is there for a for a day or a couple of days or whatever it turns out to be anecdotally we've heard that most there's a lot of students that park in the big wide cvs parking lots and just will continue to move their cars around in there so the DPW superintendent doesn't think necessarily there will be students here but I'd suspect that if the word gets out and it's unmetered students will end up parking but they could meter the 12 and the 8 and that would take care of and I think it would take care of everything because then there's sufficient parking for the office space because nothing's going to be more than an hour and then if off hours they are by permit I think that makes a lot of sense as well so just to clarify you have 45 beds or units yes and you have 44 we ignore for the moment the public you have 44 spots correct on site and three of those are ADA correct okay are there any other questions Maria and then Doug you know yes in the waiting room is a lot of glass. Oh, I know you don't continue there for a few minutes. You know, if there's an interpretation of building, that's a lot of unnecessary luggage. And then the first floor of the studio is one bedroom. There's about four of the systems. Even though that basically our kitchen is a parking structure, the way to make the windows have some sort of breakup, so that basically they're going to have a lot of stuff behind the time. But maybe there's a higher area that's the front of the line. So they do have natural light. So they wouldn't want to have stuff for natural light. You know, those units are going to have covering windows in, because they're facing parking. On the first one, it's not that many, it's like eight people. But otherwise, as far as I'm asking you, the variation of colors that you know, similar to the university is going to sort of break up along the side. I do like that where it begins to go higher because, for example, it's red color. And I'm wondering if it can be used as a variation of colors. I don't want to make it confused with things, but do you continue that same red, what it's not, that sort of thing, or maybe the red on the first one? Again, I'll just put that in. Yeah, no. But I'll put a strong statement with that invert, that the stuff on the first one should maybe be different. I know those are all good suggestions. Thanks. So I also really appreciated that rendering on route nine, because when I looked at the elevations, I thought particularly the end elevations, the north and the south elevations, the proportions looked really squat. And I was intrigued to hear that somewhere in the history of this project, it started with more units and more levels. Because I was prepared to say, could we put another floor on it? But it sounds like that conversation has been had. So I'll show you what. So there's your. Yeah, I mean, the town needs housing. And if you thought you could sell those or rent them, and there are a lot of people who would, anyway, that would be a comment from me. And I don't know whether it would go very far. The second thing that I was a little bit concerned about was the south elevation, or rather the north elevation right on route nine. It seemed like having the retail or the commercial essentially not addressed the street felt like a missed, to use the phrase missed opportunity. I get the logic of dividing the residential and the commercial on the first floor with the lobby that you've got. So that's a general comment about the facade facing route nine. I also wasn't completely convinced that the integrity of the massing was enhanced by pulling that a little bit out the first floor. I almost felt like we'd be better off with a sheer elevation at route nine and something that was at a larger scale addressed the road, hopefully with either an entry or a way to find your way to the entry, a sidewalk. That's a different building. But that was kind of my reaction. If I may respond. So we did pull it out a little bit, as you can see here. And part of the reason there was I think it softened that facade a little bit in that corner and also allowed that as it turns there and goes under that arcade, it kind of knitted the first floor and the upper floors together. Because they're ophthalmologists, we may have more windows in there than they want because they really want some dark spaces. And the space around the angle that Maria was mentioning, that is really their entry and their waiting room. So they want that to be nice and glassy and open. But some of the other areas, we were trying to balance enough glass that made it interesting. But since the entry is back at the parking lot, and I don't think anybody's going to be walking in from the street side of route nine, it really felt like we should orient the entry back towards the parking and try to call attention to it by the angle and the overhang where the entry is. Do we never expect anybody to walk in from route nine? Well, they can't walk in often. Is route nine headed toward being more pedestrian? And you can walk in, and Tom can use. I guess a couple of places. So you've got that new sidewalk here right in front, and there's going to be pedestrian bollards along that sidewalk. Then there's, if they choose, they can go around this way or they can go under the arcade. And then into this space, which through comments from the building commissioner, actually, this was flipped. And so this was going to be a residential really access only portion. And so what happened was with the addition of the parking along University Drive South, this then gives access to this space should somebody be parking on the street and coming in or walking from the center of town and want to take this way instead of in front of the building. And so we tried to make it as connected as possible. So then at the evening time during the day, this will be open, this will be the secured entry for the residential space. You see the elevator here, you see the stairwell here. And at nighttime, this will lock and that will lock to prohibit so that only residential folks can access that space. So again, through the iterations, I think we've hopefully got it right to give that access, especially if folks will be parking there. Because if I go back to maybe even this one that's being hidden, you'll see that we're adding a sidewalk along these new parking spaces as well for that connectivity here. And then that extends if I come out all the way down to here. So if you follow that mouse, that's all the new sidewalk then so access there or access around the building there. Is that five foot wide? I don't know. I don't. I hope it is. I can't tell you whether it is or not. It is. Oh, okay. Look at that. Michael? It seems to me that whether you're coming at the building by car or on public transport of some way, signage is the real issue here. How you tell somebody where to park because the entrances from Northampton Roadside seem somewhat disguised. So I don't know what you wanna do about that in terms of at this point. Yeah, I think that's a great point. But we've contemplated a couple of, so we've got a sign on the building right here. We've got a proposed sign right where my mouse is. We're looking, we have a sign proposed for this area. We're looking to do a lot of, call it low scale pedestrian lighting as well. So a couple, a light here, a light here. We met with one of the neighbors on Baker Street and so we're gonna do eight foot high lights here. We had originally proposed 14, dropped them down to 10, met with him yesterday and he said, could you do eight? So you're gonna have eight foot high lights here and then you're gonna have all of the screening. So I think the parking is, parking in or signage for parking and entrance is important. I think it's something we just have to fine tune, but it's a really good suggestion. David. I know that you've been in discussion with lots of folks at the town about and have had a couple of iterations, but I remain concerned about that elbow at Snell Street and University Drive where there appear to be two different entrances to the parking. That's a, I mean someone earlier said that this is, the Route 9 University Drive is a very busy intersection and that goes into this odd turn at Snell Street. And I'm just concerned about safety, about vehicular and pedestrian safety there. I don't know exactly where the, there are across the street, there are two driveways into the Veterinarian Hospital. It's, there are odd sight lines. The roundabout again, it sounds like it was suggested by Townsville at, but it seems confusing to me because if people wanna come out from the parking lot and take a left onto University Drive, it just seems, it seems dangerous today. You'll, you'll, and so I'm just, I'm voicing that because it's, there doesn't seem to be, I'm not quite sure if there would be needed a crosswalk there, but that would provide access to the bike path from that, the south end of the parking lot. I don't, again, I don't know. I'm just thinking about the safety in that elbow. Yeah. And. I think you could make an argument that the small roundabout would actually make it safer because it will, in a way, it's a traffic comic measure. As you can see from this, this aerial photograph, right now that, that curve is, I think people use it as a, as a shortcut a lot to go down to 116. So there's a lot of traffic that just flows there very quickly. And I think that they will now have to kind of slow down and go around and as, as I think we found the Triangle Street Rotary, it's, people get used to easing into the traffic and it, it works pretty well. I agree. The circle could be a comic measure, but there are also two different, you know, entry and exit points for the parking right there too, on which. And just so I'm clear, you're talking about here and then you're talking about here. Yes. And as I, as I read it, they're both of those are bi-directional. No, yeah, this is a roundabout. I just want to remind everyone that there's appropriate signage. If this becomes a roundabout, then there's the arrows that point you everywhere. There's an inlet, there's an arrow showing that you have to go right, only right. So it's only, this traffic would only be going counterclockwise around that space. If so then, if a car is coming down Snell Street, whatever direction that is, how are they, how are they going to access the parking lot? You would go around the roundabout, just like if it was a road, it doesn't matter if it's a parking lot or if it's another road. Again, again, I'm, I'm, I'm going. Sounds to me like danger go around. Well, yeah, yeah. So I have to say, I get really excited about roundabouts. I've been involved in like all of them that have been in town. So just, it is a traffic calming measure and signage is key. And it doesn't, the first few weeks that it's open, yes. People are creatures of habit and they're, but hopefully they wake up and go, whoa, something's different. Plus there'll be construction for a long time. But David, you were bringing up like if you're coming on Snell and I think the, one of the bike paths is further down, but so if you just show, yeah, so this one way up, yeah, and then the other entrance is right down there. But if you could go to the figure that shows the road layout and it is kind of vague on the east side. Yeah, so you, let's say you're coming down Snell and you're gonna take a bare right and head down towards the lights. So I can see how that part's really vague. And I understand that the applicant is the one who is doing this work. But I just was wondering if there was an opportunity to put some more parking on that side. Six spots could fit there. And it just made me think, oh, that is a place that people could park and get on, like on the weekends or whatever, you know, park and then get on the bike trail really easily. And I understand that's vague and you probably didn't want to touch that side, but I do know that you are gonna be touching a lot of it. Yeah, I mean. You're building that round about there's gonna be curb cuts. So anecdotally, I think, and I don't think it's a bad suggestion and there is gonna be construction. So what the hex is six more spaces at that point, but you know, from what we've heard there, there are a lot of folks that utilize this as an access to route nine going west. And so if all the powers that be say, do this, then it'll likely be done. But I don't know that this, I guess we'll talk to the town engineer and some other folks. And it could be in your discussions, maybe the town gets involved with part of it. I'm just saying, I can tell by the plan that just gets sort of vague there. Like, yeah, okay, we do the roundabout. And then who knows. Well, I think it was, Frank, I mean, a little bit more measured than that because. Well, it stopped. Yeah, I think it does get more vague, but I think it opens up so that there's, you know, right turn straight across. And then also there's that release lane for that left turn here. So you have to have an appropriate setback, right? And you can see it on the, that's why the parking starts where it does on the west side. But I'm just saying if you could just, you know, we're early in the plan. We'll have that conversation. And the more parking, the better, right? I mean, it's space that's just sitting there. And they already have to come and plow for the other spot, so. Okay. Thank you. I think I saw Jack and then Janet, and then back to Michael. I just wanted to say something because I'm on the board. John, I thought you were really tired. No? I'm trying. You're like a bad penny, but all right. Beautiful. I think it's a very attractive development. And I like the access from you drive. You know, it's very elegant. And I do feel that that rotary is be very calming. And I'm sure it could be, you to design to even calm it further. I drive there all the time and it's just gonna beautify that corner, which is usually just, it's got a sand pile there or something. It's just not. Yes. But, you know, like I'm very impressed by the overall design and concept. Thanks. Is it Michael? Okay. I'm concerned about the lack of two and three bedroom units. And so the Amherst master plan and the housing studies, which are part of the master plan, all call for more non-student housing and family housing with more bedrooms. And so it'd be great to see buildings that had more bedrooms. And also like if somebody's a tenant and they have a kid, then they can maybe move to a different apartment in the unit. And I keep on stressing that people rent apartments, they're not all students for four years that they live there and they can live there for a long time. So that leads to my first question, which is who are the tenants expected to be? Are you gonna rent to students, non-students and what would the rents be? So I think all of the above, I think Barry's other project is a good mix of folks from Amherst College, meaning professors, coaches, folks that are professionals in the area. There are some undergraduates as well. And so I think, I mean, he's done a really good job of just having a mix of people. If you find the right tenants, it can't be discriminatory, but if you find the right tenants, then it typically makes your life a lot easier as far as operating and managing the space. I mean, I think as far as rents go, the affordable rents are obviously set by 30% of 80% of the area median income. And then otherwise it's how much this is all gonna cost and what the market will bear. So I don't know that I can say it's going to be $1,100 or $1,400 or $900. I think there's a balance here in Amherst and it's typically on a scale of the lower your rents, the higher occupancy rates. And what I think folks are seeing is that you're able to increase your rents and still reach those occupancy rates. And it's just one of the realities of what's happening here in the market. I don't know. I mean, understanding what the master plan says about two and three bedrooms, part of the concern may be, is there a way to get folks two and three bedroom houses? Because a lot of the times the houses are being rented by students. And you get one of these projects where it may actually bring folks out of those houses to return the houses and to return the neighborhoods to the families, which it might be a better way. Not knowing that not everybody can afford it, I think that there can be some creative discussions about ways that the town can help, whether there's a housing trust fund that is able to subsidize for folks that want housing. So you're not sure what they're gonna be, but they're gonna be on the higher? I think they would reflect the market rate. So the housing production plan and housing market study do not see the phenomenon of students pushing out families. And so, but there is a call in for more family housing and non-student housing to make sure there's space for that, including apartments. And I recently had a conversation with a bunch of retired women who had moved back to Amherst and they were all interested in like two or three bedrooms for their families and their extended families. So I just wanna put a plug in for that. So this housing is, we're seeing a lot of it, but it seems like it's not filling a need or a goal of the master plan. And it sounds like the rents will be high, but you're not sure what. I have to go back to parking and just say, I think you need more parking. And so you're looking for a waiver. There's some kind of allusion to data in your application. There's no parking for guests. And then most of you, a lot of your parking is public parking. And so I just don't see why you would comply with a waiver, but I don't have to decide that. I would recommend to the ZBA that they, if they're gonna do a parking management plan that they do one that collects data and that you have to go back to the ZBA if you're not reducing parking or the need is greater than when you provide it. But I just think the phenomenon of small one and two bedrooms or one studios and one bedrooms with inadequate parking, it seems to be a trend that I just can't support. I don't see it in the master plan. I don't see it in our zoning bylaw. And I've also sort of written a four page piece for the ZBA, but I hope we can pass it out. I just don't see it. I don't see the data. All the data I see shows that people don't bike, people don't take the bus, bus uses down. We have students who are now driving into Amherst to park. Students drive. Most people in Amherst use a car to get around. You're gonna have couples in there. You might have two couples that need two cars and they might have guests or maybe four guests coming over and there's just no space on that site. So I just wanted to make that statement. And then I do really think you need to pull. The idea of a wetland buffer zone is not to put a building in it. And obviously that will have impacts. And you're at 75 feet in 100. And I don't care if it's isolated, it has wildlife and value as plants. And so we need to protect that. So those are my statements. All right, back to the project. I think Michael had a question next. I pass. I just wanted to say I was excited to see the 12% the affordable units. And I was wondering, it's to be commended because it's not required and it's being done. So how is it, how does that happen? So it is required. Oh it is, that's right. Because we're requiring a special permit. We'll take the commendation, but we'll also say. Because you haven't, so how, and is 12% the minimum then that had to? Correct. So 12% was the number that we needed to provide. And how do you, how will that be managed? It's the same as like university. Yeah, same as 70 University Drive. I mean, we're going there through the Amherst Housing Authority. They're the ones operating it. I know that Amherst Motel, so Aspen is, I think they're using an outfit out of the Eastern part of the state because they've got a few more units. SEB might be the name of it. But I think, I mean. It's still good. Even if you had to be made to do it. Which is probably a discussion for another day about just the zoning by-law generally and some of the things because I think, you know, incentivizing developers is at the end of the day, and I think I said it last time when I was here for 462 Main Street, just the costs associated with actually providing affordable housing. And it's not just constructing it the same as you construct market rate units and you as a developer getting less rent and taking the risk. That way, it's also the management of it, the oversight of it. We've recently just had a tenant at 70 leave. She's lost a job, so she's left. So now it's gonna be vacant for a time where there's no income. And that can happen to anybody, but it's one of those things where there's additional management and oversight of the units that come in at a cost without any direct benefit to the developer except practically getting a project approved. I mean, that's the quid pro quo at this point. And so just as you're thinking about the zoning by-law, there may be some creative ways, like you look at your cluster development and I think you've got some incentives in there to induce developers to have affordable clusters and that's a good thing because then it's spread out more evenly. And one of the other things for the town to think about is, is there a tax that goes to everybody if it is a virtue of the town so that it's not just the developers paying for these affordable units? Right. Obviously another comment for another day, but good, good. I'm just gonna do my follow-up and just following up on something that Doug had asked about if, because the architect's here, if the, well, how tall was the building with the fourth floor? 45. I think it was like 47 from average grade. And so we needed a footnote A modification for the number of stories and a footnote A modification for the height of it. Okay. Chris and then Jen. I just wanted to note that a higher building is gonna require more parking and therefore it's gonna mess up that balance. Well, and I also just thought of the opposite. If you add another story, you could shrink the footprint of the building and have more room for parking, but just it goes either way, but Janet. Speaking of taxes, apply for a tax break from the town manager for the affordable units and negotiate that with him. That's in the bylaw, not the zoning bylaw. So we put that in for a reason. I think that's a good idea. We might be talking about different taxes. I think we're talking about maybe spreading it out over all of the residents of Amherst and taking one cent on every thousand and attributing it to some affordable housing trust fund or something like that to, and whether it's a certain subsidy, because if we're talking about home ownership and otherwise, and I know there's a flyer out here for first time home buyers or do you need some help renovating your home? I think there can be some creative solutions. Again, maybe not the forum for it, but there could be some creative solutions. If it is that value, which I keep hearing, it is the value of the town to have affordable housing, maybe it is spread out a little bit more. Does anyone else have Jack? I just wanted to counter the parking issue. Just the propensity of data that I have seen, it's just the opposite of what has been said before I have not read your memo, Janet, but that's just, our bylaw was written, I think what, 40 or 50 years ago and it's a little bit antiquated with how people are living these days. And again, my eyes tell me something very different than what the standard says in the bylaw in terms of two spaces per dwelling or whatever, but I just needed to say something. If I could just make a general comment about, I know your zoning subcommittee will probably be looking at the parking requirement and you really should, that does not make sense to have two parking spaces per unit not quantifying whether it's a studio or a four bedroom. It should probably be based on bedrooms as opposed to units. Michael and then Mr. Roberts. You do have to come up if you, yeah. Would I really come up? I'll tell him to hold off, but he can sit. Mr. Roberts, if you can just sit and wait and I have, Michael's gonna ask a question. No, I wasn't gonna ask a question. I wanna seem like after what Jack just said, it's my cue. I've been advocating for an immediate, if not sooner, revision of the parking bylaw because in my three and a half years on this board, we have granted a parking waiver for almost every project that has come before us and while they may or may not be appropriate waivers, they are clearly all assuming that two parking spaces per unit is an incorrect number and it may well be, in fact, it probably is that that is an incorrect number. But rather than continuing to grant waiver after waiver after waiver, we must change the bylaw so that the bylaw makes sense for the developer and makes sense for the town. And I understand that the perceived wisdom is that the town council does not want to consider any zoning bylaw changes until the master plan has its update light and that is all well and good. But I think this board must take the initiative to create a recommend a new bylaw concerning the parking to the town council. If they choose not to act on it, okay, but we must act. Thank you, Michael. I don't think, I think the town council will be taking zoning bylaw before we finish with the, and my understanding is they're trying to get a process set because there's a lot of boxes that need to be checked as it goes through that new process because we've never done it before. It used to go to town meeting and now it will have to go to town council but through loops through CRC and the GOL and my understanding is they're actively working on that right now. So hopefully we'll see something next month. If we wait for the town council and all of those subgroups of the town council to act, we'll be waiting for a long time. I think and I'd say it again, we must act and then they can do with it with what we act on, they can do what they will and send it to whatever committee they want but we've got to do it because if we don't do it, it'll never get done. So I'll tell you some good news. So the zoning subcommittee does have it as one of their issues to work on and Jack and I are actually starting to work on initiative to collect data to help because one size doesn't fit all. That's the problem we realize. This is an old bylaw. It is really, I mean, it was probably in a time when almost all apartments being built were two bedroom in general and that they just, so it depends on how many bedrooms and it depends on where the building is. If it's on public transit or if it's near a village or downtown, which obviously downtown, we don't even require parking or whether it's in a more rural area of town where people would be driving and would need their cars and that has to be considered. So unfortunately, if it was really easy to do it really quick, but I do think we can get it done in the near future and it is being worked on right now. And when we've collected some more data and we start working on it, the zoning subcommittee, I will let you know, Michael, and please come. That's Mr. Roberts. Now Mr. Roberts. Thank you. My name is Barry Roberts. I'm the manager of UDRIVE South LLC. I'm also the manager of UDRIVE 70 University Drive and granted, we're only six months in and operating 70 University Drive, but the parking lot there is half full all of the time. The bike rack is full 100% of the time. It's very good. That's why we decided to put indoor, one of the maybe mistakes we made at and we're working on making a cellar accessible at 70 University Drive for the bikes. That's why we decided to add indoor bike storage here at this project, but I will say that people are using either walking, biking, or using the mass transit from 70 University Drive. Great. Thank you. Thank you. David. I agree with you, Michael, and it's gonna be worked on. I think the thing that we're, the parking waiver, which is the ZBA's deal, they'll deal with it, but this is a non-conforming residential use in a professional research and office park zone, which we have, the town of Amherst has very few, which that's another, that's, I think, the more, that's a pressing issue that this project kind of doesn't address, but that we, as planners, or the planners in the room, at least, should be thinking about is how that's, I think, that zoning district is desirable for this town if we could take advantage of it, but we don't seem to have many zones for it. And so that's another thing to put in the hopper, Michael, for the zoning review. I think I had Jana and then you, Marie. So on page four of my thing, the transportation plan calls for parking studies that aren't downtown to look at the different use in different parts of town, and I think that would be the predicate to zoning change. So the plan says collect data and then change, and so I think that we seem to be on our way doing that with your data collection. I also was just looking at the criteria for a special permit, and there's no, there's a requirement of recreational space on the site, and there really isn't any that I can see, and I'd love to hear there is some, and I'd love not to hear that the bike path is next door, because I would live right by the bike path, and it's not 2365 year recreational space, and it's not on your site. Yeah, I mean, there's, we'd love to have recreational space back here. There is a little area in between the wetlands, but it's one of those balances that you have to strike between having a large area that could induce open congregation that the police department doesn't like, and so we've decided to maintain that as wetlands, and we're gonna put a few, I don't think a grill will go here, but a few picnic tables will go up in this area, and then unfortunately my next census is probably not gonna please you very much, but we're also in very close proximity to that bike path. I was gonna just comment on your thing, David, about that we don't have a lot of PRP, but currently like the Amherst Motel project is in PRP, and I think housing is something we really need, and I think this intersection is also very much suited for commercial and housing, and could set a good precedent for more mixed use, and I'd love to see ginger carton go away, but I wouldn't be able to sleep tonight if I didn't say this, John, but if you could just, okay, so the north elevation, okay, I get when you come down Route 9, you see the three block building, and it's like the gateway, but the north elevation, I think you touched on this, Doug, it's three windows and a sign, and it just feels like you should address the street in a more urban, strong way, and really- We will work on that. Okay, and really capture that corner. Okay, thank you so much, because that's such an important intersection. It's gonna set the tone for the rest of that growth, hopefully, and improve that intersection. I agree with you. Okay, super. And I guess maybe as a response to the PRP piece, for what it's worth, the medical offices are in allowed use in the PRP zoning district, and so that was part of the idea of this was to make sure at least the commercial space was a PRP use. I think it's probably pretty telling that this land has sat as it has sat for as long as it's sat without PRP use actually going there, there's a couple in North Amherst that have the same thing, and so I think with the university, a stone's throw, and with the programs that are offered at the university, the potential for research development, entrepreneurial spirit, there could be some pretty good research parks, but they have to be on viable pieces of land that you could actually put, and I don't know that this is, this right here, Hawkins Meadow, is zoned aren't. And so taking a look, as you're looking at the zoning, maybe looking at the zoning map for some more consistency and fluidity amongst it. We'll add that to our to-do list, thank you. And if I could add to that, to pile on, I think the PRP zone is a problematic zone, and it should really be looked at because I think the creators of it envisioned people in lab coats sitting there because it does not allow for businesses that have visitors, and no, it was meant for research. It's not meant for offices that allow people to come visit them, so I think you could change some of the wording in that pile on that would help up the PRP zone. But the automatrists, probably will be wearing those white coats, so, you know. Best of both worlds. I do, I think Chris and then. So I just wanted to point out that this particular PRP zone is already heavily developed for housing. It has the Greenleaves housing development and the Greenleaves cottages, and it has the Espen Heights building, which is currently being built. So it's not an anomaly in this particular PRP zone to have housing. Good point. Doug. I don't know if this is a question for you guys or the zoning experts in the room. Is it really important? Sorry. Is it really important that this is identified as a medical office? Does it, can it simply be commercial space that eventually, if you had the demand of tenant, it could be retail space? I mean, from my point of view, this is a mixed use building with commercial retail close to the street, which is a good thing, you know. But to me, it's sort of a relevant that right now you have an optometrist who could go belly up or retire and over the life of the building, it'll be something else. So I'm simply, part of what I'm hoping is that whatever orders or conditions or whatever the legal process is that we have to get to your building permit, we don't just say, this has to be a medical office building or space. Let's just call it, keep it as broad as we could. Yeah. Chris, how will that be handled? That's a question for Mr. Mora, building commissioner, but I can certainly ask him that. And I'm sure that Mr. Reedy will be interested in that answer as well. And at some point in the future, if you do look to rezone certain areas and this gets rezoned to a different area, that allows more commercial, maybe mixed use with varying commercial spaces, you know, that's one of the ways where we're not locked in necessarily because we have to go by the use, the table of use is here in the by-law to say what's allowed and what's not allowed. But you're already non-conforming and. I'm with you. I'm with you. If you're gonna. Go wild. Any other questions from the board? And Chris, do you, I'm sure you have a very lengthy list. Do we need to summarize or? It would help me if you would summarize. Yep, I have a lot of notes here, but you know, pull out the big ideas and tell me what you think. Whether you generally support this project is one thing. And then, you know, your particular detailed comments would be helpful. Well, would it be helpful to, does anyone want to take a vote on supporting this project at this time? Not committing to anything, but just that the good works will continue and the designing. So moved. We'll say you made the motion. How about that? For a motion to express support for the project. Yes, second second. Okay. Is there any discussion or comments? I'm not sure what we're doing because I've never been in this situation where we're just advising the ZBA because I'm still very unhappy with the building in the buffer zones. I think it's obvious. The essence of a buffer zone is not to put buildings in it. And so we all, and if you're an environmentalist, you know that buffer zones don't work well. And so even a hundred feet isn't really much protection for a wetland. So we have a building in 75 feet and 100 feet. And so it's hard for me to support the project as it's configured, but I didn't want to vote against it. So you will have to make your own personal call, but what we're looking at right now, I'm sure everybody has pros when they look at this and they have some negatives or concerns or worries. And we have to sort of wait to see how design gets finalized. Will we see this again? We're not, we're just, right now we're, no, I don't think so. The way it's designed. So we're just giving the ZBA our feelings of whether we support their efforts to work on this building or we're not in support of this building. So it's not binding. We're just giving our opinion to the ZBA as a board. Chris, yeah. I also wanted to note that this is going before the conservation commission and they will look very carefully at the impacts on the buffer zones. So. Right, that's their jurisdiction. That's what they do. Jack, did you have a comment on that? Yeah, it reminded me about how you said that the wetland, it was an isolated wetland with the thinking that it was created by a runoff from U Drive, Snow Street in that area. With regard to the stormwater design, is there an effort to make sure that some water is being pumped in there? Yeah. So preserve existing conditions. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, we believe we're complying with all messages at stormwater standards. We've got subsurface infiltration systems here with an overflow into this area right here. So we have a motion right now. If there's any other comments, if not, we can take a vote and then we can also help Chris summarize just the general comments that were being accompanied with this recommendation. Any other, I see no hands. So at this time, we'll vote on the motion that's on the table. All in favor? Six. I see six. No. And abstain. And one abstain. Thank you. So that is that. So help Chris and I if we're missing anything. You know, there's architectural suggestions. There's wetlands. There's road design. There's parking layout. Recreational area or issue, am I missing? I think landscaping was good. Management of the parking that is on town property, how it will be managed. Right, right. A little more detail to, if it's gonna be metered or permitted or snow plowing and maintenance. Yeah. You said architectural suggestions, wetland issues, roadway design, recreation area. There was something in there that I missed. Parking. Parking. Parking design. And then management of parking on town property. And what else? I would say more parking and parking for guests and more for tenants. And then a parking management plan that collects data and can be adjusted if it's inadequate. Because we can always do shared parking and other alternatives. And I'll just add, and if parking could be looked at on the east side. Am I, any other issues that we would want them? Or pros? I won't have an opportunity to really send this around for your review. We need to get comments to the ZBA for tomorrow night. So you're comfortable with this list. I'll probably flesh it out based on Ms. McGallan's memo and the comments that you've all made. Okay. Good. Thank you. Thank you for coming. Great, thanks a lot. Thank you very much. Good luck. Thank you. So we move to item five. This is another review and discussion. SPR 2019-07 and SPP 2019-04, Amir Michi, South East Street Court Housing, 133 and 143 South East Street. Review of proposed changes to a previously approved project to determine if the board will entertain the changes that were required to bring the project into compliance with the Conservation Commission's Order of Conditions issued in October, 2018. And to consider whether a new site plan review application for these changes should be submitted for a three story mixed use building with 57 apartment units, 1200 square feet of retail space and associated site improvements and work in the town right of way. B-VC zoning district map 15C parcels three and four. Yes, Chris. I just wanted to say something about why we're here. The Conservation Commission reviewed this project back in 2018 because the applicant was about to have an expiration on his wetland delineation. Wetland delineation is good for three years and he was reaching the end of that time period. So the applicant did the best he could with site plan and presented that to the Conservation Commission and a site plan was approved. Then he came to the planning board and the planning board asked for changes with regard to potentially adding more parking spaces, which he did. He added parking spaces in the southwest corner around that driveway that comes out of the site and he added more recreation space at the northwest corner of the building in response to concerns of the planning board that there wasn't enough recreational space on the site. So then we suggested that he go back to the Conservation Commission because this was different from what the Conservation Commission had reviewed and the Conservation Commission did not look favorably on these changes. So he went back and decided that maybe he could lose the parking, the three parking spaces that he'd added in the southwest corner and shrink the recreational space. And I think he's gone back to the Conservation Commission with that plan. Mr. Liu can probably elaborate on that and the Conservation Commission does like that plan, that revised plan. So now they're back in front of you and they're asking you if you agree that the changes that have been made to the plan that you approved are satisfactory, you have a choice. You can say no, we don't like the changes. You can say, yes, we approve the changes tonight or you can say maybe we'll approve the changes but we want you to submit a whole site plan review application and come back to us with a public hearing. So those are sort of the choices that you have before you tonight. And maybe Mr. Liu can elaborate on the exact changes and where they occurred. So we know why we're here. If you could introduce yourselves to... Michael Liu with the Berkshire Design Group and Mr. Amir Mikchi, the owner and developer of this proposed project. Chris gave a short history and I'll point out the areas specifically. But yeah, we did get conservation approval in 2018 for the, this plan shows an overlay. The red lines represent what was approved by conservation in terms of the limit of work. I'm sorry. Yeah, bigger. Is it, which one is it? This one? Bigger. Bigger. Is that too big? And get bookmarks. How do we get rid of this side? Click. No, go to the other side. Who's driving here? Okay, we don't want all this. Go to the top. Oh, that works. I guess now I'm gonna have to go down just a bit. Ah! Okay, whatever, we'll pan around. So this heavy line represents the limit of work that was approved by conservation and it goes up through here. This area down here was the replication area that was outside the limit of work. What is underneath here basically in the, what you see in the black, all the black lines is the plan that you approved as the planning board. So I'll start with the parking area first because that's probably the most contentious. But here this thin line, this thin red line represents the edge of paving that conservation approved in 2018. Sorry, oops. Can you see this thin red line? Yeah, just move the mouse along it and we can, yeah. Red line? Do you wanna get up closer maybe? Okay, and then so in the course of the review and redesign of the project from the parking standpoint, we ended up with this line, this dark, this black line. We added a retaining wall along this side and then tied it back in basically right there and tied it in right there to what was approved by conservation. So that resulted in the paving being closer to the wetlands than they had previously approved. Up here in the northwest corner, this red line, the heavy red line, represents the limit of work that conservation approved. In the course of review with the planning board, we added this lawn space in the northwest corner and we had to grade it out to kind of flatten it out to make a decent yard space, this kind of like wedge shaped area. But this kind of dashed black line represents that revised limit of work. Again, that this area encroached further toward the wetland than was approved by that board or that commission in 2018. They asked if we could put it back the way it was. And we said, well, we can do that. Planning board is gonna have something to say about that too. So we went to conservation, presented it and all they, I just received this today, the conservation's approval for this as a minor change. So they're approving of, well, I should put up the other plans actually. Hold on a sec. Guys, Chris, did we, we didn't get a copy of that. I did. Is it in our packet? No, I meant the letter. I meant the letter he had. Okay, no, I meant. I just got it by email this afternoon. Okay, just making sure I had them. Erin Jock. But we met with them on February 12th and presented this, these plans, these are a revised set of plans, L2, L3, L4 and L5 that include the revisions. What we had done, as you can see here, is we put the road back to where it was. We lost some parking spaces. We put this limit of work, essentially, what we did was we put a little retaining wall here. It's only gonna be about 18 inches high so that we can flatten out and provide a smaller lawn area, if you will. And additionally, because the site's already been disturbed, this area that used to be lawn, the loam has already been stripped, as you probably are aware. Some construction had started there prior to the winter. So we also did this native planting buffer to fill in that space, if you will, beyond the retaining wall and small yard space. So what happened was when we put this back, we had three parking spaces along that stretch of road that you had approved. We have a net decrease of two spaces because we were able to get this one more space here by reducing the size of this traffic island. Just by the geometry, we could fit in one more nine foot space, as it so happened. So we have a net reduction of two parking spaces from 67 to 65 spaces on the site. And what is proposed is that we basically reduce the visitor parking, which I think we presented as visitor parking being 10 spaces, I think it was. Was it 12? Okay, 12, so now we would have 10 visitor parking spaces without changing anything else in the building or anywhere without trying to re-massage this plan any more than we can at this time. Can you show us where those 10 spaces are and they're just 12 spaces? I believe they're right here. Does that say 10 spaces? Yeah. So these would be the, this is essentially where we had the visitor parking spaces before and then we also designated those three spaces that were over here as visitor parking, I believe. Or something like that. But I think that these would essentially function as a visitor parking spaces. Again, we have the two handicapped spaces here. I think four spaces needed to be for commercial and then we had one zip car space in this last slot. So basically the remainder of the lot here, all these spaces would be reserved for the residents. So that's the simple way out of this if you are agreeable and would approve. Janet? So Mr. Liu, I'm a little bit of a loss of why we did not know this information in our four or five meetings earlier about the line that the Conservation Commission had drawn. And we were, how did that happen? You know, I don't really know. I mean, it was, it was, we knew that there were changes that you requested. We brought that to the former conservation agent and we got approval. But the new conservation administrator, the agent in reviewing this plan, as Mr. Michi was gearing up for the construction, noticed that the plan was different than what she had on file. So she brought it to the Conservation Commission's attention. We went there informally and talked to them about it and they said, no, we want you to put it back the way it was. So this line, this red line existed in 2018 and you were just not seeing it or? I think that we, well, at the time we felt that it was not a, that these weren't significant changes because they're actually, well, the lawn space that was already in a space that was already grass previously. So we didn't think that was major change. So you didn't think that the line by the Conservation Commission was significant? Could you explain to me what these other lines are? Like, I can hardly read them. Like, are they setbacks from wetlands? Like the same kind of buffer zone lines? Which lines? I don't know. I'm just looking at the lines around the thin red line. Janet, would a magnifying glass help you if I gave you one of the, okay. Janet, may I? Please. Ms. McGowan is talking about the grading lines in the Northwest corner. So if you can show a grading plan of that Northwest corner. I think, yeah, a lot of that is topography. Those are grading lines and then there's a new plan that has other grading lines on it or it has a wall instead of grading lines. So I guess I'm frustrated that we were working for many sessions on a map that wasn't reflecting what the Conservation Commission wanted. I would hope that would be your job to tell us. So the other thing I've heard is that there was no pre-construction meeting with the Conservation Agent before the site was altered and then also there was problems with the sedimentation barrier. So I just have some concerns about how seriously you're taking these issues. We are taking it very seriously. Mr. Michi. Please let me, no, we were taking it very seriously. Let me finish that. And what happened was that we went through so many things and I had the construction lined up. And the night that we got the okay from you, the impression was that we can go ahead and start doing the site work. We started to, and that was the understanding that I had from the other people. Other people, I don't mean other people in the street, people who are responsible. And when we started taking off the looming because we were eager to start before we hit the ice, then we were approached that we have to have this and we cannot even, we have to have a meeting and we were in the process of having the meeting and Rob told me, no, we have to wait till, we really have the right of way approved because right of way is another section that has to be approved by the town council. So the whole thing basically stopped. So it wasn't that, we tried to do something out of ordinary. We were basically, I was eager to basically start the construction to make sure that we wouldn't lose the time, which we end up doing it, which we end up losing the time. But for your information, Mike also was, when we were showing you about these three parking, we talked about with the person who was in charge of conservation. At that time, she gave us the indication, according to my understanding from Mike, that it was okay. So that was the reason we keep developing what we did. So there's a order of conditions and in like capital letters, it says. Yes, they are all, and we follow. Are you familiar with that in the pre-construction meeting? We follow the conditions. I believe there's a condition that says, if any changes to the plans are made that it brought back to the commission to see if they are substantial enough or I can't remember exactly. And also the pre-construction meeting with the conservation agent and then the whole process. I mean, this is very ordinary and it seems. Let her ask all of her questions and then you can address it so we don't have to. Sort of expressing my dismay of the turn of events. And I feel like it's concerning to me. I can't give excuses. You know, the contractor was eager to get started, but we did have a conservation, a pre-construction meeting with Aaron Jock. Mr. Mikchi's hired a third party wetland consultant to do the weekly reporting that's needed when the construction resumes. Things have stopped at the site. The site's been stabilized. He's put in temporary seating prior to the snowfall to stabilize, you know, the site even though there's no sediment leaving the site. There was a cease and desist order, but I have to be frank with you that Ms. Jock saw some tire tracks on the site that were, they were from basically a truck that was delivering the erosion control sock. She mistakenly thought that it was dumping something in the wetlands, but that was not the case. But she issued a cease and desist order from which we did go back to conservation and tell them what was going on out there. The contractor's been put on hold to his dismay obviously he's had this project, you know, lined up to try to do foundations and stuff, but he was prevented from continuing because of the cease and desist and further review. We learned that we had to go to the design review board for the work in the right of way so that they could render an opinion, advisory opinion to the town council. That happened. We only got to the design review board last week. Mr. Berkwistle is representative of the planning board was there. So that's still another process that has to happen in terms of final approval of work in the right of way. But I'm not sure I know what to say. We realized that there were changes to the plan when we came to this board, but we did go to conservation and ask if these were substantial and we were told no in that person's opinion, they weren't. And we complied with the new agents recommendation that we stop and go back to conservation and have a review. We came and had multiple meetings with the conservation agent and Chris to see how we should handle this. We went to conservation first, as I mentioned on February 12th, after they gave their approval, then we asked to come for the planning board informally to present these changes. Okay. So it's basically, if this board approves of the changes back to the plan with lesser paving, you know, we hope that that, whatever we can get an amendment of some sort. Okay, so here you, so a bit of a rocky start. Some lessons learned. There's good intentions here. Everything's being tightened up. So conservation has, the concom has made their suggestion and it's coming to us to decide whether or not. We have to be working with the same plan. Right, it's too much of a change now or it's, we can accept it and with or without some other suggestions or the other thing would be that you'd have to come forward with a whole new SPR filing. Right. Maria. I see that plan that had all the red lines overlaid showing what was approved by plan board and then what con, con. Yeah, that one. So it looks to me the building is mostly the same, is shifted slightly. Like you said, you lost the three spaces and you gained one. So it's a loss of two overall. And then there's just the slightest change at the Northwest corner, but overall it's the same project and my eyes. I don't know if other planning board members want to chime in with what they think the significant changes are, but in my mind it's still essentially the same project. And that's as far as site plan review, we're seeing whether it's appropriate for the site detriment to neighbors and the butters and it's still doing all of that. So in my mind it's still the same project. I don't know why you guys think. It's two spaces and a bit of trim on some of the grass. We have met with you so many times. I would be a bit horrified if we had to go all the way back to the beginning of an SPR all over again. I agree with you, Maria, that it's not significant, so we should look hard at what is changing right now, which is two spots. Parking was a heavily discussed issue when we approved this. So the two spots, it's two guest spots have been lost. Any other, Doug? Do you feel that the loss of these two spots will adversely affect your operation of the building, whether it's the attractiveness of the units for rental or other uses? You have four spaces for the retail and from what you heard from Mr. Robert, Barry Roberts about his experience and the people before him about the use of the parking. And these are no one bedroom intended for the people who are, I really don't think having too lesser visitor parking would have dramatic effect. I also just wanna remind the board that we have extensive indoor bike storage, outdoor storage, it's on public transit. There's single bedroom or studio units that, all right, how many of, remind us how many are already gonna have no parking? 12. 12 of them are already no. You have a parking management plan. I just have to stress on that, what we talked about before, that if this is a problem, I mean, we're making an educated guess. I know that you have plans for more development across the street. You know, a little bit of what Janet was saying earlier, that it has to be watched, data has to be collected and if there's a problem emerging, then a new parking management plan has to be developed or tweaked. Janet? So we didn't require data collection. Do you wanna add that now? Because the bylaw lets you, says you can ask for that and then do revisions afterwards. So maybe that, you're saying it is kind of an experiment and if it's not working, it should come back maybe. Right, like a year into it, they should do a couple of parking. Well, the bylaw sort of says regularly checking and updating and ensuring that, you know, car use is being reduced. That's what the language says. Or, well, I don't know if car is usage being reduced. It's more just like, is the lot being optimized properly, sufficiently, and not at 100% all the time? So we didn't ask for that. And identifying, that what the data collection can do is also identify, it's not like it's gonna be maxed out all the time, it's just where are those peaks that aren't being addressed and then having alternative plans. But, Chris, do you add your hand up? I assume you have some guidance here. Well, I was just gonna say that you can't really add a condition or embellish a condition unless you open up the site plan review again. And you wouldn't have to open up the whole site plan review. This would be an amendment to the site plan that you approved already. So, if you were serious about wanting to change that condition, you could ask him to come back with a site plan review application to amend. Alternatively, you could make a request and I could include it in the letter when you approve, if you decide to approve this. I could include it in the letter. And if Mr. McChee is amenable, he would, you know, you could ask him to come back in a year to present information and that would be really not something that you could enforce, but it would be kind of a good faith to use that term that Mr. Levenstein doesn't really like very much. Don't put it in the minutes. Don't put it in the minutes, right? Good faith effort to provide information. So. I'm for that for a suggestion that, you know, that a year, because I would, you know, we're actively trying to analyze what is happening and part of the problem is we are making guesses and you all are gonna be the guinea pigs. So, I would like to make the request that a year later and, you know, even if you maybe made a request of there might be a new parking down, like a parking committee or something like that that could help you to just give you like the times. But I think in truth, I'm comfortable with that because the problem really ends up on your plate. Like, you know, it's not that really affecting us. It's that your neighbors will be complaining and coming to you and saying, you know, there's cars overnight here or there's people on the street or taking our other parking. So you're gonna feel the pain before any of us do. So I know you're trying to figure it out because you're gonna have other building that you wanna do and you're gonna wanna get it right. If you're making a mistake, you're not gonna wanna repeat it. How does the board, how does that sit with the board? Making that request to the owner about giving us feedback a year later on. How's it, how it's working? And I guess it would be a year from it opening. We should probably say, so it's not really a year. It's a year from when you open. Yeah, Doug. Your question, how does that sit with the board? Does that, is that an invitation to a motion or what? It could be. What is that? Yes, I would love a motion. Or it, a motion, a motion. A motion, I don't wanna feel emotional. No, I, Okay. It could be a motion, but if anyone didn't like that idea, they should speak now or maybe say a motion. All right, having, Oh. I think before we get to a motion, I have a question about another aspect, not the parking aspect, and to make sure I'm in the right place. Chris, what we're being asked to approve is the, is the plan approved by Conservation Commission October 2018? No. What are we being asked to approve? There's a packet. It was revised because of what ComCon, ComCon has told them they need to adjust back. Mark L, too. It's just revised plan. That's what we're looking at. Okay. Yep, this one. So it's illustrative plan. Yep, this plan. And the substantive changes are in the northwest corner. There's a retaining wall rather than grating. Along the southwest corner, there are no parallel parking spaces. There were previously three along that curve, and there's one more space cut into the island. Those are the three changes to this site, as I understand it. Is that correct? Yes. Yeah, basically. Well summarized. Okay, now, looking at the northwest corner, what is that object between native plantings and lawn areas? Is that a retaining wall of some kind? Yes. How high is that? It's at 18 inches. 18 inches. That's 18 inches high. Yeah. Okay. And the grassy area, the lawn area, it looks to be about 10 feet wide. 16 feet wide. It's 16 feet from the building. Yep, from the building to the wall. To the wall. Okay. That's Okay. Significantly smaller than the already small area that the planning board asked for in one of our previous meetings. And that request was at least in part due to public comment, people asking for more recreational space. And I'm just concerned by the loss of two parking spaces, but as has been pointed out, that's in a sense, that's your problem. But the loss of the recreational space maybe is our problem. I'm not sure how, whether that's a really big deal or not, but it's something. And I think before we go to approve this revised plan, I think we ought to think about that. Jack? Isn't there an exercise room? In the four units? Turn layout cat. There's a huge jam. Four units, each unit is 600. So four units were turning to gym. Four units, if you speak answer. Yeah, four units were turning to the gym and bike rack, bike storage bike was one. And also we are adding, which is not part of this, but package storage so that you know. And I just want to remind everyone, so if you look at the little triangle piece up there that we're talking about that gets lost, and then compare it to the huge park area that is in front of the building, I don't, you know, I think, and lawn is not a green element, honestly. If people want to be outdoors and hanging out, I think what's left is still large enough for one or two picnic tables back there. And then they have all the space in front of the building in the new public park. Janet? Could we just run through what the original square footage was and then the new one just, I think I missed what was said there earlier. The square footage that's lost is what you want? What it started out is and what it's ending up as. Oh, if that's 16, maybe you can help me Michael here, other architectural engineering people. Boy, I'd have to measure it out on a plan. Okay, so. It's about 16 by 50. Is what's left. Is what we're, yeah, is what's on the screen right now. So that is approximately 800. And yeah. Square feet. And that diamond would have been probably like 14. So this would be 16 plus another. But then cut it. Probably 40 by 14 by a half. So 20 by 14, about 280. Now, is that right? 400, 300. Yeah, good. So call it 300. We're losing about 300 square feet from. And 800 remaining. That's very general. Yeah. So there was about 1100. We've got 800 left and we lost about 300. Rough. I can't remember. And that was just rough graded out. Like it was just going to be dirt going down. Or didn't have a retaining wall there. No, there was no retaining wall. We basically flattened it out. And you can see these two contours here, which indicate like. It was going to just drop. That would be getting back to grade at the 30 foot no disturbed wetland buffer line. Were they concerned about erosion there too? Now that I'm thinking about it, I hadn't really. Nope. Cause you'd have to plant bushes or native plants on. Well, something has to go back there now cause it's been disturbed. Right. But you're going to have this low retaining wall. Right, right. And then you'll just plant bushes and stuff. And actually some comments were made that they felt that that would be a attractive feature for people to sit on the wall. You know, as an additional kind of gathering. Could it be a citable wall? Oh yeah. Yeah, I like that. Rather than just the retaining wall down. It would be nice. Only if you fall. Only if you fell that way. Yeah. If I fell that way, I wouldn't be grass. Fall on the grass, not down into the wetland. That's a nice thought. It gives people a chance to sit and do this all day long. Yeah, Jack. I just, obviously we don't want to get this right moving forward. So you, when you came up with the plan to increase the parking at our request before you came in here, you ran it by Beth. No, we ran it by after. After. Yeah. All right, we should do that before. I wish we could. You know, it's not something that like every time we come to one board, running to the other board to recount what happened. And you know, I mean, the typical procedure is to see what we end up with and then go back and say, this is what the other board requested. Is it substantial? But I know from experience that that agent has a lot of power and if it's a different person then it's a total different game, basically. So I understand that part. I understand that too. Any other comments? Anyone want to make a motion? In the interest of time, keeping it. So a motion to accept this altered plan as, a motion to accept this altered plan with the additional request that a year after occupancy, the applicant come back to the board with some parking census counts for our information. So moved. Someone want to second it? No, it's good. We're all getting. You're a second. As Dave said, it was good, I'm second. So now we have the motion on the table. Any more comments, discussion, concern? Can I just remind the board that Mr. Michi, I believe in your parking plan has stated that he was going to hire a professional, you know, property manager. So that entity would be kind of used to looking out for, you know, illegal parkers and that type of thing. So I don't, you know, it wouldn't be difficult to have them, that person, or do some, yeah, type of counts and stuff as a routine. It's not hard. Any other questions? If not, we can take a vote. All in favor? Okay, three, four, five, six. Against? Not in favor? Abstain? All right, so there you have it. Thank you so much. Move forward with caution. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, so do we need to take a bathroom break? Or it looks like we have a zoning subcommittee report. We have, we already did, then we have just a signing of a decision. I'll ask this, do we have A&Rs or none? ZBA applications or SPP, none of that? We want to hear not much now. So, okay, I think we can. If we don't have those, then this is doable. Unless Maria goes on for really long time on that zoning subcommittee. I'm gonna talk for hours. I'm gonna be here till midnight. Thank you. All right, so we'll move on to item six. Planning and zoning. The zoning subcommittee report we met yesterday. It should be fresh on my mind, but I'm so tired. So we discussed action plan. We strategize, we appreciate your memo, Michael, and we thought, okay, what are some things we can tackle that, thank you, are things we can tackle as a zoning subcommittee versus things we need to hire consultants versus things we might be able to get the planning board to weigh in on. So probably for the next plan board meeting, we're hoping to bring in front of the planning board the priorities chart again to start talking about which initiatives should we hire a consultant to really take on and just fix. And then on top of that, we also have some initiatives that are small bites, small chisels that we think we can do as a zoning subcommittee and push forward to town council. And one of them, the first one that is really pressing is the planning board voting requirements. So we will discuss that. The zoning subcommittee voted two yes, one abstain to bring to you guys at the next meeting to discuss this zoning amendment that we want to propose to the town council. So we have a lot of things in our basket of things we wanna work on and we're just trying to prioritize them because there's so many. But we do wanna pull in the planning board's opinion into all of this. And so we're looking for guidance for the next planning board meeting to see, right which items we need consultants for be which items we should just push forward to town council and see which items as zoning subcommittee we can work on and tackle in small bites. I think that, oh, and then also we talked about the master plan update very briefly as far as Christine's working with Brianna to do this website to capture public input in a really easy interface that then we can sort and use that data and really be able to tailor it to like how we look at that data in a really informed way. So that's really exciting. I reached out to her today by email. Oh, good, good. Okay. I think that was everything we discussed, I don't know. I think so. Yeah, okay. Thank you. Yes. Will we be able to get the written work on what you're gonna ask the planning board to think about? Will we be able to have that in writing before the meeting? Right, I did update the priorities chart and sent it to you, Chris, either yesterday or today. And so that'll be part of the packet, I hope. So that will be the thing we look over together at the planning board. And then the other piece is the planning board's zoning requirements amendment which was drafted like two years ago and we hoped we could push forward to Town Council as one of the first things that they could take on, along with supplemental dwelling, but that never happened. So. What happened with supplemental dwelling? Well, remember we had, the zoning segment, I had three articles ready. Yeah, I remember. What happened with that one, though? They all just... There's some new information. Like things have changed, that needs to be rewritten because there's new data and past practices. David was working on it. David's working on it right now. It's been a couple of months since, but Michael, you had revised the supplemental dwelling unit amendment. I believe you had advised to make it, to have the size requirements slightly larger, right? And so that's what the graph was that we were working from. Then I proposed to conform the supplemental dwelling unit as revised by you to the proposed governor's bill, which was very close. And it's just to kind of try to make them conform. And as soon as I started digging there, it went down a rabbit hole. And now I've got like two or three different sort of alternatives because it's gotten, believe it or not, a little interesting. It is. And so that's the state of things. But that was in December, I really haven't looked at it since and I could be forgetting something that's material. But it is being worked on. Right. So those are the kind of things that I think the zoning subcommittee could take on without a consultant and we can bring to the planning board, vet it and work on it, the way we used to do with articles to tell meetings. So part of the planning board, so part of us working on some zoning bylaws to change, I do believe CRC is meeting, I think next week, it's soon. And they are finalizing their process on how they see how they're gonna, them and town council are gonna get zoning bylaws approved. So I think we pretty much know what we need to do. We come up with what we want is sort of like what used to be an article, now it's an amendment and we will vote and we recommend it to them to approve. So the thought that they're getting closer to actually having a process is a good thing because I think they'll be more receptive to receiving our work. And that should be coming to us. I think I had asked the chair of CRC to send us whatever her draft is for what she's gonna be sending to her CRC members. So we'll get it at the same time. We don't meet for like another week, but at least we'll be able to see what they're talking about. Yes. Does she want comments from us individually or just? She doesn't want any comments at this point. It's totally in-house. It's for discussion only with them, but I asked as a courtesy, could we at least get like some eyes on it so that we can start thinking and prepare for our comments. I think it will be very similar to the last time. I think she's going to come with the assistant town manager and they will tell us and bring it, but at least this time we'll have seen it a little bit sooner. There's another very complicated flowchart, so get excited. All right, so is there any public comment or anything else here? No one's got, okay. So we can go to item seven, old business. If we drop to B, it's decision signing. Chris, I believe that's Riverside Organics that came through for us. You finally have Riverside Organics ready to sign. I sent it to you on Monday evening. Yeah, you did. And so hopefully you'll be able to sign it. There are two places for Miss Gray Mullen to sign and one place for everybody else. So I'll pass it down the line. Great. And I'll pass it in its little blue jacket here because there's also minutes from November 20th, which you just approved. And we need Miss Gray Mullen to sign that, okay? All right, great. Topics, not reasonably anticipated, 48 hours. Is there anything? Okay, great. Oh, you have something? Yeah? Yeah, I wanna put something on the table, so to speak and just see if it flies or not. Would it be possible to start our meetings at 6.30? We can talk about it next time. Just thought I'd put it out there. I'll just leave it, it was that, wouldn't it have been a possibility? Except, because zoning subcommittee was always before. It used to not be a possibility because zoning was before and now it's moved. I'm not totally sure that zoning subcommittee is staying that way. We will have to talk to the chair and see if that's gonna be a permanent change. I think it will be. I think even staff is appreciative of spreading it out. So you said six or 6.30, are you? Oh, well, I wasn't even gonna dream about six, but this is, I can tell this is gonna be a hardship for me if these meetings go this late every time. So unless we can find a way to make them go faster, I would do what I needed to do to get here sooner. Just putting it on the table. If we could shrink our, so yeah, so everybody will add it to the agenda on the next time. Everybody think about that. What would that mean if it started six or if it started 6.30? Let's leave it at that. Okay, great. Yep, good thought. New business, anything for it? Nothing, okay. And ANRs, you said no. ZBA applications? Okay. So Hampshire Athletic Club is going to go before the ZBA. They are requesting a special permit to modify an already existing special permit, actually two of them. They're going to alter and expand a pre-existing, non-conforming use by constructing two one and a half story building additions to the existing wood frame building and provide a new roof dormer at the center portion of the existing gable roof. And additionally, they want to change their hours of operation. And when is this coming to them? Wow, thank you. Do we have any SPR, SUV? Did I tell you about the driveway and flag lot on Bay Road? Maybe I told you about that last time. You told us it was coming. It's coming on March 4th. Oh, right, okay. That will come to you. And then on March 18th, you're going to have a scenic road hearing for trees on, I believe it's Leverett Road. So we'll be bringing that to you as well. Not East Leverett, Leverett Road. Tree removal for the scenic road hearing, yeah. So we will have to set up a site visit for both of those. So I'll be writing to you about that. Thank you. Planning Board Committee and Liaison Reports, PVPC, Jack. I'd like a half hour to discuss the last meeting. Can you sum it up in like three minutes? No, okay, so what we did, we had a presentation on the Rural Policy Plan. That's a new thing. Oh yeah, that's a new thing. And that defines Western Mass, basically, because there's only like three or four municipalities that are truly urban. But interestingly enough, Amherst is like, we're kind of a tweener. Our density, because of the students all that, we're closer to, say, holy oak. And we're like two or three times more dense than Northampton. So it's odd, but definitely Western Mass. This is where Western Mass needs an advocate. With the Boston-centered capital, with the East-West Rail, just getting communication and services out here. But the thinking was that Western Mass has a lot of potential that can take relief off of the eastern part of the state if transportation is better. And the sea level keeps rising. You know, all kinds of stuff like that. But then they went over the budget and what the towns actually provide, it's so little. And it's all these regional planning commissions really get all their money from the state. And what, oh, we have, I can copy the 10 results. Oh yeah, Chris, can you send those out to us? Yeah, did you get a copy? And we can add that to the agenda item for the next time, for anyone who has comments or... So that's it. Top 10. This to me, Jack, you'll, okay. Oh, great, thank you, Jack. CPA? Yeah, CPAC has finished its deliberations and is in tomorrow, in the stages of making its final report. It won't be of great surprise to anybody. Almost all the projects that were proposed were approved with a question on the, a large request from Amherst Municipal Housing Trust, and that was cut down. And the issue of the support for library historic preservation at a million five is under serious discussion because it was reduced to a million by the committee. And now there seems to be some question as to whether it's even possible given the state regulations for that particular kind of project. So that remains to be seen. But that's gonna be dealt with tomorrow, I think. Agricultural commission, did they meet again? Okay. Design review board. We looked at the dog park, which we all have seen tonight. We looked at the road issues in front of the, Mr. Michiki's project that we looked at tonight. We approved that area. And we heard from the new director of the Amherst bid about a proposal for raising significant amount of money to build a performance shell on the town common in the place of the original Olmsted 19th century plan. And that was just informational as opposed to asking for action. Thank you. We already did the zoning subcommittee report of the chair. I have nothing, report of staff. Some good news. Planning department has hired somebody to help us. Yep, he's going to be a graduate of UMass. He'll only be working with us part-time about eight hours a week between now and June. But once June comes, he'll be working with us full-time. And he seems like a really talented, energetic, curious, good fellow. And we're really counting on him to take up some of the load that we've been carrying. So we're really looking forward to having him full-time in June. Does UMass have a, does UMass have a... Sorry, his name is Ben, Ben Breger. In fact, he used to work for Dave Zomek back in a few years ago. I think he worked doing something for the Conservation Commission. And he grew up in Amherst. And his dad is on one of the boards and committees, but I can't remember which one. Maybe the concom, but I'm not sure. But anyway, he's got a, he will have a degree in landscape architecture and regional planning. So he's got a lot of graphic skills. And he's also got presentation skills. And he's got a really great personality. So I think he'll enjoy working with him. Right. Father may be a teacher. I'm not sure. Does he do 3D models? He probably can do 3D models. I mean, Sketchup. I mean... Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm sure he can do Sketchup. Well, that's a different category. I'm sure he can do that. Yep. Well, then why don't we use it? Do I hear a motion to adjourn? Move, we adjourn. Second, all great. Thank you, Amherst Media.